5 New Things That Can Improve Your Life as a Busy Mom

If you've read my previous blogs, you know that therapy is probably the number 1 thing improving our lives.  But outside of that, I have some new gadgets that I LOVE, so I thought I would share.

1.  Amazon Echo - Or as we really know it in our home, Alexa.  Why do I love Alexa?  She sits conveniently in my kitchen, where I spend most of my time and helps me so I don't have to stop what I'm doing to go to the computer, my phone, write something down, etc.  To be more specific, here's what Alexa does for me that I love:

• She adds things to my shopping list by me simply saying, "Alexa, add milk to my shopping list." (Her voice recognition is very impressive.  I don't have to be close to her to talk to her, and she recognizes virtually everything I say.  She can even understand the kids!)  Then, everything appears on the Alexa app on my phone in my shopping list, which I can conveniently take to the store with me or better yet, add it to my Instacart shopping cart (more about that later).
• She magically sends things to my home by me just saying "Alexa, order more AA rechargeable batteries."  Now she can only re-order items that I have previously ordered from Amazon.  But given that we order EVERYTHING from Amazon, our available options are significant.
• She plays music from Amazon or Pandora by me just saying, "Alexa, play my John Mayer Pandora station."  Bam.  John Mayer starts playing in my kitchen.  Love that.  Or my daughter who loves Christmas can conveniently say (in February), "Alexa, play Christmas music."  And she does.  And mommy doesn't have to go look for Christmas CDs to make my daughter happy.
• She tells me what the temperature and weather is outside, so I know which jacket to send with my kids.  It's a nice little luxury.
• Basically, Alexa listens to me ALL of the time.  She helps me.  Alexa gets me.  I love her.

2. Dyson V6 Cord Free Vacuum - Why do I love my new Dyson?  It hangs very conveniently in my laundry room next to the kitchen, where I need it the most.  Now when my kids get cracker crumbs all over the floor or dirt all over the floor or glitter all over the floor...well, you get the gist...I can keep my cool.  No worries, I'll just grab the vacuum and zip, zip in 20 seconds, the mess is gone.  This vacuum really works almost as well as my regular Dyson, and it is so light and handy, I hardly ever pull my regular vacuum out any more.

3.  Instacart -  In case you have never heard of Instacart, it's a grocery delivery service.  They shop at your local grocery store (of your choice) and then deliver your groceries to you.  Delivery is $5.99 or you pay an annual fee of $150 (like Amazon Prime) to get free delivery all year.  You just have to purchase a minimum of $35 of groceries in each delivery.  Why do I love Instacart?

• I do not have to figure out how to squeeze 30 or 45 minutes of annoying grocery shopping into my day.  I can quickly add everything from my Amazon shopping list (see above) to my Instacart cart and schedule a delivery for later that day.  I can do this while I'm sitting in a conference call or waiting for my daughter at dance or while I'm eating my lunch.  
• I also rationalize that I save myself money and calories by not indulging in the impulse buying that often comes with grocery shopping.  Love that!
• We haven't really found a meal delivery service yet that meets all of our needs, so this is the next best thing.  My husband (our family cook) can make his weekly shopping list or select yummy HEB prepared foods, and bam it's delivered.

4.  DailyBurn - You might have seen this advertised on TV lately.  It's a daily personalized personal trainer video that you can do from your living room.  You select your goals, training needs, etc in your profile.  Then, the right video is automatically available on your smart TV app (Roku, XBOX, Apple TV, etc.) everyday.  Why do I love it?

• I hate strength training.  I really do, but I have accepted that now that I've reached age 40 that I really need to do it or else I'm going to have a mom butt and need to wear mom jeans.  I'm not ready for that yet.  BUT I detest going to the gym.  It takes way too much time and I hate paying that monthly fee.  I detest Boot Camps. 5 AM to pretend like I'm in the military?  Uh, no.  Basically, I need something that takes max 30 minutes a day and is inexpensive and easy.  So what to do?  That's where DailyBurn comes in.  I get a new video that's at my training ability targeting my focus areas on my TV every single day.  I just turn on the TV and it's like a trainer is in my living room.  Do 30 minutes and I'm done.  And it's only $12/month.  Deal.  

5.  Rodan + Fields Redefine - As I've mentioned before, I've always been a drugstore skincare kind of gal.  But now that I'm in my 40's, I decided to get more serious about my skin care.  These crow's feet aren't going to get rid of themselves.  So why do I love Redefine?

• My skin is so soft EVERYDAY
• The redness in my cheeks reduced by at least 50% in one month
• The circles under my eyes are far less noticeable than they were 3 months ago.
• I can see a difference in the lines in my forehead and my crow's feet in only 2 months.
• It magically shows up in a cute box on my doorstep every 3 months.  It's like a little gift just for me.

Do you use any of these gadgets?  Do you love them?  What other gadgets and products improve your life?  I want to more ideas!

Anxiety is Contagious

The past month I've written a lot about anxiety and how it has negatively impacted our family.  We have implemented a few simple but very critical things that have really turned things around in our family.  And so now just two months later, things are so much calmer and easier.  And it's given me some time to reflect on how we got to this place.

The worst part about having even one family member with anxiety is that it can create negative feelings between the whole family.  And you don't even know how it happened.  We didn't even know our daughter had anxiety.  We knew she had behavior issues.  We knew she was angry and defiant a lot.  But understanding that was tied to anxiety (much less how to deal with it) didn't occur to us.  We just slowly adapted to minimizing outbursts and trying to get things done, so we could still function and leave the house.  But inside, we were building resentments.  We resented her for being difficult.  I resented my husband for not helping more.  He resented me for not understanding this situation made his anxiety sky high and he couldn't cope.  And our 3 year old was just trying to figure out how to adapt to all of this.  Slowly, we all retreated to our own little balls, because we were all irritated with each other.  Really, really, sad.

