Aliens have abducted my child

This is a follow up to a blog I posted in October about O's sleeping habits/anxiety, and how we were considering medication for him. After a lot of thought, consideration, and consultation with O's doctor and therapist, we decided to try O on some medication for his anxiety. Children with anxiety are usually prescribed an anti-depressant, like Prozac or Zoloft, O is taking Fluoxetine, the generic Prozac. I am happy to say that O's behavior and coping have improved greatly. I didn't want to influence any opinions on O's behavior, so we didn't tell many people he had started taking it. After 4 weeks I called his teacher to see her impressions, and she said his behavior was much better the preceding 2 weeks. I asked his instructor at the Little Gym who's known O for a few years, and she said he handled things and acted better in class. I asked his acting class teacher, she said his behavior had been like night and day the last couple of weeks. It confirmed what my wife and I had thought, that the medication was helping. We had removed the crib mattress from our room, and O was now sleeping in his room all night. He also was down to waking up only once or twice, usually for a bathroom break, and currently has slept through the night 6 of the last 7 nights. We're working towards eliminating the need for him to wake us up, but it's a process, and things are much better overall. O has been a model child since Christmas, he even volunteered to set the table for dinner. He has been doing things he never would have done before like going downstairs alone or watching A Nightmare Before Christmas. He still will occasionally lose control of his emotions, but those are rare, and he now regains control and gets over things much quicker. He's even being more patient with his brother, playing with him more, reading to him, and helping him do things. All in all, it's been like having a new boy, he's still the same O we love, but with a new improved calming software update. We'll reevaluate O every 6 months to decide how the medicine is working and if we need to change anything. Hopefully at some point sooner rather than later we can take him off the meds. In the meantime we'll continue too enjoy the sleep and watching him flourish uninhibited by his anxieties.

Christmas Cards

What is it about Christmas cards? We put so much effort into creating and sending them, but for what reason? I have to admit I like getting them. I get giddy with excitement each day when I check the mail to see if I got any. But I'm not really sure what the point is. There is the notion of tradition, but where did it come from. After an exhaustive search (okay I just checked out wikipedia http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Christmas_card&oldid=332469173) I learn ed that not surprisingly Christmas cards were started as way to make money. Sir Henry Cole of London had helped introduce the Penny Post and later started Christmas cards as a way to get people to mail more letters and make him more money. Amazing a Christmas tradition that is all about making money? Next you're going to tell me the toy companies have a vested interest in Santa Claus? So throw tradition out the window, do we do them to keep in touch? With the interweb and social networking it's a lot easier to keep up with people now days, but there are quite a few on my card list that this is the only contact we have from year to year. However a picture in front of the fireplace in matching red sweaters doesn't tell me much. There are those that include the "Christmas Letter" in their cards, and I know a lot of people hate these. I for one am a big fan of them. I find it fascinating in what people deem interesting and important enough to include in these letters (full disclosure, I have in the past included a letter with my card). I also like to be caught up somewhat on what people are doing. Now the ones that are turned into cutesy little rhymes, fairy tales, or novels I can do without.

I'm at a loss, I'm not sure why my family sends out a Christmas card (that's not entirely true, it's because my wife tells me we are), or anyone else does. All I can tell you is why I like them, and that's for the pictures and seeing who likes me (or more likely my wife) enough to spend 39 cents (or whatever postage is these days) on me. Do not send out a Christmas card without a picture, I don't care if you just put a picture of your dog on it, I only want cards with pictures. The picture is what I look forward to when I open a card. They are like yearbook photos, so you can look back and see what people looked like in their 2001 Christmas card photo (my wife tends to keep old Christmas cards). It's always fun to see how people look and what kind of picture they choose to use, and to see how big kids have gotten. Then once received, they are immediately taped on the front door, for all to see the love and caring that so many have for my family as noted by all the well wishes in said cards.

I haven't even touched on the negative environmental aspects of cards, but I don't see a switch to emailed ones any time soon, so everybody go plant a tree to make up for it. And thanks to everyone who cared to enough to send me a card, you'll be getting ours hopefully soon.