If you haven’t discovered Pinterest yet, you are definitely missing out on a great way to find things you like and file them for future reference. I was on Pinterest this morning when I saw this:

Immediately, I thought “Why didn’t I think of that?”

With different members of the family needing to take different medications – some twice a day for 5 days, others 3 times a day for 10 days, it gets really hard to remember who has had what and who needs what. This photo solves the problem of keeping track of what medication has been taken.

Take a simple Sharpie marker and make a grid on the bottle that indicates how many days the medication must be taken and how many times each day. AWESOME!!

It’s sometimes difficult to figure out the original source of something on Pinterest, but I am attributing this image to Kim and Kimberly as it says the image was uploaded by the user and is not linked to a website.

Karen's Family of Boys

The following is a guest post by Karen of KarenMomofThree’sCraftBlog. Karen has three boys with special needs and I wanted her to share some of her tips for keeping the balance and control in her busy family’s daily life.

My family is go, go, go all the time. Sound familiar? I am a mom of three boys ages 10, 8 and 3 constantly looking for balance. We are much like any other family busy with daily life, arguing over TV and video game time chores and homework. Our days blend one into the other just like yours. The thing is in our house things are a bit different from most.  Two of our three boys – our 8 year old and our 3 year old – have Autism Spectrum Disorder. You may have heard a lot about Autism in the news or perhaps you know someone who has a child with Autism. An important fact about people with Autism and families affected by Autism – just like snowflakes, no two are alike.

Karen's Family of Boys

I am constantly looking for balance in a sometimes very chaotic world. Trying to find that balance is often easier said than done. Something’s work and something’s don’t, but if I stop trying to balance everything I truly think my world will fall apart. When people ask me what it is like to have a child with autism or what is autism anyway? I pause to think about how to explain it to them. Here is what I say, trying not to use too many scientific explanations that is.

“Autism is a disorder, not a disease.” (I personally believe this, feel free to not agree with me) A disease must have a cure; a disorder is something that needs organizing, getting things in to order or to help bring order to chaos.  Sounds good right, sounds simple. It’s not. It takes work and lots of repetition.

I regularly hear from people “I have no idea how you do it, you seem so together what is your secret?”

Guess what I am not all together, it’s a front I admit it. No one can take it all in stride and make it work all the time. My secrets are:

• Let things go. You have to simplify and you have to get in a place in your head where it is okay that everything is not perfect.  That is not to say I am not frustrated a lot, I am, trust me.
• Pick your battles.
• Practice situations.
• Give choices. Giving the boys 2 options that give them the sense of control with out compromising the task at hand, has become a valuable tool.

Picking my battles was hard, learning to let go of things equally as hard. Getting control of my family situation was one of the things our behavioral consultant helped us with. When you have a child with Autism you may feel like you have lost all control. You may feel (like I did) helpless. I was a mom of two little boys who lived in two very different worlds when we first learned of our middle son’s Autism. I felt lost. We could not take him anywhere in public. Getting the control back in my family meant we could go out in public as a family and we would be able to function like other typical families. This seemed like an unattainable dream to me. We could not go out to the mall with my middle son. The sounds, smells and temper tantrums caused by our outings made it not only embarrassing, but also unproductive. To get control back, we practiced. Yes, we practiced going shopping and got him used to shopping in small steps. Now he is pretty good in stores and unfamiliar places we have not been in before.

We also gave choices. That helped us in so many ways. This is just an example of what we did as a family. It helped us get control back with even little things like teeth brushing, always a control issue in our house. We would say, “It’s time to brush your teeth. You can use the blue tooth brush or the yellow tooth brush”, bottom line the boys felt like they had choice and they began brushing their teeth with out a fight. I was amazed at how well this worked. I recommend it for any family typical or not. There is a lot to be said for “perceived control”.

In the end celebrate the victories no matter how small. We will remember the moments not the days.  While I may have a lot of bad days, I have a lot more great moments to remember, and on the bad days that really helps!

~ Karen Owen

Kids are so predictable – well, at least my kids are -they each have their own unique behavior patterns that tip me off to how they are feeling or what is ailing them.

My twelve year old daughter woke up this morning with a headache, no appetite and was whinier than her normal self. She spent most of the morning laying on the couch – not interested in TV or anything else for that matter – and then suddenly she started throwing up. And there was my cue!! I quickly escorted her to the car and we headed straight to the Urgent Care center where the puking continued. These are my middle daughter’s tell tale signs that she has strep. Every single time she has had strep in her twelve years, the tell tale sign has not been a sore throat, it has been a headache, fever and puking.

