The weather is still in the 90’s.
The sun is still shining more days than it’s not.
But school starts in just 3 weeks here.
Right behind that is fall.
The summer is well past half over.
2013 is over half over.
Where did the time go?
I’m shopping for school supplies when just yesterday we were starting our summer reading lists.
Just don’t mention Christmas yet.
My heart can’t handle it.
I’ve been guilty of the “Take my kids – please” joke.
They can be so much to handle sometimes. Three of them, fighting, screaming, playing, appointments, school, being a teenager, being girls super close in age…
It all piles on into insanity sometimes.
So it’s to be expected that we eagerly let the kids go to their grandparents for a few days.
Or anticipate Denver’s week-long Scout camp.
I mean, they aren’t far.
It’s not a long time
But now.
This time.
It’s two weeks.
Two long weeks.
The teen is hiking through the mountains of New Mexico with Scouts.
He’s taking in views like this:
At 8000 feet above sea level.
Hundreds of miles away from me.
From us.
Two weeks.
A piece of my heart…
An annoying, teenage, piece…
A piece that is my first born.
It’s not within reach.
It’s a really sucky feeling.
I love that he’s doing something that might be once-in-a-lifetime.
That he’s taking another step forward in independence.
That he’s having a great time.
But a part of me aches.
And it will until he’s home again.
We don’t road trip too often in this family.
You’d think maybe it was because the challenge of entertaining three children of various ages was tough.
Or because on her first road trip, Molly literally cried the entire 9 hour trip.
All 526 miles.
Non-stop.
Never sleeping.
Just…Crying.
You’d think that was the reason.
Or the regular stops for the bathroom.
Or the frequent cries of boredom.
Why on earth don’t they play car games like I used to?
Or maybe the gas money.
These days that one hurts.
Still, is it any of those things?
Nope…it’s…
This guy—>
The loving husband.
Molly gets her wonderful car trip joy from him.
More than an hour in the car and poor Erik struggles to remain calm.
Go over three hours and he’s in trouble.
So we have to figure out the best way to run.
Especially since road trips are so much easier than flights.
*~*
It took a bit of finagling, but we found the secret formula.
For the kids, it’s a good DVD player, and lots of movies.
The boy gets his tablet.
A huge supply of homemade trail mix.
For Erik?
Comfort and lots of space to stretch out and just fall asleep.
Even if it means three rows of seats, the teen next to me, and Erik fast asleep in the very-way-back by himself.
It’s a magic combination.
A normal care doesn’t cut it…so we’re on the lookout for something better.
We’ve got our eye on a Kia.
I like the Sedona, but Erik is anti-minivan…so he’d rather have the Sorento (and I’m apt to let him).
So long as it’s got a third seat, I’m a happy camper.
*~*
I was selected for this opportunity as a member of Clever Girls Collective and the content and opinions expressed here are all my own.
In high school, and into what I (now jokingly) call my “false-freshman year” of college I dated a boy. A boy that I now look back in time and thing “What on earth was I thinking?” The dissection of that relationship is a blog post for another time and place, but needless to say, it wasn’t a great relationship to be in.
What aids me in that whole 20/20-hindsight thing is the new (to me) knowledge that my parents and friends couldn’t stand him. They hated him. Hated me dating him, hated him.
At one point I looked at my mother and said “WHY didn’t you tell me?” I got the counter answer that if she’d told me, it might have made me date him longer.
Not true, but still, I see where she’s coming from.
Especially now.
With my teenager dating.
With my son having a girlfriend.
He’s fifteen now. We’ve already lived through the heartbreaking loss of his ‘first love’. A string of very short-lived relationships, and now the one he’s in. It’s lasted some time now.
The husband and I, we have opinions.
We discuss his dating status, and his girlfriend.
But, much like other details and relationships in our life, we say nothing directly good or bad about her to his face.
We will listen when he actually talks to us.
We will try to give him un-biased advice to the best of our ability.
We will let him learn his own lessons.
Be they good or bad.
Because that is how you grow up.
Even if our heart aches every time his does.
Even if our joy at his is great.
Even if we worry.
Every day.
If we’re doing it right.
In the land of skinny genes, cystic fibrosis and oral aversions – we’ve got three kids rocking the low end of the growth chart. The words “Failure to Thrive” are bandied about on a regular basis and we are constantly checking little one’s diets to make sure they aren’t just getting calories, but healthy fats and plenty of vitamins and minerals too.
