Alice Update

I registered Alice for high school this week. High school! She's absolutely thrilled. I'm kinda excited, too. I think she'll do great, find a good set of friends, and come to learn a little more about herself. She's dead-set on attending college at BYU in Provo. It's a safe choice, I think, even though neither of her parents have much experience with the school personally :) Right now, Alice is planning to take AP-prep classes in every subject offered. She wants to do symphonic band/orchestra, theater club, and child development classes, too. It's an interesting cross section of genres there. I'm curious to see how she navigates it all

Alice was referred to a developmental pediatrician last week for her persistent anxiety. He was quite a character: old, talkative, kinda grouchy and opinionated, but clearly experienced in this stuff. He counseled her/us on three behavioral cognitive strategies to work on and prescribed her the lowest dose of Zoloft possible. She's been taking it for 2 days. She's had two remarkably low-anxiety days, admitting it feels so weird to feel so normal. It's probably the placebo effect this early in the game, but she doesn't care. I don't care, either. We have been trying every other anti-anxiety therapy we could think of for the last 3 years and it only seemed to be getting worse. Slowly, but surely. Any relief is a blessing at this point. I'll take it. 

She came home from the appointment, logged right back into school, and announced that she had just talked to a doctor about starting anxiety meds. One classmate gasped and said, "Did you get them?!" "Yes." "Yaaaaaaaaaaay!" Mental health comes up a lot in her classes and with her classmates. They talk about eating disorders, anxiety, depression, therapy, and anti-depressants as easily as they chat about favorite books and music. It's a pretty supportive place to be working through issues. Any issues.

Alice finally finished binding the quilt she started at school last year! It's a collection of baking-themed fabrics.

She led an online youth activity last week teaching the young women how to hand-sew a simple pillow. One of her goals this year is to get more comfortable with public speaking. She signed up to teach or co-teach THREE youth activities in the next three months. You go, girl! 

Alice has grown up a lot over the last couple years. Her tolerance for action-adventure has increased enough that we decided to show her the first Iron Man and Thor movies (Marvel series). She LOVED them both. Yay! Now we've got plans to watch the rest of the series with her. The boys are intensely jealous, of course, but counting on the same treatment when they turn 13. I will gladly watch the entire series again with each one of them. No problem.

Hanging with her homies.

Alice and Robert teamed up to make these delightful desserts for Bobby's Chopped Junior competition a couple weeks ago.

Picking up supplies for "Forum Week" at school. This year, they spent a week exploring and making art with local artists through the Krannert Art Center on campus (online, of course).

 

Challah

Here's Alice taking a picture of her most recent challah loaf to show her classmates :)

Runny Nose

I walk into my house after a good workout at Erin's house and discover ALL of my children still there. Shouldn't the boys be at school?! Well, it turns out that Bobby DID drop the boys off at school in the morning and came home to get to work. Then the school called to inform him that Matthew had a runny nose and all three boys had to be picked up immediately. 

Runny nose and congestion can be a symptom of Covid-19. Bobby and I figured it was just allergies and/or the below freezing temps he had to endure from the car to the school building, but rules are rules and safety is an extremely high priority these days. I'm glad the school has such rigorous standards. While it causes me stress and (so, so much) embarrassment in the short term, it boosts my confidence in their ability to keep ALL the folks there as healthy as possible. Including my kids.

Well, the boys hopped back into class online while I got on the phone with our pediatrician. We scheduled a Covid test for Matthew and continued to monitor his symptoms. So much sneezing. Snot. Yeah, it was an abnormally juicy day for this kid with year-round allergy issues. 

7 hours later, his test came back negative (wahoo!) and the doctor wrote a note to the school citing his history with persistent allergies and asthma, requesting that he not be taken from school for exhibiting runny nose, congestion, sneezing, or coughing unless it is accompanied by fever or other symptoms. 

Whew.

I kept them all home today for a couple reasons...laziness being one, new allergy meds being another. Between the negative test and the doctor's note, the boys are approved to go back in-person. 

It was a blessing that the kids had JUST had their annual checkups last week and the doctor's memory of Matthew's condition was fresh. Otherwise, she may have wanted another exam. 

*********************************

I don't have any good pictures/movies of the following things, but I wanted to record them here:

--Alice makes dang good challah bread. Seriously. We can't stop eating it. 

--She also makes a wicked good apple pie.

--Robert figured out how to play the "Baby Shark" song using only drinking glasses, water, and a spoon. 

--While waiting for dinner one evening, the boys laid down and scooted around the dining room table on their backs like cars on a racetrack. 

--James has played in the snow every day for the last three days, despite the high temps hovering between 10 and 15 degrees Fahrenheit. Fallen branches, slippery ice patches, snow so crusted over that he can crawl on top and not leave an imprint...he's a very happy fellow.

