Lest I Forget

I am just wondering. Take, for instance, the seemingly simple task of booking a doctor's appointment for a child. I called this morning, all cheery, and tried to get Therese in to see the doctor, as she has been having frequent nose bleeds. The one yesterday at the pool, during her swimming lesson, lasted almost half an hour. The also cheery voice on the other end told me there were no appointments available, but she would put in a request to our clinic and they should call back within 2-4 hours. Fine. I really think they should just book appointments and not play this game, but fine. So I waited. Seven hours later, and close to the end of the business day, no call back. I called to see what was going on. They tried directly connecting me to the clinic (why didn't we do that this morning?) and once it began to ring, the line disconnected. We tried again. Same result. Apologetically, she offered that if I really felt she needed to be seen immediately, I could go to the ER. No,...

Man, oh man. I wish that I could just trust the health care professionals whose care I am under. But unfortunately, this is not the case. I wonder if they really listen at all sometimes. Low milk supply is supposedly helped by taking fenugreek. I bought some in the form of an herbal capsule upon the recommendation of the lactation consultant and started taking the dosage on the bottle. I definitely saw an increase in milk, but it seemed like Peter was having stomach pains and his stool started getting foamy. I could not prove that it was because of the fenugreek, but I stopped taking it and he seemed better. But my milk production went back down too. Also, during that time, but I did not associate it with the supplement, my thyroid symptoms seemed to flair up. I know this is a possibility at any time since I had post-partem thyroiditis after Therese was born. I discussed all this with the lactation consultant and she suggested trying a drug called domperidone to increase milk product...

First thought: "Let's get as much school under our belt before this new baby is born so that we can take a guilt-free break." Second thought: "I have not had one day to enjoy with my kids this summer and I am super stressed because of it." We literally jumped into the "new" school year the week after finishing up last year's work. I was not prepared, but the kids were so excited and I had that first thought of getting a jump start before the baby arrived. Then came these twice weekly non-stress tests for the baby which eat up my days. Followed by a rain storm that led us to an ongoing water leak that had rotted the wood on a section of our house. Dealing with the repairmen for the last two weeks took even more time away from my routine. They finished their part yesterday, but left me with the job of having to repaint the wall in the den and all the trim work.  Heaven only knows when I will get to that! Please tell me it is just pregnancy ho...

Let me start by stating that until we moved to Virginia three years ago, we did not have cable. We relied on an antenna to provide us with the local channels for news and weather alerts, and the children watched only videos that we bought or rented. I was happy with this arrangement, but my sports loving husband was not. Growing up, Sunday afternoon was spent with his family and neighbors gathered together, rooting for the home team. These are very good memories for him. So...when we moved here, the bundle package of cable, phone and internet was so reasonably priced that I caved. Oh, how I wish there was a way to give my husband his sports another way! This weekend, we used the "on demand" feature to let the kids watch a program while I prepared dinner. They found one of the Pixar short films that appear before the full-length movies. It was "Knick Knack", which I remembered I liked for the Bobby McFarren music and cute little characters. I can't tell you who...