I'm Going CRAZY!!!
Excuse me while I vent...
I am SO tired of...of...my life right now! I'm tired of living with my parents. Have you ever tried to stay one step ahead of someone chronically unpredictable??? I'm telling you—it's enough to make a woman OD on her prozac! I stopped counting how many times my Mom has commented that I need to do something with the toys in the living room. And it always comes out as something like, "I'm SO sick of living in this mess. I guess I'm just going to end up throwing my stuff out to make room for all the people I've got living here." Okay. I have three responses to that.
- Uh, hello??? YOU INVITED US TO LIVE HERE!!!!!!!!!
- Do you think I ENJOY living like this? At this point you have more space than I do. I don't have anyplace else for her toys to go. We have NO more spacd in our 10x10 room, and you get mad if I put anything in the room where Adri used to sleep. If you haven't noticed lately, we're remodeling the basement so we can get out of your space. I can't take her down to play in a construction area, nor can I store her toys down there. Trust me, I don't want to be here right now anymore than you do. And I won't take second longer than is necessary for us to get out of the mess that we're in.
- I spent so long venting on the second one, I've forgotten my last one. But rest assured, I would have said it with great gusto!
I just have to keep reminding myself that things will be better once the basement is finished. We will have our own living room, television, bathroom, and most importantly, a bedroom bigger than 10x10!!!!!! I still miss having my own kitchen. Cooking is one of my passions, and I usually don't get the opportunity to that any more.
So if you need me, I'll be curled up in the fetal position. "I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful. I feel good, I feel great, I feel wonderful....."
Is This Bad?
Will I get my Mommy License revoked if I openly admit that I think
John Tartaglia of Playhouse Disney's
Johnny and the Sprites is a hottie?
Maybe it's because of my background in theater...or the number of theater romances I had (okay, so most of them were in my head), but I think he's a cutie. Oy...my poor husband.
On a less lusty note....
My friend
Felicia has inspired me to try getting my protein in ways other than meat. I'm also getting REEEEEAAAAALLLY tired of eating my mother's various combinations of ground beef, rice, kielbasa, and canned chili. Every once in a while she'll throw in a can of spam or canned salmon...and then fries it in an inch of oil. Anyway, one of my all-time favorite recipes is
Southwestern Quinoa Salad (forgive the strange look of the website. I'm still working on it). I changed it around a little today and just added salsa to the quinoa, black beans and corn. Then I cut up a veggie burger into little chunks, mixed it all together, slapped it in a taco shell, and voila! A veggie taco! I don't know that I'd serve it to dinner guests, but it was a decent invention. What's funny is that Adriana LOVED it!!!! She ended up eating about an 1/8 of a cup of it—not bad for a child who's been throwing up constantly since Saturday. I'm still working on my tofu skills. They have a lot to be desired.
We Just THOUGHT It Was All Over...
I've now been inducted into the Mother's Hall of Fame. My daughter puked AAAAAAALLLLLL over the table and floor at McDonald's yesterday—not just once, but twice! I'm just glad the lunch rush was over. Let me rewind...
Adri started throwing up about 2am Saturday and didn't stop until Sunday evening. Then had TERRIBLE diarrhea all day Monday, but was pretty much back to her old self. Yesterday she started eating a little bit and had been without a fever or diarrhea for 24 hours. So Mom and I thought it would be okay to go do our grocery shopping at Wal-Mart. We got there at 10:30 and then made a little bed for Adri in the cart at about 11:30 (grocery shopping for us is usually an all day affair). I thought she was looking a little flushed, but didn't really think anything of it. She slept for about an hour and a half (her typical nap length) while Mom and I finished up our shopping. When she finally woke up, her little face was BEET red and she was feverish again. While we checked out, she just kinda lounged in the cart, but seemed to be okay other than the fever. By that time, Mom and I both needed lunch, so we drove everything over to McDonalds and grabbed a quick bite. After I finished my lunch, I realized that I forgot to get her juice, so I headed back into the store to get that. When I got back, Adri was draped over Mom's shoulder and didn't look too good. Just as Mom and I were getting stuff ready to head out to the car, she launched everything she had eaten all over the table, the floor, as well as Mom and me. The employees working at McDonalds were very sympathetic, but I think they were scared to help. We finally managed to get everything cleaned up and Adri changed into the pajamas that we had gotten for her and headed out to the car. Since we were already on that end of town, I just decided to take her over to her doctor's office to see if we could get her in. Now I'm not a hysterical mother by any means. I think it's a disservice to take your child in for medication for EVERY sniffle and sneeze. But after two days of fever and puking, two days of diarrhea, and four days of not eating anything and not sure if she was getting enough liquids to stay hydrated, I decided to go ahead and take her in. So I get to our Kaiser office and head over to the peds counter to talk to the receptionist. I told her that we didn't have an appointment, but that she had been throwing up and had a fever since 2am Saturday... While I still had my mouth open, the lady interrupted me and said, "Well why did you wait til the last minute to bring her in???" I just stopped and glared at her and said through my teeth, "She stopped and was feeling better for a couple of days, but she's started all over again, and I'm worried that it's more than just a bug." She threw some paperwork at me to fill out. I filled it out and threw it back at her. They couldn't get me in until 5pm, so we just stayed there. It's about 45 minutes in heavy traffic back home, so it wasn't worth it to go home and come back. When we finally got in to see the doctor, he saw that she obviously didn't feel good (she had fallen asleep on my lap in the waiting room) and he said it was probably a good idea that I brought her in just to be sure. Take that you stupid receptionist.... He said he's pretty sure she just has a virus, but wants me to keep an eye on her over the next few days to make sure she doesn't keep going backward. She still won't eat (which is fine...I'm really tired of cleaning up puke), but she's at least keeping down her juice/water mixture, and she's getting at least a few calories from the juice.
