Persevering Momma

Taking The Day One Spoon At a Time

#CampWarnerBros – Week 6 – Alex & Me Family Workout

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This is a sponsored post for Camp Warner Bros featuring Alex & Me and some great family activities!

This week we are featuring Alex & Me and are learning about disciple and setting goals. This is perfect for my 4 year old son. We have been working hard to teach him more responsibility now that he is a big boy and this week’s activity fits into our schedule perfectly.

We used the chart given to us by Camp Warner Bros to help our little guy learn to reach his own goals. I let my son help us fill out his chart. He chose to fill it with clean up toys, clean up dishes, and practice riding bicycle. These have been going well for us and without prompting he has been doing his activities without being asked. Because he is so young and cannot read I put both the word and a picture of the task in each column so that he knows which is which.

Camp Warner Bros also sent us a Family Workout Activity that we are attempting to do however we are having to make some accommodations due to my disability, the fact that I had foot surgery last week, and the fact that my 4 year old is just learning what many of these activities are.

Family Workout Activity

A Superwoman Vs. Her Invisible Illness

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Some days are better than others. Some days I feel like superwoman and I feel like I can conquer the world and then there are other days.

Days where the world beats me. Days when every little thing I do hurts and I feel completely defeated. These days almost make me wish I never had food days.

These days make me wish it was always the same so that I could get used to the pain and make it wash away like so many other aches and pains I have made disappear, but I know I can’t make that happen.

Instead I have to push through these crazy pains and tell myself I need to keep going.

So, here I sit repeating over and over…

It’s not real.

It’s not real.

It’s not real.

And I repeat this because 10 minutes ago I stepped on a tiny crumb on the floor and it hurt so bad that I saw stars and still have shooting pain coursing up my leg from the bottom of my foot.

Today might end badly, but that doesn’t mean tomorrow will end badly. I’ll take a deep breath and wish, wish for a better tomorrow instead.

Goodnight world. Goodnight CMT. You didn’t win this time.

Sleepless Nights: Will They Ever Go Away?

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Ever wonder if those sleepless nights will go away? I ask myself this question most nights. It feels like a never ending cycle.

When I was pregnant with my son everyone said get all the sleep you can get; however I struggled with sleep. I was stressed and I was in pain (let’s not talk about how I slept on an air mattress for three months during my pregnancy). Then my beautiful son arrived and with his cluster feeding sleep was short-lived and I never slept long enough to hit REM sleep.

My son is now 4 years old and I still can’t sleep at night. What is wrong with me!?

I also have a 7 month old who is an amazing sleeper and has slept through the night almost from birth. Its amazing! So why the hell do I lay away at night while the whole house is asleep?

Sleep deprived
This is the face of one tired mom.

My Sleep Solution: Melatonin

After months of laying awake for hours in bed I knew that I needed to find a solution to my madness with each passing day I became more and more tired. There was no catching up and I knew that I couldn’t handle this cycle any longer.

That is when I found out about Melatonin from my doctor. I have avoided taking supplements without doctor approval in the past due to the fact that they don’t always react the way they should due to my Charcot Marie Tooth disease. She said this was a safe solution to my problem. On my way home I picked up a bottle at my local pharmacy.

I have now been taking Melatonin for two weeks and for the most part feel ten times better in the morning than I had been. Some nights I still struggle with falling asleep, but as long as I take my Melatonin an hour and a half before bed I actually feel sleepy enough to fall asleep.

Instead of laying in bed for hours awake I lay in bed for a few minutes before falling asleep. It has made a huge improving my life. I cannot believe how much better I feel being able to sleep through the night with uninterrupted sleep.

If you are like me and struggle with sleeping then you might want to ask your doctor about taking Melatonin as well. It might be the solution for you. My doctor knew I needed a natural answer to my problem because I was be to scared to take a sleeping pill with a toddler in my home. I need to be able to wake up if something is wrong with my son or if there is an emergency.

