Schedules and Routines

Little Man is now 4 years old. He is crazy smart. He is really into numbers and time.

Since his dad and I are going through the Big Crazy Mess (i.e. Divorce), he has had some issues adjusting to things. Apparently, the house rules I hung a couple months before we left are still up at the house. I don't know how well Little Man's dad follows them. But I recreated the rule chart for our house.

I got most of these rules, in some way, from the Duggar Family's House Guidelines. Granted, they have 22 different guidelines and we only have 10, I think ours work for our family. We even adapted some of these for our Sunday School class! (You can see them here along with our other bulletin boards.) For Little Man, if he breaks one of the rules, he loses a toy. His favorite toys right now are Legos. So you can imagine that this makes the most impact if he loses his Legos.

Because Little Man is so fascinated with time right now, his schedule goes beyond a typical picture schedule like you might use with a typical 4 year old. Little Man can read a lot of words and has a very good memory. And since kids need a schedule and routine, this is Little Man's schedule:

We've also started doing chores. I've been really bad about remembering to do things like a sticker chart or something like that. So I went looking. I found Kid's Chore Chart Cards at Confessions of a Homeschooler. I liked them, but I didn't have a pocket chart and I only have one kid. Thankfully at the bottom of that post, she linked to Shining Our Light's Chore Chart. I liked what she did. The only thing I didn't like was the prize box. Yes, I'm one of those mom's who is against an allowance. Well, not really. But in our house, a chore is something you do to help others. (It goes with #9 on our rules.)

Well, I had set it up very similar to Shining Our Light's except I didn't have the "Little Man needs ___ tickets today." Initially, I had them all being "chores" but just recently, we realized that some of them are more "routine" and should be done daily and not "chores."

So we have the following:

This is Little Man's Routine. They are things he needs to do EVERY DAY. He has 4 things in the morning and 3 things in the afternoon/evening. And even though he is 4 and working on getting rid of his nap, he still needs one. If he doesn't have one, he gets CRANKY in the evening! The "Clean Play Room" means he has to pick up ALL of his TOYS wherever they are, his room, the living room, the playroom. When he does his routine he gets tickets:

That last spot is for his "Best Bee-havior." If he is on his best behavior all day and doesn't back talk, fuss, argue, and basically follows all of the rules, then he gets this last card. If he gets all of his tickets, he gets a sticker:

When he gets all his stickers he can have tablet time.

Now, he does have other chores. Remember when I said earlier that if he misbehaves he gets a toy taken away? Well, he has the chance to "earn" those toys back by doing chores. Right now, he only has 3. We are going to eventually do 4. When we have no more toys that he has lost, he will just have to do them. Maybe there will be an allowance or a reward or something. I don't know yet. So this is what we have to track those chores:

He has things like:

Empty the Dishwasher (the things he can: silverware, cups, etc)

Set Table (put the silverware out, butter, things he can)

Clear Table (what he can)

Put Dirty Clothes in Laundry (this is actually help put them in the washer)

Fold Laundry

Put Laundry Away 

Take Trash Out (help with bathroom trash cans)

Clean Bathrooms (he has to help wipe down the surfaces)

Dust Living Room (this could be his room, play room, etc)

So far this system has been working. I know it will need tweaking as he gets older, but it's a start for right now.

Milestone Monday: Teeth and Spaghetti

So the past month has been kind of rough. After we had our crisis of the stomach flu, Princess cut her first tooth! Actually, I probably should have known she wasn't feeling well because I noticed the tooth had finally popped through the day she got sick and she wasn't fussing about it. But then, right after that first bottom tooth, the one beside it popped through too! So it was like 2 to 3 weeks STRAIGHT of teething pain! And because of her PHA2 and the medication she's on she can ONLY have Tylenol. Glad I got an updated dosage at the pediatrician's when we went in at the beginning of January for her Synagis shot.

One of the other things that may not seem like a milestone to everyone else, but is kind of a big deal to me, is that Princess got to have spaghetti! (I'm working on a post about her dietary restrictions.) One of the things she can't have a lot of is tomatoes. This includes things like ketchup and spaghetti sauce. Well, we managed to find ONE spaghetti sauce that is lower in potassium. And the way we mix it all in with spaghetti noodles, she really doesn't get THAT MUCH sauce. And now that she is really getting good at feeding herself, she got to have spaghetti with us for the first time! Like any other child, she wore most of it. Fortunately, we took her clothes off and let her eat it that way. Then she went STRAIGHT into the bathtub!

Princess is sitting up well by herself. Feeding herself well and we are working on crawling. She may be 10 months old, but we're not really close to the point of crawling yet. Her therapist comes out once a week, and we play. She loves the toys he brings (as does Little Man) and we are trying to find new ways to get her on all fours without her screaming at us. She is generally a happy little girl, but she does have a temper. She's curious and into everything. She sometimes gets frustrated because I think her brain tells her that she needs to get to something, but she just can't figure out how to get there. She'll figure it out soon enough!

WOW! A Month?

How did  a whole month go by and I didn't update this blog? Wow!

A lot has happened in the past month. I'm going to do a Milestone Monday tomorrow and some other updates this week, hopefully, as well.

Princess had her big developmental clinic appointment last week. I'll be doing a post on that.

She sees the nephrologist next week. There will undoubtedly be a post on that.

I've been having issues getting her formula. Yeah, probably a rant post on that when it ever gets accomplished.

