...and i don't mean the salad, but i love me a good waldorf salad (even though i take all the walnuts out as i'm not a big fan).

a few months ago, i was reading a blog of a woman who had sent her girls to an in-home daycare/preschool that used the waldorf style of childraising in their daily schedule. if you don't know anything about the steiner waldorf schooling or childraising philosophy, a quick read here will fill you in. i don't subscribe to many of the teachings, but i love the overall, general feel of its earthy and earth-cycle centered approach to living.

while reading this particular blog, i was fascinated at the daily routine she described her preschooler experienced at this daycare: play with wooden toys, a bowl of steaming hot porridge for snack, outside play for 20 minutes each and every day (no matter what the weather), naptime with comfy blankets and pillows (not mats!), wholesome and hearty lunches all handmade by the daycare provider, and a full hand-written report of her child's schedule sent home each day. now that's a busy daycare provider! she had one assistant and a house-full of busy kids. and no television!

i am the first to admit that i've bought and continue to buy packaged, processed snacks to give to my kids throughout the day to keep them from "starving" or to keep the ever-present "i'm hungry!" statement to a minimum. fortunately, all three of the boys love fruit so we get a substantial amount of fruit into them on a daily basis. unfortunately, they also love sugar. white sugar and brown sugar: the two "evils" that actually can do more harm to their growing bodies than good. but i know full-well that a better and richer diet would aid in their hunger and keep them healthier than ever.

so....i'm giving them only nuts and grains for the rest of their lives.

no. i think they'd starve because i know their tastes! so i began my search for "better snacks" although if you google that you'd get nothing. i had no idea when to start because really, it's so much easier to just give them a granola bar than to make them yummy granola. i found this lovely little book:

it came in the mail this week and I already have big plans to incorporate better foods into the boys' daily routines.

this morning I made baked oatmeal with raisins and cinnamon for their mid-morning snack. it was a big hit...with Adam. it was "iffy" with Sawyer (he ate half his serving) and Rowan barely ate two bites. the recipe was from another cookbook. i will have to work up to the sugarless recipes in the waldorf snack book (the recipes are sweetened with honey, molasses and syrup).

i'm glad we're coming up on fresh fruit season. they can eat berries and melons all day long if we let them. we'll be eating a lot more local and fresh foods over the summer and i'd love to keep that up throughout the fall and winter. we'll see how well i keep to the DAILY baking and cooking regimen (i have homemade chicken stock simmering on the stovetop now!), and how well their already spoiled taste buds accept a healthier approach to fueling their (and our!) bodies.

My brother recently posted about the things that are always in his fridge. It wasn't a meme, but i'm going to give it a go as well. And now he can have an opportunity to harp on something that I have in our fridge like I did with his diet coke. :)

So...what is usually always in our fridge/freezer:

4 gallons of milk delivered each week. It's hormone-free, but not organic. It's a price thing.
Mayonnaise. Except we're currently out. But it's Kenny's favorite. For sandwiches and fries.
Yogurt. A lunch-staple for three boys who don't share with their momma.
A big ol' chunk of cheddar cheese. Adam and Sawyer prefer the extra sharp.
Endameme. (freezer) Rowan and Sawyer beg for this. It's such an easy snack, but they love eating it alongside of macaroni and cheese. It's a dinner we have at least once every other week. Usually on nights when a babysitter is coming and Kenny and I are eating out! I'd love to grow it in our garden...it's all over the corn fields here in late summer!
6 empty mason jars, no lids. (freezer) the perfect glass for an icy cold beer or water on those hot days.

so there...nothing earth-shattering. this used to be a question asked in a celebrity interview section of the LIVING section of the weekend paper. and i loved the "fridge-lists" that i felt matched the celebrity's personality. for instance, you'd probably be able to visualize the interviewee when they answered, "perrier, prawns, and pate" or "beer, mustard, and yesterday's primanti's leftovers."

