Living-Deliberately.com

My little nephew is going to be born very soon and we were all sitting around this morning very early, watching my sis rub her belly and think, “baby be born now” thoughts. Rowan, who has asked to nurse at least once a week for a full year after weaning, noticed there was something different between his Mom and his Auntie. Specifically, the “milks” are quite a bit larger for the laboring mother and quite a bit deflated for the Mommy-Who-Fed-Him.

Rowan: “Auntie gots big boobies?”

Me: “Yes, she has milk for baby Samuel”

Rowan: “Me like big boobies.”

Celia: “Some people would find them very refreshing.”

I know I was sleepy but to my ears, it sounded not unlike grown-ups, cruising the strip and debating which would be the best restaurant!

Smallworld had this excellent little reminder today to slow down and smell the coffee examine the bath toys…and to love today for what it is.

Awhile back I posted “What’s Grosser Than Gross: The Mommy Version“.  I followed every tag that I could and there were some hilarious responses!!! And Mrs. Ordinary Days didn’t mean this post of hers to count in that meme but it is fantastically and supurbly “Mommy Gross” and I had to link it! It was not really a contest, so there’s not really a prize…except for  the communal laugh and cringe we all share together. Enjoy!

We interupt regular programming to report  a breakout of a dangerous condition that rapidly spreads and infects households around the nation. This highly contagious affiliction is debiliating and exhausting, quickly striking the environment it infects with filth, sluggishness, and a weakened immune system. One by one systems begin to break down until the infection builds enough momentum to allow for a pressure release. This release is often unexpected and will leave those experiencing it with fatigue, confusion, and accute denial.

Common treatments: anti-depressants, alchohol, chocolate, heaping plates of freshly cut french fries, and a great increase in the amount of martyred attitude.  All common treatments are ultimately unsuccesful, as they provide only symtomatic relief, leaving the condition to brew and stew and infect the remaining family members with intensity.

It it this site’s responsibility to provide you with the symptoms of this hideous affliction:

• is your bathroom’s currently-in-use roll of toilet paper sitting on the back of the tank, whilst the handy-dandy roller thingie sits vacant?
• does your laundry sour from not getting transfered to the dryer within two days’ time, whist the members of the household cry for their steady stream of clean clothing?
• do you frequently find yourself repeating the same request over and over, feeling that you are talking into thin air, even whist there sits a child of grown size within 3 feet of your person?
• when you get up at night to get some water for your parched, overly-strained, vocal cords and throat, do you find that all the lights you’d previously turned off before retiring were back on, even whilst every other member of the family was asleep in their beds?
• do piles  of things sit at the foot of your stairs, waiting to be transfered to the floor above, for weeks as though no one has traveled the path in that span of time, though beings frequently thunder both up and down the same stairs at least 50 times a day?

This condition has found it’s way to your household. It’s name?

OMCDI SYNDROME

                                             (Only Mom Can Do It Syndrome)

Until there is a cure, we must band together in definance of this hideous monster! Surely the progression of this disease can be restrained. Let the scales fall from their eyes! Let their ears be opened! Let them realize that yes! They too can take that wet cloth and wipe down that toothpaste spit they left in the sink!  Someone surely hath told them a lie…that this woman in the house is the only one in possession of these super-powers! Spread the truth!!! Empower the people!!!  We ALL can throw empty shampoo bottles away!!!

~Onward!!!

Cat prints in the sticky goo-mess left overnight on your countertops.

Tag! You’re IT:

Sarah at Ordinary Days

Sarah at SmallWorld

Kim at Hedges Happenings.
Choose 3 more to pass it onto please!

Sent to me by another Mom, very relevant to the theme around here of late. Check it out; it’s very good for a giggle this morning! Total Momsense Video: everything a mom says in 24 hrs., to the William Tell Overture.

With the days finally getting darker earlier, meaning the near-end of “daylight savings time”, cozy times are settling back into our routine. Even though the renovation is not yet done and the bunkbeds are still in the living room, we are wrapping up playtime and work hours more to the clock than to the sun, getting baths and clean jammies on, and snuggling up for story time. For ever how many reasons this ritual gets derailed in the summer (and it always does), I’m ever so grateful for it’s return.

