Most of the time, life overwhelms me. How can I balance a career? young children? a husband? and the never ending house chores?
On those days, I normally put all the chores aside and start looking for the reasons why I'm doing what I doing? Am I looking for validation? Justification? A need for self-fulfilment? Then out of nowhere, as I'm walking around the house figuring what's the next thing I need to do.. I heard the soft snores or the gentle whispers of my kids sleeping.. that when it hits me... This is why I signed up for this circus act.. for these little humans, that loves you unconditionally, they leave little notes all over the house .. A strand sock on the side of the sink, a reminder that they need to know where you are at any given moment... that trail of cheerios across the house that crunches as you go because they wanted to be there with you... doesn't matter what you are doing, they just want to make sure that you are there.. those sticky handprints on the windows, doors and more so your clothes are also part of those little love notes..
Do I need to get away? yes, like any other parents of busy young children. Can I afford it? No, like any other parents of busy young children.
I have not yet reached or found a solution to reaching that balance act in the circus of my life.. The main reason is that I keep getting distracted by these little love notes that I see everywhere.
Take care for now.
Love MommaBear
Friday, April 30, 2010
Thursday, April 29, 2010
Chocolate Banana Bread
This is a delectable dessert. I've tested it on my husband, my babysitter and the numerous kids at day care and they all love it.. It's dairy free and gluten free.
Ingredients
* 1 cup canola oil
* 2 cups white sugar
* 4 eggs
* 6 bananas, mashed
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 3 cups Bob's Red Mill all-purpose gluten free flour
* 1 tsp Xantham Gum
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (Fry's at a dairy free version)
* 1 cup soy yogurt
* 1 cup enjoy life chocolate chips
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, cream together margarine, sugar, sour cream and eggs. Stir in bananas and vanilla. Sift in flour, Xantham Gum, baking soda and cocoa; mix well. Blend in chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60-90 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of a loaf comes out clean.
Ingredients
* 1 cup canola oil
* 2 cups white sugar
* 4 eggs
* 6 bananas, mashed
* 2 teaspoons vanilla extract
* 3 cups Bob's Red Mill all-purpose gluten free flour
* 1 tsp Xantham Gum
* 2 teaspoons baking soda
* 1/4 cup unsweetened cocoa powder (Fry's at a dairy free version)
* 1 cup soy yogurt
* 1 cup enjoy life chocolate chips
Directions
1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C). Lightly grease two 9x5 inch loaf pans.
2. In a large bowl, cream together margarine, sugar, sour cream and eggs. Stir in bananas and vanilla. Sift in flour, Xantham Gum, baking soda and cocoa; mix well. Blend in chocolate chips. Pour batter into prepared pans.
3. Bake in preheated oven for 60-90 minutes, or until a toothpick inserted into center of a loaf comes out clean.
Encephalitis - What is this?
As promised here is the info on encephalitis, this information is available on http://www.encephalitis.info/ .. This site has a lot of information but is based out of the UK which means that there is not much support in Canada. Even thought the occurence of encephalitis is getting more and more prevalent.
Encephalitis is an acute inflammation of the brain. There are many types of encephalitis, most of which are caused by viral infection. Encephalitis can be contracted from Influenza A, Influenza B, chickenpox, West Nile and many other viral infections. Encephalitis causes brain injury. Our daughter's inflammation was mainly in her brain stem and pons area. The brain stem controls all information sent from the brain to the rest of your body.
The symptoms for encephalitis are the following: confusion, drowsiness, headache, irritability, light sensitivity, loss of consciousness, memory loss, muscle weakness, poor judgment, seizures, stiff neck and back, sudden fever, sudden severe dementia, unstable walking and vomiting. If you compare this to any flu, a lot of the symptoms are similar which is why it makes this life-threatening illness so hard to diagnose. My daughter’s only early symptom was unstable walking, which at the time, we thought she was simply a bit dehydrated from the flu and lack of response which we attributed to also being tired and sick.