The universal consensus for adding all of these things to help my kids grow & gain weight like they should?
Doctors across the board have pushed us to full-fat Vitamin D milk. It’s all we’ve got in the fridge, and we go through 3-4 gallons a week between the kids and hubby.
Before this FTT world hit my life I knew so very little about milk because I wasn’t allowed to touch the stuff (still can’t) due to an allergy (allergy, not intolerance). These days I’m learning a lot about milk beyond my family’s obsession (seriously, the husband can’t stop drinking it)…because I like to know about what goes into my family’s bodies – especially if it’s meant to promote their health.
One thing that I love learning is how drinking milk is likely to help my own state and community. After all, Indiana is home to over 1200 dairy farms – 97% of which are family owned (and I’ve met some of those families). I was also surprised (and happy) to learn that most milk travels less than 100 miles from the farm to the grocery store.
Of course, the biggest thing I made sure to learn about and know really well is that both plain and flavored milk contain nine essential nutrients, including calcium, potassium, phosphorous, protein, riboflavin, niacin and vitamins A, D and B12. Considering my kids needs, this is of utmost importance. It means that they’re getting vitamins and nutrients that either they refuse to eat, or that their bodies are leeching from them.
And the only factor that matters to me, personally? Indiana – well, it ranks second in the nation for ice cream production. Because, I can only tolerate 1 serving of dairy a day…and you better believe it’s in the form of ice cream.
*~*
*Disclaimer: This post was sponsored by Indiana Dairy. This means I was paid for it, however all opinions are mine and true based on my own experience. You can’t pay me to lie about my family’s health…it’s too important to us all.
With my first child, I never heard of cord blood banking. It was around, but I was young and trying to figure out how I was going to do this whole parenting thing, and it wasn’t a blip on my radar. With my girls, this childbirth thing was old hat, although the larger family freaked me out and I was worried about finances and our small home and all the little details. In both cases I heard of cord blood, I researched it (kind of), and dismissed it. After all, my kids wouldn’t ever be sick. Denver was healthy as a horse (I thought), and my other two children would be the same.
Hindsight.
Now that I have two kids with Cystic Fibrosis, a very young niece with cancer, and have a much broader view of the world thanks to blogging, I wish I’d made that choice.
Through cord blood banking, you can collect and preserve potentially lifesaving stem cells, and doing so could one day save the life of your child or a blood relative. You can bank even more stem cells by collecting them from 2 usable sources of stem cell-rich blood: the umbilical cord and the placenta. This service is called Placental and Cord Blood Banking, and it’s available only from LifebankUSA. Whether you choose Placental and Cord Blood Banking or Cord Blood Banking alone, there are many important reasons to choose LifebankUSA.
There’s only one opportunity to save your baby’s stem cells for the future…
As an expectant parent, your baby’s health means everything. Right now, he or she is protected in the womb and will soon enter the world. There is a lot to think about and prepare for, but an invaluable step you can take when your child is born is to preserve his/her stem-cell rich cord and placenta blood The ability of stem cells to save lives via cord blood banking has proven successful for replacing abnormal or diseased cells, and treating life-threatening blood disorders such as leukemia, lymphoma, and myeloma. In fact, since 1988 stem cell transplants have been used to treat some 80 diseases. No, Cystic Fibrosis isn’t on that list – but I imagine one day it will be.
I’m done having children, fate and biology means my body is no longer able to have them, but if I could, I’d bank the blood. I recommend it to those I know debating it. Sure, the odds of illness might be small – but then as I’ve learned, you just never know.
Today, LifeBankUSA is having a contest, and you can win a SpaFinder Gift Card worth $200. Just head over to Facebook to enter the contest. It’s super easy!! (All those links, and the top image on the page will take you to the contest!)
And seriously, consider cord banking. It’s worth it.
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ABOUT LIFEBANKUSA
As the only company that offers cord blood, placenta blood and tissue banking — and the first to release placenta-derived stem cells for a successful transplant — New Jersey-based LifebankUSA is a technological leader that is pioneering key medical innovations in the field. Owned by the Celgene Corporation, a world-class biopharmaceutical company, LifebankUSA also operates a robust donation program and collects cells from anywhere in the US for use primarily in advancing medical research.
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*Disclaimer: This post was sponsored by LifebankUSA. I was paid for this post, but all opinions are my own heartfelt truth. I never take my children’s health for granted, and you can’t pay me to lie about it.
