Happy New Year: the sequel

As we all know, life gets on the way. After deciding that the party was too much for the sick kid, we were content to stay home, cook dinner, bake a Yule Log with Little L, eat the grapes on Skype with my family at 5 pm (midnight in Spain), have dinner, drink a bottle of cava from La Rioja, and eat a second plate of grapes at Chicago's midnight. But after lunch we realized that there was some fluid coming out from little Pb's ear, so off we went at 4 pm to the ER. We left Little L with our new neighbors, and run. Of course, as most moms, I'm paranoid. Particularly since the kiddo got a cochlear implant in that ear one month and a half ago, any menace of an infection on the area put me in panic mode. We had already taken him to the pediatrician on Saturday, and he was clear, it was just a little cold. But of course, after five hours in the ER on New Years Eve, we came back home with antibiotics, antibiotic drops and a diagnosis of ear infection with a ruptured eardrum. Isn't it a lovely way to end the year? In a way it ironically fits the rest of 2012. Let's hope that 2013 starts in a better way.
Hopefully the kids will sleep for a bit so we can eat the pizza and pasta I just ordered. In five minutes we went from a fairly decent home cooked dinner to delivery... At least we have that chilled bottle of cava.

Happy New Year!

Spending New Year's Eve in Chicago is weird for me. I'm used to my messy and crazy Spanish house, with everyone rushing in order to have dinner on time to have the twelve grapes at midnight, a Spanish tradition, and see my niece and nephew get ready to go out and celebrate. Not so long ago I was the one getting ready and begging for a ride to the city. This year we have to stay here for the audiology appointments for Little Pb's cochlear implant mapping. Since that was the case, we decided to go to a kid friendly party at a Spanish friend's house, to make it easier to pass. But it turns out that Little Pb has had a nasty cold for the last three days, and we owe it to him to stay home so he can recover.
That being the case, I decided to go for a haircut to at least start the year in style. I don't like going to the hairdresser, and I keep it to a minimum, which means that I only go a couple of times a year. I'm also very picky, and in the last twelve years I had only had two hairdressers, one in Spain and one here. Both of them did a fine job, but the Spanish one quit, and I was a little bored of going to a fancy salon in Chicago. Lately I have taken Lucas to this cool punk/rock barbershop by our house, Floyds 99. While they were cutting his hair there, I decide to give them a try today. After having my hair cut by the same guy for the last nine years, it was a leap of faith. I went, and I loved it. Since I'm talking hair, I should post a picture of the haircut. The funny thing is that, while talking to him, I found out that my new hairdresser used to work at the posh salon I used to go to before. You see, Chicago is not that big...

New Year resolution

As I can barely find my computer in a desk that has never been messier (and for this lover of chaos in desks, that means big fat unstable piles of stuff), and try to play with a kid who refuses to and just wants to look at his books, I started thinking about this blog. When I first posted here, I just wanted to vent, as stay at home mommyhood's isolation was driving me crazy. Then I wanted to add restaurant/book/movie reviews that I hardly have time to write. And finally, when we found out that Little Pb is deaf, I thought that it could be a good idea to document his journey in case it can help other parents. As if I don't have enough with teaching three classes, raising two kids, learning ASL, going to therapy at least three times a week with one of said kids, being a room parent at the other kid's class so he doesn't feel left out, running a house and occasionally taking a shower and entertaining guests, I will try to update this blog more often, a few times a week. I don't want to broadcast my life, which is quite boring, but help other people in any of my situations: Spanish (or foreign) mom living in the U.S., U.S. resident suffering cultural shock every summer when she goes back home, alien feeling more alien than ever as she has to spend Christmas without her family, frustrated PhD student who doesn't give up the dream of finishing up one day, mom to a deaf baby who needs to become a dragon mom in order to help him succeed, but only after figuring out what success means, mom trying to raise bicultural/bilingual kids, opinionated food lover/book lover/film lover, amateur cook...
If I am good enough at writing more often, my three month reward will be to get a proper design for this blog, the kind you pay for. We'll see where it ends.
For now, I will keep multitasking as nurse to my two coldish babies. Chicken noodle soup, here I go. And after that, I will clean up my desk :)

