Tonight will be calm!

It better be :) This week has been pretty much non stop so far!

This post is LONG. Really long. But the important part is:

Today is my mom's birthday- Happy 33rd birthday Mom!!! ;) ;) :) (hmm, wait, that can't be right... Oh well :) ).

My mom still got up early and came to my house to keep Emma and Micah so I could run Brianna to preschool and Mike could take K to school and go to work himself. This saves me a TON of child-maneuvering in the morning 2 days a week!!

So after running Bria to school I gave E a bath and then packed her and Micah up in the van and went to Wal-Mart to grocery shop and buy some other essentials like toothpaste for the kids... More on the actual purchases later because that's actually something new too (well, not the toothpaste... :) ).

I put everything in the car and looked at the clock to see 11:10. Just enough time to run and pick up Brianna. Then I sat there for 5 minutes without being able to get out of my parking spot. There was a car pulling in to a spot behind me and over 1 or 2, but it pulled halfway in and stopped. Then he started waving at who knows what. I kind of think it may have been at me- since I'd put my car into reverse as he was pulling in, but I quickly took it out of reverse and waited. And waited. And waited. Finally he drove off instead of parking... Now it was 11:15. I pulled out of Wal-Mart and thought through the next step in this adventure of a day and realized that I couldn't pick up Brianna without going by the house first! I'd made sure to pack the van with only the cold and frozen foods behind the stroller (the rest were stashed in other places in the van including behind the wheelchair) so that I could just drop them off at the house after getting Bria and then go up to the church to have lunch with Mike-- but I also needed the stroller to get Brianna! I couldn't get M and E out of the car without it AND get B back out to the car...

So I dropped by the house (which is thankfully on the way) and ran to grab the wagon. Threw all the cold stuff in, ran to the house, threw it- bags and all- into the fridge and freezer (so glad a good person packed my groceries because they were nicely separated--- then again I would have separated them as I put them in the car anyway, but it was nice!). I poured a quick container of milk, grabbed 2 bottles w/ nipples and top rings and then I closed the garage and headed to get Brianna from school, only getting there about 2 minutes late!

From there we went to the church and I called Mike, I went to the office to find him, and I finally gave up and went to the cafe. I started mixing Micah's bottle and realized that I didn't have thickening with me... but I DID have some in the car! A friend was nearby and stood with my 3 while I ran and got it then finished mixing M's bottle and put milk in the other for E.

By that time Mike showed up and we bought our lunches. H was about to sit down when it was time to get K so instead he went and picked K up. Then back to eat, spend a few minutes together, and we were off again.

Clean pants for M and E when we got to the car- after all, we'd been RUNNING and it was time! and B had been changed at school so she was good. We got home, tucked 3 little people in for naps (which two actually took... B is in a stage of revolt!) and I got online to catch up on e-mails from RR folks.

Then... no, of course it's not over yet! Then the phone rings. Now, on Friday of last week our insurance company called and said they wanted to enroll me in the healthy pregnancy plan. She said it would take 5 minutes to get the info she needed and I said I'd have to do it later because I was literally loading kids in the car when she called. Then my mom told me that Monday she'd received the same call. I had a message on my cell phone from Monday as well. My house had a message on the voicemail on Tuesday. Yesterday Mike answered a call from our insurance and it was automated (the others were all 'live') but he hung up on it, not knowing it was our insurance company (yes, I should have just answered the phone.. but I was tutoring...). Not sure if that was the same call or not. So today, I finally said OK! and I let them ask me the questions.

I don't really care about giving out some personal info, though I'm sure half of what they asked was certainly unnecessary. Regardless, I really felt bad for the man on the other end of the phone that was having to ask all these questions! You could hear the hesitation in his voice as he said the word "vaginal birth" and asked about any difficulties I may have had with this pregnancy... seriously, he listed each out including the body part they may be affecting and as I said "no" to each one it was almost like he sighed with relief! LOL He asked how I planned to feed the baby and choked out the word "breasfeeding" to which I answered 'yes' and he proceded to tell me about how breasfeeding has all the nutrients a baby needs for..... blah blah blah and then offered to get me in touch with the La Leche League, etc. I really think this guy is in the wrong profession. I felt bad for him!!

