Friday Fragments

A few random, short things worth mentioning, since other topics I have in the works are not ready for prime time:

Medication
Michael’s getting weaned off of his anti-seizure medication. Just recently I posted that his EEG came back normal and that the doctor would be letting us know whether or not we could start easing back on his daily medication. A few days ago Michael’s Mommy met with the doctor and came back with a weaning plan.

He has been taking Depakote in the form of “sprinkles,” which basically means you take apart a capsule of the medication and dump the contents on something he can eat in a spoon, like yogurt or ice cream. The plan we have now calls for 1/2 doses. Meaning, we take apart a capsule and then halve the contents. Over other, more unscrupulous methods, I’ve chosen to do this on paper using a paring knife, and dump half the contents on the spoon and the other half back in the capsule. No rolled-up $100 bills needed, not that we have any.

The other really fun part of this weaning process is coping with the possibility of Michael having a Grand Mal seizure, which is French for “Really Bad Seizure”. While remote, it may occur at any time during and for some time after weaning. And if this does in fact happen, we have some additional anti-seizure medication. It’s a suppository. I think the drug companies do this to us just to test our level of dedication to our children. Or maybe they just need a laugh. Every time I picture cramming a waxy wad up my child’s butt while he’s in the midst of flopping around maniacally and potentially swallowing his tongue, I get a little anxious.

I’m really not too worried about it though.

Storm
During the last few minutes of my work day yesterday, one of my co-workers started loudly announcing over the cubicle walls that they’re predicting penny-sized hail. I popped up like a prairie dog, as did so many others, and listened more closely. A big storm was headed our way, 60 mile-per-hour winds, lightning, hail. I looked out the window at an ominous dark cloud moving slowly toward us from the southeast. I shut my system down and headed out immediately.

As I quickly walked into the stair well, I looked out the side windows at the scene toward the north. I wasn’t sure what I was looking at, but the horizon was a greyish-brown haze. In the ten years I’ve lived here, it’s never looked like that.

Coming out the front of the building I was greeted with a hot wind and a cloud of dust. The trees in the parking lot were bent over at various angles, and various sorts of litter were being blown high into the air. My eyes watered over instantly as the dust blew in at high speed.

I got in my car and hurried home as quickly as I could, dodging flying tree limbs and debris. I called my wife to let her know that she should stay put. She reported that the rain just started. Then suddenly a tree fell over onto the road about two cars ahead of me, and we all jammed on our brakes. Almost instantaneously, fifteen people piled out of their cars and ran to the tree and heaved it off to the side.

By the time I got home, the rain was coming down in earnest. I pulled my car into the garage, then hurriedly brought my wife’s car in as well. It was parked right next to a birch tree that is famous for tossing large branches even in the slightest breeze. I figured in this gale it would detonate like a bomb.

Then the lightning and thunder came, over and over. We hunkered in our little home watching the news intently. Reports from all over showed downed trees and power outages, floods and injuries from lightning strikes.

Then, as quickly as it came, it was over. The power of God’s creation in a very small way displayed, as a reminder of who is sovereign.

Owies and Bedtime
The other day Michael tore up the bottom of his foot. Not even sure how, but he got some good scrapes. Required band-aids, of course.

But for some reason, Michael is heartbroken that these wounds are healing. A few nights ago he could be heard up in his room bawling over the fact that his owies were going away.

“Make new ones, daddy!”

As tempting as that sounded, I had to refuse. “Michael, owies are bad. We want them to go away. God made us to heal to keep us healthy and safe.”

“No! I want my owies! I don’t want to be healthy!”

So for nearly a week now, we’ve been going round and round about his owies. And we’ve been fighting the bedtime routine as though it were a new thing.

Thursday one of my daughters informed me that she had a choir concert that night, which completely rebooted my plans for the evening. On my way home I had to scramble to come up with a new game plan, since my wife was working until midnight and I had to take care of three teenagers and a preschooler by myself. One of them would be going off to her daily tutoring session, one I had to take to her concert, which left one teenager available to be babysitter to Michael. She agreed readily, and Michael was just as excited.

As the concert was nearing its conclusion, my eldest daughter called me to plead with me to hurry home because Michael wouldn’t stay in bed.

Sigh.

So once the concert let out, we beat feet home. By that time, daughter number 2 had come home from tutoring, which meant she could stay with Michael while I ran her sisters across town to their mom’s house.

Michael was in bed and quiet by this point, but I knew it wouldn’t last.

“If Michael gives you any trouble, just let him get up. Don’t fight with him,” I advised.

“Okay,” she said.

Sure enough, when I had finished my taxi errand and returned for the night, I found Michael sitting squarely in front of the television.

“Off to bed,” I said. He quickly obeyed and ran upstairs. I put him to bed and admonished him to go to sleep.

After a few bouts of crying and giving random reasons for it (including his sorrow over his healing injuries), at around 10:30 he finally stayed quiet and went to sleep for the night.

So far, five is proving to be a very interesting age. Not that he has been dull up to now… but it’s a different sort of interesting.