Org Junkie's Monthly Organizing Round-Up!

Laura at I'm an Organizing Junkie is hosting a Monthly Organizing Round-Up, and she selected the dining room to focus on for the month of March. I just barely missed February when I learned about this great idea, so my kitchen will have to be disorganized until next year! Just kidding (sort of)! I actually was so inspired by the Feb posts that I've done several things in my kitchen (medicines, pantry, and drawers). It was so nice to be "invited" into someone's home to view their steps of organization that I just couldn't pass up the opportunity to do it myself. And my dining room needed it!!! Problem issues you can see in the before picture:

1. Children table & chairs that are beyond being able to clean. They're nasty!
2. Unused highchair acting as a storage unit.
3. Recycle center needs different home.
4. Art supplies need new (but close) home because we use them in the dining room.
   

Here's a close up of the recycling center/kid's art station. And I didn't stage that for the picture-we have actually been living like that! My husband had his half (recycling) and I had my half (supplies that I needed to get to in a moment's notice).

Here's the after shot:

I didn't even stage the flowers either! My dear friend, Christi, sent them to me this week because she loves me and knew I would feel loved every time I saw them! I'm so glad I hadn't taken my "after" pictures yet. Let's go through my changes:

1. The kid table and chairs went in the trash. I was going to replace it with this one from IKEA. But in the 4 days since I threw it away, my daughter asked for it 1 time (my son not at all) because they know they can do anything at our dining table that they could do at their table. Plus, this put us together for little things, not juts meals. Timothy sat by Dan while he read the paper. It was cool!
2. Unused highchair is in the garage in a designated area of things to give away. A charity is coming this Friday to take them. The highchair has not been used (as a highchair) for a while since I bought the Kaboost. This is my favorite product! You can see it in the picture under the chair on the far right. This product boosts the chair up, and now my little 2 year old is at eye level with us. It is so awesome!!! The KABOOST website is quite informative.
3. Paper, bottle, and can recycling center has been delegated to my husband. I'm not going to worry about it, but removing the highchair prevents him from being able to use the dining room!
4. I never really know what to put on the ground in the pantry. It seems weird to put food there. So as I was organizing that, I put my art supplies and play-doh (the items needed at the dining table) there. I also printed off clip art of what is in each box so the kids know what they're looking for. The kitchen (and pantry within) is just to the left of the dining room. Here is the before and after of that:

My long term hope is that I can put a buffet right under the window and house the art supplies, play-doh, and everything else for the dining room. That was not in the budget this month, but it's cool that I've already made the space for it when the opportunity arises. The ficus has been sitting in the garage (kicked out there due to a different living room arrangement), and I'm glad I brought it back inside.

Thank you, Org Junkie, this was so fun, and I look forward to many more months of organizing!

Big Girl Bed-Part II

Before Dan and I went to bed we checked on her, and she was sleeping soundly head on pillow. We pulled her covers up over her. We all slept through the night. If she cried, we didn't hear her! I woke up at 6:30 am and sat at my computer which is in the hallway of all our bedrooms to hear Baby Girl cry for me this first morning that she has freedom to get out of her bed. It was quite the sacrifice to read blogs in the name of being a loving mommy.

In about 10 minutes I started hearing little noises. I gave 5 more minutes, and then I opened her door. She was smiling big, and I think playing on her bed because she was at the opposite end as her pillow on her hands and knees. She's very into pretend play these days--sometimes she's a tiger, sometimes a puppy, and sometimes a baby. The first thing out of her mouth was what she says every other morning, "I want something to eat!"

So we made it through night 1 and morning 1. Yay!!!

Big Girl Bed-Part I

The first night:

So Saturday was a big work day for us. It was part "get the garage cleaned out" and part "get Samantha's bed out of the garage and in her room". We got the "garage cleaned out" part almost done, but didn't actually put the bed together until tonight. It was easy, and Sam had fun "building my bed". It is so nice to see a real bed in there and so weird to be in a house without a crib for the first time in 5 years. What I wasn't prepared for was Samantha's reaction!

She hated it! "I scared," she said. And I could see the fear in her eyes! But she's scared of a lot of things these days, and her cry is quite pathetic so we can't really go by that. I definitely knew that because of her resistance we would have to do it tonight or she would think she could do this every night. So here's what happened:

Plan A - I laid on her bed with her and read a book. She didn't want to lay down, and then cried as soon as the book was done. Mine and Dan's dinner was beeping, and I needed to rescue it (Dan was putting Timothy to bed) which made us ditch this plan...

