End of July

Bertram did pretty well with his Space Camp.  I should have just told him it was preschool.  I think he was expecting a real rocket, or something.  His cousin, Kaylee, was in the class with him, which was nice.  But he had a hard time with me leaving, most days.  I found a method that worked for both of us, by the end of the week.  (I go in with him.  He says he wants to go home.  I ignore that and sit down.  After a minute or so, he gets something to play with.  Then he gets really into whatever he's doing.  I tell him "I'm going in 2 minutes."  He says ok.  Two minutes later I tell him bye, and he barely looks up).  All in all, he had fun.

I think I mentioned previously, that I signed Bertie up for free preschool.  But it was every day, and not on the best side of the city.  I found a preschool program through San Jose Parks and Rec, which was just what I wanted.  Two half days a week, close enough to walk to (1.2 miles away) and doesn't cost a fortune.  ($197 a month, which is about $100 less than any other program in the area). He starts on the 28th of August and goes til May 30.  I've got to get him excited, maybe having him choose a backpack and lunch box? 
Here is the description:
This class prepares your child for kindergarten with age-appropriate
activities, learning concepts, socialization skills and fun. Your child will gain
a basic understanding of shapes, colors and pre-phonics and literacy
building (i.e. identifying letter sounds, and writing the alphabet and simple
words), as well as number recognition, and counting up to 30. The goal is
to have fun, participate and learn. Children must be fully potty trained before the start of class. Requirements for parent attendance, volunteers, snacks, etc. varies by center.

I think some of it may be boring for him.  He knows colours, and shapes, and he reads fairly well.  But the socialization will be good, and counting.  He can get to 12, then skips a couple numbers going to 30. And phonics will be good.  He knows the letter sounds, but doesn't seem to associate them with words.  His reading is about 90% sight reading.  So it's exciting.

Bronwyn turned one last week.  She had her well check on Friday.  She is still a tiny girl 16lb12.4oz, and 28 inches tall.  I think that is 8%ile for weight, and 16%ile for height.  But she is good on all developmental issues.  She's just a tiny girl.  She has 4 teeth, and it working on a couple more.  She got three shots: MMR, Hep A and chicken pox.  She was grumpy immediately following her appointment, but was fine the rest of the day.  (Poor kid, she cried so hard).  I'm feeding her meals first, then nursing after, to see if that will help her gain a little weight. 

We had her party on Saturday.  It was low key, just family.  I had some water stuff for the older cousins (they are 4, 5, and 6) to play will.  We had Eggrolls, rice, watermelon, veggies and cake.

She liked this little splash pad.

She wasn't a fan of her smash cake.

She was very tired at the end, because she'd missed a nap.  

My mom is here (because of Bronwyn's birthday).  I love having her around.  I wish she lived closer.  But I'm glad I get to see her as much as I do (especially because 3000 miles is far away).  

The kids started swimming lessons last week.  (It's 2 weeks mon-thur). Bertie is in the tot class (Turtles) and Bron and I are in the baby class (Whales).  This is the first time Bertram has done swimming lessons without me.  He's doing very well, from what I can tell.  I watch him while I'm doing things with Brony on the otherwise of the pool.  Bronwyn is really too young for the actual instruction.  But she enjoys being in the water.  She really likes jumping in.  At the side of the pool, she climbs out.  And stands up, holding my fingers.  I help her jump in, she smiles and wants to go again and again.  I dunked her under a little bit, and it didn't bother her at all.

I bought our plane tickets to go to Virginia.  We'll be going to Myrtle Beach from there.  I'm really excited.  I love the beach, and both kids love the beach.  Aaron could take or leave the beach, but likes vacation.  It took forever to get the tickets sorted out.  We had $800 in travel certificates from United (from when Aaron chose to get bumped last year).  But I have to do Aaron's reservation separate from me and the kids because he comes back sooner.  So I had two screens going at once, so we could have seats together. But I got to the end, and it wasn't accepting the certificate (an error message kept popping up).  So I called customer service, and got Aaron's done.  I figured mine would work, but it didn't.  So I had to call back and do it again.  All in all, it took almost an hour to get it all done.

