Surgery {x 2}

My two littlest had surgery on Monday.  I had so much anxiety in the months leading up to this day.  I hated that it had to happen and I hated that I had to keep it a secret from the girls.  But the biggest source of my anxiety was the anesthesia.  The thought of putting my girls under general anesthesia scares me for a couple of reasons.

First, my oldest, Ava, had to go under general anesthesia to have glitter removed from her cornea (long story: Part 1 & Part 2) and had a horrible reaction coming out of anesthesia.  I didn't know how Sidney and Clara would react to it.  

Second, this past June an article was published by researchers from Cincinnati Children's Hospital that claims: "Surgical anesthesia given to children under the age of 4 years may be associated with reduced gray matter density in certain brain regions, leading to lower IQ and poorer language development."  

Well crap.

My husband and I talked with several doctors including our pediatrician, another pediatrician, the ENT performing the surgery and an anesthesiologist to try to weigh the pros and cons.  Obviously, you know what we decided.  

We may never know if the anesthesia has had an affect on their brains, but the good news is the surgery was successful, the girls did not have as bad a reaction coming out of anesthesia as Ava experienced and both girls are pretty much back to normal already.

My heart goes out to those parents whose children have to go through serious surgeries. And multiple surgeries.  I don't know how they do it.

I'm so blessed to have my girls back.

Holding out Hope

This headline caught my eye and stopped my heart:

"Scientists May Have Discovered How to Stop Your Peanut Allergies for Good"

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

THANK YOU NYU Medical Center Scientists!!! Parents all over the world are breathing a sigh of relief knowing that your smarty pants brains are all over this. We believe in you! Keep up the good work!

PS - My Sidney is also allergic to dairy and eggs.  Her sister Clara is allergic to eggs too.  We don't think it's life-threatening, but I'd love to bake a giant, buttery, fluffy cookie for them with real butter and real eggs and milk chocolate chips. Or even just take them to a restaurant and order from the menu. I totally get that there are much bigger problems in the world than this.  Just if you get some extra time...maybe you could find a probiotic cure for that too ;)

St. Louis Community Gardens

For the past two years, we had a garden plot in our community garden.  It was fun meeting new people and seeing what everyone grew in their gardens.  Gardening also has some great benefits for kids.  I found a great non-profit in St. Louis, Gateway Greening, that provides resources for starting and maintaining community gardens.  If you want to find a community garden in your area, click here.

This past year, my brother and his family moved into a house in our neighborhood and their house has a garden! They weren't interested in gardening but were happy to let us borrow it in exchange for some homegrown produce.  Deal!

Tim is REALLY into this.  REEEEEALLY.  He checked out at least 5 gardening books from the library, used some crazy gardening program to design the garden, bought a whole bunch of lumber and piping to make sub-plots and a trellis-y contraption. The next thing I know, I've got this in my bathroom:

Our tiny greenhouse

Tomatoes

Cucumbers

It still remains to be seen if any of these little guys will make it through the transplant process, but it was a fun experiment and much less expensive route than buying everything as seedlings.

Now we have to get the garden in shape.  Here's what we have to work with:

Tim's got his work cut out for him!

Good thing he has some help!

Check back in May to see the finished garden and whether or not our gardening skills pan out!

The Results of my "Day of No Sugar" Challenge

When I was a kid I remember my mom saying she couldn't drink caffeine except in the morning or it would keep her up all night.  She also couldn't eat a big dessert in the daytime or she'd feel tired all day.  {I wonder what would happen if she ate a big dessert in the middle of the day with a big can of soda?}  As a kid, I didn't understand.  I could eat whatever I wanted, whenever I wanted and it didn't affect my energy.

Now that I'm old-er, I feel the effects of what I consume daily.  At first I thought I was tired all the time because I had little ones to care for all day and night.  My day-to-day activities as a stay at home mom are much more labor intensive than my previous desk job. While this probably does contribute to my tired state, I now realize that my eating habits, which changed after I had kids, are probably also to blame.

Before I had kids I was very conscious of what I ate.  I had a quick, healthy breakfast in the morning before I headed out to work.  I generally packed a healthy lunch that I brought to work.  And for dinner I'd either get take outs (not particularly healthy), eat cereal (not great but better than take outs), or my husband cooked a healthy meal (a BIG thank you goes out to my father-in-law for being the cook in their family and setting a good example for my husband!).  I was always aware of my calories - even if I was blowing it - and tried to make good choices when it came to meals.

