Twas Brillig

Well, I went to the doctor on Friday, after having the night from hell. I suspected strep, since it’s the only thing I knew of that could go from sore throat to puking and back to sore throat again. (”Sore throat” doesn’t even really seem to scratch the surface of what this feels like!) Fortunately, my dear mother-in-law watched the kiddos for me so that I could go a little more easily.

On my way, I decided to stop in at my old house to gather some more stuff up and I was going to clean out the van and get the oil changed (just because a girl is sicker than a dog doesn’t mean she doesn’t have things that simply must be done!) Upon arriving at the “old house,” I had to go to the bathroom–and thank goodness I did! Heretofore unbeknownst to me, I was covered in blood. Sweet little Aunt Flo had picked just this moment to express herself–all over my jeans. I had no back-up for such a thing. It was totally unexpected. I haven’t had a real period since my latest miscarriage three months ago. I felt like I was in Jr. High school again. What to do? I couldn’t go out like this, but I couldn’t just not go to the doc either!

I scoured the basement to see if somehow I’d left anything wearable. Finally I found something. An old box full of clothes that I was way too familiar with.

My maternity clothes.

In desperation, I found something that hopefully didn’t make me look too pregnant (though with my current configuration of body fat, I pretty much look pregnant all the time…) and off I went to the doc.

After sitting in the waiting room for a FULL HOUR, I was seen. The friendly nurse stuck her little magic wand into my ear and cheerfully announced that I had no fever.

I considered beating her to a bloody pulp.

Because even the slightest touch to my forehead would confirm that I did indeed have a TERRIBLE fever.

Stupid nurse. But the doctor was actually really great. She commented on my obvious fever, and even said, “oh wow. Oh WOW!!!” while she looked at my throat. Somehow I needed that validation! I needed her to look at me and say, “of COURSE you feel like crap! You’re SICK!” In the end, it was determined that both of my ears are infected and I do, indeed, have strep.

I called Hubby with the news, and learned that he too was feeling sick and had a sore throat. He wasn’t nearly to the stage that I was, but I still made him go to the instacare on the way home and get tested for strep so that he could start on an antibiotic before he got too much worse. His strep test came up negative, but the doc gave him a prescription of antibiotics anyway because if he had a fever and a sore throat and his wife had strep, what were the chances that he didn’t?

Yesterday we went to a big family party at Hubby’s parents’ house–a Father’s Day celebration. I didn’t think I could miss it. By the time we came home, after hours of chasing and disciplining children, cooking, setting up chairs, socializing in those high-pitched cheery “oh-you’re-so-darling” tones, cleaning up, and single handedly washing all of the dishes, I was dead. Though I do not have first-hand experience, I suspect that I felt the way one might feel after cooking in a microwave for a few hours.

Therefore, wasn’t it a lovely treat that Scooby decided that he too was sick last night. Hubby was up with him for the first half of the night and I took my shift for the second half. He screamed and screamed and tugged at his ears. His skin felt like a furnace.

So this morning, when my other dear children “pleasantly” surprised me by waking up at the crack of dawn, I knew that I’d have to make some phone calls and take Scooby in to the doctor–an adventure that seemed absolutely unconquerable, since I didn’t feel like I could even put one foot in front of the other, let alone haul four little ones all the way across town.

But it had to be done, so I did it.

And wouldn’t you just know it, that by the time we got to the doctor’s office, he’d made a miraculous recovery. POOF! In what can hardly be called an “examination,” the doctor determined that he had no fever, no sore throat, no sore ears. “Call us if he acts sick,” she said, trying not to sound condescending (but failing). With an office full of doctors and nurses staring at me with that look of, “why did she even bring him in here?” I trotted off with my healthy children.

Of course, now that he’s home, he has a fever.

Gotta love it.

Oh, and that pile of hair on the floor? Yah, that’s mine. I’m ripping it out by the handfuls right about now…

Soap Opera Sunday and Chad part 2 (part one is here)

I know that some of you were casting bets that Chad was gay. I’m so sorry to disappoint, but he wasn’t. Believe me, a big chunk of my life would have been a lot easier if he had been!

No, actually he’d fallen for me. I’m not sure how or why, especially since every girl in the apartment complex, not to mention anyone who had a class with him, or, well, anyone who walked past him in the hallway, had a thing for him.

