On Health

We have returned to health. Mostly. I'm sure we have a few more rounds of ickies awaiting us these next few months of winter, but I am praying we are through the worst of it. I'm grateful most of our bouts have been relatively minor thus far, but I was just tired of being tired. What worked?

For Josh, we had a "restoring health" weekend. The dumping of snow pretty quickly eliminated our weekend plans anyway, so we decided to just keep Josh home and encourage as much sleep as possible. I also pulled out my "Natural Baby" book to evaluate homeopathic remedies. (No cold medicines for kids anymore and I'm not so keen on the chemical stuff anyway.) After reading about all sorts of roots and extracts and feeling overwhelmed - where might one buy any of this stuff and how do you know how much to use?? - I flipped to the resources section and logged on to the suggested website. Sure enough, you can figure it out on your own, or you can hit your local Hyland's retailer... which for us, now means Safeway! Of course, the makers of our favorite teething tables also have a cold remedy, and we had Josh popping "C-Plus Cold Tablets" all weekend long.

On Tuesday, he finally traded yellow snot and nasty goopy eyes for teething drool. Hooray for health... and a few more teeth are certainly welcome, too!

What worked for Owen? Eating dirt? Somehow Owen is the only one to remain relatively healthy this month. He did manage a rather scary playground accident - biting completely through his lip. But it healed quickly on it's own without a trip to urgent care. (Nice to be good friends with an orthodontist who could reassure me that I was okay heading home for "observation" despite the initial fountain of blood.) I am continually amazed (knock on wood) that we have made it to 3 1/2 without an injury visit to urgent care or the ER.

What worked for me was Yoga. I haven't been since early December (yes, way back in 2010!), and I had been avoiding signing up again until I was feeling healthy, but last week, the kids were on the childcare schedule (you have to book 2 weeks in advance), so WE WERE GOING. The minute I stepped into the class, I was regretting my decision. You know, "inhale through the nose... exhale through your nose..." In the moments that I CAN get any air flow through my nose, it's not something that anyone would want to listen to in close proximity. But 10 minutes into the class, my airways cleared up and I WAS BREATHING. All those forward folds did what the last 3 weeks of Kleenex and Sudafed could not accomplish. It was awesome. More please.

On a somewhat related note: Scott took his first yoga class over the weekend and I think he's going to be hooked. He's occasionally done this hokey yoga DVD that we had, and I keep telling him that it's nothing like the real thing. Kevin dragged him to a great class at Groove Yoga - rockin' music, hard work, no new age mumbo jumbo. "I expected to be sore, but not in so many places!"

Looks like Scott is still fighting the latest round of lingering germs, but the early morning (5:30 AM on Wednesday) and last evening work hours probably aren't helping. We are grateful to have a job in this economy... we are grateful to have a job... we are grateful...

Did you think there would be pictures at the end of this one? Not on your life.