Now it's July

On Monday (almost a week ago), I had my every-couple-of-years colonoscopy.  I did the same prep that I had used previously, Miralax in Gatorade (with Duocolax and Mg Citrate).  I need to remember to start my prep a lot sooner than the paperwork says.  I started drinking the Miralax (half a bottle in 32oz of green Gatorade) around 4pm.  I didn't have any results until about 2am.  I think it's supposed to work in 2 hours.  Since it didn't start working til very early in the morning, which meant I wasn't really ready at 8:30, like I was supposed to be.  I was worried that the camera wouldn't be able to see what it needed to.  But everything was fine.  There wasn't anything worrisome.  My GI did take some biopsies, so we'll see if there is anything wrong when they come back from pathology.

Bertie wants someone to hangout with him til he falls asleep.  So bedtime is often a battle (which I think is fairly common).  After telling him to go to bed about 15 times tonight, he came back out and said "will you snuggle with me?"  (Snuggle sounds more like nuddle).  I told him no and to go back to bed.  Then I felt terrible, and went in to lay down with him for a few minutes.  I asked him how he was feeling lately.  He said good.  I said it seems like you've been sad or angry a lot lately.  He responded I want you to do things with me, but you won't do them.  Ouch.  I suck.  I thought I said yes to him a good amount of time, but apparently not often enough. 

This is one of the major things giving me pause about having a third baby.  I have enough love for everyone.  But I don't know that I can give everyone the time and attention they need and deserve. 

And on the same page- I'm having second thoughts about Bertram going to preschool next year.  I really don't want him gone everyday.  He'll be doing that soon enough with kindergarten.  (Plus he's good on academics, it's mostly for social skills, classroom skills etc).

Aaron and I have been doing 16:8 intermittent fasting.  We (generally) eat between the hours of 10am-6pm.  Then nothing with calories the rest of the time.  It's supposed to be fairly effective for weight loss, and it's easy to do.  It hasn't been hard (other than the first couple evenings, because I'm used to snacking at night).  Aaron has been really good about sticking to it, and has lose 6-7 lbs in about 2 weeks.  I've not been as good.  A couple nights I was really hungry.  With the colonoscopy prep, I had to eat all day.  So I'll do better this week and hopefully this week, and the scale will reflect it.  I've lost a couple lbs so far.  I've been in a little funk, so my exercise hasn't been up to par either.

In the next couple weeks Bertram has space camp (starting tomorrow), both kids have swimming lessons, my mom is coming out, we're having Bronwyn's birthday (how is she almost 1?), Bertram has a PT appt, and I have another dental visit.  So we'll be busy. 

Bertram's very late 4 year interview

Interviewing Bertram (51 months 4y3m)

1. What is something mommy always says to you?   I always love you

2. What makes you happy?  You.

3. What makes you sad?  Bad dreams

4. What makes you laugh? Funny stuff

5. How old are you? Four.

6. How old is Mommy? Eight

7. How old is Daddy? 8

8. What is your favorite thing to do? Watch Duck Tales (which is what he's currently doing)

9. Who is your best friend?  Kaylee

10. What do you want to be when you grow up?  Scientist

11. What are you really good at? Drawing

12. What are you not very good at?  Bumping rocks (Not sure what that means)

13. What did you do today? Drawing

14. What is your favorite food?  Everything except for lemon

15. What is your favorite song? ABC and 123 and itsy bitsy spider and twinkle twinkle little star

16. What do you want for your birthday this year? Two sets of big Lego battle bots from Target

17. What is your favorite animal? Dinosaurs (all of them)

18. What is love? Liking one people

19. What does daddy do for work? .Work

20. Where do you live? Maxine.

21. Where is your favorite place to go? The park, and Virginia, and Nana’s house.

Mental Health

I've been thinking about this a lot lately, especially with two celebrity suicides this week (Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain).

