Oh Lovely Day | Chandra Fredrick - Page 2 of 144 - Lifestyle with an honest look at motherhood. | Family, Home & Garden, DIY, Style, Wellness + Our Journey with Lyme, Mold, and PANS/PANDAS

When Your Child is Immunocompromised

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Clorox Clinical. All opinions are 100% mine.

There may be nothing scarier than being the parent of a child who is immunocompromised while a global pandemic is occurring. Over the last 15 months our family has navigated the world of caring for a child with several chronic illnesses (that have behavioral and mental health symptoms, which is a whole extra layer of hard) while also trying to live in a COVID-19 world. This means that, for us, every excursion out in the world and every time we bring things into our home that we could be putting our son in a life-threatening situation. Living like that for over a year will mess with your head and make it feel extra hard to (even slowly) reintegrate into a sense of normalcy in the world. We are coming up with coping strategies and ways to feel safer as we begin to go outside of our home and our safe bubble. But something that I’ve learned since my son was diagnosed with PANS/PANDAS (an autoimmune illness that causes encephalitis in the brain when the immune system is triggered, resulting in severe behavioral and mental health symptoms) is that it doesn’t take a virus like COVID-19 to send him into a severe flare. A stomach virus, a bacterial infection, even a mild cold can be a major setback in his recovery. Our kids have really learned how to properly wash their hands. They have gotten really good about not touching their faces or putting their hands in their mouths. They are comfortable wearing masks. But we know that if(when) they return to school this fall, or when we do anything in public and around others, that the germs will return to our environment. It is simply a part of living life in the world. And as all parents know, once one kid has it…

So aside from mentally preparing for this, what is a parent — especially a parent or caregiver of an immunocompromised kiddo — to do? Feeling prepared for the inevitable germs goes a long way to making all of this easier, and the new line of Clorox Clinical cleaning and disinfecting products will definitely be a part of my Germ Preparation Toolkit. (more…)

4 Things You Should Be Doing in Your Garden from Seed & Vine

Hi guys! It’s been a minute since I was able to post here. There’s a ton going on at our house right now, including a major mold remediation and some renovations around our home. (You can read our whole story here if you missed it or also follow along on Instagram). I originally had some fun garden content planned for the blog, as well as a garden makeover planned here at home, which all got sidelined when we found hidden mold in our home and realized what a huge undertaking and expense remediation would be. Maybe we’ll revisit that next spring! So for now I thought it would be fun to have my friend Annie from Seed & Vine share some tips on what you should be doing in your garden right now. (more…)

A Healing Lyme and PANS/PANDAS Update + One of Our Favorite Aids in the Healing Process

We’re about 5 months into our Healing Lyme journey with my son Charlie and we’ve come a long way. Our day-to-day is now a mix of life before Lyme (which is wonderful!), walking on eggshells when we can tell it’s needed, the occasional (a couple times a week) emotional outburst/panic attack), and a daily routine of supplements, OTC meds, herbals, and antibiotics. It still takes all of that to keep his inflammation at bay and his moods and progress stable. His OCD is still very present, though not debilitating like it was before. He still has food restrictions. I describe it like having food aversions when pregnant — how something you used to love now turns your stomach and the thought of it makes you ill. That is how he reacts to some (many) foods now. He can’t even look at them. I might make him something he ate the week prior and then the next week he looks at it and flies into a panic. It’s getting better, but it’s still there. (more…)

Activities and Free Learning Resources for Quarantining With Kids due to Coronavirus COVID-19

Hi there! How are you doing? Are you feeling the Coronavirus / COVID-19 anxiety? As a mom of children with wonky immune systems (thanks to the autoimmune disease PANS/PANDAS + Lyme Disease and co-infections) and a person who struggles with anxiety myself, I’ve had to balance being prepared and aware with turning off the news and trying to focus on things here at home and staying positive. I think that, for me, I feel better just surrendering to our circumstances and hunkering down at home with my family, taking deep breaths, and trying to find the positives in this slow down. I know my husband and I are very lucky because we work from home and are able to do this without too much hardship. I feel for those of you who are facing bigger challenges professionally, economically, and logistically.

For those who will be quarantining at home with kids, I thought I would share the activity list my kids and I made that we’ll refer to when we feel bored or to help keep a bit of structure to our days (my PANS kiddo especially does better with structure because it helps keep his OCD at bay when he’s busy). So here’s our list, along with links to some of our favorite board and card games: (more…)

Car Safety Tips When Driving With Kids

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. All opinions are mine alone. #SOLOLifeSensor #CollectiveBias

Driving with kids: it can be fun, loud, crazy, and sometimes miserable. Balancing everyone’s needs in the car while actually driving a car can be quite a feat. On top of the responsibility to keep your kids safe while on the road are the day to day demands of caregiving that can leave you hurried and distracted in your normal routine. While you may not have control over other drivers, you can make sure that children are properly protected in your own car. Here are some things I do or use to keep my kids safe while we’re driving in the car. (more…)

Surviving Cold, Flu, and Coronavirus Season

This post couldn’t have come at a more perfect time – I’ve just gotten over the flu, my older son has a double ear infection and pink eye, and I’m just holding my breath to see what the baby ends up with. It seems like so many of us are dealing with a particularly nasty cold and flu season. And as frustrated as I am with the sickness, I can’t help but consider us lucky: lucky that this is the worst we have it, and lucky that we have healthcare that enables us to go to the doctor and get medicine we need. I kid you not, I’ve been to the pediatrician almost weekly for the last two months.

So I thought I would share some of my tips for surviving this germ-filled season (besides taking your kid out of preschool for the duration, which I’ve been tempted to do myself…) (more…)