Another year gone

Well, I'm 34 now. So far it doesn't feel much different than 33. It doesn't seem too much different than 33. Now when I hit 35, that just screams middle age. My wonderful husband got me a pillow. My poor pillows were in such sad shape. I hardly washed the pillow cases because the pillows had rips and feathers would go everywhere. But they were very comfortable squishy pillows and I couldn't find any that I liked. This seems like it will do the job quite nicely, thank you very much.
I'm not feeling all that philosophical about this birthday. Yeah, I never imagined myself with a son going into second grade, a daughter going into first, getting ready to potty train another kid, and a walking baby that I worry about not eating. I never imagined being crazy enough to be leading a Brownie troop, MOPS discussion group, and having a job in the PTA. If 34 is like 33, I'm going to have a great year.

What a week!

Perry was gone this week to Louisiana. I dread him leaving, not just because I'll miss him and I hate to do the single mom thing, but almost every time that he leaves, something MAJOR breaks. I've had the car fan die, my apartment start to flood in a hurricane, and the main breaker to our house go in the middle of summer. This week, I had the fan on our 3 month old fridge die. Luckily, they were able to come and repair it the next day, and I had our old fridge in the garage, so losses were minimal. I let the new fridge cool to the right temperature all day, then moved the food over. About 5 minutes after I finished moving all of the food over, the power went out. Go and check the houses around me, no power. Call a friend of mine down the street. Her husband said that he heard an explosion right before the power went out. Great. Took the kids to the park for an hour. Saw the electric guys checking all the boxes. Come home and still no power. I decide to make a little run to the Publix down the street just in case this isn't a temporary thing. Grab some dry ice and M&Ms (a must have in every emergency) and come home to find the lights on in the house. The neighbour next door said that the lights had been on for about 5 minutes, so if I had waited another 15 minutes, I wouldn't have had to make the trip. But I also wouldn't have my M&Ms either. Silver lining. So the next day I decide to take the kids to McDonald's. Turning right out of the subdivision, I hit the curb. Hard. Great. Say a little prayer and keep driving. No noise, no pulling. Just before I get to the first place that I could pull off the road, the noise and pulling start. I quickly moved over into the right turn lane of a little subdivision. The tire is decimated. There is a hole the size of the tire jack handle in the sidewall (as I found out later). I open the back of the van and call Perry. I can't decide if I want to cry or laugh, so I do both. Caleb had done this very same thing (back right instead of front right tire on the same curb) with Perry a few months ago, so he was talking me through how to get the jack out. I was such a mess. Just after I got the jack out and was about to figure out how to get the spare down, a man pulled over and helped me out. He showed me the hole. It really was the hand of God getting me there. I went back and looked at the other 4 places I could've pulled over at along the way- 2 were parking lots of churches (not very populated on a Thursday), and the other 2 were side streets into small subdivisions. I probably would still be trying to figure out how to get the darn tire on if I hadn't gotten to where I ended up. An hour at the tire store and we were on our way. I know Perry's at home for at least the next 2 weeks, so I think I'll go into hibernation as soon as he walks in the door.

The Relative Quiet Is Almost Over

The bus comes in 50 minutes, dropping my two oldest off from school for the entire summer. I need to come up with a routine for them, or they're going to drive me crazy with their bickering. I've made up a rough outline of everyday chores, and I've decided to really restrict their tv/video games/computer time. We'll see how well this goes over. My 3 year old will have the hardest time, I think.
My fun for the summer will be Ferberizing my baby and potty training the 3 year old. I'm going to have to focus on those days in the future that I'll be able to get my exercising done first thing in the morning and not having to worry about waking up the baby. I've been able to do the Pilates in the morning without waking her up, but the treadmill is too loud. And the thought of having the house quiet at 8:30 every night- pure heaven!
Forty minutes and counting....

