I've had a very interesting week. It started with lasting week having times of feeling very shaky. Then Sat. it happened more and Sunday more. I played my violin in church and could hardly play because I was so shaky! At home I noticed my pulse was at rest around 110 most of the time. I should have gone in on Sunday but decided to wait and try to get a good night sleep and see if that help. I woke up Monday morning shakier than ever and knew I needed to go in to get checked out. My mom had had Grave's disease (overactive thyroid disorder) when she was around my age so I thought it might be that and called her to talk to her. While talking to her I started feeling really lightheaded like I was going to pass out and hung up quickly and called my husband to help and call 911. I thought I was going to pass out and die or something. Thankfully most of the kids weren't up although my 7yo daughter was up to hear this. So he called 911 and a couple of my friends from church who were able to come over right away. I live in a rural area so the ambulance with volunter person arrived 5-10 min. later - I was panicing the whole time. Then about 5 min. later trained EMT people arrived. They took my vitals in the house here before loading me on the gurney to put me in the ambulance. They also ordered an intercept where the hospital sends people out to meet the ambulance on the road where highly trained people can get in to take care of you on the way to the hospital. I'm out 25 min from the hospital.
So my friends were able to stay with the kids and my dh brought the baby with so I would be able to nurse her sometime. She had never had a bottle and thankfully I had nursed her not too long before. On the way to the hospital they stopped when the intercept people met us and they did some basic stuff on the side of the road - put on more monitoring stuff for my heart and gave me an IV and drew blood for the hospital and all. Then we were back on the road to the hospital. In talking to the people in the ambulance we decided that I had had a panic attack at the house and I really wasn't as critical as I had felt like. I knew there was something going on, but the feeling like I was passing out and all was a panic attack. I guess that's common but I felt a little embarassed about that.
So anyways, the nurse did a few things when we got to the E.R., room and my husband and mother-in-law (who lives in towns) showed up to hang out with me. Thankfully I was allowed to nurse the baby right away. I saw the doctor on call and he asked about my symptoms and then said they'd see what the blood work said. So then we sat and waited for around 3 hours. Finally the doctor came back and said I was right about the thyroid and that I had thyroiditis and needed to make an appt with a doctor to start treatment. I was then released.
So I went home still feeling shaky but not too bad and found a doc. I was a bit worried about drugs and nursing my baby. My appt with the doc wasn't too encouraging as far as treatments he thought we would do. In talking to mhy parents he was wanting to go to more of an extreme than is necessary. He also prescribed some drugs that I wasn't sure I wanted to take to help the shakiness and heart.
I prayed about what I should do and decided to wait before starting the drugs. In reading my Bible the next morning I was seeking direction from the Lord and opened to Psalm 27 and then read vs.14 which said:
Wait on the LORD; Be of good courage, And He shall strengthen your heart; Wait, I say, on the LORD!
I decided to take that, at least for that day as permission to not take any drugs yet to slow my heart. Anyways, to make the rest of the story a bit shorter since I need to go, most of the days I've felt pretty good and my heart has sometimes been below 100 and often right around 100. I haven't taken any drugs. I read about a kind of thyroiditis which is much better than Graves disease where in the postpartum period you get Graves symptoms for 1-6 months and then it self-corrects but potentially can go hypothyroid afterwards and it turns out that that's what I have. I don't need any treatment and my doc said I don't have to take the drugs he prescribed unless I felt my heart was really racing and I could take them symptomatically. So all in all, I'm quite relieved. I'm reading a lot about vitamins and nutrition to help this and will see if I can help this naturally quite a bit as well. So that's been my week!
On the positive note, my church is giving me a baby shower tomorrow night which I'm really excited about! Anyways, I'm so thankful to God for his protection and help and healing!
I made this today and it went over pretty well with the kids. I didn't have the fresh parsley but it still tasted great.
Tomato Pie I totally guessed on the amounts...
1 Pie Shell Tomatoes (Chopped) Zucchini (Sliced/chopped/shredded) or any summer squash 3 Eggs Fresh Basil Fresh Parsley Garlic (Chopped) (I used 2 large cloves) Salt Pepper
Roll out pie crust. Mix the rest of the ingredients and pour into pie shell. Bake at 350-375 for 45 minutes or so. Enjoy!
Yes, we've had our first frost here in Northern WI already! Last night I was checking the weather and saw the frost advisory listed for our area. I definitely am NOT ready to lose our garden! Our tomatoes are finally starting to ripen after a really cold spring and early summer. Our corn is just starting to be ready to pick. Our beans are just hitting their peak. There are just too many good things that are just ready to start being harvested that I'm not ready for the garden to die! I knew I needed to keep the garden going longer for sure!
