Just falling from my head...

A Funny Thursday

2011-09-06T19:17:00.000-07:00

Warren is now using the toilet and we are starting to feel the pain of having one toilet shared between 5 people. Follows me into the bathroom chanting "Potty coming out, potty coming out." So I quickly set him on the toilet. Dallas comes running in and says "I need to poop real bad! Aw crap. He's pooping isn't he." shakes his head and walks out. The second Dallas leaves the room Robin come running in "What? Is there a line now?"

Dallas like his vitamins. He likes them a lot. He comes to me while I'm in the middle of cooking lunch and says. THe conversation went like this:
Dallas: Mama, stop what your doing and get me stars.
Me: No Dallas, Im in the middle of cooking. I'll give you vitamins after you have some food in your tummy.
Dallas: But I promise I won't get a tummy ache.
Me: Food will be ready in a couple minutes so I'm sure you wouldn't but I don't want to get them right now, I want to finish cooking.
Dallas: But my happiness will hold back my crazy because it's so strong.

Well what could I do. I got this kids his vitamins!

With lunch we tried out this new to us vegetable, garlic curls. Robin asked were they came from again, I told him the farmers market. Dallas chimes in "You know we are farmers. We have lots of cats and all farmers need lots of cats. We are rich too. We are rich in toys." Robin adds, "Yeah so rich we can't even clean them up. We should look into getting some one for that."

Rejoining the world

2011-05-31T23:34:00.000-07:00

I did it. I took all four kids out alone. This might not sound like much but for some reason it was a big deal to me. Really big.

I took 6 weeks off to stay home except when we all went out as a family. At first it wasn't intentional time off, I just kept putting off going out. I felt guilty about it. I tried to make plans and had to cancel all the time. I stopped making plans all together. I still don't know that I can commit to anything with a definite time line yet. I can't put my finger on why it was so frighting to me to take all 4 kids out without Doug. It's true that Myrna went through a time where she needed a diaper change every 5 minutes, announced by the kind of crying that says "HELP ME NOW MAMA!", and some parts of the day are randomly like that still, it just is. I now see this was more of an excuse and inconvenience than something truly keeping me home.

It could be that Warren doesn't like to hold hands in parking lots and feels like he's 12 not 2. I'm glad he doesn't feel inhibited to do things on his own but I do wish he would take me seriously when I have to say "No really, you NEED to hold a hand. I need you to hold a hand." He's not nearly as much of a darter as Dallas was but I still have such fear because Dallas almost got hit once while I was putting Warren in his carseat as an infant. There was a sudden moment of save the baby or save the toddler but the balloon tied to the back of his pants made him visible and the car stopped just as I reached him not three steps from me. That day I learned the a good reason to use a baby bucket, it's for the safety of your other kids. If you carry your baby out of a building to the car in a infant seat, you can lift and snap in the toddler safely then get the baby in. I brought the seat with me everywhere even when baby wearing for a long time after that. I can't carry her in the infant seat right now. It alone is heavy. I hurt my upper back and neck while wearing her in a pouch, the only carrier she will tolerate yet and I have a huge collection to choose from. I can barely carry her right now and it's not without pain.

Now about today; we went to the chiropractor first, I won't tell you it was easy. I ran in to a problem when the two youngest were sleeping and I couldn't carry them both. Warren had to wake up and he wasn't ready so he cried through my whole appointment. He started crying about the receptionist holding Myrna. He had a hard time last weekend at the LIFE Is Good Conference with people holding her, in fact on a couple of occasions he demanded I get her back. He is very protective of his sister and after the conference at Folklife festival if people got too close while taking a look at her he would start growling "Don't touch Myrna." at people. This time he wouldn't be consoled by anyone at the chiropractors office, even when the receptionist got down on the floor with him while holding her. He was crying Mama get Myrna over and over so I asked her to hand Myrna to Robin. He changed to Mama let's go while pulling my finger towards the door as I'm laying face down getting an adjustment. It was heartbreaking. Had I not been in so much pain I would have just left. There wasn't time in the day to wait for him to calm down. My choices were let him cry for me to leave while I try to get fixed so I can better meet his future needs or leave and possible get even worse. I chose to stay because I couldn't live with the pain. Dr Jason came in and brought gummy vitamins and it didn't calm him right away but when Dallas picked them up to hold them for him, Warren wanted them and calmed down, stopped crying and loved on Myrna for the rest of the time. When we got back to the car I changed and nursed Myrna who had started fussing for a change at the end of the appointment. The whole time in the office was about 20 minutes. It felt a lot longer. We all made it through with no signs of permanent emotional scaring, not that I know what that would look like. I think we could go out again.

