Shit Shit Shit and a Shot

Shit Shit Shit and a Shot

Leelo has been having a lot of accidents lately, and I have been particularly busy lately, so the regular (i.e., not shit-covered) laundry has been stacking up. One of Iz's friends invited her over for a playdate after school today, which meant I didn't have to pick her up and so could stay home and do laundry and possibly not wear ten-year-old hospital gimme socks tomorrow (the ones with the tread on the bottom, though I have to admit they do provide an all-day sensory experience). Except Mali's bottom exploded all over herself and me the moment we got home from picking her up from school/ lunch with Sage & Jennyalice; the moment we were both cleaned up, Seymour called to let me know that Leelo's school couldn't get hold of me for reasons that I still cannot fathom and that Leelo had had several accidents and they were leery of putting him on the bus and could I please come get him right now? (Which meant that there would have been no way to pick up Iz without being very very late anyhow.)

When I arrived at Leelo's school, they gently let me know that I had sent him to school with a backpack full of shitty clothes (from an accident yesterday when we were at the dentist; Seymour kindly made the kids' lunches and put Leelo's in his backpack this morning, so I forgot to do my usual "are there clean clothes in the backpack" check). I am feeling very frazzled and useless and stinky at the moment.

Leelo did not have an accident on the way home, BTW.

And now, I feel the need to record my yesterday so that in the future, when Leelo and Mali are fully potty-trained and everything is sunbeams and roses, I can laugh at my pathetic overwhelmed former self. Please forgive fluctuating verb tenses as I'm not even sure what tense I'm in at the moment.

