products that save my bacon daily...

1) the boon spoon.



whoever invented this, i would like to give them a smooch. well, at least blow them a kiss from a few feet away. this baby feeding spoon rocks! you just unscrew it, dump in the rice cereal/baby food/ yogurt, close it up and it seriously helps with mess. so your kids don't end up looking like this:



i love that i can just put pop the cap on and put it in the fridge if leah hasn't finished all of the food, and is GREAT to travel with. seriously. get one.

2) the stick vacuum.

a friend blogged about this several months ago and said that she loved it for her apartment and i had no idea how much it would simplify my life until i got one. i thought just having the big ol' honkin regular vacuum was fine. but enter leah, who started crawling at 6 months and wanted to pretty much chew on everything and anything she could get her hands on...including the day-old mac & cheese noodles that had fallen below caleb's chair.

i love that it's lightweight (in case you have to hold a 25 lb. child at the same time), quiet (in case that 25 lb. child is taking a nap when you need to clean the floor), and works great on tile & linoleum (in case the 25 lb. child likes to also venture into the kitchen and entryway for new crunchy crumbs to munch on). make sure to buy the cord-free with a rechargeable battery. just to make things a little more simple.

ben thought it was an 'unnecessary purchase' until he actually started using it.

and the best part??

it's also easy enough for a 4 year old to use. caleb is now in charge of the morning vacuuming and he absolutely loves it and does a great job.






this isn't the exact one that i have, but it's even a little cooler because just look at that handle! so nice for under a table, couch or bed.

***also make sure to buy one with a swivel-head. it turns sideways or flips around backwards. genius!

3) bumble & bumble's surf spray.

for a gal who has whined about her hair waaaay too many times, i finally found something that helped me out. i have naturally wavy/curly/frizzy/not cute hair. if you think i am lying, it's because i have to work hard to get it to look normal. i've made this reference before, as an analogy of what i look like if i go to bed with my hair wet:


ben has witnessed this event a couple of times in our marriage. the one word that came out of his mouth when he saw me?

"woah."

and not in a good way.

so when i got a coupon for 30% off, i decided to try out a new product. and seriously, the surf spray has been awesome. i can get out of the shower, put in some leave-in conditioner, spritz on some surf spray, scrunch my hair a bit in my hands, and wha-lah!

the result goes a little something like this:



not the best picture of it, but you get the idea. it has simplified my life so that on those days that i don't have the time to blow-dry and style, this stuff saves the day.

4) the magic treehouse books on cd.



these little babies have saved my sanity in a major way. every day caleb has an hour of quiet time....and i always plan it around leah's nap time. since we don't have a yard he can just go out to, or a big toy room, we set him up in his room to play by himself and listen to some books on cd.

do you want to know how this started?

he got one in a wendy's kids meal and we turned it on in the car. i thought he would be bored out of his gourd. but instead he loved it! so i bought some more off of amazon and now we have quite a collection. caleb loves hearing about the adventures of jack and annie, who visit different countries, solve riddles and always find their way back home. (it kind of freaks me out when i come into his room and he has memorized all 10 chapters of each book and is talking along with the cd's. but it also lets me know he's actually listening.)

so he gets to pick out whichever 2 cd's he wants to listen to for the day during his quiet time, and he knows that quiet time is over when the cd's are done. and i get an hour of peace and quiet to myself, while he's getting to use his imagination. a win-win.

5) downy wrinkle releaser.

my friend marie blogged about this, and as a woman who HATES to iron, i had to give it a try. it SERIOUSLY works like magic. many a sunday morning i'm running around trying to get myself and the kids ready (when ben works overnight) and i'll realize that i've forgotten to iron my skirt or caleb's shirt or leah's dress. as long as the fabric isn't too heavy (cotton is great. denim? not so much.), all you do is spray this lovely product on, smooth out the wrinkles and wait for about 5 minutes for it to dry. magic.

so in church i can loudly sing, "glory glory halleluia!" without having to worry that everyone is staring at my frumped-up, wrinkly skirt.

