Epiphanies

Had my last dental appointment today.  Duc put the crown on the lower right tooth.   I’m going to try to suffer out the rest of the year.  I know I have a lot of dental work to be done but Diana (front office girl) told me I had maxed out my insurance for the year because of the two root canals.   Fun

I’ve tried to think back to when I started getting this condition and I think it had to be after I started having kids. I don’t remember ever having it before then. I could be wrong but I’d say it was a pretty good guess. I’m going to keep an eye on the boys to see if they ever get it.

This is my second day using Eucerin Plus Intensive Repair Lotion for my Keratosis Pilaris (genetic and incurable). I hope it’s the same as the body creme. I’m also going to try the Dove Nutrium body wash. I took a photo yesterday so I can compare to it later. Hope it works.

Other people’s recommendations which I haven’t tried:

Changing the foods you eat – do a “vega” test to find out which foods you’re sensitive to. Quack quack?

MULTI VITAMIN ACNE TREATMENT BY NEUTROGENA

Body Shop Olive Scrub & Exfoliating Bath Gloves

NEUTROGENA SKIN SMOOTHING BODY LOTION

Dove Exfoliating Body Wash with the little blue exfoliating beads

PAULA’S CHOICE 2% BHA LOTION

EUCERIN PLUS INTENSIVE REPAIR BODY CREAM-CVS EUCERIN

CETAPHIL® MOISTURIZING LOTION

KERATOSIS PILARIS KIT BY GLYTONE (3 PIECE)

Bio-Oil Vitamin E

Vitamin A pills AND Omega 3

DO NOT USE A LOOFAH OR ANY ROUGH SPONGE & DO NOT RUB HARD ONTO SKIN, even though its good to exfoliate, this will only make the bumps infalamed, worse, & more red.

Another KP site: Keratosis Pilaris Help and epinions.

I recently found a skin tag. Dh helped me cut it off with a sterilized scissor. Wasn’t too bad. Anyway, it got me thinking about all the other things wrong with my skin like the bumps on my legs. I always thought it was some really really mild form of acne. Well I’ve concluded that it’s probably Keratosis Pilaris. I don’t know if it’s because I’m growing older but I’m starting to become more and more aware of what is going on with my body. I was aware when I was in high school then I sort of became oblivious to that sort of thing. And now here I am again, older and worried again. I think the twenties were great for me – I thought I was in great shape and never worried about anything to do with appearance. Now it’s full circle. Maybe it’s my body telling me “Hey, notice me, take care of me or bad things will happen!”

ROOT CANALS

Yesterday was the continuation of my root canal on my lower right side. It didn’t feel as bad this time, probably because Duc used a thing to keep my jaw open. Doing that helped me “doze” off instead of concentrating on keeping my mouth open. He also put my permanent crown on my upper left tooth. It was disturbing hearing Duc talk with his assistant Stephanie about dentisrty. He’s been coaching her, a good guy imo to talk her through everything he’s doing although it makes me a little too conscious of what he’s doing. I feel more comfortable with him as my dentist than I have ever felt in my life. He really puts me at ease. I don’t know if it’s because he’s a friend and I feel more trust in him or just his bedside manner. She spoke about how easy root canals were and he told her all the procedures in dentistry are easy on paper but a lot of factors can make it trickier, i.e. placement of teeth, patient reaction, how far back the teeth are, how many canals there are, how many roots there are, etc. Fun stuff

MOVIES AND GROWING UP

C had swimming as usual yesterday. I saw P there again. I remarked on how damn cold it was and that it was probably due to global warming. She suggested I watch “Who Killed the Electric Car?” Maybe we should sign up for Netflix. I seem to be spending more and more time in front of the tv. J has a sixth sense for when I’m on the computer these days and wakes up as soon as I get online now. He’s growing such a personality too. Yesterday, when I wanted him to nurse, he wasn’t having it and pushed me away. He’s never refused milk before. He also refused the bottle at my mil. He also has started batting toys on his swing. I’m not ready for him to grow up yet. Ahhhhh…