so i'd love it if you, readers, either left me a comment with things always found in your fridge (we can limit it to 3-4 things if you want), or blog about it yourself and let me know that you've blogged it.

finally.

we've been sick for 9 days here. all of us had something a bit different, but we all decided to do it together. i hope that's the sick season for us. i'm ready for spring!

this image makes me happy:

and serina asked about my cleaning schedule. fortunately for me, this schedule is extremely flexible and it still works when i don't get around to doing ti all, every day. because in reality, every day is full of surprises. like yesterday, i had three loads of laundry planned, but our pipe froze (it did last year in single digit temps, so i should have known!), so the first load resulted in a floor full of water. so here it is...

Liz's Very Flexible Cleaning Schedule

Monday:
Launder sheets from all beds (guest room bed if overnight guests from the weekend)
Launder towels
Reorganize/straighten back porch, office and kitchen

Tuesday:
Launder boys' clothes
Clean upstairs bathroom (tub, floor, toilet, sink)
Reorganize/straighten upstairs

Wednesday:
Launder Liz and Kenny's clothes
Launder kitchen towels
Clean downstairs laundry room/bathroom

Thursday:
Vacuum downstairs
Dust upstairs

Friday:
Vacuum upstairs
Dust downstairs

Saturday:
NOTHING!

Sunday:
NOTHING!

On Sunday evenings, I look at our week and adjust the cleaning schedule as need, around the errands I need to run. For instance, this is how this week looks:

Monday:
Grocery shopping
Launder boys' sheets and guest room sheets (we had an overnight guest this weekend)
Launder all towels
Clean laundry room
(but Monday's schedule changed because of a frozen pipe in the laundry room. It thawed by early-afternoon, so I was only able to do the towels, so we readjust today's schedule to fit into the next few days).

Tuesday:
Launder Liz and Kenny's clothes (and boys' sheets)
Dust downstairs
Vacuum upstairs

Wednesday:
Library day! Return books-on-tape (the boys have been listening to the Frances books - or in their words, "Frahnces" because the narrator is British)
Launder guest room sheets
Dust upstairs
Vacuum downstairs

Thursday:
Catch up on cleaning (if I didn't get to any, this is the day I fill in)
Launder Liz and Kenny's sheets

Friday:
More catch-up!

This morning, I found Adam reorganizing my small pantry for me:

Now all the asian ingredients are in with the baking ingredients. i don't have the heart to re-reorganize. he WILL notice. :)

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

april from SALT for the spirit tagged me for a little meme. it was fun to stretch my mind around this one...thanks, april!

Love/ Hate Meme
I love to eat: meat (i'm a true carnivore...see above); death by chocolate (i'm a true addict).
I hate to eat: wet eggs. scramble the heck out of them for me, please!
I love to go: on vacation with my man. and the boys.
I hate to go: shopping between thanksgiving and christmas.
I love it when: all five of us are piled on the bed, reading, watching tv, chatting....
I hate it when: "The Office" is a rerun YET AGAIN.
I love to see: the older boys playing with adam, teaching him their games - they're great little teachers!
I hate to see: the weekly forecast in january and february; a snow storm in late-march;
I love to hear: adam's waking up words: "uh, oh mamamama! uh, oh dadadada!" (that's "hello!" not a true "uh oh!"); owls chatting at night;
I hate to hear: "mommy, i just don't feel so good"

i tag...stephanie for this one! and anyone else who wants to post it in their own blogs. let me know if you post it!

back in june of this year, kenny and i were all set to order a few (four, tops) turkey chicks and have them sent to us to raise for the 10-12 short weeks that they have before taking them to a local slaughterer for a fresh turkey thanksgiving dinner. free-range, mostly naturally-fed turkeys for a grand total of $6-8. plus shipping and handling.

when we went to make the order, the nice people at the hatchery told us that we had to order a minimun of 15 for shipment.

