TILT--Glee Soundtracks

The latest things I'm loving are the "Glee" soundtracks. I asked for the CDs for Christmas (volumes 1 and 2), got 'em both and they are my go-to music right now. (Now if only I could get my 4-year-old to let us listen to something other than Christmas music in the car!) In fact, I've just been listening to volume 2 while folding my huge pile of laundry. And now I'm listening to vol. 1 while I type this.

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I love these kids. Lea Michele (Rachel) was born for Broadway (and I believe she's spent time there already); Amber Riley (Mercedes) could give Beyonce a run for the money; Chris Colfer (Kurt) belting the high notes in "Defying Gravity,"* I love you! Some of the songs are old favorties of mine like "Imagine" and "True Colors." Others I'd never heard of the original but I love the Glee version like "Take a Bow" or my new fave "Bust Your Windows." I even like their cover of "Lean of Me"--I have always hated (gasp!) the version that was a hit when I was in junior high (don't strain yourself, I'm 35).

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Confession time: I love to sing and was in choir the bulk of my life (we're talking 7th grade through first year of law school, oh yeah baby, a capella in law school, I was one cool cat) so I totally love choral arrangements, harmony, falsetto--this is my thang.

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Other favorites:

Don't Stop Believin'

Somebody to Love

Keep Holding On

Don't Rain on my Parade

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All this is not to say I love every song, there are several I skip, but these CDs are tiding me over till the show returns in a few months. (April can't come soon enough!)

For more things people love, head over to Diaper Diaries.

Good News and Bad News

Went to L's GI today. Good news: all three poop cards tested negative. Basically, he's been eating whatever, including wheat, chocolate, lollipops, so that's great. Wondering if the underlying condition is gone, she wants to do another endoscopy. Woopdedoo, gotta love putting your preschooler under anesthesia. Also, if the EE has cleared up, that will confirm that L's refusal to eat is behavioral rather than physical. I think we already suspect that, but nevertheless, it will be good to check on his esophagus and the number of eosinophils in an endoscopy.

If the endoscopy is clear, she thinks we might need to go to Wisconsin (!) for two weeks (!) for intensive feeding therapy. :-o Yeah, on whose dime, cuz that will surely cost an arm and a leg. Specifically, $2500 deductible for the medical stuff and another $2500 or so for travel (air and hotel). Makes me wonder if we're better off continuing the local therapy that is $2500 deductible followed by 80/20 coverage.

She also wants to repeat the swallow clinic we did almost two years ago. This also evaluates the behavioral/developmental aspects. Another woopdedoo, that's a day-long event at Children's Hospital.

Usually, I leave these appointments feeling refreshed--we're not along, we're on the right track, at least he's healthy, and so on. Today, not only am I daunted by the medical stuff ahead, but I'm feeling abandoned on the physical side and being pushed toward behavioral. Not to mention, I want to blame them for causing his fear of food and reliance on formula. But of course, that's not their fault, and the formula saved his life and sustains him to this day. How the heck did we get here??!!

Yet she did say we aren't alone, this often happens that kids who were avoiding foods because of EE have feeding issues and need these interventions. And she totally empathised with our billing problem and the exorbitant cost of therapies from her personal experience. I had no idea her son is in therapies and wouldn't have imagined she doesn't have better coverage when dealing with her own hospital!!!

So endoscopy and swallow clinic ahead. And L may or may not have outgrown EE. And we need to grow a money tree in our backyard.

Edited to add: When I told hubby the above, he quickly figured out we can't afford the endoscopy. Between the deductible and 20%, it would be about $3300 out of pocket!!! On the other hand, had she thought of this at our last appointment in October, he could have had the endoscopy before the end of the year and it would've only cost us the 20% (because the feeding therapy fiasco had fulfilled our deductible). Poop! So we have to figure out if and/or when we can have his endoscopy.

Pity Party

I feel like crying. We see L's gastroenterologist tomorrow and so it's like all our troubles are in bold face tonight as I think about what to talk about with her tomorrow. He doesn't eat! Anything! Ever! It's so frustrating. Former favorite foods, we beg him to take just a couple bites. It's this grand ordeal, we have to ask him constantly "What's your next bite gonna be?"; we will feed him ourselves (he is four-and-a-half for goodness sake), this morning I was sticking blobs of scrambled eggs in his mouth with my fingers, we routinely stick a banana in his mouth. This is absurd! But if I were to put an Eggo waffle on his plate, he'd probably eat the whole thing. He loves bread products but he's allergic to wheat and when I buy the wheat-free equivalent he thinks it tastes funny. Out of desperation, we just let him eat whatever he wanted for about a week, including wheat products, but then he said his tummy hurt and we're like oops, so we stopped.



As a refresher, L doesn't get hives or other histamine allergic reactions. Instead, with the EE, his white blood cells attack his esophagus causing irritation and bleeding. But it's been so long since his poop has tested positive for blood, we're (that's us and his doctors) wondering if he's either outgrown his allergies or even the underlying condition--which is why we were willing to let him eat wheat for a week.



So once he said his tummy hurt, we stopped all wheat and made a hemoccult card of his poop. (We have three poop cards to take to the GI tomorrow, though none are an official food trial--because he will not eat any of the new foods we want him to try.)



