Bigger is not always better

Yesterday my husband and I took the kids to a hotel to play in the pool...you know, take a break from the salt water ocean. This pool had three waterslides. The smallest one was only six feet long and was in a shaded, cooler part of the pool. Immediately Chloe and Sam were testing it out. They loved it. They started out going slowly, nearly coming to a stop at the bottom before plopping their bodes into the water at the end. Niether could touch but hteir handy dandy water wings were doing their job and keeping them afloat. The current from the waterslide would drag them away from the stairs so one of the adults would have to "save" them and redirect to the stairs so that they could repeat. This went on for a while...I dont know how long but my lips were turning blue.
I got out of the water to warm up in the sunshine nera by. The kids walked past me hurriedly to go down over and over and each time they went by me I would ask, "Want to go down the big slide?" They would say, "No. Little slide." I even tried rephrasing and asking if they wanted to go down the medium slide. Still "No" was the answer. I sounded like a broken record after asking the water babies the twentieth time...the woman next to me warming in the sun probably thought I sounded like a broken record after only fiver repititions but she politely held her tongue.
Then I asked myself, Why? Why was I trying to pursuade them to go down the bigger slide when they were having the time of their lives on the little one. What pushes me to do that? I still don't know the answer but I can say that even by just asking myself that question, I was able to slow down and enjoy the little slide and join my now blue and shivering husband back in the shaded end of the pool with a big silly smile!

Lead Poisoning

I could have titled this post so many other things but lead poisoning kind of stuck out. A month ago Chloe had her 4 year well baby check. The intake form asked all sorts of questions about her development and included questions about life's possible stresses. We have had all sorts of stresses with the move, new jobs, new relatives etc and I actually started to feel self concious as I was checking "yes" so many times instead of the safe answer "no". One question asked if we lived in a home older than 1978 and if we were worried about lead poisoning. I answered "no" even though I didn't know how old our surf shack was...everything in Hawaii seems like it is from the 1950's.
Back to the current month, Chloe has been complaining of stomach aches. I have tried all of the normal remedies but she still complains. She also has started chewing on soft toys, shirts, blankets, etc. I finally looked up the symptoms on line...even though I try and tell my own patients not to do this. Lead poisoning popped up.
Did I fail to mention that Chloe has been peeling the 2009 paint off of her walls in her bedroom during quiet time and time outs?
So, we just returned from the lab where Chloe had a blood draw. She did well but mad did I feel guilty. I am trying to keep the guilt feeling out while we wait for the results of the labs but it is hard not to let your brain go to scary places.
Scary places was the other title I was thinking of using.

Ohhh Nuts!

I have been a migraine sufferer for 8 years. Prior to that I do remember getting a headache when I was too wound up or had too much on my plate but I had always chalked those up to tension. Just recently I was able to visit my family and had a wonderful sit down dinner with my sister in law. During the meal she asks, "So are you allergic to peanuts too? Every time your brother eats peanuts, he gets a headache."
"WHAT!"
That minute I quit eating peanuts...it has been 5 weeks and I haven't had a headache. I am beside myself with joy. I have tried to figure these headaches out for years, removing all the normal migraine related foods from my diet like aged cheeses, chocolate, and red wine. I need to clarify the whole "removal" from my diet. I only removed them for a short while since it didn't seem to make a difference and because I REALLY like dark chocolate.
I really like peanut butter and hadn't realized how much I consumed...it was in my trail mix, granola bars, sandwiches that I would grab on the fly as I was headed out the door to work...etc. It has been difficult to give it up but extremely worth it. My quality of life has increased and I am so grateful for my sister in law. Leave it to the girl in the family to link us all together!!

Why the word Huge and not Big?

I chose my blog title because I imagine every ones life as a tiny little dot on a map. Like those maps of the world that glows brightest with tiny white dots illustrating population density. If you took just one of the dots in New York and divided it a thousand times and then took one of those dots and did the same...well, there you have your small little dot. Even Oprah is one of those dots. I feel that all of us are capable of doing something big in our lives, ok maybe not Oprha big, but still big...it doesn't have to be publicly known but it can still effect the well being of our world. If I think of the most inspirational people and what they have done and then think of them as a little dot, it seems possible that my little dot of a life may be able to do something inspirational too.
As for the word Huge...my son uses it but he pronounces it Hooj. I take much delight in watching his little lips get perfectly round when he is describing the Hooj full moon or a Hooj truck. How could I not use the work huge. Now the word big just seems so blase.

How do you stay so thin?

