Recently in Steven F. Category

Smile, so I can take your picture, Steven.

No take me pictures. Click.

NO take ME pictures! Click.

Stop, Momma!

You took me pictures!!

Steven has asked for a 'tractor bed'. Which in two year old speak means a quilt. Which, in turn, I can only hope, means he is getting himself mentally ready to make the move into his own room and his own bed.

 

Some of these fabrics I could only find on ebay.

BTW, if you see the snow fabric on ebay being offered for some ridiculous price (6.99) for on fat quarter and the seller thinks you are trying to rip her off when you make an offer to purchase by the yard - make sure you tell her for me she missed out on the chance to sell me nearly 40 yards in combined total John Deere fabrics and missed out a HUGE lump sum purchase paid for in cash.

Hey, Nancy, if you are ever reading this - greed never pays in the long run. It could have been you spending my nearly $500 in cash. Instead another nice lady on ebay has reaped the benefits.

With all this said, it is my son who is the real winner.

Woot! Tractor Bed!

And bed skirt, and curtains, and pillow cases, and shams, and etc., etc., etc ...

At two days shy of 21 months Steven came to me this morning clutching his hiney and saying, "Potty." Sure enough his morning constitutional had taken place. This surprised me but also told me that it has finally clicked in his head that his urge is related to the potty.

This afternoon he came to the hall door and in a whiney voice kept saying, 'potty, potty, potty.' I opened the door and he led me to the bathroom and went straight to the potty. He raised the lid and tried to take off his pants.

I helped him off with his pants, took off his diaper and set him on the potty.

Steven pee pee'd in the potty!

Yayyyyyyy for children who try to potty train themselves!

This is a very sensitive issue this morning.

Yesterday I had to take Steven to the pediatrician as an emergency sick patient. Let me tell you why.

Around 10am he had a normal little boy erection.

It lasted for over two hours. It made him miserable. He pulled at his diaper, he whined, he even did a little foot stomping and crying. I did everything I could for him. I even called Steve and asked what to do. He told me to see if I could get it to either lay up or down in his diaper and maybe it won't irritate him so much. No success. I gave him a cup of ice to crunch on to try to distract him. Eventually the erection went away.

It wasn't long after that it came back again. This time the reaction to it was more intense. I ended up putting him in a lukewarm bath and let him play to help distract from it.

When I took him out of the tub I went to put a diaper on him and he just cried. The end was irritated and red. So I left the diaper off. He seemed to be fine with the diaper off. I kept watching to see if he was going to urinate so that he didn't do it on my floor or furniture. When he did finally go he cried.

I looked at his penis and it was no longer erect but it was very red and on the side of it there was a knot or lump the size of a marble. This scared me. I was afraid with the erections lasting so long that maybe he had torn those little muscle tissues that run the length of his penis.

I called the pediatrician but she couldn't see me. The office wanted me to see the nurse practitioner but I steadfastly refused. She is the one who thinks catheterizing is the first step for anything you can't put a finger on. No way was seeing Steven. Instead I took an appointment with the other doctor in the practice. A man. Exactly what I needed. Someone with hands on experience in that plumbing department.

I called Steve and he came home from work to go with us. I got Gracie from school and as soon as Steve got home we took Steven in.

The doctor was really nice and professional but he was sincere and funny, too. You know penis jokes can be funny.

Anyway - Steven's problem is that his adhesions (where the skin is still attached at the sides of the head of the penis) are beginning to tear away. This is perfectly normal in uncircumsized baby boys. It has to happen at some point. Sometimes it happens very early in infancy. At 19 months Steven is just at the prime erection/adhesion breaking age.

The doctor said we could treat his pain with Motrin and let nature take its course or he could lance the remaining skin and get it over with quickly but it would still have to heal. I asked if we let him lance it would he be able to use a numbing agent. He said no. There was nothing he could use on the penis. We said no to lancing. It takes the body much longer to heal from a cut than from a natural tear  and besides that? there is no way in hell I am going to hold Steven down on a table while anyone pulled back the skin on his penis and lanced around the head leaving him  bloody and in pain and in hysterics. We asked about the blood. He was very honest with us and said it would be a very bloody job. No! Final answer is No!