• 6:30 Wake up, wake up & scoot Leelo to the potty before his AM poop, dress him, put out the girls' clothes, hand Leelo over to Seymour
• 7:00 Daily taking advantage of Seymour's good nature with a too-long bath while he feeds the kids and makes their lunches
• 7:30 Check land line voice mail from yesterday, realize that Leelo has a 1:30 dentist appointment that somehow never made it onto my calendar. Panic, finish off the kids' toilettes
• 8:00 Load up car, drive down hill, call Therapist L to cancel Leelo's afternoon session conflicting with dentist
• 8:15 Drop off Iz at school, wonder how I will retrieve her from school at 2:00 when Leelo's dentist appointment ends at 2:00 one city north.
• 8:30 Drop off Mali at school, decide that Leelo's dental appointments usually last no more than ten minutes and that I should be fine to pick up Iz.
• 8:50 Return home, take Leelo to potty
• 9:00 Start waiting for bus; I clean garage/trash area (demolished since Xmas) while Leelo rides his tricycle around and around my car
• 9:30 Bus arrives; Leelo is off to school, I am off to dentist
• 9:45 Get crown put on hind, root-canaled molar
• 10:30 Bad Moms' coffee! JP, Jennyalice, Ep, Jo, and Liz Ditz looking unbelievably cute with her kicky new haircut. Rowr. I feebly try to explain to formidably pro-vaccinations duo of Jennyalice and Liz D why the fact that autism's causes are still unknown makes me so nervous about putting Leelo back on the vaccinations track. Even though I really do think his autism is genetic, that Leelo has an as-yet-undiagnosed syndrome, an opinion bolstered by an encounter with yet another autistic kid who looks just like my son (though the kid is Filipino) and has a similar symptoms set. Jennyalice said we should start a foundation to document these kids. She and Liz urged me to consider that Leelo getting chicken pox or whooping cough (which is now endemic to this area) could be a hell of a lot worse than any reaction he might have to the shot. I wish I didn't even have to think about any of this, as even the light-years-removed chance that a vaccination could affect Leelo negatively makes me reach for a barf bag.
• 11:15 Leave to pick up Mali from preschool, chat with Seymour en route about vaccinations for Leelo and my fears, he thinks we should put Leelo on similar or even slower track than Mali: one shot at a time, big gaps b/t to evaluate any adverse immunological responses. More waves of nausea for me.
• 11:30 Pick Mali up from Preschool
• 11:35 Leave for Leelo's school. Spend most of drive trying to sell my photographer friend JM on a Great! New! Idea! I have for his business. He thinks it might have merit.
• 12:30 Pick Leelo up from his school 20 miles from Mali's school.
• 12:50 Hit Burger King drive thru so that Leelo and Mali will have some kind of food in their stomach during the dentist visit, seeing as I forgot to pack snacks.
• 1:00 Leelo declares today's fries mysteriously unacceptable and spits a big mouthful of semi-chewed fried potato starch bits all over the car interior.
• 1:10 Fuel light goes on.
• 1:15 Screech into gas station, duck into attached mini-mart on Goldfish crackers quest. No suerte; the only thing they carry that might possibly be enticing enough to distract Leelo during his dental visit is M&Ms. Crap.
• 1:25 Arrive at dentist's 5 minutes early! Take Leelo to potty, he takes a big poop in the potty!
• 1:40 Dentist still hasn't arrived.
• 1:45 Dentist appears in office at a run, fresh from a dental emergency at a hospital. I leave Leelo with her and the dental assistant and walk to the lobby to see if my boy will have a calmer experience without me present. Call Jo to ask her to tell Iz that I'll be late for school pick up and that Iz should just wait in the school office.
• 1:50 No audible yelling or protests from dental exam room (from Leelo or the staff)
• 2:00 Dentist emerges, with Leelo. The visit was a success! Leelo allowed her to clean, polish, and *de-scale* his teeth. She did a visual inspection and saw no decay. Could an x-ray be in his future?
• She said that he is on the late side of normal to have not lost any teeth; but she also says some kids don't start shedding baby teeth until they're eight, and that this can be a good thing as it gives their jaws more time to grow and accommodate those huge adult chompers. She was so impressed by Leelo in general, and asked how things were going with him. Just as I said, "Great! He hasn't worn pullups during the day for months!" Leelo took a big shit in his pants.
• 2:05 Because I have not yet reorganized my various backpacks, post-Cambodia, I had Leelo's school backpack with a change of clothes on hand, but no wipes. Spent a good ten minutes using much-less-effective toilet paper to clean up Leelo; fortunately Dr. A had Clorox wipes in her bathroom so I could superficially clean her bathroom afterwards, as well.
• 2:15 Threw Mali and Leelo into the van, screeeeeched away from the curb to go get Iz
• 2:23 Picked up a rather despondent-looking Iz.
• 2:30 Took the kids for donuts to cheer up my wilty older daughter (mother of the year!)
• 2:45 Took Iz to her piano lesson across town.
• 2:55 Took Mali and Leelo to the local grocery store for a Leelo potty break, free Starbucks straws (also for Leelo), diaper wipes, and goldfish crackers.
• 3:15 Picked Iz up from her piano lesson, headed out to Leelo's annual pediatric checkup.
• 3:30 Noticed that Mali had crashed out in her car seat just as I was starting to nod off at the wheel. Pulled over to curb to semi-doze/not be driving for a few minutes. Leelo stayed in his car seat (!); Iz read.
• 3:50 Went to Starbucks and got myself a double-shot latte. Took Leelo to potty.
• 4:10 Arrived at doctor's five minutes early! They took us in immediately.
• 4:15 Holy shit, Leelo weighs 72 lbs. And he is only 47.5 inches tall. Doctor not too concerned about his weight at the moment; a lot of boys tend to expand and contract as growth spurts wax and wane. If super-chub becomes a consistent pattern, however, we might need to take serious measures. (Like not using donuts as palliatives for overly-scheduled days, perhaps?) She says that even though he seems to be bolting a lot of water, it might be another sensory thing and that she's not worried about diabetes. She palpated his huge belly and said that it was all Leelo and not withheld poop. She says that we can experiment with Claritin holidays for Leelo during the summer, but there should be no long-term effects from him taking it daily, indefinitely. She says that his anal itching (bonus!) may or may not be another attack of pinworms and that the condition is easier to treat than diagnose. His rashy red arm bumps are keratosis pilaris, and it can be treated with hard-core moisturizing. I told her that we had seen our pediatric neurologist a few weeks beforehand and that she (the neurologist) thought that Leelo's constant squinting and head-pressure-seeking might be an eyesight issue, that we have accordingly scheduled a full eye exam in six weeks, and that if he doesn't have any vision issues that we can then consider an MRI or other procedure to look at his sinus and the rest of his noggin.
• All during this exam, Leelo was being the best Leelo ever. He let them measure and weigh him; he let them look in his eyes and ears, and opened his mouth wide when asked to do so. He tolerated the stethoscope; he tolerated the supra-lingual thermometer; he did not tolerate having his blood pressure taken, but that is understandable and he fidgeted out of the procedure rather than screaming and flailing. All very good. He is finally starting to trust medical professionals.
• Which is why it was so hard to then give him a shot. I chatted with Dr. M, and we decided to have Leelo's first vaccine in five years be for the disease he'd be most likely to encounter, Hepatitis A. The nurse was fast and skilled and it was over instantly, but Leelo was outraged and betrayed. As if I didn't feel bad enough. He got over the incident fairly quickly, but who knows what our next doctor's appointment will be like. Crap, yet again.
• 5:30 Arrived home with 30 minutes before babysitters' shift. Found last remaining bag of sandwich bread on floor; kitten had chewed a stripe down the side of the entire loaf. Cursed kitten, improvised kids' dinner, got jammies, bath, etc. ready for babysitters.
• 6:10 Babysitters! Hurrah. Use time to clean kitchen and post special ed PTA minutes from previous evening's board meeting, seeing as if I don't do so within 24 hours I forget to do so entirely.
• 7:30 Seymour arrives for our hot date.
• 8:00 Wonderful dinner at fabulous gourmet Mexican restaurant downtown. Find out proprietor is a former neighbor of ours. Get condensed version of last six years' neighborhood gossip.
• 9:30 Cap off hot date with trip to grocery story to replace kitten-masticated sandwich loaf, as our household cannot survive a breadless breakfast.
• 10:00 Arrive home, I plead for TV break as first five minutes to myself since morning bath.
• 10:05 Promptly fall asleep on couch.