5 on Friday

As always, here are 5 special reasons I'm loving my boy this week:

5. Marino started saying "What's that?" I'm not sure I can count this as a two word sentence, because I'm assumming he's just repeating what he's heard other people say. Or should I count it?

4. He calls pumpkins "papples" which apparently is a hybrid of an apple and a pumpkin. I think he thinks they are just orange colored apples. He's been eating pumpkin risotto this week (which is actually made with pumpkin and apple juice, so it is sort of "papple") and he loves it!

3. He is madly in love with ducks. He loves all animals, but not like he loves ducks. He sees them everywhere - duck toys in 2nd floor windows at school, abstract looking ducks in murals, etc. If he sees me on the computer, he says "duck" until I show him duck pictures and then he says "quack quack quack quack."

2. Marino's leg continued to cause trouble for him all week. In the past week, he saw: the pediatrician, his physical therapist, the x-ray technician and the pediatric orthopedist. None of them have a clue what's wrong with him (more on that below). Anyway, in spite of whatever he was going through, the boy was his normal, cheerful self all week. He's such a trooper!

1. I think my #1 favorite things of the week always have to do with dancing, since dancing to me = happiness (you don't dance if you're sad, right?). This morning in the car, I was flipping through stations and we came across a rap song ("Wipe Me Down" - I seriously need someone to explain the lyrics to me, I have no idea what he's talking about - I'm an old lady now). Anyway, Marino was doing his dance, but then he included a gangster face in his dance (see below if you're not familiar with a gangster face...Evan and I call it "the ugly face"). OMG, I was dying! Where did he get that from?

Although none of our doctors seem willing to concede this point, I'm convinced that Marino's leg issue is the result of the MMR shot. I did some very serious research on the topic (ie: I googled it;)) and I found that join pain, mimicking arthritis is a possible side effect of the MMR shot. I also found other people that said their toddlers stopped walking for a week or so after the shot. His x-rays are clear, so it's not a bone issue. I really think its a bad reaction to the shot. Wednesday was really bad but things seem to be improving now (the limping is less frequent). I'm not sure why doctors don't want to admit side effects of vaccinations. At the end of the day, I would take some temporary discomfort for Marino over leaving him exposed to a debilitating/life-threatning illness. But accepting and informing patients about potential reactions is important.