Raising Sweet Spirits

Mother's Day Letters

2010-05-04T07:08:00.001-07:00

My children wrote me Mother's Day Letters at a Primary Activity last week. They were so sweet, I had to post them and will cherish them forever.

Dear Mom,
I love you so much. Thank you for working to get us nice things! Thank you for helping me with my homework if I need help. I hope you have a nice mother's day. I *heart* you.
Love,
Emilee

Ahhhh....it's so nice to be appreciated.

Hi Mom,
Your the best. this is a present for bing my mother. I don't want a diffrent one. you are so nice. Even though you fors us to do are chors I like it because then are house is really sparkly and clean. there are so many things I can't fit on this papper I'll tell you on mother's day. you the bbeeeeeeeeeeeessssttt!

Love, Megan

This one made me tear up a bit. I kept the spelling errors intact, because I love them. They will remind me how far she's come when she's older and shows that she really did this letter on her own and she really thought it through!

Thank you for helping us clean our rooms. Thank you for feeding us.
Luv, Melia

Yes, yes....I really do strive for perfection in motherhood. I even feed my children! Thank you, Melia, for noticing. :)

I love my kids.

Baby's First Applesauce

2010-03-23T15:57:00.001-07:00

I think she likes it. What do YOU think?

5 months old today...

2010-03-14T12:10:00.001-07:00

Man. Time flies when you're busy! lol

Macie is 5 months old today! I can't believe it!
She is just so absolutely adorable, I couldn't even pick which photo to use. So you get a few...even though they're all very similar. lol Can you believe those rosy cheeks? We already have a tooth with a second one close behind. She's such a good baby and I just love her to pieces. So do the girls!

Megan's Baptism

2010-01-24T12:41:00.001-08:00

Megan was baptized two weeks ago. I've been trying to blog it, but my computer hated me and I couldn't. My sweet girl is so beautiful and it was wonderful. She was able to be baptized with Jaelyn, her best friend whom she missed sharing a birthday with by only 15 minutes. The spirit was strong and I'm so proud of her. Emilee sang with the older girls, then Megan and Jaelyn sang together. It was too sweet for words.

Megan and Daddy before the baptism

Megan and her friend Jaelyn

The whole gang!

When did I get so old???

2010-01-15T20:34:00.001-08:00

When did I become old enough to have a 10 year old. TEN!!!

Emilee turns ten in less than 4 hours. My first baby. Boy, have we come a long way. She is such a beautiful, responsible and empathetic girl...can I even call her a girl anymore? She has informed me that now that she is in double digits she is a "tween". Time flies.

Happy Birthday Emilee!

Isn't she a beauty?

Megan is 8!

2010-01-14T15:57:00.000-08:00

My sweet sweet Megan turned eight this week. She will get baptized on Sunday at 5:30pm at the Kent Stake Center. Everyone is invited. She will get to be baptized with her best little friend Jaelyn.

Megan is the ray of sunshine in our family. She is easy to please, loves to laugh and is quick to share of herself. She is responsible and kind and a huge help with Macie. She's going to be quite the little babysitter when she's old enough. She loves animals and has been a joy in my life every single day. Love you Megan!

Megan, 3 months

Megan, age 8!

Memories

2010-01-03T18:42:00.000-08:00

So we sent our girls to bed early the other day, in an attempt to get them back on schedule before they go back to school. 3 hours later, Emilee and Megan were still awake in their room giggling and making noise. When we asked them why they were still up, they responded with, "We couldn't sleep. So we're making memories."

How is a mother supposed to uphold bedtime with an answer like that? Actually, I know the answer. You're not. There are more important things in life than bedtime.

Merry After-Christmas!

2009-12-26T07:16:00.000-08:00

Christmas was a success at our house. We had Christmas Eve dinner at my mom's and Christmas dinner at my mother-in-law's. We were very blessed and taken care of this season.

Macie is 10 weeks old now! She's getting so big and I think she's going to be quite the little chunk. I love chunky babies!
My poor older children. With a new baby around, it's all I seem to have pictures of. I'll have to do better with that!

Merry Christmas!!!

2009-12-19T14:09:00.001-08:00

Christmas Cards are just not... in the cards this year.

So here you go!

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

Crazy Hair Part II

2009-12-02T16:49:00.000-08:00

I wrote my crazy hair post too early! We had some awesome hair the other day. Check it out.

She has perpetual bed head since she can't do anything other than lay down at this point. lol

You may not believe me, but I did try to get it to not stick out of her head. Don'tcha just want to squish those cheeks?

Easy Peasy Peanut Butter Cookies (Gluten Free too!)

2009-11-29T20:46:00.001-08:00

So the wife of my brother's friend (did you follow that?) gave me the easiest peanut butter cookie recipe when she found out my husband could not have wheat.

1 cup sugar
1 egg
1 cup peanut butter

That's it. Seriously. Mix those together and bake at 350 degrees for about 12 minutes. I added chocolate chips to mine. Super easy and quite tasty too!

I'm Thankful for....

2009-11-26T09:23:00.000-08:00

a million things this season. But right now, I'm thankful for crazy hair. Oh how I love Macie's hair. I love it so much I probably say "I love her hair!" twenty times a day. We have some crazy hair days around here.

Best Thanksgiving Side Dish E.V.E.R!!

2009-11-21T15:48:00.000-08:00

Seriously.

No, SERIOUSLY!

My amazing friend Alaina (and when I say amazing, I really mean amazing) shared this recipe with me a few years ago. I always hesitated to make it, because I'm not a very big candied yams/sweet potato pie type gal.

Oh, how I missed out. I made this last year, and will make it every year for as long as I live. Because it is that good.

I also promised some coworkers I'd give them the recipe, so here it is! I made it for our office Thanksgiving potluck, and it was gobbled right up.

Almost Dessert Yams
by: alainajoy
3 cups yams, mashed
½ cup butter
1 cup sugar
1 tsp vanilla
1 tsp cinnamon
2 eggs
½ cup flour
1 cup brown sugar
¼ cup butter, melted
1 cup pecans, chopped

Preheat oven to 325. Mix yams, butter, sugar, vanilla, cinnamon and eggs; place in baking dish. In separate bowl, mix flour, brown sugar and melted butter. Pour over yams. Sprinkle on pecans. Cover with foil and bake 40-45 minutes. Take off foil the last 15 minutes for browning.

There you have it. Perfection. Thanks Alaina!

Grandpa Jim's visit

2009-11-16T20:47:00.000-08:00

Grandpa Jim and his newest grandbaby Macie!

This is my handsome Daddy! Isn't he good lookin? Although don't ask me what's up with the facial hair. Maybe he was asked to play Santa this year or something. Actually the more I look at it, the more it is growing on me. I think I kinda like it. He came up to meet Macie and help with her blessing.

The whole clan. I'm bummed I don't have a better picture of her in her dress. I'm not sure that his flash was on and my house is a cave so any picture without a flash is blurry. *sigh*

Mommy, Daddy and Macie

I made someone's blog!

2009-11-16T09:12:00.001-08:00

Well, not really me. Something I found. But my name is mentioned! ROFL

I had to go to Urgent Care last week, and while there I saw the funniest classified ad. I told my friend Sarah about it and she posted it on her website. Sarah used to write a column for a newspaper in St. George, Utah and her columns are hilarious. Now she has a blog where she writes her columns as well as other daily tidbits she finds amusing.

Here's "my" clip!
http://themotherloadhome.blogspot.com/2009/11/from-newsletter-in-urgent-care-office.html

One Month Old !

2009-11-15T17:30:00.000-08:00

Macie turned one month old yesterday! She's so big. I managed to get her hair into a cute little pony today, so of course I had to take pictures! Her big sister Megan LOVES to take care of her and is such a big help.

And while we were all dolled up for church, I tried to get our first picture of all 4 kids together.

Uh, yeah. I think we'll have to work on that some more. lol

Guilt Trip

2009-11-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

Melia is playing with an old I-spy bag that has come undone and is threatening to spill all of it's nice little filling beads everywhere. She looks up at me and says, "You know what would be nice? It would be nice if you were the very best mom and let us dump these out all over."

Yeah. Guess I'm not a very best mom. ROFL

Don't be jealous.

2009-11-11T19:24:00.000-08:00

But this is what I woke up to this morning.

Smile!

2009-11-09T16:48:00.001-08:00

We have genuine smiles today! Macie has been attempting to smile all week, but today I got a full on smile...several times!

I'd forgotten how those first smiles make your heart want to bust out of your chest. I'm so in love with her.

And Great-Grandma Geisbert (James' grandmother) is visiting. She arrived in town the day before Macie was born, so she's gotten to see alot of her great-grandbaby in these first few weeks. We love Grandma Geisbert! And she loves babies! It's always a joy when she comes to visit. She and Grandma Linda (James' mom) came over this week and helped me get some cleaning accomplished. Don't I have the best Mother and Grandmother-in-laws???

We blessed Macie yesterday at church. I'll post pictures when I get a copy from my Dad, but wouldn't you know that I forgot to take any with my camera! It was sweet and I felt extremely grateful as I watched all the men in my life stand in a circle to bless her and listened to my husband give her the blessing. I'm am so incredibly fortunate!

Birth Story

2009-11-05T09:10:00.000-08:00

Yes, I realize little Macie is 3 weeks old now. But, well, life has been flying by.

I was due on October 2nd, 2009 with my 4th little girl. I was so excited. I was also convinced she was going to be early, although I didn't know why, since all of my children have come past their due dates. Then, at 38 1/2 weeks, we found out she was breech. That really threw me for a loop and I was very concerned about the possibility of not having my homebirth. I did everything humanly possible to get her to turn before my scheduled version 2 days later. When I showed up for the version, she had magically turned. Hooray!

Then, 4 days later, I went to a midwife appt and wouldn't you know that stinker was head UP again. So, back to my tried and true methods of turning her and the next day, she had turned back head down.

And there she stayed.

And stayed.

And stayed.

So my impressions that she would come early, were apparently very very wrong. In fact, not only did she not come early, but she was my latest baby ever. On Tuesday, October 13th, I had a midwife appointment. I'd been having contractions and cramping off and on for a week, but they weren't hard or painful or anything. I asked Dawn (my midwife) to check my cervix just because I was curious. I was 3cm dilated! So those contractions had been doing something afterall. I left the appointment feeling upbeat. I had never dilated before labor before, so I was convinced this meant things were happening. I continued to have more cramping than ever the entire day. Later in the afternoon, I headed in for a biophysical profile to check on the health of the baby, since I was nearing 42 weeks. She was perfect and received a perfect score. I had discussions with my midwife about how much time I had before I would need to take more drastic measures to get labor going.

My contractions continued throughout the day, but they were not steady, nor strong enough to even bother timing. Most of the time I wasn't even sure if I was having them, or if I was just imagining them.

At 5pm exactly, I had a contraction that I knew meant business. I got excited. And I noted the time so I would remember when things began changing. They still were not too strong, and very irregular. I spent the next few hours just waiting for things to get down to business, but they just kind of poked along. I continued to have stronger contractions, but I certainly wasn't in any sort of active labor. I spent the evening sitting on the bouncy ball and watching TV.

At 9:30pm, things were only slightly more steady than they had been at 5. I wasn't sure this would be it, but I had a feeling it was. It was just a matter of when it would actually kick over to active labor! I called my friend Roni, who was the first on a phone tree. At my baby shower, those who wanted to, signed up to be on a phone tree to recieve a call when I went into labor and light a candle for baby to light her way, while they sent prayers and well wishes my way. I still didn't consider myself in labor, but I knew it was getting too late to make phone calls and I was pretty sure it would happen that night.

At 10pm, I began to time my contractions, because it felt like the strong ones were starting to get some sort of pattern. I timed them until 10:30 and they were every 5-8 minutes. At 10:30, I called my midwife and let her know that I felt labor was beginning to kick into active labor. I could still talk through them, but I preferred not to. And I realized I had no idea what was going on with the TV show I was "watching". The midwife was with another mom, but it was a first time mom who was in pretty early labor, so she arranged to have an old assistant labor-sit the mother, while she came to my birth (since we pretty much knew I would have the baby first). She told me it would take about an hour for her to get there.

I went upstairs to see if the girls were still awake, and sure enough Emilee was wide eyed. She knew I had been having contractions and couldn't sleep from the excitement, so I let her come downstairs. Megan and Melia were asleep, so we let them stay that way.

Around 11:15, I decided I no longer wanted to deal with the contractions outside of the water, so I hopped into the birth tub. Ahhhhh, sweet relief. It felt so good to be in the water. The water just takes all of that heavy feeling away and just helps me relax so well. I continued to labor, made quite a bit of noise, and then would joke with those around me in between contractions. Emilee was half laughing, half crying. She knew everything was ok, and we'd talked about how I would make a lot of noise but that that was alright. She knew that, hence the laughter, but birth is emotional and she's an emotional child so there were tears too. My mom did a good job of talking her through her emotions.

I spent most of my labor in the tub looking like this:

My mommy rubbed my head to help relax me. It felt wonderful.
My husband rubbed my back when it started aching.

Occasionally, Emilee took a turn. What a sweetie.

At 11:45, I could tell the contractions were getting really low. I knew I was near the end, and Dawn had not shown up yet. I told someone to call her and let her know she needed to be on her way asap. She was actually driving to my house as we called, and she showed up at 11:50pm. She was there with her assistant Melissa. They set up their stuff and watched me do a few contractions.

At one point, every time I had a contraction, it was followed by the biggest urge to pee. I kept saying so, and everyone kept telling me to go. But I did not want to leave the comfort of the water. They told me to just go in the pool. But alas, I could not bring myself to do it. So eventually, after complaing a dozen times, I got out of the tub and to the bathroom. As I finally felt relief, I heard everyone out in the living room cheer. I laughed and told them that I did not need a cheering section for my pee.

I had a contraction outside the tub and my sweet husband held me.

At 12:15, labor started getting really intense. The contractions were super short, and had no work up at all, so I was having trouble staying on top of them and getting truly relaxed before they peaked. Actually, they felt like all they were was a peak with no beginning or ending. I started to get really loud. I started to complain a lot. Dawn offered to check me. I told her she could only check me if she was going to tell me I was 9cm. She jokingly said she could lie to me if I wanted, but I let her know I'd know if she was lying to me. She went ahead and checked me and I was 8cm! Woohoo! Almost there.

Meanwhile, the contractions were really kicking my butt. But in labors past, I typically go 6cm to baby in my arms in just over an hour, so I knew I would have a baby soon. I do remember saying that I just wanted 10 minutes to rest though. They were so hard, and so close that I was getting overwhelmed. At 12:48, I started giving little pushes during the contractions, just to test things out and see how it felt. It felt better to push, so I did when I felt like it. However, after about 10 minutes of that I told Dawn that something didn't feel right so she checked me again. I had a lip of cervix left which I could labor and breathe through, or I could push and she could try to slip it over the baby's head. I chose to push through it, because the contractions were so intense I didn't think I could just breathe through them.

Getting rid of that cervix proved to be the most difficult part of my labor. The pressure in my cervix was insane. I had never felt it like this before. And as hard as I started pushing and as much as Dawn tried to move the cervix out of the way, it just was not budging. When that didn't seem to work, she suggested I try to breathe through some contractions because she didn't want my cervix to swell. I tried....through all of two contractions and then said "No way! I'm pushing!"

I continued to push and voice my frustration that pushing wasn't as easy as it had been with my other kids. Even my first baby, with an epidural, only took 25 minutes. I began to scream and cry in frustration and woke poor Megan up and she came downstairs. At 1:18am, my water broke while pushing. A few minutes later, while still trying to push past the cervix, I felt it slip over the baby's head and her head came out in the same push. Dawn later told me she had been worried my cervix would tear because it was coming all the way down the birth canal with the baby's head (hence the insane pressure I was feeling!!). After birthing the head, Dawn told me to wait a minute while she unwrapped a cord from around the neck. Then I felt her tugging on the baby and I didn't know what she was doing. I later found out she was trying to pull the arm out. Baby was coming out with an arm that was up by her face and Dawn was trying to pull it out so that when I pushed the body out, she didn't move her elbow and tear me. She couldn't get it to budge though, so I resumed pushing. I remember saying "Holy cow, she's huge!" while pushing her out, because I could definatley tell. ROFL.

At 1:24am, on October 14th, 2009, I pulled Macie Dawn up out of the water. Her cord was wrapped all the way down her arm, like a candy cane stripe. That had been what was holding her arm up by her face and why the midwife couldn't get it to budge.

Macie has a head full of hair that our whole family just adores. She weighed a whopping 9lbs 4oz, which is almost a whole pound bigger than Melia, and a pound and a half bigger than Emilee and Megan. In addition to being my biggest, I had to push her out with her hand up by her shoulders! That's a lot of baby to birth! That obviously was the difference I felt in the pushing phase and why it was so difficult to push past that cervical lip.

