The MD & Me | ~ my not so glamorous but oh so blessed life ~

- I fear I’m failing today…
  
  Posted at 10:54 am by Stefanie, on July 14, 2020
  
  Pretty sure I’m failing at motherhood today. This month? I don’t feel the best, upset stomach, but it’s a beautiful day so I’m out on the deck enjoying the sunshine and breeze. Eric is working, on-call actually, so it’s just me home with the girls. And since they don’t love the outdoors, they are both inside, one watching a YouTube video on the TV in the playroom, and the other laying on the couch in the living room watching something on Netflix on the iPad. Yeah, really great for their minds…
  
  So far today they consumed a billion snacks, as lately they prefer those over meals. Probably my fault, as I’m rather over their whining and lately tend to give in just to get a few minutes of silence alone. I know, not great. (How did they ever make it at preschool not eating every ten minutes??)
  
  I ordered a few school uniform items for Nora this morning, so accomplished something I suppose. In doing so though, I realized Nora isn’t the best with buttons… so finding shorts/pants/skirts for her was bit difficult. That also lead me to realize she can’t tie her own shoes. Or ride her bike without training wheels. She’s five. She should be able to? Are these things that kids just pick up on at some point, or are other parents actively sitting down teaching their children? I fear the latter. Nadia, three, can barely ride her tricycle, but I blame that more on her being a preemie and related to her sensory issues. She gets frustrated so very easily, gives up too soon, and maybe even needs physical therapy. God I hope not. No matter how often we go outside and practice though, Nadia continues to give up as soon as we’re on a slight upward grade. And forget steering. She looks everywhere but ahead. Have I failed her in some way? Maybe I decide tomorrow is the day she will learn. Does it work that way? We tried to raise Nora’s training wheels a bit but she freaked, so they are back down now. And I bought a balance bike everyone told me was amazing, but neither of my girls will even try it. What am I doing wrong??
  
  Posted in Motherhood | 0 Comments | Tagged balance bike, riding a bike, tie shoes, training wheels, tricycle
- Lactose Intolerance
  
  Posted at 10:43 am by Stefanie, on July 14, 2020
  
  Any readers struggling with lactose intolerance? I’m told it’s fairly common, more so in adults. And apparently rather easy to treat with a simple, over-the-counter pill.
  
  A few months I started drinking milk-based protein shakes, the same kind I mentioned in my post yesterday. I’ve never had a problem with milk, but oddly enough I felt awful shortly after finishing each shake, very bloated, gassy, really just extremely uncomfortable. For whatever reason I randomly tried a Lactaid pill with the first sip the next time, and sure enough, I felt much better.
  
  I tried to do a little research on my own, looking up the amounts of lactose in different daily products. For example, a stick of string cheese has very little, and therefore is usually easily tolerated by those who are lactose intolerant, even without taking a pill. But I tried that and I felt AWFUL. Last night we had corn on the cob with dinner and I put a bit of butter on mine… I felt AWFUL! How could I all of the sudden be sooooo sensitive to dairy??
  
  Even now, half a day after eating butter and I still feel rather icky, almost sick to my stomach. It’s making me wonder if it’s more than just lactose intolerance…
  
  Posted in Health | 0 Comments | Tagged dairy, Lactaid, lactose intolerance
- Morning Coffee
  
  Posted at 10:46 am by Stefanie, on July 13, 2020
  
  Those of you who consider yourselves healthy… what do you drink in the morning? I’d like to think I don’t need caffeine, but lets be real… If I want to get healthy I can’t also cut caffeine at the same time.
  
  I love Starbucks, specifically their ultra-sugary favored combinations usually featured as new each season. I realize these are horrible for me, as I’m learning sugar is really the root of all evil. I’ve tried to replace my morning Starbucks run with coffee at home, and to some extent it has worked. Sort of. I bought a cute little pour-over pot, shown below, and an electric kettle, also shown below, that I now use for everything, including watering my plants. (No laughing, it’s perfect for it!) Pour-over coffee at home proposes the same issue though, I don’t actually like the taste of coffee. So even at home I’m pouring a lot of flavored creamer into each cup, essentially making it as unhealthy as Starbucks. Although much more affordable!
  
  This morning I tried something new… I added a scoop of my favorite vanilla-flavored protein powder, shown below, to my coffee, instead of creamer. First let me say I really like this particular protein powder, the taste is really good with very little sugar and mixes in really well to water or almond milk. The same can not be said for hot coffee? Was it hot the problem? It tasted off, and the texture was interesting, to say the least…
  
  Any suggestions of what else I can try?
  
  Posted in Health | 2 Comments | Tagged coffee, cut sugar, healthy eating, pour-over coffee, protein powder
- Overprotective?
  