In the spirit of transparency and the hope of people being more open in the future, here are my experiences.  (Though, I've always been fairly open about all my health stuff, mental included).

I have had anxiety for as long as I can remember.  Actually, that's not quite true.  I think it started around age six, when my sister was born. I'm not sure if it was a coincidence.  Once my sister was born, I had constant worry at night.  I would often check on her to make sure she was breathing.  I would have dreams about bad things happening, and being somehow responsible.  Around this point, I also developed some OCD tendencies.  I would check the doors to make sure they were locked (more than once, even though I'd checked them).  I would go around and unplug things, as I was worried about fire (any lamps I could reach, always the toaster, anything else around). 

At some point, this anxiety lessened.

I think depression started in middle school.  Partly because middle school was awful.  I was not a cute tween, and kids that age are so mean.  Plus, working through relationships at home was hard.  It is hard to be the middle kid.  Plus since my older sister is on the spectrum, I often played the role of oldest as well.  (And my main method of getting attention was causing trouble).  I always felt like I was getting the short straw: Jessica had privilege due to her disability (God, it feels so petty to type that, but as a kid, I couldn't see around that).  And my little sister had privilege because she was the youngest.  I had a couple meetings with a therapist, but it wasn't helpful.

In high school, things improved some.  I fell in with a closer group of friends.  People were much less mean, and I enjoyed school most of the time.  I got a boyfriend which helped with my confidence some (since I never really found myself attractive).  The depression was still there, but it was pretty far in the background.

Then came 2001, the beginning of the hardest period in my life.  It was the year my parents got divorced, I started college and Aaron left on his mission.  All of a sudden the people who loved me the most were all very far away.  And college wasn't what I thought it would be.  High school was easy for me, I put in minimal effort and got all As and Bs.  College was really different, I had to study for my classes, which I didn't really know how to do.  Plus, I didn't have friends in my classes like high school.  That first semester I got mostly Cs and a couple Bs.  Besides that, I had no clue what I wanted to do/major in, so I (in reality) wasted a lot of time.  Anyway, sometime in college, I tried anti-depressants for the first time: Lexapro.  Lexapro was the worst, I felt like I was in a fog all day, and didn't take them for long.  I just managed on my own, just being sad most of the time.

Since then, things have ebbed and flowed.  There was only one period where I felt as low as I did back then.  And it was at that point I started a regiment of anti-depressants.  When I was diagnosed with Crohns, it became a real possibility that I might not be able to get pregnant, because the medications I was on where not conducive to growing a fetus, and because I was not health enough in general to be pregnant.  I started seeing my current psychiatrist, and I did a few different group programs.  I finally found a medication that worked for me.  We have changed it a couple times over the years, but in general, I've felt well.

My anxiety kind of hangs out in the background.  It seems like it's mostly social anxiety.  It's annoying, because it's lonely.  I feel awkward, and I don't easily make friends.  Plus when I'm invited to things, it's really hard to go.  It sounds odd, unless you've experienced it (which I guess is true of many things).

I've never actively thought about suicide.  But, it crossed my mind passively, which doesn't make sense, unless you've gone through it.  It's kind of like just not wanting to exist anymore.  I heard an interview on Fresh Air five-ish years ago with Allie Brosh (the author of Hyperbole and a Half).  I was listening to it, while on a lunchtime walk, and what she said so resonated with me that I started crying (as I walked).  She put into words my jumbled thoughts of the past few years.  And while I knew other people were depressed, it made me realize there were people like me. 

