Answers, Still Waiting

I had hoped that my next entry would be one with the answers we've been waiting for.  But no such luck.  After so many appointments and evaluations we still don't have the one answer we want the most from the entity that has the most weight.

I Am Not A Father

Every year I get the same thing from various people and while I do understand and appreciate the sentiment, I find it a bit insulting.  As always, it's my personal opinion and to each their own.

A mother is a female and a father is a male.  To me, that is as far as the distinction goes.  To say a mother is special because she carried the child diminishes the role of females who have adopted children or who have willingly taken on the responsibility of a child not theirs.  To say a birth mother is more special than an adoptive mother or step mother is insulting at best.  And where does that leave the father?  Is a man less of a father because he does not share any genetic material with the child?

Unsolicited Advice

Part of being a parent is getting unsolicited advice.  I have come to accept that and, as a parent, I have several responses that I use for such advice:

“Oh, that sounds interesting. I’ll look into it.”

“Thanks, but that doesn’t really align with my parenting style.”

And an oldie, but works:

“Thanks...”

Teen Suicide: A Little Close to Home

It's been too long, a lot has happened, and the truth is I've been lazy.  Catch up may come later...

A little less than a year ago someone shared a video somewhere, I'm not really sure where, called "60 Days Later..." which was made by the parents of a teenager who committed suicide and how they were doing 60 days later.  Through this video I found their Facebook page and have been following them since. 

Yesterday, this page posted a link to a page recently created to keep people updated on a teenage girl who attempted suicide this past weekend.  Apparently she shot herself in the head and, as of this point, looks like she may recover (though with many problems).  As I was reading through the page and the comments I was overwhelmed by how many people were posting that they lost children to suicide.  I couldn't keep count!  I knew it was a problem and in recent years bullying has been highlighted as a major cause but I just hadn't been forced to see so many actual accounts.

Lessons: The Sickies

I consider myself lucky for having such a healthy child.  He rarely gets sick and he is such a trooper when he does.  He tries to be his normal self but sometimes the illness brings him down and he gets whiny and cranky and clingy.  This week it was a cough with a slight cold.

He started maybe Friday with a cough.  I didn't think much of it, people cough without being sick.  Then Saturday he was cranky and had a fever.  He didn't grub on french fries.  That's when I knew he was sick.  He suffered this cough Sunday night and every night since then, not eating much and being very whiny.  I love my baby and don't like him feeling sick like that.  I was tempted for a moment to call the doctor but I know what he'll say: fluids, rest, tylenol for the fever, bring him back if he doesn't get any better in a week or to the ER if his fever gets really high.  Why bother?  So I decided to take matters into my own hands and play pharmacist.

I spent about 20 minutes standing in front of the children's medicine section at the Walmart comparing boxes.  I decided on the Triaminic for cough, grape flavoured (yuck!).  It says for kids 4 and older so 3 1/2 is close enough and I wasn't going to give him the full dose anyway since he doesn't take meds often.

I tried it right before bed, at 10pm, with surprising success.  It is much more liquidy than the tylenol and I knew the grape flavour wasn't going to be a hit.  I used a siringe and little by little with plenty of silliness from me he took 3/4 of a teaspoon (the box said 1 teaspoon for 4-6 years) with little mess.  Then I put him in bed.

Big mistake.

Within minutes we noticed he was happily playing in his bed, no coughing, and no intentions of sleep.  I kept telling him to settle down and he would, for a few minutes, before starting up again.  Then I heard velcro.  There is no velcro on his bed so it only meant one thing.  I stand up and look into the bed and notice lots of skin.  I stand on my bed and see a fully naked, laughing, Nicholas.  So I climbed up the bed and put the diaper back on, telling him that if he took it off again he had to wear underwear (I know, BAD!!), dressed him and tucked him in.  A few minutes later his feet were hanging off the side of the rail.  *sigh*  So I tell my SO, over Skype, "Good thing they don't add alcohol to cough syrup anymore!" and reached for the bottle that was still on my bed.

I'm taking very basic chemistry right now, the professor calls it toy department chemistry.  Right now we are learning about organic chemistry, at a very basic level, and I am actually understanding this tuff.  So I start reading the ingredients list and actually understanding what this crap is and what it looks like.  One of the 'inactive' ingredients is sorbitol.  The -ol ending tells me it's a type of alcohol.  Double *sigh*  He finally fell asleep around 12:30am.