A New Approach?

Boy, what a crazy week it has been here!

Hectic! That much is for sure.

A week ago, the father of the girl I mentioned a couple months ago who had the kidney transplant surgery died. He was hospitalized down in Pittsburgh about the same time as his daughter, who is very good friends of both Mandy and my son Clate, about the same time as his daughter had the surgery, so obviously his wife really had a lot to handle on her plate for quite some time.

I don't know exactly what happened to him -he was very ill for the past several months -some said he had cancer of some type, others said it was heart problems. But whatever it was that took his life, did so and took his doctors quite by surprise as well as his family at any rate.

This past Tuesday evening the family held a memorial service for him so Clate and Mandy -being friends with both the daughter as well as her older brother -attended the service.

Tuesday morning, Kurtis had a doctor's appointment in Altoona with the allergist which actually went quite well. A surprising thing, considering Kurtis does not usually considers doctors to be his friend and most of the time, has major hissy fits when it comes time to take his vitals and for a doctor to examine him However, Mandy said that morning, he actually was fairly well behaved. He let the doctor put the stethoscope on his chest with no flinching, no fussing. He let the doctor look into his ears too and was very peaceable about that. He wouldn't however open his mouth voluntarily nor would he allow the doctor to pry his little mouth open either and as to peering up into his nose? Well, the boy completely drew the line at that!

However, the doctor gave Mandy a scrip for her to take him to our local hospital to have blood work done on him so they could run some simpler allergy tests via the blood work and she said this time, it only took two nurses and Mandy to hold him still so they could draw the blood.

Definitely progress in that respect -at least he seems to be calming a little, losing some of his fears of doctors.

Tuesday night though when Mandy and Clate were at the funeral, I knew because he had been out all day and had not had any nap time at all, he was pretty well exhausted and about 8 p.m., Bill fixed him his night-time sippy cup which we always put the meds to help his with his allergy issues along with the melatonin to help calm him and get him to sleep better (works most of t he time) and he only drank about 1/3 of that milk before he was down for the count. Not a peep out of him and Maya fell asleep on the couch at about the same time. So when Mandy got home between 10 and 11 p.m., both kids were sound asleep and you can't imagine how peaceful it was!

Then last night, he threw a hissy fit, screaming, throwing himself down on the floor, throwing anything he could get his hands on too at times at me or Mandy, kicking, screaming -you name it -from about 8:30 p.m. steady until finally around 11 p.m. I think he just plain wore himself out and he fell asleep. Tonight from around 7 p.m. until close to 8:30, we endured a re-run of last night's tantrums before he finally collapsed and is now sleeping quietly, peacefully, etc!

I know in the past he has been one of the little nemesises I have had that would prevent me from getting a good night's sleep, but he's been doing a bit better in that department of sleeping through the night. The problem often though now is getting him to bed, getting him to fall asleep.

All things considered, with respect to his sleep issues (and then mine too at times due to his -yeah, a bit of a vicious cycle, huh?) I would seriously think about investing in a sleep number bed for him in the future. O course, we still have get him past the "going to bed tantrums" he has some nghts!

Yeah, I guess the always has to be a catch to every thing, don't 'cha know!