It made me the object of much cattiness and snippiness. Stupid, silly, girl-stuff. I didn’t mind, at first. It just meant that they were all jealous. But because BYU operated on an “Honor Code” system, we were all sort of encouraged to spy on each other and report when someone broke the rules. And having a group of girls with a grudge against me would turn out to be an unfortunate thing.

Chad and I began spending a lot of time together. A lot. We never “defined the relationship” or anything silly like that. We were just having fun. On the surface I think that we thought we had a lot in common, but the more we got to know each other, the more we realized how completely different we were.

One night, he and I were at my apartment watching a movie and I fell asleep. I woke up to hear my roommate interrogating him. I could hardly believe that she thought it was any of her business to ask him such things, but since I too wanted to know the answers, I pretended to still be asleep as I listened in.

What I learned from their conversation was that he’d stopped believing in God. He wasn’t sure he’d ever believed. What you need to know about BYU is that nearly everyone there is Mormon, and on top of that I knew he’d served a mission for the Church, so I had just made assumptions about his beliefs–that they were identical to mine. But I realized we’d never actually talked about it.

As their conversation continued, he admitted that he was finding himself falling completely in love with me, but he knew that I was extremely religious and that I would want a certain kind of wedding ceremony and a certain kind of lifestyle, but going through with that would feel like total hypocrisy on his part and he couldn’t do it.

At some point, my roommate told him, “well, I don’t think she’s even thinking about marriage right now! I mean, she just turned 18!”

“WHAT?!?!?”

Ummm, ooops? I guess I’d forgotten to mention that part. I hadn’t tried to hide it. In fact, I was quite proud to be the only female freshman in the Foreign Language Housing. It was a true honor to be there for anyone, but it was almost unheard of for freshmen to be admitted*. I just assumed he knew that about me. He was 25. Apparently our 7-year age difference was a little too much for him.

*Before you are impressed with my accomplishment of being accepted, please know that it had nothing to do with my own merits, and everything to do with who my Daddy was and who his connections were. My Italian sucked. I had NO business being there and I was painfully aware of it. Still, it made me LOOK smart and talented.

Looking back, I think I would have been ready to break up with him if I hadn’t heard this conversation. We really weren’t very good together and we really didn’t have much in common. Making-out was fun, but not worth staying together over.

But sitting there, listening to him give my roommate his list of objections over me, was the same as him issuing me a challenge. I said to myself, “My religion bothers you? My age bothers you? Hmmmm. We’ll just see about that.”

Picture me, then, arching my eyebrows, tapping my fingertips together, and chanting, “he will be mine. Oh yes, he will be mine.”

Let the unhealthiness begin.

Just wanted to pop in and wish a Happy Father’s Day to all the wonderful dads in my life. Each one is so amazing in his own way.

First, my own Dad: The smartest, kindest, gentlest man on earth. He’s in Spain right now–I just got an email from him. My heart aches for how much I miss him. I’m definitely Daddy’s little girl, even at 28 years old!

Next, my Father-In-Law: I never expected to love “someone else’s Dad” so much, but I do. He has been such a great friend to me and so generous and helpful. My children adore him and he adores them back. I love him for being such a devoted Grampa.

And then, of course, my darling Husband: I thought I loved this man with all my heart the day I married him, but I didn’t even know what love was until the first time I saw him holding our first baby. I cry every time (including right now!) I think about the way he walked around with her, moments after she was born, singing “Getting to Know You.” A new life was born that day, along with a whole new depth of my love for him. And with every baby, that love just deepens. He is Super Dad. He takes his turn getting up in the night with sick babies, he helps put them in bed, he spoon feeds, he takes them on outings. They love him as much as he loves them. How could they not?

Happy Father’s Day, Guys!!!

It started as a sore throat a couple of days ago with a bit of a cold, and yesterday the fever hit. Then the diarrhea, of course, because life would be too easy without that. And then, the vomiting began. I was up all night throwing up.

Somewhere during the night, I had the strange and rare pleasure of blowing vomit out my nose.

Gentle Readers, I am sick.

I can barely talk which, frankly, is good news for my children because they’re driving me crazy but I can’t scream at them!

