Now that BJ is two...

It really has been a while since I have posted anything. Work has been overwhelming and I had forgotten what daycare germs can do to the over health of a family! I thought I would update you on my little monkey BJ. I am also happy to say that 2011 is ending without anymore hospital visits!

I wish I could say that I was the super mom who potty trained her son by age 2, but that would be a lie so grand that my nose would be in danger of poking out someones eye! He does let me know when he has peepeed and poopooed, and of course, his favorite are "I toot" and "I burp." Which leads me to how much he is talking. He was moved ahead of schedule into the older kids classroom back in October, but that teacher apparently forgot that she got him two months early because his 45 day review was about how little he talks! Ok, he is not the precocious little two year old his sister was, she was completing compound sentences by aged two, but he is totally on track for a two year old boy! So, with a week off from work, I have been drilling him with his nouns and making him repeat after me. When he gets back to school in three days, he will be talking up a storm! He has moved up to three word sentences, thank you very much, I'll show you daycare teacher!

I also wish I could tell you that I have managed to get BJ and MM out of my bed, but that too would be a lie. I think that co-sleeping is okay for some and not okay for others. I find that with my children having been burned in April, the best kind of parenting I can do is make sure that my children feel safe and loved. With a husband away most evenings for his job, my children feel the safest with me at night, and to be honest, I feel safest with them too. I have watched the news this year with tears in my eyes as child after child has gone missing in the middle of the night or from some in attention of the parent. Maybe I feel like I have to be very careful with my children because a 10 second in attention in April meant third degree burns, but maybe it is just a normal thing for a mom to be so worried about her children that she wants them nearby whenever possible. The few times I have managed to get them into their beds, I was awake most of the night out of worry. Perhaps I am selfish, but there are more families who co-sleep in the world than not, and maybe that is going to be my norm for a while.

As far as personality, BJ's is really coming out. He has a sunshine smile and a cuddle-bug heart, but HE DOES NOT LIKE TO BE TOLD NO! He will try is smile, his "peassse, mommy" and if that does not work, he throws a temper tantrum. I can tell you that the Super Nanny would be hard pressed to change him. I described him once as "Sunny with a chance of showers if told no," now I would say "Sunny with a chance of a hurricane if told no." And stubborn! Oh my goodness, is he stubborn! But I can honestly say that both of his parents are stubborn, so he did not have a chance.

Well, thank you all for reading my blog and being patient with me for 2011. I plan to do a better job of blogging in the new year, but can not promise to do much better. As far as topic, well, I will still be random!

when your four year old is outsmarting you...

Let me begin by saying that I did manage to complete MM's dress. It took me a bit longer because I made too many mistakes, had to rip out whole sections and finally just hand stitched sections! I learned a lot about my abilities and feel better about the next one I am going to attempt. I watched some videos on how to make a pillowcase dress and will attempt it but not using a pillowcase but some fabric that I already had. I will only need to buy some ribbon and some thread because I have everything else. I have a pattern for pockets and will use it because my daughter thinks that pockets are necessary in all of her clothes.

I have listed comments that MM has made in the past, but as she gets a little older and more education, she is getter better and better; here a few:

1. I was working on cleaning out my office (still not there yet) this weekend and MM came into the room, looked around, put her hands on her hips, nodded her head and tells me, "Mommy, you are doing a good job, it looks much better in here, keep up the good work!" and then walked out.

2. After trying on the dress that I made, she noticed a thread that I missed trimming and informed me that it was coming "unsewn" and that I needed to concentrate better when I make her the next dress.

3. MM said that I would need to hurry up and start working on a dinosaur costume for BJ since I only had a few weeks before they "hit the street." She then went upstairs to my closet and practiced knocking on doors and saying "Trick or Treat!" (She has only gone trick or treating once)

4. After playing with her brother for about two hours, she sat down, and said,"Wow, I have been helping brother all day! I deserve a break, it is your turn now mommy."

5. My parents go to Florida in the winter, coming back home for the winter holidays, and then going back at the beginning of January. I told MM that they would be coming home for the holidays. MM asked if they would be back in a few weeks and when I told her that it was too soon, that she had to wait until the holidays, she responded, "Well, Halloween is a holiday!"

*** Please note, MM is very sweet and helpful, but she comes up with some real zingers sometimes. When they are terrible (like her new rhyming game, duck, truck, stuck, f&#%, thank you truck driver daddy!), I have a conversation with her, but sometimes I giggle privately. ***

Finding balance

I got paid today. In a matter of ten minutes, I spent all of it. Not on anything really, just daycare, bills and groceries. No longer am I supporting the economy in any meaningful way. I am just paying bills and buying groceries. I also got gas for the van which was just in the nick of time because my 18 gallon vehicle took 17.999 gallons!

When I was without family obligations, I thought that the only thing I really needed was to be able to pay my bills. I did not know that I needed more than that. I sometimes wish I could go back in time and slap myself around! If only I knew what a waste some of those things were! The one thing I will never, never, never regret is anything I did and bought in England. If I had the money now, I would go there to see my friends, especially my friend who is expecting twins after years of infertility.