My other two kids rarely get strep, more often than not, those two are affected by strep’s cousin – viral pharyngitis. Viral sore throats are characterized by pain, redness in the throat, runny or stuffy nose, hoarseness and cough. However, when they do get strep, they tend to have the “traditional” symptoms of a fever, pain when swallowing, and spots on their tonsils.

So how can you tell the difference between strep throat and a viral sore throat? According to InteliHealth the symptoms of the two are:

• Viral pharyngitis – Sore throat often occurs with the following symptoms: pain when swallowing; redness in the throat; runny nose; stuffy nose; cough; hoarseness; redness of the eyes; and, in children, diarrhea. In some cases, there can be a painful redness around the mouth or small painful sores on the lips and inside the mouth.
• Strep throat – With strep throat and other forms of bacterial pharyngitis, sore throat can be accompanied by any of the following symptoms: fever; pain when swallowing; a generally sick feeling (malaise); headache; redness and swelling in the throat; a coating on the tonsils or tongue; and swollen, tender lymph nodes (swollen glands) in the front of the neck. Children also can have nausea, vomiting and abdominal pain.

However, when in doubt, you should ALWAYS have your child checked by a doctor.

Some kids are more prone to strep than others  and some are simply the “carriers” of strep, never really showing the symptoms themselves. Chances are, your kids will develop their own set of tell tale symptoms making it a little easier for you to figure out what is up.

Next challenge? Keeping the twelve year old from getting bored as she spends her day in bed tomorrow. Luckily she just got a new book for her Kindle and can use part of time reading.

The other day when I went to pick my daughters up from swim practice, my 10 year old was perched on the edge of the pool while her friends were still swimming. I asked her coach what was up and she told me my daughter was complaining that her ear hurt. This was coming from a child who never complains at practice about anything.

She didn’t finish practice and I got her some ibuprofen to at least help with the pain until we could figure out was was going on. As the evening progressed her pain got more severe – to the point of tears. I did everything I knew to do – ibuprofen for the pain, Childrens Sudafed to help with the congestion, a warm compress, warm olive oil drops, and even Similasan Children’s Earache Relief Ear Drops.

Still no relief. Since I had no desire to sit in the Emergency Room unless absolutely necessary, I called the night nurse for our pediatrician’s office to get more ideas. When I mentioned that my daughter had been swimming she immediately thought of swimmers ear. She asked where the pain was coming from, could I see any redness, pus or discharge from my daughter’s ear canal (the answer was no), and did it hurt to touch the outer part of her ear (again, no). Swimmers ear is an infection in the ear canal and is usually caused by water pooling in the canal (kids with waxy ears are more prone to this).

She recommended that we treat it like both swimmers ear and an ear infection because the home treatment for swimmers ear would help if it were swimmers ear and would not make things worse if it was just a regular ear infection.

The home treatment for swimmers ear is to mix 1 part water to 1 part white vinegar in a glass container. Then use a dropper and fill the ear canal with the water/vinegar mix. Let it sit for 15 minutes then drain fluid with towels. If it is swimmers ear, this will give dramatic relief immediately.

Seeing as she got no relief from the water/vinegar mixture we determined that it was most likely an infection in the middle ear and the inflammation and pressure on her ear drum were making her so uncomfortable. At this point I had done everything I could do to make her comfortable and we decided to tough it out through the night until we could get in to her doctor’s office in the morning.

The ibuprofen was the only thing that reduced the pain to the point where she could sleep for a few hours at a time. The next morning we were the first ones at the doctors office and they were so kind to take her right in even though I didn’t have an appointment (I guess that is one benefit to using the same pediatrician for 12 years!).

They swabbed her throat for strep – just in case – and it came back negative. When the doctor examined her ear it was without a doubt an ear infection. They prescribed anti-biotics and we were instructed to continue the ibuprofen, heating pad, and sudafed as needed.

Day two and she seems to be feeling better, but still not healthy enough to go back to school. Looks like I may need some sick day sanity savers.

Remember that I am not a doctor, but after years of hearing swimmers ear vs. ear infection, I finally understand the difference and hope this makes it a bit easier for you to understand, too. When trying to determine what steps are needed to make your child more comfortable, when to call your doctor, or whether to send your child to school or not, information is definitely your best line of defense!

Photo originially from StockXchng, modified by me for explanation purposes.

My good friend (and fellow Mom) is convinced my family has some sort of radar or way of conveniently getting sick, having a crisis, or needing me whenever I have something for “me” planned. I had scheduled today to be my errand running day and the chance to have lunch with a friend (funny, the original lunch appointment was rescheduled by her family’s drama).