I guess part of this is because I directly feel good or bad as a mother based on a very seemingly superficial thing: if the beds are made each day, the sheets clean, and the jammies fresh…put on bodies with sweet-soap scents still lingering, at a decent hour of twilight, I feel there is a healthy order in our universe. Really, the whole kit and kaboodle can be in serious jeoprody, but if they get washed every night and slip into clean, well made sleep spots, with a story, prayers, and kisses, I can manage quite a bit of daytime mayhem. The worst days are when the beds are rumpled and the dog’s been sleeping on them or worse yet…the kids go to bed in jeans. (shudder).

But as sure as the seasons change, the nighttime ritual returns. No more running barefoot into a way-past-bedtime sunset or watching fireflies. Mom and Dad have cups of hot tea and children get baths and story, and the stars align just as they should.

With the age range of our kids, 2.5-11.5, and the fact that the older kids are doing school with Dad at night, we’ve found a new pocket of opportunity: one-on-one time with the littles, snuggled up in Mom’s bed. Days are busy and everyone around here is always together. But this has become a special treat; a chance to spend a few quiet moments with each child. I have no idea how long it will last….only that the thought joins a little mental catch I have to savor it because our days spent with childhood, before the teenage years are upon us, are surely limited.

And so to the bookshelves where our stacks of picture books have sat waiting all summer long do the little boys return. The pile is migrating to my bedroom, where it accumulates night after night, and I am loathe to take them back down and reshelve them, in an effort to postpone the passing of the memory as long as I can. Tonight we opened Shel Silverstein’s The Giving Tree, a book I bought them all for christmas our first year here in Tennessee. It opens, “Once there was a tree….and she loved a little boy.” Within is a tale of time, and childhood, and mothering, and giving until there is no more to give…when, just at the end, a little more is found.

May these days slow down…just a little bit. They are golden.

or rather, few completed thoughts. There was the hurting, the presumption, the assumptions. There were children playing, laughing, screaming. Where there once sat bags of round fruit, now instead sit jars of warm sauce. The moon has risen and the baby’s asleep. Instead of words, I chose art on a theme. Enjoy.

I used to joke that I can only do ONE creative thing whilst pregnant and that is: grow a baby. And it gets laughs but it’s really true! My natal months are good for routines and the basics and nesting; not fresh ideas or original thought. And when the baby is born, it quickly receives the whole family’s attention for quite some time.  I make food (milk for baby, meals for family), I clean things (cloth diapers and laundry and counters and floors). We don’t often do “school” in babymoon times and we sleep at odd hours.

Eventually the new member becomes a seamless addition to the family. Memories of “before so and so was born” take on a sepia, distant tone. We resume activities that require leaving the house, sleep times become more regulated, and conversation is more and more about the Life Outside rather than just about The Baby.  Then “baby” crawls. Then “baby” walks. Then “baby” weans. Then I fold the last diaper and pack it away.

My oldest two twitter on the precipace of a new chapter: adolescence. They do things on their own, like spend the night with friends. They read and write and Have Their Own Thoughts. I remember being their age with acuity; it keeps me from making light of what memories they are forming. They are beginning to have experiences that don’t have me in the scenery. When they need me, it’s often to “do stuff” or “get stuff”. Now and then I decide they “need” some affection and force a little kiss on their cheek. They both still let me read to them. But when I have to run to the store, they can stay home alone now. I don’t need to have my eyeball on them all the time or worry with a mother-to-a-toddler panic if they are suddenly “too quiet”.  Sometimes the best way I mother them is to let them have some space.

The day is coming when He will drive and so will She.  The trike will be rusty and the books will all have chapters.  How much will they need me? Or, maybe the question is, “how often will they need me”? And what will I do with the Time In Between?

What will you do?

I’m usually label-shy. I think labels are boxes and I don’t like putting people in boxes. But the label “full-time Mother” is a pretty broad one, or so I thought, and so I’ve worn it with pride. As we make this transition from one income to two, I’ve said frequently, “I have another full-time job”, because I consider myself to have *many* of those! Cooking 21 meals a week healthfully is a full time job! Homeschooling (if I were the one here doing it) can most certainly be a fully time job! During the summer, a garden and farmstead is a full time job (and one I cut when I took on first the business and then was handed medical issues to manage).

