Kashann and Clan

I think the winter is finally over. Thursday afternoon I take the girls to ballet near Delaware park. Since the weather has started warming up slightly I walk the park while they dance. Thursday was sunny as can be. . but FREEZING, and not just a little. I was in long pants and a hoodie for 2 miles and never worked up a sweat at full speed due to an icy wind. I ran the heater in Marcus's room that night.

And then Friday it got hot, I think up near 80. So hot that by Friday night I had a fan blowing some air into Marcus's room. It seems like that is how it goes around here. Straight from winter to summer. No spring!

I have been dealing with unexplained sciatica for 9 months now on my right side. My driving side. Driving around town really aggravates the condition. It's always a new spot from my lower back down to my foot. Burning, falling asleep, tightness, aching. Not agonizing pain most of the time but it just won't go away. It's fine if I am busy running around the house or exercising but as soon as I sit down it comes back. Especially if I need to use my leg over and over again. Lately I am a full time chauffeur after school. Playing on the piano for hours like I do lately for my new calling in primary isn't helping either. Then things got worse two months ago when something happened to my ankle during ballet. I didn't sprain it. It just started burning really bad when I jumped or releve'd. Since then it hurts when I go up and down the stairs, and I can't do any type of jogging.

So I went to see a Dr. with pen and paper last week and wrote down a whole page of what I need to be doing or not doing. He says it is all coming from an injury to my back most likely.
He also referred me to a podiatrist to look at the ankle. The podiatrist says it's all most likely all coming from my flat feet and how severely pronated I am on my right side. But to be sure he's sending me to a chiropractor and for x-rays.

I wish there was a way to get them all together and get a real diagnosis. So far I've been told regular exercise and stretching and heat on my back will go a long way to solving this . . then the next diagnosis was to get some rest and put my feet up and ice my ankle.

It's hard to know what to do. But I am pretty sure that I got a problem that there is no quick fix for. I know everyone has their problems and I guess at 33 it was time for me to join the real world.

One big change for me is following both Dr's advice to wear good shoes all the time. I think my tile floor in the kitchen is really making things worse. Which means that I am wearing my tennis shoes at home! Oh man do I hate this! I have always loved to be barefoot at home and think people who get up and put their shoes on to stay home all day are really weird. But now here I am getting up every morning, slipping in my arch support inserts and lacing up my shoes just to walk around the house. I keep telling Brent that I just don't know if I can do this. I just really like to have wiggle room for the toes ( I love flip flops) and part of being a cute stay at home mom in my head is not wearing your tennis shoes. But I have to say that in the week I have committed to this my ankle is starting to feel better all ready. I have no idea if it will help the sciatica. Actually this is not the first time I have had sciatica for nine months. It is the 6th. But the last five episodes all ended abruptly when I delivered a baby. This time I see no end in sight.

Brent is busy shopping for a home for a us a year from now. When I say home, I mean a state. Unfortunately, we still are pretty up in the air. The plan was always to go home to the farm and we still hope to. But it really complicates things that in the last five years since Brent decided to be a dentist all of sudden there seems to be limited opportunities anywhere in the west, especially eastern Washington. And we would really like to find a place where they needed us, rather than constantly hearing, "Oh, so you are a dentist, too? Everyone wants to be a dentist these days?" Someone told us that there are 20 dentists in our old stake (In Mormon lingo a stake is a group of several church wards. They meet together as a group biannually.)

Marcus pulled the bookcase in his room down on himself yesterday. He has a huge welt on his forehead, but he's fine. I was in the bathroom next to him and heard a crash and found him trapped underneath. When I told the kids what had happened and why I was moving the bookcase out of his room, Savannah said, "Well, of course, mom it's not a good idea to have that in there. It's happened before."

"What? When did it happen before?"

"Oh that's right. You weren't here. Taylor and Laney were watching us."

Nobody told me.

This is the first time I have ever had a kid pull a dresser/bookcase over on himself. He's a boy so I guess it is all new parenting from here on out.

He also found out about a third level in our house last week for the very first time. Marcus hadn't ever been to basement. We just took the gate off above the stairs a few weeks ago thinking he would no longer fall down them, and we are so sick of stepping over it constantly. But for all he knew those steps just went to the back door. I never planned on sharing the extremely cluttered and dangerous basement with him for at least another year.

Well, the other day I came down from upstairs and couldn't find Caroline and Marcus anywhere in the house. I finally heard some noise in the basement and Caroline called up to me that she brought him down there and "He loves it, Mom!" I went down and he was circling the room like a mad man. Right past the work bench with all Brent's tools, all the kids art supplies, the jars of canned food, the toys we haul down there of his when we get sick of them kicking around, and really tons of garbage we have no where else to store. It was all I could do to drag him back upstairs and keep him out of there since then. Thanks so much Caroline.

Just imagine though how exciting for little Marco to find a brand new room in his house. Since I got married I have had reoccurring dreams that I suddenly discover a new level or hidden room in my tiny house that I live in. This is like my favorite dream ever! I once dreamed I suddenly had a double decker single wide, and it was awesome, let me tell you.

He also got his first haircut. (Kennon has pictures on her blog and I am sure would love the traffic) We buzzed the whole thing without a guard, just like Daddy does. It was my idea actually. Brent was against it insisting that he didn't have enough hair for a cut. Someone told me that if you shave his head it will grow back thick and even. Still waiting on that one. It's been a few weeks and he looks like a cancer patient. No one even noticed though.