His 3 yr. checkup & Less

• Glenn went to his 3rd year checkup last night. He's healthy, but we got some tips on some questions we've been having. Stats: he's tall 39" and 31.4 lbs. He got 2 shots and loved that. So if he's healthy (like he was from checkup at 2 years to 3 years) he won't have a visit until 4 years old. Let's hope. His new female doctor was very helpful.
  

• He used to nap nearly every day for 2-3 hours, sometimes 1.5 hrs. or whatever. Now for the last week I got one nap out of maybe 7? It is so incredibly hard without him napping. I put him up there for at least 1 hour of alone time per day, but there's no silence in the house. My beautiful daily silence is diminishing. I don't wish this on anyone.

• My mother's released this Thursday morning and will go home. I want to visit her this weekend, but we're committed with a friend and I feel like relaxing slightly. As for my uncle, the poor man, got 12 L of fluid removed from his stomach yesterday. It has to be continually removed. Friday he gets radiation. I feel so sorry for him.
  

• I will have to start blogging less because he's napping less and giving me less free time, I am doing another spurt of getting rid of unused stuff, and it all takes time. And no one wants burn out. I am ruthlessly getting rid of anything we're not using, Glenn's not wearing, or that's too much maintenance. I just don't have the time or energy for high maintenance stuff anymore. It's not worth it. I need to focus on myself; my neck pain flared up real bad yesterday and today and I know the reason: too much stress, doing too much, and too much stuff in this box I live in. I just wish I got more help on the home front.

Fine tweaking

Now I'd say we're in the fine tweaking stage of de-cluttering what we do not need anymore. Of course the biggest objective is to prevent clutter from coming in, which we have been doing quite well. We went shopping this weekend (Glenn did beautifully & cooperated!) and only bought things that really made our lives easier or improved it (a new goal). :)

One of the hardest things lately has been not finding what we need quickly enough. I needed needle nose pliers this weekend to clean out hair from the tub (yuck! It seems to be my job somehow, I feel jipped, lol) and couldn't find them on 3 levels. They weren't in the bathroom's closet, not in the workshop (basement), or in the 1st level's tool drawer. They are still MIA. They should have been left in the bathroom closet with the drain care, gloves, cleaners, etc. So we had to make a special trip to buy a new pair (not simple or efficient). It turned out the new ones were longer and nicer but that's not the point. I needed them then not 3 hours later.

Here's some solutions we acquired while out shopping:

Since my kitchen doesn't have a ton of cabinets, it was always a waste to put these above items in the drawer. They took up the entire drawer. I tried in a cabinet but they kept falling down and getting disorganized. So I found this cabinet-mounted caddy and it works out perfectly. I regained some cabinet space too, which is perfect.

I now own 2 of these above first aid boxes. Technically they're just storage boxes with dividers and it has 2 sides that flip open. This is the first floor one and it has more in it. I bought another for the 2nd floor. I was using a small case but realized I couldn't identify it quickly enough if I needed a bandaid now! And if both cases are identical, it's easier for quick access. Yea, a first aid kit would have worked, which we own, but for little cuts I don't need a finger splint and ice pack to clutter it up.

Fine Blogger, rotate the image against my wishes and be bad. We didn't plan on buying this but it was hard to resist. It's a tea organizer. Previously we had a large bucket style with tons of different tea thrown in. I never even wanted tea because I could never find what I wanted quick enough and it was an ugly mess. Now it's effortless and the spares (clutter for now) go into a spare closet or cabinet.

• Today I am going through some areas of the house that I've ignored on previous decluttering rounds. We will be taking some things to donation later. And we will be renting a truck later in the month to drop off a few furniture pieces to my mother. She gave us a few things she didn't want (or she thought we'd need) when we moved from the condo to this home and honestly, it just wasn't what we wanted then - or now, even though the thought was nice given we had a small condo's worth of stuff for a larger home. We like picking out our own furniture otherwise it doesn't end up working and becomes clutter. So she will welcome it back and we will free up space and clutter hot spots.
  

Happy 3rd birthday baby!

Our little boy just turned 3 years old this morning, at 6:36AM which I was half-awake for. :) He came into our room with his VW Bug car and we all laid there a few minutes relaxing. He used me as a hill. His car has 2 tiny monkeys in it and he said yesterday they were 'going to work"! In the last week his imagination has exploded further, it's really cool. At dinner last night he took the stuffed rat and put his mouth to the bowl and said he was eating the macaroni; and then put the rat's mouth to his sippy cup for milk. It's really interesting to see what he'll come up with next. We're going to get a free ice cream cone sometime soon and we may go to the park today. :) This morning he is getting chocolate milk for breakfast and is watching Roku's all trucks episode.

