Nicole is still mulling over her wedding blog post, which will contain more pictures of the glowing bride, so I won’t steal her thunder. Instead I’ll write a quick update on the Wise boys.
Benjamin is putting the “terrible” in terrible twos lately. He recently developed a vomit-on-demand trick that he would employ against food he objected to eating — eg: potato-based foods that weren’t fried and, preferably, smothered in ketchup.
In the past couple days, however, he’s taken to using the trick against food that he actually likes. I read up on it, and its strictly a control thing. He wants to assert his will on his environment, and food seems like a good way to do it. And let me tell you, I haven’t seen such a strong will since… well, since I last looked in a mirror.
Spanks, time-outs, go-to-your-rooms, and unpleasant baths where we wash the vomit off him and don’t let him play with any bath toys, all do nothing against a red-faced toddler screaming about the injustice of being asked to eat yogurt (which both yesterday and tomorrow, he will love to eat.)
Honestly it was both confusing an extremely frustrating until I read that its not that unusual. If we try to make him eat, he’ll gag and cough until he pukes, or jam his hand in his mouth, pull the food out, and then jam it back in until he pukes. If we try to negotiate with him, he’ll wail and scream bloody murder. And he’d rather be punished by being in his room than eat something he doesn’t want to.
Turns out the only solution, at this point where he’s too young for much more than action/reaction type conditioning, is to let him have a choice. If he can choose between two things, he’s usually pretty happy.
We won’t raise a kid who only eats peanut butter and toast sandwiches three meals a day, but there’s only so much screaming and fighting a parent can take. So we’ll let him have some little victories, and rejoice in the little victories he lets us have…
Speaking of little victories, this Wise boy had one yesterday. My back pain this year is definitely chronic. Its always been bad, but this year its been escalating.
I tried a chiropractor for two months, and didn’t have a pleasant experience. I don’t necessarily think that what he was doing was wrong — it was just wrong for me right now. My muscles were terrified by the adjustments and changes in my back, and over the past month they’d contracted into a permanent defensive posture, freaking out every time I’d bend, or stand, or sneeze. Sneezing has been really scary — sometimes dropping me to my knees. My range of motion was shot, and the pain has been constant, changing to spasms rocking my back at the slightest sign of unusual movement.
So at the advice of a friend from church, I tried IMS acupuncture. I don’t normally go in for the pseudo-medical stuff like acupuncture, but this is a bit different. They don’t just stick a bunch of needles in you and hope your body heals itself. No, instead they jam needles strategically into the coiled up muscles, and wiggle them around. It hurts like heck.
The effect is amazing though. The muscle clenches ferociously around the needle, but then as soon as its pulled out, it relaxes. The tiny hole in the muscle triggers a healing reaction in your body, and the whole area kind of just… chills.
I’ve only had one treatment. Its done with a physiotherapist, as part of a recovery routine, along with exercises and identifying weak muscles that might cause other muscles to over-work. On the whole it seems a lot more scientific than the witch doctor chiropractor approach. Today is the day-after, and its the most pain-free day I’ve had in months.
There may be other stuff going on in there. Disk problems are a likelihood. But at this point, we’re looking at 3 months yet before we get off the waiting list for a local family doctor, so if I can get some relief for the summer, I’m willing to try… almost anything.
But its warm out, grandma and grandpa are coming tomorrow to visit with the kids, and summer is stretching out over the horizon, past the sunset and on into morning. Life is good.