A moderately busy week of doctor appointments and housework has come and gone. I can face the weekend happy in the knowledge that Tiffany's neurology testing came back normal. EEG, MRI, and all the bloodwork show normal. So the low tone must be due to "regular" preemie developmental issues. Do you know, there are a lot of things that we apparantly have to keep track of? I don't know half of them. I go to the pediatrician once a year for her, the doctor sends out for all these specialty referrals, believe me- it wasn't my idea to go to the pediatric neurologist. I believed the phsyical therapist last fall when he said that the low tone would be improved by regular active play at an age-appropriate level. I've done that. When I was unable to do it, my mom took her to the park and did it. We have stuff around the house that is wonderful for her, that she loves, and we chase each other over cushions and under tables giggling and tickling and rolling balls around. It's a great workout for me as well.

My Robbie is gaining weight, and he had a physical therapy evaluation this week as part of his EI services. They're making sure he hits his developmental milestones close to or on target, keeping an eye on any trouble spots that emerge and offering suggestions. Miss Julie was delighted with how well he does. All he needs is a little more head control when raising his head up and back, and he'll be crawling on all fours. We have to continue his daily exercises. Cool.

As for me, my glucose control is good. My doctor looked at the logs this morning and was very happy at how everything is coming along. I'm happy that she's happy, that my numbers are averaged at the normal marks, that the diet changes I've been able to make a permanent part of my life now are doing the trick. It's a good thing.

Tonight we will celebrate. Spinach salad, and ravioli with tomoto basil sauce, and fresh shaved cheeses, and a very large pitcher of ice water. Bring on the relaxing weekend.

This morning started before dawn and eased it's way into afternoon before I quite knew it. Between the standard chores (dishes, gathering laundry, picking up after the kids) the morning flew. I've been able to keep my meal/snack schedule on target for several days running. I've exercised at least a little bit every day for a week. Yesterday I took my hours "off duty" to go see a movie.

Last year around this time I was nuts. Six months ago I was a fruitcake. Let's be realistic- I've been certifiably nutso for at least that long, probably longer, and it seems to take me longer than the "normal" people to regain my socially acceptable behavior. This is why I can't participate in message boards with any real hope of suceeding either as a help to someone else or even as a conversationalist. This is why it took me until well into adulthood to be capable of making friends and interacting socially on a level that would not lead the ones around me to back away slowly and give me a wide bearth.

Still, there are times when the chaos around me settles down into a normal level again. There are times when I can be a normal wife, and a good mother. For what it's worth to the many people I've appalled on various forums, every last one of my kid's specialists and therapists have been happy with how I raise my kids. It may not be normal to people with children who were born on time with no developmental delays, but it is normal for us and we've learned to adapt the EI therapies into daily life to provide as normal an experience for the children as possible. Yeah, I'm a nutcase, but I'm a good parent who does her best. Aren't we all?

When the abnormal has been a part of your life longer than the normal, when what you consider normal is so far out of the mainstream that others consider you a walking freakshow, it makes a lot of sense to withdraw from the ones who don't want to understand. I underreact to some things, I overreact to others, and it's all based on the sum total of what my life has been. That's part of being human. I can't apologize for that. All I can do is try to frame my thoughts into words as best I can and continue blogging, because that's what blogging is supposed to be about as I understand it.

We've survived another week. Despite the teething, the hives, the crankiness of my daughter. Thought I'd share some of the ups- there are plenty of nasty and messy downs this weeks to dwell on, and I don't want to lose the good stuff. Robbie's had his first laughs. He laughs, now. Be still my heart; I thought my own heart would stop the first time I heard him laugh. It was that thrilling. Tiff has started using her words more and more. She followed directions most of hte time today; I was more than a piece of furniture. I was her mom. The Boy got done work at a decent hour tonight. He came home, had some beer, we had some relaxing family time before he went to bed and that was after the kids were both in bed for the night. How wonderful was that?

I am happy. Tired, obviously, but happy. I am worn out from a day of hormones and childminding, but I feel good about my life. It was a good day.

I can't believe that I still haven't gotten new glasses. I was meaning to. Then I had a baby. That was three years ago. And why have I still not gotten the new glasses? Comes down to the money, I think. My lenses are expensive enough, once you add frames on the bill I generally look at around $300 for a pair. Wouldn't be so bad, but I'm so nearsighted with a double astigmatism and the ultra featherweight light lenses (the nifty superthin ones they have available?) are a quarter inch thick in it's thickest place.

They were nearly half an inch thick, once. Before I was able to get the lightweight lenses.

