Kiersten’s Blog

I had a conversation with London’s speech pathologist today.  She showed the video of London’s naso-endoscopy to a couple of different surgeons and they both said that her nasality is not severe enough that they will operate.  They’ll keep an eye on it and I’m sure we’ll have to go back in the future for another naso-endoscopy, but for now, she’s okay.  Hopefully everything will continue to grow with her and she will never need another surgery, but we won’t know that until she’s fully grown.  For now, she can keep going to speech therapy and we don’t have to worry about another surgery any time soon!

London has spent the better part of her weekend working on paper clothes for some paper animals.  I guess she’s kind of making her own paper dolls, except she can’t change their clothes because she glued them on.  She came home from school on Friday with a bunch of little pictures of animals that she cut out, then decided to dress because their “nibbles” were showing — I mean because they weren’t modest.

She drew, cut out, and glued on little clothes for all of them.  Apparently there was a bride and a groom so there are hats with veils, some crowns, and some dresses that say love on them.  She’s such a creative little girl.

On another note, today she said to me (when she was mad at me for not getting what she wanted), “Someday you’re going to be someone’s grandma and you’re going to be a mean someone’s grandma.  But only if they whine.”  That’s right.  I’m only mean if you whine.  And there has been a lot of whining around our house lately.  She got quite hurt at school on Thursday.  They were on their first field trip to a puppet show at Balboa Park.  After the show, they ate their lunches and played on the playground.  She tripped on some stairs and bit through her bottom lip.  I can imagine that would hurt quite a bit.  It was pretty gnarly that day and she couldn’t really open her mouth at all to eat or anything.  It really was sad.  It’s still a little swollen on the inside but healing up quite well.  Anyway, I think her pain has contributed to her whiney-ness lately.  Although she was in such a sad state on Thursday it was kind of nice to have a bit of silence.  If you know London at all, you know that she does not stop talking.  Ever.  Except Thursday.  She couldn’t talk.  Yeah, that’s not an issue at all anymore.

And one more thing, today I was busy with some things.  I walked into London’s room and found this:

Please excuse the unmade bed.

After telling London to not stick her head between the the bars in the bannister, she asked why.  This is how our conversation went:

Me: Your head could get stuck and then you could hang by your head and die and I wouldn’t want that to happen because I love you very much and want you to be around for a very long time.

London: And I want you to be around for a very long time and you’re almost 40 and when you’re 40, that means you’re getting old.  But Papa is 50 so he’s older than you.

*I’m only 32.

Taylor was gone Friday night so I let London stay up late and watch a movie with me after Ashton went to bed.  I told her we were going to watch the “real” Alice in Wonderland (you know, the one with Johnny Depp).  She loves the cartoon one so I thought she would like it.  I had never seen it either.  I was right, she loved it.  It was fun to spend some one-on-one fun time with just her.  She was so excited about it that she went into her room and came out dressed as Alice, head to tow (she told me she didn’t have a black bow so she had to wear the red one).

On another note, today London was telling me that there are three kinds of “twos.”  She’s right.  There’s too, two, and to.  I was amazed to know that she knew how to spell each one and knew exactly what each one meant.  She told me she didn’t learn that at school.  I have no idea where she did learn it.  Did she just pick it up somewhere?  She is one smart, smart little girl.  Even now, she’ll probably get your and you’re more correct than most people.  (It drives me nuts that people use your all the time instead of you’re, but maybe that’s just me.)

We have lived in our home for over a year now.  At first I thought it was because we were in a new home, but London’s fears don’t seem to be subsiding.  I get really annoyed with her and her being afraid.  She can’t be anywhere in the house without somebody else with her.  The stairs freak her out.  She will not be upstairs or downstairs if everybody else is on a different floor.  If she needs to go into a different room to get something or do something, somebody has to come with her.  Sometimes she can go by herself, but not if it involves crossing in front of the stairs (which it almost always does).  When she is in a room, she must close the door, except when she’s in her room by herself, then she wants it open.  She’s just afraid.  She’s okay as long as she’s not alone.  Even just Ashton can be with her and she’ll be fine.  It’s not like he can do anything to protect her from anything, she just wants somebody there.  It really has started getting on my nerves.  I can’t ask her to do anything without her getting all freaked out.  I’m not sure how to deal with this.

She’s not the only one with fears, though.  Taylor’s afraid of talking to people.  I’m not very sympathetic to that because I don’t have that fear (thanks to my dad).  How hard can it be to approach someone and talk to them?  He teaches college for a living.  He talks all day, but one-on-one is very different for him.  I should be more supportive, but I don’t have that fear so it’s hard for me to understand.  But I’m starting to get it.

