Dad

Not so long ago there was a little girl who loved her dad. The little girl grew to be a woman who loved her dad even more than she thought possible. He was her hero, her inspiration. She watched his body fade away a little at a time until the time came to say goodbye. Through all the trials and heartache he is still her hero.

Love you Dad. I miss you every day.

Caffeine

I have been without caffeine for 9 weeks and counting.

For a long time I kept telling myself that I needed to stop drinking pop, but I could never bring myself to take  that leap into the unknown. Then one day I tried to take my wedding ring off, I couldn't get it off! For seven years I have been afraid of losing it because it has always been loose. I didn't even have to take it off during any of my pregnancies. That day was the day I said no more. Now, I can't say that I quit right that second, I had to finish the Pepsi I had already purchased, but the next day I quit cold turkey. I didn't ease into it, I just quit. NO MORE POP! To be completely honest, I have had a couple stomach bugs in the last few weeks and had Sprite, but that's it.

The first week was the hardest , because I was in the habit of dropping Noah off at Preschool and getting a LARGE Fountain Pepsi. Let me tell you, there is nothing like an ice cold glass of Pepsi. I had to tell myself every day "NO, you do not need a Pepsi, drink some water." Then sometime into my second week of no pop I realized that I hadn't thought about getting a Pepsi as soon as I woke up, YAY!

I FEEL BETTER NOW! I was almost to the point of making an appointment to get blood work done. I couldn't stay awake, I felt like crawling back into bed after just getting out of bed, I did the minimum that it took to function, it was horrible. I was having the same symptoms that I had while I was pregnant with Brianna and had a low thyroid. In my mind, all of signs were pointing to a low thyroid again.

I am SO glad I quit drinking pop when I did. I have more energy, I don't feel like I need to go back to bed within hours of getting up! I even have enough energy to start exercising (that's for another post), something I haven't done since I started having kids.

 Weeks have gone by and still no Pepsi! Do I still have cravings? Absolutely, but I have discovered other things to replace that oral fixation that I had with Pepsi. This may not be the solution for everyone, but it's what worked for me.

P.S. - If you are wondering why I didn't just switch to diet pop, the answer is been there, done that. The results were not good, I ended up with a severe bladder infection from the diet pop. I wasn't even drinking the caffeinated kind. I was drinking the no sodium, no sugar, no caffeine kind!

Note: I am not a medical professional, this has just been my personal experience.

Bedtime

I LOVE bedtime.
I ADORE bedtime.
I NEED bedtime.
This means that at 8:00 the house is quiet. There are no more fights to break up, no more noise or no more interruptions.
(Of course it is almost 9:00 as I write this post and here comes Nathaniel wanting something to eat! sigh
I'm not very good at following routines, but 8:00 bedtime in our house is a must. I get cranky if I don't have quiet time (haha). Lately, it seems like bedtime keeps getting pushed back later and later. WHY? You ask.
Her name is Brianna and she wants to go to bed when her brothers should be getting ready for bed. What do I do? You ask. I turn on the TV and tell them to be quiet while I put her to sleep in her room, which happens to be right off of the living room. sigh
A little background on our bedtime routine, my boys can't tell time, although Noah is starting to. (Insert interruption to sit with Nathaniel) Anytime between 6:30 and 7:00 I start getting them ready for bed, PJs, brush teeth, etc. Then I read them two stories, they each pick one. After that, we say family prayer and either myself or Ben sit with them until they fall asleep. Voila, asleep by 8:00. (Insert interruption to put Brianna back to sleep) It's not perfect, but it works for us.
It's time to reevaluate and regroup. I'm not sure what changes will be made but it should be interesting.

Oh yeah, can you tell Ben put the boys to bed by himself?