The first few days after the birth, the only thing I could remember was the last hour of the birth and how difficult it had been. How I had never had that much difficulty during labor. But after a few days had passed, I realized the labor itself had been my easiest labor. Up until that last hour, it was a breeze. It was simply the last part that was difficult. I think quite possibly that is because I was expecting the pushing to be quick, since it always is, and I was mentally unprepared for anthing else. Have "else" happen, left me feeling out of control and I don't do well when I don't have control. But then, what is one hour? Anyone can do anything for one hour. And really, in the scheme of things, one hour is not that long. And it reminds me that birth is fluid and timeless and I shouldn't have boxed myself into what it would be timewise. Live and learn! And really, how can you even remember one difficult hour when you're holding a squishy, beautiful baby in your arms?

She's a bit bruised in the face. But notice she STILL
has her hand up by her face. Apparently she doesn't
know it's not still tied up with her cord.

After getting cleaned up, I sat in the recliner and cuddled with my sweet, sweet little baby. In fact, I hardly moved from that spot for the next couple of days. That is one of the most wonderful parts of homebirth. She is practically perfect and my kids are just eating her up.

Only The Best Caramel Apples Ever!

2009-10-28T11:17:00.000-07:00

An Apple.

Caramel.

Milk Chocolate.

Peanut Butter.

Dark Chocolate.

White Chocolate.

Sprinkles.

Could there be anything better?

Happiness is also.....

2009-10-20T09:10:00.000-07:00

Snuggling with a sweet newborn cuddled up on your chest and smelling her sweet little head while she sighs on your shoulder.

Happiness is also watching her do the same thing to Daddy.

I have a birth story coming. But I'm waiting for some birth photos to make it complete. We are enjoying every minute of our sweet little girl.

Happiness is....

2009-10-13T11:02:00.000-07:00

Sitting on the couch at night, reading a good book, and listening to my 3 daughters upstairs in their room giggling uncontrollably with each other before falling asleep.

Sharing a favorite website of mine...

2009-10-08T13:44:00.001-07:00

I love this website! It's called Paper Back Swap and it's great!

The premise is that you can share your old books with others and earn credits to order from others. You start out with 3 credits and can order from a huge list of books people are looking to trade. When you order, they will send you your book absolutely FREE (well, it costs you a "credit").

In order to earn more credits, you can post your own already-read books. When another member would like your book they send a request and you send it to them. You send it media mail so it only costs about $2.00. When they receive it, you earn another credit towards a book order. If you don't want to get rid of your old books, you can purchase credits. I believe they are about $4....so pretty darn cheap!

The reason I love this website is because it's cheaper than buying the books new, (heck, it's cheaper than buying it at a used book store most of the time), they have almost every book you could want AND you don't have to worry about getting them back to the library or having any fees for keeping them as long as you'd like.

www.paperbackswap.com

I'd almost forgotten about this website. But after spending an hour in the library with my kids, not finding ANY of the books I'd wanted to find, and then trekking up to the counter, books in hand, only to find out I had $20 of late fines I had to pay in order to take the books home, I left empty handed and disappointed. I returned home, remembered about Paper Back Swap and realized I had 6 credits to use up! I already have some books on their way to me! Woot!

School Conferences

2009-10-07T17:59:00.001-07:00

The girls had conferences today. Emilee and Megan got glowing reviews from their teachers as always. Their teachers gushed about how much they love having them in class and how well they do with their work and help out.

Emilee
Emilee's teacher just thinks she has a great personality and is a terrific reader. Although we just started 4th grade, she's reading at a 5.5 reading level, which is approximate to 5th grade, 5th month of the school year. She says she's blessed to have Emilee in her class. Go Emilee!

Megan
Megan's teacher says that Megan can almost beat her at her math facts. Apparently Megan loves to race to do the Math pages with her teacher and can almost beat her! And not only does she do them fast, but they're always 100% correct. Her reading teacher says that Megan "is a riot" and has an excellent retell ability for her stories. You rock, Megan!

Melia
Melia, Melia, Melia. How I love you. lol
Melia is my "free spirit" as her teacher called her. She's not reading yet, but apparently neither is most of her class. She's doing well, although she has some attention issues. She gets distracted very easily. But even that has improved I guess. She's a cutie, that's for sure.
And........drumroll please......she is being kicked out of speech therapy! She no longer needs it for atriculation, and she communicates well when she needs something (well, as well as any 5 year old with her stubborn personality does). Way to go, Melia!

Can't be TOO much longer...

2009-10-06T18:50:00.000-07:00

I really thought I'd have this baby earlier than my others. I could feel in in my bones.

Apparently my bones are lying to me.

But the good news is that there's no WAY it can be too much longer, right?

I just want to meet this sweet little baby girl. And find out if she has hair, and what color it is and if she'll have full lips like Melia.

So we wait....and wait...and wait some more.

I have the best kids in the world!

2009-10-01T20:39:00.000-07:00

I know you may think you do, but I can prove it.

I was really looking forward to having a nap today. I stayed up way too late last night partying with a few friends for my good friend Sarah's birthday and I was tired today! Then, minutes before laying down, the school called because Melia wasn't feeling well. The school worker said, "She has a fever. It's 98.8 so it's really getting up there."

Uh....hold up. 98.8? Hahahahahahaa. Ok.....so....hahahahahahaha.

So does she....hahahahahaha.

Sorry, I just can't control myself. Wow, my children have had high fevers for 10 years!

I went and picked her up ("fever" and all!) because she had been moaning and complaining of not feeling well in the middle of the night last night. Got her home, she had a nice big bathroom trip and all was well. She's not sick. But nevertheless, I did not get my nap.

So this afternoon, I lamented my lack of nap to my oldest daughter Emilee. She told me to go take a nap and she'd "take care of everything" for me. I informed her that I had just cooked 6lbs of hamburger that needed to be separated and wrapped and put in the freezer, 3 loads of laundry that needed to be folded and put away and that their chores needed to be done for day. She said she'd take care of it all and was super excited to be "in charge" if I went to bed. Megan offered to cook dinner if Daddy didn't when he got home.

So to bed I went. I woke up almost 3 hours later. The laundry is done (with the exception of my clothes). The bathroom is tidied. The dishwasher was run. The hamburger was wrapped and put in the freezer. The entertainment center was organized and dusted.

I love my kids. Seriously....I think I may squish them so hard their eyeballs will pop out. What did I do to deserve such totally awesome children?

Squash Soup

2009-09-29T12:31:00.000-07:00

As the leaves turn and fall swings into full force, I've gotten out an oldie but goodie recipe I want to make this week.

I love this soup. Even my husband likes this soup and he does NOT like squash. My kids even eat this soup, although sometimes I tell them it's cheese soup and let them pour it over a baked potato like cheese sauce. Any way you eat it, it's good.

Squash Soup

6 Tbsp onion, chopped

4 TBsp butter

6 cups squash (such as Butternut) peeled and cubed

3 cups water

4 cubes chicken boullion

1/2 tsp dried marjoram

1/4 tsp pepper

1/8 tsp cayenne pepper

1 pkg cream cheese

In large saucepan, saute onions in butter. Add squash, water, boullion, spices. Bring to boil and cook 20 minutes or until squash is tender. Puree in blender or food processor with cream cheese until smooth. Return to pan and keep warm until ready to serve.

Oh Yummy. My mouth is watering already.

You can also add in broccoli, peppers, steamed carrots, potatoes or other veggies at the very end for variety or if you like your soups "chunky" but it's really good just as is. You can lower butter and cream cheese amounts to make it healthier and you'll barely notice.

Still head down...

2009-09-26T13:55:00.000-07:00

Hooray! Headed to the midwife just to double check that baby is still headdown. She is. She's actually been hanging out in relatively the same position since Tuesday which is a first for her. Typically, she changes position every 20 -30 minutes...constantly from one side, to another, to diagonal, transverse, up, down, rinse, lather, repeat. She seems to have finally settled into a content position. The midwife suggested that perhaps she had been wrapped up in her cord funky, or something was going on that prevented her from feeling comfortable in one position. Hopefully, she is now settled in for the long haul.

Well, hopefully not TOO long. I'd love to have this baby within the next week.

SIKE!

2009-09-23T16:09:00.001-07:00

Baby is head down again.

She's gonna give me a run for my money and she's not even here yet!

Prayers that she stays down for the rest of this pregnancy (which is hopefully not too long!) would be much appreciated!

Up, Down, Up, Down, UP

2009-09-22T10:26:00.000-07:00

These last few weeks of pregnancy have proven to be filled with drama. This baby has been quite the mover and constantly in different positions. Well, a week ago, we discovered she was breech. I managed to turn her and when we went in for a version she was already head down. Hooray!

However, over the weekend she turned back up. I've been trying all the old tricks (and trust me, I have tried them ALL), but so far it hasn't worked this time, although I realize it's only been 24 hours. It's really frustrating me and making me really nervous. What frustrates me the most is that if I lived 3 hours south of here, no one would give me having a breech birth a second glance. But because I'm in Washington, if I go into labor right now with her head up, they will automatically want me to do a C-section.

I've had lots of opinions expressed to me, and a lot of people don't understand "what is so bad about a C-section?" Well, absolutely nothing if it is needed to save you or your baby's life. C-sections are a wonderul thing when needed. But why in the world would I want to have major abdominal surgery if it's not needed? Why would I want to endanger future births by having an unncessary surgery? Why would I want to go through the recovery and pain for no reason? And at this point, that is what it is for....no reason.

I've been spending countless hours researching breech babies over the last week and I'm not convinced that there is any reason I can't have one. Other than the fact that finding a practitioner who is skilled and experienced in doing so is nearly impossible because they would so much rather cut babies out nowadays.

I'm hoping beyond hope that this little one moves head down before labor starts, but I'm preparing myself for what my options are should she not.

I can:

1) Have a C-section because that's all Dr's know how to do anymore
2) Have an un-assisted birth (uh, no thanks. While that might be right for some, it's not right for me.)
3) Find a midwife around here who will come be with me during a breech birth.
4) Go spend two weeks in Portland where they do breech births.
4b) I could try heading to Portland during labor, but uh, that's a long drive!

I'm leaning towards option 3 right now. I have found a midwife who has experience with breech births and knows how to handle them. She has said that if I get myself in a bind, she will come IF she doesn't have a client of her own in labor. But what if she does? Should I take that chance? Should I just up and go to Portland? But the cost....oh the cost and then baby might flip head down anyway and it would all be for nothing.

I'm so confused. My husband gave me a beautiful blessing the other night that we would not NEED a back up plan. That baby would move into the proper position when the time was right. I'm trying to have faith, but alas, I'm failing miserably.

In all my years as a doula I have had to help countless women as their plans changed. I knew it was emotional for them, but I never truly grasped HOW emotional. All I want is my beautiful, calm, peaceful home birth. My last one was so wonderful. I'm all ready. I just hope baby is.

Just Playing With My Toes

2009-09-09T20:23:00.001-07:00

So Melia still loves "This little Piggy" even at 5 years old. She never gets tired of it. I don't know how other families do it, but in ours the last little piggy runs wee-wee-wee all the way home and right up into a nice tickle session, which is REALLY what she wants, I'm sure.

So tonight after a couple of This Little Piggy games she asks me, "Where did you learn this?" I told her I had learned it as a little girl.

She cocked her head to the side and asked with an amused tone, "So you just played with your toes a lot when you were little and liked to tickle yourself?"

I'm still trying to pick myself up off the floor after that one. Hahahahaha.

Apple Cake

2009-09-07T10:35:00.000-07:00

We had a Ward Potluck breakfast this morning for the holiday. It was tasty and I got a ton of requests for my recipe, so I thought I'd post it as well!

Apple Cake
1 box yellow cake mix
1 1/3 cup milk
3 eggs
4 large apples (peel and diced)
2 TBS butter
2 TBS Brown Sugar
2 tsp Cinnamon
Streusel Topping (directions below)

Grease 9x13 pan. Preheat oven to 350 degrees.

Toss apples into saucepan with 2 TBS butter, 2 TBS brown sugar and 2 tsp cinnamon (ok, let me be honest. I just threw stuff in. I didn't measure. I'm giving you an estimate of what I think I put in. So take that for what it's worth) Cook on medium heat for approximately 3-4 minutes until slightly softened. (again. I didn't time it. I'm just guessing on the time. It might have only been 2 minutes. Maybe it was 7. I don't really know. lol You can also use a can of apple pie filling, but I was looking for a way to use up my apples.

In bowl, mix together cake mix, eggs, and milk. Stir in softened apple mixture.

Streusel Topping:
1 cup quick oats
3/4 cup chopped pecans
1/2 brown sugar
1 stick melted butter
1 tsp cinnamon

Mix together to form scrumptious topping!

Pour half of cake mixture into pan. Top with half of streusel topping. Pour the remaining cake mixture and top with remaining streusel topping. Bake 45 minutes. Enjoy!

I have no idea how this tastes cold, but it sure was delicious piping hot! And it was gone in seconds.

First Day of School

2009-09-02T16:50:00.000-07:00

Yeah, the first day of school has arrived. The kids have been anxiously waiting for this for quite a while now. Melia has been asking daily if it was time for school yet. They all asked to get ready for bed extra early last night and were up at the crack of dawn because they were so excited.
Of course, Emilee and Megan were too old to have me walk them to class this year. At least I still got hugs (and a kiss from Megan)...on school grounds no less. I feel lucky!

Melia looked really nervous while waiting outside her classroom.

She got even more nervous when we entered the classroom and I wondered if she'd let me go when it was time. Fortunately, she had a seat right next to a little friend from preschool last year so it was only a few minutes before she had warmed up. UNfortunately (for the teacher that is), I have a gut feeling this seating arrangement is going to be a bit.....noisy. This little girl is quite the little outgoing talker, and Melia feeds right off of her. She is SO adorable though and posed for every single picture I tried to take of Melia with a constant "Make sure I'm in the picture too!" ROFL.

Melia
What was your favorite part of the day? Eating Lunch!
What was your second favorite part of the day? Playing Outside
Were you scared at all today? I got used to it
What do you think of your teacher? Um, she's pretty nice and pretty beautiful.

Megan
What was your favorite part of the day? My favorite part was doing the vertical and horizontal project.
What do you think of your teacher? She is SO SO nice.

Emilee
What was your favorite part of the day? Doing Math with Skittles
What do you think of your teacher? She's really nice
Any other thoughts about today? Not really

Oh, and another first for us. Melia lost her bottom two teeth in this last week. Just in time for school! How did my baby get to be so big?

Date Nights

2009-08-30T10:22:00.000-07:00

A long standing tradition in our house is Kid Date Nights. We started this when we had our second child. I wanted Emilee to be able to still spend one on one time with each parent and have her own time with each of us. Because Dad often works AND goes to school, his date nights with the kids are a bit fewer and farther in between but they still get done. The kids get to pick what they want to do, and I usually couple it with an errand or two that I have to get done as well. This gives them time alone with just us and I really enjoy it. They don't have to fight for attention from their siblings. They don't have to fight over who gets to sit next to me, or share the next story. I get to have a few hours of uninterrupted time to just chat with them, share some hugs and have a good time.

Saturday night was date night with Megan. She's been asking for months now to get a Henna Tattoo. We got one at the local Farmer's Market last year and it was fun. I finally found someone who does them so that is what we did for our date night (along with a trip to the grocery store, pet store and a Frosty from Wendy's!).

She wanted one on her hands. I normally make them put temporary tattoo's in a place that can be covered, but I was feeling generous and told her to go ahead. It wasn't until the lady asked Megan if she thought all the kids at school would think she had a real tattoo that I realized, "Doh! School starts next week!" I so would not have let her put them on her hands if I had remembered. *Sigh* Oh well. She loves them, we had a blast and that's what counts!

And of course, I had to get one too! Please ignore the bed sheet wrinkles on my beautifully pale, spotted ankle.

Back to Blogging

2009-08-28T10:22:00.000-07:00

So I' ve decided to start my blog up again. Notice that the last date I posted was in 2007. It's been a long time! lol

I gave it up because I just couldn't keep up, particularly when I started working full time and James was in school all the time. But now that I'm back to part time, I have a "little" more time. It doesn't really feel like I have any more time, but I'm going to start blogging again because I've missed out on recording so many things I probably should have over the last couple of years.

Also, I took a break from my board this week so that I could get things done around the house. It worked....a little bit. I've just found other computer stuff to do to help my procrastination addiction.

Bare with me while I get my blog all pertied up. I'm not extremely talented when it comes to computers. I can type like a fiend but that's about it. And, I don't really have a clue what I will even say. Probably a whole bunch of nothing, but that's ok too. Some days, that's what my life is about.

McDonald's

2007-01-18T12:12:00.000-08:00

So it's really difficult to plan two birthday parties just weeks after Christmas. But then I thought of McDonald's. It was the best idea I've ever had. It was SOOO easy, the kids had a blast and I didn't have to lift a finger.