Plan B - Give her benadryl, fill her belly, and make her so sleepy she can't resist the bed. I honestly can't believe I gave my daughter benadryl for this, but I've done way worse things as a mother so why obsess about that one! She ate with Dan and me (we were eating late because of putting the bed together, so we had already fed the kids). Timothy came downstairs to see what the "Sam out of bed" party was all about. With Timothy awake we moved on to the next plan...

Plan C - Do our bedtime routine on Sam's bed. Instead of reading 3 books, we read 1, but the goal was to mimic what we normally do on Timothy's bed. She asked to go to his bed, but we explained that because she had a big girl bed too we could read books there. She got to pick it out, but I made her lay down before I would read it. [Note: Big brothers are THE cutest. Timothy laid down by Samantha and immediately said, "It's gonna be okay, Sam."] We finished the book, Dan and I kissed her swiftly, turned off the light, and said "night night". By the time we got to the door she was standing on her bed, tears streaming down her face, crying "up, up". We both said, "lay down so you don't get hurt", and closed the door!

How evil are we? I'm a total "let your child cry" momma, but it is SO much easier when they are babies and when they aren't emotional. Timothy's only emotion was anger at that age, so it was hard to feel sorry for him. I totally felt like we just scarred Samantha for life! Dan and I stared at each other outside the door wondering how long we would really allow the crying to go on. For about 10 seconds (seriously, maybe not even that long) we heard a tortured cry of someone truly broken-hearted and maybe buried into her pillow because it seemed pretty muffled. And then silence-we haven't heard another sound since.

I honestly didn't prep myself for this at all. She has always loved going to sleep. Plus, she loves getting up and down "Bubba's bed" and our bed. It never even dawned on me that she would fight it. Hopefully, tonight was the worst of it!

How Do You Get Blood Out of Stucco?

The party turned boxing match at my next door neighbor's house Friday night resulted in blood being wiped and splattered on my front porch. Even though I am renown for my cleaning expertise, my skills fall short of getting blood out of stucco. Luckily we have a management company to clean those things for us!

Outback Steakhouse Giveaway!

I just entered a contest to win a $25 gift card to Outback. There are only 2 more days, so go on over to Promises Fulfilled, and follow the instructions! I guess a bright side to not having much traffic on my blog is that announcing this didn't decrease my chances of winning by very much at all!

Easter 2008

Make a scrapbook - it's easy!

Passion Week Posts

There are so many great blogs out there, and some really spoke to me this week as they posted thoughts about our Savior's crucifixion and resurrection:

The Inspired Room
CWO: The Cross Every Day
CWO: The Cross
CWO: He Is Risen!
Big Mama
5 Minutes For Mom
Ask Kari & Kijsa
Rocks in My Dryer
Adventures in Babywearing

The Cross

A couple of months ago I mentioned Jesus in a room full of people with all different religious affiliations. A man from that event spoke with me later and essentially told me that it was inappropriate for me to speak the name of Jesus there. He told me that other kinds of spirituality or a more generalized description of my god would be okay, but not Christ. This is not the first person I have met that is okay with generic Christian things like God, church, and morality, but offended whenever I start saying the name of Jesus. This man's willingness to confront me was a bit surprising, but his annoyance with my Lord shouldn't be. Scripture states this is how people will react...

1 Corinthians 1:17-24 (NASB):

For Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel, not in cleverness of speech, so that the cross of Christ would not be made void. For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. For it is written,

"I WILL DESTROY THE WISDOM OF THE WISE,
AND THE CLEVERNESS OF THE CLEVER I WILL SET ASIDE."

Where is the wise man? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? For since in the wisdom of God the world through its wisdom did not come to know God, God was well-pleased through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe.

For indeed Jews ask for signs and Greeks search for wisdom; but we preach Christ crucified, to Jews a stumbling block and to Gentiles foolishness, but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

The cross divides. It's hard to accept, but it's true. When we face the cross, we must choose to believe or deny what happened on that cross. Believing means that we admit our righteousness is like filthy rags (Isaiah 64:6). If we could be saved any other way there would be no need for the cross. He took the punishment we deserve.

Isaiah 53:5-7:

But he was pierced for our transgressions,
he was crushed for our iniquities;
the punishment that brought us peace was upon him,
and by his wounds we are healed.

We all, like sheep, have gone astray,
each of us has turned to his own way;
and the LORD has laid on him
the iniquity of us all.

He was oppressed and afflicted,
yet he did not open his mouth;
he was led like a lamb to the slaughter,
and as a sheep before her shearers is silent,
so he did not open his mouth.

Lord, thank you for enduring the cross.

