Author: The Notorious M.O.M.

Today was Henry’s appointment with the pediatric urologist at Stanford Medical Center’s Children’s Hospital. We had to take all the records and reports from his prior ultrasounds and X-ray so the specialist could check everything out. The doctor and his resident were both incredibly nice and gentle, and were very attentive to both Henry and I. They answered all my questions and gave as thorough an explanation as they could concerning Henry’s condition.

In a nutshell, Henry needs a couple more tests before the doctor will be comfortable giving a definitive diagnosis of his kidney condition. Right now it’s just known as “megaureter,” which is a general term for inexplicably enlarged kidneys and ureters. Henry will have another X-ray test, called a Mag 3, which is designed to show whether his ureters are blocked (thereby indicating a physical impediment to the flow between kidney and bladder) or unblocked (which could indicate a malfunction with the musculature of the ureters). The doc said that if they’re not blocked, the situation eventually will resolve itself without the need for surgery. If they’re blocked, at some point surgery will be needed to remove the blockages, but we’d wait until he’s older to do that. In the meantime, we keep him on the antibiotic, do the tests this coming month, and then see the doc again in March to see what the tests show.

For his part, Henry was an absolute doll the entire morning. The appointment was smack in the middle of his normal naptime, but he slept in the car both ways, and was happy and calm for the duration of the consultation. Oh, and he was in love with the adorable baby he kept glimpsing in the mirror at the end of the exam table :D. And big kudos to the Children’s medical center–the facilities are so nice, welcoming, well-lit, and kid friendly, it is very easy for everyone to be at ease while they’re visiting.

This past week marked my first week back to work, and I’m happy to report that the boys were fabulous for the nanny all week. Knowing that they were in good hands and having fun made my hours at the office, away from the boys, stress-free. They both napped well, played well, and behaved themselves on all fronts. Whew! Finny’s been having a bit of a rough time going to sleep at night, and we think it’s because he’d like to spend more time with Mom-o and Dad-o since we’re both now away a large part of the day. My singing the “Personal Penguin” song to him in his darkened room seems to put him at ease.

This coming week marks our big nanny transition. Carol (a.k.a. Coco) has recuperated from her back surgery, and is coming back full-time as of Feb. 1. This week she’ll be job-sharing with Laurie, who’s been filling in for her since October. Hopefully this will make the transition a bit smoother for the guys–they can refamiliarize themselves with Coco, and Coco can get up to speed with the day’s rhythms, playgroup schedule, etc. And we will miss Laurie, who has been so good to the boys. She is moving back to San Diego with her daughter and granddaughter at the beginning of February.

Other small things of note from this week: Henry had his first official high-chair meal when we went out for pizza yesterday. He’s now stable enough to stay upright on his own in the chair! And Finny has started referring to himself as “Big Goonie” instead of “Binny”. That little guy is as sharp as a tack. When Dad-o pointed to a vehicle in one of his books and said “What’s that?”, expecting the answer, “bulldozer,” Finny replied “That’s a bulldozer scooping sand in the desert!” Why yes, yes it was!

The past week has been a big one in terms of developmental leaps for both boys. It’s so fascinating to watch both of them do things that they couldn’t, or hadn’t, just days ago. In the blink of an eye, so many things have changed!

Henry: Has started supporting himself in a sitting position! He’s working so hard to keep his little back straight and his head held high. He’s also very aware of when he is being left alone, even for a few seconds. He protests quite audibly when he sees his companion(s) exiting the room, and he has his eyes trained on us when we’re moving around or talking. He’s started eating some veggies in addition to his gruel–I mean cereal. We joke with Finn that if he could talk, Henry might say “More peas, please!”. His wakeful periods between naps are lengthening out, and we’re no longer doing four shortie naps per day, we’re down to either 2 or 3 almost-decent ones! If he’s like his mom, the full tummy definitely helps with sleeping.

Finn: Instead of “Finny the Carpenter” or “Finny the Engineer” we have started calling him “Mr. Independent Play.” This is such a wonderful and sudden development. Almost literally overnight, Finn went from needing constant playtime participation and companionship by one of us, to venturing out completely on his own and having his own private adventures. We realized something significant had changed when we were able to eat brunch and chat with our friends for almost an hour while Finn kept himself completely entertained with their son’s selection of toys! And all week he has been making up stories and things to do all by himself. Sometimes he requests that one of us be in the same room that he’s in, but we don’t necessarily have to do anything. It’s very freeing for us, and also fun to observe what our little guy comes up with to entertain himself. His imagination is on fire!

Man oh man, has Finn’s imagination taken flight upon reading Where The Wild Things Are by Maurice Sendak (“Beast Book!”). Today he decided that he wanted to wear a crown just like Max’s “Beast King” crown in the book. He remembered that he had the blue fuzzy crown from his first birthday, and was very specifically asking me to look for it so he could wear it. I found it, and he proceeded to wear the “Beast Crown” all morning, including our outing to “big playgroup”. He wore it until I suggested he take it off for nap time. It was kinda fun explaining the crown to the other moms.

Later this afternoon, he donned the crown again and decided to set sail on the ottoman and climbed aboard: “This is the boat! Sailing to the island! Island over there! (pointing at the kitchen) Have a rumpus!”

When he arrived at the rumpus, I asked him if he was going to swing from the trees like Max does in the book. He walked to the baby gate on the kitchen doorway and started grabbing onto the bars: “This is the tree! Swinging! Bursting!”  When he later heard me telling Dad-O about it, he said, “Mom-O opened the tree!” (Mom-O needed to get to the kitchen to get the Beast King some dinner.)

Faaaaaaantastic.

In the immortal words of John Lennon, “Strange days indeed…most peculiar mama, whoa!”
4: number of 35 minute naps Henry had today
3: number of fullblown nuclear shrieking freakouts Henry had today between naps
2: number of times Mom-o cried because she couldn’t figure out what else to do for him after nursing, dosing with baby Tylenol, changing dipe, rocking, and pacifying him
1: number of emerging teeth contributing to Henry’s wrecked state
So uncharacteristic for our little guy. As a wise parent once said, “bedtime always comes.” Well it came, and Henry’s asleep. For now.

When Henry was born, we had to have his kidneys checked out due to possible hydronephrosis (too much fluid swelling the kidney). His ultrasound (at the ripe old age of 2 days old) showed that his left kidney was indeed swollen, and we have been keeping him on a daily antibiotic to prevent kidney or bladder infections.
At Henry’s 4-month check up, Dr. S ordered another renal ultrasound for our boy, which we did last week at the hospital. Dr. S called us yesterday and said that the swelling is still present, and so she wants us to do further testing to determine if it has gotten worse, and also how serious the condition is on a 1-10 scale. She thinks he is “mild to moderate”, but needs more info. We are scheduled for the VCUG (X-ray test) next Wednesday.
Regardless of the severity of his condition, we will continue to give him the antibiotic and meet with a pediatric urologist to set up a plan to monitor the situation. If it is bad enough to require surgery on his renal valve, we would still wait until he is older to do the operation because he is just still too little right now. And there is still a decent chance that he will simply outgrow the problem, which is what happens in most cases. We’ll just keep checking it every 6 months or so.
Please think good thoughts for us on Wednesday, because the test won’t be any fun for Henry, who has to get catheterized. Hopefully the test itself won’t last longer than an hour. I do hope we confirm that his case is mild or moderate, and not severe.