6) lidocaine prilocaine.



i know there are many out there who are anti-vaccinations, but when caleb contracted meningitis at 2 months old and had repeated seizures for 3 days because of this illness, we got on the pro-vaccine bandwagon.

my kids get pretty fussy after the shots and usually have one rough night of sleep. but the hardest part for me?

the initial shots.

when my friend aubrey told me that she uses this lidocaine cream to numb the area on her daughter eve's arms or legs before she gets her shots...and that eve doesn't cry or whimper or anything now when she gets them...i knew i wanted to give it a try. (FYI, aubrey's mom is a nurse and was the one who told aubrey about it.)

i asked my pediatrician about it, and questioned why it isn't offered to all kids before they get their shots to prevent pain? he answered me that he felt it didn't work, because the shot actually goes into the muscle and still causes pain, so it really wouldn't help anything.

i asked him for a prescription anyway.

and i'm here to tell you.

it does work.

i gave it a try on 9 month old leah after i got the prescription, rubbing the cream on a couple of hours before her appointment. when we came in and i told the nurse and the doctor that i had put it on her, they both looked at me like i was that psycho-over-the-top-can't-bare-to-see-her-kids-in-pain mother. both told me not to be surprised that it wouldn't work.

after her 6 month shots, leah howled for about 10 minutes after the shots were administered.

but at her 9 month shots, with the lidocaine?

she didn't even flinch. seriously. i realized as the nurse was putting on the band-aid that i had been holding my breath, and i let out a big sigh.

the nurse remarked that she had no idea that it would actually work. i told her that since she now sees that it does work, why not let the doctor know and start recommending it to parents?

so just in case they're not, i decided to. it's awesome stuff.

***i'm not sure how well it works on the deeper-muscle shots like the MMR because leah hasn't had that shot yet, but i do know that it works on the routine 2/4/6/9 mos shots. at least for us.

***make sure that you ask your pharmacist or pediatrician how to use it properly. it needs to be put on about 2 hours before the shots, and also needs to be wrapped in saran wrap & taped. also make sure to find out exactly where to put it on. you don't want to be numbing up parts that don't need it. anyway, just ask the experts. they'll tell you.


7) eye concealer by smashbox.



i have no idea how sleepless moms look so good without this stuff. i know for me, when i haven't gotten enough sleep, the first place that shows it is my eyes. i'm not the best at accessorizing outfits, but i do know enough about it to say that sporting dark under-eye circles is not the way to go.

the lovely sephora worker tried this on me after i told her that i needed a miracle cure for my sleepless-nights eyes. while she didn't take me up on my offer to have her come and stay awake at my place every night while i slept, she did offer this product. as she put it on, i watched myself transform.

who was this bright-eyed creature looking back at me in the mirror? and what is wrong with her hair? (this was before the surf spray purchase.) i bought it right away, and have loved it.

because even if my tramillion yawns give away my exhaustion,

at least i look rested and refreshed, right?

yep, it's pricey. but the good news is, i bought mine almost a year ago and still have it. i don't use it every day, but you only need to use such a small amount to make it work that it lasts forever. also, sephora and ulta are constantly offering coupons. so take advantage of their deals.

so there are some things that i love, that have made my life better and more simple. and no, i didn't get paid for blogging about any of these things. but if anyone wants to offer me money for writing this posting i would absolutely be happy to accept!

now.

what are some of your favorite things??

seriously, i love hearing from other people what works for them.

so blog about it & let me know so i can check it out!

sunshine boy. flower girl.

happy weekend!

lucky to have....

him,




and them.




i know everyone celebrates st. patrick's day for different reasons, and i appreciate those too,
but this is what i kept thinking about today.

our life isn't perfect, we have our trials just like everyone else does
(this last month has been a bit tough),

but i'm lucky.

and thankful.

fighting the plague & enjoying the company

here's a summary of what life looked like for us last week:




first caleb, then leah, now me. there have been a lot of sleepless nights going on.

we made it through caleb's highest fever since his grand mal seizure and let me tell you i was a bundle of anxiety. it's nice to see that he's more resilient now, and also nice to know that i wasn't the only one who was worried. even though i hadn't voiced my fears aloud to ben, he told me the morning after caleb's high fever that he had fully expected me to wake him up in the middle of the night to tell him to call 911.

it sounds nuts, writing about it tonight...to know that it has been 3 years since that night and yet it came rushing back to both of us when caleb's fever got so high and we couldn't get it to come down.

it's nice to have that behind us now.


so the kids are feeling better (even if i'm not so much) just in time for my sister's family to come for a visit. we've been looking forward to this for a long time! caleb just loves his cousins, they are adorable and so much fun.



since all of the kids have birthdays around the same time, we threw them a combined birthday party.







tomorrow we're heading out to enjoy the weather and the company. i'm really hoping that my sense of taste and smell return quickly. i've become obsessive about brushing my teeth and wearing good-smelling lotion because i'm paranoid that i smell like one of leah's dirty diapers and have absolutely no idea.

oh, and i almost forgot to mention that they went to the ostrich festival.

they all had a blast while i stayed back with leah & tried to get control of my whooping cough/black lung/scarlet fever. at first i didn't think i would be too sad to miss out on a bunch of people racing ostriches, but they had so much fun and came home with some pretty hilarious pictures, that i found myself a little jealous.



i mean seriously. ostriches.
what's next? a flamingo parade?

getting cheeky.

countless times a day leah and i have disagreements.

