We fucking got broken into today!!!!!!!! Everything's gone. Out Wide screen tv, the receiver, the dvd player, all the speakers, all our cameras, our laptop, our PHONES (who the fuck steals phones???)...Fucking EVERYTHING!!!
Worst off all we're still down a cat....MY cat :cry: :cry:
I came home and the side door was wide open. I left Ally in the car cursing that we mustn't have closed the door tight enough, but just in case. Walked in and immediately noticed that the tv was gone and lost it. I called John Hysterical, then my dad (my dad works minutes from my house), then the cops.
Oh fucking BEST thing, one neighbor watched the WHOLE DAMN THING and never called the cops!!!!!! What the fuck is that???!!!! Did you not get suspicious when EVERY piece of electronics was being unloaded from our house into a car you've never seen before??!?!?!?!?!?!?!?!?
The broke the window in our kitchen in the back of our house to get in.
At this point I just want my cat back!
I completely lost it when we thought all 3 were gone. We found 2 of them in the house about 2 hours later, so we're hopeful the 3rd is still here just hiding really well.
Wednesday, September 20, 2006
Thursday, September 14, 2006
No rest for the weary
Cancel the Tylenol PM and the blow to the head.
A's sicker then a dog right now. Kind of came out of left field. She's sleeping right now, but I put her to bed with a fever of at least 103F (it was 102F and change under her arm with her squirming). She also MASSIVELY congested and when she coughs (oh thank the heavenly lord it isn't often), it seems to last for 5 mintues, sounds like she's drowning and FREAKS.THE.HELL.OUT.OF.ME.
We're giving the tylenol an hour to do its magic. If she hasn't come down to a more respectable 100F, we'll be off to Urgent Care....Or if she has another coughing attack, I'll be taking her in.
It just doesn't sound right. She doesn't really have the sniffles and all this congestion is just lodged in her chest. You can hear it in her voice and breathing...Fears of pneumonia are cursing through me at the moment. Monitor is cranked by the bed. Off to get maybe 1/2hr of sleep.
A's sicker then a dog right now. Kind of came out of left field. She's sleeping right now, but I put her to bed with a fever of at least 103F (it was 102F and change under her arm with her squirming). She also MASSIVELY congested and when she coughs (oh thank the heavenly lord it isn't often), it seems to last for 5 mintues, sounds like she's drowning and FREAKS.THE.HELL.OUT.OF.ME.
We're giving the tylenol an hour to do its magic. If she hasn't come down to a more respectable 100F, we'll be off to Urgent Care....Or if she has another coughing attack, I'll be taking her in.
It just doesn't sound right. She doesn't really have the sniffles and all this congestion is just lodged in her chest. You can hear it in her voice and breathing...Fears of pneumonia are cursing through me at the moment. Monitor is cranked by the bed. Off to get maybe 1/2hr of sleep.
Project: Screw Sleep
Data Log - Day 7
Sleep still nowhere to be found.
Sheets covered in cat hairball - 8pm. Lying on mattress.
Out of the blue high reading 8:30pm. Bolus. Still high at 9:45pm (5 points HIGHER to be exact). Another F&^%ing bad quickset site. New site, Rage bolus and low at 12am.
Lie on couch for 2 hours. Sleep for 1.
Lie in bed for 3 hours, sleep for 15 minutes.
Getting crankier by the minute. Want out.
I'm either taking Tylenol PM tonight, or just cracking myself in the head with a sledgehammer.
Sleep still nowhere to be found.
Sheets covered in cat hairball - 8pm. Lying on mattress.
Out of the blue high reading 8:30pm. Bolus. Still high at 9:45pm (5 points HIGHER to be exact). Another F&^%ing bad quickset site. New site, Rage bolus and low at 12am.
Lie on couch for 2 hours. Sleep for 1.
Lie in bed for 3 hours, sleep for 15 minutes.
Getting crankier by the minute. Want out.
I'm either taking Tylenol PM tonight, or just cracking myself in the head with a sledgehammer.
Monday, September 11, 2006
9/11
I wasn't sure if I could write about today. I wasn't even sure I wanted to. I'm compelled though to write what I probably will never be able to say.
5 yrs ago, I was sitting at work and answered the phone. It was my boss's sister. She told me a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then his daughter called, then my cozy, safe world came crashing down.
We had workers in and around NYC, including my boss's son. I began the ardurous task of trying to get a hold of them. Cell phones were pretty much useless in the Northeast, but I kept dialing and dialing. I finally got a hold of them. They were all together, they were safe and they were trying to get out. The made it over the bridges, one of the last cars to leave the city. We later learned they watched it all happen from the roof they were on.
We turned on the tiny TV that we have here and watched. I wasn't sure what to do with myself. Do I work, do I go home? News came of military actions and my thoughts suddenly turned to my sister. At the time she was living on the Air Force Academy. I called her immediately. Didn't care if my boss said anything about calling Colorado from work. I NEEDED to know she was safe. She was, but the entire base was completely locked down, her husband was on duty and she was alone and terrified.
DH called around noon because his car wouldn't start. He worked for a 24/7 call center for TTY users and HAD to get to work. They were understandably swamped. I left to pick him up and drive him in.
I drove past an auto dealership with the largest American Flag I'd ever seen, billowing in the wind. I had driven past that flag thousands of times before and never noticed it. And suddenly it hit me, that this was real and happening HERE, not half way around the world in some country I couldn't pronounce and would never visit. Thousands of people who had gotten up, gone to work like any other Tuesday, weren't going to come home. And I couldn't explain why they weren't...Why this had happened...Why here.
I hadn't cried until then. I couldn't stop after that. I cried the whole way home and all the way back. I pulled it together enough to go back to work, but my heart, my mind, my soul was not there and wouldn't be for weeks.
That night I had planned on staying home, but 5 minutes of CNN and I HAD to get to my parent's house. There was talk of war and retalliation, of further attacks and I couldn't handle it. I sat in the cellar with my dad and cried watching the coverage.
I honestly don't remember much about the days and weeks that followed. I know I cried pretty much every night after work watching Dan Rathers, and every morning before watching CNN. We learned that one of my closest childhood friends shouldn't be with us today. She should've been at the bottom of one of the Towers right as the planes were hitting. She had decided to sleep in that morning and skip a class.
We got up early that following Sat and stood in a line that streched for blocks and bought a flag. We prayed for the families who had lost loved ones, for their spouses and children, their mothers and fathers.
9/11 shook me to my core. It stripped me on an innocence that I'll never get back. It's not that I'm scared to fly or travel or live my life, but it made me realize how quickly life can be taken. How the most mundane of days can quickly become life altering and how little control I truly have.
I often wonder if Ally will ever fully comprehend what 9/11 means. I'm guessing not. She will learn about it through textbooks and edited videos shown in school, but it won't have the same meaning.
5 yrs ago, I was sitting at work and answered the phone. It was my boss's sister. She told me a small plane had hit the World Trade Center. Then his daughter called, then my cozy, safe world came crashing down.
We had workers in and around NYC, including my boss's son. I began the ardurous task of trying to get a hold of them. Cell phones were pretty much useless in the Northeast, but I kept dialing and dialing. I finally got a hold of them. They were all together, they were safe and they were trying to get out. The made it over the bridges, one of the last cars to leave the city. We later learned they watched it all happen from the roof they were on.
We turned on the tiny TV that we have here and watched. I wasn't sure what to do with myself. Do I work, do I go home? News came of military actions and my thoughts suddenly turned to my sister. At the time she was living on the Air Force Academy. I called her immediately. Didn't care if my boss said anything about calling Colorado from work. I NEEDED to know she was safe. She was, but the entire base was completely locked down, her husband was on duty and she was alone and terrified.
DH called around noon because his car wouldn't start. He worked for a 24/7 call center for TTY users and HAD to get to work. They were understandably swamped. I left to pick him up and drive him in.
I drove past an auto dealership with the largest American Flag I'd ever seen, billowing in the wind. I had driven past that flag thousands of times before and never noticed it. And suddenly it hit me, that this was real and happening HERE, not half way around the world in some country I couldn't pronounce and would never visit. Thousands of people who had gotten up, gone to work like any other Tuesday, weren't going to come home. And I couldn't explain why they weren't...Why this had happened...Why here.
I hadn't cried until then. I couldn't stop after that. I cried the whole way home and all the way back. I pulled it together enough to go back to work, but my heart, my mind, my soul was not there and wouldn't be for weeks.
That night I had planned on staying home, but 5 minutes of CNN and I HAD to get to my parent's house. There was talk of war and retalliation, of further attacks and I couldn't handle it. I sat in the cellar with my dad and cried watching the coverage.