They gave Steven 10ml of 100mg/5ml of Motrin and within 10 minutes he was pain free and very nearly his old self again. He went to sleep for the first time all day. Ate his supper and played until bedtime. We went to bed at 8:30. I was exhausted.

At 10:30 last night he was so irritated he couldn't stand to keep a diaper on. We padded the bed with towels and managed to make it through the night with no wet sheets. I took a tea towel and draped it over him after he went to sleep just incase it let loose and went straight up like a fount. He woke once and we gave him another dosage of Motrin. Then he slept fitfully through the night.

He woke at 6am this morning in a rather good mood. I had the Motrin and a drink by the bed especially for when he woke. He took the meds and drank from his cup. He also had another erection. The tears in the skin have a dicharge so I have to watch and bath him frequently to prevent infection.

You don't want to go through this stage. Seriously. You don't. This is hurting me beyond anything I can even express to you. It is normal. It is nature doing its thing. Not every uncrircumsized boy goes through this but many do. It is sort of a male rite of passge at this age.

I could just cry. He is red and bruised and raw. The minute he urinates the diaper has to come off because it sets him on fire. He is walking a bit stiff legged and at times bow legged.

I am now wondering if 15 minutes at two days old and being circumsized vs. what is happening now it had been known by me fully would I have chosen the same path? I know it is stupid to second guess myself but honestly no one told me this would happen like this. Initially the pediatrician made it sound like pin prick breaks in skin over time is the norm. Obviously it is not. His penis is swollen to twice its normal size. It is red with streaks of blue in the skin. The torn wound is beginning to have that whitish oozy discharge that is the start of a scab forming but you know this wet skin won't scab so I have to ease back the skin a little and rinse it with water. It makes me shake to have to do it.

My son is in pain. His penis is torn and healing. My heart is hurting. No one told me about this part and it has made me very angry that I wasn't prepared for this part of being a mother to an uncircumsized little boy.

 

UPDATE

I wrote this last night when I was tired and still upset. I need to add a few more things here.

Most little boys are born with adhesions - that means the foreskin is stuck to the head of their penis (on the tip end not behind the glans on the shaft). Because so many little boys are circumsized most mothers don't even know their son had adhesions. It was cut away when the doctor did the circumcision.

About 50% of little boys who are uncircumsized do have adhesions. They begin to break away in infancy and often it is no more noticable than a few pin pricks over a year or more period of time.

Steven happens to be one of the little boys who never had much breakage in infancy and his physical development and current recurring erections have cause the adhesions to break all at once. Talk to English/European mothers and doctors, in places where boys do not normally get circumsized you find this common. It is fairly routine. The idea is to treat the pain, keep it clean and in about a week all is fine.

Let me say again - Not every uncircumsized boy goes through this but many do.

Hearing from several of you that have gone through this has made me relax and has eased my stress. Steven is swollen and a little bruised. He vwalks a little straddle legged and going diaper less is an option for me. I don't mind mopping the floor if he urinates before I can catch it.

I am still having a problem with having to ease back the foreskin and rinse it off when he does go potty. It is swollen and bruised (that's the bluish streak around it). My poor little fella.

But he is fine. I have given him Motrin. He has splashed in a bath for over an hour this morning. I have put neosporin cream all in the tip area and coated the outside with A&D ointment to keep the sting at bay should a drop of urine get on that delicate skin. He will occassionally hold that area and tell you ouchy but I think the Motrin has done alot for him compared to yesterday afternoon before we saw the doctor.

At this moment he is standing at the back door looking out of the screen and talking to the cat.

What can I say? Kids are resilient. Little boys are hardy.

That is exactly what we did this weekend.