Then I had kids and became a stay at home mom.  If I'm not in my car, I'm in the kitchen. That's pretty much what I do all day.  Go from my car to the kitchen over and over and over again.  You'd think that with all that time in the kitchen I'd make myself a decent meal.  But it hasn't worked like that.  I find myself eating bits of food here and there as I prepare a meal for my kids - staving off the hunger until I can find time to eat again. I've become less conscious of what I eat day-to-day. My gauge for how I'm doing is how tight jeans fit.

The truth is that my kids are healthier eaters than I am because I still control what they eat. I hold them to a higher standard of healthy eating than I hold myself.  Very hypocritical.  I always tell my husband that it would be great if one of our girls ended world hunger, but at the end of the day I just want them to be healthy.  For me, healthy = happy.

When I read about the "Day of No Sugar" challenge I knew that I needed to make changes in my eating habits and I was ready.  This was a great opportunity to say "today is the day". While I may make it sound easy, it wasn't.  I was very nervous.  No sugar?  What will I eat all day?  As I looked through my fridge and pantry, I was amazed at how much stuff (especially the pantry stuff) contained sugar.  I was not well prepared and I was being tempted everywhere I went.  I honestly saw this car on the day I couldn't eat sugar!

But I made it through the day and was very surprised to find that I was never very hungry or tired!  Here's what I ate:

Breakfast:
- Banana
- 1/2 apple (left over from making Ava's school lunch)
- Larabar (Chocolate Coconut Chew)
- water

Lunch-ish: (I ate these things over the course of a few hours)
- Bowl of Fiber One cereal (I actually like this stuff!) and skim milk
- Cracked Pepper and Olive Oil Triscuits (yum! these are good!)
- Cantaloupe
- Mixed nuts
- water

Dinner:
- Omelette with onions, peppers, tomatoes and avocado
- Banana
- water

I normally drink coffee but I didn't have the chance to make it so I didn't have any caffeine all day and I still felt great; never tired!  It helped that the weather yesterday was BEAUTIFUL which meant I was outside with my kids most of the day (and not in the kitchen tempted by food).

While I don't plan to give up sugar entirely (I'm doing major research on how to re-create the Levain Chocolate Chip Walnut Cookie), I do plan to make some healthy changes to my diet and be more aware of the foods I eat.  I owe to myself and my family to take care of myself and I'm so thankful for the "Day of No Sugar" challenge.  It has been a great kick-start for me.

Challenge Accepted

Are you ready for a challenge?

On April 9th, Eve O. Schaub, author of Year of No Sugar: A Memoir, is challenging others to take the "Day of No Sugar" Challenge. That means not consuming any foods or drinks that contain any additive sweeteners such as table sugar, honey, molasses, maple syrup, agave, fruit juice, fake sugar or sugar alcohols.

I read an article about her experience and I have to say I'm curious.  I feel tired all the time and I've come with a lot of excuses:
- I have 3 young kids.
- Taking care of kids all day is pretty labor intensive.
- I need to go to bed earlier at night.
- I could afford to eat more healthy.
- I don't exercise like I should.

I like to think that I am health-conscious and make efforts to eat healthy foods.  But I certainly enjoy treats!  I don't think I could deprive myself of sugary treats forever, but I'm curious if I'd see changes if I reduced my sugar intake.  If Eve O. Schaub and her family could do this for A YEAR, I can certainly do this for a day, right?  We'll see I guess!

I just found out about this challenge as I type this so I don't have a well thought-out food plan for April 9th. But I thought I'd share it with you in case anyone else wants to take the "Day of No Sugar" challenge with me.  And if you have any food suggestions, please share!  Otherwise, I'll be eating omelettes and fruit all day!

Update: See my results here!

Food Allergy Frenzy

Food allergies are such a hot button issue right now.  There have been a lot of articles written lately from frustrated parents on both ends of the spectrum.  All three of my girls have had or currently have food allergies and food intolerances.  I try to keep my blog light and non-confrontational, but today I'd like to share my perspective on food allergies.

For a long time Ava, my oldest daughter, couldn't eat nuts because she had a reaction to peanut butter when she was a year old.  When I sent her to preschool, I was relieved to find that it was a 100% nut-free facility.  All snacks and birthday treats served to the kids had to be free of nuts and produced in a nut-free facility. And if your child had an allergy (to nuts or anything else), you had to provide the snacks for your child to eat every day.  If there was a birthday in the classroom, I sent a special snack for Ava to eat.  I was thankful that the school took these matters seriously and understood the concerns that I had as a parent.  I was HAPPY to go out of my way and be inconvenienced to keep Ava safe.

