Harrison

There is a boy. He is seven and wonderful. His name is Harrison and I don't know what my life would be like without him. Harrison is constantly challenging us, amazing us, and mystifying us with his wit, intelligence and personality. He loves to read while in school and is reading at an amazing level for a 1st grader. We are constantly amazed at what he can read and how he retains and understands the information and stories that he reads. Reading at home seems to be a challenge. He thinks there are 'better' things to be doing. We have reading time before bed and I encourage reading on the weekends, but the 'books' he chooses are usually magazines or Hidden Picture Puzzle Books. While it has been a bit of a struggle, I have caught him reading some books I have set out to see if he notices them and that has been a treat. He just seems to be a 'do it when I want to, not when you tell me to' type of child. I am sure most children subscribe to the same mantras!! He is 4 feet tall and 47.5 pounds. This means he is right on for height and very skinny! Harrison loves to do math (probably his favorite thing, actually), likes all kinds of food but prefers shrimp, and is great at board games. His current love is Blokus.

Some recent stories about Harrison include:

While lecturing James, Harrison, Bennett and Kaitlyn about not arguing about who has seen The Smurfs movie and who has not, Grandpa stated that they were done talking about it and if he heard anything about The Smurfs movie again, the perpetrator would have to sit out for a while. He asked if there were any questions. Harrison piped up: I don't have a question, but I have a comment. Grandpa couldn't help but laugh and say go ahead. Harrison said "You're talking about The Smurf's movie." Grandpa decided that Harrison is #1 - a smart-ass and #2 - pays too much attention at school.

I fixed the kids lunch one day. Mini bagels and cream cheese, Go-gurts, and bananas. Bennett had said that he would like a blueberry bagel and a plain bagel. Harrison wanted 2 plain bagels. After receiving said bagels, Bennett decided he didn't want the blueberry bagel. I gave it to Harrison who was already done with his plain bagels. He ate a bite and decided he didn't like it. I was a little tired of this and tore off a chunk and saideat it anyway and gave a chunk to Bennett and said the same thing. I left the table grumbling about how I didn't want bagels for lunch. Harrison decided to impart some important knowledge. "Mom, welcome to my world. You don't always get to do what you want or eat what you want. Welcome to MY world."
He is the ultimate child who wants to be the adult and tries to act like it in so many ways!!

A more somber story about Harrison is a recent health scare we are going through. I am sharing this in the blog simply because this is also a type of baby book for my kids. I want to remember what was happening and what we were feeling at the time. Honestly, I am not too concerned for Harrison's health at this point. I am more concerned about his worrying anticipation and my fear is that he will dwell too much and get way too nervous.

The story is that Harrison came to me a coupleof weeks ago and told me there was blood in his poop. I said let's go take a look and he told me he had flushed. Ugg. We talked about how he was feeling, what it looked like, if it hurt, etc. and decided that if it happened again, he would get me before he flushed. Time went on and nothing. And there were and are no other symptoms. No belly aches, no headaches, no anything. He is a very healthy 7 year old. Then, seemingly out of the blue, it happened again. I went to look and sure enough, it is in his stool. Luckily we already had a well-child doctor visit scheduled for the next day so I didn't have to call and make an appointment. Our doctor is fabulous! She is just one of the best. She was rightly concerned, but very reassuring. I brought up the 'c' word and she assured me that was not possible. Children get cancer, but not there. I am sure there is an explanation to go along with that, but both Harrison and Bennett were in the room and neither one of us wanted to talk about that in front of them. Again, she is amazing! She agrees that Harrison is very healthy, but that something is wrong in his colon. Basically, she believes that he has a polyp in his colon. This is not very common, but it does happen. I honestly didn't ask a lot of questions. I realize this is Harrison's body, but I want all the information and then I want to decide what information Harrison gets and when. Dr. Truesdell sent us to the lab to get a blood work-up and sent us home with a bowel movement collection kit. I am so excited about that! The blood draw was not fun, but Harrison did really well. He was nervous and scared and shook like a leaf throughout the whole thing, but the nurse, Betty Jo, was amazing and she talked so great with him. Afterwards he commented that it only hurt a little when the needle was going in and not when it was in there or when it was coming out. He was just scared and couldn't stop shaking. The doctor called later to tell us his blood looked great. This basically means there are no hidden pathogens we aren't seeing and that her initial assumption of a polyp is looking correct. Next step is to do the collection of poop (YEAH!!) and send it in to get tested. We saw the doctor on Friday so we are unable to take the sample in until Tuesday so we are waiting to do the collecting until Monday or Tuesday. After that we will see a pediatric GI specialist and after that Harrison will probably have to have a colonoscopy. During the colonoscopy, they would take the polyp if that is what is going on and then hopefully we would be all done.

Again, I am not really worried or freaking out at this point. There just is no reason to do so. Harrison has said that there was blood in his stool again and he kind of had a breakdown of his own about not wanting this to happen and not understanding why it is happening. So we are going to do a lot of being thankful for what we have and a lot of down-playing what is going on until we really know what is really going on. I have told Harrison that it doesn't do any good wishing this wasn't happening because it is and the best thing we can do now is deal with it in a positive and hopeful way.

Here's a super sweet photo of Harrison after he completed his birthday present this year. He was so proud to do it all on his own!