Thursday, May 29, 2008

Just a little update

Not a whole lot here. We are starting to settle into a routine of sorts though so that's a relief. Igor is now napping at least briefly daily and bedtime has become much easier. He still wakes in the night several times for no apparent reason. The only conclusion we've come up with is nightmares as he's usually very upset and sometime wringing wet with sweat. I hope the dreaming starts settling down as getting up several times a night is wearing on both of us. Luckily Sonny Boy sleeps like a log and never wakes up, but Igor does wake the dog on occasion.

Sitting at the kitchen table and bribing, begging and making airplane sounds has become my new pass time. ANYTHING to get him to eat. We have figured out he'll do anything for a banana so we make him take a bite of food then give him a little chunk of banana. It works sometimes. We do have some issues with texture as they must have never given him anything with chunks of any kind in the orphanage. Currently we have him mostly eating the 3rd foods baby foods, a few of the toddler foods and maybe sometimes a spoonful of whatever we eat. What I don't understand though is even the table food that we feed him that's soft is often refused. I've also seen him gag on chunky applesauce. Thankfully the speech therapy starts next week. I hope she has some ideas and a plan. I did find on the internet a product called Benecalorie that's low volume/ high calorie supplement that you ad to food. It's pretty oily looking but one little container 1.5 oz has 330 calories so we try to get one of those down him a day. We've also been keeping a diary and totalling his calorie intake daily. It's anal but he's so skinny you can see every rib and every knot on his backbone. There's so little body fat there he get's seriously chilled when taken out of the bathtub. Hopefully we can pack a few pounds on him quickly, our bathroom scale says he's gained a pound but it's not the most accurate. I do know his little belly sticks out like he drinks a six pack of beer or so daily now.

This week I made the hard decision not to send Sonny Boy on to kindergarten in the fall. His birthday is in July so it puts him on the young side of his classmates, not to mention I think he needs more time to mature on the social level. I do worry though as I think when he does enter K he'll be bored and be a trouble maker as he's smart as a whip, knows all the letters, counting etc and has even started trying to sound out words. I've discussed it with his preschool teachers and a girl I met this last weekend that is a kindergarten teacher and all seem to think it prudent. Hubby was also pressing for it as well. Sonny Boy wasn't too heartbroken about the whole thing which I'm glad because I thought he was really looking forward to going to big school. I think I'm the only upset as I wanted the free time while he was at school.

Hubby and I are hanging on and exhaustion is our middle names now. Along with not having a full nights sleep in weeks we've taken on our first house project in months and worked the memorial weekend event our civic group puts on. At least one of us was at the fest all weekend and the other with the boys. The house project is now in full swing as I finally convinced Hubby to purchase new bedroom furniture. Since we are finally getting new furniture we are going to put some wiring in our bedroom ( it's an old house with not enough plug ins) hang a ceiling fan, paint etc. Hopefully all before the new furniture is delivered. So today we empytied our dressers and started hauling down the old furniture. It's so pitiful we won't even donate it and have just busted it up for the garbage man to haul away. I'm excited to get a grown up bedroom finally, however I wish one of those designing shows would show up and finish the work. In the meantime we living out of cardboard boxes and will sleep in the guest bedroom. The bad part to the guest room thing is that it's downstairs and Igor is upstairs. Nothing like a groggy climb of stairs a few times a night too.

Well I've rambled enough. Hubby is watching Lost which is my favorite show, however I got LOST when we went to Ukraine and never watched the back episodes and now I don't want to spoil it. I guess I'll either watch it on the net ( yeah like I'll find time for that) or hope the reruns are played in order this summer.

Thanks for the posts!
Winnie

4 comments:

Diana said...

I'm a lurker finally coming out of hiding. We adopted 2 boys from Ukraine last summer.

Oh, I feel for you with the night terrors/night mares. Our little one would wake up like clockwork 1.5 - 2 hours after falling asleep. We finally had to put him on meds. He hasn't had a nightmre since (except at naptime.) We tried melatonin for a while, and it helped some, but not enough. We're still doing melatonin with our older son. It works better on him than it did on our little one, but we may still look into meds with him as well. You might want to check with your pediatrician and see if melatonin is ok to give him. It's a good place to start anyway. It's cheap and available OTC.

Kris said...

I know what you are going through, Maks finally slept good through the night at around 4months home, but still with the occasional night terror or moaning. It is very rough and you just run on fumes, but you get through it!

The melatonin made a huge difference for us, I was kicking myself for not starting it earlier. Our IA doc had recommended it.
Also fish oil supplements, I love them, they have worked so well for both boys. Helps them self regulate and focus and be consistent. We use the Dr. Sears brand. It is so important for our kiddos who lacked the DHA/ARA from the beginning.

Good luck, he is so stinkin cute, a couple months from now you will be in a much better place!!

Winnie said...

Thanks, I'm thinking on the melatonin. I actually have a bottle I bought for myself. I know it's technically not drugging him to sleep, however it feels like it. If I can remember I'll try it tomorrow night.

Winnie

ArtworkByRuth said...

On the eating issue, our son had an H. Pylori bacterial infection of the gut (probably from drinking Ukraine water!)that caused incredible heart burn, and fighting to eat. After two weeks of antibiotics he became "hungry" again. Did your doc check him for this?