The "what's On Your Mind?" Thread -2018

[arouetta]

Isn't that exactly what you were concerned about regarding the immune system?

That's also why steroids are 5 days in length. And the doctors and the PT told me that tendonitis is a sign of misuse of a limb. So no, my tendons are not being attacked by my white blood cells, my muscle strength is all wonky and that's putting too much wear and tear on certain connective tissues.

 

[arouetta]

Alicia88 I hear it is hard to accept, and that every other alternative is never good enough to make the feelings go away. I don't have that dilemma myself, but that's what I've heard.

If I were in her shoes, these are things I might try. If she's looking for practical suggestions instead of just a friendly ear, pass them along.
- Second opinion. Genetic testing has advanced a lot in just a few years and maybe she ended up with Dad's DNA making up her reproductive system.
- Foster parent. Payments from the state, and a lot of foster kids spend years in a home and even sadly age out. Many are also adoptable, and a state sponsored adoption of a foster child is only a fraction of private adoption costs.
- Arranged marriage. I am not kidding. I know that there's actual matchmakers out there, and there's likely single fathers or wannabe fathers that will agree to a quick marriage to a well-matched partner.

 

[Alicia88]

I'll pass along the suggestions. She might be interested or she might not. I think it just kinda hit her all at once. I mean, she knew it was something that would happen at some point in the future, but it sneaked up on her and she needs to think about things. We're all guilty of not thinking about unpleasant things if they seem like they're far in the future. But the future seems to come more quickly than we realize.

 

[debbila]

Did you see the ruler? I'd have to use a garbage bag, lol. My 2 gallon Ziploc bags aren't big enough. Unless I can cut them in half, will it still work?

It didn't show in the picture, but one had some mold so I had to skin the outside in that area.[/QUOTE]



After you cut the cucumbers small enough, wrap tightly in aluminum foil. Don't wash until you're ready to use it. Cut off the whole piece ( not just the peel ) where the mold is as it might be down into the inside of the cucumber. If it is soft or mushy further down, cut that whole part off.
I use foil for all veggies, celery, cucumbers, cabbage, lettuce - leaves, chopped, or heads, and onions.

 

[segelkatt]

Steroids. Both times I went to the primary care doctor, the tendonitis (first time an old spot, second time a brand new spot) had flared up so bad that I was unable to use the entire arm due to the severity of the pain. I couldn't twitch my fingers without crazy high pain in my elbow when the tennis elbow flared up.

If not steroids, then another treatment that would get rid of inflammation. If there's no inflamed tendon, there's no pain.

Edit: With all but the new spot I also saw a previous PCP, and an orthopedic surgeon as secondary to the AC separation.



Did you see the ruler? I'd have to use a garbage bag, lol. My 2 gallon Ziploc bags aren't big enough. Unless I can cut them in half, will it still work?

It didn't show in the picture, but one had some mold so I had to skin the outside in that area.

You can cut the cukes in half or you could loosely wrap the cukes loosely in plastic wrap after you have wrapped them in paper towels. The towels are to keep the veggie dry and the plastic is to keep them from drying out.

 

[Mamanyt1953]

I understand that accidents happen so I'd rather be safe than sorry.

You are there. Once he's old enough to roll over on his own, he is plenty strong enough to move away from a kitty who snuggles too closely (very rare, btw). The instinct to breathe is the strongest one that we have. There IS NO SLEEP (no natural sleep...there are drugs) deep enough to overcome that. Spent many years as a RT. I know about breathing.

 

[Blakeney Green]

Zephyr was the first cat I had on my own (as opposed to a childhood family pet.) Today is his twelfth birthday! Happy birthday, dear Zephyr!

 

[Alicia88]

Happy Birthday, Zephyr!

 

[Alicia88]

Oh! I am so angry with Aislyn right now! The cat fountain sounded funny and was bubbling so I took a look at it. Apparently, she decided she didn't want to eat her cereal this morning so she dumped it in the fountain! She's at her grandma's tonight so I can't do anything about it until she gets home tomorrow evening. I'm trying to figure out an appropriate punishment. I think I might ground her from cartoons for a week.
I had to take the whole fountain and motor apart and clean out all the gunk. Of course we had to replace the filter. It was pretty new - we just replaced it last week. This child! She thinks she can do whatever she wants without consequences so when we start enforcing rules, she gets sneaky!!! But she's 5, so she's not very good at it, yet.

 

[debbila]

No cartoons for a week sounds like a good punishment. Whenever she wants to watch them she'll think about what she did. . . and think twice about ever doing it again. I used taking away priviledges when I did full time care for a family with two little girls. A good one for not putting toys away is taking those away until the next time they do put things away. They complained to their parents but they just said " You have to listen to Debbie ".

