Alex is a hot dog

Alex goes to sensory integration therapy, and for the first time our insurance is actually covering it. This comes at a perfect point in our lives because he has been having a hard time recently. I think it is because he is putting all of his energy into learning the things we are doing in school, and his focus gets tapped out, and then he starts acting "sensory", as we call it. I am learning a whole new level of parenting.
At his sensory therapy lessons he spends an hour getting all of the sensory input he craves. It is amazing how much pressure he asks for...way more than I as an adult would ever be comfortable with, and sometimes more than the therapist feels she can safely give him. They come up with all sorts of ways to work with him, but the cutest is the hot dog. He dresses up as a hot dog, and they squish him in a huge bun-pillow, and put long yellow and red sandbags on top of him (mustard and ketchup) while he listens to a song about being a hot dog. The amazing thing is how still he becomes when he feels all enclosed and weighty. He gets a certain look in his eye, as if he is going far away. Usually he is fine for the next several days after therapy, and then he steadily falls apart until his next session. The therapist says it is fantastic that he is able to benefit from it for that long...most kids are falling apart again after less than a day. Her comment reminds me that there are so many reasons that Alex is a great kid--and I enjoy finding them out, one by one.
Inga's teacher has cancer. (Stay with me--this is actually related to my "Alex" topic, but you have to read on to the end.) For a while her doctors were uncertain how far it had spread, but now they are saying it is contained and if they perform a total hysterectomy she should be fine. Her surgery is scheduled for the end of October, so my little girl will have substitutes for a month. I am so glad this teacher's prognosis looks so good...she is a wonderful teacher, a fantastic person, and a friend of mine from church.
Another friend of mine also has cancer...melanoma. Of course I cringe when I hear that, especially around this time of year. She had a mole removed that turned out to be cancerous, and not benign. But it had not yet had time to spread, and so the doctors think they got it all and she should be fine. She sent out an e-mail to all of her friends letting us know the good news, and encouraged everyone to get any suspicious moles biopsied earlier rather than later. She was very insistent about it, since an early biopsy had probably saved her life. But I did not mind the authoritarian tone she took because she had every reason to warn me, and guess what...I'm going to go get a suspicious mole biopsied.
This is how the cancer digression relates: My son has FAS (Fetal Alcohol Syndrome). I love him fiercely, but I also have to stand by and watch every aspect of his life, especially his schooling, be affected by the choices his mother made while he was in utero. I have every reason to warn those I love to totally abstain from alcohol during their pregnancy, and if you compare my situation with that of my friend who has cancer, I should be able to take an authoritarian tone with my warning. But I hesitate. Social drinking is just so...fun. Who am I to spoil someone else's good time? And people can quote outdated medical articles stating that a little alcohol will not hurt the fetus. There are plenty of them out there, and doctors who still believe this is true. Who am I to argue with that? Except that I have lots of more recent articles I can refer to that prove that just one drink a week can affect the brain of a developing child. But no one wants to hear it. It's unpopular. It's hard. And people have been drinking during pregnancy since alcohol was invented. So they tell me that my sources are not professional. The Surgeon General, however, agrees with me, and the Center for Disease Control website states:

When a pregnant woman drinks alcohol, so does her unborn baby. There is no known safe amount of alcohol to drink while pregnant and there also does not appear to be a safe time to drink during pregnancy either. Therefore, it is recommended that women abstain from drinking alcohol at any time during pregnancy. Women who are sexually active and do not use effective birth control should also refrain from drinking because they could become pregnant and not know for several weeks or more.

Please listen, and spread the news.