Listening to your kids - Eve Keen

This past week I have had a bit of an eye-opener.  About 2 months ago my three year old son started to get really whiny and cranky.  He woke up unhappy and spent most of his day whining at me.  I was getting more and more frustrated with this new 3-year old behavior or maybe a change in the season.  Then he started to wet the bed almost every night.  Again, I was frustrated and blaming this on his age and behavioral changes.  I thought he was trying to push my buttons and get away with bad behavior.  I was really angry and frustrated with him daily.  I talked to my mother about how I should handle him and this new behavior.  I asked his preschool teachers to let me know if they noticed any changes.  Then he started to wake up in the middle of the night and complain of having a headache.   I could tell that he really had them because I could not get them to go away with Tylenol.  So after the 3th or 4^th headache I decided to call his pediatrician. 

I was expecting some advice on how to deal with this and this change was normal for 3 year-olds.  When I called they told me to come in the very next day.  I was kind of surprised, but my pediatrician very rarely calls me in for nothing.  So we went.  At the office she did a full physical examination and a neurological examination.  Next we took a urine sample and when it came back clean she scheduled a CT Scan for the next day.  I was floored.  What did this mean?  She explained that children don’t wakeup in the middle of the night with headaches.  That was concern by itself, but the mood change was concerning as well.  So, we went to the CT scan.  This is kinda a scary procedure for a three year old, but he did great!

The CT scan showed that his brain was developing normally and was tumor free, but his secondary sinuses were full of a sinus disease that had been there for some time.  These deeper sinuses don’t drain through the nose like your primary sinuses and I would never had known there was something wrong because he no other symptoms.  This was probably causing the headaches, crankiness, and bed wetting as he was not getting good sleep.  We are now taking a two week dose of antibiotics (a very long time for antibiotics in my opinion) and hoping to clear this up.  I am glad I lisdtened to my child and wish I had done so earlier instead of blaming it on his age.  I’m also gratefull that I have a pediatrician that I can trust.

 

Should've knocked harder....

So last week a couple of gal pals & I were warming by the fire at Tastebuds. 2 of them were reminiscing about already having strep run thru their families. My other friend's family has had another crud, but she only got a cough. My daughter has only had the sniffles....so I knocked on wood and was thinking how fortunate I was that we've had nothing more. Well, I should have knocked harder. She's still well enough to jump on the bed and run around making more chaos out of chaos....but has a gnarly cough and the sniffles. The rest of us are forcing our fluids and using some of these easy home homeopathic remedies to help us thru this season of colds and other crud. Justine's Chicago Cold Remedy - my roomie in College hails from Evanston, IL (just N of Chicago). She & I were visiting her mom and I got a cold....this is what she made for me and it worked - in my bag of tricks ever since:

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The Price of Being Cool - Diane Truscott

On Thursday night, I discovered the price of being the “cool” mom/aunt. It all started when my 6 year old niece, Tori, was in town and wanted to stay the night at my house with my 6 year old daughter, Isabel. And, because Isabel had someone to stay the night, my son Jaedon (3 years old) asked if his best friend (my 3 year old nephew, Hunter) could stay the night. In my mind, I thought, “This will keep them busy and make it easier on me, right?” This week had already been

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