Also....

The Blogger platform now gives you stats. I only rarely look at them, but tonight I was playing around with them.

One of the features is that it will show you how people got to your blog through keyword searches. We've all done this, right? We're not sure what the name of something is, or how to describe it, so we type a bunch of words into the search function of Google and hope for the best.

The keyword search that brought the most people to this blog is "she and 3 hes." That makes sense.

The rest were all tied for 1 referral. Most were variations on the title of the blog. But my favorite two?

• What do agnostics do with rabbits?

and

• Most words spoken in a day guinness record

What does that even mean?

Bad Blogger!

I haven't posted since April 16? Bad blogger! And I left you on such a sad note!

I have a couple of funny Ryker stories, but first I'll tell you that Jack has had a couple of very good weeks since I last wrote. We see his new therapist a week from today, which will also help (I hope), but he seems to be managing things a bit better recently. Go Jack! Also, I went to give him medicine the other night and the dosing on the label said that his weight was the equivalent of a 9-10 year old. HA!

Okay, on to Ryker. He renamed our family last week. This is not news to those of you on Facebook, but I should post it here for posterity's sake.

He kept calling me Dadda, which is fairly normal for him. I reminded him that I'm Momma, and he asked if we could rename our family. Sure. So I'm Dadda, and Dadda is Momma. I was following up to then. I asked what his name was. He stuck his tongue out, then moved it side to side going "lalalalalala." Good. Then I asked what Jack's name was. Without missing a beat, he said "Music Teacher." I want to be a 3 year old. Seriously. How much fun must they have, up inside their own head?

And apparently he gets really worried about other people's children. I don't think he trusts adults. I was home one day from work with him, and we went with Nicki up to the school to get her son from morning kindergarten. Nicki runs an in-home daycare and only had one baby that day, and that baby's mom happens to be Nicki's son's kindergarten teacher. Are you following? It doesn't really matter I guess ... Well, yeah, actually, it does. Go back and re-read until you are following ... Okay? Okay. So we have the baby in the stroller as we head up there. We gave her to her mom for some good cuddle-time when we arrived, and then her mom said that she'd just walk her back to Nicki's in a bit because she had time before her afternoon students arrived. Sounded like a decent plan, so we left the stroller for her too. We started to walk back home, and Ryker immediately began bombarding us with questions about where "that baby was" and why weren't we taking her back, and where was her "baby cart"?

And tonight I was talking about there being an adorable boy in the backseat of a car I was trying to help jump this morning (long story), and he goes "what did you do with that 'adorable'? You take him to your work?"

We used to call Jackson "Officer Jack" because he was so concerned with safety. I think Ryker might need to be dubbed "Child Protective Services Case Worker Ryker," although that doesn't have quite the same ring to it.

Jack's Anger

I've touched on this periodically on the blog, but here's an update on Jack's anger stuff.

Since he was born, Jack has had trouble controlling his anger and frustrations. He was colicky for the first few months, and has cycled in and out of it since then. You can SEE him getting angry, and see that he is unable to control it sometimes.

He is trying, he really is. I had a good talk with him the other day about it. I asked him why he doesn't get so mad at school (his teacher said she had never seen the rage we see at home). He said that he gets mad at school but doesn't want to scream or make angry faces because he doesn't want to be embarrassed, so he just keeps it in. I asked if it just feels safer to get it out at home, because he knows he won't be embarrassed, and he said yes.

That's pretty impressive self-control, if you ask me. He's 6.

Anyway, it DOES come out at home. Oh boy, does it. And here's the bad part - it comes out in ways that are pretty self-degrading. He says mean things about himself, and says that he'll hurt himself. HUGE red flag, obviously, although Chuck and I both think he says those things because he knows they are BIG threats and BIG words and that they get our attention - and my attention in particular. He hasn't ever hurt himself, but I refuse to test that theory.

So today we took him to see his pediatrician to talk about it. I was so proud of him. He spoke very eloquently about it and answered all of her questions. What a sweetie.

We're going to see a therapist out of the same offices that works with kids. We're also probably going to call this other clinic that does more integrative approaches to pediatric psychology. That sounds awesome to me.

I feel like we're being proactive, which is good. I just want my sweet boy to be calm and happy. That's all.

Ambidextrous and The Nightmare

Two stories.

First story - Ryker and his Ambidextrousness:

Ryker and I were playing catch in the living room, which went remarkably well. (I should stop right there and devote a whole post to the fact that no damage came to the house, no humans or animals were hurt in the process, and no one ended up crying or screaming. But then the title of the post wouldn't make any sense.)

Anyway, he was throwing with his right hand, which surprised me because we have dubbed him a leftie. I asked him which hand he writes with. He thought about it, then held up his left and said "wif pens and pencils." I looked at him with confusion and he added "wif crayons, dis one" and held up his right. I asked which hand he eats with and he held up his left. Which hand he throws with? Right. Which foot he kicks with? Left. "Unwess da ball come on dis side (pointing right). Den it's dis one (right leg kicks out)." So...we'll see. He's going to be confusing to defend in basketball.

