Worst. Day. Ever.

I would like yesterday to just be a bad dream.

Yesterday, after a day at the beach, we arrived home and I told everyone to jump into the pool to get the sand off. Bella, Anna and Gabe went in while I watched and Scott took care of the baby. Scott then came outside while I went inside to make a pinhole projector so we could see the eclipse. The kids got out of the pool to see the projection - a tiny crescent on the ground. Unimpressed, the kids went back into the pool, except Gabe. He took of his floaties and was by the pool. I ran inside to start something in the oven and put the baby in the high chair and took her outside. I told Gabe he needed his floaties on if he wanted to go back into the pool. At that point, I went onto the patio to check out the pinhole projection and see the eclipse and to take a picture. Not sure how much time lapsed, but suddenly Bella started yelling that Gabe was at the bottom of the pool. Mind you, Scott and I were both on the patio, on the other side of our pool fence, but we weren’t looking at the pool because we were distracted by the bbq and the eclipse. Scott ran and pulled Gabe out, who was unconscious and not breathing, but had a pulse. We don’t have a landline and rely on our cell phones, and at that moment, I couldn’t remember where my phone was. It was just a few moments, but every second counts. (One of our first orders of business is to get a landline. I never want to be frantic about looking for a phone again!) I found my phone, called 911 and by then Gabe had started breathing (after expelling the water from his lungs and stomach). The girls were terrified and crying and we got them out of the pool. Our amazing neighbors took the girls so Scott and I could deal with Gabe and the paramedics. Gabe was taken to the local hospital in Thousand Oaks and was later transferred to the Kaiser Permanente hospital in Woodland Hills. Gabe was completely woozy and sleepy, but pulse/o2 and lung x-ray was clear. I think he had too much Co2 in his blood, so they wanted to keep him watched. They kept him overnight because there is small chance of secondary drowning, in which the lungs fill up with fluid due to the irritation and trauma of being filled with water. Chlorine does not help matters. 

As I’m typing this, he is being released from the hospital, but I’ll be watching him like a hawk the next 48 hours for signs and symptoms. Yesterday, we almost experienced what every parent NEVER wants to experience -  the death of their child. There may be some who will read this that will be angry at us for being negligent. It’s a normal reaction…I get it. However, there is nothing you can say to us that will make us more aware of what we should have done, or what we should do now. There is no place lower anyone can take us than we have already taken ourselves. The ER doctor kept telling us we did a great job. That Scott is a hero for saving Gabe’s life. We did what we had to do because we failed to do what we were supposed to be do. That’s all I can say about it. 

Parents, use this cautionary tale to make sure your kids are water-safe, and then *don’t ever assume* they are water-safe. Also, get yourselves CPR certified. Lastly, don’t beat yourself to a pulp with guilt. Easier said than done, but even the most diligent and careful parents slip up. Kiss your children, tell them you love them and thank God every day that you’re lucky enough to have them. That is all.

Wake up call…

So, I decided to go with My Fitness Pal  instead of Weight Watchers. Same basic concept, except that it’s not points, but calories counted. You enter your height, weight, measurments and weight loss goals and it calculates a max daily calorie goal for you based on your parameters. Like Weight Watchers, you enter what you ate each day and it has a database of thousands of food items, so that makes it easy to track. You also can “gain back” daily calories by exercising. 

There’s a large database of exercises as well, although I think it needs improvement. It is an online tool with an online presence, so you can make everything you do and eat public to other people who also use My Fitness Pal. Kind of like Facebook, you can “friend” people. You can make your daily diaries and posts as public or private as you like. The best part is that there’s an iPhone and iPad app that is coordinated and synched together so you don’t have to enter info more than once! Oh, and it’s all FREE!

The wake up call part was for when I first started. The first day I ate what I typically eat in a day and was SHOCKED at how caloric some things were that I didn’t think twice about. My all-time weakness is peanut butter, and I will typically throughout the day have a spoonful of peanut butter as a snack. Well, each tablespoon is 95 calories and high in fat. Damn. I LOVE peanut butter. It’s like an addiction. What is in it that makes me crave it so??? Crack? Heroin? Can I smoke it and not get the calories??? Anyway, just keeping track of what you eat is enough to get you thinking about that next snack. Yeah, I’m not giving up peanut butter, but I’m trying to find other alternatives to that lovin’ spoonful. Oh, and don’t get me started on coffee!!!

So it begins…soon…

I will keep this short. I am embarking on a new journey that will lead to health, wealth and wisdom. Nutrition, exercise and financial planning. Notice I didn’t say “diet”? Because “diet” is “die” with a “t”. 

I got some great info and encouragement on my trip to Joplin, and feel ready to commit. I already started the exercise plan weeks before my trip, but I just need to ramp it up. We are also starting the Financial Peace University program through church. 

The “begins…soon…” is because I have a stomach bug and I’m not going to tackle ANYTHING until it’s gone. No need to stress. 

*More soon!

