These are not the droids you're looking for

One advantage to having a one story house is that during a very rainy day, we can still play kickity-kick ball up and down the long hallway down the middle of the house. Little Bit loves to kick and throw the ball. We have to remind him to stay in the hallway with the ball. The hallway doesn't have lamps or expensive stereo equipment to knock over. Little Bit said over the weekend that he wanted to play basketball. So, DH held his arms out in front of him in a hoop shape.

After a few tries, where the ball went flying up and backwards over his head, Little Bit figured out the easy way. He stepped forward and threw the ball up through the "hoop". I love how clever he is.

Daycare actually sent home a note last week saying that we should stop using diapers at all and just go to pull-ups or training pants. Also, to bring lots of extra clothes to school in case of accidents. I guess they really want Little Bit to get all the way potty trained. However, he still won't tell us when he has to go potty. He doesn't seem to care if he's got a dirty diaper. We can smell it, but he just keeps playing and will even deny it if you ask him if he poo-poo'ed. We put him in only pull-ups over the weekend, and we took him to the potty, but he never did tell us before he had to go, and he didn't even go when we sat him on the potty. (sigh)

Little Bit seems to be entering the "threes". He wants to do things himself. He wants things done a certain way. If they aren't, he gets so mad! He'll cry and almost grind his teeth back and forth in frustration. He enters the "No zone", where he will only answer no to any question. Any hope for cooperation is out the window.

I'm doing ok. I think the new prescription is helping with my hormone imbalance, but I still had some grouchy feelings during my regular PMS weeks. Hopefully after a few more months that will even out as well. I still feeling run down and think I still have a lingering sinus infection, because I don't always do the antibiotic treatment twice a day like I'm supposed to. My doc has me on the nebulized antibiotics still and wants me to wean off them slowly. I need to get to feeling better, so I can actually have the energy to start dancing/exercising regularly. I feel so blah about being so out of shape. I used to exercise regularly with dance, so it was fun and not "exercise". Now I'm so out of shape that the last time I got out a dance DVD a number of weeks ago, I was panting like crazy and could barely walk the next day. I didn't even complete the whole workout. Blech.

Updated: Monday, Monday

Starting a few weeks ago, in the middle of the evening, for no reason that we could discern, Little Bit started stuttering his words. He gets moved around a lot during the day at daycare between different rooms. He's bored with the Twos, but not fully potty trained so he could be with the Threes all day. When the Twos teacher is late getting to work, he ends up in a third classroom. (Yes, DH is going to talk to the center director about all the switching classrooms during a day.) DH and I wonder that he's feeling stressed and unsure. I hope that other kids don't point out the stuttering. We don't. We just patiently wait for him to say his thought. Sometimes he stutters more than other times, and not every sentence is stuttered.

The pediatrician said that his child did the same thing at Little Bit's age and to just not make a big deal out of it, that he would grow out of the shyness that is probably behind it. He sounds so shy when he stutters out his sentences and questions. It breaks my heart; it's so sweet sounding.

My little boy is going to be three years old in just over two months. I can't believe it. Where did my little baby go?!

Updated: Yesterday, they officially moved Little Bit up to the Three's room. Little Bit was so happy. He told us very proudly, "I with the big kids now!" How cute - the three-year olds are the "big kids".

"I not in baby's room."

He didn't stutter last night, and he seemed more happy in general. We'll continue working on the potty training.

On being tired, happy diapers, and no pants

Sorry I haven't been posting much the last few weeks, ya'll. I've just been alternatively feeling depressed, hormonal, bitchy, tired, sick, sleepy, grumpy and doc. (Don't tell DH about me feeling Sleepy, Grumpy, and Doc; he doesn't know.) There have been many cute things Little Bit has said or done that I think, I should put that on the blog, but then I just don't get around to it. I'm still trying to shake off the effects of the latest Virus de Daycare.

Sometimes, Little Bit does not want us to change his dirty diaper. He'll retreat to the other side of the coffee table, playing keep away, and say, "No! This one [meaning the diaper] happy!"

They are still trying to get Little Bit to use the potty at school. He's gone in it less than a handful of times. Yet the other day when they ran out of pull-ups for him, they actually put him in just underwear and pants. So, of course he ended up peeing on himself. He came home wearing a shirt, a diaper, no pants, and shoes and socks wet with pee. Nice. Great job putting a kid who's nowhere near potty-trained in underwear.

Though I will say that the teachers and the daycare director do care about Little Bit and the other kids a lot. On Tuesday, his first day back after his trip to the ER for his cut forehead, the teachers were very concerned and said they'd give him lots of attention and love. The center director saw me as I was leaving. After we chatted about what the ER doc had said, she said, "Let me go see my baby", meaning Little Bit, and hurried off to see him. That was sweet.

