Beans, beans and more beans...

Most people spend back-to-school time ordering supplies, adjusting their routine and stocking up.  Fortunately, my son's school does not require us to buy supplies, I purchased his uniforms months ago when they were on sale and his backpack and lunch bag from last year so I thought we were in pretty good shape.

I've been spending back-to-school time doing veterinary stuff with the pets.  Specifically, the cat.  Duchess.  Not only is she royalty in name but also demeanor.  She does not like veterinary clinic settings.  I'm not sure if it was last year or the year before, but we went through a brief scare that she had diabetes.   This shocked me because she is a 6 pound, mildly underweight cat who eats canned food.  Canned food is kind of like the "Atkins diet" and so canned food can actually be therapeutic for diabetics.  Well, it ended up working out that she had a high blood sugar and sugar in her urine just because she get's that stressed when she goes to a clinic.  This year, she was doing better so I was quite unnerved when I took her to the cardiologist and he told me she had such high blood pressure she could lose her eyesight and have a stroke.  Follow-up has concluded that she was actually just really stressed.

The dog has his routine follow-up stuff but nothing too exciting there yet (at least for now).

Now my two-legged kid.  He has food allergies and is a finicky eater.  That just makes life pretty fun. He's very excited about eating hot lunch at school.  We had it all worked out and then it occurred to me that the fact that we hadn't given him beans could be a problem.  I know this paragraph is weird, but bare with me.

My son is allergic to cashews, green peas and for a brief time beans.  His allergist thinks he has grown out of these allergies or if not, is close to.  He directed us to get him to eat beans to confirm he didn't have a reaction.  I've been casually trying him to eat beans all summer to no avail.  As the start of school approached, I told my husband we were going to have to take him to his favorite taco place because those are the only beans he said he would eat.  He ate them.  Success.  I called his doctor and reported that.  The staff member told me, "Now what about white beans and kidney beans?".  "What?"  The staff member actually said, "Wow- I heard you deflate over the phone!"  I tried to tell her it took a whole summer to get the kid to eat black beans, and school started in less than 2 weeks.  I was pretty sure the school nurse wasn't going to let him get school lunch unless we had an official letter.

We had just paid over $250 for lunches and my son was actually excited about school lunch.  Last year it was a success if he drank his milk and ate chips.  What is a mother to do?  I'm not one to accept defeat (even my son has noticed this- "Mommy, why do you always win?").  I communicated with my husband that when he got home, I was headed to the grocery store.  I went to the fancy "weird food" grocery store that I knew would have beans "mixed" into things and I looked up recipes on Pinterest.  Unfortunately, I didn't see any "bean baby food" to mix into things.  But I got bean tortilla chips, bean nacho cheese chips (my son immediately figured out they weren't Doritos).  I got a bean burger.  I made chocolate kidney bean brownies (they weren't bad).  I made oatmeal cookies with butter beans and great northern beans.  (Fortunately, my kid eats hummus so garbanzo beans have always been good).  He may have only taken a few bites of each of my concoctions, but that was all he needed to do.

I stayed up late, cooking and cleaning thinking, "What I wouldn't give to have to go shopping for school supplies rather than to get creative with beans."  Oh well- if you haven't figured it out by now, this blog is called All Creatures Great And Crazy for a reason....

Book Review: I Went to Mass- What did I see?

I was recently sent a book to review that quite frankly, couldn't have come at a better time:  I Went to Mass- What did I see? by Katie Warner and illustrated by Meg Whalen.

There will be a later blogpost about why it couldn't have come at a better time.  For right now, I'd like to focus on sharing about the book.  It's a solid hardcover book and is written simply and  has elegant, relevant pictures.  It's not too advanced in vocabulary, so I think it's good for the pre-school to kindergarten age group.  I like that it does not use too many words, but one can see through the pictures what is being communicated.  Such as, " I went to Mass.  What did I see?" and then the next sentence simply explains the Mass as if on a timeline for little ones.

It has rhythm and rhyme and was written with the obvious intent to share the joy of Mass with the young.  I think this book will be a great "beginner" book to introduce little ones to Mass that does not distract the adults, but allows them to share the beauty of the Mass in simple terms with the young ones in their family.

