Awaiting Fruit Loops

A few years ago we went to Cape Charles, Virginia with our good friends the Raphael's.  On this warm and fun trip (with a baby in diapers it was a trip not a vacation), my kids learned the joy of "vacation cereal" a new entity to me.  Unlimited access to AM sugar was a fright to me and a delight to my children.  Once introduced, my husband, a fan of Fruit Loops and Lucky Charms, saw an opening for the institution of vacation cereal for his boys.   Chalk it up to the ever selfless nature of parenthood.

I had learned from these boys and my marriage, that not every effort  is worth the battle.  The Hudgins' family adoption of vacation cereal life was born followed closely by birthday cereal and Christmas cereal.  Without further advancing, battle lines have been drawn and a pleasant peace ensues.

During our recent stay at the St. Mary's Shangri La, we learned that Fruit Loops were considered a good, nutritional breakfast choice by our sweet nurse, because they are fortified.  With what,  I don't know.  While I am not an advocate of "ignorance is bliss," I own that my brain can only process what it can process.  Prioritizing cereal was not high on the need to cover list during our three day tour.

Apparently, I have perhaps left my kids in a state of deprivation beyond which I understand.

Frazer will be having surgery again.  When he learned that this option existed and did he have any questions, he had only one, "Will MCV have Fruit Loops?"

Really?

So Will and I joked with Fraz asking about his real questions and promising him vacation cereal, but "That was my real question"  was the extent to the questioning.

Clearly my children will live to tell their children how cruel I have been serving them organic "Rice Krispies" or "Oatios."  If this is the worst they can dish, I feel special.  Doubtful.  I am real; there will be years of recovery from living here.

Many wonderful folks fed, gifted, called, emailed,  and visited.  We are so fortunate.  Frazer is good.  Swinging is still uncomfortable, but he is improved.  The pericariditis was still there on Tuesday, but pain is mainly gone.  He has been back at school for over a week.  At home, that is easier for him.

Today in math we have learned about probaility from playing a dice game:

As you can see; Frazer looks good.  Afterschool today, he had a playdate with two former schoolmates and loved it.  He said, "Hunter and Gardiner are still my friends."  My sweet child has so many. 

He is such a delight.

The trip to MCV helped us understand how normal the hole, murmur and enlarged heart are but how his needs repair.  In the next few month we will schedule a "vacation" at MCV to repair this hole via a catheter.  The cool thing is that they will video tape the interior of his heart.  He mentioned that perhaps he could do a project on the heart for homeschooling.  Well, yes because that is the beauty of homeschooling.

We will keep everyone informed of what is happening.  For now, until we talk with the doctors and schedule the procedure, we are proceeding as normal.  He will spend at least one night in the hospital.  Isn't that something?  One night for a cardiac procedure.  Times have changed.

We thank you for all your love, healing thoughts and prayers.  Life has continued.  Some Hudgins child gets sick each week despite our best efforts.  Wellness is a state of mind, and Frazer owns it.

Frazer had some notes to write and despite my mother's fear of a world without hand written notes, Frazer only had so much in him to write.  In closing leave you with his note which pretty much says it all:

This photo is of me in comic strip style.  I am happy to be better.

Dear friends,

I am feeling better.  You all helped me.  it is hard for me to write lots of notes.  Thanks for the help, food, treats, or toys.  I hope you are so very well. 

Thank you.

From,

Frazer

learning in pj's and vacationing at St. Mary's

Ringing in 2011

Frazer's eyes possess a life of their own.  It is rare he goes anywhere without someone commenting on his blue eyes.  They are striking and telling.  They are the bluest eye that Tony Morrison's Pecola Breeedlove believed would set her free.  Frazer's eyes are magnets.  As a young baby we walked around Philadelphia and had a woman cross the street to comment on his gorgeous eyes.  They are his calling card and his angst and his identification.  He has developed a steel response to people complimenting him on his gorgeous eyes.  He punishes the voice by averting his eyes or worse closing his eyelids.  He can no longer be cajoled into saying thank you or even looking the person in the eye.  I could speculate that he is shy, that he does not know what to say, that he is bored with hearing it, but my thoughts would only be conjecture.  He will not tell me why he is irritated by these nice words.  Yet, it is true that his eyes hold a power to enliven a room and generate love from so many.

