Monday, April 19, 2010

Potty Trained

Since a few people have asked how the potty training things is going I figured I'd update in that area too. As I mentioned in my comments on the "Self Training" post, he entered a stage of being too lazy to bother with the idea. Once I realized that this just meant I had to be a bit forceful on it we were back on track.

In the past 10 days we've had one accident ... which was at a birthday party where he was just having too much fun to remember to come pee. In some way that's just as much my fault as I should be more diligent when I know he's have lots of fun and may "forget". So I'd say he's doing good!!! :)

Being dry at nights or naps is still a long ways away, but I'm quite happy with just daytime trained for now. Currently this seems to have helped with his excessive wetting at nights and most of the time he has not soaked through everything when I go to him in the "middle" (usually 5-5:30am) of the night because he wants a "bobby" (yes my almost three year old still drinks a bottle ... and in bed to make it worse). I change him then, give him his "bobby" and tuck him back in to sleep some more ... he wakes up 1-2 hours later and is dry and ready to pee on the toilet. Works for me!

I really don't remember potty-training time with my other kids, so I could be wrong, but I'm thinking he's been my easiest kid in that area ... so far ... we'll see how long it takes before he's nighttime trained!

Sunday, April 18, 2010

"Don't Fall Mom"

Just a quick post to say that Matthew's cast came off this week. He only had to keep the small cast on for one week. Now we just wait to see if a "lefty" was created out of the process :) So far he continues to use his left hand, we'll see what happens once his arm strengthens up. (Due to the rivalry between lefty and righty in our house - I'm the only lefty - Rob has threatened to break his left hand just to make sure he remains right handed ;)

Matthew's fear of breaking his arm again is present in the fact that he continues to say most times when I carry him down the stairs "Don't fall mom!!" Yet, he does still want me to carry him, so I guess that's a good sign.

While at the doctors I inquired about how long a sprained thumb should take to get better seeing as my thumb seems at a standstill in the improvment area. The first days I did no special treatment to it since the ER Doc said I could continue to use it, but as it continue to get worse and worse I finally popped on the internet ... my handy backup doctor ... and did some research. After which I decided to splint the thumb for about 5 days to give it proper rest. I then slowly began to use it again and by the end of the second week it finally had stopped throbbing and aching so much. But that was the extent of the improvement, it continued to hurt quite a bit and be very restricted in it's use. The doc explained that there are three levels of sprains, usually taking 2, 4, or 6 weeks to get better. So I'm guessing I fall into the third level. He sent me off for an x-ray just to check it out, but since I haven't heard anything back I assume there's nothing out of ordinary and I just have to be patient.

So that's the only remaining result of our fall. Amazingly my neck and back were better quite quickly with no long term effects. This is extra amazing because of all the ongoing neck and shoulder problems that I have ... and sort of makes me wonder again (not like I really stopped wondering) as to the cause of this ongoing problem since logically something like this should have really had a much greater impact on that part of my body. I guess it just falls in with the normal "Wacko-Steph Syndrome" ... doing the exact opposite of what would medically be expected, having no logical explanation, not following what "the book" says. But whatever the case I remain extremely thankful that it didn't end up in anything more serious or longterm.

Thursday, April 8, 2010

Cast Off, Cast On

We arrived at the hospital yesterday morning just before 8:30 am for Matthew's appointment to have his cast removed. Since we were a bit early I asked him to stand by the tree (he keeps talking about standing by the tree now :) so I could get a couple pictures of him and his cast, as I wasn't sure if he would be able to keep the cast or not.

Matthew is like his mother and his sister Becca ... we just don't take good pictures and always look doopy or half a sleep ... or simply ridiculous. It's difficult to get a nice pose picture of him and best to simply have him not looking or doing his own thing.






















Waiting for the nurse to arrive




















Cast removal time. The tickle machine ... and yes he is laughing so she must be telling the truth when she calls it the tickle machine.
















Cutting the padding under the plaster.
















It's off!!!!

















He sat there for a bit with his arm straight, until I slowly put it down for him and told him he could move it. Of course his muscles were sore and felt funny.
Next it was off to the x-ray department. While waiting for our turn Matthew wanted to look at the cast (yes, we got to keep it). He kept commenting on how his arm had owees and then he started trying to put the cast back on. He would tell me his arm hurt and he wanted it back on.
The next couple pictures aren't the best as I took them quickly as to not disturb them in their work.
















He is so unbelieveable cooperative ... something I would never of dreamed of a year ago. I smile with pride as I think of how much he is like his big brother. We got into the x-ray room and he knew what he had to do. He sat on the chair and promptly put his arm on the black x-ray film laying there. On the picture below he had to hold his arm on it's side ... which he knew as he already did that for her when he first sat down (but she wanted a flat one first). He is just getting way too big!!!
















Back to the waiting room to see the doc. Doc came out and said it all looks good but there's still a hairline fracture (in otherwords a very tiny amount not healed yet) and he sort of wondered whether to recast. No doubt in mind ... put another cast on. Matthew hasn't slowed down the least bit with a cast on so might as well put it back on instead of giving the chance of doing damage again.
On goes the cast, this time a fiberglass one ... and a short one ... so nice!!!!






















They couldn't believe how still he sat and how good he was. She told him he couldn't touch the stuff while she was working because it would be sticky and get colour all over him. He just put his arm out and watched her work. Afterwards he had to wait five minutes for it to dry, which he did, without even trying to touch it. And when I checked a bit later to see if it was dry he was sure to point out that I shouldn't touch it because it was "sticky". But once I told him it was dry he was quite happy to give it a good feel.
Another "brilliant" Matthew face

















I told Matthew I wanted to get a picture of his new cast. Here he is showing it for you to see.





















And a couple better ones (with the aid of his sisters to get him to smile ... hence he's looking up)!! :)