Moving cheese

"I'm worried about him"

Teacher Patty had come up to me when I was picking Alex up at preschool to talk about Alex's behavior since he started Winter term last week.

"He doesn't listen, he's out of control, he's angry, he's...well, he's like a different kid."

I knew he'd been acting like this at home, I had no idea he was acting like this at school too. He LOVES school and last term had shown so much improvement in his behavior I was certain he was on the way to being ready for Kindergarten next year.  But now, well, he's worse now than he was before he started preschool at all.

I told her that the only thing that had changed since last term was that I started working.

"Ooooooh. Well, that would do it." Teacher Patty said nodding her head "he's having trouble adjusting to Mom being gone."

Thing is, Alex doesn't usually have trouble adjusting to anything. He LIKES change. He's my easy going kid.  Also, it's not like I'm gone all day, I'm home by the afternoon. Not to mention, he's still at home with Dad, it's not like we've sent him off to daycare where he's in a strange environment with strange people. 

Now granted, John is a stricter parent than I am. I've always been a bit lenient, I pick my battles with the boys and only really dig in my heels if they're doing something I feel is totally unacceptable.  But John doesn't put up with nearly as much as I do and I've actually gotten on board with this and so Alex has been suffering through many more timeouts than before.

But it's not all bad, I've been trying to make up for my being gone in the mornings and all the extra discipline at home by making sure Alex and Max get to do lots of fun stuff. Much more often than before we're going to museums, the zoo, the park, indoor playgrounds, etc., etc.  I've been making a point to do something one on one with Alex at least once a week.

I guess that's not enough though.  I'm hoping that this big change in his behavior really is just him adjusting to our new home life.  I'm just going to try to give him even more positive attention, try to do even more stuff with him one on one. I'm also going to make a bigger effort to get our family on a routine. I'm really at a loss as to what else I can do.

Itchy no more

I feel like I can say it now. Alex is eczema free.

I can't believe it.

If you weren't around Alex as a baby, you don't know how significant this is.  The poor kid was COVERED in eczema. From the age of three months until, well, September of last year, he had constant skin problems.  It could be anywhere from a patch on his hand to a full body breakout.  He seemed to always have these horrible patches of red, itchy, oozing, skin that would get infected constantly.  He never had that sweet soft baby skin other babies have.  Well, he had it, in between the swollen patches of itchy weeping skin I guess.  We've tried every topical cream from the over the counter 1% hydrocortizone to Elidel to steroid creams to oral steroids.  He's had to be on many different antibiotics because of all the skin infections.  We've gone through HUNDREDS of bottles of hypoallergenic lotions and make sure to wash his clothes and bedsheets in hypoallergenic detergents.

The pediatrician's office even nicknamed him "sandpaper boy". Yeah, nice.

And now, it's over. Just like that.

I don't know if it's just the more humid climate or the softer water or cleaner air or what, but whatever it is, Oregon has cleared up my boy's skin and now, well, now he's just a normal kid.  He's not frantically scratching his skin off and I'm not constantly applying bandaids and antibacterial ointments to the open sores and I only apply skin lotion after his bath if I remember to do it.  He hasn't been on an antibiotic since we've moved and I've actually thrown out the tube of Elidel (risk of skin cancer with prolonged use).

On one hand, I'm just thrilled. On the other hand I'm frustrated that all we had to do to give our baby a better quality of life was move to Oregon! This whole time, we SHOULD have been in Oregon!  I wouldn't have the worry of him having an immunity to antibiotics, or risk of lymphoma from Elidel or shrunken balls from the steroids (his balls are fine. I hope!), had we just moved to Oregon 4 years ago.

Oh well, we're here now.