Jet lag

This week has gone by in a fog. We went to Phoenix for our best friend's daughter's sealing last Saturday. We left Atlanta at 9:30 p.m. and turned out the lights in our hotel room at 12:30 (3:30). We woke up at 5:30, trying to convince our bodies that it was 8:30 to them (our bodies then replied that if we were playing that game, we went to bed at 3:30). We drove over to my mom's house to surprise her and take her out to breakfast. We put Anneliese (the other kids had a weekend at Grandpa's) in her car seat with a note saying "Can I take you to breakfast?" on the front porch. We knocked on the door and hid around the corner of the house. My mom stood there dumbfounded. She was telling herself it was Anneliese, but there was no way it could be Anneliese. We popped out of hiding, and since she was about 5 minutes away from going to get her car's oil changed (the one snag in surprising someone), she was dressed and ready to go, so we got to spend 2 hours with her. We then left to drop the baby off with our friend's 3rd daughter so we could do a temple session with Perry's parents before the sealing. We finished the session with about 30 minutes to spare. About 15 minutes before the sealing, we were starting to get worried. We had seen only other people we knew. Perry went off to see if he could find someone else when he ran into the daughter we were surprising, who had just arrived. She didn't get it at first, asking him why he was there. He said, "Well, why are you here?". She started crying. It was a hard secret to keep for all those weeks, but it was worth it. I love temple sealings. Other than the fact that you have the knowledge that you are sealed to your spouse for time and all eternity, you learn so much. During the session before, I had something pop out to me that I hadn't noticed before, and the sealer ended up talking about it. After the sealing, Perry mentioned what the sealer had talked about and how that that had popped out to him for the first time earlier. We then met up with his parents to go show them the baby (the other sister was babysitting for some of the other kids, so the baby was at the temple), then we headed off to the get together. We left Phoenix at 10:45 p.m. (2:45 a.m.). We had a last minute stopover in Dallas to pick up a donor heart and got into Atlanta at 6 a.m. We got to my dad's house at 7, Perry sat on the couch and slept for 2 hours. We got home at 9:30 and I slept from 10-4. I have been dragging ever since. I have taken 2 hour naps on two days and haven't done a whole heck of a lot cleaning wise. My dad just called and said that since we hadn't talked all week that he wanted to make sure that we were showing up for my stepbrother, stepsister, and sister-in-law's birthday dinner since we hadn't talked about it since Sunday. I was going to call him because I hadn't heard if we were doing anything or not. I still don't remember talking about this on Sunday. I think I'll go to bed early tonight. *yawn*

Divine protection

Yesterday was pretty scary. Caleb had his first field trip involving a sack lunch. When he was getting off the bus, it looked like he had been in a fight- his eyes were really swollen and there were a few red blotches on his face. When he got to me, I recognized it as an allergic reaction. Took him in, popped a few Benadryl in him, and asked him about his field trip. They had gone to a museum with a chocolate exhibit and I told him that if they handed out samples he couldn't have any because of his peanut allergy. He then told me that he had a peanut butter sandwich in his sack lunch. He had opened the sandwich to see what it was. His teacher said that she didn't notice the swelling or blotches, but when DH came home 4 hours after me giving the Benadryl, he could still see it. We've never come up with a field trip plan so I know his Epipens weren't with him. I am soooo thankful that Heavenly Father granted me this "freebie" to learn from. I wrote the principal and teacher, and needless to say, we will have a plan in place for the rest of his school career.

Supper at a comedy club

We were eating dinner at home tonight. Michaela noted that Anneliese, our one-year-old was picking her nose (more like just sticking her finger in there). After a few seconds of her going, "Ewww", Caleb piped up, "I eat my boogers when I'm hungry". Good thing my chair had sides, or I would've been rolling on the floor. I told him that I never wanted to hear that he was hungry and wanted a snack ever again. Kids.

Adrenaline rushes

So much for lazy Sunday afternoons! The family and I were waiting for our Home Teachers to show up and gathering what we would need for choir practice. The Home Teachers show up, Perry and I sit around with them chitchatting. Caleb then comes in, crying. In between sobs, we get the story that he had stabbed himself with his Epipen Jr. in the hand. OH CRAP!!!! I ran into the living room. Anneliese had apparently learned how to unzip the diaper bag (which I had left on the floor for the first time instead of putting it straight into the closet when we got home from Church) and Caleb decided to see how the pen worked. The HT helped give Caleb a blessing (good timing) while I called the Nurses Helpline. They gave me the number to Poison Control, which I called while Perry got his and Caleb's shoes on. They told me to put his finger in warm water and go straight to the ER. Perry took off and I found the literature inside the Epipen, since I remembered a warning about not sticking yourself in your hand. Yep, go straight to the ER because it will restrict blood flow. Perry got to the ER, and Poison Control had already advised them that we were coming (gotta love 'em!). Before he could say why he was there, a nurse came up and told the guy at the front desk that they were shut down to new cases. The guy looked at Perry and said, "I guess you heard what she said." Perry then said that his son had shot himself in the hand with his Epipen and the nurse said, "I guess we're open for one more" and brought him straight back. They determined that even though there was pain and the finger wasn't as pink as normal, the fact that there was still blood flow to the tip of the finger kept us out of "panic mode". After talking to the hand specialist, they applied nitroglycerin paste to his finger and put it in a heat pack. Perry then slept pretty much the next hour and Caleb watched a Harry Potter movie. They were sent home with instructions to keep a heat pack on it until bedtime and keep an eye out on the colour. Caleb showed them how he activated the pen, and he's very lucky. They said that because it was half-strength and he didn't get it fully into his hand (the needle barely went in), "panic mode" was adverted. If he had gotten it fully into his hand, it would've shut down blood flow to the entire hand.
I spent this time recovering from my own adrenaline rush. By the time I called my dad, I was in the shakes aftermath. And on the hunt for chocolate. Hey, if it works against Dementors, it should help here, right? I found 6 Hershey Kisses left over from Easter, which my dad said was enough to give me the energy to hunt for more chocolate. He asked if I had any ice cream to go with them, and I told him I didn't, but that I had some chocolate pudding. Which would go well with the vanilla pudding. I never got into the puddings, but I had about 3 Dr. Peppers. Normally I charge myself for every soda past my morning one, but I think I'm going to let these be freebies, lol.
Whew, what a day. I don't think I'll ever be an adrenaline junkie. Too stressful!

