Hello Again to the Two People Who Still Dare Check My Blog! :o)

I just made up the bed with fresh, clean sheets and got too comfortable under them to get up and do anything productive, so I decided to sit here and update my poor, lonely blog. :o)

Tonight, after we craftily coaxed our over-tired son out of the bath he didn't want to get into in the first place, I told Landon playtime was over and this is the conversation that ensued:

Landon: (puckered lips, low serious voice) You. Are. Not. My. Mom. Anymore. (I've been waiting for this "lovely" stage to commence!)

Me: Well, if I'm not your mom, who is going to be your new mom?

Landon: I'm not going to have a mom anymore

Me: Who's mom will I be then? (trying to look forlorn)

Landon: (ponders this a moment) Nobody.

Me: So, you're just going to have a Daddy now and that's it?

Landon: (ponders, looks slightly alarmed, then smiles): No, Mom! You're not going to disappear! You'll still be here...You just won't be my mom. I'm just putting you in time out for tonight and I'll let you out in the morning.


In other news :o)

I am supposed to be in Columbia, SC right now, visiting the in-laws for the Super Bowl (read: the equivalent of Christmas for the Pfaffls), but I didn't make it. The bags were packed into the back of the car and we were on our way, but decided to stop at Whole Foods Market to pick up some healthy snacks to take with us. I went down maybe two aisles and grabbed some produce on the fly, but nothing that would require much exertion and definitely nothing that should have caused any physical illness! Wouldn't you know it, I had a horrible fainting episode on the way out and thought for sure someone was going to have to scrape me off the floor! My heart was going crazy. My legs stopped working. I got so dizzy and nauseated that I couldn't focus my eyes on anything. Somehow, by the grace of God, I made it out to the car, came home, checked my blood sugar (85--good) and...well, you know the rest. After a struggle, I am now snuggled up in my warm bed with my laptop (aka: "pacifier"), blogging!

Not every day is this bad. I have "normal" ones, too. I put "normal" in quotes because I mean normal for the new me--not normal for what I was. I'm still not sure that I'll ever be "old-me-normal" again, but that's really okay. Right now the "new-me-normal" feels pretty fantastic!

We're making great strides with a diagnosis now. I feel like prayers are finally starting to be answered, but I find myself wishing I could hurry the process along (and worrying what they might find...) instead of trusting that God is in control. *sigh*

That's a tough one for me.

I have a new doctor who, if all continues to go well, will be "manning the ship" (as per the recommendation of my last ER doctor). He is an internal medicine specialist and (finally!) seems to be on the same page as me as far as which direction we should go with everything. He already performed and asthma test on me, sent me home with a blood pressure monitor for 24 hours, and set up a glucose tolerance test and a follow-up visit for me. He is patient, very up-to-date with his research on chronic and autoimmune diseases as far as I can see, and, best of all, he LISTENS...to EVERYTHING! He doesn't discount what I say. He doesn't tell me I read/research too much--He actually seemed happy with what I've learned. He is totally fine with all of the tests I am having run through my functional medicine "guy" and wants copies of every test we do! I feel like I've hit the jackpot with my doctors right now, which is nothing short of a miracle in and of itself....but I'm feeling like it's going to take another (bigger) miracle to sort through the mess that is my poor exhausted body and make it better...(Seeing a 78/44 blood pressure reading will bring on that kind of overwhelmed feeling).

If I'm looking for a miracle, I'm sure God would appreciate me carrying a little bit of my own weight around here...which means NOT staying up past 12:30 at night blogging when I should be sleeping--ha ha ha! So, I'm off to bed. I'll keep you posted!

Reflections

Have you ever had one of those moments in parenting where you feel like all of your hard work is really paying off? I have those moments when my mom offers Landon candy and he asks for carrots instead--or when he uses manners without being asked. A few nights ago, though, I had a different kind of moment with my son, one that showed me a reflection of myself and how I treat him. Andy had just given Landon a bath and we were going through the usual routine of brushing his teeth and putting his pajamas when he told us his rocking horse, "Spooky" was sleepy, too. We watched, in amazement as he went through our entire bedtime routine with his little wooden horse, sharing those "He's so cuuuuute!" looks when he wasn't watching us.


















He started by putting some of his own pajamas on Spooky. (Notice the socks on the horse's "feet"--We always put socks on Landon before we put him to bed.) After Spooky was dressed, he got his Thomas the Tank Engine musical toothbrush and brushed his horse's "teeth" for the full two minutes that the music played.


