I am feeling really really really stressed out right now, and I thought it might be helpful to sit down and list the reasons why. Just, you know, to get a handle on it.
1. Barak and the biting business. I talked to the early childhood director today and she did not seem terribly worked up but she said that his teacher will be calling me tonight.
2. I found a great big m*th hole smack front and center on Barak's dragon vest. The dragon vest he last wore last week. Those are some pretty brazen moths. This means I have to go wash all my sweaters (we are talking high double digits here, household-wide) and should probably go inspect all my yarn, too. Not a minor undertaking, especially in winter.
3. Speaking of winter, it is really, really cold here. We are all stir-crazy. The snowplows do not worry about pedestrians, so leave snowbanks that are between knee- and thigh-high at the sides of the roads. For me to get over with my double stroller. If the stroller sinks into the bank, I'm sunk, and have to turn around and haul the thing out from the front--you know, on the side of the road, which is slippery and has cars on it. Gah.
4. Work. Work is busy. Work is stressful. There is a lot of it, which is good, but my place of employment is in financial trouble (show me one that isn't!) and we are having a meeting on Thursday to discuss our new austerity measures. I have been told that we are not at the layoffs stage. Which implies that there might be one later, doesn't it.
5. Iyyar's tummy. Today was fine, after a lot of diarrhea last night and this morning. I really hope it is just the dairy. Could one cookie's worth of butter (two cookies made with half butter, half margarine) have done that? Or is it something else? Should I be following up on that referral to the pediatric GI specialist at the children's hospital, with all the un-fun testing that that will entail? Or should I wait and see?
6. An old friend wrote me today and asked if she could give my email to a relative I have not heard from in several years--well, I haven't heard from any of my relatives in years. It's possible that this is just a friendly gesture. It's also possible that something is up.
7. Oh, and the war. Yes. That. And the threats against the Jewish schools in town. One of which is my son's.
8. I should not have checked the estimated value of our apartment right now. It was a bad idea. Because now I know that if we were to sell it now to, say, make aliyah, we'd probably get just enough to cover what's left on our mortgage. Which is $63,000 less than what we paid for our apartment 3 1/2 years ago. I think the best move right now is to refinance in a week or two, on the assumption that rates are as low as they will ever be, to get the lowest monthly payment possible, and then try to rent it out.
9. Money, generally. We are barely saving anything, despite what seems to me like a good income for both of us. It just goes... in mortgage, utilities, babysitting, tuition, playgroup, clothes (they keep growing! and destroying their pants!) and food. I go through all of our bills and credit card charges every month and this past month the only thing that I could have reasonably cut was $56.00 on wool. This month we bought plane tickets to Edmonton to visit my SIL at Pesach. That was a lot, but realistically not much more than we would have spent making Pesach here. It meant taking money out of savings to get to the end of the month. And this was supposed to be our last year to save. Next year, it's full tuition for Barak: almost $10,000 a year for kindergarten. I don't think we'll be eligible for scholarship for one, although we'll apply, of course.
10. That's really enough, isn't it? But one more thing. This afternoon I was taking pictures with the kids and letting them take pictures of me (with me holding the camera). That is never a flattering way to be photographed, but do I really have that many chins? And do I really look that... old and tired?
Sigh.
Off to write some speeches. And not get any spinning in. Maybe tomorrow?
3 comments:
2. Er... of course you're the expert in matters yarn, but is there a possibility this hole was NOT caused by a moth?
4. For what it's worth, I find it really, really, really tough to believe you'd be among anything but their last layoff choices. Unless they have a staff of 1.
5. If this is lactose intolerance, I'm surprised he would react so badly to butter. Butter has almost zero lactose. My SIL gets extremely sick when she eats dairy, but has always been able to eat a cookie or two's worth of butter.
I suppose there might be something else in dairy he's reacting to - the milk protein, like some babies...? There must be a way to look up how much of that there is in butter.
If he has IBS (which can swing from constipation to diarrhea), any kind of fat can be a trigger. Is this more fat than he otherwise eats? Is there anything else he doesn't normally eat in those cookies??
And again for whatever it's worth (we were only there for throwing up, not constipation or diarrhea), we did not find our hospital's pediatric GI to be at all gung ho on testing. I thought I'd have to argue a lot, but she was the one who suggested a medication trial first.
I don't think it can hurt to take the referral. Even if you get a testing-happy GI, you can turn down any tests you don't feel are warranted. You might still come away with some advice or information.
::hug::
and,
::HUG::
What p said, but milk protein allergy, alone or *with* lactose intolerance, is not so rare.
FWIW, I know as many people allergic to milk as I do allergic to peanuts.
But we've been through GI, although only for (s)low weight gain - it's apparently just genetic - and the only tests they "race" to do is a set of blood work.
A friend had to switch major hospitals to find one that would even DO the major (painful) invasive test to determine her child's digestive enzyme deficiency. But now said young child can grow on less than 2500 calories/day.
And most GI units work closely with a nutritionist group, which should be helpful as far as elimination diet stuff, no?
Good luck.
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