Sick and Busy Days

It feels like forever since I wrote. It’s been such a busy time for me—lots of projects all stacked up on each other, but I think I’m through the worst (best?) of it now. I’m feeling accomplished in this area of my life, but neglectful in others.

My boys have been sick and so everyone is moving slow. Lucas is now better finally and back to school. Ian and Asher are still ill and spending the days playing Legos, watching movies, reading books, building block towers, moving huge piles of toys and things from one end of the house to another, and other low-key things. Ian can work from home a little when he feels up to it.

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Although I’m sorry he isn’t feeling well, Ian’s being home the last few days has allowed me to keep my work moving forward and hit my deadlines. This is a huge relief.

On the mothering side, I feel I’m falling down on the job. I mean, nobody’s dying from neglect. Everyone’s adequately nourished and safe. But I usually like to pay a little more attention to my children. It’s five days until Halloween and we don’t even have costumes in the works. No decorations have been hung. The two pumpkins grandma grew in her garden are sitting in the backyard, instead of gracing our front porch. I bought our Pumpkin Path tickets for Saturday night, but that’s about it. Lucas would dearly love to spookify our house and I just haven’t had the time.

We missed the Sacramento Waldorf School’s Harvest Faire on Saturday, which was a real shame because it’s always such fun. But nobody in our family except me was in good enough shape to go out and have fun. At least I got my Children’s Store donations in (nine needle-felted mice, some small, blank journals, and 25 sets of three note cards featuring fairies, mushrooms, flowers, and cute garden snails). I hope to do more next year. (We did more last year!)

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I’m looking forward to Asher being well again. I’m always on edge when he is coughing and congested at night. He makes the most horrible choking sounds!

OK, that was fun. Now I must get back to work!

Wist

I am very disciplined about keeping my dreams in check. I don’t allow myself much time to wish or ponder much other than my reality (which is really good—I promise I count my blessings often). Anyway, in part this habit is an effort to live in the present with my family and “be here now,” as they say. Maybe it’s also a survival mechanism. There isn’t a lot of point in fantasizing about my dream job or what white sand beach I’d like to be lying on when these fripperies aren’t in my cards right now. Honestly, I don’t spend a lot of time doing it.

So I didn’t think about Burning Man much before the start of this week. I watched with casual interest as people I know and love packed up their dusty belongings and trundled off to Black Rock City to be their truest selves for a week. On Monday, opening day of the festival, I imagined driving in to Greeters  and falling into that first welcome home hug, the blowing winds, the light so bright you must wear sunglasses. On Tuesday I realized Asher’s present age (2 years and 7 months) is actually just a few months older than Lucas’s age when he first went to the playa in 2004—our ill-fated Burn, when we stayed only 51 hours.  I looked at a photo of feverish baby Lucas at Burning Man, trying to have fun despite his racking pneumonia.

On Wednesday, I lost my mind. I had a bad day. My son and I argued and my feelings got hurt. I spent a ton of time driving around lost, listening to Raffi. I had a cranky, overtired baby on my hands. I missed my limited opportunity to work on important projects. In short, I went a little nutso, succumbing to stress and worry and letting stuff get to me. I spent an evening gnashing my teeth in a dear friend’s living room, enumerating all the things that feel out of control and frightening in my world, and crying over all the things I wish I could be doing.

I guess I had to say this painful stuff out loud. Sometimes I need to be heard, no matter how ugly my words sound to my own ears. My patient friend listened, offered me her enduring love, and suggested perhaps it’s OK that I don’t do it all.

It wasn’t until today, Thursday, that my friend and I both realized that I unwittingly followed my own tradition of completely freaking out on Wednesday of Burning Man week. (It’s not only my pattern though. Lots of people experience it, too). It’s the halfway point of the festival. It’s the day when I’m swept up in a whirlwind of intense emotion and physical stress, and all of my normal layers of protection peel off me like so much sunburned skin. A good, intense cry—some serious wailing into the wind— is usually needed on Wednesday. A catharsis of explosive proportions is almost always in order. The shrapnel is actually expected by friends and campmates, and they duck or provide emergency aid or ululate alongside me, as they are able.

