Life Lessons I Hope To Pass On To My kids - Part IV

1. Learn how to say 'No'. You don't have to say 'Yes' to everything and everyone, you aren't responsible for pleasing everyone. Make sure that you have time left for yourself. Often, we don’t always feel like we have the right to say NO, or not now, or I just can’t do this or that – so we say YES and end up feeling overwhelmed.  Don't cause yourself suffering from the resentment that comes from overfilling your plate. I want for you to be able to say (with confidence) NO! To me, to their friends, boyfriends – to anyone or anything that doesn’t feel right to them.  It's Okay to say no.
2. Trust your gut and intuition. When you aren’t sure of something, ask yourself, "How do I feel about this?" instead of "What do I think?" More often than not, you will know the answer.
3. You don't need to be in a relationship to be happy. Find ways and things that you can do that make you happy and fulfill you. You aren't a loser if you don't have a significant other in your life. A relationship doesn’t validate you.
4. Know how to take care of yourself. Know how to make yourself happy. And, find what you need to develop your spirit, passion and satisfaction in life. When I talk about independence, I don’t necessarily mean, you need to be able to stay home all alone and do everything without me. I mean you need to learn WHO they are, and know how to take care of youself emotionally, physically, and spiritually.
5. Love your body. Beauty doesn’t come in a specific package, size, shape, or form. I want you to feel beautiful - not in spite of what they may see as flaws, or what society says are flaws – but including these things.
6. You are never too old to dream or to follow your dreams. And more importantly, if you can dream it – you can do it.
7. If there is something you want in life, you need to learn to work hard to get it. I don’t want you to think that everything in this world will be handed to you on a silver platter. I expect you to work hard and contribute around the house. Your work ethic will get you far in life and you will be recognized for it.
8. Learn how to say you're sorry. Not just to other people, but to yourself as well. If you can say you are sorry, you can admit when you are wrong, then you can grow from those mistakes. And even more important,you can learn to forgive yourself (and others) along the way. 
9. Have a grateful heart.  You learn gratitude, not by being told to say ‘thank you,’ but by truly appreciating things in their own way. Try to stop and smell the roses along life’s path.
10. Don’t take life for granted. This doesn’t mean that I want you to feel like the end is near, but the reality is time is short. Much shorter than we think it is at times. LIVE every day of your life. Don't hold onto to regrets or losses, or anger or resentment. Laugh as much as possible (even at yourself), love as often as you can – and make positivity a part of your life. “Life is too short to sulk."

Preggo Lady Survey - 40 Weeks

How far along: 40 weeks! Today is my due date. On Thursday I have an appointment for a biophysical profile ultrasound to make sure that her nice and cozy home is still, well, nice and cozy. They'll check the amount of amniotic fluid still available for her, the placenta etc just to be sure that we're both well and that it's still a safe option to have her naturally, if I need to be induced or if a C-Section is in order.

Weight gain: From 175 - 212 - 37 lbs

Innie or outtie: It's started to pop out just a little bit this past week

Are you buying any "post pregnancy" clothes yet? I've just bought some new tops... pants are definitely going to have to wait until after baby makes her appearance.

Sleep: Still doing pretty well. I still only get up once, maybe twice a night to pee. Some nights I don't even get up to pee at all.

Pregnancy Perks: Being rushed to the front of the public washrooom line, people tend to move out of your way in a crowded area and having doors opened for you.


Any downsides? Sales clerks don't help you in regular stores when you are visibly the size of a house... I went shopping for some new tops yesterday that I'm hoping will work for my body, (Assuming my tits don't grow bigger than I actually expect - I did make sure that there would be extra boob room) and the sales clerks in all of the stores pretty much just said 'hi' and that's it. I'm not scared to ask for help when I want it and they are avoiding customers, but yesterday I just didn't feel like asking.

Any random strangers come up out of nowhere and touch your belly? No, thank God. I have people I know (or kind of know) touch my belly, which isn't a big deal to me. It wouldn't be a huge deal to me if another preggo came up and touched my belly. But if anyone else came up and touched my belly, I'm not sure how I would handle it.

Embarrassing Pregnant Moment: Still don't have one.

Lastest Baby Purchases: Still the same as last week, crib sheets and a playpen. Although, yesterday when I was at Value Village, I managed to score a toy bin (which I will have to repaint) and some other random kid stuff for my favourite price - FREE! from another mom just about to donate her stuff.

