Doctors and Origami

Yesterday morning I took Ryan and Emma to the International Adoption Clinic at Children's Mercy Hospital in Kansas City. Ryan was there because of his melamine exposure. Emma was there because I think she's still developmentally behind.

Since we were at a hospital they had both babies wear bracelets. Obviously Emma was a bit hungry. Ryan loves this vest that I got him and refused to take it off.

The doctor was wonderful and seemed very knowledgeable. We discussed how to test Ryan for melamine exposure both agreeing that there is no determined best way right now. For now we went with testing his urine and blood and moving on to ultrasound if something shows up. He told me that if something new turns up for testing recommendation they will notify me to bring him back. Otherwise, he looks great. And of course we wait for the results of the blood and urine.

An interesting note, for the first time I got someone to tell me if he has a uvula or not. He won't open his mouth wide enough for me to ever see. Dr. Swanson says that he does not have a uvula but it looks like he DID have one and its been surgically cut! Now I have more research to do...

Emma was up next. I told Dr. Swanson that Emma has always been behind and has a pretty extensive medical history already--RSV and on a ventilator, heart murmur, asthma like conditions, eczema and most recently 4 incidents of staph on her face. I told him that I am not an over reactive mother. If anything, I'm under reactive. But she just seems off. In the end he agreed with me, mostly on her verbal skills. His biggest concern was autism but we both agreed that it was unlikely. She makes eye contact and responds to social cues. But at 16 months she only says one word, Momma. She'll mimic sounds but doesn't use any other words. So she now has a referral to a Developmental Behaviorist. She may not have any issues, and I really hope she doesn't, but if its something I can address now then I want to get on it.

But all that poking and prodding is quite exhausting...

So they had to take a little rest on the floor. Now see if I was an over reactive mother I would have been flipping out that my children were lying on the floor instead of taking their picture.

Ryan had to have multiple tubes of blood drawn so down to the outpatient lab we went. I could hardly believe my eyes when the tech stuck the needle in his arm and he just watched in fascination as the blood went down the tube into the big tubes. I can assure you that if Ross had been there getting his blood drawn he would have been pitching a fit before he even got in the room.

I told you all last night that I had a headache so I wasn't the most attentive mother last night. Throw in the fact that I've been harder on the girls about picking up their shoes, coats, toys and school work and you get this:

Jenna made this last night. She called it her origami. She wrote every one's name on their own triangle. What's so amazing is that she sounded out and wrote every one's name all on her own. Ryan was RIN, Ross is ROS, Emma is EMM and Trace is TRES. This is a child who couldn't remember all her letters at the beginning of the school year despite hours and hours of letter flash cards over the last year. She's come quite away in a few months. But while that on its own was remarkable I'm pointing out what she did to the names. Trace, Ryan and Emma's names are circled because they are "nice." Ross' name is "X" because he's mean. Julia and Jenna have an FYI because they are the only ones who have DS Nintendos. (???) And then there's Mom:

Mom has something that looks like 2 lollipops. I asked her what this meant and it means that I'm kind of mean.

"What?" I asked incredulously "Why am I kind of mean?"

"Because you've been making me do things, like work. That makes you kind of mean."

Just wait until she gets a job!