I guess this catharsis is needed in real life, too. Sometimes I just have to screech so my own voice will drown out the harpies.

Weekend Moments

Despite lots of working for me (12 hours) and Lucas’s case of folliculitis caused by prolonged exposure in the lake last week, we managed to have some lovely moments this weekend.

* early-morning walk by myself

* clay play

* dinner out with Papa and Grandma S for her birthday

* yummy BLT sandwiches made by Ian

* watching Asher dance and sing, “I like my Mom and Dad”

* an evening walk through the neighborhood all together

* finding our first green and brown acorns of the season on the ground

* watching nimble Lucas leaping to and fro across the drainage ditch (and hoping he wouldn’t fall)

* a quick trip to the thrift store for school clothes for Lucas: four pairs of pants (including two lined pairs) and nine shirts (both short and long-sleeved, one sweater, and a hoodie) for $50

* a quick trip to the used book store to recirculate a bunch of old books and find new ones for the whole family: five novels for me and Ian, five or six books for the kids

* playing a new game Asher invented called “shopping,” in which an old computer keyboard became his cash register, and flat Lego pieces were dollars. He’s pretty great about making change.

* a tad of reading Torpedo Juice, by Tim Dorsey and Eat, Pray, Love by Elizabeth Gilbert

 

Frown Turned Upside-Down

Earlier today I was grumpy because my pharmacy called me to say my prescription is too old and they contacted my Asthma doctor and he won’t renew it. This happens once a year. I take a drug called ADVAIR—one that is very effective and very much a brand name. Which means it’s pricey. Every year my scrip gets bounced and every year I drag my annoyed self in to see my doctor.

See, there was a time in my life—from 9 years of age to … say 26—when my asthma was what doctors politely call “unmanaged” or “uncontrolled.” I took medications for it daily, constantly, and still had terrible symptoms all the time. Colds hit me hard and stayed with me for three weeks or so, when they migrated south and morphed into bronchitis—about five times per year. I used to take a drug called Theophylline, also known as dimethylxanthine, which frankly doesn’t work very well and kills some number of people a year. It made me jittery as a mouse all the time, and I had that unfortunate young person’s habit of forgetting to take it, getting into a crisis and then taking too much because maybe then I’ll feel better sooner. Yeah. No dice. I pounded my “rescue inhaler” constantly—20 times a day, just to function in the way sort of kind of approaching how I wanted to function in the world.

In my 20s, I was called by Kaiser to participate in a study of people who suffered from mild asthma. I answered a few questions over the phone and the caller told me, “Well, I don’t think you qualify for this study because your asthma is not mild.” She referred me to a Kaiser specialist and my life changed. That doctor, a woman with a striking first name: Stamatiki, informed me that asthma therapy had changed while I was busy singing in high school musicals and dating boys and going to college. She put me on different, much better meds. I even did allergy shots for a while. Let’s see, this was during my mortuary days.

ADVAIR came into my life about eight years ago. I’m a whole new me now. I take my maintenance dose, or less sometimes, and I can do all kinds of things that I couldn’t do when I was a child! It’s awesome. ADVAIR works so great,  I only rarely take my rescue inhaler anymore. In fact, I’m now kind of bad about forgetting to have one with me. (That is telling.)

With my PPO health insurance, however, ADVAIR is also really pricey. About $140 per refill for a month’s supply.

So, back to why I was grumpy. I didn’t want to go to the doctor. I just wanted my prescription refilled. I didn’t want to take the time out of my day to tell him all is well, as long as I have my dang meds! And then he listens to my lungs and I watch him write the scrip by hand. It’s kind of a waste of our time, really.

But today was great. I called the office. They got me in right away. Dr. Marino and I had our customary yearly chat. He read in his chart how I thought ADVAIR was expensive, something I must have complained about in the past. He handed me a month’s worth of samples and a coupon for $50 off a refill of ADVAIR and a $20 off a refill of my rescue inhaler.

So, although I was bitchy about going in, I’m not anymore. He basically gave me $210. It took a total of 40 minutes out of my day and I didn’t pay a copay.