His eyes talk to me.  They tell me what he is thinking.  It is through them I am able to communicate his thoughts and words when he cannot.  This happens less frequently but this weekend was very necessary.  Therefore, I blog to explain the power of the eyes.

Saturday, January 22 at 12:30AM the Fraz man woke us with what we understood to be stomach cramps.  Being the diligent and concerned parents we were -- well I was -- we thought gas.  I kept shouting as he rolled and writhed all over our bed, "Fraz man you've just got to fart.  Do the bicycle."  Un-nominated for mother of the year.

However, by 5am when I told William in an uber cheerful voice that he needed to take Frazer to ER because he did not need to pass gas or have asthma or croup.  My repertoire of medical assistance dwindling to the need for truly educated and hopefully able docs had arrived.  Frazer was in a lot of pain, and he has an unusually scary and high tolerance for pain.  So when he cries, it must be truly excruciating.  But man I did not want to drag myself out of bed and be told by the doctor that he needed to pass gas (yes this has happened in our family where a member who shall be protected had a $1000.00 farting experience).   William grumbled which sufficiently irritated me since I always take them to ER and docs.  I was not headed back to sleep.  Slapped on some clothes and we were at St. Mary's be 5:30am.  I knew that they would see him quickly if he was having trouble breathing.


And they did.  Saw the doctor -- the real one -- by 6am.  Pretty good.  X-rays of chest, tummy, ultrsounds.  A battery of tests to help them know what the deal was.  By 6:30am the check in receptionist, the two nurses, the x-ray tech, the doc and ultrasound had all complimented him on his eyes.  And to all he turned away from them.  I want to feel badly that he won't speak but I was concerned about what they were learning and frankly felt that he was enough pain not to bother with making him be appropriate.  By 7:30am there was a shift change and a new slew of nurses -- 3-- and another doctor came and examined him and complimented him.  No answers as to why he was in pain and no answer from Frazer thanking them.

A stand off. 

We were admitted to peds.  The only one not complimenting him was the guy who pushed his bed upstairs.  Of course, he kept calling Frazer a girl the whole time so I wondered if he had his own operating system  At this point Frazer had had some tylenol with codiene and a bit loopy. 

Life at St. Mary's was good.  An sporadic stream of kind nurses and doctors checking on his pain, adjusting his IV and checking his stats.  TV.  And yes all of them commented on his eyes.  And despite his lack of response, these kind folks continued to give him good care and treated him kindly.  And those of you who know me understand that I am not quick with the hospital compliments.


The doctors were trying to rule things out but could find nothing.  At one point there was concern that there was pancreatitis.  Sunday came and the doctor who had seen him the day before is back which was a pleasant surprise.  Nice to have that continuity.  I expressed again how I felt that there was something we were missing and yes I understood that we have ruled out the immediately threatening things  like appendicitis.  We began planning when we would be discharged.  While grateful for the wretched chair, I was not pining to for another night at the St. Mary's Shangri la.  That deep mommy voice that had been likened to Sarah Palin's grizzly bear by both my husband and our pediatrician was roaring again.  Let me clarify that horrific compliment.  Earlier in the week, I had been talking about the sense I have for helping Frazer through something -- like a lioness,  William had said ,"No, it's more like Sarah Palin and her grizzly bear bull shit.  But I mean that in a good way."  Unlike my noble blue eyed boy, I did not avert my eyes and I added a roar or two.  The next day our beloved pediatrician razed me.  I had asked about a new endrcrinologist in Richmond for Fraz.  The one we liked at UVA had retired.  I had told our ped doc that, "I don't want to be a pansy in front of a crummy doctor."  He laughed and said, "Mrs. Hudgins you are like a liberal leftist Sarah Palin.  Certainly no doctor would accuse you of being a pansy."  So, my pediatrician knows me.  So does my husband.  But, I am no Sarah Palin, thank you very much!

