Bipolar

The Sweetest of Brothers


Peet-du Sannal (Peek-a-boo Samuel)


Eskimo Kisses




We had a Riley appointment today with Dr. K (who as it turns out is retiring, and her cases are being picked up by Dr. D, who is Groovy) and the Feeding Team.
First off, the bad news, Chris weighed in at 24 pounds and 13 ounces.
According to my records, that's down a pound since the beginning of March. Why? You ask. Well, the last month or so has been a little topsy turvy with regard to Change in poor Chris's life, and he has certainly been reacting accordingly. He hasn't been eating or drinking. A month ago, he was downing 3 cans a day easily, even on a couple occasions 4 cans. However, come mid-March, he got Constipated pretty badly, and has had a couple episodes since then of mild constipation, most recently last week, but we're pretty positive we have cleaned him out. When he's constipated he doesn't want to eat or drink. One of Eric's theories was that he was full of poo on the last weigh-in, and now he's empty he's weighing less. He's also been really snoochie for the last month. Another of Eric's theories was that he may have Seasonal Allergies (Just Like Pa) and who feels like drinking dairy when they have a headfull of snot. However, he's been on the Periactin since January. This is an anti-histimine by nature, which we pointed out, and therefore wouldn't it make sense that it would keep allergies at bay? Yes, but no. He's on the lowest dose. So they UPPED his dose of Periactin. The good news is that they don't want to do anything drastic at this time, because odds are that he's just freaking out because of the baby, and taking it out on things that he has power over, like what he eats and drinks. So, they don't want us to resume use of the feeding tube! But they don't want to take it out either. At least we're not using it. Ideally, they'd like 3 consecutive months of weight gain before they consider pulling the tube. We got 2 this time around..February and March. It seems the Feeding Team is in agreement that Chris's modifications are really behavioral. Our goals are to get him to eat in quantities that other kids eat, to have some steady weight gain, and join us at family meal time.
We met with the Other Sara, and she reinforced what we've been doing with offering his milk at every meal. She suggested instead of offering water as a reward or treat that we just set a time in the evening and give it to him then. Because as a reward, he gets the power to decide whether it's worth the fight, which lately he has been deciding it's not worth drinking his cocoa to get water as a reward. Unfortunately, he needs both. She suggested that by focusing so much on how much he eats and drinks, and drawing attention to it, that attention, even if it's negative, gives him power, and he thinks he's in charge. So we need to knock off giving it so much attention. I just want to cry. It's a vicious cycle for Eric and I, we can't help but give it attention, it's ALWAYS been so crucial whatever Chris eat or drink. I guess I don't need to feel like I've been neglecting his eating and drinking because of the new baby, if they want us to back off. But still, I feel like if I could just do something right, he might eat more. It's a hard boat to be in. Anyway, in addition, to kick it up a notch, she wants us to only offer him his milk/cocoa at the table instead of offering it other times, like TV watching or car rides that are longer than 10 minutes. She "let" us continue to offer it for wake up snuggles because traditionally (from before the last two weeks) he would drink the most when he woke up in the morning, and when waking from naps in the afternoon. He Used to drink a can each time. But he hasn't lately. Lately we've been really lucky to complete 2 cans in a day the last 3 weeks. We figured he would have lost a little weight, but since he seems to be eating table food, we thought it wouldn't be much or even breaking even, we just didn't see this losing a whole pound thing coming.
This afternoon, I buckled down with the cocoa, he only drank a few sips sitting at snack time, bringing him up to 1 can for the whole day. Neither boy is too inclined to sleep at the same time, so between the two, though they get 1 1/2 hours for naps, they only overlap for me by about 45 minutes. We watched a little TV, just because I was so tired, I had to sack out on the couch, and I didn't give him any cocoa. He even asked for it. Then when presented with it at dinner, again he didn't want to drink. I don't think he's going to gain weight soon at this rate. It may modify his behavior and get him to eating a normal meal at mealtime with us, but in the mean time...well, he's a beast.

Many have asked us how Chris is doing with regard to the new baby. He covers the whole gammit, from one extreme to the other. See above, first of all, he's not been eating or drinking. With Samuel himself, Christopher is the epitome of Wonderful Big Brother. Every day Chris asks me to hold him. When I let him, he'll pat his head, and tell me "He/She's So Toot!" (he's so cute) Whenever Samuel is awake he wants to watch Chris. When Chris is noisy, Samuel doesn't startle or jump, he just wants to watch and listen. Thus far, Chris has yet to react to Sam crying, he doesn't seem to get upset, but more like he wants to help fix it. And Chris wants to play with him, so bad. Chris will suggest that Sam wants the swing or his new seat. He's adorable. I'll lay Samuel down in his bouncy seat, and Chris runs around to turn it on, and then he'll hang out close by, and just watch him, or to play with the dangly toys that the baby cannot yet reach. He's gotten a couple timeouts for plopping his toys on Samuel's head. You'd think he's all sweetness and light, until you ask him to do something. Christopher's listening skills have gone right out the window. I get so frustrated, I clap, I whistle, I stomp. I've tried screaming, but as I've spent a lot of the last two weeks either unable to physically yell because of the pain in my gut, or pain in my throat, yelling was very difficult. I have lost my temper, though Chris isn't phased. He only gets upset when I cry, but that's not what we want to enforce. It's what my mother used to call "Willful Disobedience" and boy, is Chris good at it. He's pushing his limits all the time. Whereas he used to act when we'd call out 1! Now he's pushing to 2 or 3 which lands him in Time Out. We go off dragging him and he's like, No I'll do it, I want cocoa, or I want to clean up, sure, once we've hit three, our point of no return. The Feeding Team (who also deal in Behavior since they are the Development Pediatrics Department) assure us this is all perfectly normal. But then again, they also gave us the option of seeing a Psychologist. (Though it sounded like the Psychologist would help Train Us notsomuch Chris) We're not inclined, like the boy doesn't already have enough specialists. Maybe it's time for Mommy to finish that book, The Strong-Willed Child. It's Chris to a tee!
So, we're going to go along with this attempt to UP the Periactin, and we're going to cut the offerings of milk/cocoa, and see if he's more inclined to really drink it instead of just sip. And we'll cope, cope with the willful disobedience, and pray that it is just a phase, and that he'll outgrow this phase soon without more weight loss.