  Posted at 10:53 am by Stefanie, on July 10, 2020
  I haven’t written much, if really at all, about COVID-19, other then to say we’re at home, bored and losing our minds. Which maybe is strange since it seems to be the center of life currently. Why I haven’t written…? I don’t know, maybe because my thoughts and feelings related to it are all over the place, and change from day to day… And, they are just my thoughts. I read random different news articles daily, from all different sources, but as far as research, no, I haven’t done any actual research from a medical perspective, meaning reading peer-reviewed journals. I surely could do this research, but honestly, I’ve had other things on my mind with Nadia’s sensory issues and moving soon. So below are some random thoughts currently floating around in my head, in no particular order…
  - I’m sick of being home, even though I know it’s the safest place currently, as I see infection rates are going back up quickly in certain states and areas.
  - I’ve always thought my roll as a stay-at-home-mom was ill-fitted to my personality. I still believe that. I find it incredibly difficult to entertain my children at home, day after day after day. Especially when it’s very hot or raining, which the weather has been quite often lately. I hate sticking iPad’s in their hands, but I’ve been guilty of that lately more times than I’d like to admit.
  - I fear for my own mental health, as I struggled with depression and anxiety before the pandemic, and obviously more so since the start of social distancing. I miss doing things other than directly related to parenting. I miss my friends. I miss eating out. I miss it all.
  - I fear for my children’s mental health as they have very much lacked social interaction since March. My girls both struggled with separation anxiety before March, in fact, it took us many months before either would walk happily into preschool without me. I feel like we took a million steps back now… How will I ever get them back into school without tons of screaming on their part? And maybe on mine too…
  - I fear for Eric’s mental health as I know he is exhausted at work. I fear he will bring germs home, as in clinic he will routinely see 40+ patients a day. He’s back to performing both emergency and elective surgeries, but thankfully they only operate electively on COVID-negative patients.
  - The title of this post, overprotective, refers to how I’m feeling as a parent currently. I would say the vast majority, maybe 90%, of my mom friends here in my current city are acting as though the pandemic is over, or never started. Several refuse to wear masks due to “their rights as Americans” their words, not mine. A few even think the pandemic is a complete hoax, made up to advance certain political agendas. I do believe the media tells us only what they want us to hear/know about COVID, but as the wife of a physician, I believe COVID is real, and dangerous for all ages.
  - We were invited to a child’s birthday party tomorrow at a local gymnastics club. We aren’t going, and I feel like the other moms think I’m completely over-reacting by not attending functions yet. They assure me the club is cleaning extra well… but I don’t know, I just don’t feel comfortable yet. I don’t feel like the pandemic is at the point where it’s under control. But will it ever be?
  - Speaking of… I fear for the fall and the start of school, which is really next month already I guess. My feelings are very torn. I’m scared for the kids to go back from a medical, safety perspective… and for all the teachers and staff too, a lot of which are older. But on the other hand, my girls needs friends other than each other, they need social interaction, they need to learn, experience life outside this house… I realized yesterday that Nora (5) still doesn’t recognize all her letters and numbers. I guess my fault, I should have been working on them with her all these months. But after the bad experience with preschool over zoom last spring, I decided to just let the girls play all these months. And what about all the parents who work full-time outside the home? I stay home, I could theoretically teach the girls… but… I realize not everyone is in that position. Eric wants to hire a private teacher to come to our home and teach the girls this year…
  I have more to share, more on my mind… but I best go dream up some lunch for the girls who are getting rather moody…
  Posted in Motherhood | 0 Comments | Tagged COVID-19, mental health, school, social isolation
- July 10th
  
  Posted at 9:00 am by Stefanie, on July 10, 2020
  Wow, July 10th. I haven’t written in over a month. I have no idea how that is possible. The month of June somehow flew by, but yet each day felt like 17 years.
  
  June was basically the same as May, only hotter. We played in the pool a lot, see some pictures below, as we still aren’t going out in pubic. It’s been somewhere around 119 days in isolation. I keep saying I might lose my mind. Perhaps I already have. Today is especially bad, it’s near 100F so we haven’t been outside much… and they are obviously sick of being stuck inside. They fight. Nadia is quite physical. I feel like I keep pulling her off Nora. No amount of sending her to her room does any good. I suspect a lot of Nadia’s behavior is sensory related, more on that in another post, but regardless, we need to discipline. And I have no idea how, as nothing I have tried works. I know we can’t stay inside forever, but with cases rising again, I’m just not all that comfortable taking the girls out yet.
  In other news… WE BOUGHT A HOUSE. Eric keeps teasing me that it’s our annual real estate purchase, as we seem to move every one to two years lately. It’s a really pretty house, I’ll post a few pictures once we are moved in. We close July 27th but the movers don’t come until August 8th. I guess I should be packing.
  
  Nadia had her first occupational therapy (OT) session last week. They gave us a reoccurring appointment, every OTHER Thursday for 30 minutes. I’m annoyed. I don’t feel like it’s nearly enough time, as I can hardly tell them my concerns much less have them work on anything with her. I feel like they are just too busy to really give any patient the attention they need. Maybe I still need to consider another therapist in another nearby city. Nadia also has a speech therapy appointment at the end of the month. She was in speech, and actually physical therapy also, when she was younger, but I feel like she still needs some help with speech. She doesn’t talk much, although can, but sometimes she acts like she wants to say something but can’t think of the word. Other times she will make a noise or point for something she wants. We’ll see what they have to say.
  
  I can’t think of what else is new… since we don’t leave the house much. We did go to my sister’s house for the 4th of July which was fun, lots of good food! Otherwise, same old same old here playing LEGOs!
  Posted in Motherhood | 2 Comments | Tagged 4th of July, dream home, moving, occupational therapy, pool, sensory processing disorder, social isolation, speech therapy, summer
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- About the Author
  
  Stefanie
  
  Subscribe to follow my infertility, pregnancy, NICU, and motherhood journey. Outside blogging I enjoy reading, coffee, and long chats with good friends. I live in Iowa with my husband and daughters, Nora (5) and Nadia (3).
  
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