Samantha

• She loves puzzles, and she plays with them. When she takes the animal pieces out of the puzzle she walks them all around making the sound they make and then puts them back into the board.
• She is quite verbal. I can have pretty much any conversation with her that I can have with Timothy, and it's not because he's on her level!
  
• She is extremely emotional (hormonal?) Some days she acts like the world is falling apart-I seriously wonder what kind of teenager I'm going to have on my hands. A couple of weeks ago she woke up from her nap in one of these moods. I started to put her sandals on her feet, and she said, "I don't like sandals on my feet!" I told her we had to go pick up Timothy from school, which she usually is excited to do. She said, "I don't want to get Bubba from school." I asked her why not, and as she buried her head into my chest crying she said, "I don't know!"
• She is full of energy. She runs everywhere, and that's not just when she's trying to keep up with Timothy. She loves swings and slides and climbing.
• She is so loving and huggy. She'll run from across the room, grab my legs, and say, "Mommy, I love you." It gives me goose bumps.
• She still loves her "teddies" and "bunnies" and all things stuffed. And she still sucks her thumb when she sleeps (and only when she sleeps). It's so cute, and I'm going to be sad when she gives it up.
• She'll be getting a big girl bed in the next month (she's been ready, but we're lazy to bring it in from the garage). I'm not worrying about potty training until after our big KS/TX trip in June. She'll still only be 2 1/2, and the last thing I want to worry about is accidents!
• She still adores her big brother. She repeats everything he says, and even though she doesn't have to be right beside him she always wants to have a good idea of where he is.

Timothy

I started blogging 6 months ago today. And I started off with an update of both kids. It seems 2 times a year isn't too much to make a note of where my kids are in life. Even just re-reading those 1st posts, I can see how much they've changed. So here goes:

• Never meets a stranger. He ran past Dan and me the other day to hug a solicitor. We have some learning to do in terms of levels of relationships. On the bright side, he is finally connecting emotionally to Dan and me. He likes for one of us to lay down with him and talk for a few minutes before he goes to sleep, and he will let me snuggle with him random other times as well. In true SPD fashion, he prefers deep pressure to light touch, but the fact that he'll let us touch him at all is amazing!
• He's reading! Mostly 3 letter words or words that are familiar, but he's definitely there. The best part is he really desires to read and tries to read anything he sees, whether it's a word he knows or not. We were warned that speech delays can cause reading delays, and we're happy to see that hasn't happened.
• Mr. Men Show is his favorite cartoon. There are about 20+ characters who are named based on their personality (like the 7 dwarfs). It's all about how these characters learn to get along with each other even though they are so different. I like that it shows him people who are different can relate and interact. Today, out of the blue (we haven't seen the show in days), he said, "Mom, Mr. Grumpy told Mr. Tickle, 'Not EVERYONE likes to be tickled.'" And I am one of those.
• He is extremely competitive. We are trying to figure out how to make the most of this part of his character right now. Any book recommendations would be appreciated.
• Obsessed with sports teams. He knows all NFL & NBA teams, and has most MLB, NCAA-B, and NHL teams down. He knows their city, team name, and logo. It's a bit frightening at times. How did he get interested in hockey? He likes for me to pull up a sport's website (nfl.com, for example). Then, he clicks on each team and studies their website. He will write down scores per quarter on his doodle pro and watch video highlights of the game-then come tell me who won.
• He has made up an "NFL teams" song/dance #. The tune is the same each time, and the lyrics are the team names. Example is: "Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Tampa Bay Buccaneers...they're pirates!" And the dance moves are a little different for each team (the Dolphins get some fish action with his hands). It's absolutely HYSTERICAL! We have to be really careful because it's serious entertainment to him. There is a stage at our playground down the street, so this has becoming a fun performing act there-and he's actually getting other kids to use the stage as well. If you turn the volume up really loud you can see some video of it here (we don't know why, but the Chargers have become the "underchargers"):

AWANA Grand Prix Finale

We made it through, and here are the pics. He was so excited about it. On the way there we chatted about the fact that the cars could be in all sorts of shapes. Timothy said, "Mine is a rectangle!" Yes it is. He thought for a little bit and then asked, "Can a car be a circle?" I said it could be an oval, can't it?:

There were some really cool cars, and thankfully there were also some cars like ours!



