Sunday Slivers 6/13/10

Between morning and late afternoon today, we had two occasions to be reminded how our wonderful boy is so different from many of his peers. This morning we went to a birthday party for one of his friends from preschool at a place called Pump It Up. It's an indoor play space, consisting of what can only be described as genetically modified bouncy houses: huge monstrous inflated contraptions, many of which require that children climb, slide, jump, etc. We lost Sava about two minutes after we went in and, after he had been missing for about five minutes, we began walking around the inflatable structures, only to hear his pitiful wail from somewhere behind an pumped up wall. Rado dove in and pulled him out, all tearful and shaken. He had started going in, and there was no way back except down a big slide, which he was too scared to try by himself; offering to accompany him did not change his mind. The kids changed 'arenas' (aka rooms) twice, and in each arena Sava chose to play only in the simple bouncy houses, avoiding anything and everything that looked scary and unfamiliar. Two years ago, when we still did not know him well, we would have been distressed by his apparent discomfort with things strange and frightening, but by now we know him too well to fret about this even for a second. In fact, we take some quiet pride in him. Although fear is what keeps him from trying, he also has enough self-confidence to not mimic blindly what others are doing simply for fear of standing out. He is his own guide, and we never fail to let him know that we both trust him and respect him.

In the afternoon, Sava and dad made our third trip of the week to our neighborhood pool. This is the first pool without a shallow wading area Sava has ever attempted, and during the first two days he was scared witless to go further than one step down. We gave him a floatie, offered a swimming vest, and even suggested we carry him, but for the first two days--when only I went with him--he sat on the first step for about thirty minutes, watched everyone in awe, and refused to budge. Today I stopped by after they had been there for about twenty minutes, and I found him submerged to his neck, standing on the third step, with dad gently coaching and coaxing him. After I left, he apparently allowed Rado to hold the floatie for him, while he himself held on to the floatie, and the two traversed the entire pool several times. That's our boy. The pool is full of kids splashing about with and without floating accessories, but he won't go in until he feels one hundred percent confident that he issafe. I bet that in a few weeks he will be floating all over the place and it will be difficult to get him out.

While Sava attempted the pool this week, Raya hung out on the freshly mowed grass, which she found mystifying. She kept touching it gingerly, and staring at it, as if she wasn't sure what to do--

Hard to believe this big boy was ever as puny as his little sister--

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In other news, Raya had her first experience riding in a shopping cart this week--a mega cart, no less, at Costco; she liked chewing on a small paper cup--

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In still other news, this week we decided to finally test Raya with some dairy. I have been dairy-free since she was a couple of days old, and she has gotten no milk-based formula, so we have no reason to think that she is allergic to dairy like Sava. Well, in the course of four days this week I offered her plain yogurt, and she probably had about two dozen licks from my finger; that would amount to no more than one teaspoon of yogurt total. She was fine the first day or two, but then started getting progressively fussy, slept very badly last night, and this morning had one poop that was very mucousy and included what looked like one small blotch of blood. Yikes. Fussiness, mucus, and blood were Sava's primary symptoms of dairy intolerance, so of course this does not look too promising. We'll be consulting her GI on what to do next.

It's not really that we fear another child we allergies. What we fear is the unknown, which for Sava has always been more than half of the problem. As long as we have a name for the problem, and we know what causes it, we feel prepared to deal with it. But watching our child in discomfort and playing detective games about what may be causing that discomfort has really come to represent one of our biggest challenges as parents. To this day, we don't know if Sava can eat green peas, for instance (or green beans, or egg, or corn, for that matter). We think not, but there is no definitive test to tell us, and most of the time it is just not worth the bother to try him; allergy research seems sadly lacking, and there is so little understanding of the non-IgE-mediated allergic reactions in the medical community. So, we just hope for a bit more certainty with Raya.

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An artist--

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In book finds, a favorite this week with Sava was Jack's Garden by Henry Cole. It shows the stages through which a little boy's garden grows, including the critters which inhabit it and the birds and bees which end up feeding from its flowers. Mommy's favorite was The Paperboy by Dav Pilkey, which tells what now reads as the antiquated tale of a little boy having to get up early on weekend mornings in order to deliver the morning paper. It's simple and beautifully done. Sava also enjoyed When Sophie Gets Angry--Really, Really Angry by Molly Bang, in which a little girl gets mad at her sister and then finds solace and quiet in a tree overlooking the ocean. It's a good self-help book for preschoolers looking to assume charge of their emotions.