 

[Katie M]

Just finished a major PowerPoint project for my computer class. I hope my professor likes it

 

[Alicia88]

I make Aislyn pick up her toys every night and anything that doesn't get picked up is put away the next day and she isn't allowed to play with it. I had to start giving her a time limit for picking up her toys, too. Otherwise, she dawdled and pretended like she couldn't find them because she wanted to put off bedtime. So now, starting at 9:30, we get her in her nightgown and she brushes her teeth, then she picks up her toys. Anything that hasn't been picked up by 10:00 is put away for the next day and if she doesn't finish by 9:55, she doesn't get a bedtime story.
I'm also going to explain to her how dangerous it can be to give cats "people food." With the milk and cereal, they might end up with diarrhea for a few days, but they'll live. What if it had been something with garlic or onion in it? We could have wound up with very sick kitties and a huge vet bill or - worse - they could have died.
I'm upset about the lying as well. I wouldn't have forced her to eat the food. I would have just made her eat the same thing 10 minutes later when she complained about being hungry again. Because she does that all the time. She'll decide she wants something else so she says she's full. I used to get rid of her leftovers but then when it became obvious that she wasn't really full, I started putting them away and giving them back to her. Of course, cereal won't keep, so I just give her more cereal. I won't give her something new. She picks her breakfast then halfway through changes her mind and expects me to let her have something different. Nope, not gonna happen. You can have the other thing for tomorrow's breakfast; you picked cereal so that's what you're eating. We don't waste food in this house.

 

[arouetta]

Personally, I don't think the Saturday morning cartoons will be a good punishment. 5, it can be hard to tie an action and a negative response that has no connection to the action together well enough to not do the action in the future. Something involving cleaning up things affected by the cereal would be a better thing. Yeah, the cereal is gone now, but that's no reason she can't taken an old toothbrush and scrub the hard parts of the fountain, along with a good scrubbing of other cat items. She has to work hard (and therefore not do fun things) because she could have gotten the cats sick and now she has to make sure there's nothing dirty to make them sick.

Empathy is also the other part of discipline, and definitely explaining how certain foods make cats sick is good. However language development is concrete first ("chair", "cat") and abstract second ("warm", "sick"). Rather than just saying some foods make cats sick, maybe have the yucky face that Poison Control Center used to do for medicines and pictures of the foods you would have in the house while talking to her. Definitely focus on concrete words like "poison".

My final suggestion is really, really iffy, depending on her emotions. If she seems to be of a mindset that she can handle it, tell her that certain foods can get a cat get so sick that they join in heaven someone close to her that died. But that is really, really child dependent. Be aware though, when describing how sick cats can get that 5 year olds really don't understand death, ceasing to exist is beyond their developmental level, so that's about the only way to relay the cats could die. Focusing on really, really sick may be all you can do.

 

[Alicia88]

She started crying when I told her people food can make the kitties very sick and maybe cause them to die. So I hope that solves the problem of her hiding food in the water dish. Hopefully I can also solve the issue of her hiding her food and lying about eating it. It's not like I'm gonna force her to eat it. I'm just not gonna let her have candy or treats or anything else if she doesn't.
Isn't she a little young to be getting this sneaky?

 

[arouetta]

No, she's not too young. How sneaky depends on temperament, but think of how many kindergartners and first graders try to pull one over on the teacher.

 

[Alicia88]

True. I guess in some ways, I still see her as the 2 and a half year old I first met. Every time she comes back, it seems like she's grown a foot! She's growing up too fast!

 

[arouetta]

Wait until she's 18 and you swear she's only 12, and then you catch her with her shirt off or she wears a tight shirt and it hits you that she's a triple D.

Or remembering back, when you swear she's 7, and then you catch her coming out of the shower and she has started growing hair.

I think the latter was worse to my psyche.

 

[Willowy]

Wait until she's 18 and you swear she's only 12, and then you catch her with her shirt off or she wears a tight shirt and it hits you that she's a triple D.

I was a triple D when I was 12. Sigh. I'm surprised my back hasn't imploded yet. It was rough on my mom. I told her when I was 10 that I needed a bathing suit with a bra and she refused because I was "only 10". Until she saw me in the unlined bathing suit after it got wet, and then she hustled me off to get a new suit real quick!

I don't think it ever occurred to me or my brothers to be sneaky. I don't know if it was how we were raised or natural temperament or what. So I'm always surprised when I'm around a sneaky kid. I remember finding some food in the closet a few days after I had babysat some kids, and I was utterly baffled. Why?!?

 

[Alicia88]

Oh my, I don't even want to think about that!

 

[Alicia88]

They drew for prizes at the program and they held up this plastic tube thing that you talk into and it makes your voice louder. I immediately got a sinking feeling and said, "oh no" and John looked at me and then they called Aislyn's name. Save our souls.
On the bright side, I might be psychic.
John said it's my punishment for talking in Church. God is smiting me.