more details: cars, therapies, kids

It's pretty funny actually, that my brief post about the minivan generated more comments than any post I've done in a while.  I guess we all feel pretty strongly about it - I'm glad to hear that there are so many of you that feel the same way I do.  I'm not alone in my hatred for minivans.  I'll drive it - but that does not mean I am becoming a minivan driving soccer mom. (no soccer!)  

 

We have been very anti minivan for a long time.  We swore up and down that we would never do it.  But... we've really been feeling crunched in my honda accord.  Once we have the babies, diaper bag, stroller and any other gear in the car, there's literally no room for anything else.  Last time we went on a weekend road trip we ended up having to borrow a friend's van - there's no way we could fit a double stroller and two porta-cribs in our car.  And forget about ever having another passenger in the car with us - so anytime we had any other family in town, we had to go everywhere with two cars.  Any time I need to go shopping I have to take the double stroller out of the car, to make room for groceries, huge boxes of diapers, etc.

 

Our plan had been to buy a Honda Pilot or a Toyota Highlander - a mid-size SUV with a third row seat.  We went to look at them, liked them a lot - but the salesman gently suggested that we might want to have a look at the van - that it was made for people like us. We're thinking - "no, not people like us.  we're not minivan people!".  So, ok, "we'll look at it just for comparison".  And darn it - we looked at the thing and basically realized we had no choice.  The thing has so much more space.  We had to go for a drink after - just to let the sinking reality soak in.  More cargo space, more seating, more flexibility - and less expensive.  Really the only reason we could come up with for not buying it was that it was so not cool - and that's a hard justification to hold up.  so we caved.  oh well.  Some day I will buy a convertible sports car.  I told my husband I wouldn't blame him if he felt like he needed to buy a motorcycle.  He thought maybe just another electric guitar might do the job for now (note: he already has 6).

 

The reason for the minivan became even more clear after a conversation we had over dinner two weeks ago (on my 38th birthday).  The conversation about having more kids.  Frankly I was surprised - I thought he'd push back.  We were talking about how amazing our kids are, and I said that I really did want to have more.  He immediately totally agreed.  I was shocked!  Then I said that I debated whether we would transfer one or two again.  And he immediately said that he would totally transfer two!  We could have twins again - and he'd be really excited about it (so would I!).  Crazy maybe - but we both think these twins are so much fun.  We agreed that 2.5 - 3 years is a good separation.  So we will try next summer.  Wow.  I'm excited.

 

But with 3 or 4 kids - you have to have a minivan.  So the decision was made.  And here we are - minivan owners.  At least we got a really nice one - leather, Nav, DVD, etc.  So I can console myself with gadgets.

 

Now - on to more important things, that don't involve bruising my self image...

 

We took Danny to the pediatrician yesterday.  Net - she doesn't think we're over reacting, she agrees there is reason to be concerned about his development.  He is behind physically, and verbally.  She does not think there's anything medically wrong with him (metabolic, etc.), she thinks he's medically healthy, he's a thin kid but she's not terribly worried about his weight - but she did think it was prudent to go ahead do some thorough blood work to rule out anything obscure - genetic, chromosomal, metabolic, etc.  She took a bunch of blood to send through a variety of tests.  He gained a half pound in the last 4 weeks, so he appears to be gaining weight ok right now. 

 

She felt that we were on the right track with the neurology appointment - we have that appointment in December, we discussed whether there was someplace else we could get in sooner, but she really feels that this doc is the one we should see.  We've got him in the weekly physical therapy in the mean time, so we're addressing some of the treatment already, even while we're waiting for whether there's a 'diagnosis'.  She also thought it was a good idea to go ahead and get some speech therapy started as well - as he should be doing more with language at this age.  Fortunately that's the same place as the PT, so we'll try to get an appointment at the same time as the PT.

 

And finally - she thought we should go ahead and start the process to get him in to the Developmental program at Children's Hospital.  It's a full eval by a team, including a developmental pediatrician, and then follow up therapies as needed.  Sounds like that's a long process to get in - our pediatrician has to do a bunch of paperwork to get him in the system and get the process going, and it takes a few months to get in.  But it's a good program and worth the wait.  And in the mean time we are doing the PT and getting the ST going. 

 

So we feel ok with where we are at for now.  We may not get any diagnosis from the neurologist - he may just be behind for no reason that we'll ever know.  The pedi said that she sees plenty of cases like that - where a child is behind with no clear diagnosis, but with the right therapies he catches up and by age 5 you'd never know that he had been behind.  So we'd be ok with that.  And we continue to feel so fortunate that we have insurance that allows us to get him all this therapy without having to worry about cost.

 

that's what I've got for now.

 

and I feel the need to add, in case anyone wonders... if we found out that something really serious was wrong with him, then we would absolutely revisit our decision to try for more.  If we end up in a place where he is going to need a lot of extra care, treatments, attention, then I certainly would never jeopardize his needs by adding more kids in to the mix.  But that is almost a year away, so we have time to really get to the bottom of what's going on with him before we pass the point of no return on more kids.