This past week I've come across (entirely accidentally, I might add) the blogs of 3 separate mothers who lost their children. One of the children was only 7 months old when she passed away from an illness she'd been struggling with for most of her life, and the other 2 were very close to my son's age and died very suddenly and unexpectedly. I don't know why I keep finding these blogs, it happens when I'm just browsing the web, Googling boring pregnancy things like "PPROM" (which means Preterm Premature Rupture of Membranes).
When I find these blogs I can't help but stay awake the entire night reading every single blog ever posted by the grieving parents, and I cry for hours. To top it all off, I had a dream earlier this week that I gave birth to baby #2. He was a boy and he died in my arms. I remember he had the most adorable hair. It was light brown and every strand was naturally spiked up a little bit. I'm fascinated to see if I have a little boy this time and if he looks the same as the baby in my dream. I don't know how the grief I felt in my dream didn't wake me up, and I'm so thankful that my husband poked me in the shoulder to wake me up in the middle of that dream. I feel so terribly sad for all the mothers who lose their children, and it's not a dream for them. No one is going to poke them and wake them up.
Reading about those women and their children makes me feel almost guilty that my child is alive and well and their child isn't. Not that I'd ever want to trade places with them, I wouldn't in a million years. What I really want is just for those women to have their babies back. Reading those blogs also makes me want to run (not walk!) down the stairs, snatch my son out of his crib, handcuff him to me, and throw away the key. And then shove endless amounts of food down his throat because he's so very small and I still worry about him. As of a month ago, he's only in the 1 percentile for height and weight. The pediatrician said that usually when a child is this small there is something else wrong, like a mental illness. His first concern was that maybe Ricky has autism, but he ruled out autism entirely when he had Ricky put together two blocks. Because after Ricky put together the blocks he smiled proudly and clapped at himself. Apparently autistic children don't behave that way because the doctor was pretty convinced that my son isn't autistic. At the end of that visit the pediatrician pulled my file from when I was a patient there and checked my weight when I was Ricky's age. One month ago Ricky weighed 18.5 pounds, and I weighed about 19.5 pounds when I was his age. Both of those weights are unusually small for 19 months old, but the pediatrician says his small size might be genetic.
The only other thing that is a concern about my son's development is that he's behind on talking. The doctor seems to think our son will talk when he feels like it and there are no other signs of mental illness at all. He knows what some words and phrases mean (like when Eric's mom says she is taking the dog outside he runs to the door so he can go with her, or if we mention his favorite book he runs to the shelf where the book is and he starts babbling "bow wow" repeatedly and uncontrollably until we read I Am a Puppy to him.) He really doesn't say a lot of words though. He can say "dada" but he doesn't know what it means. He can sort of say daddy, but he doesn't know what that means either. The first word he ever said was "mama" but he refuses to say it ever again. I already mentioned "bow wow", which Eric's mom taught him to say when she was reading that one book to him. Now he thinks all books are called bow wow. He can sort of say "again". It doesn't sound exactly right but we know what he was trying to say. I think he also says "egg" but it sounds more like "eh". Now Eric says that he has tried saying "zoom zoom zoom" but I haven't heard that one yet. He also says "Dee" frequently but we're not sure yet what it means. So like I said, he's behind.
I worry all the time about these things, but every time I look at Ricky he is smiling, laughing, making silly faces, trying to tickle his daddy, constructing a very precisely organized tower of toys, cleaning something up, or testing our limits by doing things he knows he's not allowed to do just to see how we react. And he runs. He runs everywhere he goes, he never walks. His run is so beautiful and carefree... He always has his arms waving in the air no matter where he is running to. He's so active, and yet very calm. He rarely throws a "temper tantrum" and his version of a temper tantrum is cute instead of annoying. We praise him for everything good he does and now he claps at everything he does that he's proud of, which is why he clapped at himself in front of the doctor when he put the blocks together. He also taught himself how to clean up messes, which I've mentioned before, and now he does it more frequently. He cleans up his snacks when he spills them sometimes and he frequently puts his toys away. My husband saw him throw every toy, even the dog toys, in the toy bin the other day before bed time, and then he stacked the lid neatly on top of the huge pile. He had to lean the lid against the couch so it wouldn't fall off! We never taught him how to do any of these things.
