Rebecca’s Blog

Encopresis

If you’ve been visiting my site for awhile, you probably remember all the posts I have made regarding Benjamin’s potty training struggles.  Though he has been pee pee potty trained for quite some time, we have never been able to get him to do many of his bowel movements in the toilet.  I tried simply everything - rewards, punishments, no reaction, making him clean up his mess, and (unfortunately) frustration and anger.  I started to figure he was lazy and just didn’t care.  Turns out he had a condition called Encopresis.

What is encopresis?  Stated simply, it’s fecal soiling.  However, it is not due to laziness.  Encopresis is caused mainly by cronic constipation, which dulls the sensation of needing to do a bowel movement.  It occurs in children over the age of 4 - mostly in boys.  Unable to feel the need to use the restroom, the child soils their underwear involuntarily.

What does this mean?  For us it meant a trip to the doctor and a rigid regimen of stool softeners, scheduled pooping, diarrhea, poo journaling and, of course, a sticker chart and rewards.  Ben was on the the softeners for a week to clear out his system.  For the last couple weeks we have been monitoring his progress and poo, using Miralax when needed.

Progress?  Yes, there has been progress.  Ben does more poo in the potty now then he did before.  In fact, up until today the only accidents he has had was when the Miralax gave him diarrhea he couldn’t control.  Best part is that Ben is actually excited with his progress.  He sees the stickers on his chart and exclaims that he is learning to poo on the potty.  I wouldn’t say the battle is won, but we have taken a step forward.  I see hope for the future.

For information on encopresis, click on the link below:

Keep Kids Healthy

- My favorite of the sites, but there are others.

Preterm Labor

I hardly need state that the last year and a half have been kind of crazy when it comes to pregnancies.  With two miscarriages and a high risk pregnancy, I have definitely had my ups and downs.  Last Thursday was no exception.

On Wednesday of last week, I started having fairly strong contractions every hour.  I wasn’t concerned.  I’ve been having strong contractions for a couple weeks now and they weren’t close together.  However, I was far more uncomfortable than I had been all pregnancy.  Still, no big deal.  However, Thursday I could tell something was different.  I started having contractions approximately every five minutes.

Having never gone into labor naturally and many false alarms, I wasn’t sure if this was just false labor or the real deal.  After a quick conversation with my sister-in-law, I decided I’d better go get it checked out.  I called Ryan home from work - he was there all of 10 minutes - and asked my mom to come watch the kids.

At the hospital, I was put on the monitors and, after talking to my doctor, the nurse gave me a shot of terbutaline to stop the contractions and told me I would be going home once the contractions stopped.  We were told that this would possibly make me a little dizzy or make my heart race.  That was, perhaps, the understatement of the year.  I don’t know if my heart raced, but, instead of dizziness, I about passed out.  I started to sweat, lost all color in my face, felt like I went into a tunnel and had a ringing in my ears.  Though I’m sure it lasted only a few minutes, it felt like I was inside myself for quite awhile.

Once I finally started to come out it, not only did I have a contraction, but the baby’s heart rate dropped from around 160 to 60 beats/minute.  Nurses rushed in, turned me over and put me on oxygen to raise the baby’s heart rate.  Another call to my doctor came back with the news that I was being admitted for the night for observation.  Also, my doctor was coming down, along with a perinatologist.

Anyway, to make a longer story slightly shorter, everything turned out ok and I didn’t end up having to stay overnight.  The baby’s heart rate went back up and stayed up.  An ultrasound was performed to insure that the umbilical cord wasn’t wrapped around any part of the baby.  We did, however, find out that Michael was already measuring 7 1/2 pounds, though I still had 4 1/2 weeks to go.  Also, I have a bit more water in my uteris than I should.

Around 7:30 pm I was discharged with instructions to follow-up at the pernatologist’s office the following day and twice a week for observation for the remainder of my pregnancy.  Due to the large size of the baby, I hope that won’t be more than about two weeks.  I really don’t want to have to go to a doctor’s appointment three times a week for very long.  On the upside, however, I no longer have to take my lovenox shots.  As the perinatologists said, “There are no miscarriages after 36 weeks.”  Hopefully that means I am finally assured a baby.

BEFORE:

AFTER HER FIRST PROFESSIONAL CUT:

THE PONY TAIL GOING TO LOCKS OF LOVE:

THE SASS THAT CAME FROM THE HAIRCUT:

Conversation 1:

Daddy:  I’m gonna have to teach you how to use a baseball bat to keep all the boys away.