If you have ever taken Melatonin before I would love to hear how it worked or didn’t work for you in the comments below. If you have a different solution that has worked for you I would also love to hear it. I am always willing to consider trying new techniques.

I’m That Anxious Mom

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Yes, I am that anxious mom. I’m just not the type of anxious mom that you’re probably thinking of. I am not one of those clingy moms that is worried about every little thing that’s has to do with my son. No, that’s not me.

I am a mom with anxiety.

I have battled with anxiety my whole life and have always found ways to push through it, but man being a parent is hard work!

My anxiety has never been as bad as it has been since I became a mom and today I am admitting it to the whole world.

Being a parent isn’t easy and more often than not it is very stressful. When I am stressed things get rough. That is when my anxiety flares and I start to lose it.

When my anxiety hits I can’t sleep and I’m always tired. I struggle to force myself to be active and interact with my son and the people around me. I tend to have a short fuse and often become very emotional. This all often leads to me not leaving the house. I become a homebody because it’s just too hard to function in the real world.

It’s a daily battle and some days are better than others.

In the past two years my anxiety has never fully gone away. Some days are significantly better than others while some days I struggle to get out of bed. Battling anxiety with a child is tough because it causes even more doubt and even more anxious thoughts.

I’m not depressed, but there are days when I feel like a failure because I back out of a play date for my son or because I just couldn’t sit and play with him like I wish I had one day.

Adding More to our Plate with Allergies and a Food Intolerance

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As you may have read in my previous post we have dealt with a lot of diagnoses in the past year for our son. One thing I didn’t being up was all of the allergy testing and testing for a possible food intolerance that was being done at the same time. In early February 2018 Raiden broke out in a couple of hives which quickly turned to hives all over. Nothing kept them away and we couldn’t find anything new in his diet or environment at the time.

His new pediatrician in March sent us off to have him tested for allergies. His panel came back inconclusive and we just gave in to the idea of having him take liquid Children’s Zyrtec daily. It wasn’t a fun task as he hates taking medicine so I had to sneak it into drinks constantly. He took Zyrtec from early March until July non-stop when all of a sudden all of his symptoms were gone. He was no longer itchy and the hives weren’t coming back.

Nothing had changed aside from the season and weather so our best bet is that it is/was some sort of seasonal allergy. That time of year is around the corner again and I have begun being hyper aware of every little bump and mark on him because I want to catch the hives as early as possible to make sure he doesn’t have to suffer from the hives and itchiness, like I did as a child.

One allergy issue wasn’t enough; he needed a food intolerance, too.

We thought we were in the clear for months, but when I started taking Raiden to my holistic doctor in November for his speech problems I learned that he was showing signs of a food intolerance or allergy to something that he was eating. This made me so sad. I hated to think that I had been feeding him something that was making him sick.

So two weeks before Thanksgiving and my sister’s wedding we cut dairy from his diet. It was the best and worst decision ever. We struggled so hard to keep him dairy-free, but it was near impossible as family gatherings and the wedding. I honestly thought he would be okay with a little because he had been eating so much cheese before this, but I was wrong. I was so wrong.

Food Intolerance Going Dairy-Free

His poor tummy just can’t handle it and my little guy is just miserable for days after having even the smallest of pieces of cheese. Thankfully with the holidays over it has been much easier to keep the cheese away. We no longer have any in the home and we avoid eating take-out that has cheese in or on it as well.

It’s an adjustment as we now struggle with going out for Mexican or Pizza with my family because my little almost 3 year old just doesn’t understand why everyone else can have cheese and he can’t. I try my damndest to not have anyone eat it in front of him because it was his favorite food and I feel like it’s just torture to not be able to have your favorite food when it’s right in front of you.

And all of this here is why my son is now diary-free and we are now a family living with a child with whom has a food intolerance. No he won’t die if he eats dairy, but it certainly wrecks havoc on his body and that is enough to make me turn into a “helicopter” mom.