Catch Up

February 23, 2012 by Black Belt Mama · 6 Comments
Filed under: Growing Pains, Things that get my gi all in a bunch

This is what happens when your life gets too crazy busy to post much. . . you have SO much to say that you don’t even know where to begin, so you just don’t. Guilty. Let’s see if I can catch everyone up on my cast of characters before Baby Belated wakes up today.

Baby Belated is now 4 months old! How did that HAPPEN? Between months 2 and 3, I didn’t sleep very well despite the fact that he was sleeping just fine. After a two month well visit where we were threatened, “Either get all the vaccines, or get out” we spent weeks trying to locate a pediatrician who would actually respect our wishes regarding our baby and his vaccines. It took many phone calls, emails and lots of awkward interview questions, but we finally located a pediatrician who respects our wishes, isn’t pushy in the least, and actually utters the words, “You are the parents, so it’s your choice” and without that judge-like tone that I expected. Not just once, mind you, but about everything from vaccines to starting solids. Although we chose to leave our practice, upon picking up our children’s records and examining the disk they were on, we found a letter addressed to me (never mailed to me) that stated we were kicked out of the practice due to “no vaccines.”

If you know me and my husband, then you know that we did not receive this news well. I spent two weeks researching AAP guidelines, CDC recommendations, multiple studies (handy when your husband has worked in clinical research for a decade), and laws regarding medical records, and wrote a professional smack down of a letter to the pediatrician regarding their practices and the whole legality or illegality rather, of the fact that they sneaked a letter into our records that was not only inaccurate, but never actually mailed. Tomorrow is the deadline to receive a letter correcting the records and to receive an apology from the rudest office manager on the planet. It doesn’t look likely so a complaint is going to be filed to the medical board. This whole process took up WEEKS of my life, but has thankfully ended with us finding a practice that we really do love. Plus, I got to exercise the whole “pen is mightier than the sword” thing again. That always feels good.

On to the next one. . .

This morning, Sassy woke up and proclaimed that today is the greatest day of her life. “Why” you ask? I have to pick her up from school early today to take her for an allergy testing appointment. Something tells me that when she truly realizes what’s involved with allergy testing, despite me telling her in vivid detail what it was like for me, she won’t be proclaiming this day above all others. “You do know you’re going to the doctor today, right?” I asked her. “Yeah,” she said, “I LOVE doctors.” Uh-huh, we’ll see. I should mention that I am going to this appointment, known to take hours, with a 4 month old baby who needed four outfit changes yesterday, thanks to green diarrhea resulting from a vaccine he received this week. And I got my baby one shot, instead of the required four at our previous pediatrician. Something tells me the office where we’re going will be super happy when our appointment is done.

Speaking of “done,” our winter swim season only has a few more weeks left. In just a few weeks, she’ll be off to Junior Olympics. In the beginning of the season, we were hopeful that she would qualify for JOs in an event or two. When she dove in the water at her very first meet, swam 100 fly for the very first time and got a JO time right away, we were very encouraged, but still kept our expectations in check.

This kid has blown our expectations out of the water! Swim Girl is now qualified for Junior Olympics in 11 events (she’s only allowed to swim a total of 9). In addition to getting JO times, she moved her times from BB to A in every event and even has some AA times now. She’s knocking on the door of more AA times in several other events and is hoping she can end her season with at least one AAA. If you want to learn something about goal setting, you can talk to my daughter. What has been fabulous is that after almost every meet, she has to set new goals for herself, because she is constantly breaking through her goal times. This past weekend, she dropped her 100 fly and 100 back by three seconds each.

On the drives home from practice, she talks to me about the little tweaks she made to her strokes, how she’s thankful for her coaches because they helped her fix something that will surely, she tells me, knock some more time off. She has already broken two of the club records and is aiming to break at least two more. She’s broken her own record three times now in the 50 breast. I am in absolute awe of this child, and have never seen a kid so young, be so motivated to succeed. At Junior Olympics, she knows the competition is tough. Currently she has an overall ranking of 29th in the Middle Atlantic (based on a cumulative score earned by swimming 100’s of each stroke, the 200 free and the 200 IM). And frankly, I feel like she’s just getting started. It has been an exciting year.

I’ve received a lot of questions and emails about when I’m going to return to karate. The short answer is that I don’t know. When the kids were younger, it was easier to get there. I didn’t also have to get them to all of their activities. Now I have two swimming girls who are very busy with practice and lessons AND a baby. Throughout my pregnancy, my joints got really loose and I was worried about my knee and how it would come back. However, because my joints were so loose, during pregnancy and right after, the flexion I regained in my knee was amazing. Unable to sit cross-legged, squat or kneel before, I’m now able to do all of those things. I think the loose joints allowed me to bust through some scar tissue and gain greater mobility.

It also made things feel a lot less stable. At this point, I’m working out sporadically, and not nearly enough to build proper muscle in my leg to support this knee enough to return to karate. I’m almost 10 lbs. below my pre-pregnancy weight now and feel like a string bean. Before I even think about finding time to return to karate, I need to gain some muscle and get my supporting leg muscles stronger. It’s just not easy when you have three other people to take care of and run to their activities. As a Mom, although I know I need some “me” time, right now it’s all about them. I may not be throwing punches and kicks at the dojo, but I’m present for every meet my daughters swim in and that is most important to me right now.

As I finish writing this, Baby Belated is staring at the camera monitor, waiting for me to come pick him up and start our day. For now, it is what it is, a busy house with three spirited kids, and one Mom who never stops running. Honestly, I’m pretty happy about it.