It’s That Time Again - In It To Win It & Rock It!!!

So it is that time again … Time to get your support tweets ready & cast your votes! I am applying for Mamavation Mom again but this time it is couples who will be picked so Adam & I will be doing it together! Here our application video for those of you who have not seen it yet. 

Our Goal: Our personal goal regardless of if we win Mamavation couple or not is to enter our 30’s in the best shape of our lives. We are both currently 26 & want to run our first marathon during the year that we turn 30. So we have a long way to go & there is no better time to start then now! 

Get To Know Adam & I 

Adam - I am typical 26 year old husband and father of 3, but over the years my six pack has transformed into an unflattering blob - a blob that has been made up of one part I sit at a desk all day at work, another part not making healthy food choices as much as I should have been and another part giving up on the exercise regime I once followed daily. There is no one to blame but myself, but Rach’s awesome cooking does not help not taking seconds or thirds ….. but as a family we need to change not only how much we eat but also the food we cook for ourselves and our kids. 

Rach - I lot 15 pounds & 20” during Move It Loose It and I did it without the tools the Mamavation Moms from campaign #9 had. It took many tears, lots of hard work & determination especially on the days that I felt like giving up but I didn’t give up & I ended up winning first place. $400 is an AMAZING prize & with it I was able to buy a smaller size jacket. Doesn’t sound like a big deal right … well I bought a jacket that I never would have been able to fit into before MILI or Mamavation. With all of that being said though I don’t want my journey to end here. I don’t want to give up .. I want to keep this momentum going & I want to show women everywhere that anyone can do this & can get healthy! Trust me I know the things standing in the way - life is CrAzY busy around here. I have three kids & our youngest is special needs. I know busy, crazy, never get a full night of sleep & need coffee to function, sometimes going to pull your hair out in frustration, could throw a temper tantrum like a two year old days! 

I want everyone to know though, you just got to make up your mind to put yourself & your health first. If you go into getting your health back knowing that it is not going to be easy & there are going to be up’s and down’s but you will have to push through it then it makes it much easier to keep on track & going. You may get off track - I should know, it has happened to me many times but I always got back up & got back on. 

Look at what I did in 7 weeks.

 I did it & so can you! If you need support let me know. I will be here for you! Tweet at me @rachhabs let me know your goals, tell me if you need motivation, or whatever you need! I have a list of Fit Friends now that I tweet at daily with Fit Friend Challenges, so if you want to be added to that list let me know! 

The Fun Stuff!

Would you like a Wii EA Active Sports 2? Or maybe a $25 Amazon gift card? Entries are simple! 

• One entry for every vote ~ You can only vote once from a computer, phone, etc. but you can vote as many times as you want from different devices, wifi networks, etc. Let me know you voted & how you voted (what device). Each vote will be counted as an entry. 
• One entry for every tweet you send out supporting Adam (@ahabs55) & I (@rachhabs) tweet out the following message: ”Please vote & help @rachhabs & @ahabs55 to become the next #mamavation couple!http://bit.ly/qQB6rl” (25 tweets maximum a day)
• One entry for every tweet of the following message: “I entered a giveaway from @rachhabs & @ahabs55 for an @easportsactive & #AmazonGiftCard! Find out the details here http://bit.ly/olK21k” (maximum of 25 tweets daily)
• Share this link on facebook & get additional entries!

Once your tweet is sent out click on the time (in the tweet) and copy the permalink and include that with your message of “tweet # —- & then the permalink)

Sounds pretty simple right?  Just comment for each entry you complete on the comment section of this page! Winner of the EA Sports Active 2 & $25 Amazon gift card will be announced on October 11th!

Awesomesauce Times

Guess who had an AMAZING day of work? Even though technically it’s my day off today! …. ME! Do you know how awesome it is walking into a university for a big meeting and seeing a billboard with “Welcome Rachel Habegger from The Women’s Community” on it? Well let me tell you .. it is AWESOME let me tell you! Wish I had gotten a picture of it, but I was so distracted with getting ready for my meeting that I forgot to get it on the way in & after my meeting I was so excited and proud of the way things went that I forgot. Oops! I had a meeting today with Globe University to create curriculum that would collaborate one of my volunteer programs with their paralegal, criminal justice & service learning programs. I mean, not to toot my own horn or anything but who would of thought that in the end of July I would become Volunteer Program Coordinator and now be working with a university to create curriculum? NOT ME! I couldn’t be happier about it though! This was my first of many more to come meetings and it was awesome!

I could not be more excited about the things that are happening! Not only with work & the awesome things happening there but also within our family.