I can't imagine our life without him. Today is definitely a day of celebration for all of us! Love you baby Glenn! :-)

Specific-ness

I bought this item today. Now don't tax yourself and be too specific on where it's made, okay? :-) Just put Earth if you're really busy, lol.

Great simplicity quote

I'm reading "30 days to a Simpler Life", which is very good so far. Here's a thought-provoking quote I came upon:

"The cost of a thing is the amount of what I call life which is required to be exchanged for it, immediately or in the long run." - Henry David Thoreau.

He was wise beyond his years because this is a huge theme of simplicity (which he is a fore-father of) and especially the book "Your Money or Your Life". I.E. You only have a finite amount of life hours and your trade your 'life energy' for money (through work) which then buys things, housing, hobbies, etc... This will definitely make you think.

He's almost three

Glenn turns 3 this Thursday, it's amazing. But to say it's been easy or fun lately is just a lie. It's been very, very challenging. This age is just an utter nightmare at times. One second it's beautiful and happy and the next second you're wondering why you ever agreed to this. His high's are getting higher and lows lower. This toddler age is the hardest part of our lives, our marriage, everything. You better have an incredibly strong marriage before kids is all I can say.

He woke up at 715am today. In the last few months, he'd usually sleep until 745-830 with the occasional 9am. Now we are very lucky to get to 730am. Over the weekend was 630-7am. He's been harder to get to bed too. We set an alarm at 8pm to start the process. A week ago we refused the night-time feedings. It is such a baby thing! We go up, feed him his final milk, brush teeth, and after that the new rule is 'water only after teeth brushing'. He takes 4 sucks and realizes it's not worth it. Otherwise it becomes a social activity that goes on forever and literally ruins our nights. After a few nights, he got the picture. He will learn to eat more for dinner or more at breakfast, but at night that's the new routine.

Nap time is becoming far and few between. I put him up for at minimum an hour a day just so I can hear myself think and make necessary phone calls or maintain myself and this house. He is definitely napping less, which is really bad because he's actually becoming more of a smart toddler and more conniving. He will throw a pillow or blanket outside the bedroom door during nap. I told him "I will NOT get it or come back up". He throws it anyway. I don't respond. Then he gets his leg 'stuck' in the gate and cries just to get me up there. The second I get up there, he removes his leg usually by himself. I made him pick up all the pillows/blankets himself. We barely ever wipe his nose anymore. It was another tactic to get us upstairs for any old reason. I put a tissue box by his bed and tell him "Go get a tissue and wipe your nose". He does it and puts the tissue neatly back (most of the time) or rips it to shreds in anger.

Every second I get we are making him more independent. During dinner we do not get up anymore. "We are eating, afterwards we can help you" is our response. They really take advantage of you to the point you will never eat a warm bite of food. He is slowly learning.

Trying to explain time to a toddler is like trying to breathe through your feet. I said "tomorrow we're going to a party" and he says "I get shoes and socks" thinking it's now. I said "No, tomorrow". He thinks everything's now. You can't tell him anything in advance, he won't get it. He erupted in 30 minutes of crying, fits, tantrums, and just Hell on Earth after this conversation. I kicked myself for saying anything. So we do not tell him anything ahead of time. One of the hardest things to convey is time. A calendar would do nothing either. It will take time ironically to teach him any sort of time.

He is using the base of the highchair as a booster and uses the dining table now! Since doing that and adding a placemat, his fork, spoon, and bowl use has improved ten-fold. We had the occasional 'throw a plate of spaghetti across the room' yesterday and I made him say sorry, but overall he's improving. He got better at fork insertion. He used to get so mad and whip it across the room because he couldn't get the fork to grab anything, but now he tries 3-5 times before getting ticked. Improvement is all I want.

Thankfully, his langage is still exploding and getting better day by day. That's wonderful. But ease of parenting is getting harder day by day.