Which brings be back to the reason for this post.  Mental health is really just health.  But it's not viewed that way.  It's secret, or shameful, or private, something.  In the grand scheme of things, my experience with depression and anxiety is fairly minor or maybe moderate at times.  But I am one of many.  And while things can feel so crushing at times (or for periods), they do get better.  But don't be afraid to speak up.  Ask for help.  It's a little less crushing to speak about it.

The week past

On Monday the kids and I went to Santa Cruz with my dad.  We walked on West Cliff Drive, and then went to Cowell's beach, just for a few minutes.  I didn't bring sunblock, for whatever reason.  I was worried about the kids getting sunburned, and I knew I was sunburned.  Bertram loves the beach, even though our beaches are so cold (the water is usually in the low 60's).  Bronwyn liked sitting in the sand, and eating it (weirdo).  I got a pretty bad sunburn, but the kids were unscathed.

Wednesday was my birthday.  I'm 35.  I feel very old.  In my head I'm still in my mid-20s.  I thought it would be fun to take the kids to the aquarium (as Aaron was working, and it seemed better than hanging out at home).  We went to my dad's house (we always drive his Prius on our day trips, even though it's annoying to move the car seats back and forth).  I moved the seats and then realized I left my aquarium tickets at home. (My dad has a membership.  I hold on to the two guest passes, and Bertram has his own pass). So we all rode to my house and got the tickets. On the way there, my dad's security camera sent him an alert.  He has a packaged dropped off right after we left.  So we drove back over there so he could bring it in.  (He lives 5 or 6 miles away).  So after all the back and forth we finally got on the road.  We all had a good time.  Bertram is getting interested in the exhibits, which is fun.  Plus, since we go there every month or two he has some familiarity.  Bronwyn was interested too, which was fun.  A couple times I put her up against the glass, but it made her nervous.  Bertram was disappointed we left before seeing everything we wanted to see, but since we left so late, we ran out of time. 
When we came home, Aaron, the kids, and I went to Red Lobster for dinner. Bertram's behaviour was so-so.  Bronwyn (surprisingly) didn't like crab. 
Aaron bought an ice cream cake (which we didn't end up eating til the next day).  I opened my gifts and got a lot of nice things.  My mom sent a box with 35 things in it. 

We didn't do much the rest of the week.  I've been really tired lately, even with (seemingly) adequate sleep.  I exercised Monday and Tuesday, but haven't done anything since.  Bertram and I tried to work on a papier mache project today (planets, of course).  It turns out, he is too young for papier mache.  I did all the work, but we're only about halfway done.

No new teeth for Brony yet. I found out that the likes her baby swing, which is kind of fun.

We're still going back and forth about having a third kid.  But I'm feeling a little more urgency, now that I'm 35.  There are a lot of cons.  But really I suppose, really there are mostly cons when thinking about having a kid in general (added expense, difficult pregnancy, potential issues with baby, how it would affect the other kids etc).

June

My second try at the root canal went much better.  Whatever that numbing stuff was worked well.  I go back in a few weeks to do step two (hopefully finish it before the crown gets put on).

Bronwyn is pulling up and cruising on all the furniture.  She likes to walk holding onto our hands.  She says "more", "dada" and "mama".  She has finally started crawling normally most of the time (instead of the army crawl).

The kids have been a little rough on me lately.  Bronwyn has been extra grumpy, which I think (hope) has to do with teething.  She has not wanted to nap, and sleeping at night has been a little rough too.  I'm not sure what is going on with Bertram, but he gets into these meltdowns.  I tell him to clean up and he can't do it.  It's just impossible.  He'll scream "I can't do it". So I'll send him to his room for quiet time.  Sometimes he'll calm down, sometimes he won't.  I've been trying to help him add words to his emotions, so I can help him.  But thus far, it's not helping.  Today they were both at their worst at the same time.  He's been doing a lot of back talk too.  I take away privileges (tablet and tv) or use time outs or quiet time.  Maybe it's normal for 4 year olds.  But I guess we'll just muddle through.

