Fickle Friday: Week Recap
Posted: May 31, 2013 Filed under: being Korean, Down syndrome, emotional stuff, kids, medical stuff, personal growth, the future | Tags: Down syndrome, Homeschooling, humor, inappropriate humor, medical intervention, Parenting 14 CommentsI’ve been trying to write on and off all day. Maybe because I’m sleep deprived, maybe because my mind is trying to hold too many things all at once. My heart is fickle today. The kids, disability, laundry, extra chromosomes, preschool, echocardiograms… Sometimes I feel like my skull is full of marbles just crashing into each other at random intervals. I think I have maybe five really big posts in my head and I can’t seem to get any of them out. Bullocks.
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Always thoughtful, even back then.
Mouse is leaving preschool next week. I’m looking forward to spending the summer blissfully sleeping in every morning (thank gawd, because sorry sweetie, but you are awful in the mornings). The girls will wake up, well rested, get themselves dressed, eat breakfast without struggle, and we will set of on some magical journey of discovery each day. Shhh. Don’t say a thing. This will be the way my summer goes.
Come September, Mouse will be attending a Spanish immersion transitional kindergarten class. Five full days a week. Yup. Big kid school. Hellz yeah.
I’ve been surprisingly affected by the idea of her going to a “real school”. I’m mixed on the school thing, honestly. Homeschooling is floating around. We like the immersion school that Mouse is going to attend, and I like the idea of her learning Spanish, but homeschooling really appeals to me. More accurately, the learning environment of the modern classroom does not appeal to me. I’ll write more about it, I promise, as I’m sure many of you are already lining up what you’ll say to me about why school is important. I’ll be ready for ya.
Back to preschool “graduation”. She seems so grown up, and I can’t stand it. The same little baby whose separation anxiety was so bad that I quit my job is now a fairly independent little girl. I imagine this is just but the tiniest of wee slivers of what empty nesters must feeling, but I did get a flash, just for a second. I did so much for that little baby and not only does she have no memory of it, but she’s going to take everything I give her and use it to leave me. Now kindergarten, later maybe college, then into full-blown adulthood. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about physical leaving. I’m talking about the process of her gradually coming into herself. Emotionally leaving me. I know it is exactly as it should be, but I can already feel the pangs of things to come. Sniff.
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LP got his follow-up ECHO this week as well. Thumbs up. The two holes in his heart are both smaller. He doesn’t have any sign of pulmonary hypertension, which is what the pulmonary doc was holding over my head as the big boogey man problem with not treating LP’s sleep apnea. Cardio doc said in most circumstances he wouldn’t want to see LP again for six months, but we’ll go back in three, just to please the pulmonary doc. Ya hear me, pulmonary doc? Lay off now, ok?
While we were doing the ECHO, I was struck again by the beauty of the human body. I watched the ultrasound tech take pictures of the various structures of LP’s heart, and it looked eerily beautiful. The pumping of the valves looked like a ghostly bird, trying to take off despite that it will forever sit firmly in his chest.
On another slightly random note, in Chinese medicine, the heart connects to one’s mental activity and emotional reactions. Its health reflects in the face, and it opens out to the tongue. Makes me wonder what a Chinese doctor would have to say about LP’s health.
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My comb over was more dramatic until my parents treated my thyroid deficiency. What a lost opportunity.
Speaking of LP (I know, I never write about him here), we finally seem to be out of the more intense medical guessing games. We went to another pulmonary doctor to get a second opinion on LP’s sleep study. She looked at the study, and said, “Meh, you could try doing a CPAP mask, but I don’t think your son’s sleep apnea is of huge concern.” Contrast this with our original doctor who was scaring the bejeezus out of me over potential pulmonary hypertension and huge brain function deficits. I just had to roll my eyes and carry on. We’re probably not doing a CPAP mask.
Intervention-wise, we are treating his thyroid, however. I know I’d already mentioned it, but holy cow, what a difference. His skin cleared up overnight and turned into the classic soft baby skin. His hair started getting darker and thicker.
I was actually sort of bummed about the extra hair, because I’d been plotting to take a picture of his amazing dictator comb over, but now it isn’t nearly as dramatic. Dictator comb over, you say? Why yes. If Hitler could have had a baby with Kim Il Sung, I believe that baby would have resembled my child. Yeah, I went there. I think it is ok, we have legitimacy. I’m Korean, Latke is Jewish. It’s cool, right? If anyone had legitimacy in making this particular inappropriate joke it is us.
Anyways. I digress. Thyroid meds, check. CPAP mask, no. Dictator comb over, disappearing as you read this strange disjointed blog entry.
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I know this entire post is haphazard and strange, but like I said, that is how I’m feeling. I do have some things I really want to write about. Dolls for Downs really sparked an interesting realization on how limiting children’s toys are in general, which made me rethink the idea of what a toy even is. I’ve been thinking about risk, death, disability, pregnancy and Ethan Saylor all come together (I swear it does in my head). I’ve been thinking about the random funny ways I don’t understand American culture references. The word “broken” keeps coming up, and I wonder whether or not it is fair to use in describing a person. I’ve been thinking about homeschooling, homebirth, vaccines, and the government.