Happy Birthday Michaela!

Six years old today. Boy, how time flies!! Mischa was by far my toughest C-section recovery. I couldn't lie down and remember hating my hospital roommate for being able to toss and turn in bed. I slept semi-sitting for over a month. I also had my first bout of postpartum depression with her. I remember sitting on the couch, looking into her sweet face when she was about a month old, and seeing that sweet smile for the first time. She has since grown up into quite the young lady. I think she truly does believe that she is a princess. She loves to draw, and has quite the eye for shading and detail (she tackled a Chinese pagoda last year). She always has a smile on her face and tries her hardest to always do what's right. She is a great sister and a great daughter. Some boy is going to be very lucky 20 years from now. I love you, Michaela!!

Poor, poor Anneliese

Yesterday my baby, Anneliese, turned 1. The big 1, and I didn't post. Hopefully this isn't an indication of what being the fourth has in store for her. I tend to think of the 1st birthday as more for the parents than the kid. My stepmother was going to call, then said, "it's not like she'll remember I was a day late". First birthdays and Christmases are pretty boring around here. My oldest daughter, Michaela, will be 6 next week, and I had a niece born 3 days ago, so my stepmom is a pretty busy lady right now. We're going to have a shared party for my daughters, with me doing the cakes. My other kids had really nice first birthday cakes (I do cake decorating), but with most of my stuff still in boxes, and the fact that no one is going to eat 2 cakes, I'm trying to find a way to scale down. I'm thinking cupcakes this year.
I wanted to wait to post until I got a picture of her, but I forgot to 1: tell Perry to help me with it, and 2: even if I did #1, I took the camera with me to take pictures of my new niece. Such is my life.
Kristin, the cute new niece



























Noone got to escape the birthday hats, not even my 93-year-old grandmother (whose preferred drink of the evening was strawberry milk, as you can see).

I'm now a WAHM

I've been a SAHM since I became pregnant with Caleb, my first. I worked as a veterinary technician and in a small town, working in a small vet clinic, I would've been pretty useless (no x-rays, cat kennel duty, etc.) and I didn't think anyone would want to hire me for the short-term, so I used my pregnancy to unpack from our recent move. I'm not the worst housekeeper, but I'm definately not the best. The house is usually ready for drop in visitors, thanks to Flylady, but some of the little things weren't getting done. In January, I made out my resolution list and a daily checklist of things I wanted to do each day to make those goals. It worked for about a month, then I noticed that the small things were slipping through the cracks again. I was never like this when I was working. The details were my pride and joy. My hair bows matched my scrubs, I labeled everything at the clinic, I colour-coded our surgery packs. Where was this person now? I needed her now more than ever!! Today is the first day back on the job. I'm not as work now, play later as I once was. I think that was my downfall earlier. I'm also paying myself. When Perry saw the payment plan I had on my to do list, he was upset, as he felt that I should know that I can buy whatever I want, no explanation or accountability to him. I explained that I knew that, but I need a little inspiration. I'm paying myself $1/day when I finish my daily chores. Losing weight is tied into that, too. At my weekly weigh-in, each pound lost or gained is worth a dollar, be it added or subtracted to my total (I felt it was necessary to tie in some negative reinforcement). I let myself have a soda a day, and any extra soda is worth $.50. If I go to Wendy's and buy my son's meal, that comes out of my balance. I know $1/day is pretty low for all I do in the day, but I figure that most of what I make will be spent out on my Saturday grocery shopping lunch, or a stop by Wendy's in the middle of a hectic day out. If I make more, I'll go out more, which is not good for either the waistline or the bank account. I'm going to throw in little incentive extras along the way, such as making a weight loss goal, or doing extra work in a different zone. I hope this system will let me stay on top of the kids' daily destruction, as well as regain control of the house, little by little.

