Ready to Lighten Up...

As I lay in bed unable to sleep, even though my eyelids are droopy and my body is exhausted, I realized after reading over my last few entries that I am starting to become negative and boring. And although my life is stressful and hectic and chaotic, it is also fraught with humor and happiness. I have no intention of becoming that blogger who only vents the crazy stressful and negative stuff that burns out the frayed nerve endings firing in my brain causing actual pain and disgust.

I love to laugh and I sincerly appreciate reading blogs of those who are honest, sincere, and most importantly make me laugh out loud! My favorite moments in life are the ones that cause milk to shoot out my nose followed by coughing and wheezing because I did that honest snort laugh that I was completely unprepared for! What the hell happened to that lady? (I use the term lady very losely, as its pretty rare to see milk shooting out of the nose of a 'lady'. I could be wrong though, maybe the Queen of England enjoys a good milk snort?)

So, here I am, sleep deprived and cranky...but channeling all the energy I have left into lightening things up and doing my best to see the humor in the chaos bubble.

Lets start with one of the random, funny, and chaos lined things happening in our lives and see how that goes, shall we:

We were at Home Depot the other day. I was pacing back and forth trying to ignore all the electrical advice my husband was getting from the certified electrician who chooses to work for 1/5 the pay at Home Depot. (I wanted to ask, because I am a curious bitch, but I refrained.) My husband'e eyes were lit up like a kid at Christmas. I gave up pacing and just let him plan and play. My only two requests; 1. Please don't electricute yourself dear, and 2. Please don't burn the house down. (We have homeowners insurance and medical insurance, so stop freaking out already! No, no I am not talking to you. I am talking to me.) Anyway, to distract myself I started looking at all the wonderful outdoor furniture and furnishings. I sat in this chair and then that chair, I played with cushions in this chair and rocked in that one over there. And then I found this great Gazebo. I wanted it immediatly. So when my husband was done with his happy time planning the wiring of our basement we bought it (along with all those electrical supplies he needed).
We have had a couple of really nice weather days, but it also snowed once. What the hell? It snowed after we had two days of 70+ degree weather. So, the box with the Gazebo is still in the back of my husbands truck. I have been thinking and planning a way to put up this gazebo. You know get that nice outdoor carpet from Costco that is super cheap (because who wants to deal with dirt outside), I have been looking on Craigs list for comfortable outdoor furniture that isn't $2,000, and planning in my mind some relaxing time to be spent in our lovely backyard. And then boom, we have another couple of 70+ degree days, its beautiful outside, the trees are blooing, everything is getting pretty and green, and then it happens. IT happens. And when IT happened I realized something. I don't like being outside. I don't want to go out there. And you can't make me.

Now you are probably asking yourself what IT could be. What could possibly take this lovely lady (again using the term lady, snort) from planning and excitment to forget it, not happening? Well I will tell you, BUGS. Not just bugs, but bugs that bite and sting and chase and terrorize. Wasps, wasps happened. In two days we went from lovely warmth to what the holy hell is that? Oh, Shit! Close the door!!! You know that crazed adrenaline feeling you get when you are just sure the wasps have begun attack formation and are coming at you?

Now I will admit I have never been a bug person. I don't run screaming cowering in a corner until a big strong man can come save me from the big bad bugs. I grew up in a pretty rural area and we had animals and plenty of bugs. However, apparently we had California bugs. I like California bugs. California bugs are those bugs that while they may have the annoying job of bugging you to do, they are also very concerned with their size and appearance (as most Californians are). Here in Virginia, we have scary southern humidity bugs. Bugs that seem to have fallen into a vat of nuculear waste of some kind and have developed super buggy powers along with super buggy size. In our bedroom I can see through the (closed) white blinds the wasps buzzing around trying to build their nest. You can actually see their shape and size through closed blinds!

My husband is fearless when it comes to bugs. He has no problems standing less than 10 feet from a new wasp nest during the middle of the day and is more than happy to spray that sucker down with wasp killer. Not me, nope. As a matter of fact I would appreciate you letting me know dear, when you plan to do these things so I can go lock myself (with the baby) in the bathroom. Just in case any scary, radio active, super sized, freshly bug sprayed wasps get into the house and decide to seek out that bitch who bought all that wasp killer and bite the shit out of her. (If everything is really bigger in Texas, I sure as shit am not visiting there, ever!!! I'm just saying.)

But this is me trying to lighten up and relax. So I guess I will call the big buggy exterminators and see how much they will charge to rid my life and home of these mutant wasps. I will try, I just have this feeling that I will be spending my time inside again this year. (Meanwhile, can't you just picture me and the baby sitting on the bathroom floor playing?)

(on a side note, since I am lightening up, I gave up on trying to get my spell check to work. So I apologize for the spelling errors that are probably rampant throughout this post.)

Enough is Enough...How Much More Can We Take?!?