"leah, no! don't pull the laptop charger out!"

she smiles up at me and continues to tug on the cord.

...3 minutes later...

"no! leah, don't touch the outlet!"

(the outlet which prior to this had been plugged into our laptop charger that i hadn't popped the outlet safety blocker into yet.)

she looks at me defiantly and continues to reach out a chubby finger, heading straight for the outlet.

...5 minutes after that...

"leah! no! stop bending the blinds!"

yet she continues until i have to once again stop what i'm in the middle of doing and pull the blinds up halfway so that she'll stop.

...20 minutes later...

"noooooo....leah, please don't shove your apple into dad's xbox."

this time she looks up, stops for a second, then lets out a defiant yelp and resumes the attempt at cramming the slice in.

this is how my days go. i can't leave her alone for a second because she is attracted to danger and is curious about everything. even though saving her life and preserving household items from going the ways of the dumpster countless times during the day can be exhausting, i'm grateful for her curiosity and determination.

what i don't appreciate?

her sassy attitude toward her mother.

the lack of communication is difficult. she sees me as someone who's not allowing her to explore the world of possibilities around her, when all i'm trying to do is make sure she lives to see her 2nd birthday.

more often than not i have to physically pull her away from whatever new kamikaze act she is attempting, and when i do i am faced with her looking me straight in the eye, yelling at me and then throwing herself backward to try to stop me from taking her away.

sometimes she'll literally yell out, "nononononono!" which at first was funny and cute. and now is not so much funny. or cute.

good heavens. if this is the way things are going and she's just turned 1, i don't want to imagine what the terrible 2's look like. and don't even get me started on this girl as a teenager! my life immediately flashes before my eyes.

one of the owners of the group home we managed often told me that she felt like through her experience working with difficult teenagers was God's way of preparing her for her own son (who was giving her a hard time as a teenager). and maybe that's something i can chalk that year in north carolina up to.

preparing me for my cheeky daughter.

something tells me that time-outs for this lady are just around the corner.

road trippin'

yesterday we went down south to visit the goldings for their son tyler's 5th birthday party. we had also been invited further south for a dinner with an old high school buddy and his family.

since our time in the car was about 4 1/2 hours, we considered it a mini road trip and decided to make the most of it.

good tunes, heartfelt conversations and don't forget trying to keep calm a gal who doesn't like to be confined for long periods of time.

we had a lot of fun, came home tired, but i considered it our first successful trip of 2010. no vomiting and getting to our destinations without an ounce of trouble. let's hope this trend continues.

the driver:

the passengers:

and we can't forget our 3rd child, bear:

the birthday boy:

the guests:








playing games:




andrea and i:





leah and the streamers:




the proud papa bear:




the cake:



the leapster!:






dinner with the slivkas:

we all woke up looking a little like this:



but we had a great time. thanks for the fun, friends!

yogurt face.

i mean, wow.
if you had an appetite before you looked at these pictures, you might have lost it.
please accept her apology for that.

leah has been anti-baby food for quite some time now and i've struggled to find a balance with food that she'll eat that doesn't require a lot of chewing, due to her minimal chompers.

baby yogurt has become a staple in her daily diet.
i'm grateful she'll eat it.

though now that i'm looking at these pictures i'm wondering just how much she actually consumed?

have a good weekend!

the seizure.

i have written before about caleb's first 2 years of life. he experienced seizures starting at 10 days old, along with other physical delays that caused him to need to wear orthopedic braces, use a walker, work with physical therapists and didn't take his first unassisted steps until the day after he turned 2.

but there was one day that was more difficult for me than the entire two years combined. i've had a couple of friends ask me about what happened when caleb had a 35 minute seizure at 18 months old and for some reason i've never really wanted to write about it. mostly because when i write, i re-live the experience.

but i've been thinking about it lately and feel like i'm ready. and i think it's important not only for me, but for caleb to read about one day.

so, here it is.

caleb, 18 mos

january 6, 2007

caleb had been getting over a cold for the past couple of days, and was seeming to feel better. he'd had a low-grade fever, but no longer needed tylenol. after dinner, i had gone to exercise at the gym, while ben played with caleb and got him ready for bed .

when i got home, i walked through the door and things were quiet. i remember what i was wearing, a pink hoodie, a white tank top underneath, black yoga pants.