Back to Frazer's discharge, I expressed concern about what to do for Fraz should he be in pain again.  The previous night they had to give him the big gun of morphine.  I assured the doctor that I did not stock opiates and wanted to know what to do if Frazer had a tough time.  He said that we could stay and he could be observed.  I was game to go home but needed a plan.  He suggested that he listen to Frazer again.  Did I mention he was a fellow in pediatric cardiology?  Good thing for us.  He heard the friction rub around his heart. 

Flowers from St. Thomas Episcopal Church

In a nutshell, Frazer was diagnosed with pericarditis.  He called in a pediatric cardiologist form MCV.   Big old echocaridogram machine checks out the boy.  Doctor, "Wow, you have beuatiful blue eyes."  This time Fraz just looked at the machine.  And this great machine confirmed the percarditis, found a hole in his heart, found a murmur and an enlarged heart chamber.  It was like the blue light special of testing.  We found the problem and three more.  Additionally when Frazer had ultra sound in ER they found a cyst on his kidney.  Double coupons at St. Mary's -- woowho!

Cards from brothers and friends hanging in the hospital room.

We stayed another night, took more drugs and by Monday morning were ready to go.  We had some friends visit, brothers and friends make cards, and priests pray with us.  It was time to hunker down at home.  I am not sure Frazer wanted to leave in that it was unlimited tv the whole time and people being kind.  But I think he was ready for some brotherly abuse verses the blue eye admiration.

So now we will meet with the pediatric cardiologist next week to check on the the pericarditis and to determine what to do about all the ancillary findings.  Don't know if I mentioned we still got one swim meet in courtesy of the Collegiate bus and one missed.  Houlder made his school dance.  Porter had play dates.  People fed my family.  My husband did lots of laundry.  Frazer shone brighter and woozier than in quite a few years.

Big guy getting a ride to the car to go home from Dad.

 Today the blues seemed brighter and the steps more frequent and faster.  His pain is basically gone and we spent most the day in our bed (mine and Will's but don't tell Fraz) doing math and reading.  A definite perk to homeschool.   

survival, love and belonging, power and recognition, freedom, and fun

Poor Dell.. He has had a marathon weekend of trying to figure out how to organize his life.  It's tough being a 13 year old boy who still wants to play army men for hours and be the older kid.  He is sweet.  He is kind.  But he would not know where his nose if it weren't already on his face.

We set out for goal setting and trying to understand that a goal cannot be pie-in the sky.  Reaching a goal involves series of steps.  We talked about the marshmellow experiement and delayed gratification.  He took a few guesses as to how he would react (eat the inside of the marshmellow).

http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2009/05/18/090518fa_fact_lehrer

Managing big ideas and making them practical is not an easy skill for anyone and after a day Dell and I felt relaxed and good about what we had discussed and shared knowing that today would be the nitty gritty figuring out how to make those goals happen.

I started our conversation referring to Glasser's choice theory.  I got the wild hair and ran with it classroom style by asking Dell to tell me as I was using the wipe board what each human needs.  He named two immediately without knowing what I was searching for and it provided a nice segue into a theoretical reason being organized will help him.

http://raider.mountunion.edu/~schnelpl/control%20theory%20-%20overhead.html

As the next slide shows we then applied his goals to the five tenets.  It was interesting to listen to him notice how each need depended on he other and almost all his goals were either supported or enhanced by the needs (and the converse being what detracts from achieving his goals).

We ended up discussing the tenets:

After a long session, he had a break for an hour and we came back to the toughest work of all -- calendar.  I am introducing him to google calendar and how he can use it to help him have the time he hopes to have to do the things he hopes to do.  Yesterday one of the things we discussed how in 168 hours of a week, he can do all the things he wants to do including sleep, hang with friends, tennis, swimming, soccer, guitar, and the down time to strategize another chess move or build another battlefield or even do a puzzle. 

