The Weaning Continues...

Yesterday was a "bad" accident day for Lily.  Certainly in terms of her recent near-potty-trainedness, you have to go back several months or possibly even a year to encounter a five-accident day.  But yesterday was one of them.  

Leslie, overwhelmed by people tracking in and out of the house, and the fifth accident as Lily's therapist was arriving and a friend showed up to take Emma to dance started second-guessing the decision to pull back on Tenex.  She's under some stress here because I think she feels that because my recollection of the pre-tenex behavior is different than hers, and because I was more or less happy with the medication, any decrease is "her" decision.

But it's not.  It's ours.  Even though I was happy with where she was at, I see no harm in weaning her off it and taking better notes this time around to see what we're really gaining, as opposed to just assuming we gained something.

Back to yesterday...it has been her habit to text me with the day's results from school:  good day/bad day...potty accidents/no potty accidents...ate well/ate poorly...etc.  

So yesterday was a bad day in terms of accidents, but a GREAT day in terms of her eating and her behavior.  Accidents have always really been a stress point for us for a variety of reasons, but ultimately we DO want her focused.

Leslie expressed her concerns/second-guesses regarding the Tenex and I told her we need to stay the course, that possibly Lily's body IS feeling different with this lower dose, and that she's not really sure how to process it, that once she stabilizes, we might see no difference in behavior/accidents/eating/sleeping...or big differences, but that this was JUST.  ONE.  DAY.  

By the time I got home, Leslie was back in the game again.  

Lily was stuffy.  It was my night to put her to bed, and although there was some minor tooth clashing...she went to sleep without too much trouble.  BUT...she woke several times, whimpering and crying, sneezing and unable to get comfortable.  Anticipating trouble, I went to bed early, fearing for my sleep.

Sure enough, Lily was up at 11, and 12, and 1, and 2...and at 3 o'clock we gave her motrin (she was mildly warm) and she fell asleep for the rest of the night (6 a.m.).  I found myself very impatient with her last night.  Usually I'm pretty mild and positive and supportive even in the wee hours of the morning, but last night I was just in a bad place.  I wasn't as patient with the sneezing in the face as I can be.  So rather than get upset with Lily about not being able to get calmed down or "be healthy" (both of which are outside her control), I woke up Leslie and "tagged out".  

I don't always recognize when I'm losing patience or when I'm not in the right frame of mind to deal with issues...but last night I did.  And luckily, Leslie was able to leap (slowly, in a lazy-lidded zombie shamble) into action, giving Lily the warm body, soothing words, and patient responses she needed to settle down and get back to sleep.  As a result neither of us slept particularly well, but Leslie probably took the lion's share of the work.  And she also typically needs more sleep than I do, so I know she's going to be tired.

Is this the Tenex?  Not sure.  I suspect it's just Lily getting sick that led to the accidents.  Not sure about the tooth clashing thing...that's something she did before we put her on Tenex, but it ALSO might be because she's feeling sick. Time will tell.

Anyway, Leslie just got home and shot me off a text to tell me about Lily's day that I purposely misunderstood because I'm "funny"...

And Leslie was so tired, she didn't even comment.  Or it wasn't funny.  But that doesn't sound right.  Anyway, you'll all be happy to know that Leslie didn't have any accidents today and neither did I.

(But also that Lily rebounded from a five accident day to zero).

Wedding Trip Decisions

We go to the beach nearly every year.  It's about a 15 hour trip, give or take, and to minimize the stress, we break it into two nights.  Because Lily isn't completely potty trained, and because 90% of her accidents seem to happen in the presence of the soothing vibration of the tires against the pavement, we make lots of stops.  In the case of the trip to the beach, many of these stops involve high-traffic bathroom breaks where lines of women snake through busy McDonalds' and the steady whoosh of the jet-dri hand blower scares the crap out of Lily.  It can be stressful on a number of fronts. 

Ding!  Time to Potty!

