Life With Three

This is the first installment of what I'm sure will be many posts on what our lives are like now that we are playing "zone defense" in the Rutledge house.  I read a paragraph in a book recently (notice I said a paragraph) that said "Having two children is like having one and a half.  Having three is like having ten."  And although for us, adding a third child wasn't nearly as difficult as adding a second, there are still some major lifestyle adjustments that have come our way.  We now have a few "rules" we live by, a "code of family ethics" if you will:

• Rule #1:  Pick your battles.  If you don't - you will spend your entire day arguing, negotiating and nagging.  It's not worth it.  Let the child eat his spaghetti with a spoon.  Let him wear pajama pants with his polo shirt.  Let him wear boots in the Georgia summer heat.  Let the child watch an extra 30 minutes of cartoons.  Depending on how the day is going, you may even need to let him play with the soap dispenser in his bathroom.  Just let the small stuff go.  I promise, once you get over the thought of being stared at by parents of one or two children, you'll feel better and more free.  In fact, you may even like this new existence.  Now if a lady with 5 or more children is staring at you in disbelief, you may need to reevaluate the battles you're picking.
• Rule #2:  You don't just hop in the car and go anywhere.  In fact, "hopping in the car" no longer even exists in our world, because getting everyone into the car is a nightmare.  And I'm not talking about getting everyone dressed, fed, pottied and to the car.  I'm talking about simply getting in the car.  Buckling three children in their respective car seats is enough to make me want to lie down in front of the car as it backs down the driveway.  The baby is easy - we buckle her into her car seat inside the house and click her in.  Good to go.  Brooks, however is where the trouble begins.  He rides in the third row.  Getting him to the third row is enough of a challenge because as soon as the climbs in the car, he's going for the driver's seat.  So I have to hold his little arm and escort him to the rear of the vehicle.  (And please don't assume that you would simply "lay down the law and with better parenting, the child would obey."  Please.  This is one of those times when rule #1 comes into play.)  So now I'm struggling to lift my 38lb 2 1/2 year old into a five-point harness while my baby is crying in her car seat, and my four year old is either playing in the parking lot alone or in the already cramped car with us pulling on my pants, which in effect causes my pants to slip further and further down my backside until my love handles AND my crack are showing.  Awesome.  So now I buckle Will in.  No problem until I realize that I'm trapped in the car by carseats on each side.  I either have to climb over the center console (more crack involved) or climb over the 4 year old without breaking his legs or somehow shoving my boobs in his face.  Ugh.  So yea.  No more "let's get out of the house" trips to Starbucks.
• Rule #3:  Babysitters are hard to come by.  They just are.  People are more than willing to take one child, and maybe two if both are potty trained.  But when you are looking for a babysitter for three little people, all of a sudden things get hairy.  I understand completely.  It's like taking in a whole family.  And because babysitters are hard to come by, so are date nights. 
• Rule #4:  The clothing debacle.  Siigghhhh... My boys used to dress nicely.  Our first was always dressed amazingly well.  And because I had more than enough time to treat stains, keep laundry separated, and then store them neatly once outgrown, our second inherited a lot of amazing clothing.  But with the second child came less time for buying, treating and organizing.  And with the third child came the great clothing debacle.  HOLY crap.  We are swimming in a sea of little people clothing, all of which is wrinkled, most of which is stained, and none of which can be located when looking for it.  We have one boy in size 4, one boy in size 3 and a poor little girl with hair bows, leggings and dresses that her parents have no idea what to do with.  The right size hardly ever gets on the right boy, resulting in a 4 year old with a midriff-baring shirt and a 3 year old whose pants are falling off.  Our middle child changes clothes at least 5 times a day at his own requests and is going through a phase where he insists on wearing gloves (mismatched socks) on his hands at all times.  I'm over it.  In fact - I've come to call it individuality.
• Rule #5: You NEVER have enough time.  Trust me.  If you think you are running ahead of schedule, you are wrong.  So very wrong.  If you see that time has allowed you 15 more minutes than you thought you needed, keep right on full-steam ahead.  Because if you use that 15 minutes to do something crazy like sit down, pour another cup of coffee, or actually put on socks with your shoes, you will regret it.  As you are trying to get everyone out the door 15 minutes later, someone will pitch a fit, have to poop, poke another child in the eye, fall and scrape a knee, or forget their backpack.  I promise.  If time has allowed you 15 extra minutes, it's because time can foresee that you are going to need it.  Trust me.

