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Sleeping in your crib

Posted on July 11, 2009 10:06 pm by TheAngelForever

Dear JSL,

The last few nights have been very rough. Each night you start off sleeping in your crib. Then at some point you wake up screaming and end up in our bed. This happens earlier and earlier each night. Since you share your room with NHL, it is hard to get you to settle back in your crib. When you have come to our bed lately you have been very restless. Each night you have tossed and turned . . . and kicked all over the bed. Our queen sized bed is just not big enough for the three of us anymore. All three of us are tired, cranky and need more sleep.

We know that something is going on, but are not sure what. Early last night you started screaming in your crib. When Daddy and I walked in you were sitting upright, eyes closed and shaking. We are pretty sure you are having some intense nightmares. Our other option is you are getting sick and we are hoping that is not the case. As a reminder I am putting a picture of you sleeping peacefully through the night in your crib here. Just want to make sure you see it can be done and you really do like your room and comfy crib.

Love,

Mommy

__________________________________________________________

Dear Kid Saturdays at Cutest Kid Ever

Categories:
Dear Kid Saturday jsl photos sleep vent

Oy, it has soy

Posted on July 9, 2009 9:42 am by TheAngelForever

Did you know that almost all foods contain soy? It seems to be a very popular filler that many of us are unaware of in the foods we eat. Of course, as a mostly vegetarian house (kosher meat is too expensive) we eat a lot of veggie burgers, "burger" crumbles, veggie dogs, tofu and the like. I was well aware that these were mostly made of soy products. You are probably wondering why I am suddenly noticing all of the soy in our daily lives. The answer is a little complicated.

Over the last 3-4 weeks I have been quite sick. For days I would end up on the couch with the boys doubled over in pain. Then to add insult to my injury, I was sick to my stomach and running to the bathroom. At first I thought it may be from all of the new vitamins that I added to my diet. I was taking them with food, but they are still harsh. I stopped taking them for 3-4 days and nothing stopped. The abdominal pain intensified to the point where I could no longer ignore it. I made an appointment to see my doctor to try to get some answers. One other odd symptom – I was horribly itchy. I was literally clawing my arms and legs because they itched so badly.

I went in wondering if it had anything to do with my endometriosis, might be IBS or something else. In the back of my mind I also wondered about my gallbladder. My doctor immediately suspected my gallbladder was to blame. She sent me home with a TON of items to do and scheduled me for a gallbladder ultrasound. She mentioned that if that was clear another test would be ordered soon after that.

Last Thursday night I went for the ultrasound. The technician hinted that she saw nothing wrong when I wondered why it was taking so long (got a little nervous). On Friday evening I was miserable. I have a high pain tolerance, but that night I was in agony. I was crying hysterically and almost called my parents to watch the boys so I could go to the ER. As I told JL, the pain was worse than when I had no epidural and was getting pitocin during labor. Seriously!

Suddenly, in the middle of my agony it dawned on me. The last major attack was on a night that we had Morning Star riblets as part of our dinner, the time before that when we had fake burger meat balls. Friday night we happened to have veggie dogs. Hmmm. . . . . all of them are mainly compromised of SOY! Could this be the problem when it had never been for all of these years?

I told JL my theory and we made a conscious effort to avoid foods with soy in it. Saturday, Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday I ate nothing that had a major amount of soy, took my vitamins, workout out with Leslie Sansone DVDs and felt pretty good. Yesterday my doctor’s office called to tell me that the ultrasound results were perfect and to schedule me for another test. I asked the nurse to give the new information to my doctor. They called back and agreed that it very well could be a soy allergy/intolerance. I spent part of the afternoon yesterday reading up on soy. How do soy allergies present in adults? Why are soy allergies becoming more prevalent in adults? And the big question of the day, what items have soy hidden in them?

I was floored to learn that most vitamins – including almost all of mine have soy listed as an ingredient. All of our breads, cereal, Fiber One bars, and even the sprinkles in our house list soy. The nice thing is since it is a common allergan, companies must clearly list if the item contains even traces of soy.

Tuesday I am heading to an allergist. I have not been to one since I was in elementary school. Clearly something has changed in my bod with the newly found anaphylactic response to walnuts and now this suspected soy allergy. IF I do have a soy allergy I really do not know how I can completely avoid it in my life, but at this point I will take it one day at a time.

Do you have a soy allergy or know someone that does? I would love any advice or information from anyone that can provide it.

Categories:
allergies doctor food glorious food health awareness losing my mind me moments sickness vent

Craving some sun this summer

Posted on July 2, 2009 9:11 am by TheAngelForever

Right now the rain song from Winnie the Pooh is stuck in my head.

The rain rain rain came down down down
In rushing, rising riv’lets,
‘Til the river crept out of it’s bed
And crept right into Piglet’s!
Poor Piglet, he was frightened,
With quite a rightful fright.
And so, in desperation
A message he did write.
He placed it in a bottle
And it floated out of sight.

It seems like it has been raining here forever. Flood watches are posted for all over the area and it scares me. Our basement has flooded before when the rain backs-up in the archaic city sewer system. Needless to say that is not a charming thing to find when you head to do laundry.

Trying to entertain two little boys in such nasty weather has proven to be a challenge. If only there was a little sunshine. If the sun would come out like we had on Saturday while visiting Uncle I, Aunt M and Cousin S the possibilities would be endless. The boys would be able to splash in their little pool like Cousin S was doing:

We would be able to take out lots of water toys to keep them busy for hours of fun in the sun (with sun screen of course):

NHL could perfect sprinkler running some more. This would certainly be something easy for me to set up and let the boys do on a warm and SUNNY day.