Last week I got some fabric to make a dress for MM. She loves dresses and most of them cost nearly $20, so I got a pattern when the local fabric store had a super sale on patterns- 99 cents when they are normally $15. So, I got a coupon in the mail for 20% and fabric was on sale for 30% which meant that I would save 50% on the fabric and 20% on everything else. I worked all last weekend (ok not all but it felt like it!) on cutting the pattern and navigating the directions. It has been close to 10 years since I sewed anything,  I really was trying to remember what to do (and ripping out mistakes!). I did not get in done for Monday, but MM thought I should have it done. When she wanted to wear it to school on Monday, and it was not done, she said, "You are not done yet? But you had all weekend!" Such a taskmaster!

I am going to finish the last bits this weekend and I have decided to also make a pillowcase dress for her as well. I figured I could satisfy her dress obsession for pennies on the dollar if I made them myself. I even have some ribbon that I bought years ago to do crafts and now I can use it to decorate dresses! I only wish that I could do the same for BJ, nothing is as easy as dresses for boys! I have been watching YouTube videos to get all the secrets to completing the dresses; now I need to find plain long sleeved white shirts to put under them.

My next adventure is to make her a Cinderella/Rapunzel/Princess and the Frog dress for her to wear for Halloween!

Funny how things that were important before are no longer important.

Making the best of it

I am nearly a month into the new schedule with the children in daycare. It has been a challenge. I have tried to be creative with food because I am reduced to $30 a week for food. When I say that, I mean food. There is no way I can do that with diapers, wipes and clothing. Having said that, I have relied on hand-me-downs from some of my friends and sales in which I found clothing for $3 a piece. I also changed my car insurance to save $77 a month. I am looking to change my homeowner's insurance too, but need to find out what my fire rating is. If I can get my fire rating down (related to the fire department's rating) I can also save $300 a year on homeowners.

But above all other ways to cut spending, I seriously shop around sales and with coupons. Unless I do not have a choice, if it is not on sale and I don't have a coupon, then I do not get it. Of course having to buy gluten free makes things a little more challenging and I still buy produce, but I really try to hold the line on those items. Diapers and wipes are the ones that can be sneaky; I have had to buy diapers without a coupon, but recently bought diapers but got a $7 Catalina, so it was like having a coupon.

For those who know me, I am known as a bit of a spendthrift. I used to fill some emotional voids in my life by buying things. For the most part, I was not even buying for me but buying for others. I liked to be the one who bought the best gift; I still do, but now I am trying to be more selective. Buying gifts now are not about biggest and best, but personal and more thoughtful. For example, I made blueberry jam this summer and I gave it to others as a gift. This holiday season I plan to make gift jars for teas, coffees and snacks. Each item is not expensive by itself, but is time consuming to create and I believe that those who receive them like them and appreciate the gift. Or, they are being kind and like collecting mason jars!

I am a list maker. I have seen lists for 100 things to do rather than drugs or eating while on a diet or any number of things. I thought I would create a list of things to do rather than go shopping.

1. clip coupons, because even you break down and go shopping, you at least have coupons now
2. clean your bathroom. If you have a husband or other males living in your house, you understand why this could be laborious and sap your desire to go shopping after it is completed
3.bake, sometimes the reason I would want to shop was because I was hungry for something I did not have in the house
4. weed around the garden. I need to be active, so weeding takes the focus from my mind and puts it into a more physical activity
5. organize something. I still need to organize my office, so I have told myself that until that room gets cleaned, there is no shopping. Of course, even if I organize it, I still will not go shopping but in the past I rewarded myself by going shopping, now I will change it to another thing to organize. This way my house will get organized and I will not have added anything new to further disorganize it!

I hope that by living this year more frugally I will cure myself of wasteful spending and be a more thoughtful person.

Remembering 9/11/01

When I think back to my life before 9/11/01, I can not believe how many changes have occurred. Many of those changes are for the better; some not so much, but I feel that I needed to record this time for later reflection.

I have a friend in England who had seen her parents board a flight bound for the US on the 10th. Her parents, unbeknownst to her, had changed their plans at the last minute, and decided to visit my parents first, rather than New York City. They were planning on staying at a hotel next to the World Trade Center. They decided to visit Maryland first; a move that saved their lives. They got to spend a month in the US not doing any of their planned activities, but they got to experience the US being nicer than at any other time in recent history.

On that morning, I was getting ready to go to work. I had a different teaching position than I do now, and did not have to go to work until noon. My mom called me and told me to turn on the TV. I asked her which channel and she said that it did not matter. I sat on the phone while watching TV when the second plane hit and when the Pentagon was struck. I remember them saying that they thought it was a bomb, that they did not think it was a plane. I also remember going into school early to help as many of our students have relatives in New York. I had also worked a summer program in which we had done a field trip to New York and had gone to the World Trade Center three weeks before. Those students came up to me and asked if that is where we had been and what we would have done if we had been there when the attacks happened. I had told them that we would have been alright, but I am not sure that we would have been. All I can think about is that I would have been responsible for getting them safely out of New York under terrible conditions. Then I think "Thank God we did not have to go through that." But, with time passing, I cry thinking about all those innocent lives that were lost. It is a kind of survivor's guilt.

The days and weeks that followed were just a blur, but I remember thinking that it was wonderful that we had stopped being so materialistic and egocentric and started caring about others. It reminded me of the reaction small communities have to tragedy, but this was nationally. We were nationalistic without being obnoxious; we were proud to be American. How long did it last?

Since that time, I have become a tenured teacher to International students, ended a relationship that had only just begun a year before that time, been a mom to an exchange student, been diagnosed with Celiac, gotten married, had two babies, sold a house and bought another. Evidence that life does move on even when it is hard to believe it can.