However, there was this little boy who kept coming into the party room. He didn't belong to us...or to any of hte party guests, but he kept visiting anyway. No big deal....until he decided to come up and blow out the Birthday girl's candles, pick the candle up and lick all the frosting off of it and then proceed to swipe the frosting off with his finger. All the while he parents are just sitting 15 feet away ignoring him.

Extremely annoying if you ask me. Good thing he was cute.

Oh well. Overall it was a ton of fun and the easiest party I've ever done. I've decided that I will NEVER do a party where I have to set up and clean up ever again.

A little Bragging....

2006-12-20T10:01:00.000-08:00

Ok, so a lot of bragging. Can I just say that my girls are adorable? I know, I know, I'm their mother and required by law to say that, but really, they are! Emilee has been asking to sing a solo in church for over a year now. I finally let her do it. I convinced her to let Megan sing part of it with her, which is a good thing because Emilee got a bit of stage fright and couldn't get all the words out. But she was a trooper and hung in there even though she was really scared.

I recorded them when they practiced and wanted to share it but as I am computer illiterate, I couldn't figure it out! A big shout out goes to wonderful, awesome and talented Kristie who helped me put the recording on her website so I could post it here! Thanks Kristie!

Emilee is singing the solo in Silent Night, Megan sings a couple lines of solo in Away in the Manger and they sing Picture a Christmas completely together.
Isn't that the sweetest thing you've ever heard?
http://www.bloominbracelets.com/duet.mp3

And after you oooh and ahhh over my sweet adorable children, check out her awesome bracelets!

Ok, so now that I'm done bragging and being prideful, I'll share a little kid funny that happened the other day. Megan got a goodie bag at her preschool program. Melia, of course, being the younger sister and 2 years old (and you ALL know what that means!) decided to throw a fit becasue she didn't get one. Well, the nice preschool teachers found her a candy cane and gave her one.
On the way out I mumbled something like, "Well Melia, you threw a fit and got your way" to which Megan enthusiastically patted her little sister on the back and yelled, "Great job Melia!!!"

Ay yi yi.

The best part of Thanksgiving

2006-11-24T12:35:00.000-08:00

We had a great, low-key Thanksgiving dinner yesterday with just our family and Grandma BeBe and Grandpa Brian. The food was great and we had a good time.

The hands-down highlight for me was at the table when I was talking with Emilee. She commented on how she loved Thanksgiving dinner. I told her that Thanksgiving was my favorite holiday. She came back with the comment that was not surprising at all coming from a child.

"My favorite holiday is Christmas!" Well of course it is. Isn't every child's favorite holiday Christmas. Afterall, its the one day they know they will get spoiled with way too many gifts.

Then she finished her sentence. "Because Christmas is Jesus's birthday and I love to think about Him."

It touched my heart so deeply that I almost turned on the water works right then and there. What a sweet spirit I have in my home. How did I luck out to get a daughter like her? I certainly didn't give her enough credit. I am so thankful for her!

A great quote...

2006-11-10T19:58:00.000-08:00

I discovered this quote the other day, and thought it was beautiful and thought provoking. I would love to hear others' remarks on it.

"Our greatest fear is not that we are inadequate,but that we are powerful beyond measure.
It is our light, not our darkness, that frightens us.We ask ourselves, Who am I to be brilliant,gorgeous, handsome, talented and fabulous?

Actually, who are you not to be?
You are a child of God.

Your playing small does not serve the world.There is nothing enlightened about shrinkingso that other people won't feel insecure around you.

We were born to make manifest the glory of God within us.It is not just in some; it is in everyone.

And, as we let our own light shine, we consciously giveother people permission to do the same.As we are liberated from our fear,our presence automatically liberates others."

By Marianne Williamson
quoted by: Nelson Mandela

True Humiliation

2006-11-09T16:09:00.000-08:00

Children have a way of keeping you humble. Just when you start thinking that you have the brightest, cutest most well behaved children....they do something to keep you in line.

I took the kids out to have donuts this morning. We went into the shop and there was this lady there (I'm sure you've all seen one like her before)....sitting there, not looking quite "right"....like maybe she lives in a special home nearby but can get out and walk around the neighbor hood. She's just sitting there, with her mouth kind of hanging open, slumped in her chair just kinda staring into space with glossed over eyes.

After about 5 minutes, Emilee askes VERY loudly, "Mom, can people die with their eyes open?" while she stares at this lady.

I wanted to die!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I could have launched into a conversation about tact, about people with differences, etc. However, I was too busy trying to shove the rest of the donut into Melia's mouth so we could high tail it out of there!

Something in my ear

2006-11-03T18:09:00.000-08:00

Have you ever just been sitting around. Maybe you're watching a good movie, sitting at your computer (and really, chances are it's the computer....admit it) or driving in your car when all of a sudden you feel something in your ear? Your ear tickles like something is a movin' and a grovin' in there?

Logically you know (or really really really hope that you know) that it's probably just your hair, but you can't shake the feeling that you have some horrible insect in your ear canal. I mean, if you're sitting still and just fine one moment, your hair is not going to just jump up and shake around in your ear, right? So it might be a bug? But then really, how common is it for bugs to crawl into people's ear in the middle of the daily activities (don't even get me started on the horror stories about how many spiders humans swallow in their sleep!)

*shiver*

So please, let me know you've experienced the same thing, or give me the name of the best psychologist in Washington please.

The scariest thing about Dentists...

2006-11-01T08:00:00.000-08:00

Is not the drill, the shots or any other one of the torturing devices they have there. It's the Dentist himself. Why? Because he has the power to tell us whatever he needs to make money. How are we going to know any different?

I took Emilee to the Dentist a year ago. After waiting for TWO hours in the waiting room, we got in. They couldn't get Xrays on Emilee, because her mouth is so tiny (and she is so anxious) that she had a rough time getting the film in her mouth. But still, without Xrays, the Dr. was able to tell us that she had 3 cavities she would need to come back to have work on. She also, according to this dentist, needed about 6 teeth pulled. Nevermind that she was 5 years old and hadn't lost any of her baby teeth, yet. His reasoning was that her teeth were so crammed in there together, that her older teeth would not be able to come through.

We never went back to that dentist again because I had a weird feeling about it.

Fast forward to last weekend. We found a new dentist (one who is open on Saturdays. Hooray!) We got in within 5 minutes of waiting. The hygenist was spectacular and made Emilee feel at ease. They got Xrays this time because they were patient, and had these little tiny films for little mouths they could use. And guess what? No cavities! In fact, not only did she have no cavities, but the Dr. commented on how GREAT her teeth looked! THey even took her picture and placed it on the No Cavities wall. Oh, and as far as pulling teeth, she lost 6 teeth this summer, all on her own. Sure, she lost 2 teeth for every one that is coming in, but it's a lot less tramatic that going in and having them all yanked!

It makes me sick that I could have just listened to the Dr. and gone in, possibly traumatizing her at the tender age of 5 about Dentists for the rest of her life just by listening and blindly following one man's advice. A man who was probably trying to make more money by suggesting procedures there was hardly an oz of reasoning behind. I'm so greatful to have found a great Dentist! One who actually cares about teeth and not doing procedures. Three Cheers for Dr. McCullough!

What's a Bachelor's Degree?

2006-10-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

The following conversation happened in my car yesterday. The 8 year old boy I watch was bragging that his mother (who happens to be divorced), is graduating tonight with her Bachelor's degree. He was so proud of her and he had every right. Then my daughter asked him what a Bachelor's Degree was.

His answer:

"Someone who goes to school without a husband."

His poor mom...she deserves so much more credit for her accomplishment! lol

One little bit of information changes everything...

2006-10-13T08:56:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how one tiny tidbit of knowledge can change your entire attitude. That is what has happened in our household this morning.

Melia, my 2 1/2 year old, has been a bear lately. She's always been prone to phases of....um....high maintenance? But these last 3 weeks have been quite a doozy. It started off with some crankiness and a cold/cough. This cold has now been going on for 3 weeks, although for the most part she doesn't really "act" sick. She's been waking at night...alot. She's clingy during the day. She can be perfectly happy sitting on my lap, but if I dare try to walk away, she screams as if the world is ending.

Quite frankly, it's grating on my nerves. A couple days ago I just let her scream. She promplty responded to that tactic by throwing up all over my bedroom floor. Ear infection maybe? She doesn't have a fever. She doesn't pick or pull at her ears. I just didn't get the ear infection "vibe". But, since we didn't know what was going on, I was all ready to call first thing this morning and make an appointment for her. That is until...

Last night I was talking with a few friends. They both have one year olds and were sharing the woes of teething babies. That's when it dawned on me. 2-year molars! Sure enough, when I stuck my finger in her mouth this morning, two nice big fat molars have peeked through the surface. I'm sure there are 2 more working their way down up top. I bet that explains it.

I mean, it could just be that I have a tempermental, cranky and high maintenence child. But for now, I have some molars to blame it on. It's much easier to handle the clinginess when you know a possible cause.

Grateful to be alone.

2006-10-11T14:13:00.000-07:00

You might think I'm going to talk about the truly heavenly bliss that comes from having some alone time, but I'm not. I'm going to talk about those moments that you are truly grateful that you are alone, because otherwise someone would see you acting like a complete idiot.

Take, for example, me. I'm in my room today, cleaning (gasp! Yes, CLEANING my room. There you go Mom and Dad, it only took me 28 years). I'm sweeping along the side of my bed when this THING....this small black and really, really, really fast thing comes running at my feet. This sucker was coming straight for me and I screamed like there was no tomorrow and leaped up onto my bed, jumping and screaming and basically freaking out. Then that nasty little critter ran into the wall and began running back to where it came from.

As I watched the little purple/black bead roll to a stop in the middle of the floor, it dawned on me that with my zealous sweeping, I had sent the bead flying, bouncing off a wall, and rolling straight back at me. But in my defense, it was moving so fast there was no way I could tell it was a harmless little piece of necklace and not some creepy, hairy, eight legged ball of terror. It probably took me a full 5 minutes to quick breathing heavily.

See, this is why you don't clean. I really don't think it's good for your health.

After 7 long years....

2006-10-02T12:32:00.000-07:00

I finally did it. I splurged. And I don't just mean "oh, I just spent $40 on a pair of shoes"...I mean I SPLURGED.

I just spent $400 on a blender. Yes...but not just any old blender, on a Vita-Mix! The blender of all blenders! This thing can puree anything. You can make a smoothie and just peel an orange and stick the whole thing in there, seeds and all. I made soup the other day...all I had to do was stick an entire tomatoe in there, an stalk of celery, a slice of onion, green pepper and squash, a garlic clove and some seasonings. No slicing, no dicing. I didn't even have to use the stove or microwave, the Vita-mix heated it up for me! In the end I threw in some canned corn, black beans, chicken and tortillas to make it chunky and I had the most delicious soup. And best of all, I didn't have to chop anything or cook anything and it took me all of 5 minutes to make. And, since all those yummy vegetables were obliterated by the VItamix into a liquid, my kids were none the wiser! They also haven't realized that while Mommy has made them fruit smoothies and milkshakes ever day this week, I've snuck cabbage, kale and carrots into their daily "treat" becasue it blends so well it completely liquifies it and you can't tell they're in there!

Can you tell I'm happy with it? I've longed for one for the last 7 years. But I always let my head rule and would walk away. I decided to go for it this year, however and I couldn't be happier. And the best part is that it will pay for itself since I am now making my husband his rice milk, which costs about $4.50 a gallon from Costco but only about $.30 a gallon in my Vita-mix!

They should pay me for advertising.

Can't complain!

2006-09-22T09:21:00.000-07:00

When someone asks you "How are things going?", how do you respond? Honestly, the first thought that always pops into my head is, "I'm tired." Such is the life of 3 small children I suppose. But the other day I met an old friend and asked her how things were with her family. Her response....."Can't complain!". I heard that resonse once again last night from someone, and I've decided it's my new favorite saying!

Frankly, there are a LOT of things I CAN complain about in my life. But then again, isn't everyone's life that way? Couldn't we all find things to complain about? At Stake Conference two weeks ago, the Stake President talked about hope. He asked every person who had recently had something happen in their life, wether it be a death, or a financial burdon, an illness or some other struggle that had caused them to feel despair to stand up. Guess how many people stood up?

About 95% of the congregation stood up. What does that mean? That we are all a miserable, desperate bunch? No. There are the can't-complainers out there. They experience the same feelings of despair, exhaustion and frustration that I often feel. So what is the difference? I would guess that it is probably that they don't let those frustrations define what their life is.

So I'm tired a lot. Does that mean that is the definition of my life? Is that what I want my life to be about? I think I want to redefine my life experience. I'm going to start answering "Can't complain!". Because I really can't. I have been blessed with 3 beautiful and healthy children. My husband has a job. I could complain all day about his job, but can I complain that the Lord hasn't looked out for us when my husband HAS a job and so many don't? A job that truly was an answer to prayers long ago, even if it doesn't seem so now? To complain about all that I have probably makes me seem like an ungrateful little brat. I lecture my children when they get to go to the fair and they complain because they can't go on just one more ride. Is that what I'm doing when I focus on my frustrations and my trials instead of all of my blessings?

So how are YOU doing today? Me? I can't complain!

Wonderful Husband of Mine....

2006-09-11T13:14:00.000-07:00

Yesterday my friend was having what we were pretty sure was early labor, so I was preparing to spend the night at a birth. I was absolutely beat, but my husband encouraged me to take a nap (which I promptly did about 30 seconds after that sentence came out of his mouth!). He let me nap for 2 hours and wrangled the kids. He gave them baths and got them ready for bed. He did a large portion of the enormous laundry pile we'd been picking at all day. Then, when I left for the birth around 11pm, he supported me and wished me well. When I arrived back home at 6am, exhausted and sleep deprived, my dear sweat husband went into work late, so that he could get up with the kids and let me get a few hours of rest before he left to take my oldest to school.

The entire time, he never once complained or seemed short or put out by the demands that an on-call job can have on a family. He supports me whole-heartedly and sacrifices to help me do something that I love.

It is an act of love that he will never have any idea of how much it means to me. I can say it means the world to me, but that really just doesn't even begin to explain how much it truly means.

It will be my turn to support him soon, as he begins school again for the year and I become a school widow. Those qualities of understanding and sacrifice do not come to me nearly as naturally as they seem to come to him, but I only hope that I can support him as well this next year as he has supported me through my doula work.

Love you, Hon!

Killing them with kindness....

2006-08-25T15:45:00.000-07:00

We've all heard the saying before, but it really is true. I've been refinshing our kitchen table this week, which means time in the garage (and little people following me in there!). It also means that the cans of paint that Daddy left out, opened I should add (to dry them out so the dump will accept them) were available for the little people who follow me around all day.

So when I heard my oldest start crying and saying "you're gonna be mad at me", I really wasn't that surprised. I mean, come on, 10 gallons of piant and three children? Can anyone really expect anything less? When she finally coughed it up, apparently she had gotten paint on the Cinderella dress up clothes that Megan had been wearing.

Now I don't claim to be a perfect mother. Heck, I don't claim to be mediocre, and I will admit that my normal response to things like this would be (said in wicked-witch style of course) "Why would you be playing in paint? You know better than that. Go outside!" Yes, I would have said that even though I was letting them in the garage with the paint in the first place. But I didn't say it this time. I was good, people, I was very, very good! I looked at her and simply said in a nice, calm voice, "Oh, I guess you'll be earning money to buy a new dress for Megan then won't you?" and I went back to work on my table. When she continued to cry, I put my arm around her and told her, "It's only a dress, Emilee. It's ok. You'll just have to work it off and make it up to Megan."

I can't tell you how proud I was of myself. Emilee, on the other hand, continued to sob and cry. She didn't seem to be appreciating my soft, kind approach. In fact, when I came out of the garage 20 minutes later I heard her inside the house still sobbing. Now if I had screamed, she would have cried...and gotten over it. Something about the whole "under" reaction thing really threw her for a loop and she was either scared that a) aliens had abducted her mother and replaced her with someone else or b) I was disappointed, which we all know is the worse possible punishment a parent can really bestow upon their offspring.

You really can kill them with kindness.

Must be nice

2006-08-14T21:05:00.000-07:00

This is my daughter's beautiful hair after a summer of fun in the sun.

Must be nice to have hair this color, complete with highlights, without paying $100 or more.

I wouldn't know.

Actually, that's a lie. I did know, once upon a time. Of course, I was a child myself, so I certainly didn't appreciate it. Why is it that we appreciate things so much more when we don't have them? It's like when I used to think I was *gasp* fat....as a teenager I lamented my thighs.

Now, I would kill for those thighs! I need to learn to appreciate things when I have them. All those things I had when I was younger....beautiful bright hair color, smooth skin, good muscle tone....now only a memory. I wonder what things I have now, that I may take for granted or even dislike, that will only be a distant wish-I-had-that-again memory 20 years from now.

Some chocolate....