PfM's Anatomy

And now for the medical update from Chez PfM...Little Bit has finally gotten some relief from his awful diaper rash. My HR got our insurance to pay for an early refill on the prescription diaper rash cream. Our homemade remedy was keeping the rash from getting much worse, but it wasn't going away. With the cream and with the diarrhea finally going away, he can sit on his bottom again! Poor little guy -- he had been standing all the time. He told us that his bottom is happy now!

As for me, I got something for Christmas that I really did not want. A sinus infection. Another sinus infection. Arrrrggggghhhhh!!! My parents wanted to know why the sinus surgery hadn't worked and had I complained to the doc? I told them that all the forms you sign for surgery say clearly that the surgery does not guarantee the sinus infection won't come back again. The doc never promised that.

I saw the sinus doc last week. He just shook his head and said that it was the worst of the worst day -- his worst ear case was there, too, for an appointment, and I was his worst sinus case. Great. I'd rather be singled out for something a little more positive, thanks. He suggested that I need to go back on the nebulized antibiotics, maybe indefinitely, but at least for a few months. I had guessed as much, since the slightest thing seems to cause my sinuses to get infected (I had some sniffles a few weeks ago).

I was so tired of using the nebulizer, but at least I got a little break. If it keeps me from having sinus migraines everyday and from having no energy due to the infections, then it's worth it, I suppose.

*****

Oh, yeah, I discovered that our Cable on Demand has several of Little Bit's favorite Noggin and Nickelodeon shows for viewing anytime. Plus, you can watch some episodes online. Woo-hoo! I don't have to gouge out my eyes from seeing the same few episodes over and over again on our broken/non-recording DVR. If, in a few days, I haven't yet watched the few things recorded on our broken DVR that I really, really want to see, I need to just exchange the darn thing anyway.

More potty talk

Poor Little Bit is still suffering from that awful diaper rash. His rash seemed to be getting better over the weekend. Then, he went to daycare on Monday. I left the cream, asked them to apply it after every diaper change. On Monday night, his rash was worse again. We were back to his begging us not to change his diaper.

On Tuesday, I told his daycare teacher that the rash had gotten worse and to please be sure to apply the cream after every diaper change. When we picked him up Tuesday night and picked up the prescription cream to take home, we saw that they had gone through almost the entire tube. Let me spell it out -- according to my health insurance, this 50g tube of cream was supposed to last for 30 days. Daycare used most of the tube in one day. I don't even know how they could go through that much cream unless they were using it on every kid in class, too!

We tried to get a refill of the cream last night, but the pharmacist told us the insurance company would not pay for it. So, how much is the tube without insurance? $250! Two-hundred-fifty dollars!! That daycare blew through. $@#@#$@!!!

So, DH and I went home, trying to figure out how to handle this. Little Bit is in crying pain, begging us not to change his diaper with this diaper rash/infection, and we're almost out of cream. We looked at the ingredients on the prescription cream -- (0.25% miconazole nitrate, 15% zinc oxide and 81.35% white petrolatum). So, it's Monistat and diaper rash cream (the zinc oxide). For $20 we can mix up our own cream using OTC vaginal yeast infection cream and diaper rash cream.

Several people are going to hear about this -- first my HR person who can say something to our health insurance folks (maybe they need to see a video of our boy screaming and begging us to not touch his bright red bottom). Sure, daycare used way more than they should have, but the health insurance is crazy if they think that tube is enough to last 30 days. Then, our daycare folks will be in for it for wasting a 250-fuckin'-dollar tube of cream in one day. And then, our doctor for prescribing $250 cream without mentioning to us that we could just make our own over the counter for $15-20! Arrghhhhh!!!

We Might Need to Start Bare-Butt Time

Poor Little Bit has the worst diaper rash of his life. It's gotten worse and worse the last few days since he also has an intestinal bug. He tries to bargain his way out of diaper changes, mostly just telling me to put the diapers, wipes, and cream over there and to leave it alone and nooooooo! He cries and cries because it hurts so much to wipe his bottom and to apply the cream.

I'm home with him today. He woke from his afternoon nap earlier saying, "My bottom hurt! My bottom hurt!" He began crying and screaming. We went to change his diaper. No poo this time, so his urine must have really, really burned. I talked to the pediatrician on the phone earlier, and she advised to use the prescription cream we have for yeast infection rashes. I applied that liberally. Within a few minutes, Little Bit finally stopped crying.

He said, happily, "I feel better! I feel better!"

Oh, thank goodness. It kills me when he's in so much pain and I can't help him. My nerves feel scraped raw.

In happier news, I won something way cool over on We Covet - the Ultimate Planetarium from the Discovery Store.

This computer-aided, motorized indoor planetarium allows kids and adults to view the night sky as it would appear anywhere in the world. Projecting 88 constellations, 12 celestial objects and more, it transforms an ordinary room into a stellar display. The planetarium also contains a searchable database with over 600 star facts and interactive talking computer with backlit navigational screen.

How awesome is that? Since I majored in astrophysics/astronomy for my undergraduate degree and worked in astronomical research for several years, this is the perfect geeky gadget to entertain the family.