Another perk is my Vitamin D deficient self could obtain some natural Vitamin D from the sun. Of course, it would also help these white legs to look a little less vampire like while outside. I’m a fan of Twilight, but well I could easily blend in with Edward and family. Do not adjust your monitors, I really am this pale and sadly do not tan.

With any luck the seven day extended forecast will be incorrect and we may actually see more sun than rain, but I will not be holding my breath over here.

Categories:
family jsl losing my mind nhl photos road trip sahm summer vent weather weekend

Playing catch up and the kindergarten blues

Posted on June 15, 2009 10:47 pm by TheAngelForever

It is hard to believe that it is well into June already. Kindergarten kid has less than two weeks of school left and he will be a first grader. This has caused some anxiety for the little guy. NHL does not do well with change. Of course, a lot of this has to do with the absolute hell that he went through when we tried the Montessori school for PreK in September 2007. Similar to the end of last year, NHL is acting out. Today it finally hit on me as to why. He has no idea what to expect in first grade and has loved kindergarten. He does not want it to end. Of course, this only dawned on me after several days of the poor kid crying and having nightmares. None of this excuses NHL’s behavior, but it certainly explains it. Talking with the school nurse helped me to see the light. NHL went to her with an earache today. I mentioned to her how he did not want to go to school this morning and I think he was trying to go home.

Last night was a rough evening. When we went to sleep a horrible thunder storm was coming into the area. Our house was actually shaking when we heard the thunder. We closed everything down and listening to the hail pound outside the house. When we went to sleep at close to midnight everything was still on. At about 12:30 last night I was really warm and woke up. The room was pitch black. No television on, no clock and no fan. I woke JL up and we got flashlights to see what time it was. We found the number to the power company and called. I finally got a person there and found out that there were 1800 people with no power in our are and they projected it to return between 3-4 in the morning. I was thrilled when less than 40 minutes later everything came back on.

Of course, my mind was racing a mile a minute. I could not settle down and sleep. I was thinking about NHL. What are the three of us going to do this summer. Should I try to send him to camp? What are my options for next year if he is not in the first grade class that would be most beneficial to him. The list of things goes on, but you get the point.

Thanks to all of this and trying to take care of things for school (I am the room parent), I am still playing catch up with blog posts. I have three more days of our Disney trip and two days at the lake with family to name a few. I hope to get them caught up soon.

So while my brain is still on warp speed, let me see what ideas you may have:

What are some inexpensive things that I can do with the two boys this summer?

Remember that JSL just turned two and NHL will be six at the end of the summer. Trying to figure things out is turning out to be very stressful. I worry that it is going to be a very long summer if we do not have something to get out and do, especially with other children (and adults for me).

Categories:
decisions looking back me moments nhl sahm school sleep summer vent

Living with the fear of hatred

Posted on June 11, 2009 10:29 am by TheAngelForever

Growing up Jewish I learned early that not everyone would be accepting of my religion. I have memories from my elementary school days of our synagogue being defaced. One year right before Chanukah vandals painted swastikas all over the front of the building. Everyone that passed by the prominent doors of our place of worship were reminded of the hatred that was still pumping through the veins of some people right in our community.

This scared me when I was a young child. I actually asked my parents not to put our Chanukah decorations in the window. Why you ask? It was simple, in my little mind it was for our safety. I figured if nobody knew that we were Jewish, they would leave our house alone. I was proud of my Jewish customs, but wanted them to be hidden. Each year I was always the student that asked for an alternate project to complete in art when all of my friends made Christmas decorations. Along with this, I would always bring dreidels into school to teach my friend how to play along with me for M&Ms.

Of course, as bad as that was it was only the start. Just before my brother was to have his Bar Mitzvah (I was in high school) something more heinous occured at our synagogue. One evening on the news we watched as our Shul was on fire. Someone had gone in and started a fire on the Bima of the main sanctury. Whoever it was that started this fire knew exactly what they were doing. They were clearly targeting the sacred area of worship. The brave people of our local fire department went into the building to fight the fire. In addition to this, they rescued the Torahs and other precious items that were in the area. I still recall seeing the news reports with the firemen in their gear carefully holding the Torahs in their arms.

It took quite some time for them to fix the damage that had occurred from the arson at our synagogue. Of course, thanks to that event things have never been quite the same. Security cameras are now all over the place. In addition to this, there is a motion detector with sirens that protects the sacred area of the building. An even bigger change is the police presence on the High Holidays. My children will never know of anything different. Each Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah there are now several police vehicles that surround the building. They guard the entrances of cars near the building and survey people that approach. Thankfully nothing has ever happened YET.

Yesterday I sat at the computer working on something. Suddenly an item on Twitter caught my eye. There was a shooting at the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. Immediately my heart sank. I knew that it was a crime of hatred. As the news reports have continued, we now know more about the monster that went into a sacred space and killed Officer Stephen Johns. Officer Johns was a hero, along with the other officers that helped to save the lives of countless others visiting the museum. These brave people, who were doing their jobs, shielded everyone from this ~~person~~ THING that has helped to spread his vile views to others in the world. The evil that has been uttered by this monster deserves no further recognition.

Today our country is on high alert. As we mourn the loss of Officer Johns, we must now brace ourselves. Will there be copycat attacks? Do we have to worry about entering our places of worship and look over our shoulders when we visit places like the Holocaust Museum? Only time will tell.

For now, we must do what we can to make sure we spread the views of tolerance. We must learn as much as we can about other religions, cultures and people of the world. Our children and future generations must learn from the mistakes of the past so that it does not happen again and again as it has.

Please read this beautiful article written by Mark Blumenthal called This is Personal. Make a promise to yourself that you will help to make a difference. Remember to live and teach tolerance.