Please do not think that I have been the nicest person that I could have been. I am guilty of mean and thoughtless comments. I am guilty of making snap judgements based on appearances alone. I am guilty of not treating others with respect and dignity at all times. I am guilty of yelling at my children in frustration instead of stopping to take a breathe or even counting to 10.

Maybe on this day of remembrance that is what I need to do- make a commitment to be a better person. Not just because it is close to the new year, but because Gandhi once said that we should be the change we want to see. Before being guilty of treating others poorly, before snapping at others when I am having a bad day, I need to remember those days following 9/11/01 in which we all tried a little harder to be a little nicer. Maybe we need to make it a daily commitment. How many of us try a diet, cheat and then throw the diet out over a small digression? Let us all try to make each day count, not just for ourselves, but for others.

What I have been doing for two months...

I apologize for being away for two months, but I have been working on curriculum for the new school year and helping with the summer school programs. I have been so busy with school and sitting in front of a computer screen reading ebooks and websites, that I just did not have the desire to type on my blog. I know it is selfish, but I promise that I will do better now that I am gearing up for school.

Short update on children:

MM is 4 years old, 3 ft 2 in, 34 lbs and ready to start pre-K in a few weeks.
BJ is 20 mos, 2ft 8in, 27 lbs and ready to start his daycare program too.

I still have not figured out how I am going to pay for daycare, but I am happy with my choice. The CAP program is a four star program and they will accommodate my children's gluten free needs. I was able to get a discount, but will still be paying $300 a week. I have decided to make this a challenge for myself. I need to lose a little bit of weight, but I am committed to feeding this family of four on $25 a week. So I am going to refocus my blog on my attempts (and failures) at paying all the bills and feeding everyone. Part of this challenge is because the federal government bases its poverty rate on what it takes to feed a family of four instead of housing. Not very realistic. So, I have been clipping coupons, making blueberry jam, looking for the buy ones and trying out recipes that can be made cheaply. Will let you know how I do. Will be making tomato jam next (getting tomatoes from my mom and dad's garden since mine did not do well).

Here I go...

At the end of the school year

I am at the end of another school year. As usual, this one had its ups and downs. I am always a tad melancholy at the end of the year because I must say good-bye to some of my favorite students. Of course it also means that I get to say good-bye to a few of my not so favorite students too. This school year's ending is particularly sad because of the furloughing of so many teachers and the retirement of others. I wish that those who are making policies were not so keen on undermining public education, but sadly the current state of the nation is to blame teachers for all the problems of the world. I so wish I could just shut my door to my classroom and ignore what is happening outside it, but I can not. So instead, I thought I would make another list, but this one will be about some of the joys of this year.

1. I want to start with the high number of my students who made it to graduation. Not only did they make it, but many of them graduated with honors. As their English teacher, I also helped them with college applications and scholarship essays. Everyone who wanted to go to college was accepted; I was as proud as any parent would be.
2. The fantastic final projects completed by my students. They did fantastic PowerPoint presentations, adding music, photos, maps and diagrams. They had to present their projects to their classmates and had to prove they were active listeners by evaluating each speaker and themselves as listeners.
3. The well written essays by my students who do not speak English as their native language.
4. The chance to teach summer school this year, enabling me to help some of my challenged students be successful after a brief hiccup in their education.
5. Being invited to another Quincenera (coming of age party for Latina girls at age 15) by a student whose brother and sister were previously in my class. (I guess I am family now!)
6. Having students who were previously in my class come back to my classes to tell my current students that everything that I have them do is important, that having experienced my high standards made the difference between passing or failing a class in college!
7. The coming together for a wonderful Thanksgiving meal in November that brought so many cultures together for a common meal that it was like the UN sitting down for a meal.
8. Being invited to the weddings of former students who remembered me fondly enough to include me at a special moment in their lives.
9. My coffee buddies on my floor who always had a positive thing to say to one another, even as changes occurred at our school that made each day more challenging than necessary. One had to have surgery related to her recent struggle with breast cancer and while she was out recovering, her position was changed from the high school to elementary school.
10. The teachers on my floor challenging each other to a dance Wii game and the 7 month pregnant teacher kicking everyones' butt on the last teacher work day.

I am going to hold onto those fond memories for the coming years as I am sure that we will have many more challenges ahead.

Simple pleasures

I want to be more aware of the simple pleasures in life so that I do not forget to live a little each day. It is too easy to focus on the day to day grind and forget what life offers. I find that if I make lists, I am able to focus my thoughts and I accomplish more. I am still unorganized, but I have a sense of accomplishment because I tackled even a few items on my list. This list is different: I do not have to do anything, just stop and enjoy a moment. My simple pleasures list (not in order of importance):

