Train of thought

3:00 a.m.

The sound of a TRAX train coming down the curvy hill at 400 south wakes me up.  It's more than a mile away, but the wheels make quite a racket as it navigates the fault line.

My brain whirls into activity.  This time last night, Ben woke up with a cough and a fever.  We saw the doctor yesterday, and he can go back to school if there's no fever this morning.

I think about D and S, two friends with kids that we haven't seen in a long while.  They used to live right near the squeaky part of the train track.  We keep meaning to get together, but it hasn't worked out in a while.  Maybe we can see them this weekend if everybody gets healthy.  I think about a friend's birthday party I missed this weekend, how to make Valentine's day special for my wife, and what we should do for the brief overlap of spring break for our son's different schools.

zzzzz

My phone buzzes softly next to the bed with new e-mail.  I pick it up and find spam from my older son's Lego obsession.  I also see the mail I got earlier in the evening from a pediatric neurologist.  We're looking for someone to help us manage Ben's case, and she's been very helpful.  It's another expense that won't be covered by insurance, but we have to do it.

My mind drifts to Senate Bill 55, just introduced this week.  That would be huge for us, and many of the families we've met through Ben's school.  The way last year's bill was put down is a painful memory, but we'll keep trying for as long as it takes.

I'm planning to go to the Capitol to talk to our legislators on Thursday, but that's going to be hard if Ben's still sick.


zzzzz

The cat pads into our room and leaps onto my chest, looming over me like a gargoyle.  She reaches out with one paw and squeezes my chin.  I know she wants to be fed, but no way am I walking past Ben's room.  I am quiet like a ninja, but she will start meowing.  I gently squish her to my chest and pet her 'til she's mellow.
I pet her like a Bond villain and my brain starts up again.

Kitty, do not hop on Pop...

I think about how interested Ben was in reading Hop on Pop yesterday - he was identifying words - maybe just by memory, but that's still encouraging.

The ipad has been great for him.  There's one app that involves lots of matching and prepositions and such.  It makes a silly "boop" sound when he picks the wrong thing and he rarely waits to hear the instructions before he starts touching the screen.  One night I sat down with him in a quiet moment and held the pad out of his reach until the instructions were given.  He was getting 90-95% of things right...things we didn't know he knew.

I think about how I need to learn how to make apps.  A few minor changes to how that one was implemented would make it 10x better for him.  Maybe I could even make some money that could help with speech therapy and all those other things our insurance company doesn't cover.
zzzzz

4:30 a.m.

Ben rattles his door.  I slip on my britches and go to check on him.  He's turned on his light and is rocking in his big orange chair, happy as a clam, but bright with fever.

Let the Games Begin!

surprisingly adept snowshoer

I feel like we've been making a lot of progress in our house these days.  With the winter break and holidays and colds and snow everywhere, we've spent a lot of quality indoor time together.  The cat and dog have even come to an uneasy truce.

The best news is that Ben has finally come around to playing board games with me.

I've always felt that games are hugely important for kids and grown-ups both.  Not only are they fun, they provide a structure for social interaction, mental challenge, creativity, healthy competition, gracious winning and losing, building innate understanding of probability and math, and probably a dozen things that aren't coming to mind.

Ben's brother played his first decent game (Busy Bridges) around age 3.  We built an oversize version of Monza that fit his Hot Wheels cars.  We tried lots of different games for the next few years, like Fearsome Floors and Labyrinth.  We even recreated the D-Day invasion.

Boardgames had to be put away as soon as Ben got mobile.  The joyful chaos of flipping the board over was too much for him to resist.  Game pieces were to be strewn about and boards were to be ripped.  If he wasn't devastating our game, he would be wreaking havoc elsewhere, making it very hard to focus for any length of time.

Now, though, we've got at least two games he likes:  Sequence for Kids and Snail's Pace Race.  Sequence is particularly great - we take turns, flip over the next card ("I got an elephant!"), pick out the correct color token, and find the animal on the board.  There's a teeny bit of strategy, but we'll worry about that later.

There's still some joyful chaos - we've misplaced half the dice for Snail's Pace Race (which makes it really slow) and we have to keep duct tape handy.

It's worth it though -- hearing Ben say, "I'm a winner!" made my heart grow three sizes that day.

Happy gas

So, the day after Thanksgiving, I lost a crown.  Of course, the dentist office was closed and I had to wait until the following Tuesday to get a temporary put in.

I can put up with a lot of pain in some ways, but not so much when it comes to the dentist.  I always ask for nitrous oxide.  It has an anti-anxiety effect and it lets me feel dissociated with what's happening in my mouth.

As I laid there in the chair, with my jaw completely numb, unable to speak as the dentist chatted with his assistant and ground away at the stump of my tooth, it occurred to me that this might be the way Ben feels some times.  The dentist would occasionally use some jargon with his co-worker that made absolutely no sense to me.  I was pretty uncomfortable, trying to keep from gagging, and I'm pretty sure my tongue was wriggling around in my mouth like half an earthworm.  Also, I had a strong urge to bite the bejesus out of somebody.

Yesterday, I got the finished crown put in (and got some small cavities filled).  Again with the nitrous...I had lots of deep thoughts about Ben and his "trajectory". 

Got him to wear a hat!

Recently, Ben had his own dental work done.  Up until last year, it was extremely difficult to brush his teeth.  We'd do it, but it was like washing a cat, or maybe trying to brush a cat's teeth while it was on fire.   This would also be happening at the end of the day where we're all pretty exhausted (Ben has sleep issues).  Between treats used as reinforcers at school and the bribes he get at various points in the day, it was leading to a bad situation in his mouth.

I found a dentist who works with special needs kids and although he could only get a quick look in Ben's mouth, he could tell there was work to be done.  There was really no way to do it without sedation.  Fortunately, on the first Thursday of every month, he works with an anesthesiologist at the hospital to do special needs dental work.  After one rescheduling (croup!), Ben got his teeth fixed...and sealed.  There were no problems other than a middle-of-the-night wakening (tube down nose -> irritated esophagus), but it was kind of a multi-day event.

I read somewhere that kids with sensory integration issues experience things differently than we do, such as walking barefoot on carpet could feel as bad as walking on broken glass or the opposite, that everything is kind of muted.  I understand why he has to be knocked out for dental work, and I can totally empathize with the desire to bite.  Hmm, maybe this was a deeper thought when I was on happy gas.

Special note:  Yes, Mom, I will take better care of my teeth, and my kids' teeth.  There is no need to send dental hygiene supplies.