2006-08-10T19:48:00.000-07:00

Well, the PLAN was to post you some chocolate anyway. But a certain really annoying and pathetic website that shall remain unnamed (*cough*blogger*cough*) won't let me.

So thanks to those who answered! You can have the self satisfaction of knowing you made someone's life easier and it was fat free as well!

17!

2006-08-09T23:11:00.000-07:00

That's how many people have come to my blog today and ignored my desperate pleas for help with my little poll. Apparently, not as many people like chocolate as I thought.

STOP!

2006-08-08T16:33:00.000-07:00

Do not move on to another blog. Do not pass Go. Do not read and think you'll respond later but never come back.

Help a poor girl out. I'm in charge of a baby shower. I know many of you, having been in my shoes, will take pity on me and help me. Those of you who haven't, will put your imaginations to work.......and help me. Those who lack imagination, will see me groveling and begging and feel sorry for me.....and help me.

So we're doing games at the shower. I know, I know....I hear complaints about games all the time. But I like baby shower games! And the other gal in charge with me likes them as well. So we're having games! One such game will be Baby Fued, taken after Family Fued. So I need your answers to the following. Please....pretty pretty please....with a cherry on top? A cherry dipped in chocolate? Aha, I knew I'd get some of you with the chocolate!

Name the best things about having 3 children ages 2 and under...(we're asking this because...well, she is doing just that, and needs some warm fuzzies to think about! lol)

Name something you love about babies

Name something you pack in your birth bag

Name an activity you WON"T be doing right after you have a baby

Name a must-have baby item

Name a common item in a diaper bag

How many times does a baby wake a night?

How many diapers will a new mom go through each day?

Name a baby item that starts with B

What time of day will Jennica's baby come? (such as afternoon, dawn, middle of the night)

How old will baby be when he gets his first tooth?

Cleaning Power!

2006-07-29T01:00:00.000-07:00

Do you have Cleaning Power in your house? We do! It comes in the form of Betty Crocker's Rich and Creamy Chocolate Frosting. The house was a complete disaster, 99% of that mess being from my three lovely children. I needed chocolate, and I needed it bad! So as I raided the house for chocolate and came upon a half eaten tub of frosting, a thought began creaping into my oh so tired brain.
I gathered the children around me, and told them that I had some Magic Cleaning Power. I explained to them that I would give them each a spoonful and if it worked really well and helped them clean up quickly, I would give them some more when it "wore off" and they needed a boost to start a new job. The first spoonfuls went down the hatch and the kids scurried off to show me how well the Cleaning Power was working, because remember, if it doesn't work there's no need for me to give them any more. They raced back and forth time and time again with requests of "I need more Cleaning Power; what can I do next!?!?!"

Within about 15 minutes, and 5 or 6 shots of Cleaning Power, my house was clean. Ahhhhh....blessed, teeth-rotting, bribery.

The organized mayhem....

2006-07-25T21:25:00.000-07:00

So my friend watched my children this afternoon for two hours so I could get some work done around the house. I had these fantasies of cleaning the entire house and getting my to do list all crossed off. Of course I snapped to my senses, and realized that I should make a more obtainable goal and set out to clean my bedroom. In two hours? Who was I kidding.

First of all, you have to realize that my bedroom also houses my computer desk and filing cabinet. A computer junkie can not, and I repeat, can NOT work in an environment with her biggest temptation humming right beside her. Of course I had to get on a few times to check email, read a blog or two, etc (and by a "few" I mean 59).

Anyhoo, back to my cleaning. I started with one simple pile on the top of my filing cabinet. But as I started separating the loose paperwork into catagories such as Primary papers, doula papers, Modbe papers, papers for Emilee, papers for Megan, financial papers, catalogs I haven't looked at for a year but might need some day, etc, I realized that separating them all out wouldn't do me much good unless I had somewhere to actually put them, aside from shoving them back on top of the filing cabinet which is what got me into this mess in the first place. So of course I needed to start clearing out some drawers in the filing cabinet to make room. Then of course there were items in the filing cabinet that didn't actually belong there, and would be better to put in the large closet in the hallway. So of course I had to start clearing out THAT closet to make room for the stuff in the filing cabinet to make room for the stuff on TOP of the filing cabinet. You see where I'm going with this?

2 1/2 hours later, I have 3 wonderfully empty cabinets. I also have 10 piles of crap to go through instead of the 3 I started with. I've thrown away an entire bag of old paperwork and yet my house does not resemble the neat and organized haven I had imagined when I dropped my kids off. Who was I kidding? Next time I ask someone to babysit, I'm going to be honest with myself and ask for 2 weeks, not two hours.

More on Megan

2006-07-13T08:43:00.000-07:00

So this will be a little brag thread on Megan, becasue she's just growing up so fast right now! I think age 4 is so amazing because they just really start to mature into little children at this point.

I was standing at the counter with Megan, and she emphaitically informs me that she knows Heavenly Father loves her. My heart melts...can you truly hear any sweeter words come out of your child's mouth? She tells me that she knows that because she had a dream about Heaven and Heaven was wonderful. "Yes, Mom. It was so wonderful and Daddy was there! But you weren't!"

You know those moments in a movie when the music comes screeching to a halt? Yeah, it happens in real life too...I think I actually heard it. But her conversation marches on as she tells me about Heaven and how her swing set had banana seats.

Do you remember my post about how Megan taught herself to read? Well apparently she taught herself to tie her shoes as well. She was at tap class and needed to put on her tap shoes and we went through the quite common conversation of "I want to do it" "Ok, try it" "Ok, I can't do it, I need help", only THIS time, she did it!! Perfectly! Both feet! I asked her where the heck she learned it and she informed me all by herself. I didn't teach her. My husband didn't teach her. I asked her sister and she told me about the time she tried to teach her and she didn't understand (and I remember that time about 4 months ago). At some moment it clicked though...and again without my knowledge.

It makes me sad. I was there for every single one of Emilee's "first" moments. But Megan is just charging forward, full steam ahead wether I am there or not!

So anyway, she was tying her shoes for tap class. Megan is at Itty Bitty Dance Camp this week. I let the kids pick a camp to attend at the YMCA this year. It's for 2 hours a day for a week. Emilee took tap the last 6 months and while she enjoyed it, I vowed that my kids weren't going to take Dance anymore. While the actual classes at the YMCA were not expensive, the costumes, shoes, recital fees, tickets and videos of the production are outgrageous!!! It's just more expensive than I think is worth it. So I made a firm decision that the girls will have to stick with Gymnastics (which is completely free at the Y). Of course, then Megan's instructor pulls me aside privately after class on Wednesday to tell me that Megan is quite the littletapper, was the best in the class and that she has picked up very quickly and really seems to have a knack for it. I just about plugged my ears and start singing right there in front of him. I do not need to hear about how my child has a talent that needs to be developed. Well, I want to hear that, but I need to hear about a talent that doesn't cost so much money! Now, of course, against my better judgement, I REALLY want to put her in Tap classes this fall.

Besides being a little Tap Prodigy, my little Megan is the biggest sweetie you'll ever meet. She loves to cuddle and to do nice things. This morning she brought me breakfast in bed (prompting this little ode to Megan today). Cinnamon toast with actual butter (I didn't get any butter on Mother's Day!) and a cookie on the plate, with a nice cup of apple juice. The cookie was in about 4 pieces which she informed be was "becasue the cookie kept falling on the floor", but unfortunately I didn't get to try that cookie because I offered the kids some and there just wasn't any left! And when she cuddles, she doesn't just sit on your lap, she wraps her little arms around your neck and can stay that way for a long time. In fact, I have a hard time if I have to sleep in the same bed with her because she likes to sleep that way, completley plastered to the side of my body with her arms around my neck and her hot breath by my face. It melts your heart, but doesn't help you sleep!

I'm insanely in love with my little Megan, absolutely positively crazy head over heels for her.

And just for fun, some common Meganisms (I'll let YOU figure out what she means!)

"Moooom, I can't find the hooker!"

"Look, I flipped off the fly!"

Speaking of kids growing up...

2006-07-03T14:59:00.000-07:00

My oldest last night asked me why guys smelled better than girls. Then she proceeded (in her most dramatic tone) to say, "Guys smell SOOoooooooooo good and girls just don't have a smell. But guys smell.....oh....SOOOO good" *insert a died-and-gone-to-heaven facial expression on her face here.

I swear...we don't even have cable. I don't know where she gets this stuff! I was going to wait to lock her in her room when she was closer to the teenage years, but now I'm thinking six might be the right age to start.

When did she learn to read?

2006-07-03T08:57:00.000-07:00

Megan came up to me the other day and said, "Look Mom! I wrote apple!" There are the paper were three perfect little letters.....A P L. Oh my goodness, she actually sounded that out? But wait...Emilee is the reader in the family, Megan's just a little preschooler, she doesn't read, right?

Ha! Boy, what an unobvservant mommy I have been. I sat down with a few books to spend some quality time with Megan. That girl can READ...no thanks to Mommy. I certainly haven't been aware. She read things like "Pam has a hat." and "Spot is black", although she said Spot is Blask, but hey, I don't blame her...stupid English language and it's changing sounds.

It always amazes me how different children are. I've always been aware of that, but sometimes something comes along that just really drives home the point. I guess Emilee was about this same age when she started reading but do you ever notice that your oldest is always older? Even when a younger sibling becomes the same age the oldest once was, they're not as old as the oldest one was at that age somehow. Was that even English? Did that make sense?

When did Megan become old enough to read? I was so busy trying to teach Emilee how to read and become a little more "fluent" at it, that I completely neglected the fact that Megan is now old enough to begin. When we read together she never asked to read and I always assumed she wasn't ready. Anyway, back to how kids are different.

Emilee learned all of her letters and the sounds they make pretty early on. She knew them all extremely well and she knew most of them before she even turned 4. However, it took us quite a bit of practice to learn how to blend words together. A sample reading session would go something like this:

Emilee: C = Cuh A = Aaaaa T = Tuh Which obviously spells "Cuhahtuh!!!"

We worked a lot of figuring out how to blend those sounds. Megan on the other hand, seems to have no problem blending sounds (seeing as she figured it out on her own). Perhaps part of the reason I didn't realize she was ready though was the fact that she doesn't even know all of her sounds yet (maybe half?). So what she can read is quite limited, but man, if she knows those sounds she doesn't even seem to have to sound all of them out. We were reading the word "kids" and she started by making the "r" sound. I corrected her and told her it was a K. She immediately shouted "KIDS!" No need to individually sound them all out and figure out how they go together. She's just amazing me right now. I love this age when they are figuring things out and learning these new skills that prepare them for school. I'd just spent so much time watching Emilee do them, that I forgot that Megan was entering that phase. And by the way, when did I get old enough to have TWO readers in the family?

Which brings me to another thought. I've always classified my children to a degree. I mean, I don't have favorites or "good" children vs. "bad", but we've had some stereotypes. Emilee was the "thinker"....she asks 100 questions a day or more and analyzes everything. She was the one who loved to learn how to write and do her "schoolwork", etc. Megan, on the other hand, always seemed to be more physical and rough and tumble. She had little desire to sit around for long periods doing "work" and more desire to be doing, doing, doing. I guess more focus was placed on her physical feats. The thought occurred to me that perhaps I don't tell her how smart she is as often as I tell Emilee. So yesterday, when we were cuddling and reading I told her how incredibly smart she was. She beamed at me, and said, "And Brave! Don't forget Brave!"

She may be smart, but she's still rough and tumble too!

Overheard in the bathtub...

2006-06-28T19:38:00.000-07:00

So my two oldest children are taking a bath and I'm just around the corner putting the leftover dinner in the fridge.

I hear, "Emilee Erin DeZort, will you marry me?" Her reply? "Well, I would like to, but you're supposed to have a ring and you don't have one."

A minute later I walked into the bathroom to see Megan sliding a toothpaste lid onto the tip of Emilee's finger for her "gagement ring". Emilee then annonced she was having a baby and proceeded to have a beautiful water birth.

ROFL....is that a daughter of a doula or what?

Ah, the memories...

2006-06-26T18:31:00.000-07:00

Today I had the wonderful opportunity to get together with an old childhood friend. Her mother and my mother were good friends and we played together all of the time. I moved away when I was eight, and her family moved several states away soon after that. I've only seen her two or three times since then. I'm now married, with 3 small children and she is married with an adorable little girl!

It turns out that she only lives an hour or two away from me now. Her mother was up visiting and so we all got together....the "original" mothers and the "little-girls-all-grown-up" mothers.

She looked so wonderful and it was a joy to see her (despite the fact that she is cute and skinny...something I can only aspire to!) It was so much fun reliving old memories and sharing new things in our lives. I have more memories of spending the night at her house than I do of just about anything else in tnat period of my childhood. We watched Smurfs and She-Ra together. We built forts and hunted for BB's on the streets we roamed (remember the days when little kids could actually roam the neighborhood?) We would force our little brother and sister to sit still and play school with us, or we'd try to get them to kiss each other...that is, when we weren't trying to get away from them! I think about her often when I see my daughters making "best friends" with children they are growing up with in the neighborhood. I often wonder if they will look back with the same memories.

We're all grown up now. She has a beautiful little girl that has this crazy, huge grin she shares very easily. She looked just like her Mama. It was a nice reunion....certainly not something I get to do everyday. As soon as they left I had to go look through my old pictures. I didn't ask her if I could post pictures of her in the internet world, but well, our history will allow her to forgive me. lol

Here we are doing I have no idea what. I'm the blonde with the horrible haircut! But look at our feet! Certainly the best part of this picture is the Jellies! Man how I thought Jellies were cool!

Here we are in the back row. The girl I have my hand on is her little sister. The other two...well, I have no idea who they are. But I'm pretty sure the outfits we're wearing were made by my friend's mother. I could be wrong though...afterall, it has been 20 years.

When your lessons to your children come back to bite you in the butt.

2006-06-22T20:26:00.000-07:00

So we have a rule in our house.

Put your stuff away! Not that it gets followed very often. My children area always leaving their things out. I've had almost every single toy taken away before and it didn't seem to help a whole lot. Not that I can blame them; I'm not the best at picking up either.

Anyway, to drive home the point that they need to take care of their stuff, if they leave it out, it's anyone's game. Emilee will get upset because Megan is playing with some special toy/project/gift of hers and if it wasn't put away then I tell her that it's not my problem. Basically, if she leaves it out then the other kids can do what they want with it.

So tonight I took some money out of my jeans pocket before sticking them in the washer and just left it on the counter. Do you see where I'm going with this? When I told her it was mine, she asked the question....the question she really had every right to ask. "How come I have to give stuff back to you when you leave it out, but Megan doesn't have to give stuff back to me?"

Good point. My daughter is now $7 richer.

Happy Birthday Dear Melia

2006-06-07T09:41:00.001-07:00

Wow. Two years already? I felt like taking a trip down memory lane today.
I realize it's long, but indulge me.

It was a Sunday night. I was due the next day, although I use the term “due” very loosely. When I was first pregnant, and I went in for my first appointment with my midwife, I informed her that I had been late with my previous two, and I was pretty sure I ovulated close to a week later than the average woman. So we changed my due date from the 2nd of June, to the 7th. No real reason to say the 7th, it was just later and sounded like a good date.

So I was “due” the next day. I had a final scheduled for Tuesday in my online college course I was taking. The instructor emailed us Sunday afternoon informing us we could take it anytime we wanted. I hadn’t studied, but not wanting to push my luck on the baby front, I decided to sit down and just take it and get it over with. I started the test around 10:30 that night. About half way through the test, I was just really uncomfortable sitting there. You know how it is when you’re 9 months pregnant. Is there really a comfortable way to sit? Then I began to notice that the insane urge to stand up seemed to be happening every 5 minutes or so. Hmmmmmm….

By the time I was near the end of the test I could hardly concentrate. I just wanted to be done and to walk around. I quickly finished the last question (I got at A by the way!) and began to walk around the house.

Nothing.

Worried that I would be calling my birth team to my home in the middle of the night, I did what any sane pregnant woman about to go in labor would do at midnight. I did the dishes so they wouldn’t think I was a slob! While doing the dishes I definitely felt a little bit crampy, but I couldn’t classify anything as a contraction really, since I couldn’t really feel a beginning and an end. I could just feel a little bit of a peak now and then. I decided I really should go try to get some sleep in case I was going to be getting up in a few hours. I laid my head down on the pillow and boy, it felt nice. I was tired so I instantly began to drift.

YEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOWWWWWWWWWW! A contraction came and it did NOT feel good. My body screamed to get up, but I really just wanted to sleep. Knowing that often times when you change a position, the next one is stronger, I kept laying there thinking they would alleviate. YEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOOW. Ok, Ok….they’ll settle down.
YEEEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOW! I literally jumped out of bed because basically every cell in my body told me that that was not ok to be laying like that! I got back up and walked out into the living room.

Nothing.

