I’m not sure if I’ve blogged about this at all yet. It’s another one of our seemingly endless stream of projects: bees, garden, swing set, meadow . . .
I haven’t (I’m pretty sure) blogged about the meadow because I know some of you (hi family!) already think I am the biggest dork and will possibly leave comments accordingly. But now? I don’t care. Because?
Yes, I had my terribly tolerant husband till up a large part of the back field so that I could plant a wildflower meadow.
And why does this make me a dork?
Because it is in the shape of a circle. (But seriously, you’ve seen my husband, right? Why wouldn’t I want to recreate the whole Twilight meadow thing?)
Actually, it’s two circles. The first is a big ring, and the second is a smaller circle in the center of the big ring. My hope is to get out there at some point with something toxic and kill all the residual wheat grass and weeds growing between the ring and the inner circle so that I can plant better, softer grass.
For mother’s day, in addition to other stuff, McH bought me willow and dogwood tress to plant around the outside of the outer ring so that, hopefully, in a few years, the meadow will be pretty secluded and hidden from view.
It is definitely a work in progress, and there are many weeds in amongst the flowers. The problem is that until something actually blooms, I can’t tell what is weed at what is not (with a few exceptions, like thistle and dandelion). I would actually love to go out and weed it today (see? big dork! either that or I’m getting old), but I have much to do inside.
July starts tomorrow, and it is going to be a busy, busy month. In no particular order, July brings: vacation, agency picnic, family coming for a visit, friends coming for a visit, more family coming for a visit, and other stuff I am undoubtedly forgetting. Because of all this, I have been trying to get caught up on weeding the garden, doing the laundry and grocery shopping, cleaning the house, etc. etc. We have set the kidlets to much cleaning and folding and other chores which make them roll their eyes and act as if they were The Most Abused Children On the Earth.
We had the garage sale, which was pretty much a bust (but what does one expect when one lives in the Middle of Nowhere?), so at least that is done and out of the way (though all of the leftover stuff is NOT out of the way, as it is still sitting on tables in our garage).
I still have to get the whole school situation figured out (tried to make an appointment with the principal, but she never called back and I haven’t followed up), and I feel like summer is just zipping by at breakneck speed. I suppose that is because we have been so busy and have so much planned. So if you don’t see me commenting on your blogs, it’s not because I’ve stopped reading, it’s just that I’m getting terribly, terribly behind in reading. But I’ll catch up, eventually . . . after I weed my meadow.
And George, if you’re out there, Tewt the Newt says hello.
I know I just wrote a nice, long post last night and most of you probably haven’t even had a chance to read that (you should, though, you really should – I have a lot of nice things to say about a certain brand of carpet), and here I am posting again.
But? I want to get this down before I totally forget. And? Today is going to be super, duper busy, and so is tomorrow and the next day, and by Sunday I will have forgotten to write it down.
Yesterday I took Quinn to the ENT. The ENT looked in his ears, said the eardrums were a little dull, couldn’t tell if that was exactly bad or what, so sent us downstairs for a hearing test.
When we went downstairs to the audiology (or whatever) office and were taken back, I immediately asked if they were going to test his actual hearing, as opposed to his not actual hearing, like they did at the health department last fall. Yes, I regaled the poor audiologist (or whatever) with the story of that ill-fated trip to the freaking health department, the second timpanongram they later did at the pediatricians office (because they couldn’t have done it there the first time?) and explained I really didn’t want any more time to be wasted on tests that don’t check his actual hearing.
Guess what??? She checked his actual hearing.
First, she did do another timpanogram (third one now). To the best of my understanding, this test just checks to see whether or not the ear drum is vibrating when sound waves hit it. Both ears were within normal range.
Second she did . . . I don’t remember what it’s called, but she said it’s the test they do on babies in the hospital right after they are born (second one now). That one, as I understand it, checks to make sure the nerves in the ears are working properly. Again, everything was fine.
Then? Then???? She stuck us in a soundproof booth and did the actual hearing test. Now, obviously, with a two year old who was really not digging the booth situation, this test becomes an inexact science. However, he responded appropriately enough times for her to say, “As best as we can tell on a child this age, his hearing is fine.”
