Weight Loss for Moms by Grace

1) Whenever you sit down for lunch with Mom, immediately go and grab your own eating utensil. This is an essential tool.


Or use your hands.

2) Ignore your own food, and eat at least half of Mom's for her, saving her those extra, un-needed calories.


3) It never hurts to drool a little or spit some food into the bowl if she looks like she's wanting seconds. This will end any desire for her to continue to eat completely.


4) If she tries to go for your food, yell, "No!" and hit her hand.


Try hiding it under the tablecloth if negative reinforcement is ignored.



Repeat 3 times daily, and your mama will be skinny in no time!

XOXO,
Grace

Gardening: Take 2

We're attempting to garden again. Even though last year's plants didn't fare so well.

We've done our research on good things to grow indoors/in limited space and decided to just stick to herbs: basil, rosemary, parsley, cilantro, and green onions.

Okay, so we threw a vegetable in there. But green onions are totally do-able indoors.

I think.

And Adam's doing a little project of his own: a birdhouse gourd, because it looks so cool. But, mostly herbs. The thing is, that they can all grow in our window (well, not the gourd, but we've got a big pot outside for it). And we are determined to make this work this year.

Planting happened on Tuesday, and I went all nerdy and made these "Plant Observation" books for the kids. Every day we're going to measure how much they've grown and write any changes we see. I like to give Adam extra opportunities to write. And Grace as many opportunities to color on the table as possible.


I love gardening. It's so magical and fun.

And (hopefully) yummy.

The Arm Story Part 2

Grace went back to the orthopedic surgeon yesterday to get her arm checked out.

They took off her cast, I freaked out that she had some kind of skin disease (had no idea how dry skin gets when in a cast... gross), they x-rayed it (again), and the doctor proclaimed her cured!

It looks like it was just a really, really bad sprain.

Yay!

(Er.... 'yay!' that it wasn't fractured... not 'yay!' that her elbow was sprained).

Unfortunately, she grew a bit attached to the cast. And cried when we tried to leave without it. So we took the gross thing home, where she carried it around with her everywhere the rest of the day.

Whatever.

She's still very much baby-ing it, which the doctor says is normal, and her arm still looks diseased (we're trying Eucerin cream now... hopefully it helps), but I'm so thankful that everything was okay and that we are cast-free!

Bring on the cute long-sleeved shirts!

Adam's Bad Day

Adam came home from school today very upset.

He had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day.

(I love that book, by the way).

Here's what happened:

- Instead of getting to play with the dress-up clothes (a center that is only open every other Friday and that he has very much been looking forward to) he had to take a test.

- Trinity threw rice down his shirt at sand table.

- He got on yellow for the first time ever. And it wasn't his fault at all. Two girls in his group were being noisy, so the whole group got put on yellow. His teacher told the girls to apologize to rest of the group, but Adam wasn't impressed.

- He couldn't remember how to spell 'sock' on his test and spelled it 'soc.'

- His sandwich got squished.

- He and his best friend, George, got into a fight.

And then after school:

- Arthur was replaced by some news conference about Obama. Watching Arthur and having an after-school snack is his daily ritual.

- He found out that Grace and I ate lunch with Mike at D.I. today (whoops!).

To make it better we are:

- Having an impromptu picnic dinner at the park.

- Riding bikes at the park after dinner.

- Mike's buying one of the Star Wars movies at D.I. and we are going to watch it as a family tonight (gulp... it's always been my thing to never, ever watch any of the Star Wars movies ever. Never say never, I guess).

- Loving on him as much as possible.

Bad days stink. And they happen.

But I hope that our home/family will always be a happy place for him to come home to.

Adam's First Talk

Practicing with the visuals - spirit and body

Adam's on some kind of spiritual-roll or something. First testimony-bearing-in-church last Sunday. First talk today.

I didn't get to go because Grace's still sick, and I'm sick now, too. Because apparently staying up all night with your daughter coughing in your face is not conducive to a healthy immune system.

Anyway, he did awesome, from what I hear. He really, really wanted to read it on his own without any help, so we practiced and practiced. Except he kept pronouncing "Father" as "fat-her," which doesn't sound very nice. And I was worried about him making that mistake, but he was fine, and completed it on his own. And Mike had the honors of holding up the visual aids. Whataguy.

For those who might be interested, here is his talk:

I am a Child of God. I have a Heavenly Father who loves me.

Before we were born, we lived with Heavenly Father. We were created in His image. That means that we look like Him.

We are Heavenly Father’s spirit children.

Just like our parents on earth, Heavenly Father wants us to make good choices. Before we came to earth, we made the choice to follow Heavenly Father's plan instead of Satan's. We decided that we wanted to receive a body and come to earth.

I know that I have a Father in Heaven. I know that He loves me and wants me to be happy and make good choices.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

He can't wait until his next turn to give a talk. Which should be soon.

When there's only 12 kids or so in the entire Primary, you get to give a lot of talks.

Thinking of the Pioneers

Adam and Grace have had colds all this week. However, Adam quickly got over his, while Grace just got more and more sick.

Her temperature wouldn't come down from 103-104 range at all (no matter the medication or the cool baths) on Wednesday and Thursday. On Friday, her temperature came down to 102, but she was borderline lethargic; only sleeping all day. Her breathing was very wheezy and her cough horrible. She has refused to eat anything since Thursday, and wouldn't drink on Friday/Saturday morning at all.