so, we decided against it as we had no room to house 15 turkeys. and we were trying to live a normal life of a family with three kids, 15 chickens newly released into their outdoor coop, and a huge garden with huge groundhog problems. we didn't need 15 more little headaches. (oh, that made it sound like the three kids are headaches. if i have to be honest, sometimes they are. but that's my fault, not theirs!)

so today, kenny called a local turkey farm. we ordered a fresh 18-20 pound local turkey for our family thanksgiving meal this year. we had a hard enough time finding a local turkey farm, let alone finding an organically raised, free-range one. the one we found keeps their turkeys in open-aired coops and are fed natural food and do not use growth hormones on their fowl. that's enough for me. especially since the USDA definition for free range does not mean pasture-ranged.

we are set to pick up our fresh bird the week of thanksgiving.

would you believe that we had another trip to the ER this week? it was sawyer this time, with a minor head injury. and it all happened right outside the trader joe's.

i drove the boys down to pittsburgh for the night yesterday, and i thought i'd stop in at trader joes to get some coveted kefir (you can't get it up here), full-fat yogurt (another thing you can't find in stores here - they're all low-fat) and yummy snacks for our day.

so the three boys and i piled out of the car, as we always do...rowan first, then sawyer, and then adam. as we stepped onto the sidewalk, rowan began running towards the door, and as usual, sawyer followed. at which point he fell and his forehead met the pavement for the very first time (please, let it be the last???). screaming ensued...a nice woman gave me a tissue and then left...and then i didn't know what to do.

immediately, the nice man from one of TJ's registers came outside and asked if there was anything he could do...at which point another patron of the store offered me her cell phone. i called kenny who was only a few blocks away at work and told him that we'd be making another trip to the ER. another TJ employee came out and asked if there was anything sawyer would want to make him happy...the only thing that came to mind was chocolate milk - a favorite rare treat for them these days. she came back out a few minutes later with four containers of amazingly yummy chocolate milk...sawyer rejected it. sawyer rejected chocolate milk! but rowan got his own and he was done with it in 2 mintues flat.

at this point, the bleeding was stopping, so i though i'd pile them all back into the car, pick up kenny and head to Children's Hospital (thank God we were so close to Children's!) if he thought it needed a stitch or two. another patron came over and told me that she had three (or was it two?) boys of her own, now grown, and she'd been through this a few times in her day. she offered sawyer a brand new container of chocolate peanut butter cups...he rejected those as well! he just kept crying and saying, "but it HURTS, mama!" poor, sweet thing. it must have hurt for my little sugar-addict to reject two chocolatley treats. just an hour previous to this incident, on our way down in the car, he was looking at a book that had a picture of jelly beans in it and told me he wanted a jelly bean pie. (how's that for a sugar high?).

the hospital stay was much more brief than rowan's, and kenny got the honors while i hung out with adam and rowan at the nearby (BIG!) library. he was all smiles when i picked them up a few hours later, sporting a bright yellow (green, maybe?) bandaid on his forehead. no stitches needed - just a cleansing and glued shut (two deep holes, not wide enough for stitches or staples, but deep enough to keep closed). he then downed the entire container of chocolate milk he was given by the nice people of Trader Joes. they didn't even charge me for them...and they lost my business that day since i never stopped foot into their store!

have i mentioned how nice the employees of Trader Joes are, yet?

i apologize to my faithful few who check in on me and worry when i don't post! we've had quite the week with two sick boys - one with pneumonia (rowan) and one with molars cutting through gums AND the same virus that rowan had (adam). we (rowan and i) even had a fun trip to the ER complete with a ride in the ambulance! perhaps more on that another day, but i'm ready to let that day go....

i can't stress enough how well we all are now...we're all a bit tired and maybe cranky due to a very difficult toddler who complains LOUDLY when he's ill (he takes just after his daddy momma!).

