Thursday, November 19, 2009

Funny Girl

Maddie is SUCH A GOOFBALL!!  Tonight I was getting dinner out (nothing fancy...hot dogs and leftover potatoes) and Maddie saw the hot dogs on the counter.  She started saying "hot dog" but I wasn't fully paying attention so I didn't realize what she was saying.  Since I didn't say anything, she felt it was necessary to get my attention.  She came over, looked up at me and said "hot dog" with an attitude look in her eyes.  I told her I didn't understand and she said "puppy" and ran over and pointed to the hot dogs on the counter.  :)  dog = puppy...get it?  She cracks me up!

Speaking of food...I'm finding it very interesting what Maddie requests to eat these days.  I'm a big believer in feeding her what I eat.  I don't want to get her in the habit of me making her a special meal.  However, if she eats at least SOME of what I give her, I'll give her something else as long as she specifically asks for it.  Tonight I gave her the cut up hot dog and some leftover potatoes.  While she was eating she asked for cereal.  I asked if she wanted cereal, just to clarify that I heard her correctly and she said, "yes, Froot Loops".  So, that's what she had for dinner...a hot dog and potatoes with a side of Froot Loops.  Go ahead...judge me if you must :)

Tomorrow I'm leaving Maddie with a babysitter in our house for the first time EVER!  I left her with family members last summer when she was an infant, but I haven't left her with a stranger.  We met the babysitter yesterday and Maddie fell in love with her :)  It took her about 10-15 minutes to warm up and get used to her being in our house and then she started showing off and being goofy.  I mean, goofier than I've ever seen her!  She was literally bouncing off the walls.  She ran into the window in the playroom, was throwing herself across this big ball we have in the playroom torpedo style, throwing things, bringing things to the babysitter to show them to her...you name it, Maddie was doing it.  She just made me laugh!  At one point I told Maddie to give me a high five and put my hand up.  She looked at my hand and completely dissed me!  She turned to the babysitter and gave her a high five instead...when it was time for the babysitter to leave I asked Maddie if she wanted her to come back another day and she said "yes" without hesitation.  I'm so glad they hit it off!!!  I'll still be a little nervous tomorrow, but I know she's in good hands so I know we'll both be fine :)

Wednesday, November 18, 2009

The Diagnosis (updated)

I have a pretty messed up back...but nothing the chiropractor can't fix.  YAY!!  I was worried that I might need to have surgery because my back hurt me so bad sometimes.  Here are a couple of x-rays I found online (my dr. office just got the software to start uploading x-rays to the computer so hopefully I'll be able to post mine before too long) that are similar to what mine looked like.  The major difference is that my spine is curving the opposite direction...scroll down to the title Second Appointment with Dr. W and ignore the first picture in that post :)  Also, my lower back is more curved than my upper back, where this person's upper back is curved more than their lower back. 

http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://i34.photobucket.com/albums/d104/flmworld/IMG_7936.jpg&imgrefurl=http://getbackinline.wordpress.com/2009/06/&usg=__xDvlvKT3uYisspPtq1nI1HB20SA=&h=320&w=265&sz=28&hl=en&start=58&um=1&tbnid=ZmX6Dm0WjhN-bM:&tbnh=118&tbnw=98&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dspine%2Bcurvature%2Bx-rays%26ndsp%3D18%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN%26start%3D54%26um%3D1

He told me that although I was having mostly upper back pain, the root of the issue is my lower back.  My lower back was curving and over time my upper spine had to start curving to compensate for my lower spine.  On a scale of 1-10, 1 being the slightest curve he sees, 10 being the worst curve he sees, my upper back is about a 3 and my lower is about a 7.  YIKES!  The good news is that my bones are healthy and the discs appear to be normal as well.  Also, the side view of my spine shows an "almost textbook perfect" curve.  It's just the front/back view that shows a curvature.  He went ahead and started more treatment today.  Now that he knows exactly what my spine looks like, he's starting to move it back where it belongs.   We'll go through 6-8 adjustments followed by that same treatment they did yesterday with the electrical pulses to the muscles (to relax them) with moist heat therapy.  After that, he'll continue with adjustments and add on some physical therapy and start using the traction table.  We didn't talk about how long the treatment is supposed to last, but he did say that I'll start to physically feel better after about 14 treatments.  I HAVE TO WAIT THAT LONG?!!?  :)  I'm interested to see how all this goes!  I can tell you that last night I could tell the muscles in my back had been relaxed just from the electric pulses/moist heat therapy they did.  I was in bed, took a REALLY deep breath and my back popped RIGHT where I've been trying to get it to pop for MONTHS now.  That kind of sold me on the chiropractor right there :)

I go back again on Friday so I'll keep you posted!