And so, when one is managing multiple full time jobs, one begins to cut corners where necessary. For instance, I’ll use paper plates and the house will get messy on weeks that have a lot of design work in them. I might order take out more than once. As stated above, when Wheaton was diagnosed, the first thing to go were the chickens, the extraneous puppies and kittens, and the garden was cut back. This year, Dad is doing most of the homeschooling. Educating and parenting can often have blurred lines but we are still keeping it “in house”.

And yet…there is a perception in existance that taking on a job that results in pay will immediately lead to *mothering* being cut! This surprises me more with the more thought I give it. That usually signals to me that it’s time to ruminate a bit on what I really think and challenge old ideas that may need revisiting. So that’s what I’m doing:

What really IS Full-Time Mothering?

I think until now (at least), I defined this for what I did and what I did NOT do. For example, I think of myself as a full-time mother because:

• I am with them for most of their waking hours.
• I am their primary source of food for the first two years.
• I birthed them.
• I taught them at least 50% of what they know (more?).
• I know all that goes into thier bodies and where it came from. In most cases, I also cooked it.
• I am the first person they see when they wake, the last face they see before sleep, and I’m here all day long for any need they may have.
• I’m here for a million little things, most of them unpredictible, but the stuff that makes up life

What I do not do (as of yet):

• leave the house without them daily
• have a babysitter
• bottle feed so I can “share” the responsibility of feeding babies
• work on anything “creative” (like a business) while I’m growing a person inside
• farm out their education
• persue personal goals outside of the context of family in large ways

All of this remains true. In addition, I work from home on a business that is non-homekeeping related. I don’t sell make-up or scrapbooking supplies or containers for your kitchen. I’m not my husband’s secretary. We do not sell curriculum to help you be a better homeschooler and there’s no pyramid scheme at work. And yet…the accusation that “full-time mothering” has ceased is there.

So what is “full time mothering” in your opinion? If I hire a babysitter for a few hours each week, am I still a “full time mother” in your estimation? If I use public school for their education, am I still a “full time mother”? Or do are we more comfortable as a culture saying “homemaker” in that capacity? If a “homemaker” contributes income, is she no longer then a “homemaker” in the strictest of senses? (Maybe that’s a question for the IRS LOL!). Am I a “full time mother” because I do all my own housework and laundry? If I get help with that, either in house or out, am I less of a “full time mother”?

I used to work as a nanny for a woman who’s children were in school all day and she had no job. I probably would not have considered a “full time mother” though she spent many hours more a week with her children than I get the impression someone like Kathryn Sansone does, who I also would not consider a “full time mother”. I think both women consider *themselves* to be “full time mothers”. Somewhere there is an invisible line I draw within my own mind, and I think others do as well, and I’m teasing out where that line really lies. Surely “full time mothering” is more than just the absense of a paycheck? Or is it?

My sister recently quit her job and came home to take care of her daughter “full time”. I’m pretty sure she’d say there’s a huge difference in her availablity to Ruthie now versus then, though she continues to earn a little money now that she’s home. I wonder if perhaps the contrast will remain greatest between those who actually leave the house to work and those who don’t. I think that camp of working mothers knows how much they juggle and generally tend to not even try to claim they are “full time mothers” (thougth I could be wrong, that is my perception; for better or for worse, there are various degrees of desire and conviction to ‘have it all’.) This nuance between those who are ALL at home, between earners and not-earners is what is facsinating me right now.

So let me hear it: what is “full time mothering” in your definition? Asking this question has led to other, follow up questions I’m asking, but I’ll start here for now.

p.s: to those who wonder *why* even ask this question in the first place, you may find this post to be helpful in understanding why the answer I arrive at matters to me.

Head lice….the mere name can get yer scalp twitchin ‘eh? Well, I’ve learned a thing or two about this pestilence and it’s rare that I hear anyone say anything that is actually Helpful about what it’s REALLY like to get rid of them. And there’s TONS of stuff online about lice so why is it so hard?

Because the lice of today are “resistant“. That means the OTC remedies have been so overused the bugs have learned how to survive them.