Steve and I spent the better part of saturday morning working on firewood. Steve used his chainsaw to cut the trees in stove size lengths and I used a wedge and maul to split them into 6 or 8 pieces. I really thought my arms would be super tired and sore the next day. They weren't but my back was a bit stiff.

The wood was then loaded onto the truck and we brought it home where we then unloaded and stacked it for our winter use. We did this with three truckloads and a trailer load. Talk about a lot of work but we managed to do it in a matter of three and a half hours.

Steve and our neighbor think I am a slave driver. I just like to set a task and get it done before dark. You know? Men will stand around and talk, cut a bit and talk and then ponder a little more before getting back to work. Not me. Shut up and get to work is my motto.

We plan to do it all over again this saturday for the full day. Last weekend we knocked off at 2pm because we were meeting Steve's parents for dinner. This time no early days. We work until our arms give out.

We heat our house with a woodstove and stove insert in our fireplace.We use about 4 cords or more during the winter. We must get that much stockpiled. The wood we have been cutting and hauling is from dead dried trees that were felled and left to sit over a season. We cut and split and haul it home. We have 2 areas in our barn where we stack wood then we have a few places out under the back trees where we stack it to sit and season. We cover those piles with a tarp to help keep it dry.

Yes, I am a slave driving task master.

Saturday night we had to stop at target for a couple of things and Steven grabbed hold of this chainsaw in the toy isle and wouldn't let it go. He has been cutting wood since.

Sorry about the photo quality. This was taken in low light with Steve's cell phone. 

I often get questions and requests either in comments or by email about certain journal subjects or something that is a spin off from those. I used to keep a running list of topics to write about and questions to answer but that got tedious and often I wasn't in the mood to write on a specific subject. I am trying to get better about getting back to you all on such issues as you have made a point of asking me.

Tomorrow I am going to tackle one of the most recent, crabapples and jelly.

If you have a request leave it in the comments section and I'll see what I can do about it.

Now I have to go finish the quarterly reports for the local food bank. Fun, fun, fun.

Steven is becoming more and more vocal each day. We are moving into less screaming and more trying to talk in words. The girls don't make him talk enough. He grunts, reaches or schreeks and they give in. He is not talking as early as Gracie and Colby did. I think it is because (1) he is a boy and (2) the girls let him be lazy. I am not worried about his verbal progress at all. He is far too smart for his own good. Many people think he is much older than he is. At 18 months (next week) he says: Mama - me Dada and daddy - Steve Mah - Colby Ace - Grace Jay - J. Ice - loves to crunch on ice Light - points at all the lights Up - when he wants to be held Out - when he wants to go out Mine - it belongs to him Bye Bye - waving as he goes Nigh Nigh - Night Night Nassy - Nasty (when changing diaper) Nanana - Banana Nana - my momma Pop Pop - my mothers new husband He does the brrrrrrr noise for his tractors and trucks Baaaa for his sheep Maaaahhh - his goats Bok Bok - for his chickens When we tell him to get his shoes so we can go out be gets his shoes. If we say boots he get his boots. He knows the difference in many similar things. He also can obey very well when the mood strikes. He isn't always in an obeying mood.