Thanks, Marino. See ya next year.

Tomorrow

Tomorrow at 3:45 a.m., my son will become 6 years old. I am flabbergasted by this fact, although it’s been on my mind for months. We have big plans for his birthday party with his friends and classmates on Saturday evening: an Old West/cowboy birthday party creatively titled “Ghost Town at Sundown.” I have all sorts of ideas and no idea whether I can pull any of them off. I’m starting to feel frantic about all the things that must be done before 4:00 p.m. on Saturday.

Unfortunately, I’m currently suffering from some godforsaken SICKNESS, in which my throat feels like hell and every swallow is murder. I spent a feverish, rotten night, sweating and being miserable. All I can think about is how Ian and I are supposed to go to Lucas’s classroom tomorrow for the Very Special Kindergarten Birthday Celebration. The one we’ve looked forward to all year because it’s the only time in the whole year when we parents are allowed to be in the kindergarten and watch the magic unfold before our wondering eyes. The place is truly a fairyland, where children play, learn, discover, and blossom in their own, unique ways. It is what every kindergarten everywhere should be, but most are not.

My being sick is too, too ironic. (http://sarabellae.livejournal.com/100785.html) For last year, Lucas was too sick to go to school on his birthday and we had to postpone the special day (http://sarabellae.livejournal.com/100879.html).  Ultimately it ended up being more disappointing to me than to him.

I should be going to the party store for decorations. I should be buying a birthday card. I should be cleaning the house. I should be wrapping his birthday presents. I should be shopping for the whopper birthday present that we haven’t had time to buy yet. I should be baking Fairy Cakes for the classroom birthday party tomorrow (he wants lemon poppy seed). I should be working on Israel 2e. I should be dragging out a table cloth and baking a coffee cake or something special for breakfast tomorrow. I should be buying a mylar balloon that says “Happy Birthday!” I should be braiding horsey bridles for the party on Saturday.

I really just feel terrible though. I should be resting.

Breastfeeding, Illness, and Medications

A while ago I alluded to my recent crisis. The “crisis” turned out not to be one, so rest easy. I want to write about it because … well … because I learned stuff that other people might want to know.

I was recently sick with a cold; you may remember my bitching about it. The cold seemed to go away, then returned and settled in my lungs as a respiratory infection. This is what colds do in my body. It’s tradition. I relented and went to see my doctor, Dr. Chen on a Monday morning, now two weeks ago.

Chen confirmed that I had an infection in my lungs, confirmed that this is indeed what colds turn into in people like me—people with chronic asthma and allergies. Right. I knew that. Chen listened to my breathing and exclaimed “You’re really wheezing bad!” Right. I knew that, too. She prescribed two medications for me: prednisone (a corticosteroid) and Zithromax (a brand name for azithromycin, which is an antibiotic).

Then she told me I would have to stop breastfeeding Asher and “pump and dump.” I am beginning to think that this phrase is a favorite among physicians everywhere. I expressed my dismay about this, and she launched into a discussion about how these two drugs are needed to make me better—that I would NOT get better without them—and that surely I don’t want these drugs to go into my milk and into my baby.

Right. No, I wouldn’t want that.

 

So, I left Chen’s office and drove directly to the pharmacy at Raley’s. I shopped for a few items while waiting for the pharmacy people to fill the scripts. While I shopped, I got more and more upset. I put a can of Earth’s Best organic baby formula in my cart and tried to imagine Asher happily taking a bottle. Or a cup. Or anything other than mama milk at bedtime. I bought the drugs, bought my other items, and came home. By the time I got home, I was crying.

Ian had been watching the boys for me while I went to the doctor’s office. He was naturally alarmed by my tears. We sent Lucas out into the backyard so I could fall apart and tell Ian what was wrong. I sobbed as I told him how I didn’t want to take the meds. I did not want to stop breastfeeding. I felt that Asher was old enough now that there was a serious chance that if I stopped nursing him, he would wean. Nursing is a beautiful symbiotic relationship: My body makes enough milk to meet the demand of my nursling. Without the demand, the body stops making milk.

