Monthly Archives: August 2015

Is it Bedtime Yet?

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Today was only a half day for me at the office.  I always look forward to these days.  I leave work in a rush, barely finishing all my notes so that I can have the afternoon with my girls and also get errands done.  I had a playdate set up to go to the park with my neighbor and her 2 daughters for a bit, then we have to go and pick up presents for the 2 birthday parties we have, go to Verizon to fix my husbands phone, go grocery shopping and promised the girls we would get our nails done.  In retrospect, last night this didn’t seem so overwhelming as it did to me once i was headed home but Whatever……bring on the fun.

Playdate went pretty well, we decided to ride our scooters to the park and the other mommy brought her double stroller for her 2 kids just in case.  Well when my 4 yo saw the stroller she no longer wanted to “scoot” to the park but sit in the stroller.  I refused to let her sit as this was her exercise for the day and her scooter was her b’day present that she hasn’t quite got the hang of yet.  This meant that she was crying and whining the entire way and me rolling the scooter with her on it most of the way.  I am not sure who was being more stubborn, her or me.   They had fun on the playground with only 2-3 meltdowns and then we walked back home alternating sitting in the stroller between the 4 girls.  Not sure if that mommy will want a playdate anytime soon with us again……but task 1 complete.

We go in the house for a snack and to wash up.  Now onto the stores.  Heading to verizon first and grab the clothes to be dry cleaned on the way out the door because I can fit that in also, right???  So when we park the car I realize Lily ( 4 yo) is passed out so I toss her in the stroller, unbuckle the 6 yo and we head into Verizon, where I wait for 15 minutes and then they tell me they dont know whats wrong and can’t help me because I need to call apple for help with the iPhone!!! AGHHH….I leave disgruntled and annoyed but try to brush it off.  The toy store luckily is right next door,  walk around with the 6 yo in heaven bc she just got to play on a whole bunch of phones and now she is in kid paradise.  I pick out the presents after Sophie vetoes the first 4 things I pick because she says, “She is my BFF, I know what she likes and she is not into arts and crafts.”  Seriously?!  Ok she has not seen this girl since school got out but we come to a compromise and they wrap the presents for me, which is why I love this toystore, 1 less thing for me to do.  #LearningExpressToys you rock!!  Go back to car to, load them in the car and onto the drycleaners.  That is a quick pitstop but the little one is still sleeping so I carry her in with me and then we all are back in the car.

Grocery shopping I was dreading but Lily wakes up so that makes it easier.  Up and down every aisle with the kids.  This was actually pretty fun, lots of laughing because my 6 yo decides she wants to talk in a british accent.  We laugh alot and I do notice some grumpy people staring bc we are being loud, but laughing is a whole lot better then crying so I ignore them and push on.  The only things added by the kids not on the list was a Hershey bar for my 4 yo, who has a chocolate problem, we may need to put her in a 5 step program one day to wean her off this chocolate habit; and a bag of breath mints that the 6 yo wanted.  I know, why breath mints but she loves all things mint, her favorite ice cream is mint chocolate chip.  Grocery shopping accomplished and I decide we deserve a treat for surviving the grocery store together so we walk next door to Starbucks and we each get a treat…Yay #StarbucksFrapuccino,  Mocha coconut frap is back!!  They get their usual cake pops and Horizon boxed milks.  Again I notice eyes on us while there but these were not so evil, they thought my kids antics were cute.  I mean not bragging but my kids ARE adorable.

We are on our way home and thats when the utter exhaustion kicks in.  Have to still unpack the groceries and deal with the promise of manis/pedis.  Convince the girls it will be so much more fun if we all do our nails at home instead of the salon.  They fall for it…… I look at the time and realize we have almost 3 hours til bedtime. I need my starbucks sugar rush to kick in fast!!

