Giving And Receiving

After the tragic events of Friday December 14, the country has been advocating random acts of kindness and treating your neighbor like you would want to be treated.  For the record, I do not perform random acts of generosity or kindness because a current well known public figure tells me to.  I don't believe that the world will be changed by performing 26 random acts of kindness once in a year.  To forget your selfish nature just long enough to do something in the name of a victim of a horrible tragedy only to pick it back up again and push and shove your way through Black Friday next year really doesn't help anyone, not in the long run.

Any acts of kindness or selflessness that I perform are done because Jesus Christ died on the cross to save me from death.  I do the things I do because He commanded me to love my neighbor as myself.  He paid the ultimate price for me.  Out of a place of darkness, I was set free.  It is that freedom and love and genuine care for those around me that pushes me to do the things I do.  It's also something that I do year round, not just once a year.

This year I was prompted to give a meal to a family I'll never meet.  My church held a diaper drive so that moms in need would have diapers this Christmas.  I've put my change in the red kettles and thanked a man in  Army fatigues for his service and my freedom.  I explained to my son that we do these things not for glory or recognition here and instead, we give because we have been given so much more than we realize through what Jesus did on the cross.

What I didn't expect was what we were given.

Yesterday at church, Nate and I delivered cupcakes to our Sunday school class because it's Christmas weekend and I have next weekend off before the New Year and you simply cannot send children into their Christmas break without a lot of sugar and frosting.  It's simply not allowed.  When we arrived, there was a bag and a large box wrapped up in paper and tied with ribbon waiting for us.  My pastor's wife (and my boss as she runs the Sunday school program) gave us a bag with yummy treats in it and homemade bird feeders to hang outside our windows for the birds.  One of our students gave us a beautiful ornament with the nativity scene inside that's lit up with a light.

I didn't know what to think.  Inside the larger bag that was waiting with the box were clothes, gently laundered and smelling so wonderfully fresh, for my son.  The box held a thick winter coat for him to wear next year and clothes and socks and gloves and a little hat.  There were also two $25 Walmart gift cards for me and Nate.  When I got home and started putting things away, I simply stood in 2.0's room and sobbed.

I will never know who did those things for us.  I'll never know who to thank or throw my arms around and give a big hug to.  I don't know why these people thought of us and loved us like this.  I fought with a feeling of unworthiness.  My pastor's wife smiled at me and told me to just say thank you.  So I say now Thank You.  (I'm crying now as I write this because I'm still so incredibly touched.)

Giving and receiving came full circle for us this year.  We got to have the joy of knowing that we gave something wonderful to a family that needed it and then received a gift of loving kindness from others.  What I hope you take away from this post is that your act of kindness shouldn't stop when the holidays are over.  It should continue all year.  God loved us, not just at Christmas time, but all year round.  So we are to love others all the time.

Merry Christmas from Nate, 2.0, and I.  :)

In Which We Talk About Mental Illness

In the wake of Friday's devastating massacre of innocent people and the knowledge that the shooter was mentally ill, I feel a need to be very frank.  I simply want to share some very personal information with you and hopefully change the way you see mental illness and its treatment in this country.

I have a condition called Conversion Disorder.  I think I've talked about it before.  I had paralysis in one hand while in high school and went blind in my right eye for three days with no medical explanation.  The paralysis I experienced is actually medically impossible with the way the nerves are laid out in the body.  Both conditions are classic examples of Conversion Disorder.

I had a drug and alcohol problem in high school and once I was clean (going on 14 years now), I was brutally raped and went through an episode of domestic violence when I was 21 that lasted about 5 months. However, my seizures started before that.

I had EEGs and MRIs and CT scans.  I was looked at by neurologist after neurologist with no explanation for the 7-12 seizures I was having some days.  I'd wake up with bruises and have no idea how they happened.  Finally a neurologist at the University of Wisconsin hospital in Madison was very blunt with me and my mom.  The seizures were psychosomatic and indicative of a deeper mental illness.  I went to see a clinical psychologist who discovered what was causing the seizures and helped me find a way to stop them.  Through hypnotherapy and counseling, I was finally about to be very open about the trigger and could finally express my grief.  After my domestic violence experience, my family watched for the return of the seizures but they stayed away because I was able to control them and worked with a counselor to understand what had happened to me.

On the way to the rehearsal dinner, the night before I got married, I had a seizure in the car.  Thankfully my fiance (my husband now) was prepared for it and handled it with grace and understanding.  I now only have a seizure maybe three times a year.

I'll bet you didn't know that did you?  I'll bet you can't look at me and tell that I have this condition.  You probably wouldn't know my husband has adult ADD either.

Mental illness isn't something you can see.  Those of us with it aren't wearing signs around our necks to declare our condition.  In fact, for most of us, the conditions we have are hard to explain.  Some of us require medication to help us.  Others, like myself, required intense therapy and alternative therapeutic methods to control our conditions.

I'm not a threat to myself or anyone else.  The seizures I have now occur only when I'm sleeping.  I'm safe to drive, to care for my child, and to teach my students in Sunday school and be an active member of my community.

The tragedy in Connecticut was awful and sad and I've heard so much talk about mental illness and gun control.  We're all looking for someone to blame and the shooter took his own life.  We have no one alive to blame.  Sometimes we just need to accept what is.  This was a horrible tragedy.  If we could go back in time and change it, I have absolutely no doubt that we would.  But we simply can't.  Now we have to mourn with those who mourn and hold our children tight.

We also need to be compassionate to those who suffer with a condition they may not even understand.  Not all people who have some form of mental illness are dangerous.  We just have a condition that requires care. It's no different than diabetes or heart disease.  Our doctors are just different.

Explaining Tragedy To A Toddler

Thankfully my son is too young to understand what happened yesterday in Connecticut.  Thankfully he won't be haunted by bad dreams and he won't be clinging to me with fear when we drop him off for Nursery at church tomorrow.  However, this moment in time gives me a chance, as his mom, to practice what I would say to him as he gets older when this kind of thing happens again (because we all know what happens when you take God out schools and madmen get hold of a gun and no legal citizen is allowed to take a gun into a school to protect the kids...this could turn into a different kind of post and I don't want to make political statements here).

Last night, while my husband was at the Hobbit with his dad, I explained a few things to my son.  I told him that evil people do evil things.  Sometimes God can't stop evil people from doing evil things because we all have a choice to make about our actions.  If someone chooses evil and turns away from doing what God says, well then he makes a choice like this one and innocent people sometimes pay the price for it.

I told him that God is good and God loves him.  I told him that Christmas is when Jesus was born and we need to remember that God came to earth as a baby to bring us back to Him.  I told him that even though these 27 people died in a bad way that God would help us find something good to take out of it and that if we were sad, God would comfort us if we asked Him to.  I also told him that his mommy and daddy would do everything they could to keep him safe, that his aunts and uncles and grandparents would keep him safe too.  I told him that the people at church wouldn't let someone else hurt him while he was there with them and that Uncle Tony would stop someone from hurting him with a gun.  (Again, this could get political, but I live in Iowa and we have conceal carry laws here.  If you don't like that, refer back to the Constitution and the Second Amendment.)

After this little one sided conversation, 2.0 went back to his Duplos and started throwing them around the living room, trying to build things with a combination of Mega Blocks and Duplos without realizing the two don't mix.  He didn't have nightmares last night and he was a happy-go-lucky little boy today with his Meemaw.  I get to hug him and cuddle him and play with him while there are families who aren't that lucky today.

Someday he's going to participate in this kind of conversation.  I wish I hadn't had to practice it with him last night.

Parenting Is Not For Wimps

It's so easy to criticize a mom for breastfeeding her 4 year old isn't it?  It's easy to dismiss it as gross or label it as abuse.  That mom who is wearing her baby in a Moby wrap at the grocery store must be attempting to establish a relationship with her child that leaves the child completely dependent on the mom, even through adulthood.  And that dad that shamed his son for wearing clothes that made the boy look like a fool?  He's a bully and a terrible parent.

I think there's nothing wrong with a mom breastfeeding her child until the child wants to stop or until her milk is gone.  If that means her child is 4, well isn't that between the mom and the child?  My son is almost two and if my milk hadn't dried up, 2.0 would still be breastfed.  Breastfeeding is good for the child and it's good for the mom.  It establishes a bond with the mom that the child will have with no other person.  If a mom can't breastfeed, she's made to believe that she's a horrible person too.  No matter what a mom does, she can't do it right.