Aiden is now signing AND saying the words he is signing. This may not seem like a big deal but since the middle of may he had gone from saying very few words to knowing so many signs, saying so many words as well as not signing and saying words. His speech therapist & occupation therapist are in disbelief at the progress that he has made in such a short amount of time! We are heading to Madison next week & I can’t wait to hear what his neurologist says. It was that appointment back in may that we finally got a diagnosis that forever changed our lives & Aiden’s. It taught us what Adam & I need to do and to learn to best help Aiden learn. Just learning about how his brain works has been so amazing. He is so self aware, a skill that can’t be taught and has made our lives and his so much easier. He is only two and will remove himself from a situation if things are too loud, stimulating or if he just needs a break. He uses his tools that we have been working on with his occupational therapist when he needs them. He will grab his weighted blanket(s), do his brushing technique, tell Adam or I that he needs a “squish” that is what he calls it but it’s his deep pressure release. He is also doing amazingly on this new diet. He had a few days where he had corn things and so it took almost a month for him to detox & get it out of his system again. Let me tell you in that month I thought I was going to loose the sanity I had left. We made it though & it proved to us but more importantly to his allergist who thought that his food allergies that he wasn’t even going to test for were in fact NOT false positives like he originally thought. Not to mention that his speech & OT therapists say he is a “totally different child” on a corn, oat & fish free diet then when he is not. 

 “Keep you fingers crossed but not your eyes” ~Hailey

There are some other exciting things that could be happening soon, but until they are official I am not going to announce anything yet. But keep your fingers, toes & everything else crossed for Adam! 

Playing Momma & Babies

Hailey: “Momma, can you hold my baby? I am going to go on a date with my husband”

Me: “Who is your husband?”

Hailey: “Aiden! We are just pretending, because that would be awkward to be married to your little brother.”

Me: “Hailey, does Aiden know you guys are playing momma’s & babies?” that is their new name for house

Hailey: “Yes, he does. He asked me to be his wife & then he cried. But he didn’t cry because he is going to be my husband. He cried because he got a boo boo”.

Aiden walks out into the living room … Carrying a “baby” of his own so preciously wrapped up in his favorite blanket. 

I about died laughing when Hailey walks up to Aiden & says .. Aiden should we have more babies? His response …. “Yes!! Love babies.” Hailey went & “picked up more babies from the baby store”

“just a minor oops”

Aiden & I went into the walk in clinic today because he & I have both been feeling miserable. He is not eating and has no interest in drinking this is so unlike him and he has been pulling on his ear saying “ouch momma” side note: i am a super proud momma for him not only being able to tell me something hurt [huge yay!] but also saying multiple words together!! Anyways so we go into the doctors office, he is doing so well .. just hanging out & waiting patiently. So once it is my turn the physicians assistant (we didn’t even get a doctor!!) says that she needs to have my ears flushed. So I am ok I mean what other choice did I have so another nurse comes in our room. She starts explaining to me that she is going to have to put this medicine in my ear and it will have to sit for SIX minutes before she can flush my ear then she will have to do the same thing on the other side. REMEMBER SHE SAID SHE CAN ONLY DO ONE EAR AT A TIME. At this point Aiden is enjoying his popsicle that of course had corn syrup in it I am sure, but when I asked BEFORE they gave it to him they gave me attitude because there wasn’t a label on every popsicle so how were they suppose to know. So I lay down and she pours the medicine in my ear, and I wait six minutes. While I am waiting she is in my room, talking to Aiden & on the computer. By three minutes in he is getting restless we had already been in there 30 minutes at that point minutes and he tried to get out of the room. She of course snapped at him and told him to go sit down on the bench. He did .. As I sit up because my six minutes are done and she starts flushing my ear I see him grab a cup of the medicine that is for my ear that she left on the edge of the counter at Aiden’s eye level & had already made a big deal to him about how cool it was because it was such a pretty pink. As I have a needle in my ear I try to jump off of the bed because my son is drinking medicine she left out! She then starts screaming at him, telling him how naughty he is, how bad he is … All I care about is my little boy. Screw my ear. All this nurse cared about was getting my ear done. So fast forward to my other ear … I have a screaming autistic two year old who’s schedule has been screwed up, he keeps getting yelled at by the nurse & now has to snuggle with m on a bed that is the size of his toddler bed but it’s now with his mom. He was not happy. I was angry but wait it gets worse! So the nurse tells me that it is going to give him severe diarrhea but that he will “be ok once the meds get out of his system”comforting right … So then the doctor comes back in and I start to say “Your nurse left meds on the edge of the counter … “insert physicians assistant interrupting me “this is not an ideal place for children, you needed to keep better track of him.” Ummmm hello he was in there because he was being seen & you knew I was alone. How am I suppose to lay flat on a bed & do a nurses job? Oh and I forgot to mention the pills that were on the floor when we walked in the room. The nurse was annoyed with me when I asked her if she could take care of those so that he didn’t think they were candy or something & put them in his mouth. She said “normally the doctor sweeps in here, but sometimes she misses things. It’s just a minor oops”. Really … My two year old getting meds TWICE that he should not have is a minor oops! 

