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tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-77499343068369941322017-09-18T03:30:40.925-06:00Momma MavenMomma to the Dudes est. 2009, 2011, 2014, nurse, entrepreneur, perpetual student, prissy tomboy, cancer hater, beer lover, overachiever, mom blogger loving life and oversharing it with you!Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com with My Yahoo!Subscribe with NewsGatorSubscribe with My AOLSubscribe with BloglinesSubscribe with NetvibesSubscribe with GoogleSubscribe with PageflakesSubscribe with PlusmoSubscribe with The Free DictionarySubscribe with Bitty BrowserSubscribe with Live.comSubscribe with Excite MIXSubscribe with WebwagSubscribe with Podcast ReadySubscribe with WikioSubscribe with Daily Rotationtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-79578336728777687812016-01-15T14:28:00.000-07:002016-01-15T14:36:58.427-07:00National Lampoons Sell Your Home Adventure
Selling our house was an interesting endeavor.

Interesting, yes we'll go with that word. It's a little more exciting than all the other four letter words that come to mind.

We sold our home ourselves for well over asking price in a week. Hello Denver housing market. This was great on the sale side... not so much on the buying side. We put offers on 5 different homes in 5 weeks and lost them all to other buyers, each week and defeat meant more time being "homeless" in between and meant another week of uncertainty. I can't explain the feeling of relief when we heard the words "you GOT the house!" on our final offer. But really that was the easy part, the true work had just begun starting with packing up a house full of 12 YEARS of stuff. Excruciating.

While it all ends happily it was a full of pure insanity. No really, insanity. We are NEVER doing this again as long as I live!

 Once we packed up and left our first and only home (mind you, this is the home I met my husband in, our first kiss was on that front porch, every memory of our story takes place in that home) I managed to make it out the driveway with only a few breakdowns and cry fests. Our adventure to la-la land had just begun!

Since we lost so much time losing offers on prior houses it meant we were "homeless" for about a 6 week period until we could move into the new place. No problem, we thought, we will live in our camper at the local reservoir. You read that right, 5 humans, in a camper, for 5 weeks straight. Somehow we lost our minds and thought this would be ok. Granted our camper is pretty amazing, 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, a kitchen... but 5 people and a dog in a few hundred square foot area for 5 weeks. Yea.

Unfortunately thanks to the droves of, shall I say, older folks that love to RV across the country in summer the reservoir was booked solid for weekends throughout our timeline which meant we could only camp there during the week and we'd have to pack up and leave each weekend and find another place to stay and then head back to the campground the following week. Logistically this was an epic shit show for obvious reasons. Our plan for weekends ended up being a rotation between the grandparents homes, one weekend my parents, next weekend hubby's, etc. Why not just stay with them the whole time you ask? Well why not crash your car into a tree at 100mph... in both cases we know how that will end. As crazy as it may sound to others the plan to rotate, pack up, pack out, yadi yada every 5 or so days was a better plan than to overwhelm either of the grandparents with our tribe of 5 for a full 5 weeks.

Alas our National Lampoons summer "vacation" unfolded... Our plan was that hubby would get up and leave for work from the campground, I would hang with the dudes during the day at the swimbeach, and we'd carry on with dinner and bedtime. It'd be like a fun camp trip, just an extended version. Well unfortunately this summer we ended up with record rainfall so the week prior to our arrival at Casa Campground the reservoir had flooded, literally 16 FEET higher than it's usual level. The swim beach we'd counted on was entirely under water, as in the BATHROOM buildings were completely under water. The main entrance to the entire reservoir was flooded leaving only a second entrance as the way in and out. This was an annoying hiccup but we improvised... rather than spending time at the swim beach to beat the heat we filled up the baby tub with water and buckets with water and the dog bowls with water and had a grand old time out in front of the camper true redneck style.

The weather became an outrageous problem. We ranged between scorching hot temps (and day 1 our camper A/C went out... yay) to pouring rain flooding us out. The day we left for our first grandparent rotation weekend we barely packed up and headed out before the emergency alerts were nailing our phones.... TORNADO warnings all around. Awesome. Got 2 miles down the road and my car broke down.... so Hubby with the giant 5th wheel camper on the back of the truck had to find a way to turn around to get us, then cleverly shove all of us, a dog, and our "weekend luggage" into his already packed full truck, drop the camper off at the storage facility, then turn around and come hook up and tow my car out of the middle of the road.... in the pouring rain and wind and tornado warnings. If this were any indication of how the following weeks were about to go just shoot me now.

After the weekend it was time to pack it up and go get the camper again to head to Casa Campground. As we pull in, we see a sign telling us that the electrical hook ups will not be available because they are working on it... mmmmookie dokie. No problem, we can handle it, use the generator, survive the week. A few days into week 2 and flash flood warnings sounded the emergency alerts on our phones at 6 am followed by phone calls from the family concerned we would wash away. Entertaining 3 dudes INSIDE a camper 24 hours a day thanks to the rain and lighting became a real joy. But we survived. Off to grandparent rotation 2 and time to enjoy the birthday party I planned for D Man from the campsight having all of the things delivered to the grandparents house.

Week 3 couldn't have gone off without a hitch, that wouldn't suffice for our National Lampoon Vacation! We pull in to another "surprise" sign... this time telling us that the SEWER hook ups are not available thanks to all of the flooding. AND, for the same reason, the bathroom buildings were not available for use either! The alternative, a handful of port-a-potties were placed around the campground. Oh this was getting really fun now. It was like a forced off the grid adventure. More flooding, more rain, more tornado warnings, hail, etc. And yet we survived week 3 and 4.

All the while our house closing was in process. It was about this time that this part of our adventure went to hell in a hand basket thanks to the overburdened Denver housing market. Basically everything is backlogged, taking FOREVER, inspections, paperwork, etc all running about 4x slower than normal. To make a long story short, we ended up having to push our closing out by just over 2 weeks. TWO MORE WEEKS OF HELL. Between the disaster that our lender is and the disaster that our mortgage broker was it was truly a miracle that we ever closed on our house. I kid you not, in the middle of signing the closing papers we were still unsure if we would be able to actually move into the house that day. I've never experienced a more stressful bunch of crazy town in my life.

It took several weeks before I could actually believe that this saga was over, that we really did have a new house, and we could move in. I flat out refused to believe it was true until I put my head on my pillow in this new house because we had the rug pulled out from under us SOOOO many times. Subsequently, we had work we wanted to do to the house prior to moving our things in, this is what happens when your hubby is a contractor. What could've gone smoothly of course didn't and that turned into an adventure of it's own including my husband collapsing on the floor in the middle of staining the new hardwood ending up in the hospital with a kidney stone at midnight. Par for the course.

Throughout all of the extra time added to our homelessness we threw in the towel on our camping extravaganza and stayed with the inlaws who were nice enough to accommodate our wild circus for nearly a month. I had to reschedule moving trucks and orchestrate the moving plan 3 different times but finally.... oh my lord finally.... a semi truck full of boxes later and we actually had our belongings in our new place. July 23rd is the first night I put my head on my pillow of our new house, our new adventure.

Getting here had no shortage of growing pains, I don't think my sanity could've been tested any further. But we did it! The new chapter begins and we are LOVING every moment of it now!

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2016/01/national-lampoons-sell-your-home.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-77121115067163185852015-08-21T22:30:00.000-06:002016-01-15T11:55:26.010-07:002 Years.

2 YEARS. Wow 2 years. Yep it still feels epically shitty to write that... you know as I sobbed into my husbands arms tonight I asked him whether he thought this would get easier or not...

"Do you think 10 years from now it won't hurt as bad..." "I don't know babe. I don't know."

The tears fill the void of something so huge it's unexplainable. A complete void in my life... a deep crevasse so long you can't see the end and you wonder what else it can swallow whole. I thought when cancer reared it's disgusting head in a hospital waiting room 4 years ago that this was the extent of the ugliness it bared. Little did I know that this ugliness would reach farther into my life and the future than I could've ever imagined. Don't get me wrong, every day life is far beyond cancer. The piece that it stole will never be replaced but the shattered brokenness is slowly less jagged and rough. The majority of days are vastly happy and full of exuberance and LIFE. Take that cancer you asshole.... LIFE..... did you hear me????

LIFE!!!

But there is no denying the hurt and void from a person so missed it must be viscerally obvious to those around me. Is it not? My Dad was a damn rockstar, he had plenty of faults but he owned that shit. At least to me, he owned it. I resonate with his life philosophy. I am surely no perfect peach here, I am sassy, feisty, smart, gregarious, full of piss and vinegar at times (of which I am NOT ashamed), stubborn, sensitive, shy, and highly complicated just as my father. He had a certain way about him, you were either on one side of his coin or the other and I probably sat on a random 3rd side of that coin.... he and I got each other. We surely were together in some previous lifetime which makes his absence all the more devastating to me and my family.

He will NEVER know my third son. It rips my heart apart to type that. It's so cliche to say things like "of course he does, he's always with you" well goddammit if that were true things would feel much easier. Let me be the first to enlighten everyone, how the heck do we know he's still around... I think I know, I think I believe it, I tell my kids I do but death means that you're in another place that no one, no where, actually knows about. Comforting is not exactly how I'd describe those sentiments although you'll hear me tell myself that very thing on nearly a daily basis. It's clinging to hope of some sort... it wouldn't be human to give up on that idea right??

2 years. How has it been 2 years since I watched a hoard of firemen carry my frail father up flights of stairs to his final resting place with a smile as I greeted him "you're home Dad. you're home." His look conveyed that he understood what was happening. He knew he was coming home to die.... gee what a wonderful thing to behold. His saving grace, I'm sure, was his pure exhaustion with the circumstances.... despite my profuse protest in his medical care at the end I was not the power of attorney.... I can't elaborate on that at this point, it's too much... but the end result is that my Dad made his way home where he wanted to be to spend his final days with us. I was there every. single. day. It was 5 days from the moment he left the hospital until I received the phone call that he had gone Home.

What would he be thinking today if he were here... what would he think of my crazy 3 boys... of little baby C??? Would he like our new house... What input would he have on the engine swap for the S10...What jokes would he crack about my nephew and watching my brother as a Dad... Would he want to teach my boys to ride motocross like he did... Would he be at their T-ball games.... Would he be there to witness me graduate with my masters degree...

I have 2 years + a lifetime of questions to ponder, scenarios of what-ifs... a void to fill that can never be filled. I have lived an experience that I wouldn't wish on my worst enemies and survived a loss that many peers, family, and friends will one day experience.... yet I feel I have no wisdom gained from my shitastic experience.... What do I tell them if and when they reach a similar fate... it sucks. Less than encouraging. 2 years in and it still feels like a dagger to the heart.

I guess my only silver lining thus far is that the hurt must equate with the loss. I lost an amazing man and that is a level of hurt that won't soon be gone.

This August 22nd... I toast to you Dad... to the Mad Max rockstar that you were... for the zero apologies you made for being you... to the influence you had on me and my life.... to the gene pool you left my awesome dudes...

I CAN'T WAIT for the day I see you again old man!!!! I can't flippin wait. You better pick my butt up on your Dyna and ride me off into the sunset. I love you. I miss you.I miss you every day.

Until then,
Baby Cakes.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2015/08/2-years.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-22578957443169558272015-08-14T18:04:00.003-06:002015-08-14T18:12:40.191-06:00WGU: Single Term Tricks of the Trade

I am frequently asked how I was able to complete the WGU so quickly and whether I have any advice for upcoming students. I can tell you exactly what I did to study and finish however keep in mind that this is what worked for me during my enrollment. You may study differently, your courses may be different, etc.

Below are my tips along with my insight into EACH course that I completed (I left a couple out that were missing pre-req's like speech but the general courses are here)

A note on the gist of things at WGU:
Learn to be flexible. Things change frequently with WGU- courses, course requirements, etc. During a single term I didn't have any course changes but I know several students who have been enrolled for a few terms who have had changes throughout their enrollment which has caused frustration here and there. Just be prepared for it. Focus on ONE course at a time. Usually any changes are typically in your favor, they'll adjust cut scores for assessments or they'll do things like cut down hours on your practicum (I WISH this happened for me... I did 90 hours and they switched it afterwards to 45). Try to be patient and if any changes adversely affect your progress be sure to speak up for yourself, typically you are able to argue your right to continue just as you enrolled without the changes if you choose.

OA's versus PA's
OA's are objective assessments, these are multiple choice tests that are pass fail based on cut score (which by the way equates to a "B" grade or competency level at a traditional school). You take these via a testing center or via a web cam in the comfort of your own home where you are actually proctored by real people. A little weird to get used to but once you work out the occasional kinks of the web cam this is great. The way the new software works you don't even have to schedule your exams out ahead of time you can literally jump on any time you'd like and take the exam at will. Highly convenient.

PA's are performance assessments, a nice way to say "papers or presentations". These in my opinion are horrid. It ends up being a BIG long redundant paper (some 35+ pages for example) that cover a million areas on a rubric that demonstrate your knowledge and competency on that particular course. Each course has a completely different set of rubric requirements, some have power points associated, some like Biochem require you to make models & drawings, but in the end it's essentially paper writing at it's finest. I loathe PA's which unfortunately make up 90% of the MSN program. (BSN is roughly 50/50 ish).

Which order to take the courses in
I tried to decipher each course when I started to see which I thought may be the best to take first, come up with my own schedule of completion, etc. I learned after speaking with my mentor the first time that while you can technically take the courses in any order you'd like there is a "typical" way of doing things and in the end I went along with this. No need to make waves if this was a good way of completing what I needed to do. Most mentors will suggest that you take Health Assessment and Care of the Older Adult first along with possibly Community and Population Health. (Course numbers will change but typically the course names do not, so learn both). This order was fine to get me into the groove of things.

My Personal Course Timeline:
I ended up taking each OA with about 2 days of prep time ending with the 3rd day testing. I outlined my schedule ahead of time to give myself 2 days of study on the material (granted I had small kiddos at home so a "full" day of study is relative). The 3rd day I spent the morning reviewing and cramming again and the afternoon taking the exam. For each OA my usual method of approach included skimming the Course of Study to find relevant points. Checking the course community gave me a lot of insight on what to study in fact many courses have their own "study guides" compiled by the course mentors that will really help you focus in on what is required for the OA. Outside of good documents like practice exams and notes that you can find in the course community you can see questions and answers from the mentors to other students which usually end up being your own questions. Browsing over these things in the community will give you a good vibe on how the OA is going to go.
UPDATE: Specific course communities apparently don't exist anymore to my knowledge... I'm not sure why they did this?? Instead on the right hand side of your course of study there is now what's called "course chatter" which serves a similar purpose but in my opinion is no where near as helpful. That said it is somewhat helpful if you can navigate around to find important documents and frequently asked questions. Do this before reading through your course of study, you can waste an awful lot of time if you actually go through the COS page by page, reading by reading, DON'T. Get the overall gist of things by surveying the course chatter first, also check out some of the online discussion boards especially Facebook, this will provide great insight as well and THEN you'll know what to study.

PA's were a little bit different story. I devoted one week to each PA, some went a little bit quicker, others a little longer but overall this was a good yard stick. I spent the first day pulling up the rubric and task instructions and outlining my paper. Then I would browse around the course of study to see where I could pull info for the paper that would meet the rubric requirements. Lastly, it was a matter of filling in each section of the rubric.

A guide to PA's.
DO NOT. I repeat DO NOT over-do the PA's!!! The task instructions can sometimes derail you into going overboard on what the task is actually requiring. At the end of the day you are being graded by the RUBRIC. Literally. Your course grader is given a copy of the rubric and your paper and that is ALL they grade from. So if you run off on a tangent in fluff that has nothing to do with a rubric requirement good for you but it will not really help your cause in the end. Keep It Simple. Answer the rubric questions/req's and be done with it. By outlining your papers based on the rubric sections you set yourself up to stay on topic, to the point, and you make it 10x easier for your grader to grade.
That being said when it is time for a PA. Pull up Taskstream so you can see the task instructions and rubric right there in front of you. Outline your paper with your name and course information at the top and block out each line of the rubric A1----- A2c----- B----- C----- etc. Fill it in as you go. IF YOU need to reference the course of study materials to fill in the paper sections do it as you're writing, do NOT go through and read a bazillion pages of text ahead of time, only scout out what you need to finish. Plenty of areas on rubrics and even whole PA's are based on your opinion requiring no real text involvement. If anything the interwebs are your friend to find info concisely to include.

Powerpoints: If and when your course includes a power point, a random tip, you can use Google Drive to create a powerpoint without buying the software. You can also get Microsoft Office for free with your WGU student email (instructions to follow). Label each slide of the Power Point in accordance with the rubric, again makes it easier for your grader. KEEP it simple! No need to get all fancy and put pictures and 70 slides with fancy transitions and music to convey a simple requirement.