The other day when Ricky was napping I was sitting in the kitchen and I glanced over at the washer and dryer. Along the top of both the washer and dryer there is a line where the front piece of metal and top piece of metal meet. At some point that day when we weren't watching him closely, he had strategically placed 3 magnets on each machine directly under the line. He spaced the magnets out perfectly evenly so there was a magnet in the center of the line on each machine and one on each end. And get this: All 6 of the magnets, which were varying animal shapes, were right-side up. We never taught him which side of the magnet was the top and which was the bottom. There are moments like this when I realize that my child is smart. Really smart. And just because he is small and isn't talking much, it doesn't mean there is anything wrong with him. He's perfectly happy, healthy, and so much smarter than we've given him credit for.
If there's anything my son has taught me it's this: Everything. Not only did he teach me everything I know about life and parenting, but he taught himself everything he knows as well. I don't think I've ever effectively taught him anything. He always teaches himself everything when he decides he wants to learn it, like how to roll onto his stomach at 2 days old because he's mad at the jaundice lights (he only rolled over that one time, and didn't do it again until a few months later), how to sleep through the entire night every single night at only 4 months old, how to stack and organize things, how to clean, how to pick a flower, and how to determine what the top and bottom is of pretty much anything (he never puts things upside down). Maybe he hasn't learned everything yet that a 20 month old should know but he learns the things that he wants to learn when he is ready to learn them. I think he's pretty much a genius.
I guess I should also add that it's my birthday. I'm 23 today. Just feels like a normal day to me. The only thing I want for my birthday is for hurricane Irene to not harm anyone I love, and that includes my pets. I hope that we don't need to be evacuated from our home and that we don't lose power. I don't mind rain and wind, I just want it to stay outside our house and for everything to remain normal inside.
When I find these blogs I can't help but stay awake the entire night reading every single blog ever posted by the grieving parents, and I cry for hours. To top it all off, I had a dream earlier this week that I gave birth to baby #2. He was a boy and he died in my arms. I remember he had the most adorable hair. It was light brown and every strand was naturally spiked up a little bit. I'm fascinated to see if I have a little boy this time and if he looks the same as the baby in my dream. I don't know how the grief I felt in my dream didn't wake me up, and I'm so thankful that my husband poked me in the shoulder to wake me up in the middle of that dream. I feel so terribly sad for all the mothers who lose their children, and it's not a dream for them. No one is going to poke them and wake them up.
Reading about those women and their children makes me feel almost guilty that my child is alive and well and their child isn't. Not that I'd ever want to trade places with them, I wouldn't in a million years. What I really want is just for those women to have their babies back. Reading those blogs also makes me want to run (not walk!) down the stairs, snatch my son out of his crib, handcuff him to me, and throw away the key. And then shove endless amounts of food down his throat because he's so very small and I still worry about him. As of a month ago, he's only in the 1 percentile for height and weight. The pediatrician said that usually when a child is this small there is something else wrong, like a mental illness. His first concern was that maybe Ricky has autism, but he ruled out autism entirely when he had Ricky put together two blocks. Because after Ricky put together the blocks he smiled proudly and clapped at himself. Apparently autistic children don't behave that way because the doctor was pretty convinced that my son isn't autistic. At the end of that visit the pediatrician pulled my file from when I was a patient there and checked my weight when I was Ricky's age. One month ago Ricky weighed 18.5 pounds, and I weighed about 19.5 pounds when I was his age. Both of those weights are unusually small for 19 months old, but the pediatrician says his small size might be genetic.
The only other thing that is a concern about my son's development is that he's behind on talking. The doctor seems to think our son will talk when he feels like it and there are no other signs of mental illness at all. He knows what some words and phrases mean (like when Eric's mom says she is taking the dog outside he runs to the door so he can go with her, or if we mention his favorite book he runs to the shelf where the book is and he starts babbling "bow wow" repeatedly and uncontrollably until we read I Am a Puppy to him.) He really doesn't say a lot of words though. He can say "dada" but he doesn't know what it means. He can sort of say daddy, but he doesn't know what that means either. The first word he ever said was "mama" but he refuses to say it ever again. I already mentioned "bow wow", which Eric's mom taught him to say when she was reading that one book to him. Now he thinks all books are called bow wow. He can sort of say "again". It doesn't sound exactly right but we know what he was trying to say. I think he also says "egg" but it sounds more like "eh". Now Eric says that he has tried saying "zoom zoom zoom" but I haven't heard that one yet. He also says "Dee" frequently but we're not sure yet what it means. So like I said, he's behind.