Also, I don’t have my scanner set up here yet, nor do I really have any idea where my pictures are, so rather than Flashback Friday, I’m going to go with a meme that Paige tagged me for. It’s kinda flash-backy, and requires much less effort and thought from me in my thoughtlessness today.

What were you doing 10 years ago?

Ten years ago I was not quite 19 years old. Oddly enough, I was living in the city that I’ve now just moved to. I was finishing up my freshman year of college, going to summer school and taking my first Spanish class. I had just been thrown out of the Foreign Language Housing and very soon I would be thrown out of BYU all together. Ahhhh, the sweet memories. Hahaha. Oh, and I was making out with everyone. Okay, not everyone. I had two criteria–they had to be male and they had to be hot. Still, there were PLENTY to choose from. Hahahaha.

What were you doing 1 year ago?
One year ago I was 6 months pregnant with Lil’ Dude. I was traipsing all over the place with my little kiddos and my big fat pregnantness.

Five Snacks You Enjoy:

• chocolate
• string cheese
• saltine crackers
• chocolate
• Dr. Pepper

Five Songs That You Know All The Lyrics To:

Um, since I know all the lyrics to pretty much every song I listen to, how ’bout I randomly pick the first five songs from my iTunes–I’ll put it on shuffle.

• Phantom Limb, by The Shins
• I Will, by the Beatles (okay, fine. This one didn’t come up on my iTunes–it’s right where Paige wrote it. Still, it’s one of my favs and I didn’t think I could just delete it… )
• Lonely in your Nightmare, by Duran Duran
• Change Your Mind, by The Killers
• Chocolate, by Snow Patrol

Okay, interesting sampling there… Not entirely indicative of my musical tastes, but still. I DO know every world to each of these!

Five Things You Would Do If You Were a Millionaire:

• Travel–show my kids the world!
• Donate a big chunk to my Church
• Buy a summer home and a winter home
• Buy cool stuff for my summer home and winter home
• liposuction, baby.

Five bad habits:

• I only talk about my good qualities, which leads my readers to erroneously believe that I’m cool
• My writing is full of typos, but I’m always correcting other people’s grammar and punctuation
• I eat too much chocolate
• I drink too much Dr. Pepper
• I scream at my kids

Five Things You Like To Do:

• eat chocolate
• read
• blog/read other people’s blogs
• Snuggle with Hubby
• Take the kids out to play

Five Things You Would Never Wear Again:

• Florescent t-shirts
• floral prints
• skin-tight anything
• a bikini (I’m okay with all my stretch marks, but I don’t have to honor the world with them)
• sleeveless, strapless, too short, too low, etc.

Five Favorite Toys:

• On-demand TV
• digital camera
• All of my kids
• My Blog
• Your Blog

Five people to tag: (apologies if you’ve already done it)

• Unquiet Heart
• Blonde Canary
• The Dead Letters
• Kara
• Omega Mum

Instructions: Remove the blog from the top, move all blogs up one, add yourself to the bottom.

A Beautiful Life
Absolutely Bananas
Smiling Mom
42
Twas Brillig

My mother, who I love dearly, is crazy.

First, let me review. I have mentioned before that my mother is one of those exceptionally beautiful human beings. Every day, people come up to me and exclaim over her gorgeousness. At 65 years old, she still turns the heads of many–I have watched men flirt with her all my life, including men that you would never expect to see “flirting” due to age and station in life. My dad jokes that he looks more like her father than like her husband. hahaha. He’s not too far off, poor guy!

A large part of her beauty can be attributed to good luck and the laws of genetics. The rest should be attributed to daily yoga, meditation, and all the crazy crap she eats.

My mother is mostly vegan and won’t eat any salt or fat. And she has a bit of an obsession with the word “organic.” Anything processed, refined, altered, or “unnatural” is OUT.

Beauty is just a pleasant result of this craziness. She does it because she’s obsessed with health. But, as I have learned, even obsessions with health can be incredibly unhealthy.

Every once in a while, I’ve tried to eat the way she does. I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s not humanly possible. I mean, I’m all for “healthy” but she has taken this to outlandish extremes.

This week, I am the lucky inheritor of her kitchen. She removed much of her food, but left some stuff around “just in case” I might want it. She then instructed me to throw away anything that I think I won’t use.