Moving forward

As usual, my blogging has been erratic at best. I have been wanting to write an update about Pablo's ANSD for weeks, and here I am, one day post CI surgery. He is playing in his crib, at home. I'm writing and hoping that the nurse I just talked to is right and that he is actually unable to pull his ear away. This has been a worry of mine all day long, until exhaustion kicked in and I decided that after ten hours glued to each other Pablo and I needed some time apart. In Spain, he would have stayed in the hospital for three nights (I know because I asked). Here, we brought him home four hours after he left the OR. To tell you the truth, that made me a little uneasy. I am not a nurse, or a doctor, just a mom who doesn't even know how to properly put on a Band-Aid.
I have to note that Mr Husband was away in London (to add insult to injury, my favourite city in the world) for six days until the very night before the surgery. Six days alone with the kids combined with a timely strep throat and the stress of having my little bug operated had left me almost agonizing. I can't work, read, write, cook or do anything else other than stupidly staring at Facebook. That needs to change. Although I suspect that the antibiotics I'm taking (since my strep throat is real) are partly to blame, so i may have three more days of this.
So, the CI (cochlear implant) was implanted yesterday in a three hour surgery. He had general anesthesia, which was my biggest fear and the main risk of this surgery in particular. It was a very long morning, but his surgeon was very pleases with the results afterwards. We came home a few hours later, and Pablo took care of his bandage during the night. Being a little bit afraid of stitches at first I didn't want to look, but our Dr did an amazing job and you can't even see them. He is comfortable, and the pain medication I gave him with the intention of helping him take a nap gave him a kick and now he is all hyper jumping and spinning in the crib. If I had gone through what he did yesterday, and would have the bruises and swelling he has, I would be weeping away in the couch, in tears. He is all happy, still my lovely always happy Pb. That was my other fear: that the surgery would somehow impact his bubbly personality. So far, it hasn't. And I hope it will remain like that.

Random

I just inadvertently found myself playing with Nymbler. What was I doing there? Nymbler is a website that helps you find baby names. But I'm not pregnant. I guess that while I stopped this morning at Carter's to buy PJs for my boys I saw all these baby girl's dresses, and footsies, and the likes, and I went all hormonal. As if I don't have enough in my plate. My last 30 days have been nuts. Just nuts. I returned to Chicago after two months in Spain, five days later my dad had surgery to fix a problem with the IAD  he has by his heart, I started a new job, Not so Little L started Kindergarten, Little Pb has had a good bunch (and that means more than 10) of appointments with therapists, audiologists, pediatricians, etc, and on top of all that my grandma passed away yesterday. I'm 5000 miles away while my whole family is saying goodbye to her. She lived a very long live, and she hadn't recognized us for a few years (she was in her late 90s), so it was expected. All her children had time to go by her side to say goodbye to her, which was good. But I think it has affected me more than I expected. As usual, when something happens when you are far away, it's effect on you multiplies. I should take a day to process everything that has happened in the last month. But that won't happen, for sure. The moms out there know that free days don't exist. So the processing will have to wait. Until then, I hope my hormones don't take over control. Or then I will need Nymbler for real.