Here's what my parenting philosophy is:

• I stay home with my child because I don't want him to be raised by anyone else.  There's nothing wrong with daycare if the place is a good place.  I just chose to keep my son with me.  
• I breastfed my child for as long as I could.  Cow milk is for cows and human milk is for humans.  When 2.0 was living off of my milk, that was the best thing for him.  Now he eats other things, but if I could still breastfeed, he'd still get some kind of breast milk if he wanted it.
• I spank my son.  I do this because he needs to have bad behavior corrected in a way that reminds him that the behavior was wrong in the future.  I was spanked and I'm a well rounded individual.  I don't spank him with objects and I only use an open hand.  My son doesn't have bruises or welts on him from my discipline or his father's discipline.  
• I like to spend time with my child.  I don't like to rely on babysitters.  I also like to be a part of his bedtime routine.  We do have babysitters occasionally because it's nice to go out and see a movie or spend time with adults without our child around.  But I like to be the one taking care of my child.  I gave birth to him.  I'm responsible for him.  Yes it's important that 2.0 realizes that Mommy and Daddy leave sometimes, but that Mommy and Daddy always come back.  And yes, I've spent a few nights away from him.  I also enjoy his company and want to spend a lot of time with him.
• I don't feed my son organic food.  He eats what I eat and I don't eat organic food.  He also gets to have chips every now and then.  He eats chicken nuggets and mac and cheese and french fries.  Does he eat that stuff all the time?  No.  He gets fruits and veggies too.  He gets plenty of protein and whole grains.  He doesn't drink a lot of juice.  He drinks water and milk.  I don't think it's bad that he doesn't get much more of a variety.  But I do give him Crystal Light.  
• I didn't sleep-train my child.  If he was up in the middle of the night, there was a reason.  I don't believe that 2.0 has the mental capability to emotionally blackmail me or to manipulate me.  He had a hard time sleeping through the night and just recently started sleeping well reliably.  When he was a little baby, I expected to get up with him.  I think that anyone who lets a child scream and cry in a crib as a way of teaching the child to be independent is being counterproductive.  The child only learns that no one will meet his needs if he cries when he's left to cry himself to sleep.  

I am my son's mom for the rest of my life.  I will always love him and care about him.  I won't always be responsible for him though.  Right now I am.  The choices I make on his behalf right now will echo through his life.  I'm just trying to make the right ones.

Instinct and Medical Care

A family in Phoenix is watching an 11 year old girl suffer with leukemia.  This poor girl had to have one of her arms amputated after she contracted a bacterial infection that was resistant to antibiotics (gee, I have absolutely no idea what that's like).  When the father of the girl was asked about his insurance coverage and how they would pay the ever escalating bills for her care, the father became concerned.  What does a family do when faced with this situation?

They sneaked the girl out of the hospital and took her back to family in Mexico.  While both parents are legal citizens here, they thought this little one would be safer in another country.

Normally this wouldn't be news and no one would even notice it had happened.  But this time, the police in Phoenix brought the father in for questioning when he came into the US from Mexico and ordered the mother (who is still out of the country with the daughter) to bring her back to the hospital they had taken her from for further treatment immediately.

I don't know about you, but I know my child.  I know when he's not quite right and when he needs to see the doctor.  I know when he's seriously ill and needs an emergency room instead of a doctor.  I know when an injury is a big deal and when it isn't.  I think I'm a very good judge of my son's well being.  If my child were in the same situation, I would've taken him from the hospital too.  The police department has absolutely no say in where my child receives medical care and if he receives care at all.

Now there are people in society today who think that what these parents did was tantamount to child abuse. I disagree.  The little girl is receiving medical care, it just isn't at the hospital she was being treated at previously.  The only thing her parents did was take her to a hospital that would provide better care in their opinion.  When did that become child abuse?

Last week I waited for two hours in my underwear and t-shirt for a doctor to look at an area on my body that I suspected was infected with MRSA yet again.  After two hours, I simply got up, dressed, and left untreated. That spot is indeed infected with MRSA, had to be opened and drained, and probably wouldn't be as bad today if it had been treated when I went in the first time.  If my son were in a similar situation and I decided to take him home or to go to the ER for care or another doctor's office, would I be committing child abuse?  No.  In fact, the healthcare professionals I've spoken with have told me that the way I was treated was unacceptable and that they all would've lost their jobs had they treated me in that way.

This story out of Phoenix comes down to the parents and whether or not they were comfortable with their child's care.  They decided they were no longer happy with the way their child was being treated and wanted to seek help somewhere else.  If I had been questioned about my insurance and the bill while my child is still being treated, I think I would've been uncomfortable with that too.

It's a very scary thing to think that the government and local police are now trying to take charge of a child's medical care when her parents are both mentally capable and alive.  I don't think it's the business of anyone but my husband and I as to what kind of treatment our son receives if he receives any treatment at all.

If Mommy Goes To The Hospital...

I was so close to the finish line.  So very close.  But alas, that finish line has now been pushed back to indefinitely.

I have MRSA again.  Twice over.  It's very painful and it is leaving me with very little energy since I have been suffering from insomnia as well.  I'm pretty much confined to the couch on my right side so there's no pressure on the wounds themselves.  I can't play with my son.  I can't do a lot of the housework.  I'm just stuck here.

Today when I saw the doctor yet again, I was told that if this infection doesn't start to resolve itself, I might end up in the hospital having surgery to completely remove the infected tissue and take a full course of IV antibiotics.  When I thought about going back to the hospital, I certainly didn't think it would be under these circumstances.

I was prepared to explain to 2.0 that Mommy would be going to the hospital to have a baby as I thought that would be the next time I'd have to go and stay for awhile.  Now I'm trying to figure out how to tell 2.0 that Mommy has to go to the hospital for an operation and that Mommy might not be home for a little while.

Mostly my heart is just breaking over the thought of missing him and Nate.  I won't be here for naptime or bedtime or playtime.  I'd miss so much.

I'm praying right now that this whole thing will resolve itself and that I'll be able to stay home.  Even if I have to have a nurse come see me at home, I'd rather be here instead of the hospital.

The Importance Of PeePaws

When my father died, I remember the gift of my grandfather stepping into the gap my father's absence left in my life.  He was there when I needed him.  He would take me with him whenever I wanted to go and he tried to impart his beliefs and morals into me.  He did a rather good job as I am the person I am today partially because of his convictions and beliefs.  He helped me understand how to be a good Christian woman (with some help from my grandma) and he helped me see how important the people who protect our country really are (as he was a veteran of the Korean War).  My beliefs about gun control and small government are in part from his wisdom.  When my grandpa passed away in 2006, I felt like I lost my father all over again.

The day that Nate and I found out we were going to be parents, I wondered what 2.0's grandpas would be like.  My father in law has no other grandkids and while my stepdad has a couple, he doesn't get to see them very often.  What would it be like for them to have this little tiny person in their lives?

At first there wasn't much of a difference.  I don't know what it is about men and babies, but they just don't seem to care for them much unless they are their own.  Nate didn't mind a brand new baby, but the grandpas weren't as interested in him.  Maybe it's because he's breakable at that age?  I'm not sure.

Now that 2.0 is almost 2, he's more active and participates in things.  He's talking and able to express emotions.  He's able to crawl up into a lap and stay there and he's able to smile and laugh.  I'm seeing different grandpas now.

We went to visit my mom and stepdad a couple weeks ago and my stepdad was very excited to see my son.  He was down on the floor talking to 2.0 and playing with him.  They'd hang out on the couch and watch TV together.  I've never seen my stepdad so excited to see someone other than my mom in the entire time I've known him.  It made my heart warm.

Yesterday Nate and I celebrated our birthdays with my in laws.  As soon as 2.0 saw my father in law, he was smiling and laughing, pointing at him and saying 'PeePaw!' over and over.  For someone without a nap after a time change, 2.0 was a little crabby and he crawled up to sit with my father in law, laid his head down on PeePaw's tummy, and passed right out.  The simple fact that my son feels so safe with his grandpa blew me away.  I'm so very touched and thankful for it.

PeePaws are important, especially to little boys.  PeePaw is the one that gives that extra validation that maybe Daddy didn't give or couldn't give.  My dad couldn't take me shooting, but my grandfather did.  There's really no other relationship a child has that's like the relationship he has with his PeePaw.

I'm very thankful for my son's PeePaws.  He loves them both.  As he gets older, his PeePaws are going to be more and more important to him.  Hopefully neither of them have to step in like my grandfather had to, but if something like that happens someday, I know both of them will do a fantastic job.

Infinite Faith

*This post will contain references to faith, God, Jesus Christ, and other various Christian themes and words. If you are offended by such things, please feel free to skip this post.  Do not send me emails about how offended you were by my belief in and reliance on God and my belief in Jesus Christ.  Remember that everyone has first amendment rights in the USA.  You have been warned.*

This week has been very hard.  Very very hard.  There has been so much...stuff to deal with.  It's hard to think about how bad things were when we got to Monday of this week and how completely things have turned around in just a few days.  But that's how my God works.  I should've remembered that God is bigger than my problems.  Instead, I was telling God how big my problems were.  He took the opportunity to act.

Last week I called the City of Davenport on my landlord because the window in my son's room wouldn't close correctly.  I would have to go outside and close the window while my husband locked it.  Our air conditioner also hasn't worked for about three months now.  With my son's asthma, the a/c is very important to his well being.  We have notified the landlord about both situations, along with other small things that needed to be fixed in the apartment, and we were told that parts had been ordered and things would be fixed when the parts arrived.  After waiting two weeks, I was done waiting and took matters into my own hands.  My landlord didn't like that very much and filed for eviction.

Walking into eviction court on Tuesday, I was almost completely paralyzed with fear.  I was certain that we were going to lose our home and that we would have hardly any time to move.  I just didn't understand why this was happening.  I was running out of faith.

For the days before we went to court, Nate and I had been praying and asking others to pray for us.  I wasn't sure what would happen, but we needed a miracle.

Through our church family and a mistake on our landlord's part, that miracle happened.

A friend of ours at church (who just happens to be the director of development at the Women's Choice Center) decided she wanted to do something big to help us and she wanted to get other people involved as well.  She put the word out about our situation and one family from our church donated the money to pay our back rent (that was how the landlord was going to be able to evict us) the day we went to court.  Nate and I didn't know this when we went to the courthouse.  We found out afterward.