Elizabeth:  Daddy, you can’t stop me from loving a boy and you can’t stop a boy from loving me.

Conversation 2:

Mommy:  I’m not ready for you to grow up.

Elizabeth:  Too late!  You already let me have the cute haircut.

Mommy:  Does that mean we have to keep it cute?

Elizabeth:  Uh-huh!

Mommy (to herself):  Oh great, now it begins.

On Monday, my baby turned 3.  I can’t even believe he’s that old.  It seems like the more kids I have the faster they grow up.  Anyway, to celebrate the occasion, Gaga and Papa came over for cake, ice cream and presents.  We had a good time.

We are learning that Joshua is a bit of a chocoholic.  Besides sneaking into and eating a Hershey’s bar that morning, he chose chocolate cake with chocolate icing and chocolate ice cream for his birthday treat.

Aside from the gifts that Mommy, Daddy, Gaga and Papa gave him, the kids each picked out something they wanted to give their brother from their own toy selection.  (This was their own idea.)  Sariah lovingly gave him her dog, Copy, which Joshua has been coveting for weeks.  Elizabeth gave him her dog puppet.  Benjamin was upset that he couldn’t think of anything to give Josh, so I let him choose one of the cars I bought for Josh’s birthday and give it to him.

It was a quiet affair, but a nice evening.

These are going up today.  We’ve looked all around the neighborhood and at the animal shelter.  She’s been gone since Friday night or Saturday morning.  We miss poor Midnight.

Click on the link below to view.  It’s a word document.

lost-for-blog

To those who may be wondering at the title of this post - yes, I know we’re half way through June.  In my defense, the lateness of this post is not my fault this time.  Our computer was down for over two weeks, so I was unable to do any posts containing pictures.  My only internet access was my parents’ computer for 1 1/2 weeks and my kids’ computer after that, which I must say isn’t very helpful online.  SO, that leaves me with no choice than to post one of my characteristic, major long posts.  It really shouldn’t be too bad, though, as most of it is just pictures.  At least, I hope it won’t be bad.  You may beg to differ.

May 26th the kids started their first round of swimming lessons.  Seeing as how we live in the very hot desert, I went ahead and enrolled them for evening lessons, thinking that the weather would be plenty warm as it always is this time of year.  Well, it wasn’t.  The weather started out quite nice for evening swimming but the temperature seemed to drop each day over the two weeks, leaving the kids teeth chattering in the water by the last lesson or two.

The kids actually did fairly well, though some major bribery was needed on Sariah’s part.  She’s my fretter.  She did not trust that her teachers would keep her safe and spent some time crying in the pool.  She did manage to earn her bribe, however, so it wasn’t a total loss.  We just have some major work to do before round two.

Benjamin was the one we were actually concerned about getting to cooperate.  However, by the time swimming lessons came around, he was ready, willing and excited.  Sariah, who was scared to death, had talked him out of his fears and into excitement.  Now he has a healthy love of the water and of sharks.

Elizabeth is beginning to be quite the little swimmer.  Her best stroke is her back stroke, just like her momma.  We do have to work on going in a straight line, however, as there were several collisions.

On Friday, May 29th, we skipped swim lessons and headed to California for a much needed visit with the cousins.  My kids had been begging to see them for months, and, as I’m about to give birth in July, we figured there wasn’t a better time.  Our main activity was to visit Travel Town at Griffith Park in Los Angeles, where many of the old steam engines now reside.

Needless to say, Benjamin was in train heaven.

Ryan and I didn’t realize just how big the old steam engines got.

Kids of all ages had fun walking the tracks.

I swear this picture was unplanned and unposed.  They were all climbing up and I thought it would make a cute picture.

We all got to take a ride around the park in a little train.  See how excited the boys are?

Unfortunately, Grandpa B. was out of town so he didn’t get to go with us, the Mutters and Grandma B.  Luckily, he made it back late that night, so we were able to spend Sunday with him.

Grandpa B.’s backyard is a magical place.  All grandkids love to play back there with him and go on “safaris.” This trip was no different.

Unfortunately, Ben was a little tired from the previous day’s excitement.

(Turn off the music.  I’m having computer issues and can’t change anything right now, so the music doesn’t go with the post.)

It’s always amazing to me what can come out of kids’ mouths sometimes.  Their logic and reasoning skills can surprise you.  Following is a conversation my husband and I had with Joshua, our almost 3-year-old.  It was a couple of weeks ago, so it may not be completely accurate, but you’ll get the gist.