Flying with kids

I was very happy to find this article yesterday on Huff Post. Then I was horrified to read some of the several thousand comments that it thread. Do I really live in a country that hates kids so much? Some of them were terrible, and borderline recommended abuse. Maybe it is because I come from a country where spanking your kids is basically illegal ( a couple of moms have ended in jail for slapping their kids), and drugging them would be unthinkable. I would never do any of the two, and I would certainly not give any drugs to my kid in an enclosed space without access to an ER in case of a bad reaction. Regardless of their behavior, kids are persons, not some second class citizens who need to be kept away from the public. A two year old is a two year old, and convincing them of not doing certain things is sometimes mission impossible, as much as the moms try. My kids pay as much as anyone else on a plane. They have the same right than the other passengers to travel. When you hop on a plane, you should lower your expectations. You are there to be transported from point A to point B, not to relax, work, rest, enjoy... If someone expects that from nowadays air companies, they need a reality check. Planes are uncomfortable with or without kids.
That said, I always try to keep my kids as quiet as possible, for everyones' sake, starting with theirs. Some things I do:
1: Since he was 2, my now 5 year old Little L travels with his own backpack and carry on. Having to take care of the carry on ( a crocodile, in his case), keeps him busy in the airport and gives him a sense of responsibility. Plus, he can put there any heavy toys that I cannot carry on my backpack.
2: Until he was 4, I would bring his car seat along. Once he slept all the way from the runway in Chicago to the runway in Madrid. I actually had to wake him up. And I didn't give him anything.
3: An IPad is a great choice if you travel often. You can load movies, games, drawing apps... On my first solo flight with it, my then 4 year old and his 4 month old brother I got complimented on his behavior at the end of the flight. And, trust me, as anyone who knows him would tell you, he is not the quiet kind. My friends call him "terremoto", earthquake in Spanish.
4: If you are traveling with an infant, ask for a cot. They sleep there quite comfortably, and you can rest your arms.
5: Bring snacks. They keep them entertained for some time. Stickers and kids magazines are also great. Books are too heavy, and last for too little.
6: I don't want to sound patronizing, but this is one more reason to breastfeed. You will always have a way to calm an comfort them if their ears hurt, they get upset, etc. Plus you may freak out the passenger on your side thus getting an extra seat.
7: Call the airline the day before and try to get a bulkhead seat. That way you get rid of the kicking problem altogether, and they have some space to play if they want. If the plane is not full, they will be willing to block an extra seat so you have some extra room. That helps greatly.
8. Take walks on the aisles to visit the flight attendants when they are not busy. As far as you don;t interfere with their resting time, they usually love it.
9. Try to fly with European companies. They are way more kid friendly. I didn't like Iberia until I had kids. Now I don't fly anything else when coming to Spain because they are very kid friendly and usually helpful. I even once had a pilot run after my stroller when the handlers mistakenly were taking it to the cargo bin. And last winter a flight attendant held my baby for some time to give me a rest.

Some of us need to fly with our kids. In my case, my parents cannot travel because of health issues, so if we wouldn't come to Spain twice a year they would never see my kids. Plus I'm raising bicultural kids, and spending three months a year in Spain is a big part of that.
One of my most pleasurable flights started with a disappointment. Little L was 10 months, and when the lady sitting next to us saw him, she asked to be changed. A grandma offered to change her seat, and she helped me throughout the flight. Four years later, we are still good friends, and meet whenever we are in the same town.
The persons for whom flying with kids is the most challenging is the kids themselves and their parents. I cannot believe that 95% of parents don't care. I'm sure they are doing their best, but sometimes, their best is not enough, and nothing will change that. I will post about my next flight in August with a 5 year old and a toddler. It will be my most challenging flight yet.
I will address socializing kids in the US vs Spain in another post. That should be fun ;)
Kuddos to the author of the article. She was dead on.

The next step

It's been a while since my last post. It's not that I haven't tried, but I barely have time. Between my classes, little L, and little Pb's therapy this is the first Saturday morning when I have a few minutes to write. And that's because I'm ignoring the pile of plates that await me in the kitchen sink. Little Pb has been doing therapy with three different ladies for a couple of months. There has been some progress, but not enough, so yesterday he got his first set of hearing aids. So far, so good. He wore them one hour yesterday and three hours today. He didn't seem bothered by them, and he actually cried a little when I removed them before putting him to nap. Of course, he takes them off, but much less than we expected. We'll see how he does when he has to wear them all day long. It's still too early to know whether they are helping, because even if they make him hear more, that doesn't mean that he is understanding what we say, since this is a neural problem, and not a sensory one. A small percentage of ANDS kids do well enough with hearing aids. It would be great if he is one of them.
Little L and I have one week of classes to go, and then we will have a couple of weeks in Chicago's steaming summer before we all go to Spain. I think it will be good for everyone, we really need a break, and spending the summer there makes things much easier. This is like going back to the 80s, when my friends from the cities would spend the summer in my village with their grandparents or mothers while the  parents worked. We are doing the same, but I think that will be healthy for the kids.
In a few days I will post complaining about the heat, no doubt ;)