As if this wasn’t enough excitement while unpacking I realize that I am a kid short.  She was in the kitchen with us 2 minutes ago, where did she go??  Look for her on first floor and notice back door open, the dog could have pushed it open but Hmmmm, not sure.   Call her name and no answer on first floor, look in closet and bathroom.  Damn hide and seek!!!  Call her again and tell her “ok come out now mommy is getting worried.”  Sophia says she hears her, and we do ever so faintly hear her voice.  Go back outside, in the basement, in the first floor bathroom, look upstairs but all the doors are still closed, call again and start hearing her louder, not in the 2nd floor bathroom, not in her room.  We finally find her in my bathroom with the doors closed and she is sitting on the toilet.  Her response is “I had to poopy and the downstairs bathroom was stinky”.  My heart rate is slowing down now and have to laugh at this little girl smiling at me sitting on the toilet.   She said I heard you calling but you weren’t answering me back…….you mean thru the two closed doors.  What a day!!  We do nails and finally put a movie on for them while I start dinner.  Thank you Tinkerbell and the Neverbeast for taking care of my children.

All in all not a bad day.  We had fun but why does it always seem so feasible the night before to do all this stuff and how I forget how exhausting it is to do it toting 2 kids with you.  Love my girls and hopefully they will remember these days when we spend time together doing these little things.  It is just as important as all the vacations and fancy trips to Disney.  These are when I get to enjoy how silly and quirky my girls are.  This is when their personalities come out and we have all this LOL moments.

Share some silly things in your days with me that your kids do.

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#KidsTummyTroubles #SillyAntics #Mylifemyloves #Learningexpresstoys

Being a Referee

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After a busy weekend of spending quality time with my family I can’t help but feel like most of my time was spent being a “Referee.”  My girls love each other and play well together but they do have their moments of fighting like all kids.  They bicker over their toys, headbands, TV shows plus an endless list of other items.

This weekend we had friends over for the day.  They all have kids similar ages to our kids.  When they come in I do the introductions of the kids, show them the layout of where the toys are, the playroom and we throw them all together and hope for the best!!  Most of the time it ends in a great time for everyone.  The kids play til they tucker themselves out, the parents get to catch up on old times and we wrap up the day in hugs and kisses….. typically.

On Sunday we had more guests over, they have 3 kids but only 2 came over.  The 2 boys came over.  As a reminder I have 2 girls, not that it makes a difference.  Kids should be able to play together whether boy or girl, however my girls are not used to the way boys play.  They don’t rough house, they play Barbies and kitchen set and dress up.  They color and paint. So we started with riding their bikes and scooters, that all went well.  When they went into the playroom it was a disaster.  The older boy was throwing the toys around, breaking things and ripped the stairs off the Barbie Dreamhouse.  He was also wasting food by taking it to build who knows what out of sticks and dirt and caterpillar carcusses.  My husband and I urged him to correct his actions.  His parents were there so we felt they should step in to be the disciplinarians.  They made a weak attempt at correcting his behavior.

Walked in the playroom a bit later to find my 4 year old crying on the stairs because the boys ” weren’t cleaning up or playing right with the Barbie house”  They had taken all the furniture and dolls and jammed them into 1 room, which made her very upset.  While I consoled my baby, the mother began to yell at the older brother and make him clean up the mess.  Luckily for all the kids it was time for the family to leave.

But when do you step in to yell at another child?  Definitely when that kid is hurting or upsetting your kids.  I am typically the first mom to yell at kids during parties or playdates when they are “acting out” especially if it impacts my kids.  With my closest friends we have an unspoken agreement to discipline each others kids and no one gets angry about it.  It is those kids where the parents are only acquaintances or whom you only see once or twice a year that is the gray area.   Those parents that you know their parenting style is a bit different from your own, or where you know their is no structure in the home and they have never heard the word NO.  What to do??  Do you only see the parents socially and not let the kids engage?  Do you use it as a time to teach your kids about proper behavior?  There is no right or wrong solution.  But my thoughts are that I don’t mind being referee to my own kids but my time is too precious to ref for other peoples kids too……

I would love to hear your comments and your thoughts on this topic…

#KidsTummyTroubles

Yummy Gluten Free Dairy Free Banana Bread

Many of the patients that I see suffer from Celiac Disease, which is an allergy to gluten.  I have started to modify some of my families favorite recipes so that my Celiac and Gluten allergic patients can enjoy them also.  This is my first recipe blog entry.