Brace yourselves, Gentle Readers.

This is a fair sampling of things that I found in her cupboard (minus the long list of crazy herbal tea that had already found a new home in the garbage can before I decided to take this picture). Organic everything, of course. But it’s not just “organic”–it’s Organic Sauerkraut. Seriously???? Or the Organic Almond Butter, with the $29 price tag still on it. And I have no idea what Organic Sesame Tahini is, but I have a strange feeling that I wouldn’t like it very much… And the goat milk. Don’t even get me started on the goat milk. I encountered probably twenty cans of the stuff. Because apparently, if you MUST drink or cook with milk, it should ONLY be organic goat milk…

The fridge and freezer were filled with similar treasures, like organic whole grain wheatsprout bread, tofu of all varieties, and let us not forget the wide variety of home-sprouted grains.

You’ll be happy to know that I’m keeping some of this stuff! You’ll also be happy to know that I’m tossing most of it to make room for macaroni and cheese, rice-a-roni, Lucky Charms, and ice cream!!!!

My mother would have a heart attack if she saw how I’ve disgraced her kitchen. Sorry, Mama, but this ain’t your kitchen anymore…

Really, I love the idea of being beautiful like my mother, but NOT at that price!!!

My intentions were good. I thought I was being so helpful. O, foul wretch that I am, I never meant for this to happen.

Frankly, George stank. A lot. “He needs a bath,” I explained to his friend and owner, Scooby. I’ve given George a “bath” before and it was inconsequential. He came out sparkling clean and smelling less like… well… a two-year-old boy’s favorite toy.

George was given his name because, as far as Scooby is concerned, ALL monkeys are named George. He is my son’s beloved friend, confidant, and bodyguard. George can do no wrong. And I appreciate George too, because of the level of comfort that he gives to my Scooby, particularly during difficult transitions (moving from one home to another, for instance…). George is a constant companion, and sleep comes to a screeching halt when he’s missing.

It took much convincing for Scooby to allow me to bathe George. As you all know, reasoning with a two-year-old is an exercise in futility. Grudgingly, Scooby eventually allowed me to put George into the washer. But he was NOT pleased with me.

And thus, Gentle Readers, you can only imagine my horror when, upon opening the washer half an hour later, I found soggy bits of George, strewn here and there, no longer attached to each other.

George is dead.

I murdered him.

His cotton filling blood stains my hands.

Now he is dead, now he is fled, his soul is in the sky.

I shall take up this stuffed animal and bear him to the tomb.

And then… I’ll have to find a way to let Scooby know of his mother’s villainy.

There are likely to be many, many sleepless nights around here.

One of these days I will post a real post. One of these days I will tell you about the sliver in my daughters foot that sent us to the Urgent Care after-hours place an hour away, because I couldn’t get it out the old fashioned way. One of these days I’ll catch up on reading and commenting on all of my favorite blogs, as well as making the correct changes to my blogroll. And one of these days I’ll tell you about my father-in-law’s retirement party which I’m just now getting back from, that I hauled all of my kids to all by myself with the youngest two snugly nestled into the stroller only to find out that the party was on the top floor and there was NO ELEVATOR. And one of these days I’ll catch up on my soap opera Sunday about Chad that I started last week but didn’t do anything on this week! And maybe, just MAYBE, one of these days I’ll tell you how the move went–but first, I’ll have to move. (Tomorrow is the BIG DAY!!) And maybe at some point I will do something about all my children–who I can hear screaming their heads off. And maybe one day I’ll even post some pictures.

But not today.

But I did want to pop in and post a great big THANK YOU to everyone for all of your emails and your notes and your well-wishes. I have the absolute greatest blog-buddies ever. Thanks for being so wonderful! How did I survive for so many years without you?

It’s Flashback Friday and Scooby’s birthday!!

When I was ten days past my due date, I’d had it. This was the longest pregancy ever.

For the first six months of the pregnancy, I puked every single day, multiple times a day. And on top of all the puking, I was spotting. Since I’d already had a handful of miscarriages by this point, I was freaking out. Both the severe dehydration and the bleeding sent me to the Emergency Room on various occasions. And you may have gathered by now that emergency rooms and I don’t exactly get along…

But the hardest part was being so sick while taking care of two very energetic toddlers. Fluffy and Bubba were 3 and almost 2 and were next to impossible. I was almost too sick to keep up with them, which meant that they were causing even more trouble than they would had I been well enough to be more diligent.

