Ah, preschool

We had orientation today.  Or something like that.  It was mostly an utterly useless plug for the technology classes at the school.  For fourth graders.  Did I mention that this was just pre-K orientation?  It was so useless that 2 out of 3 pre-K teachers did not attend, so I could not even introduce my daughter to her teacher.  Eh, at least it was in the library and we sat in the back and read books.

Of course, from the back I could see that a fair half of the children in tow were playing on some type of gadget during the presentation (see above: not targeted to this audience).  Yes, half of the children had an iphone or an ipad in hand.   That's pretty terrifying.  And of course, my poor kid who lives in a house without a TV and with about 10-15 minutes of screen time a week (skype with grandparents, a youtube video while we're cutting nails) was fascinated by the poorly put together video in the presentation.  A movie, she whispered in awe, while her classmates played complicated games on their parents' iphones ... which was always JD's best argument pro-TV.  Let's not raise a weirdo, eh, he'd say smiling at me (yes, I grew up without screentime in the woods down South)?

But the really absurd part was that the big draw of the orientation was receiving the school uniform polo shirt.  Light blue short sleeved polo with the logo on it.  And they had a lot of them.  It's just that ... the smallest size they ordered was a 6-8 (kids medium).  Now the fusspot was immediately intimidated walking into the room because she is the youngest kid in her class (Dec. 31 cut off and she's a mid-December baby) and she's already not so tall ... but when the head teacher said she had to wear the uniform anyway I had to actually put a size 6 polo shirt over her dress and show the woman that it covered her knees and she'd probably trip if she had to walk in it ... and no, she won't be wearing it ... and no, neither GAP nor Old Navy online stocks uniforms in size 2/3 ... if anyone knows a cheap place for plain blue polos and blue jumpers in toddler sizes that would be much appreciated (amended: ah, children's place.  Thank you).

The good news is that another mom I quite like has a daughter in the pre-K (she's a friend of a friend so I had no idea she'd even applied) and the fusspot had warmed up enough by the end of the tour to waltz out of the school holding hands with her two new friends and talking about the playground.  And I can always tell myself it's just pre-K when things are quite this disorganized.  And really, it's quite a cute school.  Apparently full of very, very tall and wide kids ...

Have to start somewhere

something tells me that I'm going to be posting here a lot more in the coming months.  A few tidbits from this week:

- One benefit of having a husband 300 miles away is that it is so much easier to co-sleep with an active toddler when it's just the two of you in bed.

- One downside of having a husband 300 miles away is the realization that living alone in NYC with 2 kids is really, really hard.  Even just taking out the trash is a production (our trash is outside, and it's really hard to corral both kids into a trip to take out the trash, but I also can't carry it while maneuvering the stroller down the front stairs so it has to be a separate trip.  Plus, there are rats so if I bring the kids with to the trash I have to be careful that they don't get too close) ... all of which has resulted in my inviting a friend to come stay for a while.  A single guy.  He has no idea what he's in for.  I am really hoping it makes things easier and not harder.

- The fusspot really has no idea what is going on with her father and his new job.  She understands that he's gone for a while, but keeps asking if he'll be back next week.  Um, no.

- My work life is a complete and utter debacle.  I'm not even holding on by a thread, I am plunging into the gorge and hoping it will all end well.

- Speaking of which, I have a conference in the UK next week and haven't even decided yet if I'm going.  Or if I'll be ready.

- The fusspot also starts school next week.  She isn't ready.

- I only overeat and shop online when I am feeling emotionally abandoned.  I need to stop doing both.  Any advice?

- I did join a group therapy.  I also realized that the first week I went I had not spoken to anyone other than my children for more than 60 seconds in the proceeding 7 days.  It's really odd to sit in a room and talk to people for an hour.

- Also, see above re: weight gain.  I was inspired by a blog and bought a scale.  154.8.  I was 160 when I finished pregnancy #2.  I was 125 when I got pregnant both times.  I could use to lose some weight.  For now I'm keeping a food diary and trying to eliminate desserts and coffee drinks.  No time to exercise so project-look-better (and maybe even ovulate) will rely on food control.

- Speaking of weight gain, not so much as a hint of cycle at the moment.  As I'd assumed, the miracolous potential ovulation and bleeding episode 2 months ago were an isolated incident.  Let's really hope some weight loss could change that.  If not, it's on to metformin and harrassing JD about finding a new clinic in the new city we may or may not be moving to.