 

I was looking at taking seven days’ worth of drugs, plus two more days of dumping my milk and using formula “just to be sure.”

Asher gets a good portion of his nutrients from “real” food now, or from purées. But he still nurses at least six to eight times in 24 hours. At this time, Asher was still sick with the same cold I had had, and was feeling miserable, and was therefore nursing for comfort and more often than usual. Even though he might be physically able to wean without a huge negative nutritional consequence, he is still very much a baby. Or a toddler, if you will. Both the World Health Organization and the American Academy of Pediatrics recommend continued breastfeeding until the age of two. Studies show that the immunity benefits of breastfeeding change as the baby grows. Some immune factors decrease, but some increase: Lysozyme, an immune factor that attacks the cell walls of bacteria and kills them, is present in greater concentrations after the first year than before.

Breastfeeding Asher is crucial to me for a lot of reasons. When he was first born and I got so shockingly sick with a uterine infection and then septicemia, my milk did not “come in.” In the hospital, they had me on something like ten different drugs to combat the infection and save my life (three different antibiotics—Flagyl, Levaquin, Vancomycin—steroids, an anticlotting drug called argatroban, two asthma drugs, potassium chloride, phosphorus, insulin, mucomyst (a drug I was told was supposed to protect my kidneys from all the other drugs they were giving me), guaifenesin, dilaudid as needed for pain, and Xanax).

 

It was only through great effort and single-minded determination that I eventually became able to breastfeed my infant: I had to pump every three hours around the clock for weeks. Following doctors’ instructions, I had to dump out my milk for six weeks before I was allowed to feed my baby my milk. 

So here’s where I wax poetic. We need to breastfeed. Both of us. It is our primary and primal form of communication. It is a panacea for all hurts, fears, insecurities, and worries. It makes us sleepy. It makes us feel peaceful, in harmony with each other, and safe. Breastfeeding my baby makes me feel worthy—that I am a good mother. It increases the happy hormones in my bloodstream, and helps me stay patient when faced with the many frustrations of raising small children. It burns calories that I would find difficult to burn otherwise, given my circumscribed (read: housebound) activity. It provides him with perfect, tailor-made nourishment and protects him from all sorts of health problems. It also protects me from future health problems such as osteoporosis and possibly even breast, ovarian, and uterine cancers. Nursing is the perfect start to every day, the perfect way to drift off to sleep, the perfect way to reunite after an absence. It is our special time together, our unique bond. We are not ready to give it up.

My doctor’s recommendation that I stop breastfeeding and “pump and dump” was greatly disturbing. It threw me into a panic and dredged up all sorts of terrible feelings that were born in my illness last year. It churned a lot of dark, gloopy fears around and threw them back in my face to be felt all over again.

Ian talked me down a bit. We discussed my not taking the drugs. But I was sick and felt very ill. Not breathing properly sucks, by the way. I wanted to feel better. But I didn’t want to stop breastfeeding Asher.

We turned, as we often do, to the Internet and to books. I spent an entire afternoon researching online and flipping through some books on breastfeeding that I have. And for those of you who might still be reading, here’s what I found:

You do not have to stop breastfeeding when taking MOST medications. 

Doctors have an incomplete understanding of lactation and medications. Drug studies are not done on nursing mothers or babies, therefore little hard evidence exists to prove that continued nursing when taking meds is safe. Serious research on breastfeeding and the nature of breast milk has only been done in the last 20 years. Therefore, to the established medical field, breastfeeding while taking medications is not safe. To the drug companies, it’s less risky simply to say “ask your doctor” or “don’t take while breastfeeding.” They avoid lawsuits that way. Same with the doctor. I gather from what I’ve read that very little time is spent on lactation in medical school, so doctors who may even be pro-breastfeeding don’t really know much about it. They take the conservative stance, as my doctor did: Don’t breastfeed while taking meds.

 

But, two of the biggest experts in lactation and breastfeeding, both MDs, say most medications are fine to take while continuing breastfeeding your baby. Only a very small percentage of most drugs makes it into breast milk, usually less than 1%.

