Motherhood

Hot & Rainy

by Stefanie @ The MD & MeLeave a Comment on Hot & Rainy

I’m over this weather. Either it’s 100F with 90% humidity, or raining, or both. I didn’t leave the house yesterday or today, so needless to say, I’m going a bit stir-crazy. Eric is on-call and has worked 13+ hours each day, physically at work. And then when he gets home he goes directly to the basement to dictate notes for several hours.

I was really, really missing Iowa City today. You know how we each have our happy place, where you feel relaxed? Mine, for whatever reason, is shopping malls. (Probably some deep-seated childhood issue, I don’t know.) Anyway, being it was hot as hell and raining today, I was really missing the mall in Coralville, right outside Iowa City. They have a Barnes and Noble with Starbucks for me, and a fairly decent, although very germ infested, play area for the girls. I know, it’s kind of sad when you miss a mall, but it’s somewhere to go on days like today. We don’t have that here. Our mall is 95% vacant spaces. Seriously. And no kid area. Ugh.

We did make it through the day though, and I even cleaned our master bedroom up a bit, went through some of my clothing, and made a donation pile. So a success on some small front.

Hopefully I find a way to get out of the house tomorrow…

Motherhood

All Moms Worry?

by Stefanie @ The MD & Me6 Comments on All Moms Worry?

All moms worry, right? My current list of (irrational?) worries:

  • How will I ever potty train Nora when she cries whenever I mention it?
  • Why does Nora already have two moles on her face? Can kids even get moles? Have I already ruined her skin with the sun?
  • Are Nora’s baby teeth already rotting from all the Pediasure she consumes? Why does she hate brushing her teeth?
  • Is Nora the only two year-old who still cries for a bottle?
  • Is Nadia not talking or crawling because I don’t give her enough attention?
  • Does Nora cling to me because I don’t expose her to other children enough?
  • What if I don’t find an awesome sitter for the school year?
  • Should I already be researching gestational carriers?
  • Does Nora watch too much TV and/or play with her iPad too much?
  • Should Nora be dressing herself by now?
  • Do I spend too much time on my phone when the girls are awake?
  • How can I keep this house better organized and clean?
Motherhood

A week

by Stefanie @ The MD & MeLeave a Comment on A week

I’m gonna say something that I know you’re all gonna laugh at… but hear me out…

I don’t have a sitter for the next seven days. A week! And Eric is on-call.

I know, I know. I’m a SAHM. I shouldn’t need a sitter. But seriously people, I suck at staying home. I love it and hate it, all at the same time. So I apologize ahead of time if I complain and bitch and moan during the next week.

Nadia had another PT appointment today. She SCREAMED the entire 45 minutes. Like screamed, tears, the whole bit. I assume the whole stranger danger thing, as she was fine once I cuddled her.

Oh… and I had my appointment this morning with the long-awaited therapist. Too early to tell if her and I will hit it off. She was nice, but didn’t say much, although I understand the first visit is all fact gathering and such. An hour goes so fast! (Unless you’re home with a whining toddler. Then an hour takes freaking forever.)

In other news, I posted an ad on care.com for a new nanny/sitter to start in August. I’ve received a few good applicants so far, but I haven’t investigated any of them yet. The task of such feels overwhelming. And when I think of hiring new sitters, I always consider ‘spying’ on them. So far I never have, as I don’t have a way, nor do I feel I really need to. Awhile back I posted about baby monitors and just today I purchased a new one to try for 15 days before I either return it or am stuck with it. The Arlo Baby camera has tons of nice features… and it’s internet based! I have them pointed at the cribs, so technically if I ‘check in’ during the day when a sitter is here I’m just spying on my kids, not the sitter. I mean, unless she’s in their cribs… I’ll update after I’ve used it a few days. This is my view…Screen Shot 2017-07-19 at 8.46.05 PM

Alright, Nadia slept pretty much not at all last night, so I’m exhausted. More tomorrow! I have a few ideas for blog posts coming, so stay tuned 🙂 I mean, I know you’re all on the edge of your seats right now. Hopefully not on the edge of your toilet. No one reads my blog from there, right??

Motherhood, Nadia

Speech Therapy Evaluation

by Stefanie @ The MD & Me6 Comments on Speech Therapy Evaluation

I left the speech therapy evaluation today very discouraged. They want to see Nadia weekly for now, which doesn’t really surprise me. But I guess I did expect to have a better understanding of the process and goals after our appointment today, but I don’t.

The hour-long appointment was mostly spent as an interview, the therapist questioning me based on Nadia’s skills. I didn’t feel like I had a lot to say, other than, she squeals and cries, and that’s about it. We know she can hear based on her last hearing test before she was released from the NICU, but the therapist recommended another, which is fine, I’m totally not opposed to such, but I find it odd they want Iowa City to do the test… Again, fine, we are there all the time, but odd to me. Don’t they do hearing tests here??