And on top of all of that, Hubby was not only working full time, but feverishly working on his Masters Degree. He was gone all day long and well into the night almost every single day.

I was sick, exhausted, hormonal, lonely, and extremely overwhelmed.

So making it to my due date and then going beyond it seemed so completely unfair.

We had decided not to find out the baby’s gender. We already had a boy and a girl, so we were prepared for either one. Still, Hubby and I were both convinced that it was a girl. Her name would be Sophia. I couldn’t wait to cuddle my little girl in my arms.

And so, on this day ten days past my due date, as I was on my way to my prenatal appointment, I decided that I would ask my midwife to break my water. This was a huge thing to me, since I was so completely devoted letting nature take its course…

But, SURPRISE! My water broke on its own on my way to my appointment! There I was, on the freeway in my minivan with Fluffy and Bubba, gushing amniotic fluid. Upon arriving at my midwife’s and looking like I’d been peeing myself, she checked me and announced that I was already dilated to a 7. Since my last labor had only lasted four hours, we expected that this baby would come any second. So I jumped back into my van with my kiddos and my midwife loaded her car with all of her supplies and followed me home, each of us gripping our cell phones, just in case it became necessary to deliver the baby on the side of the road!

Fortunately, we made it all the way to my house and even had time to get the birth tub set up, at which point I sat. And waited. And waited. The house slowly filled up with people–Hubby, my midwife, her two assistants, my mother-in-law, and then randomly two of my sisters-in-law and all of a sudden my FATHER-in-law (who stayed in the kitchen where he couldn’t, um, see stuff…) AND my two children: Fluffy who watched in awe, and Bubba who wanted to get in the birthing tub with me and took off all of his clothes and screamed and screamed and SCREAMED and NO ONE WOULD TAKE CARE OF HIM, though they scolded me when I tried, saying, “oh, don’t worry about him right now! We’re here to take care of him!” And yet… they didn’t. (He wasn’t even supposed to be there, by the way. Babysitter had bailed last minute.) And there I was, post-transition and well into the pushing stage with mass chaos around me. It was so completely nuts. My quiet, tranquil homebirth had turned into a circus. However, I was way too focused to even be bothered about the circus. I had a big job ahead of me, after all.

I pushed for two hours. It was agonizing. I’d been through natural childbirth a couple of times, and it’s NEVER easy, but this was different.

Finally the baby was born.

A boy.

It was Hubby’s job to announce the gender. I nearly died when he said “boy.” I had to look for myself, and then look again!

And, posterior. The last time I’d been checked, he was anterior. Somewhere in there he flipped and came out backwards. Hence the longer-than-expected labor and, well, the AGONY of the delivery!

But oh! how I loved him. Adored him. From the instant he was in my arms, he was the joy of my life–the piece of my soul that had been missing.

He didn’t have a name–he wouldn’t have a name for a couple more weeks! We couldn’t exactly name him Sophia, after all…

After much war with Hubby over names, we finally settled on one. The PERFECT one. (And no, it’s not “Scooby”–that’s a nickname that Fluffy came up with during the nameless-interum.)

And now he’s turning two! He’s rambunctious and hilarious and darling. He’s a little more crazy than his siblings, as evidenced in various trips for emergency x-rays and the like. Still, he keeps me laughing all day long. He’s a middle child, but he never gets lost in the mix. He’s so vibrant and colorful and delightful!

And so, on this very special day, I wish him a happy, HAPPY Birthday!!!!!!

As you know, I’m in the midst of moving and I’m being the crappiest blogger ever in the process. Please know that I have all of you in my google reader and I’m keeping up on reading your posts, but I’m hardly commenting anywhere. I know, I know. Reading isn’t enough. Comments are the real validation for your writing. I get that. And I’m so sorry. One of these days I’ll take an entire day and catch up on all my comments.