The first thing on my list was a dentist appointment for me. Oh joy, but it went fine – until the end when my phone rang. Of course, it was the school, and no, someone hadn’t forgotten lunch money, my 6 year old was in the nurse’s office throwing up.

I headed to the school (after running home to get her a change of clothes at the nurses direction) to pick her up and immediately took her to the doctor’s office. Normally I wouldn’t take one of the kids to the doctor for a simple puking episode, but since this was the 4th time in 6 weeks, she had diarrhea with it, and she had a low grade fever, I felt like it was time to get to the bottom of it all.

We have determined that it is not a virus, as she doesn’t continue throwing up or having diarrhea all day – its a quick 3-4 pukes in 10-15 minutes and then all is relatively normal. But a few days ago I noticed an eczema patch on her face below her lip. Add to that her history of molluscum, hospitalization for extreme uti, and the title of “queen of the funky rashes” my doctor finally decided it was time to do some extensive lab work.

The doctor ordered a full CBC, sed rate, gluten sensitivity test, immune system test, general food allergy test and a few more. Hopefully the data that comes back will shed some light on all this.

Great. Did I mention my daughter has serious anxiety about needles? Oh yeah, this was going to be so much fun. As soon as she figured out what we were about to have to go do, she freaked. I got her settled down and we made it to the lab. I had to have her sit on my lap and hold her arm in order for the lab tech to do her job.

She cried and fussed about the blood draw, but not as much as I had expected. Once it was all over she stood up to put her jacket on and suddenly started shaking and collapsed. She had fainted but had convulsed a bit in the process. I did everything in my power to stay calm as none of my kids has ever done this. The lab techs moved her to a room with an examining table and we called her pediatrician back.

I was worried we were going to end up in the ER, but her pediatrician helped us assess the situation and luckily, we didn’t have to. It took her about 15 minutes to regain her color and be able to sit up. I finally got her home and she spent the rest of the afternoon sipping root beer and eating bland foods. Funny thing is, now she feels great.

I am really hoping th blood work reveals something. If whatever it is can be managed through dietary modifications or something similar, I would much prefer that over the mystery random puke sessions. I’m sure my daughter would prefer that too.

Here’s hoping tomorrow will be drama free! And as soon as I get the lab work results, I will do a follow up post.

The other day I noticed a dark red patch on my daughter’s face – it looked like she had been slapped in the face – even though I know she hadn’t. At first I thought I had missed a spot when applying her sunscreen, but as the week went on the redness became splotchier and seemed to move across her face.

Now the rash has moved down her arms and onto her trunk. I also noticed some splotchy-ness on my other daughter’s face and neck.  The fact that I now see it on both of them really leads me to believe we are dealing with Fifth Disease.

Unless your kids have contact with someone who is pregnant (or if you are pregnant and have been exposed), there really isn’t much you can do about Fifth Disease other than to let it run its course. It is viral and has no lasting effects. As a matter of fact, once the rash appears, your child is no longer contagious and chances are you didn’t know they had it when they were contagious.

Now hindsight is 20-20 and looking back on the week, my youngest daughter was very tired on Tuesday and extra grumpy, but I had no way of knowing that it was connected to the Fifth Disease at the time.

For a complete description of Fifth Disease, pictures of the rash, and additional resources, visit the Kids Health site.

When my daughter got out of bed this morning, I immediately knew something was not right. Her left eye looked like she had been in a boxing match and it was swollen, pink, and oozy. Looks like we have pink eye – also known as conjunctivitis.

Pinkeye is an inflammation of the conjunctiva (the white of the eye) which is usually caused by a virus, but can be the result of an allergic reaction or bacteria. In school age children, it is usually viral in nature – kind of like getting a cold in your eye – and it is highly contagious.

So what is a Mom to do? I am going to treat this as if it is a virus at first which means, she is not going to school today. I have stripped the sheets off her bed and will be washing them in hot water with a touch of bleach. Next, I will apply a warm compress to the eye regularly through out the day. The microorganisms that cause this infection are sensitive to heat, plus the heat will help loosen any debris.

Additionally, I will be giving her plenty of fluids – especially those high in Vitamin C and let her rest.  I will also give her pediatrician a call, just to double check, and will administer Vigamox drops if so advised (Vigamox is used to treat bacterial pinkeye and works very quickly).

Pinkeye is nothing to be alarmed about, but must be taken seriously to prevent a house-wide or classroom-wide outbreak.

For more on pink eye:

• KidsHealth – Pinkeye (Conjunctivitis)
• WebMD – Pinkeye Overview
• Pediatrics Now – Backtoschoolitis
• Smart Medicine for a Healthier Child