and we're not even into flu season! does anyone out there give their children homeopathic remedies to stave off illness, or at least shorten them (the illness, not the child)? i'll do anything (short of boiling deer urine, of course) to keep them healthy throughout the winter!

it's been a while since i posted what we're having for dinner...so here's this week's menu!

monday: BBQ chicken breasts, baked rice, broccoli (baked rice recipe below)
tuesday: Roast turkey, mashed potatoes, petit pois
wednesday: egg salad sandwiches on homemade bread, salad, carrots and hummous
thursday: feta quiche with baby spinach salad
friday: Rockin' Moroccan Pita (recipe below)
saturday: pasta salad with bread
sunday: leftovers

*   *   *   *

Rockin' Moroccan Pitas
1 T. ground cumin
1 tsp. chili powder
1 lb. chicken breast, shredded
4 T. olive oil
1/4 cup lemon juice
2 cans chick peas, rinsed
3 green onions (from our garden!)
1 red bell pepper, diced
1/4 cup chopped parsley (from our garden!)
6 pita pockets
plain yogurt
salt and pepper to taste

Combine cumin and chili powder in a plastic bag. Add chicken and shake to coat. Heat 1 T. oil in a large skillet over medium heat. Add chicken; cook 5 minutes or until chicken is no longer pink, stirring frequently. Take off heat, cool.
Combine remaining ingredients, mixing well. Stir in chicken. Add salt and pepper to taste.

Cut tops off pitas to pen. Divide chicken mixture among pitas. Top with yogurt (if desired...I recommend it!).

(And yes! Our boys eat this and love it - especially Adam!)

Baked Rice
(this is the only way kenny will eat white rice without a sauce.)
1 T. olive oil
1/2 cup chopped onion
1 cup long-grain white rice
2 cups chicken stock
1/4 tsp salt (optional)

Preheat oven to 350.
Heat oil and add onions. Cook, stirring, until softened.
Add (raw) rice until well-coated.
Add chicken stock and salt. Bring to a boil.
Transfer to casserole, cover and bake until rice is tender and stock is absorbed, 20-25 minutes.
Let stand, covered, 5 minutes before serving.


*   *   *   *

for more weekly menus, check out Org Junkie every Monday!

i am a big wimp. yesterday, i tripped coming out our front step and skinned my knee in two places as well as bending my left big toe in such a way that makes it hard for me to put any weight on it at all. kenny was on his way home from work at the time and it was all i could do from crying in front of rowan and sawyer when it happened (they were happily swiming on their swings when they heard their mama yell, "OWWWW!"). so i laughed for 30 minutes untl kenny got home and then i collapsed like a baby in his arms.

okay, not really...but i was relieved when he walked in the door so that i could stop walking around and put my leg up.

that's not what makes me a big wimp. i'm a wimp because i am blogging about it! i need your attention! it's much better this morning. it's not bright red anymore, and the toe isn't throbbing. an advil before bed last night helped relieve the throbbing in the knee. rowan keeps asking "why can't we touch your scrape?" sawyer gasps each time he sees it (i have a hard time looking at wounds. my boys saw it before i got a good look at it yesterday and sawyer's gasp made me worry. now i know that he's inherited my fear of looking at wounds because it really wasn't THAT bad to look at).

please, pity me.
 

i am amazed daily at how smart our kids are. at such a young age! i'm convinced it's because their "filters" aren't set up yet. they hear and pay attention to everything.

two days ago, sawyer woke up with a runny nose. we have no tissues in the house. when i noticed his runny nose, i muttered something about "being out of tissues, so i'll just use toilet paper." i thought rowan was busy eating his raisin bran (yeah, we have kids that pick out raisin bran for their breakfast cereal. but that's only because i tell them to pick their favorites from the shelf on MY eye-level and to ignore the shelf at THEIR eye-level. even i can outsmart the grocery store!).

fast forward to our trip to the grocery store. i picked up what we needed and as always, i ask rowan if there is anything else we need. his answer: "tissues, mommy!"