Now Ava is in kindergarten and she doesn't have any allergies to foods!  If you have a kindergartner, you know that birthdays are an EVEN BIGGER deal now.  Our weekends are typically jammed packed celebrating 6th birthdays.  The kids get together and bounce around on inflatables and eat pizza AND cake (or whatever the parents choose to serve) and then come home and pass out.  But they also get to celebrate their birthday at school.  The school has a strict rule that everything has to be nut-free and made in a nut-free facility. Even though Ava no longer had food restrictions, I'm thankful that they have these rules in place.  One of Ava's best friend in her class has a dairy, egg and nut allergy - the same allergies as my Sidney who will start kindergarten in two years.

I am the room mom for Ava's kindergarten class.  All of the holiday parties I've planned include nut-free treats.  I can assure you that those kids love treats and couldn't care less what kind of treat it is. There is a TON of junk food that is nut-free.  Click here for a list of ideas.  My kids would be thrilled to eat any of it.  On days when there is a birthday, the class gets to eat whatever nut-free treat is provided instead of the snack that their mom's and dad's packed. Ava's snack on a typical day is apple slices so when the birthday kid passes out a package of Oreos, Ava is stoked! It's usually the first thing she tells me about when I pick her up from school.

I honestly don't understand why it's so hard for PARENTS to accept that their kid can't bring a big homemade cake to school for their birthday.  The kids seem to be fine with it.  Have you bothered to ask them?  Here's how I'd expect it would go:

Parent: Sweetheart, I was thinking that you could bring in {insert acceptable treat here} for your friends for your birthday treat and then when you get home from school we'll have a big celebration for you and I'll bake a special cake.

Kid: Awesome!  Two treats in one day!  I'm the luckiest kid alive!

Problem solved.  You're welcome.  Now, can we all just get along?

Sidney - 1 year old

A little while after her first reaction to cow's milk

Vomiting and rash around her mouth and neck

 Sidney - 2 1/2 years old

Failed her first egg challenge on the first minuscule bite of egg powder

Redness/rash around the mouth and itching inside her mouth

How To Stop Nursing

I hope I'm not sharing too much personal information, but I recently stopped nursing.  I don't know how, but somehow I forgot how painful it is to dry up your milk supply.  It was bad - just ask Tim.  For a couple of days I was MEAN.  I had read that I'd be in pain for about 48 hours (which was pretty accurate) so I chose a Saturday and Sunday when I knew Tim would be around to help with the girls, especially Clara.  It was very painful to hold her.  

On Monday, I was feeling much better (not 100% but well enough) so I took the girls to the History Museum for arts and crafts.  Afterwards we went to Ted Drewes and I brought some home for Tim.  He asked if I bought it for him because I'd been so mean to him the past couple of days!  Next time I looked in the freezer I saw this:

That is not my handwriting.  Tim calls this his "Apology Cream".

Anyway, I thought I'd share some tips with you to help ease the pain of drying up your milk supply.  I'm not going to lie to you ladies, it hurts and there's not much you can do about it. You'll likely be in pain for about 48 hours assuming there are no complications.  Here you go:

1.  Ween - Don't just stop cold turkey.  This can lead to complications (see below).
2.  Wear a comfy bra and nursing pads even when sleeping.  You don't want to bind your breasts.  This can also lead to complications (see below).  I wore this nursing bra that I bought at Mimi Maternity through all three of my kids.  I know it's not at all sexy but it's very comfy, especially at night.

3.  Motrin and lots of it.
4.  Warm shower but don't stimulate your milk to let down.  Sometimes I wore my bra in the shower to avoid a let down.
5.  Use a cold compress or frozen vegetables
6.  Drink lots of water. If you become dehydrated, you will actually start producing more milk, and your discomfort will increase.
7.  Sleep with pillow support.  Sleeping is the hardest because no position feels comfortable.  If you use a pillow (or several) you can get some relief.

And these are a couple of unverified home remedies:
1.  Apply cold cabbage leaves to your breast.
2.  Drink sage tea

Possible Complications:
If you start running a fever or have flu-like symptoms, contact your doctor as it may be mastitis or plugged ducts. Mastitis and plugged ducts can be caused by:
- Binding your breasts (wear a comfortable bra)
- Not weaning properly
- Breast infection

Hang in there ladies!

