18 Months Old

Today, Eddie is officially 18 months old. To celebrate, he got to go to the doctor. Yay.

Eddie has been to the doctor a lot in the past month. First, he fell down and had his seizure, so we took him in then. Then he went in to get his flu shot. Then he had a dentist appointment. Then he got his H1N1 shot. Then he got croup and went in just last Thursday. Now he seems to expect the worst when we walk into the exam room. Today, we arrived at the doctor's office pretty early, so we took the stairs to avoid the terrifying elevator. That was my work-out for the day (4 flights carrying a 22 lb. kid and a fully loaded diaper bag). They got us right in and took us to the exam room so I could strip Ed down for his weigh-in. That is when Eddie lost it.

Despite the writhing and screams of terror, we did manage to weigh and measure him. He now weighs 22.16 lbs., which puts him in the 8th percentile. He is 31.5 inches long, which is the 27th percentile. So he's skinny... but we already knew that. Once they were done measuring him, I was able to calm him down a bit for the pediatrician. She checked him out and said he seems to be doing great. Since he is sick, he got lucky and I convinced the doctor to postpone his shots until we go in again. I was hoping that one shot-free visit would help ease his fears. Of course, the next time we go in, he has to get two shots.

His next well-child check-up is at 24 months. Of course, with Ed's track record, we will be back in the office at least 6 times between now and then. But here's hoping we aren't.

Here is Eddie last week before the croup hit

Nursery Newbie

Today was Eddie's first trip to nursery. After splitting time with Kristen and I out in the foyer during the second half of sacrament meeting, we were skeptical about how well Eddie would handle this transition. Since Kristen was once again substituting in Primary, the task of taking him fell to me.

When we first arrived in the nursery room, Eddie was hesitant to let go of my sweater vest. For the first few minutes, he sat on my lap and watched the other kids play. But then, his eye caught hold of a shiny blue toy tambourine. I took him over to it and set him down. He quickly picked it up and began shaking it to his heart's content. I returned to my seat and observed for a few more minutes. He was soon comfortable interacting with the other kids. I told one of the nursery leaders where to find me in case there was trouble and quietly slipped out the door without him noticing.

Much to my surprise, no one had to come and retrieve me during the duration of Sunday School and Elders Quorum. When I went to pick him up at the end of the meetings, I found Eddie completely comfortable with his surroundings, standing in the middle of the nursery room joyfully thrusting his pelvis to and fro, a move he usually reserves for when music is playing. He even initially resisted when I tried to pick him up and take him. As we were leaving, one of the leaders handed me the page he had "colored." I think you will agree—the kid has a gift. The red arrows indicate Eddie's subtle artistic touch.

Time Out

Today, Eddie experienced another first—his first time out. Dave and I have been discussing the whole "time out" thing for a while, trying to decide how and when it should be implemented. We've had a hard time deciding. Lucky for us, Eddie is making our decision easier every day.

Eddie has started throwing temper tantrums. I have heard from both of Eddie's healthcare professionals (his pediatrician and his physical therapist), that it will only get worse before it gets better. In light of this horrifying knowledge, Dave and I have been trying to think of ways to manage Eddie's rage issues. In the past couple of weeks, Eddie has developed a new tactic during these moments of insane anger—if you're holding him, he arches his back and throws his legs and arms back, making it virtually impossible to hold him. If you try to set him down, he remains arched, which puts him into a nice back bend, using his knees and head for support. Generally when he is in one of these fits, he won't let you hold him and he won't let you set him down. The only solution we had found thus far is to scramble around trying to figure out what he wants and give it to him.

I realize that this is only rewarding the terrible behavior, so today Eddie drove me to trying a new tactic. He started his temper tantrum and, when I couldn't get him to settle down, I put him in his crib and left the room to let him calm himself down. I decided that I would stay out until he stopped screaming or for 5 minutes, whichever came first. After 3 minutes, he was quiet, so time out was over.

This left Dave and I wondering again about the best way to handle these situations. So, loyal readers, we turn to you for help. Do you put your kids in time out? If not, how do you control your kids? If so, how early did you start? What exactly do you do and how long does the punishment last? Unfortunately, we have not been able to find an Anger Management course for toddlers, so we need your help! We await your comments...

The Things We Do For Suckers

This afternoon, Eddie and I had a scary experience. We went to the neighborhood park to play on the slide. The jungle gym in this park is set up so that the slides are on one side, then on the back side, there is an open ledge. Usually, Eddie will climb up the stairs and go straight for the slide. If I let him go down the slide unassisted, he shoots off the end, so I usually wait by the slide and slow him down as he slides. Today, he climbed up onto the platform and started coming for the slide, where I was waiting. Then he said, "no!" and started backing up the other way - towards the open ledge. I yelled "stop!" which generally makes him stop what he is doing. Unfortunately, I was too slow. By the time I ran around to the other side, he had fallen about 4 feet to the ground and landed flat on his back.