I have always been a small in stature but since we have moved around alot, I keep getting the same question from newly found friends. How do you stay thin? The answer...I have kids. Here is an example. Yesterday I took our kids to a resort for lunch and to use their pool. Actually, there are four pools: the water slide pool (located up a few stairs), the hot pool, the little pool, and the big pool. My day went a little like this... Sam, my 2 year old, heads to the big pool, Chloe, she's 4, heads to the little pool. These are fairly close together so I pick a spot on the tiles that I can watch both. Sam leaves the big pool minutes later to play with sister in the little pool. Great! I think as I search for a chair next to the little pool. During the next three minutes I meet a woman, Peggy. She only has a fifteen year old sun who is busy with his ipod and ignoring his mother. We have the standard 3 minute conversation that every mom of a toddler has and then Sam leaves the little pool and heads up the stairs to the waterfall pool. I have to leave Chloe behind to follow Sam. Now I am walking back and forth between the two pools, slowly since the tiles are slippery, to check on the kids. on my second approach to the water slide pool I can see Sam holding onto the railing by the stairs on the opposite side making his "poop" face. I know what is coming so I jump into the pool and swim as fast as I can to retreive him...he is wearing a swim diaper but those things don't keep the poop from turning to mush and then leaking, trust me on this one. I walk past the little pool to check on Chloe and to let her know I will be next to the stroller by our table in the shade changing Sam. She barely hears me as I walk away carrying a 33 lb wiggling and wet toddler. I change Sam as fast as it is humanely possible and bring him back to the little pool. Chloe is still there enjoying the tiny waterfall in that pool. Sam only stays another couple of minutes before he is off to the water slide pool again. This time Sam decides to tackle the water slide so I jump in the pool and swim across the pool to catch him at the end. Then I swim with him to the stairs and pull myself out to go check on Chloe. She has moved to the big pool. Peggy calls out and says that she will look after Chloe. Bless her! I walk as fast as the ground permits to go back to Sam who is waiting impatiently at the top of the water slide for me to get into place at the bottom. I jump back into the water and swim across the pool just in time to catch him. We swim to the edge and I get out to peek at my daughter still playing happily with other kids in the shallow end of the big pool. Peggy waves. I wave back and re-enter the waterfall pool. This process lasts 5 HOURS. My kids only spent a half hour total in the same pool. I watch other parents sitting on their chairs watching their kids and hardly any of them seem as busy as I feel. Cue the feeling of doubt that creeps into my mind and always has me wondering if I am doing this whole mom thing right. The smiles on my kids faces quickly wash away those feelings. I also feel pride in my weary body when I look at their tired non sunburned faces. No one has any boo boo's today even though Sam fell 4 times on the slippery wet surfaces and all of those were easily fixed with a kiss to the effected area. I must be doing something right! At the end of the day we head to the restaurant where their father is waiting for us after playing a leisure round of golf. Cue irony.

Babies see Angels

Two nights ago I didn't sleep very well. I couldn't blame it on caffeine or a full moon and both of my kids were asleep. I just couldn't fall into that last phase of deep sleep. For some reason I started thinking about angels and wondering what they were doing at this hour which led me to think about moments when my children were babies and I caught them staring out the window looking at something. Everytime I followed their gaze I came up with nothing but the look on their faces convinced me they saw something. The best part of their facial expression was that they looked incredibly peaceful. My kids had exceptionally long infant stages since they were preemies so I got to experience those wonder moments, where I felt like they could see something I couldn't, many many times over.
I wonder now if it was just one angel, one special spirit that hung around to make sure they were ok or if they could see any and all angels in the sky. Why I was thinking of those precious moments, I don't know. It could have been because I had fallen asleep with my daughter again and just the closeness of her little body had triggered those memories or maybe her angel was there with her while she was sleeping. I will never know. But, it does give me comfort knowing that maybe there is someone besides me that is paying attention to all the little details in my childrens life. Someone else who can shoulder the worry that all of us parents go through.
So of course the story that came to mind that I thought I could write about was, what if we all could see our guardian angels, maybe even talk to them? What if I could write a story through a babies eyes? What does their world really look like. That is when my imagination really kicked into gear and kept me from sleeping the rest of the night.

Starting out

There are moments in my life that I look back on and realize, that day changed my life. Sometimes the moments seem inconsequential at the time and others are the typical moments that we know will change out lives; marriage, babies, death, etc.
What brought me to start this blog is from one of those inconsequential moments that happened on a day this last April.
I can only call it a daydream that lasted all day and then seemed to take over my mind for the next ten weeks. My daydream had characters and conversations, landscapes that I had never seen before. I was compelled to write it all down, I had no choice really. It took over my thoughts and the minute my kids went to bed, I wrote. I wrote on my lunch breaks and during any other breaks I could find in my day. My poor kids had to wait patiently in their carseats many a time when I was busy jotting something down in the car as we pulled up to our destinations.
Now, everything I do seems to have a story that plays out in my head right along side my real life. Hopefully, this blog will help me get it all out so that I am not consumed by my imagination.