Mommin' It Up!

August 7, 2008August 7, 2008

Pre-school Procrastination

Over the past year, I have been asked the question, “So, what are you doing for Joshua for preschool?” many, many times. I have had two standard answers to this question: The very intelligent “uhh…..” and the very nervously delivered, “I don’t really want to think about that yet.”

Joshua will be five in February, so he definitely won’t be going to kindergarten until a year from now (I am having cold sweats, breaking out in hives, and trying not to puke as I type that! Ugh!) But since he has known all his letters since before he was 2, can write his name, and now read quite well, I really wasn’t going to send him to preschool. To be brutally honest, this is basically because I didn’t want to deal with it and/or pay for it. He gets plenty of social interaction at Sunday school and Awana, and as I said, “academically” he is fine.

But I felt a bit guilty about that, since that is what moms do.

Then my BFF Luanne came up with a brilliant idea. She suggested I put Joshua in her homeschool co-op. (She homeschools her 14-year-old daughter.) The co-op has class the first three Thursdays of the month from 10-2 and a field trip the last Friday of every month. There is a class for just hte pre-K kids. I would be with him, there is a nursery for Sophie, and the cost is less than $100 per year for one child.

It has the added benefit of getting my lazy butt out of the house!

I haven’t decided whether or not I will homeschool. I am leaning towards not, but who knows, the other co-op moms may fore me to drink the homeschool kool-aid!

So, I mailed the application and check today. Soon my little guy will be a bona fide preschooler! I’m hoping we will both make some new friends, have fun, and learn a lot.

But I am curious, how did those of you who have gone before make your preschool decisions?

August 6, 2008January 13, 2009

Horror-Moans

Greeting from the throes of Hormone Hell! (If you are reading this and are a dude, you MIGHT wanna bail now. That means, YOU, Dad! And YOU, Uncle Dan!)

Ok, anyways. It’s that time of the month. Ever since my period returned when Sophie was 10 months old, my hormones have been torturing me. So I write this as I am on day THREE of a terrible headache. The cramps weren’t really that bad his time around, for which I am thankful! But unfortunately, this isn’t the only time during my cycle when the hormones and I duke it out. They also smack me with a nice headache or two when I’m fertile. These are sometimes accompanies by puking. And then there’s the zits. Giant, sore, swollen spots on my forehead. One is either starting or healing virtually ALL the time. I get one when I’m fertile and one just before my period. I am starting to get scars. I never had acne like this when I was a teenager, but now that I’m thirty, well, they are making up for lost time.

Finally, there’s the mood swings. The night before I got my period this time I was seriously so depressed, I just wanted to crawl into a hole and disappear. I am normally an upbeat person, but these hormones just make me crazy sometimes. I knew it was totally irrational. All I could do was go to bed. I knew I would feel calmer in the morning (and I did). But I’d rather just skip that feeling altogether.

There are two solutions to this problem: get pregnant (Hee-ell no, sorry Mom!) or wean Sophie and get back on the ol’ birth control pill. I seriously care MORE that it regulates my horror-moans than I do that it prevents pregnancy.

So. I need to wean this girl. She is 20 months old for goodness sake, I think I’ve done my duty.

But she’s my baby.

And she’s very strong-willed.

And she loves her some nursing.

And she really does not like the idea of giving it up.

And the sound of her screaming makes me want to jump off a bridge.

But I’m tired of my hormones taking me from this:

To this:

So tell me, world wide interwebz, what do I do?

August 5, 2008

Solve this medical mystery for me

Sunday night, I was in bed trying to go to sleep, when I started to feel dizzy and nauseous. I tried to sleep and hoped it would pass, but no such luck… I ended up praying to the porcelain gods, if you will. Then I was fine.

But here’s the weird part… the same thing happened to me in St. Louis exactly a month before, on July 3rd.

That night I blamed it on the jalapenos (it was a day before that big announcement, so I figured it was a touch of food poisoning), but Sunday night I didn’t eat anything weird at all, and Andy ate the same things I did. Perhaps it was the Flintstone vitamin, I don’t know. It just seems like a really strange coincidence that the same thing happened two months in a row. Could it be hormonal? I guess, although I am still happily period-free from nursing.

I guess I will put this post in the “over sharing” category, but I am perplexed! Any theories??? And who thinks I had better watch out for September 3? Yikes!