my road to finding "me" part 1

i dont know that i have ever sat and said this is me, im this or that. but if i had done so in the past i know that it has changed drastically since i married, since being married to a soldier, since growing up, becoming a mom to a son, becoming a mom to multiple sons, and even more so to medically fragile child and special need children to begin with.

i cant even begin to describe in words most days. in highschool (this is the only "before" i can really relate to, as i married out of highschool)i was shy, not outgoing, would be considered a conformist i guess, i never did anything to make myself stand out, never wanted the extra added attention. let me also say i still dont do anything out of my new "normal" to draw attention. i married my highschool sweetheart 6 days before he left for basic training for the army, this was pre-9-11, we werent "at war" there didnt seem to be an impending war approaching, at least not to me, i never watched the news, i knew very little to nothing about other contries, i had lived in the same house in the same small town, gone to the same school my entire life. my life was stable, it was comfortable.

after being married and after basic training we learned we were to move to Germany, a country i knew nothing about, thousands of miles away from my family, my friends, my life. i left on a hope and a prayer that this was the right decision. we lived in Germany for 3 years, 1 of those years i HATED it, i HATED everything....i was still a child, and homesick! we had our first son shortly after arriving in Germany and it started to grow on me, this was "home" i met some friends and began to enjoy life. then 9-11 happend, our world was shattered. we were "at war".

Harold quickly deployed to iraq, the first deployement was about 7 months long. i stayed in Germany, afraid to go home, afraid to leave my new home, afraid he may never come back home. little did i know this was only the begining of our deployments, our seperations. Micheal was about 15 months old when Harold came back from iraq, suddenly life was normal again. at Mikey's 18 month check up they told us his fine motor skills were lagging behind, as well as his speech, he seemed pretty "normal" to me and i was in denial i guess. they had us fill out some questionairs and they assessed him some more, i was then told he had Sensory Intergration Dysfunction, now called Sensory Processing Disorder or SPD. i had no idea what this ment. for us it ment a few months in speech and ocupational therapy in Germany and that was the end of it. i wasnt accustomed to the internet much,didnt "google" it, didnt learn anything more than what i was told that day. it really just didnt seem like that big of a deal. so what my kid couldnt stack blocks, or hold his spoon, he walked into walls alot, he fell...he was clumsey! so what if he only knew 10 words by the time he was 2, he was cute as a button and soooo smart with electronics, he could work the vcr, the tv, the dvd player and computer...he wasnt "behind".

then one day right before he turned 2 years old, just a couple weeks before we were to leave Germany and move back to Texas, Mikey had a seziure! i had NEVER before seen one, i was alone in the apartment when he had it, we had no phone, as we were about to move, i was young i didnt know what to do, i scooped him up automatically and raced down a flight of our stairs to the nearest neighbor at home, whom i hadnt met and begged to use the phone. i called Harold and he raced home, we took mikey to the ER where he had 2 more seziures. we were quickly taken to the German hospital and admited. for about a week we were in the hospital waiting to find out WHY and WHAT was going on. in the end, Ear infection was the cause...his fever spiked really fast, not really high though, just fast, and sent his body into a febrile seziure. we were sent home with antibiotics, however we had no "home" at this point, we had already cleared, or rather, Harold had already cleared the apartment and given the keys up, we were in a small 1 room hotel until our flight out of country. mikey continued to have seziures every couple of months when his fever would spike fast, each time we were told he would probably never have another, each time he did. he finally "grew" out of them when he was about 4.

since moving back to the states, we kinda put the whole Sensory processing disorder on the back burner, there was alot going on, with the move, finding a new home, getting situated and accostomed to our new life, and i thought mikey had pretty much outgrown this. "he was quirky" i would tell my mom, he would line cars up in one direction and knew if you moved even one of them, he didnt like to get dirty (worked in our favor for potty training, he trained in 1 week with cloth underware) didnt like the way certian foods felt, the grass, bubbles in his bath, water over his head...but hey, we had no one else to compare this to...he was "just quirky" he loved to watch things spin...hotwheel cars, fans, sippy cups rolling on the floor...

abortion

i was told it was an option, many times the doctors informed me, asking and waiting as if my answer would change.... my answer remained the same. it isnt an option. its not my choice to choose not to give life to this baby inside. its not up to me to decide if he lives or dies. the odds of him making it thru the pregnancy arent good, and his prognosis if he does even worse, quality of life deminished, still i stood solid by my answer, NO.

i prayed silently, i prayed loudly, i prayed daily for a miracle, and everyday i wake up and see that miracle smiling back at me. it was never an option, never even a question in my mind. the answer was simply NO.

rainy weather blahs

well we have been getting lots of weather and lots of cold weather, really not to fond of either of these. in fact i pretty much despise them both at the same time. but what can you do? for me, i suffer from S.A.D. as well as generalized anxiety and depression, the lack of sunlight is a real bummer. i tend to want to lie around and do nothing, i find my mood is a bit more aggitated and snappy. did i mention i DONT like this kind of weather? too bad we are looking like we will continue this way thru the week.

