Making the time shift a little less painful

 

I am quite certain that it will happen. Forty eight hours or so before the official directive to set our clocks back, I will glance at a clock somewhere in my house and do a double take, “What? It is only 9 o'clock? It feels so much later!” Sandy will laugh and we will know that he ‘got me yet again’. There are so many clocks to adjust in our houses these days between the clocks in the cars, microwaves, coffee makers, etc. Some adjust automatically, but for the others, in our family it is Sandy’s job to make the changes, and for all of the years that we have been together, it has been his habit to start the process several days ahead of time. Even though I should know better, invariably there will be the moment I look at a clock and get confused and caught off guard. Indeed, twice a year the powers that be have decided that we need to adjust our times either one hour backwards or forwards. Some people love it and others hate it, but unless the law changes, or you live in Hawaii or Arizona, it is something most of us need to deal with. This fall, the official time to change the clocks is 2am, Sunday, November 7th. In general, for most adults, other than a tiny bit of lag, a one hour time shift is a no big deal. However it is not quite as benign when you have a baby who is already waking up at 6 am. If you don’t make a bit of effort in advance, the ‘Fall Back’ means the babies are now awake at 5am (shudder!) With a little bit of planning, the following tips might make it a bit easier for you. Before we tackle the time shift, let's review some sleep basics. There are many different approaches to helping your kids sleep well, but here are the cornerstones of my sleep advice. Getting enough sleep is essential, not only for the health of your child, but for the sake of your own sanity.  If your child has the ability to do some self soothing, everything will be easier on you. It is never too early to start paying attention to this. Even if they are only able to doze off without having a nipple in their mouth or by having you actively rocking them once a day, consider that a win. Create a routine and strong sleep association, such as a special song, massage or snuggle.  Make the environment conducive to good sleep. People tend to sleep better in cool dark rooms. Babies are no exception. A perfect temp is somewhere around the 68 degree range.  See what you can do to keep the room dark. Consider the use of a Hepa filter or white noise machine. Hopefully once your little one weighs more than 14 pounds, they are already giving you a good stretch at night. This is not something I count on for babies who are younger than 4 or 5 months. For you newer parents, take a deep breath, you need to be patient for just a bit longer. Babies still need to be feeding at night for the first several months. This phase will pass. Even though the young ones don’t usually have a real schedule in place yet, and it is normal for them to be feeding during the night, self soothing, sleep associations and a good environment are still very important, trust me! If you start good habits early, you will tilt the odds in your favor for getting a good night's sleep sooner than later. Once your baby is routinely sleeping through the night, the sleep goal should be that they stay in bed roughly 11 hours after bedtime. If bedtime is 7:30pm, the ideal wake up time would be 6:30 am (I see some of you rolling your eyes at the concept of 6:30 am being considered ideal. Someday you will be able to sleep in again, just not right now.) Okay..so now how do we deal with the time change? The simplest way to adjust to the new time zone is to do it gradually. I would suggest starting a week or so earlier and move the bedtime 10 minutes later every night.  