I worry all the time about these things, but every time I look at Ricky he is smiling, laughing, making silly faces, trying to tickle his daddy, constructing a very precisely organized tower of toys, cleaning something up, or testing our limits by doing things he knows he's not allowed to do just to see how we react. And he runs. He runs everywhere he goes, he never walks. His run is so beautiful and carefree... He always has his arms waving in the air no matter where he is running to. He's so active, and yet very calm. He rarely throws a "temper tantrum" and his version of a temper tantrum is cute instead of annoying. We praise him for everything good he does and now he claps at everything he does that he's proud of, which is why he clapped at himself in front of the doctor when he put the blocks together. He also taught himself how to clean up messes, which I've mentioned before, and now he does it more frequently. He cleans up his snacks when he spills them sometimes and he frequently puts his toys away. My husband saw him throw every toy, even the dog toys, in the toy bin the other day before bed time, and then he stacked the lid neatly on top of the huge pile. He had to lean the lid against the couch so it wouldn't fall off! We never taught him how to do any of these things.
The other day when Ricky was napping I was sitting in the kitchen and I glanced over at the washer and dryer. Along the top of both the washer and dryer there is a line where the front piece of metal and top piece of metal meet. At some point that day when we weren't watching him closely, he had strategically placed 3 magnets on each machine directly under the line. He spaced the magnets out perfectly evenly so there was a magnet in the center of the line on each machine and one on each end. And get this: All 6 of the magnets, which were varying animal shapes, were right-side up. We never taught him which side of the magnet was the top and which was the bottom. There are moments like this when I realize that my child is smart. Really smart. And just because he is small and isn't talking much, it doesn't mean there is anything wrong with him. He's perfectly happy, healthy, and so much smarter than we've given him credit for.
If there's anything my son has taught me it's this: Everything. Not only did he teach me everything I know about life and parenting, but he taught himself everything he knows as well. I don't think I've ever effectively taught him anything. He always teaches himself everything when he decides he wants to learn it, like how to roll onto his stomach at 2 days old because he's mad at the jaundice lights (he only rolled over that one time, and didn't do it again until a few months later), how to sleep through the entire night every single night at only 4 months old, how to stack and organize things, how to clean, how to pick a flower, and how to determine what the top and bottom is of pretty much anything (he never puts things upside down). Maybe he hasn't learned everything yet that a 20 month old should know but he learns the things that he wants to learn when he is ready to learn them. I think he's pretty much a genius.
I guess I should also add that it's my birthday. I'm 23 today. Just feels like a normal day to me. The only thing I want for my birthday is for hurricane Irene to not harm anyone I love, and that includes my pets. I hope that we don't need to be evacuated from our home and that we don't lose power. I don't mind rain and wind, I just want it to stay outside our house and for everything to remain normal inside.
That's a lot of worry for one mom. They told me the same things about Avery. She was so tiny and they were always hounding me about her weight. At one point, she wasn't even on the scale. They worried that she was going to be developmentally delayed. And now at four, she is being tested for an abnomally high iq. so screw them. Don't worry about him. You are his momma and you know that he's totally fine. Everyone does things at different times. Maybe he is talking late because he is so physically advanced.
ReplyDeleteoh, and no more google for you.
Happy Belated Birthday!
ReplyDeleteDon't worry about your son. None of my 3 kids were on target w/the charts either, because they were breast fed & not bottle fed. My son, my only son, really didn't start talking until he was almost 4! His older sister did all the talking for him. Boys sometimes have better motor skills than verbal skills. That being said, at 2 yrs. of age, I used to go to his crib in the mornings & he would hand me a nut & bolt from his crib. Now....he makes his living taking computers apart & putting them back together again.
If you must be on the computer...how about reading knitting patterns & blogs?
Best Wishes
I do the same thing if I find a sad story like that- it would be horrible. I try and help take away good from them though and love and appreciate the good in my life more.
ReplyDelete