Madi

First Grader!!  Can you believe it!!  I sat down the other night and was looking at old posts on here.  Why does it have to go so fast?  Sometimes she acts so much older than she really is.  She really is a big girl and a big helper.  But there are other times that she is far from helpful and far from acting like her big girl, 1st grade self.

When she finished school in May, she was ready for 1st grade!  People would ask or comment about finishing kindergarten.  She would answer yep, but I am in first grade now!!  She was so looking forward to seeing her friends again and learning to read, and having lunch at school.  First day of school came on August 20th and she loved it!!  Second day, all smiles, loved school!!  By the fourth day, we started the tears again and not wanting to go :(  NO, NO, NO!  Not this again this year.  We had trouble last year too.  I was really hoping this year we wouldn't have the sadness and not wanting to go again.  But it's back.  This week has been better so far, but not 100% yet.  She was crying at home before going because she misses me while she is at school, the day is too long, there is too much work, the teacher talks meanly sometimes.  But her teacher has been wonderful and is very patient and loving to her.  Her teacher started making an "I Love You Mom" card each day and when Madi was sad or missing me, she drew a heart on the card.  The first day, the card was full.  I was so sad that she is so sad.  I can't do anything to help her but talk to her and assure her that it will get better.  I now make her an "I Love You Madi" card that she takes for the week (Mondays are the hardest after being home all weekend).  She hasn't had to add any hearts and she hasn't been crying during class anymore, but she uses the card to look at it and calm herself down.  It is a big adjustment from going half day to all day and being home all summer with me.  There are drawbacks to staying home with the kids and for Madi the separation anxiety is the biggest drawback so far.

At conferences last week, she is doing great academically.  She is right on target with reading, comprehension, and math.  She isn't having any trouble doing the work in class.  We have just decided that she is lazy and doesn't like having to do the work.  I guess this summer, we will be doing more work and review.  That's if I don't ship her off to do school all year someplace else.  Just kidding, but the thought has crossed my mind.

She is doing better in the mornings.  Not as much crying.  But her anxiety level is still really high.  She gets herself all worked up and has belly aches in the morning and can't eat anything.  I feel bad about sending her to school without eating, but I also don't want to make her eat and having her throw up.  Being sent home because she is making herself sick would not be beneficial right now.

She does come out of school everyday with a smile and says her day was great.  So we are working forward!  Some of the things she likes about school, recess, lunch, pe, music, art, seeing her friends, and math.  Math was kind of a shocker to me, but she enjoys it.  Maybe because it is cut and dry.  1+1=2.  She is having trouble with spelling right now because not everything is making sense to her.  How do I know if it's a c or a k?  They both sound alike?  Keeping the direction of b and d right.  And forgetting her mistakes and focusing on spelling them the right way.  She's a dweller. :)  She will get there though.  She has done great on all her spelling tests it's just the process of getting there, the work, that gets her down sometimes.

Madi had a great summer.  Even though it was a super hot, dry summer, she had lots to do and have fun with.  More swimming lessons and gymnastics, nature center and art center, VBS, and fun with friends.  We did do lots of swimming this summer at home, made a trip to the water park with cousin Jaxson, went to the movies and saw a play, a couple of zoo trips and fun at the fair.  Now we are enjoying the cooler weather and going to tractor shows and doing pedal pulls.

She still has only lost two teeth so far.  Another anxiety point with this girl, loose teeth.  She hates them.  She doesn't want to loose her teeth.  Life can be so hard when you are only six years old :*(  She spent a whole meal a couple weeks ago crying because she ate something the wrong way and found another loose tooth.  Any changes in life causes major meltdowns.

Ugh, I feel like all I write about is the bad.  I don't mean too.  But these are things I don't want to forget about either.  Okay, let's talk about some good things.
1.  She's a sweet girl.  Caring and helpful as well.
2.  Smart.  Oh boy is this girl smart.  She soaks up everything around her and doesn't forget a thing. 
3.  Independent (when it is her idea).  There are times that I find myself holding her back unnecessarily.  I think this independence thing came on too soon and kind of snuck in there.  So I am working on that.  Maybe I brought on the separation anxiety myself?  Hmm, going to have to think on that one.
4.  Learning to explore and experiment.  I have noticed this more and more the last couple of weeks.  She is gaining confidence in writing and reading and is constantly asking what does that say or trying to figure out what something says.  On tv, signs, written, everything around her.  She is also more willing to write things on her own.  Before, she wouldn't write anything down without me spelling everything out for her.  She didn't want to make a mistake.  But she is trying it on her own more and more, right or wrong.
5.  Loving.  She loves everybody.  Her family, friends her age, friends of ours.  And I love that.