He does not like being specific and is tapping his foot in hopes that he can get to the keyboard to finish the calendar.  Ha!  Won't he be surprised when he sees how long it takes to log it in but how much time it will truly give him.  Here's to hoping the summer gives him what he wants most -- personal management freedom.

Hi, this is Dell.  I guessed that it would at least take me an hour to plug-in all the things I need to do on my new Calendar because when it takes 20 minutes for me to make a 5 minute instant-made salad dressing you know I am not hasty.

Robious Landing Park

A day at the park is punctuated by a big old black snake we found in the road.  We stopped the car the watch it slither under the minivan. Porter and his friend Pete played in the creek.  There is little as chirper as Porter in romping in the water.  Frazer was the phototag.  It may be something he could consider.  He is a watcher.  And he does see things.  Sometimes it is that simple.

Cursive, handwriting and the keyboard

It is the age of technology when people get carpal tunnel from texting too much.  Yet the brain science let's us know that there is neural loop that is closed when the thumb and fore and middle finger met that can help with comprehension.  Legibility is not the issue.

Since January we have have slowly worked out into Handwriting Without Tears Cursive.  Amazingly his handwriting is smoother.  His grip is rotten and the more his works on it I am sure that he is a lefty who could not write with his left hand.  Hence the problematic grip and orientation and a few other things despite Occupational Therapy since two and conscious parenting.  The past two days we have experiemented using grips even though HWoT does not advocate grips.  I want to get through he alphabet and so does he.  If the grip helps him hold on, so be it.

He has been copying his memories of the camping trip that he initially dictated to me on Monday.The process is slow and I will have him try keyboarding it in for edits.  I need to see if one is substantially easier so that he can concentrate on spelling and writing and language.

Elapsed Time

"Time like an ever rolling stream" from  my high school hymn often floats in my head during our lessons in understanding time.  Frazer can spend an entire 30 minute period working the minutes in an hour.  Then he would ask to go check the time on the FIOS clock so that he would not have to calculate analog tie which is what we have in the star chamber.  Add to that teaching how much time has past, and I have wondered if there is value in forging ahead with this concept.  Yet it seems pretty crucial to understanding not only time but units of something.

We have used Kumon workbooks to provide reinforcement in time concepts.  We play dominos and card games to practice applications of time. Practical understanding of time is reinforced indirectly from his repeated questioning of, "When do we go to pickup Porter?"  I would share the current time and ask him how long it would be until we picked up Porter.  He did not pipe up ,"Oh, 15 minutes," but would ask if he could go look at the FIOS clock to see when that would be.  I sometimes let him check the digital reading but often I just plugged ahead.  Yesterday I inadvertently changed my answer by telling him, "In week 20 minutes."  Then a minute later he announces what time it would be in 20 minutes.   He figured out what time that would be.  Even better, he recognized that a shift had occurred and made sure that I understood.  The photos of the wipe board demonstrate how I used the moment to stretch some ideas and check on his understanding. 

The handwriting is mine but he dictates even the slashes.  Having to write can impede his ability to process his thoughts.  We were rolling.  I posed the questions and he answered.

We played a few more word games and practiced what he could figure out.  While he nailed it for the word problems, he still struggled  bit during dominos in which he had to match digital time with analog time.

Working with Frazer must be like surfing.  The water can be still, then bumpy and rough.  You can ride a wave or roll under.  Sometimes you know why you can hit the wave and other times left in the foam for unknown reason.  Every time he seems to hang ten, I am left watching for his in the surf.  His comprehension ebbs and flows.  It is not always easy to know when the concepts are cemented into his brain.  I am puzzled by his struggles with automaticity of addition facts given the countless hours we have devoted to it.  I even think he understands the number changing but I just don't think he sees 7+8 and thinks 15.

But for the small victories such as knowing when 20  minutes from now, I will take.

Athena

Frazer reached a milestone on Thursday, May 20th when he had the chance to ride Athena.  Not the average tack and go lesson pony, he had to work to make her listen.  It was a treat to see him stretch his legs on a bigger animal and use his body to learn how o control a pony.  His satisfaction was palpable. He asked everyone. "Guess what I did today?"  He was proud.