Mommy:  Don’t hit Mommy’s tummy.  You’ll hurt the baby.

Joshua:  I have a baby in my tummy.

Mommy:  You do?

Joshua:  Yeah, right here.  (Lifts shirt and points to belly.)

Daddy:  How are you going to get it out?

Joshua:  (Blank look on face.)

Daddy:  How are you going to get the baby out of your tummy?

Joshua:  (Looks at Daddy, then Mommy and then Daddy again.)  I’m gonna get scissors and cut it.

Mommy:  (Seeing the coggs work in Josh’s head and fearing his actions.)  You don’t have a baby in your tummy.  Only mommies have babies in their tummies.

Daddy:  Boys can’t have babies.

Different from the funnies you get from your younger children is the surprise you get when your older children start to talk to you about the future at an age you never did.  Elizabeth is nine.  Though a bit of a goofball, she will surprise me at times with her maturity and forethought.  Sometimes she thinks about things that many teens don’t even think about until their senior year of high school.  My conversation with her on Sunday was just one example. 

I started off telling Elizabeth how much she’s grown and commented on how she’ll be in high school before we know it.  This kicked off a conversation about high school and college.  In a  nutshell, she wanted to know what it took to get a full-ride academic scholarship to a university.  (Of course, she didn’t use those terms, but she got the message across.)  We talked about the type of grades she’d have to get and what looks good on a college application - service and extracurricular activities.  We covered the different types of activities that were offered in high school and her goal to learn Spanish.  We even briefly covered the wide range of majors offered at the college level and how it’s important for women to get an education even if they are planning be homemakers.

When recounting the conversation to Ryan later, we were both astounded that our nine-year-old was even thinking about college.  We certainly weren’t at that age.  Even as a high schooler I didn’t truly understand the college system, what was offered and what looked good on an application.  Instead of making goals and working my hardest, I basically skated through high school with decent enough grades to get into a decent college.  I hate to admit it, but there you go.  Now here I am with a daughter that is far more knowledgeable about planning for the future at nine than I was at sixteen. 

Perhaps it’s the times and all kids are brought up with this understanding earlier in life.  Heck, kids know much more about computers than we did at their age.  However, I don’t really think that’s the case.

On Saturday the 16th, my mom consented to watch the kids for a day so that Ryan and I could have some much needed time alone.  I was desperately in need of a stress-free day before the baby was born, so at about 11 am we headed out for the day with no plans, little money and a pregnant woman that couldn’t really do any walking.  We would have made plans, but a tight budget and the inability to walk made that difficult in an area where all activities take either money or walking.  We also thought of a drive, but apparently you have to have 4-wheel drive to go on any scenic drives.  Not only do we not have 4-wheel drive, but for some reason off-roading and women 7 months pregnant don’t mix, so we had to stay away from that.  Anyway, after much humming and hawing, we decided to start our day at the temple and see where it went from there.  That must have been the right choice, because the day turned out perfectly after that.

After a relaxing temple session, we talked to my dad about some drive possibilities and then headed to lunch at the Olive Garden - my all time favorite restaurant.  Of course, I get made fun of every time I go because I always order the same thing.  My argument is that I don’t go often so I HAVE to order my favorite thing.  If I went on a regular basis, I wouldn’t feel the need for chicken parmesan so strongly.  However, as it is….  Anyway, after stuffing ourselves silly (we couldn’t take it home in a doggy bag as usual because we weren’t going home), we decided to head out towards Hoover Dam, as Ryan has never been.

Funnily enough, we paid absolutely NO attention to the dam itself.  In fact, very few people did.  Most were taking pictures of this:

This is the bridge they are building over the Colorado River to replace the road over the dam.  There is too much traffic going over the dam, so this is the solution.  You’ll have to ask Ryan all the particulars about the construction - that’s his field.  All I know is that it looked pretty dang cool.

Having paid no attention to the dam, we decided to drive over it (I had never done that though I’ve toured the dam) and see what there was to see on the other side.  The answer: nothing.  There is nothing on the other side except a two lane highway that stretches on for miles into the desert.  It’s only saving feature was that there was a turn off that led down through a hunting range, and down to the Colorado River.

Of course, we didn’t get down there until about 5 pm, so everything was closed.  However, we did get to stop and wait for some friends to cross the street:

These big horn sheep were amazing.  I can’t believe any animal can be so sure footed and fast on these rocky cliffs.

