Photos

Welcome to Diet Zehlahlum! The Saturday feature that from the Zehlahlum Family that you love because it's not your life! Diet Zehlahlum is "lite" on stress, seriousness, and thought. Please note that the title Diet Zehlahlum makes no guarantee that you will lose weight while reading. In fact, we recommend that if you want to lose weight you step away from the computer AFTER reading this post and try some jumping jacks or something.

Today's Diet Zehlahlum is all about unedited pictures. 

Enjoy.

They are unedited due to laziness just so we're clear.  I've got to start using the camera more. We even got a nifty new lens for it. I noticed tonight that my husband took the rest of the pictures off the camera (the ones that he's taken lately that he also takes the time to edit) so I'll probably have a link to his page soon so you can see *good* pictures as opposed to my pictures.

Okay, well, I had more but "the server rejected" my attempts to upload them so I guess that's all you get today. To soothe your immense grief I'll let you know the schedule for the week.

Sunday: Lent (before I have to save it for next year),
Monday: Babycakes giveaway
Tuesday: I'm planning to take this day off because I'm taking all three kids to the zoo...alone.
Wednesday: This is book review day. Hmm, guess I better start reading.
Thursday: If I haven't fed my kids to the lions I won't be in jail and so I'll post "F is for..."
Friday:  It will be a surprise. (for all of us)
Saturday: Diet Zehlahlum again. Anything "lite"hearted that you'd like to see/know about?

It's baaaaaaack

IT'S A BIRD!

IT'S A PLANE!!

NO!!! IT'S THUPER THURSDAY!!!

To restart this humble little...uh, do these things have an official name?...game...alliterative thingy/whatsit I'm going to talk about

Theven Thuper Thingth I've Found Rethently (I've been under a lot of stress lately, my sense of humor is wobbly....)

1. Ruckus Media Apps. Seriously! My kids love these. We downloaded another one while Peanut was in the hospital. I asked him if he wanted me to download him a new game (bad mommy) and he said no that he wanted "a new book to watch". We got Pecos Bill this time. And, he walks around the house performing feats of strength and saying, "I'm as strong as John Henry!"

2. Babycakes hair/skin butter. Is Chrissy my most best friend? Yes. Do we wear halves of hearts best friends' necklaces? No. Would this product be as good if she didn't make it? Yes! (but she does) I have a review and giveaway coming soon. I love a good giveaway!

3. One World Vegetarian Cookbook. This is a GREAT cookbook. GREAT. We've liked everything that we've cooked out of it and I now use it probably at least two times a week. A few things I've thought were going to be weird, but everything has been so good. I love that it lists the country that each recipe comes from and has a little blurb about. They don't skimp over Africa (which some 'world' cookbooks do), and the ingredients that they use have been readily available to me. I think I've done a few substitutions and the pictures are beautiful too. If you're needing a new cookbook I HIGHLY recommend this one. 

4. Zoobs. (with a z, people) These things are so fun. They are a "clicky" building set that connect in different ways and you can make just about anything and because of the way they connect the pieces and parts can move or hold still depending on what you want them to do. Maybe not the most convincing description, but click the link. Super cool. Peanut first got a small set of these, a ZoobDude from one of his Aunts awhile back...when he turned three maybe.... And he liked it and he's played with it on and off since then. Well, for the last few weeks he's gotten really really into it. And he's been building all kinds of things, a dinosaur hang-glider, construction trucks, rockets, periscopes, etc. While he was in the hospital I shamelessly bribed him into cooperation by promising to buy him a bigger set. It arrived on Wednesday (love me some Amazon Prime 2 day shipping) and he has played with it (truthfully) for hours each day. Zoobs are a great toy and I think that they'd be good for a car trip too. They're good clean wholesome imaginative open-ended fun. I think that just now at 4.5 he's right at the beginning of really being able to build cool things because before he had a little trouble getting the pieces to do what he wanted. Now I think he'll be playing with these for years and I'm keeping my eye on them for sales. If you have a kiddo who likes to build I'd highly recommend these and I think it would good to start with a biggish set, at least 55 pieces. They also have Zoob Sparkles, wheel bases and other neat gadgets. 