Well, not nothing, but certainly not much. A light bit of cramping every 5 minutes or so and that was it. I remember feeling silly just walking around, at 1am, with hardly any labor going. But I knew I couldn’t lay down. For some reason, when I laid down they hurt like crazy! So I walked around for a little bit and they slowly became stronger and more defined.
Around 2:30 I woke my husband and asked him if we should start filling the birth pool. With my last birth, once things got cooking, they really sped along. So I was in this weird in between stage, where I wasn’t positive this labor was going to stick, but I couldn’t wait too long or things would get rolling to fast to do the things I wanted. We decided to start filling. At 3am I called my midwife and told her I didn’t know if she should come, I didn’t want her to waste her time….but it might be it, etc, etc. She decided to come.

Meanwhile we ran out of hot water with the tub half filled. By now I was really starting to feel uncomfortable and I was tired (because it was 3:30am!) and really wanted to relax in the water. My mother arrived and we suddenly had a brilliant plan! The next door apartment was unrented at the moment and when no one lived there, the managers always left it unlocked! My mom and my husband took pots and pans and went over and stole their hot water, one pan at a time, and brought it back to my tub! They single handedly filled the rest of my huge birth tub that way. Aren’t they great!?!

My midwife and her assistant showed up around 4am. I told her I did not want to be checked because if I wasn’t very far along I was going to be discouraged. So I spent the next 15 minutes or so leaning against a wall and saying, “Freak Freak Freak Freak Freak Freak Freak Freak” during the entire surge. I don’t know why. It certainly wasn’t planned and not something I did with my other two, but it sure felt good! The rhythm and the noise really helped to relieve any tension I had. I was having a lot of discomfort in my back, so I was really using anything I could to keep myself loose.

My doulas arrived around 4:30 when I was getting into the tub. Boy, that tub felt good. It was pretty hot though, so one of my doulas spent almost the rest of my labor bringing cold washcloths and putting them on my face, my back and my neck. My dear wonderful husband spent the entire time pushing on my aching back to relieve some of the pressure I felt. My other doula sat in front of me with a pillow on her lap, and I leaned over the edge of the tub and laid on her lap while she played with my hair.

Around 5:30, I asked to be checked. I was ready to hear the news. 6cm! Not too bad, I had hoped for more, but wasn’t too disappointed with that. I went back to work at relaxing and moaning through my birthing. My oldest daughter (who was 4 ½ at the time) woke up around this time. She was a little anxious since she woke up early to all of these people in her house and didn’t get the build up of early labor to adjust to. Grandma took her out in the living room and put the Lion King and watched the movie with her. They would come in and peak in the room ever so often.

Around 6:00 I told everyone that I felt complete and could probably start pushing. However, I remembered the pushing as very overwhelming with my second. The urge had been so strong that I hadn’t felt very in control and I was really nervous about starting that again. So I continued to labor for a bit longer (probably 15-20 minutes) until I realized I really wasn’t going to get anywhere just doing that. So I started pushing. I told the midwife something didn’t feel right and she checked my cervix and found a little lip left. During the next surge she simply popped the lip up over the babies head and then things felt much better to push. Shortly after I started pushing, I felt a pop and knew that my water had finally broken. Pushing in the water felt so much better than it had pushing on my back in bed with my second! I could “feel” more, as in I could tell what my body was doing and where the baby was, but it didn’t feel nearly as overwhelming. I could feel my body doing it’s thing, but I didn’t feel like I was on a runaway train like last time. I had the oddest sensation when I felt the baby’s head slip into the birth canal. It didn’t hurt a bit, but I felt so full. I could feel my body stretch and I knew when to back off so I didn’t tear. At one point when I was pushing, I could hear the Lion King in the background. It was playing that scene when Scar is singing all evil like, and I heard him sing, "Powers of Contention!". I remember yelling at someone to turn it off because my baby was NOT going to be born to a song about contention!

I was pushing on my hands and knees and when she was born, and the midwife just somersaulted her between my legs and she floated in front of my. I picked her up and out of the water, held her to my chest and just became overwhelmed with so many emotions. She was finally here! She didn’t breathe at first, but she was pink and healthy looking. She held her head up on her own and looked at me, and at a few other people in the room. Then she laid back on my chest and the midwife tickled her feet and she slowly started to breathe….a little bit at a time with just a little meow here or there. It was so wonderful.
Later, Emilee helped Daddy to cut the cord. Megan came in about an hour later and met her new little sister and we gave the girls their Big Sister gifts becasue it is so special to become a big sister and we knew they would be wonderful big sisters.

It took us two days to name her Melia (Muh – Leah). We had picked out Olivia, Alyssa, and Allison, but none of them seemed right! On day two, Emilee said she thought she looked like a Melia. It fit immediately. Even Daddy agreed (and Daddy does NOT like unique names) so we knew it was meant to be.

My little Melia is such a personality. She has this insane screech/giggle she lets out every time she sees a balloon. And I mean EVERY time. We hear it several times a day. She notices them in the horizon when they are miles away at a car dealership, or in a grocery store 6 aisles over. I hear the screech, and I immediately begin looking for balloons. She has the curliest little hair. She is slow to give people a smile sometimes (you can always see the wheels turning behind those eyes and she’s figuring people out) but when she does, it’s magic. She’s a Daddy’s girl too and if she hears his car after work will run out the door giving him the “balloon” screech!

She’s my little Melia and she’s Two!

Surrounded by my husband and my two doula's support

Pictures of me holding my baby for the first time (as well as the people who held my hands the entire time)

And here she is today, trying to be big like Daddy and eat her dinner while leaning against the kitchen counter.

How cute is that?

2006-06-02T18:09:00.000-07:00

About 18 hours after our first dental floss experiement, Emilee lost yet another tooth! We'd discussed pulling it that night, but since it wasn't ready to pull the night before when we got the first one, I figured it wasn't ready to pull less than 24 hours later. But while playing in the back yard and chewing gum, it popped out all on it's own! I think the first one was helping to hold it in or something! lol

She is also sporting the haircut she recieved right after school. I had to drag her in (since the last 30 days consisted of conversations along the lines of "If you keep crying, we're cutting it all off", etc, etc, etc.) I made her go in and she was sad. But the cut is so cute on her, even SHE could see that! She ran her hands through her hair all day commenting on how wonderfully tangle free it was and how she was going to keep it like this for a while. It is awfully cute on her. Growing up I said I'd never cut my children's hair short. I thought little kids and long hair were inseparable! But Emilee just looks cute cute cute with short hair. Her hair is so thin and straight and short hair just complimetns her face. We had it cut in an inverted bob and slightly stacked in the back. It's a bit shorter than we asked for, but still adorable on her. Yes, that was pride you heard in my voice....I'm a sinner.

I've always thought kids with their teeth missing were cute. But something about it being on my own "baby" just makes my heart melt. I love that look!

Two graduations in one night!

2006-05-30T22:20:00.000-07:00

My baby....my oldest baby, graduated into the toothless club tonight! She's had a loose tooth for months now, but it was hanging on strong. Actually, now both of the bottom ones are really loose. Today I noticed you could see her adult tooth coming through right behind the back edge of her loose tooth. She's quite the scaredy cat, but I convinced her it would be fun to pull it. So we sat down and I tried very unsuccessfuly to grab a hold of that tooth. Baby teeth are incredibly tiny when you think about it. Yeah, yeah, I know, stating the obvious. Anyway, we attempted the old tried and true dental floss method, but I had the hardest time getting the dental floss around her tooth! It just wouldn't stay on. It didn't help that she was a little stressed out and her bottom lip would tighten up and get in the way. I finally grabbed the tweezers to help hold the back side of the floss in place. Bingo! I know she was really nervous, but I honestly think that I was more nervous than she was. I knew that if I failed to pull that tooth out, it would 1) hurt her and 2) increase her paranoia about loosing a tooth. So after I made her a giggle a bit I yanked with all of my might. It actually came out quite easily. She had this look of shock on her face, and then I dangled the tooth in front of her. She was all grins! She started this uncontrollable, excited giggle and started chanting, "it's out! it's out! it's out"...but that excitement slowly morphed into a full blown panic attack.
"It's out! It's out...........oh no...It's out! Aaahhhh, I'm scared, I'm scared (imagine her now running around in circles petrified) I'm scared." I should have video taped it. I probably could have won some money on America's Funniest Home Video because the extreme emotions she bounced to in that 5 seconds was quite funny!

I guess she'd seen the blood on the end of the tooth and was really worried. So of course, I couldn't let her look in the mirror for about 5 minutes because she actually bled quite a bit. I was grateful Megan didn't say anything to her.

So now my baby is toothless and she is loving it. Most of her friends have all lost teeth already so she was feeling left out. Now I just have to remember not to go to bed before doing my part!

The second graduation was my precious Megan! She had her preschool graduation today. They had cute little graduation caps and everything. They called the kids' names and they would walk down the aisle gingerly, most of them acting shy. Then Megan came bounding out when it was her turn and skipped and twirled her way down the aisle! I'm so bummed I didn't get a picture. She was moving so much and so fast that the only two pictures I snapped were way to fuzzy to even post.

My little girls are growing up.

A French Kiss

2006-05-25T14:54:00.000-07:00

When my oldest daughter was younger (around 3), she would ask for a "turn kiss", which meant a kiss where your heads turned, like at the end of the fairytale. She also knew that the mouth was slightly open. Man, kids are really observant, even of cartoons! She would try to "turn kiss" us all of the time.

So today, when she asked for a French Kiss, I assumed she had renamed the Turn Kiss and wondered where she had even learned that term in the first place. What is a kindergartner doing learning about French kissing? I began to giver her a speach about how some kisses are for Mommy's and Daddy's and other kisses are for kids when she lamented, "But I just REALLY want to kiss you on both cheeks".

Ahhhh......a French kiss. Ok, I get it. Sure Emilee, French kiss all you want.

Birthday on a Birthday!

2006-05-24T13:16:00.000-07:00

So Monday was my birthday! Happy Birthday to me! I had a pretty fun one! Since becoming a mother, Birthdays are pretty much a regular day most years, but this one was fun! My husband took the day off of work and my MIL and GMIL were staying with us and they watched the kids while James and I went out. They baked me a birthday cake, helped the girls wrap presents and then MIL took us out to dinner as a family that night! It was really a great day!

I also got to go to a birth on my birthday! I had a client who was due in the middle of June but had been having a lot of health issues. She decided to have a C-section (her first had been C-section, her second a VBAC homebirth) because of some liver issues and her baby boy was born Monday morning at 37weeks, 1 day weighing 9lbs 9oz!!!!!!!!! That's right! 9 1/2 pounds and 3 weeks early! Wowsers! He was absolutely adorable and my client was happy. It was fun to get to go to a birth on my birthday! What better way to celebrate than that?

My talents lie in other places.

2006-05-18T14:42:00.000-07:00

I love to do my girls' hair up in cute little hair styles. I'm pretty good at it too. Now, don't mistake that to mean that I actually DO it very often, because really, who has time to get three little girls all spiffy every morning? And even if I did have the time, who would want the fight? I don't feel like listening to the shrieks of horror every morning. I get enough of that just brushing their hair. Especially when it will be all messed up by the time lunch rolls around. But when we buckle down and do it, it's cute! However, there is one aspect of hair care that I just can not get the hang of.

Parting.

I can not part my children's hair for the life of me. I try, I really do. But it's not uncommon for me to have to redo a part 4 or 5 times before I get it to where it is even enough to call it good. Not great, just good enough that people won't be able to notice how bad it is from a distance of more than 20 ft. Perhaps that's why I don't do their hair more often.

Megan wanted her hair is "two braids, mom, two braids" the other day. I eyed her head, looked from the front, from the back, from every angle I thought would be helpful. I parted a little, rechecked, parted some more. I had done a pretty good job for my first part of the day. I felt good about my part. It was even! I had mastered it, finally! I hate to say it, but I was......proud! That is, until I got both sides braided and took a step back.
*sigh*

Childhood memories

2006-05-17T09:16:00.000-07:00

So sorry for the terribly dim picture, but it was super sunny outside, they were sitting in the shade and well, I'm not a photographer! And I realize only one has a "normal" smile, but if you've ever tried to take a picture of 3 children, you probably know this is the best out of 30.

Here they are, enjoying a favorite memory of mine from childhood! Dipping fresh strawberries in powdered sugar! No summer in childhood is complete without it!

So what are your favorite childhood summer memories?

On another note, day 12 and still struggling with a voice. The good news, is that while horrible sounding, there IS noise coming out now. So I can talk and be understood which is truly a blessing. So, improvement at least!

6 days and still counting....

2006-05-11T15:46:00.000-07:00

So, small update....voice went away again. Didn't make it to the Dr.'s today because I had some issues scheduling issues. So I'll go tomorrow. My good friend around the corner offered to come and sit with my kids during naptime (the only time I could get an appointment).

And no, Stacy, I wouldn't call. Although you can; It might give you a good laugh. I can't promise you'll be able to hear me though. :)

Oh, and just because saying it once in my last entry isn't enough, Do you know how hard it is to parent without a voice?!?!?!?!?!

Let's just say there are 4 garbage bags full of toys, shoes, DVD's, etc out by my back door right now because the kid's must not have thought I was serious when I told them to pick them up or they'd get thrown away. Since I am NOT going to say it twice on a day when each word takes great effort, they now are going to be missing a lot of things. I'm trying to contemplate if I'm going to be mean enough to make Emilee go to school with just socks on because her shoes are gone. With how cranky I'm feeling right now, I just might....although I'm sure I'll get a good night's rest and feel sorry for her in the morning.

6 days....

2006-05-11T10:08:00.000-07:00

That is how long I've been without a voice. I started getting sick last Friday night. I woke up on Saturday, started loosing my voice and got a horrible flu!!!! Man, I was really sick. Sunday was a little better, but the cold had really moved to my chest/thoat area, my voice became worse and I started a really bad cough. That night I was short of breath and my poor husband was really started to worry. Each day, I would wake up feeling better, but my voice would be worse. Yesterday I really couldn't speak much. This morning, I couldn't speak at all. As in, just air came out. I was literally louder if I whispered.

It was quite frustrating, at that point, trying to call my husband and communicate to him that I needed him to call the Dr's and set up an appointment. I literally shouted into the phone, with my mouth right at the reciever. I shouted one word at a time....often 2 or 3 times until he could understand. It was really pathetic.

So now I have an appointment at 3pm. Guess what just happened?

Yeah, you guessed it....I just got part of my voice back. it's certianly still "gone"....but at least noise comes out now.

So, does that mean I'm getting better? It will be just my luck that by the time I go to the Dr. it will be all better and I'll look like an idiot. But maybe it won't. It went in and out a lot yesterday. I guess only time will tell.

One thing I can say, It SUCKS to try to parent three small children when you can't talk!

Don't bother me unless the house is burning down....

2006-05-10T15:00:00.000-07:00

You all remember comments like that from your parents, right? Well, they don't work with young children. It sure didn't work when I used it in the desperate attempt at 10 minutes alone in the shower this morning. 10 minutes is all I wanted. 10 minutes with no one else touching me, snotting on me or talking to me. My kids didn't listen.

However, that was actually a good thing. But, next time I make that statement, it will need to have some amendments made to it.

"Don't bother me unless the house is burning down, the 4 year old is about to pee her pants if she doesn't get into the bathroom right now, the toddler has found the paints and is attempting to decorate the couch, or the neighbor boy has walked into our house."

I'm sure I'll have to add more next time.

The wait is over...

2006-04-26T21:15:00.000-07:00

James didn't get the job. They found someone with experience underwriting government loans (which is what we were HOPING this job would help him put on his resume).

I was so looking forward to the extra income this job would give us. We certainly wouldn't be rich, but we would have been able to make ends meet...something that is difficult to do some months.

Tomorrow will be another day and we'll begin the search once more!

But for tonight...I think I'll go cry.

I knew it!!!

2006-04-22T23:15:00.000-07:00

I've always suspected that my children were from another planet. Today my suspicions were confirmed.

Megan wanted some of the vitamins Daddy was taking. Daddy told her they were not for children.

"Oh", she replied. "So they're only for Humans?"

Oh the waiting.....

2006-04-19T14:28:00.000-07:00

I hate waiting. I am an extremely impatient person. Actually, I'm a control freak, really. Which means I hate waiting becuase I'm not in control at the moment. We're waiting to hear if James got a job he interviewed for or not. It's a scary move, but one that we've been getting more and more excited about as we've thought and prayed about it. Now we just have to wait and see if they'll want him!!!

The longer it takes, the more nervous I'm getting. Last week she told him she wanted his answer (he actually wasn't sure at the interview if it was the right fit, and she spend a good part of the interview actually trying to convince him it would be!). Well, now we've given our answer and she says she'll let us know next week.

NEXT WEEK? I can't wait that long. Just tell us and get it over with. If the answer is no, fine. We'll get over it and move on with looking for other jobs. But I hate just waiting...not knowing and letting someone else have our future in their hands for the next week.