While in court, the judge looked at the paperwork Nate took with him and listened to the questions our lawyer asked and got a little upset with our landlord for not filing all of her paperwork with the court documents.  The case was dismissed because of it.

So in a matter of minutes, we found out that our case was dismissed and we wouldn't be kicked out at the end of this week and we had our back rent paid so we wouldn't be brought back to court again in a week.  All through the grace and awesome glory of God.

I should know better now than to doubt my faith in my Lord.  I know that when I need Him, He's going to show up.  I have a child that shouldn't be here because of His love.  But to see it actually working out like it did, to watch it happen almost in slow motion...it reinforced my belief and made me humble.  Who am I that God would do something like this for me?

Of course the answer is obvious.  I'm His child.  He loves me.

I know that there will be times like this again.  Maybe not exactly like this, but hard times just the same.  Life is filled with difficult circumstances.  But I know when I need my God to be there with me, He will be.  Jeremiah 29:11 says that God's plan for us is to prosper us, not to harm us.  He has plans to give us hope and a future.

I lived that this week.  I believe it's true.  I will continue to believe that my God will be there for me always.

When Mommy Is Incapacitated

Last week I scratched a pimple and thought nothing more of it.  About two days later, I noticed that the place where the pimple had been was now starting to hurt.  A lot in fact.  It was starting to swell up and it had a little hard spot around where that pimple had been.  As the days progressed, it just hurt more and more, swelled up more and more, and the hard spot got larger and larger.  You know something bad is going on when your mom (who has been a nurse for about 26 years) looks at this sore spot and says "that's not good".

At my mother's urging (and my husband's fervent agreement with her assessment), I went to the ER after visiting with my mom for the weekend (more on that in a later post).  It was not a good visit.  I had to have my sore spot opened up and cleaned out as it had become infected.  On Wednesday, when I visited my family doctor, I mentioned the wound to him and told him that it wasn't getting any better.  You really know something bad is going on when your doctor looks at your wound and says "Oh my God!  Did you get an antibiotic?" and then proceeds to subject you to horrible pain for about five minutes as he apologizes for the horrible care you received in the ER and for the pain you are in at the moment.

My little pimple turned into MRSA.  If you don't know what MRSA is, please feel free to open another tab on your browser and do a Google search or, if you must, use Bing.  I'll wait.

Because I have MRSA, I have to go to the wound clinic to be seen by a wound specialist and I have to treat the wound with special stuff.  But the pain of the whole thing, at least until I got on antibiotics and had the right kind of wound care, was extremely bad.  I wasn't able to do anything that I normally do.

I have to say that my husband stepped up and helped take care of the housework while I was out of commission.  He cleaned the entire apartment and left me cringing on the couch while watching the little man. He cooked and helped with diaper changes when I couldn't stand up for that long.  He held my hand while I screamed in pain in the ER.

Mommy has never been completely out of commission before.  Even when I've been sick, I've been mobile. The horrible stomach flu that swept through the family back in February didn't keep me from picking up pudding and jello at Walmart while Nate was here with a pukey little boy.  But this MRSA thing made it hard for me to walk, to sit for long periods of time, even to sleep.  All I could think about was the pain.

I'm happy to know that in situations like this, I have a lot of support and a husband who can step up and take over for me.  Thankfully, my wound is healing well and should be completely gone in another week.  Then things can get back to normal.

Sobriety and Motherhood

Last week I finished my thirteenth year of sobriety.  It was a milestone for me and I'm very proud of myself.  I wouldn't be here if it weren't for the support of wonderful friends, a strong family, and a very patient and amazing husband.

While I was doing drugs and drinking until I fell over, I never wondered how my past addictive behavior would affect my children.  I didn't plan on having any.  I really and truly didn't think I'd live to see the ripe old age of twenty-one.  I guess the joke was on me.

Once I knew I was pregnant with 2.0, I realized that my addictive behavior came with a price.  I'm still paying it right now as I sit here and type this post.

After ten years of sobriety, I probably didn't need to tell my obgyn that I'd had a substance abuse problem.  I did anyway.  I probably didn't need to tell the nurses in labor and delivery that I'd had a problem before either.  But in the midst of my contractions, I told them.  One of the issues a mom with a past addiction has to deal with is understanding that even though she hasn't used or drank in years, the hospital will test her newborn for drugs and alcohol.  Just in case.  2.0 tested negative, of course.

The biggest struggle I face is in pain management.  After giving birth and having stitches, I was sore.  I was offered percocet (a narcotic pain killer) and I had to tell my postpartum nurses about my past and to please never offer me narcotics.  So I had to manage on 800 mg of ibuprofen every 6 hours.  If the pain was worse before that 6 hour mark, I had to grit my teeth and make it through without it.

Anytime I have a sprained ankle, pulled muscle, or minor surgery in the ER (which I did have on Sunday), I have to tell the medical professional taking care of me about the past.  I was only an addict for about four years and have been sober over three times that long, but I still have to live like I just stopped using yesterday.

The other struggle I have is knowing that my child is predisposed to repeat my behavior.  He might have a harder time saying no to drugs and alcohol because I said yes.  It was not the legacy I wanted to pass on to my son or any other children I may have.  Knowing this makes it easier to fight it.  Knowing what to look for makes it easier to spot the warning signs that my son might be using as a teenager, before he becomes addicted as an adult.  He may not have a problem with drugs or alcohol at all.  That's what I pray for.

The bad decisions we make early in life have consequences even beyond our youth.  I wish I'd believed that when I was younger.  But I definitely will work hard to make sure that my son doesn't pay for my mistakes and I thank God that I'm not defined by that behavior anymore.

Pneumonia

2.0 had a great summer.  He had to be in an environment that had relatively low heat and humidity during the horribly hot days, but he didn't have an asthma attack.  He had no breathing issues of any kind.  I was rather happy and hoping maybe we were turning a corner.

About two days before we left to go up north to Nate's grandfather's cabin, the wheezing started again.  2.0 had trouble sleeping at night.  The nebulizer came back out of retirement.  We were giving him two to three albuterol treatments a day plus one treatment of Pulmicort in the morning.  I thought it might be the change in the weather.  When we got up to the cabin, it was very cold and 2.0 would have trouble breathing if he was out in it for too long.  So we kept him wrapped up and warm and it started to pass.  Maybe just a cold or an allergic reaction to whatever pollen is in the air at this time of year.

When we got home, 2.0's breathing was better.  He didn't need a breathing treatment after we got home for a little while.

Tuesday night was when the fever came.  It wasn't high, just 101 degrees.  The pediatrician doesn't start to worry until he gets to 102.  Wednesday morning, 2.0 was having trouble breathing and his albuterol was still in Wisconsin.

After the fever and the relentless wheezing, followed by a crackling sound in his right lung, 2.0 was diagnosed with pneumonia.

I've had pneumonia before.  I remember having walking pneumonia when I was in middle school.  It wasn't fun and it lasted a long time.  Thankfully, we caught it early for 2.0 and he's now receiving strong antibiotics and steroids to keep his lungs open.  His cough is less and he's eating, drinking water, and sleeping better.  He hasn't had another fever since Wednesday night.

It's scary when your child is that sick.  Kids end up in the hospital for pneumonia.  But my little boy is turning the corner once again.  At least I hope so anyway.

Potty Training Time!

After three mornings of relatively dry diapers, Nate and I have decided that it might be time to introduce 2.0 to the potty.

Normally his diapers are very wet in the morning, so I was surprised to change diapers that didn't really need to be changed.  Even when he gets up from a nap, his diapers are relatively dry if I change him before he's laid down.

So today we went shopping for a potty.  The choices are ridiculous.  There's potty seats and potty chairs in a variety of colors and themes.  Some make noise, some don't.  Some are padded, some aren't.  I really liked the one that looked like a frog and becomes a stool for the sink after potty training.  We settled on the Sesame Street potty seat because 2.0 started screaming "Elmo!" when he saw it and got very excited.

He fell asleep with it still in his hands on the way home from the store.  It was adorable.

We're starting him off by sitting him on the potty seat with his pants still on, just so he can get used to sitting up there.  After that, we'll see what we need to do.  I'm planning on scouring the library for books on the subject this coming week.

I can't believe we're starting this process now.  Once he's potty trained, he really won't be my baby anymore.

It will be nice to stop changing diapers though.

Gentleness

I've been thinking about blog posts for about a week now and I just couldn't come up with anything until this morning.  Needless to say, it's been a long few days.

As I'm sure everyone knows, 2.0 has asthma and since May, he hasn't had an exacerbation of the condition until yesterday.  The pediatrician's office warned me that he might have some trouble with the asthma now that it's fall because of a recurrence of allergies at this time of year.  This became true for us on Monday.

2.0 wouldn't nap.  Normally he'll gladly go down for a nap when it's time, especially when he's tired.  I knew my little boy was tired on Monday, but he wouldn't lay down for longer than 45 minutes and he fought me the whole way down.  When it was time for bed, he didn't go to sleep until it was two hours past his bedtime.  He was acting like he was having a panic attack, then threw a tantrum.  Finally he slept; only to wake about an hour or two later and every hour or two after that until 7AM.  That's when his father and I noticed the river of snot running down his face.