Latest Baby Gift: Sadly, we haven't been sent anything recently.

Movement: Big rolls and jabs. Most of the time she doesn't hurt me though. I keep thinking that I should grab my camera and roll tape before she's born so I have something to look back on.

Anything going on 'down there'? Nope. I had my midwife appointment on Thursday. Not dialated. No effacement. She's locked in like a prisoner in Alcatraz. For now anyway...

Food Cravings: Hmmm. Nope.

Food Aversions: I haven't really wanted to eat pork. Or eggs for most of my pregnancy now that I think about it. But someone who loves me an awful lot made me an omlette yesterday. They are the only person who can make an omlette that I actually enjoy.

How's Mama? Still super comfortable. A little tired, but I'm still doing fantastic.

What I'm Looking Forward To: Meeting my little girl, being able to sleep/lay down on my tummy again, be able to see if I have anything anywhere on my shirt. I am hoping that labour and delivery will be easy for me.

My Baby in Veg/Fruit Terms: A watermelon!

What Do I Think My Baby Will Look Like? Blonde/light brown hair, greenish-blue eyes, chubby little cheeks but a long/lean little body.

Natural/C-Section/Drugs? Natural with a midwife, baby. (Although if I have to, I will do whatever it takes to get Victoria out safely. And if I have a LONG and hard delivery and I need relief, I am open to taking drugs... I've made it very clear that I'd rather be encouraged to do without rather than have my support group just agree with me that I need the drugs)

Signed up for any classes? I've done quite a few classes - now the ladies from my prenatal nutrition class are starting to joke that there needs to be a book (or a class) entitled, "what the eff do I do now that I've had my baby"!!!???"


Stretch Marks? I have some on my bum, some on the very tops of my thighs where my legs meet my torso, and on the bottom of my belly. And they are getting bigger and spreading to surrounding areas. Am I ashamed or will I cover them up at the beach this year? No way. My body is doing something awesome.

Are you ready for it to be over? I'm ready to meet her, but she can come whenever she wants.

Mom-To-Be Freezer Meal - Cornbread & Buttermilk Clover Rolls

Ahhhh, breads! How I love bread! For both of these recipes, once they are finished and cooled, I just toss them into a large freezer bag and take out just as many as I need at the time. I usually take them out about an hour before I want to eat, let them thaw for a while, and toss them in the microwave so they are warm when I eat them. I do flip them over so they are heated evenly.

I am a HUGE fan of cornbread. My favourite meal when I went to summer camp was when chili night finally came - and it always came - because it was always served with cornbread. LOTS of cornbread.

The recipe I use is from one of my favourite cookbooks, which I received as a gift from someone who loves me very much. <3

I have to say, some of my favourite recipes are from this book.

The Williams-Sonoma Essentials of Baking Classic Corn Bread recipe has the option to add fresh corn kernels, as well gives you a few flavour variations. Although I haven't tried the variations yet, I have to say, Red Pepper and Jack Cheese Cornbread sounds yummy - I'm not too sure about the Sun-Dried Tomato and Pistachio Cornbread.

I did manage to find the exact same recipe on someone else's blog, because well, I didn't want to have to type the whole recipe and directions out - but I really dislike when I am checking out recipes on blogs and get redirected to another blog - I guess I'm going to have to suck it up and write my blog to my standards and my (blog follower/reading) preferences. You lucky bugger you...
Williams-Sonoma Classic Corn Bread

Ingredients:

1 cup cornmeal

1 cup all purpose flour1 ½ teaspoons baking powder
½ teaspoon baking soda

½ teaspoon salt
2 cups fresh corn kernels (Optional, and I left them out)
2 large eggs
3 tablespoons honey or firmly packed brown sugar (I used brown sugar)
1 1/3 cups buttermilk (If you don’t have buttermilk on hand you can add 1 tablespoon lemon juice and then enough milk to equal 1 cup, then let sit for 5 minutes)
3 tablespoons unsalted butter

Directions:

Position rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 425 degrees. Butter an 8 inch cast iron frying pan or an 8 inch square baking pan. (For the last batch I made, I double the recipe, so I had to use a bigger baking pan)

In a bowl, whisk together the cornmeal, flour, baking powder, baking soday, salt and the corn kernels (if using). Set aside.