1. The snuggling hug of a sleeping baby.
2. The sloppy wet kisses of a four year old after she has had a drink.
3. Playing tickle monster with the children.
4. Having a mother and father alive and willing to be a part of my life.
5. Sisters who drive me crazy but have my back.
6. A husband who is secretly a teddy bear, but tries to hide behind a grouchy bear fascade
7. My morning cup of coffee
8. My friends who following my ramblings on facebook and this blog!
9. My students, present and past, even when they are trying to get on my last nerve (OK, there are a few who were not a pleasure, but only a few)
10. Flowers in my garden
11. Friends
12. The discovery of Udi's gluten free bagels (they rock!)
13. Finding an item on sale and having a coupon too!
14. Having the time to read a book
15. Having the time to take a shower and shave my legs!
16. Hugs
17. Massages (this is more wishful thinking since it has been over a year, I still have A Therapeutic Effect's phone number in my cell phone for when I have chance to have one)
18. My faith in God
19. Classical music, especially cello concertos
20. Singing silly children's songs at the top of my lungs, sometimes without the children in the car! ;P
21. The memories of my travels and the adventures I have had
22. Doing the boogie woogie (complete with shoulder rolls and shaking my tush) while shopping with my son in the grocery store. My husband thinks people will believe I am drunk.
23. Listening to my son "sing" Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
24. Listening to my daughter actually sing Twinkle Twinkle Little Star
25. Having my daughter tell me that she loves her family

Now, if each of us made a list like this, when we were having a bad day, we could just look at it and smile. Smiles are free and internationally understood. Full bodied smiles are the best.

To begin again...

Now that I am 40, I think I will start acting like I am an adult. Don't get me wrong, I know that I do not act like a teen, but I know I am not like most 40 year olds. I started off the "new me" by wearing a very professional, yet cool since it was already 80 degrees this morning, outfit to school plus make-up and jewelry. The immediate reaction of my students was that I was going to have a meeting with someone today because although I dress appropriately for work, I rarely put make-up on and jewelry. My students were hilarious in their reaction! One student said that I "look different today, pretty." I think that was a compliment.

Anywho, now that I am 40, I will need to make a list of things I will try to do so that others will know I am an adult:

1. Stop chewing my nails! I am really bad about this. If I do not get a fingernail file within 3 seconds of damaging a nail, I chew on it! I also chew on my nails when I am nervous. My daughter also chews on her nails. I need to stop to encourage her to stop, so I am going paint her nails in the super pink/red nail polish that she picked out to try to keep her from chewing. Hey, maybe I will paint my nails too, that will really traumatize my students!
2. Be more organized. I know this has been said before on this blog, but I really, really mean it this time! My office is a nightmare, it needs to be cleaned out as it is the last place in my house that is truly, without a doubt, a disaster. Those who know me will say, "Yup, never look in the office, it will always be a wreck!" Part of the problem is that I just throw things in there to get it out of the way whenever people come over so it looks terrible seconds after I clean it up. Of course, now I am afraid to go to Ikea to get furniture after the last time I got something, I ended in the burn unit with BJ for 4 days. (Ok, it was not Ikea's fault, it was the coffee, but the anti-organized demon who lives in my house seems to get angry everytime I attempt to organize.)
3. Get my yard into order. Since moving to our house nearly two years ago, we have not done much to the outside. I convinced Andy to get mulch this year because we had not done it at all last year and the previous owners had only done about 1/2 an inch to make it look good. We have made much progress on removing about 25 truckloads of junk from the backyard (the previous owners used the space under the pine trees to throw junk, something we did not see until after the sale!) and we need to complete the weeding in the back garden. If I work on it daily, I should be able to get the back yard under control in about a week and a half.
4. Plant a vegetable garden. I say I am going to do this and MM really is excited about doing this, but the weather has not been in our favor and so I have not gotten around to doing it. I really, really plan to do it this weekend, hopefully with the sudden temperature spike, we will have the necessary temperatures to at least plant tomatoes!
5. Make a budget and stick to it. This is it, I have to find a way to squeeze the nickel until it moos (old expression dating back to when the nickel had a picture of a buffalo on it, mooooo). As I stated, I have to find a way to pay for $313.40 a week for preschool/ daycare for the children. This coming school year is going to be really hard, but if I use the summer to carefully coupon, stock up and garden, I will be able to live on what we have. I just wish there was a way to stock up on cheap gasoline!
6. Related to the garden, I have an orchard one mile from my house. When the fruit is in season, I need to go pick it and then freeze it. My mom has one of those sealing machines, so I figure I can borrow it and vacuum seal fruit so I am not buying fruit out of season and paying a higher price for it.
7. Plan my meals out. I saw a woman who planned out her family's meals for the whole year therefore there was never a time that they did not know what was for dinner. They saved loads of money this way because they knew in advance what they needed to have and could stockpile items when they went on sale. Which leads me to the next item:
8. I am addicted to the new show on TLC called Extreme Couponing. I know that I will never be as good as one of them, but I am going to try to use some of their techniques to create a stockpile of things when I find them on sale. I was recently able to buy toothpaste for 50 cents a tube, which was great because the type I use is normally $3.00. The best I have done so far has been to save $42.50 on an order that would have been $120.00; I then used $42.00 to fill up the car. Not too bad, for me.

I am not sure it others will see me as an adult because I have done the above, but I feel like I will be more of an adult if I do them. The coming school year is going to be a challenge, so I need to use my "free" time this summer to get as much into place as possible whether or not others will believe me to be more mature and responsible. I still need to find a job this summer, but if I do not, all the above will help me get things in order to hopefully make it to December. Yeah, adulthood! ;P

Thoughts on turning 40

I have been off line lately. I have been very busy with the children, teaching and just living. I have been so busy lately that most of this month zipped by and I did not realize how late in the month it really was. I find it hard to believe that the school year is winding down and that my daughter is four years old (MM turned four on the 14th!). Even more surprising is that I am about to turn 40. I am not sure how I feel about that. I remember how hard it was for my mom, and I can honestly say it does not bother me in that way, but I have mixed feelings about it being a milestone.

