Missing Lyssie

Alyssa spent most of the weekend with my step-dad and J, my niece. She spent Friday and Saturday nights with them and even though Olivia and I rode the bike over on Saturday afternoon and she spent a good hour in the pool with A and J, she was so very ready for her sister to be home on Sunday.

When Alyssa did finally get home on Sunday, O couldn’t contain her joy. She ran around the room like a maniac for at least a half hour, throwing herself at Alyssa every few minutes, making Alyssa wrestle or just sit and hold each other.

Alyssa laughed and said, “I think she missed me.”

Oh yes, yes she did. As much as Olivia loves me, I’m not nearly as much fun as her wild and crazy sister. I don’t run from room to room with her, watching silly movies, drawing fun pictures, pretending to be a horse or a wolf or even a teacher and making Olivia do ‘homework.’

By the end of Sunday, though, it was obvious that Alyssa was tired from her adventure with Pawp and J. She started snapping at her sister for minor infractions, things that weren’t even directed at Alyssa herself.

I finally suggest that Alyssa take herself to her room where she could rest, read, be alone without an annoying little sister’s voice grating on that last nerve that was obviously so frayed.

Five minutes after Alyssa escaped to her room, Olivia came to find me, asking forlornly, “Did Lyssie go back go Grams? Is she going to stay at Gram’s forever now?”

Poor baby.

As soon as I assured her that Lyssie was just upstairs, O went back to her dolls, fine with playing alone for a bit longer as long as she knew her sister was still in the same house, that she’d come down in a while, less fractious, more willing to play again.

Ortho Referral

Late last week, I had a voice mail from O’s developmental pediatrician. The message said she was calling to discuss the x-ray of Olivia’s spine. She asked me to call her back, preferably in the afternoon.

Now, let me say here that this doctor is awesome but she is also notoriously hard to get a hold of. Her staff is great at putting you off when you call in. I give them credit, it must be tough to constantly field calls for this doctor.

But the message also said to tell the nurse or secretary, whomever answered, that I was returning a call from the doctor herself.

And what do you know? It worked. I only had to talk to three staff members before finally being connected to the doctor.

Dr. S started out by saying that all the bones in Olivia’s spine are properly formed. Yay!! That is excellent news.

But…she said that the curve at the top of her spine, around her upper rib cage, a sort of S-curve that we all have, is more pronounced than your average person. Dr. S even gave me the name of a specific doctor she’d like Olivia to see.

She spoke with a colleague in orthopedics and that doctor agreed that given Olivia’s high risk for scoliosis she needs to be monitored. In fact, we’re being referred to a doctor in the orthopedics department at Riley. I will hear from them in the next few weeks to set up an appointment for her to be seen.

I know, some would sigh and said, “Great, another doctor, another specialist, more appointments.”

But you know what? If we can keep an eye on Olivia with the help of specialists and keep her from being in pain and/or needing extensive, invasive treatments later in life, I say bring on the specialists. Bring on the appointments. The more people watching out for her the better.

Sure, it takes an entire day to make it down to Riley and back for what is usually a half hour appointment but again, this is for Olivia’s health, her wellbeing. I can suck it up and do what needs to be one. After all, it’s not as if Olivia has a choice here. She has no choice but to deal with 5p- and all that entails. The very least I can do is make sure she sees every doctor, therapist, specialist that might be able to help her, to keep her healthy, to give her the tools to overcome obstacles and to be the very best Olivia she can be.

Pleasantly Defiant

That’s how I described Olivia to my mom yesterday afternoon as the girls frolicked in my mom’s pool, my mom and I lazed in chairs on the deck watching them and every so often, Olivia would climb out of the pool to pee in the grass.

One of the times she climbed out of the pool, Olivia spied my mom’s watering can and asked if she could fill it with water from the pool to wash her feet.

My mom nodded her consent and O went about her foot cleaning duties.

Except, she wasn’t so much washing her feet as she was making mud all the way around the pool. She’d dip the watering can in the pool and it would get too heavy for her to lift over the pool’s edge and then she’d have to push the pool’s edge down to haul the watering can, water spilling everywhere, out of the pool.

After the fifth or so time, I told her that was enough.

She put up one finger and said, “Okay, but I just need to do it one more time.”

I told her she was not doing it one more time, she was done making mud.

She smiled a very pleasant, non-naughty smile. “Just one more time.”

“Olivia, I said no. Time to stop.”

“I just want to do it once more.”

We repeated this cycle at least five times, each of us maintaining a very pleasant tone of voice and Olivia continue to smile at me as if her smile would disarm my negativity toward her actions.

I finally just got up and took the watering can out of her hands. She tilted her head at me as if trying to figure out just how serious I was, came to the correct conclusion that I was quite serious and then she went to find a cup, which obviously held much less water and thus was easier to fill and lift from the pool.

When I’m in the right mood, this pleasant defiance is pretty amusing. She honestly thinks that if she just repeats her wishes often enough, always very pleasantly, never bratty, eventually she’ll wear me down.

It never happens, poor kid. But I do so love to watch her delightful tenacity in action.

Consult

During our visit with our GP earlier this week, he gave me a referral to an ENT for a hearing test for Olivia and a referral to a speech therapist. I didn’t actually get an appointment that day with the speech therapist, just her name and number. I was told by the nurse to call her in a couple of days if I didn’t hear from the doctor’s office.

The therapist called me last night.

She sounded lovely on the phone. She was very interested in Olivia’s case while being very honest about not knowing if she has the skills to help Olivia.