Yesterday I was in the garage doing some laundry and I noticed, hanging out in front of the door, a black widow spider.  I looked for the Raid but couldn’t find it.  I couldn’t just let the thing live and I would have to pass right by it to get out the door, which I was terrified to do.  I sat and stared at it for a while.  I searched the garage for the Raid with no success.  Finally I decided that my only option would be to take my flip-flop off and smash the thing.  It doesn’t seem like that big of a deal.  I’m a lot bigger than a spider, but I was scared.  I mean, really scared.  I was shaking and everything!  I kept telling myself that it was ridiculous to be that afraid of such an insignificant creature, but I couldn’t hide the fact from myself that I really was scared.  There was one time that I found a spider crawling on my bed, right before I was about to crawl in.  I tried to kill it, but it managed to escape between my bed and the wall and I couldn’t find it to kill it.  Instead of just going to bed, I slept on the floor in my sister’s room and the next day I rearranged the furniture in my room, partly so I could find and kill the spider who had ruined my sleep the night before.  When I think about this completely irrational, but very real fear that I have of spiders, it helps me to realize that although I don’t have the same fears as London and Taylor, I can be empathetic to theirs.  I get what it’s like to be afraid, even when I think it’s something that’s stupid to be afraid of.

I just went into London’s room to put her covers back on her before I go to bed (like I do every night).  She had been coughing and rolled over just as I walked in.  I tucked her back in and without even opening her eyes or waking up in the least, she said, “thank you.”  What a polite little girl!

Lately I’ve been quite busy.  Or at least I think I’m quite busy.  I feel like I have so many things to do and I’m not getting anything done.  Today I cleaned my kitchen.  That was a lot to get done and anybody who has seen my kitchen in the last 2 days can attest to that.  There has been valentines “stuff” all over and I had this bouquet of beautiful flowers just sitting in the middle of the mess.  Sure, there’s still a bunch of valentines candy and cards from kindergarteners, but things are picked up and now the flowers are the only thing on my table.  Speaking of flowers, yesterday Taylor came home from work with a bouquet of roses for me and another bouquet of tulips for London.  I love that she’s his girl too.

I feel like this last week has been a whirlwind.  I need to spend some time tomorrow preparing for the bread class I’m teaching on Thursday.  I’m a little nervous.  I also need to find time to practice my violin.  That always gets pushed to the back burner.  As I was teaching violin today, Ashton was upstairs, mad.  I brought him down and sat him on the couch and he just watched my lesson.  He was so good!  When London was his age, she HATED violin music.

With all of the craziness going on around here lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about what’s important.  I went to a funeral today for the father of a good friend of mine.  His life was cut short because of ALS.  As I listened to the stories his family told, I thought about my family.  His family doesn’t remember the things they got done.  They remember the times they spent together.  And with that, I give you some photos of time spent with my kids recently because I hope to remember this:

Ashton is a bit obsessed with trains for the time being.  Daily he stands (or squats) there in the middle of the track just watching it go around, and around, and around.  It’s a good thing I bought rechargeable batteries.

making valentine bags. I love Ashton's cheesy grin

London all ready for the Kindergarten Patriotic Program at school. I'm proud to say that I made the whole outfit (although she did design her shirt) and I think she looks adorable!

I witnessed the best musical number ever in church today.  That may just be the mom in me coming out, but I really think it was the sweetest thing and judging from all of the comments I heard, I think it was more than just me who thought it was great.  Taylor and London sang a duet together (Love is Spoken Here).  It’s shocking to me that this little tiny 5-year-old of mine can get up in front of a large congregation and sing so well.  She’s almost always right in tune and she can hold her own very well with her part.  Taylor did great too and together they touched a lot of people.  It was really the sweetest thing.  When we went to the church after school on Friday so that she could practice in the microphone and get used to the setting.  She told me before we went that she would be “a little bit shy” but I assured her that nobody would be there that day.  Then today I prepped her for all of the people that would be there and just told her to look at me the whole time, which she did, even smiling at times.  I was so proud.  I hope her cute little singing voice doesn’t change if/when she has to get surgery again.

Oh, and if you’re now all huffy that you weren’t able to be here to witness the musical number live, here is a video for your entertainment.  It was taken while practicing on Friday, hence London’s pajamas (it was pajama day at school).

School starts at 9 for London.  That should be late enough to make it on time every day.  That doesn’t happen.  We live a half block from school so it only takes us about 5 minutes to walk from our door to her classroom, although lately it has taken longer for many reasons.  My goal is always to get out of the house by 8:45.  That should be plenty of time, but most days, 8:45 turns into 8:55.  Here’s what happens (or what happened this morning, but is typical):

8:45 — “Everybody out the door!  Time to go!  London, are your shoes and socks on?  Get your shoes and socks on.  Let’s go!”  I slip my shoes on.