Someone distract me!

Lesson Learned!

2006-04-12T11:01:00.000-07:00

The other day, Emilee was asking for MORE ice cream. She'd already had two bowls, for pete's sake. But she wanted more. We talked about the importance of eating healthy and making our bodies strong. Her reply? "I'll eat healthy tomorrow!" Hmmm, she must have subconsciously picked up the same justifications I use every day. I told her that "Tomorrow never comes." but she just gave me a weird look and went on trying to convince me she'd wouldn't eat any junk food for a few days.

Yesterday Emilee and I were spending time together while the other two children were napping. We played UNO and snacked on Pop, chips and chocolate (those Cadbury MiniEggs just kill me every Easter). When I remarked about how we were eating such horrible snacks the strangest look came over her face. All of a sudden her jaw dropped to the floor and she remarked, "Mom, you're right! Tomorrow never DOES come!"

Do you think learning this lesson at age six will keep her from procrastinating like I do?

A new resolve...

2006-04-04T22:35:00.000-07:00

I've had a thought formulating for a few months now, and it has become louder and louder in my head. I'm at the point now, that I want to take notice and do something about it.

I've come to the conclusion that I'm too negative. Not necessarily in a "bad" way. I think I'm relatively "normal" and I don't believe that my friends consider me a really negative person, but maybe I'm just in denial. But I have been thinking about the people that I admire the most in my life and the one characteristic that I've noticed they all possess is the ability to be so positive and upbeat all the time. And I'm not talking a bouncy, giggly, cheerleader type happy... just a content, glass-half-full, I'm-on-the-green-side type happy.

A greeting with a friend might go such as this....

Me: Hi! How are you?
Friend: Great, and you?
Me: Oh, ok. Tired.
Friend: Oh, that's too bad, why?
Me: Oh, my kids were up a lot last night...I had a ton to do, blah blah blah blah.

Not that I think it's a bad thing to be able to vent and share my frustrations and trials in life. Not at all. I'm just beginning to think that I do it too often. I find that I talk about my frustrations in life a LOT, whereas the women I admire most do it very little. I don't hear of them discussing all the things they need to do, frustrating run ins with people, etc. Sometimes they do, but it's rare. I think that it's quite common with me. I don't want to be a negative person. I don't want to even be a mediocre person. I'm not trying to compare myself with these women, but I do want to try to emulate some of the qualities I find important. I want to be a person that people feel good to be around. I want to be someone that people feel comfortable with, uplifted when they're around me and happy.

In order to do this, I'm not going to be able to just tell myself to stop feeling that way. That would kill me! I'd be suffering in silence. I'd feel lonely and unsupported and unvalidated. That's certainly not going to help me be an uplifting person to be around. In order to do this, I'm going to need to make a concentrated effort to look on the bright side a little more often. I think I'll stop to smell the roses and make sure that I remark on their beauty out loud to my friends, so that I get in the habit of sharing THOSE happenings in my life as well. I want to spend less time thinking about what I have to get done, and more time thinking about the blessings I have in my life. I'll spend less time thinking about the monsters that I call my children, and more time thinking about the beautiful spirits the Lord allows me to call my children. I'll spend less time complaining about how men operate, and more time thinking and remarking on the man who supports me, regardless of how emotionally unstable, cranky or demanding I am.

Yes, I'll start there. And I'm going to force myself to say those things out loud. I think that I think verbally (did you follow that?). I think better when I talk things out (or write things out). I can sit in a room and be quiet and mull over the same topic forever and not get anywhere. But the minute I begin to talk it out, the thoughts come together, they evolve and progress. I think that will actually be the key to changing my thought process. I need to change what I TALK about first, which will require me to take notice of those things so that I can talk about them, and I truly believe that my thought process will naturally follow. See....even as I wrote this my ideas of how to do this have evolved.

That's my theory anyway, I'll let you know if it works!

What a day....

2006-04-02T21:04:00.000-07:00

I had a friend's children over today. She's having a baby this coming week and I thought it would be nice for her to have a nice conference Sabbath to rest, relax and listen to the prophet and apostles. Her oldest two spent the night last night, and her 2 year old twins came over for the day. Her oldest daughter is my daughter's age, her second daughter is my second daughter's age (they're actually about 12 hours apart in age!) and her twins are just a little over 2 months older than my youngest. All girls (hers and mine). 7 girls, ages 6 and under in my house today. It was a blast, albeit quite chaotic!
Here's a picture of one of the meal times, probably
the only "controlled" time of the day.

It was a nice day outside, so they got to play outside for a while. It's really nice having older kids to play with my kids. It actually makes life easier since they occupy each other and spend less time following me around saying, "Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom". Having extra toddlers, on the other hand, is quite the workout. Take one toddler, who gets into everything, spends her days moving articles from one room to the other, turning on water faucets and trying to smash crumbs into every possible corner and then triple that. I got a workout! It really was fun though. Of course, maybe that had to do with the fact that I knew that at the end of the day it would be over! Things are always easier to do one day at a time.

Hmmm, guess I really picked the right name for my blog after all!

A confession...

2006-03-29T14:37:00.000-08:00

I am a selfish blogger. Yes, that's right. For the last month I have written a few blogs and read about the same. Thank you so much for those who come and read and post your comments. It means a lot to me.

I have been so busy this last month that I haven't had the time to read all of yours. And I really want to! I hear everyone comment about how wonderful they are and I'm jealous. Jealous that I've missed out....jealous that I can't write like that! I've been so busy my life has felt chaotic and stressed and even when took time to breathe I couldn't get my mind to focus. I have been concentrating on all the things I need to get done, and very little on anything (or anyone else). I've been selfish and self-absorbed.

BUT, I have been slowing my business down. My family needs me more. I have 4 more classes to teach and I then I'm pretty much done (with the exception of one birth in June and one in September!). I can just be me! I can concentrate on my kids and my church calling and just enjoy life. I'm looking forward to it. I've joined a group of women that go walking 3 times a week, which gives me time to clear my head and calm my thoughts down a bit. It also means that when I take time out for myself (ie. naptime!), I will be heading straight here! And reading....reading....reading.....I can't wait to catch up with all of you and see what's been going on outside of my own little world that I have been so wrapped up in.

A Thank You note

2006-03-27T17:45:00.000-08:00

My Kindergartner wrote her first Thank You note today....all by herself. She was really worried to send it becuase she knows that not everything is spelled perfectly, but I told her it would be more special if they knew she did it by herself.

I just have to brag a little, because it's pretty darn cute!

Thakc Q for what youv dun.
I love your presis
To: Kafaleen (btw, Kafaleen is what her younger sister calls Kathleen, lol)

Oh, and Megan doesn't spell yet, but her funny for the day was yelling up the stairs,
"Mooooooooooooommmmmmmm, Emilee says I'm a tattle tell!" lol

What's that called again?

2006-03-23T00:20:00.000-08:00

My oldest daugther (I know, I know....about 1/2 my posts start this way....what can I say, she's a hoot!) has been learning about money. She knows her quarters, dimes, nickels and pennies. She understands how money works. Which just made tonights discussion that much more entertaining.

Emilee: Mom, what's that dollar called....the one that has a 5 on it instead of a one...the dollar that is worth 5 dollars?

Me: Um, a five-dollar bill?

Emilee: (slaps her forhead) Ugh....that's right. I can NEVER remember that. They should make them six-dollar bills. Those would be easier to remember.

A Victorious Birth

2006-03-21T15:58:00.000-08:00

I got a call on Friday evening from a first time mom, "M". She thought that her water might have broken. She called her Midwife "A" and indeed her water had broken but her cervix was still long and closed. "M" tried to get some sleep that night, although contractions had started a bit. By the am, "M" was about 3cm dilated. We headed into the birth center at around 10am. By now she was 4cm. At noon she was 5cm and her contractions were still pretty short and soft. "A" gave her some homeopathic to help her contract and dilate a bit more. Things really picked up then and by a little after 1pm (yes, just one hour) she was almost complete! She just had this rim of cervix left.
For about an hour she sort of pushed, but not really. lol. Her body didn't really feel much like pushing so we just sort of waited for that cervical lip to go away. Baby was REALLY low. Well, the lip just wasn't budging. Midwife "A" tried to help it out a bit, but that really hurt M so we waited it out a bit more. Around 2:30 "M" had really started to push in ernest. That lip was still there though. It would slide partway around baby's head when mom pushed but flip right back over when mom stopped. Midwife A tried holding it back through several pushes to get baby past. Baby finally got through. M worked really hard. SHe was pushing so well but baby just wasn't moving much. It became apparant that baby did not have it's head tucked. Babies normall tuck their chins in, so that the crown of the head (the smallest part) comes through. Instead this baby was trying to come out with it's head straight up...so that the widest part of the head (from back to front) was trying to fit through that pelvis. Needless to say this was NOT an easy task.

I learned a LOT of new pushing positions that day! She was: in the tub, on her side, on her back, on the toilet, hanging between me and her husband's legs (on leg on each of our knees with her butt to the floor....think supported squat), on her tummy with a swimming ring under her belly. This last position seemed to do the trick. Each contractions she'd rear back up on hands (like a child's pose in yoga) and baby would really move. Baby still hard a hard time fitting the back of it's head past her pelvic bone though. I got to feel though! At one point Midwife A said to me, "Get a glove on and come feel this!" It was really cool! I could feel baby come through the pelvis and then slide back during pushes.

Mom, meanwhile, was doing awesome! She had a few moments where she would cry and ask what she was doing wrong. But if we talked to her, her intense eyes would just stare at us and she'd just focus on us talking. I told her husband to make her look at him if she was loosing control and to just talk to her. He did and she would stare at him, just so depending on his love and support, and he cried and told her how beautiful she was and that he was there for her. It was the most special moment. I had to look away because I felt like I was intruding on a very intimate moment.

Around 4:15, Midwife A was able to actually reach her fingers in and grab baby by the back of the skull and tuck its head (since baby was being so darn stubborn!). Once that happened, baby finally slid out to a crowning position. There was a little corkscrew of curly hair coming out of the top of its head. I got a really good picture of that!

Baby Girl "E" was born at 4:30, weighing 8lbs 7oz! She had a head full of hair and was one of the mellowist babies I've ever seen. She screamed a bit at first, but after a minute or two calmed down and I didn't hear another cry from her the entire time I was there (for another two hours). She just looked around and stared and Daddy and Mommy. Daddy and Mommy cried....actually sobbed uncontrollably for about 10 minutes. They were so overjoyed. We let in a room full of family that had been waiting outside the room eagerly.

The Midwife later said that she knows without a doubt that had "M" been at a hospital she would have had a C-section. Hospitals don't really seem very keen on all the position changes. (I've had several Dr's tell me there's no difference between laying on the bed in stirrups and any other position!). Midwife A described this birth as a "Victorious" birth....and she's right! It wasn't easy....it wasn't even "normal", but it was beautiful and mom worked so hard. It was an amazing birth to witness.

I can't wait to go and see that family for our follow up visit!

What a nice day

2006-03-08T11:03:00.000-08:00

The funeral was wonderful. Originally, I wasn't going to take my kids, but in the end thought that perhaps it might actually be helpful. My oldest daughter has some SERIOUS concerns with death. Where she got them, I'll never know as we haven't had to deal with death before. But for the last 2 years or so we've had hours and hours of conversations about it. I've used every analogy, every way of explaining it that is possible and it still comes up quite often. So at first, taking her to a funeral was out of the question. Then we began to think that perhaps this would give her what she needed. You see, she's a very concrete thinker. She can't visualize things and that bothers her. So when we talk about death in the abstract, she just doesn't understand. We thought that perhaps SEEING it, would be helpful. Of course, we were still worried that we would tramatize her for life. In the end she came, along with her younger sister. I prepared them as best as I could and they wanted to go into the Relief Society room where there was an open casket.

I personally had no desire to see my grandfather's body, but that is where grandmother was and I wanted to see her. We went in and the kids did spectacular. I had a minor meltdown in preparation to enter the room, but being in there was not what I expected. It's so obvious that grandpa was not there....that his body was not "him". There was a certain detachment from it because I knew where my grandfather really was. I think my girls could see the same thing and something must have "clicked" with Emilee, because she had only 1 or 2 questions and that was it! (Normally, we talk about death for 2 hours at a time and she can't stop worrying and discussing it). This time, it was "So can he breathe?"

"No, his body doesn't need to breathe. He is in heaven so he doesn't need his body anymore"

"Oh, ok." And she hasn't brought it up since.

Every single grandchild showed up to his funeral. Every. Single. One. I don't know how many there are, but I believe it is around 17 or something. All in all, there were 50 family members there for the family prayer beforehand. I'm not sure how many people were at the funeral total, but there were many people there, in fact, the entire chapel was filled. It was difficult to watch my grandmother kiss him goodbye and tenderly lay an afgan over him. Megan watched and said, "Oh, that's cute."

We all wore pilot's wings. At the very beginning, all of the great-grandchildren got up and sang I am a Child of God. What a perfect tribute to the patriarch of our family! His daughters spoke first. Linda, his oldest, got up and told everyone that were were here to celebrate Grandpa's graduation! My Aunt Jan had become ill that day and was not able to make it. My mother talked read her part, including a beautiful poem my grandfather had written about my grandmother just a couple of years before and mom also spoke about some fond memories she had. I was asked to read the memories I'd written down (my last blog entry). When I finished with "Here lies the shell, the nut is gone" I saw most of my cousins smiling and nodding as I know they had all made the same promise to grandpa.
My cousin Ruth read a poem called High Flight that he has had on his wall for years.

High Flight
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, and joined the tumbling mirth
Of sun-split clouds, — and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of — wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
Hov'ring there,I've chased the shouting wind along, and flung
My eager craft through footless halls of air. . . .
Up, up the long, delirious burning blue
I've topped the wind-swept heights with easy grace
Where never lark, or ever eagle flew —
And, while with silent, lifting mind I've trod
The high untrespassed sanctity of space,
Put out my hand, and touched the face of God.
— John Gillespie Magee, Jr
His favorite song, Ava Maria, was played. Then my cousin Matt spoke and talked of the eternal nature that we are and of being a reflector for Heavenly Father, (he put it MUCH more elegantly than I ever could...it was really an amazing talk). It was the perfect ending to his memorial.

We finished up with food...party food at that. Chili Dogs, cookies and Ice cream....etc. We had brightly colored napkins and plates to represent how Grandpa would have wanted us to have a party and be upbeat. Each table had a bowl of M&M's on it....something Grandpa loved. By the end, all of the children (probably close to 20 great grandchildren had been there) were running around the gym playing and having a good time, just as Grandpa would have wanted.

It was not nearly as emotionally exhausting as I thought it would be. I cried, of course, and several times. But at the end of the day, the sun was shining and I thought to myself, "This was a good day."

In Memory Of William Hamilton Hall

2006-03-02T12:39:00.001-08:00

When I think back to my childhood memories of my Grandpa Bill, I think of the jokester. Grandpa loved to joke with all of us grandkids. A trip to see him wasn't complete unless he had teased or tricked us in some way. He would call our home, and when I would answer, he would say, "Who's this?"

"It's me, Heather."

"No it's not, this is Grandpa!!!" he would joke.

I thought I would get the best of him and trick him up, so the next time he called and asked "Who is this?" I would reply, "It's Grandpa!" thinking that I was so smart. In schocked disbelief he would gasp, "You're grandpa too? So am I!!!"

My little child's mind would get so flustered when he would call because I knew I couldn't win. He loved to tease. He would tell us that the reason he had a little bit of jiggle under his chin was because his hair had fallen out and down into a sack under his chin. For years I believed that the scar on his head was from a bullet in WWII. He also claimed to have invented anything we were interested in at the moment...cars, dolls, sandwiches, the earth, etc. I can remember him taking walks with me when I would stay at my grandparents and he would take me to Lion's Park and point out the snake holes (at least, I think they were, he might have been pulling my leg then as well!)

Some special things about my grandpa:
1. He baptised me
2. He came to my wedding even though it was difficult for him to make the drive
3. He loved M&M's, particularly the big 2lb bag!
4. He loved B-17 bombers
5. He was an excellent baseball player- he pitched!
6. He grew a gotee last year! He was the best looking grandpa around!

I am blessed to have a bit of his life and story written down for me. He wrote them several years ago and gave them to everyone in the family. I'd like to share some of what he wrote...I'm sharing the parts that make me smile.

"I was told later in life that at birth I was so ugly and wrinkled they nicknamed me "Grandpa". I was transported from floor to floor and room to room to show the patients so they could see this little tiny ugly old man! So for a week the hospital patients were kept laughing and in good spirits by this old ugly baby. This is my only claim to fame.

...One final episode with Matches- Some how one of the matches I had in my pocket jumped out and set the house on fire underneath the back porch. Excitement, Excitement! No need to give details. Let your imagination dictate what happened in the next few days.