We are meeting with her on Tuesday next week because the therapist feels that she can’t make a decision on whether she can help or not without actually meeting Olivia.

So…we’ll go and meet with her. She told me to have Olivia dressed in clothes I don’t mind getting dirty/painted on. She also suggested that O bring something she likes to play with.

We’re at a place where we realize that if Olivia won’t communicate with the person trying to help her communicate, well, what can we do? At six, she can’t write or type her thoughts and feelings. She uses me as her voice when we’re out in public and while that is fine when I’m actually with her, I can’t be there all the time and we want her to learn to speak for herself.

The therapist was encouraged by the fact that while we were at O’s appointment with her developmental pediatrician, Olivia shook her head in response to a question the doctor asked her. She looked to me first but I told her gently, “Sweetie, I can’t answer that. Only you know the answer to that question.”

Once she realized I couldn’t be her voice in that moment, she found a way to communicate. According to the speech therapist, that is a very good thing.

So…here we are. All we really want is for Olivia to have the tools to reach her fullest potential. I’ve said that over and over and over again. I’ll probably still be saying it in fifteen, twenty, forty years. I just want her to find her voice if only because only she knows what’s really going on in her head. And as lucky as I am that she shares that with me, I want the rest of the world to know how sweet, smart, funny and amazing this girl is. And I want them to learn it directly from her, not just hear it from me.

Alyssa and Her Gram

There is something about the bond between a grandmother and her first grandchild. Alyssa is that first grandchild to my mom and their bond is so strong.

My mom wasn’t working outside the home when my maternity leave was up after Alyssa was born so she volunteered to take care of Alyssa for me. She took care of her for the first seven months of Alyssa’s life.

After my mom went back to work, Alyssa and I started staying at her house at least one night a week just to give us a break from our horrendous commute.

Those things really solidified the bond between Lyss and her Gram.

Alyssa is not afraid to ask my mom or step-dad, who is just Pawp to her, for anything. They are just an extension of her family, people she knows want the very best for her.

I am so grateful that she has them.

Of course my mom adores Olivia (and Jaxon) too. But that first child? That Alyssa is a special one to her Gram.

As the mother of the first born grandchild, I can’t tell you how lucky I feel that my daughter and my mother have such an amazing bond. Their relationship continues to grow year after year. Alyssa spends the night with my mom a lot more than the other kids.

There is the fact that at ten years old, she’s perfectly capable of getting herself fed, clothed, is able to use the bathroom with no help whatsoever, can shower on her own, etc. so that is some of the reason but I know the biggest reason is that they just enjoy each other’s company.

I’m just glad that they sometimes let me tag along on their adventures.

Check Ups

Today was a day of appointments. I took a half a day vacation so I could take Olivia to our general practioner for a referral for a hearing test, as advised by her developmental pediatrician in Indy. While we were there, I asked him if he knew anything about selective mutism and whether or not he could recommend a psychologist in the area who might be able to help.

I took the notes we got from Dr. S at Riley. The GP was glad to have them. He said that he rarely gets things like that for his patients and he's always glad to add to their files anything they get from other doctors, especially specialists.

We walked away with an appointment with an ENT for the hearing test and a phone number for what our GP calls one of the area's best speech therapists. He said that even if this woman can't actually help Olivia, she has connections which might lead us to someone who can help. So that's a good thing.

From the doctor's office we headed to the dentist for the girls' cleanings. They were not amused by the day's activities but hey, you know what? Life is not always full of pony rides and cotton candy. Sometimes you have to get shots and flouride treatments. Today was a bonus day because there were no shots, only flouride treatments. Win!

And even better? Both A and O came out of the dentist's office as members of the No Cavity Club. It's always nice to belong to such an exclusive group.

From the dentist we headed for the park because even though I make them go to the dentist every six months, I'm not a complete ogre.

Loud

Last night, after I tucked Alyssa and Olivia into bed, I tiptoed out of the room and prayed, “God, thank you for loud children.”

Because they were so very, very loud pretty much all day yesterday.

On Saturday I bought them both new swim suits for summer. With Alyssa’s sudden growth spurt, none of her old suits fit and hello, you can’t buy one daughter a new swim suit without buying one for the other daughter.

So yesterday, they ran around the house all day long in their new swim suits. No, the weather wasn’t necessarily swim suit appropriate, but it was warmish in the house and that meant they could run around pretending to horses (Alyssa) or Horton (the one who hears a Who (Olivia)).

The horse whinnied often and Horton was, well, an elephant and so she did what elephants do. I can’t exactly describe it but I can tell you that it’s loud.

There were moments, like say, at dinner, when I begged them to be quiet. There were other moments when their level of noise threatened to get on my very last nerve but for the most part, it was just a day in the life.

And…get this, it was mostly fun. For them and for me. I laughed at their antics, I enjoyed their rambunctious play even as I stepped over Horton who was trying to find her lost speck or when I almost tripped over Alyssa’s herd of horses, the ones she was in charge of because, duh, she was the lead female of the herd.

But I love their imaginations. I love that they play together (at times, Alyssa’s herd was threatening Horton’s speck and at other times, Alyssa’s herd was ON Horton’s speck.) I love that they boss each other around and then, in the next breath ask a favor.

I love their voices, the fact that they both use them as well as they do. I know how rare it is for a child with 5p- syndrome to use her voice as often and as well as Olivia does. And because of that, last night I was so, so thankful for loud children.