Oh, but what to actually pick out in my brain and write about? Makes me wonder what you, friends, are thinking any given day. Are y’all as scattered as I am? (Let’s not actually answer that with too much honesty, lest I realize that I’m the only one.)
Happy Friday. I hope your weekends are filled with minimal crap and maximum joy.
Kimchi Latkes 
You crack me up! I don’t even know where to start with this. ;) Yay for good echos and thyroid meds working! Boo for kids growing up way too fast. Yes…my mind is full of all sorts of things that I can’t write about because its all jumbled in my head! To end this…LP is so freakin cute!
“I don’t even know where to start with this.”
Girlfriend, that is the precise problem! ;)
I think that all moms of little ones experience the random flight of thoughts pinging around in the brain. I sort of think its actually a miracle that any young Mom is ever able to focus enough to think, “Grilled cheese”, much less “homeschooling”. I love that you are so funny and upbeat! I’m sure that your summer will be totally idyllic.
And this long time public school teacher thinks that every family is unique, every kids is special and every educational experience has merit. You do what feels best for you and yours; you only get one chance at this life. Make it work for you!
“And this long time public school teacher thinks that every family is unique, every kids is special and every educational experience has merit.”
See, I get the distinct sense that some people do not see homeschooling as an educational experience. That troubles me. I think this might be something I do need to write about, and I’ll be so curious to hear your thoughts! Now if only I could come up with some sort of magic potion to stop the random brain pings, I might actually be able to write something…!
I think you’re right; some people absolutely look down on homeschooling. And I am sure that some of it sub-par. But some is spectacular. Some public schools are sub par, some is great. Some charter schools are terrible, some are phenomenal. Its the sweeping generalizations that bother me, and the defensiveness that some many of us feel when others make different choices than ours.
Its hard to raise a family! You need to do it your way, when you make the most informed decisions possible.
And good luck with those pings…….I sure do understand those!!
Congratulations on big-kid school! My 4-year-old is just missing the kindergarten cutoff in our district, so they won’t let him start till September 2014, when he’ll be almost 6. The boy is reading and writing in 2 languages, and has a grasp of addition, subtraction, and a bit of multiplication. By the time they will let him start school he’ll be reading Harry Potter. So yeah, talk of homeschooling is getting bandied about here, too. At least, I’ll be homeschooling him for K next year and hope they at least put him in 1st when he does start. We shall see.
Yay for clean bill of health for LP!
I hope you write about the kindergarten homeschooling, I’d love to read about your experience!
I started home-preschooling my boys almost 2 years ago. The first year I blogged extensively about it, including detailed curriculum, pictures etc. This year I hardly have a few posts, but maybe I can get back into it for September.
http://www.lemalah.com
This:
“I did so much for that little baby and not only does she have no memory of it, but she’s going to take everything I give her and use it to leave me. Now kindergarten, later maybe college, then into full-blown adulthood. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not talking about physical leaving. I’m talking about the process of her gradually coming into herself. Emotionally leaving me. I know it is exactly as it should be, but I can already feel the pangs of things to come.”
I feel this with my kids so much, I sometimes ache with it. Milestones have always been bittersweet and emtional for me where they concern my kids, and I felt it from the moment I gave birth to Kevin. I missed having him inside me, a part of me, with me always, so much, it was like this physical longing for a long time. And I have this very clear memory of when he was in fifth grade, and I had for some reason walked him to his classroom this one morning (he had long outgrown that), and I was standing in the classroom on the periphery, just observing, and he was standing with some friends, laughing, and this realization hit me so hard I almost cried right then and there, that he had a life apart from me, he was growing into his own life, slowly but surely, and I realized in that moment that from the time we give birth to them, it is a letting go by degrees.
Ack.
Homeschooling. Interested to hear your thoughts. I never really understood it, why anyone would do it, but now I get it. I wish I were cut out to do it, but I know I’m not.
Yeah, exactly. I have those moments too, and my oldest is not even five years old. Even now, I know she hides certain thoughts from me, and it makes something in my heart explode a little bit when it happens.
Homeschooling. I never thought I could do it either, but lately I am questioning that idea a lot. Lots of questioning going around these parts lately. :)
lol, I have to see the Dictator comb over, I am cracking up at just the thought of it!! And it sounds like you have some pretty interesting topics swirling around in your head. I hope you post about some of them!
Sadly, the dictator comb over is disappearing as we speak. His mohawk had fallen down into the most kick-butt comb over, but now with the thyroid treatment, all his hair is filling in. Total bummer. ;)
One day, many many years ago I looked at Marcus, who was talking to himself, and said, “What are you thinking?” He held up his hand and said, “My brain is busy.”
It is now our catch phrase for what you describe, just this morning I started my own writing with, My Brain is Busy…
Best to do like you do, write it out to sort it out.
Thanks for sharing along the way!
I remember that from an earlier post you wrote, I might have to steal it!