Category: Health

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Cole Family & Friends Health Household Ryan

Man Hair, Pictures, & Toy Organization

I was really hoping no one else in my house would get sick, but Cole fell victim to the latest stomach bug today.  Fortunately, it seemed like it was the kind Ryan had the other day- he only vomited once, and was a lot better.

My sister and I are going to take our kids on Sunday to get some winter / holiday / Christmas pictures taken together.  Ryan and Cole are the only cousins Maelin has, and we bought them all coordinating snowman and snow-woman sweaters from Children’s Place over the summer.  We have been looking forward to this for several months.  I am also going to have some pictures of the boys taken together and separately.  It will be Ryan’s four-year picture ( I can’t believe he is almost four!), and Cole’s 18-month picture.  I actually don’t have one picture of the boys together in a “formal picture,” so this is long over-due.   

To get ready for the pictures, we wanted to take Cole to get his hair cut today.  So after his nap when he woke up, Ryan was ready to go.  He went in the room to see if Cole was awake, and he started laughing.  He said, “Coley, your hair is all messed up.  You are going to get a hair cut.  You have man hair.”  I am not sure what “man hair” means, but Cole’s curls do get very matted, but hearing Ryan say that made me laugh.  Cole was a trooper during his haircut.  He sat in the chair all by himself, with a little pout on his face, but he sat still for the entire time, looking in the mirror at himself, and holding my hand. 

I finished up tonight a project that I had started working on earlier in the week, which was to organize the boys’ toys.  I got rid of a lot of stuff that was broken and just junk.  I actually didn’t need as many storage bins that I had bought, but maybe after Christmas, they will come in handy.  It is nice to finally have a handle on their toys. I am going to insist now with Ryan, when he takes one toy out, he puts it back before he gets another one out.  We’ll see how that goes. 

Tomorrow, Joe is going to put together all the train tracks the boys have, and nail them on a board like they do at the toy stores.  Then we will be able to lift the board off, if the boys want to play with the train table, but all their tracks won’t be all over the place.  I am going to work for a few hours, since I missed it the other day, and I am hoping Ryan will be able to help Joe with this, and get excited again about his trains. 

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Cole Health Me Mothering Ryan

Sick Yet Again

I am getting so tired of getting sick!  Yesterday evening when I arrived at my in-law’s house, after work, my mother-in-law said that Ryan had gotten sick after breakfast, but he was fine now.

He ate some of his dinner, was playing, and whatever he had, wasn’t bothering him anymore.

About three hours after dinner, I started feeling terrible.  My stomach was cramping, and I just got that sick feeling. I knew I was going to be vomiting at any time.  I managed to put Cole to sleep, and then it hit me about 9:30.  At 2 AM, I vomited for the last time, in between Cole waking up.  He wasn’t sick, but he just kept waking up, which was ironic. He has been sleeping through the night now, for about a month.  He goes down, and doesn’t make a peep until 6:30 or 7 in the morning (pending that he isn’t teething)- except for last night- he kept waking up every hour, and only wanted me. 

I felt so sick, I just sat in the glider with him, with a big bowl near me, in case I couldn’t get to the bathroom in time.  Then I tossed and turned the rest of the night, until I got up at 7, to call our child care provider to tell her I wasn’t going anywhere today, and to call in to work.    I begged Joe to stay home today, but he just couldn’t- he had a big meeting. 

I told Ryan he had to be a good boy today, and he was so good!  Around 10, Cole wanted to take his nap, so I snuggled in bed with him, while Ryan played in his room, right next door to us.  I didn’t fall into a deep sleep, but I dozed, and Ryan was so quiet and told me he had been playing with his blocks, and reading his books.  He kept asking me if I felt better, and told me he was sorry I was sick.  He would say, “Don’t worry Mommy, you’ll feel better in a few days.” 

