Tuesday, October 21, 2008

What Obesity Problem??

J has recently finished his family medicine rotation where he got to see all kinds of people. One patient struck me as particularly funny and sad all at the same time. A mother and her approximately 7 year old son were in the office to be seen for some ailment the son had. Apparently, the son was not too fond of being seen by the doctor. After J left he heard the duo walking out to pay. The son was ready for his reward of sitting through a Dr visit and loudly demanded to the mother "YOU OWE ME A PACK OF HOT DOGS NOW!" Yes, you read that correctly -a pack - not one but an entire pack. So, if you other moms are feeling guilty over bribing your kids with small pieces of candy, you may now rest easy that there are in fact worse bribes to be given.

Monday, October 06, 2008

Big Things

I don't know about other moms out there, but I feel a lot of frustration with my kids on a daily basis. I feel like I am constantly trying to remind them how to behave or do things. These days my frustration level is particularly high as I am so exhausted and drained in every way possible. That is why special little things they do, like hugs and giggles, keep me going.

This morning brought me not just a little thing, but a huge thing. Last night, I was so tired I didn't pick anything up and left the house a mess. This is a very rare occurrence since I feel like I can't even think when the house is cluttered. As my alarm went off this morning, I was slow to get out of bed and heard the kids in the game room talking. After some time had passed they came into our bedroom and Ashley said she had something to show me. Fearing the worst I sleepily and cautiously walked into the game room. What I saw turned out to be beyond my wildest imagination - they had cleaned everything up!! That is right, you read it correctly, my 5 year old and 2 year old had cleaned up all the mess I had left the night before. Toys, shoes, books, towels, blankets, bowls you name it and it had been out. Ashley said she walked down and said "What a mess!!" and decided to clean. Now don't be getting grandiose thoughts that this child likes to clean. This is the same diva that acts as though her back is breaking when I ask her to pick up one little Barbie on a normal night. This is the same child who complains that her feet hurt when she is picking up toys. And don't even get me started about Landen. He is not one to be convinced to do anything. Yet they both picked everything up all by themselves with absolutely no direction from me. I think this will be enough to keep me going for a couple more days.

Thursday, October 02, 2008

Where do I start???

So a little time has passed since I last wrote....all right.... A LOT of time. I think it is pretty obvious my plate was a little full. We had J's eye blindness thing, little A starting Kinder and me starting my new job - all within a couple of weeks might I add. Throw in a short weekend trip to Midland and a weekend conference in there and you have one crazy person. Trust me you did not want me to be writing, it would not have been an enjoyable experience for anyone involved. Now onto the business at hand, where do I start????

First and most importantly I want to thank everyone who gave us their thoughts, prayers and support during J's eye thing. He does have his eyesight back for the most part and is now driving and back in school. At one point things were really bad and they had to give him an injection right into his eyeball. Not pleasant, but it helped him hold onto his sight. He is also on serious blood thinners. We still do not have any kind of diagnosis as to what is causing the eye bleeding. They could happen again and he does continue to have episodes. We just have to pray that the blood thinners will work and the doctors find what is going on. In the meantime, we decided it was best for him to continue with school, despite the risk. With the possibility of this happening again with permanent damage it does make him nervous about what specialty to go into to, but I told him no one knows what is going to happen in the future, so he needs to just continue with whatever he wants to do. We will deal with things as they come.

The moral of all this is prayers do work, so THANK YOU to everyone who put in a special call to up above for us. We had lots of people and even several entire churches praying for us from all sorts of places. Just knowing this gave us the strength to deal with the extreme stress we were under. One friend in particular I would like to thank is my wonderful neighbor Amanda. She called and emailed constantly to hear updates and just be there for me to talk to. She brought us goodies a couple of times and just repeatedly offered her help. I know I wasn't always the most reciprocating friend back during the last month but she kept on being there despite that fact, so thank you! I also want to give a huge thank to my wonderful BFF Darby. She also was truly there for me and even offered to fly out here to be with me. It wasn't a meaningless offer, I know she would have been on the next plane out here if I had agreed. I also want to give a special thank you to our friends GJ and Michelle. GJ came and spent a day with J while he was recovering. I know what a big sacrifice this is to give up an entire weekend day away from your family, but it helped J so much. There were also lots of other friends who offered dinner or just offered their help. Again, THANK YOU, THANK YOU, THANK YOU!!!! My gratitude is forever yours.

Along with J's blindness issue, the time arrived for my baby girl to start kindergarten. It was not pretty. She had an extremely rough adjustment. After the first week, parents were no longer allowed to walk the kids into the building to their classrooms. A did not take well to this and would be kicking and screaming. The principal would have to come and pry her off of me and drag her down the hall. One particular day the counselor even came out to meet us because it had gotten so bad. It was heart wrenching. This was the same time as the eye thing too so I was just on the brink of losing it. Finally, one day I had her walk in with a friend we have known for awhile and ever since then she has been fine. I even drop her off in the car pool lane now, which is the best thing ever. She is also doing incredible in school. She has made lots of friends and loves it. I also don't know if I have mentioned it before but she is reading now, like really reading. Not memorizing or kind of reading some simple words, the girl can read. It is so incredibly awesome to see her mature like this. We are still getting over a couple of hurdles like her character phobia and dislike of P.E. but it is just amazing how quickly she is changing.

I also started school. My preschool class consists of 11, 4 to 5 year olds. We call ourselves the tigers. Fortunately for me I totally lucked out and got a class mainly of girls - HALLELUJAH to that!!! Not that I have anything against boys, I have one of my own and love him dearly, but a preschool class of boys is kind of like a roller coaster on steroids and I was dreading the possibility of experiencing that kind of ride. My co-teacher did not get so lucky and got a lot of boys in her class and you can tell a huge difference. So perhaps God knew I needed an easier class to deal with since I had so much other stuff going on. They are very sweet and cute kids (except for a couple), so it has been going well. I am just exhausted and I am starting to remember why I haven't worked in a long time. Of course every other Friday my housekeeper Beatriz reminds me, as I am greeted by a clean house courtesy of her and not me.

I can't have an update post and not include my little wild man. He continues to be wild and perhaps even wilder. He is doing incredible at school but is still have some problems adjusting to me working. The hardest part is the sleep. He is napping at school but not for as long at home and he gets up with us at 6:30, so he is exhausted and it has been showing. One really great thing is his potty training. I had taken a break for awhile with everything else going on, but started up again this past week and he is getting it!! We have had lots of success with very few accidents at home, poopy in the potty several times and even consistently going at school with only one accident there all week. I still have him wearing pull-ups when we go out because I am not ready for the hassle but he is even staying dry doing that. I love it. Of course now that I have typed this, he will probably regress to a newborn stage, but at least I can claim one week of success for now.

I have covered the blindness thing, Little A's kinder start, my preschool start and Landen's bodily functions. What more you could you ask for in a post? Well, I have barely scratched the surface my friends. And don't worry mom I haven't forgotten your special birthday post. Trust me you will get one. It is a tad late but then again I think you are used to waiting on me, as are everyone else that reads this blog. Thanks for sticking around, I am officially back....I think.