Zero video games, zero sugar = a good night's sleep?

Zero video games, zero sugar = a good night's sleep?

Well, hubby and I have come to the conclusion that:

a) if J plays his DS after school, he won't study
b) if K plays his DS after school and/or watches too much t.v. in the evening, he'll scream in the middle of the night

And also:

c) if K has anything overly sugary after school and anytime in the evening, he'll scream in the middle of the night

So today the kids do not have possession of their DS games. During a typical school week, we don't allow the kids to play the Wii. Our reasoning is that if they have time for that, they have time to study. They can play outside (gee, let them use their creativity for a change), but playing video games and watching t.v. all afternoon isn't in the plan.

I felt my hubby patting my arm in the middle of the night and I immediately heard K screaming. I got up out of bed and tried not to trip on the dogs (I didn't turn on the light), and when I opened our bedroom door I saw K's door open but he wasn't in his room. He was down the hall and in the living room, screaming away. When I asked, "K, where are you?" He came back down the hall and I helped him into his bed. I told him to stay there (I've learned that asking what was wrong does no good as he mumbles something that makes no sense) and when I was convinced he was settled in, I went back to my room and into my bed.

Not a whole two minutes had passed when the screaming started again. This time, my hubby went to see what was the matter. K said, "I need to ask dad a question." Dad said, "I'm right here. What do you want?" K mumbled something and went back to sleep.

We were able to sleep the rest of the night without more interruption. I told my husband that K had candy at his church group and that might be the culprit. Hubby said, "Then he isn't going anymore." I said, "What if I talk to them and see if they can provide a different kind of snack or maybe they just don't give any of the sugary stuff to K?" He said, "That wouldn't be fair to him." Well, something must change. K loves going each week and seeing his friends and being active in his church group. I just need to figure out a happy medium.

Alarm clock from Hell

I just realized, after the alarm did not go off, and after having spoken with my husband whose alarm it was and who had asked if it was set for radio alarm instead of beeping alarm, that maybe, just maybe, I set it incorrectly last night.

This morning begain badly. My husband's alarm is set for 4 a.m. For some reason, he woke abruptly at 5:30 and looked at the clock and said, "How did that happen?????" His alarm didn't go off. The display showed that it was set, yet it didn't go off. My blurry morning eyes couldn't see if the display showed a little alarm clock or music notes. As my husband wandered off to take his shower, I played with the buttons on the clock to see what was wrong. I couldn't figure it out but left my alarm alone as I wanted to see if it would go off at 5:35. It did. Hmm...
This makes me wonder if last night, when I was setting the alarms, if I didn't put his on music alarm.

We have had bad experiences with music alarms on clocks. They often don't cooperate. The radio/alarm clock we are currently using is only a couple years old, at most. However, I probably should have taken it back to the store after a couple episodes of setting the music alarm and having it go off, but without volume. And the volume was turned up pretty loud. Me thinks there's a short somewhere within the alarm/radio portion because the radio works just fine when you want to listen to music. :s

After talking with hubby on the phone just a little bit ago, after he mentioned perhaps the alarm was set for music instead of beeping, he asked me to go set one alarm for 4 a.m. and the other for 4:05 a.m. I did that before I started this post. I'm pretty sure both will go off tomorrow because why would mine go off just fine this morning if his didn't? Because I probably had his set for music. ARGH!!

A sore throat cure?

Today I'm dealing with a sore throat. It comes from a little man in my house who has been congested and coughing the last few days. Since I'm trying to work and stay focused, I haven't run up to the store to get something to ease the pain. So far, I have tried:

Sucking on Halls Fruit Breezers throat drops (these do NOT work, especially when they expired September 2010)

Drinking a miriad of hot beverages (tea, Ghiradelli Extreme Chocolate cocoa [complete with marshmallows] (these did not help, either)

I then decided a cold bevvy would do the trick. DO NOT ATTEMPT A COLA! Ohmygosh, the carbonation, which I thought might help (why, why did I think that??) feels like pins going down my throat!

My next attempt at a cure will be ice cream or a popsicle, even though it will be short-lived.