Cow Butt

2011-05-19T07:46:00.000-07:00

You know you've become one with the country life when you hear your husband say "That's some good smelling cow butt, not like that farm up the street. Now that's some nasty cow butt.

Dallas' Brain

2011-02-09T16:20:00.000-08:00

Today we left the children's museum before close because we were all too tired to play any more. This is a rare thing, but the boys were up late then up again early. No one wanted to walk back to the car so Robin and Warren were seated in the Chariot stroller and Dallas was on the end...siting backwards on the edge. I told him he couldn't sit there and needed to get all the way in or walk. "Why Mama?" he asked, like he always does before he will budge but before I could answer he promptly fell out backwards. He had on a toy fireman's hard hat and that broke the 6 inch fall. Dallas is very vocal and you can't always tell when he's really hurt or not. I suspect he doesn't always know at first either so I treat all accidents with the same level of concern, even though I wasn't worried about this one, he needed me to be worried right then.

There happened to be a Center House Security Officer riding his bike back inside to base behind us and he stopped to give us an ice pack. Dallas calmed instantly at the sight of him, he looked much like a police officer and Dallas always gets shy around police officers. He asked Dallas where he got hurt. Dallas just stared, but Warren, who now had Dallas' head in his lap, taps him on the head pointing and says with a smile "Brain". I started laughing and ask "Did you just say brain?" Warren looks and me and shakes his head yes and repeats "Brain." The security officer is cracking up and asks Warren directly "Where did he get hurt again?" To my surprise, the child who is least likely to talk to strangers answers again, loud and proud "Dallz brain. Boom brain!"

I don't remember teaching him specific anatomy, yet he was sure of it. Dallas is fine by the way. He didn't even get a bump on his head because of the plastic hard hat.

Introducing Brothers

2010-08-03T10:34:00.000-07:00

Today at the Children's Museum Robin and Dallas were playing with these two other boys who were about 6 and 4 who were being a little rough. Warren really wanted to be in the tent with them and older boy wouldn't let him in. Robin and Dallas got out and said "This is Warren and he's our brother. If you want to play with us, you have to play nice with him." They started playing again and went back into the tent and the other boys both start pushing pillows at Warren to block his entry. I hear Robin from inside the tent "Maybe you didn't understand me." He crawls out and the boys follow. "This is Warren, he's my brother. I'm Robin and that's Dallas, he's my brother too." pointing to Dallas who chimes in "I'm Dallas" then points to me "and that's our Mother."
Robin starts again. "We play together so if you want to play with us, you need to be nice to Warren too."
Warren was standing there looking at them smiling and nodding. These boys also have a younger brother, a bit younger than Warren and he's in the corner having a snack with his parents who are just as curious as I am, watching this interaction. The other boys introduced themselves on their parents prompting and they all started to play again.

There was a time the boys got too rowdy close to Warren and he ran scared behind Robin and Dallas stood in front of them and said "I'm Dallas and this is Robin and Warren. Don't forget to be nice cause he (Warren) doesn't like that." Then everyone went back to playing.

Eventually Warren went to draw and Robin and Dallas got hungry so everyone went their separate ways, but we were in there together for nearly an hour.

I found it interesting how they handled the situation without any intervention with a formal introduction. Robin and Dallas were playing with the boys for quite a while before Warren wanted to join and no names were needed before that point. It's as if Robin was saying my brother is little but he's a person with a name. That's certainly what his body language and tone said. Except for Dallas pointing me out as part of their family, then never needed to look to me for guidance.

I feel really proud of how they handled it. It could have gone so many different ways. This was a herd of boys romping roughly together. Although all good kids it could have turned physical just by the nature of how they were playing or most likely I would have though Warren would have been left out. I was prepared to step in and redirect him to another activity where he was less likely to be hurt but I never needed to. I guess I'm just in awe of my children's maturity today, combined with the love and respect they showed for each other.

When Babies Attack

2010-07-27T22:23:00.000-07:00

I'm laying in bed watching Warren sleep. He's having a dream and twitching a bit when all of a sudden with the stealth of a ninja, he sits up and let's out a battle cry while attacking my arm with two hands, he pulls himself to me and tries to bite, almost before I realize what he's doing. his eye were shut the whole time. Just after I dislodged him I he babbled something that sounded like "and don't try that again!" then went back to sleeping. It was amazing the speed and purpose in which he moved. I'm sure it was a victorious dream.