I listened to his chest and sure enough; I heard loud wheezing.  The bottom part of his lungs weren't even filling with air.  Time to pull out the nebulizer, the face mask, and the Pulmicort.  My poor exhausted little boy  fought that breathing treatment as hard as he could, but finally slept for over two hours and mostly through the night last night.  Today he's been my happy little boy with the attitude I realize is from being almost 2 and wanting to do everything himself.

Nate had an interesting conversation with me after 2.0 went to bed last night.  He told me that he remembered his Grandma Ward coming to check on him in the middle of the night when he was very little and how gentle she was with him.  She'd come in his room and talk softly and gently soothe him back to sleep.  It was a pleasant memory and he holds on to it fiercely to this day.  Nate told me that he wants 2.0 to have that fond memory of his mother someday, coming into his room when he cries at night and gently putting him back to sleep.

There are times that my darling, sweet, loving, bright little boy drives me completely up the wall.  When he wakes at night over and over and over again, I feel this little part of me rising up and threatening to take the softness from my touch and the gentleness from my words.  It's this little part of me that whispers in the back of my mind "why can't you just go back to sleep on your own?".  I clench my fists as I get up out of bed and shake off the fog of sleep to pick up my glasses from the nightstand and take care of the precious miracle that I begged God for.

But when I see him sitting up in his crib or standing at the railing with tears running down his face and his pacifier hanging from his mouth, I remember one thing:

He's awake because something in his world is WRONG and only Mommy can make it better again.

I hear my husband's voice too, in a memory of this very conversation about gentleness that we had when 2.0 was only a few weeks old and I struggled with post partum depression that made me unsure if I was even good enough to be 2.0's mom.

I want 2.0 to remember that his mom got up in the middle of the night and cared about him enough to swallow her own feelings so she could care for him.  I want him to remember that no matter what, I always would come to comfort him.  But most of all, I want him to remember that when the monsters in his imagination (which are real now but won't be later) came to get him, Mommy came and chased them all away.

Gentleness is what I strive for now, in every moment.  No matter what.

Head, Shoulders, Knees, Toes, And Southpaws

Yesterday I asked my son where his nose is.  He pointed to it and told me what it is.  I repeated the question with his ears, eyes, mouth, tummy, and toes.  He told me what they all were and pointed to them all.  To make the game even more fun, I asked him to point to Mommy's eyes, nose, ears, and toes.  He pointed to them all, even getting up and walking down to where my feet were and grabbing my big toe.  He's growing so fast!

He also escaped the nursery at church on Sunday morning, but that's a whole other blog post.

The strangest thing I noticed this morning though is that my son is left handed.

This came as quite a surprise since I'm very right handed and Nate is ambidextrous but writes with his right hand.  2.0 is definitely left handed though.  He will start eating with his left hand and switch the utensil back and forth between his hands.  He high fives with his left hand, tries to brush his hair with his left hand, sleeps on his left side, tries to put his left shoe on first, and pushes his left arm through his sleeves first.

Nate noticed it too this morning and then revealed to me that when he was younger, he also was left handed but was forced to use his right.  Well that information would've been good to have before.  I was just starting to think that our son was special...

I'm excited to watch him develop more dexterity.  Nate asked me if I would force him to use his right instead of his left and I just don't think there's a reason to do that.  Besides, geniuses are left handed.  :)

2.0's Fishy

Those are GIRAFFES!

I think it's perfectly normal for a child to be fascinated by animals.  When 2.0 went to the zoo for the first time, I watched his little eyes light up as he saw the animals move around.  The face he made when he saw giraffes for the first time was amazing, as you can see when to look at the picture to the left.  Next year he'll go back to the zoo and I can't wait to see how those reactions change.

2.0 also loves his furry sister.  When he came home from five days at Grandma's house, he wasn't happy to see me or his daddy.  He wanted to see the dog.  He follows her around and walks into my bedroom in the morning to sit by her kennel and wait until I let her out.  2.0 takes her toys and runs around the apartment with them so she'll chase after him.  It's so funny to watch.

The natural progression to this fascination with animals was to get him a fish.

Nate and I had talked about getting a small fish tank for 2.0's bedroom to replace the water fountain that's starting to wear out.  It has a night light on it and 2.0 really seems to like it.  So we found a fish tank with lights in it and naively purchased fish and gravel and additives for the water and all that, brought it home and set it up.

Then slowly the fish all died.  It was a horrible disappointment.

Upon speaking with people who actually knew what they were doing (thank you Petsmart!), we cleaned out the tank, added the right water treatment, and purchased a betta fish.

It's still alive!

It's red and blue and 2.0 loves to go into his room, climb up into the rocking chair by his crib, and stare at the fish tank.  He lays in his crib at night and watches the fish swim through the bubbles from the airstone and the patterns from the light in the water dance on his ceiling.  He's sleeping well through the night since the 'fishy' came.

I don't have any pictures of the fish yet (as we are waiting to make sure it survives before we get attached to it), but it's a very nice fish.  I'm so happy that my son loves animals!

The 18 Month Well Kiddo Visit

I love well kiddo visits.  It's nice to see the doctor when nothing's wrong.  The only down side to well kiddo visits are the shots, but those are unavoidable.

2.0's well kiddo visit went well.  He's 34 inches tall, just shy of that elusive 3 foot mark.  That put him in the 90th percentile for height.  That wasn't a surprise.  His father is 6'4" for goodness sakes and I'm 5'10".  The kid's going to be a beanpole.  His weight seems to be catching up to his height finally.  He's just shy of 28 pounds, weighing in at 27 pounds and 12 ounces and hitting the 75th percentile for weight.  After watching him hover around the 45th percentile in weight, it's nice to see him putting on a little bit and still not be considered fat.

He was also screened for autism, which he doesn't have.  He's meeting all of his milestones at just the right time, even exceeding some of them.  He's talking and walking and running and climbing.  His lungs sounded great and his ears and eyes were in good shape.  That just left the shots...

2.0 got a flu shot today, along with a Dtap and his Hep A.  I don't want him to get the flu, especially after being diagnosed with asthma in May.

Speaking of his asthma...we haven't had to treat it since May.  Now the nurse told us to keep an eye out for problems since fall is when kids have problems with asthma.  It was nice to have the heads up since we haven't had a problem in so long.

Next well kiddo check is in February, right after 2.0 turns 2.  I can't believe that's getting closer.

The Cry It Out Argument

Recently a study was published by pediatricians about the effects of letting our children cry themselves to sleep at night.  In this study, five year olds who were allowed to cry it out were compared with five year olds whose parents had 'camped out' to help them sleep at night.  The study showed that there were no detectable differences between the children who had cried and the ones who hadn't.

Now that made my husband look over at me with a smug grin on his face because he's been telling me for about a year now that 2.0 can cry himself to sleep without any emotional damage done to his psyche.

Yet here we are with an 18 month old who doesn't always sleep through the night and I still go in and soothe him.  I haven't done cry it out and don't plan to.

When you have a newborn baby in your house, you don't want to let that baby cry his or herself to sleep.  Newborn babies need to be held and cuddled and comforted.  They're probably crying because they are either hungry or wet anyway.  Newborn babies are incapable of emotional manipulation.

I understand that I don't have a newborn in my house right now.  I also understand that my 18 month old little boy just might be manipulating me to come when he cries.  I just don't think that's the case.

2.0 goes to bed at night awake.  We have an established bedtime routine that we follow at roughly the same time every single night.  When that routine is finished, he goes to bed and he falls asleep within fifteen minutes to half an hour at the longest.  He takes two naps per day when possible (and when he'll take the second one since he likes to fight it for the last few days) to prevent him from being overtired.

Yet just about every night for the last two weeks, he's woke up in the middle of the night.  Sometimes two or three times even.  Do I let him cry?  No.

However, the speed of my reaction to his cries depends on what kind of cry it is.  If he screams in the middle of the night like he's having a panic attack, then I'm up and moving right away.  If it's a whiny cry...well Mama may stay in bed for a little while longer to see if he'll put himself back to sleep.

I don't think there's anything wrong with comforting your child when he cries in the middle of the night, no matter what his age is.  I don't mind the lack of sleep, in fact I'm used to it by now.  I get up for five minutes even when 2.0 doesn't wake in the middle of the night.  While it's good to know that letting him cry won't hurt him emotionally or psychologically, I still prefer to answer his cries and comfort him.

But I do miss sleep every now and then.

A Brilliant Mimic

When 2.0 was born, I wondered what his little voice would sound like once he started to speak to me.  What would he say?  I have to admit that I thought I'd have this little person who spoke with perfect grammar right away and could articulate his thoughts to me eloquently.  After working with toddlers in the past, you would think I'd know better.

Yesterday 2.0 and I were watching Finding Nemo.  He loves the bright colors and the fish.  I wonder sometimes if he thinks the television is an aquarium when we watch that movie.  As we're watching, I ask him  if he sees the orange fish.  Out of nowhere, he squeals "Fishy!".  He's never said that before.  A little while later, as we played with his new Hot Wheels cars (because suddenly he loves those little cars), I pushed the car around making a 'vroom vroom' sound and he copied me exactly.

He's starting to put words together with what he wants and I'm loving and hating it.

"Nathan, do you need a nap?"
"Yeah."

"Nathan, do you need a new diaper?"
"Yeah."

"Nathan, do you love Mommy?"
"No."

*Sigh* That is exactly what I was waiting to hear.