I had read in "Farmer Boy" in the Little House on the Prairie series, that Almanzo's family had a frost on the 4th of July and during the night they all got up and started hauling buckets of water to dump on their corn to keep it from freezing. Their father told them that as son as the sun's rays started to touch the plant's leaves, they would be lost so they were rushing to dump water on as many plants as possible before the sun came up.
So last night I went to sleep thinking I may try to get up before the sun is up and water the garden to make sure the garden doesn't freeze. So I went to sleep and during the night dreamed about waking up and seeing my garden all dead and all the plants lying flat on the ground. So I slept a bit restlessly knowing I wanted to make sure to get up before the sun to check to see if it had frosted.
Finally 5:45 rolls around and I could tell it was beginning to get light. I looked out my bedroom window and thought that it looked like there may be frost out there. I decided to get up and put on a warm shirt and go out to check things out. When I got out there, the grass definitely seemed a bit crusty and on feeling plants in the garden, they also seemed to have a bit of a frosty crust on them. So I went for the garden hose. On trying to get started watering, it wouldn't run at first so I found a kink. Then I started watering again and again I had problems with not much water coming out. I decided that there must have been a little ice in the hose and that it was blocking up the spray nozzle. I took it off and let water run out of the hose and shook out the nozzle. Then went to turn off the hose so I could put the nozzle back on and then turned the water back on (all the way from the front of our house where the water comes out) and finally got started watering. The gardens needed a good watering so after spraying down the plants, I gave the garden a good watering.
We have one area where we built some teepees to grow some plants up but since we don't have it fenced, we call it the "deer garden" because they munch on it. I hope it keeps them out of our other gardens! Anyways, since there wasn't much of anything to eat from in that garden, I decided to not water it so I could tell if the garden would have frozen without my watering it. Sure enough, by the afternoon when I checked it, many of the plants had died and the ones that hadn't died, didn't look the best and had some pretty damaged leaves!
So, I avoided a major catastrophe and the loss or damage of many plants by getting up and watering it! Last year at the first frost, I tried covering the garden, but that didn't prevent it from dying unfortunately. We'll see how many times I can save it by watering it before winter really hits and there's no purpose in watering anymore! Hopefully we can prolong the garden as long as possible! So if you have a frost predicted, try watering the garden before the sun comes up to save it.
Preheat your oven to 350. Take your leftover ham and chop it up fine - I used our mini-blender. Then take some sour cream and mix it into the ham until it's well-moistened. Then add some garlic powder and dill weed. Bake a few potatoes in the microwave then slice them in half and put them in a glass pan. Use a knife or fork to break up the potato some and put the ham mixture on top and kind of mix it a bit into the potato. Bake the potato until everything is nice and hot - 15-20 min. or so is all I did it for. Take it out and put shredded cheddar cheese over everything and let it melt. Then serve it up!
We had this yesterday and it was a great way to spruce up baked potatoes! Enjoy!
Here's the first of 2 simple meals. Tomorrow (or sometime soon when I get to it!), I'll post the 2nd one.
I haven't named this meal as it's something I threw together but it's so simple, quick and easy. I take a pound or more of ground beef that has been browned and drained. Usually I have some in the freezer already browned and ready. I put it in a skillet. Then I add a bunch of homemade salsa. Sometimes I'll also add some tomato sauce or paste depending on what that batch of salsa was like. Then I'll throw in some corn and some cooked rice. I let it all simmer together and heat up and then when it's done, I throw some shredded cheese on top to melt and crushed corn chips on top of that. I often serve it with sour cream as well. So that's one of my favorite easy meals! Enjoy!
Yes, I finally proved I have a large family by leaving a child at home. The worst part is who and where I was going. The good part is that no harm was done and now I'll be even more careful.
The who is my baby Lindy, and I was leaving to go to her and my 6-week check-up with the midwife! Here's the whole story.
I was getting ready to leave for the midwife's house which is 1 1/2 hours away. I was bringing 2 kids to Grandma's who lives 20 minutes away and is right on the way. I was bringing 2 more kids to a friend of mine who lives about an hour away and is also right on the way. The baby was coming for her 6-week check-up and the other 2 kids were staying home with dad. Dad was inside starting to do some transcription work as I brought everyone out to leave. The 2 who were staying (my 5yo and almost 2yo) came out with to say good-bye and were then going to play outside together for a little while.
So I get out to the van in our driveway and set the baby in her car seat on the ground next to the van. I hop in the van and need to buckle my 3yo boy in. As I'm getting in I realize that my 1yo girl is probably going to try to get into the van with us and think she's coming too and I don't want to have her get in and then have to get her out and have her cry about it so I shut the van door to keep her out. I buckle my 3yo boy and because the van door is shut, forget that the baby is on the ground outside in her carseat. I then drive off.