5. Ebates! I know, I know. I've talked about it before AND I have it listed in my $$$$$$ section. I don't care. I'm fast becoming addicted to this site. This is the ONLY online-money-thing that I use. I also didn't expect to like it. I signed to try it and to try and save some money. I expected it to be a hassle and annoying and hard to use and that I'd use it for a few weeks and then I'd stop. Not happening. It's not like I'm making hundreds of dollars, but every few months I'm making $18-25 dollars which is just a happy little surprise for my paypal account and gives me a fun little bit of splurge money. I'm also making more money as I get more familiar with the site. The other day I ended up buying 11 various pieces of summer clothes from a popular children's retailer who was having a sale and because I went to ebates first I found a coupon for 15% off and earned cash back. You should try it. You can search by store if you know where you want to shop or by product if you wanted to order some Zoobs. :) I usually open up one tab and check the Amazon price and then I open another tab with the ebates page. It takes about five minutes (until I start browsing) and I save money and make money. Love it.

6. The Empowered to Connect: Insights & Gifts Video Series Whooooweeeee! If you haven't watched any of these and you happen to parent an adopted child you are missing out. Of course sometimes you'll be like "Oh, well I've been handling this completely wrong so that sucks" but hey, life has to suck before it can better, right? Right?! Seriously though. These videos are by Karyn Purvis who wrote "The Connected Child" and she's brilliant about giving our kids the steady, gentle, fierce, consistent love that they need to thrive despite rocky beginnings and then rocky adoptive moms...not that I'm one of those, but you know, uh, moving on! Anyway, I'm going to get to hear her speak when I go to her conference in September!!! Woohoo!!

7. Okay, seriously (theriously?) I cannot think of thomething for number theven. Thix still works for my ridiculous alliteration. So you tell something that you found recently that is THUPER! Apparently I've been spending too much time cleaning up barf which is anti-thuper. 


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PS...so, it turns out that today is more of what is generally called "Friday" and less commonly, maybe only in my brain, "Thursday Again". So, yeah. I don't know what day of the week it is. Big deal.....

The Unfair Difference

Any of you who follow along with me on my FB page or Twitter

know that we've had a stomach virus go through our house

and through every orifice of everyone in our family (sans Boohoo).

We took Pickle to the ER about a week ago and thought he might need to be admitted.

We took Peanut to the ER a few days ago and never thought he'd need to be admitted.

But he was.

 He was in way more trouble than we knew.

This is the needle that saved my son's life. 

It sounds melodramatic, I know. But it's just a matter of perspective.
I'm not saying that my son was anywhere near death.
(Thank you, God!)

But the fact that he wasn't?

LOCATION. LOCATION. LOCATION.

My son had "the flu".
That's all.
He didn't have Influenza or a creepy bacterial infection or anything else out of the ordinary.

He had your average, run of the mill, run to the bathroom, stomach bug.
Most of the time he didn't even have a fever. It was nothing.

And if we didn't live here, in the United States of America
(Feel free to substitute any other developed nation in there)

he could have died.

Because of a lousy stomach virus and the resulting dehydration
1.5 million children in developing countries die every year.
It's the second leading cause of death for children under 5.
(like my son, if he didn't live here)

Because if you're a child in the African countryside and you get a stomach virus,
there probably isn't clean water for you to drink extra of once you start getting sick,
there certainly isn't a handy electrolyte replacement drink your parents can force you to drink,
there isn't an ER for them to take you to when you're too weak to play,
there aren't trained professional to hook you up to an IV with a clean needle,
there aren't tests that can be run to find out exactly what you need,
there isn't medicine to be tailored to replace what you've lost,
first your critically low bicarbonate level for about 18 hours by IV,
and then your potassium level for another 8 hours,
and probiotics to help restore your stomach,
and then be given stickers, a book, and a stuffed animal and sent home
to special foods, a "restricted" diet, Popsicles, lazing on the couch and watching tv.

