Mar3

2 Year Visit

Posted on by
2 Year Visit

Addie finally had her 2 year well child visit last Thursday.  It was only 2 months late.  We still have to schedule with the county nurse for vaccines but I am in no rush.  I decided to just have Addie see a Family Nurse Practicioner in town just north of us.  Virtually anyone I asked where they take their kids would tell me Williston or Sidney to the 1 Pediatrician each town has.  The thought of having her doctor over an hour away just bothered me.  If she gets sick I am not making her drive an hour feeling miserable unless that is the only option.  I also didn’t see the logic in having her go to a doctor an hour away for only when she is in good health and then the clinic up in Plentywood when she is sick.  I would rather her file with her history be in one spot.  So the clinic in Plentywood it is.

The woman was nice and put up with the fact that Addie insisted on going to the bathroom twice during the actual exam.  She had also gone once while we were waiting.  This of course was my fault as I made her a cup of tea that morning and let her bring it on the car ride there.  It was a 12oz cup of tea.  That is also something new, tea.  She asks for it all the time.  She started having it when she got sick because her throat hurt and she knew I drank it the week prior so whenever her throat was bugging her she asked for tea.  I would love for her to have tea I am just worried about it staining her teeth so now that she is better I am turning her down more.  I would rather her have it once a week maybe.  I figure I will research ways to minimize staining so she can have it more but I don’t know.

Anyway, at the appointment the FNP stated she would like to check Addie’s iron levels.  She first asked if it had ever been checked and I told her no because her other Pediatrician didn’t feel it was necessary to check since the kid loves meat and eats it all the time.  She said it was up to me and that if the did do it they could just prick her finger.  I figured it would be a good idea because I had started to wonder if she was getting too much iron because of all the meat consumption and then the iron that is in her multivitamin.  She was a champ, she did so well.  She of course did not care of the initial prick but then once the woman started collecting the blood she because completely entranced with watching the process.  At one point I started to wonder if she was going to faint because she was so quiet and so still, just watching what was going on that I wondered if she was like some people who faint at the sight of blood.  So I asked her if she was okay and she ever so quietly answered “yeah” as if saying it any louder would break her concentration on the events occurring.

So that was it.  The levels came back normal.  Next adventure is taxes next week.  I can only hope there aren’t too many bumps in the road on that one.

Feb29

This Is Why I Shouldn’t Bake

Posted on by
This Is Why I Shouldn’t Bake

I eat it all within 36 hours.  I decided to go Paleo 2 months ago.  I had basically already been Paleo but I decided to fully commit.  It was great but I noticed some things.  I was hungry all the time.  I became even more sensitive to foods like rice and certain nuts.  Maybe I just became more aware of sensitivity, granted with the rice I never had issues before.  Well, I decided I wanted to make gluten free pancakes again, and maybe some muffins.  Both with Teff as the main flour.  I have a few grumblings from my stomach but otherwise I have been good.  Except I ate darn near all the muffins in a 36 hour period.  Sadly this does not mean eating 80% paleo with 20% cheat.  It could mean I am doing that if I bake nothing again for the rest of the month.

I have missed my gluten free baking.  I don’t miss sugar, it makes me sick now if I eat too much.  Still trying to decide what type of diet is right for me.  I love the idea of Paleo because it makes sense to me but I have to remember that it isn’t a one way is the only way type of lifestyle and that I need to taylor it to fit me.

But I have to not bake everyday.  Maybe once a week.

Feb28

Candy Remorse

Posted on by
Candy Remorse

I got my order of Easter candy I bought for Addie’s basket and then I wanted to look through the Candy store’s selection again.  Of course they have more Easter candy now!  Small back of foil covered dark chocolates, dark chocolate eggs, maple syrup candies, box of dark chocolates!  Oh how I want that small box of dark chocolate.   Oh well, I would eat them all and then feel sick to my stomach so yeah, not in need of that.  Even though I want to eat them.  They will just make my stomach hurt like the ice cream did earlier this week.  It can be very hard to show some control around chocolate.

Feb27

Sick Kid

Posted on by
Sick Kid

So the ice cream was a bad idea, but of course it would be.  What would I expect after being without that much sugar in one go.  In fact for several weeks my only source of sugar has really been just fruit.  So my stomach did not feel great after the ice cream.  This just means I will go 2 or so months before having it again.

Addie woke up yesterday in a good mood and it had finally snowed a little the night before (maybe 2 inches or 3 inches at our house) so I thought it would be fun to get in our snow gear and give playing outside a go.  It took about 30 minutes to get us all geared out and Addie was not happy with her boots or the snow pants.  Then when we got outside she just broke down into tears and wanted nothing to do with being out there.  I even tried making a snow angel and being goofy but she did not care.  I think we could have skipped buying her snow clothes this year.  Between the lack of actual snow and her dislike of the snow at this age makes for her never wanting to wear them again.  Also the plants were suppose to be grow with her pants but darn if they weren’t so snug around her belly already.  Next year will only tell if she can fit into them still.

