Healthy and Safe

Flu season is well underway here and each day Casey comes home and tells me the new members of the went-home-sick club in her class.  All of our hands are chapped from the washing and sanitizing, but we've all gotten our flu shots, so we're doing our best to stay healthy.  Chapped fingers crossed!

The girls and I had a completely scary experience in the car the other day.  They had off for MLK day (which was also inauguration day, which was also being tagged as National Gun Appreciation Day :) and we were on our way home from hanging out with friends in Loveland via I-275.  The sun was shining and we got on the highway, along with everyone else, going 60 mph.  Within a mile, I hit a patch of black ice, which we didn't know was there until my car was sliding to the right then suddenly to the left - almost 180 degrees.  Somehow we ended up back in the correct lane and direction without getting hit!  I still cannot explain how we didn't get hit - there were plenty of cars on the highway available for us to plow into or them into us.  Afterwards, I was shaking and Casey asked me why I did that (meaning drive the car sideways).  And then the whole highway was ice until we got off at our exit.  I honestly don't think I got over it until the next day.  It was so, so scary and I can't stop thinking about my little kids in the car who no longer sit in the protection of 5 point harness car seats.  That same day 2 interstates were closed due to 80 and 50 car pile ups.  I am sooo ready for winter to be over!!  I can almost tolerate the single digit temperatures we've been having, but driving in unsafe conditions nearly leaves me packing for Florida.  Ahhh, the sunshine, warm breezes..... I think I'll go look at pictures of the house we have rented in Hilton Head for June right now.

Besides trying to stay healthy and safe, we've been trying to eat better here, too.  I think I've done a good job so far trying to buy extra fruits and veggies and less processed sides.  While the girls will turn their noses up, I swear only because it's like a right of passage of childhood, they are pretty good with the fruits and vegetables.  They both love steamed green beans and broccoli and seem to like a lot of fruits.  I have managed to hide from them the fact that I hate most fruits.  I have my whole life.  I've challenged my mom on several accounts as to whether she actually pushed me hard enough as a kid to eat fruit, but she swears she did and I just gagged when forced.  Nothing's changed.  I still cannot handle the texture of most fruits.  Basically all I eat are apples, melons, and bananas.  Thankfully, my kids haven't noticed that I don't eat fruit and they only have selective aversions to blueberries (sometimes), oranges and pineapple.  Some nights we are busy (or lazy) and I resort to the quick frozen foods.  Thank God for Trader Joes!!  Their frozen, quick dinners are so easy, tasty, affordable and mostly healthy.  Tonight Tom wasn't home for dinner, so we had frozen spinach ravioli.  Yum!  Sure beats chicken nuggets.  I so wish the Trader Joes Gods would open a store up here in the burbs!!!  Seriously, if a Gap and Trader Joes would open stores here, I may never need to go to Kenwood again. 

I signed up for a beginners photography class and it starts next week!!  Ironic there are no pictures in this post, huh?  Between potty training, which is still going mostly well except for the 4 pairs of underwear I've had to throw away (I am seriously glad I saved all of the underwear Casey grew out of - I don't feel bad tossing it in the garbage :) and indulging in curling up with books in the evenings (not really, since all my books are on the ipad, but curling up with my ipad doesn't sound as lovely), I haven't really taken many pictures.  But then we really haven't been doing that much to photograph.  Unfortunately, with the weather so cold, we've all been spending too much time in front of things that plug into the wall, but at least after my class I'll be able to take really great pictures of all of us in front of the TV, ipad, iphone, computer and games, right?   :)

Happy New Year(ish)

 There aren't any new pictures here, because Blogger has been very difficult lately to work with. And today, it will not allow me to upload any photos (grrrrrr.) I may look to move my blog to WordPress if it continues to be this difficult to post. Included are some pictures I've taken over the past year.

I find it completely ironic that one of my new year 'resolutions' is to be a better blogger.  It's January 15th and this is my first post of 2013.  Ha!  Nice, Jen.  I put the word resolutions in quotations to absolve myself from the eye rolling from Tom.  He knows me well enough to know that, while my intentions are good, I have a hard time following through with some things.  He, on the other hand, sets his mind to something and, boom, it's done.  He set a goal to get in shape and shed some pounds and he has worked out every day for like 4 weeks and is looking great.  Ass.  Me?  I've committed to toning up, too, in addition to being a better blogger.  It's January 15th and I'm sitting here with my Dunkin Donuts coffee complaining about blogging and getting in shape.  Again, the irony is not lost on me. 