I honestly don't remember much about the days and weeks that followed. I know I cried pretty much every night after work watching Dan Rathers, and every morning before watching CNN. We learned that one of my closest childhood friends shouldn't be with us today. She should've been at the bottom of one of the Towers right as the planes were hitting. She had decided to sleep in that morning and skip a class.
We got up early that following Sat and stood in a line that streched for blocks and bought a flag. We prayed for the families who had lost loved ones, for their spouses and children, their mothers and fathers.
9/11 shook me to my core. It stripped me on an innocence that I'll never get back. It's not that I'm scared to fly or travel or live my life, but it made me realize how quickly life can be taken. How the most mundane of days can quickly become life altering and how little control I truly have.
I often wonder if Ally will ever fully comprehend what 9/11 means. I'm guessing not. She will learn about it through textbooks and edited videos shown in school, but it won't have the same meaning.
Friday, September 01, 2006
In which I Bore You with a Dream Sequence
I realized as I wrote this to a friend today, that it would make a good post. Ok, a decent post...Ok, ok, I just really want to tell everyone about my dream, and since you can politely "walk away" without me knowing it, I'm posting it here.
I had the WORST nightmare last night.
By far the worst, baby
related/ something happening to Ally nightmare.
It started as one of those no matter how hard you try to hurry and get somewhere you end up further and further behind. Well we were all trying to get to work, and just couldn't seem to get there. Drove around, not getting any closer to work and ended up at my parents. John leaves for work, carrying Ally, and this being a dream, my mom and I stay home and decide to have a party. Its the middle of winter and we're having a grand ole time till John calls (late at night, maybe 11ish). I ask how Ally is and he says "What do you mean? She's with you".
I drop the phone and start running all over screaming for her with my heart in my throat. Screaming and screaming, racing through the house looking for her. Outside, screaming into the wind, in the dark. I don't know what made me look, but I went to my van (I don't even own a van) and sure enough, there's Ally (probably 6 months old), strapped into her car seat, almost frozen (DH had thought I was following them out and put her in the car - we do this every morning. We leave together and he puts her in her carseat in my car). Her face was a gray color and shiney, like it was getting frostbitten.
I.LOST.IT.
Hysterical screaming and crying, crying like I've never cried before.NEVER. My dad was trying to get her out of the seat, my mom screaming "Is she alive?". I grabbed her and ran inside. Thankfully John had her all wrapped up in blankets in the car, so most of her was still somewhat warm and she was still alive. My mom was warming formula for her, trying to get anything warm into her and I was just holding her, rocking and crying.
I woke up bawling and it took quite a while to stop, including 2 trips into her room to make sure she wasn't cold. I'm still shaken when I think of it.
Friday, August 25, 2006
21 Months
HOW DID I FORGET!!!!!!
You turned 21 months the day Daddy and I returned from Vegas. You stayed with your precious memere and oh, ya, that guy called Pepere. Ever since that weekend, every and I mean EVERY time we get in the car, the first thing out of your mouth is "MEM-mem?, MEM-mem?". A no response only leads to you changing your intonation, as if I didn't completely understand, and "Look it lady, I was being polite before, now I WANT mem-MEM!"
Your vocab has skyrocketed. I can no longer count your new words, although there is 1 word, I wish to remove from your mouth. You've learned the F-bomb. We've been pretty good about not saying it around you, but sadly, we didn't even think about all those comedies we thought you were just ignoring. You've latched onto that word and "oh, F*&^!" just flies out willy-nilly. It isn't pretty and mem-mem wasn't impressed.
Your new found facination is with the potty now. You LOVE sitting on the potty, flushing the potty, throwing paper into the potty, calling potty ever so lovingly ever 30 seconds...What you don't do is anything on the potty. No pee-pee, no poop. You just sit "Ayy-yee on potty! Ayy-yee on potty"..."Yes, Ally's on the potty, now how about we go pee-pee"..."NOOOoooooOOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOO". Right.
You turned 21 months the day Daddy and I returned from Vegas. You stayed with your precious memere and oh, ya, that guy called Pepere. Ever since that weekend, every and I mean EVERY time we get in the car, the first thing out of your mouth is "MEM-mem?, MEM-mem?". A no response only leads to you changing your intonation, as if I didn't completely understand, and "Look it lady, I was being polite before, now I WANT mem-MEM!"
Your vocab has skyrocketed. I can no longer count your new words, although there is 1 word, I wish to remove from your mouth. You've learned the F-bomb. We've been pretty good about not saying it around you, but sadly, we didn't even think about all those comedies we thought you were just ignoring. You've latched onto that word and "oh, F*&^!" just flies out willy-nilly. It isn't pretty and mem-mem wasn't impressed.
Your new found facination is with the potty now. You LOVE sitting on the potty, flushing the potty, throwing paper into the potty, calling potty ever so lovingly ever 30 seconds...What you don't do is anything on the potty. No pee-pee, no poop. You just sit "Ayy-yee on potty! Ayy-yee on potty"..."Yes, Ally's on the potty, now how about we go pee-pee"..."NOOOoooooOOOOOOOooooooooOOOOOOOOO". Right.
Thursday, August 24, 2006
MIA and WTF?
Ok, so I kindof fell off the face of the earth after last week's pre-Endo visit post. Sorry about that. Everything went swimmingly, I'm right on track with where I want to be and I left smiling (which I always do when I meet with her!). As for why I went MIA. No idea. Haven't been very chatty-kathy lately.
For the WTF? - I love reading all the D-bloggers out that, but I've been noticing, there's an inordinately LARGE number of D bloggers within the NorthEast and more specifically right around the MA/CT/RI area. Is D more prevalent here? Are we just a more vocal, techie group?
Has anyone else noticed this? (and not sure what my profile says, but that area includes me). I remember mentioning once to my Endo that I when I was dx'd I found out that there were 5 other kids with D at my high school (1 being a pretty good friend) and 1 more was dx'd a few weeks after me. That's 7 kids out of probably 800. Is it just me, or is that astronomically high?
For the WTF? - I love reading all the D-bloggers out that, but I've been noticing, there's an inordinately LARGE number of D bloggers within the NorthEast and more specifically right around the MA/CT/RI area. Is D more prevalent here? Are we just a more vocal, techie group?
Has anyone else noticed this? (and not sure what my profile says, but that area includes me). I remember mentioning once to my Endo that I when I was dx'd I found out that there were 5 other kids with D at my high school (1 being a pretty good friend) and 1 more was dx'd a few weeks after me. That's 7 kids out of probably 800. Is it just me, or is that astronomically high?
Thursday, August 17, 2006
Endo visit
I've got an endo visit this afternoon. I'm both excited and scared. Excited because I absolutely LOVE my endo!!!!! She is amazing, caring and takes tons of time with me (most visits last well over an hour with her).
Scared because since my latest battles with the dreaded Quicksets, I've been somewhat avoiding testing.
I don't handle highs very well. I see them as tiny examples of how I'm failing and I.HATE.FAILING.
Didn't help that I also ran out of strips at work yesterday morning. Didn't see that the new ones had been delivered sometime last night, so there's a huge gaping hole for the past 24 hrs.
I'm also scared because I'm not sure what's going on with my depression. Most days I really am OK, but then something comes along and I instantly spiral downwards, and that's what scares me, how quickly I can spiral. The current spiral is over finances, or lack thereof. I should be proud of DH and myself, we chopped $110/month off of our expenses, and that was without feeling any pain. Instead, I'm stuck focusing on what an utter failure I feel like since I apparently can't balance a checkbook any better then A could. I'm afraid that I need my happy pills again.
I DON'T WANT TO NEED ANOTHER DAMN MEDICATION!!!!!
I'm also excited because I'm working towards getting the go ahead to start trying to conceive again - which also scares me to the bone, and does not lend well to the current finance spiral of hell ;) and I see each appt as one step closer.
I didn't have a lab slip to get another A1C drawn, so I'll have to wait on that. Hoping that I've pulled my act together enough to see a nice shiney, low 7. Goal is 6.5 or lower by Nov.
I've printed out my charts (all 17 pages - yes I'm a little OCD about it), I've mentally prepared myself for the scale (that's a whole other post) and I'm getting quite excited.
Scared because since my latest battles with the dreaded Quicksets, I've been somewhat avoiding testing.
I don't handle highs very well. I see them as tiny examples of how I'm failing and I.HATE.FAILING.
Didn't help that I also ran out of strips at work yesterday morning. Didn't see that the new ones had been delivered sometime last night, so there's a huge gaping hole for the past 24 hrs.
