At least some good news. Today I did a mammography and a scan and it seems my boobs are just fine. Small but healthy.

I miss updating this blog but with all the back pain issue and physiotherapy I’ve been trying to spend little time in the computer at home. In the office I try to read my emails and update as I can.

This week I’m having physiotherapy at the end of the afternoon instead of lunch time, this way I come home after the treatment instead of spending 4,5 hours in the office after the treatment. With this schedule change I hope that treatment is more efficient.

Today I had a different treatment, half the time it was the regular one and the second half a massage. The person that did the massage (therapist’s wife) told me that my back and neck muscles are all “stressed”. I really need to relieve the stress. Tomorrow it’s normal treatment and Thursday I’ll have a massage again.

Monday I started my physiotherapy treatments, therefore I spend my lunch hour on a physiotherapy Gym doing treatments to my back.

I must say treatments really feel good, I spend one hour laying down on my tummy having hot patches and electrodes electro therapy) on my back. To finalize the session the therapist does an ultrasound treatment and a massage. The massage can be very painful because he presses the points that are causing the pain. Today I can say I had more pain after the treatment than before, he really made a lot of pressure on one particular muscle that is causing the pain on my neck.

I really look forward to see some good results, I’m really tired of so much pain and I want to be able to turn my head left without feeling pain. This is something I long for 8 months…yes, I probably should have asked for help before but I was always hoping it would go away.

Tomorrow is treatment Nr. 5 and next week probably 5 more to go.

It’s Thursday already, time flies away so quickly.

Kids are already going to school. The return was quite smooth and today I made the experience of taking Catherine to preschool myself. Last year daycare took her to preschool because it was the only way for her to stay there without crying. Today I took her myself and she behaved perfectly. She just asked me to wait for the teacher to arrive and afterwards I gave her a kiss and said goodbye, no tears, no screaming. I guess this year I’ll be able to take her to school myself without tantrums.

Dani is back to his school, to his friends and to his teacher. Last year he had four teachers (it was a mess) and he (and I) is happy that this year he will have only one teacher the whole year. For now and regarding sports, he will be attending only swimming lessons with school, no extra activities for now. I guess soccer was not the right sport for him…

For both of them I had to buy school material and only today I was able to buy the last items needed. Working 8 hours plus lunch hour in physiotherapy I end up with no free time to shop, but now I can say they have all the material the teachers requested.

Tomorrow we’ll have a exciting day. Tomorrow it’s the first day of preschool and school. I’ll have two presentation meeting at both my kids schools. I don’t know yet how I will be managing that but here’s what I’m thinking:

8.45am: leave Catherine in daycare and they will take her to preschool

9.00am: I’ll be at Dani school for the first meeting, probably presentation of the new teacher and subjects regarding how the scholar year is going to be.

??.00 am: I leave Dani school and I’ll head to Catherine preschool to talk to the teacher and take Catherine back to daycare.

The other option is taking Catherine to Dani school and then take her to preschool. The problem is that school meetings usually take too long and she’ll get impatience. I really want to take her to preschool myself but the truth is I can’t be in both places at the same time.

Then I have to go to work (where I should have been since 9.00am).

12.30: Lunch hour…well I only have time for a snack because…at 13:00am I’ll be at the physiotherapy center to start my shoulder and back therapy. This will take 1 hour so I’ll for sure arrive at work a little after time (usually 14.00pm) maybe at 14.15pm.

Leave work a little earlier at 18:15 (usually 18:30) because I have to pick up the kids at daycare and head to Dani school for a second meeting.

20:00pm I have dentist appointment.

As you can see I’ll have a very busy day. You can ask: why don’t your husband goes to one school and you go to the other? Well, I take care of school matters so I have to handle this. Also, for my husband it’s difficult to manage his work with all these school activities but if it had to be…

I said before that I didn’t want to write again about the pain I’ve been going through these last few months but I have to. Pain is part of my daily life and still hasn’t gone away. After 1,5 months waiting for an appointment with my family doctor, after months of shoulder and back pain, months of pills and injections, I’m fed up and tired of feeling so much pain.

