another moment

I had another mother moment last week. I really had to bite my tongue when I picked up Bryce from school. Okay, so his teacher this year is just a little different to me. I can't explain it. Bryce had such a sweetheart of a teacher last year, so maybe I go a little spoiled.

All the kids were up playing while they were waiting for their parents to pick them up for the day. There was one boy that was sitting in a chair at the table, and I really didn't think anything of it. I was helping Bryce get all of his stuff together, and the boy got up out of the chair (not sure where he was going...) and the teacher had the nastiest tone with him. It was a "Get back in that chair, RIGHT NOW!" sort of thing. Yeah, I talk to Bryce that way from time to time, but I don't expect a teacher at a mother's day out program to speak to a child that way. Really, he wasn't hurting anyone....but I don't know what he did to get in the chair in the first place.

I wanted soooo bad to tell his mom about how nasty the teacher sounded, but then talked myself out of it. It wasn't my business, but on the other hand, I would want to know if the shoe was on the other foot. I hope she was just having a bad day because I have my eye on her now.

3 days

Three very long days. I decided to give up drinking diet sodas and any drinks containing sugar substitutes. I have/had a huge addiction, and I didn't realize how bad it was until I decided to quit drinking them. I've always heard that aspartame wasn't good for you, but I read this book over the weekend called "Skinny Bitch", and it went in a little deeper about the dangers and that caused me to do more research on my own. I'm having some pretty bad headaches and pain in some of my joints (mainly my shoulders). I haven't given up caffeine completely (yet). I substitute my morning coffee with tea (no sugar) and that's been a lifesaver!

But enough about the negative stuff, let me tell you how things are changing for the good. My skin and hair are looking better each day. My appetite has really decreased. That was something else I learned about the diet sodas. Each one you drink is a constant surge of insulin. This is taken from a website when I did my "researching"


That may be just what happens when we offer our bodies the sweet taste of diet drinks, but give them no calories. Fowler points to a recent study in which feeding artificial sweeteners to rat pups made them crave more calories than animals fed real sugar.

"If you offer your body something that tastes like a lot of calories, but it isn't there, your body is alerted to the possibility that there is something there and it will search for the calories promised but not delivered," Fowler says.

Perhaps, Bonci says, our bodies are smarter than we think.

"People think they can just fool the body. But maybe the body isn't fooled," she says. "If you are not giving your body those calories you promised it, maybe your body will retaliate by wanting more calories. Some soft drink studies do suggest that diet drinks stimulate appetite"

I really this is something I can continue long-term. I have initially set a goal for me of two weeks, cold turkey, no diet sodas. I know this will get easier!

HAPPY 1ST BIRTHDAY DREW!!!!

I just can't get over how this year has flown. It really does go so much faster when you have two kids. Drew's birthday was yesterday, so I decided to take him and B to Chuck E Cheese for some playtime. I've done this every year for B (taken him to CEC for his "official" b-day), so I wanted to carry the same tradition over for Drew. He lasted just about an hour before we had to come home for lunch and a nap, and then preparations for today's party. We had so much fun, and are so thankful for the friends and family that we have. We've been hanging out at home s-l-o-w-l-y taking each toy out of the box for him to play with. It's been a perfect day, and a perfect 1st birthday for my boy!

down

Last Thursday night, someone very close to me let me down in a major way. I'm so disappointed in her. I tried every way to help when she needed help, only to see her spiral down the same path that, for a short time, she had come out of. I will spare the details because not only am I upset, I'm also humiliated in her behavior. All I know to do is pray for her, and hope that her night of incarceration will trigger a turn-around.

Cultures are negative

Got the official call from the Dr's office this morning that the overnight strep cultures were negative. B's tonsils are almost meeting in the middle now. Dr. Eastham said that he was concerned about his tonsil size when he saw him in January for his well-child visit, but these are crazy big. He really couldn't explain it, and really the only reasoning he did give me was MAYBE he had mono at the same time of the last strep. They didn't test for that at the walk-in clinic, but they did yesterday (which was also negative). He's on another round of antibiotics for 10 days and then we follow-up with Dr. Eastham. He said if he's not any better after this round then he'll refer us to an ENT.

Thanks everyone for the well wishes! Fortunately, he doesn't feel bad or complain at all about it.

Attack of the Kirby salesman

This past Friday evening, I was hanging out with Bry & D waiting for daddy to get home and kick off our weekend when the doorbell rang. It was a really, really nice man telling me how he and his wife just moved to the area and they were opening up their own business cleaning carpets. He was offering to clean one room in my house, the only thing he asked in return, was that if I was pleased, I would help spread the word about his business. There was no obligation to buy anything. Who wouldn’t want a free carpet cleaning?