Taskstream Grading:
Not the quickest thing on the planet, thankfully they now show you the "queue" which they didn't have when I was doing it, at least now you can guesstimate how many days of grading you're in for although I'm not sure that helps you ha! Stalk away or just sign up for text notifications on your work.

Message Boards:
USE THEM! I used the RN to BSN Facebook page ALL the time to bounce ideas off of others and to help others. It is priceless insight that you'll gain there.Utilize the search feature on the page to check previous posts about the same subject matter. No one here is going to give you answers to your tests... I mean c'mon people (and YES people really do get on there thinking they may get this info??wth?) but they will help you troubleshoot things and give you similar tips to those you're reading here.

Pinterest:
I used some pinning to save important things I wanted to reference later, not a ton of info here but feel free to check out some of the things I compiled or start your own board to keep organized.

********COURSE BY COURSE TIPS & INSIGHT******

Health Assessment:
This should be no issue for anyone with prior medical experience. If it's been a while since you studied or Nclex'd be sure to brush up on your typical assessment stuff. I personally went through the chapters in the Course of Study and took the practice exams at the end of each which helped. This is going to be pretty typical black and white knowledge along with the application of "critical thinking" just like a good old NCLEX. As for your video, many people (including myself) put off the video part because, well it's weird to video tape yourself for someone to analyze... awkward. Take it from me, it isn't hard at all, just get it overwith! My best advice, print off the list of things you're supposed to do in your video and put it in a binder to use WHILE your taping yourself. I literally checked off each thing as I did it to make sure I didn't miss anything. I brushed up on assessment techniques via good old YouTube (since there are some interesting ones to cover that you don't normally do... hello jugular vein distention measurement???) and then did it.

Care of the Older Adult:
Again basic knowledge of elder care here, this will closely mimic your gerontology nursing class from back in the day. BUT, this is the one OA that I failed!! I was shocked. A little tidbit, outside of your general elderly medicine, variables, assessments, etc make sure you READ IN DEPTH on the dang Medicare and insurance crap... for some reason my assessment was about 70% Medicare questions (and I KNOW my insurance stuff, so this was excessive). Otherwise hope your version of the test isn't so pigeonholed into this arena. This is supposed to be one of the easiest and most remedial of all of the BSN courses.

Community & Population Health:
If you're planning to finish your BSN in a single term, better get this one going immediately. You cannot log practicum hours for your final practicum until this course is done. This one was my first PA course. It consisted of 4 "tasks" ie. 4 papers of various requirements. I did what was recommended and that was to finish the tasks in backwards order, so task 4 then task 3, saving task 1 for the end. Reasoning was that task 1 is pretty intense and long and it helped to get a few other writing tasks under your belt before jumping into that one. You get to see how the whole grading thing and Taskstream work along with getting used to the rubrics. The long paper is ultimately a set up of your final practicum, you research your specific community and look for deficits and things that you can essentially work to research more for the final practicum where you log all of your hours.

Applied Statistics:
Some people struggle with this one, not sure if that is because of the newer version of stats or just different learning styles. I thought Stats was not too bad. I read through the community advice to focus on Chapters 1-4 knowing them like the back of my hand. I read the chapters, took each quiz at the end and re-read areas that I missed on the quizzes. Lastly, I printed the course study guide (probably housed in the "course chatter box" now) which was compiled by the course mentors and made sure I knew all 100 of those questions very well. In my opinion the OA was identical to this practice study guide.

Nutrition:
I don't have the best advice for the nutrition OA simply because I know nutrition very well. I had 3 nutrition courses in my undergrad prior to this one and it's a lifestyle thing I've always been educated in. So that said, this was a very easy exam, basic principles of what to eat for certain populations ie. pregnancy, wound healing, etc. Which foods are high in specific nutrients, that kind of thing. A patient post op with renal complications should eat which choice of meal, etc. One area I remember being a little trickier was the vitamins and minerals, I had quite a bit of content on this which seemed a tad unbalanced, worth brushing up on.

Biochemistry:
I was a huge fan of Biochem! Some people hate it but I thought it was a welcome relief from multiple choice tests and paper writing. I mean how can you go wrong when your homework consists of making chemical models out of legos or candy... or k-cups ha! You don't need some fancy molecule kit for this one, using items around the house is perfectly fine as the course mentors will tell you. The subjects are quite complex that you are learning here, very detailed... especially DNA transcription and translation. In my opinion I had to actually pay attention to the content and videos to truly understand what I was doing and it was fine. It's mostly YouTube videos put on by the mentors that are easy to follow and the Thinkwell Guy. I LOVE the Thinkwell Guy, he's like an older version of Bill Nye the Science Guy talking about way more boring things but he makes it slightly entertaining :) Enjoy biochem, it's the only course in the whole shabang that is set up like this.

Professional Roles & Values:
This one is very blah. A good one to get over with, it's not hard it's just very boring. The whole course is essentially about nursing theories, how to decipher them, ethics, professional accountability, playing the role of a scientist, detective, and manager, ugh... You will end up writing about various aspects of this in your portfolio but no need to over-do this one, just study what you need and get done with it.

Info Management & Technology:
The exam for this one was pretty challenging I thought. I figured it would be a general application of how technology systems integrate into medicine, it was NOT. This was a very detailed exam asking you to know the differences between certain technology systems, how to troubleshoot them, how they apply to different facility uses,etc. Lots of informatics specifics, electronic record ins/outs, HIPPA regs, etc. I did much better on the pre-assessment than the actual OA for what it's worth, the only course this happened.

Evidence Based Practice aka The Beast:
This one sucks, it really just sucks. The only thing worse is having to do it AGAIN (for the most part) in the MSN program... dreadful. There are a couple of tasks for this one. First you learn about types of research and write a paper about that while you classify a few examples into the type of research the represent. Then you take some case studies and write about them. And then you're ready for the BEAST. For the last task, you are picking a problem to research, compiling this research into an annotated bibliography, summarizing your findings, discussing how this can relate to your current place of work, how you'd present it to the big wigs there, etc. That's the simple version. The extended version is that it is LONG, monotonous, repetitive, and annoying. My best advice for this one is to do it all in one or two sittings. Find your research during one and write the ENTIRE thing during the next, don't stop and start this one or you'll never finish. Pick a topic that is SIMPLE, use the examples you find in course notes or message boards. DON'T try to reinvent the wheel or impress your graders by finding some fabulous specific NEW idea that is actually interesting to you, they won't care. You won't find your articles, you'll want to punch yourself later for doing this. Stick to the tried and true- handwashing, CAUTI, actually just those 2, pick one of those and you'll do fine.

Organizational Systems & Leadership:
This one will sneak up on you. You read the rubric and think it's not too terrible, 2 tasks. The main drudgery with this one are the IHI Modules. No idea how to explain those to anyone who hasn't read through a couple so I won't bother. Just remember this, log in, start the modules and skip to the tests. Don't sit there through all of them intently or you'll be there for 57 weeks. Seriously they are awful and there aren't any shortcuts other than skipping to the tests, taking them, if you fail skip back to the end again and take it again until you pass. You can't finish the BSN without doing these dang modules, you'll need your IHI completion certificate for your portfolio. Your big paper consists of completing a LONG root cause analysis with all the components.... not my cup of tea. You'll be glad when this one is done.

Leadership Experience:
Leadership is the whole point of the BSN as most BSN-RN's are more in management and they have to "lead" people. The paper here consists of an investigation into a specific problem at your workplace that you intend to research and propose a fix for. Your fix will explain a lot of things including a cost scenario and you'll present this whole thing for your "key stakeholders" at work. You'll need them to sign off on your presentation. It isn't a bad task but it can be a bit tricky to coordinate this "presentation". Again pick a simple solvable problem, you don't need to show them how to travel to the moon just pick something common and relevant- staffing shortages, technology deficits, etc.

Portfolio:
I thought this one was odd, almost like putting together a resume for your school experience, a lot of kumbayah this is what I learned, this is how I grew as a professional... weird. Nonetheless, super simple task. You're basically reviewing a lot of your coursework, including excerpts from some of them and writing a synopsis of their relevance to your career.

Community Health Practicum:
The dreaded practicum. You are now at the end and revisiting that very first community health project you did. You'll take the problem topic you chose and now spend a bunch of hours out in the community investigating it so you can write about it in depth. I had 90 hours to do and I did this whole course in about 2-3 weeks time. I spent about one full week making site visits around everywhere I could possibly think of to log time, each day about 6-8 hours of traveling around and then about 1 full week to write the whole thing. A bit of fudge factor in between. If you start early getting on everyone's calendars for meetings this won't be too hard to do in a short amount of time,otherwise better plan on 4-6 weeks of consistent work on this one, especially if you can't devote a block of time for a week to knock out those hours. I specifically picked access to mental health resources and found a TON of resources, had no trouble getting my info or hours. There are a list of topics to choose from, as I've said a dozen times don't reinvent the wheel, pick one and go. Don't overcomplicate it. As soon as you're done with Community Health 1 jump on these hours and start looking ahead.

That's the long and short of it.... those courses can seem to be quite overwhelming but they're doable. Get a schedule together with a goal of completion for each one. Allow time for grading and revisions... taskstream graders aren't exactly the quickest, my longest paper took nearly 7 full days to post! Always keep about 3 courses in your field of vision if you're planning to accelerate so you can work on them somewhat simultaneously but pick one at a time to finish, then go to the next. One day you'll turn around and your circle will be completely BLUE! YAY.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2015/08/wgu-single-term-tricks-of-trade.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-30156921441674354552015-06-28T18:39:00.000-06:002016-01-15T11:40:41.197-07:00WGU: After the RN a tale of the BSN and MSN journey

So what have I been up to since the dreaded CPNE which led to the dreaded NCLEX waitfest which led to the Colorado RN licensing extravaganza....??

Oh you know just keeping on with the glutton for punishment theme. I have migrated myself to WGU, Western Governors University to pursue my goals of getting my BSN and now MSN.

A little synopsis. I researched every school known to man prior to jumping into my BSN after being burned by Excelsior. I surely wasn't making the same mistake again! I wanted to push through and get that BSN at a minimum because I knew as life went on it'd be more critical to work and I'd also find more and more reasons to postpone the idea. I am a professional procrastinator of course. Western Governors University ended up being my top choice for a few reasons.

1. Work at your OWN pace. Not a "pretend" work at your own pace but a REAL work at your own pace place! It really is, I can attest to that now.

2. Cheap. I mean I hate to say put it that way but a degree on the cheap sounded appealing especially when I was **thisclose** to signing up with Regis University for the exact same degree in which I'd pay triple the money (and couldn't work at my own pace).

It was a pretty simple choice after some investigating. I also really liked the idea of a "flat fee" cost scenario versus a pay by the credit hour scenario which is common at almost every other university out there. More bang for your buck I guess should you choose to take advantage of it.

The short story.
I completed my BSN with WGU in 3 months for a flat fee of one term/6 mos which put me out about $3500.

I had 38 competency units to complete which was 16 classes.

I spent the first 3 months of my 6 month term laying my Dad to rest doing zero work for obvious reasons. I spent the last 3 months actually completing the work.

It was not the hardest thing I've ever done, the CPNE was. The BSN just took dedication and determination. It was more drudgery than difficulty.

The common questions/concerns...

Are there clinical hours involved?
No.

Will my Excelsior nursing credits transfer in?
The short answer is yes. All of my prior credit transferred in with no problems. You receive a block of credit for your RN license and they evaluate each additional course from there. If there are courses that do not apply to the BSN curriculum you will be required to take/re-take those courses. DON'T freak out about this. Even if you end up with an additional class or few remember they are not extra costs, they are built into your term, typically you fly through these classes in a couple weeks each. You have to remind yourself this doesn't work like a traditional college where each additional course is an additional 3 credit hours to complete and pay for which pushes you into one semester after another.

What about Nutrition?
EVERYONE is required to retake nutrition. WGU has their own "version" that they want you to have, no amount of bellyaching to admission will change this. I had 3 different versions and none of them were good so I had to retake it too. It wasn't a big deal. At. All.

You have to take Statistics?!?OMG?
Yes. yes you do, unless you have it within the last 5 years. I had it but it was past 5 years and I flipped out about stats. I thought it was going to be HELL. It wasn't. Their version of statistics is how the information applies to nursing concepts and nursing management. There is no math. You don't need a graphing calculator you don't complete math equations. Stats is simply an overview of what information can be gathered USING statistical measurements, what those types of measurements are called, and how they apply to healthcare. So woosah the stats.

Will the pass/fail 3.0 gpa ruin my future plans?
Since it is a competency based program you either pass or fail, there are no A's B's or C's. Therefore the maximum gpa for completion is a 3.0. Many people flip out thinking this will RUIN their chances of future schooling, entrance into NP programs, blah blah. I can tell you since I was a tad skeptical myself that I finally researched said future schooling and NP programs. I looked at them ALL. All of the ones I investigated required ONLY a 3.0 gpa. And this includes prestigious universities like Duke, Johns Hopkins, Columbia, etc.

Check it out for yourself
http://nursing.duke.edu/admissions/frequently-asked-questions

http://nursing.jhu.edu/academics/programs/masters/nurse-practitioner/family/

http://nursing.columbia.edu/admissions-and-financial-aid/how-apply/ms-programs

If you are concerned with being competitive in such a program you can simply take additional coursework through a local university to boost your gpa or take the GRE. Don't fret about the gpa thing, it is truly a non issue. I have spoken with more than a handful of folks who completed the program who are actively enrolled in various FNP programs around the country with no issue.

How quickly can you complete the program?
I was told at admission that the average time to complete WGU's RN to BSN program was 18 months, aka 3 terms. There are dozens of us who have done it much quicker obviously but there are many many more that don't. You have to evaluate your own personal strength as a student, a distance learning student to make that assumption. Keep in mind there is zero hand holding with the program, if you do not succeed by teaching yourself information this may not be the program for you.

Should I do the BSN or just go for the MSN?
This is a highly personal choice. This is also somewhat dependent on the current curriculum as it frequently changes here and there, nothing major but there are changes. I did the BSN and figured if I wanted to later I could do the MSN but didn't want to jump all in right off the bat. That was a dumb decision, I should've just done the MSN. Here is why- I ended up going right into the MSN program anyway and I could've saved myself 5 classes if I'd done it straight thru. You end up repeating some courses with minor tweaking when you do it in a two step process, on top of that there are a couple of classes you are required to do for the BSN that you don't have to do if you go straight MSN. The beauty is you can stop at your BSN if you choose to. You can get your BSN degree once you finish that coursework and quit if you really want to, you don't have to wait until the end of the MSN program. This is definitely the way to go in my opinion.

 So if you're considering pushing on to another set of letters behind your name I can't recommend WGU enough. I liked it enough to move forward with my MSN. It delivered as promised and was truly self paced, it was easy to navigate, the support I received was fine, and once again it was CHEAP.

For more info on my tips for completing your degree in a single term along with other WGU posts head over here.

***Disclaimer, I am NOT affiliated with WGU, I don't work for them or get compensation from them for saying any of this... incase you were wondering ***

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2015/06/wgu-after-rn-tale-of-bsn-and-msn-journey.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-82142287065034683172014-12-05T11:19:00.000-07:002015-09-29T15:34:36.690-06:00Breastfeeding Supply Mayhem

 I always said I'd give breastfeeding a try from the start of my very first pregnancy. I tried with baby 1 with no such success thanks to an early induction, a 'late term preemie' sucky latcher and lazy eater, and a supply that tanked because of such. I tried again with baby 2 who was full term and a fantastic eater, unfortunately too fantastic. Again my supply was no where near enough to keep up with his hunger so I pumped for 6 weeks and saved my milk for his rice cereal later down the road. When I got pregnant for the third time I vowed that I would try yet again, perhaps third time was the charm. Well with the wee dude currently 9 weeks old it has been an immense struggle.

Dude #3 has been the best and most successful breastfeeder of them all but we are struggling and I'm not sure how long we will be able to keep it up. He latched immediately after birth and pretty much hasn't left my boob since. Eating a bazillion times a day, aka 19-22x a day on average OYE! I had no qualms with this for the first few weeks knowing he needed to establish my supply so all day and night the kid nursed which was/is more than a challenge to take care of the other two kiddos let alone do ANYTHING for myself. At his 2 week appointment he'd already gained a POUND over his birth weight and I was so encouraged, yay things were actually working for dude 3! Well he continued to eat a million times a day and so I decided to hit up the lactation consultant when he was a month old to see if we could get the feedings down. I also found out at this time that his weight had fallen off and he'd only gained a few ounces in 2 weeks. Her thought was that he wasn't transferring the milk appropriately, he was "creasing" my nipples which meant he was doing a lot of work without a lot of reward so the nipple shield was our fix. I dread the nipple shield by the way, it's a pain in the butt and I was really wondering how in the world I was going to add the nipple shield to the chaos of nursing in public every time we went out, as if the dumb nursing cover wasn't hard enough to wrangle. But I was determined to make it work so we went with it. At the same time she told me to start supplementing formula if he needed it and was still hungry after I nursed him on both sides for 40 minutes.

