Catchin Up

Finally today after over 2.5 weeks of being away I'm back. Honestly it wasn't an intentional leave of absence. If I had known I would have let you all know I was going to be taking a break. So what have I been up to?

Well...the kids started back to school. That is always really hard on me. I really love having all my kids home with me and I get very used to that during the summer months. Not to mention the lovely mornings of getting up late (usually after 8am, which is nice compared to the 6:30am school schedule)and having fun during the day. So the return of school is always bittersweet for me. For some reason it was even more so this year. Usually by the time the end of August arrives I'm starting to crave a little more routine. Not this year. Summer break seemed unusually short to me and I wasn't ready to jump back in. Since I have very little say in the matter the kids are back into school and so far they are really enjoying it. I'm settling into a routine of sorts, and while I can't say I'm great with them being gone all day; I am however okay with it.

About a week after school started I really started struggling with my health. Some of this has been going on for quite a long time (like since before I became pregnant with E)and it has just gradually been getting worse. Basically my symptoms were extreme fatigue and pain all over my body. It was like having the flu but not having the flu. One day I could feel decent - not great but decent, and the next just being awake would be painful. I'm seeing my dr now and after the first round of tests we found out I am deficient in iron and vitamin B12. So he has me eating more dark green veggies (I've been basically off the raw diet since June) and taking a vitamin B12 supplement for now. I'll go back in a month and we'll draw levels again. Hopefully I will be feeling much better by then but if not we'll also have to look at some other things. I think a lot of this came to a head due to some not so pleasant things I've been having to work through these last few weeks as well. I think it was all just to much and my body couldn't cope the way it was before. Anyhow so far the supplement and greens seem to be helping to a degree. My energy seems to be a bit better now, hopefully the pain will subside too.

With all of this going on, I've decided (sorta-kinda) that I need to work on weaning E a little bit. He is no where near ready to wean completely and I'm okay with that, however I do need him to nurse a little bit less through the day and at night would be even better. To give you an idea of how much he nurses - sometimes I swear he nurses like he's a newborn and not an 18 month old. That's a lot of hours spent nursing and it is exhausting me. So I've spent some time working on a menu for him to try getting him to eat more so that he'll not want to nurse as much. Some days it goes really well and he eats great. Which means less time spent nursing. Other days it's typical toddler-dome - very little eating and he wants to nurse more those days. For my menu plan Monday I am going to start sharing my toddler menus (and possibly recipes) so if you have a toddler or soon will, you might want to check back for that. I've tried to come up with some really healthy yet yummy ideas for him. Hopefully they'll help some of you out as well. One of the biggest reasons I had to sit down and actually make a menu for him was because I would stand at the cupboards wondering what to make him every single day. I'm sure I'm not the only one that does that and the menu really helps me. I also feel like I am feeding him better now and that makes me feel good too.

Oh! I almost forgot! I have a couple of product reviews I will be doing soon. :) One is for Soap Nuts from the Eco Bebe Boutique. The other is a planner from Dotmine. I'm really excited to tell you about these products and I might have a giveaway or two or three up my sleeve. ;)  So you'll definitely come back and see what is going on with that.  Some very exciting things I think :).

I'll be back tomorrow with a brand new Menu Plan Monday - hope to see you then! xx