*Yeah, I should be President of the Procrastinator’s Club. Maybe I’ll start next week.

“Let me explain. No…there is too much. Let me sum up.”

Hey kids! It’s your wacky friend from ‘Dena, *finally* sharing a new post. I have never been a good journaler, and this is nothing new to me. I find that most of the things I’d like to do, I do not give priority to, so lots of things fall by the way side, blogging being one of them. Anyway, so much has been going on, but too much to post, so I will sum up to catch you all up.

We went on our annual road trip to Joplin, Missouri in late June. The kids did pretty well, yet the youngest 2 had a harder time sitting for hours on end in a car seat. Understandable, since I am pretty well done after 8 hours. We try so hard to push it, but we forget that every stop for gas takes at least 30 minutes just to get everyone changed, bathroomed and snacked. The heat going through the Texas pan-handle was ri-donkulous, and the humidity in Missouri was no fun either. Going through the parts of Joplin affected by the EF5 tornado that tore through several miles of town was beyond description. I took some video that I will post soon. (Haha…soon…as in within the next 3 months or so.) It was heart-breaking as well as awe inspiring to see such devastation and yet the trees, who’s branches and bark (!) were ripped off were off-shooting leaves in a desparate attempt at life. People were busy cleaning up debris as well as rebuilding their homes right in the chaos of the debris fields. As we drove through parts of the main commercial strip that was affected, one of the kids said, “Oh no, this town is ruined!” I believe that is *not* the case. What comes to mind when I think of Joplin now is this poster of Rosie the Riveter. 

Before we had gone on our vacation, we had found out that the lady who owns the house we are renting had passed away. Her estate is in a trust and her daughter is the beneficiary. We were informed that the house was not going to be rented, but sold in the near future. Although we know that what we can offer on this house is less that what it can sell for, we hoped that we could get in an offer before the house went on the open market. The trustee informed us that it was in the best interest of the beneficiary, and protocol to list the house on the open market, and that is when we would be able to put in an offer. Ok. Thanks a pant-load. We have looked at many houses in our area, as well as areas further away that are more affordable. What we have found have been exclusively short-sales and forclosures. Not really bad, per se, but we are not in any position to get into a fixer upper, nor do we have the desire for that. Pretty much all the options were too small, or too disgusting. We finally found a place, not in our town but about 10 miles away. Another short sale, but we really like the house. Being a short sale, however, means waiting, and waiting. We don’t have a time where we need to be out of this house yet, but we we know we don’t have months and months to wait for the seller’s lender to pull their heads out of their…ahem…nethers so we must keep looking for something else while we wait. I think that if it comes down to it, we will rent again if we run out of time, but our goal is to avoid that. It’s too painful to be paying as much in rent as we would be paying into a mortgage. So…we wait. Things are uncertain and that is kiss of death for me. I very much HATE not knowing what is going on. 

School is just around the corner and I am happy for that. I think the kids having a routine again will help with all the bickering and acting out (until we uproot them and have to start all over…sigh). Bella is a creature of habit and knowing that we will be moving (though she is excited about that), and that school is starting has her moods going haywire. She just can’t seem to rein in her emotions. It’s been a hard summer for her, and I can see it’s stressing her out, which breaks my heart. Gabe will not be going to pre-school until he is potty trained, and since he’s showing no desire in that area (plus, he’s been delayed in just about everything), we’ll just take it easy for now. He will still have speech therapy twice a week in a group setting, so that’ll be good for him. He such a smarty…I can’t wait until his expressive speech catches up. I can tell he’s getting happier as he’s finally “getting it.” Anna starts kindergarten and I’m so excited for her (and me!). Two kids in school, two more to go. We’ll get there, by golly! Eva is 5 months and trying to cut two teeth. She’s pretty much attached to me like a squirmy spider monkey and it’s been a rough two weeks. It could be so much worse, I know, but really? I have three other spider monkeys demanding my attention too. It’s hard to watch all the house work pile up. I’m so tired at the end of the day, yet I can’t stop the mind chatter, so by the time I’m up the next morning, I don’t really feel rested. Hard to build up energy reserves. I know things will get better, I know things will get better, I know things will get better…

So, I’m not much of a summer-upper (ha! pun intended), but I really tried to be as brief as possible. Seriously, I can write tomes on every subject in this post, yet I will not. I’m so proud of myself for just writing this one. Until next time!

New blog, new name

Alright, I never said I was a writer. I have been mulling over this blog for months now, I managed to get two posts up (on Blogger), deleted a post (meh…I got out what I wanted, but decided it needed no more fuel) and then I disappeared. I changed over to tumblr because I have more control over things, which to a control freak is HEAVEN! Anyway, I will do what I can to keep this going. This is kind of like my “pensieve” so it’ll be a good place to drop off memories and such. More soon, I promise…

*Oh, and if you watch The Guild, that’s where my word “Mom’d” came from. It’s a working title…things may change.

‘Til next time…

“I said, if you wanna be starting something, you got to be starting something…”