Alternatively you can simply start 4 nights in advance and do a 15 minute per night adjustment. For toddlers and preschool kids, many parents end up purchasing a toddler clock or some way that the kids can see so they know when they are allowed out of bed in the morning. Oath’s sleep consultant Anne Del Valle adds If you have children over the age of two, you can put a digital clock in the room and put a piece of tape over the minute numerals, so that they can see if it is 6 o’clock or 7 o’clock, but they cannot see the minutes, which often confuses toddlers. I would just set the clock forward half an hour so that at 6:30, it reads 7:00 and I would let them get up a little earlier than normal, knowing that by the end of the week, they would be back on track and sleep until their normal wakeup time. If they get up earlier than the sanctioned time, for the big kids, calmly walk them back to their room. For the infants, give them a chance to see if they can settle. Check the time, five minutes can feel like an hour. Parent’s can take shifts so you know who’s turn it is to go in. It is better for a nursing mom to keep her distance until she is ready and willing to do a feeding. Some people decide to wait and not actually adjust the clocks until you actually wake up on Sunday morning. Being conscious of the “extra hour” can be a fun thing to do with your kids. For the grown ups, make sure you each get an hour of being off duty. Spend it doing something just for yourself, maybe a bubble bath, or some meditation or go for a run. It is your hour. Your partner gets one as well. For the kids, ask them how they would like to spend their hour. I want to make one more point about early waking. When my sisters and I were young, my mom was the first one up. She loved the dawn. Sometimes it was because it was the only time she could claim quiet time before the rest of us woke up, but there was something about it that called to her. The reason that this lifestyle worked for her was because whenever she could, she also went to sleep early. Many of us get a second wind in the evenings and enjoy some adult time once the kids are in bed, but if you are routinely exhausted in the morning, it might be worth the effort to put your kids schedule on the back burner for the moment and take a look at your own. Sleep needs vary. How much do you tend to get? How much do you think you need? If you are running at a steady deficit, this is going to start taking a toll on every aspect of your life. Much of the time it is simply about making better choices. Yes, I am saying that perhaps you should stop binge watching whatever series you are following, or put down candy crush and get into bed! If you have trouble falling asleep, make sure your iron and vitamin D levels are within normal limits. When your kids have grown and you are retired, you can sleep in as late as you wish. The years with young kids in the house are fleeting. Most kids are early birds. See if you can train yourself to embrace this, or at least not look at it as torture. If life offered the option of going back in time, I wouldn’t rule out a 6 am encounter with my babies. Enjoy your extra hour! I hope your kids behave. You are on your own with your pets...... And now for you science nerds.. Prepare to be wowed by Dr Ted's bonus information below. Circadian Rhythms: Why is shifting sleep so tough in the first place?! To understand why daylight savings can be so disruptive, it can be helpful to understand the physiology of our internal clocks. At the very center of our brains, the hypothalamus, there is a physical nucleus of our sleep/wake cycle. That nucleus takes in signals about the daytime, like lights, sounds, and adrenaline, to keep us awake during the day, and signals about the nighttime, such as quiet and darkness, to produce the body’s natural sleep hormones, like melatonin. However, imagine how confusing it would be if the hypothalamus didn’t have an internal clock to assist with these shifts? We would fall asleep in darkness, and bolt upright through every loud noise at night. To assist with these shifts, the sleep nucleus of the hypothalamus physically builds up proteins and cells during the day, then breaks them down at night (this is an oversimplification, but just imagine that it physically changes shape through a predictable 24-hour cycle). Now, imagine you shifted all the signals for light and sound in a single day, against the physical internal clock of the hypothalamus. No wonder the body gets confused! This is why good sleep hygiene matters: having the same bed time and same wake time every day makes it easier for your hypothalamus to keep its rhythm. When you sleep at the same time every night, your body will start to produce melatonin in anticipation of bed time, allowing you to fall asleep much more easily. Keeping rooms dark, quiet, and relatively cool will help to support your body’s ability to maintain deep restful sleep.