It wasn't until almost 20 minutes later as we're coming into town where my mil lives and 2 children are going to get dropped off that my 7yo daughter says, "Where's Lindy?" and I look back to see that she's not there. I was surprised it took her that long to notice she wasn't there as she's usually on top of things like that and sits right next to her, but thankfully I was good about it and didn't make her feel bad about it since it's not her responsibility. So I drive the 4 kids to Grandma's and walk in and ask if she had gotten a phone call from our home which she had. I decided to call home to get my midwife's phone # so I could tell her I'd be late since I now need to drive an extra 40 min. to get home for the baby and back with her.
I was definitely upset - mostly about the extra drive time and being late and the gas $ and all. My dh's story was this. He was working and my 5yo ds walks into his office and says, "Lindy's crying". And he says, "You mean Jemma?" (my 1yo), and he says, "No, Lindy". Thankfully he had been outside and about 10 minutes later heard Lindy crying and dad brought her in and took care of her. It would have been awful had she been out there the whole time crying!
So I went home, picked her up and went back to Grandma's and picked the other 2 kids up and went to my very sweet and understanding midwife who thankfully didn't have an appt scheduled after me.
So that's the story of my forgetting my sweet baby! I couldn't believe I had forgotten her and try to be extra careful now! I do find myself counting kids a lot with 7 of them!
Thank you Lord for keeping my kids safe, despite my failures!
I just spent the last hour or so browsing the internet trying to figure out how I was going to teach my son cursive this year. After looking at many books on ebay and amazon, and searching for websites teaching cursive I stumbled over a book review where the person mentioned a website with printable worksheets for teaching cursive. After checking it out, I think it will be a great, free way to go for cursive. There are printable worksheets with letters to trace to learn to make the letters. It's organized by categories of similarly shaped letters to give organization for teaching it. One of the best things about it is there's also a page where you can type in your own words that you want them to trace and learn and it will produce a page with those words for the student to trace on it! Here's a link to the site. Hope this helps someone out! Good luck to everyone as they prepare for the year to come!
Life has been a bit crazy lately! Our dog (black lab / German shepherd mix) learned to jump off our deck where we keep him. He's a very large dog and is difficult for the kids to take care even though he's a really nice, friendly dog. It was a tough decision but we decided to find him another home. We posted on freecycle and a friend posted on another freecycle for him and the Lord worked it out really well that his former owners who we got him from decided they wanted him back. So Monday I drove partway to their house and met them and gave them the dog back. It was really hard on my oldest even though he knows that it's for the best.
Then on the way home we had a deer run into us. I didn't hit the deer - the deer hit us. I never saw it coming but all of a sudden I heard this loud bang and felt the van shudder. I looked in the rear-view mirror and saw the deer tumbling away down the road. Thankfully with a big 15-passenger van, it didn't knock us far or anything. It did dent in the driver's door pretty well so that will need some major work along with a couple smaller dents.
So, it's been an interesting faith-testing week. It's definitely a test of faith going through certain things. It's not easy to keep a sense of peace at all times - especially with so many things going on in life all at once. Definitely a learning process. I feel like there's so many things I want to do and get done and not enough time, but I know I need to have peace and prioritize and let some things go as necessary. God is faithful and doesn't give us too much to do in the hours we have and he will take control of all situations.
Potty Training isn't my favorite thing in the world! With my first 2 kids, potty training went fairly smoothly. Then I had my twins. They are now 5 and are mostly potty trained (still an occasional accident for one of them) during the day but aren't nighttime trained yet. Then there's my 3yo boy who can and will go when you tell him to but if you don't tell him to, usually won't go and goes through many clothing changes a day. Finally my almost 2yo girl may do better than her next older siblings but at the moment she hasn't gone on the potty yet. She is always saying "poo-poo" like she's always poopy but I think she says that for both being wet or poopy. She sometimes says it when she needs to go and if you don't think she's gone, she'll prove it by putting her hand in her diaper and then showing it to you! But she has yet to be able to go when she sits on the potty.
Recently I was at a friend's house who practices elimination communication (sometimes called infant potty training) with her son who recently turned one. While we were there he was getting fussy and she realized it might be because he needed to go potty. So she took off his undies (he doesn't wear diapers at all) and put him on his potty and he promptly pooped! I was amazed about it and asked her some questions about it. I later was looking at some websites about elimination communication and started to get interested in the topic.
I read about how in our Western society we spend the first year plus training our kids that a diaper is the place to go potty and it's ok to be wet for a while. I admit that I haven't always been as diligent as I should be about changing my kids' diapers as soon as I should. Then after we train our kids to use a diaper for going potty, we change all the rules when they enter the "terrible two's" or threes. They are already going through lots of attitudes and changes and it's often a difficult time for them to make this big change. I also read about how infants truly can control to some degree the muscles that control peeing and pooping and that until about 4 months of age, they're very aware of their peeing and pooping.
