Anyone who has lived with a very young child knows that periodically, they develop an obsession about some particular object, and become distraught when they cannot find that object. I get that. I have done the whole thing of searching the entire house for the particular vehicle, the specific stuffed animal, the blanket with a monster face on it, and so forth. I may not always comprehend the attachment, but I am generally supportive. I liked to think that my support was fairly unconditional. However, I have learned this week that it has its limits.
Allow me to introduce you to Lime's latest obsession. In case it is not clear from the picture, this object of obsession consists of 4 marbles (3 plastic, 1 glass) which are held in a small Lego piece that I believe was once the domed top of a little space ship but in its current deployment is held with the open side up, like a spoon. This collection of objects, it seems, must be close to hand at all times. However, the hand that it is close to is attached to a person who still trips over his own feet approximately 600 times per day, causing the marbles to roll in all possible directions at high velocity. This is followed by heartbroken cries of "I can't find my balls!" It is sort of hilarious the first time, I grant you, but I've definitely reached the point of wanting to throw the whole apparatus out the window.
In other news, our strategy of flat-out bribing Lemon to learn how to swallow pills has been a success. We put up a chart to keep track of every time Lemon successfully swallowed a TicTac, with the promise that if he filled the whole chart, he would get a remote controlled car. After a certain amount of resistance (it is important to maintain one's dignity, after all), he got it figured out and is now swallowing not just TicTacs but real enzyme pills as well. In fact, today at food school he swallowed 4 of them, no problem, without me even being in the room with him. Now, we are rapidly reaching an inflection point where he is starting to resist taking enzymes with applesauce, and is asking to do them with water.
After almost 5 years of carrying small containers of apple sauce every time we leave the house, I cannot tell you how liberating it feels to know that as long as I have the enzymes, and we can find water, my child can eat. No more discovering months-old apple sauce forgotten in some bag or the trunk of the car. No more realizing that we've forgotten a spoon and improvising something with a piece of foil or a container lid. No more realizing we've forgotten apple sauce and using water or yogurt or whatever comes to hand and hoping for the best. Most importantly, no more need for a teacher to give him a lot of help getting ready to eat--now when he goes to kindergarten, someone can just hand him his pills and he can do the rest. Phew!
It's hard to believe that our summer trip to the east coast is rapidly approaching. Which of course means that today I went to the post office and mailed a case of formula, a week's worth of pump bags, a canister of DuoCal, and various and sundry other CF-related supplies off to our destination. And realized that even though we're hoping to "travel light" (haha) we will still need to take the big suitcase because it's the only one with long enough internal dimensions to hold the portable IV pole. And, I need to have a conversation with Lemon about whether he will let me do manual chest PT while we're away, or whether he wants to bring his vest. Travel with CF always involves a lot of planning, but we're so excited to see all our friends back on the east coast that it will all be worth it. And, yes, I will keep saying that to myself daily until we get there.