Steven has had a bout with several colds over the past couple months. The last one hung around about a week. He suffered from the snotty nose and slight cough syndrome and then it was gone almost as quick as it came. Monday he seemed to have a very low grade fever but it left as mysteriously as it came. I figured with church revival and being around so many people he would either pick up another cold or catch one of the millions of viruses kids pass around all the time. Last night he ran a long fever around 102. I figured he might possibly have an ear infection from all the snot that had clogged up his head last week so I called and took him in as a sick patient today. The doctor's hours where full but the nurse practitioner could see him at 10am. I did something I didn't think I would ever be put to the test to do. I walked out the doctor's office not heeding the doctor's nor the nurse practitioner's advice and feeling like I was doing my best to protect Steven's best interest. He was checked from head to toe. Couldn't find anything at all wrong that might cause a fever. But then again kids are prone to ailments and fevers come and go. It is the body's way of killing off the bad germs to run a fever. So why we think a fever is a bad thing a fever is really good for us. So, unable to find anything wrong she asked: Is he eating? Yes, very well. Is he drinking? Yes, he is drinking plenty. Is he showing any other signs of not feeling well? Just a little grumpy like we all are when we are sick. The nurse practitioner then tells me she is ordering him to be catheterized to get a urine sample to rule out a urinary tract infection, a chest x-ray even though there is nothing that indicates he needs one, and a battery of blood tests. After I came to my senses I asked, "Don't you think that is a bit extreme?" She went out and said she would consult with the doctor. She wasn't nice about it either. After waiting 30 minutes the doctor came in and said she would order the same tests and added a skull x-ray to look at his sinus. If all of that came back clear she would have to say it is a just a virus and would run its course in a few days. The more I thought about it the angrier I got. Why not wait 2 or 3 days and see if he is improving and then if not start with the battery of invasive proceedures to rule out things one by one? Why immediately hit him with so many invasive procedures when clearly she thought it might end up being just a common virus to start with? The lab and the x-ray are a part of the over-all practice. They are each a separate insurance billing. I loved this pediatrician like no other I have ever had. Today I lost all faith in her. I think she is looking for reasons to bill medical insurance under the guise of treating little toddlers like 70 year olds with a past history of poor health. I walked out. The lab said I was the third one in a row with the exact same orders this morning. Even she was very puzzled and looked a bit upset about it. I called Steve. We discussed all she said. I brought my son home. We will not be returning to that office. I will carefully watch him over the next few days. If he shows any sign of not getting better I will seek medical attention as she ordered. For now I think they see $$$$$ instead of little kids who do NOT need a tube pushed up their tiny penis, needles stuck in their arms, and radiation bombarding their chest and their skull. I am so angry at her for wanting to take the most invasive procedures available instead starting at the beginning. In twenty years of raising children I have never seen a minor fever and no other presenting problems be treated in this fashion. I am completely disillusioned.

We make our own compost. It is not hard to do. You can do it in an outdoor plastic trash can with a lid. We just do it on a larger scale. Warm, clean and free. Our compost is a mixture of the remnants of about 15 giant round bales of hay that were left scattered in our field and around the fence line by the previous owners, animal poop, yard clippings, orchard clippings, weeds, and the kitchen garbage of vegetable matter only. Pile it up, mix it up, wet it down. Keep it turned, keep it damp. The bacteria present will begin to get very active. On a cold morning you can see steam rising. When you turn it you can feel the heat. It can get hot to the touch. Natures way of cooking makes a very clean, dark brown dirt. The cabbage have tripled their leaves in a week. Yesterday I spread 15 scoops from our front end loader in the garden and around the grapes and fruit trees. The peas have doubled their size in a week. All of the plants love the nice rich tea that runs off when it rains. Compost tea is full of all the nutrients your garden plants need to grow and produce. I know it sounds gross to think of things rotting and decaying but when the cycle is complete compost is clean, doesn't stink at all. It smells fresh and clean. The corn hasn't sprouted yet. We are very careful not to put any meat scraps, oils, etc into the compost pile. We do not want to attract wild animals or rodents. Neither do you. If you make your compost use only vegetation and plant waste. The potatoes are peaking out from the soil. They are purple skinned. When I was spreading the compost I found some things we did not put in there. I have no idea where they came from. It is sort of gross but interesting, too. First, I shoveled up a scull. I have no idea what it came from. It looks to have the beginnings of horn bumps on the top of the scull. Second, I came across a jaw bone with teeth. It is not the same or part of the scull that I found. This was found in a different section of the compost pile. Third, I found a fully intact sea shell. Both halves still closed and the membrane sealed together. Do you think a bird could have dropped it? It takes me longer to do tasks now than it used to. When Colby is home in the mornings she watches Steven and the tasks roll right along. When she leaves for work and its just me and Steven things slow down and sometimes come to a grinding halt. Some days he is content to wander and play in the grass. Some days he climbs on the tractor and 'drives'. There are times he plays in the dirt. Then there are the days when he will not stay close to me. Days when he runs off the minute I turn to do something. Days when he is bound to fall head first into the koi pond. Those are the days I give up and we go inside. The past few days have been pretty productive. Today is already looking like it won't be so productive. Steven has been up since 4am whining and tossing and fretting. He only gets still and cat naps when I am holding him. It is 7:15am. I am already exhausted and pushed to my limit. I have so much that needs to be done today. Anyone want to come play with him while I get my chores done? P.S. - I know I have a ton of email and comments to answer but I haven't had time. But I will. Maybe this afternoon or tonight.

