Random Thoughts

Morgan and Sophia are out of school for the summer. Rachel still has another week left.

So feeding therapy has been sucking lately. I was planning on quitting Rachel's current therapy, but then she decided to throw me a curve ball last Friday. After not making any progress for a long time, she decided to lick 5-6 new foods and then she took a bite out of string cheese. She promptly spit it out, but she took a BITE... with her TEETH!

Then on Sunday at Costco, she put a pretzel chip up to her mouth several times and talked about eating it. She also licked it. Today, she licked and kissed a strawberry.

I guess this means we will not be $100 per week richer. I've got to keep her in this therapy a little while longer to see if this leads to anything.

She was seen by a developmental pediatrician and behavior analyst (otherwise known as a BCBA) last week. Kaiser is offering a new type of feeding therapy now that we may try. We got the referral last week and I'm waiting for them to call me with more information. I have a lot of questions.

I'm trying not to freak out over her eating now that she's drinking Pediasure. It's still hard not to though. I fail at it most days.

Having a broken toe sucks. I had just gotten comfortable with taking the girls to the park by myself. Now I can't do it for at least another 5 weeks. I'm 3 weeks in to the 8 weeks that I'm supposed to wear this stupid blue shoe thing.

My toe still hurts too. It's really obnoxious that I broke my toe. I don't have time for injuries like this.

I feel so lazy not working out. I think that sometimes...I even actually moo. I've heard myself. Mooooooo... See!

You'd think the lack of working out would stop me from eating mexican food all the time.

Seriously... somebody stop me.

I'm kind of bummed that Rachel is going to a summer program at her school. I was hoping to relax a bit from our busy schedule this summer, but that's just not going to happen. I think we have a whole combined 3 weeks off before and after this summer program.

My broken toe kind of already put a damper on things anyway. I can't do as much on my own with the girls with this bum toe. Looking forward to the first week in July when I'm supposed to be able to start running again.

I got a lovely notice from Rachel's school last week. There was a case of hand foot and mouth disease in her classroom that she was exposed to.

Imagine my panic tonight when I noticed that the girls all have a few bumpy red rashes on their upper legs and behind their knees.

No fever though and the rashes do not look like the pictures online of the hand foot and mouth disease. They seem fine other than these rashes.

I'm not sure what this is yet. I sent them to bed tonight each with a dose of benedryl. Hope they are better tomorrow.

Speaking of bed time... We've had some significant improvement in the teeth brushing department. I have been reading a new (to me) feeding therapy book by an awesome feeding therapist (I wish I could hire her), Melanie Potock. In her book, she suggests singing a quick song while brushing teeth. This is so your child can expect when the activity will end. I started singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" while I brush the girls' teeth. When the song is over, you stop brushing no matter what. This has changed our lives!!! We are now able to do a much better job with getting the girls to cooperate and let us really get in their mouths. Even Rachel is letting the toothbrush in. I wish I would have started this months ago! I've even been able to add a little bit of the toddler practice toothpaste to their brushes. The amazing news... I've been using this toothpaste with Rachel for two nights in a row and she hasn't thrown up at all.

Seriously.. RACHEL is letting us not only brush her teeth now, but we are using a flavored toothpaste. THIS. IS. HUGE!!!!

I'm so proud of my girlies. I have the sweetest little girls and am so blessed to be their mommy!

Bummmmmmmer!

My poor little toe is broken. I tried to deny it for over 24 hours. I woke up on Friday morning and my toe was purple and black and hurting like crazy. I still tried to pretend it wasn't broken. I ended up calling my mom to come over so she could help me with the girls. Plus, I had to get Rachel to her feeding therapy.

She brought some medical tape and helped me buddy tape my toe. Then we wrapped it up in an ace bandage and I somehow managed to keep pretending it wasn't broken. I barely fit my flip flops on over the swelling. After driving the 30 minutes to therapy, my whole foot was throbbing. Of course it's my right foot so driving is difficult. By the time Rachel's appointment was over (where she of course didn't eat anything new and I suffered through watching another hundred bucks slip out of our bank account), I was in so much pain that I just couldn't pretend I had just "bruised" it. So I called my doctor and she was able to get me in for an xray and an appointment last minute.

