Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Well-Visits and Well(er) Days

As you may have surmised from last night's post, yesterday was pretty rough. Michael's temperature lingered on the high end of normal, and his breathing was mostly okay, but he, himself, clearly was not. Following a surprisingly uneventful night, he awoke in a pretty good mood, but things went quickly downhill from there. Of course, the downturn coincided with Tom's departure for the day.

I texted Tom in a panic during one of Michael's seemingly non-stop and inconsolable fits of hysterical crying, and he made arrangements to come home early. Of course, Michael was much improved by the time he made it back. This was just as well, given that he ended up tied up in phone conferences for the rest of the afternoon.

By evening, I thought we'd gotten through the worst of it, (the second night was supposed to be the bad one, supposedly), but I was quickly proven wrong. Multiple wakings, covered in sweat and drool, until we finally took him into a steamy shower and then wrapped him up tight for a ten minute midnight walk in the cool air.

After the steam/cold treatment, he improved a bit, but still spent a great deal of the rest of the night coughing, which meant that Tom and I spent that last half listening to and worrying about him. I also had the happy task of going upstairs to nurse Amelia three times instead of just one. Between a recurrence of teething irritation and cough/congestion issues of her own, she's not been excelling at sleeping lately, either.

Through it all, Abby has been regressing a bit with potty training. So long as I really, really keep on her, we avoid accidents. However, the goal is obviously to get her initiating potty trips herself, and my reminding has only resulted in her getting increasingly resistant. It's been a war zone around here.

Therefore, discussion about potty-training made up the bulk of my conversation with her doctor today when I took her in for the Three-Year Wellness Assessment. He suggested that we take a break for awhile, which I've been considering. Then, he asked Abby what she thought about that idea. She was firmly against it. "You don't want to wear diapers again?" I confirmed. Vigorous head-shake.

All-in-all, she seemed to enjoy herself. She got her height measured (39.5 inches) and her weight taken (41 lbs); her ears and mouth examined. Most interesting of all, she had her blood pressure taken for the very first time. Thankfully, there were no vaccines due today so I should be able to bring her back next year without resistance.



Michael, in the meantime, was taking a long stroller walk with Tom back at home, and was looking himself again when we were all reunited for lunch. He took a decent nap and woke up cheerful. We haven't needed any Advil all day long.

After our conversation at the doctor's office, I resolved to stay out of Abby's business and let her do her thing- resulting messes be darned. However, I seem to be incapable. It just makes me want to crawl out of my skin when I see her dancing and hear her grunting and moaning from discomfort that could so easily be rectified (and that could- at any moment- devolve into an accident). However, I knew that I had to change tactics, because I couldn't go on fighting with her like we've been doing for almost two weeks now.

I decided to test Abby's resolve from earlier. "Abby, " I asked. "I see that you need to go pee-pee. Do you want to put the pee-pee in the potty or in a diaper?"

"I don't want to go on the potty!" (Nothing unexpected there.)

I should probably have let it go at that, but I just couldn't. I reached for a diaper. "Okay, Abby. I guess you want to use a diaper, then. Let's put one on."

"No, no. I want to go to the potty."

And she did.

I know it's probably not an approved method. After all, I'm kind of blackmailing her. But in the end- though I've cornered her into it- she's been making the choice herself, and when she does things have been happening quickly and painlessly.

For today, anyway.

Who ever knows about tomorrow?