the front room was messy, and there were DVD's all over the floor. at 18 months old, one of caleb's favorite things to do was open up the cupboard on our entertainment center and pull all of the DVD's out. i used to have to clean them up 4 or 5 times a day.

i figured ben was giving caleb his bath, so i walked down the hallway to the bathroom, but they weren't in there. the light in our bedroom was on.

as i walked in the bedroom, it took a minute to realize what was happening. ben was on his cell phone, and caleb was laying on our bed, on his side. i remember what he was wearing. a navy blue & white striped pajama shirt from old navy, and navy blue sweat pants.

i stared at him. looked at ben. and still couldn't understand.

caleb's eyes were half-open, and moving back and forth from side to side, but not focusing on anything. his knees were pulled up almost to his chest, his feet were together side by side, and his legs were moving up and down in a repetitive motion. his arms were bent, his little hands clenched in fists. his arms also moved in a repetitive motion.

out of his mouth came the strangest sound. it was like a grunt, and then a gasp for breath. over and over and over again.

"he's having a seizure," ben said. "and he's not coming out of it. i have 911 on the phone and they're sending an ambulance right now."

i completely lost my mind. i knelt down on the bed and started crying and pleading with caleb.

"caleb, it's mama. please look at me. caleb, please. please."

his eyes would not focus on mine, but just remained rotating from side to side.

i became hysterical and started pacing. sobbing as i went up and down the hallway. i would stop in the family room, drop to my knees and start to pray to God. then in mid-prayer, i would get up and go back to the bedroom and drop to my knees to beg caleb again. when he wouldn't respond i would get up and walk down the hallway to pray.

ben stayed on the phone with 911, explaining what caleb was doing now, that he hadn't changed.

i was able to ask ben what happened, how this started.

{he explained that he and caleb had been playing in the family room, and caleb was pulling the DVD's out of the cupboard when he closed the door, and pinched his own finger.

ben had been sitting just a foot or so away from him, and when caleb pinched his finger, he let out a howl. ben looked over and reached out to comfort him. but as caleb yelled out, he didn't take a breath. his eyes rolled up in his head, and as his body collapsed, ben caught him. ben tried to breathe into caleb's mouth to get him to take a breath, but he still didn't. instead, the seizure began.}

i called carrie & troy, our family who lived just minutes from us.

troy picked up the phone.

i tried to tell him through my sobs what was happening. he couldn't understand me until i was finally able to choke out in one breath, "CALEB IS HAVING A SEIZURE AND WE CAN'T GET HIM TO STOP. PLEASE COME OVER NOW."

"i'll be right there," was his reply.

at this point, i didn't know that carrie wasn't home. i didn't know that troy's two kids were in the middle of taking a bath, that troy had to call his next door neighbor to ask for help so that he could help us. i am so thankful for his quick reaction, and for the help of his neighbor amanda.

all i knew was that before the ambulance could even arrive, troy came to the front door. i was a complete mess and unable to pull together a coherent sentence, so i just pointed to the back bedroom where ben was still with caleb. troy ran.

they administered a priesthood blessing, and then troy came back out to the front room with me to wait for the ambulance. he was crying, and gave me a hug to tell me it was going to be okay.

by now caleb had been seizing for about 15 minutes.

an average seizure lasts anywhere from 3-7 minutes. any longer and there is an enormous increase in the risk of brain damage and possibly death. (i didn't know this information at the time that this was happening, and i'm grateful i didn't.)

the ambulance came, sirens blaring and lights flashing. the paramedics lifted caleb and took him to the back of the truck. ben sat in the back with caleb, i was in the front. (this was a good decision based on the state i was in. ben was able to remain calm even though he was extremely worried.) troy followed behind the ambulance in his car.

once caleb was in the ambulance, the paramedics gave him some medicine that stopped his seizure. ben told me he had stopped, and i began to calm down. however, as his arm was pricked to start an IV, his body started back up, and the seizure continued.

the ride to the hospital was horrible. it was extremely icy that night and we had to drive slowly. i sobbed my eyes out and prayed to God the entire time to heal his little body and help him to come out of this and still be my caleb.

by the time we made it to the ER, and he was rushed in, the seizure was going on 31 minutes. there was now a breathing tube in his mouth, IV in his arm and he was hooked up to several machines. there was a team of nurses and doctors surrounding him. they administered more medicine to him.

ben and i stood to the side, with our arms around each other.

about 5 minutes later, the seizure finally stopped. caleb's body lay still.

at this point several family members had been contacted and were on their way down. troy was there, and carrie was on her way.

we were told by the doctor that we wouldn't know how he would be affected until he woke up and the medicine had worn off. we were also told that he would be exhausted and would probably sleep for a while.