A week later weight was back up yay! After the nipple shield we have corrected his sucking to efficiently empty the boobs but clearly supply is still an issue because he needs anywhere from 1 to 10 oz of formula every day to stay happy despite continuing to breastfeed 18ish times a day. I have been determined ever since to cut out the formula which means my supply needs to increase since he's obviously not getting enough from me. This has led me to try everything known to man to boost my milk supply...

My Milk Supply Toolbox so far- things I've tried/am trying

The lactation consultant

Weekly breastfeeding classes/ weigh ins

Placenta encapsulation- yep actually did this, more on that in another post

Brewers yeast

Lactation Cookies

Increased water/fluids

More Milk Plus- a tincture with Fenugreek, Nettle and other herbs to boost supply including Goats Rue which stimulates mammary tissue in those who've had breast surgery

Power Pumping (this was a major fail and made things worse actually)

Special milk increasing tea concocted by an herbologist for me that includes fenugreek, red raspberry leaf, catnip, nettle, cinnamon, and various other herbs

Marshmallow root, also brewed as a tea to beef up the content of my milk to help with weight gain

Basil, same as above

Acupuncture

Metoclopromide (Reglan)- a prescription medication that has been used as a galactagogue (it also gave me post partum depression with baby 1 but I tried it again this time hoping for the best. Turns out after 2 days I had to stop the med because it was doing the same thing again.)

So I've pretty much tried everything there is to try.  It surely isn't for lack of effort that we're having problems. Dude still eats at least 15x a day and gets formula and I'm starting to realize that I may need to just be ok with that. I hate it though, I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel completely disappointed and feel like a failure as a woman and mom. I'm not sure why my body just won't cooperate but for whatever reason it doesn't seem to be. This is my frustration too when I hear other moms so insistent on condemning the formula feeders, they couldn't possibly understand my effort and struggle and still judge and put down moms who are unable to exclusively breastfeed. For people like me it isn't a choice and it sucks, I wish there were more understanding in the mommy world about this.

My other main contention with "giving up" whatever that may mean at this point is that I notice a major difference in the dude's demeanor depending on how much formula he's had. The other two boys had colic and major GI issues, they were on hypoallergenic formula for a year and it was awful. This little dude hasn't had ANY of that, no stomach issues or gas or fussiness that is out of control UNTIL he has a lot of formula. That kills me. Because I know that the breastmilk doesn't do this yet I can't give him enough so I HAVE to give him something that makes him feel horrible.

Not sure where this road will lead, I'm continuing to try, I'm determined to fight as hard as possible to keep boob feeding the kid. If my body will let me. If anyone has any other magical cures or ideas I'm more than willing to try! And for any other mommas out there struggling, know you're not alone.

:::::UPDATE::::: I gave this my ALL and I mean my ALL for 5 months. Up until that time I was supplementing with formula at every feeding and the dude was eating around 18x a day including nursing all night long. I would side-lie nurse him all night long, while he laid in the crook of my arm and I flipped him from side to side, ALLLLLLLL night for 5 months. It sounds insane to even write that now. My god. No wonder I didn't sleep. And no wonder at now just shy of a year old the dude STILL EATS EVERY 2-3 hours all night and sleeps in our bed. Still.

You read that right. He'll be one in 2 days and he still eats every 2-3 hours at night in our bed. The side-lying ruined his sleep training, literally. It's not possible. Believe me I tried, I keep trying.

At 5 months I woke up and went to latch Baby C and after about 20 seconds he started wailing, he was irked because NOTHING was coming out. Not a drop. And that was literally the end of the nursing because my body flat out quit overnight. I didn't have an ounce of engorgement, couldn't pump a drop, it was over. So he's lived on formula ever since and at the end of the day I am proud of myself for making it this far and mad at myself for working so hard to end up with the same result and guilt ridden for wishing I was more selfish and took care of myself and taught my kid better sleep habits rather than forcing the issue.

Such is motherhood.... a dichotomy of emotions....

The dude is healthy happy and none the wiser!

Fellow mommies out there, give yourself a break and a pat on the back, whatever you're doing whatever happens at the end of the day you're doing your best. Your kid will be fine, they will thrive because of your love for them no matter what version of sustenance they receive. Keep up the good hard work!!!

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2014/12/breastfeeding-supply-mayhem.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-80993181141891801292014-08-22T06:00:00.000-06:002014-08-22T07:51:10.993-06:00One Year.

It was just after midnight when my phone rang. I looked down to see that it was my step mom calling so I took a deep breath and answered...

"Your Dad's gone" a solemn voice echoed on the other end.

It was the phone call I had been dreading for 2 years.

I told her I would be over shortly and hung up to call my brother whom I had spoken with just hours earlier telling him that he shouldn't waste any time getting over to visit Dad in the morning as something seemed off, I just felt it when I was with him earlier.

"Hey bro...." the silence was deafening..... "Dad's gone Home"

I laid in my bed for a few moments wanting so bad for this nightmare to be over, to wake up from the dream. A million thoughts at once. I got up and grabbed my glasses and walked out into the living room where my husband was still awake watching tv.

He looked up at me and said "Hey, what are you doing?" and I couldn't bring myself to even utter the words again so I just stood there blankly. "Oh. Oh no." he said as he stood up to hug me. "I'm so sorry babe..."

I grabbed my car keys and told him not to say anything to the kids until I was back later and I drove over to my Dad's house. The whole drive over there I kept thinking of the last time I had seen him, just hours beforehand... my step mom and I had gone to the chapel to make the arrangements for an intimate formal viewing. We had just signed the papers for a cremation service...Literally hours ago.

There was an insane storm going on during all of this, in fact I laughed as I held my Dad's hand earlier that afternoon and said "Dad, do you see all of this? The angels are here for you... I think they've brought all of Heaven with them!". It was quite a sight outside, hail and rain and thunder and wind like I've never seen before... oddly enough the storm centered right over our small community and that was it...

When we returned from the chapel with the final arrangements in place I went up to give my Dad a hug. Though he hadn't opened his eyes more than a handful of times in a week and usually laid there pretty peacefully, I could tell that tonight he was restless. He didn't seem comfortable. I covered him up with a blanket and started to massage his hands when he turned to look at me and started grimacing and making some very odd noises. It startled me and I said "Dad what's wrong, what's the matter?" He did this a few more times as I asked if he needed more pain medicine. He was unresponsive, had been for a couple of days at that point, so I gave him some more morphine and waited a few minutes. He was still acting odd so I gave him another dose and also some Haldol hoping to calm him down, I upped his oxygen a little bit and I sat with him. I kept thinking I just wanted to stay, I almost called my husband and told him that I was going to stay the night on the floor next to him... but I didn't.

He seemed to calm down a little bit over the next hour, his breathing more relaxed, so I turned down the light and gave him a hug "Love you Dad."

I left the house, still uneasy, about 10pm and called my brother who had just arrived in town to let him know to head over first thing in the morning. I knew something wasn't right. I got home and laid down shortly before getting the phone call.

All of that ran through my head over and over again as I drove to his house. I couldn't believe this was actually happening. After all this time, we were finally doing this. The awful phone calls. The late night call to the hospice nurse and coroner. Just utter disbelief. Pain that knocks the wind out of you.

I went inside and up the stairs and saw my Dad laying there, just as I had left him merely hours ago. His head was tilted to the side and his eyes were slightly open... I had to look twice to convince myself that he really was gone. I knelt down beside him and laid my head on his chest and cried. I held his hand and stroked his head in absolute disbelief. Every ounce of my body screamed in agony. "Damn, Dad." "Damn." I sobbed.

I watched my brother walk in and come up the stairs and do the same double-take that I did and shake his head. I stood to hug him and we all cried. We all sat around in silence, all having the same million thoughts racing through our heads.

My step mom said that he had been resting easily, she had kissed him goodnight around 11:00 and got up at midnight to give him his pain medicine and he was gone. I just knew it.... I knew I should have stayed and not gone home but obviously that's not what he wanted. He didn't want me there. It was quite fitting since the past several months had gone in a similar fashion, almost like he was pushing me away, trying to tell me to move on and stop worrying about him... to move on with my life... move on from cancer and all it has taken from us. The whole time I just wanted to be there, as I told him at his first chemo session that I would be... and it's like he was increasingly telling me to stop. Perhaps he had seen, better than I could, all that cancer had taken not only from him but from me, my family... sucked me dry and he wanted me to stop letting it... even that night.

"Enjoy your life Baby Cakes" that's all I could hear as I laid on his chest. "It's time."

I began to help my step mom pick out his suit from the closet and the gray tie he had requested in the last coherent conversation I had with him about 10 days prior. Which shoes would he want... it was all so surreal.

By now the hospice nurse had arrived, she had to confirm that he was really gone and call the doctor to get the death proclamation. She also called the mortuary company that we had decided on only a few hours prior so they could come and get him. When they arrived they were so professional. I mean what an awful job to have, awkward, emotional... horrible but they were wonderful. They let us have our time with him and then got him on the gurney to come down the stairs. What a weird experience, I could hear them struggling to get him down the stairs, afterall it took 5 firefighters to get him up there in the first place trying to keep him as comfortable as possible. I watched them load him into the hearse and close the doors... and that was it.

We all continued to stand around in disbelief and finally left to go to bed. When I got home both of the boys were laying in our bed sleeping. I saw my oldest open his eyes as I climbed in and I just stroked his hair softly, he kept staring at me intently. "Momma... is Grampa in Heaven?" it took my breath away. I couldn't believe that he knew somehow... "Yea baby. He is."

What a day... what a day... I can hardly believe it's been a year. Who am I kidding, I can hardly believe it happened at all. It still isn't real that he's gone. I feel like the Universe gets extra wonky around death anniversaries, like the vibration speeds up because weird things happen. Memories that haven't dawned on you in ages all of a sudden pop up. Things seem out of place... it's hard to explain. It is similar to when he died, like the veil between heaven and earth kept thinning out until he was gone. I feel like it's doing that again. I can feel him close by now, just like in the opposite sense I could feel him drifting away.... which probably makes no sense to anyone but me?

Even the kids have been obviously noticing it, they've been talking a LOT about Grampa lately. My youngest who never really gets emotional about missing him has been crying about missing Grampa every single day for nearly 2 weeks... "You miss your Dad momma?" "Yes baby I miss him" "Me too" :( Out of the blue he is constantly talking about missing him.... I've yet to tell them that it's been a year, not that they could comprehend what that means anyway, or that we're going to have a celebration to commemorate things but they can definitely sense it all.

A year later, it still feels numb. I have to shake my head any time I think about that day, when I think about it all... I remember the initial diagnosis and sitting there dumbfounded as a surgeon still wearing his blue cap explained to us that he had just removed a tumor the size of a cell phone during the cystoscopy. I remember the look of shock on my Dad's face when the same surgeon repeated the findings to my Dad later in his room as the gravity of it all started to hit. I remember the phone call my Dad made to me the day everything took a horrible turn as he told me they'd given him 2-4 years... "So....that's it?!?" long pause "that's it, kid"... how had he found the courage to make that call to me...? I imagine it took the same courage as I needed to call and tell my brother that he was gone.

It's all an epic whirlwind of shittiness really. It still sucks today as bad as it did then. I still have no good answer for my kids when they cry to me about how they miss Grampa. I tell them they can visit him every night in their dreams and they respond "but Grampa doesn't come in my dreams!" how the heck do I fix that...? I tell them that I promise he does come but sometimes it's hard to remember our dreams and they look at me confused and continue to cry. They don't get it and they don't know how to fix the hurt in their hearts anymore than I do. I'm not sure if it'll ever get easier.

So what do you do a year later... the same thing we did that night... put one foot in front of the other, continue to look to the sky and listen intently when he sends his love and reassurance from heaven and "live my life Baby Cakes"

I'm trying Dad.

But I'll always wish you were still here to live it with me.

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2014/08/one-year.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-52131404546579745712014-08-17T08:56:00.003-06:002015-08-14T09:45:19.658-06:00The Mexican Family Vacay Babymoon From Hell Part I

We were so looking forward to our trip to Playa, we kept commenting on how excited we were to be doing the all-inclusive thing where we could just show up and not have to think about a single thing. No worrying about where we wanted to go for breakfast and lunch or how much to budget for the day, no carrying money around, etc. Just show up and relax! We've stayed in all-inclusive resorts before and never had a problem (unlike many folks who refuse to travel this way because you're "trapped" if things are bad), in fact our favorite resort was just about an hour away in Cancun, The Royal Solaris. Unfortunately our long awaited trip was anything but relaxing.

Where to even begin with an explanation of our family vacay to Mexico... I guess from the start, at the airport. United Airlines so kindly booked our seating arrangements with the kids sitting on one side of the aisle and us on the other. Thankfully the dudes were behaved enough not to completely ruin the experience for the other travelers seated next to them but it was an exhausting 4 hour flight constantly reaching across the aisle to keep them entertained and happy. Oh yes and we were in the last 2 rows of the plane which meant ALLLL of the people on the plane and flight attendants were walking past our seats to the bathrooms every .4 seconds. In the end, we landed, the kids loved the flight and had a blast so all was fine as we took the shuttle to National rental car where I'd pre-booked our car. I reserved and paid our rental car fee via credit card before we arrived, when we showed up it was a classic bait and switch and we ended up with an extra $150 worth of charges that were MANDATORY yet never once mentioned until we arrived of course, including an 18% tax rate... nice. Got the carseats in the car, and the seatbelts don't lock out to properly secure the carseats... I guess this is normal in Mexico?? Ugh, I was beyond annoyed by now and hot and swollen but we got on the road and drove cautiously down to Playa Del Carmen ready to be done with our long day of travel.

Managed to find the resort, pulled the car up to the front not exactly sure where to go and got out to check in. No one greeted us or pointed us in the right direction... so we just went to the counter and got checked in by a less than enthusiastic person that basically didn't speak to us but just handed me a paper to sign and slapped green wristbands on us and told us someone else would show us the "amenities". At this point, Pepe, our "tour" guide says "welcome to my country" and asks how old we are.... say what?? Yes, he asked us how old we were after finding our name on his chart "for marketing purposes". We ask him whether we should go park the car before our "tour" and he says yes so I stand there with him and he proceeds to ask me what we do for a living as hubby parks... once again whaaaatt?? I started to catch on to what he was doing, he was gathering info for his timeshare presentation that he was attempting to rope us into. You know, you must meet certain qualifications ie. age, income, etc in order to be a good candidate. At this point I got annoyed and stopped answering his questions. We'd been traveling for nearly 12 hours and I just wanted to get him to show us our room and take the kids to the pool as we'd promised all day long. Instead, he sits us down in the lobby, orders over some lemonade and proceeds to show us a magazine page by page of ALLLL the areas in the Mayan Riveria that are pretty and touristy and he then tells us that we should do a tour during our trip to see all about the amenities in the resort (I thought we were already doing the "tour" with him...??). We just nodded along and he tells us that 8:00am is LATE for the resort, that things get moving very early here and says so I'll sign you up for 8 am tomorrow for the tour. Uhhh whaaatt? First off buddy we're on vacation, I'm not waking up "early" for some stupid tour on the first day, what the hell? He asks us "when you book these kinds of vacations what credit card do you usually use? Visa or Mastercard?" I finally look at him and tell him we're done, the kids are ready to get to the room... I was in complete disbelief that this was how they "welcome" guests and I could've slapped someone. Oh one other tid-bit Pepe informs us of is that unless you're one of the Royal Elite guests you only get to eat in the variety of non-buffet restaurants 1 night per 3 nights stay which meant we'd get to dine at an actual restaurant just one time during our trip and all other nights we were stuck with the buffet. WTF? This surely wasn't mentioned on ANYTHING I read, not on our travel reservation, not on the website, nor mentioned at check in... I basically took all of this in and resolved to get the hell out of the lobby, get to the room, and deal with it in the morning. There was no way I was going to accept that, they'd be fixing it for damn sure.