Second story - Jack and The Nightmare:

Jack came out the other night after being in bed for maybe 10 minutes. He wanted hugs. Then he went back to bed for another 3 minutes and came back out. "I had a nightmare." I tried to explain that he wasn't even asleep and therefore couldn't possibly have had a nightmare. He was on the verge of tears so I skipped the semantics. He said he didn't want to tell us why he had a nightmare. We prodded. "We watched a movie at Nicki's (where he goes every day after school) and it made me scared." We prodded. He resisted. We prodded more.

"I think it was about........Justin Bieber."

It was all we could do to not die laughing at him. We did a lot of rubbing our faces to hide the grins, and coughing to mask the giggles.

Finally I just lost it. Cracked up. Chuck followed. Then we tried to explain to Jack why Justin Bieber is about the least scary thing you could possibly dream about. He said he thought that it was something in the movie that was dark and someone was in the movie and he couldn't really see him because he was dark and hooded.

We got him back in bed and I spent parts of the next day hypothesizing with coworkers about what could have been scary in a Justin Bieber movie. Backup dancers? Some plot about him saving some girl from a bad guy?

The day after that I wrote to Nicki and asked her if the kids watched a Justin Bieber movie. She wrote back that this wins some sort of funniest story contest. Jack apparently told Nicki that he had a nightmare before he fell asleep, about Justin Bieber. She had to correct him, because the kids hadn't watched Justin Bieber, they had watched Harry Potter.

HAHAHAHAHA! Awesome.

Ryker and the Pharmacist

Ryker was with me at Walgreens the other night. The friendly pharmacist struck up a conversation with him.

Pharmacist: And what's YOUR name?

Ryker: Wykuh.

P: Michael?

Me: No, Ryker.

P: Oh, that's a nice name. How old are you?

Ryk: Free (unfolding three of his fingers with his other hand)
(while he's answering)
P: Five?

Me: No, three.

P: THREE?!

Me: Yes. He's big.

P: But your birthday is soon.

Ryk: Not for couple munfs.

P: Oh. And do you have any brothers or sisters?

Ryk: Nope. (plain as day)

P: Oh.

Me: (flicking him in the head) You do TOO.

Ryk: Yeah, I have one brudder. His name Sassin. He tell me what to do.

The Difference Between My Kids

There are many, obviously. One of the differences is sleep habits. Tonight was a good illustration.

I had to work at an event, so I got home right after the kids went to bed. I had texted Chuck and told him to tell the kids that I would come in to say goodnight.

I got changed and went into Ryker's room first. He was awake and SO excited. He got out of bed, ran around his room and whispered all about the pieces of paper he was giving me and the bad day he had (he hit someone) and that he wanted pajamas on (did I forget to mention he was naked?). We cuddled and talked and cuddled some more. We discussed why I call him my baby (because he came out of my tummy so I get to do that forever), and who came out of Grandmommy's tummy (me and Ry Ry, which is why SHE gets to call ME baby forever) and that there is a picture that happened before he was alive yet. Sure. Many, actually, but yes, I know the one he is referring to. We talked about the pictures he planned to put up around his room "to make it beautiful."

I told him I needed to go say goodnight to Jack. I went in there and Jack was sound asleep. I smoothed his hair down and kissed him on the head. Nothing. I kissed him again and said "goodnight sweetie - love you" and he opened his eyes really fast and just stared at me. Zero recognition of who I was. I said "it's okay baby, it's Momma, I'm just saying good night." His wide eyes kept staring. Nothing. It's a little creepy, I have to say, to have your kid staring at you with no recollection of who you are.

I left my confused and 95% sleeping boy in one room and heard my AWAKE baby in the other room, happily talking to himself still. AWAKE has come out once already as I'm writing this. I have my money on one more time.

Back Update

Update On My Back - better title?

I had an MRI last week, 124 days after the initial "injury." I met with my spine doc yesterday to go over the results. The short version is that it didn't provide much clarity on what our next steps should be. You may stop reading now if that's all you needed.

The longer version...

Essentially, the L5-S1 is still herniated (5mm, which they consider mild) - but that is interesting because it's 4 months after the initial problem. So it's still herniated but there is also something they are referring to as a "fragment", although my doc is unclear whether it's completely broken off or not. But it's a disc fragment of decent size (10mm by 6mm by 9mm) that is displacing my nerve root. That piece is showing a higher T2 signal, which he tells me means it has some globbiness to it - either fluid like a normal disc would, or inflammation. It's paracentral, which means it's closer in to the spinal cord than where we initially thought the pinch was occurring.

There is a mild bulge at the L4-5 and mild to moderate degeneration and something else that I don't understand. I'm reading my copy of the results while I'm writing this.

The tech's conclusion on me: moderately severe L5-S1 degeneration with a herniation that is pinching the S1 nerve. Mild degeneration in the next disc up (L4-5).

So basically that didn't help. I can either watch and wait (this was my pick), have an epidural steroid (to reduce inflammation if that is, in fact, the problem), or get some surgical consults. He was open to all three. I opted to wait. We can get to the other two later.

I'll continue doing the circuit training they taught me (all spine-safe activities), try to get some cardio added in, and go back to rehab once a month in their maintenance program. And at some point, if I decide I've had enough, we'll explore the injections or surgical consults.

There ya have it.