2011 Reading Goal

Photo from Flickr.com

In an effort to keep my mind active, last year I decided I wanted to try and read 50 books. I'm a readers that reads in spurts. It's not often I will pick up a book or make a point to read but I would try to catch a series or I would read a book on recommendation if enough people mentioned it.

I had been struggling, when Paul went back to school, because I felt like I was spending a LOT of time in front of the TV and that needed to change and it needed to change fast. Early last year I had also started working out regularly (something I'm still working on getting back into this year) and I was trying to find things to keep my attention while I was working out. I didn't want to go to the gym and just watch the TV's there as that was part of the problem I was trying fix. I liked running to the music on our iPod but I didn't have any playlists that really motivated me and the few songs I had listened to a thousand times were starting to get old. Because I still needed something to occupy my mind and distract me from the physical task at hand, I decided that maybe I should pick up reading. I started off with magazines and small things like that but it was hard to get invested in them. I started reading the Harry Potter series at the beginning of the year and thought that maybe I could/should really get better at reading all together. After completing that series I decided to give myself a goal for the whole year. To make myself accountable I had told Paul about it because I was actually a little excited about the idea. He eagerly supported the idea but also pointed out that if I were to read 50 books in a year I would have to read approximately one book at week and I was already in March or April (I can't remember exactly when I made the decision to try). I was pretty sure I could make it because if I could get into a book and REALLY like it, it doesn't take me long to complete it. I figured I just had to stick to different series' because I could read those faster than a single book as I always wanted to get on to what's "next". Unfortunately I still have a mild fear of the library and our public library has been under construction for the last year so it made me even more apprehensive to go in. By pushing to reach my goal, I been forced to get over my hesitation, although I still have to talk myself out of buying a book in place of checking it out, and I feel like I did a good job making sure I was actively looking for books. The only problem I found was that most of the books I wanted to read were already checked out and I was always 10+ back on the list when I finally got in to request a book. That's the hard part about reading books based on recommendation, right?

By the end of the year I managed to read 28 books total. For starting so late I figured that wasn't too bad. I struggled to get into a few of the ones I picked up but my rule is always to give a book 100 pages before I'd give up on it. Most of the ones I struggled with took me a week or two to get through the first 100 pages, however once I finally got to page 100 the books suddenly got interesting and most were completed in a few days after that.

Here are the books I was able to read in 2010:

1. The Lost Symbol
2. Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone
3. Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
4. Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban
5. Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire
6. Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix
7. Harry Potter and the Half Blood Prince
8. Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows
9. The Fire and the Covenant
10. The Brothers
11. Where Angles Fall
12. The Second Sun
13. Fury and Light
14. From the End of Heaven
15. Clear as the Moon
16. Life of Pi
17. The Kite Runner
18. Hunger Games
19. Catching Fire
20. Mocking Jay
21. Christmas Jars
22. The Wednesday Letters
23. Recovering Charles
24. Icy Sparks
25. The Moses Stone
26. The Help
27. The Storytellers Daughter
28. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
    

This next year I'm going to try it again. I'm going to go for 50 books in 2011. I've already finished my first book, although I technically started it in 2010 so I don't know if I should count it for this year or last year. I've got a short list of books that I want to read already but I still need suggestions. If you're willing to suggest anything I'd LOVE it. My only request is that you don't suggest a series that isn't complete yet. I loathe waiting for a book in a series and I don't want to fight anyone else for it at the library, like I would have had to do if I waited for the Hunger Games Series if my wonderful neighbor hadn't let me borrow hers. The on hold list here was 90+ people long for Mocking Jay, when it finally came out... Yuck!!!

At the end of the year I'll post my progress and see if I did any better than this year. I really think I can do it but it is something I have to commit myself to doing it. I'm not a natural born reader so this really is a challenge for me. I'm excited to keep my mind active, and away from vegging out in front of the TV. I hope that I can find some good books this year.

Wish me luck!!

Laryngomalacia

I've been staring at this page for a few days now trying to figure out how I would write this post. I'm still not 100% sure where or how to start so I'm just going to type and see what comes out. As most of you know for the last month or so we've been taking Colby in to our family doctor to find out why he seems to struggle with breathing and why he makes so much noise when he breathes. We've recently learned that it is because of a condition called Laryngomalacia (it's said exactly like it's spelt). CincinnatiChildrens.org says, "Laryngomalacia is best described as floppy tissue (epiglottis and arytenoid cartilages) above the vocal cords that falls into the airway when a child breaths in."

As we learn more about this I wonder if Riann didn't have the same condition when she was born. Because of this I don't worry too much about things getting any worse than they are now, however, a lot of the sites that I've read say that there is a chance things can worsen at four to eight months, that worries me just a little. Riann was much quieter than Colby's is so I never pursed it when the doctor's told me it wasn't too much to worry about. I toke her in a few times thinking she was congested but was always told that her airways were clear, even though she never sounded like it. I figured the doctors would tell me if there was a problem and just nicknamed her our little Pug.