The power of no

Since I'm recovering of a ridiculously adult case of strep throat that has kept me in bed for the last three days, I'm going to blog about one of the articles that I have read these days. The author criticizes a certain group of parents for their selfishness, self entitlement and over protection of their kids. It's ironic and funny, but sadly true. The fact that a mom thinks that ice cram carts should not be around playgrounds just so her kid doesn't beg for ice cream is ridiculous. At least to this poor European mom. Did you really say that you don't care if someone loses his job so your kid doesn't cry? Really? And don't give me the "it says it's illegal" line. U-turns are also illegal in most places and no one cares around here. You are not supposed to bring balls either. Oh, I caught you, you brought one! And dogs are also banned, but I'm sure that many moms would be perfectly OK with them roaming around their kids. I'm also going to assume that this mom is going to want to ban other parents from bringing bikes and trikes to the park. I've had to explain to my son plenty of times that it's OK to be sad about not being able to play with someone else's three wheeler at the park, but that he still couldn't do it. Or that he couldn't jump from the top of the slide. Or that he couldn't have an ice cream, for that matter.
One of the most important jobs as a parent is to teach them the meaning of the word "no". It's hard, because they whine, and cry, and beg, and pout, and make cute sad faces. But you still have to say no. Not always, obviously. Someone gave me one of the best advice I have gotten early in the game: "pick your battles". So you have to choose your nos wisely, depending on what you want to base your parenting style on.
The problem of these parents, anyway, is not just the ice cream. Is that they expect the world to revolve around their kids. In Europe, when someone has a baby, the baby is expected to adapt to his/her parents lifestyle and rhythm. I'm sure many an American has felt tempted to call children services while visiting Spain and seeing two year olds playing around a cafeteria table at midnight while their parents are enjoying some time with their friends. That's because here the parents are the ones who are expected to drastically change their way of life, catering to every single little need their kids can have. And that only brings us self entitled and self absorbed adults, who are starting to arrive to the workforce now with disastrous consequences. Ask recruiters around, and you'll see. They expect the world in exchange for nothing. No one has taught them better. And I'm not telling that Spain does a great job, either. Discipline is barely known there, by now actually it's probably banned by law. I will discuss that in another post.
Going back to that poor ice-cream vendor... If your child gets fat, it's not the ice-cream vendor's fault, McDonald's fault or Elmo's fault. It's your fault. If you smoke it's not Philip Morris's fault. It's your fault. I could go on, but you get the idea, right? After all I have written about this before. So, let's reflect a little, take back our share of free will, and start acting like adults. The kids will take care of their part.

Disclaimer: I am by no means referring to all American parents. I neither presume that I'm doing a prefect job. Actually, I asume from the beginning that it is impossible to do a perfect job.