I finally got her into the doctor on Saturday morning (everyone has some serious cold bug around here, and they had been booked solid for days), where he gave her a breathing treatment, an x-ray (to rule out pneumonia), and prescribed her some antibiotics for what he called a 'most serious case of bronchiolitis,' and sent us on our way.

Two antibiotic doses (and several breathing treatments) later, and she's a new person. She's drinking. She's talking. She's awake. She's walking around and giggling. She's breathing much better. Her fever is history. She's coughing, but things are breaking up. She's on her way to being completely better. Seeing the difference that antibiotics can make is amazing.

On Friday, I laid next to her in bed all night, awake. She was so feverish, her breathing so bad, so completely out-of-it, that I was worried I would need to take her to the emergency room. I knew that we were getting into the doctor the next morning, and hoped we would make it through the night without things getting worse.

And as I laid there, I thought about the pioneers. The mothers who probably listened to their children's breathing through the night, who put cool cloths on their children's foreheads to try and bring the fever down, who stayed up all night praying for them to get through the night.

Just like I was doing.

But, I also had the knowledge that if things got too bad, we could go to the E.R., where she would get immediate help. That we were going to the doctor the next morning. That we have been blessed with incredible skilled doctors and pharmacies full of amoxicillin and albuterol. That everything would be okay.

They didn't. And I can't even begin to imagine their sorrow when their children didn't get better.

How grateful I am today for the blessings of science and medicine that we've been given. It's something that I've always been thankful for, but my gratitude is deeper today. Thinking of the pioneers, thinking of how many children died not that long ago from, and knowing that if it was a hundred or so years ago and how absolutely sick Grace was, that she literally could have died from her illness, makes my gratitude take on a new meaning.

The Arm Story

So, I know some of you have heard this already. BUT, wanted to write this down as part of our family journal/record/guilt-inducing documentation for future use (i.e. "Take out the trash! Because when you were 5, you broke Grace's arm, that's why!").

Two Saturdays ago, Adam and Grace were sitting in the recliner, watching Saturday morning cartoons while I scrubbed the kitchen sink. They began fighting about something of the utmost importance:

Who had more of the chair.

I remember arguing about such things with my brothers. But, come on! My kids are so much better than that.

I know, right? I'm laughing, too.

Anyway, they both fell off. And Grace began crying. And I told both of them to stop horsing around. Twenty minutes or so later Grace was still crying. Which is not unusual, as she really likes attention. Especially when Adam has done something to her. And she will continue to cry until retribution is made.

Frustrated with the state of the spice cabinet that I was trying to clean, I did what any loving mother would do:

I told her she was fine, and to move on.

I mean, she fell a foot onto carpet for Pete's sakes! And then when she was still crying a little while later, and asking for the doctor, I began to worry.

And really, really feel like a bad mom.

I called Mike at work, crying, and he came home from work, and got Adam and then went back to work, leaving me to decide what to do. I just couldn't have imagined that she had done anything more than maybe sprained her wrist. So, I called her doctor. He told me to ice it, etc.

I kept her home from church the next day. And she seemed to be doing better.

And then Monday she was still crying about it. So, I called the doctor who refused to see her. Mike went to 2 urgent cares. Who refused to see her. He went back to our doctor to beg for a radiologist referral, and they refused. So he went to the E.R.

They took some x-rays and told us that they had no idea. And gave us a referral to an orthopedic surgeon.

Thanks.

Mike and Grace went the next day, where they took more x-rays. Which brings Grace's x-ray total to 5 in the past 5 months.

I'm expecting a thank you note any day from the radiologist, who no doubt, got to go on a cruise with our family's radiology needs alone this year. Seriously.

SO, anyways. The deal with the arm is this: there is a mass of blood around her elbow, which is a sign of a fracture. It can take up to 2 weeks in children for a fracture to show. So, even though they aren't seeing a fracture in her elbow right now, they are afraid that there is one, and are treating it as such. On Thursday, I get to bring her back in, where they will take off her cast and x-ray it again (seriously... is that amount of radiation in a 2-year-old safe? I mean that will make 6), and see where we stand.

Hopefully things have cleared up, and she will be fracture-free.

If not, it's going to be a L-O-N-G eight more weeks in a cast.

When I was in elementary school, I always envied people with casts. They got to have friends sign them and all sorts of attention, and it just looked fun.

Don't pretend none of you felt that way, too.

Or do, so I don't look crazy.

But, seriously, casts are not fun. They stink.

Literally.

Adam's Testimony

Yesterday Adam 'buried' his testimony for the first time ever in church.

And no, it's not the same as burying your talents.

And yes, he is the cutest thing ever.

He has been wanting to bear his testimony for a while in church, but my thing is, I think a child should go up on there own and bear it, without someone whispering in their ear. I mean, it should be their testimony, you know? It's just my thing.

It might also have to do slightly with the fact that if I went up with him, I'd have to speak, too. Which is notgonnahappen. Without oxygen tanks and medics on call in case I fainted.

Anyway, we've been talking about what a testimony is, and what you should say the past few months in family home evening. Yesterday he told us that he was ready, but he asked Mike if he would come sit by him, because it's a long walk up there, you know? We were fine with that. He marched up proudly, and tripped and fell on his face going up the podium.

Because he has my ever-so-graceful genetics.

Then, red-faced, but completely confidently, he said:

"I'd like to bury my testimony.
I know the Church is true. I know Jesus is true.
In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen."

He is so sweet. And I'm so amazed at what an example he is for me.

And, come on, saying 'bury'?

Is that not the cutest thing ever?