We’ve been meaning to have “the talk” with Son #1 for quite awhile now, but just haven’t gotten around to it. He’s ten years old, in between 4th and 5th grade, and quite curious about the birds and the bees.

Beyond sitting down and talking things through with him, we also wanted to get him some books to help satisfy his curiosity. Unfortunately, the pickings are pretty slim at our local library, so…

Now that we’re back from vacation and things are settling down, my lovely and talented wife and I spent some time last night perusing Amazon.com for suitable titles. As it turns out, there are a ton of books available on the subject, and it’s pretty hard to tell what’s good and what isn’t without being able to look through them. We picked through the reviews as best we could, wound up picking three that sounded pretty good and were targeted to kids his age.

» It’s Perfectly Normal: Changing Bodies, Growing Up, Sex, and Sexual Health

» What’s Going on Down There? Answers to Questions Boys Find Hard to Ask

» The American Medical Association Boy’s Guide to Becoming a Teen

If anyone out there has already been through this, we’d love to hear your recommendations. And, of course, we’ll be sure to post our thoughts on the books listed above after we’ve had a chance to pick through them.

More ill health to write about…

As an aside, it seems like the frequency of illness goes up exponentially with the number of kids in the house.

Anyway, Son #4 is currently on antibiotics. Earlier this week he came down with what we thought was a virus. As things progressed, however, we got a bit more worried. He developed a “gagging” cough that bordered on uncontrollable at times, and was also running a consistent fever. We also learned that a little girl in his preschool class was recently hospitalized with a Mycoplasma infection that resulted in atypical (i.e., walking) pneumonia.

Given his symptoms and the this little tidbit of information, the doctor prescribed antibiotics (azithromycin in the form of a Zithromax Z-Pack). And guess what? This morning, he’s noticeably better. The cough still comes back a bit, but it’s much improved and the fever is gone.

Next up… Son #3 has been feeling a bit under the weather for the past couple of weeks. We’ve attributed much of this to his continuing recovery from his tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy. We’re confident that he doesn’t have an ear infection despite periodic ear discomfort. However, strep has been going around the elementary school, and he was starting to show signs consistent with a strep infection. So… We took him in for a throat culture. Negative. But this Mycoplasma issue has us wondering. The doctor wrote us a prescription for azithromycin (in the form of another Z-Pack) just in case, but we’ve opted against having it filled until we have a better handle on what’s going on.

Finally, Son #1 awoke this morning with a raging sore throat. Given his history with strep as well as its prevalence at school right now, we’re not taking any chances. The jury is still out on this one

That leaves Son #2. After a rough baby- and toddlerhood, when it seemed like he caught every bug on the face of the earth and had almost continual ear infections, he’s pretty much bulletproof at this point. He’s like the anti-germ. I suspect he’s resistant to pretty much everything because he’s already had it all.

For those of you that have been following along at home…

Just over a month ago, our six year old had a tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy, in part because of chronic ear infections. Everything went smoothly on the day of his surgery, and he was home by late afternoon.

All in all, he recovered from the procedure relatively quickly. The low point was a good bit of ear pain on Day Six. While we were warned about this in advance, it was still tough to see him so uncomfortable.

Late last week, I noted that he had come down with a cold without getting an ear infection, suggesting that our problems were solved.

And then…

Over this past weekend we started to wonder. He was really snotty (in a physiological, not behavioral, sense) and we were starting to think that he might be developing an ear infection. Well… He had his one month followup with the ENT specialist on Monday, and there was nothing but good news. No ear infection, and his hearing has improved dramatically due to less fluid in the ears. Awesome.

It’s really too early to say for sure that our problems are gone, but… Our son came down with his first cold since having his tonsils and adenoids removed. And guess what? No ear infection. Woohoo!

Given all the troubles we’ve had in the past, including multiple sets of ear tubes, we’re hoping that we’ve finally turned the corner.

Fingers crossed…

(Or maybe I should cross my eyes.)

