We are finally thawing out after a record winter with 90 days of more than 5 inches of snow on the ground. It is nice to see the sun again and for the snow to melt, although after it melted we had another storm which dropped about 4 inches in our backyard, and that is almost gone, only one heap of snow left in our front yard. Did you know you can take a paint roller to the snow and make it stick? I had no idea and it is the coolest thing next to snowball fights!
It is cold here. I am kind of tired of being cold, tired of long sleeves, tired of my forearms constantly itching due to the seams on my long shirts. Now I understand how kids with sensory issues feel about tags on the back of their necks! After 34 years of short sleeves I am feeling oppressed by wearing so many clothes for so many months of the year. Not to mention the laundry that five people create when everyone wears at least three layers!! I tell my friends that it is crazy that I moved from a place where we wore winter clothes for three months out of the year, to a place where we wear summer clothes for only three months out of the year!
Elle wants to wear dresses every day and I still haven't figured out how to do that- I know she could wear tights but those drive her up the wall. She is doing very well in school, with her writing. Math not so much, they started a program called Everyday Math which introduces math concepts at a very early age, and we are having trouble finding the time to do the take-home exercises after school. She is so spent after 7 hours at school I would rather that she just play when she gets home. She is 5! I think anything beyond counting to 100 in Kindergarten is a bit ridiculous, but it is the curriculum, so we'll do it somehow.
Justin is doing well, was "discharged" from speech therapy after we decided we couldn't afford to pay $340 a month anymore, and it turns out he is pretty much right where he started. We waited a month and had him re-evaluated by the therapist, and he is still about 6 months behind. So he scores average for his age, which wouldn't worry me if he wasn't so darn smart. It really bothers me that older kids can't understand him a lot of the time. Hopefully we'll figure something out as far as insurance paying, which they said they would since he had ear problems at an early age, but we have yet to see them pay anything.
Miles is very active, has started climbing on everything, on chairs, tables, etc. He is a little thing, only 23 lbs at 16 months (Justin was about 28 lbs at this age), so he doesn't have the weight to deal with, and has some crazy fine motor skills. He also has amazing balance- we went to the sculpture garden in Minneapolis with Leaux and there was a wooden board suspended on four ropes, and he got up there and was able to balance no problem! He seems to have no fear whatsoever. He has started trying to walk down stairs forward, which freaks me out!
So I used to have time on my hands, but I really don't anymore. As I'm writing this he's standing on the booster chair we use at the table. I forgot about chasing a toddler, and that's really all I do all day- chase him! He sleeps a little bit, about 45 min in the morning and an hour in the afternoon. Usually longer now that the older kids can go outside when Elle gets home from school. Boy do I not miss them being stuck inside all winter!!
Miles' food allergies are proving to be worse than Justin's, and his sleep habits too. I used to complain about the fact that J was up every 2-3 hours until he was two, but Miles is up every 35-45 minutes at night when he's had something he's sensitive to (or I've had it the day before). It's hard to know what I am eating that's affecting him when I get that little sleep, but I think that along with gluten and dairy, he is also allergic to eggs, oats, and chocolate. The last one has proven almost impossible for me to give up (we all have our limits, you know), but when I don't have it he sleeps longer, like hours instead of minutes longer, but it is hard to give up something I eat every day!
He's had two ear infections in the past two months or so. Elle got sick the first week in Feb, right after the Super Bowl. She woke up at 3 AM wheezing in and out and shaking like a leaf. I was completely freaked out as this has happened twice before, but not with inspiratory and expiratory wheezing, basically she couldn't breathe very well at all. I stuck her in a steamy shower and that helped calm her down, but she wheezed until she fell asleep (which was right when I had decided to go to the ER!). The only thing we could figure out that was different was that she had oats the night before.
I took her to urgent care the next day and they did all kinds of tests, and put her on a steroid and antibiotic. She seemed to be better by that afternoon, so I thought it was more of an allergic reaction to something than croup and bronchitis, which the doc said it was. She got better too quickly for croup. But then a week or so later Justin and Miles both had croup. After she was done with the antibiotics Elle started coughing again so we were sick around here for a good month. The NP said that if she has that wheezing episode again, she'll be diagnosed with asthma and put on a nebulizer.
Then in the beginning of March Miles got his first ear infection, which we treated with antibiotics, which turned out to not be gluten free, so made him worse. I went back to the pharmacy and got the GF product, and finished out the dose, but then M and I had thrush (yeast). It was the worst I have ever seen, took at least three weeks to treat and go away. I am thinking he probably had some underlying yeast that just took over when he had the antibiotics. At least that's what I hear is the problem with kids who are as constipated as he is- it's usually yeast overgrowth.