- JD needs to sign up for a new insurance by the end of this week through his new job.  I have told him at least 10 times that I want to help make that choice since he is particularly bad at insurance things, and he has not so much as forwarded me any info.  99% chance that he signs us up for insurance with no IF coverage. 

- Getting out the door in the morning with 2 kids is the worst part of living alone.

Wishful thinking, part ?

my period is "late."  Don't worry, this won't be a tale of miraculous conception which transitions immediately into complaints about round ligament pain and angst about birth plans.  Two rather pricey pee-sticks plus a large collection of expired cheapo sticks indicate that absolutely nothing is growing in my uterus (and Io, all I got was a "good luck" at the cash register).

And I'm not even sure "late" is the right adjective.  I'm in my 30s and I have never had 2 back-to-back uninduced cycles in my life.  So how I had somehow deluded myself into hoping that I would have perfectly reliable 28-day cycles I don't know.  But I had, and it's frustrating that my cycles are currently "irregular," with a healthy chance of "missing, never to return."

The thing about infertility is that it gives you this overwhelming angst and feeling of doom.  I feel like we wasted a possible cycle (yes, I am pretty sure that my body did something at least close to ovulating) and while it certainly would have been awful timing, well, what if it never, ever happens again ...

And along those lines I'd really like to rededicate myself to restricting carbs/losing weight even if only to see if my cycle might just return.  And they'll be no worries about a "surprise" since JD is moving to another city and we have few plans to see each other (and even less for anything to possibly happen since the kids and I will be sharing a room here in the big city, and we'll be staying with friends if we visit him).  It took a few summer shots of me in a bathing suit to remind me that while I tend to think of myself as decently fit and reasonably shaped, I am not exactly pulling that off in public.

Anyone have any inspirational stories of restored "regularity" or ways to limit sugar when all you crave are cupcakes and fluffy coffee drinks (and yes, we baked cupcakes this morning and since the fusspot was in charge of icing they are 98% pure sugar by weight, the rest is a combination of eggs/flour and food coloring.  She was very proud of herself)?

At least he's got decent taste

The growth doctor spent a long time pushing for me to wean/formula feed the dumpling (mind you, he's almost 18 months).  To start with, her nutritionist had entirely incorrectly estimated how many calories the dumpling gets from nursing (22 cal per ounce on average, frequently higher in an older nursling as the quantity decreases) so her estimate that he gets "at most 100 calories from nursing a day" is rather surprising.  I had noted that he nurses at least 5 times during the day ...

Anyway, with everything else going on I finally caved and purchased some pediasure for the dumpling.  That stuff is expensive, and I need several different packs to try the flavors.  $35 poorer, I had a decent variety of flavors of super-high calorie but also rather artificial (and noxious smelling) stuff.  So that my opinion wouldn't influence the baby, I just filled a bottle with it and sent it to daycare yesterday.  And today.  And guess what?  Baby categorically refused the sippy cup all day after his first taste.

So back on half whole milk/half cream our little guy goes (not that he ever has taken more than 2 ounces from a bottle, whether pumped milk or milk and cream or even water).  And then as we were walking home today and the fusspot started fussing about wanting a snack (usual stop: the fruit stand where she gets to buy her own banana, a process which thrills her.  Luckily they are still 25 cents, so if she successfully hands a quarter to the fruit vendor, 95% of the time they'll hand her a banana, no words necessary), we stopped.  Directly in front of the incredibly awesome brand new French bakery in our neighborhood.  The owners are literally just landed in NYC after selling their store in the South of France.  I was a bit skeptical when they opened since it is only 2 blocks from a super-beloved and old bakery in the neighborhood (which we frequent weekly for bread and in the winter for delicious hot chocolate), but it has already found a following.  And what did the dumpling devor for his evening snack?  Half a croissant.  It was such a rousing success that I've promised the fusspot we can return in the morning for a mid-morning snack.

In summary: dumpling refuses formula, insists upon a diet of organic full-fat cream (farm fresh no less, in a glass bottle, purchased at our otherwise fairly barren local farmer's market) and croissants made in a French bakery.  At least he has decent taste, even if he did purse his lips and refuse even a single bite of the chocolate chip cookies we made last weekend.

food frustration

Another follow-up with the GI doc last week and it seems that our miniature man is still miniature.  To be precise, a full ounce lighter than our last appointment.  And now we find ourselves at a bit of a crossroads.