If you're a child in the African countryside and you get a stomach virus,
the odds are frighteningly bad and not in your favor,
the odds are that the only thing your family will ever be able to say is,
"He got sick and then he died."

Every time I looked at that clean, safe needle poking into my sweet baby's hand
and that beautiful beautiful bag of corrective fluids dripping into his body,
I was sorry for him (because he HATED it), and it hurt me to see him like that
but my heart,
my heart,
my heart,
my heart was so thankful.
I knew that I was sitting there watching my son healing instead of dying.

I decided that when we got home we were going to make a donation to World Vision to provide medical care for another child because it's just wrong. Right now because of some grants that they have received any donation toward medical care that you give is multiplied by 11.

I know that I just asked you to consider donating to our March for Babies fund. I guess the timing isn't ideal, but oh well. Now, I'm asking you to consider giving to World Vision and sharing the medical care that we have so readily available.

Book Review: The Princess and the Pea

"The Princess and the Pea" by Rachel Isadora


Backstory: I've had this book for awhile. I grabbed it at Target awhile back.

Why: I picked it up because it has an engaging cover and the Princess on the front is black. It was also a Caldecott Honor Winner" and I'm easily impressed, I guess. ;)

Overview: I'm guessing we're all familiar with this story. In order to be real high-maintenance princess she has to prove it by sleeping on a stack of mattress with a pea stuck under them unbeknownst to her. Suspense! Intrigue! When she whine in the morning about how badly she slept it's declared that "Yes! Only a Real Princess could be such a PITA/poorly manner guest." What's the point of this story anyway? Is there a moral I'm missing?

Intended Audience: Truthfully, my kids haven't been interested in this book. I've read it to them a few times and they've listened and we talked about the cool pictures, but it wasn't anything that really captured them. However, we don't a lot of Princess Culture here so maybe other kids would be more jazzed about it.

My thoughts: The pictures in this book are FABULOUS, bright colors, the styling is out of the ordinary, and it's depicting Africa and Africans so two thumbs up there.

It also uses three African greetings and depicts the first three princesses as from Ethiopia (woot woot), Somalia, and Kenya. You don't find out what country the "winning" princess is from.

There's also a teeny map in the back that shows where each country is, which is nice, but I think that a full page spread with more awesome illustration/education about the countries would have fit well and been more awesome.

I do have to say that I LOVE LOVE LOVE the little princess who wins. She looks spunky and adorable and I love her hairdo. I don't know, I just think she's cute. I'd love to see her staring in a better storyline. 

Again, I love the artwork and I love that it's a traditional story retold in a multicultural way so that the princess isn't a blue eyed blond so I'm glad that we have it in that regard. Plus, it's a paperback so it wasn't expensive.

Score: 3 out of 5. Nice to have, but I wouldn't rush out and buy it unless your kids either dig the story or princesses or you just need a copy of this story.

Are you getting the picture here?

I've got a lot to do today and I'm feeling the need to emotionally spew so here it comes...

1. My grandmother is dying of cancer

2. My mom is super stressed out and working herself to the bone working and taking care of Gram and I can't do anything to help

3. Pickle was in the ER last week

4. Peanut was admitted to the hospital two nights ago

5. I've got to get him to drink 40oz a day to avoid a repeat performance

6. My husband is sick

7. Our kitten is acting sick

8. We've got three major Trauma Triggers coming up within weeks: Mother's Day/Boohoo's birthday/our 1 year anniversary. (And don't think they are trauma triggers just for her

9. I've got overdue library stuff and can't find part of what I need to return

10. Somehow in the 36 hours I was gone with Peanut our household ran out of EVERYTHING so I've got to take all the kids to Target today.