Tuesday, November 17, 2009

One Hundred

YAY for Sarah making it to post #100!  I find it amazing that I've found something I can stick with :)  If you haven't noticed, I gave up on Foto Friday...but hey, at least I'm still blogging!

So, I wanted to come up with something spectacular for my 100th post.  I've been thinking about it for DAYS (that's why I haven't posted anything in a few days) but nothing incredible has come to mind.  So, I'll do my usual...

Maddie continues to amaze me every day.  The past two times I've taken her to the Kid's Club at the gym, she hasn't wanted to leave!  When I go in to pick her up she comes running at me with a crayon saying "color".  I ask her if she's ready to go bye byes in the car with mommy she says "no" and goes back to coloring.  It's amazing how much my little one is growing.  I wish she was that comfortable everywhere I take her.  She has her few places where she's comfotable, places she's been going to for a while and she knows she's safe and Mommy will return.  Hopefully before too long she'll be ok everywhere I take her.  Next week we're heading back to see my side(s) of the family so this will be a good test of Maddie's confidence.  I'll be with her everywhere, but we'll see how quickly she warms up to family that she hasn't seen since June (some of them since Aug 2008).  Please pray for us!!!

So, what has Maddie been up to lately that's just too cute?  She's started saying "sit down" when she's standing on the furniture.  Funny how she knows she's supposed to be sitting but she just thinks it's something we say when we stand on the furniture, not an action that's supposed to be done.  I'm staying consistent and making her sit but it's still cute to hear her say "sit down".  Yesterday Murphy (the dog) was standing in front of Maddie and she started getting excited over something and started wagging her tail.  Well, her tail was hitting Maddie in the face so I said, "Murphy, watch your tail".  Maddie giggled and said "washateal" (watch your tail), then she was following Murphy around until her tail hit her in the face so she could laugh and say "washateal" at her.  It's so funny to watch her!  Just tonight Maddie came running into the kitchen and said "come Mommy" and patted her leg...we pat our leg when we tell Murphy to come.  I asked her if she wanted Mommy to come with her and she looked at me with an expression that said "what don't you understand about 'come Mommy'?".  So I followed her and we sat down to play together.  What a cutie!!!

Now onto something about myself...I finally made an appointment to see a chiropractor today.  I've been having back pain for quite a while.  It seemed to get worse when I was in the Army preparing for my deployment to Iraq.  Within the past year I've had 2 pretty bad back spasms.  One left me in bed for about 3 hours before I was able to get up to do anything.  Thank God Eric was still home then!  The other was just a month ago or so.  It only lasted for 45 minutes and I was able to move very carefully but couldn't stand upright.  Then just recently my lower back started hurting so bad at the end of the day.  I guess just having a 25 pound toddler that still requires a lot of lifting/carrying is doing that to me!  I figured I should get in to see someone about this before it got so bad that I wouldn't be able to take care of Maddie.  The appointment went well.  The dr. said my spine was tighter than it should be.  When he pressed on it, it didn't move much which told him there's definitely something going on in there.  Then he hooked me up to the computer to measure my muscle output (or something like that).  When that was finished he showed my results compared to a "normal" back.  Wow!!  It was pretty crazy.  My muscles were working way too hard to support my spine.  I only had three areas of my back that fell within the "normal" range.  Three areas were in the extreme range, two of them I expected...my middle back (between my shoulder blades) and my lower back.  The one that surprised me was my neck.  The right side of my neck was in the extreme range but the left side was in the mild range.  He also told me that my posture is out of proportion.  My left hip is posterior, my right shoulder and shoulder blade are lower than my left and my head tilts to the left to compensate for my body being "crooked".  I guess that explains why the muscles in the right side of my neck were working harder than the left!  So since my muscle test was so bad he wanted to do some x-rays.  I don't have the results of that yet, I get to go back tomorrow morning at 9:30 to get those results.  But I did get a bit of treatment today.  I can't even describe it...something was attached to my back that sent electrical pulses into my muscles and a HUGE, HEAVY heating pad was put on top of it.  NICE  :)  Then I had a nice mini-massage with BioFreeze.  I kind of hated to see that end...Oh well.  Tomorrow I'll find out the specifics on my x-rays and find out what kind of treatment I can expect and how long I can expect to be going through treatment.  I'm sure I'll have chiropractic appointments for life, but that's ok!  As long as I'm pain free and can run and play with Maddie I'll put up with 30 minutes a month at the dr. office :)

Wednesday, November 11, 2009

Bad Habits

At the risk of making myself seem like a bad parent, I'm going to tell you something really funny that Maddie did today :)  I bought a toddler quilt/pillow sham set from a local online yardsale website and went to go pick it up today.  Well, I didn't have quite enough cash on my so I had to stop at the ATM on the way.  I waited my turn in line, then pulled up, put the window down and took out my $20.  Then I put the money in my wallet, put the window up and pulled away.  Immediately Maddie says "french fries", quickly followed by "cheese".  I about died!  She thought we had stopped to get some fast food :)  I had a good laugh at her and explained that Mommy didn't get her any french fries.  She got over it so that was good, but I really had to think about how frequently I go through the drive through!  I took her through a drive through once last week and another day we ate at McDonald's with some friends.  That's the most we've been to fast food in a while so it's funny that she knows what it is.  She's just too smart!