8:46 — “London, are your shoes on?” as I go looking for her.  I find both kids hiding under London’s bed, neither with shoes, but telling me they both have shoes on.  I tell London to get her shoes on as I throw Ashton’s on him.

8:48 — London’s shoes are still not on.  I finish putting Ashton’s shoes on while London is slipping into her boots.

“Are you going to wear your boots today?”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to wear socks?”

“No, I don’t want to.”

“Okay.”

“I decided I don’t want to wear my boots.”

“Okay, get some socks, what shoes are you going to wear?”

. . . and the conversation continues much like above.

8:51 — All shoes are finally on, but London takes hers off (which I had just put on her because she, of course, wasn’t putting them on herself) to scratch her foot.  She puts her shoe back on and fights with Ashton for the magnadoodle.

8:53 — I yell at London to give Ashton the magnadoodle back since he was the one with it in the first place, plus, we HAVE to go NOW!

8:54 — I find a clip and throw it in London’s hair.  Does it look good?  Probably not.

8:55 — I hear the first bell ring and know there’s no way we’ll make it on time as I’m putting jackets on the kids.  We run out the door and run up to the gate as London is whining, “My knees hurt.  I can’t run!  Stop walking so fast, Mom!”

8:56 — We make it to the gate of our complex and I ask London if she has her lunch.  Of course not.  I sprint back into the house, grab the lunch and come out the back door (just below the gate where the kids are still waiting).

8:58 — We walk through the gate and begin our sprint down the street to the school while London is still whining about her knees hurting.  I realize that I don’t think she went to the bathroom at all this morning and while hoping she won’t pee her pants at school and glad she was wearing leggings (easy to pull down to pee), I tell her to go to the bathroom at school.

9:00 — The tardy bell rings and we’re only halfway there.  I carry Ashton to speed up the process, but he’s not the slow one.  The whining and complaining about sore knees continues.

9:03 — Finally in the classroom and I think about how tomorrow is going to be different.  But who am I kidding?  It probably won’t be.  Then I remembered the report card I found recently from grade 2 (not second grade, remember I was in Canada).  My teacher commented on what a good student I was, but that I needed to hurry to school.  I guess it’s hereditary.  Poor girl.  She’s doomed.

For a number of years now, London has received speech therapy.  Most people who listen to her wouldn’t hear the slight nasality in her speech.  She was a little slow to speak in the beginning, not really making sounds besides “un” until she was around 18 months old, when she started speech therapy for the first time.  She quickly caught up with her peers and didn’t need it for a while.  After we moved to San Diego and started seeing the cleft palate team we are seeing now, she started speech again.  The speech therapist, in a team meeting, discovered some bubbling and nasality in her speech.  This was two years ago.  We have been seeing her pretty regularly since then.  We have seen improvement, then we have seen decline.  We are never sure if she can quite control this issue, as sometimes it doesn’t seem like an issue at all.  We went in for an appointment in December and without much listening at all, her therapist said, “It’s time.”  We had talked about this being a possibility before, so I wasn’t surprised when she mentioned that we would need to schedule a naso-endoscopy.  We prepped her for the appointment.  Chrissy (her therapist) made her a coloring book all about how London’s insides would be on TV and how she would be a star and how “Oscar the Worm” was going to go inside her and take pictures.  She was excited.  Today was the day of her big television debut and she missed most of it because she was crying the whole time.  Oscar took a look right up her nose and down into her throat.  He is a small camera and light inside a tube that feeds through her nose and checks her out down in her throat to see if everything is functioning properly.  It was a quick procedure, where she had to say a few simple sentences while “Oscar” showed us what was happening.  When we say certain sounds (the K sound or the G sound) the back of our palate closes off our nose so that air doesn’t escape.  As we learned today, London’s does not do that.  It somewhat closes, but it doesn’t close all the way.  We re-watched the video once everything was over and done with.  It was quite fascinating to me to see the inside of her throat.  Apparently the side walls of her larynx are also supposed to move inward and help close the gap, but they were hardly moving at all.  I was able to watch that, and even see her vocal cords.

We knew from the day after she was born that London would for sure need one surgery.  We didn’t know anything past that.  We hoped that it would only be one.  We counted our blessings as we met others with similar birth defects (but much more severe than hers) who had many, many surgeries.  From the results we saw today, it’s a high possibility that another surgery will be in her future.  We still have yet to meet with the surgeon, so we’ll see what they have to say.  For now, the nasoendoscopy is over.  It wasn’t a pleasant experience for her, but she came out of it with a book from Chrissy.  I don’t know how she did it, but Chrissy found London the most perfect book.  I don’t think I as her mother could have found a book that she would have been so excited about.  So at least she’s happy.  And she’s well.