The first time we had lice was three years ago. It was late summer; “back to school” had just started for the public schoolers and my kids had public schooled playmates. I’d never seen a bug for real on my own before; I had lice once as a kid… my mom washed my hair with some stinky RID, combed my hair with a tiny comb, and the ordeal was over. I was at our homeschooling convention and I looked down at my then-baby’s head whilst he slept in the stroller. Brown lice bugs really stand out on a little red-headed kid! I packed him up, left the seminar that had just started, went to the drugstore and bought RID and washed his hair. My mom looked me over (massivly thick red hair is hard to search let me tell ya) and we washed my hair too. I got the other kids home, told the friend who was sitting them, and got everyone washed. I stripped beds, washed stuffed animals, and vacuumed carpets. I assumed we were done.

I was wrong.

What followed was over FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS of trying to get rid of lice. We tried every single OTC remedy. We bought new hairbrushes, pillows and bedding. I threw away all the stuffed animals except for their “lovies”. We treated our car. We treated our house.

“They” will say this isn’t necessary. Wash hair. pic the nits. change the sheets and wash in hot water. “They” will not tell you that in some kids’ hair it’s nigh impossible to get every nit manually picked. “They” will not tell you that the bugs are resistant to all the OTC remedies.

I finally called our doctor. He called in Ovide.

Now let me tell you….Ovide is seriously nasty toxic stuff. It stinks and will give you a headache. You will have every hesitation on using it upon reading the nasty possible side effects. But the endless itching of your head will drive you to try. The utter fatigue at having to face the top-to-bottom housecleaning you’ve done AGAIN inspite of the many reminders out there that lice aren’t about cleanliness or not will make you try just about anything. Our first bottle cost $100 and we needed two of them for a family of our size.

Two months after finding the first bug, we were finally free.

The next year we had just moved to Tennessee. “Back to school” time came and guess what? So did lice. We had no medical insurnace. I wanted to try a few new “natural” remedies I’d found online that were cheaper.

Mayonaise? Doesn’t work.

Olive and Citrus Oil? Don’t work.

Blow drying your hair every day? Doesn’t work.

Manually picking? Helps but won’t guarantee you didn’t miss a few. And all it takes is a few.

Cutting hair short? Helps with the above but won’t guarantee anything either. And boy howdy do I ever get suspect of short hair cuts in the fall…..

Hair gel every day? YMMV. Didn’t have any effect on us except to cause scalp drying, which made things itchier.

All of the products sold at Walmart, Walgreens, Rite Aid, Eckerd, What-Drug-Store-Have-You….DON’T WORK.

Sweet smelling organic remedies that promise not to be toxic? The lice will thank you for giving them a sweet-smelling home and decide to build an addition for their next hundred kids.

And so…this year “back to school” time came. Teachers, it’s my understanding, no longer send home notes with students warning parents “Head lice has been discovered…please treat your child accordingly” (which practice, ironically, is what likely caused the resistance in the first place). And homeschoolers ain’t talkin’. What’s true: A) You Got ‘Em SOMEWHERE and B:) It doesn’t matter where; no one is gonna say and you still have to deal. And I can tell you: “they” say lice can’t live off a body for long, leading one to beleive that head-to-head contact is the only way to get it. I think that hooey. “They” also tell you to clean everything in sight, replace or soak hairbrushes and hairbands (even if you haven’t used them lately), and my kids NEVER go head-to-head and get away with it. I say: lice are livin’ longer than you think and they travel farther than you know.

I found the first bug on one child, while it was still a glassy newborn. I called in for Ovide from our pediatrician and had the issue dealt with within 24 hrs. It cost $10 bucks…insurance now covers it. It’s likely that in a few years Ovide will also no longer work. Such is the toxic world we live within. But hopefully my kids will be beyond the ages that likely pick the critters up. If that sounds selfish, spend a few months scratchin’ your head, feeling ostraciszed and helpless, and then get back to me.

I’ve heard there’s another rx that changes your blood so the bugs won’t like to eat it and leave. I think that scares me more than Ovide. And here’s a “haa haa”: September is “national lice prevention month”. Gee….I wonder why.

The other day I wrote about life changing with the turn of a single sentence. Yesterday it happened again.

“Your son has Crohn’s/Ulcerative Colitis. There is no cure.”