Off to our room to FINALLY relax... supposedly. They gave us a golf cart ride to our building, I was busy taking in the sights and didn't really notice how far we went and even after staring at the map of the resort didn't really grasp how LARGE the place was. I mean the entire resort was huge, it was more than a hike to get to ANYTHING which I started to realize after a day or so when my feet were swollen up like balloons and I was getting contractions every damn time we left the room. We finally started counting the distance after a few days and came to the conclusion that it was nearly a QUARTER MILE from our building to the main center of the resort where most of the restaurants were, the snacks, the main pool, pretty much where you needed to go for anything. The lobby, parking lot and other restaurants were even farther. Oh yea, and our room was on the 3rd floor... with no elevator. Hubbs informed me that it was 34 steps... oiy.

Our "upgraded" room (thanks to a promo I found online) was a junior deluxe suite which meant a living room area and bedroom area with balcony. So the kids had a pull out sofa for a bed and we had a king. I threw the luggage down and sat on the bed getting ready to decide what we wanted to do for dinner since our hopes of hitting the pool were out thanks to Pepe. I immediately noticed some nasty looking "drip" like stains on the headboard of the bed... omg... BOTH sides. Ick. Figured I'd sleep on the opposite end of the bed and once again deal with this all in the morning because I was OVER IT by then.

Off we ventured to our first dinner. A buffet of Mexican fare sounded great so we stopped in to La Mascaras one of the resort buffets and had some pretty decent food. My only real complaint was that the restaurant had no air conditioning. It was hot as hell and humid even at night, so we sweat to death during the meal but at least filled our stomachs, listened to some mariachi, and headed off to explore a little bit of the resort before hiking back to our room to sleep. We'd soon find out that sweating to death and lack of air-conditioning was going to be our life for the next 6 days YAAAYY, literally everywhere. Apparently this is what makes an "Eco-Resort" ..... hmmm.... or something like that I suppose. Oh and another inkling of what was in store for us at the "Eco-resort" was the abundance of mosquito repellant dispensers located every 20 feet around the entire resort like a hospital with hand sanitizer or something. Oh boy... this was day 1.

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2014/08/the-mexican-family-vacay-babymoon-from.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-4213461519255203162014-06-17T09:27:00.000-06:002014-06-17T09:27:04.045-06:00We've been up to a lot! We've been up to a lot...

 Mostly this.

Expected to join the crew in October :)

Since the holidays it's been a whirlwind into summer at the Maven house. There was a surprise trip to Ireland for Mr. Maven's 30th birthday. I finished my BSN and started a new job. I'm now working to finish my MSN. Business has been great and busy. We've had lots of family time. Celebrated the wee Dude's 3rd birthday. A lot! Looking forward to the rest of the summer, I get to meet my nephew soon, another vacation (our last as a family of 4), and then the newest member of the clan will be arriving. More updates later!

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2014/06/weve-been-up-to-lot.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-62585545521964626832013-12-15T20:01:00.001-07:002013-12-15T20:30:29.465-07:00Joy. Peace. Love. A fresh start at life after death.

Joy. Peace. Love.
That's our family motto for the coming year. Three simple words that symbolize so much for where the past years have fallen short. Not that we haven't had love and joy and peace (ok maybe not so much peace with a house of wild toddlers), we have had these things but they've been overshadowed by so much darkness.

2014 will be a year to go to the light.
Quite figuratively and literally...

My Dad made his journey to the light just 3 months ago and it still hasn't completely sunk in that he is not a mere phone call or state away. Maybe it never will? I still feel as if he is around me all of the time, I frequently look through his pictures and remember and laugh at good times. The holidays have made the hurt a bit more stingy... I think of each Christmas breakfast we spent together and the jolly smile he had on his face each year that we arrived. He was usually shuffling about in his slippers with his nice red silk shirt on throwing eggs on the griddle. "Merry Christmas Baby Cakes!" he'd always say as he ushered me to pour a glass of champagne or get a mimosa. I would typically come flying in the door late and irritated at the busy schedule we had the rest of the day visiting each household and he'd just squeeze me and smile and tell me to relax. My Dad always put on a huge breakfast since our routine had always been to start off our holiday extravaganza at his house in the morning.

This year there wont be a big breakfast with mimosas and Christmas music playing in the background. There wont be stockings filled with socks and chapstick... and other random essentials that we could always count on Dad to have waiting for us. No bubble lights on the tree to laugh at in all their cheesy glory. No card to open... he always picked a special card for each of us for Christmas.

There's nothing joyful about that reality. There is nothing joyful about recounting the last two years of watching and enduring so much suffering. 2014 will be a year to rediscover how to find joy again. To create joy in new experiences. Easier said than done, but we will do it.

Joy.

It has been an immense struggle to find joy through the heartache and frustration these past few years. Times that my sorrow was palpable by anyone around. I would do my best to fake it and hope that my mind would somehow convince itself at some point... Very hard to see the rainbow when you're sitting in a downpour. I think I managed to do a pretty decent job of keeping it together, with the love and support of my husband picking up the slack when I couldn't physically stand through the nightmare. But this new year.... 2014.... I am SOOOO ready to find the joy in life again. I will find joy again. And not just in the big things but in ALL things. I can turn a page to a new life, a fresh start and take a deep breath at what awaits.

Peace.

I am only thankful for death in one regard. Giving my Dad peace. Peace after a war-like battle. 2014 will be an even greater opportunity to know peace. Peace not only for my Dad but for ourselves, our new life, and the people still around us. After a battle not only with illness and cancer there have been larger emotional battles for all of us involved as we've been able to see who is really in it for the long haul. Who is truly there when the house of cards falls? Death will open your eyes to things you never could imagine... unfortunately it enlightened us to the fact that there were a lot of people we thought were there for us, that meant something to us, that were family, that completely abandoned us during one of the hardest experiences one will ever endure. This new year will bring peace in my mind with the way the cards have fallen, knowing that as the page is turned it will only go up from here. The fat has been trimmed and those who've stuck by are the only ones who deserve to join us for the future. I wish myself and my family peace in knowing this.

Love.

Through watching my Dad suffer until the end I have learned a lot about love. From all angles I have learned a lot. What it means to truly give love to someone else and pour everything you have into them, what it feels like to receive love and support from someone when you need it. The give and take UNCONDITIONALLY, no strings attached, pure care for another human being. 2014 will start with a completely new appreciation for love, genuine love that is not dependent on anything other than the fact that someone would sacrifice any and all of themselves to give to you if you needed it. So many relationships I've wasted concern with that didn't deserve my love... not this year. My love will be reserved for those that reciprocate. My Dad had my back no matter what, til the end, as I did his. Throughout this experience I've learned just how few people I have in my life that can give me the same, these people deserve to have ALL of me, my full attention, and in 2014 they will get it since many of the distractions, emotional "suckers", and fake friends and family have been eliminated from my life.

A new year means a new start. It's the close of one chapter, or in our case an entire book, and the beginning of another. I'm not really sure how you start to live after death but I can say that the process of surviving death will teach you a lot about life. I look forward to our new book. To a year of Joy. Peace. and Love.

I can hear my Dad in my ear any time I think of those 3 simple words.... and he offers me another 3 words in return as encouragement... "Enjoy The Ride"

So 2014 Dad, we will, we will enjoy the ride. We will miss you always but we will find a brand new life of Joy. Peace. and Love. because of you.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/12/peace-love-joy-fresh-start-at-life.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-36492609991310960952013-10-23T11:49:00.002-06:002013-10-23T11:53:12.972-06:00Decor on the Cheap: Herringbone Drum Pendant Ikea Hack

Ever since Ikea came to Colorado I've had a bit of an obsession with their mod furniture given the alternatives here... you either get American Furniture on the cheap or you're stuck with Ethan Allan price tags. For those who like a more modern vibe or sleeker look, well you were out of luck. Needless to say, many a weekend are spent in the 'rat maze' at Ikea while we've been re-decorating the house. My favorite part about Ikea furniture is that it's versatile and thanks to my contractor hubby it can be sliced and diced and custom configured into anything that I want it to be. It's kind of a DIY'er dream.

I was flipping through one of my many house decorating magazines and stumbled on this photo and fell in love with the look (which would later become a big inspiration for our #operationredecoration) and mostly fell head over heels for the huge Galbraith & Paul drum shade pendant light! What I did NOT fall in love with was the $500 price tag... So I went on a mission to create my own. I wanted a large (20+ inch wide) drum shade that was short to hang in our tall entry way. Fabric was first, I almost went with a plain black and white chevron until I magically found this herringbone batik which couldn't have been any more perfect. And much to my surprise I was able to find a clearance Rutbo lamp at IKEA which I hacked up to make the guts of the lamp rather than purchasing a bunch of lamp making parts and rings.

My husband took my Ikea find apart and removed a few sections of height to give me the short wide drum look I wanted. A few quick runs through the sewing machine and some hot glue and voila. $22 Ikea hacked drum pendant. It really couldn't look any more identical and I love it!

Unfortunately Ikea apparently doesn't make the pendant Rutbo anymore... but they have several other paper type lamps that are cheap that you could modify to create a similar look.

Happy DIY'ing yall!

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/10/decor-on-cheap-herringbone-drum-pendant.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-13425951646960535002013-10-22T21:26:00.001-06:002013-10-23T10:15:16.263-06:00Getting Good At Suffering

Well there's a whopper of a title for you. I have to admit it half makes me want to vomit and half makes me laugh (thanks to my twisted Irish humor and ability and inherited gift to make light of any situation. quite literally). I have to say, after a few beers this evening, that this idea is resonating within my head.

Is it possible to get good at suffering?

And then comes the WHY? And the agreement that the idea of such is horrible... but yet one that many of us will experience at some point in our lives.

For those who don't know the shitastic adventure we've been on for a couple of years now you can check over here for the short version. Cancer is a like a "joy" ride from hell and unsurprisingly it brings with it a LOT of suffering.

I made a post around my birthday discussing the idea of getting used to the crappiness and constant uneasiness of living with cancer (or someone close to you who has cancer). As I said, for many the cancer road is a short lived experience, for us it was about 2 years of utter chaos, anxiety, anguish, vile, awful... and and and (are there any better words to describe the hell other than HELL?? I think probably not). I almost felt as if someone suffering from an eating disorder in the sense that your true reality is inherently distorted in your own mind. Millions around you can easily say you're crazy, I see this and yet you see a completely different picture, but you're TRULY unable to distinguish this... it's like you're not looking in the same mirror as everyone else. You think the sky is yellow when everyone else tells you it's blue, and we're talking a conviction in your beliefs that its yellow... talk about a complete disconnect from reality. After a while of this constant bombardment to your current "normal" you stop the fighting and eventually concede and settle for his new version of "normal".

That sounds so bizarre to write... I'm sure there are people out there who've experienced something similar and completely understand what I'm saying. It sounds awful and I'm not going to lie, it is! But there is no other option if you intend to continue functioning every day of your life. You MUST find that new sense of normal and continue to plod along whether you agree or not because when it comes to health and disease you're not really a contender in something like cancer that will run over the strongest of fighters. Trust me... and without discouraging all of the current fighters out there I will attest to the idea that in the end it's not really up to you nor I whether our loved one is the winner in the end... as I got to witness, ever so painstakingly, the fight doesn't equate to the end result. What is meant to be will be.

BUT. And with a big BUT, I say to any and everyone fighting (just as my Dad would've said to them) Don't you EVER. give up the fight!!!!

EVER.

I told myself on a daily basis that miracles happen every day. And they do. You nor I is privileged to know the reasoning on "why" they happen for some and not others and therefore you MUST keep fighting. You MAY be the miracle. And by damn if any similar fate ever bestows me you can bet that I will go down with the most outrageous fight ever witnessed, I will fight for that miracle with every cell in my body.

With that said, I buried my Dad 3 days ago. It was symbolic because he was cremated 2 months ago but this was the final goodbye. We held a wake in his honor just as he asked us to do. And it was perfect... I mean really...

Perfect.

I felt him smiling and laughing the entire way through. And in some ways it helped my psyche... in others it hurt. This was an official goodbye. ... Not that I'd been avoiding it prior... I'm not in denial that he is gone. As morbid as it sounds to those who haven't experienced a death this close to home I can say that I saw the man hauled down the stairs of his home on a gurney by the mortuary company... I held his hand and kissed his forehead in a chapel when he was more than expired. I touched his body that was a mere shell on this earth as clearly his vibrant life was gone. I'm not in denial that he is gone.

It wasn't pretty, it was real. I'm ok with the real.

And here we are left with the suffering...

It hurts. Yes it hurts. We have done this too many times to count in the past few years... I lost an Uncle the day my second son was born, at his funeral my second Uncle announced his health struggle and was gone about a year later... 2 months later my Grandfather joined them on the other side.... and less than a year later my Dad rounded out the male family quartet in Heaven.

FYI. Heaven is/has been having the most insane reunion/party since then. The party has arrived folks and I can only WISH for one moment that I was there to experience it myself... I'll get my day eventually and I smile at that prospect. It took me a long time to get to this point.

There are tears. There are awkward conversations about Heaven with my children who are too young to understand the gravity of what has happened. Their Grampa was at my house 4-5 days of the week for years and now it ceases... His pictures are hanging around the house and they are told that they can visit him every. single. night. in their dreams if they want to but that does not fill the void of a man whose personality was nearly indescribable to outsiders. We get it. They really don't.

There is comfort in trying to tell myself that I was lucky enough to have 27 ish years of memories made with this man.... but anger that it was cut short... Comfort that he held each of my newborn sons commemorated with photos but yet they probably will NEVER remember him given their age at his passing. There is comfort in thinking thank you that it was NOT my child nor husband that is gone, but a parent and then guilt for even having such thoughts as if it trivializes his importance in my life...

It's a very dynamic and complicated matter, death.

I feel as though I've gotten good at death...

I mean isn't there some sort of easiness with practice? I've sure had a lot of unwanted practice over the past few years.... I guess in the end I say that the dimensions of suffering don't surprise me anymore but the hurt. the anguish. the sorrow.... those do not change. They don't get easier. Practice doesn't make perfect in death, and as I've comforted myself in the past few months stating,

"At least I was lucky enough to have someone in my life who made all of this hurt that bad"

I was lucky to have a man in my life who was my everything, that I will miss with every ounce of my being. And it HURTS! Many people aren't lucky enough to know what this feels like...

I am sad to see him gone, I am even more distraught to finally give it that official goodbye, But I am thankful to have had him here. He made all of the sadness worth it. He made every memory count. And I can only hope to pass half of this feeling on to the next generation... may they know his spirit, his worth and his legacy as I did.

I love you Dad.
Thank you for being you.
Thank you for teaching me to be ME.
Though our time together was cut short I thank the man upstairs for every day we got together. Walk by me, guide me, and be by my side in death as you were in life.... until we meet again...

Love,
Baby Cakes.

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/10/getting-good-at-suffering.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-31682270934749983962013-09-17T10:25:00.000-06:002013-09-17T10:26:13.002-06:00My Greatest Defeat. If I could have just one more hug.I have a post that I've been dreading to write. One that represents the realization of one of my greatest fears... something I've fought with every ounce of my being to stave off and keep away... to close my eyes and wish I was in a different place. It's a battle I didn't win.

We didn't win.

And it makes my heart ache and split into a billion raw pieces across the universe. To put it in black and white truly feels as if my body has been ripped in two... and I suppose it kind of has.

A very big piece of me. my life. my dreams. my love. my inspiration. my strength....... now rests in eternity on the other side.

My Dad fought an immensely admirable battle for 2 years. 2 very long arduous years. He valiantly soldiered through until his last moments here with us.... until the angels finally came down in storm of fury to carry him Home.

I have never felt such a hole, such a void. I am learning slowly, day by day, to put one foot in front of the other and to cherish each moment for all it's worth, to suck this life dry to the last drop. I miss him every moment of every day and wish for just one more hug.

I find peace in knowing that he is in a much better place. Cancer doesn't win in Heaven. I am proud to call this great man my Dad and I know that I have an incredible guardian angel on my shoulders now....

His amazing spirit will live on through all of us.

I will write more later of the unbelievable journey. There are so many things to process in my head, this has been the hardest experience of my entire life to handle and not crumble, so many days that I've nearly hit the floor. But for now that is the update, the reason for the blogging hiatus, while we reel ourselves back in from this and plan the worlds greatest wake to honor someone I admired most on this planet.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/09/my-greatest-defeat-if-i-could-have-just.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-46501868582997059902013-09-15T18:09:00.000-06:002013-09-22T18:12:02.017-06:00V-Tech Review & Giveaway!Lord knows there is no shortage of kids toys in our house! However, it never stops me from searching for new and fun things to keep the Dudes entertained with their unending energy. I am a fan of toys that have dual purposes and are compact since I can't stand the idea of my home looking like a daycare center.... it quite possibly already does despite my greatest efforts... :::shudder::: And my last requirement is durability because the Dudes are ROUGH. On everything.

