On Gender Roles

Once in a while at my work, we have what we call "Mommy Lunch."  Ladies who had babies around the same time all get together to talk about their kids and how things are going, because it's nice to have that kind of support.  Today's lunch gave me a chance to finally feel like we're doing something right in terms of raising Lyric.  I know that most people tell us we're doing great, and they're proud, and all that - but that doesn't stop the rising guilt you can sometimes feel as a parent.  That guilt where you read about the kid who eats all organic food with fruits and veggies, while your kid snarfs down nuggets from a certain red and yellow themed drive thru.  The reality is that as a parent you're doing fine - but it doesn't always feel that way.

Today, however, was different.  Three of the women at the lunch, including myself, have little girls.  One has a little boy.  The subject of dolls and playing "mommy" came up at some point, and the other women who had girls were talking about how their daughters are so in to princesses, pink, playing with dolls, and other things that tend to be labeled as "girly."  On the other end of the spectrum, the mother with the boy talked about how everything was basketball, baseball, and golf for her.  Then there was me.

Since we found out I was pregnant, and especially since finding out we were having a girl, we made the conscious decision to not force our children into the prescribed gender role that society puts on children.  Both of us felt that it was extremely important to give our child a balanced amount of "girly" and "boyish" toys to foster a well rounded development.  This way they would feel less pressure to be a "princess" or a "man's man."  Due to this fact, Lyric has a wide variety of toys.  She has a play kitchen, she has a doll house, she has Batman toys, she has Ironman toys.  She has a basketball hoop, a t-ball set, and a little dollar store golf club and golf ball.  She has stuffed animals and baby dolls - she even has a few Chelsea (young Barbie) dolls, and a tea set.  She also has Buzz Lightyear, and Woody toys - as well as a Woody costume.  Her clothes are a variety of colors - nothing overly pink and girly.  We actually recently purchased her a Punisher (the superhero, not the wrestler or monster truck) t-shirt from the thrift store.  She's always had Spiderman, Superman, and Toy Story in her wardrobe.  We have plans to get her a toy tool bench with toy tools, as well as Brio building sets when she gets older.  She plays with Duplo, and when she gets older she will have Lego - and not necessarily the pink Lego that people think need to exist for some asinine reason.  We don't really do Disney Princess, unless it is Rapunzel or Merida - because they are stronger role models than the traditional ones.  However, we've never discouraged her from playing with or picking out any toy or clothing item either, regardless of what aisle in the store it comes from.

I think that we're different than a lot of parents in that respect.  Travis wouldn't get in a panic if we'd had a boy and he was in pink, or playing with a doll.  Similarly, I love it when Lyric plays with her superhero toys, or wants  to build instead of nurturing a doll, or playing with her doll house.  So when the topic came up, I felt a really great sense of pride when I was able to say that Lyric does both.  She mothers dolls.  She plays basketball.  She paints and colors.  She cooks in her play kitchen.  She dresses up as Woody, takes Batman for a ride in her pink doll car, and she loves anything to do with Toy Story or Phineas and Ferb (which, by the way, Travis and I both firmly believe neither of these things are just for boys - so it is incredibly frustrating that all of the clothing and toys associated with it are blatantly labeled for boys.  They're for everyone, damnit).  She likes to run around in a Superman cape, but her favorite clothing item is a dress.

To be clear, I don't judge people who don't do it like us.  Every parenting style is different, and every child is different.  I'm just proud that I can say that my daughter enjoys just being her and doing her own thing, and I really hope that it continues to be this way.  It's always been something that was important to us as parents.  If she wants to be rough and tumble and play with dirt, frogs, and boogers - that's great.  If she wants to have tea parties, and play with dolls - that's fine, too.  As long as she doesn't feel the pressure to only be the Barbie loving, tea party giving girlie girl that people expect girls to be, then I know I have done something right.

Excited to have a Tumbler for her birthday

Batman with attitude

 Want some soup?

This is where my dolls live.

Batman is FABULOUS!

Every time she puts these on, without fail, she starts growling(Green Lantern for the superhero impaired)

Mothering her Monkey-Monk-Monk in her favorite item of clothing

She LOVED this princess car that was a first birthday gift

"Buzz" and "Woody" were 2 of her first words

Spiderkid, Spiderkid...

Even when she was a baby, we had these around

Hitting the ball like a boss

IEP Again

Tuesday morning was Lyric's IEP meeting for preschool.  It was a little on the bittersweet side, because it's really not something I wanted to happen - but I left feeling excited regardless.  There were 6 other people in the room apart from me.  Her current speech therapist, her current coordinator, her current occupational therapist, her future speech therapist, her future coordinator/teacher, and her future occupational therapist.  I didn't know it was going to be so many people - it felt a bit like a council of elders.  It was nice to see so many come together for the specific purpose of talking about Lyric though. 

It went pretty much as expected.  They went over her strengths and what she enjoys doing, like putting together puzzles and playing matching games.  Then they went over what needs to be worked on, and we came up with two goals for Lyric to meet by the end of the school year next year.  The first is that she will verbally express wants, needs, and requests both spontaneously and in a structured setting 3 out of 5 times.  The second is that she will follow two step directions both spontaneously and in a structured setting 3 out of 5 times.  She will be getting individual speech therapy while at school for (I think) 30 minutes per session, a few times a week.  If it seems to us that she has met these goals before the end of the year, we will meet to create another IEP, if necessary.

Her sensory needs are going to be addressed in the classroom as part of her education, rather than pulling her out to work on that on an individual basis because she has come so far on those in the past year.  The occupational therapist will basically see her once a month for 15 minutes just to make sure that nothing has gotten worse, and that she isn't regressing.  Since she has gone from not wanting to touch dirt at all, to being able to play in it, it seems like MAYBE they will become less of a concern.  There are still a few things that could potentially be worked on, so I am glad that it's not something that will just be written off, either.