B has to do a computer timeline at school now. We had to submit two photos. One of when he was a baby. One more recent. I used a photo I took of him at the Corona Del Mar Castle building contest. He looks so happy at the beach. I looked through the baby photos and since Easter was coming up, I asked him if I could submit the one of him in his spring outfit, sitting in the easter basket wearing bunny ears. Think he was 5-6 months old. Soooo cute. His answer was, “No way, that’s so embarrassing.” I asked him again 5 minutes later. He said, “MO-OOOOOM-MMM.” Oh well, it was worth a try.

ACTIVITIES TO DO WITH THE KIDS

I met this woman Sulan at the park today. I met her last time as well. She had a few good suggestions for occupying kids during the summer. I told her I didn’t want them to spend all their time playing video games. She has theme days i.e. making a movie day, arts and crafts day (draw a flower in the garden day) , math/worksheet day, write an article day and science day (google cool science projects). She has a website which she runs where she programmed cool free educational software – free math/chemistry games (sort of like teaching tools) for kids to play and along the side are google ads where she gets $/click. I may try to find it.

EASTER BASKETS

I popped by Target this morning. It was great. They open at 8am so after I dropped B and C at school, I swung by there via Irvine Center Drive. I wanted to get all the goodies for their Easter Baskets or in this case bucket (bought that at Big Lots in Laguna Woods). I didn’t want to concentrate on just easter wrapped candy (i.e. candy that just has a different wrapper) but candy that they don’t often have or at leaast has some significance with the “Easter Basket” tradition. I bought jellybeans, malted choco balls, bunny-shaped chocolate, easter animal pez dispensers and also some egg shaped gum because C seems to have a thing for gum. I also bought some goodies like hot wheels truck combo that has a car inside, pokemon card packs, some crayola goodies for C. I also bought some clothes for a portrait sitting later on. I want the kids to have a photo taken together professionally, maybe at Kiddie Kandids since that seems to be the place to go by all my friends.

FINANCIAL ADVICE

The pokemon cards rang up at $13.99 but on the rack they were $9.99. Normally, I would never have noticed because I don’t really pay attention when cashiers ring up things but it just so happened that yesterday I read Common Billing Errors that can Cause You Money – most notably “With the computer age, many people assume the bill is automatically correct and don’t review what the actual charges are. While computers can make errors in calculations less likely, they are far from foolproof. The result is that consumers lose billions of dollars by making unnecessary overpayments each year.” It stuck in my head and I had resolved to be more proactive when it comes to finances since budgeting may play a bigger role in the near future. It’s good to make it a habit of being aware of your money and where it is going.

Id theft is a scary thing too. I think I may do 1-888-5-OPT-OUT and buy a cross shredder. I’ve always wondered what would happen if you submitted a taped up cc application and now I know.

J went to get shots today.  I’ve always hated watching the boys get their shots.  I can’t even watch myself getting needles stuck in me let alone my kids.  A came to support me for this.  I had to give J a little infant tylenol .6 before I went there.  He’s 75 percentile weight, 55 percentile height.  Uh-oh.  Should I be worried that he’s becoming a chubby wub? I can’t not feed him though, he’s just a baby…

Did our usual Wednesday after school jaunt to the park.  B played touch football with the boys.  Then we went grocery shopping after.  It’s so much easier with B.  He’s 8 and can push the cart around for me while I push J in the stroller.  It was so much more stressful when B was a baby and I had no one to help me.  And it was in NYC too.  People don’t drive cars there so you usually push the baby in a stroller and then you try to do your grocery shopping while pushing a stroller and carrying a basket/putting items in your stroller basket.  Not fun at all.  I usually waited till A got off work.  Now I can do all that without him.  It’s great.

A took B to Tae Kwon Do and as bonus took the baby off my hands so I could have some free time.  Loving it…   He’s so good to me