4 Year Old Anxiety... Socks and Being Grateful For Hundreds of Multiple Choice Tests

We just got back from a great vacation and I could tell my anxiety went down from being disconnected with the world, and news for two weeks.  While my anxiety decreased, my son's seemed to increase.  I'm not sure if it was the roller coasters we went on or just the stage in life my son is at, but I found out he has all sorts of fears.

Image taken by my husband of an alligator with a turtle on it's back

What if an alligator eats me? While my husband and I work hard to instill in my son that there are dangers in the world, we don't want him to be afraid of everything.  We try to teach him that the dangers are a reason why he needs to listen to us and stay close to us, especially when he is  in a area where there are real alligators. When he was at the ocean, he kept saying, "I don't want to go in there because there are sharks and stingrays".  I fielded many questions in the past two weeks, questions I think we all think about, and fear from time to time.

I tried to logically go through the questions and fears, explaining that accidents with wild creatures rarely happen and if we respect their space and take precautions, they typically will stay away from us.

One particular time my son went through a long line of questions.  "What if aliens get me? (he elaborated on this one, I don't exactly remember if it was being captured and held and all sorts of imaginative hypotheses, but he was elaborate).  "That won't happen," I think was my response.  "What if a shark attacks me?" "What if an alligator eats me?".  Patiently, I answered each question with a simple response- "Then you will go home to God in Heaven."  "But I don't want to go home to God in Heaven, I want to go back to our house with Dewey and Duchess."  "Really?"  I looked at him.  He has told me multiple times he wants to move into a larger house so he can have a big playroom.

After a series of several anxious scenarios in which I calmly responded to him, "Then you will go home to God in Heaven."  He came right out with it- "Mommy- I don't want to die and I don't want you to die."

I responded, "I don't want you to die either.  That's why we try to keep you safe...I don't want you to go to God in Heaven until God in Heaven wants you and I don't want to go to God until he's ready for me either."

This somehow seemed to assuage his fears and made me look at my fears too.  There are so many things to be afraid of.  But when we look at it- the ultimate end isn't something to be terribly afraid of.  It's something that no one wants to come before it is time, but that is not for us to worry about.  We can rest assured that whenever it is our time, God will be in Heaven waiting for His Children to be ready to come home.

As an aside- I had an interesting discussion with some other Lay Dominicans this week- it got pretty in depth with philosophical questions such as, "Is everything a good, is there goodness in everything."  Two interesting thoughts were shared.  A sock is a good.  A hole in the sock, is like evil.  It's not a thing or an object, but is a loss of something that undermines the integrity of the good.  My husband didn't realize this discussion when I adamantly told him he needs to throw out his socks with holes in them...

The other interesting discussion we had was about the angels.  They made their decision at the beginning of time what side they were going to be on.  As one Lay Dominican lamented, "So the angels get one pass/fail test and then it's over and we have to work every minute and hour for our redemption?"  As we briefly thought of envying the angels, someone else blurted out, "It may be pass/fail, but the fail is A BIG ONE."  I never thought I would be grateful for hundreds of multiple choice tests every day...

Breaks my heart...

I apologize for not posting last Friday, but we all need a little vacation, don't we?

The Family Bingo Night I was co-responsible at our Church turned out fairly well and I turned out fairly exhausted...

As you may have read previously, we have food allergies in my family.  My cat was the first- she became allergic to chicken, and then duck and beef.  My son started out with peas and cashews and had a difficult time over about a year finding out what he was reacting to, but we found out it was beans.  He seemed to react more at school and really enjoyed black beans with us when we ate Mexican food, especially at our favorite restaurant, so it was a little bit of a conundrum to figure out.  He used to love his black beans.  It's the only vegetable post-babyfood I recall him loving.

Just as I've been feeling more comfortable with his allergy and keeping him safe because of it becoming a new "normal" and he's of the age where he is aware of it and is now asking friends and waitstaff about that's in his food, a change has happened.  Recently, either because he's seen people having beans, or he's heard us talking about them, he said longingly to me, "I want to eat black beans again- I misssss them!"  I didn't realize he still remembers having black beans and that he loved them that much.  I gave him hope, which is not unfounded, that maybe, as he grows up, he might grow out of that allergy.  I can sense my four year old's sadness over not being able to eat a food that almost everyone else can.