Well, Adri is down for her nap, so I'll have to get up off my fanny and get downstairs to work. I have to paint an anti-mold something-or-other on the concrete walls so that we can get the new wall framed, and insulation and drywall up this coming weekend. I'm enjoying the process, but I'll be glad when it's all over.
The Wearing O' The Green--From the Inside Out
I was ushered into my day at 2am when Adriana, so adorably tucked in bed next to me tossed her cookies all over her chest and my arm. Poor little thing didn't even wake up! She's spent pretty much then entire day wearing nothing but a diaper, sitting on my Mom's lap either sleeping or watching cartoons. Poor little thing. I feel so bad when she is sick like this. She just lays there trying so hard to be her normal self, but just doesn't have the energy to. She finally stopped throwing up about four o'clock yesterday. I'm trying to keep her hydrated with apple juice and white grape juice and water, and the only thing she's had to eat today (other than a couple of crackers) was a half of a Chicken McNugget and about six french fries. She's still sleeping a lot too. It's almost like she's got
narcolepsy or something! She'll be playing in the floor with her toys, and I'll look down a few minutes later and she's laid her head on her hippo and is asleep!! It looks like she's starting to feel normal again. She's back to throwing things down the stairs ;-)
A New Look for Flakes
Well, my back is sore, my fingers are blistered, my eyes are bugging out from staring at the computer screen, and I'm pretty sure my daughter will need counseling for abandonment issues later in life, but the Flaks of Bran redesign is complete!! I've been wanting to do something of my own for some time now, but there just hasn't been time. I've been playing with it while Adri is napping, but for some reason I just snapped and have been working on it all day. Yes, I know CSS is supposed to be SO much faster to design and build, but I know as much about CSS as I do medicine—just enough to be dangerous. You'll notice that the layout is the same; it's just the color and graphics that are different. That's because the only thing I know how to do is change those things. I haven't had time to figure out how to move them around. I guess I got out of the web design business just as it was getting really cool! I'm pretty proud of the title graphic—I made that one myself!
Okay...it's late and I desperately need some sleep. Hope you enjoy the new look. Hopefully the other pages will get an overhaul sometime soon.
It's Brandi Kuiper: Labor Doula!
Sounds like something I need a cape for, eh?
Okay, so not quite yet. Actually I haven't even started, but I found some great resources for when I have the money to start. Ever since I had Adriana, I've a bee in my bonnet to become a doula. I honestly believe that with the complications I had PLUS trying to go au natural on the drug front, I would have ended up in a c-section if
Desiree hadn't been there.
Desiree holding Adriana a few minutes after she was born.At 32 weeks I was diagnosed with a severe case of Pre-eclampsia (aka toxemia and pregnancy induced hypertension). I had been following
Dr. Brewer's high protein diet (he passed away a month before I gave birth and his website is no longer up). Both Desiree and our birth class instructor, Stacy, said that they're sure that my toxemia would have been much worse much faster if I had not been eating 150g to 200g of protein per day. I was getting REALLY tired of eating eggs. Anyway, with what I had, most doctors would have just said, "I'm going to section you—don't even bother trying to talk me out of it." My doctor knew that we wanted to have as natural a childbirth as possible, and he knew that we had a doula, so he agreed to be as hands-off as much as possible and still keep everyone safe.
Aside from being an encouragement in labor, she was also a spiritual encouragement. After a scary evening of cervical ripening (I feel like I was persuaded with a heavy hand to allow a controversial drug for ripening, and then was bullied by the nurses and doc-on-call into using more than was established in the hospital's safety protocol and DEFINITELY more than I was comfortable using...but I digress), Desiree came into my room and announced to Ben and Bridget (my sister) and I that she believed that God had given her a dream in the night. She dreamed that after a peaceful labor, the baby just popped out and into her arms—no time to call the doctor or my nurse or anything. I'm a big believer in God speaking to us through dreams (I'm not your typical fundamentalist...I consider myself more of a charismentalist). And when she told us about her dream, we all felt the peace of God come over us and we knew that everything was going to go okay. She prayed with us before they brought the pitocin in, she helped Ben and I make decisions about different interventions we were faced with—she was an amazing support. I think the doc-on-call was intimidated by my sister (she's a VERY intelligent nurse), so I'm pretty sure that's why the doctor stayed out of my room until he LEGALLY had to be there—plus he's very vocal about not liking doulas in the room. He said it makes him look like the "bad guy."
I want to be that kind of support for other women. I want to help them to work with their bodies and not to fight it. Some women, for various reasons, aren't able to have a natural birth and either have to have drugs or a cesarean. I want to be there with them and encourage them—especially if drugs or a section isn't what they were planning. I realize that my birth experience what nigh unto a miracle, but I want to help the women who hire me feel as good about the birth of their child as I felt about mine no matter how it goes.
Now...to raise $450 dollars for my training..... ;-)