When I was younger, I thought that I would have more wisdom, be less prone to mistakes, and generally have a better handle on my life. How wrong I was. I still make the same stupid decisions that I did when I was younger and still make mistakes. Shouldn't there be an age limit for stupidity? I know that I have not become less klutzy, there really needs to be an age limit on that!

Some truths about myself as I reach this "milestone:"

1. I will never make the mother of the year. I really thought it would be great to make the mother of the month, but even that seems out of reach. The local newspaper runs a mom magazine/insert once a month and the women that make it as mother of the month are too chipper, so capable and so much not like me that I figure if I can not even get into the final 100 let alone the top 5!
2. I will never weigh what I weighed when I was in high school. I thought I was fat back then, so looking in the mirror now is a real horror. So I decided to not care that I will never reach that perfect number. Instead I have decided to make sure I never wear a size 20 or higher. That sounds more reasonable. So if I do get down to a size 12 (which is as low as I ever really was) I will be pleased but not too concerned. I was in a room a teachers yesterday who were obsessed with their weight. They were talking about how they are so careful about what they eat, they never touch this or that and must, must fit into a particular size or they would simply die. I thought to myself: "So, I can become so consumed by a number on a scale that I stop living or I can try to be the healthiest I can be and still live. I choose life."
3. I really wanted to go whale watching for my 40th. Bummer. No extra money anytime in the near future. Will have to put that off until I am 45 when BJ is no longer in daycare.
4. I still want to win the lottery, but still do not play. Have not figured out how to get the first part and the second part to agree with each other.
5. I am tired of all the stress that I have been feeling over my job. I love my students and what I do, I just do not like the working environment we are in right now and it will not be changing anytime soon because somehow PA thinks that cutting education funding will be a good, sound long term investment in its future. My heart aches when I think about all the vital programming my district is cutting because of the lack of money from the state.
6. I am looking forward to spending time with my children this summer, but really need to work a summer job so that I can afford daycare next year. The current quote is $313.40 a week. I have figured out that if I can work at summer school, I will make enough money to cover the first three months, but then need to figure out how to come up with the rest of the money.
7. I will never go through a mid-life crisis because I am so far behind, I will never die!

April was the worst month ever!

I'm sorry that I have not been able to write for the entire month, but once I describe my month you will surely understand.

It all began with the weekend of the 1st. Andy decided to go to the mountains to make sure the family cabin was okay since it has been since December since anyone was there. It is a basic place, but needs maintenance. I decided to go to IKEA to get a corner cabinet so that we could put the heavy, older model TV on it instead of the table it was on. BJ had been working on rocking the TV table so much that I was worried that he would pull it over on him. My exchange student's husband (another story!) came over to put it together for me on Sunday morning so that when Andy got home, it was done. Marco put it together and moved the TV onto the new corner unit. It was great! Marco worked cheaply too, just for several cups of coffee.

Which leads me now to how horrible a pot of coffee can be...

Before Marco left, I made a fresh pot of coffee since we had finished the first one. However, Marco was running late, so he declined another cup. I decided to make scrambled eggs for the children after Marco left. So, while I was making the eggs, MM was behind me on a stool, across the kitchen, playing kitchen. She was there to keep her away from the hot stove top. Unfortunately, she was near the pot of coffee, though it was still about two feet away from her. I put the eggs onto a plate, went into the dining room, walked back into the kitchen when I heard the scream. BJ had climbed up onto the stool behind MM, had reached across the countertop, grabbed the pot of coffee, and spilled it all over himself and his sister. I do not remember seeing him on the stool before going to the dining room (10 feet away), but he must have been there. I pulled BJ down from the stool, stripped his clothing, stripped MM's clothing and took them upstairs to the bathtub. I ran cold water on them, using a cup to pour it on BJ while the tub filled. They were screaming and crying and shaking, and so was I. I called my sister who is an EMT and then called 911.

The police officer was the first to arrive. The paramedics arrived moments later. Because BJ's burns were so bad, they called in a helicopter to transport him. MM was not as bad so she could be transported by an ambulance. It took four adults to hold BJ down so that he could be given morphine. The inflight nurse made the call that BJ could be taken to the local hospital so that I could ride from the hospital to the Crozer-Chester burn unit in the ambulance with him. Andy luckily had decided to come home early so when he got the text (I thought he was still in the mountains which has terrible phone service), he called. I was hysterical so handed the phone to the police officer. Some how, Andy, who was 14 miles further away from the hospital than I was, got to the hospital before the ambulance carrying MM got there! Once the helicopter arrived, Lancaster General did triage. It took them over 15 attempts to get an IV into him because he was in shock. MM meanwhile was given a shot for the pain, was wrapped up and watching Disney. My oldest sister, Cheri, came up from Maryland with her husband to take care of MM so that Andy and I could go to Crozer-Chester with BJ.

I stayed at the Burn Center from Sunday until Wednesday with BJ. He had a combination of third degree and deep second degree burns on 7% of his body. The worst was his left hand which was where the third degree was. After the first night, he would not sleep unless I was holding him. I figured it was the least I could do to hold him whenever he needed me to hold him. Each day they had to undress the wounds, clean them and redress them. He was in loads of pain and miserable because he was not allowed to run around. Once he was cleared to leave, he has had to go back each week to have his wound redressed. There is a special material used by the burn unit that is amazing. It helps the healing process and allows the burns to be covered for a week at a time. MM was also taken to Crozer's outpatient burn unit for her wounds.