Tuesday, November 10, 2009

Thank You!

Wow!  I actually have some readers on here!  Hopefully there are a few, and it's not just the same person checking my blog 15 times a day...  :)  Eric reminded me that I hadn't updated the blog in 10 days so here I am to post.  Please bear with me as I have some randoms thoughts going on...some people in the blog world call this "random ramblings" so that's what I'm going to do today.

1.  What an incredible tragedy to hear of the shootings at Fort Hood.  I'm no longer in the service, but it just hurt me so bad to imagine how the soldiers stationed at Ft. Hood are feeling right now.  It's one thing to be deployed overseas, to a war zone.  Everyone going overseas to any area, combat zone or not, has a certain level of fear.  It's not fair that soldiers should be fearful on our own soil; especially within the "safe" confines of a military installation.  It just breaks my heart when I think how I would feel if I was still stationed there...I would be so afraid to even leave the barracks, afraid to go to the PX, afraid to even go for a run.  It's so scary.  I was watching the memorial on tv today and just had a really uneasy feeling as I saw the old sites of Ft. Hood.  The memorial took place in front of the III Corps building.  The barracks I lived in were directly across the street from that building.  The flag they kept showing flying at half-staff was the flag I raised and lowered every day for 10 days back in 1998 at Thanksgiving time.  We used to run on the track in front of that building twice a week, and we ran to the location where the shootings took place every Friday.  How safe I felt back then!  All we can do now is pray for the soldiers and their families that have to continue living there and serving there in fear.

2.  I have an ever-growing to-do list.  It seems I can't ever cross anything off of it, but I continue adding new things.  I just looked at my calendar and I have seriously over scheduled myself for the holidays!  I try not to think about it and just take everything one day at a time...I leave for Baltimore in 13 days and that's such a short period of time to try to accomplish all I want to accomplish! 

3.  I have an ever-growing toddler!  I don't know how much she weighs or how tall she is, but judging by her attitude alone I can tell she's developing right on schedule...she's turned into a true screamer in the past couple of days.  She screams when she's angry, she screams when she's excited, she screams when she's tired, she screams when she's scared, she screams when she wants attention, she screams when she doesn't want attention.  I just can't win. 

4.  I'm trying to figure out how to parent a toddler :)  I bought the book "Secrets of the Baby Whisperer for Toddlers".  So far so good.  But I'm having a hard time finding the time to read the book...I'm sure it would be a lot more helpful if I was actually reading it!  I've gotten through the first 3 chapters and want to finish the book by the time I go to Baltimore (refer to #2).  I'm just really struggling with how to handle her in these new situations.  How do I handle her when she screams?  I don't want to giver her attention for it, because if it's attention she wants, then I'm "giving in" by paying attention.  But I don't want to just ignore it because that behavior is NOT OKAY!!!

5.  I don't enjoy cooking anymore AND my weight watchers membership expired.  These two things combined equals Sarah slipping back into her old ways :(  It's so hard for me to cook with the screaming toddler and I don't look forward to making a mess to clean up.  I've resorted to buying frozen meals (EEEK!) and eating a lot of tuna and lunchmeat (EEEK!)  (For those of you who know me, this is a HUGE deal, I used to LOVE to cook!)

6.  I want to get back into crocheting.  It's something I used to really enjoy.  I would just sit and make hats, or find a cute pattern online and get out some leftover yarn and make it...no big deal.  Now I have a half-finished afghan sitting in a basket in my bedroom that I started two years ago (sorry Eric!).  I haven't worked on it in about a year...well, I have gotten it out and done a row or two here and there, but nothing significant.  I found a pattern online for Yo Gabba Gabba dolls that I REALLY want to make for Maddie but I feel kind of guilty letting the blanket go unfinished before starting another project.  BLAH

7.  I've put off blogging about Maddie's first experience trick-or-treating so now I feel like it's too late.  Maybe one day soon I'll do it anyway...let me know what you think, should I post it or not?

8..  my mind is empty now :)  Well, not really empty, I have a lot going on in there but no words are coming to me to write.  I need to get the kitchen cleaned up (but I'll start by changing the tv channel off of Nick Jr. first) then fold two loads of laundry, straighten up the living room, clean the playroom and then get ready for bed.  Maybe I'll find time to crochet a row of the blanket and read a chapter of the book...we'll see.

thanks for reading!