Baby Knee Pads

Clara finally graduated from army crawling to a legitimate crawl!

I noticed that she crawls very slowly across our terra cotta tile floor in the kitchen (not pictured) which made me wonder if it's painful for her.  While I love its appearance and durability, I look forward to the day when I can replace it with something that easier on the joints (wow, I sound like an old lady!).

When I was pregnant with Clara, I had to wear tennis shoes in the kitchen because the floor did a number on my back, ankles and knees.  I actually had to see a physical therapist during my second and third trimester because I could barely walk.  When my parents and Tim's parents come to visit, they always complain about how hard our kitchen floor is on them.  They now keep a spare pair of slippers at our house (we try not to wear shoes in our house to cut down on the dirt and allergens).

In an effort to help Clara avoid knee problems in her old lady days, I found these cute little knee pads from Lil' Melon.  I love them because they're super soft and padded just enough to protect her knees but not too much that it inhibits her ability to crawl easily.  (Get ready for a barrage of pictures of Clara that I couldn't edit down to a reasonable amount).

 The Paper Gate is back up.

 On your mark...

So proud of herself.

They have lots of cute designs for boys and girls.  This is one of my favorites for girls:

This is my favorite for boys:

And the back of the knee pads have little slits for ventilation:

You can purchase them on their website or on Amazon.  If you follow them on Facebook, you will get up to date info on their sales and promotions.  Safe crawling!

Neosporin Side Effects

Sidney is her own worst enemy.  She hurts herself on accident all the time.  Tim and I always joked when she was a baby that her motto in life was "It's all gonna work out".  She would fearlessly do things that put herself in danger time after time.  I wondered when she'd learn from her mistakes, but so far I can't see any drastic improvement.  

The safest time during her "mobile life" was when she had to wear a helmet.

She only ended up needing the helmet for 2 months and my mom actually suggested that we leave it on her until she learned to walk!  Our doctor advised against it.  I think she thought we were crazy too.

I know that falling and getting hurt is all a part of growing up but is it so wrong for me to want to prevent my kids from breaking bones (or worse!).  I am a worrier.  I can't help it.

Sidney's latest fall was a nasty one.  She skinned up both knees (which added to the scabs from her previous sidewalk fall) and her nose.

All of my girls have sensitive skin but Sidney's is the worst.  I was worried that the cut on her nose would leave a scar so I called my friend who is a Physician Assistant at a Dermatology office to see if there was anything I could put on her nose to avoid scarring (I was using Neosporin).  She told me to stop using the Neosporin and instead use Vaseline or Aquafor.  Apparently, the main ingredient in Neosporin, neomycin, is more likely than most other antibiotics to cause allergic reactions.  Some of the reported side effects to neomycin are:
- Reddening of the skin
- Itching
- Failure to heal
- Swelling
- Irritation
- Stinging or burning 

When I mentioned this to my mom, she told me that my aunt had a reaction to Neosporin.  Her wound would not heal and actually got worse.  She said she felt and looked like she had Poison Ivy.  I was surprised that I hadn't heard of this before since it now seems fairly common.

Thankfully, the Vaseline worked wonders on Sidney's nose and she's scar-free now!

Thought I'd pass along this information because as everyone likes to remind me, "kids are going to fall and get hurt.  It's just a part of growing up."  Enough already!

PS - I did discover that Neosporin tubes make great teethers!  Clara got 8 teeth in 8 months -Ouch!

Sick and Tired of being Sick and Tired

Oh. My. Goodness.  If my family does not start feeling better soon I'm going to go bananas.  Ava and Sidney have been sick every month since Clara was born in October 2012.  Then we had a 4 week streak of good health (with an important event occurring during each of those 4 weeks).  I think the last time we had 4 straight weeks of good health was last summer.  So I knew we were due for something big and bad.  God was good to us for those 4 important weeks of birthdays and baptisms and Easter parties and confirmations.  So I knew we had it coming.  

But this is getting ridiculous now.

Ava got sick first.  Then Sidney got sick.  Then Clara got sick.  And just when I started to think that we were getting better, Ava got sick AGAIN!  And now I'm sick.  I took Clara to the doctor and she has an ear infection and 3 new teeth coming in so she's a real gem right now.  And today Sidney told me that her nose is stuffy.  That means she'll wake up full-on sick tomorrow.  Ugh...