Earthquake and natural disaster preparedness

 

Earthquake and natural disaster preparedness

It is almost the anniversary of the Loma Prieta earthquake. Many of you reading this might be too young to recall it. I can remember it like it was yesterday The earthquake struck at 5:04pm on Tuesday October 17th 1989. The shaking lasted 20 seconds. I will start my story by mentioning that I had airline tickets for a flight at 7am on October 18th to go to visit my parents in Pittsburgh. On this particular visit, I was traveling with my 26 month old daughter Lauren. Sandy was not coming with us. The morning of October 17th, I got a call from USAir. There was an equipment change. Would we be willing to switch our reservation the next day from the 7 am flight to one that left at 11 am? In return we would get 2 round trip tickets. We could still keep the bulkhead seats at the front of the plane. To this day, I have never since heard of an airline reaching out the day before travel for something like this. In any event, this was a no-brainer, I was happy to make the swap. After the call from the airline, as per our daily routine, I dropped Lauren off and headed to work in Noe Valley. Sandy worked downtown and at the end of his day would take the underground Muni back to our house where he would get his car and then go pick her up. My day at the Noe Valley Pediatrics office was wrapping up and I was on the phone with a remarkably long winded mom. I tend to be fairly patient, but this woman wasn’t even coming up for air. She was going on and on about something when suddenly she shouted earthquake and the call ended. I confess that I looked upwards and mouthed a little ‘thank you” for getting her off the phone. It took a moment or so until I too felt the shaking. The entire building rocked and rolled. The lights went out. A good bit of the water sloshed out of the fish tank that we had in the waiting room. It was a long 20 seconds. All of us who were in the office ran to the doorways and held on. When it was over I was consumed with only one thought. I had to get to Sandy and Lauren to make sure they were okay.  This was long before we all had cell phones. I had no way of knowing if Sandy was stuck on muni or if he had picked up Lauren before the earthquake struck. There is no question about it. Being away from your child adds a whole new element to any natural disaster. I left immediately for home. Along the way I was struck by how well cars were behaving in a mannerly fashion. Every corner became a 4 way stop since all the traffic lights were out. At some of the bigger intersections, good samaritans were out directing traffic. I made it home safely, listening to the radio and hearing terrifying reports coming in of collapsing highways and bridges. I was doing my best to remain calm. It wasn’t easy. I was finally able to breathe when I saw that Sandy and Lauren were at home waiting for me and that was when I burst into tears. Lauren spent her days at a family daycare in the home of a magical person named Jeanine. ‘Gigi’ lived out by the zoo and tended to 4-5 kids at a time.They took walks, read poetry and did yoga. Everyone should be so lucky to find such a loving and wise childcare provider. In the playroom where they spend much of their time was an ornate telephone that was off limits. The kids all knew the rules. No touching the phone. Jeanine had stepped out of the room for a moment and at 5:04 Lauren took the opportunity to be a little naughty and picked up the forbidden receiver. Sandy had just arrived at Jeanine’s when the shaking started. He was right outside the gate and was able to see Lauren. Her expression was priceless. Oh, this is why you shouldn’t touch the phone! She hurriedly returned the phone to its cradle and looked around to see if anyone noticed what she had done. For years, thanks to her dad, she was pretty convinced that she caused the earthquake. Back at home, being together made the situation much easier to handle. We spent the evening outside with neighbors taking turns listening to radios and trying to get a handle on damage and casualties. Remember my flight the next day? The original 7 am one ended up being cancelled. My 11 am one was the first flight to take off post earthquake. Those days were the good old days when anyone could walk to the gate. My parents were at the gate waiting for us with baited breath. The area was also loaded with reporters waiting to interview the ‘survivors’. My mom had been chatting with one of the reporters. Since Lauren and I were in the front of the plane we were the first to get off. The light bulbs were flashing and we ended up on the front page of the now defunct Pittsburgh Post Gazette. The front page article was full of wild misquotes, but so it goes. It is perfectly normal for the thought of natural disasters to create a hum of anxiety. Different locations seem to have their specific menu of terrors. Here in the Bay Area our big ones are wildfires and earthquakes. The key to dealing with potential disasters in a sensible way is to do some preparation ahead of time. If you have children, then you simply must have a plan. Sandy and I had certainly talked about needing to do that, but it never got off the to do list. This is the nudge for every family that hasn't done so yet, to take care of this now. How will your family reunite if you are separated? Check with schools and daycares to see what their plan is. Remember that cell phones might not work, so you can’t count on them as part of your plan. Landlines are sometimes a better bet, but so many people no longer have those. (As an aside, Sandy, who worked for one of the world's largest telecom companies, says that while the cell phones might not work for calls, there is a chance that texting might still work.) I am not going to completely reinvent the wheel. At the bottom of the post are some comprehensive checklists from some excellent sites, but here are some of the basics that come to mind. Making sure your home is safe and well stocked Anchor furniture to walls,  make sure glassware and delicate objects can’t fall Have an accessible flashlight and plenty of batteries.Where are they? If the lights went off right now and it was dark out, could you find that flashlight? Remember that your cell phones do have a flashlight feature that can help you get situated, but you are likely going to want to not squander the charge on your phone if you have a better option Have enough food. Make sure you have a can opener that doesn't require power. Have unscented bleach on hand. https://www.epa.gov/ground-water-and-drinking-water/emergency-disinfection-drinking-water Have some heavy duty gloves on hand to help you clean up any sharp items that may have broken during the shaking. Have enough diapers, pet food and medications Consider getting a fireproof safe for important documents Uncle Joel's rule... Have cash on hand. Make some of it small bills. There is a good chance that the ATMs won’t be working. We took this lesson from our Uncle Joel who survived Hurricane Andrew in Miami. He had very little cash and without family getting him some funds, he would have had a tough time until the power was restored. Okay.. what if it is a situation where you need to evacuate Don’t let your gas tank go below ⅓ of a tank It is a good idea to have a grab and go backpack full of emergency stuff in your trunk. This might come in handy much more often than you think and not just in a natural disaster. You never know when an extra layer, change of clothes or snack will come in handy. Include some games or activities. In any case, make sure that you routinely restock and rotate supplies. The twice a year clock shifts are a great time to do this. When you are done changing the battery in your smoke detector, take a look at your emergency stash. Get rid of anything that is about to expire and make sure that you update sizes for spare clothes and diapers. This list was just a start. I highly recommend checking out the links below and use them as help you create a comprehensive plan. https://www.ready.gov/earthquakes https://www.cdc.gov/disasters/earthquakes/prepared.html https://www.sfchronicle.com/survival/