flabberghasted by his memory, i applaud him outloud for remembering that small detail (well, small to me any way)...and forget to pick up the tissues. this is a very common occurance anymore. i am extremely forgetful since having kids. please don't mention "pregnancy brain" - i've heard it a million times.

fast forward to yesterday morning. rowan awakes with sawyer's runny nose and a low-grade fever. so does adam. three runny noses and two low-grade fevers. rowan is the only one that is bothered by this. for the first time in months, rowan takes a nap - he falls asleep of his own accord during their quiet time and wakes up inconsolable. kenny tries to help:

rowan: my nose is running! again!
kenny: that's okay...we'll just go get a tissue.
rowan (in that the-world-is-going-to-end voice): but mommy forgot to get them at the store! (more dramatic crying)

poor little guy. i think maybe he's over it today. although we DID go buy some tissues. and a natural vitamin C booster smoothie drink for all of us (i woke up with it this morning. kenny's bound to tomorrow).

before you go snickering about how earth day is just a way for tree-huggers to get their own (recycled-only, please) hallmark holiday, i'd like to point out that there is a lot of good that comes out of observing good earth-stewardship practices.

for instance, and i'm not saying i'm a big fan or anything, but OPRAH dedicated an entire show this week to environmental issues, and how the average household/person can make small changes in their daily lives to make a big impact. Oprah is watched by millions of people. Surely more people will begin recycling and reusing, now?

there are also earth day celebrations in many cities and towns across the country making people aware of the need for change in how we live. so how did you ring in spring by observing earth day this year?

we were so excited to be outdoors (on saturday) where it was sunny and warm. i spent the morning washing and line-drying all of our bedsheets (our room smells lovely - i can't wait to crawl into bed!). the boys helped kenny clear out the area around the firepit at the base of our yard (old dead leaves and lots of weeds. we plan to plant grass, have a few big rocks to sit on, and plant wildflowers and other indigenous plants). we planted a few plants that may or may not live (easter hydraneas and lilys...probably hothouse flowers, but it's worth a try), and picked up sticks that fell throughout the winter all over the yard (hundreds and hundreds of sticks and small- to medium-sized branches). 

kenny and i walked around the yard with the boys making plans for the flower beds (the previous owner had HUGE flower beds with just about every flower imaginable. i'm incredibly intimidated by these overgrown and weedy beds. but they need help), the shrub garden (yes, a garden of shrubs. it's becoming an eye-sore and i've never really liked it. we're getting rid of it by replanting the shrubs elsewhere in the yard and planting grass) and the vegetable garden. (kenny is currently starting heirloom vegetable seeds that we received as a thank you gift from our friend serina to plant out in the garden by the end of may). i also began the change-over to completely natural cleaning products and cleaned our laundry room bathroom with water, baking soda, and vinegar.

but we did spend a good part of the day frustrated at the lack of recycling recepticles in our county. in fact, we spent a good part of the day looking at neighboring counties and admiring their recycling programs. i am planning on calling the recycling department monday morning to get the skinny on the lack of recycling in or area. goodness knows, we don't need everyone burning their plastic containers every saturday this spring and summer (since everyone in the country seems to burn their garbage).

if anyone reading this knows anything about starting a recycling "system" in small-town america, please give me your best advice. not that i'll be doing it, but i can at least make a lot of noise.

we ended saturday by cleaning out the chickens brooder's bedding. we've done this a few times already since monday and we are just shocked at how quickly these little chicks are growing. their wings are starting to get bigger and they stretch them out and mock-fly around the brooder. rowan begs to pick them up about 400 times a day.

tomorrow is a picnic lunch at moraine state park after church!
enjoy the sunshine!

the strong and ugly virus that has wreaked havoc on our household is the virus no parent ever wants to deal with. based on the waning and waxing of adam's vomiting, and the length of his sickness (5 days now), he was diagnosed this morning with rotavirus.