 

Tom Hale, MD, (a lactation and drug specialist and author of Drugs and Mother’s Milk, 13th ed., and Drug Therapy and Breastfeeding), Jack Newman, MD, (researcher and author of The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers) and the American Academy of Pediatrics (AMERICAN ACADEMY OF PEDIATRICS: The Transfer of Drugs and Other Chemicals Into Human Milk) all say its OK to breastfeed even when taking these specific drugs (prednisone and azithromycin) and not to worry about baby. The 2001 AAP publication (Table 7) says there is “no reported signs or symptoms in infant or effect on lactation.”

In fact, there are lots of medications that are safe to take while breastfeeding, but your doctor may not know that. Whether a medication is safe to take depends on a number of things, such as:

* maternal serum drug concentration

* whether the drug is absorbed through the gut; many medications are delivered in other ways, therefore almost none enters the milk

* whether the medication binds to protein

* the size of the drug’s molecules (“In the early postpartum period, large gaps between the mammary alveolar cells allow many medications to pass through this milk that may not be able to enter mature milk. These gaps close by the second week of lactation.”—Spencer, MD; Gonzalez, PharmD; and Barnhart, PharmD, American Family Physician, July, 2001)

* age of the infant (premature and newborn infants are more at risk if they absorb mother’s medication through her milk, as their livers don’t filter the chemicals out of their bodies as efficiently as older babies and toddlers)

* amount of milk the infant is receiving (young infants nurse more than older babies and toddlers)

* the drug’s half-life (drugs break down within the body, so if you time the medication well, such as by taking it immediately after a feeding or during baby’s longest sleep, the drug may well be out of your milk by the time baby feeds again)

* dosage and frequency of dosage (a drug that you take frequently is better than a longer-acting dosage; if you take it frequently, it means the drug breaks down relatively quickly)

* whether the medication is one that is normally prescribed to infants and babies if the medical condition were theirs and not mother’s

* whether the medication will affect the mother’s ability to make milk for her baby (oral contraceptives fall into this category)

 

Jack Newman, MD, in The Ultimate Breastfeeding Book of Answers, (published by Prima!) has a whole chapter on breastfeeding while on medication. He says, “The essential question in all this is: Does a small amount of medication in the mother’s milk make breastfeeding riskier than not breastfeeding? The answer … is almost always no. Breastfeeding with a small amount of medication in the milk is not riskier than feeding the baby formula, except in a few specific situations. It is almost always less risky. There are safer and less safe drugs for mothers who are breastfeeding, but the majority are still safe. Health risks exist for both the mother and the baby when the mother does not breastfeed. This may not just be a question of taking the baby off the breast for a week or 10 days. It may be a question of permanent weaning, since off the breast for a week often means, in practice, off the breast forever.”

 

Newman goes on later to say, “You should not assume that your doctor or even your pharmacist knows much about drugs and breastfeeding or that they are concerned with helping you continue to breastfeed. Often the information they may use to decide if a drug is acceptable during breastfeeding domes from the drug manufacturer itself, found in a book called the Compendium of Pharmaceuticals and Specialties (CPS) in Canada and the Physician’s Desk Reference (PDR) in the United States. The manufacturer is concerned about its own medical legal liability, not the importance to the mother and baby of breastfeeding.”

 

Tom Hale, MD, Ph.D., professor of pediatrics at Texas Tech University School of Medicine, has a website and a Q&A forum which discusses specific drugs. He answers the questions himself and specifically discussed prednisone and azithromycin, as well as many other medications:  http://neonatal.ttuhsc.edu/lact/

 

This site is a clearinghouse of info and links to many good online  sources: http://www.breastfeedingonline.com/meds.shtml

 

The American Academy of Family Physicians introduces the topic of breastfeeding and medications in this way: “Physicians receive little education about breast-feeding and even less training on the effects of maternal medications on the nursing infant. Yet, concern about potential harm to the nursing infant from maternal medications is often cited as a reason to advise discontinuation of breast-feeding. Overwhelming evidence demonstrates the benefits of breast-feeding and the deleterious effects that can result from premature weaning.” You can read the full article here: http://www.aafp.org/afp/20010701/119.html

 

Here is an easy-to-read table of drugs and their relative safety/risk when breastfeeding: http://www.ukmicentral.nhs.uk/drugpreg/qrg_p1.htm

 

La Leche League’s website (http://www.llli.org/) has three articles specifically about medications in mothers’ milk. One is written by Tom Hale and he says “In a 14-month-old breastfeeding baby, the volume of milk provided is often so low that the dose of maternal medication transferred to the infant is minimal to nil.” This is exactly Asher’s present age.