So there it is. Thousands of ulcers through out his GI Track. Lots of options for management but nothing known to cure the disease. And so we regroup.

We’ll be in the hospital for at least another week, if not much longer. We moved to a different floor for long-term, maintenance type care; it has internet in the room so I’ll be back around these parts. We will likely need to address having 17 animals at home that need care, as well as living so far away from the hospital; plans will need to be analyzed and tweaked.

Living with something is better than dying from it as far as generalities go. We are blessed to know very happy, functional people who deal with this challenge. We’ve had great visitors and are in a place with resources. In some ways a new life is beginning.

I’m starting a new feature today as well: The Random Act of Kindness For the Day. As many days as I can (I’m oh-so-bad at 365 things consistently), I’ll share a small moment of kindness that impacted my day. Where they show themselves is sometimes so surprising and always blessing.

Onward~

If you’d like to read more about our journey to live deliberately even when life throws a curve ball, subscribe to my feed.

Interesting title? Today we are in the midst of getting ready for tomorrow…a very “not fun” process called “bowel prep”. I’ll spare ya the details. The last two nights have been almost completely sleepless (part of an upcoming post on being your child’s advocate to be sure) and I’m in a little bit of a fog. Doing funny things like pouring coffee on my salad instead of the chili right next to the coffee cup and walking away from the cash register without my debit card. I’m on auto pilot away from my element and life is a little rough around the edges for it.

I was getting my coffee this morning at the Starbucks that is right next door, drinking a few moments of sunshine while the nurse upstairs went through her morning routine with W. Here is this coffee shop in the middle of a college enviroment…everyone is a little lazy and relaxed; traffic is less than it was on the weekdays. The NY Times is nearby and smart people are hanging out on the porch, oblivious to the fact that there’s a whole ‘nother world one block over.  But I stood in a dusty sunbeam ordering my cup of brewed beauty and lo and behold Dave Matthews’ song Where Are You Going came on. I love, love, love that song on a normal day and on this morning, I felt a little jolt…a shocking kind of comfort of life on the outside and that in time, whatever legnth of time it ends up being, real life will resume again. One where I won’t be spending sleepless nights and hazy days in a disinfected, music-less building watching my boy try to be brave but rather will collect the heavy tomatoes off the garden vines, cook supper in the midst of a busy day, and referree fighting siblings and their many wars.

On the walk back up I remembered when Clara was in the hospital there was a respitory therapist who served as that reminder for me. He was a big, burly guy who had longish hair and a beard like some New England stalwart and was partial to creamy fisherman’s cableknit sweaters. He wore cologne. Every day this strong guy strode up to table looking baby beds holding teeny infants and he helped them breathe. And without knowing it, he had the same effect on the parents. The environment that always smelled of cleaners, latex, paper gowns, medicine, and occassionaly take out or old coffee, was now and then brightened by the tiny wiff of civility. One moment taken to splash a little on in the morning by someone who had no clue the effect he was having, served on more than one occassion to give me hope and perspective that the world we found ourselves in was not the end.

Strange but true. Little things matter; sometimes so much more than we could ever imagine.

I’ve had two really neat run-ins involving Ron Paul’s campaign since being here. On the day we got here I was honked at by a guy in a HUMONGOUS Hummer. He motioned for me to roll down my window and he said, “I LOVE your Ron Paul sticker!! Go Ron Paul!”

The next one was today in the Target parking lot. A mom with three kids, there to do her school shopping, stopped me and said, “Yours is the second Ron Paul sticker I’ve seen today and I don’t know who he is; can you tell me about him?” So I got to tell her all about his ideas, history, consistency, honesty….she’s a registered democrat and willing to change in order to vote someone like him in! I haven’t had time to go do homework while I’ve been here but David said he heard that Ron won both the Alabama and New Hampshire straw polls by a landslide.  Go Ron Paul!

If you are interested in reading more about living deliberately even when life throws you a curve ball, subscribe to my feed!

 Is good nutrition impossible in the hospital?

My little boy came in sick and dedydrated. The no-brainer was to start him on IV fluids. They opted for no food; he had been barely eating before that anyway but they needed his system empty for some tests. Two days later he was ready for “clears”.