Forgiveness and Atonement

 

Forgiveness and Atonement

"Forgiveness is a strange thing. It can sometimes be easier to forgive our enemies than our friends. It can be hardest of all to forgive people we love. Like all of life's important coping skills, the ability to forgive and the capacity to let go of resentments most likely take root very early in our lives." Fred Rogers Being angry is like swallowing a spiky and potentially poisonous stone. It can do no good inside of you...poop it out and flush it away Nurse Judy This week was Yom Kippur. This is considered one of the most important days in the Jewish Calendar.  It is a Holy Day, rather than a Holiday, unless you consider fasting and deep introspection something you celebrate. I am not a classically religious person. My friends and family have heard me say that my belief system is simple: There is ‘more to it than this’, we just don’t get to know exactly what that is Be kind So while I am skeptical about an all powerful being with a white beard judging my every action, there is something about Yom Kippur that has me treat the day with a bit of reverence. The message around Yom Kippur is twofold: forgiveness and atonement. I will address forgiveness first. I am not saying that you shouldn’t get angry at someone who has done something wrong. By all means, feel those feelings as much as you need to. But then take a moment to do some thinking. When we feel a strong emotion we can ask ourselves what this particular feeling is trying to communicate to us. Perhaps something has been threatened or a boundary has been crossed. Once you have identified the purpose of the emotion it has done its job. Now it is time to let your head take over. It might seem like I am going off topic, but bear with me for a moment. When I was working at Noe Valley Pediatrics, it was not unusual for kids to vomit, poop or bleed on a surface or the floor. People who work with kids know that this is simply part of the job. Bodily secretions are considered biohazards. We had to have a system for dealing with these messes. Fortunately we had these nifty little kits designed for exactly this purpose. The amazing medical assistants who I was lucky enough to work with would spring into action. They would put on some protective equipment and proceed to sprinkle a special substance on the mess. This chemical turned whatever yucky stuff we were dealing with into a gel form that created a blob that was easily cleaned up and disposed of. These clean up kits were a valuable tool. Anger and grudges directed towards someone are like a biohazard. Those negative feelings can actually impact your health. You need tools for learning how to change something potentially toxic into something more benign and easily dealt with. Talk to a therapist. Meditate. See what you can come up with that helps you let go of stuff. One technique that I like is to turn mad into sad. Turn anger into disappointment. Those are easier to manage. Don’t forget to forgive yourself! None of us are perfect and we all have lessons to be learned. You will be amazed how much lighter you can feel when you let go of all that negative energy. The next aspect of Yom Kippur is atonement. This day is actually called the Day Of Atonement, so maybe this should have come first. The day involves fasting, and for many observant Jews, solemn prayer asking for forgiveness from God and people in our lives for any possible sins or wrongdoing that we may have committed during the past year. There is a lovely ritual called tashlich, where you toss breadcrumbs into a body of water as a symbol of casting off your sins. I remember one year, I took my young daughters out in a boat on Stow Lake to do our own version and toss bread to the ducks (ducks actually shouldn’t eat bread, but I didn’t know that at the time. I have forgiven myself.) https://friscolibrary.com/blogs/post/the-dos-and-donts-of-feeding-ducks/  We did our own little ritual.  “Is there anything you have done that you feel sorry about?” Lauren went first and did it with a gusto as she tossed piece after piece to the eager ducks. She had an absolute laundry list of confessions. “This is for the time that I ……. And this is for the time that I……" She went on for several minutes confessing to all sorts of little misdemeanors that I had been clueless about. Yikes! Finally she was done. Her conscience was clear. “Alana, it’s your turn, Is there anything you feel regret about? “Nope” “Nothing at all?” “Nope..”  Okay, well then.  Shake your head if you must as I did, but knowing Alana it is quite possibly accurate. When I think about atoning, I think it is imperative to point out the difference between intent and impact. While good intentions gone awry happen frequently, It is the impact that is what matters. If you accidently knocked over a glass of milk, pointing out that it was awfully close to the edge of the table is not an appropriate part of the apology.  If you said something hurtful, it doesn’t matter all that much if you meant it or not. If it caused pain, make the apology a clean one, don’t muck it up with the defense or reason. Simply be sorry, learn the lesson and try not to repeat. Parents, caregivers and people who are role models to children - they are watching you! If you can learn to forgive, they will notice. If you learn to admit mistakes and try to do better in the future, they will notice.  As the amazing Mister Rogers noted in the quote at the beginning, these behaviors take root early on. There is nothing easy about this. Especially these days when it is so easy to be angry at people who are making horrible choices. I wish it was actually as easy as tossing crumbs into the lake. Have I completely forgiven the people who stole the catalytic converter out of my 14 year old Honda a few months ago? Perhaps. Knowing that I cursed them with never ending pinworms, bedbugs and head lice took a little of the sting out of it.