So I'm frustrated that L isn't eating. First, there's the calorie issue. If he drinks all of his bottles, which he typically does, he is 250 calories shy of what he needs to maintain his weight. 250 calories--that's not much, yet I doubt most days he's reaching that. Second, we all want to be expanding his diet and that means food trials. To do a food trial, we have him eat a new food every day for at least a week, then test his poop on a hemoccult/guaiac card. So if he won't try anything new, we can't do a food trial. In the past, we've gone down the list (from the allergist) of the next food he's supposed to try. If he wouldn't eat it plain, we'd puree it and hide it in one of his baby foods. Gross, but it worked. Well, he's too old and smart for that now. So what I've been doing is when he is willing to try a new food (as happened with mandarin oranges last summer), I turn that into a trial--mandarin oranges for a week, then test his poop. Now hubby and I are constantly putting anything and everything on his plate hoping something will click and he'll try it, like it, and we can do a trial. But one night he'll be willing to try a pinto bean, and the niext night he won't touch it. It's been going on like this for months. We have the most success with fruits, but right now we are desperate to find proteins he'll eat, because without proteins, he will never get off the formula.

We tried feeding therapy this fall and it was a financial/insurance disaster that I won't detail here. Long story short, we only got 3 sessions (that we'll be paying off for the next century). She helped us getting L sipping his Neocate (that's another long story for another day)--we're hoping to build on that toward getting him off the bottle, but we see now that will be a very long road. But she didn't have enough time to "break him" (her words) so he'd be willing to try more foods. So we're nowhere on that, though we'd like to find another feeding therapist that's cheaper, but we know from looking into this before that few feeding therapists do what we need.


So that's where we are and what I'm thinking about tonight.

Resolution Post

It's that time of year again, everybody's thinking about Resolutions. Well, all of mine last year failed miserably, so I've only got a couple small aspirations this year.

1) I am going to try to be friendlier. I think I'm a pretty kind and caring friend, but I tend not to be friendly to strangers, acquaintances, fellow preschool moms, whatever. I'm not rude or anything, just introverted and shy. So I'm going to push myself to be more outgoing and hopefully I'll start to notice moments where I could be more friendly and I'll go that extra mile.

2) This past year I was horrendous about thank-you-notes. I got an entire year behind! So I'm going to try very hard to be prompt with thank-yous so I don't get behind and thus overwhelmed. (Not off to a great start, I've yet to write a single Christmas note.)

3) I want to try to figure out a way to get back to church. It's very hard with two kids and there are various "issues" with the churches around here, but number one we just have to make it a priority again--we got out of the habit and we need to fix this!!!

Meanwhile, inspired by Tip Junkie, I've been thinking about a "word of the year" and think I've finally decided on ASPIRE. I was thinking about goals like: do better, try your best, make better choices, be deliberate with my time, work with purpose, be a better wife, be a better mom. S0 I think "aspire" sums up this goal to try to do better and be better in 2010. There you have it, Happy New Year!

Blitz-It Friday

Here's what I accomplished in 45 minutes yesterday:

-emptied the dishwasher

-loaded and started the dishwasher

-409'd the counter

-folded and put away the towels that were in the dryer

-moved clothes from washer to dryer

-swept under T's highchair

-washed L's plate and T's highchair tray and the pan we used at breakfast

-sorted the paper pile on the kitchen table and put stuff where it belonged

-409'd the table


Later, over the course of the afternoon and evening, in spits and spurts, I was able to get all the photos out of my camera (140+ pictures from the last month or so), onto my computer, deleted the red eye, and uploaded to the internet. I still need to make a slideshow for friends and relatives, but I'm getting closer to checking that off my list (and moving on to taking Christmas photos, and making photo calendar gifts, and so on!).

For more blitzing and organizing, head to Organized Everyday. Thanks for stopping by!

TILT--Melamine Plates

A few years ago, I realized I wasn't getting much use out of my various serving trays. I have several, most were wedding gifts, but they were big and I never entertain or if I do, it's just a small group, and never formal (so the really nice silver trays have never been used). So for casual entertaining or just celebrating at home, I love melamine plates. Melamine is just a sturdy plastic, I think it looks nice (more substantial than cheap plastic) and I don't worry about it breaking. It comes in tons of pretty patterns and colors--I can always find them on display at Target for all the different seasons etc. And the dinner plate size is much more useful for me than a big tray, not to mention cheaper--I generally find them for $3 or less. Love that! So here's my collection so far: I bought the black and red ones at the same time, the turquise plate and bowl together (I know this is a post about plates, but I couldn't leave out my matching bowl), and then just the other day I picked up the round one at Target--I couldn't resist the colors. And not pictured is a "cookies for Santa" plate we use on Christmas Eve.

I think I've used the turquise stuff every Easter since I bought them, the colors go well with the spring pastels of the season. I used the round leafy plate the other day to put my birthday cake on. So even though I don't do much entertaining, these plates are nice for family celebrations. And they make me happy. :-)

For more things people love, check out The Diaper Diaries. Thanks for stopping by!

Menu Plan Monday

For the first time ever, I am joining in MPM on orgjunkie.com because a) I planned my meals this week and b) I would love to win the slow-cooker book. Just a note: you may have noticed I have a food-allergic son, he does not eat these meals. I cook for my husband and me, L eats his own approved foods and T, well she's a baby and eats mostly finger foods. So here's what hubby and I are having this week.........

Sunday: sausage pasta bake

Monday: steak

Tuesday: burritos

Wednesday: curry chicken crockpot

Thursday: burgers

Friday: leftovers or brats

Saturday: Mexican grilled chicken

Sunday: roast chicken

It's possible the steak won't be defrosted in time for tonight's dinner, in which case we'll switch with Thursday and do burgers.

Thanks for stopping by. To see what others are eating this week, check out I'm an Organizing Junkie. You can also click around my little (work-in-progress) blog here. To learn more about my family, you can try this post. Or you can see more of my organizing efforts by clicking on the "organizing" label in my sidebar. Thanks!