With warmer weather and lots of rain things are very busy on this little farm. It takes me an entire day to cut the grass, mow with the push mower places the rider can't reach, then trim with the weed eater and put out round-up as needed along the paved drive and tight places where weeds grow. Not to mention picking up limbs that drop from the trees. The pruning and cutting back as needed is another entire days work. Once the big stuff is done in early spring it doesn't need to be done again until nearer to fall. Thank goodness! Steven put up this rustic looking arbor for the grape vine to grow on. The vine was a tangle of knots and a lump of mess left by the previous owners. I have managed to prune, cut and mow as well as try to train the vine into some bit of order. Compared to the heaping mess blobbed on the ground this is a hundred times better. It took several hours to get the vines untangled and tied in place. We'll have to use bird netting this summer if we want any grapes.Steve and I also made these arbors of pvc and chicken wire for the peas in my garden to grow on. The total cost for them both was about $20. They should give plenty of room for the peas to grow on and make picking lots easier as the peas will hang down through the wire. Thanks gravity! The peas have sprouted.The very long awaited for fig trees are beginning to show signs of green budding. I am so excited over these trees! We have planted three of them -a very cold hardy variety. Fresh figs are incredible!The blueberry bushes are looking wonderful, too. We planted four of these. I made blueberry yogurt muffins this weekend. Check the recipe journal.The fig trees and the blueberry bushes were purchased from Lowes. I know many people who do not like buying plants from Lowes. I am willing to give it a try because of the cost difference. The fig trees from a nursery would cost me nearly $100 each up here. I found these at Lowes for $10 each. I think that says it all. The blueberries are very healthy looking and the price was far better than any place we had found also. Lowes will replace these plants or will refund our money if they fail to thrive within a year. Most places I know will not make good on their plants for a year. Right now I am just anticipating fresh figs and blueberries. What a luxury it will be! The damson trees I got from the National Arbor Day Foundation last year are look amazing this spring. They are now about 3 feet tall and growing beautifully. Damson jam is a luxury.The dutch early cabbages are doing great. 18 cabbages.So far the tomatoes are growing vigorously. Some even have blooms on them. 14 tomatoes. Not near as many as normal.This area near the koi pond is a troublesome lot. It always overgrows quickly with vines and clover. J. and Gracie pulled out the clover. I put down black ground cover. I then put in a bed of hosta that I bought from a PTA sale. Ten bags of mulch later and this place might finally be under control. The area is very shadey and the hosta should really thrive. I love the look of lush hosta.I love seeing small plants go in knowing the following year when they come back they will be amazingly big and incredibly beautiful. So now you know what I have been doing the last few days. We have also been working on the chicken barn. Those photos are a post all on their own. I'll get to it very soon. Have I shown you my little monkey lately? He self feeds. I keep the peel pulled down.He loves bananas. Does he look 15 months old?He eats an entire banana every morning for his breakfast. I wonder how long before he decides he is finished with them as his fruit of choice. I am buying fresh bananas twice a week otherwise they ripen on the counter too quickly. He seems so grown up lately. Feeding himself and drinking from juice boxes. He prefers to do things on his own. He also climbs far too much. It is wrecking my sanity.