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An amazing day! I didn't get a nap, but made it. That alone calls for a celebration! I've been so absolutely exhausted, but today, I made it. Weirder, I made it because I was cleaning during my lowest point. I really get into cleaning. I cleaned my pantry and the pantry in the laundry room-I knew it'd work since I'd get pretty immediate satisfaction, thereby giving me more energy! Yes, weird, but it words for me!
I vacuumed the entire downstairs and the stairs, washed all my bedding (even the crocodile quilt!), did all the laundry, put it away (biggest shocker),
cleaned my bathroom, vacuumed out the refrigerator (you know, the crumby and fruity bits, if yours is perfect, just play along), and got my nails done, made dinner, and read lots of books to Ethan! Hi-Ya! (that's a Success Karate Chop!) and then I did flash cards with Clay, and helped Mary Claire write her story summary for the week (too bad it was due today, I'm pretty sure, since they don't have school today, which I didn't remember till bedtime last night).
Well, Lent is officially here. We went for our ashes Wednesday morning, then took the kids to their schools. Ethan wanted very much to rub mine off to make me "clean"! It was hard for him to understand. Clay didn't mind (but he has bangs on his forehead!), but Mary Claire wanted to rub on hers too. I get it-it's hard being in a public school with ashes. No one understands, and they think you have dirt on you (or toner if you are an adult!). It's funny-as I was out running errands, I could tell who was Catholic (or who'd been to Ash Wednesday services!). Only in the South are they few and far between!
Anyway, we've been talking with the kids about what they'd like to give up for Lent. We abstain from something we like, or do extra volunteering, etc. as a "penance". Clay has finally decided to give up tv in his room. He wanted to give up only channel 41 (his favorite, Animal Planet), or only DVD's (that he never watches), or his bed, or his room, or his sister (yes, after she wanted to give him up for forty days, haha), but finally he made a decent decision. Mary Claire gave up gum. Same thing she gave up last year, but she REALLY loves gum, and chews at least 3-4 pieces a day. So for her, it's a sacrifice. She offered to give up brushing her teeth, but we settled on gum, again. Ches said he was going to bike to work every day (HaHa.). I told him how lame that was, and he argued how cold it was today. The priest gave some ideas on Wednesday, and this was one of them. What Fr. Melnick doesn't realize is that Ches LOVES to ride his bike to work! So, I said it was Lame-O. He decided to do extra stuff-coaching baseball, helping at the scout dinner, etc.
I have now decided, after much thought, to give up Facebook-ing. We get a reprieve on Sundays, so I'll check in, but I think it'll be a good break.
Girl Scout cookies will be here tomorrow evening. I'll pick up my cookies, then quickly get them out! Maybe they'll all be out by Monday or Tuesday? I put tags on them last year with their names, so I'll try to do it again this year...that means I need to make the tags and get them printed tomorrow morning!
Ches wants to take the kids to the Stations of the Cross tomorrow night, and it's right in the middle of the pick-up-the-cookie-time, so I'll have to work out the logistics. My life is a logistics specialty.
I found out today that an amazing friend is pregnant too! I am so thrilled. Really. It is hard to have all these feeling swirling around, and be doubtful, but excited, and scared for the worst, but really hopeful, and am I too old? and what are the chances? and what will the next few months hold, and now I don't have to do it alone! All my friends now seem to have bigger kids-not babies. I do have Sandra, who has precious Rose, that I haven't gotten to hold in two weeks-I need more practice! It seems like even if you've had three kids, every time is like a first time! I'm excited and nervous, and I know it'll all come back to me, but still. I'm just so glad that I have a partner to obsess with! I'm sure Ches gets tired of all my questions and neurosis, so now I can split the crazy with two people! Heehee
We got the garage door fixed-sounds so smooth! : ) And the dishwasher is washing, life is better. The dryer started acting up again, but somehow I made it through 5 loads today-I just bribed it with a clean filter and a promise of no more candy wrappers, tissues, or Valentines.