I'm also scared because I'm not sure what's going on with my depression. Most days I really am OK, but then something comes along and I instantly spiral downwards, and that's what scares me, how quickly I can spiral. The current spiral is over finances, or lack thereof. I should be proud of DH and myself, we chopped $110/month off of our expenses, and that was without feeling any pain. Instead, I'm stuck focusing on what an utter failure I feel like since I apparently can't balance a checkbook any better then A could. I'm afraid that I need my happy pills again.
I DON'T WANT TO NEED ANOTHER DAMN MEDICATION!!!!!
I'm also excited because I'm working towards getting the go ahead to start trying to conceive again - which also scares me to the bone, and does not lend well to the current finance spiral of hell ;) and I see each appt as one step closer.
I didn't have a lab slip to get another A1C drawn, so I'll have to wait on that. Hoping that I've pulled my act together enough to see a nice shiney, low 7. Goal is 6.5 or lower by Nov.
I've printed out my charts (all 17 pages - yes I'm a little OCD about it), I've mentally prepared myself for the scale (that's a whole other post) and I'm getting quite excited.
Wednesday, August 09, 2006
Quickset Help!!!
I don't know what in the hell I'm doing wrong, but I'm going through Quicksets like their ice cream melting in the sun.
Seriously, I love these sets when they work. I love that they actually stick to me without 3 IV3000's stuck all over.
Lately though....geez. On Saturday I changed my site. I was unexplainably in the 300's so figured I'd change her out a day early.
1st attempt - sticker folded up inside the serter. Looked almost as if the sticker had a larger circumfrence then the serter. Took a while, along with a few swears to get it out. Along with a little mopping of blood from the needle skipping over my skin.
2nd attempt - Same.Fucking.Thing. Clean serter with some goo be gone. Stomach now looks like I got into it with Freddy Kruger.
3rd attempt - goes in fine. Rage bolus BIG TIME. NO regard for insulin on board or correction ratios. I dial in enough to sink Titanic. 2 hours later, I've dropped a whopping 15 points. Rip site out only to realize it was a gusher. Lovely.
4th attempt - good to go. Bottom out at 2am and again at 6am. Thankfully I planned ahead and had a banana waiting by my bed.
Fast forward to today.
I put in a new site about an hour before supper. Eat 1/2 what I was planning on, but had already bolused for full amount. Sit around and wait for the inevitable low. 3 hours later and I'm still waiting (and not testing like a freakin moron). Finally test...404..What.the.fuck! Pull site out and put new one in. Rage bolus with a vegence. 5 units in and I've got a blockage. Another gusher. Fan-fucking-tastic.
I've gone back to my softsets and again look like an IV patient gone mad with IV3000's. I'm too angry to try another quickset at the moment.
So....What am I doing wrong?!!!!!
Seriously, I love these sets when they work. I love that they actually stick to me without 3 IV3000's stuck all over.
Lately though....geez. On Saturday I changed my site. I was unexplainably in the 300's so figured I'd change her out a day early.
1st attempt - sticker folded up inside the serter. Looked almost as if the sticker had a larger circumfrence then the serter. Took a while, along with a few swears to get it out. Along with a little mopping of blood from the needle skipping over my skin.
2nd attempt - Same.Fucking.Thing. Clean serter with some goo be gone. Stomach now looks like I got into it with Freddy Kruger.3rd attempt - goes in fine. Rage bolus BIG TIME. NO regard for insulin on board or correction ratios. I dial in enough to sink Titanic. 2 hours later, I've dropped a whopping 15 points. Rip site out only to realize it was a gusher. Lovely.
4th attempt - good to go. Bottom out at 2am and again at 6am. Thankfully I planned ahead and had a banana waiting by my bed.
Fast forward to today.
I put in a new site about an hour before supper. Eat 1/2 what I was planning on, but had already bolused for full amount. Sit around and wait for the inevitable low. 3 hours later and I'm still waiting (and not testing like a freakin moron). Finally test...404..What.the.fuck! Pull site out and put new one in. Rage bolus with a vegence. 5 units in and I've got a blockage. Another gusher. Fan-fucking-tastic.
I've gone back to my softsets and again look like an IV patient gone mad with IV3000's. I'm too angry to try another quickset at the moment.
So....What am I doing wrong?!!!!!
One Happy Kid
Happy kid, small kid. Outfit she is wearing is 3-6 months. As of last Thursday she officially weighed 22lbs 1 oz (and yes, ounces still count!). She's on the 10% curve (YAY ALLY!), and 33.5 inches - 75% (boo on that one as it puts her weight to length off the curve at 1.5%).
We saw the GI last week. Thankfully her celiac panel came back normal this time. Unfortunately the GI told me it was her tTG test which had initially came back high. All this time I had been researching Anti - IgG (what he had told DH). So what does this mean? I have no clue.
The Anti-IgG is pretty specific to a gluten problem, but not so specific to celiac. The tTG, though, that's pretty darn specific to celiac, but from my research there's a pretty big debate as to its reliability in children under 2 (lots of false negatives).
So where does that leave us? Well the GI doesn't want to put her through an endoscopy right now. He figured that based off of the most recent tests he wouldn't even suspect celiac (A has no "outward" signs of the disease, she's just small). We're in a holding pattern. We continue to see the nutritionist and go back in 4 months.
The nutritionist is helpful, but honestly I could put a chocolate frosted, sugar bomb, gold encrusted unicorn in front of A and she'll either eat it, or the napkin sitting next to it. Seriously the kid eats what and when she wants and ain't no'body gonna tell her otherwise. We did find the wonder of strawberry milk this week. Previously A shunned milk of all colors and flavors, but lately, well she's taking a hankering to strawberry milk. Not a normal 2 yr old hankering for it (a GREAT day is still only about 8 oz), but compare that to her normal 1-2oz and heck that's a (1 carry the 2, divide by 3)...That's A LOT more. WAY BETTER.
CIO
Definitely an interesting story.
The debate of crying it out with your baby is slowly starting to brew on one of my Yahoo Groups and this recent story was posted.
If you read the article closely, most of these Drs. are talking about parents who try to "schedule" a young baby (under 6 months, but often even under 3 months) by using CIO. That's ridiculous and I personally consider those parent's insane, or at the very least lacking in parental "intelligence" (this statement coming from a certified conflict-a-phobe!). There is NO reason in my book to allow a child less than 3 months of age to CIO for "scheduling" purposes for any length of time. Babies create their own unique schedule and being a parent means adapting to that schedule.
I can't even count the number of times on different boards, I would read about a parent letting a child cry to the point that the child vomited or was going on 3 hours of all out, hyperventilating screaming in the belief that they were letting him CIO. WAIT, WHAT? Vomited??!! Um, hello! WAY past CIO, you're into abuse there, in my book! Or parent's of 6 week olds asking if it was time to CIO because their child still woke 2x a night. It’s these parents (and wacked out authors who promote scheduling very young children) that have changed the definition of CIO to these all or nothing terms.
I wonder how a person can be so insecure of their parenting that they
grasp onto CIO concepts such as these so blindly that they can't trust their own instincts. It’s these morons that give CIO such a horrible association. Parenting is all about common sense...People need to get some and use it!
I know plenty of people that would argue saying they followed this book or that book successfully, but almost always you'll hear "but I did this or that different because little Johnny needed or has x,y, &z" THEN you didn't really follow this book or that! You created a plan with aspects of a certain book, but USED COMMON PARENTING SENSE to direct you and your child (I still say your insane though if you let a very small child cry from hunger). The problem is with those parents who apparently lack common sense.
My Ped recommends CIO, but only with certain parents. She has to feel out the "parenting level" of her patients, almost the parenting "intelligence".
She advocated CIO with us, only because she knew:
1.) Ally was 8 months old. She wasn't a 3 week old baby that we were CIO with because we wanted her on some pre-determined feeding or bizarre eat, play, sleep schedule. We just wanted A to go to sleep (at night) when we put her in her crib, knowing that she was clean, full, and TIRED.
2.) We wouldn't put Ally in a room, shut the door, walk away and that's it, never to walk in again until the morning (taking CIO absolutely literally).
3.) We were going to CIO using common sense, OUR OWN common sense. We weren’t following a book with rules that told us exactly what we had to do with no regard to our child’s temperament or personal schedule.