Once done here, we drove back over the dam, still ignoring the actual dam completely, and decided to head back to town for a movie.  Once again, no plans means it was a gamble that we’d even get to a theater at the right time for one, but we managed to walk in right on time for the movie we wanted.  We saw “The Soloist,” which is an amazing true story very artistically portrayed.  Following the movie I had a hankering for a sandwich and a bowl of fruit, so we just dashed across the parking lot to Mimi’s.

Being the old fogies that we are and having 4 children to help wear us out daily, we were exhausted at this point, so we decided to call it a night.  Needless to say, we had a wonderful day that just happened to work out perfectly.  I guess you don’t need money and a good pair of legs to have fun.

P.S. - I can’t really take credit for the title.  That honor goes to Ryan.

Have you ever felt REALLY behind?  I don’t mean behind as in “I didn’t get 3 of the 10 things on my checklist checked off,” but behind as in “I will never catch up in a million years.”  That’s kind of what I’m feeling like now.  I was doing pretty well at getting things ready for baby number five to arrive in a couple months, but now I feel pretty sure that there is no way on Earth that I’m going to get everything done that I wanted to before Michael is born.  I guess I’m going to have to settle for doing my best and let the rest slide.

Having said that, I am fully aware of how behind I am on my blog and I get further behind with each passing weekend, so goal number one that I intend to achieve on my quest for catching up is to catch up on my blog.  I will warn you that it may get a bit lengthy, but hopefully not TOO much so.  I was gonna do some hopefully funny posts on some of this stuff, but I guess I will have to settle for reporting the facts as they really and truly happened with no funny business - which some of you might prefer as I’m really not a funny person, I just like to think that I can be when I want to be.

SO.  First on the list:

PREGNANCY UPDATE!!!

I’m now 30 weeks.  YAY!!!  I’m getting there!!  Anyway, 10 weeks ago, I had my 20 week ultrasound.  Didn’t see the pictures?  Well, that’s because I lost them.  However, now I’ve found them, so here ya go!  They’re not as good as some of my previous ultrasounds.  The baby was too big to really get a good picture, but they’re better than nothing!

A profile of the head.

This is the face.  It’s official, we’re having an alien.

A leg.  Real impressive, huh?  At least we know he has a leg with a foot on it.

Can you guess what the arrow is pointing to?  We had them re-check the sex in hopes that MAYBE they had called it wrong the first time.  (I know this sounds terrible, but I really don’t know if I can handle three small boys.)  Anyway, the fifth appendage has not disappeared.  We’re still having a boy.  I’m getting used to the idea and just want him to get here safely now, which leads into the next bit of pregnancy news:

We had a bit of a scare a couple weeks ago.  Ryan and I rushed down to the hospital with a little spotting, cramps and contractions.  After a couple hours of observation and making me drink about 1/2 a gallon of water, the contractions subsided and I was sent home.  Tests were done at the hospital and the doctor’s office.  Everything looks fine.  I just have to be careful and pay attention to my body.  OH, and I have to drink 1-2 gallons of water a day as dehydration can send you straight into labor.  YEAH RIGHT!!!  I don’t think I’ve made that 1-2 gallons a day goal yet, but I try.  Got to get him here safely!

Finally, when I went to the doctor for my hospital follow-up, the doctor went ahead and measured me.  I was shocked to find that I’m measuring a full 8 WEEKS ahead of schedule.  NO WONDER I’M SO UNCOMFORTABLE!!!  Anyway, everything still looks good.  No gestational diabetes or anything.  He’s just going to ultrasound me one more time to make sure I can actually get the baby out of me.  Having a history of large babies and easy labor (except Elizabeth), I’m sure I can handle it!

MAY 2, 2009

May 2nd was a busy day.  It all started out with having Cujo’s manhood being taken from him.  Everything went well, but he was a pretty pathetic soul when he got home.

Cujo pretty much laid around for the remainder of the day, except when we took him outside to go potty.  Still pathetic, he also turned hilarious.  His rump was bothering him, so he sat down on his rear in the rocks, lifted his back legs in front of him and them proceded to turn around in circles.  I wish I had gotten video.  It was pretty funny.

His predicament wasn’t so funny the next day, though, when he decided to take revenge on us.  He did nothing but everything he isn’t supposed to do.  He drove me crazy and I wondered what we had done.  He’s calmed down since, though.

The second was also a very important day in a young boy’s life - a day when you go from boy to man.

Joshua got his very first shaving lesson.