I have a food sensitivity, so I'm trying to avoid food.  My cat has a food allergy and get's sick and a skin infection if she gets her allergen.  My son has to worry about epi-pens, anaphylaxis and how far away a hospital is when he is eating unfamiliar food.  I think a lot of people get food allergy and food sensitivity mixed up.  Seeing my son deal with his food allergy reminds me that even though I need to avoid gluten, dairy and eggs (which seems like everything good to me), my son has a tougher road.  He not only has to avoid food, he has to worry about the serious harm it could cause him.  I also notice another thing now and that is the social awareness that all his friends and even cousins get to enjoy food he can't have, and he is alone in this.  I told my son, "see- mommy didn't have dessert, you are not alone."  I think he knows though- Mommy didn't have dessert because that was a choice she made- he doesn't get a choice.

So as people talk about food allergies and epi-pens, for those of you out there who think it's over-reacting or just means you have to carry an epi-pen, think of all the social ramifications.  Whether it's a movie (such as Peter Rabbit) who makes a food allergy into a joke, or people who think, "well, there's only a small amount of this allergen, so that should make the food ok," or "what if we just pick the allergen off the top."  My son has reminded me to be a more sensitive person, and maybe he will remind others to as well.

Decluttering...

I work at different clinics and in different environments and have come to find- I like things in their place.  This is probably a revelation to former roommates and my family who have put up with piles. I believe one roommate put it this way- "You're not messy- you're like a river and you just kind of flow...."  The problem is not that I don't know how to organize- the problem is I just typically don't have time to do it.  People who I work with have remarked that I'm one of very few doctors who clean up after themselves.  My mom taught me to clean after myself, I taught my son to clean after himself.  It's not a difficult concept.

The problem is.... time.  I recently read a catholicmom.com blog where the blogger was saying as she was getting ready to take on Lent, she thought of all the wonderful spiritual exercises she could partake in, but actually came to the resolution to just focus on her family and her home.  There are always lofty goals to aspire too, but sometimes, it also starts in our home.  While I do have spiritual resolutions this Lent, I too want to focus on simplifying the home.

My clutter problem started from a childhood where my family was blessed with a nice size house and so it was easy to accumulate things.  My mom and sister were teachers- I learned from them that things can always be re-purposed, or fixed, or things that you're not using now you may want later.  When you have the space to store it, it's not so much a problem.  I lived for the most part 27 years either with my family or a half hour away.  Then, shortly before I was supposed to move long-distance for my internship, I broke my leg.  I was blessed to have friends to help me pack, but this also led to me having stuff packed that I didn't really want to bring with me, and not having the ability to sort things out.  During my internship it was about a 70 hour plus work-week.  Obviously I wasn't in my home for much longer than to just get a sleep and do the dishes.  Then I moved another couple of thousand miles to the other coast and then ~8 months later I moved again.  Then, I unexpectedly got a job on the other side of the coast and moved 2 weeks after doing a mission trip in Mongolia.  Yeah- that wasn't stressful at all.  Then I was training for a marathon, got married and moved in with my husband and we both found we brought a ton of boxes with us, which we planned on going through, but I had a difficult pregnancy with a bout 7 months of sciatica and then we had a baby....

I had traipsed boxes of stuff from one end of the country to another multiple times and then went through it saying to myself, "Why do I still have this?"  My husband is a sentimental man, so he had boxes of things such as church bulletins from all the various churches he had been to and other items that had to be gone through too.  We each have been continually doing our own purging and I credit my kitty with helping me let go of one box of sentimental things for me- programs from my friends weddings and other items like that.  Yep- Duchess pretty much destroyed that box and I actually wasn't mad at her.  I had a sense of relief that I didn't have to make the decision to let it go, she did it for me.

When we go through stuff, it helps us to restore sanity and just feel better, it also helps save money because you can actually find things.  I don't like being nagged about decluttering, and I don't think it is something to do at a stressful time of life (would have been hard to do it up to this point).  I think the best time to declutter is when you are fairly happy and don't have a time crunch to do it with.  I've actually set up for an organization to come to our house and pick up a box of items once a month to be re-sold and benefit the organization.  My husband thought it would be difficult to come up with a whole box every month, but it's not really that hard.  Whether it's clothing, or old toys, if there's not a large sentimental attachment to it and it wasn't a gift from the grandparents, it's time to bless someone else with it.  I also look forward to the next time we move, not discovering that I've been moving the same boxes from coast to coast over 20 years.

So this Lent, I've added to my spiritual exercises turning the one storage area we do have in the house  into a play area.  We have a house with a wonderful open floor plan, but very few and very small closets; we don't even have a front hall closet, basement or attic.  We are blessing someone else with the couch my husband used to have (it's still in good shape), putting up some storage shelves and are going to try to devote that area to the toys and items that have been overtaking our house (and maybe give us a little pantry space too).  Maybe I'll even post before and after pictures (if my hubby lets me).  This is all part of my them this year of "Letting Go".  Oh- and I've been blessed that I still get to use my mom's basement (that's where all my son's old baby stuff and other items we don't regularly use gets shipped off too).