ZenniOptical.com offers glasses at around $8 a pair for the frames. That's a wonderful deal; I bet I could afford a new pair sooner with that service. Zenni on Fox offers a look at whether this service is a good deal or not for others. Check it out!

A day of teething. Of allergy reactions. Of mommy crankiness. What can make this better? Knowing that the air conditioning in this house works. Knowing that the weekend is upon us, that Daddy comes home early tonight, that the allergy medication will help the hives all over my daughter AND ensure that she gets a decent amount of rest today and tomorrow, knowing that the baby motrin will help the teething issues of the son.

Unfortunately there still isn't a magic pill that will help me out of this. I can take the allergy meds for my own case of the sniffles. I can take the motrin for my own sore muscles and stiff shoulder (made all the more painful by the two little kids using me for their own personal gym). But neither of them is going to pop that completely away and make me suddenly stress-free today. Depressed? No, just PMS. Just another month of bizarre hormones and odd thoughts. I'm learning to channel that odd cycle into the silly-humourous paths instead of letting it get into the hysterical-batshit crazy paths. Much of what I've learned in handling my kids, strangely enough, is coming to be helpful in this.

Every mom knows that there is a point in their child's behavior when it can go one of two ways. Overtired can be channeled into giggly craziness, or it can go into tantrum-throwing exhaustion. Sometimes that point is a large moment wide, sometimes it's a split second. I'm learning where my point is. The good news? I'm an adult. I'm in control of myself, the behavior isn't in control of me. The bad news? I'm an adult. I don't have the luxury of irresponsibility.

Ah, well. Tough break. I'll get over it.

Stem cell research has been in the news off and on again for a while. In our case, it was more than a passing curiousity. Do I care about it? Sure I do. If my kids inherit the same form of cancer I had, one day, I want them to have more options than I faced. I don't want them to live with one kidney, I don't want to have to worry about transplants for them. If the cure can come from their own bodies one day, all the better. We've come a long way in the research and practical applications of stem cell research from the days when the lines all started and ended in test tubes of fetal tissue. Most of the controversy at that time, as I saw it, was in the methods used to obtain that tissue.

Right now the hot thing of the past few years has been cord blood banking. It's the In thing to bank your babies umbilical cord blood for the stem cells that are contained in it. But let's go another jump- can those cells be found in another place? This company believes so. They offer adult women the chance to get their own stem cells from another part of their reproductive system. And how wonderful would that be? I can see the whispers of the new few jumps beyond this technology, and it lays in miracles that were once only dreams in the heads of doctors and parents who ran out of time too soon.

CNNMoney has the story.

Press Release:

Taking Control: Future Therapies for a Host of Serious Diseases May Be Found in Women's Menstrual Blood

July 07, 2008: 01:28 PM EST


OLDSMAR, Fla., July 7 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- With today’s hectic lifestyle, where most women are juggling careers, family, relationships, and a host of activities, the idea of possibly facing a serious illness in the future is not something that readily comes to mind -- especially when a woman is in the prime of her life. But what most women don’t know, is that the key to treating a number of possibly life-threatening diseases that she, a parent, a sibling or even her children may face in later years, such as osteoporosis, heart disease, stroke, Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease, may be found within her own body -- in vital stem cells, which can now be harvested from her own menstrual blood.

Now, thanks to the revolutionary research and technology of C’elle, a service dedicated to providing women with a safe and easy method of collecting and preserving stem cells found in her menstrual fluid each month, even the busiest woman can take control of her future, right in the privacy of her own home. With C’elle’s non-invasive collection process, menstrual cells are processed and cryo-preserved (stored at a very low temperature) for potential cellular therapies that may be used in the future. These self-renewing cells one day may even be used for sports medicine or cosmeceutical treatments, such as anti-aging therapies.

"C’elle enables and empowers a woman to take control of her future health, and possibly of those genetically closest to her, in a fast, painless and stress free way," said Michelle Kay, Marketing and Sales Manager for C’elle. "We live in exciting times, as science and technology are discovering how extremely valuable menstrual blood stem cells really are, and the enormous treatment potential they represent for future therapies. C’elle’s ongoing research is supporting these promising findings."

For more information about C’elle, please call 1-877-892-3553 or visit www.celle.com.

I took a week off to deal with the Blahs. Well, a week and a bit, I guess. How was the holiday weekend for you? Ours went very smoothly and calmly; apart from the baby teething (still) it's been a daily routine of playing, eating, medicating, playing more, random bathing, and sleeping.