In the meantime, though, I wanted to share a story from today. My little Bubba has a “friend.” We will call this friend “Brat.” Bubba always begs to be able to see Brat and to play with him. Brat lives in the old neighborhood, where the house that we’re trying to sell is located. So, since I was hauling all the kids down there today to begin moving the old boxes to our soon-to-be home, I thought I’d call this little friend and see if he wanted to come play with my son for a little while.

“He’s changed! He’s changed!” the Brat’s mom said, unprovoked by any question on my part. Brat had been a terrible bully to my Bubba, though Bubba loved him anyway. At one point, about a year ago, I had informed her that Brat was not to play with my son anymore, because my kid was being taught that it was okay for Brat to beat him up, and that Brat’s mom could be in the room and watch it and never lift a finger or her voice or anything–unless Bubba cried too loudly, in which case she yelled at Bubba, instead of her nasty rotten little abusive brat.

“He’s not a bully anymore! I’ve been disciplining him and teaching him not to be mean! You’ll see! He’s doing so well!”

I was hopeful, but skeptical. This kid really is the world’s biggest monster and his mother is the world’s biggest enabler.

But, because Bubba really wanted to see him, and because I was willing to give the kid another chance, I invited him over.

Within a few minutes of arriving at our house, Brat comes running inside (he and Bubba and Fluffy had been playing in the backyard) with giant alligator tears streaming down his face, announcing that Bubba had shoved him. His mother looked at me like she was about to murder my Bubba.

But before she could accomplish her intended homicide, Fluffy (who honestly should become a reporter due to her dependably accurate and unbiassed tattling) came in to tell the real story. Brat had attacked my Bubba with a metal dump truck toy, whacking him in the head repeatedly, until Bubba pushed him away so he would stop it.

Sure enough, when Bubba was located, his forehead was bruised and scratched. Even so, Bubba apologized for shoving Brat (something I didn’t even see as necessary! How proud I am that he shoved the kid away! What were his other options? Just sit there and take it?). But Brat didn’t (nor was he ever encouraged by his mother to) apologize–though he did smirk with satisfaction when he saw the damage that he’d caused on Bubba’s forehead.

Moments later, Scooby began screaming (TOTALLY out of character for him) and came running to me with his nose GUSHING blood. (I wish I could say that I was more worried about the nosebleed than I was about my carpet…) I gasped and asked what had happened. “Brat threw a shoe at him,” said his mother, nonchalantly. She’d SEEN him do it. My son was screaming and bleeding. Still, absolutely NO discipline whatsoever.

I grabbed my keys and said, “I’m afraid we are leaving now.” (Even though I hadn’t accomplished one single thing…)

“Oh! Okay! But when you come back next time, PLEASE call us again! I think Brat and Bubba really had a great time! They love to play together SO much!”

You’ll be happy to know that I restrained myself from poking out her eyeballs and frying them on a stick, though it is precisely what I wanted to do. Instead I gave a little half smile and said, “well, we’ll see.”

Needless to say, Gentle Readers, I’m not terribly impressed with the “changes” that she was so proud of. Nor will I be calling them ever again.

My blogging this week will be sporatic at best. One week from today we will move into our new home! But with four little ones and a billion tasks to complete before the big day, I’m not likely to be seen around these parts for a bit. I will definitely check in for Scooby’s Birthday to post (as is my tradition) his birth story and of course I’ll keep up on my latest Soap Opera Sunday series, and I may pop in if I have something BRILLIANT to say (and by “brilliant” I mean “mediocre”) but otherwise I will likely be quite unheard from until I get established.

But! Do you realize that in a week I will have a wireless internet connection, instead of the dial-up that I’ve been using here? I’ll be able to watch videos and hear soundbites!!!! I will no longer tie up the phone lines while I’m blogging! And my dear little laptop will come out of hiding too!

And I’ll have TV back. Not just any TV, but my Dad’s massive wall-size TV with uber-cable, as opposed to the 19-inch antenna TV with crappy reception that I’ve had here!

I will have SPACE! Room to put my STUFF, instead of piling everything on the couch, floor, tables, bed…

I will have my own KITCHEN! A place where I can cook and clean and not constantly feel like I’m in someone else’s way!

And, as much as I love her (and I really do) I won’t be living with my MOTHER-IN-LAW anymore!!!!!!!

Yeah, moving is good, even if it’s a big fat pain!