MM is now making a full recovery. We will have to keep her right thigh and upper calf covered whenever she is out in the sun for a year, but her burn looks amazing. BJ's tummy looks super as well. To date, his left arm is healing well, but his left hand is still in dressings. We are hopeful that he will make a full recovery. For some perspective: had the same burns been done to me, I would still be in the hospital on my third operation. Youth was on there side.

Special thanks goes to my sister Cheri who cleaned my house for me while I was in the hospital. Believe me when I say it was a huge undertaking.

The burn unit had the following advice:

DO NOT LET YOUR CHILDREN IN THE KITCHEN TO HELP UNTIL THEY ARE AT LEAST TEN!

If I never have a MRI again...

Okay, it occurred to me that I have been out of contact for the month of March. This can be easily explained: I fell again. Yes, I am a Klutz. Apparently I passed this gene onto my children because both of my children also took tumbles down the stairs. BJ ripped down a baby gate to fall, but thankfully he was only bruised with a minor concussion. MM was goofing around getting her PJs on near the top of the stairs and slipped down the steps a week before.

So let me set the scene:

MM has already fallen down the upstairs steps making me nervous about the baby climbing them all the time because when she fell, BJ was about three steps up when she came down, so she brought him down too. I went out and got two baby gates to try to prevent BJ from getting up the steps. So, I had a gate on the stairs going up and the stairs going down to the basement when I fell.

The day I fell, I had finally gone to the doctors to have my shoulder looked at from the fall I took last year;  he ordered xrays. I got those xrays done, went to the store for a few groceries and headed home. I asked Andy to move the baby gate from the stairs going to the basement so that I could carry some things to the freezer in the basement. I took one step and went down the entire flight of stairs. Soooo, I had to go back to get more xrays because the ones I just had done (seriously, like 2 hours before) were no longer going to cut it.

I went my merry way, waiting for the next procedure to find out what I had done to my neck and shoulder during the fall. However, I was not allowed to only add three new gray hairs from my fall, my son decided that I needed about 300 more. Three days after my less than graceful descent to the basement, BJ decided to rip down the baby gate and went head over heels down the steps. Andy called me while I was at work and I met him at urgent care. I am sure the attendants were wondering what was going on at my house since they remembered seeing me the Monday before. In fact, one of my students said that the police were going to show up at my house and question us about all the accidents; a similar comment was made by one of my co-workers. Luckily, we had no visits. Seriously, how can you defend against someone thinking that? To say that I am scared of going into my basement or having BJ any where near those steps is an understatement.

Anyway, after I got the new xrays, I had a nerve conductivity test done to make sure the pain I was experiencing was not the nerve in my neck being pinched. Thankfully it is not the nerve, but the doctor informed me that I will need to have carpal tunnel surgery in my future. He recommended a brace for my left hand, and it has helped. I have been using a brace and sling off and on since Feb. 21st because my left side has been uncomfortable and that combo makes the pain less noticeable. The hard core pain killers the doctor prescribed made me extremely ill, so I now know I do not have to worry about becoming addicted to pain killers; there goes my bid to be on a reality show!

After two weeks, I was finally given the ok by my insurance to have an MRI so they could see what muscular damage I could have done. Which leads me to the MRI. If you have had one, you will understand what I am about to describe. I had to lay still in a strange position and then go into a tube in which I was so confined that when I breathed, I could feel my breath on my face after it hit the tube's roof just over my face. I had to stop the process half way through because my back started to spasm from the odd position I was in; that and the increased feeling of claustrophobic. I repositioned myself, put a washcloth over my eyes, put my right arm over my head, and persevered for another 20 minutes. Did I mention the machine made a noise that is best described as a jackhammer? Doesn't that sound like a fun time?

"Hey, what did you do at 6:45 am on a Saturday?"
" I voluntarily laid in a crazy position, got stuffed into a tube and listened to a jackhammer for 45 minutes."

Good times.

Ode to Organization

The recent illnesses with my family helped to spure me to organizing my home a bit better and cleaning along the way. I was able to clean the house from top to bottom, not each room, but the house's rooms. I still have a long way to go with my office because it has long been a dumping ground, but I made headway this weekend. So, this blog is about what I did to try to stay organized and how it did not last a week!

When we bought the house, I knew I was in trouble because I had so much more space than I had with my old house that I knew I would begin loading it up like a hoarder. More so because I spent a year feeling out of sorts over giving birth and recovering from a fall. Things piled up. I also got behind in the sorting of children's clothing because unlike his sister, MM, BJ has roared through sizes. With MM, if she was 3 months old, that is what is was wearing. With BJ, I think he skipped sizes. He is 14 months old and wearing 18 to 24 month old clothing. More for his tops, his little legs are still 9 months! Anyway, this has led to a problem with clothing. I have had to sort through so much laundry to cull the clothing that just does not fit any longer. For MM, I have finally gotten rid of some 2T clothing that she adored but was reminding me of Daisy Duke in fit. For BJ, I was going through three bags of hand-me-downs to discover that although he should have been able to wear them due to age and season, there was no way Shammu was fitting them. Don't get me wrong, my son is not fat, he is just built like a line backer and is only six inches shorter than his sister who is two and a half years older. Long story short, I took pictures of the rooms to remind me of what organized, cleaned rooms looked like because two days later, they were a mess again.

