What are they teaching our kids at school?!

At Julian's school, I know they talk a lot about nutrition and healthy food choices. They talk about go foods (things you can eat pretty much all the time), slow foods (things you can eat in moderation), and whoa foods (things you should eat very occasionally or sparingly). In theory, I'm good with this. I try to teach my kids how to choose wisely when they're eating, that fruits and vegetables are good and important for us to eat, and that it's not good for them to live on junk food or drink soda every single day. I want them to be strong and healthy, and I know a good diet is an important part of that. (I use the word "diet" here in the sense of what they eat, not in the sense of a restricted calorie eating plan. You shouldn't have to worry about that kind of diet when your oldest is just 8.)

But I wonder if perhaps this message isn't being taken a little bit too far at too young of an age. Julian has gotten very interested with looking at labels to see how much fat and sugar and calories something has, almost to the point of obsession. He seems to equate "sugar-free" and "zero calories" and "fat-free" with "healthy", not realizing that artificial sweeteners and whatever's put into the food to add flavor when the fat is taken out aren't necessarily any better for you than sugars and fats in moderation. (And not realizing that your body needs a certain amount of good fats to function properly.)

Take today, for instance. We went to the grocery store to get prescriptions filled, and while we waited, we picked up a few odds and ends. We were looking at the canned fruit, and I went to get a can of pears (something Julian normally likes, and something we're introducing to Rhys). Julian latched onto the can that said "made with Splenda" on the label, saying that he liked that one. I said no, let's get one made with pear juice, one that doesn't use artificial sweeteners. He just about threw a tantrum over those pears, insisting that the ones with Splenda were better because they had less sugar. I said, so you'd rather have one that uses fake sugar over one that uses the actual juice from the pear? He persisted in saying he would, because it has less calories. Later on, he saw a "sugar-free" label on something else and made a comment that that means it's healthy. Um, no, that doesn't necessarily follow. I'm trying to teach him that it's OK to eat things made with real sugar and real butter, just in moderation. If you want a cookie, have one made with real sugar instead of six that are sugar-free. If you want butter on your toast, have a little. I don't want him obsessing over calories and body image - not ever, and certainly not at 8 years old.

I know there are probably kids who hear the same things he hears at school and don't get the least bit hung up on it, and don't take to reading labels fanatically, but he's mine, and he is hung up on it, and he's the one I have to worry about. I may have to check to see just exactly what they're learning on this topic. Promoting good nutrition and offering healthier school lunches is one thing. Pushing some kind of agenda in the guise of good nutrition, if that's what's happening, would be something else entirely.

Our garden and other weekend fun

Yesterday was a big day. I needed to get a taillight and headlight replaced on my car, and I'd called the Kia dealership for an estimate, but the dealership is far away and our local Kwik Kar is, well, local. So we dropped the car off there. Not only did they have it fixed within the hour (before we finished running errands), but they also fixed both the headlight and the taillight for less than the price that the dealership had quoted me to repair just the headlight. I love it when things work out like that!

We ran up to Dallas to pick up some firewood (found it free on Craigslist - if you haven't gotten into the habit of checking out your local Craigslist, I highly recommend it, you can find a ton of good stuff for free or cheap if you just keep an eye out). Then we went to Home Depot to pick up the rest of our supplies for our square foot garden. By that time, it was lunchtime and we were hungry, so we went to Chapps Cafe for a hamburger. It looks to be largely a north Texas thing, but if you're ever in the area, it's worth finding one and giving it a try. I love Chapps - I give them full credit for convincing my son that there are better chicken strips to be had than Chicken McNuggets! LOL Any restaurant that he'll choose over McDonald's gets high marks from me, and they make a fine hamburger to boot.

After lunch, it was home to garden! Brian had already made our garden box and the square foot grid for it, so all he had to do was mix up our dirt, put it in the box, and then we were ready to plant.

Here's our box with dirt in it, waiting for good things to grow there:



Here's our box with plants and seeds:



We're growing two kinds of lettuces (Bibb and a salad mix), four kinds of peppers (mild jalapeno, hot garden salsa, orange bell, and Cubanelle), two kinds of tomatoes (Roma and Celebrity), yellow squash, zucchini, sugar snap peas, green beans, golden beets, onions (two squares), and cucumbers. I hope our little garden does well! Brian also got really motivated and built a compost bin yesterday.

And today we gave church a miss. Brian woke up running fever, with a head full of multicolored snot, and basically feeling like a train hit him. Bless his heart, he looks awful. I've been puny for the past few days, and I'm still not 100%, but I'm doing better at this point than he is. He's been sleeping for most of the day.