3.) We had lived through COLIC in which, to a degree allowing your child to cry, unattended is absolutely necessary to keep a parent sane and "in control". It is also the most difficult thing you can possibly do. Maybe that gave us another layer of understanding of both A's cries and the true heartbreak of listening to a child cry and not responding. +++ I do not define a parent who is at the end of their rope and NEEDS to put a crying child in a safe location and walk away for the child's safety, as letting a child Crying It Out +++
Like I said, when Ally was about 8 months old, DH and I decided to give CIO a try. At this point A had decided "bedtime,shmedtime, it was PARTY TIME!!" DH and I would stand outside her door, and listen to her cries. There was a definite difference between "GET BACK IN HERE MOM, THIS ISN'T GOING TO WORK" and "I really think I need to whine and cry a little to settle down and heck, maybe as a bonus they'll come get me". We responded immediately to the 1st, and more slowly to the 2nd. I can't comprehend how someone would willingly listen to the 1st and not respond immediately (or by 8 months not be able to tell the difference between the 2).
I really don’t know where I stand on CIO. Have I used it? Yes. Was it successful? Yes. Did I use it blindly following some authors book with clear cut rules and time schedules? NO.
I used CIO, but with common sense, a clear understanding of my child, and only when age and situation appropriate. Would I recommend CIO? Probably not. If a parent needs my opinion on the subject to decide whether or not to CIO, then they probably shouldn’t.
So why did I write all this? I don’t know. I feel very strongly that CIO has its place, mainly for parents using common sense on when, why and how to use CIO. But also that apparently, in this day and age, CIO is used for all the wrong reasons.
The debate of crying it out with your baby is slowly starting to brew on one of my Yahoo Groups and this recent story was posted.
If you read the article closely, most of these Drs. are talking about parents who try to "schedule" a young baby (under 6 months, but often even under 3 months) by using CIO. That's ridiculous and I personally consider those parent's insane, or at the very least lacking in parental "intelligence" (this statement coming from a certified conflict-a-phobe!). There is NO reason in my book to allow a child less than 3 months of age to CIO for "scheduling" purposes for any length of time. Babies create their own unique schedule and being a parent means adapting to that schedule.
I can't even count the number of times on different boards, I would read about a parent letting a child cry to the point that the child vomited or was going on 3 hours of all out, hyperventilating screaming in the belief that they were letting him CIO. WAIT, WHAT? Vomited??!! Um, hello! WAY past CIO, you're into abuse there, in my book! Or parent's of 6 week olds asking if it was time to CIO because their child still woke 2x a night. It’s these parents (and wacked out authors who promote scheduling very young children) that have changed the definition of CIO to these all or nothing terms.
I wonder how a person can be so insecure of their parenting that they
grasp onto CIO concepts such as these so blindly that they can't trust their own instincts. It’s these morons that give CIO such a horrible association. Parenting is all about common sense...People need to get some and use it!
I know plenty of people that would argue saying they followed this book or that book successfully, but almost always you'll hear "but I did this or that different because little Johnny needed or has x,y, &z" THEN you didn't really follow this book or that! You created a plan with aspects of a certain book, but USED COMMON PARENTING SENSE to direct you and your child (I still say your insane though if you let a very small child cry from hunger). The problem is with those parents who apparently lack common sense.
My Ped recommends CIO, but only with certain parents. She has to feel out the "parenting level" of her patients, almost the parenting "intelligence".
She advocated CIO with us, only because she knew:
1.) Ally was 8 months old. She wasn't a 3 week old baby that we were CIO with because we wanted her on some pre-determined feeding or bizarre eat, play, sleep schedule. We just wanted A to go to sleep (at night) when we put her in her crib, knowing that she was clean, full, and TIRED.
2.) We wouldn't put Ally in a room, shut the door, walk away and that's it, never to walk in again until the morning (taking CIO absolutely literally).
3.) We were going to CIO using common sense, OUR OWN common sense. We weren’t following a book with rules that told us exactly what we had to do with no regard to our child’s temperament or personal schedule.
3.) We had lived through COLIC in which, to a degree allowing your child to cry, unattended is absolutely necessary to keep a parent sane and "in control". It is also the most difficult thing you can possibly do. Maybe that gave us another layer of understanding of both A's cries and the true heartbreak of listening to a child cry and not responding. +++ I do not define a parent who is at the end of their rope and NEEDS to put a crying child in a safe location and walk away for the child's safety, as letting a child Crying It Out +++
Like I said, when Ally was about 8 months old, DH and I decided to give CIO a try. At this point A had decided "bedtime,shmedtime, it was PARTY TIME!!" DH and I would stand outside her door, and listen to her cries. There was a definite difference between "GET BACK IN HERE MOM, THIS ISN'T GOING TO WORK" and "I really think I need to whine and cry a little to settle down and heck, maybe as a bonus they'll come get me". We responded immediately to the 1st, and more slowly to the 2nd. I can't comprehend how someone would willingly listen to the 1st and not respond immediately (or by 8 months not be able to tell the difference between the 2).
I really don’t know where I stand on CIO. Have I used it? Yes. Was it successful? Yes. Did I use it blindly following some authors book with clear cut rules and time schedules? NO.
I used CIO, but with common sense, a clear understanding of my child, and only when age and situation appropriate. Would I recommend CIO? Probably not. If a parent needs my opinion on the subject to decide whether or not to CIO, then they probably shouldn’t.
So why did I write all this? I don’t know. I feel very strongly that CIO has its place, mainly for parents using common sense on when, why and how to use CIO. But also that apparently, in this day and age, CIO is used for all the wrong reasons.
Friday, August 04, 2006
But I can see it from here.....
So Sat night we decided to go see the Freemont Experience in Old Vegas. We didn't make it down there the last time we had gone (wonder if my crying had anything to do with that?)...
Anyway, getting anywhere in Vegas is not exactly easy. Even going from hotel to hotel requires that one lace up their most comfortable pair of walking shoes, cause its a haul. In order to get to Freemont Street we had to:
1) Take the monorail or walk to the Excalibur
2) Take skywalk across to Tropicana
3) Take skywalk across to MGM Grand
4) Go through entire MGM Grand to the main monorail which runs behind the hotels
5) Take main monorail to the end (northbound to Saraha)
6) Walk through entire Sahara to get back out onto the Strip
7) Catch a bus to Freemont Street
Now, yes, I know we could've just taken a taxi, BUT there were 8 of us and DH and I were on an amazingly TIGHT budget of only $200 CASH. So this was the cheapest/quickest route there. (Also could've caught a bus from our hotel, but we'd still be sitting on that bus right now trying to make our way down the Strip).
Freemont Experience is amazing. And I love that there's so much, packed so close together in Old Vegas. Feels more like what I had initally thought Vegas was like - my vision was so very, very different then its reality - I was blown away that the strip is almost like the world's slowest 4-lane highway. I don't know what I thought, but it didn't involve tons and tons of cars driving between the hotels.
So anyway, we had a great time. Time to head back. We get the bus. Get near the Sahara stop and decide that we'll just ride the bus all the way back to the hotel. Traffic doesn't seem that bad...Famous last words. 45 minutes later and we're 2 hotels further down the strip.
Now we start the "What do you want to do?" game. You know "What do you want to do?" "I don't know, what do you want to do?". We decide to get off the bus. We're in between Treasure Island and Mirage.
"Oh, Look! I can see Mandalay Bay from here. Let's just walk"...
I knew this was a bad idea. Every cell in my body was screaming "No, No!! Get back on the bus! NOooooooOOOooooOOOOOO".
So we start walking, and walking and walking and walking....I don't know how far we actually walked, web claims the distance from Mirage to Luxor is a scant 1.6 miles "as the crow flies", but we sure as hell walked MORE then that. By the time we made it back to the Luxor, my jeans were soaking wet and stuck to me, I had no skin left on my ankle from my new sneakers rubbing and I was very, very close to tears again.
We were suppose to travel the Strip on Sunday, taking in the different hotels. We didn't.....
Anyway, getting anywhere in Vegas is not exactly easy. Even going from hotel to hotel requires that one lace up their most comfortable pair of walking shoes, cause its a haul. In order to get to Freemont Street we had to:
1) Take the monorail or walk to the Excalibur
2) Take skywalk across to Tropicana
3) Take skywalk across to MGM Grand
4) Go through entire MGM Grand to the main monorail which runs behind the hotels
5) Take main monorail to the end (northbound to Saraha)
6) Walk through entire Sahara to get back out onto the Strip
7) Catch a bus to Freemont Street
Now, yes, I know we could've just taken a taxi, BUT there were 8 of us and DH and I were on an amazingly TIGHT budget of only $200 CASH. So this was the cheapest/quickest route there. (Also could've caught a bus from our hotel, but we'd still be sitting on that bus right now trying to make our way down the Strip).