About an hour after our minute excursion outside (where no pictures were taken because there was no time) Addie started acting like she wasn’t feeling good.  She was laying down in our bed, saying she didn’t want to eat.  She seemed very tired.  So after unsuccessfully trying to get her to eat an early lunch we went in her room to get some rest and she was asleep before I had finished singing rock-a-bye-baby.  I checked on her multiple times and at about the hour mark I noticed she had her eyes open but was just lying there. Broke my heart.  Of course she would catch my cold.  She had a pretty decent fever too.

I feel horrible seeing her not feeling good.  She has been asking for tea since I was drinking tea while sick.  I make her a special kids cold care tea that she drinks so she has been hydrated.  I am just having a hard time restraining myself from buying movies for her to watch because she does have a lot to pick from already.   She is suppose to have her well child visit on Thursday (no shots) so I hope she is up for that.

Feb25

The Ice Cream Calls

Posted on by
The Ice Cream Calls

Finally on the mend and able to remove myself from the couch.  Maybe my dear child will get some much needed play time as she demonstrated at dinner the other night.  Other than having a major melt down after being burned washing dishes, yes that is correct, nothing is really going on.  I received the Easter candy I ordered.  We downed the sample candy that came with it so now I am thinking of ordering said sample candy.  They got us good with that sampling thing.  Also there might have been some excitement when I discovered the supermarket up here carries coconut milk ice cream.  It will not make it past the night.  In fact it beckons me as I type and I must answer it’s call.

Feb22

Sick Becomes Me

Posted on by
Sick Becomes Me

I am sick for a second time since moving here.  Prior to this I had been sick maybe 3 times in the last two years.  I felt healthier than I had for most of my life.  Now within 5 weeks I am sick again and feeling oh so crummy.  I am not sure what is wrong, what might make me more susceptible to colds up here.  I take vitamin D supplements because of little light exposure.  I eat healthy.  The only thing I guess is sleep is subpar.  I am going to hunker down with some tea and stare blankly at that t.v.

Feb19

Lets Talk Bunnies

Posted on by
Lets Talk Bunnies

Last year in March I started looking for Easter candy for Addie.  I was going to order her a chocolate bunny, free of gluten, dairy, soy, egg and gluten of course.  Only they were out of stock.  Then by the time they got more in I figured she is too young to remember it or need it.  So I let her Easter Basket go with no candy.

This year she is old enough to enjoy easter egg hunts and baskets filled with treats.  This year she can understand it and I want her to have some of the joys of candy I had as a kid.  She isn’t allowed a lot of sugar except in the form of fruit so it is a rare treat.  I decided to hope on over to The Natural Candy Store* to see if they had their Easter candy yet.  They do.  Oh yes they do.  I immediately decided upon a chocolate bunny.  It cost a lot but seeing as this is a once a year purchase I don’t mind the splurge.  Then of course some jelly beans are in order.  Can’t forget those for the inside the eggs.  I plan on sprinkling possibly some toy like items inside some of the eggs too.

I am also excited because I plan on buying from Apple and Amos for some gifts inside her basket.  I did buy a stuffed rabbit on clearance after Easter last year that will also go in the basket.

I know it is February and I am talking Easter.  It is my mother in me.  My mother who is already buying Christmas gifts.  I am excited for this Easter to see Addie go crazy hunting eggs and enjoying some not so bad for her candy.  We are going to have some fun and I might or might not nibble on a chocolate rabbit ear seeing as I only bought one.

*The above link is through their refer a friend program so if you end up clicking that link and then buying something I get free candy. Just wanted to give full disclosure.

Feb17

The Early Bird

Posted on by
The Early Bird

I woke at 3:30am yesterday morning to Addie shouting “I got to go potty! I got to go potty!”  Only it was half a cry/whine shout.  She is getting good at whining.  Especially when she says the word “No” it is said with a whine.  I was groggy and waited a moment seeing if she was actually calling me to take her potty.  There was silence, she had gone back to sleep.  She is completely daytime potty trained but wears a diaper at night.  I realize I could try and potty train her for night, but really I don’t want to.  She still sleeps in a crib and until the day she is able to climb out, or turns 3 I am not turning it into a toddler bed.

She fights sleep at both nap and bedtime.  Most nap times I read to her and then rock her to sleep.  However, this doesn’t work every time and so she has to fall asleep on her own for nap time.  If she was in a bed she would be out of that so fast and playing with toys that she would skip her nap all together.  Same with bedtime.  I often put her to bed an hour before I know she will fall asleep because it is quiet time for Mom and Dad.  We hear her singing, talking, or crying after we put her to bed so at this time the noncrib option just wont work for us.  So since I am not willing to put her in a toddler bed it really isn’t fair to try and night potty train her because she can’t get out of bed and go potty on her own.  I really don’t want to be called in to help her go potty either.  I like my sleep and don’t want to go back to waking 3+ times a night when she calls me.  So for now she can go potty in her diaper at night.