When he gets up in the morning, I hear "Mommy!  Mommy Mommy Mommy!"  When he goes into the bedroom to get his father up, I hear "Coco!  Coco Coco Coco!" when he finds the dog is still sleeping.  He says "Daddy Daddy Daddy!" when we're going to pick up Nate from work.  Right now he's mimicking the monkey sounds his daddy is making with one of his toys.

Now that he's mimicking everything we say...I guess I need to make doubly sure that there are no swear words dropped in his presence.  I don't want to have to explain that to anyone.

In Which We Talk About Loss

I'm a part of the club no one wants to be a member of.  I've watched the candle being blown out too soon.  I've had dreams squashed and seen potential fade away before it truly even began.  I've lost children and I think I can now be very frank about what happened.

In April of 2002, I experienced an unforgivable trauma that resulted in my first pregnancy.  I knew from the time I saw the plus sign on the test that something was very wrong and I wasn't sure how to handle the situation.  The circumstances of that child's conception were not the fault of the child and I'm very prolife, so I didn't consider terminating the pregnancy.  I just didn't know how I would raise a child in the midst of what I was dealing with.  God knew better than I did and that child went to heaven when I was 6 weeks pregnant.

December of 2007 was a much different circumstance and a much more joyful conception.  Nate and I were thrilled when we found out.  Just as we were about to tell our families and friends about our wonderful news, our pregnancy ended at 11 weeks.  I was devastated, feeling like I was looking at my dream house wiped out by a tornado and leaving me with not even a foundation.  Wouldn't you know my miscarriage happened the day before Valentine's Day?  I was completely broken.

Now, keep in mind that when I was eighteen I had been told I would never have children of my own.  I was starting to believe I would be able to get pregnant and never give birth.

Then suddenly I had my miracle.  Just like sunlight through a hole in the clouds, my son arrived.  I have found that there's nothing more wonderful than him.  He is proof that God is good and God is faithful.  I prayed, sometimes so angry with God that I couldn't understand why I was even speaking to Him, and I received exactly what I asked for.  Right down to the color of his eyes and the sweet temperance of his personality; he is completely and totally what I begged God for.

After 2.0 was born, I immediately started asking God for another.  I had to wait 5 years for a child to survive.  I wanted to put my next five years in as quickly as possible.  Nate and I were blessed with another child...for a little while.

In June of this year, I took a pregnancy test and got another positive.  I was so excited and yet in a state of complete disbelief.  How could it have happened so quickly after so much heartache and pain?  Was it really possible that I could become pregnant again with such little effort?

A week after our big fat positive, my period arrived.  Another loss.

I had a chemical pregnancy in June.  Basically the fertilized egg didn't implant correctly in the uterus (sorry for the technical terms.  If you feel 'icky' about reading the word uterus then I urge you to have your attack of the willies and move on now) and the egg was lost.  But when you believe in life at conception, like I do, that is a child that didn't survive.  It's still heartbreaking to think about what could've been and what won't be.

I have three little ones in heaven.  I believe I will see them again and that God holds them in His hands.  I also know that I'm not alone in my losses.  There are women out there who will never know my pain, but they can imagine it.  There are women who know my pain many more times over.  It's something that, as a mother, I never want to experience again and I wouldn't wish on anyone.

I now choose to look at it all in a better light.  I ovulated.  That's a miracle in and of itself with my medical condition (google PCOS if you want more information).  I'm getting healthy now and trying to make my life better.

If you've lost a child, please understand that you aren't alone.  There are so many women in this world who understand exactly how you feel.  You may not want to be part of this club, but you have lots of sisters who will hold your hand and cry with you when you need us and we will rejoice with you when you finally get that baby in your arms.

Baby Weight

When I gave birth to my son a year and a half ago, I weighed 311 pounds.  When I went home after giving birth, I weighed 284 pounds.  Most of the weight I put on during my pregnancy was baby, placenta, and fluid.  Before conceiving, I was 277 pounds after a 43 pound weight loss in four months.  When I started, I was 320 pounds.

Fast forward 18 months and I can definitely say that losing your baby weight is hard.  While I was breastfeeding, even a slight drop in calories affected my milk supply first.  When I tried to work out, I found I had a hard time nursing because my milk supply was affected by that too.  What's a new mom to do?  I wanted to lose the weight, but the odds seemed stacked against me.  It didn't take long (with the help of the mirena IUD according to my ob/gyn) to not only gain back everything I'd lost in the hospital, but even more weight.  I ballooned up to 325 pounds before I even knew what had happened.

I'm losing the weight again, slowly but surely.  I'm not taking any supplements like I did before (and how I miss them), choosing to work hard on watching my diet and walking a lot instead.  So far I'm down eighteen pounds (and this was when I weighed myself right before my period, when every woman knows you're retaining about three pounds of water) and I don't feel like I'm depriving myself of anything.

My eating plan works because I don't count calories obsessively.  I'm not paying attention to how many calories I eat in a day.  That takes all the fun out of eating and if eating isn't fun...then why bother eating?  However, before I enjoy a tasty dessert or devour a frozen pizza, I look at what the serving size is and how many calories are in that serving.  Is it really worth ingesting 400 calories for a little slice of cake?  Not really.  I'd rather enjoy those 400 calories somewhere else.  I also look at fat content, sodium content, and sugar content.  Sure, something might only have 200 calories, but if it's got 15 grams of fat, then maybe that's not what I want to eat.  I also cut out most of my pop intake (every now and then it's not a big deal and I do drink some diet pop) and try to drink a lot of water.

On Saturday, I eat what I want.  I don't look at calories or serving sizes or any numbers of any kind on Saturday.  If I want a piece of cake, I eat a piece of cake.  If I want a regular Pepsi, I have a regular Pepsi.  And you know what?  I just might mow through a box of chicken nuggets too.  One day to cheat makes the rest of the week bearable.

I also try to walk all the time.  Are there days I don't get my walk in?  Sure there are.  I am a Mom after all.  But walking means I can take my son with me.  Sometimes it means taking him to the park and chasing after him for half an hour before putting his worn out rear end in the stroller and walking some more.

The main thing I have to remember (every single mom should remember this too) is that I will never have the same body that I had before.  My hips aren't the same, my waist isn't the same, my ribs aren't the same.  I carried another person inside my body for nine months and then pushed him into the world.  There's no way to get the exact same body back after that.  You might get close, but you won't have a carbon copy of it.  I'm actually healthier now than I was before 2.0 was born and I have to remember that too.

Losing the baby weight is important.  Don't get me wrong, I want to have a healthy body that fits into clothes I couldn't fit into before.  But the point is a healthy body.  My hips will always be wide.  My ribcage sits a little wider at the bottom now.  But the important thing is that I'm healthy.  I choose to focus on that instead of the number on the scale.

Home Again

Today my heart was made whole again as my little boy returned home.  The five days he was gone were very long and empty and yet very short and full at the same time.  So much happened that was good and some that was bad.  I'm hoping we can do this again next year (maybe not for quite as long a time though).

2.0 left Tuesday.  Nate and I went to see a movie.  Wednesday we went out for dinner and sat talking for two hours over Chinese food.  We discovered each other again.  Of course then we had to have a disagreement and it made Thursday a little hard.  I think we were both freaking out over the fact that I was leaving Friday for Des Moines.  But we got our act together by the time I left.

Friday and Saturday were magical for me.  I got to bond with my Christian sisters and get some insight into living life more fully.  I loved every second of it and I can't wait to go back next year.  When I got home yesterday evening, I was able to share that with my husband and again we talked until after midnight.

Then today, in the middle of a heavy rain, my son came home.

And of course, the one person he was the most excited to see was the dog.

It's so nice to have everyone home again.  :)

The First Night Away

Last night was 2.0's first night spent away from home.  Well I guess that's not really true.  He's slept in other places besides home.  He's been in a hotel a couple times and we did go to the cabin last summer for a few days.  I guess the correct statement would be that last night was 2.0's first night away from his daddy and me.  

I didn't think I'd break down and sob when he left.  But he wasn't even out of the parking lot behind our apartment building before the tears were running down my face and the sobs choking from my chest.  I waved goodbye to him with trails of wet streaking my cheeks and I watched for my mom's van until it turned the last corner and disappeared from sight.  Then I sobbed some more.  

Coming inside the apartment, I saw his clothes and toys and realized it was silent for the first time.  I sobbed some more.

I went into his bedroom and smoothed the fleecy blanket left in his crib, feeling the cold sheets under my fingers, and I realized he wasn't coming home for awhile.  I trailed my fingers over the top of the rails of the crib and remembered that little fingers wouldn't be curled over those rails for a few days.  The sobbing started again.  

I listened for the sounds of "Mama!  Mommy!" in the living room and felt empty when I only heard silence.  

I got up in the middle of the night and went to check on him (like moms do even when their kids aren't tiny babies anymore) and walked in to that empty crib again.  The sobs weren't as hysterical now, but they were there.  

Then I went back to bed and curled up with my husband and remembered that at least one Nathan was still here.  We went to the movies last night and had a great time.  We're going to dinner tonight to just spend time with each other again.  We're having fun together again without the limits of a toddler demanding our attention.

2.0 might be away right now, but there's still fun to be had.  :)  I'm not going to let myself cry anymore.  

Childlessness

The moment is almost upon us.

Tomorrow 2.0 is leaving to go to Grandma's by himself for the first time.

Also for the first time in a year and a half, I will be childless.