Then, we watched as Landon ran to the bathroom and came out with one of the Pooh rinse cups we use when we brush his teeth. He placed Spooky sideways on the floor and then put the cup to the horse's mouth. We asked him if he was rinsing Spooky's mouth and he told us he was giving Spooky milk! Landon put a pillow under the horse's head and lied down beside his buddy on the floor, petting him and kissing him and giving him milk. He took care to be very quiet and attentive and gentle--and I could see that even though he isn't yet two, he is very aware of our actions and reactions toward him and around him.


















Finally, after he thought his horse had had enough milk, he sat Spooky back up and covered every part of the rocking horse in blankets. We kept trying to help him by taking the blankets off of the horse's face (old habits die hard!), but he was adament that the horse's face MUST be covered in order to rest.

















It's good to have a reminder every once in a while that your child is a product of his surroundings. If he is yelled at or punished every time he moves a muscle, parents will see this reflected in his actions toward others. Likewise, if he is treated with love and patience and compassion, he will certainly grow to be a loving and compassionate and patient adult...(And don't we need more of those in this world!) It's amazing to me what a responsibility we parents have. We really do have the hardest and most significant job there is!

The Mom I Have Always Laughed At

I'm not sure when it happened. It might have happened the moment I first held my son in my arms...or maybe it happened little by little over time--but I have definitely become the mom I have always laughed at. How did this happen? I spent YEARS raising other people's children. I went to college to learn to teach elementary students. I read books on child-rearing and surfed the web. The mothers of the children I took care of even came to me for advice...and thinking I knew all there was to know, I gave it readily. Can you believe that? I was a young woman who had never had children--giving advice to REAL moms about their REAL children based on what I'd heard and seen and read. I hate people who do that to me now!! I didn't know then what I know now: You have to have a child before you know how to raise one. Even then, there is no cookie-cutter way to parent--and Not much room for advice-giving.
Back in the child-free days of baby-sitting of which I spoke, I remember telling the moms to practice the "Cry-It-Out" method. When they were away at work, I practiced it for them. "Be persistent," I'd say. "It'll eventually work." Would you believe that from day one with my son, we have been a co-sleeping family, happily nestling together in our family bed night-after night-after controversial night? Yes, it's true! I never saw it coming.
Would you also believe that even though I used to be uncomfortable just being in the presence of a breastfeeding mom--I am now the biggest "on-the-soap-box-breastfeeding-advocate" there is! I don't just talk the talk! I exclusively breastfed my son for almost the first year of his life, no bottles or pacifiers. He will be two in May and still happily breastfeeds at least once a day. We used to eat fast food on a fairly regular basis. Now that we have a son who eats pretty much what we do, not only do my husband and I not eat fast food, we try very hard to eat mostly natural and organic foods. We don't usually have anything with high fructose corn syrup or BHT in our house and try to avoid trans fatty acids.
And of course we cannot forget the vaccination issue! I never even thought for a moment to not vaccinate our child. I was vaccinated and so were all of my siblings, cousins, neighbors...(you get the point). All I knew was you have baby...vaccinate baby. Then I had a baby and that idea vanished with all of the others I had racked up pre-motherhood. The hospital gave our baby a Hepatitis B shot without our permission right after he was born, which sent my husband and I into major research mode. To make a long story short, we read just about everything we could find about the pros and cons of vaccinating and decided in the beginning to wait a few months to vaccinate our son. Months turned into a year and a year has become almost two.
To sum it all up, my little boy is an unvaccinated, breastfed toddler (movie theater scream here!!) who eats organically by day and sleeps with his parents every night. Let the comments roll! Join the ranks of disapproving voices that have surrounded us since May 22, 2005 and tell me how weird I am...because I am indeed the mom I have always laughed at. :o) I am passionate about being a parent! It has changed my whole existence the way everyone warned...but the part I didn't expect is: I don't mind one bit! And Strangely, I didn't have to practice to be who I am. I didn't learn how to be this way by studying a book or from an image on t.v. It just turns out this is who I am. I have lost friends since I had my son and the dynamic in our extended family has changed immensely. Even though it's been hard along the way, I have never been happier or felt more fulfilled than I do right now.
How I wish I hadn't been so quick to judge such loving, concerned mothers in the past! Eveything comes full circle in this life, doesn't it?