Mary and John Growing Like Weeds

"The Grandparents' Report"
(more information than non-family members will probably care about!)


Mary and John had their delinquent well-child checks this week. I judged that they looked perfectly well to me, so I hadn't taken either in for nearly a year and a half (except for sick visits).

John: 33 pounds (45th percentile) and three feet two inches (32nd percentile).

Mary: 26 pounds 6 ounces (77th percentile) and two feet eight inches (60th percentile).

We ended up visiting a dermatologist the same day as our family doctor. Mary has an unhealed lesion that has been on the top of her foot for six weeks, and I'd taken her in for it twice. It started as a simple, tiny abrasion from her shoe, but then it never healed and just got bigger and angrier. Both doctors said it wasn't (yet) infected, but the recommended hydrocortisone wasn't helping it. The dermatologist said to keep a bandage on it at all times so it wouldn't rub up against anything (I'd been letting her go barefoot virtually all the time so shoes wouldn't rub on it and because "dry healing" is generally more efficacious than "wet healing") and to put on an antifungal twice daily (to prevent fungus from setting in). In two days of this treatment, the quarter-sized lesion has healed more than in six weeks prior.

Also, remember that mystery rash that never turned into chicken pox? She still had the rash three weeks later, so the family doctor sent us to that dermatologist. He walked in and airily diagnosed, "Oh, molloscum cantagiosum." My heart sunk. Many of the mothers in my La Leche League chapter have been battling molloscum for a long time--some for months, even a year, I heard. But I think some of them were avoiding the standard treatment--that I opted for immediately--of having cryotherapy done to a half dozen of the pox, which is supposed to "wake up" the immune system, which then fights off the remainder of the rash. As a virus, of course, it is always in the body, but the immune system can fight the symptoms. Mary was such a trooper, letting out a few angry cries at the freezing, but then declining to comfort nurse because she insisted on getting off my lamp to stomp around the room angrily for a few seconds before she was back to all smiles. I do hope the cryotherapy works: if one reads the Internet, there is much dramatic debate about how to treat molloscum and the fact that, being a virus with an extremely variable life, it could disappear at any time, it is nigh impossible to judge the efficacy of any given treatment (meaning, the pox might have been just about ready to disappear anyway).

Now I don't know how much to quarantine Mary during what the dermatologist hoped would be about three weeks before the pox are gone. On one hand, the numbers are ugly: The incubation period is two to seven weeks, any individual pox can last two to four months, and a whole "case" can last six to twelve months. And it is "highly contagious" (hence contagiosum). But very, very few women are stay-at-home moms, so many children are walking around with molloscum (it seems quite common, at least around here), spreading it at their daycare centers, schools, pools--and LLL meetings! :) The vast majority of children with molloscum are certainly not being quarantined, but what that means for me, I just don't know. My children are not enrolled in any programs, but we still have some social events, guests coming over, my next LLL meeting (and I really should go, since I'm a leader), and church events.

Mary is significantly along the way to being potty trained. Because I've done casual elimination communication since she was three months old, she has very rarely done more than pee in her diapers since she was half a year old. She tells me she needs to go and I take her to a potty (including the big potty). Or, she'll even just take herself without telling me, as I discovered her this morning. I'm thrilled to see her so close to being done with diapers at only 18 months old! We'll see if I can put in the extra effort to finish her learning process in the next six months or so.

Meanwhile, Mary has begun that really neat language phase of asking what things are called. I think that most children pick up the word "that" and use it to ask "That? That? That?" as they point here and there. Mary has decided to use the word "This?" and points to everything within her eyesight, asking, "This?" I think it is so neat to see inside their expanding toddler brains, to see that once Mary had the tool to ask for the name of things, she wants to know the names of everything! It is its own kind of "Helen Keller moment."

She has been saying sentences, such as "I'll get it" and "I did it," for a few months now. However, I've rather considered them words, that maybe she doesn't know are sentences ("Ididit!"). But maybe I'm not giving enough credit because she always says the proper pronoun, even though I say of her that "Mary" or "she" did it or I say to her "You did it." And now Mary has begun saying other baby sentences, combining "I" with other verbs (like, "I slipped") and I think those have to count as sentences. What fun for me to watch!

Meanwhile, John is in a "happy helper phase" and--boy!--does he like to help! He asks to help with nearly everything and, even though it slows me down considerably, I'm trying to take advantage of the phase and let him help, teaching him how to do things. The more he is helping me (and, believe me, his three-year-old [in]competency tries my patience), the less he is watching TV or getting into toy squabbles with his sister, so I figure it is the duty of my vocation and I'd better cheerfully say, "Sure, honey, you can help me . . ."

Also, John is asking the most interesting questions on loftier subjects these days. Last night as I was lying down with the two littles, John asked in the dark, "Mama, is God happy?" I was confused, said yes, but asked what he meant. He said, "Is God happy in Heaven?" I said that yes, he was definitely happy in Heaven, and we hope that we can become saints so we can be in Heaven with him too. John said, "Okay, I just wanted to make sure that God is happy." That led to a discussion about saints (as we've been studying the saint of the day) and John insisted that one has to be a grown-up to be a saint. I promised that children can be saints and said we'd get out our books and look up some children saints today. I love my job! (And thank you, Chris, for working so that this can be my job!)