Mother's Day

Spending the day with my family on this special day, is the greatest gift of all. 

Taking care of our elderly loved ones

There will will come a point in our lives for us to decide how do we give back to our parents as they get older , weaker and frail that they can  not make any decisions for themselves or are too high strung to realize that they need our help.

Being exposed to the geriatric population for twenty years and counting as a profession has made it easier for me to accept and learn the difficulties that lie ahead for our parents " Golden Years". 

Determining the time we need and the financial aspect of giving back to our parents plays a big role.

How much time can you spare on top of what your daily routine has been juggling around with a family of five? That alone just goes to say we really have to practice efficient time management.

How well do your parents understand their medical condition? Do they feel that they can still do the things they used to do? At what point do we , as their children, intervene and be the medical proxy.

1. When to help out? When we start noticing signs of weakness, losing balance, sudden onset of  confusion, forgetfulness, difficulty walking, doing household chores.

2. It maybe time to get a general work up from the primary care physician and request for lab works, to see if the signs you are noticing could be a prelude to a undermining disease or infection. ( often times, urinary tract infection could be a reason why they have the signs listed above)

3. If they are capable enough of writing up a living will and advance directives, you will be empowering your parents or significant other in making that decision for themselves and it will be less of a headache on your end to decide on what needs to be done when the time comes that they can not make their own decisions. ( eg,. Do they want external life support?, feeding tube, artificial means of breathing?, intubation? ) Even as an adult, it is advisable as long as you are knowledgeable enough, to write up your own living will and advance directives. 

Spiderman birthday party

Moving forward to 2015

Letting go is the hardest endeavor a person has to do. But if you think about it, sometimes, we do have some baggage, that will forever be a part of you no matter what. It's up to us to decide if we want to set things straight and let go of the past and move forward to the future and build your own memories. It's easy to write about it, but doing the actual letting go won't be. 

Where do we start? Or should I say how? Pschying yourself up that everything has it's reason, is a good way to start. We all won't be here, if the past never happened. We would never know if things happened differently, it will turn out the same way. We won't be the better person that we are now if things didn't happen the way it should be. People get hurt, no matter what the case may be. No one can escape the fact that we all have feelings. The pain should always be a learning experience. 

No instructions, just instinct

Having a family doesn't come with instructions. It's all up to us to decipher and make our own little conclusions as to how it's supposed to be. One has to stay calm, and the other can panic all they want in any situation. A 103 fever for my 17 month old gave us the scare. My husband kept saying he was so nervous about how hot our son is. I, on the other hand, have been panicking inside, but I had to stay calm and stay positive about the situation. It is hard, but, if both of us were getting anxious,my son would end up in the emergency room and get poked with unnecessary intravenous that will forever traumatize us, as a family. 

Road Trip from New Jersey to I-95 South

Our family of 5 including our 9 month old baby boy, went on a road trip for spring break 2014 to  Outerbanks, N.C., Orlando and to Savannah. It was pretty much a 2 month preparation.
Here are some money saving tips, so your family vacation won't empty out your wallet :)

Booking the hotels through expedia.com a month and a half prior to date will save you a couple of hundreds. I recommend a hotel that has a breakfast buffet, (embassysuites.com) so you can have brunch at the same time and you will have more time to roam around.
Booked a mini van through budget.com You will save more if you choose " local rates". I needed a minivan, cause our 7 seater SUV, will be to cramped up from all of our stuff. With the mini van, I had enough leg space, while taking care of our baby  in the back seat !
Bought the theme park tickets through disney.com and universal.com on the week before  the travel, so we can skip the long lines at the parks and the credit card bill will reflect for the following month :)
Bring packs of bottled water, juice and soda.. and snacks. You are allowed to bring it inside the theme parks anyways... And you won't have to spend $8 for soda !
Ponchos !! you can definitely get it from local dollar stores instead of paying $7 for one. It will definitely be of great use.. Which we actually did use for 2 days, due to scattered showers in Orlando.
Stop by the Visitor Centers for all your destinations, you can easily get some coupons for Trolley tours which we used Oglethorpetrolleytours.com in Savannah, GA. Wrights Brothers museum discounts in Outerbanks, and Gatorland discounts.

For the kids entertainment.. And the parents sanity .. Here's a list of things I found helpful for our travel.

1. portable DVD player for the backseat.. And don't forget to rent a couple DVD's from redbox which is available all over. It was really convenient to find several gas stations along the way.
2. Tablets, iPods , diary of a wimpy kid book series.
3. During the trip, we asked our 10 & 9 y/o boys to have electronic free time and played a game of searching for license plates we rarely see in the east coast.
4. Frisbee for the beach
5. Flashlights/ wands for the theme parks and was used for ghost crab hunting at night on the beach of Outerbanks.

Overall, our trip was not stressful as I thought it would possibly be, with all preparations ahead of time you will enjoy your trip one day at a time!

First Birthday Party Ideas

The baby of our family will be turning 1 in 4 months.. I am already getting a head start in planning his first birthday celebration. I know he wont remember a single bit of this significant milestone, but I still want it to be as memorable as it could possibly be.

I have been showing some ideas to my husband, who thinks its pretty cool, were planning it early. He even pitched in the idea of a carnival themed party, so we can have cotton candy to snack on.

one thing for sure, its going to be outdoors cause its in July. A backyard party is great! - no struggle to disinfect and clean up the house.