In a large bowl, which the eggs until blended. Add the honey (or brown sugar), buttermilk and butter. Whisk until blended. Add the dry ingredients and stir until evenly moistened.

Pour the batter into the prepared pan and smooth top with spatula. Bake until a toothpick inserted in the centre comes out clean, 20-25 minutes. Let the bread cool slightly in the pan on a wire rack. Serve warm. Store at room temperature in an airtight container for 2-3 days or freeze up to 1 month.

Buttermilk Rolls

I found the buttermilk rolls online, and I have to say, I love, love, LOVE this recipe! The rolls are tasty, have few ingredients that you probably already have in your house and are quick and easy to make. With this recipe, you don't have to let the dough rise for very long - and you don't have to punch down and let rise for a second time.

If you had to have fresh rolls and have them done for company coming over in a couple hours, this would be the recipe you are looking for.

Ingredients:

3 1/4 cups flour

1 teaspoon salt

1 (0.25 ounce) package active dry yeast (2 1/4 tsp)

1 cup low-fat buttermilk

1 tablespoon honey

5 tablespoons butter, melted and divided

1 egg

Method:
In a large bowl, whisk together 1 1/2 cups of the flour, salt and yeast until well combined; set aside. In a small pot, heat buttermilk until warm to the touch (about 115°F). (Be careful not to overheat the milk since it may cook the egg.) Remove pot from heat and whisk in honey, 3 tablespoons of the butter and egg. Pour buttermilk mixture into bowl with flour mixture and whisk until a thick batter is formed. Stir in remaining 1 3/4 cups flour until a soft dough is formed.

Turn dough out onto a lightly floured surface and knead, dusting dough with more flour as needed to keep it from sticking, until smooth and no longer sticky, 7 to 8 minutes.

For cloverleaf rolls, divide dough into 36 equal pieces and roll each piece into a ball. Arrange 3 balls of dough in each cup of a greased 12-muffin tin. For large pull apart rolls, divide dough into 12 equal pieces and roll each into a small ball. Arrange balls of dough snugly in a greased 9-inch round cake pan. Brush rolls with a bit of the remaining 2 tablespoons butter, then cover loosely and set aside in a warm spot until doubled in size, about 1 hour.

Preheat oven to 375°F. Brush rolls with remaining butter and bake until deep golden brown and cooked through, 20 to 25 minutes. Serve hot, spread with butter, if you like.

Mom-To-Be Freezer Meal - Sweet Potato Chili

I have to tell you honestly, I'm doing my first taste test as we speak you read. My very first response to this recipe,  http://chocolatecoveredkatie.com/2012/01/05/sweet-potato-chili/ was a little less than enthusiastic. The recipe is super simple and really easy to follow - toss the prepped ingredients in a pot, boil, turn down and simmer.

I love finding recipes that have a little something different to offer and that aren't the exact same as every other recipe out there, which is why I found "sweet potato chili" intriguing. I love sweet potatoes, I'm a fan of flavour and spices, it's a healthy recipe - and what goes better with chili than a side of corn bread?

First response after the first taste? "Meh." I really thought that my favourite part of tonights meal would be the corn bread. The chili was still quite hot, which I think was part of my issue. My theory is, that with it being so hot, it tasted more bland than it actually is, because once it started to cool a little, I ended up liking the chili more and more - even though the corn bread was probably still my favourite part... but I love my carbs, and well, corn bread is pretty much awesome.

After being frozen, the sweet potato and the zucchini were pretty mushy, so I'd suggest that if you plan on serving it to guests, serve fresh the day of or the day after. (Katie said in her blog entry that she thought the flavour of the chili was better the day after.)

My freezer meal method for this recipe is the same method I use for my stocks and soups. the muffin tin method!

For my muffin tins, I know I can fit 1/4 cup of whatever I'm baking/freezing, which makes for easy single serve meals and easy measuring when I'm making a soup and need to measure out the amount of stock I'll need. It also makes it easy to take out the exact amount I need, instead of a bigger batch than I actually need.