I think most of my problem is allergies. When Julian and I went out to the store this afternoon, I realized my car was just yellow from the pollen. Ugh. Only a month until I can take my Allegra, only a month until I can take my Allegra....

In other fun, Julian is out of his Vyvanse. He's happy as can be, but Lord have mercy, he's wearing me out. When we went to get a refill on Saturday, the pharmacist said he couldn't fill it due to errors on the prescription form and due to the date of the prescription being written incorrectly and then marked over to change it. We're hoping to pick up a new prescription on Monday and get it filled Monday evening, so Julian should be back on the Vyvanse by Tuesday. I'm just vexed that the doctor's office wrote the prescription out with errors, and vexed with myself for waiting until the last minute to get a new one, and vexed that this is a prescription that they just will not call in - we have to go by and pick up the written form every month. School should be interesting tomorrow. I just hope he doesn't have a completely rotten day, because if he does, it won't be like it's entirely bad behavior on his part. We'll see.

Earth mother

You know, I don't think I'm really suited for corporate America. I grew up in the country, and I like being outside when I've got something to do there. Now that I'm married to a man who also likes the outdoors, we're doing some more outdoorsy-type things. He's planted a couple of trees in the yard, a red oak and a fig, and we're watching them grow. I was out watering them today and it occurred to me that I'd be much happier if I weren't having to schlep to work in the big city, if I could do something from home and tend to our growing things (kids and trees alike). We're planting a garden this year, too, and that will be both food and science experiment - Julian is already excited about the prospect of watching our plants grow (although we'll see how excited he is when he gets to go out and pull weeds! LOL). I like to cook. I like to be outside when I get a chance. Why, then, can't I figure out some way that I could be home doing the things I like more often, instead of sitting behind a desk wishing nine hours of my life away every day?

In other news, I'm now 35 weeks and 1 day pregnant. My c-section has been moved to April 17, so I'll be able to make it to J's school program on April 16. This makes me happy. I didn't figure it would be a real good start to his relationship with his brother for me to have to tell him, "sorry, sweetie, I'll miss your program and art show because I'll be in the hospital bringing your brother into the world!" I know the time will come where he'll have to learn that mama will now be dividing time and attention between two boys instead of giving it all to just the one, but I didn't figure right off the bat was the time he *had* to learn that particular lesson.

I've been home sick the past couple of days. I don't know if it's a cold or a sinus infection - the doctor said it was too early to tell, and I can't really take much in the way of good meds, so I've just been drinking lots of fluids and trying to rest. Julian stayed home with me today, too. I figured we could both use a rest. Of course, the day we *could* sleep in, naturally he was awake at the crack of dawn, wanting to know when I was going to get out of bed. Still, it beats being at the office. I don't feel great just yet, but I guess I feel better than I did yesterday. I'm not perky, but I'm not sure if that's from the crud or just from being hugely pregnant.

He got it, he got it!!!!

And I was so excited, I forgot to post here. LOL Brian got the job at Methodist Home!!! I got the message off his voice mail yesterday, and as soon as I hung up, I was on the phone to his boss, telling him to get Brian on the phone ASAP. (His boss knew he was looking and why, and Brian told me to do that if he got a message, so it was OK. LOL ) John was able to get Brian on the radio, so he was able to call Methodist Home and call me in short order. He starts January 5! Woo hoo!!!!! So this is his next to last shift at Lone Star - he'll go back for one more before he starts on the 5th, unless they tell him not to worry about it. The benefits are really good, and the salary is a good bit above what Lone Star has been paying (it's almost as much as he'd be making if he were teaching, so pretty darn good), and that is SUCH a huge blessing. God is so good (as one of my online friends put it, He's an on-time God - this worked out in His time, not ours, and it's all good!). We're still going to be counting our pennies and being frugal, but this will help us so much in getting everything caught up and getting back on track. This is an answered prayer for sure, and the best Christmas present ever! And Brian's birthday is December 28, so I guess this is a pretty darn good birthday present for him, too!

In other good news, Julian continues his streak of stickers. Still only one note for the six weeks, with two weeks left (after the Christmas break)! I told him if he gets all stickers for the rest of the six weeks, we can definitely go to Game Stop and get a Wii game as a treat.

I feel some better, but my head is still stuffed full of snot. It would be such a refreshing change if I could breathe through my nose and get rid of the cough (which is dry and just annoying during the day, and all goopy at night - fun!).

But hey, it's Friday, the sun is out (finally!), and Brian has a new job starting soon - life is good!

Snork.

No word yet. No voice mail, no e-mail, nothing. Hate waiting. Hate it.