This time around I've watched Colby struggle to breath and I'm grateful for a doctor who has taken the time to listen to me and take my concerns seriously. I'm grateful that nothing was seriously wrong with Riann as we learn more about everything with Colby. When we first brought Colby in our doctor took the time to watch him and didn't just cancel out the sounds Colby was making when he checked over the other general things doctors check for. Because of this we have been able to find out quickly what we're dealing with so we can quickly treat it. It has also given me peace of mind because now I can do my own research and find accurate information and have some validation that I'm not stressing out over nothing.

We have recently been down to Primary Children's in Salt Lake City and have talked to the pediatric ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat) doctor out there. Based on what he's observed he feels like Colby is not bad enough to warrant immediate surgery but struggles enough that he wants to try a few more test. We have the option to forgo the tests and go straight into surgery but we're not sure that's the direction we want to go just yet. Our second option is to have Colby under go a sleep study. Where Colby isn't having too much trouble eating and is regularly gaining weight, although it's not as much as they would like, the ENT at Children's was on the fence about rushing us straight to the operating room. It's hard to say if Colby is not gaining weight because of the condition or if he will just be following the same pattern that Riann is on and will just be really tall and lean. He's in the 95th percentile for his height and between the 25th and 50th percentile for his weight. He has been gaining pretty steadily but he didn't lost a ton after he was born so from his "take home" weight to the weight he's at now, it's not the growth they like to see in children his age. That being said he has still gained approximately three to four pounds in the two months since we've had him and he is noticeably filling out. So overall he seems to be doing good.

Another reason the doctor out at Children's is concerned is because Colby is not sleeping as long as he should at night. Some nights he'll go a full six to eight hours but most of the time he does two, four hour stretches and then a smaller two hour stretch. I'm not 100% sure if he's waking up because I force him up because he's still in our room and I'm worried about him waking up Paul, who needs his sleep for his early classes at school, or if he's really waking up on his own. I wonder if we moved him out of our room if he'd sleep longer on a regular basis but the doctors have asked us to stay with him until we have more answers. I've thought about moving into a different room with him but we don't have a bed (or air mattress) for me to sleep on yet. One of the main questions the doctor asked us during our last appointment was, "Does he gasp for air at night?", I had to think back when he asked me that and I did remember a few times in the last month where he has paused and gasped. This is also another thing we wonder about. I didn't think twice about it when I noticed it because I just assumed it was due to his reflux, that he was spitting up while he was falling asleep. I was always cautious and stayed close when he did it so I could intervene if needed but he's always slept on his side so I wasn't too concerned about him aspirating it. Now we are wondering if he's been doing this because of the Laryngomalacia or if it was in fact his reflux acting up at night, when his medicine starts to wear off. The ENT doctor told us if the pausing and gasping is due to the reflux we are okay to wait it out and to keep treating the reflux with the medicine he is currently on. However, if he is pausing and gasping because of the condition we will have to do surgery because the condition could be causing sleep apnea and, just like in adults, sleep apnea can lead to high blood pressure and heart problems in children.

The hard part about this condition is that it's hard to pinpoint what leads to which symptoms. We are slowly learning with each test that he is doing good and we hope that if we do this sleep study we'll learn that we can bypass surgery. However, my mind has been put at ease if we do have to take the surgery route because it doesn't sound like it's too invasive. I would like to avoid putting him under for anything that we don't have to though.

All this being said I have no feelings that this is going to be worse than what they describe on the various websites that I've read although it's not easy to simply think "it's not THAT bad" when you listen to him. I know we're doing better with it because when we went home for Christmas it bothered those who hadn't spent too much time with him much more than it bothered us but it is something that sits in the back of ours mind on a regular basis. It's a little weird to think that this morning I couldn't go back to sleep because I COULDN'T hear him breathing. There are periods of time where he breaths completely normal, especially if he gets his head in exactly the right position and I feel like I have to check on him more often when he does that, even though I know he's fine.

As we learn more I'll try to update more. I'm still not the type of Blogger I'd like to be but I was told by someone that most blogs are best written when you just write and not stress about how many pictures you have or if there's a point to what you're saying. It's about getting it down. I'm working on just getting it down more often, not just for you guys but for myself.

Thank you for listening, for those of you who still do.

Side by Side

I finally got instruction on how to do collages in Picasa and got to play with some of the pictures I wanted to put together. It was fun to see their similarities and how different they are slowly becoming. I can't wait to do more and see how much they change in the future.

I hope you enjoy. I can't wait to play with more images like this.