And then I fell asleep.

2010-06-04T18:48:00.000-07:00

I was reading a book to the boys called "Animals Nobody Loves". This book is about scary creatures like sharks, cobras and spiders. Between each two page spread, the kids would act out the creature and even Warren was getting into it. When we came to the cockroaches, for some reason, my near two week sleep deprivation caught up with me. I was out for less than twenty minutes, and it was when we used to have nap time, a few weeks ago when the kids thought sleeping was cool. When I woke up Warren was climbing on me, he had colored his hands and belly and markers were in a pile next to me. Robin and Dallas were snuggled up to me, trying to wedge themselves under me. They told me that we were baby birds and they were trying to sleep under me. Robin added that Warren just wanted to nurse because my boobies were the pouches I kept the bugs in and Dallas confirmed, "Yeah ,like ants Mama!" Warren just bounced up and down on me. After feeding Warren, checking my face for pen marks Robin brought the book to me and asked; "Can we hear about the crocodiles now?"

"Mama, can we have a long neck dinosaur?"

2010-04-26T22:48:00.001-07:00

Now anyone who really knows me, knows I can't say no to a pet. Doug can so we aren't totally drowned in animals, we can still come up for air, some days. I digress. Here's the conversation:

Robin: "Mama? If we had a long neck dinosaur, would we still have any shade?"
Me: "What do you mean Robin?
Robin: "Well, would he eat all the trees so we wouldn't have any shade?"
Me: "I'm sure he would, those dinosaurs get pretty big and need to eat a lot of trees. I don't think we would have enough."
Robin: "We could just get a baby then."
Me: "Babies grow into big dinosaurs. What would we do with him then?"
Robin, as if a light bulb above his head had turned on: "We could butcher him!"
Now, This was a very serious conversation up until this point but Doug and I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the thought. As if taken over by the giddy teenagers inside us we both started listing dinosaur meat food items: "Dinoburgers!" "Dinostew!" "Dinosteaks!" "Dinoballs! Oh wait, maybe not."
You could almost see the lightbulb disappear in a puff of smoke as he thought about eating a dinosteak as he said: "Well, maybe we shouldn't get one after all. We really don't have room for it."

Looking on the brighter side

2010-02-12T11:18:00.001-08:00

The kids have not been 100 percent this week. I didn't want to believe they were actually sick though. My head was buried firmly in the sand and only an over flow of poop could bring me out.

Yesterday on the way to Thursday morning Mom's group, Robin threw up in his car seat. He didn't want breakfast and said he wanted to wait to eat until we got there. That's not too unusual really. On the way out the door Dallas saw the vitamins and wanted one of each so we stopped for berries, gummies and bubbles then packed into the car. Since Robin puked a stomach load of vitamins and declared he was fine and wanted to keep going, he got really mad when I turned around to go back home, I was still standing in la la land. I figured it must have been because he had vitamins on and empty stomach because Doug complains about that too. Dallas and I have no problem with vitamins on an empty stomach, I almost prefer them that way. Robin didn't seem too sick the rest of the day. I was prepared for him to lay around and watch some muppet shows but he was up playing and singing all day. I was thankful no one was really sick.

Today I woke up early while the kids were still sleeping and took a shower, then I promptly go on packing lunch for our day out. While cutting apples, the phone rang, Robin rand downstairs and Warren started to cry. I went upstairs to find Dallas sitting up and Warren had crawled off the bed and was making his way to the stairs. He had poo soaked through his jammies.

I changed his very wet and poopy clothes and diaper and went upstairs to nurse. Dallas climbed from his bed and quietly and timidly says "Mama, there's poop everywhere and I stinky." I wrapped him in a towel and set him in the tub. The pants got thrown away. It was that bad. I cloth diaper and I didn't feel I could save these pants. It was bad. The poor little guy was such a trooper though.

Dallas discovered the joy of standing in the shower with warm water running over you. He wanted to stay there after he had been all cleaned up. For several months he would not get his head wet voluntarily and would not let you wash his hair but here he was, completely cured of that fear standing under the shower with water running on his head. I've never been on to like water in the face myself. I don't see how people in commercials can smile with their faces pointed into the spray of water. I can't wash my hair with my head hanging down either but that's what he was doing and he didn't get water in his eye either.