The heat is awful. We're under a heat advisory, a serious one, because guess what- in the desert, in a drought, it's fricking HOT. The AC is being tempermental these days, but it's still churning out enough cool air to keep the house bearable. Which is nice. The bill from June arrived over the weekend and I was happy to find it falling within the average amount I expect in the summer months. Where I grew up, a 200ish electric bill is standard. That's still my emotional standard when it comes to such things. Less than that, I'm happy and not overly concerned. Above that, I choke. As in, heart in throat, choke.

So how do you continue to cook healthy meals in this heat without driving yourself nuts in the kitchen by throwing up even more heat? I've been doing a lot of microwaving and crockpot cooking. The stovetop stuff is done, as much as possible, using only one burner. I'm trying to forget the oven exists. Last night we had spaghetti- a few weeks back I made a huge pot of it; the big economy package of spaghetti and a ton of sauce filled the dutch oven. I put half in a container and froze it. Yesterday I pulled it out and found that when it defrosted the macaroni had absorbed all the nice sauce and got super happy. I added a bit more sauce and a bunch of parmesan and mozzarella, and microwaved bowls for everyone. And voila! I didn't have to cook over the stove at all, and we've got enough to serve leftover lunchs today, and then the stuff's out of our lives! You can be sure I'm going to do that again with another batch, now that I know how well it works.

All fear the mighty Fly Hunter Woman! Armed only with a fly stick, I hunt the common housefly and swat them down!

The other week I was able to pick up a box of those sticky fly ribbons. I uncoiled them partway, and hung them for a few days so that the glue would solidfy around the coils and make a stick-like thing. Today they were stiff enough not to collapse, and I had a sticky fly stick. Then I went hunting.

One of the drawbacks to living right here is the flies. Granted, it's nothing compared to what the folks on the dairies have to contend with. However, having the doors and windows open for a few hours in the morning is drawing the flies inside with a greater regularity. They come in and buzz around us and generally annoy the heck out of everyone for a few days until they die. Unfortunately, we open those doors and windows every morning for a few hours. There are new flies coming in all the time now. The only place I can hang the ribbons according to the directions are out of the way of the flies. If I hang them where the flies are, I would catch not only flies but the children. The glue stick, though, that is my new solution to the problem. When the babies were down for morning naps I took the stick and carefully moved it near the flies. It took some doing, but I did manage to get them. Five flies! They will bother me no more. And now that I know this theory works, I'm going to keep doing it. I foresee a less annoying week in my future.

Managing to eat according to my diabetes is becoming easier. The home-oriented life I get to lead right now; letting the Boy have the car all day, not having to run here and there and everywhere... it helps. I've got an easy breakfast menu in my routine, I've gotten the hang of making sure my lunch is nearly all protein. By keeping the breakfast in limits I can control the glucose reading. If I "pass" breakfast and lunch I can eat moderately safely at dinner and pass. For someone who hearts carbs the way I do, keeping them in check is very hard. I know it can be done, I'm working on ways to make the foods I can eat more palatable and yummy to me.

It doesn't help that I'm still fighting that fasting number. One suggestion that I've heard is that my overnight sugar might be bottoming out and then rebounding, giving me a floppy number. This explains why, when I pig out on a higher sugar item at bedtime my number gets closer to the target. Last night I tried to eat more, and got up when the Boy did this morning to check my glucose. And it was, in fact, pretty low. When I got up at the normal time the number was high again. Tonight I'm going to try to do it again and see what happens. What irritates me the most is that it's trial and error.

Seems to me, sometimes, that everything in my life is trial and error. One big science experiment. Will one thing work, or another? Everything I do turns into a lesson of how to/how not to do things. Eating a certain food brings my sugar up. Eating something else seems counterproductive but results in lower numbers. I learn that it's about the numbers, about eating and exercising how I have to in order to produce the right numbers at the right time. If the numbers are right my blood sugar is balanced and the diabetes is considered under control. If the numbers are not right I feel lousy and either vow to try harder or throw my hands up and binge on ice cream.

It's a wonderful feeling to see a child splashing her way through the wading pool first thing in the morning. We're under a smoke warning right now, which today means that nobody should be outside more than necessary. For my daughter, today, a small dose is necessary. She's become used to going outside for a few minutes every morning. Fresh air, exercise, the illusion of independence- mommy stays inside for the most part, keeping a watchful eye through the patio door, and the fenced in yard ensures her locational safety.

A side benefit is that I can make sure the back yard gets watered. I move the wading pool to a new section of yard in the morning, fill with water (not to the top, because there's a drought on), and on the watering days (every other) I dump the water and hose down the inside before filling again with a few inches of water. Whatever works.