After getting the clothes sorted, I decided to clean the bathroom. I went through the linen closet and made sure that all the partial bottles of soap and shampoo were used to fill up the shower soap dispenser and got rid of unnecessary packaging that took up room. I refolded the towels so that they were neater and found my baskets to put washclothes and toiletry items into. I scrubbed the shower, sink, toilet and floor. I sanitzed the toddler potty that MM uses when she needs to go poo-poo (something about the big potty and poo-poo does not work) and made sure the toilet paper was stocked. It lasted three days.

My room was the next thing to be tackled. I have a bedroom that is the same size of the three bedrooms of my old house. It is too big. So I decided to make a reading nook out of one part for when I will have time to read again, sometime in the next five years or so. I have a desk, two chairs and a bookcase. It is very nice. I think I will want to get an area rug to further define the space, but since I will not be using it anytime soon, it can wait. My husband thinks I am insane, but I like it. But part of the deal is that I am going to make sure that all the laundry is put away each time he brings up a basket. You see, he will do the laundry as in wash and dry it, but I have to fold it and put it away. So you can well imagine what my room looks like by the end of the week. So, I am trying to make sure that my reading area stays clear of laundry, but by the end of the week, I had already failed.

Moving now to the main floor where we do most of the living. I organized the cupboards, and I scrubbed the floor in the kitchen and bathroom. I wiped down cabinetry and scrubbed countertops. I used Comet on the sinks. The bathroom still looked good a week later, but the kitchen did not even make it a day. There is something about the dishwasher that makes my husband uncomfortable. He does not like putting dishes into it. Maybe it is a man thing, but he will put dishes away once they are clean, but he cringes at the thought of putting dirty dishes in, so my kitchen looks a mess within seconds of me cleaning it. I almost feel like it is a lost cause, but then I watch Hoarders and I renew my efforts.

The living room is just that, the living room. We spend so much time there that it is only cleaned up when the kids go to bed and sometimes not even then. I have a no shoes policy for the house, yet somehow it always looks like I need to vacuum due to the debris trekked into the house. Of course, we have a fireplace that is in almost constant use, so that helps, but beyond that, there is always cereal, piece of GF bread, and the odd stain on the floor. When BJ is in kindergarten, I think I will be able to get new flooring for that room. I want hardwood because of the ease of cleaning, but my husband wants carpet. We shall see who wins.

The playroom is a mess. Until I do not have small children, I think the best I can do is vacuum once a week. I am not going to discuss the office further, it is a black hole.

So when will it stay organized so I do not have to do it all over again each week?

Flu season and other ailments

The flu season hit our home particularly hard this year. Although my husband and I dutifully got our flu shots and made sure that our children got both of theirs, there was a bug that did not think a flu shot meant much. To add to the fun, my son thought "Who needs the flu when there is Scarlet Fever?"

My parents were still north when I got the flu. I had to have my husband come to school to pick me up because I was running a temp, looked like a ghost and nearly passed out in the bathroom! I went home to "enjoy" a four hour nap in between trips to the bathroom. I felt better by the next day so I went back to school but needed frequent visits to the loo. I continued to feel run down for about two weeks, barely ate a solid meal for 10 days, and didn't stop having the bathroom as my BFF until a week later. Did I lose weight? Heck no! I gained two pounds! At the same time I was feeling run over, my mother texted me to tell me that MM's over night trip to Mom Mom's house was a vomiting good time! So she kept her for another day so I did not have to deal with it as well.

Andy waited ten days after MM and I were ill to start being ill. He went to bed early because his stomach felt off, got up and ate a little, and went to bed again before finally getting up so that he could pray to the porcelain goddess for nearly five hours. He is diabetic so I had to be extra careful with him. Mom Mom came up to get MM so that I only had BJ and Andy to deal with. Andy was so ill that he called out from work (rarely does) and had me call his boss (never done before) because he was too sick to talk.

BJ waited until I had a chronic, acute sinus infection to lay on the Scarlet Fever. He ran a temp of 102.2 from Wednesday to the middle of the night Saturday. He was covered in little bumps and his throat was so sore that he refused to eat. We had to force fluids into him. After he began feeling better on Saturday, his rash changed, so I took him to Urgent Care. The doctor said that it was a viral infection. That went away and for the last few days of antibiotics, he decided to be allergic to the meds. Soooo, he just finished taking Benedryl to get rid of the rash from the allergic reaction. Yes, each rash looked different, thank God otherwise I would have no idea that something was going on!

Finally, on a separate note altogether, my aunt has been diagnosed with stage three pancreatic cancer. She had surgery to remove 90% of her pancreas and has begun a torturous round of chemo and radiation. She does not have a thyroid so they are not 100% how to proceed with her. My thoughts and prayers are with her. Please join me.

Problems of caring for young children

Someone once told me that the most difficult part of being a parent is the first five years of a child's life. Surviving emotionally, physically, psychologically, and financially is what stresses out parents. Perhaps this is the problem within the homes where small children are horribly abused or killed. If the parent is young, the immaturity of the parent/s creates one more stressor in an already lengthy list. I, for one, had moments where I needed to walk away and cool off. I had the maturity to know when I was getting overwhelmed; I can only imagine how terrible it is for lower income/those with poor family supports/teenage parents. If the parent is the product of a teenage parent, then problems can be compounded.