Once whatever I'm freezing is frozen and ready to be packaged, I take out my tins and place them on the counter for a few minutes for things to loosen (If I'm in a rush, I'll put some warm water in the bottom of my kitchen sink to encourage quicker loosening - although, I'd make sure to have the extra few minutes for blended/smooth soups, since they loosen pretty quickly and if you place the tin in warm water, even for a few seconds too long, things can get messy and your soup moulds could end up frozen together once they're packaged and refrozen)

Once things are loose and I can turn the mould around while it's inside the tin, I know it's ready to come out. You can take the moulds out a few ways, I usually opt for grabbing a butter knife and popping each one out - but be careful, if you have really nice tins, you can scratch the sides and/or bottoms and they can rust if you let them air dry. Or, you can flip the whole tin over and let them fall out onto your counter or a big cookie sheet.

Then I toss my prepared frozen moulds into a freezer bag, labelled with the contents, cooking directions, the date it was packaged. If I'm giving packaged freezer meals to a friend, I will include a list of ingredients in case they have an allergy I forgot about and I might include the website or the written out recipe in case they like it and want to make it themselves.



All in all, I think I would make this recipe again, and wait for it to cool off a little bit before I started eating again so I can enjoy all the flavours right from the beginning.

In my next entry I'll be sure to include the recipe for the corn bread I enjoyed so much with dinner tonight. It comes from one of my favourite recipe books.

Do you have a favourite or go-to chili recipe?
Have an awesome day and thanks for reading!

Oh! And don't forget to scroll down past the comments section and feed the goldfish - I think it's been a while since they've been fed :)

Preggo Lady Survey 39 Weeks

39 weeks

How far along: 39 weeks - nearly there!

Weight gain: 40 lbs - from 175 to 215

Innie or outtie: I asked someone if I was an innie or an outtie a little while ago since it's hard for me to see my belly button without manipulating my stomach, apparently, I have a 'flattie'.

Maternity Clothes: 3 pairs of pants - one pair I've mostly stopped wearing recently because I can see the seam on the bum starting to stretch out, and it would be really embarrassing if the bottom of my pants ripped in public. A few mat shirts, but I also have shirts from regular stores that I could grow into. I also recently bought a couple nursing bras. Most comfortable bras EVER! I know they're not exactly 'mat wear' but they should be.

Sleep: Still doing pretty well. I only get up once, maybe twice a night to pee.

Pregnancy Perks: Being rushed to the front of the public washrooom line, people tend to move out of your way in a crowded area and having doors opened for you.

The downside? Getting shirts dirty in places
you can't see

Any downsides? Some people don't realize that with a belly, you need more room to get by. I mean, you really can't squish though spaces the same way. That AND with not being able to see the bottom of your belly, you could have something on the bottom part of your shirt and not even know it! (In my case, it's often dishwater, flour, chocolate from baking or some other such thing)

Any random strangers come up out of nowhere and touch your belly? No, thank God. I have people I know (or kind of know) touch my belly, which isn't a big deal to me. It wouldn't be a huge deal to me if another preggo came up and touched my belly. But if anyone else came up and touched my belly, I'm not sure how I would handle it.

Embarrassing Pregnant Moment: Still don't really have one.

Lastest Baby Purchases: Some more crib sheets; a playpen with bassinet attachment off of the Toys R Us registry (Yes, I bought the playpen... *grumblegrumble*) For the first while, Victoria will be spending her nights in the master bedroom - as suggested by Health Canada.

Latest Baby Gift: My friend Katherine sent me some really pretty flower headbands and an udder cover for when I breastfeed in public.

Movement: Big rolls and jabs. Most of the time she doesn't hurt me though

Food Cravings: Hmmm. Nope.

Food Aversions: I haven't really wanted to eat pork.

How's Mama? Still doing really well and still comfortable. I was telling one of my friends that with how well things are going and how comfortable I am still, she could be two weeks late if she wanted - although, I do REALLY want to meet her.

What I'm Looking Forward To: Meeting my little girl, being able to sleep/lay down on my tummy again, be able to see if I have anything anywhere on my shirt

My Baby in Veg/Fruit Terms: A watermelon!

What Do I Think My Baby Will Look Like? Blonde/light brown hair, greenish-blue eyes, chubby little cheeks but a long/lean little body.
Natural/C-Section/Drugs? Natural with a midwife baby. (Although if I have to, I will do whatever it takes to get Victoria out safely. And if I have a LONG and hard delivery and I need relief, I am open to taking drugs... I've made it very clear that I'd rather be encouraged to do without rather than have my support group just agree with me that I need the drugs)

Signed up for any classes? I've done my prenatal classes, preperation for labour classes (Mostly about comfort measures) and breastfeeding 101 - a GREAT class! I learned some new things, techniques I didn't know about, and just random bits of info.