Today she enjoyed her water play, her mud play, and then came in and put herself in the bathtub. All I had to do was fill it and help her peel off the wet clothes. She was able to wash herself, play a bit more, and drain the tub when done. She even hung up the drainplug so it would stay nice. Isn't that the best thing?

Still working on getting my stamina back. I don't know how. I do know that I need to do it so that I can keep up with the kids. I've been saying that for months if not years. So- focusing on basics. Drink water. Move my body every day. Breathe deep and let go of stress. Make healthier choices in the kitchen.

Monday already? Darn it all, where did the time go? It's another week, another fresh start to my life, and no better way to dig in than with a rousing game of tickle the toddler. Better than brunch in bed. I think. Anyway, that's what I did first thing, along with feeding the Babe and making a doctor appt. Do it early, when I have the ability to dial the phone and speak coherantly.

Over my life I've gone to extremes to clean. I've pushed the dirt under a rug to hide it, I've yanked appliances out of their places to scrub underneath them. Recently I lifted off the top of my gas range to really get in there and clean out the "Crap of Ages". Do you ever wonder what it looks like under there? It's not pretty. It's not just that the vacuum is heavy, or that my daughter's afraid of it, or that I hate vacuuming. It uses electricity. Electricity that could be better used running the AC during this hot, long, dry and dusty summer.

And yet there's just some things that can't be solved by the application of elbow grease. I have been enjoying the satisfaction of getting down and just washing my floors myself. Something about knowing for a fact that they're clean. But what do I do about the carpets that can't be self-scrubbed? How do I manage that?

The recommended standard for electric appliances is Energy Star . Look for the sticker on what you buy, and you'll be buying a device that doesn't suck up needless energy. Dirt Devil has just come out with a device that uses 70% less energy in a wireless device. No toddler coming along behind me, yanking the cord out of the wall! It charges faster, and seems to be easier to use. I have a Dirt Devil vacuum right now, and have never had a major problem with it (and believe me, the things I put this poor vacuum through, it deserves a day at the spa!).

I just posted my Cheeseburger Mac recipe over here. Here's the breakdown of what this meal cost us:

1 pound ground beef, $2
1 can peas, $0.49
1 box Macaroni and Cheese, $0.75

Total for the dish: $3.24

Given the normal portions, this serves about 6. Cost per person: $0.54

Isn't that a frugal meal? Yummy, too. I normally try to stretch the beef, using 3/4 pound of meat instead of a whole one, but tonight we all really had a craving for meat. Using that amount, the total for the dish is $2.74 and $0.46

Loving how those grocery dollars are stretching.

Last week at the dollar store I indulged a curiousity I had been having for a while. I bought a pedometer and started counting my steps. It's interesting to note that while I consider myself sedentary, my step count is actually in the 10,000 steps range. Somewhere I heard that this was a desirable number and although I've yet to do serious research beyond a simple Net search, I am going to try to keep that up. Maybe add some steps here and there. Since the device clips onto my waistband, I can forget it's there. It's not easily found by the Preschooler (big bonus) and it's a tangible way to see that I'm really doing something.

Fitness. Such a mythical, magical thing to me. It's been on the unattainable list for most of my life, and I keep saying that I want to get in better shape even though I've got little stamina and less strength to do it. Sometimes I'll overexert, and then I've got to take to bed for several days. Chasing these kids around has made me more aware. Do I want to become a mother that's always sick, or just a mother that has to conserve her strength and stamina for other things. I want to run with them to the park. I want to play with them, to someday take them to an amusement park and have the ability to more than walk from the parking lot to the front gate and hold their bags while they have fun on the rides.

Maybe the steps are a move in the right direction. Maybe they'll help in small ways to bring me closer to that day.

Robbie's finally sounding better on a consistant basis. The Preschooler is finally starting to interact with me again on the level she was before this cold knocked us all for a loop. I'm feeling like I can maybe make a worthy dent in the neverending cycle of housework.

Must be Thursday.

Once I came home with a can of spam on a thursday, and the Boy took one look at it and made a rude comment. I don't remember what it was, but it was to the effect of "I'm not eating that". And like most things that eventually get eaten, I cooked it up in a recipe I had laying around, and didn't mention to him that it was spam, and he ate it. Even gave me a compliment on the dish. I bring this up because that's on the menu again for us tonight. It's a sweet-n-sour type dish, with spam and pineapple and fried rice and I'm looking forward to it.