First, while we're stopping sometimes as often as every hour to every hour and a half at most, it's high-traffic and long waits and we're already irritated as hell by our fellow man.  Second, by the time we get to the stop there's a sense that Lily is a ticking time bomb waiting to go off, from a potty accident standpoint.  Third, Lily doesn't necessarily go on command.  Often she pops right up and says, "I all done."  When you attempt to disagree, violence ensues.  And knowing that the next stop is another hour away, it's a fight that we really really want to win.  Nothing trips the stress trigger quicker than stopping to potty, getting "I all done" and following it up with an accident in the car seat 5 minutes back into the trip.  Finally, by the end of the first leg of the trip, Lily is almost definitely asleep.  And once she wakes up, she's awake for the night.  So if we're unable to get into the hotel and then put Lily to sleep, Lily will scream bloody murder for the remainder of the night, waking everyone in the hotel and keeping us awake until her body completely shuts down at about four in the morning and she sleeps for a couple hours prior to us getting back on the road again.

The payoff, of course, is that a full week at the beach awaits us and we (Lily included) love the ocean and the beach.  So we do it every year.  We balance the bad against the good, and the good wins, and we take the trip.

The point of all that preamble is that my wife's sister is getting married in Wisconsin at the end of this month and it's a 15 hour drive to get there.  We've reached the decision that we are going to leave Lily with my folks and take only Emma.  This is a sad decision for all of us, and wasn't arrived at lightly.  

The preamble to my defensive posturing is that we're both feeling extremely guilty about the decision.  

We already knew the negative side of the balance sheet, so when we considered keeping Lily at home, we needed to consider what the payoff was at the end of the trip, and whether the benefits outweighed the costs.

First, Emma and Lily would be the only two kids there.  My sister-in-law and her fiance were gracious enough to include our kiddos in what is, essentially, an adults-only affair.  And it's not that Lily would have had all sorts of kids to play with or anything that's at issue here, it's more that Emma and Lily were already going to have special consideration because it wasn't really a ceremony designed to accomodate young-uns.  And while Emma wouldn't miss it for the world, Lily really has no idea what it is she's even going to be missing.

Second, the payoff end result is a visit to northern Wisconsin in late October.  I'm positive I'll be charmed by the rustic setting and lake-side scenery, but again, Lily not so much.

Third, the ceremony itself, the focal point of this trip, will offer her zippo.  The church (a charming historic stave church that I personally will be really interested in seeing, but. . . you know. . . Lily not so much) isn't heated (see above regarding "late October in northern Wisconsin") and is very small, possibly standing room only for a marriage officiated by. . . (drumroll).

. . . Fourth, her mother.  My wife is going to be the minister at the wedding.  As if a cold autistic 5 year old standing in a church throughout a ceremony where she may (or may not) fervently dislike the musical selection and offer her own perseverative and charming, "I no like dat music annnnnymore!" loudly and repeatedly isn't enough, her mother will be standing a few paces away attempting to focus on providing a memorable (for all the right reasons) ceremony for her sister.  It seems in Wisconsin you can get your . . . ministers. . . certificawhatsis by mailing away to a sponsor, and my wife's sister honored her by requesting that she perform the ceremony.  So she's doing it.  But that's just another distraction for Lily, and perhaps worse, a distraction for the couple getting married.  And believe me, they get Lily and she's totally invited and welcome and all that. . . but.

Fifth, the fallback option of taking Lily there, and then staying in the room with her seems just as silly.  The point of the trip is the wedding, why drag her up there if she's not going?

Me.  Stop laughing.  It's totally me.

So my wife's sister was extremely supportive of the decision, which helped my wife's acceptance of it, and my parents very generously agreed to stay behind and watch Lily for the long weekend.  And while a big part of me feels a heavy burden of stress lifted, a nearly equally heavy burden of guilt descended at the same time.  Like when Indiana Jones places that bag of sand on the booby trap and snatches away the gold idol. . . I'm eyeballing the decision and hoping that a giant boulder doesn't roll down on top of me. 

And while I feel like NOT torturing Lily for a a weekend and making her and us miserable is still the right decision, it hurts not to have the family together; like we're betraying Lily by going off to do fun family stuff and making her stay behind because it's inconvenient.

So the benefits for Lily are 1)  Bonding time with my parents, 2)  not being tortured for 30 hours worth of driving, 3)  Not having to stand in a cold (but charming) stave church for an hour, and 4)  Getting to sleep in her own bed (or what may as well amount to her own bed).

I think we're doing the right thing.  I'm just waiting for the boulder.