--Sunday afternoon and evening, I read Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban out loud to the boys. All three of them sat quietly on the couch for HOURS. I wonder sometimes how much Matthew can really retain. He's always asking us, "Wait. Who's that again?" But this time, when Dumbledore tells Harry and Hermione that there's still time to save not only one life (Sirius Black), but two, Matthew suddenly sits upright with his eyes really wide and blurts out, "I know what he means! They can, they can save someone ELSE from dying. Like...Buckbeak! Yeah! They can save Buckbeak!" Moments like those just make me happy. 

--Alice and I were driving home from an appointment when we stopped at a light. A man with a cardboard sign was on the median asking for work and help. The silence in our car was painful. Palpable. Time slowed down. It was so uncomfortable sitting there trying to ignore someone asking for help. Trying to pretend I didn't see him. That was my knee-jerk response, anyway. If I had had more time or foresight, I might have taken a different route home or gone out of our way to avoid stopping right there at that moment. I didn't like the feeling. I really wanted to be somewhere else. A couple days later, I was reading in the Book of Mormon where King Benjamin teaches his people (Mosiah 4):

16 And also, ye yourselves will ^asuccor those that stand in need of your succor; ye will administer of your substance unto him that standeth in need; and ye will not suffer that the ^bbeggar putteth up his petition to you in vain, and turn him out to perish.

I make diligent and consistent efforts to help people in need. Both people I know and don't know. As a family, we donate time, materials, and money to several non-profit organizations targeting poverty, homelessness, and hunger. Giving to those causes for the last 20 years has yet to remove the pain of trying to ignore someone asking for help, though. I am tired of that pain. Tired of that fear. Time to do something about it. If someone is truly in need deep enough to ask me point-blank for help, I want to help. Safely. So, I looked online for ideas and put together a few items that would offer a little relief to someone in a desperate situation. There isn't anything that could be used or sold to feed an addiction. The kids helped me put a few of these kits together and I'm keeping them in my car. All that's left is to screw up the courage to look someone in the eye and hand them a gift...

 

 

 

Sunshine and Relief

It's been sunny this week. Nothing makes me feel more resilient than a good stretch of sunshine :) I'm exercising like before, getting back into things, and feeling pretty normal.

All four kids had check-ups this week. Only Robert needed shots *sigh* much to his chagrin and everyone else's relief. Unfortunately, one shot has to wait until he's 11 years old, so he got a blood draw this time and an appointment for two shots just after his birthday :( The blood draw was a surprise. Apparently, in the last few years, it's become standard practice to give 9-12yo kids their first cholesterol and hemoglobin A1c screenings. Robert is normal for both.

All four kids are tracking perfectly on their individual growth curves, both for heights and weights. It never ceases to amaze me. It makes me wonder how much control we actually have over our body shape.

They gave Alice a standard depression/anxiety questionnaire, which got us talking about mental health. The doctor noticed Robert blinking repeatedly and that got us talking about his series of physical/verbal tics since age 4. She asked about a family history of Tourette Syndrome. I couldn't recall any, but if you're aware of any official diagnoses in my family or Bobby's, please let me know. Like depression/anxiety, they aren't eager to treat Tourette Syndrome unless/until it clearly disrupts the child's life. Every medication has side effects. Alice and Robert are both aware of their conditions, kinda annoyed by them, but not to the point of distraction. And it seems, anecdotally, that both conditions seem to mellow out for most kids with age.

James told the doctor that he was worried about his weight. I asked him what worried him about it and he said, "Diabetes." The doctor responded that the best way to avoid diabetes is to eat healthy and be physically active. I couldn't tell what he thought about this true, if completely vague, statement. He just blinked once and nodded. I'm sure he'll have more questions once he's mulled it over a bit.

Matthew was all worried until he realized there wouldn't be any shots. Then he was his talkative, wiggly self again. He hasn't had an episode of respiratory distress since starting montelukast (Singulair) for his allergies. What a relief! The miracle of modern medicine. The doctor asked him if he was learning in school. He kinda shrugged and shook his head, "Not really. I already know all the stuff they're teaching me." Which is NOT true, little man. Confidence is a double-edged sword, y'know ;)

I asked the doctor if she had been vaccinated against Covid-19 yet. Yep, both doses. Pfizer. Everyone I know has received the Pfizer vaccine so far. Has anyone reading this received Moderna's? 