Maybe it's her age, maybe it's because she is the oldest, maybe I don't spend enough time with other kids, I just don't know where she is supposed to be at right now.  When kids are babies, there are books, charts, step by step instructions to everything.  Every year, every month something or someone telling you that this is what your baby should be doing at this time and what they should know and what they should be experiencing.  But now that Madi is older, there isn't those step by step instructions.  Or maybe there are and I need to seek them out.  Can you tell I feel lost at times?  I guess I just wasn't ready or didn't think that the moodiness or attitude was something that I would find in my 6 year old.  I hear the same complaints from other parents, but I don't see it in their kids.  But they probably don't see it from my kids either.  Is this part of parenting, the I am doing this all wrong feeling, always going to be there?

I love my Madi though!  I will always try and do my best for her.  I am going to try harder now.  I want her to grow up and remember her childhood and her parents as loving, engaged, always there.  I want her to have memories and fondness of things we did together.  I hope we are on the right track.

One more Madi story to update you on.

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We did have a bit of a scare the second week of school.  On August 25th we went to the Nebraska State Fair to watch the Guinness World Recorder being broken for the longest antique tractor parade.  After the parade, the kids went and rode three rides and then we headed for home.  It was a large fair and we did lots of walking that day.  On the way home, Madi complained of her leg (thigh area) hurting.  I didn't think anything of it.  My legs were sore from walking and just imagined her smaller legs were hurting as well.  She also has had growing pains for the last couple years.  The pain goes away in a couple of hours, no big deal.  Monday night she is still complaining of the same pain and she is now limping.  I pressed on her thigh and just imagined it was a sore muscle.  But when I pressed on it, she said that the pressing didn't make it hurt any worse.  It was a constant pain that wasn't going away even with Ibuprofen.  I made her an appointment for late Tuesday right before school was out.  Her regular doctor was off so we saw one of the new doctors.  Dr. Harvey is a brand new doctor and he specialized in sports medicine.  He looked her over and had her do some range of motion tests.  He then noticed that her right leg was not moving the way it was supposed to, even trying to make it move and bend more by pushing on it, didn't help, something was stopping it from moving.  He sent us straight over to the hospital, in a wheelchair for x-rays. 

By now Madi is an absolute mess of emotions.  She doesn't want to be in the wheelchair, it's embarrassing, people are going to see her, what is an x-ray, why do I have to do this, plus she is totally pissed at me because I took her to the doctor and now this is all my fault her having to do all this.  On top of that, I am trying to keep her in the wheelchair while pushing her across the parking lot and across Santa Fe to the hospital and trying to keep Evan with me without running off and getting ran over by a car.  Trying to call Chris to let him know what is going on and to please come help me.  We must have been a sight!  All I could do was laugh.  I was scared not knowing what was going on with Madi, but laughing rather than crying was my only option.  But that made Madi even more upset and now she is insisting that her leg doesn't hurt and she wants to go home.  I told her to walk for me and she was still limping so I told her to sit back down and stop fussing.

Got the x-ray done and back over to the doctors office to see the results.  Dr. Harvey was positive that she had a Slipped Capital Femoral Epiphysis.  Which is the top of the ball of the femur bone slipping out of the hip joint.  He wants us to do an MRI to get better pictures.  If it does end up being SCFE we would be headed to Kansas City to see a Pediatric Orthopedic Surgeon and the only way to correct it is surgery and placing pins in the bones.  We were in total shock.  We didn't know what to do.  We went home, read some more info and nothing looked good or promising.  We decided to do the MRI and not wait.  I kept Madi home Wednesday thinking we were going to get the MRI scheduled right away.  But because of her reaction to the x-ray they wanted to sedate her to do the MRI.  Got it scheduled for Thursday afternoon.  I haven't told Madi anything about the MRI or the sedation until we got to the hospital.  She flipped out again and the MRI tech came in and said lets try it without sedation.  It took us forever to talk her into sitting on the bed and getting this thing done.  He really thought we may end up having to sedate her.  Finally got her up there, she did great.  She had to lay perfectly still for about 15 minutes.  I held her hand and talked to her as best I could over the noisy machine the whole time.  We were scheduled to go back to Dr. Harvey Friday morning and get the test results.  But our wonderful NEW doctor, called me from his home on his day off to check on us and to say that the report came in and the radiologist says it looks clear.  He hadn't seen the images yet, but she did not have SCFE!!  Thank you Lord!!  There was fluid built up in the hip joint.  Don't know why or where it came from.  But it wasn't infected and we would treat with ibuprofen to help the swelling and get rid of the fluid over the weekend.  She has been fine ever since!!  Scary stuff!!  We think it may have been the extra walking, it also could have been the little roller coaster she rode at the fair.  She got jerked around pretty good and she said she hit the side of the car.  Just guessing, but so glad we didn't have to go through surgery.  I never want to go through that again.

I was trying to put pictures together for my Madi post, but it wasn't working out.  I will just put pictures together of both of the kids' summer and post them that way.  Evan update coming up!

Love, Amy