High school was next. Even though we were in a deep depression and had little of material things I enjoyed my high school years. I sang in the school Acapella choir, participated in three school operettas, namely: The Deseret Song, Chocolate Soldier and South Od Sonora in which I had a speaking part. In addition I took part in football, basketball and baseball. Baseball was my best sport and I pitched for a semi-pro team in the "Three State League". This was at the age of 16. I was offered a contract with the Chicago white sox farm team for the following year. However, I blew that by pitching too hard and too long in a game which I struck out 18 and one the game 2 to nothing. However showing off to the grandstand at that game ruined my arm and my pitching days were over.

During High school I did go to dances, etc, but never went steady with one girl. At my 50th class reunion one girl I took to a high school dance reminded me of the time I took her to the dance in a hearse. My father was a mortician and the hearse was the only car available.

I always chewed gum like a mad man. One night I was dancing with a young girl I knew and we went swirling pass the front doors which happened to be open to let some fresh air in. It was windy outside and I was talking up a storm and a gust of wind blew a big mass of the girls hair into my mouth and with my chewing and talking I magaged to get a big piece of sticky gum well intagled in her hair. This really made me a nerd.

It was in that dancehall I met my current bride. I did not know how to pick up a girl or ask to take her home. I fumbled around with some nerdy lines, but she rescued me by suggesting I walk her home. (They were married Dec 1st , 1940.....65 years of marriage!!!!)

War clouds were gathering and on Dec 7th, 1941 Japan attacked our naval forces in Pearl Harbor and the war was on. I enlisted in the air force soon after Christmas of 1941 and spent the next 4 years in uniform as an airplane driver. I currently hold a civilan commercial pilots license.

In 1956, our favorite youngest daughter was born (this was my mother. My grandpa had a way of calling everyone his "favorite"....favorite youngest daughter, favorite oldest daugher, favorite granddaughter named Heather...). Since she was supposed to have been a boy we hamed her Billie Ruth.

In conclusion, if I were asked for some advice I would say the following:
1. Be Yourself
2. Don't take yourself too seriously
3. Give more than you take- and I don't mean punches
4. Honor completely your father and mother
5. Be humble about your talents- they were god-given
6. Be honest in your dealing with your fellow man
7. Look to your father in Heaven in all things."

I'm a little nervous to go to the funeral as I've never been to one before but my mother tells me that grandpa has instructed everyone to imagine him standing at the end of his coffin, with his fingers stuck in his ears saying, "nana nana na na!" Good ole' Grandpa!

Grandpa,
I love you so much. I miss you. But I am so happy that you are free and young again and with Heavenly Father and those family members I know you have missed so much over the years. Each time I've seen you over the last several years, you've made me promise to say something when you died. I'm keeping that promise.

There lies the shell, the NUT is gone!

Grandpa Bill 1919-2006

WOW

2006-03-01T08:20:00.000-08:00

Has it been two weeks already? My life has been so busy lately. I keep putting my blog on the back burner and thinking "I'll get to in in a couple of days." Obviously that hasn't happened. And it probably won't happen again again for at least a week! I took on WAY to many clients this month and I am working too much.

Last month my oldest told me that I was going to too many "meetings" and that she hated that I was gone so much. I told her that if it really bothered her I would not do as many births. Her eyes widened and she said, "You mean *I* am more important than BIRTHS?!?!"

It was cute, but it broke my heart as well. She should know that; that is not a question I want my children to have. Yes, they are more important to me than my births. I do the births because I love to do them and it is a side of me I get to fulfill other than mommy-mode. I do them becuase they bring in a little extra cash, which we could certainly use. But I am Mommy first right now, not doula. So I'm cutting back.

I still have to fulfil my obligations to the clients I have already scheduled, obviously. So that means I am crazy busy until the end of this month. And then not so much. The summer will just be me and my kids and an occasional birth. Come fall, I will take time off completely for my family for a few months. This will give us all the break we need.

I'll always do births...even if it is just a couple a year...but my family comes first. And you can't ignore a child reaching out for more mommy time, especially if they use those exact words!

So, you won't hear from me again for at least a week. But I haven't forgotten my blog!

Love Note

2006-02-09T16:22:00.000-08:00

My oldest daughter wrote me a love note today....on her magna doodle. It reads:

I *heart* U.
I'm shoor I *heart* U.

Awww......I love being a mom.

Funny how inspiration comes.....

2006-02-07T20:16:00.000-08:00

Tonight I was getting my beautiful children ready for bed. Those beautiful children delighted in fraying every last nerve in my body tonight. As we sat down to say our nightly Prayers and Scriptures, they continued to hop and dance around, scream and screech and basically just not listen to me. My eyebrows furrowed, my lips pursed and I hissed "STOP IT RIGHT NOW. THAT IS NOT HOW WE PREPARE TO TALK TO HEAVENLY FATHER."
I then opened the scriptures randomly and this is the first scripture I saw. Not "on the first page", but literally the FIRST words my eyes read.

"An hypocrite with his mouth destroyeth his neighbour."

Wow! I grew up all my life hearing stories of people with real life struggles, fasting and praying for answers and opening up the scriptures to reveal the answers. And tonight it happened to me....even if it was just to chastise my hypocritical parenting skills.

So the Seahawks lost...

2006-02-06T15:40:00.000-08:00

I do not come from a football family. We never know when it is football season. We rarely know when the Superbowl is coming up. We just don't care. However, this season the Seattle Seahawks made it and this whole area has gone crazy. The evening knews would show Elementary Schools having entire assemblies dedicated to the Seahawks; small preschool children had their faces painted in the team's colors as they waved Seahawk flags. My daughter's school was among the schools hyping the kids up. So my daughter has come home from school, every day for the past two weeks, jabbering about the Seahawks and asking if I can paint her face blue and green for Seahawk's day at school. I don't even think she knows what a football game is, but she's excited.

So Sunday comes and I know that she'll be disappointed if she goes to school in the morning and finds out it was on and she missed out. So I turned the game on, figuring that she would get bored after 10 minutes. Not so! She watched the entire game! And not only did she watch, but she created her own scoreboard and kept score. S was for Seahawks, ST was for Steelers. She drew hearts by the Seahawks to show her support.

She was a little confused about Pittsburgh though. She kept referring to it as another country, and at one point when the Steelers made a touchdown she exclaimed, "Oh those darn Burg people!"

Then came the final minutes of the game. It became obvious we were not going to win and I tried to prepare her for the worst. The clock ticked down and Pittsburgh began to celebrate and Emilee burst into tears. "Our country sucks!" she yelled and then buried her head into the pillow to sob. She also asked if we could move to Pittsburg. She cried herself to sleep that night. Literally.

I guess we have a football fan in our family after all.

Top 10 instructions from the Pre-existance

2006-02-01T14:54:00.000-08:00

Inspired by my 19 month old, these are the last minute instructions my babies recieved in the pre-existance before they were born.

10. Do not, under any circumstances, allow your parents wash your face. If they try to do so anyway, scream and arch your back as if they are applying acid.

9. There are 5 main food groups that you must consume every day. Parents are not aware of this so you must beg several hundred times. These include: macaroni & cheese, top ramen, goldfish, fruit snacks and yogurt.

8. "Come here" means "run away as fast as you can". Following this direction will make your parents very happy, even if they do not look like it.

7. Whatever you do, do not allow them to cook in the kitchen alone. Whenever they attempt to cook a meal or do the dishes, cling to them as if you are stuck with superglue.

6. On birthdays, you will receive the best gifts. They are boxes, covered in bright paper and bows. For some reason, parents often put junk inside the boxes, but just throw that stuff to the side and you can enjoy your boxes and wrapping paper for hours!

5. Parents are organizationally challenged. So help them out by moving objects from the places your parents have put them and moving them to where they belong, which is usually in the middle of the floor in another room. At first your parents will be resistant and try to put things back, but as time goes on and other children join your family, they will eventually give in.

4. When you are not getting your way, stick your bottom lip out just so, open your eyes as large as you can and let a single alligator tear roll down your cheek. Works every time.

3. Markers work best on arms, legs and tummies.

2. Diapers are for peeing in, and toilets are for washing dolls.

1. You are equipped with a "intimacy-o-meter". Any time your parents are getting too friendly, your meter will sound and you will be able to spontaneously awaken. For the sake of your own self-preservation, please put your meter to use and scream bloody murder each time your meter goes off. We know it's hard to awaken from a dead sleep, but if you don't something really bad might happen, like a little brother or sister who will steal your toys.

Six Year Old Heartache

2006-01-31T13:36:00.000-08:00

The following conversation just took place between me and my Kindergartener. This is only a small snippet of the two hour conversation, but a pretty fair representation.

Emilee: Mom, I don't think Theresa likes me.

Me: Why not?

Emilee: She just doesn't.

Me: Did she say that?

Emilee: No. But she says that I scare her.

Me: Why does she say that?

Emilee: I don't know...she says that I'm a good girl and I scare her. But I don't want to....I'm trying not to. I don't understand. She asked me to be her friend and now she doesn't want to. I just don't have any friends.

Me: What about MiKayla?

Emilee: Well, she likes me TOO much. She's always like "Emilee!!!" and hugging me and stuff.

Me: So you don't like it when they like you TOO much, but you don't like it when they don't like you enough?

Emilee: Yes. I want them to be medium....like Skyla.

Me: Well everyone is different Emilee. What about Casey?

Emilee: Well Theresa told Casey not to be my friend. But I was Friends with Casey for a long time. She was my first friend at school.

Me: Sometimes little girls aren't very nice Emilee. But you don't want them for friends if they are mean. You don't have to be friends with everyone.

Emilee: Theresa said she's going to invite me to her birthday party, but only if I don't bug her. *tears come to her eyes and she hangs her head* I just don't understand friends. I want friends who love me for who I am.
(does that sound like a 6 year old to you?)

Me: *tears in MY eyes now* Emilee, you will have many many friends who love you just the way you are. You are a very special girl and anyone who chooses not to be your friend is missing out on a very very special friend.

Emilee: Mom, why are you crying?

Me: Because I want to be able to protect you from all the mean girls you will meet in school.

Emilee: *eyes perking up* Well, you could go take over their moms!

Me: I don't think so. It doesn't work that way.

Emilee: *wistfully* I just don't understand why someone would ask to be my friend and then not want to be friends with me.

The conversation went on and on like this for quite a while. My heart breaks for my daughter. I remember what friendships were like in school. They sucked! Girls are mean, as a general rule. They are manipulative and did very little for my self-esteem growing up. I tried to share with Emilee that I have known many girls like that as well, but that she will get a few really good friends who will make her happy and be there for her. Emilee is so tenderhearted when it comes to relationships...and she's only 6! Her heart breaks at the thought that someone would not be included or loved. She once had a friend tell her that she would not come to her birthday party if she invited so-and-so. Her jaw literally fell to the ground. She could not imagine that someone would be unaccepting of a perfectly good "friend". In her own words, "Mom, I try really hard to be a really good friend to people...why wouldn't they like me?"

I don't know whose heart aches more.....hers, or mine because I know exactly what is in store for her as learns to grow up.

Let me tell you about my Pelvis

2006-01-30T13:16:00.000-08:00

Because I know you are all dying to know!

I've always known I have a relatively easy time birthing babies. Don't get me wrong...I work at it, and I work hard. My labors are relatively "normal" in length. Nothing special there. But the actual get-this-big-thing-out-right-now decent, now that is where I really excel. With my first baby, they told me to start pushing when I was 10cm. Because I was a first time mom and I had an epidural, they laughed at me when I asked if they were calling my Dr. yet. They assured me that it would be a couple of hours. 10 minutes later they were yelling at me to stop pushing until they could get the stuff set up for baby. The on call Dr. came running in throwing her gown and booties on. Since I had an epidural, it was no big deal to stop pushing for 5 or 10 minutes...had I been natural, I'm sure that baby would have been born not 2 minutes after they told me to stop. Not bad for a first timer!

My second child was born after just a few contractions. My third took a little longer (maybe 15 minutes?) because I slowed things down and tried to just breathe so that I wouldn't tear. She also came out with a perfectly round head the minute she was born....no molding what-so-ever. I've included the picture as proof. This picture was taken as Melia was being lifted out of the water as I birthed her....so approximately 10 seconds old! Look at that round head!

Now I know why. I went to a Pelvic Mapping class the other night with a bunch of doulas. We got to map our own pelvises(is that plural of pelvis? Pelvi?). It was quite the site. Since everyone in that room has seen our share of women's most intimate parts, you would think it would have been normal...but it was not. 30 women sitting around, legs contorted as we became way to friendly with ourselves in an attempt to map our pelvic outlet.

Every woman has a different shape. Some women are long and thin, others have a wide and short pelvis. We mapped our pelvis and drew it on a piece of paper. My pelvis was HUGE! A woman's pelvis also has a lot of movement in it during birth so it can change shape and open for baby. In addition, the baby's head can mold and become quite a bit smaller in order to navigate through the pelvis. Let's just say that if both my pelvis and baby's fontenels (plates of the skull) were fused together, we would still have had no problem! Now I know why my babies come flying out at the end! I do have an incredibly curved tailbone, however, which could possibly help account for my intense back labor despite baby's good position.

Lest you get jealous of my cavernous pelvis, and think that all things childbirth related come easy to me, please note that I am in search of some decent boobs, because mine suck (no pun intended) at breastfeeding.

Birthdays Birthdays Everywhere....

2006-01-25T10:08:00.000-08:00

Megan's Pirate Ship cake. She helped frost this herself! Emilee did about 1/3 of the red stripes herself and a good portion of the blue area! I weas pretty impressed since it is pretty tedious work doing all of those frosting stars. And yes, this flag has 50 stars!

I'm pretty sure my children think Birthdays are actually Birthweeks. Megan's birthday is on January 12th, and Emilee's birthday is on the 16th. So we tell them happy birthday and mildly celebrate on their actual birthdays and then again with their party. All in all, we end up telling them Happy Birthday all week long! This year we did separate kid parties (neither of which landed on their actual birthdays) and a family dinner out to Azteca as well. So all in all we celebrated birthdays from the 12th until the 21st, and several times in between!

In the past, we've always had their parties together, since they shared a lot of the same friends (or their friends were siblings, etc). Since Emilee started school this year, she has some of her "own" friends so we did separate parties for the first time. Megan's party was first and was a total blast! She combined parties with a good friend that is only 12 hours older than she is (but different birthdays). The girls had a pirate party! It was so fun! They walked the plank, fished for pretzels with their "hooks", made spyglasses, played pin the patch on the pirate, sink the ship and pop the cannonball. Oh, and lets not forget the treasure hunt with a treasure chest pinata at the end! Tons of fun!

Emilee's party as the next weekend. I let her invite 12 of her friends, figuring that probably about half would show up. In fact, 10 showed up and that was only because one child was sick, and the other's parents had written the wrong day on the calendar! So it was crazy at my house, with 11 six year olds running around the house and boy are they loud! Emilee wanted an "American Flag" birthday so that's what we did. It was very unstructured, but that seemed to work best for those kids. They would have had fun just running around on their own for the entire time if I had let them! We had USA rhinestone tatoos, did an art project and played a couple of games. One game went well and one sank like a rock. The art project was great though! With how flighty the kids were during the second game I was worried they would be wandering, but every single one sat at the table for a good 20 minutes completely entertained. They also cracked jokes. "Hey, I'm a kid....so I'm in KIDnergarten" and then the entire table would erupt into shrieks...and I truly mean shrieks...of laughter. Then the next child would carry the joke on from there. "I'm a girl, so I'm in GIRLgarten" *more shrieks of laughter*. They continued with this until they had gone around the table about 3 times, each joke making less and less sense. "Hey, I'm American Flag, so I'm in American Flag garten." *more endless shrieks of laughter*.

Emilee made out with presents this year. Her oddest gift? She recieved a Bratz doll. You know how Barbies come with extra shoes sometimes? Well this Bratz doll came with extra feet!!!!! An extra pair of feet in different sandles came in the box. You just pop her old feet off and pop the new ones on. That's a little disturbing in my opinion.

One room down...

2006-01-18T12:37:00.000-08:00

5 more to go....plus a few other areas! I have been bitten by the Spring Cleaning Bug! My house has slowly spiraled out of control over the last few months. It's gotten so out of control, that I gave up a few weeks ago and just quite worrying about it, which only increased my stress level as I can't stand living in filth! There are piles upon piles upon piles of things that need to be dealth with. Part of my problem is organization; many of the things simply have no place to go. Our lives are so hectic, all I have time to do is fret about what I don't have time to do. BUT, I have a relatively slow week so I have begun to plug away!