11. My house is dirty.

12. My washing machine is broken

13. My laptop won't run off battery and the fix would basically cost what a new laptop would

14. I realized while I was in the hospital with Peanut how isolated we are here

15. I just put Boohoo in an actual time-out in her room (which is bad) instead of stomping her into dust (which I guess would have been worse)

16. I'm supposed to start running today and this is filling me with nothing but dread and certainty of failure and humiliation.

17. I'm too stressed out to read book. I can't believe it's true, but it is.

18. I've fallen way behind on my Bible reading for my 30 by 30 by 30 goal and my Lent thing.

19. There are stupid tiny children ants crawling around my house where they shouldn't be

20. I have yet to win the lottery

Okay. Lots of Zen breathing/thinking/being/whatever it is that Zennishes do to calm down.

I do feel slightly purged. Now, I'm going to rally. 

After all, what's a mom to do?

WHATEVER THE HELL NEEDS DOING!

(technically, I don't think that Wonderwoman was a mother so she wouldn't maybe be the best choice to illustrate my saying, but she looks better in spandex than I do. I do think I could rock her headband thing though...)

March for Babies

Contrary to what it may often sound like on my blog.... I like kids. :) So does my husband. We've been nothing but lucky when it comes to the health of our children. Our children are healthy, so healthy. I get a kick out of whine-blogging (whlogging?) when my house is hit with a stomach virus. Let's see, what else? Peanut has had a UTI, one ear infection, and croup. Pickle, he's been a little worse for the wear, sometimes we call him Sickle Pickle. He had bronchiolitis at 6 weeks old, and GERD, and this ongoing GI issue, and he catches every cold that comes his way. Boohoo. She's yet to be sick. The girl is a champion.

Other families, other babies are not so lucky. I can think of six friends off the top of my head who have babies that have or have had serious health complications. I can't imagine the fear that goes through a mother's heart when she learns that something is wrong with her baby and then in the best scenarios, the joy that lifts her up again when the crisis has passed. I pray (to be frank) that I never have to know level of dread or even joy. I don't want it. I also don't want other woman to have to battle through that either.

So when given the opportunity to walk in a March of Dimes event through my husband's work we decided to participate. All of us. So on May 14th, we're going to trek into Baltimore and we're going to walk four miles with our three healthy kids. I don't even know the logistics of that besides to hope that a genie leaves a triple stroller on my front porch...

If you love babies and you think that every baby should be born healthy and would like to contribute to our cause we are trying to raise (gulp) $300.00 to donate to March of Dimes. You can click on that link and make a contribution and we'd be very grateful and you could feel good knowing that you won't get fatter from eating another BigM@c and you can donate money toward research and support for the teeniest babies out there. (I think I just came up with a new slogan! "Give a baby your BigM@c!")

Parenting Goals

These excerpts are taken from "Dare to Love" by Heather Forbes, which yes, I totally recommend.

"'But he said to me, My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." (2 Corinthians 12:9). It is in our children's weakness, that we have the opportunity to support them, love them, and provide our influence (not power) as parents to build them back up again."

"The book of Romans provides numerous examples of a love-based parenting paradigm. "If your enemy is hungry, feed him; if he is thirsty, give him something to drink." (Romans 12:20). And thus, if your child is acting out, give him attention. If he is talking back and rejecting your directives, connect with him instead of rejecting him in return with consequences. If he is picking on his sibling, provide your reassurance in his place in the family instead of ostracizing him in time-out.

The most concise example is when Paul writes, "Do not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good." (Romans 12:21). Taking the liberty to put this in the context of parenting, we can say that, "Do not be overwhelmed by negative behavior, but overcome negative behavior with love."

Yeah. I think those things hit the nail on the head about what I'm trying and too often failing to do, and why I'm so exhausted all the time!!