i am over the hump

[mopinko]

my middle child (of 5)turned 18 last month, and i feel 10 pounds lighter. she has really settled down, and got her head on pretty straight. she was quite the job to raise. she is bipolar, and finally pretty stable. it was one hairy ride. but she is doing great in school, getting straight a's and looking forward to college. we still have our prickly moments, but she is just not putting energy into fighting with me anymore. she is also getting to be a really good cook!
they are all getting to be fairly useful. they make buttons for me, and my oldest has been helping me remodeling my laundry room. the 14 year old is actually finally settling down in school, finally getting report cards that correspond to his intellegence.
my baby, at 11, is still a sweetheart, although she is giving me some grief about taking meds for her crohn's. it's hard dealing with a kid who feels cruddy most of the time, but it is impossible to get really annoyed with her.
screaming toddlers, and stinky diapers seem like a bad dream.

[SoCalDem]

1. Congrats.. It gets even better..

There will come a time, when you can actually sleep at night without worrying about where they are, and what they are doing..

That's the part that lots of parents miss in the "manual"..

The "manual" says on page 356,762 that your JOB is to help them GROW up...not to keep them dependent:)

It feels great when they readily tell you about their lives and you didn't even ask :)

Just 20 minutes ago my 26 yr old called me to tell me he's back in town safe and sound (from Vegas).. He called when he got there, and now he's home.. I would have never known he was even gone, if he had not chosen to tell me :)

I have friends who "insist" that their grown kids come every week for dinner or something or other, and more often than not, the kids spend a whole week trying to get out of it..

Our son pops in and says.. "I'm takiing YOU (us)out to dinner :)"..

You are setting the stage for your other ones too.. They see how gently you hold the reins,so they too will not bolt :)

:thumbsup:

[mopinko]

4. i decided i wanted a big family

on my mom's 75th birthday. we took her out to dinner. there were about 15 of us, and it was a drunken debacle. i decided that was the way to go.

[Ms. Toad]

2. Your baby...

When was she diagnosed, and what is she taking?

Mine was diagnosed with UC just before her 5th birthday and is on Pentasa. So far no real problems getting her to take her meds, but recently some problems getting the meds to take. - We start the annual colonoscopy routine this summer (at age 15)... just three summers left to make a lifetime routine a habit.

[mopinko]

3. she was dx'd at 9

she was taking pentasa, but she did not do well on it. she had a lot of pain and diarrhea, and i think it was more the meds than the disease. prednisone was not shutting down the flares, and she is on imuran now. she has a scope a couple of months ago, and is pretty good. having some inflammation in her stomach, tho, and it is causing her a lot of pain. she is getting rotten about her pills. caught her tossing them. argh. i have learned the hard way that they just have to reap the fruits of their actions. when she gets tired of feeling bad, i'm sure she will buckle down and behave.
she is such a great kid, it is really hard. blood tests, scopes, doctors, doctors, blech.

[Ms. Toad]

5. If you haven't gone this route,

You might want to try getting an allergy test done. We had the same experience initially with pred - it shut down most everything, but there would be these unexplained bursts of diarrhea. Folks in the online crohns-colitis group have a lot of non-traditional ideas and several reported good luck with allergen elimination. Since my baby was having a strong reaction to ragweed we took advantage of the (insurance) opportunity to have her tested. She had a mild poultry allergy - and when we eliminated poultry from her diet the breakthrough diarrhea stopped completely. The only flares she has had since then have been when someone told us a hot dog was all beef (and it turned out to be turkey) and a few other similar gastric incidents, and when the doctors tried (twice) to wean her off the pentasa.

Fortunately, even though she tests as having very severe UC her symptoms have been very manageable - and she does very well with all the medical yuckies. It's fun to watch the reaction of techs who troop in two or three at a time to assist in holding her down to draw blood only to have her it perfectly still and insist on watching while they insert the needle. They must have marked her chart, since they have stopped sending in the massive reinforcements and don't argue too much with her anymore.