I was excited to have the opportunity to check out one of VTech's latest and greatest, the 2 in 1 Shop and Cook Playset. What I liked about it was that it serves multiple functions and offered the chance for both boys to play with it despite their different ages and learning stages at the moment. It is a cute little play kitchen complete with stove, sink, and oven and then converts into a shopping cart that they can race around the house like Lightning McQueen because ANYTHING in the house that has wheels is zoomed around loudly like a race car. It even comes with some play food and utensils which is nice because there is nothing more irritating than buying a toy that shows some awesome set-up with the words "such and such not included" causing the poor kids to throw a major fit after we get home without all of the goods in tow. The Dudes are very into playing kitchen at the moment so they were PUMPED when this bad boy came out of the box.

The playset has some pretty smart capabilities, it distinguishes a pot versus a pan on the stove and makes the appropriate 'boiling' or 'simmering' noise, my husband thought that was fantastic. Dork. He also raved about the fact that you could use a penny to access the battery housing rather than searching for a screwdriver! "You make sure you put that in your review!" he was awkwardly giddy about that part since he gets the job of assembling all of the crazy kid toys in the house. I on the other hand found other things more important like the idea that it tells the kids to be sure to wash their hands before cooking! Life skills and such :) The older Dude immediately starting placing the appropriate utensils in their stickered areas, you know all OCD of course, and the little one immediately started eating the plastic food. Par for the course.

My only complaints thus far are that it is kind of large, there's no hiding it in a storage cube but to be fair it is much smaller than our smallest "kitchen" play thing since it folds up. If the legs could fold in somehow we'd be golden! Other than that, since it is smaller than a traditional "kitchen" playset it's pretty much a one kid at a time toy which doesn't always go smoothly at our house (are we the only ones?). The concepts of sharing and taking turns are critical for this toy!

Some specifics from the toy guru's

2-in-1 Shop & Cook Playset

· The 2-in-1 Shop & Cook Playset transforms from a shopping cart to a kitchen in a few simple steps.

· The cart responds with fun phrases and sounds and when kids are ready to cook their meal, the cart becomes a play kitchen complete with a sink, oven, stove burner and cutting board.

· The playset encourages pretend play and exploration while teaching about food, colors, numbers, music, following directions and more.

· VTech has a full line of developmental stage-based infant and preschool learning toys that provide the appropriate tools for every age and stage of a child's development.

· With nearly 40 new product introductions in this category this year alone, VTech has one of the largest lines of infant and preschool electronic learning products, each one chock-full of play value for unlimited, open-ended fun.

· From encouraging mobility and exploration among the youngest of infants, to introducing preschoolers to early learning skills, VTech's line of infant and preschool toys introduces children to early learning skills and helps establish a lifetime love of learning.
· Ages 2-5 years, MSRP: $49.99
 Win your own below!!

Leave a comment with your "toy requirements" and things you typically look for when shopping for new toys. Extra entries for getting social with our VTech friends, just follow the rafflecopter below.

***I was provided product for this review and giveaway from VTech although the thoughts and opinions are my own***

a Rafflecopter giveaway

And here is the rest of it.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/09/v-tech-review-giveaway.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-85421236541460891252013-05-20T13:06:00.000-06:002013-05-20T13:06:00.555-06:00Ethics In CancerHave I mentioned that cancer sucks?? Oh ok, just wanted to make sure that was out there. A brief post today covering the following- exhaustion, helplessness, frustration beyond frustration, and anger.

Can you be mad at someone who's dying??

If someone in front of you at the grocery store had a terminal illness and pissed you off would you confront them or give them a 'free pass' because well.... it's kind of rude to scream at a dying person, no?

A pretty straightforward case of ethics here, but what if that person was your father? Not so clear cut anymore is it... Yep, that's how my Monday started off, screaming at the cancer dude about how he was being a jerkoff and is completely unappreciative of the insane amount of work, care, consideration, and plain old bullshit that I've been giving and putting up with for two years now. I think I've been giving him the free pass this entire time because how could you NOT?? But I'm pretty tired, and exhausted and overwhelmed with it all and I'm tired of being the scapegoat. At some point you can't just continue being the punching bag right? Or maybe you should just keep taking it... because afterall they're the one with the ultimate short end of the stick. How can you get angry at them for hating this shitty journey and being short tempered when they think you're making it worse by doing things like keeping them in the hospital longer than they think they should be or by ruffling the feathers of a doctor here and there. In his mind apparently this is making things worse for him and it's my fault.

I understand the irrationality of this thinking... I understand what the real problem is, I can read between the lines. I've usually just taken it in stride, put up with it and ignored it but I couldn't ignore it today. So this Monday I broke all the ethics rules and gave the man a taste of his own medicine and now I get to deal with a mixture of guilt, anger, and frustration since the "rules" are blurred in the cancer game.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/05/ethics-in-cancer.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-72534765709949683852013-04-23T11:16:00.000-06:002013-04-23T11:17:24.039-06:00The Hospital DriveEvery time I make that drive to and from the hospital after another cancer catastrophe I tell myself I should write it down, I should write that experience down so that I never forget it. What a stupid thing to think, like I could EVER forget that... every time it's the same. The ride out is full of anxiety wondering what I'm going to find when I walk in those ER doors, my mind is busy on the ride out mentally scanning a million medical terms, diagnoses, medications, imaging reports... possibilities upon possibilities of what is probably going on, what questions I need answered from the docs, etc. It's case study time, it's get down to business time and while there is worry and concern floating somewhere in my brain it's suppressed. No time for that kind of thing on the drive out.

It's quiet. I don't have the stereo on. Depending on the time of day I am agitated at the other people on the road (part of the anxiety) because I'm in a hurry to get there. The drive out is fast and I come flying in the ER doors, past the security and into the room like a tornado. I check on my Dad, give him a squeeze to let him know I'm there and then it's time to work. I flag down nurses, I ask millions of questions, I request the doctor to come in as soon as possible. I have them pull reports from the computer, I check vitals, I examine my Dad, I check his bags, pulses, comfort... he is my patient for that time.

And the rest of the day consists of that. I have grown to have zero patience for the doctors and nurses that have not shown up for the day to WORK. I don't give them that option. Things are on point when I'm there, everyone is held acutely responsible for what they're doing and if they aren't up for the task they're asked to leave in no uncertain terms.

The drive home....... the drive home is..... something that would be hard to witness, which is why it's a good thing that I'm alone every time.

It starts with the walk out of those hospital doors. Just yesterday I walked out the doors to heavy snow falling at the end of April. (I had just posted about how my birthday this year was much better than the previous year where my Dad was currently admitted to the hospital and we were told that his cancer was back, now stage 4. Well I spoke too soon I suppose, this year went well until 48 hours after my birthday... a frantic phone call at 4am... an ambulance ride.... and we're back at it again).

The snow was falling and I stopped and stared at the sky and thought, "I've made this walk with every type of weather and season.... sunshine, rain, wind, cold, and now snow...."

After the walk I get to my car and by this point my brain is off, autopilot takes over. Depending on the days events I usually end up re-capping what the heck has transpired over the past several hours and what that means going forward. Lots of anxiety, unknowns, concern and worry. This perpetuates the knots that have been twisting and turning in my stomach since I arrived.

At some point a trigger goes off, like the dam gives way, and the tears start to fall while I shake my head in disbelief. There are a million racing thoughts....

WHY.... WHY.... why....?

Is this ever going to end, will we ever be able to finally take a deep breath?

It's not fair. NOT FAIR!!!!!

GODDAMNIT!

I just cry... and struggle to breathe.... I hit the steering wheel so hard that one of these times I'll surely break my hand. I scream and I cry and continue to shake my head in disbelief. I think of all the times I've made this drive, I think of all the times I've walked through those ER doors, I think of the day we found out that he had cancer.

I hyperventilate.

I sob.

I crank up the radio as loud as it goes.

I zone out the world and I see myself as if I'm watching a movie.

A zillion disoriented thoughts pop in and out of my head bouncing around like a pinball machine.

My kids, my husband, neglect, short temper, work, bills, moving, help, this sucks, my poor Dad.

 I wonder if my step mom is having a similar experience in her car in front of me.

I'm tired, I hate this, why the hell was that doctor such an idiot, I wonder if they checked this lab report, at least he has a fridge in his room that's nice, how will he be tomorrow. What if he has a seizure tonight.

The drive home is slow. It drags on in a surreal time warp. In reality those short 20 minutes feel like hours.

I remember things, I remember chemo appointments and conversations we've had, I think back to the day we found out about this nightmare and how the surgeon still had his blue cap on, I remember the drawings the urologist made for us at the last appointment, I remember the day I fell to my knees on the porch with the latest news, I remember previous early morning phone calls from my stepmom and subsequent trips to the hospital.

I wonder how we got here. Again, why. I imagine what a phone call would be like if he didn't make it through the night... what would they say, how would I react, how would I tell my kids. This is not something I should have to be dealing with right now.

What the fuck?!! How can we continue living like this all the time. This is just ridiculous and exhausting. No one can understand this, if someone were watching me right now they'd think I was insane.

I picture my Dad's smile and I laugh about a memory. I think back to some of my treasured times with him and I see my life playing like a movie, memories of everything from swimming as a young girl to learning how to drive to watching him play with his grandkids. A whole life of memories....

I smile and laugh and I belt out a song on the radio, I put my head back against the seat and continue to watch myself from up above and think of how nice it would be if this were all a dream that I could wake up from some day. I think about what life will be like when the cancer is gone, gosh that will be a nice feeling.... but it could always come back and how would that conversation go.... I don't know that I could ever take hearing that news again.

I sigh at the idea that this constant state of limbo and uneasiness is something we will have to deal with forever.

More disbelief. And laughter turns back to tears. I think of how this must be from my Dad's perspective, I can't even imagine... ugh... And then rage, this is bullshit... I just want to scream and hit anyone and everyone I can get my hands on.

GODDAMNIT.

I feel like an alien with 10 different heads and emotions and thoughts all going on simultaneously. This must be what it's like to be schizophrenic with multiple personality disorder. Everything is completely disjointed, manic highs and depressive lows, laughter and tears and rage... All in a 20 minute drive.

This is just insane. I'm SO sick of having these drives!! I'm up, I'm down, I smiling and then flipping out and then angry and then sad. I'm singing and dancing and then I'm punching the steering wheel and screaming.

By this point I usually interrupt myself from going insane because I'm at the final few streets from my house. Suck it up and stop crying. Get yourself together. I surely never walk into the house like this! I turn the switch off and breathe.

This stupid mascara, why did I buy this kind it is all over my face ugh! Blink blink blink, get your eyes dry. I fan my face and take deep breaths. I give my cheeks a few slaps and grab some chapstick.

Making the last few turns into the neighborhood. Keep it together... I shun any thoughts that will bring the tears back.

I put the car in park and take one final look in the mirror. Alright, inside we go... it's still snowing...

I'm tired. Back to the real world.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/04/the-hospital-drive.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-60517528400504684162013-04-16T11:01:00.001-06:002013-04-16T11:02:18.748-06:00Another Year, Another Candle On The Cake

Well I happened to look back at my post from my birthday last year and my first thought was that was only a year ago?? It seems like 10... it's probably aged me 10 at the least. I'm happy to say that my Dad is here to celebrate another year with me, something I did not believe I was going to be able to say. This past year has been full of ups and downs and a state of limbo, not unlike the past few years really but yet so different at the same time. I think we've found a new 'normal' with everything and seem to have adjusted to this life with cancer... if there is such a thing as adjusting. I'm not sure many people get the chance to do this because usually cancer shows up and it's a whirlwind and then the person is gone, like a tornado that just rips the earth right from under your feet. In our case it's more like a housefire, a slow burn.... It's like an extended version of a cancer tornado with the possibility that the fire may go out, you just never know. (If that makes any coherent sense to anyone that hasn't dealt with this???)

So we've found a way to 'adjust' to life with cancer. What does that mean?

Well basically it's a constant life of good and then bad and then good and then bad.... It's weeks where things are quiet with nothing to report and then weeks of chaos, emergency admits, doctors to argue with, a stubborn patient to argue with, and stress. Lots of stress. On average it's at least a lot of appointments and things to keep track of, surveying the situation on a constant basis and an unending nagging in the back of your brain. The time I spend with my Dad is also a mix, sometimes I feel like the "old" Dad is back, we talk like we used to, we have coherent conversations, he remembers things, he smiles and jokes, he has energy, he calls ME to see how I'm doing ..... and then there are other times where the lights are on but no one is home, he's tired, conversation is forced and awkward or we're fighting over his stubbornness to heed my advice.

That's what an extended life with cancer is.

I've come to a place of acceptance with the situation, not acceptance that this is happening because I will NEVER accept that nor understand why but an acceptance that this is our life so we need to roll with it. There's a bit less panic (depending on the week) and a bit more calm about it all for lack of a better word.

I have stopped clinging to things so tightly, like the idea of moving which we had intended to do last year before we found out about the latest diagnosis and we put an abrupt hold on shortly after. I would never in a million years have conceded to the idea of moving farther away from my Dad (even 30 minutes) this time last year. With all of the uncertainty I wanted to be as close as possible to soak in every last thing that I could, if it was the last.

It's not that I don't still want this, I do, but I've decided that putting my life on hold for the sake of cancer and the havoc it's caused is making me even MORE powerless against it all. The truth of the matter is that life is going to unfold the way it is supposed to, I don't have a cure for cancer so I certainly have no control over what is going to happen with my Dad.... I can kick and scream and fight and hold on for dear life but it isn't going to change anything. In the short term it makes me feel better to at least know that I am here for support, all caught up in the middle of this ball of yarn, and that probably won't change but in the long term I am letting cancer take over even more aspects of my life by doing this and not letting go....

So this year, we will move.

It's things like this that are a part of adjusting to the new normal. And I can't say if this is how I'd feel if we didn't have great feedback on my Dad's prognosis, if things were progressing I'm pretty sure I'd still be clinging. For dear life. But since things are stable for now I feel like I can let go a little bit. My Dad's cancer is just that, stable, at the moment. Essentially for the past 9 months of scans there has been no cancer progression. The original mass is gone and there are no soft tissue indicators of cancer at all. The bone lesions are all still present but have not spread or grown or gotten any worse. The thing about bones is that they take a long time to heal so these spots will show up on the scans even AFTER the cancer is completely gone until the bone has regenerated. This process can take a long time so it is possible that the cancer is gone and the lesions haven't healed yet, or it's possible that the cancer is still there, only time will tell. What we do know is that whatever treatment we're doing right now is helping, it's doing it's job.... so we hang around in limbo as usual. The main problem at the moment is dealing with complications from the cancer and chemo, dealing with the nephrostomy tubes, ureteral fistulas, and constant infections...

And that is how the past year has gone. We continue to be cautiously optimistic but mostly we've all been learning to continue to live while dealing with this instead of wallowing in stagnation. We've had a lot to celebrate, a lot of good things that have helped us keep perspective I think. Family weddings, my graduation, vacations, new houses, a lot of firsts, and 2 little dudes to provide laughter and distraction.

Overall year 26 was an experience- both good and bad, lessons learned, struggles endured in all ways. My mental capacity was stretched to the absolute maximum and through it all I've learned a lot about life and myself. It has given me some much needed perspective on so many things from friendships, to unconditional love, to marriage, to perseverance, to my own strength. I'd be lying if I said I wouldn't give all of that back to crawl back under the safety of normal life before all of this but at least I know I survived it.... and so the mission for year 27 is to continue to move forward, eyes ahead not back.

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/04/another-year-another-candle-on-cake.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-39902969744839707132013-03-05T16:24:00.000-07:002013-07-28T16:09:58.632-06:00The CPNE Weekend In PhotosThis is part of my post series on Excelsior College's ADN nursing program and the CPNE experience. See all related posts over here.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/03/the-cpne-weekend-in-photos.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-1848876459588545222013-03-04T11:42:00.002-07:002013-07-28T16:10:24.269-06:00The Gauntlet: What is the CPNE- Clinical Performance In Nursing Exam

This is part of my post series on Excelsior College's ADN nursing program and the CPNE experience. See all related posts over here.
Gauntlet noun

1. A form of punishment or torture in which people armed with sticks or other weapons arrange themselves in two lines facing each other and beat the person forced to run between them

2. An onslaught or attack from all sides
3. A severe trial; an ordeal.

Yah.... that pretty much sums it up perfectly actually.

So I have been finishing up further nursing degrees through Excelsior College, more on that whole journey later. For now I'd like to journal a bit about my CPNE experience so that it may help any future students gain some insight. I share it here because, well this is my life and this is a HUGE part of what I've been busy doing the past yearish and because I can be long winded so I have plenty of "space" to dish it out here. If there is anything I can do to help anyone attempting this complete insanity of an experience I'm more than happy to do so. It is a weekend that I will never forget as long as I live and goes down in the history books as one of the top 3 hardest experiences of my entire life, for those that know me, that is saying something.