But by recognizing the anxiety and seeking help, in less than 2 months, we are in a very different place.  Our daughter is of course, much more relaxed and happy.  She is much more patient and caring with her little brother and with us.  My husband actually wants to hang out with me after the kids are in bed instead of hiding in his man cave.  We have time, energy, and interest in holding hands and giving each other a kiss.  Our son is calmer, but let's face it, he's 3 and he's a boy, so he's still a work in progress.  And me?  Well, I don't walk on egg shells around my daughter.  When I read stories to her at night, I'm having fun and laughing and cuddling with her.  She wants me to cuddle with her!  Which before, she couldn't stand being touched.  I'm not counting the minutes until she's in bed and I can relax.  And I look forward to having time alone with her after school instead of fearing a rage that will leave both of us exhausted.  I don't fear taking her to dance class wondering if she will have a melt down when I ask her to put on her leotard.  I'm not constantly trying to out think and out manipulate her.  I have energy again! 

I will keep writing about this subject, because I think there needs to be more awareness.  I've come to understand that anxiety is a relatively common yet very misunderstood and undiagnosed disorder.  Now that I recognize anxiety, I can see it in so many people I've known in my life.  I also know that it's something that can actually be treated, often relatively easily, ESPECIALLY if it's caught early. There are a lot of resources out there that can give your child and your family easy tools to manage anxiety and live a less stressful and happier life.

If your child is highly sensitive, it's likely they struggle with some type of anxiety so be on the look out.  

Here are some common symptoms of childhood anxiety:

• Feeling nervous, restless or tense
• Feeling angry and irritable
• Defiance
• Worrying about safety and security
• Feeling tired
• Trouble concentrating
• Trouble sleeping
• Gastrointestinal (GI) problems
• Urge to avoid things that trigger anxiety

Should You Be Able to Select the Gender of Your Child?

So you may have seen recently that Chrissy Teigen (John Legend's wife) recently and quite casually announced that she chose to implant a girl embyro during their IVF process.  As you would expect, the internet has responded very negatively and very positively.  Of course, one side is outraged that she chose to "play God" because she thought her husband would be a better father to a girl.  And the other side feels it's no big deal and none of our business.

So of course it begs the question, what do I think?  Okay, probably no one else is asking that but me.  But I thought I would share my opinion.  My opinion is somewhere in between.

My husband and I had to use IVF to conceive both of our children.  With our daughter, we did not know the genders before implantation.  We happily took what we got.  When we conceived our son, we had the luxury of also knowing the genders before implantation.  However, we chose to not find out.  Only the embryologist and doctor knew what we chose. Why you might ask?

If you've never gone through the IVF process before, it is in short, nerve-wracking.  You show up the day of implantation not knowing at all what embryos have survived (if any) to that 5th day.  You have no idea what the quality of the embryos is.  All you do know is you have spent a ridiculous amount of money and you desperately want to be pregnant. They suit you up in your medical attire and give you a Valium (thankfully) and then you sit and wait.  Wait for the embryologist to come in and tell you what your options are.  And then 10 minutes later, they will wheel you into the surgical room and implant your hopefully future child.

So you have 10 whole minutes to make critical decisions about the future of your family.  Can we live with multiples?  Do we risk not being pregnant at all?  And if you choose the gender, do we want a boy or a girl?

My husband and I agreed ahead of time that if we were fortunate enough to have a 2nd child, it did not matter what the gender was.  We were going to choose the best quality embryo we had and hope for the best.  We decided this for a couple of PERSONAL reasons.  First, I did feel like choosing the gender was like playing God, and I wasn't comfortable with this.  Second, imagine if we said we wanted a boy and then found out the boy embryo was the 3rd best quality embryo.  Then, the IVF cycle failed - well, did it fail because we chose the a lower quality embryo?  Then, did we have to use a 2nd choice frozen girl embryo?  Would this somehow create weird feelings with us or the child?  I just didn't want to face this type of complex situation.  We were giving it our best shot and the rest would play out as genetics had planned.

However, having said all of this, I should tell you another important detail.  We chose to try IVF in the first place because we found out we were both carriers of cystic fibrosis, and we wanted to minimize the risk of our children having to cope with that awful disease.  (We later found out we also had significant ovarian reserve issues too).  That meant all of our embryos were screened for CF before implantation and we had the ability to not implant the CF positive embryos.  Is that playing God?  I'm sure some would say it is.

In addition, we had endless number of unexpected decisions we had to make throughout the IVF processes.  For example, one cycle we only had 3 embryos and suddenly our doctor who had previously said she would never implant more than two embryos recommended implanting all 3.  What?  I had 10 minutes to decide if I could live with triplets.  We had one cycle where there was only one embryo that was possibly viable, and it was possible it was chromosomally abnormal.  Again, we had 10 minutes to decide if we wanted to implant it or not.  Talk about stressful.

So what I learned through this whole process is that infertility and IVF is very complicated.  It is an emotional roller coaster to say the least.  And until you have walked in someone's shoes, you really can't say what you would do in the same situation.  So I refrain from judging the Legends.  I certainly hope they made this choice with great thought (even if the PR statement seemed cavalier), but at the end of the day, the law still states it's their choice.  I don't think I would have made the same choice, but it's not my place to judge.  At some point, the law may decide it's their place to judge, but that's up to our court system...not me.

Congrats to Chrissy and John!