I am no longer just the mom of a type 1 Diabetic and two Asthma kids. Nope. Someone, somewhere decided I needed to expand my horizons and be more involved in  health centered issues. I  feel as though I am being gravely misrepresented to whomever is in charge up there. I have heard the old saying, "God only gives you what you can handle", well I have had my fill thank you very much. I am way past my saturation limit. You can just hold onto whatever else you are thinking of throwing my way. I am in no mood to cooperate, enough is enough!

My 2 year old son and I went to the allergist this morning. The doctor did a few tests and confirmed what I had already known in my heart to be true, my son is allergic to peanuts. I was really hoping that I was wrong and that it would be just a contact issue. Nope. He had a substantial reaction to the controlled test.

My husband, in his very hopeful way, asked me if he will grow out of it. Most likely not. Research  indicates that 20% of children do grow out of their allergy to peanuts. However, if your child has Eczema he is most likely going to have the allergy for his entire life and it will most likely get more severe as time goes on. Wonderful. While we were at the allergist he checked Ethan's Eczema and gave us some new ways to manage it. So I guess we won't be growing out of this one.

So on our way home we stopped at the pharmacy, filled the prescription for 2 Epi Jr pens, and bought 2 mini Mr Potato heads and a Buzz Lightyear zapper (because my son was very well behaved and I felt terrible he had to have his back poked and prodded to confirm his allergy).

Recently in the news a school in Florida had parents protesting the "extreme" measures staff was going through to protect a child with a severe peanut allergy. Since I am very familiar with federal requirements of publicly funded schools (and such) I have to say that parents who have been demanding the child with the allergy be removed from the school to be home schooled, went a bit too far. Not only does the school have no say in any such matter, neither do they (parents). I understand that rumors and false information was being reported and many people were just plain misinformed. That probably accounted for a lot of the protesting. For example they were not disinfecting children's faces and/or hands with Clorox wipes. (Which as a parent I would have had a huge problem with and protested as well). I wonder though, if the parents who were protesting and demanding this student be home schooled, if they had a child with a similar situation, how would they feel? How would their child feel? Did they stop and think of that? It is highly possible that this child's parents could not and do not have the resources to home school or provide private school. Which is why there are laws protecting students in the first place. These parents pay the same taxes the protesting parents pay.

Anyway, since this situation I fear children with peanut allergies will be even more segregated than they already are. As a child it is hard enough to fit in and get along with everyone else. When you have another factor that singles you out more so than the rest of the kids, its that much harder on you.

I also understand that children can be horrible to each other, however children don't just pick up this stuff on their own, they get it from their parents. Children hear what their parents are saying and discussing. They pick up on their parents opinions and make them their own. Parents who are racist pass racism on to their children, parents who are snobs pass snobbish behavior onto their children, and parents who are intolerant of people with disabilities and the accommodations made for those with disabilities pass on that intolerance to their children. (of course there are exceptions but in general kids learn this stuff from their parents).

Let me give you an example that is easily understood by everyone. When my twins were in kindergarten (so many years ago) we lived in a very nice neighborhood. I worked very hard as a single mother who went to school full time and worked full time. We rented a very nice 3 bedroom apartment in this lovely neighborhood of single family homes. I loved our apartment. We had a pool, a gardener, a playground, and a safe area for the children to be. Well I was in their class one day and the girls were sharing with the class something (I can't remember what). A child near me leaned over to her friend and whispered (not so quietly), "they rent".  What the holy hell do kindergartners care whether someone owns a home or rents? They don't, but their parents have all kinds of opinions that their kids picked up on quite easily.

We had an older station wagon my father had bought for me when I left my ex-husband. It worked well for a mother of three babies. It wasn't fancy and it wasn't glamorous, but it ran well and had power everything! So we loved it. Well I finally got a new car. On the way to school the first day in our new car I heard one twin tell the other, "Now Danny can't give us a hard time for having an old car".  What the holy hell do kindergartners care about how old someones car is? They don't, but their parents have quite a few opinions about them. 

So those are two very easy to understand examples of how we as parents can pass our opinions down to our children. Honestly, those were harmless compared to most of what happens in the world today.

So, anyway, I am just very concerned that my poor baby who is now officially allergic to peanuts is destined to sit at the "peanut free" lunch table instead of with classmates and friends. He will be that student other kids roll their eyes about because any snacks that come into their classroom will have to be "peanut free" (of course they will have practiced that eye roll after watching mom and/or dad do it). And my worst fear is his peanut allergy may someday be used against him in a bullying, hazing, or just plain assaulting situation. I know, I know...I have this gift of seeing worst case scenarios. Believe it or not I am actually a very positive person. I think that being able to see the worst case easily in my mind helps prepare me for bad outcomes and helps me handle them in a positive manner should they happen.

Our next hurdle is the appointment for one of my twins with the Pediatric Rhematologist later this month. We know she is suffering with Raynauds Syndrome (another auto immune disorder where your body randomly shuts off circulation to fingers and /or toes. They turn white, then blue, and then flush red when circulation is restored.). What we don't know is if it is just Raynauds or a precursor to another much more serious auto immune disorder such as Lupus. So I will report later this month on that one.

So for now, I am putting in my formal request of ENOUGH IS ENOUGH!!!