After a good, long run, our ten year old’s nervous tics came back this spring. Once again, he’s been experiencing involuntary blinking and has also been wrinkling his forehead. I don’t think it’s all that apparent to casual acquaintances, but it’s incredibly obvious to us.

It’s hard to say exactly what (if anything) triggered it this time around. While his tics have been stress-induced in the past, his last bout occurred in the absence of any apparent stressors. Moreover, he hasn’t experienced anything particularly stressful in recent weeks.

The only thing that I can think of is that his tics re-emerged right around the time of his spring buzz cut. Perhaps that sort of change to his appearance made him feel a bit self-conscious? That doesn’t seem particularly likely, as he actually likes having his hair buzzed. More than likely, that was just a coincidence.

As before, we’ve gone out of our way not to draw any attention to it. Rather, we’re assuming that it will just go away on its own as it always has in the past.

Well, it’s been one week since our six year old had his tonsils and adenoids out. All in all, things have gone smoothly, though there have been some bumps in the road.

First and foremost, the Lortab that he was taking to control the pain made him nauseated. While nausea is among the last things that you want when recovering from throat surgery, there’s a fine line between controlling the pain and throwing up. Unfortunately, he crossed that line on Saturday and we ended up backing him down to just Tylenol during the day with Lortab being reserved for bedtime (we were told to avoid ibuprofen).

The other bump in the road came very early on Day Six. We were told that his ear pain would be the worst on Day Six, and they weren’t kidding. We were awoken between 1:00-2:00 AM by a little guy with extreme ear pain. Unfortunately, he was so uncomfortable (and so out of it) that he refused to take any medicine. After a few minutes of cajoling, we finally got the medicine down his throat and got him settled back down. The balance of the day was filled with a good bit of discomfort. The good news is that today (the morning of Day Seven) he reports that his ears are feeling “good.”

Hopefully the worst is behind us. He’s still out of school, and we’re not sending him back until Monday. The earliest the doctor said he could possibly return is tomorrow but, since the next few days are critical for his healing, we decided to hold him out Thursday and Friday and give him the weekend to recover more fully.

Our six year old had his tonsils and adenoids taken out yesterday. And guess what? Today he’s not a happy camper… [more]

Well, it seems that our run of ill health is continuing. After last fall’s bout with H. pylori, we’re now dealing with pneumonia in two of our four kids, and bronchitis (not quite pneumonia) in another. [more]

For those of you that haven’t been following along, we just got over a nasty bout of Helicobacter pylori. The treatment for H. pylori is the so-called “triple therapy” of 30 mg Lansoprazole (Prevacid), 500 mg Clarithromycin (Biaxin Filmtab), and 2 x 500 mg Amoxicillin. This regimen is taken twice a daily for a total of 60 mg Prevacid, 1000 mg Biaxin Filmtab, and 2000 mg Amoxicillin per day.

The problem

Unfortunately, swallowing all of those pills is a pretty tall order for a kid. By far the worst was the amoxicillin, which is a huge capsule that tastes (and smells) like rotten eggs. And you get two per dose, for a total of four per day. Ugh. Not a fun experience for our ten year old. Our doctor suggested that we open the caplets and mix them with either apple sauce or ice cream, but that just resulted in a big nasty bowl of apple sauce or ice cream.

The solution

Fortunately, we hit upon a winning combination: the pills, a big soup spoon, and a bottle of Hershey’s chocolate syrup… Simply place the pill on the spoon, cover it with a generous amount of chocolate syrup, and go. The chocolate syrup masks the taste and make the pill slippery and easy to swallow. Once we stumbled onto this combination, it was smooth sailing.

So… If you have to give your kids a big nasty pill, remember that a spoonful of Hershey’s syrup helps the medicine go down.

When it rains it pours… After discovering that we have H. pylori in the house, we decided to scrap our Thanksgiving travel plans and stay close to home. Our plan was to celebrate close to home, get well, and perhaps even recover a bit from the recent havoc brought on by a major home renovation. And since yesterday was our youngest son’s third birthday, we figured we could have a nice family birthday party. [more]