Freemont Experience is amazing. And I love that there's so much, packed so close together in Old Vegas. Feels more like what I had initally thought Vegas was like - my vision was so very, very different then its reality - I was blown away that the strip is almost like the world's slowest 4-lane highway. I don't know what I thought, but it didn't involve tons and tons of cars driving between the hotels.
So anyway, we had a great time. Time to head back. We get the bus. Get near the Sahara stop and decide that we'll just ride the bus all the way back to the hotel. Traffic doesn't seem that bad...Famous last words. 45 minutes later and we're 2 hotels further down the strip.
Now we start the "What do you want to do?" game. You know "What do you want to do?" "I don't know, what do you want to do?". We decide to get off the bus. We're in between Treasure Island and Mirage.
"Oh, Look! I can see Mandalay Bay from here. Let's just walk"...
I knew this was a bad idea. Every cell in my body was screaming "No, No!! Get back on the bus! NOooooooOOOooooOOOOOO".
So we start walking, and walking and walking and walking....I don't know how far we actually walked, web claims the distance from Mirage to Luxor is a scant 1.6 miles "as the crow flies", but we sure as hell walked MORE then that. By the time we made it back to the Luxor, my jeans were soaking wet and stuck to me, I had no skin left on my ankle from my new sneakers rubbing and I was very, very close to tears again.
We were suppose to travel the Strip on Sunday, taking in the different hotels. We didn't.....
Thursday, August 03, 2006
And We're Back!
Well this trip went MUCH better then the last one (July 2004 when I was 7+ months pregnant)! Vegas is a totally different beast when you're pregnant. I wanted to run to each pregnant woman I saw there and beg that she just turn around and go home. Its not worth it!
Needless to say there were no tears on the Strip this time. Close, but none. Trip started off very rocky though. Apparently US Airways really wanted to see if they could make me cry.
We left the house at the ungodly hour of 3:30am (Anxeity level : Low). Dropped the car off and got to the airport for roughly 5am (Anxeity level : Medium). Flight left at 6:10am. Not bad., but wait..Why do our tickets say Pittsburg, we're suppose to be going to Philly. Oh well (Anxeity level : Medium-High) 6:05am rolls around and they still haven't started to board our flight. There's not even an agent at the counter of our gate. (Anxeity level : High). Suddenly - "Attention all passangers on flight 8473 to Pittsburg. There is a dead battery on the plane. We will have to rebook all of your flights" (Anxeity level: THROUGH.THE.ROOF)
Thankfully, she called the passengers with a final destination of Vegas to come up first. According to DH, I shot up there and those in my path were in imminent danger of getting bowled over. I got there first. Of course there was only one other group going on to Vegas, a family of 4 or so...
The agent starts: "well, I can get you on a flight to Charlotte that leaves at 11am" (great, that leaves another 5 hours to entertain ourself at the airport)
"then you'll leave Charlotte at 6pm, getting into Vegas at 7:58pm"
(WAIT!!! did she just say 7PM??? We were originally suppose to get there at 10AM...One whole day, fucking GONE - remain calm Sarah, in through the nose, out through the mouth, don't cry)
"Or..."
( Oh, GOD YES, please give us an OR)
"I can get you into Charlotte for 1pm with an arrival in Vegas at 10pm"
(How the fuck is THAT better??!!)
Me: "Um, we were suppose to get into Vegas at 10 - AM, so the earliest you can get us there would be the best" (annoyed beyond hell that I actually have to say that, but I was still very polite about it) Turn to DH "Thank god we didn't buy tickets for a show tonight!"
"Oh! Charlotte!"
( Yes, Charlotte! I don't even know what that means, but that OH was a pleasantly surprised sounding OH, so yes, please, lets do that!)
"Here are you're tickets, sorry for the delay"
We walk away, trying our hardest to figure out what we're gonna do with ourselves in the tiny gate for the next 6 hours, when DH looks down. "Wait, these tickets say we leave for Charlotte at 6:40am, then leave immediately from there for Vegas. We get into Vegas at 11am" HOLY SHIT! I LOVE that ticket agent!!!!! (Anxeity Level: below radar) I grab the tickets..."Um, honey...Um, we're flying to Charlotte 1st CLASS!!!!!!!!"
I admit it. I had the biggest, shit-ass grin on my face, sitting there in 1st class as all the peons boarded the plane heading to their tiny-ass seats in coach. DH kept reminding me that WE are one of those peons and would be heading back there very soon. Oh well...It was FUN!
Part 2 - But, I can see it from here.... coming soon.
Needless to say there were no tears on the Strip this time. Close, but none. Trip started off very rocky though. Apparently US Airways really wanted to see if they could make me cry.
We left the house at the ungodly hour of 3:30am (Anxeity level : Low). Dropped the car off and got to the airport for roughly 5am (Anxeity level : Medium). Flight left at 6:10am. Not bad., but wait..Why do our tickets say Pittsburg, we're suppose to be going to Philly. Oh well (Anxeity level : Medium-High) 6:05am rolls around and they still haven't started to board our flight. There's not even an agent at the counter of our gate. (Anxeity level : High). Suddenly - "Attention all passangers on flight 8473 to Pittsburg. There is a dead battery on the plane. We will have to rebook all of your flights" (Anxeity level: THROUGH.THE.ROOF)
Thankfully, she called the passengers with a final destination of Vegas to come up first. According to DH, I shot up there and those in my path were in imminent danger of getting bowled over. I got there first. Of course there was only one other group going on to Vegas, a family of 4 or so...
The agent starts: "well, I can get you on a flight to Charlotte that leaves at 11am" (great, that leaves another 5 hours to entertain ourself at the airport)
"then you'll leave Charlotte at 6pm, getting into Vegas at 7:58pm"
(WAIT!!! did she just say 7PM??? We were originally suppose to get there at 10AM...One whole day, fucking GONE - remain calm Sarah, in through the nose, out through the mouth, don't cry)
"Or..."
( Oh, GOD YES, please give us an OR)
"I can get you into Charlotte for 1pm with an arrival in Vegas at 10pm"
(How the fuck is THAT better??!!)
Me: "Um, we were suppose to get into Vegas at 10 - AM, so the earliest you can get us there would be the best" (annoyed beyond hell that I actually have to say that, but I was still very polite about it) Turn to DH "Thank god we didn't buy tickets for a show tonight!"
"Oh! Charlotte!"
( Yes, Charlotte! I don't even know what that means, but that OH was a pleasantly surprised sounding OH, so yes, please, lets do that!)
"Here are you're tickets, sorry for the delay"
We walk away, trying our hardest to figure out what we're gonna do with ourselves in the tiny gate for the next 6 hours, when DH looks down. "Wait, these tickets say we leave for Charlotte at 6:40am, then leave immediately from there for Vegas. We get into Vegas at 11am" HOLY SHIT! I LOVE that ticket agent!!!!! (Anxeity Level: below radar) I grab the tickets..."Um, honey...Um, we're flying to Charlotte 1st CLASS!!!!!!!!"
I admit it. I had the biggest, shit-ass grin on my face, sitting there in 1st class as all the peons boarded the plane heading to their tiny-ass seats in coach. DH kept reminding me that WE are one of those peons and would be heading back there very soon. Oh well...It was FUN!
Part 2 - But, I can see it from here.... coming soon.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Vegas Baby!
So we're heading off to Vegas for 4 days on Saturday. I've been once before, summer of 2004. It wasn't pretty. I was gianormous pregnant and it was 114°. I cried, twice. Once outside the Venetian, once inside the MGM Grand (where I also proclaimed loudly "I HATE this place").
I'm hoping for a better time this time. BIL and SIL are going to renew their wedding vows (this was suppose to be their wedding). This is the couple that had to do the quicky, lunchtime wedding . It should be nice.
We're staying at the Luxor. Hoping to spend most of our time site seeing and at the pool (if anything, I'm a penny slot kindof gal, as in 1 penny at a time....So not a big roller!).
Not knowing a whole bunch about Vegas, I'm looking to you all to point me the direction of some great free/low cost sites and activities!!
I'm hoping for a better time this time. BIL and SIL are going to renew their wedding vows (this was suppose to be their wedding). This is the couple that had to do the quicky, lunchtime wedding . It should be nice.
We're staying at the Luxor. Hoping to spend most of our time site seeing and at the pool (if anything, I'm a penny slot kindof gal, as in 1 penny at a time....So not a big roller!).
Not knowing a whole bunch about Vegas, I'm looking to you all to point me the direction of some great free/low cost sites and activities!!
Tuesday, July 25, 2006
"Begin at the beginning and go on till you come to the end: then stop."