I managed to keep some toast down at lunchtime, and took a nap.  I feel better tonight, but feel weak, cold, and clammy.  I thought I might have gotten food poisoning, but my in-laws, Joe, and I, all ate the same thing for dinner last night, and they were fine.  Thinking back to Ryan, there probably was some bug that I caught, although I’m glad that Ryan didn’t get as sick as I.

So hopefully, no one else around here will come down with that bug.  It was awful. Fortunately, Joe is taking tomorrow off.  It is SO hard to take care of your kids, when you are sick.  We have had so many bugs and viruses since the summer, I really think we have payed our dues.  No more sickness!  🙂

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Cole Health Ryan

Kids Say the Darnest Things

If you sat down and thought of the weirdest, oddest, thing that your child say one day, I don’t think in your wildest dreams, you can fully appreciate the way their little minds work.

Example: Over the weekend, we went and got a flu shot.  The nurse said for Cole, the easiest and less painful place for his shot was in his bum.  Cole was a trooper- he let out a little cry, for a whole three seconds, and then he was done.  Last night, as we were putting on his pajamas, I noticed a tiny black and blue mark, on his bum, where he had gotten his shot.  I pointed it out to Joe, and of course Ryan was watching and listening to everything.

We also noticed that there was a patch of skin on Cole’s bum that looked like it was becoming more irritated.  He has had it for about a month, and we just thought it was a patch of dry skin, but it hasn’t been going away.  I had a Dr.’s appointment today, and called this morning to see if the Dr. could look at this patch of skin on Cole.  Of course Ryan was listening to everything I was saying.

At the doctor, again, Cole was so good.  He just rolled over, and laid down on his tummy and let the doctor look at his bum.  He determined that Cole has a small patch of eczema.  He told me some things I could do for it, and that was the extent of Cole’s examination.

Tonight as Joe was giving the boys a bath, I was in the other room, folding towels.  Ryan started to cry saying, that the “pinches” on Cole’s bum, scare him.  We had no idea what he was talking about, but he kept on and on, repeating he didn’t like the “pinches.”  I went into the bathroom, and asked Ryan if he meant the needle prick where Cole got his shot scared him, and he said no, the pinches, and there were three of them that scared him.  Then he held up his fingers and counted to three, for emphasis. 

We still had no clue, what he meant, but he was crying more intently at this point.  Joe had Cole stand up, and asked Ryan to show us what on Cole’s bum scared him.  Our little Cole- what a sweetie.  He just stood up, and let Ryan point out the baby CELLULITE / DIMPLE pockets on his little bum.  Evidently Cole’s baby fat deposits scare Ryan.

Well, I just couldn’t stop laughing.  I went into the other room and laughed, so Ryan wouldn’t see me laughing (I didn’t want him to think I was laughing at him), while Joe explained he didn’t have to be scared of the “pinches” on Cole’s bottom. 

I have no idea if all this attention the last few days on Cole’s bum brought this on, or if this is something that really was scaring Ryan.  At any rate, it is pretty darn funny- oh the things they come up with!

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Current Events Health

Bleach & Bees- Odd Bedfellows

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While glancing through the business section of the newspaper today, I saw a headline that caught my eye: Clorox Bleach is buying Burt’s Bees for almost a billion dollars in CASH!  Evidently Clorox wants to get into the natural products market, and decided this was the way to do it.

I LOVE Burt’s Bee’s products.  They are natural, and have some of the best beauty products out there, in my opinion.  I also like that they are one of the industry leaders in the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, being one of the first companies to sign the pledge in May, 2005.  The signers of this pledge vow “not use chemicals that are known or strongly suspected of causing cancer, mutation or birth defects in their products and to implement substitution plans that replace hazardous materials with safer alternatives in every market they serve.”

I’d be lying if I said I never use bleach, in fact I have a bottle of good old Clorox in the laundry room.  It definitely has its place, but it makes me leery and suspicious when a cleaning product company, who makes chemical toilet brushes, among other things, purchases a natural beauty-cosmetics-baby product line.  I can’t help but wonder if the quality of Burt’s Bees products will suffer.