The speech therapist seemed young, I’m not sure how much experience she has… She talked a lot to Nadia, to which Nadia basically just stared at her, or screamed and looked to me for comfort. And when I say talked to Nadia, I mean she made over-exaggerated sounds emphasizing the use of her mouth and lips, lots of motions with her hands, lots of expression, etc.

Our homework for the next week until we see her again:

  • Speak as much to Nadia as possible using lots of expression, lots of mouth movements, etc.
  • Mimic Nadia’s sounds back to her, giving her a chance to ‘take her turn’ to aid in the teaching of back and forth communication
  • Work to teach Nadia the signs for ‘more’ and ‘all done’
  • Repeat basic sounds, such as da, ma, and ba to Nadia over and over and over

I’m not at all opposed to teaching Nadia some simple sign language, as even Nora knows some basic baby signs, but I guess even the mention of such scared me. It made me wonder if the therapist fears Nadia will never speak… She did say that Nadia clearly has a voice, as she uses it to cry and such… I don’t know, just brought back a lot of fears for me, all the horrors of the brain bleed and lack of oxygen at birth. Is this all my fault? I’m so busy with Nora, Nadia doesn’t get nearly the attention Nora did at this age. Do I not work with Nadia enough? What am I doing wrong that Nadia needs speech and physical therapy, and Nora will probably start feeding therapy soon? I feel like everything is hitting me at once. I thought I was so lucky with my two preemies, that they were doing so well… I don’t want that to change. And all these appointments are wearing on me. The speech and physical therapy needs to be on different days, as they wear out Nadia and thus she doesn’t perform well at the second appointment of the day. And I can’t take Nora along, so once she starts feeding therapy that will be three appointments added to our list a week. I guess the bright side is I don’t work, otherwise I’d constantly be requesting time off.

Motherhood, Nora

Nora – 28 Months

by Stefanie @ The MD & Me2 Comments on Nora – 28 Months

My baby is 28 months!!! Hopefully one of these days she’ll slow down, use less energy, and gain weight, as she’s still only 23 pounds, with clothing and a wet diaper. Or perhaps the feeding therapy will help. I expect a call from our pediatrician tomorrow with the referral. Nora definitely has her terrible two moments, but the sweet kisses before bed make all the headaches so worth it!

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Motherhood

Another Sunday

by Stefanie @ The MD & MeLeave a Comment on Another Sunday

Do you ever just sit and wonder what everyone else in the world is doing right now?

Studies show those who browse Facebook often are actually more unhappy with their lives than those who don’t. Well, according to my betterhelp.com therapist… Apparently Facebook allows us to compare our lives with others, thus making us feel inadequate. I’m fairly certain I don’t need Facebook to tell me my life is a little dull!

Saturday (yesterday) we ventured out into the steamy weather to check out a BBQ festival. It wasn’t spectacular, but it wasn’t awful either. Food was good. It was just soooo humid. Nora had fun with her perper (purple) dog balloon and Nadia managed to sleep through the very loud blues band.

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Today (Sunday) was even more exciting! Just kidding… We walked through an open house, which was very, very pretty. It didn’t wow me though. It had a lot of neat features, is in a good neighborhood, etc. But… I don’t know, I couldn’t picture us living there. It felt like a house for a family with older kids, or no kids at all. The entry was terribly cramped and the master bedroom was odd-shaped. Maybe I’ll find fault with every house we see, I don’t know.

After the open house we stopped at Old Chicago for lunch. Thank goodness it was rather late in the afternoon, the place was fairly empty, therefore no one for Nora and Nadia to annoy 🙂 Most of the meal was spent watching Nora give Nadia kisses. So sweet!

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So that was our weekend… Please tell me yours was more exciting!!! Tomorrow afternoon is Nadia’s speech therapy evaluation. I’m nervous… Her physical therapy is going well, I guess. The therapist always says she’s doing so well, but often I feel like the encouragement is just to keep me from feeling bad. Nadia still isn’t crawling, although she is pivoting quite a bit during tummy time, so it’s a start I guess. I’ll let you all know how tomorrow’s appointment goes. Wish us luck!

Other random updates:

  • Remember the Rodan + Fields Reverse Brightening system I was using on my face? I recently went to see my dermatologist for my every six-month skin cancer check. While there I asked him about the product. He said it’s amazing, if you have dark spots and uneven skin tone. He confirmed my skin is beautiful (his words, not mine) and therefore the reason I’m not seeing any results is because I have nothing for it to correct. So there you have it folks… I’m not sure I completely agree with him, but I’m going with it for now!
  • Still in the research phase of opening a Goddard educational childcare franchise. Can you believe though, that Eric is actually quite interested in the idea? I was totally shocked myself, especially since I already broke the scary news to him, the total expected investment. We need to finish filling out the franchise application, review the investment profile and contracts, and we obviously need a lot more information from the franchise team… but so far, it’s not a no from Eric.
  • Eric saw a patient in clinic, who just happened to have a horrible case of bed bugs. Don’t even get me started on how terrified I currently am regarding the possibility of Eric bringing these home. He made sure to limit contact, dispose of his scrubs, and they even called in a specialized team to fumigate the office, but still! Talk about occupational hazards!