A story about an inexplicable coincidence

 

A story about an inexplicable coincidence

The world is so big and so small at the same time. Once in a while I am reminded of how connected we all are. Things happen that I refer to as synchronicity, although that is probably not the exact term. I have many tales that are hard to wrap my brain around, but the one I am going to share is probably the strangest. This story does have an element of sadness amid the serendipity. Back in 2008 my immediate family of four took a celebratory cruise. That summer, Lauren was turning 21, Alana was turning 18, Sandy was turning 50 and we were celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary. So many milestones!  We generally made a point of having most of our vacations involve seeing grandparents, so we picked a ship that left from south Florida so that we could spend some time visiting Sandy's parents, Nanya and Poppa, before and after the cruise. We were keeping a close and concerned watch on the weather because that August there were several hurricanes swirling around the Atlantic. We weren’t sure if we would be impacted up until the last moment. Fortunately we were able to navigate around the storms, and there was no change in the itinerary necessary, but we have never been more glued to the weather channel. All in all it turned out to be a wonderful vacation. Lauren was already in college and Alana would be heading off that fall, so having all of us together was something I cherished. For our final port of call the family decided to do one of the more adventurous excursions. We were going to go ziplining through the rain forest and then cave tubing. That was a fairly generous ‘we’. Truth be told, I needed a bit of convincing, but ultimately opted in. I was still nervous when we arrived at the Jaguar Paw Park in Belize. There was an unexpected delay and we stood in line and waited to be outfitted with gear before heading up to the zipline….and waited and waited. Waiting in line wasn’t doing anything for my nerves. The reason suddenly became horribly apparent. A woman was being carried past us on a stretcher. She was pale and completely unresponsive. Unconscious? Dead? We had no idea. The line started moving again but now I had to work harder to knock out the anxiety that was brewing.. What had happened to that woman? In any case I got all strapped in, took some deep breaths and successfully ziplined from canopy to canopy over the rain forest. Cave tubing was also fun..and happily no bodies being escorted off. The dim little headlamp I was wearing was not bright enough for me to see the bats on the ceiling and some spiders in the water that I learned about later. Ignorance is bliss. When we got back to the ship later that day there was some buzz. A Carnival cruise ship was docked next to ours in the harbor. One of their passengers had died during one of the excursions. That must have been the person who we saw. What a sad thing. She didn’t look very old. There I was feeling so lucky to be enjoying life and my family. It was a stark reminder to count my blessings. I confess it took awhile to put her out of my mind. A week or so later, the vacation was over and I returned to work. Part of my job at Noe Valley Pediatrics involved interfacing with the pharmaceutical and vaccine reps who would come into the office. I had a warm relationship with some of them and we would do some social catching up during their visits. One such rep came in monthly to check our vaccine inventory and help me calculate the vaccine needs for the next month and place the order. I had known him for several years. This fellow sat in my office and we did some chatting. “Hey Judy, How was your cruise? I was thinking about you because of all the hurricanes that were in the news, were you impacted?” “No, we got lucky” “What places did you visit?” “We went to Key West, Cozumel and Belize” “Oh, Belize….I am actually on my way to a funeral for someone who just died there. She was also on a cruise” Um, WHAT???? We did some further chatting and confirmed that it had to be the person that had been carried past me. The timing matched exactly. It turned out that she was a pediatric advice nurse (like me!) who worked down in the peninsula and was connected to this rep through work the same way I was. He was close enough to her that he had the details about what had happened. She had some underlying health issues and had a heart attack. So sad that it happened in a place where she wasn’t able to get the timely help that she needed.  Prior to that trip, if you had asked me to find Belize on a map, I am not sure I would have succeeded. The odds that not only had we intersected in Belize of all places, but that the subsequent conversation happened to make this connection known to me was unfathomable. It didn’t phase the rep at all. “You asked the universe a question and so you got an answer” These stories abound! I would hazard a guess that most people have a ‘small world story’. What is yours?