i'm happy to report that after 6 days, sawyer is back to normal 100%. his appetite is back, his spunky little self is back...i have hope that adam will be back in no time at all.

but your prayers are still coveted.

i didn't intend to take a blogging break. it just so happened that vomit and other bodily fluids kinda took over the house and things like 5 loads of laundry, 3 loads of dishes, and 3 hours of sleep per day took the place of writing.

you see those two bookend-boys up there in the blog masthead? sawyer (right) and adam (left) have been slammed with the nastiest stomach virus we've ever seen. sawyer is finally getting back to normal, and adam is finally not sleeping 23 hours a day.

but i don't think it's over. i'm not going to say, "we've survived the stomach bug!" because it's not over until we've all had it, right? well, hopefully not...we're praying so hard that rowan stays healthy (although he's bouncing off the walls!) and that kenny and i forgo getting to know our toilet bowl oh-so-well. i'll let you know how we fair. please keep us in your prayers.

because really, i've never seen the life taken out of my boys until this nasty bug made its way into them. it is far worse than last year's family sickness 2006.

i'll be back when all the laundry is folded, all the rooms have been cleaned, and our lives are back to normal (hopefully tomorrow!)

parenting is the best. seriously. i can think of nothing else that makes me want to scream thankfulness and praise to God than when i stop and just "behold" rowan, sawyer, and adam.

but when your kid gets sick, you meet a "hard part" of parenting.

i don't think i'm the only parent in the world who gets a pit the size of a grapefruit in their stomach the minute their child complains of "not feeling well" or begins the every-five-minute puke session. and it's not because once your kids get sick, you are in for a lot of extra work, and hardly any sleep. the hard part for me is constant worry.

when rowan was 5 months old, he got his first virus - a cold virus with a low-grade fever. but i was a mess. we spent $60 on "cold and fever supplies" at the drugstore to make him get better faster. i prayed that the fever would just disappear, or that i was simply being too paranoid and his warm forehead wasn't a fever afterall. the virus ran its course, and he was back to himself in no time. and we had a house full of cold and fever supplements to share with the neighborhood. but still, i worried about the next time a fever would hit.

i'm just a worrier. and that's not a good thing to be when you also put everything in jesus' hands. this is a struggle for me.

sawyer started puking yesterday at noon, and he puked for 10 minutes straight. this just after a HUGE diaper blowout. i was certain he was exorcising a demon. it just didn't seem natural to puke for that long. he's slowly but steadily getting better. today the "action" is less, but the fever is here. and my prayers for health for the rest of the family are being answered at the moment. of course, i'm worrying about him...his little body shaking for lack of nutrition and sleep and his poor diaper rash. and on top of worrying about him, i worry about the other two getting it (or kenny and i!). worry. worry. worry...

the other night, we were all in the living room a few minutes before it was time for the boys' bedtime. i was at the piano playing hymns from a hymnal-for-piano-dummies (meaning each hymn had no more than two flats or sharps) and kenny pointed out a hymn that i haven't sung in so long, based on Isaiah 66:12: "I will extend peace to her like a river." Since that night, I've had the chorus stuck in my head...

"Stayed upon Jehovah, hearts are fully blest, finding, as he promised, perfect peace and rest."

God knows how much I pray for my little guys daily. (Worriers tend to be pretty frequent pray-ers, too!) So I know that my little family...my little guys...are stayed on Him. I look at that little face of Sawyer under that blanket and I know Whose hands he's in, no matter what.