I am not even kidding when I say that doctor physician’s assistant blamed me for the meds being left out & Aiden getting into them AND told me how to parent my child. I shouldn’t have been surprised, she didn’t yet have kids. Oh and I love this … This was her trying to make the whole situation ok … “I am going to not charge you for either one of your strep tests, would that make things ok?” Ummmm NO!!!!! She also then said “If you give him lots of oatmeal that will bind him up & help the side effects of the meds” After I told her numerous times he was allergic to Oats not to mention corn that was in his popsicle. And then she said “I am assuming he only got a tablespoon of the medicine, so that is only a little more then we would give a child his age.” You don’t even know how much he got, you are ASSUMING. 

Then as I thought we were free from the idiots, I go to the pharmacy to pick up our antibiotics & find out that I now have to wait for the pharmacy to call the clinic because the antibiotic they sent over I am extremely allergic to. Super! I only told her that every time she asked if I had any drug allergies. It was a PHARMACIST TECH who caught her error! 

Needless to say I am so unhappy & angry .. Not to mention sick & Aiden is sick and now will have to deal with all of the side effects of this medicine. 

It’s That Kind Of Day!

When my kids become wild and unruly, I use a nice, safe playpen. When they’re finished, I climb out. ~ Erma Bombeck 

My Dad Is Alive!

Hailey has quite the imagination! Adam was laying on the floor in the hallway this morning relaxing more like saying he was relaxing but almost sleeping because it is the closest thing to a nap he is going to get & the babies were up WAY too early this morning. Aiden was trying to go potty. That is when the entertainment began!

Hailey: “Dad! Dad! Oh no .. He has no air”

then runs to Kaitlin & says “Our dad is dying! He needs our help! I rescued him from the ocean but he has no air’

Kaitlin: “Hailey don’t pretend there is an emergency when there is not one.”

Hailey: “KAITLIN! puts her hands on her hips & gives Kait a look This IS an emergency! We need to help him breathe.”

she then runs back to Adam who this whole time is laughing & then returns to holding still with his eyes closed again … jumps on his stomach & starts pushing on his chest while saying “DAD! If you don’t come alive you are going to be in a really big time out!” Adam opens his eyes and smiles she then starts running all over the house exclaiming “my dad is alive! my dad is alive! I saved him from the ocean!”

I am sure this too will turn into a comment she makes where we are out somewhere and people are going to think she is being serious :) Kind of like how she has just gotten back from Africa.

This Momma Was Right!

I think when we take Aiden back into the allergist in october I am going to make sure he knows that his ideas that …

• Aiden’s serious reactions to the food allergy part of the allergy testing was not a false positive like he thought
• I still don’t care what science says or has proven in the couple of weeks that we have had him on this new diet we have seen HUGE changes in Aiden. (To reiterate I never went in thinking that he would suddenly not have autism if we cut these foods out BUT I do think that it can help. We know a few people who have seen amazing differences in just changing the diet.)
• My son has said MORE words in the past two weeks then he has in the past two months!!
• His meltdowns have severely decreased - not only in intensity but also in frequency
• He has blown away his speech therapist & occupational therapist in the amount of improvement that he has made in the past couple of weeks. - He has increased the number of words that he says on his own without repeating us, increased the number of signs that he knows. 
• Being able to sign to us when he needs a break or needs something. We were in the grocery store shopping & he signed “mommy wait” when were leaving where we were standing for the past few minutes. He was not ready to leave yet. :)

All of this & more has happened in the past couple of weeks since we took him off of corn, oat … oh and shrimp that was a hard one since he eats is all of the time :) 

I will say though grocery shopping is now even higher on the list of things I am glad I don’t have to do everyday. Reading every label is so tedious, but then it becomes very frustrating when he can’t have it. I never knew until we took him off of corn how many varieties of corn syrup, starch, etc are in things. That is not even including the “modified” versions either! Gross.