We gave the kids gift cards for Valentine's day (on Saturday), and spent the day with them letting them shop till they dropped! They had big plans and had trouble keeping to their gift card amounts. Clay wanted Mario Kart for his DSi, Mary Claire wanted an American Girl doll (hahahaha!), and Ethan wanted it all. He picked a Thomas video, and Cars sticker/coloring book, then realized he couldn't buy it all. He ended up with a car race thing-I'll just have to post a picture, as all car race thingies are similar. Clay got the game, and we paid the extra since Mary Claire went over with her faux American Girl doll (that she's very happy with and is teaching and feeding and dressing and sleeping with, so cute). She really wanted a Zhu Zhu pet, but Target only had the ramps and tubes, and no pets! How fun is that?
Sunday was a nice day since we had kid gifts taken care of-they all had little things to play with! Mary Claire had a party at PRE, and we took cookies and pretzels in for the kids. Ethan had been guarding those cookies all week! He was intent on getting a leftover one as soon as her party was over. We took them to Jose's for lunch, and then they had cookies. Mary Claire's blood sugar was proof of her great day. She hit 413 before dinner! So bad. It's hard to have a good holiday-it almost always involves food.
Mom came to watch the kids Sunday night so Ches and I could go out alone. It was shivery-cold, but so nice to be out. Ethan cried and cried and made us feel guilty when we were leaving. He went into the garage, pulled over a case of water bottles, pushed the garage door button, and opened the garage door! He told us today he was coming to get us, Silly Boy. We tried to explain that we were long gone. Heehee, oh, to be three. He did fine, I think he was just really tired. We are still in the nap-no nap debate. It seems that one hour is just enough to get him through the day, but it involves about a half hour of crying when he wakes up (since we have to wake him up with noise, lights, open the blinds, etc.). If we let him sleep longer, he's up till after 10pm wanting to party. It's a hard time.
Ok, something is up with me. I think I cried at least four times yesterday. It can be very stress-relieving, but it only left me with a massive headache that caused me more pain. I drove to Little Rock for MC's appt. no problem, but then. The traffic at 2pm was unbelievable! They have torn up 430 going through Financial Parkway/630 and it has caused so much traffic backup and stress! I had to weasel my way through there, and get to Arkansas Children's Hospital. I don't know why I insisted on taking her back there. I was convinced it was better care.
We couldn't find the building, since they've TORN UP the road through Children's. I mean, concrete barriers as soon as you turn off 630, and Good Luck finding anything. I cried again, stressed to the max, my appointment time had passed (by two minutes, so it wasn't the End of the world). I couldn't get an address-Ches kept giving me a 16 Children's Way, which wasn't in GPS land. The roads were torn up, so he couldn't map it over the phone. Just chaos. I finally kept driving around and found our building. Then the ladies at the desk didn't want me to check in, they wanted me to use the computers, even though there was a handy clipboard with the peel-off stickers for the patient's name, DOB, etc. Then we calmed down, read a book she brought, and finally got called back.
We did the usual height, weight, download the blood sugars on the meter, and download (or upload?) the data from her pump, then we had to gather catch capture a urine sample. Always fun. I hope they are doing something really important with it besides checking for ketones. We could've done that with a strip. Anyway, we waited so long in the room, we finished her chapter book. Then a new doctor came in, Dr. Lee (my new favorite), and she was so sweet. I felt like she was understanding even though she wanted to challenge us. She wants us (believe it or not) to try to check Mary Claire fewer times. She says she can't tell if it's her bolus ratio (for food) that is a problem of her basal when we check so often. What? I told her the same people advocating for fewer checks now are the same girls who trained me (yes, 5.7 years ago..) to check every two hours. She says things have changed. Yep, like they changed and told me Mary Claire shouldn't eat every two hours the last time I went down there. When do we get notified of Changes? Could there be a form letter that goes out? I know it'll change again. Anyway, I told her I'd cut to six times a day, which is a lot less. We are going to try not to check so much at night. It'll be hard at first, knowing if she's low, but we will resist.
Then, when we were leaving, they told us there was snow already in Hot Springs and El Dorado, and it was coming! I thought we had a while, but it was on its way. We ran back into Barnes and Noble ('nother story, 'nother day) and got the book Mary Claire needed to complete her life, and grabbed some yummy veggies soup and dessert. We jumped (ok, crawled) back to 430 and headed home. I kept talking to Ches since 40 was covered with pink (snow), and it was coming up towards 540 (scary way-high bridges, my biggest concern). I GPS'd a new route up to Harrison on old 65, then west on 412 back home, but it was going to take almost twice as long. : ( By the time we got near 65, Ches said the pink was gone, and the temperatures would hold out above 32 degrees till almost 11pm-plenty of time to get home. Amazingly, we never saw one snowflake, so it was fine. I was so thankful for a safe trip. I was literally on the edge of my seat, and so stressed (nerves, exhaustion?), I just wanted to go home and go to bed. It was such a long day-physically and emotionally.