And finally:

For Elizabeth’s birthday, her friend’s mom offered to give her a cake decorating lesson.  On the 2nd, Elizabeth finally was able to go have her lesson.  The above cake was the result.  Not too bad for the first cake of a 9 year old, huh?

MAY 3, 2009

I found this picture on my camera.  Apparently Ben has found a new way to use the toilet.

MOTHER’S DAY

Mother’s day was really nice.  It started with breakfast in bed, made by Ryan and served by Elizabeth.  Then I started to get ready.  When I got out of the shower, I found this waiting for me on my bed:

Joshua is SUPPOSED to be hiding.

SURPRISE!!!

I got lots of special gifts and cards from my hubby and kids, who all worked very hard.  Later that night we went over to my parents’ house to have a nice dinner with my parents, grandma and aunt.  It was a very nice day.

Well, I guess that’s it.  Goal number 1 done!!!  Not very funny, but accomplished.  I guess I’ll sign off for now.

I am of the personality that needs to “get out of town” fairly often.  I love to travel - both to see family I don’t get to see often and to see places I’ve never seen before.  As I haven’t been anywhere since around Christmas, I was grateful for the excuse to go to Utah, meet a new baby and celebrate a birthday.

Thankfully, my kids are really pretty good on car trips and have very little difficulty entertaining themselves.  Much of the car trip is silent, thanks to napping and snacks, but there are times when what happens in the following video occurs.  I must say that until I had kids, I always thought it was something you just saw in the movies.

Who Let the Dogs Out 4/24/09

We stayed at my Aunt Kim’s house in Eagle Mountain for the weekend.  My kids love to stay there.  For some reason their house means lots of fun, which is strange because their kids are all grown.  Perhaps it’s all the animals, or  perhaps it’s the banter.  For a while, though, I suspected Sariah liked going there because of their son, Daniel, whom I think she had a crush on.  She called him “The Boy” and followed him around.  This time, however, he was “old” at fourteen.

Anyway, we happened to come up on a lucky weekend.  One of their horses had a baby, so we headed out to the stables to see him and the other horses Saturday morning.

They also got a chance to feed an apple to Daniel’s horse, as seen in the following video.  Unfortunately, we didn’t get video of Elizabeth doing it, but you can see Sariah and Benjamin try.

Feeding the Horse 4/25/09

After the stables we headed to a very important birthday party.  My brother’s son, Gavin, turned 2 earlier in April, so we all got together to celebrate.  Triana set out a lovely spread and we all had fun talking and playing.  Unfortunately, I never took a picture with the camera I brought in, so I had to steal Triana’s pictures.  Thanks and sorry, Triana.

On Sunday, we all got up super early and headed to Provo for a baby blessing.  My cousin, Megan, had her first baby in February.  Isn’t she adorable?  As you can tell, she’s sort of had it by this point.  Too many people and too much commotion.

By the way, did you know that you have to be extra careful with your addresses in Provo?  I was given the address to the church and figured that if I messed it up, there wouldn’t be a church there and we’d find our way to the right place.  Afterall, Provo isn’t all that big.  Well, I accidentally changed South to North and East to West.  Having arrived at church we walk in and notice that not only do we NOT see anyone we know, but there are no kids in the congregation.  Yep!!  There WAS a church at the exact opposite address as we were supposed to be at and it housed two singles wards.  Unfortunately, this meant that we walked into the correct church right as Margaret’s blessing ended.  I was SO bummed.

However, we did get to go to the blessing bash afterward.  Here’s the mommy and her precious family addition:

After lunch we headed home.  It was sort of a long trip thanks to the snow and hail we encountered, but we made it home safely.  (Oh, that’s right.  I planned on rainy, but not freezing weather for the weekend.  We got SNOW!!!  At the END of APRIL!!!  Needless to say, my kids were a bit cold on Sunday in their short sleeved t-shirts, but we managed.)

The 18th of April was a fairly busy get-things-done day.  We worked around the house for most of it.  However we managed to squeeze in a little fun.

In the afternoon, we headed to the park for a picnic.  Ryan managed to get some cute shots of them coming down the slide.  (Eat your heart out all you Utahns.  Notice the shorts and flip flops!!)

Then, that evening, Ryan and I had dinner with Ry’s boss.

This is how we found the kids when we got home to relieve the babysitter.

A cute close-up of Sariah and Benjamin.  Apparently Sariah needed to cuddle something.

I guess Josh wouldn’t stay in his crib, so Elizabeth felt the need to confine him to the bean bag.