Singin' Songs of Spring

I learned a new word ... new to me, anyway. Not carnivore or herbivore, but 'locavore'; it means eating only foods grown locally.

The next four paragraphs are health updates for three family members. Skip them if you're not interested. :)

Iowa's health insurance program for children has been such a blessing for us! We have gotten both children to dentist appointments in the last few weeks! It was Justus's first time (eek), and Natasha's second. Because of time constraints, we had to schedule another appt. for N the following week for the dentist to put sealants on some of the deepest grooves in her teeth. When we went back for her second appointment Justus said, "I wish I could go back there again." When I asked why he replied, "Because it was fun!" The view out the windows of the dentist office from my childhood is woods and birds. The view out the windows of this dentist office here is of Copper Creek Lake! Very, very pretty, and relaxing. Happily, the staff there is excellent.

We also were able to take our children to "Well-Child Check-Up" appointments with doctors! N's was last week. She is still 75th percentile height and tops the charts in weight. (sigh) There was little to actually "talk" about ... no concerns. The doctor told her that with the amount of vertical growing she will probably be doing in the coming couple of years, if she stays active she could end up gaining relatively little weight in the next few years. The doctor confirmed, practically word-for-word, lots of the things we talk about in this family about whole grains, fruits & veggies, exercising every day, limiting 'screen time', drinking lots of water, etc. ... basically just the whole thing about making healthy choices as often as we can, and living a life of balance. So it was fine. I always get scared with strangers because I know one of these days Natasha is going to hear/see things that could negatively affect her body image (skinnier = better ... at all cost). Jeremy and I work hard to keep our own and our children's body images as healthy and accurate as possible.

At Justus's appointment today we learned that there is something up with his eyes. This is surprising because we've never heard or seen anything to make us suspect something is amiss. The doctor's eye checker machine is like the one you look into at the driver licensing place: the seven lines of letters are bigger at the top, smaller toward the bottom, and there are three vertical rows. For each line the nurse asked Justus to read, he read only 2/3 of the line and then stopped. Many times she prompted him ... in many different ways ... and always he said, "No, there aren't four more letters," or, "No, that's all there is on that line," to the point that toward the end he was feeling as frustrated as the nurse looked confused. She said, "Let me cover your left eye and have you read Row 4." With his left eye covered he can see the whole line. pffffft---- So what's up with that??!! She said, "I don't know what to make of this." I said, "Neither do I," and went straight home and scheduled an appointment with an optometrist; the appt. is a couple weeks away. We also will have an appointment with a pediatric audiologist regarding J's hearing. This is more for my peace of mind than anything else; I just want a hearing test done because ever since Justus could speak he has been a mumbler. BAD. It is a major frustration almost every day. Nothing we do to instruct, train, encourage, punish, beg, etc. seems to get through his head that no one can hear him well. All day every day he is asked to repeat almost everything he says. Since this wasn't a problem at all with N, and since we know that in their speaking children imitate what they *hear*, I have wondered for the past four years if his hearing is off, at least somewhat. Obviously it's not life-changing, just an annoyance really at this point; however, if there is a relatively simple way to figure out if something is *WRONG*, we need to take advantage of that sooner rather than later.

Jeremy has been very sick this week, more sick than he has been in a while. It is a respiratory virus, we now know, thanks to a trip to the VA's clinic/ER/hospital on Tuesday evening (I canceled out of Ladies' Class to go with him; that was the third event we canceled on this busy week.) I convinced him to go only because of the white spots on his throat ... which I was convinced meant he had strep; I remain surprised that the tests were negative. His heart rate and blood pressure required an EKG we didn't expect; it came back fine. Jeremy's respiratory and heart rates are always high; I've often wondered if it's just because he's such a big guy and/or if it has to do with his years of smoking. Don' know. At any rate, he and I had a nice time up there together (... being entertained by mad veterans :\ ). Too bad someone has to get sick before we can have some quiet, dull, pleasant hours together. -- an ongoing frustration with different solutions constantly being sought.

Since that was Jeremy's first time up there, they had to 'get him in the system', so he had to answer 500 questions. Two of his four answers related to the Post Traumatic Stress Disorder questions concerned them enough that they had a VA Psychologist's office call us that very next day to schedule an appointment. I told the girl that Jeremy and I had talked it over and decided that at this point we really don't think his symptoms are affecting our day-to-day life much at all, and that we would prefer to keep their phone # handy in case that changes. She gladly obliged me. :) Next up for Jeremy is an appointment with a Primary Care Physician. Jeremy, who hasn't been to a "Well Adult Check-up" since Marine Corps years has a few things he'd like to discuss with a doctor. "That's nice."

