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By Katie (aka The Shoe-Tying Tutorial For Grown-Ups Who Are Tired of Re-Tying Shoes All the Time!) Y’all, I am almost 35 year old and just learned a shoe tying technique that has rocked my world. It's so easy, I'm a little embarrassed that it impacted me as much as it did but here's the deal... I have 3 kids aged 3-7 and have coached a soccer team full of 5 year olds, so I have spent entirely too much of my time tying and re-tying shoes. Heck, even my own when I exercise. That is… until one of the parents on our soccer team recently showed me a way to tie shoes that won’t come untied, AND, the kids can undo it. No more tying muddy cleat laces. No more breaking nails trying to undo the knot that was pulled too tight. I mean… tell me that is not a game-changer! Since then, I have tried it on the whole soccer team and repeatedly with my kids and have not had to re-tie a shoe a single time. I know I’m not the only one who didn’t know how to do this (please tell me I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know this), so I am going to give you a short tutorial. What you will need:
Ready? Here’s a video. Steps are outlined below. Step 1: Tie your shoe like you normally would making a basic knot and then using either the loop, circle, and push through technique or bunny ear technique but don’t pull tight. Keep the hole between your basic knot and the loops open with your finger.
Step 2: Take one of the loops and lace ends and circle back through the hole. Step 3: Pull tight. THAT’S IT! It is tied in a way that it won’t come undone and the kids can untie themselves! You’re welcome. (Big thank you to Shayna from my soccer team for teaching me the most useful information I’ve learned in years)
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By Katie  The day she was admitted to the hospital. This marks the 5 year anniversary that my middle child and only daughter was admitted to the ICU for respiratory distress at only one month old. She was diagnosed with a virus called RSV (stands for Respiratory Syncytial Virus). RSV causes cold symptoms in adults but can be fatal to the very young. It was December of my 4th year of residency (and my husband's first year of fellowship) when she was born… right in the middle of the lung crud season. Being a resident, I was limited to the amount of time I could take off, so at only 5 1/2 weeks old, I dropped my newborn off at daycare. I was nervous about her age, and knew some kind of illness was inevitable, but it was one of those things I had to do. By the end of the week, she started having a cough and stuffy nose but it wasn't too bad. I took her in to her pediatrician anyway and she was diagnosed with a viral upper respiratory infection... we got a prescription for albuterol to give her if needed. She got her breathing treatments and we continued to watch her, thinking, “it’s just a cold, there’s nothing we can do.” On the night of January 24th, I was up with her because she fussy, coughing, crying (and so was I).. so I decided to make an appointment with her pediatrician. I called the appointment number in my new working mom of a sick baby fog and a nurse answered because… it turns out, you can’t make an appointment at 3:00 in the morning.  Despite my fog, I remember the next part pretty vividly. Here’s about how that conversation went… Nurse: “Hi, this is ______. Can you tell me what’s going on?” Me: “Yes, my 5 week old has had a cough and congestion this week and seems to be getting worse despite her breathing treatments. She just looks scared, if that makes any sense.” Nurse: “Ok, does she have fever?” Me: “No, that’s why I have just been watching her. I figured there was nothing we could do for her.” Nurse: “Ok, is she having retractions*?” Me: “Oh my God, I don’t know why I haven’t even thought to look. (Takes off the onesie). YES.” (Tears forming.) Nurse: “Ok, what is her respiratory rate?” Me: “Uh, let me count… (1, 2, 3… why did I not think to do this before?!?... 75, 76, 77….)… 82.. (I am so sorry, baby!)” Nurse: “She needs to go to the emergency room, NOW.” Me: (Yells for my husband to get dressed) Now hysterical: “I know! Thanks for your help!” My husband took her to the ER, I stayed home with our 2 year old because I honestly couldn't drive safely at that point between my fatigue and sobbing. She gets admitted and immediately transferred to the ICU for respiratory distress. That was the beginning of the longest 2 weeks of my life.
Our programs worked with us so we could be there as much as we could. She had to have multiple IVs, tubes in her nose, tape on her face… alarms were going off all the time. We couldn’t hold her for several days because the type of breathing help she had would put water up her nose if you tilted her the wrong way. They had to check out her heart to make sure she didn't have some other problem since she was taking so long to get better. She couldn’t eat for a couple days because it made it too hard for her to breathe. After that, she had to be tube fed for awhile, then bottle fed pumped milk to make sure she was getting the proper amount.
It took her about 12 days to be able to get all the tubes out and out of the ICU. We spent one day on the regular floor before we were able to go home. After all of that, the only thing lasting was that she never breastfed again (I did choose to pump exclusively for her first year - OMG I hate pumping, the sound of the pump, everything about it.. to this day).  The day we got to go home (and back to work). Why am I sharing this? Several reasons…
 My beautiful girl, 5 years later! I blamed myself for a long time for that, but I learned from it. My mother in law kept my third baby (born in January… the heart of the respiratory virus season, again… I apparently didn’t learn from that one) until our RSV numbers were minimal before he started at daycare. He made it through unscathed.
If you got nothing else out of this, wash your hands! 7/20/2017 2 Comments 5 Tips for a healthy family
Guest Author: Jenny Dean
AuthorJenny Dean is a special education teacher turned stay-at-home-mom of 2, yoga instructor, Ambassador for Lululemon, and is passionate about health and fitness. She enjoys spending time with her friends, family, doing and teaching yoga and Crossfit (level 1) in Frisco, TX. |
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