Cuteness

My oldest son sleeps with socks. He has done it since he stpped wearing footsies to sleep. And they cannot match. His favorites are always old socks that are too small. I have already warned him that eventually there will be girls (or guys, who knows) and he may have to sleep barefoot. But twenty days shy of five that doesn't seem to concern him. As long as he is wearing them now, he is fine. Those little details are what makes us who we are. And seeing him crossed in his bed, with his little feet on unmatched socks hanging outside the mattress, makes an otherwise not so good day worthy. That cuteness is what justifies motherhood. As trying as it is, little things make you be thankful for your kids. They are irresistible :)

At least now we know

We finally have a prognosis for Little Pb. It's not good, but it could be worse. The other day a friend told me that this is not a tragedy, and she is right. It's a challenge. And it's going to be hard to overcome it. Actually, we will not really overcome it. He is deaf, and he always will be. But we may be able to help him hear. And speak. We may not, and that will be fine too. I just need to process all the information I have been given in the last couple of days, start my own research, and get to the task. The prognosis is Auditory Neuropathy. If you want more info about it, go to the link, but it basically means that his ear is fine, his cochlea is fine, but the nerve that connects them to the brain is not working properly. The worst thing about AN is that it doesn't really have a cure. And treatment varies from one kid to another, including the possible outcomes. So far it seems like we have a plan. We are going to try to habilitate his hearing and speech. That means that we are going to be seeing a speech therapist and an aural pathologist who will try to teach him how to hear and talk. I know, how do you teach someone to hear? I'll let you know when I find out. Right now we have appointments for them for the last week of March, but I called our audiologist to see if he can do something to move things faster. His ENT also wants him to undergo an MRI, just to make sure everything else is fine. It sounds like a lot, but it cannot be worse than seeing him go under yesterday. He was a champ, and it's unbelievable that after spending two hours under anesthesia and having a procedure done today he is back to being the happiest baby of the world, all smiles and giggles. The broad plan is to try therapy for a few months. If that's working and we see progress, great, we keep doing that. If it doesn't, we may try a hearing aid. They don't usually work, but is worth giving it a careful try. The last resort would be a cochlear implant. Which could not work, either. But we have many months until that.
This whole thing sucks. For many reasons. Not So Little L also needs our attention, and he is not getting as much as he is used to. We still should be able to live somewhat normal lives. But if you look at my IPhone calender for the next month, you would see that it is impossible. I don't have time. On top of all this, I decided to go back to work a month ago, and I start teaching again on March 26. And I have also accepted a small translation project. I'm looking forward to both, because they will keep me busy, but at the same time that's time that I won't be able to spend stimulating my baby.
Eventually, I hope to be able to go back to normal, trivial, frivolous posts. But for now, this is what it is. And my next question is... How do you raise a bilingual deaf child? That seems like a quadruple jump with loops...
About the ear tube surgery and sedated ABR test done yesterday, I have to say that it was unnerving to spend two hours waiting for them to be done, but everyone was great with us at Children's Memorial Hospital. Which was more than welcome. Northwestern doesn't always have the best bedside manners, but yesterday they were great.

A leap day I would have liked to leap over

February 29th 2012 was a gorgeous day in Chicago. I started my day at 8:30, going for a walk in a wonderful and breezy 55 F/ 14 C degree weather. That would have been a perfect start for a perfect day if it wasn't because the walk was taking me to Children's Memorial Hospital, where my baby, little Pb, was going to see an audiologist and then an otolaryngologist (ENT doctor). For months we have been thinking he was not hearing well, for months we have observed that he wasn't babbling at all (until, of course, the day I set up those appointments, when he started to babble a shy neneneneh). We took him to the pediatrician, we had an audiology report done in December, I took him to an otolaryngologist in Spain, and other than a mild hearing loss, he seemed to be fine. We were told that his ears were in perfect shape, or in the worst case, he would have fluid that was easily removed with ear tubes. But yesterday, in a more comprehensive audiology report, they saw that he was not responding at all in one ear, and only to elevated sounds (beyond 90 decibels) in the other. He pass the preliminary physical tests because the ear itself is fine, but he didn't pass the Otoacoustic Emissions Test. Now we are scheduled for a sedated ABR (Auditory Brainstem Response) on Tuesday. In that test they will place electrodes on his head to measure the brain's response to sound. At this point, they suspect he may have Auditory Neuropathy, which means that the nerve that connects his ear and his brain is not working well. Doctors don't seem to know much about it (according to Google, because no other doctor is giving us any information at this point), and it appears to be difficult to manage because it's unpredictable, it fluctuates, and can change from hour to hour, day to day, week to week or even month to month. Sometimes they hear something, sometimes they don't, and it fluctuates on the same child. That makes it difficult to treat. Apparently one of the options is a cochlear implant. But we are not there yet, we need to wait for the results. So far, they include an ear infection. his ears were perfectly fine yesterday at the ENT's, but today when I took him to the pediatrician for a pre-test physical he had an ear infection on his right ear, and fluid in both ears. Sigh. Now he is on antibiotics, and I cross my fingers so this doesn't interfere with the test.
So far, my next week has a speech evaluation on Monday, ABR test on Tuesday, otolaryngologist on Wednesday. That doesn't include music/soccer/Dr's appointment for me, Dr's appointment for "not so little L" and whatever else gets peppered on our week. Do I scream? I think I'll rather keep doing laundry and have a glass of wine and a cigarette, because it seems that, once again, we have a long road ahead of us. Plagued with decisions. Thankfully, I have an aunt who is an specialist in speech therapy, and a very good friend who is an specialist in disabilities and has been working closely with the Deaf community. At this point, all I have are questions. Starting with: How do marriages survive in these circumstances? I'll keep you posted.