Managing Motion sickness

 

Managing Motion sickness

I have had quite a few questions about motion sickness recently. Many people are doing some summer travel, but others have issues with this in their general day to day getting around. I did a post on this topic several years ago, but there are some new things to try, so I am updating and rerunning it. Here are some general facts.   Females are more likely affected than males.  People who suffer from migraines tend to be especially susceptible.  While the majority of people who have the most issues with this are between 2-12, some younger babies seem to have trouble as well. I know some unfortunate parents who have babies that vomit every time they go out in the car.   I feel the need to add that even for the kids who get carsick, I do not recommend forward facing car seats until kids are two. The risks of injury in case of an accident are too great.   If you know in advance that motion sickness is an issue, here are a few natural remedies that you may want to try. If you are someone who deals with this a lot, you will have plenty of car rides ahead to do your experiments and see what works for you.   Getting fresh air by having a window open is the first course of action. Do some distraction by playing a game that has your child looking out the window. Experts say to specifically look at the horizon. For those kids who are not super sensitive, you can play some 'I Spy' games. See if you can find interesting license plates or different colors or letters on signs. Don't sabotage your trip by bringing along trip activities that have your child focusing on things inside the car. Even the best passengers might be fine until they start reading or looking at a phone or map.   Most kids do best when their tummies are not too full or too empty. Little crackers to snack on might be useful.   There are wristbands that provide pressure to some acupressure points that seem to give relief. You can find these on Amazon; there are several brands. A popular one is called sea-bands. They come in multiple sizes and colors. Otherwise simply massage the wrist and lower arm area. The magic spot is located on the inner arm about 1.5 inches above the crease of the wrist, between the two tendons there.   There is a new generation of wristbands that emit an electrical impulse that may help with motion sickness. As a bonus, these may also be something to consider to help with morning sickness: Emeterm wrist bands   Ginger seems to be very helpful. For older kids, there is a ginger gum specifically made for nausea (also available on Amazon). Find your favorite ginger cookie or candy; Trader Joe's has a wide assortment. Of course don't give anything to a young child that might be a choking hazard. Check out ginger lollipops (often marketed towards pregnant women.)   Motion Eaze is a topical aromatherapy that some folks swear by. You just dab a drop behind the ears and it provides relief within a few moments. Don't do this one for the first time before you embark on a long car ride. The smell is fairly pungent and other folks in the car might have a hard time with it. If you prefer not to apply a scent directly, there are several essential oils that have been found to help with nausea. Peppermint, spearmint, ginger and lemon are all on the list. Consider letting your child choose the favorite scent. You can apply a few drops to a cotton ball and put it in a baggy. The kids can take sniffs whenever they feel the need.   There are many homeopathic motion sickness remedies. Boiron is the brand that I am most familiar with. As with many homeopathic remedies, they get mixed reviews. Homeopathy does seem to be the ticket for some folks, and is unlikely to cause trouble as long as it is used as directed. It might be worth a try. My husband likes to cry "placebo." I say, "Bring it on, whatever works!"   MQ motion sickness patches More in the possible placebo category, these patches are for kids or adults, four and over. There are over 7 thousand four and five star reviews for these herbal patches, but the directions are clearly written in an "English is the second language" fashion. Based on the large number of positive reviews, I would have no trouble giving these a try.     Medications If you are going on a long car ride, plane ride or boat trip and you have struck out with the natural remedies there are some medication options. Benadryl is an antihistamine that often works quite well for motion sickness. It comes as a liquid. The bottle directions are for children over the age of 6, but most doctors are comfortable giving it to younger kids. The dose usually agrees with the tylenol dose volume. For instance, kids over 22 pounds would get 5 ml or one teaspoon. Always check with your own doctor's office to see what their policy is. Benedryl makes most kids sleepy, but don't count on that. It gets some kids hyper. You probably don't want to find that out on a cross country flight.   Dramamine is another choice. It is an over the counter medication specific for motion sickness. Children 2-6 years of age can take ½-1 tab; children 6-12 years of age can take 1-2 tabs. These chewable tablets can be repeated every 6 hours, no more than 3 doses in a 24 hour period. Start with the smaller dose first to see if it works. Giving the dose 30-60 minutes before travel is recommended. For kids over 6, Bonine is another reasonable choice. This medication can be given at the first sign of nausea and is less sedating.   For patients over the age of 12, if all else has failed, some people use a scopolamine patch. This is a much stronger prescription medication that I would never use as a first line drug. Some of my motion sensitive older patients have found these valuable for cruises. (Tuck this information away for the future when taking a cruise is not an absurd notion.)   Luckily, motion sickness is something that kids tend to grow out of except for an unfortunate few. If you or your child have chronic motion sickness issues, it can be eye related. Cover one eye for several moments to see if the symptoms ease. If this works, you may have something called vertical heterophoria. It is worth having a consult with an eye doctor.   More and more experts are starting to pay attention to the connection: https://www.healthline.com/health/glasses-for-motion-sickness   Some people with chronic motion sickness have also gotten relief from chiropractic treatment and /or acupuncture   Regardless of what does and does not help your particular case, if you are on a car ride, assuming the kids are old enough to comply, have them try very hard to give you as much warning as they can. Ideally they should try to get in the habit of warning the driver at the first twinge of discomfort. The initial signs are usually paleness, yawning and restlessness. They may feel a little sweaty. This is quickly followed by nausea and vomiting. With enough warning you might have time to pull over and get them out of the car for a couple of moments until the motion sickness eases. Being stoic is not a good plan; it usually backfires.   In my car, I actually kept barf bags in the glove compartment. I used to collect unused ones from my airplane travels. They may come in handy. If you don't have an actual barf bag, have a container or plastic bag that you can whisk out at a moment's notice.   Your trunk should be prepared:   A change of clothes (don’t forget socks) A clean towel A plastic bag for putting the soiled clothes in Some wet wipes A lollipop to get the yucky taste away Febreze for cleaning off the seats (you will bless me) Extra water and hydration tablets (or pedialyte packets)   While kids are usually the ones most apt to barf in your car, motion sickness can afflict any of us at different times. I hope that some of these tips can help you out.   I remember my days as a carpool driver. One of my little passengers had Emetophobia (fear of vomiting) and would quite literally open the car door and leap out if anyone so much as made a gagging noise. It kept things interesting!