We tried willow and garlic ear drops, and those seem to help more than the antibiotics with his ear pain. He's cutting four canines at the same time, which doesn't help. I'm still using the drops at night because he sleeps better and it keeps the ear bugs at bay, I really don't want another kid with tubes. Justin's just came out of his eardrums and I had to take him to an ENT to get them removed because they wouldn't come out (I have an otoscope so I can see them). So even though J can stick his ears underwater, he no longer wants to b/c he doesn't like the way it feels.
Katie asked me one day how I got kids with such bad allergies, and I have a theory that my allergy shots in high school might have played a part (sorry Mom!)- since I got them for about two years, and they most probably had thimerosal in them as a preservative, and I developed lactose intolerance after that and digestive issues. I really wish I had known more about detox before I got pregnant and got on the merry go round of pregnancy and breastfeeding that I've been on since Sept of 03!
I took some oil of oregano to get rid of the yeast when we had it, it is a potent antifungal and antibiotic, and it seemed to get rid of all the digestive junk for me, because I lost five pounds in the process, but it hasn't worked for Miles' issues. That is the problem with doing detox on a kid who only poops twice a week, all of the toxins concentrate in the colon, and if they aren't eliminated, they get reabsorbed through the bloodstream connected to the digestive tract. I wasn't planning to detox because there isn't enough info out there about what happens to toxins and how much gets into the breastmilk, but it happened anyway and I feel like a million bucks!!
I had no idea how much your digestion could affect your overall well being and how you feel every day. I also found coconut milk Kefir, which is a fermented product with natural probiotics that not only colonize the gut, but also get rid of any yeast or leftover products of digestion that shouldn't be there. I love the stuff! I feel better and have more energy than I have had in a long time, which is good when you are trying to keep up with two busy boys!
So that's what's up with us. Eric said one day that all my complaining was getting to be annoying, so I am working on being more positive and appreciating what we have here, even if we are in the frozen tundra. We certainly talk about moving, but realized that we would have to step down in school quality to get closer to home, and we hope to be here until Elle goes to Junior High. The two JHs here have 300 kids per class, and that is just too many 12 and 13 year olds to put together at one time, in my opinion. The HS classes have 600, and they just added AP classes this year. So hopefully we'll figure it out by the time Elle is 10, because then Miles will be going to Kindergarten!!
Oh and Justin is a total four year old now, his language is amazing (even if some of it is not intelligible), he asks all kinds of probing questions, is getting pretty good at writing his name, and has calmed down a lot. Although his sassiness and pushing the limits has stepped up, it is easier to deal with since he is no longer three!! He is becoming much easier to deal with just as Miles is becoming much harder. I think that is the way it is with kids!
As far as our playgroup, things have gotten hairy lately. It is always this way with groups of women, and I was constantly beating myself up about not being nice enough to them, or not being outgoing enough, or thinking it was me when they were having their own issues. Well, as it turns out Holistic Moms Network got started about four years ago here and the people in it treated it like a sorority, complete with hazing and one-upmanship about who was more holistic than who. (The hazing was basically not talking to new members at all at meetings, until they had been there quite a few times.)
I had heard this from a few people in our playgroup of 8, and just dismissed it. Turns out that the people in our group had been getting together monthly for potlucks, and not inviting the new people (me and one other person), because we hadn't "proven" ourselves yet or something. Or we hadn't been miserable or taken enough crap for long enough, or something. Who knows? Anyway I found out about this, because I had been asking for months, over and over again, about having one ay my house. I was told that I wouldn't be invited, and because this community is so small, would know about these things going on without me. I called all of them on it, because HMN is supposed to be a community organization, and in order to build community, you have to be open to new people.
I have always had a disdain for LLL groups that are run like this, because it defeats the purpose entirely, and after I said something everyone came together and played nice... but it left me with a really bad taste in my mouth when it comes to small towns like this. There are only two million people in the whole state, and I think DSM is the size of Savannah, and a lot of people here have never left, and have that small town mentality, i.e. "if you didn't grow up here you aren't good enough to be let into my social circle". There are of course exceptions to this rule, but it shouldn't take someone four years to break into a group, which two of my friends said it had. I don't have four years to wait for people to accept and like me. I don't have that kind of patience nor do I care to. Especially when it's not about me- it's about them.
I think when you leave and move away, it changes you, sometimes for the better. You get a larger perspective on life because you see how other people live in other places, and you are more open to new people, because you have been new before. I'm all for keeping old friends, but sometimes old friends stifle your growth, especially when you refuse to branch out and meet and get to know new people. I think many people here are just stuck with their old friends they've had forever, and don't want to change. And I do realize that is not confined to Iowa.
Either way it's hard not to just want to befriend the transients, because they have the same perspective you do. It's also hard to look at everything we have, a huge house, a nice car, a great school two minutes away, and say that we are not happy, because we are. It is just so damn cold! And I am beginning to understand why people are uptight here- living with this much cold for this long is not relaxing. But I did find some warmth from them, this winter. Being welcomed into someone's home when it is zero degrees outside and it is nice and cozy inside is heartwarming. Hopefully we're over the hump and will have many more of those moments!
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