We entered this super-high-tech medical world with the goal of ruling out any crazy, rare disease which might explain his rather unusual growth chart (8 lbs at birth, 12 lbs at 4 weeks, 20 lbs 4 oz at 17 months).  JD and I are not basketball players, but neither of us is tiny.  I'd wager that we're both about average height and weight.  The fusspot has always held steady somewhere between 30th-50th percentile (after her rough first month) and in general has very normal toddler eating patterns: nothing new unless it's coated in cheese or chocolate, but very happily eats a wide range of food (Seriously, my oldest turned down maple syrup at the diner because it was "new" but loves her lassis and hundred year old eggs).

We have thus far ruled out a variety of rare diseases: celiac, allergies (no rashes, and he tests negative via blood test, although obviously he could still have something, also no family history of food allergies), juvenile diabetes, thyroid, cancer, parasites ... basically his labwork all looks good and he meets all developmental benchmarks.  He is also super active (except for one test, and doctor thinks it's a false positive.  Needless to say we'll be testing again for C.rohns at his next appointment but not scheduling the scope until he's bigger/older because of the anaesthesia).

And here's where things get dicey.  Anytime you mention toddler failure to thrive, questions are going to be raised about the family/environment.  Stress?  Abuse?  Poor food habits?  I know they need to ask these questions, and I know that they are relevant for many families, but I am truly confident that the dumpling has no sensory issues/no anxiety related to food.  He will very happily eat about 3 bites of anything and then he's done, lips pursed, not another calorie going to enter his body.  We -always- let him self-feed, two hands into the food no matter what it is.  He is allowed to run around and snack no matter how messy (something I would never allow except for above weight issues).  And I am tired of being questioned, of having dumb doctors and even nutritionists suggest "new high calorie foods for him."  No, he has never eaten an avocado even when doused in brown sugar and blended with cream.  No, he does not like peanut butter or butter or cream or whole milk.  I mean, this toddler declined warm chocolate chip cookies last weekend, even when I left a plate on the floor next to the blocks so that he could approach them on his own schedule ... resulting in chocolate smeared all over my carpet but not a single bite in his mouth.

And in order to get calories into him, my previously organic-home-made-meals baby's diet looks like something out of a toddler-version of SuperSize Me.  He has either string cheese or hot dogs for breakfast.  Cream added to his whole milk.  Peanut sauce doused on his pasta.  Goldfish for snacks instead of fruit.  Fruit roll-ups, egg yolks but no whites.  It is the type of diet that would give anyone a stomach ache.  And I'd like to stop.  To step back and say there is nothing medically wrong, and he's just small.  But now the seed has been planted: the fear that this will affect brain development if we don't ply him with high calorie processed foods.  Or that he'll land up needing growth hormones in the near future.  Let alone the fact that we are now thoroughly under medical surveillance and repeat 3-day food diaries are in high demand. 

For a condition where stress can easily be a trigger, it is scary how easily all of this can fall into blaming the mother.  I am tired of chasing my toddler around the apartment with forkfuls of high fat hot dogs while he shakes his head no and runs away.  I'd like to have the perspective to say we ruled out the really scary stuff, now it's time to get back to normal, but I'm not sure I'll be able to.  And yes, I am deeply thankful that all test results were normal.  But now that the fear has been planted, I certainly feel more concerned than I did pre-testing.

ps -and for those wondering about the next medical step, there is a new consult with a new allergist for the end of the month and I'd like to try a lactose-free diet for a week or two.  I know lactose intolerance is rare this young, but so is everything else we looked at.  It does not make sense that an otherwise healthy toddler would deliberately starve himself, so my suspicion is that he may have some discomfort from food, although who knows if we could ever isolate that?

You know when lottery winners complain about the taxes?

I am so that girl right now.  But really, I don't have any other place to think about these things.  I have had a few too many conversations with my one local mom friend who is on the should-we-or-shouldn't-we bandwagon right now.  Of course, she of most awesome fertility (conceived without help at 3 times at age 40+) is really in no rush to make a final decision ... So I am going to write here, and hope that you will be kind (or at least click away quickly and come back another day).

The topic, as you long-time readers will surely have guessed, is Project 3.0.  And the great bloodbath earlier this month means this is a topic we can no longer avoid.