Another complication that we face as parents of young children is trying to find affordable daycare. Many families (mine included) must work two jobs to afford mortgages, food, utilities and daycare. My husband works 3rd shirt, comes home and watches the children until the babysitter arrives at 1 pm. I work a full time job and a part time job to afford the babysitter. We need her, and could not afford her, without the part time job, but of course I must pay her more to cover the time I am at the second job. I get home, feed the children, play and then put them to bed. Doing all this extra still only leaves just enough money to meet the bills. I pray that I have no car repairs or unexpected bills until the summer when I will no longer need a sitter. I will of course not be able to do the 2nd job because it is connected to the school year. I will have to apply to teach over the summer so that I will have the money we need  to pay for MM to be in pre-school because my school district does not have it. We will still need a babysitter for BJ, so I will need a babysitter and a pre-school. In this situation it pays to be poor because there is funding out there to pay for daycare, but the wage limit is so ridiculous, the person can not possibly live in decent housing. So daycare is needed to off-set the poor living conditions.

So, we are setting up an entire generation for failure. When do we say that we, as a society, need to embrace all children and provide them with more than just the basics. When we realize that every penny we spend on the care and education of our children is an investment in our future, we will be a better society. I will survive the financial set back. I only have about two years to go and I will be financially better off (car payment paid, MM in kindergarten, and Andy's mortgage paid for the home his mom and brother live in), and I will be able to provide for my children in a way that will be more than basic. But since I see each day what happens when we short-change our children, I know that our future is not as bright as it could be.

Getting my act together

I originally I had planned to talk about my New Year's resolutions, but then thought how pointless because we all know that resolutions last for maybe a month. Instead I thought I would talk about all my attempts to be better.

I spent the holiday break from school to finally try to get my home organized. It is no understatement when I say that I worked every single day on my house and it is only just to okay. When I first began this blog, I had just given birth and then shortly after fell down a flight of stairs. I could not believe how far behind I had gotten in everything because I was still dealing with not being able to move as well. Someone told me that falling down a flight of stairs is like being in a car accident; I believe them! I guess having just given birth made the experience worse. But I had no idea that it would take me so long to get my energy back. I wanted to get organized during the summer break (having decided not to take classes or teach summer school for a change), but I was still not up to it. Who would have thought it would be a year?

So, I needed to get my home office cleaned out enough to use it. I would be lying if I said I was done. Friends of mine helped me paint it before the baby was born, but since it is my space, it became the dumping ground. I still do not have the curtains up, but that will change today (or I hope that it will change today). My friends will be pleased to know that it is finally being used as an office, but disappointed to know that it still has its stacks of boxes. I need to get some shelves on the walls because I do not want anymore furniture. Vertical space will better use the space. So, this could be a "resolution" getting the shelving done.

I worked an entire day going through the childrens' clothing. I needed to make sure that only clothing that would fit them was easily accessible. I say this because my husband met me for dinner with MM wearing a pair of pants that were a full size too small and half of her backside was hanging out! So once that was accomplished, I had four bags of clothing that did not and would not fit them. I got so many hand me downs from friends for BJ that he can wear a different outfit for a month and not repeat! That God for hand me downs because there is no way I could go out and buy clothes for them right now.

Laundry is my biggest challenge. It always has been a challenge for me. In this, I am lucky to have a drill sergeant called Andy. He can not stand having laundry to do. So, when he realized that I was serious about getting all the laundry done, all the linens washed, all the curtains washed, plus all those other items that I had not gotten around to, he helped me. So, the routine became he washed and dried, I folded and put away. We are not done all of it, but we have managed to get it down to three more loads of laundry and then we will finally be on top of it! I had no idea that I was so far behind, but again, being a full time mommy and full time teacher does not leave loads of extra time. To save energy, we are using the pellet stove's heat to dry jeans, towels and sweatshirts. The basement is finished, so we rigged a clothes line around the poles and through the laundry room door way. It has allowed us to breeze through laundry faster because it dries two loads in the length of time it takes to dry one in the drier.

Related to my laundry issues was my inability to put away laundry. Those who know me know that I do not mind doing laundry, folding it or even ironing, but I do not like putting it away! So, for the past three weeks, I have put away all my laundry as soon as it got put up or within a day of putting it up in my room. This is a huge accomplishment. Isn't that sad? I am nearly 40 and I have only just mastered something that most people master when they are seven!

One thing that I have not been able to do yet is get the menu put together that I wanted to write. I saw this news story where this woman had organized a menu for the entire year. I am just trying to get a week done right now, but have not gotten around to it yet. I am still trying to decide which recipes that I want to tackle. I will have to do all my cooking on the weekend and then cook it as the weeks progresses. I am still organizing and cleaning on the weekends, so I guess I will shoot for February for a month long menu. How's that? Start with the shortest month!

The final thing I did was get curtains for my living room and bedroom. I was able to hit Boscov's super curtain sale and managed to get curtains for up to 75% off. I needed thermal, light blocking curtains for my bedroom because Andy is sleeping during the day and it is the coldest room in the house. I have come to the conclusion that the front of the house does not have proper insulation because it is always cold. The front door is not used very often, and it lets in loads of cold air, so I put up thermal curtains and it made about a 10 degree difference! The curtains in the living room are not thermal, but made of a material that blocks some of the draft. Once the weather changes, I have going to re-caulk the windows and door. I am also going to have Andy crawl up into the attic and see if there is any way to put more insulation down into the walls and/or see if there is any!

So, if you come to my house, I will not be totally embarrassed any longer, but give me a month to be proud.