Cookie Dough Though

Nathan is still running a fever and has been asleep for most of the day, but in general, the stress level of this household was dropped. School went much smoother than Malia expected yesterday so she is  feeling calmer. Matthew still isn't sleeping well, but at least he was in bed at 4:00 this morning. I have prepped nearly everything for the activity on Tuesday so if for some reason I can't go, one of the other leaders will be able to step in. With some help from Kev, I've even been able to dial back the germaphobe freak out a bit which is a huge accomplishment for me. Yes, I'm still cleaning like a maniac, but my stomach doesn't feel all tight like it did yesterday.

I didn't actually eat a cookie today, but I did make cookie dough for Christmas cookies and snitched a bit before it went into the freezer, so I think that counts. 😉 

State of the Household

I want to take a minute to address the physical, mental and emotional status of those living in my house. 

Malia came home from school yesterday distraught because she has found herself in the middle of two warring parties. This has been going on for months now, but things kind of blew up yesterday. She is friends with both girls, wants to remain so and doesn’t want to be mean to anyone, so she gets very worried about all the drama and how to navigate her social world. Nathan was having some mild cold symptoms yesterday morning, but when he started running a fever last night, we broke out the Covid tests. Unfortunately, he most definitely has Covid. That raised everyone’s stress levels but having Covid in the house coupled with the need to wear a mask at school due to being exposed to Covid added to the emotional stress was nearly more than Malia could handle. She couldn’t even focus enough to get her homework done, so she went to bed knowing that she would be unprepared today. Matthew’s focus was shot as well, so there was no homework done in our household last night and I was totally ok with that. Sometimes life requires a recess from the normal school rules.

This morning was a hard one all the way around. Malia had a really hard time falling asleep last night so she was extra tired this morning. Not only that, but she really, really didn’t want to go to school because she was so worried about the social drama, so she had a really hard time getting up and moving. It took her nearly an hour to get out of bed, which meant that she was eating breakfast five minutes before she was supposed to walk out the door. Matthew woke up at 3:00 this morning and couldn’t get back to sleep. At 4:00 he was still so completely awake that he figured he might as well get up and decided to take advantage of the time to wrap some Christmas presents. Although he didn’t come fully awake, Kev heard rustling in the house at 4:00 which disrupted his sleep a bit. And I never sleep well when I’m anxious about sick kids, so I was pretty tired this morning as well. In fact, I think Nathan was the one who slept the best. With some Aleve in him to dampen the fever and no need to get up early to go to work, he felt pretty good when he got up.

I’m feeling stressed today as well because I really don’t want Matthew and Malia to get sick and miss out on their fun activities for the next several weeks. Malia feels like she always gets sick just in time to miss the big events at school and to be completely fair, she is justified in thinking so. She has in fact missed many days that held fun activities, the latest being her big turkeys vs. farmers debate just before Thanksgiving two weeks ago. And Matthew has concerts and parties and a variety of things coming up as well. 

As for me, I’m a germaphobe who has Covid in the house which means my stress is running high. In addition, I am in charge of our primary activity on Tuesday, and I really don’t want to miss it. Not only is it the last activity of the year and our Christmas activity, but it is Malia’s last primary activity ever. I was in charge of our Christmas activity last December as well and it was cancelled due to a Covid outbreak in the ward. I’m really hoping the rest of the family can stay well so Malia and I can attend this activity.

So the catchword of the day seems to be stress. I’m so stressed that I can’t even stress eat which means my stress level is higher than the normal day to day stress of life. When the world shut down due to Covid and we had two earthquakes that same week, there were cookies. When the kids went back to school with all the Covid protocols in place, there were cookies. When Nathan was preparing to leave on his mission, there were cookies. When Matthew had Covid in July, there were cookies. When Nathan began to really struggle with the headaches while he was in Texas, there were cookies for both of us. When he came home as a result of the headaches, there were cookies. So the fact that the thought of eating a cookie makes my stomach clench up is really saying something about my current stress level.

Honestly, I think Nathan is the least stressed of all of us. He doesn’t feel particularly well, but he really needed a day off work and he’s going to get a few of those which will be good for his mental state. His life is on pause for a tiny bit, but he spent the day finishing his Christmas shopping and playing a Spiderman video game, so he feels like it has been a productive sick day. He is still running a fever, but at least the meds take away the fever headache, if not the underlying one that is still plaguing him.

Hopefully we will all sleep better tonight so that tomorrow doesn’t feel so hard. If I can sleep well and get the “what if’s” in my brain to quiet down, maybe I’ll even want to eat a cookie. That would be an improvement.

Bring It On

COVID-19. Social distancing. School at home. Store closures. Shortages of goods. Why don’t we just go ahead and add earthquakes to the mix? Life if definitely interesting right now.

