The night before...

I have a way of cleaning my house.  If my process gets disrupted the house is a disaster.

We have a small home, which makes my life a whole lot easier... No stairs to walk up and down with laundry.  Our house is not covered in carpet, so vacuuming is a very minimal. 

The only part that drives me crazy is that we have our two wonderful, hairy dogs.  It takes about one day and we have dust (hair) balls in corners.

My day begins every morning with cleaning the floors, since I have a crawling machine who thinks everything on the floor is breakfast, lunch and dinner.  I do the dishes and tidy up the place for the day.  I do laundry, if there is any. Once a week the mop comes out and the vacuum comes out about every three to four days.

The thing is - I do this in the morning.  I am a morning person.  Our little family is usually up by 5:30 am on the weekdays.  If my morning is disrupted then the house doesn't get the much needed attention and it turns into a disaster area for the next day cleaning extravaganza.   

One might say, 'do it at night'...  There are 3 reasons why I don't clean the house at night:

1: My husband and I love to spend time with each other when he gets home.  The last thing we want to do is have a cleaning fest every time. 

2: I am usually too exhausted to even pick up a fork let alone a broom.

3: My feet and knees are usually killing me (what is up with the pain in the knees and feet???), from rocking William standing up (since he can't stand it when I sit to rock him) to crawling around on my knees all day chasing him.  Love doing these thing for him and more.  I just find it a tad strange that I don't notice my pain until he has hit the pillow for the night - adrenaline... 

So, I take the evening to relax with my fabulous, hard working husband.  And enjoy every moment without a care in the world for the mess that is accumulating.  Especially since it will be done by 6:30 am the next morning - why worry about it when I am spending some quality time with my hubby??

Anyway, the point I am getting at is last week was my first day back at work.  Only one full day, but it was significant...  In the am I didn't have time to clean the house, so I came home to an extremely messy house (my husband had also been able to add to it for a few hours before I got home...).

This week I decided that I needed to make a change - clean the house the night before I work and take a shower.  What is nice about easing back into work is that I can test what works for our family.  I am going back to work part time.  Working about 1 to 2 days a week, depending on if my work needs me.  When a full time position becomes available I will hopefully get it. 

Well I have completed these tasks, unfortunately my right knee is hurting so bad I think I might have to dust off the Advil... 

I am happy to know that tomorrow morning all I need to do is getting ready for work, and play with my little man - completely worth the knee pain ;0)

Lose flab - unchecked, rash gone - almost checked...

Backroom - unchecked.

Return back to work (part time - until full time position available) - check

Pack for trip - unchecked

Enjoy the Northwest fall weather - check, check and check

First 9 hour baby sitting experience - check

I definitely have been very busy and I have had a few emotional experiences along with the new events in my life.  

I feel like I keep saying, "when this is done" I will get restarted on the backroom, exercise, etc.  I am coming to the realization - there is always something else coming up.   Therefore - I need to quit making the excuse of exhaustion and/or too busy.

Making exercise, eating healthy and sleeping a full night of sleep, just needs to become a part of my daily life instead of scheduled.

By the way - William's rash is almost gone.  When he gets really upset it flares up, but his skin looks much better:

Also, I went out to the chicken house to pick up the daily eggs and I just about fell down when I saw this egg!!!

Maybe one of my Black Jersey Giants is a hen who knows how to crow???

Trip to the Doc - again...

After using two different treatments on each side and then determining that it might be a bacteria infection since the gel was working better than the cream, we ended up at the doctor's office, again.  It could have been frustrating, but we ended up at the Dermatologist within 30 minutes from arriving at the doc's office - no waits... Not one!

I am very impressed!!!

Within an hour I had gone from our regular doctor to our new dermatologist, without even pulling out my insurance card or filling out any information.  It was one of my best experiences with a team of doctors.

Anyway - back to William's rash - basically he has an extremely chapped chin.  She took a sample to test just in case, but she was very convinced that all it was - was a combination of sensitive skin (my skin - why didn't he get his daddy's skin - WHY???), pacifier, moisture and enzymes (did you know that the enzymes from your mouth can break down your skin, because it is the first step in breaking down food?? No wonder why when I lick my lips when they are chapped makes it worse!!) causing the rash.  She told me that the prescribed gel I used this last week most likely work because it kept it moist and protected longer than the cream - oh that makes sense...   

I asked if he could be allergic to something - pacifier, or formula?  She told me that the pacifier would cause a rash to be all around the mouth, not just the chin area (the direction his slobber moves) and the formula would cause a diaper rash. 

She gave me some directions to help heal the chapping and told me to not expect major results for about 2 weeks.  Plus, she expected the rash to be completely cleared in one month.  Wow - that is a long time for something that happened in just a few days! 

The steps to heal the chapped skin is pretty involved.  I have two prescribed gels which I need to mix and apply 4 times a day, until one week after the rash is completely gone.  Keep it dry, but moist with Vaseline or Diaper Rash Cream (the most preferred by her) all the time. Plus keep the pacifier use significantly down - basically only for naps and bed time.

When I got home, I coated his rash with Burt's Bees Diaper Ointment and this has been the best protection I think I have put on William's little face.  I made a very thick coat of it on this chin (cute little white beard) and it lasted for about 1 hour - pretty impressive!  It didn't soak in right away and it made a perfect layer that didn't wash away or break down as fast as everything else.

We will see and I will update how William is doing.