The class had to wait and wait for the race to begin. I don't know how the kids did it, but I got an awesome picture of Timothy during this time. I know I'm his mother, but he is BEAUTIFUL:



Here is his Cubbies class (some kids out sick):

During the first race a car got stuck about 2/3 down the track. Timothy was quite worried-this isn't a staged picture, that's what he did by instinct:

Timothy did cry on his teacher's shoulder when prizes were handed out for creativity (I was on the parents side of the room and restrained myself from running over). I couldn't blame him for crying. AWANA normally ends at 8:15 (already an hour and 15 minutes past his bedtime), and on race night it went 40 minutes OVER. For him to make it through the whole night only crying for about 45 seconds at the end is a huge improvement. Baby steps, right? I'm so glad I made myself do this. Timothy loved his first car race.

Samantha's CF Appt

As I mentioned last month, I am going to start posting something informative about CF the 8th of every month. I didn't forget this month-I just knew we had a quarterly appt on the 11th and thought I would wait 3 days so I could post about it. Here goes:

1) Lungs-so far they look good. The last time we were seen by the doctor was Dec, and I don't think we have ever gone the 3 months in between regular check ups w/o having to go in. I'm so thankful. As of right now, Samantha gets 2 breathing treatments of albuterol a day, with chest PT following each one. We're still using the nebulizer because Samantha is very uncomfortable with the AeroChamber. I keep trying it hoping that one day she'll suddenly be okay with it. The AeroChamber does the same thing as the nebulizer, but takes 10-15 minutes less time. That's huge when you have a starving child on your hands (can't have food for the hour prior), but she still prefers the nebulizer.

He told us that at our next appt in June he will order The Vest, which will take the place of chest PT and provide a nice rest for my weary wrists. The Vest is a vibrating life jacket that pounds the mucus apart. It's supposed to really make life easier, and I'll post about it in coming months. We were also told that Samantha has an "asthma" component to her CF which includes nasal allergies. She often gets what I've thought were colds, but the only symptom was a runny nose. And let me tell you-the ugliest runny nose you have ever seen. Well, those aren't colds. They're allergy flare ups. She is already on Claritin every day (has been for 6 months), but I'm supposed to bump up the dose if I see a flare up start

2) Digestion-What a road we've been on! Her first year and a half I thought we were never going to get her reflux under control. That's been good for a while now, and with daily doses of prilosec I think it won't be a problem anymore. Note: Excess acid in the stomach is bad because it makes the process of digestion harder and prevents necessary fats from getting through.

Dr. W added an iron supplement on top of the Vitamax that she currently gets. But our BIG news of the day is that for the first time in her life Samantha's weight has hit the 40th percentile. We are SO excited!!!! And her height percentile is around 35. Every time we started making some headway with her weight, she would get sick and not eat much for 2 weeks. We're not done yet, but we've really passed a milestone.

With CF patients the goal is 50th percentile because research shows that proper nutrition and growth has a direct effect on lung function. I thought for a long time they were 2 different issues that had to be addressed, but I've come to find out that controlling the digestion issue plays a big role on health of lungs later in life (there's a really scary stat about height/weight percentiles by age 3 & lung function at age 20). Let's just say I'm convinced she needs weight! I've recently started giving Sam a drink we have to special order that has 375 calories in 8 oz. Can you imagine? That's the calories of an adult's breakfast!! That's not her entire meal-that's just the drink!

We're so thankful for all your prayers and concerns. We always feel like everyone is so tender about Sam's disease, and we hope when you hear about how well she is doing it strengthens your faith and encourages you to pray about all kinds of things that God can do.

***Added after original post:

Response to Stephanie & Jill: They bring up really good points about their little ones. I have other friends with small children, too. Our doctor has explained to us that while another child is only failure to thrive if under 5% and that really anything between 25-75% is considered "normal", 50% is the goal with CF children because lung development is dependent on this (think the bigger the lungs are able to grow, the better the chance she has to breathe). Samantha would never be on the growth chart w/o enzymes & LOTS of fat in her diet, but because she can get those her weight percentile has a higher requirement than that of a child w/o CF.

Long term side effects of drugs: I don't know of any of the daily drugs she currently takes. Eventually Sam may need daily steroids, and while I don't know what they are, there are long term effects I'm sure. Her doctors use the same caution with antibiotics as any doctor would. I know one CF mom had relatives worried the child would die of heart disease instead of CF because of all the fat intake. But to die of heart disease there has to actually be a build up of fat in the arteries, and that just doesn't happen.

Quote of the Day

I'm always posting things Timothy says, so I thought Samantha was due. Our computer is at a built in desk in the upstairs hallway. When the kids are playing in their room (or mine), the furthest away from me they are is 20 feet. It's a bit more spacious than it sounds, but that's the truth nonetheless. So, Samantha was playing right beside me at the computer and decided she wanted to get something out of her room. She said, "Be right back," and as I started to say okay she said, "Don't cry!" We don't have self-esteem issues.