The more I watched my youngest children struggling to change their potty habits I had trained into them when they were young, the more interest I had in trying elimination communication with my next baby. I recently requested some books from the library on the topic and 2 nights ago read/skimmed through the 2 books that came. The basic process you go through in training them is to first let your baby go naked or with just a thin cloth diaper on without a cover for a period of time when you can watch them. Then you watch for them to pee or poop and when they do, you make a pssss sound (or whatever sound you decide on). You pay attention to when they tend to go and watch for visual cues that they're about to go (squirming, facial expressions etc...). Babies don't go potty when they're sleeping so key times to watch for them to go are after naptimes and then after nursing sessions.
Once you've discovered when they go and gotten them used to hearing you make the signal sound (psss or whatever), you try to get them to go when you think it's time to go. You decide on a location/receptacle for them to go into and then find a position they're comfortable in and put them over the receptacle and hold them and make the signal sound and see if they'll go. Receptacles could be a sink (infant pee/poop is pretty harmless), a bowl, the potty or whatever you decide. For a good infant position, you hold them with their heads by your body and holding their legs in your hands.
So today I decided to try it out. In the morning I was able to notice a couple of times when Lindy peed and made the signal sound. I had tried making a sound a time or two other days before I read the book but don't know if I had done it at the right time for sure. I was gone in the late morning/early afternoon so didn't do anything then - just had her in diapers. Then in the afternoon I had her diaper off and held her on a cloth diaper to catch anything. She went a couple more times and I made the sound but didn't get her over a receptacle. Then she took a long nap around suppertime. After she got up I knew she might need to go and took her to her "potty" (an ice cream bucket on the counter). I was distracted a second while holder her over the "potty" and when I looked back I noticed she had pooped! A while later after feeding her and all I took her again and she peed! Then a while later before bedtime I took her again and right away when I made the signal she peed and pooped!
I was amazed as I could tell she was relating being there and my signaling to her going potty. I couldn't believe that in one day of trying, she already related the potty position and signaling to her going potty! Today I've had her in cloth diapers most of the time - sometimes with a cover so she won't leak and sometimes without. All in all I'd say she went at least 1/2 of the time in the potty - maybe a bit more. It's a bit amazing to me! So I think I'll keep at it with this infant potty training. It doesn't take much more work than changing diapers, although I take her potty more often than I would change her diaper normally. But I'm saving on diapers and laundering so many cloth diapers! It's just nice to know that she will grow up knowing the proper place for her pee and poop. I know she won't truly be potty trained until she's closer to 2 when she can really be independent with going potty, but she could be out of diapers and dry most of the time much sooner!
So far life is going well with a newborn. We seem to have fallen back into routine fairly well with just the usual glitches here and there. Thankfully Lindy has been a good sleeper so I get good sleep at night and she gets good naps during the daytime. So far at night I put her down in her bassinet once she's asleep for the night. Then once she wakes up, I nurse her in bed with me and fall back asleep with her and keep her in bed with me the rest of the night. Generally with my babies, they gradually start sleeping longer at night and when they're not waking as much, I start waking myself up more fully to feed them and put them back in the bassinet for the rest of the night.
I may end up a bit more tired once I'm getting up to feed the baby at night, but I've found that these times awake can be a blessing if my focus is right. During these awake times I find that it's a great time to spend in prayer for my family or for missionaries who very well might be awake during that time if they're half-way around the world. I will sometimes sing songs quietly and praise the Lord during these times. I find even with my older kids, if they're sick or going through a tough stage, if I can put my focus on using that time productively with the Lord, that it becomes a blessing in my life even if I do get a bit more tired. With my first couple of kids, I would resent that time being awake and think about how tired I would be and it would affect my whole outlook on my day.
When I had my twins, I was awake at night much more than with any of my other kids. I was able to tandem nurse them but I couldn't exactly tandem nurse them in bed and go to sleep like I do right now. So I would get up and go into another room to nurse them. The thing that helped me the most then was to get books on tape or inspirational tapes/CD's to listen to while I nursed my twins. I would be looking forward to that inspiration or the next part of an exciting story and then I didn't mind being awake so much in the middle of the night. It was still tiring, but emotionally I enjoyed that time awake so it was so much easier to handle.
Often by the time I'm getting up more completely at night, it doesn't last too long because my babies are ready to sleep through the night pretty soon and often they just start sleeping through the night on their own. Whatever stage I'm in, it's a blessing. I'm grateful for the good sleep right now but if I am awake more in the future, I know that my awake time will be a blessing as well!