wordless wednesday

leave it to the army,

DH is just a few days away from leaving for BNOC in Georgia, he will be gone for just under 2 months, we knew this was coming but it still stinks! he will miss Chance's 5th birthday, he already missed his 4th, he will make it home in time to do a combo birthday party for mikey and chance, so it wont be the end of the world, but it still sucks. however the part that made my heart hurt was what he told me yesterday, apparently sometime in the summer the unit he is in has discovered they will be "top readiness" basically if anything happends in the world they will be some of the first to go, luckily in our wonderful world NOTHING ever happends {rolling eyes} so im expecting he will be gone pretty much from the get go in the summer, thru probably sept, they are suppose to deploy still at the end of the year, so this year should be fun. sigh. just venting a bit

so far so good

well ive been doing alot of thinking about the resolutions i made, and i know many of these just get tossed aside normally, but i really dont want them to, so im doing everything i can to keep these going strong.

for 1 i bought at kohls, the awesome shark steamer pocket, this thing rocks! it steam cleans all sorts of things, sinks, mirrors, stove, cabinets, deoderizes and kills bedbugs in the beds and couch, it also sanitizes the things we clean with it and releases wrinkles from clothing....it does ALL of this with water...well steam...but NO chemicals!

today i gave up sodas, i dont feel the need to pick one up, so hopefully it stays that way, not only will this help(i hope) with weight loss, but it will also help keep my immune system stronger, and help me stay healthier, the chemicals in sodas, its awful! so day 1 with no sodas, im trying to maintain a challange going on right now about eating from the pantry, i did need to buy lots of produce and things to help with the new eating habits, but i do want to try to eat much of our old stuff from the freezer and pantry instead of wasting this month. once this challange is complete i plan on eating much less processed foods, eating more homemade items. id like to do more freezer cooking, where i cook meals ahead of time so that they are "like" frozen meals.

needless to say i have many goals for me and the family this year, we will be healthier and happier and hopefully more green and more frugal.

welcoming 2010

well Christmas has come and passed, hard to believe we are embarking on a brand new year already. Christmas was wonderful, Santa was VERY nice, and went a bit overboard in every aspect, but thats okay, this was our FIRST christmas together at home since Zach was born, christmas 2007 was spent in houston at texas childrens hospital, 2008 the boys and i were home but Harold was in korea, so it was VERY nice to have everyone home. especially since Zach was hospitalized only 5 days prior, we got very lucky that he was released after only a day's stay. i think its times like that that remind us not to get to comfortable with our health. not to take it for granted.

Zach was taken to the er on sunday morning with a 105.5 fever, he was then hospitalized, the flu test they ran came back positive, so they were treating him for the flu and pnemonia (once he was released and we had a follow up we learned much different news) at the follow up his pedi informed us the backup test done after the rapid flu test was negative, so zach didnt have the flu, he also didnt have a new case of pneumonia...but looking at his discharge note we learned he DOES have an infection, his white blood count was at 20 thousand, but no bacteria was found in his urine or his blood...once again zach was throwing us for a loop. the same day we had a ENT appointment, the doctor had NO bedside manner, never took in consideration ANY of zach's other health concerns, but wanted to immidatly do surgery on his ears to release the fluid and pressure, said that could be the cause of his infection. with this information we went for a second opinion, have an appointment on jan. 7th, im sure he will need tubes, but we needed to have a doctor who works with zach's other specialists, such as his pulmo, cardio, etc. and so we needed to put the surgery off for a bit. he has been a trooper though and hasnt let it bother him much.

Christmas was very nice, we woke all the boys up about 730 and opened gifts, mikey and chance got loads of nerf gun stuff, some wii games, light sabers for wii, light sabers just for play, some transformer stuff and star wars lego stuff. Zach got a small ride on car, some small toy/rattle type things, a wooden sound puzzle, and a vtech story book musical toy, DH got a tool box, a shirt, some fishing stuff to get him started, and a xbox 360. i was also very pampered this holiday (ill bask in it until the credit card bills show up. lol) i got a brand new high speed camera with a extra lense, filter, carrying backpack, an awesome foot spa and a cool mudd purse, for my birthday (yea got the gifts early) i got a awesome burts bees collection of 25 items, and a beautiful wooden cross.

like i said santa went overboard, but i think it was kinda trying to over compinsate for not being together last year. it was worth it.

the new year is approaching, ill be 28 in a lil over 3 days and in 4 days 2010 will be upon us! i have lots of hopes for this year,
~the health of everyone in the family, especially Zach
~get more finacially stable
~more organized
~more quality family time

some of my resolutions are
~ eliminate as many chemicals from our daily lives as possible
~eat less processed foods
~ cook more meals at home
~ work out more at the gym
~ loose weight
~ give up sodas
~ eat less sweets
~ in general, help me and the family get healthier