Yesterday I called a private physiotherapist, who I know very well once both our kids went to the same pre-school, and Monday he will study my case and physiotherapy sessions will start the same day. I’m going to use my lunch hour to do the physiotherapy, this way my boss won’t protest about missing work one hour a day.

I wasn’t counting on this extra bill so I hope I can get some paid posts to earn enough money to pay the bill. Right now I just want to get better and to feel less or even no pain at all.

Another pain, a tooth that is being treated and got an infection. I took antibiotic and I’ll be returning to the dentist office Monday but guess what, the pain hasn’t gone away.

What is wrong with me? Why is the pain all over me?

If we think that Little Red Riding Hood has an animal eating a old woman…yes…fairy tales can be really scary. Fairy-Tales are filled with beasts, shoreless seas, swords, peril, etc., of course they also stimulate the imagination but, if you are worried, here are some advises:

• Tell the stories during daytime
• Start with the less violent stories like The Ugly Duckling.
• Promote a discussion: ask the child what he/she thinks about the story and the characters
• Build your own version if you think the original one is very violent

Entertaining our children nowadays is quite easy, maybe too easy. We tend to let them watch too much television and play too much electronic games but I think that not all TV programs and games are that bad.

Although my son has a PlayStation 2 and we are able to control the games he buys and plays, he prefers to Play Games Online and this scare me a bit. We all know that on the big WWW things can get out of control and children might access some dangerous/not appropriate for age sites. My son likes to play games with high volume so I always know what he is playing.

He has a favorite site that is Gamerevolt.com and here he has a wide variety of online games. This site is very easy to use and although English is not his mother language he gets around really well.

He clicks in Play Arcade Games and he gets a list of all the games available for this category. His favorites here are: Dragon Fist 2, Jungle Master and Mars Fighter. Of course everyday he finds new and attractive games and his priorities are always changing.

He’s quite a fan of sports games (although he’s not very sporty) so, when he wants to get sporty online he just presses Play Sports Games and there he goes. Here it’s difficult for him to choose the favorites because he likes to play several sports but I noticed that he has preference for: Bowling Master, Wakeboarding XS and Flash Golf.

Once he is a very active boy, these games make him quiet for a while. I guess he just wastes some energy playing them and he can even concentrate himself (something really difficult for him to do) on the more tactical and strategic games where concentration and memory is needed.

Usually while I work in the office I turn on the radio and listen to music during the day. The disadvantage is that there are many publicity spots, political and accident news. What if I can listen to music and at the same time listen to parenting advices, with My Baby Radio.com I can.

My Baby Radio.com is a UK radio that broadcasts worldwide, I listen to it in Portugal and the sound is terrific. Many parenting advices throughout the day, excellent music and really helpful information is available in the site.

The My Baby Radio.com has a blog that is always updated with the latest gossips, radio interviews and much more.

Get online, turn My Baby Radio.com on and have an excellent day.

I don’t really know if my daughter has a strong personality, what I know is that she drives me insane with her authority and refusal to do what I say even if she know I’ll be mad at her. She’s so stubborn and she really wants things to happen the way she wants. When I contradict her she just throws things on the floor, wants to beat me, etc. Of course this is not her normal behavior, she usually is a very sweet girl, giving me a lot of kisses and hugs, but when I say NO she just goes mad and wants to mark her territory. This same situation happens from time to time in daycare.

My son had this type of behavior when he was younger but he was a lot easier to control, my daughter is difficult to deal with.

My main problem and my problem of every day is being a full time worker. Why? Because it leaves me very, very little time to be with her although this is not an excuse. Most of the times she has this behavior while I’m doing activities (cooking, cleaning, on the computer, etc. ) and I think she knows I’ll be busy to give her full attention, could it be? On the other hand I know full time workers with so well behaved kids.

What am I doing wrong? Can it be her testing my patience to see if I give up contradicting her?

Well, I believe this type of behavior will go away as she grows older.