My newly developed stretch marks. Funny, most of them
are on my left side, and fewer are on my right side.

Stretch Marks? I have some on my bum, a few on the very tops of my thighs where my legs meet my torso, and on the bottom of my belly. Am I ashamed or will I cover them up at the beach this year? No way. My body is doing something awesome.

Are you ready for it to be over? I'm ready to meet her, but she can come whenever she wants.

Any weird dreams? Not weird dreams... but I've had a few dreams that it's going to be a boy... which freaks me out a little bit because I originally thought that we were having a boy, just a feeling. If we do end up having a boy? Plus side, we have a name picked out. Down side? He'll be wearing girl clothes for a little while - but I did buy gender neutral clothes... I don't want our little girl to be dressed in pink from head to toe... that's a lot of pink to handle.

Life Lessons I Hope To Pass On To My kids-Part III

1. Grandma Mary also says, "If you get in a fight, fight to win."
2. Stay loyal to those who are important and who love and like you for you. Sometimes it's hard to know who those people are from the people who only want something from you.
3. Take the time to spend quality time with those you love. Time passes quickly. Money comes and goes. True friends and family are always there for you.
4. If you ever, EVER, EVER have a problem - TALK ABOUT IT! It's better to talk it out than to let it get under your skin or hold a grudge.
5. Allow yourself to trust others, unless they give you a reason why they don't deserve it.
6. Always be treated with dignity and respect. Let people know that it's NOT okay if they treat you badly.
7. TRUST YOUR GUT! If you don't feel right about something, that's a pretty good indicator that something is wrong.
8. Try your bewst to do well in school (and everything that you do) and get good grades. It's only when you're done school that you'll be kicking youself if you didn't do well - and that way, you won't have to pay to upgrade.
9. NEVER let others tell you that you can't be friends or spend time with someone you care about (some exceptions apply) whether they verbally say "Your dad can't ever come to visit/stay again" or just don't like the person - making you choose not to spend time with them.
10. Don't EVER start smoking. It's a needless expense, hard to quit and bad for your overall health.

Making My "Mom-To-Be" Freezer Meals - Intro

In the earlier stages of my pregnancy, I decided that I definitely wanted to make freezer meals so in my future sleep deprived state, I wouldn't have to be stuck with trying to figure out what to eat last minute - as well as not having to eat fast food for nearly every meal.

BUT!

I had NO IDEA where to start. Making freezer meals wasn't practiced in my house growing up and up until recently, I didn't see much value in preparing freezer meals. Needless to say, I had a lot of online reading to do. I didn't know what would freeze well, how to package and store them - as well as for how long.

I have to say, thank GOD for Pinterest! I found the majority of my information, ideas and recipes on Pinterest. Seriously, if you haven't checked it out yet, you really should. I think the next few blog entries will be dedicated to the recipes, websites and techniques I've learned to better prepare myself for motherhood.

One obstacle that I needed to overcome was that I needed more than just the fridge/freezer combo. I wanted an extra freezer for the basement so I could have the room for the amount of extra food that I planned on making to make meal planning easier in the earlier days. Chest freezer. Standing freezer. Didn't matter to me. I wanted extra room.

I'm also pretty frugal, so I didn't want to have to pay an arm and a leg for a freezer. Solution? I checked the store fliers for sales. I also checked Kijiji - often. I eventually found a small chest freezer on Kijiji that was being sold for $50.00. I was a little skeptical since they were selling it for so little a price, but they'd had it for a few years already and had recently upgraded to a larger, standing freezer. And they'd told me that if I had any problems with it, I could bring it back to them and they'd give me my fifty smackers back. I decided to gamble and buy the freezer from Kijiji.

And! I love it! It was the best $50.00 that I've spent.

AAAALLLLLLLL that being said, stay tuned for my tales of making freezer meals, swollen ankles and check out the recipes. And consider making your own freezer meals, whether you are about to be a new parent, just have a busy schedule, for unexpected guests or to learn something new.

Do you already do freezer meals? What is your favourite freezer meal recipe?