God has a sense of humor.. and cleaning up a dog mess...

This week has been an interesting week.  I took time off to devote to a project for our Respect For Life committee that I'm a co-chair on at work.  Two days this week there's either been a 2-hour delay or a cancellation of school when I was supposed to be "selling" tickets.  On Monday, I fought with my son to get him going and get him out the door and found myself in the car, frustrated, with peanut butter somehow on my elbow because I had brought his breakfast into the car in an effort to get moving faster.

In my younger days, I probably would have totally lost my cool and let the frustration and anger take over the rest of the day.  I'm slowly metamorphising into a more patient person- possibly.  I realized how being late isn't the worst thing in the whole world and it was kind of funny I had peanut butter on my elbow and gratetful for my warm coat that though it was going to smell like peanut butter the rest of the day- that's not the worst thing I could smell like (I don't need to tell you about the substances I get at the vet clinic).

I don't know if it's time, perspective, wisdom or maybe the simple fact that when I see my son have a temper I'm reminded he didn't just pick that up on his own, it is a "learned" behavior that has slowly improved me.  I'm still a work in progress and just today found myself bordering on a meltdown and having to walk myself back from the ledge.

It started with thinking that maybe today was going to be another snow day, and wanting to get up and exercise, but making excuses not to do it.  That's not really a great way to start the day.  Then it became finding out I was turning into my mom when I tried to wake my four year old up with a song and smiles.  He gave me the same response I used to give my mom.

I gave my son a chocolate chip muffin I had made and let him sit in the rocking chair and "ease" into the morning.  As I got a whole slew of baked goods and coffee to take to school to use for "marketing" for people to find out our event, somehow I realized that the whole muffin, complete with silicone wrapper was gone.  I was in shock.  I asked my son, "Did Dewey steal the muffin, did he eat the blue wrapper too?"  I'm not sure how awake or aware he was, but I got the message from him that was what happened.  I freaked out.  I wasn't worried about the chocolate chips, but I was worried that the silicone wrapper would get stuck in his intestines.  Dewey knew he was in trouble and was at my feet clinging to me.  I hurried around the house to try to find hydrogen peroxide.  My husband was getting ready for work and "reminding" me nothing can be left unattended for the dog.  I told him in his almost ten years of life he had not eaten plastic or inedible stuff like that.  I just couldn't believe it.  There wasn't really time for the argument anyway.  I found the hydrogen peroxide and told my husband to just help me hold him so I could shove it down his throat.  If I was a client, I would have measured it out and done exactly as a veterinarian told me (which is what you should do if you are in this situation).  I shoved the hydrogen peroxide down in his throat and took him in the backyard so he would vomit up the wrapper back there.  I also tried to load up the kid and the car, knowing I was really late.  I would drop off the baked goods and coffee and come back to the house and if he still hadn't vomited it up, I would take him to the emergency room.  My son was slowly waking up in this process as I came in and out of the house I went in the backyard to check on the progress.  No silicone cup.  Everything else but no silicone cup.  As I was about to reach my breaking point- there on the table to come outside was the muffin with the blue wrapper.

I felt pretty awful.  Poor Dewey.  I just made him sick because I assumed he had been bad when one of us (my son or me) had moved the muffin and forgot about it.  I let Dewey come inside and decided I would clean up the mess when we got back.  Dewey didn't deserve to be in the cold backyard (and I didn't want him to eat anything else that would cause problems).  I made sure I gave him a second breakfast when we got back and the good thing about dogs is- they forgive you pretty easily.  I don't think he will remember that I intentionally made him sick because he was falsely accused.  If only we could give each other the same grace that dogs give us...

The women at the church were understanding.  They said they probably wouldn't have thought anything of it if their dog ate plastic or silicone- I told them, "I know too much about what can happen."  They laughed when I said, "God has a sense of humor and sometimes I just have to remember to laugh with Him."

I'm in fairly good spirits because cleaning up the mess isn't too hard.  We got a Bissell Spot Bot for our wedding and it's been one of the best gifts we could have gotten.  It's probably made our marriage stronger.  You basically just put it on top of the mess and it cleans it up.  It is definitely awesome.


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The Sauna

I've never really liked saunas.  Maybe it originates from a time long ago when I was a
girl and we were playing hide and go seek and I thought my friends said, "Let's hide in the sawmill" instead of a "sauna".  It was an old, historic house in a little historic town and I somehow thought they had a sawmill in their basement.  That's not traumatic at all..