It's bad enough when your kids get sick, but when Momma gets sick, who takes care of Momma!?!?  It's been rough over here.  I'm really ready for summer to start.  Please!

Here is a trick that I found on Pinterest for keeping track of medicine doses:

Clara is taking an antibiotic for her ear infection - her first time on antibiotics.  I have to give it to her twice a day for 10 days so I made this little chart on the medicine bottle to help me keep track of when I gave her medicine.  My mind is in a Robitussin fog so I need all the help I can get right now!

Mary Mary Quite Contrary

Last year, our town opened its first community garden.  They built 40 plots and offered them to the residents first come first serve for just $30!  It sounded fun, but I was nervous because I've never gardened before.  I'm also not "outdoorsy".  My family and I are allergic to nearly everything that grows outdoors so I don't even own any potted plants.  And let's just say that the landscaping around our house is nothing to brag about.  I was sure that everyone else would be these amazing gardeners and our little plot would be a disgrace.  But we did it anyway.

It was one of the best decisions we made.  Let me tell you our story and why you might want to garden with your family this summer.

The community garden opened in April last year.  We went to a nursery with Ava and Sidney (I was still pregnant with Clara) and explained our situation - new to gardening, don't know how to grow things, don't want to look like fools and lose our garden plot...  They recommended some easy things to grow that we'd enjoy and advised us on how to plant it.  We planted tomatoes, basil, sage, peppers and Swiss chard, which is a leafy vegetable like spinach.

My mother-in-law helped us plant everything.

We also planted marigolds, which are supposed to help ward off insects.

Ava added the finishing touch - our flower pinwheel - and then we waited to see what would happen.

Every week (sometimes twice a week because it was the hottest summer in St. Louis on record), we went to the garden to water and prune.  The girls loved helping out, especially with watering.  

Over the summer we met several of the other gardeners and were very surprised that they were just as clueless as we were!  I felt much better once I realized that the purpose of this community garden was not to compete for who had the best gardening techniques or who could grow the most veggies.  No one cared what you planted or how well it grew.  The purpose was just to get members of the community together and to interact in a fun way.

Much to our surprise, our garden grew (and grew and grew)!  Check out this progress:

May 16 - So much green!

May 16 - Our first sign of success, a tomato!

June 19 - The plants are taking over!

June 19 - Our first pepper was huge!

June 19 - Green tomatoes!

July 14 - Our big basil harvest

July 14 - Our big tomato harvest

I have to say, we were pretty impressed with ourselves.  I don't know about Tim, but I really didn't expect much from this garden given it was the first time either of us had attempted to grow anything.  Also, it really wasn't a lot of work, and the work was fun for the whole family.  

Not only did we manage to grow a lot of stuff, but it also tasted good.  We made a ton of pesto with all the basil we grew.  Did you know that pesto freezes really nicely?  We still have some pesto in the freezer today!  I also learned that homegrown tomatoes are SOOOOOOO much better than store-bought.  Despite the fact that I was super pregnant and having major acid reflux, we consumed every tomato we grew.  They were just too good to let go to waste.  Here are some recipes that I posted with the tomatoes and basil that we grew:

Baked Eggplant

Pesto Chicken Stuffed Shells

Caprese Salad with Basil Vinaigrette

Caprese Salad with Balsamic Reduction

Aside from these obvious benefits, we got so much more out of this experience.  It was fun and rewarding to garden together as a family.  It was nice that the girls wanted to help out and contribute to the success of the garden.  And it was really neat to know exactly where your food came from!  I hope that as the years go by, this garden will open up a whole new world of food for our kids.

I was reading an article in the St. Louis Children's Hospital magazine about gardening with kids.  The hospital uses horticulture as a form of therapy for some of the kids at the hospital.  They mentioned many benefits for kids including:

- bonding time with parents

- building self-esteem

- nutritional and environmental awareness

- opportunity to enjoy the outdoors

- instilling a sense of pride, ownership and responsibility

If you're community has a garden, that's a great way to start, but it's not necessary.  You can plant lots of things right in your backyard.  Buy a large flowerpot and let your child paint it.  Let your child decide what to plant so that they feel invested in the project.  Some ideas are flowers, grape tomatoes, pea pods or herbs.  Then help your child make some cute labels for your plants.

I also have a Gardening pin board on Pinterest with lots of useful gardening tips.  Click here for my pin board.

My girls have been asking us for months when we can go back to the garden.  We just got notice that we can start planting our garden this month!  I'll keep you posted on our progress!