Sick babies

There is nothing more pathetic than a sick baby. With both of my girls, you can see it in their eyes that they are sick. The baby has had a fever for the past few days and her little cheeks get so pink when the Tylenol wears off. She acts fine when she's dosed up, but you can definately tell when it's almost time to give her more. She's all cuddly and still while you're awake with her, but in bed she tosses and turns nonstop. I fell asleep with her inbetween my husband and I and woke up with my legs corraling her in- it looks like she fell asleep after climbing over one leg and never got to the next one. On the exciting side, she took her first real steps tonight!!

Happy St. Perry's Day!

Today is my wonderful husband's birthday. He has a twin brother named Patrick (the name was already picked out and they were several weeks overdue, so it wasn't his parents trying to be all cutesy). In our house, we celebrate St. Perry's Day. And a saint my husband is, to put up with me. He is the kindest, most loving, gentle, fair, happy guy I could've found. He is a wonderful father and makes up for all of my shortcomings as a mother. He is hard working and doesn't complain. He loves me just the way I am. He is truly my best friend. I love you, Perry.

It doesn't get any better than this

Nothing is better than a warm baby sleeping on your chest. The slow, rhythmic breathing. The way the blond tufts of hair on her head waft gently whenever you breathe out. The way she lifts up her head, groggily opens her eyes...and head butts you in the mouth. Ouch.

I'm a slacker

This is our latest family picture. The really sad thing is that our soon-to-be-born baby is turning one in two weeks. I just got Joshua in for his 3 year-old pictures and he turned 3 in November. Life got pretty crazy with traveling to a wedding, kids taking turns getting sick, and the holidays. I really need to be more on the ball for birthday pictures this year, especially in the fall when I have to get Christmas pictures, too.

And just so she doesn't feel left out, this is a picture of the baby, Anneliese, at a few months old. I have older pictures on the digital camera, but my mind keeps telling me uploading is harder than it really is (I think just finding the cables is the hardest part, lol).

Bring on the gypsies

I have a 3 year-old boy for sale. In addition to the previous 3 bottles of lotion, he's added another bottle of lotion, half a bottle of carpet shampoo, several small bottles of bubble bath, a brand-new bottle of conditioner (my house smells really good now), a large bottle of white acrylic paint (we have dark green carpet), and a small bottle of green acrylic paint. I've gone through a whole roll of paper towels just on the paint alone. *sigh* My mantra is going to be "just adding ammo for the teen years, just adding ammo for the teen years".

Careful what you wish for

After complaining that my favourite blogs haven't been updated, I've been swamped at home so much that I haven't had a lot of time to even check the state of those blogs. My husband, Perry, tore a tendon in his calf a week ago and has been couch or bed-bound, while his foot elevates. Our oldest son, Caleb, is possibly ADHD and we're filling out diagnostic forms for that. Our youngest son, Joshua, has decided to have a personal vendetta against body lotion. In the past 2 weeks, he's emptied 3 brand new bottles on my carpet. On the second bottle, he decided that salt was needed (whole shaker full). I'm trying to finish the stenciling in the girls' room, but it's going slow. I think I should have it pretty much finished by the end of the week, though, if Joshua cooperates, lol.
Needless to say, it's been pretty stressful around here. I need to figure out a good substitution for eating and soda, though. I gained 2 pounds last week on soda and fast food alone. I'm tired, but I'm afraid to rest, since the latest lotion incidence happened when I took an hour nap.

Twiddling my thumbs

Sometimes I have the sorriest life. I've been bored, waiting for the people who write my favourite blogs to update. In my quest to forget the slowness in my life, I've forgotten that they have a life. I've had a migraine, the little mobile virus infection units they call kids have been running underfoot, and a whole lot of nothing has been getting done. I want to escape, darn it! Is it too much to ask that they call in sick and spend the day writing witty things to entertain me? I know my 3 year old will entertain me all day long (starting with a box of oatmeal poured out on the carpet, followed with a nightcap of a whole bottle of body lotion on another carpet). So maybe it's not excitement I crave, really, just a little vicarious, out-of-the-normal adventure where I'm not responsible for cleaning up.

Products I wouldn't want to live without

Mr. Clean Magic Erasers
The dark day when I realized I had no life came when I made Perry come and see what these little rectangles of goodness did to the refrigerator door. I had actually left a little before and after sample. To this day, these are almost the first things I reach for when cleaning.