Have I not been saying this all along? Yes, yes I have. And when I tell them that he stopped signing at the same time he stopped speaking last year, have any of them listened to me? No, no they haven’t. Nonetheless, it is nice to now have it all official and on his records.
After all of that, we went back upstairs to the ENT, who looked at the test results and confirmed, “yep, he’s fine.”
“What about the fluid in is ears that got us sent here in the first place?” I wanted to know.
“Nope. No fluid.”
“So should I keep giving him the Nasonex????” I wanted to know. (And, by the way, the kid is a champ a letting me squirt that garbage up his nose. I’ll tell him it’s time to squirt his nose, and he just tilts his little head up and flares his nostrils. Very cute).
“The Nasonex doesn’t really help with fluid in the ears,” The ENT explained. “It’s just good if he’s all congested everywhere up there. So if he seems to be really congested and you want to give it to him, go ahead. But it doesn’t really do anything for just fluid in the ears.”
What. the. hell????? I had to pay $90.00 out of pocket for that stuff because the pediatrician said it would help his ears drain, and now the ENT is saying it doesn’t???? I mean, I don’t know . . . maybe he did have some congestion that NOBODY could see (which was the pediatrician’s contention) that was keeping his ears from draining. And maybe the Nasonex did clear it up. I don’t know. What I do know is that I have about $85.00 worth of Nasonex up in my cupboard, and that could have bought me a new pair of shoes, or a tank of gas for our vacation.
Whatever. The good news is that he does hear just fine and there was no mention made of tubes (which the pediatrician seemed to think likely). The ENT also agreed that he probably has been having sinus infections, not allergies like the stupid nurse practitioner kept saying, and it could be an adenoid issue, but since that currently isn’t going on, no biggie for the moment. Dr. ENT also agreed with everyone else that I should have his speech evaluated. I’m still not sure about that. Because? He is starting to speak again, and he is starting to sign again.
The other day he wanted to go outside and play, so he brought me his shoes and said, “Shoe! Shoe! Shoes!!!!” And? His new favorite word? “Mine!” Which actually sounds like “My!” but we’ll take it. He is also trying very hard to say “milk.” He starts out just by saying “mmm, mmmmm, mmmm,” then he does the sign for “more” then he does the “mmm . . . mmm . . .” followed by “g!” He only does this when we’re not at home and he can’t just hang on the fridge and yell at me, but the point is he is actually trying now.
So I got the “Your Baby Can Read” system that I talked about before. Good grief, that experience could be a post in and of itself. The short version is this: I bought it for a steal (with free shipping!) on ebay from a seller purporting to be in Chicago, but it actually was shipped to me directly from China. I swear, the shipping alone had to cost half what I paid for it, and I paid way less than half the full retail price . . . what was it I said about it being a steal?
Anyway, I’m going to see if the repetitiveness of the word cards and videos helps encourage him to speak like the repetitiveness of watching the Letter Factory has helped him learn his letter sounds (which he has been saying for months now).
(And seriously, dear readers, if any of you have young children and haven’t bought The Letter Factory dvd for them? What is your problem??????)
As far as the speech therapy goes, I will wait until after our vacation to make a decision about that. I’m sure some of you are just falling off your chairs with dismay that I’m not rushing him into speech therapy now that we know for sure he can hear, but? Meh. He’s making progress on his own. He certainly gets talked too enough around here. And? I have a cousin who didn’t talk until she was almost four and she is a very intelligent person. She just wasn’t ready to talk until then, which is pretty much what I’ve suspected about Quinn all along (even though I have had all those “what if” worries). At least until after vacation I’m just chalking it all up to a prolonged silent period and control issues.
He really, really, for the longest time, didn’t want us to know how much he knew. We could see it on his face every time he would accidentally slip and respond to something we said. He’s been responding just fine for a long time now, but I think talking was his last holdout, and that wall seems to be crumbling. Thank goodness.
Sorry for two long posts back to back. Now I must go shower, do the grocery shopping, weed my garden, and get my garage all set up for the garage sale that we are having tomorrow and the next day. Oh, and I must get ready for Midge’s un-birthday party that we are having Saturday afternoon (because nobody is still shopping garage sales at 2 p.m., right????).
And George . . .