For those unfamiliar with Exclesior's program, the CPNE (Clinical Performance in Nursing Exam) is the capstone for the ADN nursing program. After finishing the classes/coursework you ship off for the capstone to one of a dozen hospital testing locations. The CPNE is essentially a weekend long hospital examination testing your comprehensive knowledge and application of practice of everything you've EVER learned. It must be completed with 100% accuracy and is highly subjective, survive all 3 days and you are granted your degree, make a mistake and you buy yourself a ticket back home.

Stress doesn't even begin to explain it. Pressure is laughable. This experience has brought former combat marines to their knees. Seasoned paramedics and nurses with triple decades of experience have crumbled.... with a pass rate of around 40% (or less, even though they will tell you it's 62%) it's a doozie with all of the cards on the line. I won't try to explain this to anyone who isn't going through it because most will laugh at you and think you're overreacting about doing something so basic. All I can say is that I could cherry pick ANY nurse, ANY doc, ANY nurse practitioner, surgeon, etc and bring them to the exam and they'd fail the first 4 seconds easily. I can also say that there are very few things in my life that I have ever doubted my ability in, not just been uneasy about but really and truly doubted myself. This was one. You could be the best nurse in the world, the smartest individual on earth and still fail this exam.

  Day 1 is your lab simulation day, completing an IM or Subq injection after mixing two separate medications in a single syringe. Packing a wound with a wet to moist sterile dressing. Hanging a secondary medication and calculating an appropriate drip rate. Administering an IV push medication. Simple skills that must be done precisely, systematically, to the approval of your examiner in the way that THEY want it done, in the amount of time allotted. If they tell you the sky is yellow you better say it's yellow...

 Day 2 is the first day of your patient care scenarios. You receive a Kardex with a variety of areas of care that you must assess and/or treat. Simply speaking, you must first write a care plan for the patient which must include specific elements and then be approved to the T by your examiner. Then you must implement all of your interventions and areas of care assigned. Then you must evaluate and document narrative notes on your care plan and all care you implemented. This again must be done within very precise parameters, must include very specific information, and the entire thing must be completed within a set amount of time with timed phases within the entire scenario that you must hit on point.

 Day 3, if you survive to this point, is again patient care scenario/s. You walk out of the hospital with either a passing letter of congratulations or absolutely nothing but a $3000 bill for your efforts and 'encouraging' words to take a break and try again another time.

I wish I had been prepared for how insane this conquest was when I decided to enroll in Excelsior's program. Sure I was told about the 'clinical weekend' at the end, I was told it was your capstone and that obviously you had to complete a variety of tasks to pass the program. I was told that there were no traditional clinicals for the program and that this weekend served as an 'ultimate' clinical for the school to sign off on your ability as a nurse in practice. I thought well sure, no problems with that, one weekend is much better than hundreds of hours at a hospital! I was NOT told that it was this. That this would be one of the hardest things I've ever done in my life. I was not told that it was a "do or die" set up. I was NOT told the real statistics of the pass rate (they still wont admit it, but I can do math and I know that 1 passer out of 6 each weekend is NOT 62%). So I offer this info to anyone looking into this program as an option thinking it's great. Do your research, talk to students, read the boards, get the REAL scoop. It is obviously do-able, people DO pass and graduate but you will fight for every second of this degree. And IF you make it to the end, to the CPNE, you will fight even harder, pushing yourself farther than you knew you could to survive the gauntlet and get your hands on that precious letter.

Had I known then what I know now, I probably would've opted for a traditional nursing bridge program, forked out the extra cash, and saved my heart the equivalent of 80 years of stress. For those of you finding me that are already in the midst of CPNE prep, 2 things: 1- you're probably thinking those exact same things. 2- It CAN be done, eye on the prize folks, eye.on.the.prize.

Lastly, I will preface this information with the fact that I did this program while working from home. I continued to run my business, deal with your average life stuff, raise my dudes (they were about 1 and 2 1/2 when I got going), and continue to maintain half time status with online classes at my community college while doing this program. I'm a bit crazy when it comes to that, if you have the ability to devote more time than I was able to into this program you're already doing yourself a favor, TAKE THE TIME, realize from the start that it is going to require a LOT, and plan accordingly.

More Excelsior & CPNE posts here-

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/03/the-gauntlet-what-is-cpne-clinical.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-90304201054918527012013-02-27T14:11:00.001-07:002013-02-27T14:11:47.454-07:00Frugal Living: Practical ways for ANY family to save

So I saw an article on frugal living via Yahoo today and it didn't sit right with me for a VARIETY of reasons, mainly the insinuation that an average American family of four can live on $14,000 a year, afterall this was the title of the article. As I began reading I kept thinking over and over, I call BS... or as my Dad would say, "there's a fly in the ointment"...

Here's a few of the things that got my eyebrows raised without getting into the whole details- I can say that your average family doesn't have phenomenal government paid for health care (our family health insurance, should we opt to have it, would cost a mere $600 a month, and that's for a pretty much CRAP plan with a $5000 deductible before they pay a dime and a $25,000 family out of pocket max. Even if you never have to use the plan and only incur the monthly premium... well half of your "$14,000" budget is dunzo.) Not to say that our military and their families don't deserve great healthcare, they do, but unless you've served don't count on anything close to VA benefits!

 Next up the idea of having no house payment because you laid down $30,000 cash for a 3 bedroom "fixer-upper"... I literally shudder at the idea of an inhabitable (and I use this word loosely) space with 3 bedrooms that I could move my family into for $30k. I don't care if it was foreclosed, abandoned, auctioned off, whatever. I find it a wee bit of a stretch to think that this price could buy you anything NEAR a 'house', I don't care where you live. Perhaps I am wrong... in which case I will say to anyone who lives in an area that has a decent property in this price range consider yourself lucky and go for it. The rest of us are S.O.L. on that idea. And that doesn't even account for the fact that you don't save $30k in cash on a $14k salary. Obviously. So the real story here is that they saved all of this money over a long period of time while the family was making a helluva lot more than $14k a year.

Same with cars and car payments- see above, you don't save this much cash with your tiny $14k a year, especially if you're spending $400 a month on groceries (that's a whole OTHER issue). Or hand baking your own bread rather than buying prepackaged (fyi, your single packet of yeast is more expensive than a .99 cent loaf of store brand). So what I'm getting at with all of this, I could go on, is that after I read this and picked the story apart (which may have been Yahoo's irresponsible false portrayal of this family's situation) I thought, what can I get out of this?? And that is, what can your average family do to save money and live more frugally in a realistic scenario.

We most certainly aren't living on $14k a year, but we do have pretty much a single income household, and while my hubby works his butt off every day for us, that income is most definitely sub par for what he's worth. Meaning, we aren't rolling in dough here folks and we've learned a LOT of ways to keep costs down while still enjoying things that we like. We sacrifice in certain areas to splurge in others. After you get used to stretching a single paycheck for several (8+ months) when you're self employed you tend to learn to be creative in managing your funds, or lack thereof.

I'm all for trying anything new and practical that can save us money but I do draw the line on certain areas, and I firmly believe there should be some sort of line, whatever that is for your own family. For example I will not drive a Prius or tiny little car; my SUV is huge, gets horrible gas mileage, but is safe, snow capable, and holds all of our crap. That is something I won't budge on. We have decided to purchase only organic and gmo free food (as much as we can afford) which has tripled our grocery bill each month, that's something we feel strongly about so we find a way to make it work. And things like homemade toothpaste, toilet paper, or whatever other extra-creative money saving extremes are out of the question, I'll gladly pay some green for the real deal.

Here are some of the things we do to save money that your average family can easily do to clamp off the outgo each month.

Utilize The Dollar Store: If you haven't been in one, go! Make sure it's a true dollar store- some are not. The best rule of thumb for the dollar store is to check there first before buying it somewhere else, chances are they have it. Price check your typical household items a couple of times at your grocery store and compare. You can get a TON of stuff here that you wouldn't think about that'll save you money!

Holiday things- easter basket stuff, valentine candy, xmas decor/wrapping/bows, halloween candy, etc.

Gifting supplies- all of them from wrapping paper, to tissue paper, to bows, and gift bags, not even Walmart can beat $1.

Household Items- cleaning supplies, kitchen goodies like zip locks, aluminum foil, trashbags

Organizing supplies- bins, buckets, closet organizers, totes, they have TONS of this stuff

School & Project supplies- paper, pens, folders, envelopes, posterboard, homeschooling goodies, etc

Party supplies- plates, utensils, decorations, serving wear, I always get a handful of party things here

Re-evaluate your cell phone plan or carrier: We opted for Sprint since their data plans were unlimited, it saved us a considerable amount of money.

Price shop all of the carriers for what your specific needs are, see if they offer to buy out your old carrier contract if you switch.

You can get really good prices on new phones by going through Walmart. When we switched to Sprint I signed up via Walmart online and ended up getting a $500 phone for $100 and they waived the 'activation fee'. If your intent on going to the phone carrier store to sign up at least ask them if they will pricematch, can't hurt. I'd do the same thing for plans or deals that another company is offering, always ask, the worst they can say is no.

Be creative about your plan, hubbs and I opted to do separate accounts instead of a family account because we were able to get both of our phones for super cheap, we waited 6 months to secure our deal and THEN switched to a family plan. By doing it this way we ended up saving a couple hundred in the end.

Always see if your employer or spouses employer gets a company discount at your carrier, we save 18% I think thanks to this!

COUPONS: Did I mention coupons?? If you don't know how to coupon, learn. It can be very time consuming if you want to go crazy with it (which I used to do), but you don't have to go all or nothing. I still find time to do a decent haul 1-3x a year and when you get things for free it's clearly worth your time! I typically only coupon for household items now since they have a better shelf life than food products and it's something we'll always need so I'm free to stockpile galore. We have a VAST supply of laundry detergent, toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning products, toothpaste, razors, shampoos, body soaps, and various medicines that I got for free that will last at least a couple of years. You do the math... And they are all name brand products (Tide, Crest, Pledge, Garnier, Dawn etc) no need to worry about getting some unnamed mystery product.

GROUPON: Along the same lines of couponing, utilize Groupon, Living Social, Moolala, Tippr, Weekly Plus, etc.

This is how we save a bunch of money on our 'fun' things like dinners, activities, movies, etc. I plan to use this for a family getaway when the timing works out too.

We get our formal family photos done this way for pennies on the dollar.

I get photo canvases for our house here that would normally cost me thousands for $30-$80.

Occasionally grab yourself some mani/pedi, massage, and hair coupons, no need to completely forego these extras if you can get a deal.

These also make great gifts!

SNAPFISH.com: I wait for their 'penny print' sales to stock up on the bazillion pictures I've taken over the past few months or year. I ended up ordering ALL of our wedding photos doing this, paid about $50 in total for 800 4x6's shipped to my house!

Be thrifty with clothing: STOP shopping at the mall or any other 'specialty' store, splurge every once and a while and that's it.

Ebay it- I have no problem getting some gently used kids clothes on Ebay, this saves us a good amount between both dudes.

Ross/TJ Max- get your namebrand stuff here for a fraction of the cost, it's fine, no one will know and you can laugh allllll the way to the bank at anyone who side eyes you for doing this.

Utilize online discount sites- 6pm.com is great, free shipping and a TON of brands that will periodically go 70% off. Gilt.com, Hautelook.com, Zulily.com all of these 'deal' sites will save you money if you insist on owning some ridiculously priced item.

Pricematch your household bills: I recently got fed up with our latest trash bill since every time one comes in the mail it seems to have ANOTHER increase in "fuel surcharge", like they figured out people would accept this and just continued to run with it even though gas prices have been pretty stable for over a year.....

So I merely Googled a handful of other ones and found one for $15/mo (as opposed to our $30/mo) AND they offered new customers the first 3 months for only $10/mo. Well duh, no brainer there so we called our current company to say buh bye and they offered to match the price!! We didn't even ask, so lesson learned there, should've done that a LONG time ago.

Same concept for our Comcast (cable/internet) bill, extortion is putting it lightly, I need to own Comcast. For easily 5 years now we wait for our bill to magically go up, as it always does, and then I call and ask whether they're running any promos that we can switch to. Every time they have something that ends up cutting the bill back in half. They're starting to be more stingy but by entering into a 'contract' you can usually get similar results, or ask them to match Century Link or another competitor.

Get rid of your house phone: unless you really need it or something, get rid of it if you haven't already. Even cell phone carriers will offer plans to add a line that will ring to a voicemail for much cheaper than a land line.

CFL lightbulbs: I will say that I haven't seen any enormous change in our energy bill since switching over but anything is better than nothing and I DO know for sure that the CFL bulbs last a lot longer in our house than the traditional bulbs. And you can buy CFL's everywhere now, even the dollar store.

Amazon: This little gem saves me a lot of money.

'Subscribe & Save' for diapers/wipes- MOMS, I can tell you this is the cheapest way to get diapers, I've price matched it everywhere. Granted we buy Pampers since they're the only thing that work so if you're set with a storebrand that may be a better alternative, check and see. No one, not Walmart, not coupons, not Babies R Us can match Amazon's subscription prices and it is wonderful to walk to my front door to get diapers rather than piling everyone up in the car to go.

Prime Accounts- If you order things online frequently, check prices at Amazon, they usually have excellent prices and if you enroll in the prime account you get free 2 day shipping. This isn't for everyone since your prime membership isn't free but for us it saves a LOT of money because I order things constantly for business, birthdays, and especially around the holidays. I also get a discounted membership price for being a student ($49ish/year) so I'll milk that for all it's worth!

Craigslist: We use this all the time to get deals on things. Kids toys, backyard climber toys, miscellaneous household things like a stand up freezer for the garage, car parts and accessories, lawn mowers, you name it we've gotten one for a phenomenal deal and I couldn't even begin to add up the savings. We sell things here too when we periodically go through our things, easier than sitting all day for a garage sale. Also, be careful on Craigslist, people can be creepy- act accordingly, never go alone, never show anyone something alone, avoid showing things at your home if possible, etc.

For business folks: I save money on biz expenses by doing a handful of things

Get rid of your fax line and use email-fax services, or just email since it's 2013 and that's how things are done.

Vistaprint is your friend for all things advertising. I always scout for free coupon codes and discount codes to get free postcards, biz cards, cheap brochures, hang tags, yard signs, banners, etc.

Stop paying a monthly website hosting fee and convert your site to a blog. If you don't know how to set up a blog with a custom template, adjust the html/css coding, or route and transfer domain names.... LEARN! I save $40+ a month doing this.

Alrighty so if you're still reading, you can see there are a million ways that you can save some cash in your every day life. These are all realistic practical things that ANY family out there can do, so why wait? Set a savings goal, make it a hardfast rule that any money that goes into that account does NOT come back out for any reason and start stashing it away. One of the best things I heard about managing money is to "tell your money where to go, or else it will just go away". This is so true, when payday hits I immediately pay all of our bills and throw money into savings before that money starts to disappear with random gas station purchases or fast food runs here and there, it will vanish if you don't put it somewhere, trust me! Once you get in the habit of spending less and putting a little bit away at regular intervals you'll notice a big difference.

Any other great tips on how you save money?? I'm always willing to try!

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/02/frugal-living-practical-ways-for-any.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-18738534915707156082013-01-20T23:55:00.000-07:002013-01-20T23:55:17.752-07:00Del Monte Tomato Kick-Off $25 Football Giveaway

So how about them Broncos!! Ok, well I am extremely bummed that my donkeys and Peyton will not be contending for the Superbowl this year BUT that doesn't mean we can't have a kick butt Superbowl Party. And oh.my.word. if they make it next year, watch out! I am a big football fan, of all the major sports I like the pigskin best (and UFC... it counts in my book as a professional sport).

In the spirit of football season coming to an end and Superbowl goodness, I present another awesome giveaway. Now trust me, you will want a piece of this one.... first off you get the chance to win some goodies straight from here at the blog including

Two (2) cans of Del Monte Southwestern-Style Petite Cut® Diced Tomato varieties

o (1) Del Monte® Petite Cut® Diced Tomatoes with Green Chilies

o (1) Del Monte® Petite Cut® Diced Tomatoes with Chipotle Chilies
 And A $25 gift card to purchase other meal idea items

 BUT at the same time you can enter to win the mega prize from Del Monte which includes... wait for it....