Life Lessons I Hope To Pass On To My Kids-Part II

In this pregnancy, every now and then I write a letter to Victoria telling her how things are going and I try tro come up with some life lessons/tips to include, in hopes that maybe she will learn from others experiences or mistakes. (I did the same in my last, brief, pregnancy and I will do the same for my next one.)

Here are a few points that I hope for my little girl to learn.

1. Learn what your boundaries are and stick to them
2. Family comes first. (We begin and end with family)
3. Find a few good, trustworthy friends of quality - not a lot of friends you never speak to
4. Don't allow anyone to walk on you, especially loved ones (boundaries)
5. You teach people how to treat you. Teach them that you deserve respect and love
6. Know when it is time to end a friendship, sadly, not all of them can last forever. There will be few friends that you will have your whole life - there will be many who won't be there long. It doesn't mean they weren't good friends when they were there or when you needed them, but sometimes, it's better to end a friendship before it causes damage or anyone gets hurt
7. Your family will always love you and be there for you whenever you need us
8. Wait until you are in your 20's to get a tattoo. They are costly and aren't easy or cheap to remove. Be 100% sure that what you plan on getting is something you can live with for your whole life
9. If you do decide to get a tattoo one day (same goes for any piercings/body alterations) be sure to check out the tattoo artists previous work to ensure quality. (You won't want someone to spell something wrong or have wobbly lines) Take a good and careful look around the tattoo shop - make sure it's clean and in order. See if the tattoo artists there wash their hands during your first visit. And again, be sure that whatever you get is something that really means something to you and that you are going to be okay with having it on your body forever
10. If you want to change your body there are no shortcuts, no magic pill, no short term solutions. You have to change your lifestyle in order to gain and maintain the body/life you want. You have to eat right, exercise and choose to be healthy. Trust me, once you move into your 20's, that junk food starts to stay on your body. 

Life Lessons I Hope To Pass On To My Kids-Part I

1. Find healthy ways to deal with stress, anger and sadness. You don't need to comfort eat, do drugs, drink alcohol or any other distructive behaviours to deal with problems.
2. Be very careful with credit cards and debt and your credit score. There is good debt (A mortgage, student loans etc) but you have to be sure to make your payments on time - and there are bad debts (consumer debt, where you don't have anything to show for what you borrowed money for: food, clothing, fun spending.) Again, be sure to make your payments in full, on time and before you are charged interest. Keep the number of credit cards you have to a minimum, it really isn't necessary to have more than one.
   http://www.thesimpledollar.com/2013/04/01/a-seven-year-old-learns-about-credit-cards/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+thesimpledollar+%28The+Simple+Dollar%29&utm_content=FaceBook
3. Keep your banking simple: The more accounts you have, the harder it is to keep everything organized and the more likely you are to make costly mistakes. The fewer accounts you have, the fewer financial institutes you deal with you’ll find that it's easier to avoid late fees or overdrafts as well as you may be able to reap more benefits.
4. Don't ever get sucked into talking bad about yourself or your body just because other girls are talking about what they don't like about themselves/their bodies. You might notice, that whenever I hear people saying bad things about themselves, I always say something like, "Don't say bad things about yourself."
5. You don't always have to get along with or like everyone, and people aren't always going to get along with or like you - but don't be mean or cruel or get pulled into a fight. Walking away is not losing, it's refusing to play a game that has no winners (and you can possibly avoid getting into trouble or getting hurt needlessly)
6. Always find ways to be nice and generous to others. You will find that by being nice, people will be nice in return. Be nice and give the benefit of doubt to people who seem to be grumpy, mean or just plain rude - it could be that they are just having a bad day. (But don't allow them to be disrespectful to you or treat you badly.)
7. Don't lie. ALWAYS tell the truth. You have less to worry about and less to remember. AND people don't have a problem trusting you if they know you tell the truth. Even if you are scared of getting a bad reaction from telling the truth, whoever it is will be WAY more upset to find out you lied and felt you couldn't tell them the truth.
8. Think about how you would like to be treated by others - then treat everyone better than that.
9. Take measures to take care of yourself. Dress well, brush your teeth and hair and be the best that you can be.
10. Grandma Mary always told us (us being me, your Uncle Mathew and Aunty Spring) growing up when she left us to stay with friends or family, "Say what you need, say what you feel, and say what you want - always stand up for yourself! No one else will."

