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Cold, Flu or Deadly Disease?

P1: Tomorrow I have my phone meeting with my ob/gyn to discuss volunteering at Mount Sinai. Regardless of how this turns out, I have another plan for getting relevant volunteer counselling experience: Planned Parenthood of Toronto! They have a peer counselling program, which involves a 10 week training program in September. Unfortunately, it is apparently quite competitive, so I'll have to apply this summer...fingers crossed I get accepted! It's the flip side of the reproductive health counselling I want to do, but would be excellent experience, nonetheless.

P2: Another major challenge of parenting young children I seem to face daily, is knowing when something is seriously wrong with them versus normal, developmental challenges. Yesterday when Little A and I picked up Big A from daycare, her teacher warned me that she had not taken a nap and was "on a short fuse". Great! She certainly was grumpy so I told her she was tired from not napping, and would feel better once she got in the stroller. But she said, "No, I'm not tired, I just don't feel like myself." That set my alarm bells off! What does that mean when a 3.75 year old says that? Leukemia, a brain tumour? What other catastrophic things can I think of? Well half way through the trip home, I peeked into the stroller and she was asleep. And when we got home she was snoring soundly. It took me about 5 minutes to rouse her, after which, she was actually in a better mood and didn't say anything more about not feeling well. However, later before bed she repeated the same statement to Adam, about not feeling like herself. This morning she was great until it was time to get ready for daycare, then she became defiant and oppositional with me (which isn't at all unusual), but when I asked her why she was suddenly acting out, she said again, that she wasn't feeling better, and was still not feeling like herself. Ugh! More panic on my part! I asked her if something was hurting and she said yes, her throat was hurting. Okay, well maybe she just has Adam's cold? I gave her some children's ibuprofin and that seemed to cheer her up. She was fine until we got to daycare when she melted down about having forgotten to bring a stuffed animal to sleep with at naptime. So I still sit here wondering, is she sick? Was she just trying to get out of going to daycare? Is something else wrong? You see, the thing is, Big A LOVES taking medicine, she LOVES going to the doctor and she LOVES being able to stay home all day and not have to go to daycare. She has previously complained of all sorts of pains and ailments, which mysteriously disappear as quickly as they started, just so we will take her to her doctor. So how do I know if something is really wrong?

F1: Tuesdays and Thursdays are no-cook days for me. So dinner is always leftovers and/or easy stuff like chicken or veggie burgers, veggies dogs, or grilled cheese with salad or steamed vegetables. But I've got some super yummy special dinners planned for this weekend, it being Valentines Day and all. More on those later...

F2: Had a good workout this morning. I banished Adam and his cold to the spare room last night so I got some sleep. Tuesdays and Thursdays I do 30 mins of intervals on the stairmaster plus 15 minute cool-down and then 20 minutes of weights. I read the magazines I subscribe to while on the stairmaster (Chatelaine, Canadian Living, Nutrition Action Newsletter). Yes, I know, lots of people say reading while on cardio machines compromises your effort but I don't feel this is the case for me, and frankly, even if it is, I don't care. It's the only chance I have to read my magazines. The 15 minute cool-down is just to give me extra time to read ;) And today I finally managed to do 4 chin ups! Probably more like 3.75, actually, I don't think I got up all the way on the last one. Oh well, it's still progress.

In case you're wondering, we have a pretty kick-ass home gym: Treadmill, stairmaster, universal weight machine, free-weights (3-50 lbs), a bosu ball, 2 stability balls, 2 step benches, bands, chin up bar, yoga mat, yoga blocks, pilates squishy ball and ab roller.

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