To add some additional crazy to an already intense situation, just after 7:00 this morning there was a 5.7 magnitude earthquake not too far to the north of us. Matthew and Malia freaked out, Nathan just laughed and honestly, I just stood there and thought, “Really? Is this really happening?” Yes, I know that is not supposed to be my first reaction to an earthquake. I’m supposed to duck and cover and all that to preserve my own safety and then ensure the safety of my family. But In all reality, everything has begun to feel a bit surreal. Stress and lack of sleep have led to me walking around the house all day in a stress induced haze. Concentration was not happening, and I could not settle to a task. This afternoon brought several aftershocks strong enough for us to feel (4.6 and 4.4) and it did not help matters. We were far enough away that there was no damage in our immediate area, but still, it was a highly stressful day. Enough stress, in fact, that I had to resort to some stress baking, and thus, some stress eating. The cookies were delicious and while they in no way made a world a better place, they did actually help my brain become a calmer place. Yes, I’m an emotional eater. Most of the time I avoid it because I’m aware of the tendency, but with a pandemic and an earthquake upending my life in the space of less than a week, I really felt like some sugar was in order. And I couched it in a selfless act by simply doubling a recipe I had been intending to bake to send to Daniel. 😉

On the bright side, the ladies in my ward have really stepped up their ministering. It has made me emotional on more than one occasion today as I got responses from so many sisters in my ward about how people are doing. They are reaching out to each other and creating a web of caring and concern that is precisely what I believe the Lord had in mind with the ministering program.

I’m sure there will be more stress baking in the near future. With the changes we are seeing each and every day, I fully expect things to get worse before they get better. But I know that I am not alone and that I will be able to stand strong with those I love at my side. Oh, and if you find yourself in need of a good stress baking option, I have a delightful orange creamsicle cookie recipe.

Puzzled

I finished one of my Christmas presents today. Puzzles are one of those things that calm my mind and help me to relax and let go of some of the stress and frustrations of day to day life. I have definitely needed that this month. Matthew chose wisely, so wisely in fact that I’m looking at other puzzles in this series and making a wish list.

I Try Not To Laugh At My Children

Okay. That’s a total lie. I have a tendency to laugh at my children fairly regularly. However, I don’t laugh in a mean way. I think it’s important to teach them that it’s okay and actually healthy to laugh at themselves. It helps them keep things in perspective.

I have stress dreams during times of (duh) stress and even though I haven’t been in school for nearly twenty years, most of my stress dreams still center on school-having a final when I’ve never been to the class, having a paper due that I didn’t know about, the curtain is about to rise on the school play and I've never been to rehearsal, I can’t remember what class is next or where it is, I can’t remember my locker combination, etc. Yes, I’m forty-two years old and I still have dreams about forgetting my locker combination. It’s ridiculous but it’s a sign of stress.

Nathan has also started having stress dreams from time to time. Nathan’s stress dreams have been different than mine, mostly having something to do with music. This evening he shared last night’s stress dream with us. It was about Mack Wilburg and Johnny Depp. Mack was directing Johnny in the William Tell Overture. Johnny was singing. {insert laugh here-we did}

So yes. I laugh at my offspring. And usually they laugh with me.

We All Deal With Stress Differently

You know how I’m dealing with the stress of our current crazy life, but how about the boys?  How are they dealing with it?  Daniel, as always, is in his own little world.  He knows what is going on but just keeps doing his thing with very few alterations.  He is probably the only one in the family who has been cool as a cucumber lately.

The first couple of nights that Malia was home, Nathan would come into my room in the middle of the night when I was up with Malia.  Although it was not a conscious thing, he was listening for her to cry and waking up when she did.  Once Kev showed him where Malia sleeps and that I can reach her from my bed, he was able to stop listening for her.  He is, however, still having nightmares.  The last one was about invisible vampires who bit one of his friends while his friend was sitting in the baby swing…

When the bigger boys are off-track, Matthew usually prefers Nathan to take him to preschool.  But lately he has wanted me to take him and once we are there he is clingy and reluctant to go in to school.  He has never been that way, not even on his first day of preschool ever.  He cried when it was his turn to give the theme in primary yesterday.  He usually loves to participate in primary and has never even been nervous.  He has had more potty accidents (mostly bed wetting incidents) in the past two weeks than he has had in the past year and last night he broke down sobbing when Daniel and Nathan wouldn’t let him take the glass dishes out of the dishwasher.  He was terribly upset because he can be very careful. (Daniel and Nathan don’t know that when Matthew helps me I let his do the glass dishes as long as I am close at hand because he is very careful.)

I’m hoping that getting rid of the oxygen and the hives will help us all.  Eliminating those two things will be taking a big step in the direction of normal.  And I think we could all use some normal around here.

What's Next?!

Yesterday I broke out in hives all over my body.  Not fun.  After spending the entire day trying to figure out what was causing them, I went to the doctor and told him that I had been unable to pinpoint the culprit.  He asked a bunch of questions about medications and food and then he asked, "How is your stress level?"  Yup.  He thinks my hives are stress induced.  Yeehaw.  Just what I need.  A stress reaction that adds to my stress.  And I thought I was actually handling things pretty well.  Of course, the dinner plate sized hives on my rear end would seem to say otherwise.

But seriously, I've only dissolved into tears three times in the past three weeks and considering everything that has happened and taking into account that I've got loads of postpartum hormones racing through me, I really think I'm managing quite nicely.  Yes, things have been pretty crazy (In the past month, the longest we've gone without having someone at the doctor, the hospital, or the instacare is three days.  Try and beat that!) but overall I'm feeling okay with how everything is going.  And yet the hives are still going strong.  I'm on prednisone and zyrtec and I'm still itching like crazy.  The ones from yesterday have faded, but new ones have taken their place.  For those of you who have never had hives, let me just tell you that it itches so badly that it makes me want to claw my own arm off....

On the bright side, my usual reaction to stress is getting a headache and as horrifying as the hives are, they are still better than a migraine.  Not much better, mind you, but at least I can function...and scratch...