Public Service Announcemetn: DRINK WATER

It's hard to be a person, let alone a sane one.  Then you throw in things like jobs, marriage, kids, life, etc....and things get really hard (j/k--life itself is often hard all by itself).  Then you throw in the random things, oh say, like being a klutzy person like me....and you're really in trouble.

A few weeks ago I walked the race route for a local 5K that's happening this summer to raise money for cancer patients. I wanted to practice the race route several times prior to the race as its my first one ever. 2/3rds of the way into the route a crossed a bit of road that lets down onto an a non-sidewalk section of town . . . and rolled my ankle.  Being the stubborn person that I am I figured I'd already passed the street that led back to my car and I had less than a mile to go so I might as well finish walking the route.  Yeah, not the smartest decision I've made. 

I knew it wasn't broken but it was a pretty painful sprain. I had the chiropractor adjust the foot to help it heal more smoothly and had been wearing an ace bandage on and off for two weeks before the next incident happened.  Last week, I was carrying a load of laundry down the stairs (wearing my ACE bandage) and stepped on the edge of a stair instead of the middle and slipped rolling down the stairs, laundry basket tumbling, laundry flying through the air, and my ankle being pulled at a painfully awkward angle until something popped.  Definitely not one of my more graceful moments.

I screamed so loud that Juniper (my 3 year old) broke out of quiet time in his bedroom, hopped the safety gate, ran down the stairs, and sat down beside his sobbing mother, wrapped his arm around my shoulder and said, "Oh poor baby. What hurts."  I was laughing and crying at the same time. The pain was excruciating.

Well, the ankle wasn't broken, but due to the swelling and the amount of pain the nurse practitioner put me into what I call a Darth Vader boot (basically a removable walking cast) and told me to elevate and ice, ice and elevate.  

Have you ever tried to recover from an injury with kids in the house...HA!!!! Throw in the fact that my kids all have different special needs and I think I deserve a double-HA and a kick in the pants!  As I lay propped up on the living room couch with my leg in the air, remotes and phone at my side, a water bottle, and kids running amok (literally) I was doing my best to "recover".  But when my kids run amok that means whatever is mom's is theirs.

You may ask, "What does that have to do with the Public Service Announcement?"  Here you go....

If I had a water bottle, they would take it and run away and drink it, dump it out around the house, wear it, or hide it.  And being in the pain I was in, I wasn't too eager to get up to get a replacement bottle.  So I failed to drink my daily dose of water for four days straight. Then Saturday I didn't rest as often as I should and pushed my body past its weakened physical limitations.

By dinnertime I felt like crap. By bedtime I was shivering uncontrollably and had a migraine. By 11 pm I was waking my husband up, asking him to take me to the hospital. After a lovely visit in the ER it was determined I was severely dehydrated and had a bladder & kidney infection as well as a migraine to boot.

Did I mention that my awesome husband was scheduled to leave on a business trip, for a week, the very next day?  No, my bad.

If it weren't for so many amazing neighbors & friends helping with prayers, food, breaks from the kids, etc., I wouldn't make it out of this a live (and its only day three). 

So when I say DRINK WATER, I mean DRINK WATER.  Granted it would have been nice if I weren't accident prone in the first place, but things wouldn't have gotten nearly as bad if I had just taken the time and effort in my attempt to do everything else to stop and drink a glass of water.  If you want to take care of others, make sure you take care of yourself too.

This is the end of the public service announcement (this is your cue to go get yourself a glass of water). Have a great day!

Bubblesnot

There are days. . . oh man are there days. . . (whether or not your kids are special needs) when they just push you too far. Sometimes I make good choices and handle things surprisingly well considering. That's when I often get a little too cocky and say, "You got this thing."

Then there are days where you call for a "do-over".  I think that's today for me.

My kids sent me into SPD overload today and I didn't handle it well. My daughter was specifically doing negative things to get a reaction out of me (and honestly I know this is what kids just do because they are kids, but I just don't get it).  After Rose received her consequence I felt horrible because I went overboard in my reaction. That's when I have to take a moment to look inward and say, "Okay was that handled well or was that all wrong."  After a really long day of pushing buttons I know I could have handled the situation heaps better.

Once I was able to step back and calm down I went back into her room, sat down on the floor with her and we talked.  We talked about what happened, what was good, what needed improvement on both of our parts.  Then we came up with a code word -- Bubblesnot. When I'm helping her to do something that she knows she can do herself than she is supposed to say, "Hey Mom--Bubblesnot!"  That's when I know I need to step back and just let her do it so that she gets the practice and realize that she can be responsible.   Then again, if she is balking at doing something without my help when I know perfectly well that she can do it herself I am supposed to say, "Hey Rose--Bubblesnot!"  Then she'll know that I believe in her and that she can do it.

We both apologized to each other, sang a few songs, and then we both said prayers.

I know some people say I apologize to my kids too often, but there's something in my soul that makes me want my kids to know that I'm human too and that we're both learning as we go, but together we can accomplish anything. I also apologized in my prayers to God because I believe that she was his child first and that he entrusted her into my care. When I have a mommy fail moment I feel he deserves an apology too so he knows that I'm not giving up and that I do see her as a precious gift from him.  Hopefully, each step we take in the process will help us grow together and closer to heaven.  I want my kids to know that family does really matter and that everyone deserves being treated with respect, even children.

Mommy Fails 101

When moms are tired, sick or wiped out there is related increase in what I call Mommy Fails.  For the last several weeks I have increased my exercise routine by getting up at 5 am three days a week to go work out with friends. On the off days I do some sort of workout at home or go on a walk/jog in preparation for a race I'm running in June. On top of that all three of my kids have rotated going through a nasty cold (the youngest ending up with a very bad case of the croup).  On top of that I'm trying to finish my edits on the book I'm currently writing in order to get it out to my beta readers in February (only a month late).

Yesterday, the fatigue finally hit and I started feeling like I was catching the kids' cold. My husband sent me to bed at 6:30 pm for a "nap" while he took care of the kids. And I slept until 6:45 am this morning. When I got up I started my usual routine--take a shower, grab the kids clothes, etc. I made sure everyone had clothes. They were in my hands, honestly they were.  I got Rose dressed, and even got the baby halfway dressed. But when it came time to get Cyprus dressed, everything but his socks and undershirt had completely disappeared.  I searched all over for twenty minutes before I realized that I had just picked up all the clothes on the floor from yesterday and put them into the wash -- Cyprus' clothes included. His clothes for the day were in the process of being rewashed. Oy!!!!

Then I realized ten minutes before we had to walk out the door to get Rose to her friend's house, and Cyprus on the bus that it hadn't even occurred to me to make my daughter a lunch. So I ran to the pantry and grabbed food from their 72 hour emergency kit and shoved it into her lunch box and called it good. 

Finally, after I got two kids on their way to school I piled Juniper in the car to take him back to the doctor for a second visit because his croup wasn't going away and I really need him to get helpful enough to go back to school this week so I can get my edits done (I'm running out of January). While we were waiting for the doctor to come see us I was twirling Juniper around in circles on the doctor's roller chair. Just moments before the doctor stepped into the room poor Juniper lost his balance and took a dive forehead first into the floor. He has a beautiful rug-rash/goose-egg to show for it just as the doctor opened the door.  I just wanted to take a face plant myself.

Oh well. In the end we're all still alive. So I guess in the long run I'm still a winner as a mom, but I really hope I've met my mommy fail limit for the day. Or else I'm just gonna have to go to bed and let my kids fend for themselves. They might be better off.