 

William Sears, MD, a huge proponent of Attachment Parenting and breastfeeding has a website, too. Here’s an article on the benefits of breastfeeding “from top to bottom”: http://www.askdrsears.com/html/2/T020300.asp

 

This is just a small sampling of the information that is available. It was enough to convince me and Ian that it was safe for me to take the medications my doctor prescribed to me and to continue breastfeeding our baby, with no interruption or big change in our routine. I made an effort to take my meds after Asher had nursed and right before his longest sleeping period of the day, but otherwise we continued life as normal. Within 24 hours, I felt about 40 percent better for having taken the drugs. The day after that, I felt enormously better and very grateful I had done my research and decided to take them.

 

We carefully observed Asher during this time. He didn’t change in any observable way, except for the better: He gradually got over his cold after a few days. His mood improved and he returned to his normal happy, healthy self. 

I’m returning that baby formula to the store unopened.

 

The moral of this story is this: Do your research before you take the advice to stop breastfeeding your baby, and don’t assume the doctor knows all the info. Don’t risk losing the most perfect symbiotic and health-promoting relationship two human beings can have. It’s too important to throw it away.

Turning Point in the Government’s Position on Bisphenol A, or BPA

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/15/AR2008041501753_pf.html 

Bisphenol A, or BPA, is one of the creepy plastic chemicals discussed in The Toxic Sandbox, the book I mentioned a while back with regard to pacifiers and phthalates. 

I found this blog post (http://greenerpenny.blogspot.com/2007/09/least-toxic-totables.html) about safe and unsafe plastic food containers by Mindy Pennybacker, environmental writer and editor with focus on lifestyles and health and former editor-in-chief of The Green Guide (thegreenguide.com) for 11 years. Check it out. We may become a household full of only wood and metal soon.

Seeing the Doc Today

Later this morning I’m dragging my butt to the doctor. I haven’t seen her in more than a year, so I expect she’ll ask me things like, “How have you been since the last time I saw you, when you were dying?” My cold of last week has settled uncomfortably into my lungs, as my colds like to do. Saturday night I had a low fever. Coughed and burbled all day yesterday. I’m wondering if it’s become an infection. I’m choosing to see my regular doc instead of my asthma/allergy specialist because I like her more than I like him. 

So many of my peeps are sick: Asher’s nose keeps running and he coughs sometimes, but he is a bit better now.  Lucas has two more days of meds to take. I happily sent him to school this morning, despite his protests.

kimkimkaree is sick too, and I feel for her. Sorry, Baby. If you were here I’d brush your hair, fix you tea, and let you rest in my snuggly bed.

Spring Break

It’s been a hell of a Spring Break and I, for one, am glad it’s OVER! 

It’s Friday night and I’m sitting here in the dark with my vodka and 7, while Ian suffers in the other room: On top of cold symptoms that he’s worked through all week, he appears now to have eaten some bad sushi.

Asher is still sick. He alternates between feeling reasonably chipper and totally lame. His nose is sometimes so congested it’s hard for him to breastfeed. Suck, suck, detach, breathe. Suck, suck, detach, breathe. Suck, suck, detach, breathe. It’s pathetic. He’s now whining a lot of the time, not crying, just complaining. I don’t blame him, but there is so little I can do to make him comfortable: menthol rub on his chest, hot showers to clear out the boogers, milk when he wants it, a sleeping companion, being held a lot. That’s about it.