I really thought that I would be ok agreeing not to try.  I need to finish my stupid degree (and a 3rd pregnancy would convince absolutely everyone in my field that I am a joke, but then again they probably already think that after #2 and the related meltdown).  But on rough days like today when I feel entirely incompetent at work and can't even make polite small talk with the one colleague I see weekly as we walk into or out of the building (I cannot describe how grim my work life is right now.  I work in a small office with a door, near no one I know.  I leave my solitary confinement 3-4 times a day, to refill my water bottle or print something or go outside to defrost my hands from the excessive AC but that is it.  No conversation, no interactions, just me and the doubts in my head), I just want to step back and acknowledge that the one thing that I really enjoy on a daily basis is parenting (it's not that JD and I are on bad terms, but I honestly don't see him every day even though we live together.  He's been working until 2 every night for a while now, and is often gone before I get up).  And the idea that we might waste one tiny sliver of my practically non-existent fertility is terrible.

And more than that, I love the spacing between Project 1.0 and Project 2.0.  I love watching them play together, knowing that the fusspot has no memory of life before the dumpling, knowing that if all goes well they will go through life together with shared childhood memories.  And if we did manage to complete our family in the next 5-6 years, we would be plenty young enough to look forward to many years of travel and exploration after the kids grow up (this is very much on my mind as I watch my much, much older local mom friends parent.  I actually have 3 friends who are 39, 42, and 41 who are all "considering" whether to have another baby.  My closest mom friend will spend this year worrying about kindergarten admissions in the big city.  When I am the same age she is now, I will be worrying about college admissions for my second child (lord willing).

Oh, and I firmly believe that nursing helps my fertility (PCOs is not my only diagnosis) and I am terrified that if the dumpling self-weans we'll need major interventions again, and then finances will be a big issue (no, I am not planning to wean him deliberately.  We're just crazy like that).  But the sad truth is that the cost of fertility treatments (even the 50-60,000 we budgeted for 2-3 rounds of IVF for Project 1.0) is trivial compared to daycare costs and preschool and afterschool.  And JD is really worried about the short-term costs of Project 3.0 should we be successful.  Then again, our chance of getting twins is so much lower without injectables (although I do tend to have a million follicles).

If I weren't nursing, I do think we'd freeze some embryos before I get any older, but that's not really an option while nursing (especially since I am prone to OHSS).

In short, my wishes are entirely irrational, despite any attempts at justification above, but then again isn't have a baby in the modern world always irrational?  They are time consuming, carreer-ending, expensive entertainment.  And yet I have no doubt that we'd never regret the decision.  And thankfully it is really looking like a question of when rather than if, JD recently seems to be entirely supportive of Project 3.0, even if he'd rather wait.  And for that at least I am truly deeply thankful, even if it won't be this year.  And yes, there is a very small part of me that looks forward to the possibility of enjoying a newborn without worrying about having no leave and getting back to work immediately and parenting without a real support network, all of which could conceivably be different if we wait a few years.

Of course, I also kind-of thought that I could chart ( a few hours reading deeper into the google informed me this was idiotic with my level of severe PCOs) and had some weird break-through bleeding yesterday and well ... yeah ... who knows.  This whole conversation may be irrelevant.  Or I may never get another cycle after my first post-partum bloodbath and there is no way JD would consider swinging by the clinic right now.  Or we may decide not to try but continue not to do anything more organized than talk about bcps. 

For now, I will just obsess and try to see the virtue in waiting.

Dr. Google is making me nervous

Just got some lab work for the dumpling, and Dr. Google is making me nervous.  His lab results were all fairly normal except for testing positive for "lactoferrin stool test," which seems to be a highly accurate test to indicate either Crohn's or Ulcerative Colitis.  Here's the thing: his only known symptom is slow weight gain.  He doesn't seem to be in pain and he's generally quite a happy guy.  Anyone have any experience with this?  Our follow-up with the specialists is not until Wednesday, although I may just give her clinic a call tomorrow to see if someone will talk to me.  I have had a long, long history of GI problems, but all stemming from a rather dramatic travel illness circa 2002 (it's rather noticeable when you lose a third of your body weight in under 2 weeks).  As a result I have had almost every GI test out there, have a specialist who follows me every 6 months, and have on and off for years had to manage GI symptoms.  But Crohn's terrifies me with its unpredictable flare ups, and seriously, any ever heard of such a thing in a baby?

Edited to add: confirming facts: sudden weight loss, anemia (despite being breastfed and not having his cord cut for at least 10 minutes), and 2-8 times more like in the children of Ashkenzai Jewish mothers (yes, this is a maternal genetic disease, fun times) and also more likely in urban babies

But, Dr. Google also notes that "lactoferrin" increases in the breastfeeding toddler during slow weaning.