Brianon mentioned the loneliness of being a stay at home mom in her blog.  It's been on my mind lately.  It's a tough dichotomy for me.  Because social anxiety makes me want to be on my own a lot, but I also want to have some friends.  I feel like I don't really have any close (local) friends anymore.  Maybe that's typical of SAHMs?  I don't think my mom had a lot of close friends when we were young.  I'd like to go to the park group with the other SAHMs from church, but Bronwyn is always napping when they meet.  Maybe it's another thing that just needs to be muddled through?  How does one make friends as an adult?

Church is kind of tough too.  I don't feel like I belong there.  Like I'm not good enough, or the same enough.  Plus, I've lost my testimony, pretty much entirely.  And the more I try to work on it (doing all the textbook things: reading scriptures, studying, praying etc), the further away I feel.  Maybe it's not where I'm supposed to be.  Is there a time when you throw in the towel?  I guess it doesn't matter too much, I'll still be doing the same things. 

Well, this has been a kind of depressing post.  I guess I've been a little down lately.

Somehow it's May

We went to the low cost preschool thing.  I have a few reservations.  I was really hoping to have him do 2-3 days a week.  But the only options were full days or part days Monday-Friday.  He's currently signed up for 12:30-3:30 M-F.  The other issue is that he can only have 10 absences for the whole school year.  We already have a week-long trip planned for September, and I was going to stay a little longer than that with the kids.  A couple other issues I have is that the preschool is in a not great area, and I'm anxious about letting him go to strangers.  I know that is somewhat silly, since he will have to go to school at some point, but I am a nervous person.  We're going to go and tour it in July, and see what kind of vibe we get.  If I don't feel good about it, then we will withdraw him.

My sister Jessica is visiting, so we've gone on a few day trips with her and my dad: Monterey Bay Aquarium, Golden Gate Park (twice), Santa Cruz and the Oakland Zoo.  On the trip to Monterey I left Bertram's tablet on the roof of the car.  We retraced our drive when we got home, and there were no signs of it (smooshed or otherwise).  I was so aggravated that I'd done that.  My mom was nice enough to order him a new one.

I went to the dentist a few days ago.  I needed a crown and filling.  But when the dentist looked at the tooth needing the crown, he saw it needed a root canal (then a crown).  I wasn't too concerned, I had a root canal last year (at the endodontist), I had no pain and he did a great job.  This time, I had a lot of pain.  I had 2 or 3 doses of Novocaine before he even started.  Every time he started working it hurt.  I started crying after a bit, because it hurt, and I just couldn't get numb.  The dentist said there was a nuclear numbing option, where I would definitely get numb, or he could give me some antibiotics and we can do it all again in 2 weeks.  I thought about just trying to press through, but I was so stressed I said let's wait.  It was a rough day.  

I've been thinking about a 3rd (last) baby.  We're both unsure.  I would love to have another but a few things are giving me pause.  I don't want Bronwyn to become the middle child (as it sucks).  The kids will have to share a room.  We'll have to get a minivan (or suv).  (Though, we'll likely have to do that anyway.  So we have room to drive the kids, their friends, our family, etc).  Cost of everything (except insurance) will go up.  Plus I was really anxious during my pregnancy with Bron.  We have some time to figure it out, but not too long, I'm going to be 35 with year.

The kids are doing well.  Bertram is reading a lot.  We going to the library every week or so. He's been very into Planet Putty and Galaxy Goo lately.  They are just slime, in different colours.  But it's space related, so he gets very excited.  We have all the planet putty, but only 2 galaxy goo so far.  He loves art projects, especially painting.  He's been practicing using scissors.  I've been giving him a few chores.  He is so good with Bronwyn, and she just loves him.
Bronwyn is army crawling everywhere.  She's starting to pull up a little, and wave.  She may say "more" but I'm not sure yet.  She loves most food, she is still a good nurser. 

There is probably something else I'm forgetting, but that's all I have for now.