I certainly hope not, but after reading this today, I don’t think I will ever be able to apply some of my beloved Burt’s Bees Beeswax Lip Balm, on my lips, slather Baby Buttermilk Lotion, on my sons skin, or rub their soothing Diaper Ointment on my baby’s delicate diaper area, without thinking of a big bottle of chemical bleach and toilet brushes!  Not exactly the image you want in your mind, when applying natural products on yourself or on your baby  I might go stock up on my favorite items before the production is turned over to the bleach company. 

I have to say that I am disappointed in Burt’s Bees too.  Obviously this was an enormous amount of money, but they didn’t have to agree to be sold to Clorox.  Their customers have built them into the company they are today, which commands their sales price and market value.  It just seems like they “sold out” to a big giant corporate company, that does not fit their brand image at all, and too bad for their loyal customer base.   If Burt’s Bees wanted to be sold to a big company, couldn’t they have at least tried Proctor & Gamble?  At least P&G has a beauty product line, and at least for me the first image I get from P&G, isn’t a toilet bowl filled up with Clorox.  I guess the almighty dollar wins again.

I just hope Clorox doesn’t try to take out the natural ingredients, and replace them with cheap, chemical laden crap, “improve” the products.  Burt’s Bees products are perfect the way they are. 

At any rate, after using Burt’s Bees products for years, it is sad that I can’t look at the company the same way, sad I can’t trust it now, and will always be wondering if Clorox will try to substitute, and sneak chemicals in the products in order to cut costs, and try to make some of that billion dollars back. 

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Cole Health Mothering Ryan Work

It Was Bound To Happen

It was bound to happen- I caught the nasty cold(s) that Ryan and Cole have. 

Ryan is *finally* better.  He still has an occasional cough, but he is back to his happy, old, self.  Poor Cole seems like he is in the worse of it right now- lots of congestion and a cough.  I feel so bad for the little guy.  He wakes up at night, because he can’t breathe, and he throws up, because of all of the gunk in his throat he can’t get out.  Then he just wants to be held. 

On Sunday night, I held him for 3 hours- until 4 am.  Every time he was asleep, and I would try to set him back in his crib, he’d wake up and start crying.  After 3 hours, and about 10 attempts, he finally stayed asleep.

On Monday night, I thought I would try another tactic- after he threw up all over me, and I gave him a bath (at 1 am), to try to clear up his congestion, I brought him to sleep with me.  He fell asleep on top of me- right away, and his breathing was really good- no raspy noises.  I could taste the sleep I was going to get- wrong!  After about 15 minutes, he started tossing and turning, and I was so bone-dead tired, I just didn’t have the energy to get up, and sit with him until he fell asleep.  So I let him toss around on me, and got about 10 minutes of sleep all night.

Needless to say, it has been a fun few nights at my house. On top of that I am trying to get over this junk too.  It is odd when you stay at home, and you are only around your kids all day, you never really think that you are sick.  You still have to get up, make them their food, play with them, take care of them, etc. They don’t care if you have a cold, life must go on.

I have the same little nagging, hacking, annoying cough now too.  This afternoon at work, after listening to me cough all day, my boss told me that I sounded awful, and I should go home and take care of myself!  I immediately told her I felt fine- I just had this cough.  It was like an instant reaction to state that I wasn’t sick.

Then I started thinking, that she was right. I didn’t feel that great, and this cough and cold is wearing me down.  She told me not to come in tomorrow, so I’m going to accept her offer, not go in, and rest.  I’ll see if I feel better by the weekend and maybe go in on Saturday for a few hours to catch up.

It really is ironic for me anyway, that as much effort, thought, and worry I put into my boys’ health, it is so hard for me to think of my own health in the same way.  I’m glad there was someone today that reminded me that it is okay to take a break and rest when I’m not well.

So if I don’t blog for the next few days, you know I am resting…well, at least as much as I can with one active three-year old, and one sick toddler.  🙂