So turns out, the toe is broken. At first it wasn't clear how bad of a break it was so Dr. K had the nurse wrap my foot and treat it as a fracture. Isn't my big blue shoe just so cute? I get to wear it for 8 weeks. Dr. K called me after she had a podiatrist review my xray. He recommended that I should not even THINK about running for 8 weeks minumum. I also have to follow up in about 3-4 weeks for another xray to make sure this is healing right since the bone was apparently crooked. I am so disappointed that I can't run the half marathon that I literally just signed up and paid for a few days ago. I was so pumped up to do it and was looking forward to increasing my weekly miles.

Plus, it's not going to be easy keeping up with the girls while I'm hobbling around. I'm hoping that I will at least be able to walk better in a couple of weeks. Preschool drop off and pick up just got a lot more complicated.

I guess I should look at the bright side.... At least I got a cute pedicure a few days before this all happened.

Where have we been?

There are so many nights where I crawl into my bed with full intentions of writing something here. But then after I read emails, check Facebook, start chatting with my close friends..... I just run out of steam and end up passing out asleep before I actually post something.  I usually don't even get on the internet or open my laptop until at least 7pm when the girls go to bed. So I'm just going to post a few things about what has been going on.

Rachel's feeding therapy is still about the same. She's still licking new foods and playing with them, but she hasn't eaten anything new lately. The good news is that she is finally drinking Pediasure. I was at Target about a month ago and just happened to notice that Pediasure came out with a new juice drink. I had tried the formula/milky drinks before and she can't stand them. She's loves juice and she's loves drinking out of juice boxes. The Pediasure juice comes in two flavors. She doesn't like the tropical fruit flavor, but she likes the wild berry. I know it's not food, but I'm thankful that she's drinking this now.

We're five months into her feeding therapy and I have mixed feelings about continuing. I got Julie to admit that Rachel's progress is going at a much lower rate than normal. I guess I'm not surprised. She's always been a tough case. On one hand, I see the improvements. She doesn't freak out over a new food being placed in front of her. She will actually pick it up, smell it, and sometimes lick it. But on the other hand, she still isn't eating anything new. We're spending one hundred dollars per week to watch her lick food and not eat it. It's beyond frustrating. We were told that she'd be eating at least four new foods by twelve weeks in. I know that SOS feeding therapy is a very slow process, so I'm trying to keep the faith. Her old feeding therapist is going to a seminar that is being held by the Los Altos clinic in June. She told me she would let me know if she learns anything that may help us. I considered Los Altos clinic back in December, but it's just really expensive and not close enough to home. But if it could help, we might reconsider it (but would have to win the lotto) because.....well.... I'm desperate at this point.

So what else.... Yeah... I think I broke my toe this morning. It's perfect timing too. I just signed up for a non refundable half marathon three days ago. It's July 29th. I have never been in better running shape before. I can comfortably run 4-5 miles each jog and have even done 6 miles a time or two. I just started a twelve week training program this week. I've wanted to run a half marathon for so long but have always been too scared to give it a try. This time, I signed up for it and one of my best friends was going to go and cheer me on since Bob would need to stay home with the kids. So this morning, I banged my toe underneath our recliner rocking chair/loveseat couch. I heard a pop and felt the worse pain I've felt in a long time. I looked down and saw my pinky toe was hanging limply to the side. I couldn't move it. I ended up popping it back into place. It hurts so bad and I've been limping all day. I'm really hoping it's not broken. I've buddy taped it and am hoping for the best. If it's broken, I'm not sure I'll have enough time to work up to my 13.1  ... But I'm certainly not going to give up either.

Well.. I've been working on this pathetic post for over an hour now. I'm fading.... and am half asleep. I guess this means that this is it for tonight. Oh well....