His eyes were open and he let out one little cry, so I scooped him up. Then he stopped breathing like he was preparing for an extra loud scream... except he was silent for longer than ever before. I started saying, "breathe, Eddie, breathe!" Then he arched his back and gasped, then started shaking like he was having a seizure.

Obviously by this point, I was freaking out. I hurried home to find my phone to call the pediatrician, all the while trying to get Eddie to look at me or to respond in any way. I couldn't find my phone (I learned later that Eddie had hidden it inside his shape sorter), so I had to run to the neighbor's house to call Dave. By the time I found my phone to call the doctor, Eddie was acting perfectly normal. The pediatrician told me to bring him right over, so as soon as Dave got home, we went to the doctor.

The doctor checked out his reflexes and his pupils and asked me all sorts of questions. She toyed with the idea of sending us to Primary Children's to get a CT scan, but luckily let us decide what we wanted to do. She was fairly confident that if something were seriously wrong, Eddie would have more symptoms occurring within a couple of hours. So with that assurance, we decided to keep an eye on him and then if anything more happened, then to take him to the E.R.

The doctor told us that she suspected he had a "breath-holding spell," which happens a lot with toddlers. I guess a kid can get really mad or hurt and will involuntarily hold their breath long enough that it makes them pass out, or in some cases, have a seizure. She told us that if that is what it was, it will probably happen again, but if it starts happening too often, we'll have to have him tested for anemia (which can cause seizures, too, I guess).

Now, it is two hours later and Eddie seems to be doing perfectly fine. He didn't have much fun at the doctor's office, but he came out of the ordeal with a sucker which, apparently, he likes so much that he doesn't want to ruin. He just likes to hold it.

Zat?

As mentioned in an earlier post, Eddie can now ask, "What's that?" He does this constantly. No matter where we are or what is going on, Eddie always has to know, "Zat?" He will point at different things and ask. I try to be good about answering him so that he can learn what things are. However, he will also point at nothing and ask. Or, he will point in one direction, look in another direction and say, "Zat?"

He is especially fascinated by lamps, lights, light fixtures, and ceiling fans. Every room we walk through, he points at every source of light -- whether illuminated or not -- and asks, "Zat?" Needless to say, it is getting a tiny bit old. It seems to me that it would be easier for him to learn to say "light" or "fan" so that he could stop the endless questions.

Despite this, he is learning new words. Of course, they are not the most useful words. Here are the two we discovered earlier this week:

Dee-Too

Thanks to Dave's love of Star Wars, Eddie is quickly becoming indoctrinated. Dave found a box of his old Star Wars toys for Eddie to play with, so now Eddie has an R2D2 toy. Also, whenever we enter our office, he sees the Return of the Jedi poster and asks (you guessed it), "zat?" I will hold him up to it to see who he is pointing at and it is almost always R2D2. And so, he can say "dee-too."

Pointing at the fan, asking "zat?" while holding R2D2

Purple

Of all the colors to learn, I thought purple would be amongst the last, right up there with orange and chartreuse. However, as I tried to convince Eddie to color with our new markers instead of sucking on them, I used the word "purple" and Eddie instantly picked it up.

Like I said, not the most useful words, but I suppose they're better than nothing!

In other news, Eddie suddenly got three teeth this week, so he has been a complete lunatic. And he got his second haircut last Friday in preparation for Barton family photos. His hair is so short now that it doesn't matter if we comb it or not. Of course, it is also so short that you can see his crusty cradle cap right through it. Quite the trade-off.

Eddie's response when I asked him to show his new teeth.

And So It Begins...

Many of you may remember that we spent the majority of last winter dealing with colds and croup and ear infections. Once the weather warmed up, Eddie's health improved a lot and we haven't had to deal with very many illnesses over the summer. I was hoping that all of last winter's diseases would have built up his immune system until it was impenetrable. Clearly, I was wrong.

It is now fall and Eddie is now sick. I thought he was just teething, but as more and more symptoms emerge, I think it's time to stop being in denial about it. Dave and I are preparing ourselves for the next six months to be just as bad or worse than last winter.

Wish us luck!

Unleash the Beast

Before I became a parent, I always thought that parents who put leashes on their kids were being ridiculous. Now that Eddie is walking, I have come to terms with the necessity of having a baby-leash. Lucky for us, my friend Mary gave us a cute puppy leash for Eddie.

Today while I was contemplating a solo trip to the library, I decided it might be time to get the leash out of the closet so that Eddie could get used to it. More and more, Eddie insists on walking instead of riding in the stroller. So I can either let him out of the stroller and chase him everywhere, or I can leave him in the stroller and listen to his screams of agony. I am hoping the leash will provide a mutually agreeable solution.


Here is Eddie trying on his new puppy "backpack." The only problem I see with it so far is that he wants to hug and kiss the puppy, which is difficult when it is riding on his back.

New Words

Eddie has been learning a lot of new words lately. I think he is almost to the point where he will repeat everything we say... almost. So here are some of the newest or most frequently used words in Ed's vocabulary:

No

By far the most well-used word that Eddie knows.