I know there are parents out there that let their children go off without them all the time.  There's daycare and visiting relatives and unavoidable circumstances.  For me, the longest I've been away from my son is about 8 hours.  He's never slept in a place overnight where Mommy and Daddy weren't present.  He's never been cared for by someone else for longer than 8 hours (or so as I'm guesstimating).

This is a necessary part of growing up.  I know that and I'm excited that 2.0 is going to spend time with his grandparents and enjoy being spoiled.  He's going to meet relatives he's never seen before and spend time with his great-grandma (she doesn't know that yet).  I'm going to have time to do things I haven't been able to do.  I'm going to Des Moines for a conference with other women from my church (something I've never been able to do before).  Plus I'll be able to sleep.  Sleep is so good.  :)

In preparation for his departure tomorrow, I'm making lists (because you never know what information you might need when something happens and you have to go to the ER, God forbid), putting clothes together, getting medicine ready (as the allergies that hit me hard a couple days ago are starting to settle in 2.0's lungs and I'm watching for an asthma attack), and putting together activities to keep myself busy until Friday, when I'm going out of town.

I have a book I need to edit, another I need to start writing, yarn set aside for knitting projects, movies I haven't been able to watch because of a lack of kid friendliness.  I have a dog to bathe and an apartment to actually clean without a mass of destruction (aka the toddler) running around behind me, plus goodies to bake to take to the hospital on Sunday (more on that in another blog post).

I'm going to miss my little boy.  But I'm glad he's going to be well taken care of in my absence.

Learning Begins Now

2.0 is just about 18 months old.  I can't believe my little boy has been with us for a year and a half!  So much as changed about him.  He's running and trying to jump and getting into everything.  He's learning how to crawl OVER things and has decided that he likes to take everything out a box (including his makeshift toy box) so that he can sit in it.  He's also discovering that Mommy's knitting bag has things like buttons and scissors in it.

I've noticed that 2.0 doesn't speak as well as we'd like him to.  He says things like "Mommy", "Daddy", "Meemaw", "No", and "Yeah".  Nate and I talk to him, trying to get him to say what we say.  He can make the noises that a cow, a kitty, and a puppy makes.  But he can't tell me that he's holding a ball in his hands or what he wants for lunch.  While that's probably not a surprise (I'm not sure when kids start to say more than what 2.0 currently says), I want him to understand what sounds the letters make.  So we have embraced LeapFrog.

LeapFrog makes DVDs that talk about what the different letters sound like and what words sound like.  It's very interesting to watch 2.0 as he plays while the DVD is playing in the background.  He doesn't sit and watch TV all the time.  Sometimes he does, but normally he plays with his toys or looks at his books.  Today we were watching Letter Factory by LeapFrog and 2.0 was playing while the Y sound was on TV and he repeated it.

Nate and I are going to focus on the letter sounds that 2.0 doesn't know.  Videos might not be the optimal parenting tool, but I don't think there's anything wrong with using them if they help stimulate the child's brain.  I don't rely on them entirely.

Plus 2.0 loves Cookie Monster.

What To Do...

When 2.0 was smaller, he was happy rolling around on the floor and staring at the world around him.  That was awesome because I didn't have to think of activities for him to do.  We could stay home all day long and neither of us were bored.

Then 2.0 started to walk, followed by running, and now he's running out of things to do at home.

Sure we have books and toys and Coco for him to play with.  He likes to chase his furry sister around the apartment, taking her toys and running away with them while she chases after him and tries to steal the toy back.  We play music and dance, stomping our feet and spinning around in circles.  But there's got to be more...

As today as the last family funday Monday, I'm trying to think about what we can do today that would be fun for 2.0 and would wear him out so he'll sleep better at night.  We have two museums that are free today and I wouldn't mind taking him out to either one.  Since it's not raining now and the weather is cooler than it's been in awhile, the park is an option too.  We can play on the swings and feed the ducks and take a stroll.  Of course there's the library as well, but that's only good for a little while.

The wonderful thing is that the library has free passes to museums in the area as well.  But if we go today, I might be able to take 2.0 to see the dinosaurs...that just might be worth it right there.

Misguided Advice

I blame the chlorine for my lack of memory.  How I could forget what happened at Walmart on Sunday is beyond me.

I left my debit card at home Sunday after church, so I had to run the husband and the boy home so 2.0 could take a nap.  That meant I went back to Walmart to buy my groceries alone, a rare treat.  It's so much easier to buy bananas when the little one isn't trying to grab them out of the cart and eat them with the skin on before I can pay for them.

As I'm at the check out, the cashier weighs my bunches of bananas (I had two) and says that I must be happy that they are still $.50 a pound.  I reply that I am happy about that because my little boy loves bananas and eats them all the time.  Now this cashier was an older woman, older than my mom, and I've never seen her before.  I'm fairly certain she doesn't know how old my son is as she's probably never seen him before.

Her retort to my comment was this: "He's not supposed to have more than half a banana a day.  If you keep giving him that many bananas, he'll get fat from the sugar."  My reply was "well, he loves them and I'm not going to take them away."  The cashier then proceeded to process the rest of my groceries without another word and didn't even say 'have a nice day' to me as she handed me the receipt.

I love when people who don't know my child and don't know me that well decide that they know exactly how my child should be raised.  I think that bananas are better than potato chips and chocolate and that not wearing socks isn't that big of a deal.  But don't tell the well meaning crazy women at Aldis that.  A barefoot child is horrible to some of them.

No matter who you are, if you take your child out in public, someone is going to have a comment about how you raise him.  I think that there's something in the female psyche that creates this compulsion to do so.  I try to keep my comments about a parent's style to myself unless asked, but I'm still young.  If I think a child is over- or underdressed for the weather, I keep that comment to myself.  How do I know that the child didn't remove an article of clothing in the car?  My own child is a professional at it.  There are probably tons of lost socks in my van because 2.0 hates socks.

Even in the groups I'm part of on facebook, there are things said that I don't agree with.  I personally wish someone had told me to buy some newborn diapers so I wouldn't have had to go out and buy them four days after my son was born.  When I typed that in the group, I was not only shot down, but ridiculed for it.  But that's information I think a new mom should have and if she asks for it (which she did in this case) that's what I would advise.

I guess the most important thing about misguided advice is that more often than not, the person giving it means well.  I wonder about the motivation of the cashier at Walmart (you don't tell a mom that her child is fat unless the child is REALLY fat), but for the most part it's meant in good faith.  Sometimes you just have to let things go into one ear and out the other.

Separation Anxiety: Countdown To 2.0's Visit At Grandma's House

I'm so very excited about the end of this month.  I get to take a trip with the women of my church to Women of Faith in Des Moines.  From what I heard about last year's trip, it was amazing for the women who got to attend and I can't wait to go this year.  Especially since I'm not breastfeeding...:)

Along with my trip comes another trip though.  2.0 is spending about five or six days with Grandma in Byron, IL.  He's also making a special trip to see his Great Grandma in Mt. Olive and he'll meet his Great Aunt Tonya and Great Uncle Paul for the first time.  It will be so much fun for him and I'm very thankful that my mom wants to spend that much time with 2.0 one on one.

But I've never been away from my son for longer than about ten hours.  And he's going to be gone for days...

I know that he'll be just fine.  He's going to have so much fun with Grandma.  He'll get to play with the dogs and go fishing (maybe) and walk around in the yard picking up sticks with Grandma...they will have a ball.

But Mama won't know what to do with herself when the little one is gone.

Nate and I are already talking about saving some money so we can go see a movie.  I'll also be able to catch up on my housework without an 18 month old running around.  I can actually sit and knit and watch movies I can't watch because 2.0 is here...

I'll miss my little guy, but I'm sure that the time will go by very quickly.  The time leading up to it sure will pass quick.

It's also very entertaining to me that I'm probably going to have more severe separation anxiety than 2.0 will.

One More First: The Olympics

I've mourned passing through all my son's firsts.  They seemed to pass by so quickly...that first smile, his first real laugh (which I have video of), the first time he rolled over and the first time he crawled, his first tooth and his first solid foods, those wonderful first steps right after his birthday...

But today I just realized I have one more first arriving tomorrow and staying for a couple of weeks.  2.0 will get to watch his first Olympic games starting tomorrow!

I remember when the Olympics were every four years and we got to have a summer games and a winter games in the same year.  I'm so happy it's not like that anymore and we get a summer games this year and in two years will have a winter games.  The summer games are my favorite.  I love to watch the swimming and the diving and the gymnastics.  It's so awesome!

Since my son is very sports minded (he's a boy after all), we watched the Olympic trials for swimming about a month ago.  He was enraptured by it, clapping when the race was over and pointing to the swimmers.  He seemed to really enjoy it.  We also watched the women's gymnastic trials and 2.0 seemed to like that as well.

I don't remember the first Olympics that I got to watch.  I remember the 1996 Olympics and I remember the games in Barcelona.  I learned to knit while watching the Salt Lake City games (ten years ago if you can believe that).

Maybe 2.0 won't remember this summer's games.  But I hope he enjoys them while he can.  It's amazing to watch athletes push their bodies and do breathtaking things.  It's going to be the best entertainment on TV for awhile.  With the exception of Hell's Kitchen and Masterchef of course...but that's another blog post.

Making A Difference Through Diapers

I'm so very excited about this weekend.  I just can't wait to be a part of what I'm going to be a part of.  The impact of this weekend on the community in which I live is going to be enormous.  For once, I'm actually excited for the week to end as quickly as possible.