I was excited to hear that Johnson & Johnson applied for FDA emergency authorization of their vaccine this week. That is my best shot at getting vaccinated before summer :) Illinois has been consistently ramping up vaccine administration so that as of this morning, 1.4 million doses have been given (the population of Illinois is 12 million) and 2.35% of the total population is completely vaccinated. In my own county, Champaign, we're at 4.5% completely vaccinated. The numbers seem pretty dinky right now, but if you consider those are the 2-5% most likely to die from, get infected by, and/or infect others with Covid-19, the impact will be much, much greater than the dinky numbers suggest. Just about 20% of the people 16 and older in my county have received at least one dose.

I took my 70yo friend to her appointment this morning for her first dose (Pfizer). Our county public health office has been coordinating with local clinics since March of last year to put on this public mass vaccination site. Their hard work and foresight really shows! What a great job. It was an educational experience for me in many ways. I asked the nurse administering my friend's shot which vaccine she had received. She told me plainly, "I have not been vaccinated." I was too surprised (and/or polite?) to ask why. She would have been one of the FIRST people allowed to be vaccinated. I overheard one woman (helping her elderly uncle get vaccinated) state to a friend that she still wasn't sure if she was going to get vaccinated herself. And just as we were leaving from the requisite 15-minute post-shot waiting area, one young man (white, maybe in his 20's? long pink hair, super skinny) seemed to faint out of his chair and need medical attention. My first reaction was, "What should I do?" I'm horrified and embarrassed to admit that my second reaction to his distress was, "I bet he's faking it just to undermine public confidence in the vaccine." Then I slapped myself in the face. I don't actually believe that, of course, but everything seems is so politicized and polarized these days that jumping to conspiracy theories (on both sides) is the knee jerk response. This is a crazy world we live in right now, and I am obviously not immune from the craziness *eye roll* 

Working on that. I promise.

Another slice of data-driven hope!

The New York Times puts out several free email newsletters with a curated summary of the most pressing news (according to their editors, of course, but I like the variety most days). The top story in today's The Morning newsletter directly addresses one of my recent concerns: vaccine effectiveness. I wish I could (legally) post the whole thing here. It's great! 

 

If you're concerned about the upcoming vaccines by J&J and Novavax being less effective than the Pfizer and Moderna ones, that's a perfectly valid concern. It's bothered me a little, especially with new variants circulating internationally. But it's important to know what "effective" means in research terms and how that translates into lives saved:

***************************************

The New York Times

The Morning

February 1, 2021

By David Leonhardt

Infections Aren't What Matter

"As Dr. Ashish Jha, the dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, told me this weekend: “I don’t actually care about infections. I care about hospitalizations and deaths and long-term complications... 

 

The Data

"By those measures, all five of the vaccines — from Pfizer, Moderna, AstraZeneca, Novavax and Johnson & Johnson — look extremely good. Of the roughly 75,000 people who have received one of the five in a research trial, not a single person has died from Covid, and only a few people appear to have been hospitalized. None have remained hospitalized 28 days after receiving a shot.

"To put that in perspective, it helps to think about what Covid has done so far to a representative group of 75,000 American adults: It has killed roughly 150 of them and sent several hundred more to the hospital. The vaccines reduce those numbers to zero and nearly zero, based on the research trials.

"Zero isn’t even the most relevant benchmark. A typical U.S. flu season kills between five and 15 out of every 75,000 adults and hospitalizes more than 100 of them.

"I assume you would agree that any vaccine that transforms Covid into something much milder than a typical flu deserves to be called effective. But that is not the scientific definition. When you read that the Johnson & Johnson vaccine was 66 percent effective or that the Novavax vaccine was 89 percent effective, those numbers are referring to the prevention of all illness. They count mild symptoms as a failure.

“In terms of the severe outcomes, which is what we really care about, the news is fantastic,” Dr. Aaron Richterman, an infectious-disease specialist at the University of Pennsylvania, said...

The Variants

The biggest caveat is the possibility that future data will be less heartening. Johnson & Johnson and Novavax, for example, have issued press releases about their data, but no independent group has yet released an analysis. It will also be important to see much more data about how the vaccines interact with the variants.

But don’t confuse uncertainty with bad news. The available vaccine evidence is nearly as positive as it could conceivably be. And our overly negative interpretation of it is causing real problems.

Some people worry that schools cannot reopen even after teachers are vaccinated. Others are left with the mistaken impression that only the two vaccines with the highest official effectiveness rates — from Moderna and Pfizer — are worth getting.

In truth, so long as the data holds up, any of the five vaccines can save your life...."

**************************************

When you get a chance to get a vaccine, I encourage you to take it. Any of them. That is the fastest and most humane route to turning this worldwide pandemic into a mildly annoying childhood illness. If you have a favorite vaccine, it will still be around after herd immunity. No worries. Get what you can now and go back for seconds later, if you still feel so inclined :)

I'm just blown away that we have several very powerful vaccines being given to people within a year of Covid-19 shuttering our normal lives. That's a miracle.