And the imperfect worry dissolves into a perfect peace.

please comment with your best advice on cleaning puke from carpets. i mean really cleaning them and not "masking" the odor.

one child sick with the bug, four others in the household (plus one poor weekend guest) to go, i'm sure!

we couldn't find a local farm that hatched chicks for selling, and a few farmers kenny talked with actually advised us against getting chicks that way. we still felt uneasy ordering our chicks from the big hattery in texas and picking them up at the post office, so we found a happy medium at meyer hatchery which is only a couple hours drive away. i called last week to place an order for our 15 chicks (15!!!) and since a few of them weren't going to be hatched until mid april, we decided on a pick-up date in late april.
kenny spent a few hours tooling around in his garage last week and built the beautiful brooder where the chicks will spend their first few weeks on a bed of pine shavings, eating organic chick starter and drinking filtered water.

and all of a sudden, i had a nightmare that all of our chickens were going to die before we got them into the coop. you see, we've been told by many places that pine shavings are hard to come by these days (something about people not building enough houses???), and i can't even begin to tell you how hard it is finding organic chick starter. so i have images of our chicks starving, and walking on hard wood, drinking only filtered water. whatever will we do?

we'll find the shavings, i'm sure...and we'll start the chicks off with non-organic starter then switch them to completely organic chicken feed and our organic food scraps once they're outside in their coop. whew. now that i have all that figured out...let me introduce you to our "brood."

The Araucana will give us olive green or turquoise blue eggs! well, the shell is turquoise, the inside is "regular."
The Golden Buff is a "favorite" because they're good layers. and we're assured 100% of getting all females. (all the other chickens we ordered aren't "sexlinked" which means we have a 20% chance of getting a rooster with our order!)
The Buff Orpington...our original favorite...we're told are "very broody" which means they can sit all day on an egg. or a nest. and they won't like it when we go in to collect their eggs. so we kept them in our order because we still love them.
The Silver-Laced Wyandotte is my mom's favorite chicken, ever. we ordered a few for her to take care of. she's so excited, she's already named them!

in the coming weeks, kenny's working on the weekends to start coop construction. pictures will be posted and you better believe my camera will be flashing when those chicks are in our possession.

i can't wait to introduce you to our fowl!


 

*update at end of post!

when we first moved here almost a year ago, i posted about my fear of the "really bad bear problem in the neighborhood." it turns out that the REAL problem we have in "these here parts" aren't bear, but ticks.

you'll remember that a few weeks after adam was born, kenny contracted Lyme Disease. and a few weeks after that, he picked a deer tick off of his arm. well, this morning, as the boys and i settled into our morning reading-on-momma's lap position, i do what i always do - run my fingers through their hair while i read. and this morning, there was a large "thing" on rowan's head which made me stop reading immediately to take a look. a tick, head in...legs a waving all over the place.

if kenny hadn't contracted Lyme's, i think my reaction would have been different. i might have waited for him to come home (7 hours later) to take it off himself. but i know that TIME IS OF THE ESSENCE when it comes to getting deer ticks out. we now know a whole lot about deer ticks and how to prevent Lyme's. so i called the pediatrician's office and told them i was on my way.

{yes, i know i should learn to pull ticks out myself. i will, eventually...but now i trust the experts.}

of course there was freezing rain, and of course i'm the world's worst worrier. but someOne took a hold of me and told me to breathe.

rowan is extremely in tune with our emotions. he knows when i'm angry, sad, or happy...he tells me when i'm angry, sad, or happy. and i didn't want him to be scared. every muscle in my body was screaming to be nervous. but stronger than that was my desire to make sure rowan wasn't afraid. he knew was that he was the special boy this bug chose to land on, and that the doctor had a special instrument to get the bug off of his head. i couldn't lie to him. i couldn't tell him that we were headed to the grocer, only to show up at the pediatrician's office and tell him he had to keep his head still for a minute. he is nearly 4 years old...he's smart enough to know when his mom isn't telling the truth. i was a bit nervous that this story wouldn't fly...or worse...would make him afraid. he was quiet on our way to the doctor, but once we got there, he said to me, "will the doctor show me the bug that's on my head?" i was relieved that my fear hadn't shown. so we talked more about the instrument (tweezers!) that the doctor would use to get the bug, and what the bug looks like, and how he was going to get ice cream for lunch if he held his head really still.