I'll leave you with those things to ponder while I go find my Brooks a new pair of "gloves"....

Will's First Pair of Glasses

Wayyyyy back in July, I took Will to the pediatrician for his 4 year well visit (you know - 3 months after he turned 4, because I'm on top of it like that).  He got the necessary before-school vaccine boosters and they also gave him the hearing & vision screening.  First up was the hearing portion, which he passed with no problems.  Next, they gave him a vision screening which consisted of Will standing on one side of the 10ft long room and the nurse standing on the opposite side with a black and white flip chart of images.  He read them off quickly as she flipped through them until she got to the last page with the smallest images.  He hesitated and then tried to walk closer to her.  She sweetly instructed him to go back to the wall and try again.  He told her "I can't see them.  If you let me come closer, I can tell you!"  So she asked him to cover his left eye and try again - nothing.  He couldn't see them.  She asked him to cover his right eye and try - well this time he read them right off.  She smiled and said he did fine and that he passed the requirements for the vision screening.

When the pediatrician came in, he verified that Will did in fact pass the vision screening, but that I may want to follow up with a routine eye exam, because he did seem to have difficulties with his right eye.  We came home and I made Will an appointment at the local optometrist's office here in our small town.  Two weeks later, I took Will for his first eye exam, thinking Gosh - this is probably overkill.  I hope he doesn't have to have glasses.  SURELY I would have noticed he was having issues if they were that severe.

The exam was awful.  He FREAKED out when they dilated his eyes and he couldn't see.  He was very curious about the medical equipment and the processes that they were using, and the staff was very impatient and intolerant with him.  They kept giving him stern instructions and eventually, after asking me 1,000 times - "You've never noticed him squinting?  You've never seen him sit too close to the TV? (of course not lady - our TV is above our fireplace) You've never seen him lean too close to his schoolwork? (of course I have - he's learning to write.  MOST of the children is his class lean into their work)" they determined the exam to be finished.  After an hour of making me feel like the worst, most irresponsible parent in the world, they quickly wrote Will a prescription for full-time eye glasses and then sent me out to pick out glasses.  He was crying because he couldn't see and I felt terrible.  The lady working in the office said "We just don't see that many children."  That was my clue - I just gathered him up and left.  We needed a second opinion.

I called his pediatrician's office and told them I wanted a referral to the best pediatric optometrist in the area.  They were very helpful (as usual) and gave me the number of a doctor associated with Scottish Rite, one of Atlanta's leading children's hospitals.  (Now in no way am I indicating that Will's eyes are so bad that he needs the best of the best.  But call me crazy - he is one of the three miracles that God trusted me with, and I wanted someone who could deal with his fear, his questions, and could tell me about his eyes even if Will wouldn't cooperate during the exam.)  I called immediately and the next available appoinment was three months out.  I scheduled the appointment and we spent the next three months living life as usual and trying our best to forget that awful experience.

Well this past Tuesday was the day - our appointment with our new eye doctor.  Will was very nervous.  If he asked once, he asked 1,000 times if they were going to put that "juice" in his eyes.  The staff was very nice and courteous to Will.  They made jokes, showed him magic tricks and made him feel safe.  They asked him to read the chart and he did fine until it got to the smaller objects.  When she asked him to use his right eye, I saw the hesitation.  He finally turned his head away from the chart and when she asked him if he could see the picture, he simply shook his little head.  She asked him to try with his left eye and he read them off to her.  She went back to the right eye and again he sat silently until he finally admitted he couldn't see the pictures.  She praised him anyway and told him that he did a great job.  He perked up immediately.  She put the "juice" in his eye and he cried again.  At this office though, instead of sending him back out into a bright waiting room, they sent him to a dark room where a movie was showing.  Here we are waiting on the doctor to come in.  Notice how thrilled Will looks:

The eye doctor came in next.  He showed Will a new magic trick and then got to work.  He examined his eyes, and worked silently with his different lenses - switching them in and out and in and out.  After 10 minutes of talking to Will and going between lenses, he put the chart back up on the wall, put "magic eyes" on Will and asked him to try to read the chart again - and that's where I saw it for my own eyes - with the lenses, Will read every line - even the smallest ones.  The doctor was satisfied and wrote up the prescription.  He told me the original prescription written for Will was not nearly as strong as it should have been.  He right eye has moderate astigmatism.  He said that with a 4 year old, if the child were only borderline, he would not prescribe full-time glasses because the reward doesn't always outweigh the work - the hassle of getting a child to wear them and the expense of replacing pair after pair when they inevitably break them.  BUT - he said Will is just over the line and needs full-time glasses.  He says, without them, over time Will's right eye would get so bad that he would need a patch on the his left eye to force the brain to retrain his right.  And that was all I needed to hear.

I'm sooooo glad we got a second opinion.  I trust this doctor and we're going to do what he recommends to keep Will's eye health in top shape.  Did he completely disagree with the first doctor?  No, but he did make a better assessment and unlike the first doctor, actually tested the lenses on him before writing an estimated (and ultimately incorrect) prescription.  And it was nice that they didn't berate me over missing the signs.  In fact, they didn't even ask me if I had noticed those things.

We went yesterday and picked out his glasses.  He's not crazy about wearing them so he wasn't too interested in picking them out either.  He eventually landed on a little pair of Nike specs that seem pretty durable and bend in both directions at the leg joints.  We also picked up a cute wire-framed pair in a silver color as his back-up pair.  The lady at the store said he would most certainly break and/or lose his glasses frequently until he's much older and recommended a back-up pair.  Depending on how involved in sports Will wants to be, we will probably also invest in a pair of sport glasses, similar to Oakleys, but with prescription lenses to keep from breaking his every day glasses.  Will actually loved those glasses the best, but they are not very easy on mommy's eye for every day wear.  So we'll cross that bridge when we get there.  Here he is in his "primary" pair - the Nike's (of course, his exact glasses haven't come in yet, maybe by Monday...):

I HATE that Will has to have glasses.  No one wants to hear that their child has been having issues.  ESPECIALLY when I didn't see any warning signs.  I worry that he'll feel odd or out of place because neither myself nor Brandon wear glasses (I actually do need them but I haven't had an eye exam in years).  I pray that his buddies at school don't make fun of him - this year and the years to come.  It would break my heart if that happens.  I also hope that he learns to take care of them - little eye glasses are quite expensive!  I have already made myself an eye exam appointment for an updated prescription. I'm hoping that if I wear mine, Will will feel less out of place, and maybe even learn to take better care of them.  Let me know if anyone has been through this with their little one.  We could certainly use your advice!

Tessa @ 2 Months

I took little bit for her 2 month well-visit this morning.  She behaved like a sweet little angel until the dreaded shots.  And then she turned every shade of purple as she screamed for the next few minutes :(

She weighed 11 pounds and 12 ounces.  She was 24.25 inches long.  This means she's consistently in the 80th percentile for weight and above the 97th percentile for height.  Her noggin is huge too - 90th percentile :)

Tessa is still a cool, calm and collected girl.  She responds with smiles when ooed and gooed to.  And just this week, I've noticed her reaching for her toys on her bouncy chair.  See evidence below:

She takes a lunch break every 3 hours throughout the day and usually gives us one 5 hour stretch.  Lucky for Tessa, her employer is pretty understanding ;)  I can tell that my going back to work has messed up her little routine.  She's woken up at 1:30AM several times this week, which she has never done.  Since day one, her wakeup time during the night was 4AM.  Last night was 3:20AM, so maybe we're inching closer to our normal routine.

She hasn't been a happy camper today.  The 2 month vaccines have her down.  Maybe tomorrow will be a better day.  

Major milestones this month include: first responsive smiles, reaching for her toys and moving to her crib in her own room.