Today (I forgot to tell you about my garage door drama-it doesn't work basically), the garage door man is coming to repair/adjust our big garage door to make it WORK. (or that's my hope) I've been parking on Ches' side, and I don't know how he's getting the door up and down. I guess he's doing it the old-fashioned way and raising it by hand? I wasn't here yesterday, so I missed out. I hope it is functioning soon, it's so cold for me to get out and punch in the code to open his door. We don't know where all those button-thingies are since our vans have their own programmable buttons inside. Handy when they work, not-so-handy when they doors don't work.
Today is Valentine's Day parties at school. I'm thankful not to be "in charge" of either one. I can show up and just help. Clay left his cards at home, so I need to remember to take them in. He forgot his lunch too, but Ches saw it! He must have much better things on his mind! : ) All righty, gotta get ready for another repair person. I hope they do the job, and don't try to upsell. Ches is already considering remodeling/updating/and a trip to Disney for the kids in July, since we may not make it to the beach in August. : )
Ok, now the phone is ringing, and the doorbell just rang. My day is getting started!
I finally got my dishwasher yesterday. Finally. I know-I had to wait a whole 24 hours for it to be delivered, but it's been two weeks of hand washing! It was a long day, I had to call to see if the man was coming. Twice. Then he stayed till 6-right through our dinner hour (and the kids were dying to have pancakes!), and Mary Claire had her first reconciliation (confession) and had to be there at 6:30-talk about stress!
About 5:45 when I could see that it was still going to be a while, I called Tim's and ordered a pizza. There was a mess, and a man, in my kitchen that was impossible to cook around. Anyway, Ches left with Mary Claire hoping to get her fed first. Then the man finished up, and asked to check my water pressure. (?) He checked the one on the outside, and came back to tell me it is 85-90 psi. (And..?) And! He told me he wouldn't guarantee his work (installation) if I had water pressure that high. He said I needed a PRV (pressure reduction valve) on my water. It'd be $200 to add it to the line by my hot water heater, or twice that to add it to the meter, and he'd probably have to dig it up. (What?) Then he told me that Fridgidaire wouldn't warranty the dishwasher with water pressure that high. Ok, I'll correct him in a moment. But, I had a kid in the car, and we had to get to Tim's, to get Mary Claire to her first confession, in which I'd be joining her for my not nice thoughts.
Anyway, I didn't think too much about it; I had bigger fish to fry. We scarfed (I think it should be scarved, but spell check says no, heehee) down some pizza, had 19 bathroom breaks, and I took her to the church. It went well, only an hour (no! most of it was waiting in line!), and we were home.
Ches had time to look in the Whirlpool manual (told you he was a goofball, or did I..?), and it says for it to work properly, you need 20-120 psi. Ha. Longer story shortened, the next day, a Lowe's person called to check on my installation, and I told her the story, and she said he doesn't have the authority (and she said it kinda Mom-like, as in, "How dare he!") to not warranty his work. If he doesn't sign the warranty, he doesn't get paid. So, we are warranteed, and all is well. Too bad we ate out, and didn't have many dishes. : (
I've already taken two days to write this post, so I have to hurry. Yesterday-blur (including moody, carb-inhaling, whiny, getting everything ready for today..), and today: Little Rock. We are heading to Arkansas Children's Hospital for Mary Claire's endocrinology appointment. I didn't realize it was so soon (thought it was April!), until we got the reminder in the mail. I even called yesterday to see if we could transfer her back to our local endocrinologist (that's a hard word to type-try it!), but they wanted a referral, clinic notes, etc. and I can't exactly get that if I don't go. Oh, and their first available appointment is in May. ACH is about the same. They tell you that you have to get your A1c checked every 3 months, but they can only get you in every 6. Doctors. If you need a new money-making profession, consider endocrinology. If you have an extra 9 years laying around.
Ok, seriously have to get ready! Have a good day, and enjoy not being in a car for at least 7 hours! : )