In our house we stay away from foods with:

• high fructose corn syrup
• aspartame
• MSG
• carrageenan
• preservatives
• additives like colors
• nitrates and nitrites

At the top of the list of reasons we do this is our boys’ sensitivity to these nasties. From them, we see hyperactivity, impulsivity, reflux, vomitting, constipation, and headaches. What we know is that foods containing these things are “triggers”, allergy style, for Wheaton; a week with them as a steady in his life will make a very sick boy indeed. In the modern American culture it’s almost impossible to stay away from these foods but this week I’ve had a bit of surprise.

In buildings full of people with compromised health it is IMPOSSIBLE to get foods without these additives. My boy was ready for “clear” foods and liquids. This means jello, broth, popsicles, and juices.

• Every juice has high fructose corn syrup, aspertame, or splenda
• all the broth has MSG
• the jello also has hfcs, artificial sweeteners, plus a tons of dye
• the popsicles….. so call “fruit pops”  contain: sugar, corn syrup, high fructose corn syrup (THREE sweeteners?!), food dye, and carageenan.

Very quickly we realized that there was NOTHING he could eat on the entire hospital menu of “clears”. A very kind and sympathetic dietician worked with me to put together a list of solid foods he could try, per his home regimen (sort of…we don’t do canned veggies, meats packed in preservative-ladden juices and broths, or milk masquerading as “whole”) but all was in vain. One popsicle and he was “rejecting” again. Back to IV only and then a few hours later, “clears” again.

One FANTASTIC “village” friend (thanks Ms. Monkey Parade!) made homemade broth for him and jello made with juice. She got him popsicles that really ARE frozen fruit. I headed down the street to Starbucks and got him some juices sweetened without the nasties. So we’ve pretty  much managed to outsource all his “clears”. The doctor I spoke with today (incidentally one of those “exceptions” to my gastro-rule) feels we are looking at some kind of extreme allergies. It is tragic to me that it’s likely the very hospital environment that should make him better will not have the options necessary to provide nutrition while we investigate.

It’s a building full of SICK people and all we eat in the country is food that is pretty much a chemical soup? Oops…I’m forgetting chemical popsicles, chemical sandwiches, vegetable dipped in chemical sauce.  Doesn’t that sound healthy?

Want to read more about living deliberately even when life is throwing you a curve ball? Subscribe to my feed!

We’re in Children’s of Knoxville for a few days….getting fluids, repeating tests that haven’t been done in years. The new doc wants to start from scratch. Generally, telling me that the doctor who saved my son’s life was absurd is NOT the way to my heart, nor a good way to get things started off right. I’m no spring chicken when it comes to working around with difficult doctors though, and I’ve learned a thing or two about living with your child in a hospital environment. I’ve learned that it’s a safe stereotype that certain specialties seem to attract certain personality types; for instance, cardiologists are generally quiet yet articulate…surgeons are ambitious, optimistic, and adventerous, and gastros….well, gastros seem to be the rudest, most difficult to work with of the bunch, both to their under-staff and with parents. With all stereotypes there are no doubt exceptions to the “rule” but this track record has been so consistent in my experience that it helps me to keep it in mind when dealing with a doc who talks over me, doesn’t explain things, expects me to blindly trust her (soooo not gonna happen), but who is being quite aggressive with the treatment of my child, which is ultimately quite likely in our best interest.

So, from the Family Resource Room of one of the best-run childrens hospitals I’ve been in, here are a few tips from someone who has been there/done that:

• expect everything to take days. If you go in realizing this….that nothing happens over the weekend,  emergencies bump schedules, and that often a “productive day” is having ONE test run…you will be happily surprised if it goes faster. Be flexible and patient and usually the staff will respond favorably, getting you to the front of the line, offering perks, ect. Being easy to work with got me the free access code to long distance in one hospital; this time it means my already fantastic nurse likes to chat and that she seeks to help, rather than avoid, a room with a crabby parent.
• dress to be taken seriously. Really, life in the hosptial is it’s very own unique society. The “rules” are different for the most part. But there are a few things that remain constant: if you are dressed sloppily, keep a messy room, and keep glancing at your TV when staff comes in the room, you will NOT recieve the same intelligent service and respect you get if you are dressed in the morning, have run a brush through your hair, thrown away your take out containers, and folded the blankets. I follow this for regular doctor visits too: dress as seriously as you want to be taken. I’m not here just to let them run the show…I want stuff explained to me, I want them to pay attention to his history and neccessary precautions, I want them to know I am an involved parent who has done as much homework as I can to understand what they are talking about.  Like it or not, there is a bit of “look the part” involved here.
• make sure things are explained well. If they are not… ASK. They will have you sign stuff that says you understand; make sure you do. Sometimes tests are repeated unncessarily or are done more to cover the doctor’s behind than the need of your child…understand WHY something is being done. This is especially important if you have a difficult insurance company that very well may turn to YOU to get justification for an expense. The staff is there to do make sure you are educated as much as you ask for it….so do so.
• GET UP EARLY. This is a biggie. Doctors do rounds early…7 ish. And the nurses are switching shifts around that time. Usually you are going to see your nurse again several times that day. But the docs you may only get ONE shot at. Get up early enough to make yourself presentable (brush your teeth, get dressed, have some coffee) because when they stroll in for their rounds, you need to be ready. They will talk amongst themselves, leave a note for the nurse, and leave if you are sleeping through it or groggily glancing at them. Be ready to be interactive and you’ll likely get it.
• Eat as well as possible. This hospital has something I wished for but didn’t have in our other stays elsewhere: a family kitchen! Around the clock there is free hot coffee, a fridge for labeled food and groceries, an ice machine, and a microwave. Don’t succumb to the snack machines and try to live off chips and soda and candy….get sandwiches, fruit, and water. Oh, and another thing ETCH has…a parent lunch delivery. For 3 bucks parents can order a sandwich, fruit, drink, and snack to be delivered at lunch. This is a GREAT idea. It’s really hard if you are in here with a very sick child and feel like you can’t leave; having the food come to you is a big deal. But anyway…stay regular. Drink enough water. Take a walk. And eat as well as you can.
• Use the Child Life Services! This has been great in all three Children’s systems we’ve been in. She comes in with medical gear to explain proceedures. She has crafts. Bedside Nintendo. Art supplies. Games and Toys. Sibling helps. She helps keep the environment calm and respectful during proceedures like IV placement and such…can’t say enough good stuff about Child Life. It’s one of my favorite hospital recources.
• Being an in-patient gives you tons of access to stuff that is much harder to get on the outside. Use this to your advantage! Need a consult? Speak up. Want a test? Ask. Need a med? Ask. The entire process is much faster on the inside…use it wisely.
• your nurse is your gateway to information. I can’t remember ever having a “bad” nurse in a children’s hospital (labor and delivery is a different story LOL).  They are generally cheerful and friendly and if you are the same to them, they are extremely helpful. They have access to your doctors and can forward questions. They will look out for your interests. They know “insider” stuff. They really do have a huge influence on your experience (just like labor and delivery LOL) so again, don’t overlook them and be ready to engage in thoughtful ways.
• be aware of doctors working relationships. Even if they don’t all like each other, they are professionals and will defend one another. Be careful about complaining about one to another’s colleague. Be especially mindful if you are hopping from one doc to another within the same practice. If the flaws of one doc are something you can bear because the pro’s outweight the con’s, then do so. You need to be sensitive about knowing when to rock the boat and when not to.
• When someone on the outside asks, “what can I do?” have some practical answers ready. If they offer to bring you something, ask for fruit or healthy snacks to have on hand. Don’t forget you may need a headache releiver for fatigue or stress. It’s hard to get those on the inside if you are a parent so ask your visitors to bring it.
• if you can, land in a hospital near a college, like ETCH is next to UT. The resources are plentiful (wi-fi, take out variety, delivery, etc) just due to location. There are interns a plenty (motivated youngsters still willing to think outside the medical “box”) in hospitals like that/these.

It’s a stressful place where rest is hard to come by and decisions are usually major. But there are ways to lessen some of the strain. Even in the hospital, life goes on.

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*due to an upstream network issue, the site was down and had to revert to the previous night’s back up, meaning this post wasn’t saved (so happy for Google’s cache today!). It shows there were comments made but those were unfortunately not saved. Also, any email sent to me on Friday or Saturday has been lost; feel free to send it again: tia AT sixredheads DOT com.