Family news

Mother: My mother's doing better. She says she probably has another 1.5 weeks there. She's lost weight because she is eating less to keep her sugar down and prevent insulin. Her eating has always been extremely odd. She got B12 deficiency in the past because she was following a religious diet that said no meat/milk, among other things. I believe that a religion that tells me what to eat can go shove it, in no uncertain terms. Now she's eating foods low in fat and sugar, and I don't know, in order to keep her cholesterol and sugar down, I don't think she's eating much of anything. This annoys me a lot so I'll move on. She's getting pain shots in her stomach and therapy 2-3x a day for the hip, which is good. We'd visit her but it's quite a drive and we've been extremely busy lately and will be for the next 2 weeks. And she doesn't really want visitors.

She's looking into a new car and I am helping her research. We're looking at very fuel efficient cars, like Toyotas to name one. She talks of selling the house, possibly renting or a condo (probably latter) and where to put what furniture and what to sell off. Retiring would come later. I hope there's BIG CHANGES!! Yay!

Uncle: My uncle, my mother's brother, got very bad news recently. His distended stomach, as we surmised from Wikipedia (I love you wiki), turned out to be lymphatic cancer. We knew it was cancer just hearing the symptoms. :-( We don't have much cancer in our family but the fact he smoked 20-30 years and then stopped, may have had something to do with it. He recently become diabetic too. Bad news everywhere.

The root of all clutter

Here's the root of all clutter but none of us want to mention it, talk about it, or believe it: We all bought too much, own too much, and are pushing stuff around all the time. Sometimes I feel like Sisyphus just with clutter. And here's the negative side effect of too much clutter: being busy constantly moving things because "there's just too much!" I've seen this in my mother's home too. The more you own: the more you re-arrange. I'm not just talking about furniture here, I am talking about the endless possibilities of where your stuff could be in the house, how it could be arranged, etc. And I'm not even bringing multiple floors, paid storage units, storing stuff at other people's places into the story.

Unfortunately I was brought up believing if "one is good, two is better, no just get 3, well get all 4" philosophy. This is a very bad materialistic (and very consumerist American) idea. BOGO 1/2 off. BOGO free. 2 for the price of 1 (and no you can't buy just one for 1/2 price). So if you get all 4 and end up not loving the item, look at the predicament you're in.

Solutions:

• Buy less: (which we are). Buying and acquiring less is truly the key and the necessary 'maintenance' plan. My advice to anyone ever starting out or buying anything at any point in their life, buy 1/2 of what you are buying. I wish I knew that advice while buying baby stuff before he was born. If I put 1/2 the stuff back I was buying none of us would have suffered at all and it would have saved a lot of future work: disposal, cleaning, moving it along...

• Only buy quality: Buy great quality and love the item. Our stuff is too cheap to buy. So "how could I not buy it, it's only $.... or on sale". I find that the cheap stuff I have bought I am, in the end, not happy with it. But an item I paid 2-4x as much as the original cheapie, I will keep forever as it's excellent quality, easier to use, prettier, and just better. So why not save the dumpster, Goodwill more junk and save your own time and, of course, money!
  

• Less organizing: Sometimes organizing just means getting more crap in the same space, creatively. So I am doing careful organizing and making sure I just have what I need.
  

• Get rid of the clutter: (we are still doing this). Make destination piles and stick to them.
  

• Size limit: I am ruthlessly going through the unfinished side of the basement and ear-marking things for certain destination piles. Even though I got rid of 1/2 of my Christmas 'stuff', I was moving it to a new area and realizing I *still* have way too much of it. I am limiting my Christmas stuff to one vertical storage area. If it doesn't fit in there (excluding tree) I can not own it. I find this is the only way to prevent an entire 'wing' of the basement from becoming what I called the "Christmas Aisle". I have a feeling that I am enjoying Christmas less lately because it is so entirely materialistic and that's something I don't enjoy. I want a simplistic, beautiful Christmas this year with less stuff to maintain and do, and I will get it!
  

• Make your clutter dump less inviting: I realized I was "inviting" clutter into the unfinished side of the basement. Why? We added carpeting to make the floors less chilly, nice lighting, etc. Recently I threw away the old, junk-picked carpets and made it much less friendly to visit and store. And it's worked!
  

• Get serious: Are you really going to use it again? Do you really love it? You know the answer. Get over the fact you spent money on it or acquired it and move on. Learn from your mistakes and acquire smarter in the future.
  

• Banish the negative energy: It's your home. If you see an item you despise but have no clue what to do with it (i.e. memories, hurt someone's feelings by returning it), just do it. Every time you see it you will be upset, consciously or not, so get rid of it. I banished one item today and felt great.