Little Man has been having infrequent schooling due to some of Princess's appointments, but we get to have a full on week this week! So there will be a school update.

There will also be an update about our routines. I have to go in and redo our calendar board as it's kind of not liking the constant weather change of our sun room. Eh. I guess it was to be expected!

Oh, and we ordered me a new bed! So yeah, in a couple weeks, after we paint my room, there will be a post on that. And we are planning on going to the coast for the three day holiday weekend. So there will be a post on that! As you can see, I've got a lot coming up, I've just got to sit down and do it! Okay, off to upload and update pictures for the blog!

Crisis Averted

I was going to post this earlier, but life has kind of gotten in the way. I was also going to post a catch-up on Shut-In Saturday, but this is why I didn't.

Saturday afternoon, Princess came home from her visit with her dad and took a good nap. She slept from about 2:30 until about 4p. When she woke up at 4p, she should have been hungry, as she hadn't had a bottle since 11a, but instead, she was still sleepy. She dozed on me until 4:30p. When she woke up from that, she puked on me. This was true puke, not spit up. I didn't freak out initially, outside of the fact that I had to go change her and myself. But then, while I was changing her, she puked again. And then she did it again. At that point, I had pretty much made up my mind to take her to the ER, but called Dr. K. Even though he's her cardiologist, I know I can get a hold of him. He said that she needed a work up. So off we went to ER at 5p on a Saturday.

We were checked in and barely sat down before they called us back to a room. We were hardly checked in there before a nurse was in to see us. The nurse wasn't even done with vitals before the doctor was standing at the door. Her heart rate was in the 140s and her blood pressure was 124/62. (YUCK on both accounts!) I was so glad I had a hot sheet for her listing her meds, docs, and diagnoses. It made things so much easier. After filling them in on the PHA2 (lots of "what is that?") and the fact that she is currently getting Synagis (more "what is that for?") and the LVH (they all knew that one!), the doctor decided to do an electrolyte panel and give her a shot of Zofran. Zofran is an anti-emetic that they started using with cancer patients and have now approved for kids as well. So the doctor was only out of the room for a few minutes before the lab tech was there. It took me laying on her, a nurse holding her head, a nurse holding her arm and the tech to get the blood, but he got it first time! He took a little extra just in case they wanted to run a couple other things. Turned out they did, but I was glad they got it all in one draw. Then the waiting began.

The doc called the hospital we had been at to see what they wanted to do. He was waiting for them to call back. Nurse change over happened. The nurse came in and told us the electrolytes looked good: Sodium was 139 and Potassium was 4.9. Both in normal ranges! Her white blood cell count was elevated slightly, but that could have been from the puking. While we were waiting, Princess took a nap and when she woke up, she was definitely feeling better. She was looking around and wanting to play again. I knew she was probably hungry too.

The doc finally heard back from the hospital. It was Dr. F, the doc who's admitted us twice now. Doc came in and said that we had the choice of either being transferred or going home. We picked home. She was obviously doing better. The only concern I had was what to give her. I was advised to start with juice, but not apple. And if she kept that down for about an hour, to try again. And if she kept that down, try formula. So we left there about 8p.

When we got home, we did some white grape juice diluted with water. She took that. An hour later, we tried some more. No puking! So we went to bed. Princess slept in bed with me and we slept all night with no puking! The next morning, we took it easy with her bottle and food and by Monday we were back to normal bottle amounts and Tuesday normal food amounts.

I kind of had a feeling something was going to happen. Why? Well, I had heard "We Won't Be Shaken" by Building 429 like 3 times in the past few days on the radio. I hadn't heard it on the radio in quite a while and we only listen to KLOVE in the car. I had heard "Overcomer" by Mandisa a bunch but not "We Won't Be Shaken." I had a feeling this was God telling me that something was going to happen and not to worry about it. Well, trusting Him, things worked out okay.

Getting Blood Out

Having a child who gets labs done about once a quarter and shots every month right now, it was inevitable. Princess bled all over her clothes during her latest Synagis vaccination. Okay, so I wasn't worried. We'd done the whole blood on the clothes before. When she was in the NICU, one of her little outfits got blood on it when they were doing a heel stick. I had used OxyClean spray. It had taken about two or three washes before it came out. I figured I would use that this time.

But upon getting home, I decided I should look it up. After a quick Google search, I had a plan of attack. This is NOT new, but I created an image for all you Pinners out there, in case you wanted to Pin it!

After getting Princess out of her clothes, this is what I did:

1. I ran the area that had the blood on it under COLD water. ONLY use COLD water, never hot.
2. I then poured some hydrogen peroxide in a bowl and soaked the area for about 15 minutes. It immediately started fizzing.
3. I then put the article of clothing in the wash with a load of Princess's clothes. I sprayed the area with OxyClean spray, but honestly, it didn't need it. I washed her clothes in COLD water wither her normal detergent.
4. Finally, I put the load in the dryer and dried it on LOW, just in case there was still some blood left in it. When I came back to get them, there was not a speck of blood on it!

Okay, I'll be honest, I wasn't sure the hydrogen peroxide was going to work. I feared that it would bleach some of the color out of her clothes. It didn't do that at all. Now, Princess has to have her clothes washed separately because of her sensitive skin, but you could do it with any load that you're willing to wash in cold water. I'm sure had I consulted any of my special needs groups, they would have suggested something along these lines. I also saw shampoo and vinegar. But I liked the hydrogen peroxide idea.

So there you go. How to get blood out of clothes.