The magic and importance of play

 

The magic and importance of play

“Play is often talked about as if it were a relief from serious learning. But for children, play is serious learning. Play is really the work of childhood,” Fred Rogers, aka Mr. Rogers. Screen time is a fact of life for most of us. Don’t get me wrong, while I am well aware of the official guidelines, there is no judgement from me for families who get a bit too much. It is safe to say that my kids got WAY too much, but they also balanced it out with lots of play and crafts. This post is not about limiting screen time. It is about being mindful that you give your kids opportunities to play and use their imaginations the old fashioned way. My sister Marjie and I were less than 2 years apart. Amy was six years younger and sometimes would be allowed to join whatever activity we had cooked up. Thanks to Marjie’s over the top imagination we never were at a loss for odd games to play. The earliest one that I can recall was “Ann and Martha stick toilet paper on the wall” Marjie would show up in my room in the middle of the night and help me climb out of my crib. We would bring our dolls (Ann and Martha) into the bathroom where we would wet pieces of toilet paper until they would stick on the wall. I think we would tell stories about whatever shape they were. That game is actually one of my earliest memories, although the memories are pretty vague. My parents were oblivious to our night time activities. My mom always wondered about the scraps of toilet paper that she would find all over the bathroom floor, because of course, they would dry up and fall off the wall during the night. It wasn’t until years later when we were discussing childhood games in her presence that the mystery was solved. Another of the stranger games that I can recall all these many years later was ‘Crawl’. We would toss assorted clothes and ‘dress up’ costumes around the room, make the room pitch black and crawl around attempting to put on all the clothes that we came across. Shirts could become pants, underwear would go on the head. When the lights turned on we would crack ourselves up.  Marjie and I also created our own board games. They were convoluted and creative to say the least. These included  The Mahaly brain game (Our precursor to Trivial pursuit) The ‘low crotch game’ (this one had the loser run up and down our street wearing a pair of very low crotch pants that had shown up in a box of hand-me-downs The ‘Go Kiss my sister’ game (don’t even ask….) My mom watched with amusement, as long as we were safe, but there was one game that she absolutely hated that we referred to as “taste this” and which she ultimately banned. ‘Taste this’ was something we played when we were quite a bit older. It involved one person being blindfolded and the other players pulling out an assortment of various foods or condiments. The blindfolded person would choose a number 1 through 4. Each number corresponded with a mystery food that the person would need to taste and then try to identify. There would usually be one positive, two neutral, and one horrible choice. There was an element of honor involved. You absolutely had to taste whatever you picked...no cheating. Mom forbade us from playing the game following that one time when I was blindfolded and threw up all over the kitchen after making a poor choice and getting a heaping spoonful of mayonnaise in my mouth (you would have vomited too!) We made the mistake of telling our kids about this one, and poor mom had to deal with the generation of grandchildren playing ‘taste this,’ when the cousins would gather at grandma’s house. Lauren read this post as I was writing it and recalled getting a mouthful of coffee grounds, but on the other end, gave her cousin a spoonful of the liquid from a jar of gefilte fish. The game was banned yet again. No worries, the band of cousins created their own set of unique games. When my daughters were young and playing with each other at home, if there were any games that caused vomiting, they flew under my radar. I started thinking about all of this because the other day Sandy and I took a long overdue stab at clearing out the storage room behind our garage. Both my girls joined us in helping us decide what old toys and games were worth saving. What a trip down memory lane! There were bins of crafts, costumes, board games and well loved toys. Among the treasures is a huge bin of beanie babies with the tags still on. (One of these days we need to figure out if those are worth anything). There was a doll house that Sandy had made out of old wine crates. The walls were covered with wallpaper from a wall paper book and carpeted with remnants. That was a great project, but the house was a bit worse for wear from sitting in the storage room for 20 years, so it didn’t make the cut for things we are saving.  Some classic toys that survived their years in storage will now get to be played with again by little Elliot. So here is today's message. Please make sure that your kids have lots of opportunities to play, create their own games, and use their imaginations. If you don’t have a Marjie in your lives for whom no props were required, have some basics that games can be built around such as: a doctor's kit, a toy cash register, dolls or stuffed animals. The dolls that we made for our wine crate doll house were made out of pipe cleaners and felt. Expensive toys with lots of bells and whistles are not necessary. You can also get your kids started with some Improv games . Click the link in the last sentence for a list of these that my daughter Lauren, who is a teaching artist, complied at the beginning of the pandemic. If your kids don’t have siblings to play with, try to connect with other friends who have kids of similar ages. Once kids are older than 2 years or so, there is no real substitute from the learning and growing kids can get from interactive play.