We love banana bread in our house.  Growing up we would make banana bread, especially around the holidays. I would use the ripest bananas, right before your would toss them in the garbage.  They are perfect for baking when they are almost all black and super ripe.  We would package up the banana bread we baked and give them as gifts to neighbors.  Here is a Gluten Free-Dairy Free version.Banana-Bread

Gluten Free Dairy Free Banana Bread

Prep Time: 15 minutes

Cook Time : 50 minutes

Yield: 1 loaf

Ingredients:

  • 1 cup sugar
  • 1/2 cup oil
  • 2 eggs
  • 3-5 large ripe bananas
  • 1/2 cup applesauce
  • 1 tsp vanilla
  • 1 1/2 cup gluten free flour mix ( be careful to not pack flour in measuring cups and level off)
  • 1 tsp baking soda
  • 1/2 tsp salt
  • 1 tsp xanthum gum
  • chopped walnuts (optional)

DIRECTIONS:

  1. Heat oven to 350 degrees. Grease and flour bottom only of loaf pan.
  2. In a large bowl, beat together sugar and oil.  Now add eggs, bananas, applesauce and vanilla to sugar mixture. Blend well.
  3. Add flour, baking soda, salt and anthem gum. Add nuts, if desired.  Stir until dry ingredients are moistened.
  4. Pour into prepared pan.
  5. Bake for 50-60 minutes or until toothpick comes out clean.
  6. Cool for 5 minutes; remove from pan to completely cool.

#KidsTummyTroubles #Celiac #Glutenfree #Glutendairyfree #glutenfreeliving #recipes #bananabread #kidapproved #glutendairyfreebananabread

A Mommy’s Day Off?!?

scooterSo I have a day off.  I was able to sleep in until my youngest daughter, who is now 4 years old woke up.  She slept in til 7:30 am…WooHoo!!  My 6 yo joined us downstairs a half hour later.  Summer camp is over and they have nothing structured planned for August.  My oldest is looking forward to a library event at 1 pm where she could win a Kindle reader because she completed 10 hours of reading thru the library’s reading program in July.  So what to do from now til 1……hmmm???

Brush teeth, get dressed, brush hair, eat breakfast, make beds (which is the only chore my 6 yo has right now)  It is now 10am. That killed some time.   Wait I didn’t even eat or have my coffee yet :(So lets try to solve that problem, put my Kcup in to be brewed and set the girls up to do their summer workbooks.  After only 10 minutes of negototiating they agree with going to park after completing 4 pages each in respective books.  I feel a huge sense of accomplishment for getting this done so early in the day.

Lily (the 4 yo) wants to ride her new birthday scooter that she got last week. and we’re off to the park. After we get cleaned up, eat lunch, do the library thing (which of course we don’t win the Kindle ), we go get ice cream at the local ice cream shoppe. Then I hear my phone beep in my purse on the drive home.  I check it at home and realize a friend just facebook IM’d me with a “quick question”.

An old college friend contacted me.  She suffers from inflammatory bowel disease.  This is a disease that I treat in my pediatric patients also, although we do not have as many medication options as the adults have.  She was started on a new medication and is having a twitching in her face and numbness after 2 weeks of this new med.  She called her doctor and can’t reach him. He is on vacation and although he has 4 partners that are IN THE OFFICE, the front desk won’t let her speak to any of them. So she is asking me for my advice.  I am used to this type of question.  Day off or not I will always get phone calls at all hours of the day or night.  The worst was when our friends had new babies.

I answered her questions and began to become more and more furious as speaking to her with the way this adverse reaction was handled.  This is the difference between adult and pediatric medicine. The bedside manner and level of concern.  In pediatrics we deal with our patients and the caregivers, which is similar to geriatrics.  I gave my friend the exact script of what to say to the front desk that would get her through to the doctor.  Most of the time its the annoying patients that get what they need from the medical system. The sweet people will get nowhere and I needed her to be seen by her doctor or by the on call physician.   She finally got an appointment for tomorrow and spoke to one of her doctors.

During this dialogue I received a phone call from the chief of the pediatric division at the hospital with a question regarding the Peds GI clinic statistics, I had to be referee between my girls at least 3 times, let my dogs out to pee in the yard 4 times and then gave the girls a snack.

And then guess what I found……my coffee still in the keurig!

#KidsTummyTroubles