Snork. That's the sound my nose makes when I try to breathe through it. It just ain't happening. I started taking my antibiotic last night, and I took some of my lovely cough syrup. I slept decently, which helps, but my head just will.not.unclog. I hate breathing through my mouth. It makes me feel stupid, and it's hard to concentrate on anything when just breathing is an effort. And I don't know how this happens, but the snot migrates from one side to the other. Sometimes it just gets stuck in the middle, so that I can't come close to breathing out of either side of my nose. I need Roto-Rooter to come unclog my sinuses, please.

This morning got off to a rough start. I'd told Julian more than once to get dressed and eat his breakfast, so I wasn't real happy to get out of the shower and find him sitting on the couch, naked, with his clothes next to him, coloring, and his breakfast still untouched. So we had a throwdown over that that resulted in the TV being turned off and markers being put away, and he cried. Yeah, that makes me feel great, to start my day by making my kid cry. I told him that starting now, the very first thing we do when we get up is to get dressed, and he cried over that, saying he didn't want to do the boring stuff first. I told him that we do that first because mornings during the week are about getting to school and work on time, not playing or coloring or watching TV. He was fine by the time I dropped him off at school, and I told him that no matter what, I always love him, even if I don't love the way he's acting sometimes, but still. It wasn't a fun way to start the day.

It doesn't help that it's foggy and gray and chilly and drippy this morning. Traffic was miserable, so I was even later to work than I thought I'd be. And the bad thing (well, one of the bad things) about working in a cube farm with half walls is that there really is no sneaking in unnoticed. Let's hope the day improves from here, shall we?

I really wish I was home today

Wait, wait, wait. Waiting sucks. Brian e-mailed the interviewer to let her know he'd be available by phone until about noon today, and that I'd be checking his e-mail while he's in the field.

It's not icing here anymore, which is nice. Now it's just cold and wet, which isn't so nice. Blech.

I feel like crap. I was up and down all night with the hacking and coughing and nose-blowing, and my head is all clogged up. I called my doctor to see if he could call in some meds for me. If I don't sleep, I'm just useless. I was really wishing I had one sick day left this morning so I could stay home.

On the bright side, I got an e-mail from Julian's teacher this morning saying he was having a really good day. It makes me so happy to see stickers in his folder instead of notes, and to hear him asking me why reading is so easy instead of complaining that school is too hard and there's too much work.

Morning!

Well, fancy that. I ate a light dinner last night - yogurt and a piece of toast - and I slept all night, pain-free. I guess I'll keep that up for a while and see if it continues to help. I'll just have to make sure to eat a decent breakfast this morning, because I'm hungry. LOL

Apparently there's no big rush

And as luck would have it, my doctor is at a conference all week! As is his nurse! I talked to the nurse filling in for Jennifer and explained to her what was going on. She said there was a bug going around (if this is a bug, it's the strangest one I've ever seen, that only shows up at night), or that perhaps I should check with my lap-band surgeon. I told her that if there's one there at Baylor that Dr. Norwood has worked with, I'd prefer to see him, as my original surgeon is in Arlington, and it's a whole lotta driving from one doc in Arlington to one in Dallas back home to Midlothian. (Gee, I should have planned the logistics better five years ago, huh? LOL ) She said she can talk to my doc on Monday, and that if it gets to hurting too much, just to go see my surgeon. I said I would. I mentioned gall bladder as a possibility and she didn't seem to think much of it (although it does seem like it could fit, but I realize I'm no medical expert). So for now, I wait. Since the problems seem to be happening at night, I'm going to try eating a really light dinner and see if that makes a difference. It seems to me, thinking about it, that if it were a problem with my band, I'd have issues anytime I tried to eat normally, and not just at night. If eating less helps and I can get a good night's sleep, that will help.

Pain and regret

I feel awful. I started having stomach pains on Sunday night. Sunday night and Tuesday night, Phenergan helped and let me sleep. The stomach pain returned last night, and this time Phenergan didn't help. I barely slept, and I'm a raging grump today. The pain is upper abdominal, not lower abdominal like cramping or needing to go to the bathroom, so I worry that something has gone wrong with my lap-band. If that's the case, I don't know what will be done or what could be done, given that I'm pregnant. Curiously, though, the pain only flares up at night (and not every night - it gave Monday night a miss).

And because I felt bad, I was short-tempered with Julian this morning. I explained to him that I really didn't feel good and that's why I was crabby, but still. I feel bad about that. The overdramatic part of me worries, what if this pain is something that requires surgery and something goes horribly wrong, and the last thing Julian remembers me saying to him is fussing for not being ready to get out of the car when we got up to the drop-off point at school? I regret that I couldn't keep a better handle on myself and make my words to Julian this morning kind ones, pain and tiredness notwithstanding.

I just want to feel better, and for the baby and me to both be OK after whatever it takes to help me feel better.