It was a pleasure to receive this book and my son enjoys taking it with him to Mass.



 





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Whirlwind of a trip

So much for summer vacation at home!  We had many summer plans for things to do around the house and in our area, but we just have too many family and friends and things to keep up with.  The past 3 weekends in a row we had been traveling and our last trip was actually just our 5 year old and me.  I'm not sure how much peace my husband really got to enjoy (as he couldn't go on our trip because of work) but I'm pretty sure our cat at least enjoyed having him to herself.

Sometimes I wonder if I'm just moving too fast and that I should step back and slow-down.  With some things, I think that's the case.  But let's face it.  No matter how much time I have, I will have a to-do list.  There will be work to do.  Housework, home improvement, veterinary work.  There's always something.  So while spending a lot of my time traveling may seem a little foolish, I really don't think it is.  Let me explain:

When we are traveling- my son pretty much gets my un-devoted attention = win for him.  He gets so much attention that I think he (and I) actually get sick of it, so when we get home, he likes to go off and do his own thing and I get to catch up with stuff.  This is a minor thing, but if I just stay at home working, housework and all the other things I feel I need to catch up on, I'm not necessarily as intentional with my time with him.  He's not going to have fond memories of mommy doing housework.  He is going to have memories of all the things I take time to do with him like the library, the pool and travel.

While travel can be stressful and physically draining, it can also be rewarding.  My son and I spent our trip together with each of our three stops being restorative.

We had some great visits to friends.  Even though I have a ton of things I should catch up on/be doing at home and there’s always work to do, I think it was definitely worthwhile to take the trip and time away.  At each of our three stops, my son and I met with family and friends who were refreshing and supportive.  They were like mini-retreats of encouragement.  Listening ears and supportive spirits, it was much like a retreat and my son had a great time too.  He got to meet and renew friendships with people, go to a horse race for the first time (He didn’t want to leave after 4 hours), sleep with the sound of a waterfall in the background (due to our rustic surroundings) and experience rural Vermont life, including bringing home the chickens at night!

It had it's moments too- like the time I couldn't find a rest stop in two states!  Really?  I won't go into details.  My son had a lot of energy and a lot of time in the car can be hard.  So, whether it was going on a hike, or swimming in the pool, I tried to get some energy out of him before we got stuck in the car.  There wasn't too much junk food as we are pretty good at eating healthy- and so were the family and friends we were visiting.  My son did find his favorite new hot dog joint which just happens to be 75 years old.

I feel kind of guilty I've let my blog slack this summer.  I've been busy and tired and have a lot of things that I need to catch up on.  But then I realized writing isn't like another thing on my to-do list.

Writing has always been therapeutic for me.  Whether it was as a confused teenager moving to a different school and quite frankly different culture, or a young adult struggling with a health crisis, writing has always helped me process things.  It has often entertained or enriched my family and friends.  I definitely don't have the grammar and English skills that a great writer should have (somehow with the moves between schools and the fact that my creative writing skills always let me slide through English class, I lost some skills along the way).  I do have the heart of a writer though.  I do feel this is somehow something that I'm supposed to be doing.  So while all the things on my to-do list will always be there.  I need to remember that just like our vacation, sometimes the effort that it takes to do something is really worth it because it refreshes and restores.

Technical difficulties...

Unfortunately I’ve been having some technical difficulties, but watch out as I have a couple of blogposts in the works....  now if I can just get my computer to cooperate...

Something to make life easier...

I just got off the phone talking with my mom about the joys of dogs with "dietary indiscretion".  I sometimes forget that the illnesses that I see, day in, day out (and especially around the holidays) are not bread and butter issues to everyone else.  Yes, these things are gross to pick-up and are never a great way to end your day.  Fortunately most of the time these issues follow under the "this too will pass"  outcome.  Most of the time it's a dog who ate something they shouldn't, such as cat food, human food or who knows what else.  Most of the time we never know.