So we finally near the end of the call and he says "since you have said you have a heart murmer one of our nurses would like to talk with you and address any concerns you may have with this during pregnancy." Sure, ok, whatever, I know they'll call me 20 times if I don't do it, aparently...

I get transferred and it doesn't work, he tries again, and again. Then someone answers the phone and says she's pulling up my file, just a moment... and then... she begins to ask me the SAME questions I just answered for the guy!! She added a few in, but still, a majority of them were the SAME! I wonder if she was just confirming the info they have (since it was already 10 minutes old and maybe my weight height and ethnicity have changed...) or whether she really didn't have it. Hopefully after 2 tries it's all there and good tho! I'm waiting, this entire time, for her to say something different or to say something about the heart murmer. Nope. Nothing.

Finally she says she's done and best of luck with my pregnancy and gives me the same set of phone numbers the guy had given me. I didn't dare ask why I did it all twice or I was afraid she'd send me to a third person to do it all again! My telephone tells me I was on the phone for 12 seconds shy of 30 minutes. YIKES!! So much for a 5 minute call??

That's been my day so far. E and M are sleeping and B and K are playing. I guess I should be glad there was only one kid climbing on and falling off of chairs while I was on the phone for 30 minutes. Goodness...

Ok, about the shopping trip. I decided about 2 weeks ago to take red dye out of K's diet (you know that effect that red kool-aid has on kids?? :) ). Among MANY other things, this one is one that I know affects all people differently and I thought I'd try one thing at a time. I really would rather not have to alter his diet, but it was obvious this past weekend that his amount of sugar also directly relates to his behavior. We already knew this but it was just more amplified on Friday last week. I also know there is a strong reaction often times to BHT which is a preservative used in many packaged goods but especially cereal and today I learned it's also used for chicken nuggets!

While shopping I bought foods that contain no red dye, no high fructose corn syrup, and no BHT.

I also bought some of our 'regular' foods, but even things that we take for granted- BREAD, for instance, has high fructose corn syryp in it! I bought potato bread with just added sugar (not HFCS) and even more peanut butter and jelly because both that I have at home (found them on the shelf and checked) have HFCS or red dye in them! New PB, new jelly, bread that's "safe", and even tho I bought the chicken nuggets, they're on the 'no no 'list for this coming week. I bought snacks like crackers and goldfish that don't have any of those ingredients and some fruit bars and other snacks along with fresh fruit and applesauce- no sugar added...

Starting with Breakfast tomorrow, Kristopher's diet will have no HFCS, red dye, or BHT for (I think) 10 days. I don't know if that's really long enough to see any sort of results, but I think it's long enough so that if we don't notice anything major- when he goes back ON those things we may notice the difference that it had made... I hope that makes sense.

We'll see how it goes. In a way I hope it helps him to be able to focus a bit more and control his impulsiveness more. And in a way I hope it makes no difference whatsoever because I really don't want to have to spend the extra time (looking at every label), energy (not going out to eat or picking up take-out!), and expense (those foods without are each $0.50 to $2 more than their less-healthy counterparts...) to do a different diet. But its worth a try and even if we decide against changing K's diet (and maybe all of ours? but right now just K's...) then we will likely try it again in the future if we need to.

Any advice? Other things you recommend? I'm NOT trying a gluten or wheat free diet unless forced to! LOL WOW that's in EVERYTHING! But these two things seem like they probably will also take out some of the other 'junk' that's in the same types of foods which we might not have noticed or chosen to remove.

As a side note, I think a lot of the behavior is called "4 and 5 year old BOY!" but I still want to see whether there is a way that we can help him and if a change in diet is the trick then we'll do it :)