Mrs. H.S. Ball's Chutney
There's chutney, then there's Mrs. Ball's. When Perry came back from South Africa raving about the chutney, I went and bought a bottle of Major Grey's to go with some curry I made. He didn't seem all that thrilled with the chutney. I thought maybe it was the variety and bought several different types and brands, all with the same reaction. Yeah, they were good, but they weren't like what he had in South Africa. I gave up looking. Then, one day, he sends me a link to a website telling me he's found it. Mrs. Ball's. Never heard of it before. Christmas shopping for some German mustard in our Harry's Market, I find it has an international section (with lots of varieties of German mustard) and to my delight it has a South African section. Filled with 3 varieties of Mrs. Ball's chutney. Skeptically, I tried some on a cracker. HOLY COW! Now I can see what he was raving about. To this day, I've probably eaten more of the chutney than he has.

The Blue Bulb Nose Syringe
You know, the ones they give you at the hospital when you've had a baby. Nothing cleans out a baby's nose like those. Ours broke on our second baby and we bought the one that has the wide tip. Totally sucked (or rather, didn't). I found one at Babies R Us and grabbed it.

The Hello Kitty Monster

"Mom, I a monster!". After the ketchup styling he gave himself, do I even dare to look and see the latest Joshua monster. I look. I shouldn't have. His legs are striped with 5 or 6 different colours. Some of the stripes are on his khaki church pants. His palms are a dark purplish magenta. But what really takes the cake is his face. Almost his entire face is either purple or bright pink. Oh. My. Gosh. What has this child done? I grab a wipe and start scrubbing. Not much is coming off. Perry tells me to imagine it's model paint and you're really sick with the flu (he's going to have to start a blog about all of the crazy things he's done in his youth). I go upstairs to clean up the markers and see they're from Michaela's Hello Kitty art set. Clean up the markers and I can only find the top to the stamp pad. I call Joshua upstairs to show me where the stamp pad is. Another thing I shouldn't have done. He goes into Michaela's room, where I'm busy stenciling a garden all over her room. There, on the white picket fence that I had just finished shadowing the night before, are pink and purple rectangles. That won't come off. With anything I try. The good news is that Joshua finally came clean after Perry threw him in the tub and that the stamped portion of the wall was pretty small and easy to paint over. From now on, though, I think I'd better be a little more curious when there's silence coming from a room my children are in. I wouldn't want another monster visit.

One of those days

You know you've stayed up too late and shouldn't have when you wake up to the news radio guy telling you that it is 6:11 and you've set the alarm for 6:00. How I missed all of that talking right next to my ear, I don't know. I'm even single-momming it for the week, so my ears should be alert for anything. The kids decided that they weren't going to understand English for the first part of the morning (as far as I can tell because the first 3 times I told them to be getting dressed it went right over their heads and the 4th time a look of understanding lit upon their faces as I threatened to send them to school in their pajamas). I was brushing my oldest daughter's hair on the way to the bus stop (luckily it's at the end of our driveway). Sent them off to school and sat in the quiet deciding if I wanted to take a shower when the baby woke up. She finally woke up and I had just finished feeding her when the phone rang. Michaela is itching really bad and can I come pick her up from the clinic. There goes the shower. Dress the two youngest and out we go. Pick her up and head over to Kroger to pick up some candy for my oldest to give a friend whose candy he stole (a whole other entry in and of itself), grab lunch, and head home to prepare for Daisy Girl Scouts. I'm co-leader for Michaela's troop. It's a really fun thing, but you throw in our 10 Daisies, 2 Brownie helpers, the sister of one of the Daisies that stays most of the time, my 3 kids, plus the girl next door that I watch after school, and 3 or 4 toddlers from my co-leader's daycare, and it's really easy to go crazy. I felt like I was thrown into The Grinch that Stole Christmas- all the noise, noise, noise. It didn't help that we were doing recycling crafts and some of the girls decided to create maracas out of the stuff that we brought. Home brought a clingy baby who was angry when I put her down to throw some dinner together. For such a little angel baby, she sure can scream. As the night went on, it became clearer and clearer that she was getting sick. I hate those nights. I hate it even more when you're alone to handle those nights of endless crying, where nothing is soothing. Makes for very long and cranky days for me the next day. I will have to say, that before we tried to go to sleep, she was the most talkative baby she's ever been, probably about an hour of nonstop babbling. It was really cute when she was lying beside me on the bed and we were both looking up at the ceiling, to just listen to her talking to me. I would look over at her and she'd look at me and smile. I'm convinced cute is a defense mechanism to make tired moms forget that it's the 10th dirty diaper of the day or to ignore the slobber when their little ones try to give them a kiss.