Sick to DEATH of Chatums Eye Issues

I am pretty much sick to DEATH about this dogs eye! (For those of you who don't know, we've had issues with Chatums right eye for AGES!) There have been problems with it since he was adopted almost a year ago in July, but were only first noticed a few weeks after adoption - and he was a stray when the animal shelter found him, so NOTHING was known about his medical history other than he was a 2.5 year old dog that had been neutered, was in (relatively) good health, happy, well adjusted, liked people/other dogs, had been previously trained, had LOTS of mats in his fur and his nails hadn't been trimmed in quite some time.

He's had multiple dye tests to check for ulcers, tear tests to make sure that his eyes were producing enough tears and were able to get rid of any bacteria that might be in his eye, cultures were taken and sent away to see if there were any underlying issues that might present as an eye condition, eye pressures taken on multiple occassions... and on and on.

The vet we see originally thought that he had pink eye, which made sense at the time. It was red, it was irritated and we had a discharge going on. They prescribed a little bottle of BNPH (a steroid cream) to put in his eye. On the meds, his eye cleared up, but a day or two after he went off the meds, it came back in full force. Our vet thought that maybe not all the pink eye bacteria was wiped out and it was just a matter of being on the meds longer since it got better with the steriod. So, we went home with another little tube of the stuff, only to have the issue flare up again one-two days later.

It was after that that I'd noticed that the whites of his eyes were white after he slept a full night or had naps during the day and started turning pink/red when he was awake. The conclusion? It wasn't pink eye. The next diagnosis was uveitis. Put simply, his eye was inflamed and the pressure was higher in his right eye (the one with all the issues) than his left eye - sort of like when one of your kitchen sinks is clogged and the other one doesn't drain as well as it should. The solution? New meds. This time a drop. Outcome?  His eye STILL turned red shortly after discontinuing his meds.

FINALLY we were referred to a pet opthamologist (but in the meantime were given another kind of drop until we could get an appointment). Downside? We had to take a LONG drive from our tiny middle-o-nowhere town to the city (but I got Starbucks and indian food, it was sort of worth it) It was the longest car ride Chatum had ever been on, so he whined the whole way there, was crazy once we got there because we were in a new place with new smells and LOTS of other dogs waiting in the lobby. I had to fill out new patient paperwork for him. So I'm sitting in the lobby, trying to control an excited and restless dog pulling to try so he can visit with the other dogs, fill out paperwork at the same time, with a pen that didn't work... did I mention that was in my second trimester and I was alone? Yeah. Not so fun.

We did find out what was wrong with his eye though. I can't remember the medical term for what is going on with Chatums eye, but his eye membrane "fooled" into thinking that something was in his eye and was trying to get rid of it. His eye membrane was thickening in one spot which was causing the irritation, redness, swelling and discharge. So, we were sent home with some eye drops he was supposed to receive for 3 times a day for a few weeks, then 2 times for a few weeks, then 1 day for a few weeks and then finally discontinue. The first course was successful... for longer than just a couple days until the redness returned. Thankfully, we didn't have to take a drive again and our doggy eye doc suggested to use the same drops for a little longer. Outcome? Two weeks passed before his eye started turning pink again.

So, this time we *did* have to drive back. This time, our doggy eye doc noticed that it was the same condition and that he didn't miss anything, his membrane wasn't thickening anymore, so there had been improvement, which was REALLY good news. Now, we have the same drops as before, which we have to give to him 3 times a day for a month, then two times a day for a month, then one time a day for a month and then alternating days for a month - along with a steriod tablet which he has to take with food. Two tablets once a day for two weeks, then one tablet once a day for two weeks, then half a tablet a day for two weeks. The hope is that the tablets in the beginning of this course of meds in addition to the drops will be aggressive enough to finish this thing off. It's rare that a pet will have to have one type of medication for an eye condition like this for the rest of its life. Right now, for us, it's a matter of finding the right meds in the right dosage to put this behind us. Hopefully, by the end of July - and going into August, we see improvement and don't EVER have to worry about this again. I'm just REALLY thankful that Chatum is really good about taking his meds and is (more or less) okay with things being put in his eye. I guess it doesn't hurt that by now, I'm a pro at administering his meds.

Another plus side? With this last trip to the city I was able to get Starbucks again :)