A Sony® 55" LED TV
A Bose® home theater system
AND a Sony® Blu-ray player (ARV $4,779.00 USD)

Yah, seriously, it's awesome, and YES I entered too (so maybe you really don't want to and then I can have a better chance myself ;)

Del Monte has some great ideas for football recipes and entertaining that you can check out over on Pinterest (the best place to gather party planning ideas of course!). I tried out the new varieties of tomato flavors with Chipotle Chiles and Green Chiles. One of my favorite easy dips for parties is a queso with a can of some type of flavored tomatoes and cheese, both of these flavors were perfect for this. I also tried them with our fish tacos one evening, again perfect addition with extra lime!

The important parts- first off enter the giveaway right here for some Del Monte goodies that will amp up your football festivities by following the rules below and THEN head over and create your Pinterest board so that you can be entered for the super rad mega schwag above (if you must).

TO ENTER:
Check out Mr. Rafflecopter below and he will show you the ways to enter. Contest is only open until Feb 15th. You can see the official rules of the mega contest here.

After you enter the giveaway here follow the directions below to get your entry into the mega prize sweepstakes

Follow the Del Monte Brand on Pinterest

Create a Pinterest board named "Del Monte Southwestern Tomato Kick-Off"

Pin at least two (2) Del Monte Tomato Recipes from the "Del Monte Southwestern Tomato Kick-Off" Pinterest board and at least two (2) football entertaining ideas

Register your Pinterest board to the Del Monte page from January 21st through February 15th to be entered into the Del Monte® Southwestern Tomato Kick-Off Sweepstakes program

Get ready for a chance to win one of the many prizes available, including an ultimate entertainment package with a Sony® 55" LED TV, Bose® home theater system and Sony® Blu-ray player (ARV $4,779.00 USD).

Got it? Questions just shoot me an email on the contact page, good luck!

The Del Monte products, information and two gift packs have been provided by Del Monte.
a Rafflecopter giveaway

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/01/del-monte-tomato-kick-off-25-football.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-20764951707879129332013-01-14T12:16:00.001-07:002013-01-14T12:39:41.589-07:00Reader Questions: How I barely survived a baby led schedule, and why I won't do it again!

I am always happy to answer questions from ya'll because I don't always have the time to write all of the posts and follow-ups that I'd like to. Especially when it comes to comparing baby #1 to baby #2. If you have questions feel free to shoot me an email from the contact page or on Facebook!

This is a response to some reader questions about how to incorporate a parent-led schedule versus a baby-led schedule. My initial post on our parent-led choice can be found here.

"I am going to be a first time mom and am interested in a doing a more parent-led approach then a baby driven one. I completely agree with you when you say that the child should fit in to your life instead of the other way around. I do have a few questions though that I was hoping you could please answer. "

when do you start implementing a schedule? Right when they are born or a week or two after?

a lot of articles I've read, both for and against parent-led schedules, say that it needs to be constantly consistent. So if I set the schedule so I want the baby to wake up at 8, but i know he could sleep past 8, do I wake him up or just adjust the schedule to start when he wakes up?

with feedings, do you BF within a range or 2.5 - 3 hours or have you set it so every 3 hours they eat, no matter what? And what if they act hungry after only an hour and a half or so after you fed them, do you wait until the 2.5 hour mark?

I read that vacations and such can really be hard on babies of parent-led schedules since they have a hard time adjusting, have you found this to be true?

Hi there,
First off, let me tell you that when I had my second we ended up in a more baby led approach, not really on purpose but mostly because we were exhausted with the demands of a newborn and then 18 month old and so we didn't have the will power to stick it out with the parent led approach. Now that my littlest one is about 18 months himself I can assure you this was such a BIG mistake! I will preface everything with the idea that each child is going to be different, some may be easier than others, etc. BUT #2 has been a pain in the butt especially when it comes to sleeping and I think this is hugely due to the fact that we didn't push as hard to get him into a great routine from the beginning.

With #2 we were in a crazy world of non-stop eating, still to this day the kid eats like a champ (which was not the case with #1 since he was 4 weeks early). So this kid was eating 4 oz. every 2 hours from the DAY we brought him home from the hospital! This started the challenge because I figured we'd slowly start pushing him longer and longer until he was on a 4 hour schedule but again the exhaustion of it all won us over and we just gave in and kept feeding him on demand (mistake #1). Getting up to breastfeed and make bottles (because my poor boobs surely could not keep up with his hunger!) every 2 hours for MONTHS on end was absolutely exhausting, no other way to put it.  And the constant eating led to the co-sleeping because the thought of getting up and even walking across the room to the pack n play was exhausting ha! It got so bad, I kid you not, that we had the most ridiculous routine just trying to survive because there is no napping with the baby when you have a toddler to run around after and business to run and school work to do. Our routine with #2 was to fill one bottle with just 4 oz of water, fill another with 2 scoops of formula and put the wee one on a co-sleeping pillow right in between my husband and I's pillows.... all 3 of us cozied up the bed night after night.... then when he'd wake up crying to eat I'd roll over, pour the water into the formula bottle, shake and plop it in his mouth barely staying awake long enough for him to finish. There were plenty of nights that he'd spit the bottle out and spill everything all over the bed requiring sheet changes in the middle of the night. And with him eating this much there was no diaper that would hold up so we had many nights of clothing changes and sheet changes as well.

Here's the best part... this went on for EIGHT months. I wish I was joking, the kid continued to eat every 3 hours in our bed for 8 months. A nightmare doesn't even come close to describing this. I finally put my foot down at 8 months and put the kid into his own crib in his room for the FIRST NIGHT ever. I still shake my head thinking about this. I can't even describe the feeling of having my bed back!! This decision made things more challenging because it was more work to feed him but at that point I was done, done, and done with this outrageous set-up we had going that I didn't care. And I DEMANDED that hubbs jump in to help as he had truly slacked in this department due to his demanding work schedule over the previous eight months. I told him I didn't care and there were some nights that he did everything 100% and I actually got to sleep.... ah sleep... kind of. It's amazing how your body can survive with such little sleep. I had grown so accustomed to doing this that after he finally would sleep through the night I was still wide awake half the night, like a little internal alarm clock that would go off. Craziness I tell you.

Luckily, he finally started weaning himself off of so much food shortly after we booted him to his own room. There were more and more nights that he'd go 5 or more hours without eating and less nights that he was up every 3, but my goodness he was about 9-10 months old by this point! Even today he is not nearly as good of a sleeper as baby #1, whether this is due to the schedule or not... who knows but I can't help but wonder if it would've helped even a little bit! As he is now over a year and a half old I'm still trying to get that sleep back, and there are still MANY MANY nights that the kid ends up in our bed to sleep. Obviously he grew very accustomed to this and it's still a challenge we deal with. I'm all for co-sleeping, but not to this extent, unless you're ok with sharing your bed indefinitely with your kid... it's not a good set up for us. And it all goes back to giving into the whole 'baby led approach', I applaud parents that can do it this way, we are not those parents!

All of that being said, I kick myself knowing that we could've avoided it, at least in some ways, if we had stuck to our guns and got him on a schedule. It would've been a bigger challenge than baby #1 because this kid refused to stop eating! But there were plenty of things we could've tried. We could've started pushing him at least a half an hour and continued to do this until he was on a more bearable eating schedule. I could've been less obsessed with the breastfeeding but after baby #1 I was determined to make it work with #2 so I fought a lot more than I needed to. I could've started rice cereal earlier rather than being paranoid about it and waiting until 6 months. I could've demanded help from hubbs earlier on rather than resulting to short cuts to save my own sanity from lack of sleep. I can assure you that baby #3 will be on a schedule if it kills me!! My husband and I both agree.

And finally to answer your questions specifically-
I do agree that you need to be pretty consistent with your schedule but I'm not crazy rigid. I wasn't a freak about it, there will be days that are off, there will be days that your time table is skewed by an hour or two and that's ok, the main point is that the general schedule is consistent throughout. Holidays and changes to your general routine will mess things up (like we experienced with Thanksgiving and things like that). I would say the first month you're getting used to the whole idea of a baby in general, this time is kind of chaotic. You're getting to know baby's personality, figuring out how much they eat, and this is the time to develop your schedule with what will work best for you AND baby, which may mean adjusting some things in your life to accommodate. For example if you have a yoga class or work phone calls or whatever always set at 9:00 am but this seems to be a good time to start your daily routine you may need to adjust your schedule and bump these things back to 10:00 am. I would take the first month to figure out what's going to work for you all and establish the schedule framework as soon as you can. You can always adjust it, just a little more work and a little less sleep. And I would stick to this schedule as closely as possible for at least the next month. By the end of month 2 you should definitely be seeing a pattern, the schedule should be relatively consistent.

Along those lines, if you want baby to be up and eating at 8 but they are asleep, I would wake them up. This is the best of the 2 scenarios you can end up with (either you're waking to feed them early, or you're having to distract them and keep them happy because they're hungry early and it isn't time to eat yet), so yes, if it were me I'd wake them up! I also set our schedule by the time on the clock rather than the time elapsed, meaning our every 4 hour eating schedule was probably more like every 3.5 since it would take him about a half an hour to actually eat the food. I found it easier to use the time on the clock so that I wasn't constantly having to count how many hours it had been since his last feeding, I'd just look at the clock and say oh it's 2:30 he's going to be eating in a half an hour. I didn't have a range of times really for feeding (unless that particular day was off for whatever reason) so eating was at 8 am, when the clock hit 8 I'd have the bottle or boob ready to go. If there were times that they weren't acting hungry I'd still try to sway them to eat something, even if it wasn't their usual intake, this gets their brain in the habit of waking and being hungry at certain times.

Now they will inevitably end up hungry prior to eating time on occasion and this is the harder to fix and deal with because they aren't exactly the happiest. This is where you have to be able to deal with crying, and it will prepare you for sleep training down the road (which is MUCH easier if you already have them on a schedule!). Luckily the crying part is short lived in both cases. I pushed the boys as long as I could to get them to the scheduled eating time. This can be done by distracting them, playing, giving a pacifier, anything you can do to stretch the time. I also used this method when getting him to go from a 3 hour to a 4 hour schedule after a month or so. I'd start out pushing him 15 minutes, then a half an hour, etc. It's hard at first but they adjust pretty quickly, and their internal clock catches on.

I didn't find vacations hard at all with a schedule because I just kept up the schedule as close as I could. If we were off by an hour or two, fine, I'd start it back on track the next morning. Even if you're in the car or an airplane you should be able to continue to feed them at the right times. And if you end up in a different time zone I would just adjust the schedule to compromise between what we were used to versus where we were. For example if your schedule starts at 8 am but you are in a time zone where 8 am is really like 5 am to what you're used to I would split the difference and adjust the schedule to start at 6:30 or 7:00am while I was there and then do the same thing coming back. You'll find that you can adjust things more and more each day too if you have to, so if you did 6:30 am day 1 of your trip you could probably do 7:30 on day 2 and then be right back to normal for the duration of your trip. Then you just work backwards when you get home (if you need to, sometimes you don't and they fall right back into things).

Ok so that's my extremely long winded response. If there is one concise thing to take away it would be DO A SCHEDULE, don't end up with your baby in your bed for 8 months and die of complete sleep deprivation ha! Start it out early, the earlier the better, and you can adjust along the way. Good luck and thanks for giving me a chance to do a follow up here.

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2013/01/reader-questions-how-i-barely-survived.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-19359514708572163962012-12-26T12:45:00.001-07:002012-12-26T12:49:20.931-07:00Holiday Giveaway Time: Febreze gift pack with $15 Visa gift card!

So it's been a while since we did a giveaway over here! I figure this is a great time to win some swag after everyone has broken their bank accounts with Christmas. Santa tends to be a big spender at our house! I had the chance to review one of my favorite things for the house over the past few weeks, smelly good things :)

 Febreeze's Holiday Collection of room sprays, candles, and noticeables plug ins. I tested out the Cozy Vanilla Sugar specifically and it has been a nice change from our usual lavender scents we typically have going. Especially for this time of year, puts you in the cookie baking mood!

I used to buy smelly things for the house BC (before children) simply because I have an obsession with candles and scents and loved the idea of walking into a house that had that special house smell that is unique to that particular house. In addition to that, we now have a house full of the not as pleasant smells... with dogs, big dogs, that stink especially when they come inside after running around in our Colorado snow. And kids, well we know the issue with kids, and diaper pails, and little boys who have poor aim in the toilet. And husbands with dirty socks that seem to miraculously escape the hamper day in and day out.

We constantly have one of the plug ins going and the refills are always on our grocery shopping list. When we have people over I usually run around with the room sprays which are nice and not terribly overwhelming, and the candles are perfect for the bathroom.

So if you're like us and have a love of pretty scented things you'll want a piece of this giveaway.

A $10 Febreze Coupon booklet AND a $15 Visa giftcard so you can test it all out!

Choose between 6 scents-
◦Apple Spice & Delight: The warming scent of fresh-baked apples coated with sweet cinnamon (available only online)
◦Cozy Vanilla Sugar: Sweet as notes of vanilla that comfort you like a cocoon of blankets ◦Cranberries and Frost: Rich as ripe cranberries and frost on a white winter's day
◦Glistening Alpine: As soothing as a tree-lined mountainside glistening with the scent of pine
◦Winter Magic & Glow: Crisp as sunshine-lit icicles in fresh, frosty air
◦Holiday Bloom & Cheer: As cheerful as a chorus of holiday aromas blended with winter blossoms

Have you tried out these holiday scents before, if so which is your favorite? If not, which one sounds most appealing to you? I must admit I will be checking out the Holiday Bloom and Cheer, especially for our upcoming anual New Years seafood feast get together.

TO ENTER:Head over here to see the collection and tell me which scent is your #1 pick, plus get some decorating tips and ways to make your home more inviting for the holidays with videos from design expert Candice Olson.

BONUS ENTRIES:
Follow @Febreze_Fresh on Twitter (1 entry)
Tweet your pick including @Febreze_Fresh (1 entry per day)
Follow Febreze on FB (2 entries)

Use the little Rafflecopter gadget below. Be sure to enter by Jan 2!

http://www.rafflecopter.com/rafl/display/e051bb0/" rel="nofollow">a Rafflecopter giveaway

Please see disclosure page for full details. The Febreze product, information, and two gift packs have been provided by Febreze. Febreze® does not represent or warrant the accuracy of any statements or product claims made here, nor does it endorse any opinions expressed within this blogsite.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2012/12/holiday-giveaway-time-febreze-gift-pack.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-12087245319218346152012-11-11T11:09:00.000-07:002012-11-12T08:28:26.658-07:00Making a Baby: Part I- Trying To Conceive And Everything InbetweenI'm just now realizing that I have never done a post about my inside take on the whole trying to conceive game after our struggles with getting pregnant the first time around.

To make a long story short, we tried for 9 months to get pregnant with baby #1. This was an awful experience full of tears, pelvic exams, bloodwork, ovulation kits, pregnancy tests, and newlywed strife. I am happy to say, obviously, that the end result was a wee little babe who has rocked my world for 3 years now and so I offer the following advice and insight for fellow trying-to-be-mommies and daddies on what we learned.

First off, the classic standard is to try for a year without success prior to seeking help, let me be the first to say DON'T wait that long. Now I wouldn't be rushing into the fertility clinic after hitting the sheets for 2 months with no baby but this is what I will say: if you've been trying, the right way, using ovulation kits, and have no 'risk factors' (ie. age, PCOS, etc), for SIX months call your OB.

This is my personal advice. A lot of doctors will laugh at you and tell you to keep trying and call back after a year. If you find one of these docs, fire them, and get a new one that will actually listen to your concerns and at least draw a progesterone level for you. In our case, we were both young with no health issues and no family history of infertility so I started seriously looking into fertility clinicians after 6 months without success. I finally went in for a consultation with my OB after 8 months.

I will break down the rest into 2 parts: First, the trying to conceive game and everything we learned here. Second, the infertility battle and the details of that process and treatment options.

TRYING TO CONCEIVE:
I was privileged to work for a phenomenal doctor who had struggled with infertility herself and shared some great wisdom with me. We started out with the basics, I call this "Prime Time"- once you're ready to try for a baby the goal is to have sex on days 10-14 of your cycle, every other day to allow the sperm to regenerate inbetween. Many people think that if you want to get pregnant you just start going to town 100x a day and you end up with a baby, this is not how the body operates and will actually decrease your chances of getting pregnant. The goal is NOT quantity, it's timing.

For the real newbies, your cycle starts out as Day 1- the first day of your period and for most women goes for 28 days. (I happen to have a 30-32 day cycle which affected our "prime time" slightly, and these subtle differences can mean everything).

Now in order to find this "prime time" more precisely you can turn to ovulation kits which will tell you exactly when to try. A little science background here: "prime time" is based on your LH surge which is simply when your body tells itself to ovulate. If you catch the surge and time your relations appropriately the sperm should reach the egg at the perfect time. It is a simple concept but it's anything but simple when things aren't working like you thought they would.