I've been praying for a few months now that God would help me find a way to give back to the community I live in beyond teaching Sunday school in Adventureland at church.  I love teaching Sunday school and would gladly do it every single weekend if possible.  Those kids in my class make my entire week and bring me so much joy.  I just wanted to do more.

This is where a friend from church and her new job came in.

I mentioned the Women's Choice Center last week after our visit there and I mentioned the diaper drive.  I'm not going to repeat that post again.  Today however, I got to see the other side of the diaper drive in a way.

Today I went out to the Women's Choice Center (WCC for short) to drop off some clothes and baby food. I was excited to go because last weekend, a diaper drive was done at another church here in the QCA.  I wanted to see where the bar is set for Adventure this weekend and I wanted to see what God was doing in this community.  There were so many diapers...it was amazing to me.  This diaper drive brought in 57 packs of diapers.

While that might not seem like a lot, imagine the impact that will have.  57 moms won't have to worry about diapering a child.  It's so cool.

I think it's important that our children see us making a difference in our community.  I think that it's important for them to want to make a difference in their world and they learn that from us.  2.0 went out to the WCC with me today and I showed him the diapers.  He doesn't understand yet, but someday he will.

When I think about it, without the help and love of my family, I could be one of those women who needs help buying diapers.  It could so easily be any of us.  I think about that, about what toll that takes on a woman when she can't provide something so simple for her child, and it weighs on my heart.  Imagine being one of the volunteers who has to tell a desperate mom that there are no diapers to be had because there weren't enough donations.  That's just something I can't accept.

The Bible says that what we do to the least of us we do unto God.  Every tiny life is so precious.  One pack of diapers makes so much of a difference.  I don't know about you, but I want my son to see that.

Protecting Our Kids: Movie Time

By now you've gotten out of bed, had your coffee, and probably turned on the news and seen that there was a shooting last night in a movie theater in Aurora, Colorado at a midnight showing of the Dark Knight Rises.  12 people were killed and the gunman is in custody.  Media outlets and other various pundits and talk boxes are clamoring for more gun control.  None of these things were surprising to me.  In fact, it was an entirely different aspect of this whole situation that's bothering my motherly instincts right now.

Did you know a 12 year old was in the theater watching this movie?  Without his parents?

The Dark Knight Rises is rated PG-13.  So my question is why was this 12 year old child in the movie theater without parental guidance?

I'm a huge fan of the Batman franchise.  I loved the latest movies, especially the late Heath Ledger's portrayal of the Joker.  The first movie wasn't disturbing or overly dark, but the second movie (with the aforementioned character) was rather dark.  Harvey Dent's makeup after half his face was burned off was a little disturbing to me and I'm an adult.  I've been looking forward to this last movie coming out for a long time.

But if I had a child who was under the age of 17, I don't think I would've let him go to this movie without me.  I might've sat in a different part of the theater (if my child were 15 or 16) or I would've seen it first and talked to my child about it.  Sending a child into this movie without parental guidance is like sending a soldier into a battle zone without a gun.  How can that child be prepared for what he's going to see?

Nate and I both like shows that 2.0 can't watch.  Not now, not for a long time if ever.  I try not to watch Criminal Minds in front of my son and I don't watch True Blood or The Tudors in front of him ever.  When I was checking out Nip/Tuck (which was awful by the way) and Dexter (which I really liked), I didn't watch those in front of him either.  Nate likes Star Trek Voyager, especially the Borg episodes, but those are a little scary for a kiddo like mine and we don't watch those episodes in front of him.  So far, 2.0 has never been to a movie theater, but when he goes for the first time, he's definitely not going to see something like The Dark Knight Rises or The Hunger Games (which was amazing as well) or Twilight.  Right now, the only thing 2.0 is allowed to watch unsupervised is Sesame Street.

If we don't protect our kids, who will?

When I went to the Hunger Games back in March, I had no idea what I was about to see.  I went with a group from church that included a group of younger girls (tweens I guess they're called now).  You know what the parents with me did?  They not only read the books so they would be able to talk to their kids about them, but they sat in the row directly behind them so that if something had happened that bothered them or caused them to have questions, the parents were right there.  The Hunger Games was rated PG-13. When I went to see Breaking Dawn this past November, one mom asked her sixteen year old daughter to miss the midnight showing because of the sexual content of Bella and Edward's wedding night, allowing the mom herself to see the movie first to make sure it was appropriate for her daughter.  Then they went to see the movie together.

Sometimes we have kids who are more mature than we were at the same age.  That's all well and good.  But maturity doesn't always mean that we have to push our kids out into the world and expose them to everything.

I want to protect my son for as long as I can.  He's only innocent for a short period of time.  Why take any of that away?

Choosing Life: Our Visit To The Women's Choice Center

As a partner with Adventure Christian Community (my awesome and fabulous church), I've had the opportunity to meet some of the most wonderful and amazing people.  Every time I meet someone new there, I find my mind blown all over again at what God can do with the people in this place.  We truly have another loving family in the people who attend there.

One of the amazing women I've met is the Director of Development at The Women's Choice Center in Bettendorf.  She has stretched me in ways I never thought possible.  I found out more information about what the Women's Choice Center does and one of the things they offer is diapers and wipes for women and families in need.  Their supplies are running low though and they are desperately in need of donations.  After learning that, I decided that the time had come for Adventure Christian Community to do something for the community we live in and we are having a diaper drive next weekend.  My son is the face of the drive and his adorable little smile is winning hearts all over town.  :)

Seriously...look at that face

So today we went for a tour and a presentation to learn more about what the Women's Choice Center does.  They are across the street from Planned Parenthood and they offer counselling, ultrasounds, free pregnancy tests, prenatal and birth classes, clothing, baby food, blankets, prayer shawls, and more for pregnant women.  If a woman (or a girl) comes in and wants to terminate her pregnancy, the Women's Choice Center goes over her options with her (and the father of the child or the woman's family or all of the aforementioned).  They are saving lives, one baby at a time.

They give baby showers for needy women and offer prayer and counselling after an abortion has taken place.  They are volunteer run and completely non profit.  I got to listen to a testimony of a woman who had come through the center when she found out she was pregnant and she was able to see an ultrasound of her baby, which helped her decide to keep the child.  She was there cradling her 3 month old daughter.  It was amazing and awe inspiring.

So today, I'm cleaning out my cupboards.  There's baby food all over the place here that I don't need anymore.  I'm going through baby clothes that I don't need any more (even though we're trying for another child, there are some clothes that I'm not going to need again.  Even if we have another boy.) and I'm getting ready for the diaper drive next weekend.

If you are reading this and you attend Adventure, don't miss your opportunity to help this wonderful organization and bring some diapers to church next week.  They desperately need sizes 3 and 4, but they take everything.  If you have some baby clothes or blankets that you don't need anymore, here's your chance to make a difference.  If you're crafty (like me) and want to make some blankets, they need those too.

I'm so very excited to be part of something so wonderful and can't wait for their next volunteer training class so I can do more.

Homeschooling

When we found out about our son's impending arrival, Nate and I started talking about school.  Granted, we had a lot of time back then (and still have a lot of time now) to make a decision about what we were going to do with schooling, we've come to a consensus now.  

We will be a homeschooling family.

No we aren't religious zealots.  No we aren't anarchists trying to indoctrinate our son to overthrow the government someday.  We aren't planning on raising our child in a bubble or concerned that he's not smart enough for public or private school.  Rather the opposite in fact.

Nate has an IQ of 165 and mine is 155.  Nate has ADD.  I was bored in school and finally gave up trying somewhere between 8th grade and high school (with the exception of my honors classes, which I loved).  2.0 is very smart.  He's learning how to do things at a rapid pace (all toddlers do from what I'm told) and I can see the wheels in his mind turning.  But he's also very active and likes to be in everything and running all over the place until he falls over with exhaustion.  That's just how boys are.

Would it be a good idea to put him in a learning environment that doesn't have any wiggle room?  I don't think so.  Plus, public schools are not what they used to be.  I had a good public school with a wonderful curriculum and teachers that cared about their students.  That's not the norm.  I don't want my son in a classroom that's overcrowded where he gets lost and where he's presented situations at ages where he might not be emotionally able to handle them.

Private school is expensive and is getting more expensive every single day.  That's not going to work for us either.

That leaves one option.

Thankfully we have a school district here that supports homeschooling.  There's online K-12 school in Iowa as well that will help us supplement parts of 2.0's education that we might not be the best at teaching (like math, my nemesis).  

The benefits of homeschooling are so vast and I think it's worth every sacrifice I have to make.  I'm excited to teach him at home and watch the world unfurl before his curious eyes as he reaches out with both hands to grasp the knowledge.  Nothing could be better about being his mom than that.  

The Prayer Shawl

I've been in a knitting kick lately, partly because I love the hobby and have missed it and partly to put off the edits on my fourth book while my cold readers finish it.  It's hard for me to knit and write because of the trouble I have with my hands.  My nerves can't handle that much repetitive motion.  More often than not, I choose writing.

I found this book at the library about knitting monster toys and I've been clicking needles for two weeks now.  It's required me to learn how to use double pointed needles and to learn knitting in the round as well as how to pick up stitches and knit heels (something useful when knitting socks, which I will never do).  After knitting monsters, I picked up a book on prayer shawls.  After all, I have friends having babies very soon.

When I read about the history of prayer shawls and what they are used for now, I was very humbled and very eager to play my own part on the tradition.