I sometimes will go into them with friends, but to me, why would I go into a hot, dry place of my own free will?  Yes, I do compare saunas to Arizona and that other place that's got 4 letters.  I mean, it's really HOT.  Reminds me of the joke about Arizona- "What do Arizonans bring with them when they go to Hell?  They bring sweaters!  haha.  Yes, I still have memories of buying a chocolate bar in a store and it melted in my hands on the way to the car.  While I like Arizona, I will definitely avoid it in the heat of the summer.

Well, in the way life gives you strange twists, where have I been finding myself this week?  In a sauna.  I think my husband thinks it's relaxing for me- I guess it is somewhat.  Having quiet for a half hour is kind of nice.  Being hot for a half hour and feeling like you're going to melt?  Can't say that's on my bucket list.  If it was I would have already struck it off with living in Arizona for two years.

I have been spending time in a sauna because my doctor told me to.  Yep, that's right.  It was medical advice to "detox".  I think I might share this advice with my husband because you know what?  You can't bring a cellphone into a sauna- at least if you want to keep it working, you can't, so maybe I can tell him he needs it for a "technology detox".

My husband laughed at me and chided me for taking the book he got me for Christmas into the sauna and that the binding is all melted so now it's just looseleaf paper.  I told him, "Well, what would you do if you had to sit still for a half hour- do you think you could do it without any stimulation?"  I didn't really get an answer back.  My friend and doctor mentioned that I could, "pray the rosary".  Yes, that's a great idea and as a Dominican, I'm supposed to do that.  I guess it's one way I could REALLY try to meditate on the Sorrowful Mysteries, but there's no way I could make it a half hour.  I would end up meditating on how miserably hot I was.  Perhaps my friend thinks I'm a better person than who I am at this point?

So, I've been baking in the sauna and having a half hour of quiet.  No kid, no husband, no iPhone or radio or TV.  That's somewhat therapeutic.  The book that I'm reading and is looseleaf paper now is really good and refreshing.  I did have the thought that it takes roasting in a kind of "hell" for me to slowdown and read some good spiritual reading.  It was actually cool to read about St. Margaret in a dragon's stomach and feeling like I was right there with her.  All kidding aside, sometimes it takes unexpected things to find yourself in a place you never thought you'd be and enjoy it for reasons you never thought you'd enjoy it.  I'll have to write more later about the great "sauna" book I'm reading- you can check it out below.




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Peas- the bane of my existence

I've always eaten a wide variety of foods, and even liked most veggies, including broccoli, but peas have never really been my thing.

Then I married my husband.  The only vegetable he would eat was peas.  It was the first vegetable I offered to my son.  He liked it.  His favorite book was, "Little Green Peas".  Just as I was accepting the fact that I was probably going to be eating peas for the rest of my life; I found out my son was allergic.  An allergy to peas.  Yes, who knew this was possible.  My son's doctor joked that he had an allergy every kid would love to have.  I then informed him it was the only veggie my husband would eat.  "Oh,"  I think was the response I got.

Peas are not listed as a common allergen and up until recent times, they were fairly easy to avoid.  We avoid Chinese food and we are careful with fried rice and Mexican rice, as you sometimes find peas in it.

Ok- so we avoid peas and beans (he developed an allergy to this a little later on).  No big deal- plenty of different options

Fast-forward a couple years and as I'm trying to eat healthier, I find out that many health foods are now incorporating pea protein in it.  My son's nutritionist was happy when she found out my son liked dried foods and gave me a list of things he could have- I had to point out to her that half of the things on the list had peas or beans.  "Oh," the common response...

I just recently found out that my body has developed antibodies to dairy, eggs, gluten and wheat.  Pretty much everything you bake with.  Did I mention God blessed me with good baking skills?  Yep, sometimes the heavenly sense of humor escapes me...

I'm not allergic to the above foods in the way my son is.  It kind of requires me to go back to my immunology class I took 15 years ago, but the body can react differently to different compounds.  My son has a Type I Hypersensitivity which means he can actually go into anaphylaxis with exposure to certain foods.  My type of hypersensitivity just means the foods do not sit well with my immune system and has actually developed measurable antibodies against the foods, trying to protect my body from them.  This means I feel physically ill, but fortunately won't die.

As I'm trying to take control of things, because I like to cook, and most of all like to enjoy food, I've been trying to explore my "Vegan- meat" options as I've coined it.  I basically am vegan- except I eat meat.  Yeah, that's not contradictory at all.  I've found that as people have gotten healthier and more have embraced a vegan lifestyle, there are all sorts of dairy-free alternatives and egg-free alternatives.  Yay!  Then I discovered a lot of these items and recipes incorporate peas and beans.  Pretty much any vegan smoothie has pea protein in it and apparently the most nutritious non-dairy milk and yogurt- is pea protein...

Somehow... everything comes back to peas.