 

So, Happy New Year!  We've been cruising along the last few weeks wondering how the holidays flew by so fast and doing a little family maintenance here.  A lot of 'me' time for each one of us has been needed since the holidays.  Casey has been passing her time when she's not in school listening to music in her room, helping Emily count and pretend play, and reading.  I think Casey is my mini-me in a lot of ways.  Like for instance, she can also put off tasks like no body's business and she loves to get swept away in the story of a good book.  She and I have logged a lot of reading hours the last couple of weeks.  In addition to reading, I've been exercising a bit more, getting to my 5:45 a.m. Jazzercise class more regularly, and trying new recipes.  Tom has been busy with work since he got a promotion and has been exercising like crazy.  Emily has been loving going to school, playing in her new kitchen and rocking it out at some doctor appointments.

We ended 2012 with the realization that this was the first year Emily had not had to be admitted to the hospital because of illness or surgery.  We started 2013 with no indication that she will need to.  We had a follow up with her urologist and her kidneys and bladder are both looking good.  Emily had the highest grade kidney reflux and (we believe) surgery corrected it in October 2011.  Kidney reflux itself is not a huge deal in the world of medical stuff (see how I got all technical there?), so I don't want to over hype the diagnosis, but it was discovered when she was 3 months old and she was hospitalized twice because of kidney infections before she was 7 months old.  These bad infections at such an early age can cause irreversible kidney damage.  In addition, it was discovered that her body was not emptying her bladder on its own and therefore the bladder was in danger of becoming enlarged, which is also irreversible.  We've known since before surgery that if she cannot empty her bladder, we will need to catheterize her to empty it for her several times a day until she is an adult and can manage it herself.  See now why the not-so-big-in-the-medical-world-diagnosis has been a big deal to us? 

She has taken 2 antibiotics every day since she was an infant to when she had her surgery to correct the kidney reflux.  She was taken off the last antibiotic 6 months ago and we have had our fingers crossed that she would not get an infection (which could indicate the surgery failed) and having been trying like mad to get her to pee to ensure the bladder would empty.  Like I said, she's been rocking the doctor appointments lately and when the urologist came into the room with a big smile last week, I knew she would ace this one, too.  The ultrasound showed no indication of reflux and the bladder is of normal size.  He really wants her to be potty trained so he can do some really expensive test in 6 months that will confirm she is healthy and put all this possible catheterizing business behind us.

And so we've been in potty-training boot camp for 2 weeks now.  She'll be 5 in March and to some it would seem ridiculous that she is not potty trained.  And, honestly, since we've started PTBC, (potty training boot camp) I've found myself hanging out in that dark corner of my brain where I compare her to other 3, 4 and 5 year olds and get depressed and weepy.  Seeing other kids have play dates, get invited to birthday parties and not have to wear swim diapers to the pool hurts a bit more than I would like to admit on any given day.  Getting weepy about things I cannot change is not the attitude I want to build a new year on, so I will focus on the positive:  she's kicking potty-training ass!  Okay, so one of the possible side effects of her kidney surgery was more control over her bladder, so she may have gotten an 'un-fair' advantage, but we'll take it.  We went cold turkey and straight to underwear and have had only 2 accidents in 2 weeks.  Are we close to nailing this?  No, I don't think so.  She still is figuring out the sensations and control, but I think we're going to get there.  Nights won't be for a long time yet, but that is the least of my worries now. 

She's also been to the eye doctor and is still seeing great.  After 3 eye surgeries, all is good for the foreseeable future :)  She's counting one-to-one, knows probably half of the alphabet, all of her colors and most shapes.  Her vocabulary is coming along well, but 9 times out of 10 she will substitute the 'V' sound for the 'B' sound.  Apparently except for the word 'vagina.'  Nope.  Turns out she can hit that 'V' sound perfectly...repeatedly... Don't ask - it's a long (and funny) story.  2013 is the year she will start kindergarten and, Lord, I'm going to get all weepy again just thinking about that, so we'll stop there.  Just know Emily is rocking just about everything now :)

Casey lost only her 5th tooth on Sunday and the tooth fairy forgot to come Sunday night.   So much for starting the new year out with our A-game.  What made this oops even worse?  Before bed that night she looked me in the eye and asked if I collected her teeth from under her pillow and gave her money.  I carefully tiptoed around this and told her I think it would be disgusting to keep a collection of teeth anywhere in the house.  Not one to let it go, she then asked if daddy keeps a pile of teeth hidden somewhere and gives her money.  This one was easy to deflect - I, again, told her a stash of teeth was gross and asked her if daddy liked to give out money.  Let's just say, the tooth fairy redeemed herself last night and is still believed in :)

It's time to get going.  I'm sure there is something else I should be doing other than swearing about Blogger right now.  Oh yeah, like working out.