Now I was in a perfect situation. Just last week, I had a steam cleaned the carpet in my living room. Not only that, I vacuum every other day since the D-man puts any and everything in his mouth. My carpet is not just clean. It’s very clean. So you would think that I would be in a perfect position to say, “No thanks. I’m sorry.” Close the door. Done.

He told me it would take about 20 minutes, so I figured what the heck. I'm all about supporting entreprenuers and local businesses. Twenty minutes...remember that number.

He called his "guys" and they arrived 5 minutes later. It's now 4:35. Three big boxes get lugged into my living room. I noticed on one of the boxes the infamous "Kirby" brand. At any rate, the sales guy was going on about how cute my son was, and how lovely my home was, all the while, he is setting up a display of some sort, featuring the attachments of the Kirby vacuum cleaner.


The goal of the Kirby vacuum demonstration it to demonstrate how much dirt has been left within the carpet. A "Dirtmeter" attachment is used in place of a vacuum bag, while "dirt pads" are placed inside the attachment. When the vacuum is turned on, dirt lands on the pad, and is shown to the customer. The salesmen frequently replaces used dirt pads with new ones, leaving evidence of dirt around the vacuumed area.

The second goal of the demonstration is to show you how inferior your vacuum is. He whips out my handy dandy Hoover Fusion with "cyclone" suction power and vacuums my living room.

Here's how it went from there...

“Have I vacuumed this with your machine about the way that you would have?”
It is acceptable what you have done.

“Now that I have used the Kirby, do you see all this dirt that was left in your carpet.”
I have the ocular proof.

“If you had a chance to get this remaining dirt out of your carpet, would that be something you’d be interested in doing.”
The remaining dirt is upsetting to me and its removal would be most welcome.

“Wouldn’t you feel better if your son wasn’t crawling around near all this dirt?”
That’s an affirmative.

“If your machine is missing this much dirt, and you bought it to do precisely that very job, to remove dirt, then don’t you think it’s time you fired it and got something that will do the job.”
Can one really fire an inanimate object?

“You know what I mean. Get rid of it.”

He then leaned in for the final sales pitch. “Look, your machine isn’t getting the job done.” He then went on to talk about “superior suction power” and how the dirt in my carpet was going to destroy it by midnight unless I made some drastic changes, and that if I really, really loved my children, I would do this. For them. For their future.

Frankly, he had a point. I wondered "How much does this thing cost?"

It was now 5:45

“Would you like this Kirby in your home,” he asked.

“It depends,” I said. “How much does it cost.”

Now I knew that Kirbys were expensive. But when he handed me the flyer telling me the price, I honestly had to keep myself from laughing out loud. Want to know what the price was?

$2,049

Over two thousand dollars. It was at this point that I knew I was going to have to turn rude on him.

I did apologize for wasting his time, but I did let him know that there was absolutely NO WAY I was going to pay that price for a vacuum cleaner. Dude brings out the financing sheet. He told me I could afford to pay $30 a month (for the next 4 years), that he knew I could spare a dollar a day.

It's now 6:30

6:30 is feeding time around here, if not earlier. After I put my foot down about not purchasing the vacuum, I went into the kitchen to start cooking our dinner. He sat in the kitchen packing up his things. He had to call for a ride (just a little freaky), but finally got loaded up and stood outside by the mailbox waiting for the van. I told Chris he was gone, and how much he came off the original price to try to make a sale. We decided we would yank his chain for some giggles (since our Friday night was now shot) so we went outside and offered him $100 for the vacuum. He had to call his "boss", but it is unbelieveable what just happened....He sold it to us for just a little more than what we offered! Holy crap!

He came back in to do the paperwork (his ride still hadn't arrived...hmmm...) and finally left us with our new Kirby at almost 8pm. What a ride!

Back to the doctor

I'm taking Bryce to see Dr. Eastham in the morning now matter what. These are his tonsils...taken just a few minutes ago. He doesn't have a fever or even act sick. The only reason I thought to look at his throat was because he was talking weird today. His tonsils have been this big and red since atleast the end of May. They have big pits in them, which from what I've read, means that is scarring from chronic tonsillitis. He also has about 8 or 9 enlarged lymphnodes in his neck that have also not gone down since May. I'm afraid of what the doctor will say, but I think they should definately look better by now.