Without a doubt, a lot of Jeremy's health problems seem directly related to stress ... always have. Some steps really need to be taken to either reduce his amount of stress, or figure out how to better-manage the inescapable stresses. Last week was very, very hard on just about everybody, but with Jeremy not sleeping well in the past couple months (a very common symptom of PTSD from which Jeremy has suffered to varying degrees for all of the years we've been married, at least), it is no surprise at all that the combination was a recipe for a health disaster. This week has been a mite easier, allowing some convalescing to occur, but today (Easton's visitation) and tomorrow (the service which Jeremy was honored to be asked to officiate) are hard days. Jeremy read to me the message he plans to share tomorrow; it is amazing (my opinion). Even having him read it to me 'quickly' as I washed dishes and folded laundry, it brought me to tears 3-4 times, and the words are sssso comforting. I PRAISE GOD FOR GIVING MY HUSBAND THIS GIFT ... *Jeremy*, of all people. >huh< Who knew. :) And I thank you, Jeremy, for USING it. I love you.

This is just a strange funny thing I decided to share. You know how I talk about aromatherapy, and how I rrrrreally like finding new uses for the oils we have, and dream of slowly expanding our collection. Well, I bought a really helpful book on the subject, and one of the things it talks about is how very often, after a little interaction with some essential oils, each person will end up being able to relatively easily identify a favorite (This happened to me, most definitely.), and that the words most often used to describe his/her favorite oil almost always correspond to accurate descriptions of that person! (Did I explain that well enoughy?) So, since Bergamot is my favorite oil, hands-down, I decided to find out how Bergamot is described. "Bergamot is the sunny essential oil. It is an excellent treatment for depression and anxiety. Bergamot calms and relieves, is cheering, uplifting, and calming. Psychologically bergamot is reviving, soothing, and balancing. Its antidepressant qualities make it useful in treating Seasonal Affective Disorder.... It is heart-warming, gently relieving sadness, depression, and grief." I would very much like to be all of those things. :)

So. Up until this year we have always been extremely blessed with an abundance of hand-me-downs for Natasha. (We would 'shop' our hand-me-downs and bless others with what we couldn't, or didn't 'prefer' to use!! Good grief!) The number of items of clothing we have purchased for Natasha in her life is probably fewer than 20. But now we have to find clothes for her. NOW. Of all times. Marnie went with us a couple weeks ago, clothes shopping for Natasha, especially looking for a dress or two, though she also needed a couple more nice shirts. Marnie has lived here long enough to know good stores to go to, such as the consignment stores, etc. We doggedly-shopped for three hours that day, and found only two items, shirts, to purchase. Natasha is most definitely in the No Man's Land sizes now.... I remember this from being that age/size; do you? Most girl's sizes go up to 14. The problem is, where does a girl go from there?? She isn't as tall as a woman, nor does she have much in the way of a woman's curves. The "Juniors" section seems like the next best option, but it's not much of a solution for her yet; all of the modest, nice-looking items we find simply do.not.fit her. :*( We could throw stuff over her head and she could wear it like a garbage sack; we do some of that already, with play clothes. But it's better for every reason to keep searching 'til we find the right clothes. Sears goes up to size 18 in girls!!!!!!!! And they have an "18 1/2" in one of their brands. That size is AWESOME for Natasha!!! Sadly, no dresses. *sigh* And that was three weeks before Easter!!!!!!!!! ?!!!!!! I am sssso frustrated with and for our girl. My next goal is to take her to Gordman's (There is one three blocks from the church building.); I've been told they have a Juniors Plus section to shop. Natasha just *might* be able to wear the smallest of those clothes. Do they even **sell** dresses? I will let you know.

This paragraph is cut from a post I shared on the COCHsers Yahoo Group. It's related to our bird-watching fun. "I came across a super-helpful and extremely user-friendly site! My favorite feature: Once you've used the 'search bar' to open the site for the bird in which you are interested, with one click you can play a clear recording of the "typical voice" of the bird!!"

Speaking of birds, I simply must mention the beauty around us. Daffodil sightings are exciting, and even moreso, I have seen three tulips in the last two days! Tulips, you know, are still in my top two or three of my favorite flowers. (But I'm to the point now that I have favorites in each different *type* of flowers. lol) Annnnnnd, there are spring flowers in our flowerbeds that I didn't know are there because their blooms were already spent by the time we arrived early last May!! Snowdrops and Glory of the Snow are their names. I have admired Snowdrops in catalogs for years now, but had to research the pretty, small, rich-blue flowers that Natasha discovered before I did one day!! ("Mom, may I use the camera to take a picture of the blue flowers?" "What blue flowers???!")

Here is an Internet picture of Snowdrops blossoms.



And here is the snapshot N took of our Glory of the Snow.



Monday was a strange day for us because Jeremy and I stayed at the hospital until late, with Jared & Stacy. I was even farther behind than usual, and because of some other quirks about that day and the next day, I ended up having to do my grocery shopping for the week starting at 9pm!!!!!!! -eesh- Jeremy, Mr. Sick, had gone to bed, and both children wanted to go with me; since they could sleep in the next morning I decided to let them. We were walking along the front area, and at the back area, walking in the same direction as we were, was a maintenance worker pushing a floor polishing machine. Justus was flabbergasted. "Why does he have a lawn mower in the GROCERY STORE???!"