• Procrastination: I realized while reading a clutter book that this is a big one for me. Being lazy and not putting something back leads to a lot of clutter. In a small area this can not be tolerated. Even if you can't put the item back to the 'exact' spot, get it nearby. For the last week I've been putting things back nicely and it is much easier to find!
  

So the key is buy and acquire less, love what you do own, and have time in the end for more important things. My ideal basement (if I had to have one) would be smaller with only seasonal stuff in it that we actually use. I am getting there as we used to have 4-5 vertical racks and are now down to TWO! One being entirely Christmas! So there's a pat on the back...

Dictionary: Flippant

flip⋅pant

–adjective

1.	frivolously disrespectful, shallow, or lacking in seriousness; characterized by levity: The audience was shocked by his flippant remarks about patriotism.

2.	Chiefly Dialect. nimble, limber, or pliant.

3.	Archaic. glib; voluble.

---

Origin:
1595–1605; appar.

CPR & Heimlich for children

So it's always good to know this whether or not you have a little one in the house. I've been meaning to look it up forever but just thought of it today with the recent celebrity deaths. There's classes at the fire dept., if I can ever get my lazy behind there, but this is better than nothing. I learn best from video, so here we go:

CPR for children age 1-8

And of course there's the Heimlich maneuver, which is great because we do have a choker in the house. There's many time he's turned bright red choking on a piece of food. So what I was doing "patting on the back" was wrong (darn it!), thankfully now I know the proper way. Sometimes he's just vomited to get something up, which works, because he didn't know what 'cough' means. It's hard explaining some of this to a young kid.

Heimlich maneuver for kids over 1 year old

Tell me if you find a better video out there, but this is what I found just now. It's best to memorize this stuff because when it does happen you really don't have time to go online or look up in a kid's book. I do have a 'quick access' book for first aid but it's best to memorize this because it'll probably happen away from my bookcase!

Roku player ease

We've owned the Netflix ROKU player a while now and all I can say is it's perfect for all of our needs. We are very pleased with it. Here's a short summary:

Direct out of the box. Very nice tiny footprint means we can place it under a corner of our LCD and you barely notice it's there.

We set the ROKU player up to max. resolution (or whatever) and it looks flawless for internet streaming, even better than live T.V.!

Ironically it took longer to figure out the network settings than for me to plug it in. And if I can figure it out anyone can! Do you love our network name?

Cycling through titles is a breeze.
Not having to watch junky t.v. commercials or deal with the cable company=priceless.

Like I said before we used to use the netbook and it was an utter pain compared to this. We programmed the ROKU remote into our Harmony remote for ease and it works flawlessy. I love how the player only recognizes so many input buttons making my life easy (up, down, left, right, select, back, forward, pause). We actually love their 'on demand' just as much, if not more than, the mail service.

Only suggestions would be: allow me to put more titles in the 'watch instantly' queue. I added a lot but only so many show up, I think. And make 'folders' for family members. I have to cycle through Tom & Jerry, Bob the Builder, etc to get to our desired adult movie. (Yes it does feel odd to have a serious Auschwitz movie next to Happy Feet.)

A++ for a screaming toddler who wants a certain show NOW! And it's amazing just how quickly you can start a show or movie! And let's not even get into the money it saves us from buying kid's DVDs!

Love it!

Simple countertop garbage solution

So, I'm making a chicken roast with potatoes for dinner and I wanted to share a simple counter-top idea for waste. I used to lug the garbage can over to where I was working every time, and it was a pain as it's heavy and if you have a small kitchen it can get in the way. I saw a long while ago that Rachael Ray had a 'garbage bowl' idea which is great if a) you want to wash out that garbage bowl daily (eww?) and b) you have countertop for it's dedicated spot (which I don't).

So I take a disposable plastic bag and fill it with the potato peels, any chicken fat, or waste and bag it up and throw it away once done. No cleaning involved. It also saves back and forth trips to the garbage can. *Maybe* a 'garbage bowl' is more eco-friendly but let's not forget the energy that went into making it, shipping it, etc. For me, and many tiny kitchen chefs around the globe, I think this solution will do.

I used fresh herbs from my herb garden: oregano, basil, parsley and plan to use fresh dill once it sprouts! I love growing fresh herbs, it's wonderful.