Fernando Aramburu

I'm excited, because this is the first post I write from my IPad. Which, I love, by the way, although I vow to never use it for reading. Nothing will substitute the feel and smell of paper, of the fabric that binds it, of the leather of old books. But I'm not here to discuss books vs digital books, but to talk about my favorite writer of the last year. He has been writing for a long time, but I just discovered him last Spring. Yes, it has taken me these many months to finish one of the two books by him that I have read. The other one was devoured during the summer. The name of the writer is Fernando Aramburu, and he is from my native Basque Country. I just finished today Viaje con Clara con Alemania, a road trip novel in which the main character, a Spaniard whom we only know by the nickname "ratón" (little mouse) that his German wife uses to address him, narrates a trip taken with her. The purpose of the trip is to obtain information for a road trip book that the wife, Clara, is writing. I assume that it's unnecessary to mention the metanarrative aspect of the book within a book. I laughed with this novel. Loudly. It's very ironic and a bit cynical, a pretty acid portrait of how Germans view foreigners and of marital relationships. The witty dialogues between husband and wife are at times hilarious. I highly recommend it, although I wouldn't say it's an easy read. Lighter in the literature, but way heavier in content, Los peces de la amargura is the short story book that I finished in a couple of days during the summer. I was very surprised to find a writer who deals openly with Basque terrorism, and dares to explore it from every angle. Julio Medem tried to do it a few years ago with La pelota vasca, a documentary that, in my opinion, fails to capture the real situation that we were living in the Basque Country. The documentary was a little bit naive and unrealistic, unlike the fictional stories crafted by Aramburu, which, despite their "unreal" nature, resonate way more with what life felt then and there, and gives you chills as you read some parts. Most stories are told from the victims side, but some others address the feelings of the terrorists, the killers and their guilt. It also describes in a chilling manner the impunity that they enjoyed, even being worshipped as heroes in their towns. No other author has written about these issues as openly and as freely as Aramburu has, trying to take into account all sides of the conflict, but without forgetting or forgiving for a second, without excusing criminal behaviors with political explanations. I will go back to him soon, but now, it's time to move onto another writer. Ironically, this was one of the original purposes of this blog, writing about literature. Funny enough, I think this may be the first literary post. Hopefully others will follow soon. That will mean that the stage of motherhood in which you can't read period has passed. Coming from a girl who used to read five books a week on graduate school, and is happy to read one every five months now, that tastes like a triumph.

Excellent article

And so right on. It's what this blog is or was supposed to be about. But the other way around. How a European mom sees child rearing in the US.
 http://www.huffingtonpost.com/debra-ollivier/bringing-up-bebe_b_1224589.html?ncid=webmail5