Things we take for granted

 

Things we take for granted

The world is full of horrible things and fabulous things. The problem is that the horrible things are the ones that make all the noise, capture our attention and of course, catch the headlines. It is pretty easy to forget to notice the wonders that are around us. This week I was taking a walk and I decided to focus on, and give some appreciation for things that I often take for granted. I started with the fact that I can easily walk several miles. I am blessed that I am within walking distance of Golden Gate Park and that day my destination was in fact the botanical gardens. I went through the checklist of my senses. There was plenty of beauty to see. Along the way I couldn’t help but find joy at watching a dog deliriously playing fetch with a stick.  The flowers that I passed along the way were stunning. Each lawn was worthy of stopping and marveling at. The colors are miraculous.It got even better once I got to the park. If you are in SF, get over there (but beware of coyotes!) I could hear birds; I felt a nice breeze. I delighted in some fog, knowing that so many friends of mine have been struggling with heat and humidity. Next it was time to focus on smelling. I was sniffing and not smelling anything for a block or so. The first odor I was able to identify was cigarette smoke, courtesy of a guy who was sitting in a parked car. I was glad to have confirmation that my nose was indeed working. Happily, a block later that smell was replaced by the wafting aroma of baking cookies.  I confess that I usually don’t bother to pay attention to things that work the way they should. Like most people I only notice when they are broken or not working. It brought to mind a quick story of how we take things for granted. Many years ago, I was walking our beloved golden retriever Java. This was when she was pretty young and exuberant. I was holding the leash in a very foolish manner (I learned that lesson!) and it was wrapped around my little finger. As we were going down some steep steps, Java started to pull me, I jerked back and my pinky snapped. Ouch indeed! (For the record, finger and toe injuries are especially painful due to all the nerve endings) The reason that this tale of woe is at all relevant is to illustrate a point. I was much more impacted by a broken pinky finger than I ever could have imagined. I had never given much thought to this particular finger. Of course it was my right and dominant hand. Without the ability to bend that finger, I was not able to hold a pen, or more importantly since I was still actively working in my job as a nurse, I was not able to give shots for many weeks. Go ahead and try to pick up a pen and write something while your little finger stays straight, It doesn’t work. My double lesson today is first of all to be mindful of all the things that are working well. If you don’t have a headache, sore throat or congestion, hooray! Pay attention. We usually only notice when there is an issue. Secondly, if you are dealing with tough stuff as many of us are this year, don’t let the difficult things completely eclipse the lovely stuff that is still surrounding you. Listen to music, go someplace and be wowed by nature (the botanical gardens are a great option.) Seek out a delicious and comforting aroma; you can light a candle or even bake some cookies. The good stuff is easy to find, you just need to pay attention to it. It can be something as simple as taking a page out of my sister-in-law Barbara's book and grabbing a martini and watching reruns of the Big Bang Theory While you are at it, pay a bit of homage to that all important pinky!