The Importance of Being Earnest

As part of our efforts to keep William from hurling himself on more pointed objects we have tried to focus on the 'learn from your experience' model. "William, if you keep doing that you are going to need to go back to the hospital." This often, amazingly enough, served its purpose of scaring the poor kid into arresting his bed leaping, or stair jumping, or stick throwing behaviors.

Around last week he started self-regulating with expressions like "You need to be careful around laundry baskets, or you will need to go to the hostible." [It sounds so cute]

Then this weekend he complained about his tummy hurting, and he kept adding with a thoughtful measured tone. "My tummy hurts, I think I need to go to the hostible."

He wasn't screaming in pain, or anything. Just expressing his hurt.

Now, from all medical accounts he seems to be completely healed, but there is the chance something was missed, and it has been getting bigger. Add to this, our last trip the doctors suggested we could return for an ultrasound in about now, but that as they put it "we wouldn't consider you negligent should you choose not to." So of course, we can't help but be concerned.

Carly tried to counsel Will about what such a trip might be like and see if he was still keen to do it: taking blood, loud ultrasound, etc.. I am not sure if her intent was to deglamorize the experience (which may now have taken on mythic qualities in his memory) or simply prep him for the possibility of a return trip. The ultrasound is painless, but the machine and prep might be scary.

During her counseling session (in the middle of dinner last night) Will let loose a big burst of gas. And apparently this solved the tummy ache problem. How do you spell RELIEF?

Part of me imagines that Will has picked up on our expressions and attention when things are related to his tummy. We basically ignore the kids most of the time (lol), but when he takes a spill, or whatever, we quickly assess his belly for damage. Perhaps, intentionally or not, he is responding to that. The addition of the 'hostible' shows he know the key trigger phrases for parental concern.

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In other news, we had Sophie's belated birthday party Saturday at the park. I was nervous because the one Sophie went to was at a fancy 'bouncy play' area, and ours was not. Also we didn't really plan a lot of activities, and it was cold. My concerns were for naught. The play ground was excellent, the kids immediately ran around, dug in the sandbox, ate snacks, did the swings, and had a great time. We did a brief "Happy Birthday" song with pink cupcakes, and that was about it. A rousing success. Instead of presents, we asked for the kids to bring their favorite unwrapped book, which we will donate (in Sophie's name) to the local library.

Most of the kids in attendance were from her school (the code there is to invite all kids in her age group, so no one is left out, quite sensible) and since she is only one of the two new kids in school we we've been worried about her fitting in. It turns out Sophie is incredibly popular (at least among the half dozen or so kids that showed up). Everyone wanted to play with her, and one little girl had to be physically detached from Sophie (she couldn't deal with Sophie playing with another kid).
We've been a bit worried about some of Sophie's playmates being the 'mean girls' or 'queen bees', now it may turn out to be Sophie is the one we need to worry about. She is very sweet, just very social, so I don't really imagine her becoming cruel, but we are going to need to manage the line between a healthy ego and not so healthy.