Last week I worked Thursday through Sunday, at which point in was snowing in Chicago and the only way to get anywhere remotely near home was to fly to Little Rock, spend the night in the airport, and rent a car to drive home.
When I walked through my front door Monday evening, I had been awake for 36 hours straight and been in Atlanta, GA, Houston, TX, Boston, Mass, Chicago, IL, and Little Rock in that time.
I was exhausted and stressed out, so it was beyond a relief to have the homecoming I did: Darrel had done some great work around the house while I was gone, Jed told me he wanted to be my big helper (“Mommy! I will help you. I will help you fast, fast, fast! So fast!”), and Zac was thrilled to see me and had shown no signs of a reaction to the beef while I was gone.
Ah. Sweet.
Even better was the news that Zac advanced leaps and bounds in speech while I was gone!
Last week Miss K, our speech therapist, gave him a new workbook with – ironically – speech apraxia flash cards. Each flash card is a picture, and underneath each picture Miss K wrote the word or words she wants him to say.
Mom and Darrel updated me about Zac’s speech while I was gone, of course, but actually hearing the difference between when I left and when I came back a mere five and a half days later was astounding.
For the first time ever, I got to hear Zac say “Bye-bye!” as we left therapy. He said every word in his workbook, and it was music to my ears. I didn’t get to hear it, but apparently he even finally referred to Grandma by name – “Gama”. (So cute!)
It is such a relief to see he’s turning a corner in therapy, and makes all this time away from my family a little more bearable.
Jed followed through on his promise to help me “fast fast fast”. The first thing he did when we came home was to try and clean the four little dishes in the sink.
The next morning he went straight from bed to the kitchen and took it upon himself to unpack the 50 pounds of potatos laying in the middle of the kitchen, without any prompting by me.
We keep our potatos in one large and two small baskets in a cabinet. Jed pulled the baskets out of the cabinet to fill them, but then discovered that putting the full baskets back in the cabinet wasn’t as easy as expected.
So my clever son enlisted his brothers aid. They put the filled, smaller baskets in the cabinet, then emptied the potatos out of the large basket and simply piled potatos all over the cabinet.
Even though it’s a bit of a mess and not at all the way I would store them normally, this was genius; total logic and problem solving skill usage. I was quite impressed!
They even thoughtfully put the empty large basket on the other side of the cabinet. Jed was so proud of himself, Zac was grinning, and I honestly felt like the Grinch on Christmas. Not that my heart was two sizes too small to begin with, just that I felt it swell with love when I saw my boys working so hard to help me.
I wish my brief time at home had sustained such a high note. Unfortunately, we had a couple of little problems put a damper on my high spirits.
Monday night, 5 hours after I first nursed Zac upon my return home, he had a poopy diaper that was a little off. It smelled bad, and while the texture was good, he had a bright red allergy ring.
That night he fought going to bed quite a bit, but so did Jed. My returning home from work always riles them up, so we blamed it on that. Especially since Zac slept really well all night long.
Tuesday morning the allergy ring was gone, but his first poop of the day was hard little constipated pellets that made his heinie bleed a little. Nine hours later he had a straight up diarrhea diaper: pure liquid.
His appetite was a bit off all day, too.
Beyond his tushie issues, he also spent a good hour of the afternoon screaming and crying at me because of this:
He’d gotten a teeny tiny little boo-boo on his cheek, but, as 2 year olds are wont to do, would not be satisfied with anything less than the full medical treatment: peroxide, neosporin, and a band-aid from Grandma.
Unfortunately, by Tuesday afternoon his sweet little face was so aggravated by the adhesive on the band-aid, he was in pain and his face was lightly blistered.
Poor baby!
So…what caused the bad poops? Did he suddenly have a reaction to the beef? Did he pick up some trace from therapy or generally being in public? Or was it the water I drank on Sunday?
Honestly, I’m leaning towards the water.
So here’s the deal: it’s hard to find safe water to drink when I’m on the road. I typically carry no less than 5 liters of water with me at all times (imagine carrying the weight of all your typical luggage PLUS the weight of 5 liters of water for days on end!), but occasionally, I run out.