Moon

I am surprised to see how many children's books feature the moon. Eddie learned this word because of The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which has a giant moon on the first page. Now, he points out the moon or anything that looks like the moon in every book we read. The problem here is that he is now confused and thinks that cows say, "moon." He is always very careful to pronounce the n.

Spoon

Like every other kid, Ed loves playing with the kitchen utensils. That is how he came to learn this word. The only problem is, it sounds just like, "moon," so we have to interpret based on context.

Fishy

In the past few weeks, Eddie has become more interested in our annoyingly boring fish, Tad. He will walk over to check Tad out several times a day. He also loves to eat goldfish crackers, so it was inevitable that he would learn this word. He's not so good with multiple syllables yet, so it sounds like he's saying, "she."

Buh-Bye

Months after first learning to wave goodbye to people, Eddie finally learned to say the words. This one came from hearing me say it so much. Every time Eddie walks away from me, I say, "bye bye Eddie." Now he finally started saying it back.

Papa

My niece and nephew (Riley and Dax) call their grandpas "Papa," so that is what my dad is known as in our family. Now that Eddie loves looking through our photo albums, I try to name people and point people out to him. He always manages to find "papa" and point him out. This past weekend when my parents were in town, this was all Eddie said all weekend. "Papa, Papa, Papa, Papa." Needless to say, it made Papa happy.

What's That?

Eddie's first two-word phrase! Of course, he combines the words into one that sounds like, "zat!" The only problem with him knowing this one is that he points at everything and everyone and says, "zat?"

Eddie's Therapy: The End

As of today, Eddie is officially done with physical therapy! Julie came by for the last time today to conduct a huge test and Eddie passed with flying colors. His feet are doing a lot better, so we are just going to keep using the sample insert that Julie let us borrow for another month and if he doesn't get any worse, he will be able to be done with that, too.

The test was a little ridiculous, but they have to test him in all the developmental areas before he can be done with therapy. The test itself took over an hour. It might not have taken so long, but Eddie was woken up from his nap by the ridiculously loud rain storm we had from 1:44 to 2:00 today, so his nap was cut short, and he was a wreck. Julie tested Eddie's cognition, perception, communication (both receptive and expressive), and fine and gross motor skills.

Julie started with what we knew he could do already and then worked her way up until we found what he couldn't do yet. It was gross motor skills that put him in therapy in the first place, but now he is in the 63rd percentile! He blew us away with some of his fine motor skills. Julie brought out some big beads and a piece of string and showed him how to thread the bead on the string. She said, "This is hard. He probably can't do this." Then we watched in amazement as he concentrated really hard and got the string in the hole. I also learned that he knows how to put lids on bottles. Where he learned that, I have no idea.

The area he scored lowest on was "self care," which includes things like feeding himself with a spoon, removing his shoes without help, etc. Mostly he scored low on that category because these are things I haven't really given him the opportunity to do. So I guess we'll work on those things.

The only other thing we need to work on now is curbing Eddie's blossoming temper. Dave and I are at a loss as to where all of Eddie's rage comes from, but it has been getting worse and worse over the past weeks. I have suspected that the anger stems from his desire, but inability, to communicate his needs and wants to us. Julie confirmed my suspicions. She recommended that we try to always offer him a choice between two things that we think he might want. That way, he knows that we understand that he wants something and then we don't give him the opportunity to say "no." We'll see how that works out.

Overall, Eddie is doing great. So now we'll be focusing on communication and anger management.

Eddie likes wearing this "hat."

Just Monkeying Around

With our Tracy Aviary membership, Eddie and I can get into the zoo for free the first Thursday of every month. We avoided the last couple of months because of the heat. Lately, Eddie has been showing a lot more interest in animals (mostly in puppies), so I was interested to see his reaction to the zoo. We went along with Christie, Josh, Neil, and Kyle.

Eddie and I got there about 5 minutes before the others, so we went inside the front gate to wait. I let Eddie out of the stroller so that he could have some time to walk around and explore. He walked around in a big circle and eventually I was able to contain him by saying, "Eddie, look! A ball!" He was mesmerized by the ball-shaped water feature, so that is where we spent the rest of our time until the others arrived. He especially liked that he could see his reflection in the side of it.


Once Christie and kids arrived, we attempted to set off to see the animals. I tried putting Eddie back in the stroller, but he refused. I thought he might be okay walking down the hill to the elephants, but two steps into it, he fell flat on his face, banging his forehead on the ground and making his nose bleed. So I carried him to see the monkeys.


Luckily for us, Eddie loves monkeys, so they helped calm him down after his incident. I was surprised that Eddie recognized that all the different kinds of monkeys were, in fact, monkeys. He just kept pointing at them, saying "ah-ah." Besides monkeys, Eddie also liked the bears and the tigers.


The tigers were my favorite part this time around. There are three tiger cubs that were born in June and they've only been out on display for a couple of weeks. We got to see them up close since their mommy was feeding and bathing them right by the fence. They were ridiculously cute. Eddie showed his approval with a point and a "pup!"