A prayer shawl is knitted with prayers as well as stitches.  They are wrapped around someone in a time of crisis or actually during prayer in some religions.  When I lost my dad, I really could've used a prayer shawl while I was mourning in the hospital and later at the funeral.  It's made to give comfort and warmth in times when it might be hard to find either or both of those things.  It can also be used in times when there is the greatest joy to protect and nurture that joy.  After looking at the patterns and reading about the events that spurred the creation of the shawls, I am excited to get started.  I just need more information before I can get going.

One of the shawls I found was called a nursing shawl.  The story behind it talked of a couple getting pregnant with twins.  The pregnancy progressed normally until an ultrasound showed that one of the twins was growing faster than the other one and might not survive the pregnancy.  The shawl was knitted after that news was passed on and with each stitch, a prayer was prayed.  As the pregnancy continued, the woman was in distress and had to be delivered early.  Two little children were born, one 3lbs and the other 2.  This shawl was wrapped around the mother after her C-section and then was draped over the incubators of whichever child was struggling the most during the time they both stayed in the NICU.  Wouldn't you know that each child did better when this shawl was draped over them?  Talk about the power of prayer.

I think it would make a nice baby shower gift and I'm hoping to complete it in time.  I won't make it for the first friend (who is due at the beginning of October), but I should make it for the other once I know if she's having a boy (which is what I suspect) or a girl.

I also found a pattern to knit a hat that has Princess Leia buns on the sides.  Now that's cool.  :)

The Awful Week Continues...

Never ever ask "what else could go wrong?" or say "it can't get much worse" because it can and it will if you tempt fate.

We'd lost out on a job and lost a baby in one week.  I didn't think it could get much worse than that.  I was right and wrong at the same time.

First, I noticed the van was running hot.  At least I was checking the gauge.  I hadn't noticed a leak anywhere but when I had to add fluid to the radiator, apparently there's a leak somewhere.  My father in law was in the area and came out and looked at it and he found the leak.  The bad news is there's a leak.  The good news is it's minor and easy to fix.  I just stay close to home and keep all trips in the van to a bare minimum for the next few days.  I can do that.  It was too hot to move around anyway.

Speaking of the hot weather...

The same day the van springs a leak, my air conditioner suddenly just stops running.  In the middle of the heatwave.  Fantastic!  Of course this happens after 5, so my landlord's office is closed and now it would cost me an additional $35 to have them come out and look at it since it's not listed as an emergency in my lease.

By the way, did you remember my son has asthma?  Right.

Now that night wasn't so bad.  It wasn't awful hot yet because we still had some air moving from the fan in the furnace and it was cold from the remaining air in the pipes.  But then we got into the next day and it got hot very quickly.  I couldn't open the windows because it only would get worse.  It was awful.

Thankfully my mom came to the rescue and put us up in a hotel for a couple nights while the air was being fixed.  It couldn't be fixed until Monday.  :(

Now we're back home, the a/c is fixed, the van will be fixed in the next couple days.  We're alive.  2.0 didn't have an asthma attack in the heat.  We have a very good friend who lives kitty corner from us who doesn't mind taking me out when I need to go somewhere so I don't have to worry about being stranded with my child if the van overheats.

I'm not thinking about nothing else going wrong.  I'm not tempting fate again.  I'm just thankful we have what we have.  I'm thankful we're home and no one got sick or had to go to the hospital.  I'm thankful we have people in our lives who love us and care about us.

It's all going to be okay.  :)  This too shall pass.

The Awful Week

Last week was wretched.  There's no other word for it.  Well, yes in fact there are other words for it and since I'm a writer, I can think of a few.  Abysmal, miserable, deplorable, poor, scummy, woeful.

I've been through some horrible things in the past and managed to keep my head about me.  But last week it all just piled up and piled up until I simply couldn't take anymore and I lost all hope.  I just wanted to curl up in a dark room and sing happy songs to myself all day.  Or something else equally crazy.

Nate applied for a better job that he didn't get.  We had to deal with bills we didn't have the money to pay.  It just looked horribly bleak.

Add to that the loss of another pregnancy as I had what I believe was a chemical pregnancy.  Talk about a let down.  You see (or in my case kind of see) a second line on a pregnancy test and then suddenly there's only one again and you know what's coming.  I've been here a couple of times.  I knew what to expect.

I just couldn't stand anymore stress or loss.  I couldn't handle rejection.  I needed something to break and it didn't.

The disappointment continued to the weekend and I'm still a little depressed this week.  Things are just not going the way we'd hoped and prayed they would.  It's very easy (especially in this heat with no A/C in the van) to just sit inside and wallow.  Instead of wallowing though, I started knitting.

While I knit, I pray.

While I pray, I find comfort.

When I find comfort, I find the strength to keep going the next day.

It also helps to have friends who can look at you and say "your attitude really stinks and you need to change it".  I have friends like that and I'm thankful for them.  :)

So I'm going to keep knitting.  I have a monster I'm knitting for a certain little boy who smiles at me and says "mama" just when I need to hear it.

More Weight Loss...Finally Something Positive!

It's been a very trying week for us and it's only Wednesday.  I hope the rest of the week goes much better because I'm not sure what I'll do if it doesn't.

My husband interviewed for a new job that he didn't get.  The dreams of more money and a better life just slipped through our fingers like sand.  Bills are piling up and Nate hasn't been allowed to go back to work yet.  The help we applied for was approved but hasn't arrived yet.  Things have been looking bad, then worse, then desperate.  I descended into a funk that slowly snowballed into a deep depression I couldn't seem to shake.  Hope was very far away.

I'm thankful for wonderful friends who won't let me forget that they love me and God loves me and that I haven't been forsaken.  I won't be left alone.  There is hope still alive yet.  It's just hard to see it through all the muck and nastiness of our circumstances right now.

So I decided to skip breakfast (that's what I do to have some kind of control of my life.  I decide if I'm going to eat or not and most of the time choose not when I'm in the kind of depression I was in this morning.  I'm not saying it's right, it just is sometimes.  I did eat though, partially thanks to my wonderful husband and partially thanks to a couple of wonderful friends) and before I finally ate, I decided to weigh myself.

I'm 310 pounds.  What do you know?

I haven't been exercising.  I've been eating horribly crappy food (can we say chocolate and cheesecake?) and I've been sitting around feeling sorry for myself.  But somehow I went from 317 pounds a couple weeks ago to 310 now.  That means I've lost a total of 15 pounds in two months!

I've lost about 4% of my body weight and I have 11 pounds to lose before I'll hit 299, my short term goal.  I just might be able to get pregnant naturally once I get to 299 pounds.  I wasn't much heavier or lighter than that when 2.0 came along...

I walked 2.4 miles today and I'm going to work harder to get my walking in.  The quicker this weight comes off, the quicker I hit my goal.

Finally I have something positive!

Attachment Parenting For The Rest Of Us Part 2: Medical Intervention

By now I'm sure that you are aware that my son has asthma.  It's just part of our life now.  I'm also very confident that you are aware of my difficulty conceiving and the complicated pregnancy I had, as well as the circumstances surrounding 2.0's birth.  That being said, I'll keep the back story part of this post short and sweet.

I have PCOS.  This means I have trouble conceiving because I don't ovulate.  I also have trouble losing weight and run a higher risk of type II diabetes.  Nate and I tried for 5 years (no I'm not joking) to have a child, completely unsuccessful until 2010.  Hello little 2.0!

Now becoming pregnant was hard.  Being pregnant was hard too.  I had pregnancy induced hypertension (high blood pressure due to pregnancy) and gestational diabetes.  I went into labor two weeks early and continued to have gradually intensifying contractions until my water finally broke the night before my induction.  When 2.0 was born, he was jaundiced (yellow because his liver was taking a little longer to process toxins in his blood) and he had low blood sugar (a side effect of my gestational diabetes).  His birth was rather easy (the labor was difficult, but the birth was smooth) and we both recovered quickly.

That all being said, without medical intervention, I'm not sure both of us would be here.  I was put on pitocin when my water broke so I would continue to contract.  I was given an epidural partially because it helps lower high blood pressure during delivery.  I was placed on oxygen during 2.0's delivery because the cord was wrapped around his neck.  During my pregnancy, I was put on blood pressure medication because of how high my blood pressure was.  

Attachment parenting talks about the need to limit medical intervention during labor and delivery and afterward for the child.  This I do not agree with and felt it needed to be addressed in a separate post.  I watched my son try to breathe in the middle of the night before his asthma was diagnosed and treated.  It's the worst feeling in the world to see your child struggle to breathe and know there is absolutely nothing you can do about it.  

Sometimes the medical interventions we think might be unnecessary are really for the benefit of us or our children.  God created doctors and nurses to help care for our children (not to mention us) and keep them as healthy as possible.  Now I don't always agree with my son's pediatrician.  He told me to let my son cry and eventually he'd learn to go to sleep on his own.  I strongly disagreed with that and did not follow that advice.  

We need to use our intuition to help determine if our children need to see the doctor.  But at the same time, we need to do what's best for our kids, even when we think they don't need to see the doctor and in fact, they might benefit from someone who went to medical school.  

Did you know SIDS deaths went down partially because doctors and other medical professionals started listening to mothers when they said 'something was off' about their child?  We are more powerful than we know, we just need to be ready to get help when it's needed, even when we might doubt if it's necessary or not.