Lucas is doing better. The antibiotics do the trick. I hate the idea that we’re wiping out all the beneficial flora in his system by giving him this medicine, but lung infections suck worse. Maybe. He’s got 6 more days of meds to take, but he’ll be back to school on Monday. (Otherwise, I may just end up in prison.) Fortunately, my son is mature enough to take his medicine without argument or fuss.

In 12 days, I have left the house only a few times and then only for a brief while. My nerves are completely frayed. Today I yelled at Asher because he wouldn’t sleep. Yeah, that’s stupid. I know. He would go to sleep, rest for 10 minutes and pop awake again. He did that three times. He only really took a proper nap when I calmed down and resolved myself to staying with him instead of working. 

I have work to do and can’t manage to do it. I have my first project to edit in a whole new software program. At the moment, I’m not sure how to do it, only that I’ve committed to doing it. 

Yesterday evening I split, engaged in some retail therapy, and (Thank God) dropped in on some friends who were kind enough to convince me that 9 p.m. was not too late. It was a dark moment when I was sitting in my car in front of Barnes & Noble thinking I had no friends and nothing to do and nowhere to go. Thanks, darlings. I really needed to sit in your kitchen and bitch for a while. 

In a (perhaps belated) effort to stay positive and be Zen about all this, here are some highlights from the last two weeks. There were some fun and/or funny moments, in between the SERENITY NOW! moments.


El Torrito Cilantro Pepita Caesar salad dressing. Lucas has been practicing pouring.


We took a walk at Negro Bar along the American River on March 26. Here are a few pics from that brief outing. It took Lucas only .5 seconds to get covered in wet mud.

It was a beautiful afternoon.


This was before we got sick. I like knowing how to take time-delayed shots! The camera is balanced on the stroller.

This is a cupboard in Lucas’s bedroom. Asher has taken to hiding his pacifiers in this cupboard. Now every time Asher enters Lucas’s room, he makes a beeline for this cupboard to check his stash.


My tulips are blooming and they’re fabulous.

I planted a multipack of pansies in the flowerbed by my front door a few weeks ago. They’re looking great now.


Some bath time fun. Asher kept sticking his tongue out.


And Lucas thought that was cool, so …

We have a book from the library called Hurry and the Monarch and another book all about the life-cycle of the monarch butterfly. Lucas spent two entire days being a monarch butterfly. I had to sneak this photo because he didn’t want one taken. He also had a monarch butterfly painted on his face—and it was damned good, if I do say so myself.

Lucas has also spent a lot of time pretending to be a mouse and a rabbit, which is more palatable to me than, say, pretending to be a Hells Angel or WWF wrestler. Even though small woodland creatures talk in unbearably high, squeaky voices and titter loudly enough to make your head explode.

To keep ourselves busy, we have also: 
* painted pictures
* painted faces
* made mobiles from tissue paper and sticks
* played board games
* played with dominoes
* drawn and colored
* cooked
* gardened and planted 2 tomatoes, 1 cucumber, 1 cantaloupe melon, 2 lavender bushes
* read dozens and dozens of books
* shopped online
* done many, many chores
* cleaned out closets
* and blogged.

Homeopathy?

I was wondering if anyone can point me to good info about homeopathy? Does it work? Is it safe? (The FDA recently said not to give cold meds to children under 6 years old, so I’m trying to find something to relieve symptoms.) I don’t have much experience with this, but we are trying Hyland’s ear ache and cold tablets for children. I see homeopathy kits on the internet, but have some skepticism and sticker shock at their prices.

  • About Sara

    Thanks for visiting! I’m Sara, editor and writer, wife to Ian, and mother of two precious boys. I am living each day to the fullest and with as much grace, creativity, and patience as I can muster. This is where I write about living, loving, and engaging fully in family life and the world around me. I let my hair down here. I learn new skills here. I strive to be a better human being here. And I tell the truth.

    Our children attend Waldorf school and we are enriching our home and family life with plenty of Waldorf-inspired festivals, crafts, and stories.

    © 2003–2018 Please do not use my photographs or text without my permission.

    “Love doesn’t just sit there like a stone; it has to be made, like bread, remade all the time, made new.” —Ursula K. LeGuinn

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