The basics of ovulation kits: once the test is positive your opportune time to conceive is within 24-36 hours.

I tried every ovulation kit known to man and this is what I found. Most ovulation kits come with 7 days of tests, for these kits you are expected to already have an idea of when you ovulate and just confirm this with a week's worth of testing. Problem is that some people have no clue when they ovulate, they may have 2 LH surges during the month instead of 1, they may have it earlier or later than most women and therefore a week's worth of testing may not be enough to really see what's going on. I decided to test every single day because I wanted to get a full picture of my entire cycle rather than a concentrated look at 7 days. With this comes a price. If you've browsed ov kits before you know they are EXPENSIVE! Especially when you're doing this for months and months at a time. So due to cost I decided to go with some strips to test for the whole 30 days because they were cheaper than the wands and digitals.

First Option: Strips. This is a picture of the strips (not mine but you get the idea, thank you to whoever posted all of these images, they are a perfect representation of what you can expect), as you can see they look like pregnancy tests with 1 to 2 lines. The problem with the strips is that they can be really hard to read because the second line can be faint or dark and kind of come and go which makes it hard to say whether it's positive for the surge or not. What I did was keep every single day and compare them next to one another, by doing this you are much better able to see a trend in the lines and accurately detect the TRUE surge. I recommend writing the date on them to keep track. This picture shows someone using them twice a day, which is also a good thing because you could be missing your window by 12+ hours if you are only testing once a day, keep that in mind.

Next option: Wands. These are what you normally find at the store, they look exactly like a pregnancy test in fact if you aren't reading carefully you can mix the two up easily. I kept using the strips daily but would also use the wands on occasion to see if I would get a better picture of the LH surge. The wands are pricier than the strips and they really don't give you a better impression of what's going on, as you can see from  this picture. If anything they seem to be less sensitive at detecting things, in my opinion and after a month or two of these I stopped using them. My advice, skip the wands.

Lastly: DIGITALS. After a couple of months I had an idea when my surge was, in general, so I decided to REALLY confirm things by adding the digital tests to the mix. I would still test with the strips daily but during the week I was expecting the surge I would also take the digital tests. It was the most foolproof method I could think of and we were starting to get very frustrated, anxious, and desperate. The digital tests are even more expensive, which is why I don't recommend using them as a daily option, unless you want to and then you'd have no guessing. Even among the digitals I tried I decided my favorite were the SMILEY FACE ones and I swear by these to this day. They are a wand but show a digital picture of either a smiley face or a plain circle with no face. There is no mistaking these, no interpreting a faint line, just like pregnancy tests the digital are as clear as it gets. When you pull out the stick you can see the same 2 lines that the strips and wands have but these tests take the guesswork out of it for you. And outside of the clarity the little smiley face that pops up is a reminder to be happy about this, instead of looking at things as a science experiment which is how it feels. Can't hurt right?

Ovulation kits are a great way to start getting to know your cycle and taking charge of your fertility but they aren't the end all, be all. The next easiest thing to do is a daily temperature reading. Your Basal Body Temperature is the fancy name. Basically you take your temp every single day immediately after you wake up and record it. Ideally, you will see 2 main changes in temperature throughout your entire cycle, lower at the beginning and jumping up later on. This jump occurs AFTER your body has ovulated. You will see a 3rd jump if you end up pregnant and implantation has occured. These jumps are subtle, we're talking 2/10's of a degree to 1 degree in most cases. This is the simple version and I recommend keeping it simple, it is an additional tool to use in your efforts and gives you a better picture of how your body is operating. There is a catch however, these temps must be PRECISE, which means you need to take your temperature at the SAME time every single day. There are measures to adjust the reading with calculations and I will tell you this clouds things, the best way is to get a routine set up, wake up at the same time every day, take your temp immediately after you wake up and keep it simple. You need to record the temp to the 1/10th degree, so a digital thermometer is the way to go. Also keep in mind that a falsely high reading can skew everything so be careful in what you record: 97.52 should be recorded as 97.5 and 97.68 should be recorded as 97.6.

The take away: "A dip in temperature followed by a rise (at least 2/10's of a degree) higher than all temps the previous six days and staying at or beyond this level for at least 3 consecutive days shows that ovulation has occurred"

However, these temps show you when you have already ovulated, meaning you should've already hit the sheets. After a few months you can hopefully see a pattern and time things appropriately but there are other indicators of the cycle. Cervical mucus, I'm not going to lie, I hate talking about this because let's be honest it's not a great visual to say the least mmmkay. So I'll leave it to the experts with this short explanation, "Directly prior to ovulation, cervical mucus should be abundant. Fertile cervical mucus is characterized by a transparent appearance - and it may look and feel like raw egg white and stretch between your fingers without breaking (see fig 1). This stretchiness is called Spinnbarkeit and indicates that ovulation is likely imminent. Fertile CM will be thin, slippery (like lubricant), stretchy and translucent. Typically, fertile-quality cervical fluids will appear a few days prior to and during ovulation. Following ovulation, the quality of CM will change again due to sudden decrease in estrogen and increase of progesterone."

Bottom line you should be paying attention to it to add that much more knowledge to the picture. Which brings me to the last point of trying to conceive tools. Cycle charting helps you keep track of all of these changes. Fertility Friend, your key to the crazy world of cycle charting! It's a website that you input all of this information into and it keeps track of everything for you. You can input temps, body changes, mucus changes, you name it. And with all of this data you finally start to see the exact picture of your body's cycle which gives you a basis for the best odds of conceiving. Not only does this help you in your efforts it is also a HUGE resource for your OB and/or fertility docs if you continue to be unsuccessful, it gives them a wealth of knowledge to help you. A great great great tool!

Stay Tuned for Part II which delves into the options and testing available for those who are unsuccessful after ALL of this.

Bellahttp://email@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2012/11/making-baby-part-i-trying-to-conceive.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-90503743587749963452012-11-05T07:01:00.000-07:002012-11-12T08:26:34.197-07:00To My First Born, on Your 3rd Birthday
I'm still in disbelief that it has been 3 years already. As you sit here with your head on my shoulder I remember the days that I held your tiny little body in my arms and rocked you to sleep. These days you are a wild and happy little [big] guy and I don't get too many snuggly moments so I stop everything I'm doing when you scoot close and say "Mommy I want to lay on your shoulders" in your cute little toddler voice that is slowly disappearing into a grown up voice...

My little dude... you are growing (despite your revolt against vegetables) and excelling in every single part of your toddler world. You are smart, so so smart, too smart really which I love because I see myself in your eyes and I see the potential that your future holds every time that you pick up a new skill, or talk to me like a 30 year old while you try to convince me to give you more candy.

I love hearing the wonder in your voice when we learn about new things in school and listening to you reason about things that just don't make sense in your 3 year old brain. I love watching you lie passed out on the floor during nap time after piliging your closet and putting on every article of clothing you could find. Or observing your ingenuity and creativity when you stack up a variety of toys and use a broom stick to get an extra banana off of the counter.

Most importantly I love having the chance to see the world in a different way thanks to you. You keep me grounded and remind me constantly of the important things in life, like stopping to stare at a rolly polly while laughing that belly laugh at how silly it is when it turns into a ball. It's the little things in life that matter... and you are an excellent reminder for me.

I continue to smile and laugh on a daily basis at how awesome you are as a big brother, you have exceeded my expectations in so many ways. You are a great teacher and protector for baby D (who is nearly your size now) outside of the brotherly "love taps" and "body slams". Watching you two together makes my heart happy.

How is it possible that I have a 3 year old, big brother, amazing, funny, energetic, smart, helping, loving son...

I cannot believe that you are 3 years old, I just really can't believe it. This year has gone by in the blink of an eye, I feel like I just turned around and you are a little man now. I want to bottle you up just as you are and force you to stay this age forever. It's a complete mix of emotions, I'm sad to watch you grow yet at the same time I can't wait to watch you evolve into a wonderful young man.

Little Dude you are amazing and I love you so much that it hurts. I wish you the happiest of birthdays and promise not to cry (too much) as you make a wish and blow out the candles on yet another cake.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2012/11/to-my-first-born-on-your-3rd-birthday.htmltag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7749934306836994132.post-53977824456556203322012-10-22T12:52:00.002-06:002012-11-12T08:24:57.613-07:00Stranger Danger For Toddlers, a much different ballgame

I have been sick to my stomach since last week when they announced that Jessica Ridgeway's body had been positively identified after she was abducted October 5th. She had left for school to meet a friend at a park just down the street from her house and wasn't seen again until her dismembered remains were discovered 6 days later. I add in the detail of what horror obviously befell her, not because it makes the scenario of a child murder any worse because there isn't anything worse, but to convey the type of person we're dealing with here. This is like a sick twisted horror movie and the intensity of what happened literally has me an anxious mess, I cannot stop thinking about what happened to this poor beautiful little girl. This was about 30 minutes from our house, if you think it isn't happening right in your backyard, think again. It is a parent's worst nightmare. Every time I look at my kids over the past week I think of her and it shakes me to the core in fear thinking of it being my own child... They are just SO vulnerable... I want to lock them away in my house and never ever let them out. I want to homeschool forever now, although it wouldn't matter because I will never let them out to get a job, or grow up, or drive, or ANYTHING!

My heart just aches.

It has brought back a lot of the familiar PPD/PPA feelings, I am an anxious mess. I wake up in the middle of the night to any noise thinking someone has climbed the house and is trying to kidnap my children as they sleep. I make my husband check the locks on the doors, the house alarm, a hundred times and I wake up all night paranoid. The kids went with my brother and sister in law for a few hours yesterday and shortly after they left I stopped dead in my tracks thinking "oh God, what if they turn their backs for 1 minute and something happens because I'm not there". I am terrified of being away from them at any point regardless of who they are with. I see the neighborhood kids running around and playing and I feel a duty to stand there and watch over them and I really want to tell them to go home and stay inside.

This kind of tragedy is paralyzing for parents especially.

I have tried to think through it logically and stop myself from being so over the top but I just keep thinking that my kids aren't safe without me around, but someday I wont be around so then what. Of course I've thought about the whole "stranger danger" talk, it's one of those things you will obviously have some day, but I can't say I expected to have to do it now. Afterall, how the heck would you even explain that to a 2 year old, or to my 16 month old who can't even really make a sentence yet???

They are the most friendly little dudes which I love, always smiling and engaging, they will chat up a tree. I want to teach them to be safe without ruining their innocence, without making them fearful of everyone or being too afraid to ask for help from a stranger if they need it. It's a hard line to walk... but as we can see with this latest tragedy you can't wait, these horrible people are all around us, we have to start protecting our kids NOW.

So I've made it my mission to have this talk, now. And to emphasize it in any way I can think of that will make sense to a toddler, if anyone has done this or has some tips on how to go about it please chime in. I will start with the older one because I think he will be able to comprehend it a little bit, as for the wee one, I will try this once he is a bit older.

I did a lot of reading about this, what others have tried and decided on our own way to go about it. I emphasize this is what we decided to do, if you choose a different way or disagree with our method that is fine, have your own discussion with your kids whatever it is make sure you TALK to them about it, don't wait. I will also point out that this is geared towards toddlers (3 and under, granted my almost 3 year old is pretty mature for his age) who have a much different capacity to comprehend things than even a 5 year old.

What I found was that there is plenty of information on how to teach school aged kids about safety, they have reasoning skills, they can notice when something seems out of the ordinary, they notice if a random car is suddenly following them, they can sense suspicion from an unfamiliar person.... a toddler can't do this. A toddler needs YOU to do this for them until they develop these skills, but we don't live in a perfect world, and sometimes you can't always be there.

I found the post over at Checklist Mommy very informative, it was compiled from a lecture on Safely Ever After and had some great points that I hadn't thought of. The following excerpt is the basis for a lot of what we went over on our Stranger lessons and touches not only on kidnapping but also molestation and child abuse.

It is unlikely your kid is going to be abused by a weirdo at the park (huge sigh of relief).

That said, if there is a weirdo at the park, he's not going to fit the "stranger" model — so stop teaching your kid about strangers! He's going to come up to your kid and introduce himself. Voila! He ain't a stranger anymore.

Teach your kids about TRICKY PEOPLE, instead. TRICKY PEOPLE are grown-ups who ASK KIDS FOR HELP (no adult needs to ask a kid for help) or TELLS KIDS TO KEEP A SECRET FROM THEIR PARENTS (including, IT'S OKAY TO COME OVER HERE BEHIND THIS TREE WITHOUT ASKING MOM FIRST. Not asking Mom is tantamount to KEEPING A SECRET.)

Teach your kids not to DO ANYTHING, or GO ANYWHERE, with ANY ADULTS AT ALL, unless they can ask for your permission first.

See how I said ANY ADULTS AT ALL? That's because:

It's far more likely your kid is going to be abused by someone they have a relationship with, because most cases of abuse follow long periods of grooming — both of the kid and his or her family.

Bad guys groom you and your kids to gauge whether or not you're paying attention to what they're doing, and/or to lure you into dropping your guard. Don't. Kids who bad guys think are flying under their parents' radars, or kids who seem a little insecure or disconnected from their parents, are the kids who are most at risk.

We spent a few days of homeschool lessons on Strangers so that we could cover all of the info I wanted him to know and make sure that he was really taking it in and remembering it.

The areas I wanted to touch on were-
Strangers out in the world
Strangers who come to the door at home
Strangers in a store/mall

We started out by talking about how there are lots of "strangers" in the world, people we don't know. Sometimes people are nice but sometimes these people want to do bad things to us so we have to be very careful around people that we don't know. I let him sit and think about that for a minute and see what he had to say.

I told him that sometimes these bad people want to take kids away from us and that this is a scary thing because we don't ever want him to be taken away, we want to have him forever. I went over the common ideas of people using puppies or candy to try and get us to come with them, but I told him that there were lots of ways that these bad people try to get kids away from mommy and daddy.

And lastly I told him that in order to be safe with strangers there were some rules we had to follow.

1. NEVER ever go anywhere with any stranger, adult or child, without asking Mom or Dad first.
If we're at the park and a kid wants you to come play with a ball across the field you must ask Mom and Dad first. If a stranger offers you candy, you ask mom and dad first. A stranger wants you to find their puppy, ask mom and dad first, I went through a variety of scenarios that would apply to our daily life at this age (going to the park, grocery store, parking lots, etc) and hammered on the point that you MUST ask Mom or Dad first.

2. NEVER get into a car with a stranger, never go into their house, any building, unless you ask mom or dad first.
There is no reason he should ever need to be going to these places with someone he doesn't know so we flat out labeled them off limits. The only caviat is if he needs help which is hard for a toddler to differentiate and complicates the issue. I figured we would make this as black and white as possible for him at this age, these places are a NO NO NO. We would cover the issue of asking for help in the next lesson.

3. If you get lost and can't find mommy or daddy, you find a Mom with kids to ask for help.
Tell them you need help, that you are lost, bottom line. If there are no moms you find a woman. (I wont get into the issues of asking Dads with kids for help and the whole men vs women stereotype discrimination thing, because that distracts the focus here, keeping kids safe in the offchance that they become vulnerable. If you want to teach your kid otherwise that is your decision).

4. Do not EVER run off away from Mom and Dad. Bad people can grab you in just a second.
We had an incident with the grandparents a few weeks ago at the mall where he took off running through the entire mall and my step mom had to shout at a random person to stop him. Obviously toddlers think this is funny and therefore we added this to the rules.

5. If a bad person ever gets a hold of you, to take you away, what do you do? SCREAM, RUN, KICK, FIGHT.
We taught about yelling for help, screaming as loud as possible "help me" "you're NOT my Daddy/Mommy" and also about yelling "fire" because more people are apt to listen to a kid yelling fire rather than ignoring screams and just thinking it's kids playing around.

This covered the basics as simply as I could. I went over a ton of scenarios and we role played what he would do, I was quite surprised at how long it took for him to answer "no" when I prompted him to come get candy or find my puppy or come play. When I said these things in a fun playful voice he was all ready to go, eyes beaming! I thought after our talk that he would've at least paused but he didn't, which tells me that this is something we will have to practice practice practice!

We will continue to quiz him about the "rules" and pose scenarios for him to explain what he would do in that situation to make sure he is remembering this and really getting it as best as a 2 1/2 year old can. I am also considering doing some role playing when we are at the park by asking another mom to try and 'test' him by asking him to go somewhere and see what he does. I think this will be the most effective way for it to really sink in.
 Anyone else with experience in teaching toddlers about strangers? What worked for you? I've been putting together several games for homeschool that help emphasize this that I will post in an update.

Bellahttp://firstname.lastname@example.com://www.mommamaven.com/2012/10/stranger-danger-for-toddlers-much.html