I did just that. In 2003, I ramped up my D care in preparation for my pregnancy with A. I started testing close to 20x a day. Alarms going off every hour or 2 reminding me to test. Meticulous carb counting, complex excel charts, weekly endo emails. No winging it, no guesstimates. I was going to be between 80 and 120 if it killed me. It was intense to say the least and it lasted for almost 18 months (9 months pre-pregnancy, 9 months pregnant). And then I came to the end (the second end - don't even ask about the 1st end - failed induction, OB sending me home from the hospital, telling me we'll try again in a week. "Try again....IN A WEEK!!!!" GOING BACK TO WORK AFTER STARTING MY MATERNITY LEAVE - no I'm not bitter.....)
Anyway, so I came to the end. A was born by scehduled C-section on Nov 2 and I stopped. I stopped testing, I stopped carb counting, I started guestimated EVERYTHING, and it showed. A1c went from 5's where I had been through most of my preg to over 8.
I'm back at the beginning again. Alarms have all been reprogrammed. Fingers look like little minefields. I've got a new, shiney excel sheet (thank you Kevin!) and I'm falling back into my regime, almost as if I had never left.
I spent Friday emailing my endo and we've laid out a plan.
Everything's falling into place. I just hope that when I come the the end this time, I don't stop.
Anyway, so I came to the end. A was born by scehduled C-section on Nov 2 and I stopped. I stopped testing, I stopped carb counting, I started guestimated EVERYTHING, and it showed. A1c went from 5's where I had been through most of my preg to over 8.
I'm back at the beginning again. Alarms have all been reprogrammed. Fingers look like little minefields. I've got a new, shiney excel sheet (thank you Kevin!) and I'm falling back into my regime, almost as if I had never left.
I spent Friday emailing my endo and we've laid out a plan.
Everything's falling into place. I just hope that when I come the the end this time, I don't stop.
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Unwanted Guests
We have unwanted, invisible, guests at our house. I sure didn't invite them in. I checked with DH and he sure as hell didn't invite them in, either. That leaves 1.) the cats, who with the recent heat, don't have the strength or motivation to move, never mind invite guests over or 2.) A, our full-fledged "terrible two-er". We're leaning towards A.
A LOVES our new guests, Mrs. "No" and Mr. "Go Away", infact she calls for them MULTIPLE times a day, far surpassing all other names she knows. Mrs. "No" is a near and dear friend and apparently she has gone missing. A calls for Mrs. "No" at least a squabillion times a day, maybe even squabillion +1. There is no other explanation, as my sweet, loving, COMPLIANT daughter could not possibly be sayng "no" to me.
Mr. "Go Away", now he must know the secret location of Mrs. "No", as A talks to him much less. Usually he just gets squeezed between her plaintive cries for Mrs. "No".
DH and I have reserved plane tickets for Mrs. "Yes" and Mr. "Right away, oh loving parents". Such a nice couple. We're hopeful that A will take a liking to them, too.
A LOVES our new guests, Mrs. "No" and Mr. "Go Away", infact she calls for them MULTIPLE times a day, far surpassing all other names she knows. Mrs. "No" is a near and dear friend and apparently she has gone missing. A calls for Mrs. "No" at least a squabillion times a day, maybe even squabillion +1. There is no other explanation, as my sweet, loving, COMPLIANT daughter could not possibly be sayng "no" to me.
Mr. "Go Away", now he must know the secret location of Mrs. "No", as A talks to him much less. Usually he just gets squeezed between her plaintive cries for Mrs. "No".
DH and I have reserved plane tickets for Mrs. "Yes" and Mr. "Right away, oh loving parents". Such a nice couple. We're hopeful that A will take a liking to them, too.
Monday, July 17, 2006
Spring Cleaning
Better late then never, right??
Our house is a mess. More then a mess, its a disaster, a bio-hazard zone. Seriously if I ever walked into someone's house that looked like ours, I'd gag. And I LIVE IN THIS EVERYDAY!
I had grand hopes for my vacation. I was going to scrub the house from top to bottom. The place was going to sparkle like the Hope diamond. What really happened...I started with the windows. They needed to be introduced to Windex. I'm not sure if they had ever previously met or not, I'm guessing no. Things were going well. I had a small army of dirty papertowels littering the kitchen floor, beautiful sunshine actually dancing in my kitchen...Then I.Broke.A.Freakin.Window!!! End of cleaning, thank's folks, show's all done, might as well go home cause the curtains are closing. I tipped the window in to clean the outside and the whole thing fell out. I tried shoving it back in, but somehow the tracks it rides on got all squirrely. One was a good 3 or 4 inches higher then the other. Some swearing and jamming on my part and the window was back in, albeiet functionless. Wouldn't move up, wouldn't move down, perpectually stuck 2 inches open. Dad had to come fix it.
What does this have to do with anything....
Well, I've realized a few things:
1). The state of the house is having a DIRECT effect on my depression, as in its directing my mood right down the crapper (which by the way, surprisingly is probably the only clean thing in the house).
2) Its also having a direct effect on our finances. We eat out WAY too much. Why do we eat out? Because the kitchen is such a cluttered mess that I get too depressed to even think about cooking in there. I see it and instantly give up. Why cook? I'd have to clean before I even started, then just have to clean again afterwards.
3). Its affecting my relationship with DH and A. I'm depressed and moody and I don't like being depressed and moody. When I am, I just want to withdraw from everyone, have them all leave me alone. Doesn't put me in a nice nuturing place.
So I've made myself a plan. 4 bursts of 15minutes. One before work, one before I start supper, after supper and before bed. 15 minutes and only 15 minutes. I can do 15 minutes. I'm starting with a trash bag and a "fling it" attitude. I'm good at flinging things, maybe too good, but it needs to happen. We've got too much shit and the shit is KILLING me.
I've been reading up on decluttering (I'll admit, I'm a lost fly-baby) and this caught my attention: (Copied from Ariane Benefit, Neat Living
Here are 10 ways excessive clutter can affect you and your life:
1. Family
* Clutter causes irritability, resentment and stress that leads to temper tantrums, outbursts, and overall disharmony (especially, if people are having to deal with "other people's clutter". You may start to feel like you aren't a good parent or aren't a good example for your kids
* Excessive clutter can cause depression, acting out, bad behavior in children due to their inability to focus caused by the clutter
2. Relationships
* Causes conflicts often due to chronic lateness
* Can keep you from socializing because you don't have the energy or can't find clothes to go out. Keeps you from getting close to people because you don't entertain or want to have people visit you in your home
3. Loss of Self-Esteem
* Causes you to feel like you aren't capable or are missing some basic skill that everyone else "seems" to have so you feel bad about yourself - the truth is you are not alone, many people have issues dealing with clutter
4. Emotionally
* Excessive clutter often cause feelings of shame, guilt, anger and embarrassment that holds you back.
* Clutter drains your energy - and you don't realize it till it's gone. Every item in your home has an energy to it. When items go a long time unused, unloved and uncared for, they become stuck, stagnant energy that actually physically drains you of your energy.
5. Physical Health & Stress
* The stress caused by clutter is enormous. Every time you can't find something, or an argument flares up with a loved one, or you can't relax because you worry about all the things you need to do, but can't till you get the clutter cleared, your stress levels increase. Stress in turn, lowers your immunity and resistance and so you may have frequent, persistent colds.
* Clutter can make it more difficult to eat healthy, cause headaches, fatigue, sinus problems and allergies and more.
6. Mental Health
* Clutter decreases your ability to enjoy life. It causes stress, confusion, inability to focus, and often leads to depression. Sometimes clutter is initially caused by depression, but clutter also makes it nearly impossible to recover from depression. In my experience, once people start releasing their clutter, their energy comes back and the depression gets better, sometimes it goes away for good. Some people are extremely sensitive to their environments and just never realized what a difference it could make.
* Even in people who don't have ADD, clutter causes ADD like symptoms.
7. Safety & Hygiene
* In extreme clutter, people have a hard time walking without tripping or bumping into things. Often there are things hidden in the clutter that are very unsafe for children. I've seen some cases where a young child is pretty much confined to a playpen all the time because it just isn't safe to be out of the playpen.
* Inability to clean cluttered areas can lead to extreme dust and even mold and mildew that exacerbates and even causes health problems in yourself and your children
8. Time
* Simply having too much stuff eats up your time like crazy. Every thing you own requires some amount of care and organization. If you have too much stuff, it's much more difficult, time consuming, and expensive to get organized.
* Having too much stuff often leads to procrastination and lateness which wastes your and other people's time and causes a whole host of other problems.
* Not being able to find things is a huge time cost of clutter. For some people it wastes several hours every day.
9. Your Future
* Holding on to clutter often grounds you in the past at the cost of your present life and your future.
