Don't Try This At... Oh, Never Mind.

No children were injured in the making of this blog post.

Michael had a cold last week. When he's sick it's rather obvious - he doesn't want to do anything except sit in my lap and go through boxes of tissues. And when he's better, he has to make up for lost time. The change between illness and wellness was pretty dramatic - one minute he was sniffling, the next he was bouncing off the furniture. Good thing we didn't splurge on the expensive couch.

Let's Put Some Plastic Into Those Stiff Arteries

Many of our patients at the hospital are on low-fat, "cardiac" diets. We feed them all sorts of "healthier foods" - margarine instead of butter, decaf coffee instead of the real stuff, egg substitute instead of real eggs, and heaven forbid they have any real cheese (powdered cheese substitute is OK though). I will admit to having slipped my suffering patients a pat of real butter instead of margarine (one chemical step away from plastic, they say) from time to time - not so much out of sympathy, but out of a firm belief that putting chemicals into our bodies is detrimental, particularly when we are trying to prevent disease or heal a body from an existing pathology.

Nutrition is a messy topic - various foods, drinks, and micronutrients are constantly being volleyed from the bad list to the good list and then back. The most frustrating part of trying to eat healthily is the relative difficulty of obtaining and preparing healthy foods. Unhealthy foods tend to be cheaper, more readily available, and components in more recipes. Perhaps I'm not looking in the right place, but when was the last time one found a casserole recipe with instructions on how to use brown rice in place of white rice? I think I am fairly motivated in trying to cook and eat healthily, so I imagine the general population whose idea of cooking is a five-ingredient (and three of those are cream of something soup) one-pot sludge has the same difficulty.

I am encouraged by what I've been reading the past couple weeks in my complementary therapies class about nutrition (thankfully we've moved beyond energy fields to something actually useful). Don't give margarine to patients on a low-fat diet - teach them how to use real butter, in moderation. Don't eat low-fat foods full of chemicals - eat healthy fats like olive oil, again, in moderation. The thing that I can't get beyond is there is no support for teaching patients how to procure and cook with these ingredients. We are so used to telling patients to go do something without providing them the tools to actually go do it. My GP prides himself on his wellness focus, but the extent of dietary teaching I've received has been "eat a balanced diet and be sure to drink plenty of milk for your bones". Sure, I'll do that, and make sure margarine is on the shopping list.

Daylight Saving Time

I would venture a guess that nearly every mother in parts of the US which keep DST have had a rough week. Children need routines and schedules and their parents rely on these things as well. So when the powers that be decide to throw our clocks off by one hour twice a year, havoc ensues. Michael has been cranky all week - he's hungry at the "wrong" times of the day, doesn't want to go to bed or take a nap, and wants to sleep until 9 or 10 in the morning. And that's even after we've adjusted for the hour difference a bit. He's always been a night owl, so I consider his 9:30 PM snack-fed-in-bed-books-read-prayers-said bedtime an improvement over the 1AM he preferred as an infant. Now we're losing ground again.

Don't get me wrong, I like the extra hour of sunlight around suppertime, but does it really matter? I'm up all day, so an hour in the morning or an hour in the evening doesn't really make a difference. I read a book on Daylight Saving Time a few years ago and the message was that even the farmers have never liked DST and DST doesn't help anyone save energy/fuels/etc. So mothers unite and let's lobby for better naptimes and happier children - abolish DST!

Spring Break!

March - in like a lion - big storm on Friday and into Saturday. Matt spent the night in town since the interstate was closed. We lost power at our house for about 8 hours on Friday night, but didn't fare too badly. I threw extra blankets on the bed and put Michael in with me so he would stay warm. His northwest corner bedroom always gets cold during blizzards. Michael told me in the morning, "You turn over a lot!". I beg to differ - he was the one who was thrashing all night! Matt made it home alright on Saturday, thankfully. They say 800 travelers were stranded on highways during this storm. The National Guard was sent out with their heavy equipment to get some of them. All I can say is - that's our lovely state in March.

Went to my sister's junior symphony concert this afternoon while Matt stayed home to do taxes and Michael took a nap. It was so much fun to see her serious little face, she was definitely concentrating hard, and played very well!

When I got home I put together my to-do list for spring break. It's going to take some doing to get through it all, but I'm looking forward to the challenge. I've been packing a box here and a box there for the past few weeks, but need to get everything we won't immediately need in the next month into boxes this week. We did find a house - will share a photo later - and moving date is set. Yay! Since we'll be moving before the semester is over, I need to use this week to get ahead on papers and grading before we go.

Other important things - spend some time with my little boy who wants to learn geography, reading, and writing lately; spend time with good friends; Theology on Tap (beer and our pastor's teaching - should be a good night!); exercise...