The Saturday 7

1. It's been a crazy week. We're leaving for a week in Florida on Monday. Lena's birthday falls during our vacation, but she really wanted a party with her friends beforehand. We'll be staying with Justin's parents in FL, but also needed to work in a little party for Lena with my family before we go. So we had Lena's friend party today, will have her family "party" tomorrow (just lunch, cake, and presents), and then we're leaving on a jet plane on Monday. I've spent all week cleaning and shopping and making various and sundry lists.

2. Lena wanted a "game themed" party, which actually was very low maintenance. I planned it for 2:00 so I wouldn't have to provide a meal, we pulled out games we already have, plus the ever popular claw machine that Lena got for Christmas. She wanted to have a "decorate your own cupcake" station. I made cupcakes from a box mix, but we've been watching all kinds of Kids' Baking Shows lately, and the girls are obsessed with homemade frosting in piping bags. So I consulted the internet for a buttercream frosting recipe, made a hundred million batches of it and then awkwardly forced each color into a different piping bag. The kids felt so cool decorating cupcakes like professionals.

Crowded around for the present opening

We were thankful that everyone braved the weather and made it to the party. Stupid January birthdays don't lend themselves well to parties. We got inches of snow in addition to sleet and freezing rain and regular rain today. Have I mentioned how excited I am to leave this all behind on Monday???

3. I read a couple more nonfiction books despite my busy week. First was Isaac's Storm by Erik Larson. It's a narrative non-fiction about the Galveston Hurricane of 1900. It was a little too science-y for me, but overall I enjoyed it. I love learning about things through narrative retelling. And I'm astounded by the amount of research these authors do. I also read Unplanned by Abby Johnson. Johnson was the director of an abortion clinic for 8 years before she witnessed her first ultrasound-guided abortion that dramatically altered her life. It was a fascinating read. Johnson included a preface before starting her story imploring readers not to go into the book with an "us vs. them" mentality. She stressed over and over that most of the people she worked with at Planned Parenthood truly wanted what was best for the women in their care. It was interesting to see how Johnson, raised as an evangelical, and self-professing as a pro-choice Christian rationalized her choices. She firmly believed that Planned Parenthood's goal was to reduce abortions by offering access to birth control and education. As a counselor, Johnson loved the instances when women chose to put their babies up for adoption instead of aborting them. It wasn't until years into her career that she realized Planned Parenthood's bottom line was revenue, not the welfare of women and their babies. When she resisted a mandate to raise her clinic's abortion quota for the month, she was expressly told that PP is a business and she was to treat it as such. It was very interesting to see the "inside" of PP's upper level management and to hear stories of so many nurses wanting out of the abortion industry that Johnson and her husband eventually started a non-profit to help nurses achieve such a goal. I know Unplanned has been made into a movie, but I don't think I could stomach it. The book was emotional enough! I definitely recommend it.

4. Have I told you that we've been giving Levi melatonin at bedtime? It is seriously magical. He falls asleep within 15 minutes of taking it, which is incredible after our year of the 3 hour bedtime routine. But we've also noticed lately that he's waking up after about 2 hours crying and confused and coughing (the dreaded 3 C's). We finally realized the connection between the waking up and the melatonin and decided to test it out. He had melatonin Monday and Tuesday nights this week and woke up 2 hours later right on schedule. On Wednesday we skipped the melatonin, and while it took him longer to fall asleep, he slept all night without incident! The same thing happened Thursday. But then last night he didn't have the melatonin and did wake up with the 3 C's, so now I'm conflicted. I can't find much on the Internet about melatonin causing night terrors or whatever in kids. Has anyone else every experienced it?

5. And now for the weekly eating update. I've been researching "extreme picky eating" and "selective eating disorder" and came across this article outlining 10 red flags. Lucy definitely has 6 of them, and I suspected that she'd have another one if I forced her to eat instead of letting her avoid everything. This week we had breakfast for dinner, including sausage links. I cut off a tiny portion of one and told her she had to eat it before we could go the school carnival. She really wanted to go, so she got the sausage in her mouth (that's major right there), but then she started to cry that she couldn't swallow it and she was going to choke. Eventually she forced herself to swallow it, but promptly puked it right back up.

That was the sign I was waiting for. Without a doubt, her food aversions are connected to her anxiety. So now I have to figure out where to go from here. I actually had an appointment with my new counselor at our doctor's office yesterday. I asked her if she has any resources for pediatric psychology or feeding therapy. She doesn't work with kids, but she said she'd check with her colleagues and get back to me. Lucy also has a doctor's appointment at the beginning of February, so we'll definitely talk with her doctor then. If you know of any resources, let me know!

6. I have to go clean my house again. Here are some pictures.

Just another night in paradise

Photo booth at the carnival

Levi loves washing windows

She has such good parents who feed her beets so she won't grow up to have selective eating disorder. 

Good little deacon's daughter reading her Bible

Potty training is still going well! He's actually started to tell me that he needs to go before he starts going. We're bringing undies to Florida, but also plenty of diapers. Haha.

There probably won't be a Saturday 7 next week as we'll still be on vacay and I'm not bringing my computer. Pray that our plane doesn't crash and I don't have a panic attack! Lol.