* Clutter distracts you from being able to think about your goals, projects, hobbies and get things done
10. Financial
* Things have to have homes. Whether the home you provide for things is an extra room, a piece of furniture, or a container, you continue to pay for things long after you initially acquire them. Clutter directly costs money in the following ways:
o Late fees for bills paid late
o Credit card debt - often for unused stuff
o Duplicates purchased because you can't find things
o Some people move to larger home to accomodate the stuff
o Renting storage facilities
* Clutter drains your energy - and you don't realize it till it's gone. Every item in your home has an energy to it. When items go a long time unused, unloved and uncared for, they become stuck, stagnant energy that actually physically drains you of your energy. This one speaks to me the most. I think it will be my mantra for now.
Wish me luck, dear friends, cause I'm going in and I'm not coming out till its done!
--
Posted by floreksa to floreksa_general at 7/17/2006 11:48:04 AM
Our house is a mess. More then a mess, its a disaster, a bio-hazard zone. Seriously if I ever walked into someone's house that looked like ours, I'd gag. And I LIVE IN THIS EVERYDAY!
I had grand hopes for my vacation. I was going to scrub the house from top to bottom. The place was going to sparkle like the Hope diamond. What really happened...I started with the windows. They needed to be introduced to Windex. I'm not sure if they had ever previously met or not, I'm guessing no. Things were going well. I had a small army of dirty papertowels littering the kitchen floor, beautiful sunshine actually dancing in my kitchen...Then I.Broke.A.Freakin.Window!!! End of cleaning, thank's folks, show's all done, might as well go home cause the curtains are closing. I tipped the window in to clean the outside and the whole thing fell out. I tried shoving it back in, but somehow the tracks it rides on got all squirrely. One was a good 3 or 4 inches higher then the other. Some swearing and jamming on my part and the window was back in, albeiet functionless. Wouldn't move up, wouldn't move down, perpectually stuck 2 inches open. Dad had to come fix it.
What does this have to do with anything....
Well, I've realized a few things:
1). The state of the house is having a DIRECT effect on my depression, as in its directing my mood right down the crapper (which by the way, surprisingly is probably the only clean thing in the house).
2) Its also having a direct effect on our finances. We eat out WAY too much. Why do we eat out? Because the kitchen is such a cluttered mess that I get too depressed to even think about cooking in there. I see it and instantly give up. Why cook? I'd have to clean before I even started, then just have to clean again afterwards.
3). Its affecting my relationship with DH and A. I'm depressed and moody and I don't like being depressed and moody. When I am, I just want to withdraw from everyone, have them all leave me alone. Doesn't put me in a nice nuturing place.
So I've made myself a plan. 4 bursts of 15minutes. One before work, one before I start supper, after supper and before bed. 15 minutes and only 15 minutes. I can do 15 minutes. I'm starting with a trash bag and a "fling it" attitude. I'm good at flinging things, maybe too good, but it needs to happen. We've got too much shit and the shit is KILLING me.
I've been reading up on decluttering (I'll admit, I'm a lost fly-baby) and this caught my attention: (Copied from Ariane Benefit, Neat Living
Here are 10 ways excessive clutter can affect you and your life:
1. Family
* Clutter causes irritability, resentment and stress that leads to temper tantrums, outbursts, and overall disharmony (especially, if people are having to deal with "other people's clutter". You may start to feel like you aren't a good parent or aren't a good example for your kids
* Excessive clutter can cause depression, acting out, bad behavior in children due to their inability to focus caused by the clutter
2. Relationships
* Causes conflicts often due to chronic lateness
* Can keep you from socializing because you don't have the energy or can't find clothes to go out. Keeps you from getting close to people because you don't entertain or want to have people visit you in your home
3. Loss of Self-Esteem
* Causes you to feel like you aren't capable or are missing some basic skill that everyone else "seems" to have so you feel bad about yourself - the truth is you are not alone, many people have issues dealing with clutter
4. Emotionally
* Excessive clutter often cause feelings of shame, guilt, anger and embarrassment that holds you back.
* Clutter drains your energy - and you don't realize it till it's gone. Every item in your home has an energy to it. When items go a long time unused, unloved and uncared for, they become stuck, stagnant energy that actually physically drains you of your energy.
5. Physical Health & Stress
* The stress caused by clutter is enormous. Every time you can't find something, or an argument flares up with a loved one, or you can't relax because you worry about all the things you need to do, but can't till you get the clutter cleared, your stress levels increase. Stress in turn, lowers your immunity and resistance and so you may have frequent, persistent colds.
* Clutter can make it more difficult to eat healthy, cause headaches, fatigue, sinus problems and allergies and more.
6. Mental Health
* Clutter decreases your ability to enjoy life. It causes stress, confusion, inability to focus, and often leads to depression. Sometimes clutter is initially caused by depression, but clutter also makes it nearly impossible to recover from depression. In my experience, once people start releasing their clutter, their energy comes back and the depression gets better, sometimes it goes away for good. Some people are extremely sensitive to their environments and just never realized what a difference it could make.
* Even in people who don't have ADD, clutter causes ADD like symptoms.
7. Safety & Hygiene
* In extreme clutter, people have a hard time walking without tripping or bumping into things. Often there are things hidden in the clutter that are very unsafe for children. I've seen some cases where a young child is pretty much confined to a playpen all the time because it just isn't safe to be out of the playpen.
* Inability to clean cluttered areas can lead to extreme dust and even mold and mildew that exacerbates and even causes health problems in yourself and your children
8. Time
* Simply having too much stuff eats up your time like crazy. Every thing you own requires some amount of care and organization. If you have too much stuff, it's much more difficult, time consuming, and expensive to get organized.
* Having too much stuff often leads to procrastination and lateness which wastes your and other people's time and causes a whole host of other problems.
* Not being able to find things is a huge time cost of clutter. For some people it wastes several hours every day.
9. Your Future
* Holding on to clutter often grounds you in the past at the cost of your present life and your future.
* Clutter distracts you from being able to think about your goals, projects, hobbies and get things done
10. Financial
* Things have to have homes. Whether the home you provide for things is an extra room, a piece of furniture, or a container, you continue to pay for things long after you initially acquire them. Clutter directly costs money in the following ways:
o Late fees for bills paid late
o Credit card debt - often for unused stuff
o Duplicates purchased because you can't find things
o Some people move to larger home to accomodate the stuff
o Renting storage facilities
* Clutter drains your energy - and you don't realize it till it's gone. Every item in your home has an energy to it. When items go a long time unused, unloved and uncared for, they become stuck, stagnant energy that actually physically drains you of your energy. This one speaks to me the most. I think it will be my mantra for now.
Wish me luck, dear friends, cause I'm going in and I'm not coming out till its done!
--
Posted by floreksa to floreksa_general at 7/17/2006 11:48:04 AM
Friday, July 14, 2006
I must be insane
I've decided that I'm ready for #2. Yup, just this morning, no input from DH (oh, hey, if you're reading honey, "I'm ready for #2"!).
So you say (as long as your not my DH, who's probably saying something more along the lines of "huh?, who?, what? HUH?")..."Hey Sarah, that's great!, So your bgs must be running great, you've gotten back down to your old pre-preg weight?" and there-in lies the problem...That would be big, fat, honkin NO and NO.
This presents a problem, cause I'm talking, I'm ready NOW, not 6 months from now, but now, as in N-O-W, NOW!
I had wanted A and mystery child #2 to be about 18 months apart. That plan was blown out of the water by a nasty little thing known as PPD. I'm better now, though and either high on life, or brain-damaged enough to want to risk going through that again.
That and colic. There's a part of my brain that remembers colic, remembers it being horrible, wanting to run, screaming from the house each night as the clock struck 5pm. There's the rest of my brain, though, that looks at all the little clothes, the baby shows, the way newborns look like turkeys with their legs perpetually tucked under them and I AM SO READY FOR A TURKEY again!
So you say (as long as your not my DH, who's probably saying something more along the lines of "huh?, who?, what? HUH?")..."Hey Sarah, that's great!, So your bgs must be running great, you've gotten back down to your old pre-preg weight?" and there-in lies the problem...That would be big, fat, honkin NO and NO.
This presents a problem, cause I'm talking, I'm ready NOW, not 6 months from now, but now, as in N-O-W, NOW!
I had wanted A and mystery child #2 to be about 18 months apart. That plan was blown out of the water by a nasty little thing known as PPD. I'm better now, though and either high on life, or brain-damaged enough to want to risk going through that again.
That and colic. There's a part of my brain that remembers colic, remembers it being horrible, wanting to run, screaming from the house each night as the clock struck 5pm. There's the rest of my brain, though, that looks at all the little clothes, the baby shows, the way newborns look like turkeys with their legs perpetually tucked under them and I AM SO READY FOR A TURKEY again!