However, last night even though she went back to sleep I couldn’t.  I was wide awake at 3:30am and just wanted to sleep.  I couldn’t stop thinking about our car insurance and how every time we have moved and switched agents there were problems.  We have stayed with state farm with each move but almost every time the automatic withdrawl gets screwed.  It seems no matter how I try to prepare by telling the agent it never gets caught before hand.  So of course I decide to look up when the money should be taken out of our account.  Turns out that is this monday.  So all I could think is I need to go talk with the agent and the office doesn’t open until 8:30am and it is only 4am.

I tried to fall back asleep but I couldn’t.  I was awake when hubby’s alarm went off at 5am.  I was up when he ignored his alarm.  I was up when I was bugging him to wake up because I was wide awake.  I was up at 6:15 when he finally dragged himself out of bed.  I was getting tired but I was up.  So I finally got to head to town at 7:45am and hit the grocery store first, then the state farm agent at 8:30 and finally Pamida at 9:00am when they opened.  I was home by 9:38.  Normally I am leaving at that time.  Needless to say I got a lot done early.  Then I promptly took a nap with Addie and caught back up on some sleep.

Feb14

The Roller Coaster

Posted on by
The Roller Coaster

I have been working on this post for 3 days so please excuse if it seems very matter of fact.  Just trying to get down all the info of the past week, the reason behind my non-posting for a week.

So last week was pretty much a roller coaster ride for me.  Nothing really happened to cause it.  I just rode it.  See, being up here in the middle of nowhere away from family and friends finally got to me.  I started to crash tuesday, hit complete rock bottom on Wednesday, and started to reemerge on friday.  I was completely, utterly, depressed.  I was sobbing uncontrollably, don’t want to get dressed or move from the couch depressed.  It has been well over 4 years since I last felt like that.

The hubby was beside himself.  He wanted to make it better but there was nothing he could do short of making the town sprout a few thousand more people or getting my parents out here in the near future.  Both of which will not be happening anytime soon.  I have kept saying that it is no big deal living out here but the truth is it is.  I am introverted and a home body.  However,  I still hung out with friends at least once a week.  I got to go see a movie, do shopping in department stores and see large quantities of people on a regular basis.  Also, I could see my family every 3-4 months no problem.

Now, I have to make friends again if I want to hang with some.  This is something that takes me months to do.  Now i have to drive an hour away to find a walmart in a town that is over crowded and bursting at the seams but does not have the infrastructures to support it.  Apparently for an antisocial person I am more social than I thought.

So there I am, a complete and utter emotional mess scaring my husband because he can’t fix me.  My shining light was also a weekend away in a big city.  Suddenly news came that we might have to cancel.  Utter. . . emotional. . . mess.  When he saw how I was falling apart he worked some things out to make sure we could go to Billings still.

Hubby was taking Friday off for the trip and so when Friday morning rolled around I was in a completely upbeat mood.  My mood rubbed off on him and to the say the least it was a wonderful break from the previous days mood.  It is a 5 hour car trip to Billings from here and Addie did great.  She got a little fussy from time to time but I was more pleased with her not wearing a diaper.  She would request potty breaks and was able to hold it quite well.  Sadly she refused to take a nap for the second day in a row but that just made for an earlier bedtime.

Being in a large town felt good.  I can’t even describe it.  It felt a little like coming home.  I feel a little stupid admitting that but it was a wonderful feeling driving into town.  Addie was refusing to nap so we did a little shopping at the mall and Costco and then drove around town and saw a bit of what it was like.  We had dinner out and then found our way back to bed.  Not having to make dinner or deal with dishes was wonderful.

I can never sleep well in hotel rooms but luckily Addie did.  We were up bright and early and out of the room by 7am.  After breakfast we headed to Target.  How I have missed Target.  Then Cabela’s, Victoria’s Secret (cause a girl needs a new bra!), Gymboree and Crazy 8, Walmart, etc..  Lunch was at this great place called Salad Creations.  We agreed that Redding/Medford could use one and that it would do well there.  In fact we loved it so much we went back on Sunday before heading home.

I think we actually went to Costco all three days.  We loaded up on meat on Sunday.  Sunday was a rather long day.  Turns out Addie is starting to cut 2 year molars and did not sleep well on Saturday night.  So Sunday morning she was cranky as heck from no sleep and her tooth coming through.  We were able to get a full belly  in her and she fell asleep on the start of the trip home and gave us an hour and half nap.  She then was really good the rest of the trip home just watching some movies.