I think my husband thought I was kind of crazy when we registered for a Bissell SpotBot for our wedding registry.  It was only a couple months after we were married that he knew I was genius.  I mean, yes, I'm a vet and I deal with gross stuff all the time.  But who really wants to scrub carpet for all manner of things?  Definitely not my hubby.

I've actually mentioned this product to a couple of clients (and no, I don't have a contract with Bissell) because I think it's a great stress reliever to have something that just does the work for you.  Whether it's a kid accident or something else you just plop this on top, fill up the clean tank and empty the dirty tank when you're done.  Yep.  Not much is easy. So between my favorite probiotic for my pet and the spotbot, things don't faze us quite as much.  At one point, one of the tubes broke and while we had it at a repair shop to be fixed, my hubby and I wondered whether we still needed it.  Yep.  One of our children, I don't even remember if it was human, feline or canine proved that it's still a great way to make life easier.  I almost bought one for my sister before she got her new dog (but she said her house didn't have much carpet, so we didn't bother) but I recommend this for anyone who wants to not have to scrub carpet.  Now if I could just find an easy way to deal with crumbs in my kids car seat...
  





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6 Nights Home in 20 Days

My family and I have been doing a whirlwind of traveling.  Unfortunately having several 10 hour trips in the car.  We have done 4 10+ hour trips since Memorial Day and my son, the dog and I have one more to go.  I think my husband and cat are relieved to hold the fort down (oh and the fish too!)

My son is a pretty good trooper, but I think he's getting hooked on Amazon Prime video.  My husband and I tried to keep him away from videos and devices at least until he was two and now it's pretty much free reign during a long road trip- for everyone's sanity.

So, as you can tell, I've gotten behind on a lot of stuff, my blog for one and pretty much everything else.  I am glad that I had the foresight to wash our sheets right before we left so at least I've got a clean fresh bed to come home to after an 8 hour drive turned 12 hour.  Unfortunately a fatal crash down the line from us shut down the interstate and ended up adding 4 hours to our trip, which is rather hard to explain to a five year old that the "fast lane" became a parking lot.

We tried to keep our patience and model to him that our loss of 4 hours of our time was nothing compared to the loss that someone now had to deal with in their family.  "We may be later getting home, but someone is finding out that their family member is going home to Jesus and not coming back, so we can remember to be grateful even in our impatience."

Sometimes it's hard to know what part of these little messages we share with him get processed, but we believe they are seeds we are planting.  Seeds of compassion, seeds of patience and gratefulness.  Oftentimes, these seeds and plants need to be nurtured in our own hearts.  Perspective.  It's something that we need to work on at every stage in our life.

So as we go through this whirlwind of travel, and all the hardships, annoyances and work that ensues, we will remember to be grateful for this time with family and friends and the memories.

Summer....

My son and I had a great day at the pool yesterday with friends.  It wasn't a sunny day and it was a little cooler than the typical 80-90 degree weather we have been having, but it was a lot of fun.  All together it was 6 kids who move around so much that they never really figured out they were truly cold.

As I talked with the other moms, we all lamented that although the kids are excited for school, we are not exactly.  All the things we planned to do during the summer haven't really gotten done.  I just started trying to clean out the garage yesterday and have hit a bit of a roadblock because my husband really needs to be involved (otherwise he knows I would just throw out and give away a bunch of stuff, such as the lifetime's worth of car washing sprays and polishes).  My husband pointed out that we shouldn't have so much if we were actually using it.  I pointed out that means you actually need to use it.  Otherwise it's just taking up space.

Maybe he can teach my son how to wash the car this summer.  I taught my son, and he was excited, "how to clean a bathroom".  I was maybe a little excited that he was interested in doing this but I think it's going to be a couple of years before I'm done with the "cleaning it up for real" duty.

Whether it's my sons homework, the garage or the various other projects I had intended for this summer, I have to remind myself that it's always easy to think of things you want to do with your summer, and if I was so focused on my to do list, we wouldn't have been able to travel or take advantage of a myriad of other opportunities and adventures to come our way.  Hopefully I can get a couple things crossed off my to-do list, but the most important one- "building memories with my child" has happened, so I'll be kind to myself on the others.