A Little Overwhelmed

I've felt a little overwhelmed recently. Particularly this week seems to have compounded that overwhelmed feeling. With BJ in school, and teaching Bible Fellowship, not to mention working a full-time job and coming home to 3 (make that 4) needy people, and the time that's required for for all of that. Well, let's just say, we haven't been getting a lot of quality time together lately. And BJ has not been feeling very well with the RA causing more pain recently, which makes BJ feel more tired at the end of the day. I can only imagine how joint pain all day long could leave you feeling exhausted.

In addition, Griffin has not been sleeping well. I suspect its the eczema that covers him from head to toe that's making him very uncomfortable. I'm glad we had his 9-month well-check on Tuesday. Dr. F wants to do allergy testing because Griff's skin has been so itchy and inflammed. Maybe that'll reveal the culprit and we can begin to make Griffin feel better. If it's a food allergy, the responsibility will fall on me since I'm still exclusively breastfeeding. I finally got more than 3 hours of sleep the past two nights since we got a refill on the antihistamine that brings some itch relief for him. But of course, it's not that easy. During the well-check, Dr. F was concerned with Griff's lack of babbling (he doesn't do it at all) and the fact that he doesn't tolerate solids of any kind (he gags and vomits). So that means Dr. F is sending Griff to speech therapy. This will be my 3rd child in speech therapy (we're batting 3 for 3), but they've all needed speech for different reasons.

Well, I wished it stopped there, but it doesn't. Lily had her 5 year well-check yesterday. She did so great with doing everything they asked her to do, and she was so brave when they gave her 3 shots. But unfortunately she failed the vision screening "quite significantly" (Dr. F's words). If I had not have been there I would not have believed it. But I was there and I knew that she was failing the screening while she was doing it. She could not see past the first line on the chart when she was standing at a distance, but she could see the chart perfectly when the nurse brought her close to make sure she could actually identify the shapes. I was not even wearing my glasses and I could see to the 4th line at a distance. Dr. F is sending Lily to a pediatric opthamologist. We're scheduled for March 18. If she does in fact have vision problems it will explain a lot of things: why she always stands 2 feet from the TV, why she is often anxious about things out of place or specks on the ground, and why she often mis-labels things that I know she knows. But it's all so difficult to decipher on top of her sensory issues because those things are also symptoms commonly associated with SPD due to visual integration and tactile defensiveness.

I'm just so grateful that my children are generally very healthy, happy and smart. All of these things are so minor compared to other very serious problems that parents face every day. I just want to get through all these appointments with my sanity in tact.