It is great being home even though it was great being in the big city.  I love sleeping in my own bed again, nothing like it.  The past two days have been spent getting the house back in order (a work in progress still) and getting back into the swing of cooking and dishes again.  What a nice break it was though not having to do them for a whole 2 days.

Sadly while I did take my camera I didn’t take any photos.  The only record I have of the trip is this shot of Addie taken from my phone while we were at Chuck E Cheese.  Kid had such a blast in the tubes.  She would get out and run up to us and sign and say “More?!” and then run back over and try to get back in.  I think we spent 2hours there and wish we could take her again.

In the Sky Tubes of Chuck E Cheese

 

I can’t wait for warmer weather so we can take her to zoos and other fun places.  I love watching her grow up and interact with the world.

This was a good trip that helped put me in a better place.  As such we figure my threshold is 2 months and then I need a big city fix of some sort.  Just wish there was a Costco in the US closer than 5 hours away.

 

 

Feb6

And Then I Cried

Posted on by
And Then I Cried

This past weekend was one of the most mentally and emotionally exhausting ones I have had in over 2 years.  I was so extremely emotional about every little thing to the point of crying.  I swear if it wasn’t already that time of the month I would have though I might be pregnant I was so bad.  I can’t even guarantee that I am completely through it either.  I know my hubby will be all too happy when this goes away.

Not sure if just the strain of the move is finally getting to me, or other issues I have been having.  One of many is feeling like I don’t do enough and that I am not contributing enough.  Feeling like all I do is wash dishes sometimes.  Thankfully hubby was all about dishes for me this weekend.  If it wasn’t for him doing that I might have found myself curled up in bed not moving the last 2 days.

So of course as I stated last we went to walmart where I forgot half of what I wanted and spent more money on what I don’t need.  Namely toys for Addie.  I have for some reason been feeling this large need to buy her toys.  I need to stop and might be getting over that phase soon too.  I was hoping to buy toy storage for her room but the hubby vetoed that, at least for now.  I might have cried about that.  See, overly emotional.

Walmart in Williston on the weekends is horrible.  Normally it is a 20 minute wait to check out but with it being superbowl weekend I think that added to things making it a 30 minute wait.  It even looked like more registers were open than when I was there last.  Then produce we were buying was ringing up at it’s normal price when it was on sale for half the amount.  I could just feel the cashier wishing we would just go with it but hell we had waited in line while other people in front of us had problems so we were going to make them correct it.  It might have only been 4 or 5 dollars but with what we have to put up there we weren’t going to give that store more of our money than it deserved.

When we got home I put Addie down for a nap.  She had fallen asleep in the car but it was well past her nap time and she was still exhausted.  We ended up finally waking her up just after 6pm.  Needless to say she did not fall asleep until 10pm that night.  Apparently the power went out and restarted the modem and my new AppleTV.  This has since resulted in 2 days of absolute headaches of not being able to connect to the itunes store.  Internet is fine, but for some reason no itunes.  I may or may not have messed around with port forwarding on the router which almost worked and then after I cleared the changes resulted in no device with itunes being able to connect.  Again, I might have cried.  I almost bought an apple router too.  My husband made we wait though which of course resulted in me crying out of frustration at nonworking machines.  He happened to have been right to wait.  At the  current moment after clearing the dns cache and fixing key chains I can now connect on all devices to the itunes store.  This might have been dumb luck though and it might falter again later.

Today was a little better since I did fix the router just before lunch and Addie got to play in the fire hall with her new friends.  I “exercised” a little.   And then something hilarious happened that I should be embarrassed to talk about but it is too good of a story to hold back.

Before leaving for the play date I had Addie go potty because she was not able to go potty at the fire hall last time.  She didn’t like the seats.  Well within 10 minutes of getting there she is saying she has to go potty.  I tell her she can hold it.  I said this because when we were at the fire hall last week she made me take her to the potty 3 times and would not go and ended up holding it for 2 hours.  I figured it would be the same.  Nope, she wanted to go.

So I took her in and pull down her pants and underwear to her shoes.  She normally takes them off all the way but I wasn’t going to do that in a public restroom by myself.  We get the pants pulled down and I situate her on the toilet and wouldn’t you know it she starts to pee.

Only the pee is not going in the toilet but out towards her legs onto her underwear. So I quickly grab her and try and pull her further back on the toilet so it will go in only to have done something horribly wrong and have pee shoot straight up into my eye!

Yeah, you read right.  I got pee in my eye.

Well, somehow I manage to get her situated and she finishes going in the toilet and then clean up begins since lot hit the floor and of course my eye!

But guess what, I didn’t cry.  I laughed.

Not many mom’s to girls can say their kid’s pee hit their eye.  I should feel proud.