Sunday, July 09, 2006
BTDT lesson of the day.....
Don't take a 20 month old to the Drive-In. Its not pretty.
It actually wasn't that bad, although DH would probably differ with me on that one. We took her, because 1) We wouldn't be getting home until probably around 1am, 2) we couldn't get anyone to watch her till 1am and 3) We figured she'd sleep the entire time.
So we were very, very wrong on #3. Got into Northfield about 7:30pm - A's bedtime(1st movie Cars was suppose to start at 8:35 pm) and promptly stopped in the longest line of cars I've ever seen. I was concerned before we left that we wouldn't be able to get in, but when I saw that line, hopes GONE. 4 trips into the backseat to retrieve a lost pacifier (finally found in.her.lap) and 1 hour, 25 minutes later we find ourselves 6 cars from the entrance...That's when the cop showed up, pulled in, pulled out, drove a few cars past us and proceeded to loud-speaker to the traffic jam that the Drive-In was at capacity. Thankfully, we were lucky enough to get in, along with about 5 or 10 cars behind us. Got a wonderful backrow parking space with a very odd angle, but could see the screen so all wasn't lost.
Unfortunately, plan A of our trip was already out the window, A was WIDE AWAKE!! Out of her car seat and into the front with me. That's when I noticed it was 9pm and the 1st movie STILL hadn't started. I started appeasing my 20 month old with Doritos and Crystal Light (hey, its a special occasion, right?). I'm getting worried though. Cars - approx 2 hours, Pirates of the Carribean - approx 2 hours....9:15pm plus 2 hours, plus 2 hours, plus at least another hour home = WAAAYY past my bedtime. It was also at this point, that A decided she wanted some of my lemonade and grabs it while I was drinking. I'm now DRENCHED in sticky lemonade and the movie hasn't even started. Wonder-f'in-tastic!
Cars starts, A is completely oblivious to it, although is finding great amusment in playing with the volume control in the car. Fine, whatever, she's quiet. 10pm rolls around. She.Needs.To.Go.To.Sleep, but yes, we've lost the pacifier again, and sleep does not happen without it. Another 30 minute search of the car, at least not in traffic, but now in the dark....FOUND IT! In the dorito bag, of course. Strap her in her seat, plug her, hand her every imaginable blanket and she's finally out like a light. Finish watching cars, everything is great.
Onto movie #2 Pirates....A wakes up approx 2 seconds into it. Replug her, tell her its "Nite-nites" and she's falls back asleep. Awake again 10 minutes later, replug, back asleep (repeat 3 or 4 times). She finally wakes, tosses her pacifier and cries. Another 15 minute search of the car, in the dark (how can 1 stupid little thing disappear so quickly, and note to self STASH 100 pacifiers in the car!). Repluging doesn't help, we've missed so much of the movie we're completely lost, and the movie itself really doesn't seem that good, not as light-hearted, much, much darker.
It's 1am, the movie is only 1/2 over, and we're still an hour from home. We throw in the towel. Get home at 2am. We'll catch the rest, on video, in our house, where A's crib is, and the world's largest supply of pacifiers.
It actually wasn't that bad, although DH would probably differ with me on that one. We took her, because 1) We wouldn't be getting home until probably around 1am, 2) we couldn't get anyone to watch her till 1am and 3) We figured she'd sleep the entire time.
So we were very, very wrong on #3. Got into Northfield about 7:30pm - A's bedtime(1st movie Cars was suppose to start at 8:35 pm) and promptly stopped in the longest line of cars I've ever seen. I was concerned before we left that we wouldn't be able to get in, but when I saw that line, hopes GONE. 4 trips into the backseat to retrieve a lost pacifier (finally found in.her.lap) and 1 hour, 25 minutes later we find ourselves 6 cars from the entrance...That's when the cop showed up, pulled in, pulled out, drove a few cars past us and proceeded to loud-speaker to the traffic jam that the Drive-In was at capacity. Thankfully, we were lucky enough to get in, along with about 5 or 10 cars behind us. Got a wonderful backrow parking space with a very odd angle, but could see the screen so all wasn't lost.
Unfortunately, plan A of our trip was already out the window, A was WIDE AWAKE!! Out of her car seat and into the front with me. That's when I noticed it was 9pm and the 1st movie STILL hadn't started. I started appeasing my 20 month old with Doritos and Crystal Light (hey, its a special occasion, right?). I'm getting worried though. Cars - approx 2 hours, Pirates of the Carribean - approx 2 hours....9:15pm plus 2 hours, plus 2 hours, plus at least another hour home = WAAAYY past my bedtime. It was also at this point, that A decided she wanted some of my lemonade and grabs it while I was drinking. I'm now DRENCHED in sticky lemonade and the movie hasn't even started. Wonder-f'in-tastic!
Cars starts, A is completely oblivious to it, although is finding great amusment in playing with the volume control in the car. Fine, whatever, she's quiet. 10pm rolls around. She.Needs.To.Go.To.Sleep, but yes, we've lost the pacifier again, and sleep does not happen without it. Another 30 minute search of the car, at least not in traffic, but now in the dark....FOUND IT! In the dorito bag, of course. Strap her in her seat, plug her, hand her every imaginable blanket and she's finally out like a light. Finish watching cars, everything is great.
Onto movie #2 Pirates....A wakes up approx 2 seconds into it. Replug her, tell her its "Nite-nites" and she's falls back asleep. Awake again 10 minutes later, replug, back asleep (repeat 3 or 4 times). She finally wakes, tosses her pacifier and cries. Another 15 minute search of the car, in the dark (how can 1 stupid little thing disappear so quickly, and note to self STASH 100 pacifiers in the car!). Repluging doesn't help, we've missed so much of the movie we're completely lost, and the movie itself really doesn't seem that good, not as light-hearted, much, much darker.
It's 1am, the movie is only 1/2 over, and we're still an hour from home. We throw in the towel. Get home at 2am. We'll catch the rest, on video, in our house, where A's crib is, and the world's largest supply of pacifiers.
Friday, July 07, 2006
20 Months Old
20 months!! 20 Months!!! Where has the time gone? That's ALL of your fingers AND your toes. You can't be 20 months...Mommy's not ready.
And horror of all horrors, on the day you turned 20 months no less, you learned the dreaded word. The word mommy and daddy prayed you wouldn't learn (well at least until you turned 35 and started dating). You said "No"! And "No!" with flair. You mastered the toddler fleeing in anger, "NoOOOOoooooooOOOOOoooooOOOo!" trailing in the wind. You said it 4 times that day.
You also say "buy u", which took me until yesterday to realize that you were saying "Love you!" (as you can hear).
Mommy's on vacation with you this week and IS NOT HAPPY that she's gotta go back to work. Wonder if I can win the lottery without actually playing the lottery. You're just too cute to leave.
You're stringing 2 words together right now, and let me tell you, Daddy LOVED it when you said "bye dada" last night. You also said "ankin uh-oh" yesterday after Franklin said it on TV. Mommy takes back her hatred of Franklin too. He's growing on me, and you apparently LOVE him. Just please don't decide to fall in love with Oobie. I will have to destroy Daddy's tv if that happens.
I watched your birthday video this morning and cried my eyes out. I can't believe its been almost 2 years now. You've changed sooo much, yet so many of your faces have remained the same since birth.
I love you sooooo much!!
And horror of all horrors, on the day you turned 20 months no less, you learned the dreaded word. The word mommy and daddy prayed you wouldn't learn (well at least until you turned 35 and started dating). You said "No"! And "No!" with flair. You mastered the toddler fleeing in anger, "NoOOOOoooooooOOOOOoooooOOOo!" trailing in the wind. You said it 4 times that day.
You also say "buy u", which took me until yesterday to realize that you were saying "Love you!" (as you can hear).
Mommy's on vacation with you this week and IS NOT HAPPY that she's gotta go back to work. Wonder if I can win the lottery without actually playing the lottery. You're just too cute to leave.
You're stringing 2 words together right now, and let me tell you, Daddy LOVED it when you said "bye dada" last night. You also said "ankin uh-oh" yesterday after Franklin said it on TV. Mommy takes back her hatred of Franklin too. He's growing on me, and you apparently LOVE him. Just please don't decide to fall in love with Oobie. I will have to destroy Daddy's tv if that happens.
I watched your birthday video this morning and cried my eyes out. I can't believe its been almost 2 years now. You've changed sooo much, yet so many of your faces have remained the same since birth.
I love you sooooo much!!
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