the procedure went well. rowan was amazing. he held his head so still and let the doctore YANK the bug out of his head (along with about 10 hairs!). he was so excited to see it and laughed at the little legs still waving. my heart sunk as i knew it wasn't a dog tick. every picture i saw of deer ticks looked exactly like the one on the pediatrician's tweezers.

so now we wait and pray. the odds are in our favor...a small amount of deer ticks actually carry Lyme and only smaller larva ticks carry the Lyme (this was a larger, female tick). but i'm his mother. i'm wired to worry.

my friend ellen called me tonight (because she had just watched Grey Gardens after I recommended it to her), and when she asked how i was doing, I let out, "I found a tick on Rowan this morning!" And her reaction calmed me...she grew up  "in the country" and knows that this is probably not the last tick we'll pull off our boys. But she made me feel as though I can deal with these little critters. that, in fact, it's not a good enough reason to move back to the city. :)

i guess we're going to be having ice cream for lunch a few more times in the next decade....

________________

Update!
the pediatrician's office informed me this morning that the tick we pulled off rowan was NOT a deer tick. whew. even though i swore up and down that it was...in retrospect, i think they're right. it was a lot larger than a "poppy seed" and round and flat, just like a dog tick. not at all swollen, and was very easy to spot.
rowan loves to talk about how brave he was. and we're still proud as punch of him.

it's definitely not appropriate for a married woman to burst into "you make me feel like a natural woman" right in the middle of her endodontist's office, but i wanted to sing at the top of my lungs to dr. dahlkemper, d.m.d., the minute he began to numb my mouth. it was the first time i felt no pain in over two weeks. plus, it would probably sound really funny coming from someone who was numb-in-the-mouth.

thank you for regaling me with your dental/dentist stories (and i answered you in the comments section!). i know it's sad, but it is so comforting to know i'm not the only one in the world with problems at the dentist. kenny and i have been fighting with our new dentist now for the last month and a half. he had an issue with an extraction that ended up with dry socket but they treated it as though it were infected, so he was on antibiotics that (of course!) wasn't treating the dry socket, and his pain got worse and worse. my root canal this morning was on a tooth that was filled just four short weeks ago. i am not an expert in dental work (although i should be by now!), but my poor tooth has been through the ringer this past month.

and doesn't EVERYTHING seem harder when you have a toothache?

and "joyful" brought up the issue of insurance. let's talk about dental insurance shall we? why even have it if your copay is the same amount you pay for a down payment on a new home (equal to a root canal and crown) or a car (equal to a filling)? why is dental insurance so bad? why can't it be just like health insurance (i know...the price of health insurance is rising steadily as well...but dental insurance is so much worse).  i guarantee more people would go to the dentist if it weren't so expensive. well, that and the metal on teeth thing.....

onto some GOOD NEWS!

did you know  that tomorrow (march 15) starbucks is giving away a free "tall" cup of coffee? just make sure you get to a starbucks between the hours of 10 a.m. to 12 noon. i'd love to partake...but besides there being no bookstore (i know you're getting sick of hearing that!), guess what else we don't have in our neck of the woods? i know that many of you would think that is a good thing (my husband included), but i happen to like their coffee. so....if you're near a starbucks, go and enjoy free joe on the house!

i'm generally not a "one-upper" and i am very uncomfortable around people who love to "one-up" others in conversations. but i'm begging you to one-up me this morning.

i'm living a dental nightmare right now, but thank GOD for my husband who found a dentist who could fit me in today (what ever happened to dentists taking emergency cases? i'm on two waiting lists and cancellation lists, but no one i called could get me in tomorrow (which is today). there needs to be a dental ER in every city.).

so please share with me your worst dental/toothpain/dentist experience. and i'll feel better. much better.  or hopefully today's visit with the endodontist will take all the pain away.