Teeth, intimidation, hype, LDS moms, shaping up, and summer

• Little Fiala is sick.  The doctors warned us, when she got RSV earlier this year, that we needed to be careful, as even a simple cold can wind up in her lungs.  That appears to have been correct advice, because she’s had a little cold twice since having RSV, and we end up having to put her on the SVN/breathing machine because she labors so to breathe.  She came down with muck on Friday, and it seems like the worst of it was yesterday.  So, bless God she’s improving.  I just feel badly for her.  😦
• She’s also teething another tooth.  In early April, she cut the bottom central left and right incisors, just like “normal” babies.  Then, last week, she cut her upper left lateral incisor.  Now, this morning, I notice she’s cut her right central incisor.  My girls just teethe out of order, I guess.
• My friend Lori let me know that an old friend was interested in contacting me.  She’s a now a lawyer.  I wrote to Lori:  “A lawyer? Golly.   I get intimidated by women who have professional careers.   Seriously.  I absolutely love what I’m doing, and have no regrets.  I don’t feel like I took some kind of wrong turn and wound up as a homeschooling SAHM.  I’m totally doing what I want to do. But, OTOH, I feel badly that I never finished college and have to fight feeling like a loser around professional women. Ugh.”  I’m not soliciting, “You are not a loser, Karen!” comments.  I promise.  I’m just bein’ honest.  (Hi, Chrissy!!)
• Hype.  It makes me mad.  Like, really upset.  Propaganda.  It’s why I’m so slow to jump on wagons of various colors, no matter what’s inside ’em.  I want to make sure something’s worth my while, and it’s not just a scare-tactic, or a fad, or whatever.  Societal pressure.  I will always resist.  There was a blog post I read today that had wrong — just totally incorrect — information on it, and there were 40+ comments on it, with 95% of the responders ready to jump ship based upon the wrong information.  Ugh.  Bugs me.  So, I posted a comment as a reply to someone who pointed out the errors, agreeing with her… but then I feel like a heel, like I’m just being an argumentative jerk.
• What does giving birth feel like? Wow.  Great post, FANTASTIC comments on a brilliant blog — that of a woman who now has her doctorate, and has birthed two babies at home, one unassisted, and who mostly blogs about birth and pregnancy.  Love, love, love the comment from “man-nurse.”  Awesome.  I commented, too.  I don’t usually comment on blogs whose posts typically generate 20, 40, 100 comments each.  It just seems like I’m always late to the party, or never got the invite, like it’s a clique for which I don’t quite qualify.  However, on Rixa’s blog, I can’t help myself;  I’m frequently compelled to comment.  Hers is seriously the best natural child birth blog out there that I’ve found, and there’s a lot of ’em.
• One other thing, only vaguely related to the above bullet (since Rixa is LDS) — and this will likely offend, though that is sincerely not my intent.  It’s this:  I have serious mixed feelings about LDS/Mormonism.  There are many factors of the religion itself with which I vehemently disagree.  However… I have observed that many Mormon women are… how do I say this?  Actively preserving and celebrating the loveliness and power of womanhood, wifehood, motherhood, and usually with a natural, handcrafted bent.  I live in an area that has a high Mormon population.  It’s likely that if I see a sweet family with well-groomed children and a sane mother and a doting father… it’s a Mormon family.  Several families on my boys’ baseball team this spring were LDS, and I so enjoyed talking with one of the moms (mother to four boys).  The LDS moms with whom I’ve had even a bit of relationship — even if it’s just chatting every time we both have our kids at the neighborhood park — seem to be proactive in providing the best they can for their children, in being industrious, entrepreneurial in ways that don’t disrupt family life, supportive of their husbands…  You know… all that Proverbs 31 stuff.  Well, they’re actually doing it.  And, it’s nice talking to women who don’t give me the extremes of either, “Five kids!  You’re a saint!  You must have such patience!” or, “Five kids?  Don’t you know what causes that?  It was an accident, right?”
• I am on a mission to get back in shape.  Soon.  😀  I have only twice in in my life been on any kind of diet.  (For three months I did a Body for Life challenge with my husband about eight years ago, and then I did about 10 weeks of South Beach diet when I was pregnant with Fiala.)  I actually weigh less than I did before I got pregant with Fiala, and the same as before I got pregnant with Audrey.  But, the weight now seems to have become distributed in a less kind way.  I’m not fond of stuff pudging over the top of my waistband.  Ugh.  Plus, I just don’t feel totally healthy.  I have some weights, a step, and The Firm DVDs, and I’m planning on using that.  I’d rather get out and run, but it’s really hard to do that consistently.  I’ll go back on South Beach, which is basically how I eat now, but a bit less of it, and with absolutely no refined sugar.  ~sigh~  The only thing I’ll really miss is chocolate.  I have a semi-sweet chocolate chip addiction.  Anyways.  I plan on starting on Monday, which is the first official day of Real Summer for the family.
• Speaking of summer, it’s so funny — I had to remind the boys at the breakfast table this morning that now that summer is nearly upon us, that I expect them to play outdoors before they do their chores!!  😀  Seriously.  They need to run around and be loud.  They need “green therapy” among the grass and leaves.  But when you live somewhere that reaches 100° by 9:00 in the morning… well, you have to get a little creative about fitting that in.  I am SO NOT into them vege-ing in front of the TV all summer.
• I usually have our summer vacation planned by now.  I don’t.  Actually, I checked into the one place I really, really, really have wanted to go camping for the last three years now.  It’s in central California.  Guess what?  It’s closed.  It burned last fall.  😮  What a bummer, all the way around.  We’ll have to figure something else out.  I really, really, really 😉 want to go camping, but my hubby groans about the labor involved.  However, camping is a LOT cheaper than even staying in a cheap cabin, like we did last summer, so maybe he’ll be swayed over to The Camping Side.  We’ll see.  I love planning our family trips.  🙂  No matter what we decide on, I always LOVE planning.  I adore the hunt and anticipation of finding the right spot for us.

It really is a small world after all. (The new friend.)

OK, so maybe it’s a bit premature in calling her a friend. But, I’m hopeful. 😉

In the dentist’s office on Thursday last week, I got into a little conversation with another waiting mom.  Turns out she has three boys and one girl.  The ages of her children are almost exactly like my kids, minus Fiala.  She is planning on homeschooling all her kids in the fall.  (I feel so badly — I cringe! — that I laughed over why you can start, finally!  That was awful.  Awful.  Please forgive me.)  She’s a Christian.  She lives relatively close by to me.  She has a blog on WordPress.  And, in talking with her, she has a diagnosed wheat allergy, that, from what I can tell, sounds like undiagnosed celiac disease.  Wow.

Divine appointment, surely.

Cool, eh?