Same old

• As of late, I've been doing more de-cluttering, realizing just how much we own that we do not use or need. It's sad, but we've learned, as many people do, what's necessary vs. what isn't. I think the ideal is to get a space the way you like it (appealing, not too stark vs. not too crammed) and then maintain that beauty and simple look. That's motivation. You know where everything goes, it looks nice, and you don't have to search behind or under 5 layers of stuff to get to what you need. That's what I'm aiming for. (And buying less to prevent clutter buildup doesn't hurt.)
  

• I've been talking with my mother daily or 2x a day for emotional support. Every conversation is an emotional one, but there's a lot of changes going on and coming soon, so it's expected. I want to be there for her. I think she's never had this much time to contemplate her life without tons of school work and too much to do (useless filler). So when you're left with your thoughts, it can be scary. She left the hospital last night and arrived at the rehab place. She said it looks nice and is modern but is completely full of old people (80-90 y.o.'s), lots of moaning people, and just unhappiness for her. She got transferred to a better room, I believe, without a wailing person, lol. At least there's people 24/7 there to care for her until she gets released. She told me they put her on insulin and she thinks she'll have to forever, but it's not written in stone yet, she doesn't like to talk of it. She spoke of selling the house, then quitting job eventually, and starting a new easier life and I am really hopeful for that.
  

• Glenn turns 3 in 7 days and counting. I can't believe it. It's hard to believe, but then again I've been here every day for the last 1088 days so, it does seem like 3 years has passed! Here's a picture of him today playing with his choo choo's. He loves playing with them.

He said 'up the hill' and 'down the hill'.


What to do when you don't want a certain choo choo? Throw it under the couch of course. ;) Ignore mommy asking you to put it back in the choo choo box.

Latest phrase: "STOP IT!" I wonder where he got that from.

Too much Divorce

There's too much divorce lately in this country. Forget about statistics for now, but I'm hearing about it everywhere. I am an avid watcher of Jon & Kate Plus 8 and it's basically all I watch on t.v. I was very saddened to hear it came to separation/divorce last night. How can things go well so long (10 years or a good portion of it were good let's assume) and then turn so quickly? I personally never thought that my parents would divorce but they did. I had a day or two that I felt strange but then I moved on with little emotion, because it always felt like they were divorced but living together, if that makes sense. There was always bickering and they were never really on the same page. I was relieved when they did divorce but I knew that was the only solution as they never got along anyway. It was not a shocker. Sometimes the worst thing you can do for yourselves or your children is stay together (one viewpoint, not always the case!). We just heard through the grapevine that our neighbor 2 doors down (a family of 5 with 3 older children) are not only divorcing but being foreclosed on. I am not surprised; the condition of their house has always been extremely poor and unmaintained; we knew they weren't swimming in money. And given most arguments are usually over money, I can see the outcome. I just don't want to think of the equity they could loose as well. Not to mention our good friend who we just visited is in the middle of a bad divorce (his second).

Every relationship has problems, there's no question about that, but I just don't like the fact that a good, long, withstanding marriage is in the minority now. It's not easy either, usually catapulting either spouse or both into a financial tailspin, etc. I hope social workers (etc) are trying to figure this out. [sigh]

Morose

I just talked with my mother again. She is healing well physically (no heart or blood probs!) but she has crashed emotionally. She talked with Glenn on speaker and later kept crying and saying "I am going to die...I will never see him again. I am not getting out of here." I just hope her emotional state doesn't slow healing and the idea that "one the mind gives up, the body does too". I guess I've been watching too much Survivorman but it seems that you have to keep a positive attitude or else. I told her she has to promise herself that she will start a new life (i.e. sell house and/or retire, start anew) and it doesn't have to keep going on like this. YOU have control of your life. First she promised me she'd change her life. And I said NO, promise yourself.

She said "I may have only 5 years left or less." And while thinking she was going to literally die, I thought I'd hate to see her live her last moments hating her job (a-hole principle, tiring, stupid rules), living in a house that's too much for her, and being unhappy and housepoor and unable to travel (her passion) because of money, constant house repairs, too busy etc. Her life is so utterly complicated right now and has been a long time. It makes me very sad to think that she'd never have any good years and it all would be work, work, work...(house included).

I made her promise that she'd start a new life and it ISN'T over. A positive outlook is so important. I don't care where you are in life or who you are, everything is totally changeable and there is always hope. This has been so hard lately.