Reid and Angie's Place: Summer Break Week 8

I thought I was only two weeks behind...but I'm three weeks behind. I can't believe there are only two full weeks left of summer break. It's time I get all caught up on this so that I will be ready for all of my back-to-school stories and posts.

Monday the 13th of July we had some friends make a spontaneous decision to go to the new Miller Athletic Complex in Castle Rock. (For those who have visited, Castle Rock is where our outlets are.) Since this place was on my list of adventures for the summer, we decided to join them. We woke up and got out of the house as quickly as we could. The goal was to leave at 8am, but we didn't actually leave until 8:25. It worked out well as we arrived right as our friends finished their "hike" up the mini-incline. They were headed to the playground so we joined them. The playground is one of the neatest ones I have ever seen. I wish I had taken pictures of it, but I guess I'll have to do that the next time we go. Yes, we will go back!

After an hour at the playground we moved inside. The facilities indoors require an admission fee, but it wasn't too bad. My kids loved the indoor playground (!) and then the pool was seriously the best we have ever visited. We got in the pool around 10:45 or so and stayed until they called for a safety break at 11:45. At that point we went out to the grass and had our picnic lunch and then got back in the pool until 1:30 or so. My kids would have stayed longer had I let them. Bree was getting tired, though, and we needed to get her a nap before evening baseball/t-ball practice. It turns out that Bree loves to swim, though, and keeps begging to go again. She even got a mouthful of water and it didn't even phase her. It upset me more than it did her!

My kids all spread out for lunch. Kai is talking with his friend Reese.

Proud of this kid for not being at all self-conscious about his button.

My mini-fish

On Tuesday the 14th Kai had an appointment with a pediatric endocrinologist. He had a bone age done in early June to evaluate his growth and we went to this appointment to follow up with the doctor and discuss where to go from here. Kai's bone age was estimated to be somewhere between 4 1/2 years old (specifically his wrist is close to that of a 4 1/2 year old) to 6 years old at most (his hand showed some traits of being closer to 6 years old). Either way, he is very delayed in growth. Of course, none of that surprised us. He just started losing teeth about 7 months ago and technically still doesn't even have all of his 6 year old molars. He just started wearing size 6 clothes and then are big on him. But I make him wear them so that Finn can wear his old size 5 clothes. After a detailed discussion of our family history the doctor felt that the best thing for Kai would be to run all of the blood work and just get the answers. There are two reasons why a child would have delayed growth like Kai does. One reason is simply that they will be a late bloomer. In Kai's case, there is a slight family history of late-bloomers and so that is a possibility. If you were to plot Kai's height and weight on the curve as that of a 6 year-olds, he would be in the 50th percentile. That is good. As an 8 year old, that height and weight is in the 1st percentile. Not good. If Kai's bone age matched his age, he would be tracking to be about 5 foot 1 as an adult. If Kai is truly a late-bloomer and his growth and bone age catch up to his calendar age, he could track to be about 5 foot 7 as an adult. As it currently stands, the doctor does not feel that is realistic. The doctor said at best he is hoping that we will be able to get Kai to 5 foot 6 as an adult. The other reason for delayed bone age is due to a growth hormone deficiency. This can also be genetic. Kai has a history of immediate family members who have used growth hormone, specifically an uncle and two first cousins. These family members represent both my side and Reid's side of the family. Additionally, I was screened for growth hormone deficiency as a child. The doctor said that a child with growth hormone deficiency that goes untreated will lose, on average, 5 inches of their adult height. That number would not be a big deal if the child was going to be, say, 6 foot 5. Ending at 6 feet instead of 6 foot 5 would still put them as a tall adult, but in Kai's case losing 5 inches would be a much more difficult thing for him. The doctor feels that our boys' genetic potential (a number calculated using both my height and Reid's height) is between 5 foot 5 and 5 foot 9. To lose 5 inches off of that would be a very hard thing. And so, based on all of that, we went ahead and scheduled the growth hormone testing, and many other additional blood tests for Kai. Poor Kai was upset about the idea of a needle poke and was not happy about the decision. But that being said, the doctor was great at talking to Kai and asking him questions, and explaining everything. And Kai really does want to make sure he is as tall as he can be. Just hearing he needed bloodwork after being told earlier in the month that he needed glasses was overwhelming.

Speaking of glasses, Thursday the 16th was one of our craziest days ever. Reid and I had eye exams scheduled for 8:30 and 9am. Reid went to the early appointment and I followed behind with all of the kids in time for my 9am slot. Reid then took the kids shopping for glasses with him while I did my exam and then they all helped me shop for glasses. Kai had been told he needed glasses two weeks earlier and had cried quite a bit over that and had refused to pick any out. That morning we finally talked him into trying some on and then we told him that he needed to pick the ones he liked or we would pick some for him. I gave him some time to think about it while we went to playgroup that day. Playgroup was at America the Beautiful Park in Colorado Springs and was a lot of fun. This particular park has a great playground as well as a fountain that the kids can put their swimsuits on and play around in. We enjoyed doing both of those things with lots of friends and stayed for nearly 3 hours before heading back to our house.

We were only home for about 30 minutes that day before we went back to the eye doctor for an appointment for Finn. After discovering Kai's vision had worsened significantly we decided to get a baseline for Finn. He did well with the exam and got us a good baseline. He does not need glasses, much to his dismay. Go figure, Finn wanted glasses and Kai on the other hand wanted nothing to do with them. But we did finally get Kai to pick out and order glasses that afternoon. So, yay!

The glasses Kai picked out. He hasn't let anyone but us see them, so don't tell him this picture is here!

Finally on Friday the 17th we went with several friends to the Space Foundation Discovery Center. We had a large enough group that I was able to arrange a group discount for us and we got a tour and activities to go with it. And we scheduled our time to coincide with the visit of Dr. Leroy Chiao, a former commander of the International Space Station. Kai was so excited to meet a real astronaut that he got starstruck and couldn't ask his well-prepared question. After two tries to approach him and ask his question, Kai finally got up the courage and asked Dr. Chiao what life was like on the Space Station. As luck would have it, a TV news reporter overheard Kai and asked if she could interview him about his meeting with an astronaut. Kai had no problem talking to her until she pulled out her camera and then he got upset again. Needless to say, he did not get a spot on the evening news, but he did get to meet an astronaut.