This illness is not new when I've research it which still happens now and again. You can see stories of these illness dating back to the early 1900's. There is no known cure for this illness and the doctor will never give you a prognosis. The best you will get out of them is that she is doing well.
What are the changes of reoccurence? this is not known either. I'm not sure why..
This leaves me with mix feeling about our medical system. If as a parent, you cannot turn to anyone get some answer it's makes coping even harder. Our family doctor is dismissive of our naturopath recommendations.. Which is better western medicine or eastern medicine? It's really hard to say both had great attributes but I can say that our naturopath is more forth coming with information then our family doctor is.
Having said this, you need to trust your instinct and keep questioning. Don't back down as a parent you need to be able to say that you've made the right decision because in the end, you have to live with the choice you've made for your family.
On this I say, take care for now.
MommaBear
Encephalitis is an acute inflammation of the brain. There are many types of encephalitis, most of which are caused by viral infection. Encephalitis can be contracted from Influenza A, Influenza B, chickenpox, West Nile and many other viral infections. Encephalitis causes brain injury. Our daughter's inflammation was mainly in her brain stem and pons area. The brain stem controls all information sent from the brain to the rest of your body.
The symptoms for encephalitis are the following: confusion, drowsiness, headache, irritability, light sensitivity, loss of consciousness, memory loss, muscle weakness, poor judgment, seizures, stiff neck and back, sudden fever, sudden severe dementia, unstable walking and vomiting. If you compare this to any flu, a lot of the symptoms are similar which is why it makes this life-threatening illness so hard to diagnose. My daughter’s only early symptom was unstable walking, which at the time, we thought she was simply a bit dehydrated from the flu and lack of response which we attributed to also being tired and sick.
This illness is not new when I've research it which still happens now and again. You can see stories of these illness dating back to the early 1900's. There is no known cure for this illness and the doctor will never give you a prognosis. The best you will get out of them is that she is doing well.
What are the changes of reoccurence? this is not known either. I'm not sure why..
This leaves me with mix feeling about our medical system. If as a parent, you cannot turn to anyone get some answer it's makes coping even harder. Our family doctor is dismissive of our naturopath recommendations.. Which is better western medicine or eastern medicine? It's really hard to say both had great attributes but I can say that our naturopath is more forth coming with information then our family doctor is.
Having said this, you need to trust your instinct and keep questioning. Don't back down as a parent you need to be able to say that you've made the right decision because in the end, you have to live with the choice you've made for your family.
On this I say, take care for now.
MommaBear
Surprise this is life.
Hi Everyone,
I've started this blog to share my views as a mother, spouse, friend and full time employee in hope that I can bring inspiration or help to anyone looking for support in regards to the similar matters in their life. I am not a nurse or a doctor nor do I possess any medical degree or educations. I am a simple mom that has been dealt more than she could have every expected in her life and is trying to understand and hopefully help other parents find some kind of solutions or inspirations too.
My life took a turn for the unexpected last March. Both kids were sick at the time with influenza B. My son was 9 months old and my daughter was three. In the middle of the night, my daughter throw up and wet her bed and was unresponsive through our many attempts to communicate. We rush her to the hospital. Had I not been insistent they would have turn us away. They kept my daughter under observation and when we were going for chest x-ray, she started having seizures. There's no words that can explain what how helpless a mother feels when she sees her child going through seizures, no knowing what is causing it and not being able to help. She was then rushed to an acute care hospital . She was diagnosed the following day with acute necrotizing encephalitis. I will create another post to explain more about encephalitis. We were 6 weeks at this hospital and another 16 weeks at a rehabilitation center. My daughter had to relearn everything. Today she can walk with her AFO (braces) and needs a walker for longer distance. She speaks but in longer sentence the words will be blurred. She is no longer potty train and the battle to get her to this point is still going on. There a lot of reward system implement for this.. She is very emotional and gets frustrated easily.. This one, we are still working on. This one is a long learning curve. As a result of this illness, my daughter has acquired brain injury. This is a new fact of life for us and once that we are still getting use to. She is currently on a dairy free and gluten free diet in hopes that this will help her recovery. So far, she is more focus and less prone to emotional outburst. I can say this from the few slip ups that we have. I've seen the difference.