Too much t.v. (screen time) = nighttime freakout fests

I've realized that time in front of the t.v., whether it be just watching a show or playing the Wii, results in my youngest child waking in the middle of the night, screaming and/or walking into my room hollering, "MOM!" I did a test one day and limited his Wii time to one hour. He stayed in bed that night and did not yell or scream or anything. Last night, he woke up and tried to come into my room and was yelling "MOM!" and he had no idea he was doing it. Sleepwalking. He had been in front of the t.v. most of the day.

Hubby decided this morning that both kids are not to play the Wii. I get to break the news to them when they ask if they can play it. Lucky me! They are on Spring break this week and hubby is in school (some sort of cruel joke, me thinks) and I work from home, so of course I'm the bad guy when the house isn't quiet as I do my technical work, and I ask the kids to hush up. My work is very detailed and if I put in a wrong character (keyboard/typing/HTML stuff), everything goes awry. I need to concentrate while working! The kids can play in their rooms or go outside. They can read or go to their friends' houses.

A few months ago, I decided to check the website for Singulair (an asthma medication) and right on the front page was a notice regarding side effects. Guess what one was? Night terrors and sleepwalking! After talking with hubby, we immediately ceased giving Singulair to K. He'd been sleepwalking for years and we didn't put two and two together. His screaming and sleepwalking stopped. Now the trigger is too much screen time.

Haven't you heard the warning - children should have no more than two hours of screen time a day. It keeps their developing brains from the right kind of stimuli. They veg out in front of the thing and become fat and lazy. I don't want that to happen to my kids - do you?? Time to lay down the law with them. They can do something else besides watch t.v. and/or play video games forever.

Yeah, well, you wouldn't post either if you broke your ankle

On January 15, 2011, I was in the yard with family. It was a balmy 54 degrees and I declared, "Let's work in the yard! Let's clean up and make it look good!" I should have known, when J accidentally smacked me in the head with a large branch which was cut from an overgrown Maple, that the day was to go awry.

The four of us were working down in back of the house on a slope. Hubby had the chainsaw and was cutting low-hanging limbs from trees. The boys were hauling debris down to the burn pile. I took a shovel and was digging out a fence that the previous owners had buried. I tossed the slats aside for the boys to drag to the burn pile. I had just tossed the last one aside when WOOSH! Down I went. Excruciating pain and scream from me, I managed to have my brains and yelled, "Call the hospital!!" Hubby had J go up to the house to call 911. Hubby wanted to move me off of the wet ground, and I could not stand on my left foot because it felt all crunchy inside. He carried me to a plastic chair that was carried up from the burn pile (no, it wasn't in the burn pile, but near it) and that's where I waited for the EMTs to show up.

Long story short, in the Emergency Room I was given morphine for the pain. I had never had that stuff before. Hubby has, on numerous ER visits, but not me. X-rays were taken, and I think that was the only time I cried during the whole thing. Turned out that I broke my ankle in three places. I'd always wondered what it was like to use crutches. Never broke a leg or anything up until that point. Walgreen's was open 24 hours, so that's where we went after the ER to get meds and crutches. I hate crutches. I think my wondering what they were like was an omen.

I had surgery on January 24. I now have eight pins and a metal plate in my ankle. I'd show the x-ray to you, but it's a PDF file instead of jpg or gif. I was laid up in bed until February 2. Hubby was nurse, cook, maid, you name it. He was great (and still is!) through it all.

Luckily, I work from home and was able to use a laptop in bed for a while until I felt ok enough to hobble on crutches into the living room where the desk is. That is where I've been working ever since. Now, on the topic of having the laptop upstairs and the desk upstairs - this must have been a sign. My home office is downstairs. After December, I moved up to the desk upstairs and used the laptop. The move was because my downstairs office was so frozen (no forced-air heat) that I couldn't work. When it was 13 degrees in November, that was the last straw. It's almost like this was all meant to be. And it was a Godsend that hubby wasn't working or in school at the time - who would have been my nurse, cook, housekeeper??

I've had good days and bad. I've been sad, depressed and a crying mess. Why isn't my ankle moving very far? Why is it stiff, even though I've been exercising it? Why did I have to fall in the first place? Why me??? Can I just turn back time, please?

Today is April 5. I am still using crutches, but I've been given the go-ahead to put weight on my foot and try to walk. I am anxious for physical therapy to start but first need to get through my next appointment with the surgeon. He'll move my ankle and see if I need more work (I do, I know that already) and he'll send me off to PT. That's why I haven't posted in eons. I will be better about it, I promise.