Her preschool start date is September 3rd.  There was no point in getting her started now, as they only had 12 days of school left.  We just had to put something down on paper before she turned 3, essentially.  So we're officially done with home visits, and moved on into the next portion of the program.  She turns 3 on Sunday.  I'm sure I'll spend most of the weekend wondering where my baby went.

Sick

Friday after Lyric got home from Opa's, Travis had a doctor's appointment, so I had to leave work early.  When I got home, Lyric greeted me at the door, and pulled me into the toy room, where she sat in her little chair to watch cartoons and just looked tired.  Her hand felt very warm, so I felt her forehead.  It was also quite warm.  I asked Travis if he knew where the thermometer was, but in our house it's sort of like asking if you can find that needle in the haystack yet.  Needless to say, with no thermometer there was no way to tell how high her fever was, if it was even a fever, so we decided to just keep an eye on her and wait it out.  She wasn’t eating at all, but she was drinking just fine, so dehydration wasn’t really a concern.  We napped while Travis was at his appointment, and she was basically clingy and snuggly for the rest of the day.  Later in the evening, after sharing her “altered state” with a mom friend, I decided to take her to the local pediatric urgent care, just in case she had something that needed addressing with antibiotics.  She threw up when we pulled in to the parking lot, and was pretty subdued, despite the abundance of toys and cartoons in the waiting room.  When we got back to see the doctor, her temp was 104, which explains why she was so out of it.  They checked for strep, and wanted us to try to collect her pee to rule out a UTI, otherwise they were just chalking it up to something viral.  After a dose of Motrin for her fever, we went on our way.  She got home and crashed almost immediately.

So what does this have to do with the price of eggs in China?  Well, while I was being asked questions about her overall condition at the Urgent Care, I realized I had no real way of knowing if what was being asked was something that could actually be bothering her.  They asked if she was tugging at her ears, or complaining that her stomach hurt, or saying that hear head hurt, etc.  I said “No,” but the reality of it was that even if it was something that was bothering her, she would have no way of expressing it.  She doesn’t have those words in her vocabulary that we know of.  Speech delay means that even if she would want to communicate something like that, odds are she wouldn’t be able to.

On top of the speech issue, there were also the sensory issues.  We’ve never known when Lyric has an ear infection, unless she gets some other kind of crazy illness that drives up her fever.  There has never been a time where we’ve taken her to Urgent Care, the pediatrician, or the ER that wasn’t driven by her having a fever.  She doesn’t react to the pain or discomfort of things that would bother a normal toddler.  She can knock herself in the head hard enough that it leaves a goose egg and not care in the least.  Both the delay and the sensory problems make visits to the doctor for illness somewhat difficult, but it makes it especially difficult to figure out if she is even sick to begin with.  I’m positive there have been illnesses and ear infections that we have missed, purely because she’s just not bothered by things like a “normal” toddler would be.  As another example, when we were asked to collect her pee, it was after they tried the "bag" method that they use for young kids - which involves sticking a bag with adhesives inside of the diaper to catch the pee.  She tore the bag off.  They asked me to try to get her to pee on the toilet - she wasn't having it.  I was hoping I could get her to go in her potty chair, but no dice.  So we never did get the pee.  The sensory issues are another thing that make me hesitant about potty training, because it means she couldn't care less when she's wet herself.  All of this can make things extremely frustrating, and it certainly opens up a whole new perspective on illness and going to the doctor, let alone "normal" things for her age, like potty training. 

If you're curious, this is what cracked out Lyric looked like before I took her in:

Sick baby

I was taking the video without really paying attention to the focus, so that is why it's kind of shaky/weird.  And this is what she looks like with a fever of 107 (this one is from the beginning of 2012):

Thankfully she seems to be on the mend, fever free, and eating like a champ now.  Fingers crossed she stays that way. 

Goals Again

Lyric's IEP meeting for preschool is scheduled for May 21st.  We were supposed to come up with a list of goals for preschool.  Not small goals either - big ones that are supposed to last for the entire year.  I had no idea what to say.  I asked Travis, and he said he wanted her doing long division, so I decided his opinion didn't count.  I settled on saying that refining her vocabulary and pronunciation was important, and asked for recommendations on other things.  I'm excited to finally get things squared away, but it's kind of intimidating at the same time.  Hopefully that will all clear up after the IEP meeting.

We have one more session with Melissa, and then she is finished with home visits for speech.  We were supposed to have OT with Debbie on Tuesday, but she got there when Lyric was asleep and Travis was in the bathroom.  By the time he got out and saw her, she had packed her things and was driving away.  Oh well.  It wouldn't have been a good session anyway, if Lyric had just woken up.  She's a total grouch when she wakes up most of the time. 

From Tuesday night until Thursday, Lyric was at what we now call Camp Opa.  She went to my dad's house because he was on vacation and I figured he would enjoy seeing her and spending time with her.  To say that Lyric had a blast would be an understatement. Pretty sure my dad had just as much fun, too, if not more. 

 She played with her cousins in the dirt

 

 

 She pouted.

 

 She played with more dirt

 

 She hung around

 

 

She played with sticks

 

 

 She rode the scooter

 

 She smelled the flowers

 

 She went to the park

 Did some swinging

Played on the wooden cars

She didn't want to leave them when the time came, and I'm pretty sure her cousins are her new best friends.  Will definitely have to get her play dates with them more often.  It gives me hope for her socializing in preschool, and possibly for adding a sibling in the next year or so.  We'll see.