My son was saved from encephalitis even though he had the same flu and he was just an infant. However, he has been introduced to a whole of therapy that gives him great pleasure to interact within. He's dairy intolerant and we've had to adjust our diets to complement his diet and support his needs. Every day, I hope that by including him in our activities, that he will never feel left out or less important than his sister. After all, I'm sure that most mothers feel this way.
I can say that my life keeps me busy and that at any given point, I have my agenda close by to schedule another meeting to help our family get on track. I'm the one that most of my friends will turn to for advise since I will give them the most truthful and honest opinion that I have or might be able to point them in the right direction. As an individual, I've experience more than most people will have in a lifetime. Is this a good time? I'm not sure but time heals all wounds.
For this, I am call MommaBear because I will protect my family with such a fierceness to ensure that everyone is well taken care. Whether this means staying up late to research new means to cope, recover or adjust our life.
Take care until next time,
MommaBear
I've started this blog to share my views as a mother, spouse, friend and full time employee in hope that I can bring inspiration or help to anyone looking for support in regards to the similar matters in their life. I am not a nurse or a doctor nor do I possess any medical degree or educations. I am a simple mom that has been dealt more than she could have every expected in her life and is trying to understand and hopefully help other parents find some kind of solutions or inspirations too.
My life took a turn for the unexpected last March. Both kids were sick at the time with influenza B. My son was 9 months old and my daughter was three. In the middle of the night, my daughter throw up and wet her bed and was unresponsive through our many attempts to communicate. We rush her to the hospital. Had I not been insistent they would have turn us away. They kept my daughter under observation and when we were going for chest x-ray, she started having seizures. There's no words that can explain what how helpless a mother feels when she sees her child going through seizures, no knowing what is causing it and not being able to help. She was then rushed to an acute care hospital . She was diagnosed the following day with acute necrotizing encephalitis. I will create another post to explain more about encephalitis. We were 6 weeks at this hospital and another 16 weeks at a rehabilitation center. My daughter had to relearn everything. Today she can walk with her AFO (braces) and needs a walker for longer distance. She speaks but in longer sentence the words will be blurred. She is no longer potty train and the battle to get her to this point is still going on. There a lot of reward system implement for this.. She is very emotional and gets frustrated easily.. This one, we are still working on. This one is a long learning curve. As a result of this illness, my daughter has acquired brain injury. This is a new fact of life for us and once that we are still getting use to. She is currently on a dairy free and gluten free diet in hopes that this will help her recovery. So far, she is more focus and less prone to emotional outburst. I can say this from the few slip ups that we have. I've seen the difference.
My son was saved from encephalitis even though he had the same flu and he was just an infant. However, he has been introduced to a whole of therapy that gives him great pleasure to interact within. He's dairy intolerant and we've had to adjust our diets to complement his diet and support his needs. Every day, I hope that by including him in our activities, that he will never feel left out or less important than his sister. After all, I'm sure that most mothers feel this way.
I can say that my life keeps me busy and that at any given point, I have my agenda close by to schedule another meeting to help our family get on track. I'm the one that most of my friends will turn to for advise since I will give them the most truthful and honest opinion that I have or might be able to point them in the right direction. As an individual, I've experience more than most people will have in a lifetime. Is this a good time? I'm not sure but time heals all wounds.
For this, I am call MommaBear because I will protect my family with such a fierceness to ensure that everyone is well taken care. Whether this means staying up late to research new means to cope, recover or adjust our life.
Take care until next time,
MommaBear
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)