Another reason, aside from just wanting an organized home, is that our kids have been sick....alot! I think they have spent as much time WITH coughs and colds as they have without. It's been mostly this past year, which happens to coincide with moving to this new house. We both feel this has something to do with it. One thing we have noticed is that this house creates dust like you would not believe! I have never had dust like this. Melia dropped her binky under her crib the other night and as I crawled underneath to get it, I saw literally 2 inches (I am NOT exaggerating) of dust under there. It hasn't been THAT long since I swept under there last. No wonder she's getting sick if she's breathing that stuff in all night! We are seriously considering getting a HEPA filter for our home. James and I are both highly allergic to dust (I haven't stopped sneezing all day since cleaning). We also may get our air ducts cleaned out. Unfortunately both of those things cost hundred's of dollars. So until then, cleaning and cleaning and cleaning is my only option.

So my first order of business was to clean their room. I did a deep, deep clean, as in a move-all-the-furniture,hands-and-knees clean.

I'm happy to say that their bedroom is now spotless.

I am unhappy to say that our hallway is now filled with 3 boxes of old clothes that I need to sort through and put out in the garage, as well as an assortment of odds and ends, that again, do not have a place to go until I clean a couple of other rooms.

Now, the true question is......how many other rooms will I be able to clean before this first one dirty again?

My streak is over! (and a birth story)

2006-01-14T21:14:00.000-08:00

Actually, two streaks have ended for me recently. The first streak, unfortunately, was our healthy streak. James and I had the stomach flu last week (and I'm not talking your garden variety stomach flu; I'm talking the someone-please-kill-me-now stomach flu). We were greatful that our kids did not get it, although this week we're dealing with 104 degree fevers, earaches, hacking coughs, tummy aches and lots and lots of snot. It was nice while it lasted.

The second streak is one that I've been waiting to end and it has! My string of long difficult births! I went to the best birth on Thursday. She is a wonderful sweet Russian woman, "M". It's a true miracle she hired a doula, because her husband happened to be very ill that day with a high fever and really bad flu so he stayed home! I was the only one there for her at the hospital. Her last experience was really awful. She had a few interventions and an epidural that left her bedridden for days with a horrible spinal headache. Not wanting to experience that again, she was looking forward to an unmedicated birth. M's water broke at 8am and she called me minutes later to ask me about it (she wasn't sure). An hour later, her contractions had picked up intensity. I arrived at her place a little after 11 and she wanted to go in. We arrived and she was 3-4 cm. The first nurse we were assigned to was HORRID! I'm trying to tell myself that perhaps she was just having a bad day, but she was just awful! She was short (in temperment, not just stature), and tried to scare my client into making different decisions than she had planned on. She came in and told her she "had" to have a heplock because in an emergency her veins might collapse and they wouldn't be able to help her. M kept holding her ground saying she hadn't wanted an IV and the nurse kept telling her it wasn't (and I know it's not, but no one wants a catheter stuck in their arm when they're trying to get comfortable!). M finally gave in and when the nurse left the room and quietly reminded her that she didn't "have" to have a heplock unless that was something she wanted. She assured me that she did NOT want one and decided to tell the nurse so when she came back in. The nurse came wheeling the IV tray in the room and M politely told her that she did not want one, that she had already discussed this with her Dr. and her Dr. had said that was perfectly fine with him. Nurse Nazi replied, "Well, your Dr.s not here today!" But M held her ground.

M was doing so well, but the nurse kept making her lay on the bed to get monitored. You don't have to be on the bed, those things work standing up, but it can take some creativity, and obviously creativity was not something that nurse was willing to try. She flat out refused when M asked over and over to stand up. M was too nice to smack her. The nurse checked her again at 2pm and she was still 3-4 cm. Then I had to leave to make a quick phone call. I found out afterwards then when I left, M had asked the nurse to hold her hand through a contraction (remember, no one else was with her) and the nurse had replied, "Just breathe." and walked away! That right there left me so angry with her.

But fortunately, her shift was over after we had been there for 3 hours and the world's BEST nurse came in! She was so positive and supportive. When it was time to monitor, she saw that M was comfortable in the tub and just told her to relax and that she would bring the monitors to her in the tub. M never even had to ask. She had to rig the monitors up quite a bit to get them to read in that position, but she just quietly worked with them so that M could relax and do her thing. When M started feeling pushy, the nurse let her stay there while she checked her, even though that meant the nurse had to contort herself over the edge of the tub and use her left hand to do it! She was awesome!

It was about 5:30 and M was 6cm. Her contractions were quite strong and M moaned and held my hand and moved her body with each contraction. She prayed continually for strength. At 6:30 I asked her if she felt like pushing and she replied, "oh, I already am." LOL. Since that particular hospital does not allow waterbirths, it was time to get out of the tub. It took two of us quite a bit of tugging and pulling to get her out. A final check showed that she was complete and baby was very low. She started pushing and baby just came on out! She took it really slow at crowning and didn't have any tears. The nurses and Dr.'s were all so impressed and went on and on about how they hardly get any natural births there. One Dr. even made the comment that she wanted to look into what it would take to do waterbirths (because it seemed so ridiculous to have to make M move in the first place when she was so comfortable.

The best part of the birth by far, was the fact that M was so happy with her experience. I was a little concerned becasue she was so vocal and seemed to struggle at times. It's always hard to tell if that is just their style of coping or if they are actually struggling. It must have just been her coping style (which I can appreciate, since I'm a pretty loud birther myself) because she absolutely loved her experience. Even 5 minutes after the birth she could rave about how perfect and wonderful it was. That right there is what makes it all perfect and wonderful.
The nurse was so impressed she announced how great the birth was and that it was completely unmedicated to every single person who walked in the door. lol. She openly admitted that she would never do natural birth herself, but that just made me love her all the more because you would have never known that by the love and support she showed M. In my opinion, that is what truly makes a good care provider....someone who can give a person everything they need to feel supported and to achieve their goal regardless of what their own personal beliefs are.

M's baby had a head full of dark curly hair and the chunkiest cheeks I've seen on a newborn in quite a while. 7lbs 13oz baby girl!

I can't wait to go back and see her in a few days. She was such a special woman and so strong. It was a joy to be at her birth. And to be perfectly selfish, it was so wonderful to be at a birth where I did not have to deal with the emotions of a changing birth plan. Most of all, it was so fulfilling to see one more woman proclaim, "WOW! I did it!" and to realize for once how truly miraculous and strong they truly are.

Monster children

2006-01-10T12:58:00.000-08:00

A few months ago, my husband and I sat down to watch a TV show. It was something about extravagent 16th birthday parties for rich little brats. These girls were thrown parties that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars. They whined, they begged, they stole credit cards, they flew to paris to find the "perfect" dress, etc. They cried buckets when told that they would be recieving a 3 year old sports car instead of a brand new one.

It made me want to puke!

These girls were so spoiled and their parents looked on with blank eyes and stupified expressions mumbling something about how "good" their kids were. Did I judge them? Heck ya! Spoiled, spoiled brats!

My husband had a conversation with my oldest daughter today. She is having her 6th birthday party next week. The conversation went something like this, "Dad, you and mom had better have the laundry done before my party because I am NOT going to have clothes that don't match. My clothes HAVE to match and I HAVE to be the best dressed one there."

Our party is $60 instead of $600,000. Our child is turning 6, instead of 16, but anyone see a resemblance?

Why I am a doula

2005-12-31T19:12:00.000-08:00

I have loved being a doula since I first took the course at Seattle Midwifery School. I can talk about birth for hours on end. I find incredible excitement and joy in being with women during this special time.

I have had a run of births, however, that has really made me question my "love". 4 births in a row. Each one, the mother was strong, prepared and incredibly knowledgable of exactly how to go about working with her body to birth her baby safely, smoothly and unmedicated. In each case, however, despite all of their preparation and hope, their births did not follow the path they had envisioned. All 4 women had OP babies (sunny side up, and the opposite of how baby SHOULD come out). 3 of the 4 women had their water break before labor started, and without labor starting within a day or so of their water breaking, which is a statistical anomaly. 3 of those 4 women labored for days and days, rocking and moaning and walking the halls before deciding for themselves that a Cesarean birth was the birth that was meant for their baby. The other woman was able to have her baby vaginally, but not until after a lot of work (literally 4 1/2 hours of pushing), vacuum and an episiotomy.

I was there for these women. I massaged their aching muscles, I mopped their brow with a cool cloth, I whispered encouraging words to them non-stop. I supported them, both physically and emotionally and gave them my all. When you serve someone, it's impossible to not grow close to them. Their dreams become my dreams. So when their dream must change, I mourn with them as they cry and weep over their change of plans. It's emotionally exhuasting to do that, time and time again.

By the fourth birth, I was at my limit. I literally wanted to run from the room screaming when it became apparent that this birth was following the trend of the last 3 births. I didn't want to be there. I didn't want to be strong anymore. I wanted to run, and cry and scream and rip my hair out. I ached for the sweet and strong woman who had spent the last 8 hours at 9cm. I ached because I knew that I would have to be there to support her when she gave up her dream of a natural childbirth and tried to embrace her new birth path. I ached because I could only imagine the emotions that she was feeling.

But I didn't run. I smiled at her and cried with her and her husband. I reminded them of how strong she was and how this journey had proven what an amazing mother she would be. Afterwards, as I tried to process all of my raw emotions, a wonderful sister doula said to me, " Being a doula often asks us to dig down past the point when we have no more to give, and give some more. That is what we do. We hold out hope, we believe and we support and encourage, when others have "checked out" long ago! We are strong and enduring. Our clients deserve no less, and that is what we do. At every birth, despite how we feel inside, despite our past experiences, despite what might be happening in our personal life, despite circumstances that seem impossible. Despite other births we have recently attended. We are a constant! We look at every birth as a blank slate, with a story to be written. And sometimes it feels like we have read that story before! Yet, we show up to do it again, and watch another story unfold!"
Her words say everything that is in my heart when I doula a woman. I stayed with my client because I am a doula, and that's what doulas do.

I'm in love

2005-12-20T16:38:00.000-08:00

Do you ever watch your children when they're sleeping and just fall in love? It is our nightly ritual to lay with our children for 2-3 minutes at bedtime. Last night I chose to stay a little longer because I just couldn't bear to unwrap my 3 year old's soft little arms from around my neck. She is a cuddler and loves to snuggle. As she was falling asleep I just watched her. Even now, the memory is bringing tears to my eyes.

I just studied her perfect, smooth skin, the beautiful curves of her face, her cheeks and that spectacular little nose of hers. I was filled with awe that this wonderful little human being was a product of me....of ME! How in the world did my husband and I create this little child, with her tiny little features and her immense personality? My heart swelled until my chest felt tight. I just couln't keep my eyes off of her. Her chubby little fingers were curled around my hand and for a few minutes, I knew I felt true love.

I mean, we all feel love. We love a lot of people. Sometimes we love so much we shout for joy or shed tears. But then there are the times when that love is so consuming you can hardly breathe. When you're not just feeling love, or thinking about it, but you are love. Every cell in your body vibrates with it. Those are the moments I wish we could feel more often. They say that God is Love. I wonder if He feels love that intensely for us, His children, all of the time? I wonder if I caught a glimpse of the magnitude of His love for us?

All I know is that children are a true gift from God. Especially when they are sleeping.

Finding service in our lives.

2005-12-18T14:54:00.000-08:00

This is a serious post today, about something that I am passionate about.
Our church places a lot of emphasis on service. We go out of our way to plan service activities. We clean others homes, we tend their yards, we take people dinner after they've had a surgery, our youth collect items for needy families. We are service oriented to say the least.

How is it then, that the following scenario could possibly play out? A young mother gets up one Sunday morning and faces the daunting task of getting her 5 young children ready for church and getting them all out the door and to church on time. Her husband does not attend with her so she does this all by herself. She gets to church, and during sacrament meeting, her two youngest children start behaving badly. It's obvious she is struggling. The 3 year old boy is yelling and biting and throwing himself around. Feeding off his energy, the 18 month old begins to whine and try to espcape. Not a single person moved to help her. Instead, what she faced was a bunch of glares from people who have obviously forgotten what it's like to attend church with small children. Has it been so long that they've forgotten the constant battle to get littles ones dressed and out the door and to keep them quiet and in good spirits for a long and very adult meeting?
I was stuck in the middle of a pew, and wanted desperately to go help her. Perhaps I should have. Maybe I have no right to say anything because I didnt' get up either. I wanted to. I didn't know if I'd embarrass her if I got up (which would have been very obvious since I was sitting in the middle of the second row!) and walked all the way around to go to where she was. I didn't know if it would be a good idea to leave my own three small children to go and help her. I didn't know what I could do for her, really...but my heart went out to her. Perhaps I should judge others less for their choices not to act, and ponder on my own more. But the others didn't even seem to notice. Most either ignored the problem or shot her disturbing glares. "Why can't she just keep those kids quiet? She's disturbing the spirit!"

What she the one disturbing the spirit? Or was it the ones who were judging and giving distainful looks?

Before I had the chance to do anything, she got up and walked out, carrying two of her kids football style out the door with the other three lagging behind. It was obvious she'd had enough and was going home. I got up and ran out after her. I offered to let her two oldest stay at church with us as we had two extra seats in our car. She admitted she was at her patience level and needed to go, but let the two oldest stay. Before she left, she said, "I guess if I can't handle them, I should have stopped at three, huh?" My heart broke into a million pieces. I knew this was not her talking, but her voicing what she thought (and probably knew) to be the opinions of others that were judging her.

What happened to all those lessons about service and love and charity that they went into our ears but did not compute? Why can we find endless opportunities to serve people, but they must be conjured up in a meeting? Why can't we see the thousands of things we could do each and every day for the people walking and talking and sitting right beside us?

I challenge each of you to look around you and see the opportunities you have to help others in your daily life? A simple word of kindness, a calming presence to someone who looks frustrated, an offer to carry someone's bag as they struggle with not enough hands for their load. Noticing the small moments....the small things are what matter. After all, life is made up of mostly small moments. These are the things that truly portray service and Christlike love.

Nag Nag Nag...

2005-12-16T00:17:00.000-08:00

I don't want to be a nag. Really I don't!

But it's SOOOO hard! Why is that? Because I'm a woman? Because I'm a mom and used to telling people what to do all day? Because I am actually responsible and want others to be too? Do I just expect too much?

I get really tired of being the only one to pick things up. Like a couple of days ago, when I "gave up" on housework. All three kids had been sick all week and I just couldn't keep up. Part of me went on Strike. All that did was allow 2 days of dirty dishes to pile up on the kitchen table. That's right....2 days, 3 meals a day, 3 kids. That's 18 dirty dishes on my table, folks! Nasty! What frustrates me most is that on any given day, I know that if I die, whatever is laying around, will be there 10 years from now because I am the only person who will pick it up. I know that there are a few heads out there nodding in complete understanding.

So fast forward to tonight. James comes home from work at 6:00pm. I had just gotten dinner on the table and had the rest of it sitting on the stove for James. He ate the rest of the dinner, then proceeded to clean up the kitchen table dishes.

Miracle of all Miracles! Hallelujah!

Except for one thing. The kids hadn't eaten yet! Every day there are infinate opportunities to pick up things that are not where they belong. There is never a time in which there are not several choices of chores that can be done and that need to be done. And yet, the time that my sweet husband chooses to surprise me with un-solicited housekeeping help, he throws away the kid's dinner (having eaten the rest of it, mind you) and causing me to have to make yet another dinner for my family.

I really, really, REALLY wanted to nag. "Why would you do that? Why would you throw away dinner dishes at dinner time without making sure they were done? Especially when the bowls were full!" I wanted to shake my fists and ask "Why?!?!" so badly my cheeks hurt from restraining myself. But how can I nag when he just did something that I hope and wish for on a daily basis?

Am I just expecting too much? Am I just one of those women who always finds something negative to say? You know who I'm talking about, those sitcom old hags who go around critisizing every little thing if it's not done to their specifications (I'm picturing Ramond's mother on Everybody loves Ramond here).

How can I just be grateful for a husband who tries to make me happy? (Even if he really just makes more work sometimes!) It's certainly not the first time something like this has happened.

If someone has the secret, please share it with me. Until then, I'll keep clenching my jaw and repeating the words, "He cleared the table. He cleared the table. He cleared the table!"

I suppose it's my own fault. All I ever said in my prayers were "please help James help out around the house....like clearing off the table.". I should have been MUCH more specific.

I'm a bad mommy...

2005-12-15T16:13:00.000-08:00

I have failed my children. I have failed to teach them the "basics" of Christmas tradition. Everyone grows up knowing about certain Christmas-time rituals: caroling, cookie plates, pictures with Santa at the mall.

I, however, have failed. I've never taken my kids to sit on Santa's lap at the mall.

Ever.

In fact, I took Megan to the mall the other day, for some special one-on-one time. As we were going in, we saw Santa walking in the mall. Excitedly, Megan pointed and asked, "Santa! What is he doing here?"
I explained to her that a lot of moms bring their kids to the mall to sit on Santa's lap and have their picture taken. I thought maybe she'd complain that I had never done such a thing. Instead, she wrinkled her cute little nose and said,

"Um, that's weird."

There you have it. I have officially ruined my children.