Spam's cheap. Relatively speaking. I can get a can for 1.89, and stretch it over two main meals. If you treat it gently some people can't tell the difference between this and canned ham (which I love using, and which has frequently gotten rave reviews from my family). I'm stretching the food dollar pretty far this month, and enjoying it (which is pretty nice, really) and waiting for the economy to ease up to the point that we can go out to eat again at a restaurant with a sit-down menu.

As my earlier post pointed out, I do love the ability to stay home and raise these two kids, handful though they be. I enjoy the sites that make it possible to do this. Paid blogging. Crafts from time to time. Other things, here and there, as I can get them. If this appeals, remember the two rules of this sort of thing: never pay for the opportunity to make money, and never do something that you're ashamed to tell other people about.

The ways I choose to balance the budget at the end of the month are changing again- every other month I sit down with the account books and the expenses and what I can do to affect them. It's not always an obvious choice. One thing I found that I need to do, as much for me as for the bank account, is to earn money while I'm caring for the house and kids. There are umpteen million ways out there to do this. Some are practical, some are less so, some are outright scams to get money out of my wallet and give little/nothing in return.

One way that I've found to succeed at this is paid blogging. As readers of this site will be aware, I've dabbled in this for about a year now. I started with PayPerPost, which is awesome. Recently I started working with the new site, SocialSpark. It's the next generation of PayPerPost, tweaked to provide better opportunities both for bloggers and advertisers and brought to you by the same creative genius. I like them because not only is the pay decent, but they don't want anything from you beyond your best efforts and creativity. Unlike other companies that promise a work-at-home income while sitting in your pajamas, this one doesn't want you to pay them. Not setup fees, not membership fees, not one of those places where you pay a fee for a product with the promise that you'll get that money back once you jump through their hoops. Nothing upfront.

What do they want? Primarily, a grasp of the english language. You need to have a blog, which can be done easily for free. You need to have that blog for a while; no setting it up just to do this stuff. It has to be a real blog, with real original content, 90 days old with no gap of greater than 30 days betwen posts. You need to add a small piece of code to that blog, and then wait for their team to manually approve your blog before you can start taking opportunities. That was the basic standards for PayPerPost, and SocialSpark has added several tidbits that make their new platform even better.

One of them is full in-post disclosure. Paid posts are clearly known as such. No trying to guess whether or not you've been compensated for this item, whether or not your view might be skewed by the thought of a payment behind the scenes. There is 100% transparency; if you go to the site you can see what bloggers took which opportunity, how much they get paid for promoting the product or service, who paid for that opportunity in the first place. There are 100% real opinions. No more taking a half-relevant topic or even a completely off-base topic to what your blog is really about. This makes it more relevant to your readers, easier to write about, it makes me as a poster happier about accepting money for the post and less like I have to slink around feeling ashamed. As my mother once told me, if you feel ashamed for doing something, you're likely doing it for the wrong reasons and shouldn't be doing it at all.

Social Spark is also search-engine friendly. Have you been concerned that your google rank is being affected or could be affected by doing paid posting? There are a lot of strongly held opinions on this. The opportunities offered are all in compliance with the no-follow rules. Personally, I'm not sure how that works, and I don't care enough to keep track of what the current thinking on it is today. But I know that there are plenty of people who do, and this is a good thing for them.

Note to self: Always, always, check the diaper bag for bottles. Even when you think you've already done so. I just discovered the remnants of a bottle from the weekend. I'm debating whether or not I should just throw the sucker out and not have to deal with it.

I'm cheap, but this may have crossed the threshold of what I consider Too Much Ick to deal with.

I've been hearing all sorts of wonderful things about one of the blankies I had made for Robbie- I didn't think it was anything special, really, just something I had thrown together because I thought that it would be fun to make up and it was a useful texture. It's just a plain tube of straight knitting- nothing fancy. Just one smooth expense of plain handknitting, all the way around, thick without being too thick and smooth to the touch. No holes for little hands to get stuck in. Durable, plain, useful. Easy to throw into the stroller or the car, easy to throw over the sleeping baby when you need a stretchy hug.

So I'm going to make another one, white, and put it over in the etsy shop. Maybe it'll find a home. All I know is that the pediatrician's office is full of new moms who threaten to steal the one we have. And that I can never get done washing it because it's become the favorite one for clinging to, despite the umpteen other blankets in the linen cupboard.

Incidentally, I stand corrected about the price of gas. Last night on the way home from the emergency room I paid $4.59 for regular. The pop you may have heard was the sound of my brain imploding.