When that happens, I either go without until I can find some safe water or I filter tap water to drink.
Sunday morning, I was nearly out of water. Lo and behold, the newsstand in the Atlanta airport just happened to sell this:
Which, according to the corn free list I’ve referred to over the years, is a safe brand of drinking water. What a thrilling discovery! It’s almost impossible to find safe drinking water on the road!
My crew actually made fun of me for how excited I was to find safe drinking water.
I bought 4 bottles, knowing that would be more than enough to carry me over until I found more Crystal Geyser. In the end, I drank 3 of them.
Sadly, despite the brand being on the list, that water may not have been safe. I apparently misunderstood the listing; most of the folks who drink Absopure drink the large, refrigerator sized bottles, which have an almost non-existent reaction record, but the smaller bottles are suspect.
Since the water/nursing Zac fits perfectly to the timeline, I’m guessing it’s the water. Sigh.
Even better? I’m already back at work. In case anyone is keeping track, I got home Monday afternoon and had to return to work Wednesday morning.
Y’all, I want to go home.
Fortunately, Zac seems to have bounced back already and is doing just fine. Still, we’re beginning the three day break for beef, just to give him a little rest time, and will resume the beef trial on Tuesday (two days after I get home, since I’m not willing to start food trials the day I return any more). That should give him a little tummy break.
Do you know why airplanes are consistently de-iced in the winter? Because while a little ice doesn’t seem like that big a deal, the weight of the ice on the wings makes it unsafe for the airplane to fly.
It can make it harder for the plane to take off, and if it does, the aerodynamics are thrown off and the plane is more prone to erratic behavior, up to and including crashing.
With returning to work last May, I’ve been feeling extra weight. With my latest budget revision at the end of the year requiring more work than I’d previously done, I felt more weight piled on.
The transfer to Chicago helped me feel lighter; theoretically the commute will be easier, thus making my time away at work less than before.
With the latest news from speech therapy about early intervention running out of money, I now have to work basically a full time schedule at work, when what I was aiming for was about a 75% schedule.
Add to the work scheduling stress my sweet kiddos continually demanding food needs, my need to carry everything I eat to work, the need to pump every 5-6 hours (the only feasible schedule when at work) while I’m gone, the ongoing demands of keeping my household running, and all the other little things I’m responsible for and suddenly, I feel as though my wings are covered in ice.
I’m desperate to de-ice my wings, but that would involve cutting something out. There’s only one problem with that:
How can you cut anything out of your life when it’s all important?
In case you hadn’t noticed, my blogging schedule has become erratic since Thanksgiving. Some days I just don’t have time, so I don’t post. That’s what I cut out on those days.
Beyond blogging, though, there’s really nothing else I do that can be eliminated. And I’m loathe to eliminate blogging completely, since it’s one of the few things I do that help keep me centered and inspired.
So I’m desperate to de-ice, but absolutely incapable of doing it now.
Let’s hope my life doesn’t crash around me before things get easier on their own.
I just want to go home.
What do you do when you need to “de-ice” your life?
How do you know when the water or bottle is associated with corn? My son is eight months old and we are trying to figure out his triggers. We have done the patch testing and he reacted to seventeen out of twenty. He is exclusively breastfed and I am down to 6 safe foods due to the chronic reactions are non stop. He had a reaction the other day and I had nothing new, it was either pepper or water I drank. This is so hard to keep it all straight and safe.
Hi Steph! I’m sorry you’re having such a rough time. 🙁 It is hard to keep it all straight, but it gets easier over time, I promise.
As for corn, I hate corn. Corn is ubiquitous and unlabeled, so the only way a non-corn allergic person such as myself can have a clue how to avoid corn for her corn-allergic son is to ask the people who personally deal with corn allergies. I’ll email you a list of links that can help you; some are Facebook groups, others are websites with info.
These folks range in sensitivity, as is typical of all food allergies. But if they say something makes most of them react, I consider it a no-go item for Zac.
Look for an email in your box, and feel free to ask anything else that pops up! Good luck and hugs, mama! You’re doing a great job!