we waited.

family came in and we hugged and cried and they waited with us. more time passed, and finally caleb woke up. he was completely irrational and was thrashing around, and crying. he tried to pull out his IV, so the nurse wrapped it up with medical tape.

he was moved to his own room, and only 2 adults were allowed in at a time. we appreciated all of the support of our family, but also knew that there wasn't much they could do at this point. so eventually they left, except my mom. i was extremely grateful she had stayed, and for all of the help she provided.

caleb drank a little and we tried to get him to eat some crackers, but he wouldn't. he finally went back to sleep. ben and i tried to share the small hospital bed and slept in the room together. the night was long and hard, with him waking up frequently upset and unable to be comforted.

we spent the next day in the hospital, while tests were run and we looked for improvement from caleb. he started to become more like himself, saying words and asking for us to hold him. but he wasn't completely back to normal. he was aggressive and still irrational. he did a lot of thrashing around and seemed like he was constantly dizzy.

we were told that this could also be a side-effect from the anti-seizure medicine he had been given, but that the doctors felt it was best for him to stay on the medicine until he was able to have an EEG test done in a week.

the following morning, on a monday, he was released from the hospital and we were told to watch him carefully. ben had to go to work and i was grateful that my dad was able to be there to take caleb home with me, because i was completely freaked out to bring him home by myself. i couldn't believe that this had come from a pinched finger and was paranoid that if he hurt himself or became too upset, this would happen again. i remember wondering how to be a mother to him, when i knew i couldn't protect him from everything.

it was a hard week.

i was a bundle of nerves and anxiety, not to mention traumatized. i couldn't sleep and was scared to leave him alone, even just in a room by himself. every time i relaxed i would close my eyes and would picture his little body curled up with his arms and legs doing those strange jerking movements.

the medication and its side-effects still affected caleb a lot. he was not the same little guy who was easy and fun to be around. he slept about 18 hours out of the day, but not all at the same time. he would be awake for about 45 minutes, then get really aggressive and irrational and need to take a nap for about an hour. we did this all day long and it was pretty exhausting. he was constantly dizzy, throwing his head back and falling over easily.

at the end of the week we were sent to primary children's hospital for the 3rd EEG of caleb's life. the first two happened when he was under 6 months old and it was difficult then, but this was by far the hardest one.

the technician had to stick electrodes all over caleb's head, and then wrap it tightly with gauze in order to keep the electrodes secure. for the first two EEG's, we were supposed to keep him awake and upset (because that was when he would have seizures, when he was awake as opposed to asleep.) this time we were asked to bring him sleep-deprived and do our best to get him to go to sleep while his head was covered in wires.



not an easy task.

but eventually he fell asleep, and the testing began. when it was over, the neurologist met with us to explain that there was no seizure activity going on in his brain. we were grateful, but worried.

i've written before about feeling frustrated when there is not a clear diagnosis. it's like you exhale a very relieved breath of fresh air that it is not something serious, but then up come the questions. will this happen again? what are the chances? what do we do if it happens again? should we keep him on this medicine?

and what can be so frustrating about no diagnosis is that the decision is usually left up to you. or at least this is what we experienced for the majority of caleb's life. we were told that because they didn't know the source of the seizure, yes it could happen again. they had no idea what the likelihood of that would be. the medicine would protect it from happening again, but there were definite long-term effects from it that were quite severe.

we were also told that we were very lucky that it looked as though no brain damage had been done.

so the decision of what to do was left in our hands.

the fear of caleb having another seizure was definitely there... but the fear of having this terror of an 18 month old continue, as well as the long-term damage that could be done, was greater.

after talking about it, we decided not to fill the prescription and say a lot of prayers that it wouldn't happen again.

as soon as the medicine left his system, caleb returned. he could speak normally, stay awake, and came back to being our calm and easy-going little guy.

our prayers were answered, and he has not had a seizure since that day.

it has taken a looooooong time for me to work through this experience though. i've realized that i am someone who stuffs fears inside and tries really hard to cope with the day-to-day things without ever really dealing with the trauma. but it has leaked out in my parenting. i have had a hard time letting others baby-sit caleb, i over-stress and over-worry. and when it came to parenting him, i constantly felt on edge. up until about a year ago.

it was then that i was able to see reality for what it is now:

caleb is a healthy, happy and smart boy.




i can no longer keep him in the protective bubble that kept him alive for 2 years, and by trying to do it i am holding him back.

i'm grateful for the lesson i have learned as a mother and the blessing i have had to watch the strength and resilience of a boy who has overcome so much.

watch out bottom teeth!

you've got some neighbors moving in upstairs!