So on to what I'm thankful for. I'm thankful that I was too busy to eat breakfast before the kids woke up. Cleaning up Dallas caused heaving and it would have been so much worse to have to clean up vomit too. I'm thankful Costco sells boxes of exam gloves for days like this when you just can't bare to stick your hands in it. I'm thankful for my children's adaptability since we had a really fun day planned and we had to change gears so fast. I'm thankful for a stocked kitchen since the new plan is to cook with the kids today. I'm thankful for these new lights that I had not previously mentioned because they are really brightening up my day.

Cleaning out my purse

2010-01-18T00:11:00.000-08:00

I went to find my iPod shuffle and I knew I had dropped it into my purse but I couldn't find it. This caused an impromptu cleaning to happen. I was surprised at what I found when I laid it out an looked at it. We all know the purse is a sacred place. A mystery of what wonders it contains. I'm going to share with you the contents of mine.

The purse it's self isn't huge but it's not small either. It's waterproof inside and out as it's really meant to be a nice diaper bag too.

Now I have said before but I'll say it again, I like to be prepared. In case of emergence, I'm your go to girl. Let's go over the picture.

All this stuff came from inside. It often also holds my D90 but today I had left it out.

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In the left hand corner we see the medicine cabinet. If you have a cough, sniffle, flu, gas, diarrhea, sore muscles, teething, low energy, bad breath, dirty hands, migraine, tummy ache or any other ailment I could probably help you out. These are mostly homeopathic with some essential oils, enzymes and cough syrups in there.

There's a small selection of cosmetics including three lip colors, three hair doohickeys and moisturizer. I'm not sure where the ear plugs fit in.

The right hand corner holds 1 lb dark chocolate covered apricots, half a bar of dark chocolate mint, one sucker, two buffalo bars, i package of baby rice crackers and four chai tea bags (two regular and two decaf. It's all sitting on a baby bib.

Back to the left we have all my tech gear: Macbook power cord adapter, 16g sd memory card, GoWear body monitor, Flip, Shuffle, iPhone, two sets of head phones. Yes, two ways to listen to music. There's also a headlamp that was very helpful in seeing into the bottom of the bag and a polishing cloth for removing finger prints. There is usually a Coolpix in there too but it's out getting charged.

I roll with a healthy assortment of toys such as two baby wearing figurines, a frog, pig and prickly polar bear, a deflated balloon (You never know when your going to have a balloon emergency) and four marbles. There's a roll of golden confetti in case the need for a party arises.

There's the expected purse things too such as keys, coupons, receipts, pocket knife, paring knife and a photo CD. I also had one mini purse, a phone case, wallet, coin purse and folding grocery bag.

Arts and crafts are very important to us. I come prepared with two crochet hooks and and a set of needles. Those egg cartons with the pipe cleaners are barnacles the kids made last week that they keep taking with us and putting back into my purse.

Office supplies are also a passion of mine. Here I have two mechanical pencils, three pens, a highlighter and a binder clip. I'm using a paper planner this year because I'm trying to be a little less techie and a little more tactile.

Then there's the change. That's quite a pile of it. It totals at $5.50 not counting the $3 in bills. When I went to shake the purse out on the porch sixty-two cents came dumping out on to the ground along with enough crumbs to feed at lease a dozen mice really well. It's the magic purse that just keeps giving!

I think what I've learned from this is: change is heavy, carry less change.

I now challenge you to post what's in your purse....

An actual phone call

2009-10-09T17:07:00.000-07:00

I just got this phone call from a number I did not recognize. I cautiously answer the phone "Hello?" A man with a rather stoned sounding voice answers back "Is Silver there?" I say "Excuse me?" He says "Um yeah?" I ask "Whom are you looking for?" the man replies "Oh yeah, Silver. Is Silver there?" I tell him "I belive you have the wrong number unless you are calling for my cat." He pauses for a second "Um ok, I guess I have the wrong number." then hangs up.

An Endless Source of Entertainment

2009-09-29T12:35:00.000-07:00

Robin hands me the bag of pretzels we are all sharing. He tells me "Your going to have to feed me one at a time." I ask him to put out his hand so I can just give him some and he yells "No!!! I can't!! I touched the cats butt with this hand!" While cracking up, I suggest that he go wash his hands. The look on his face was like watching a light bulb go off over his head. You've got to love little moments of honesty like these.

Pirates and Plums

2009-08-15T13:16:00.000-07:00

Today we have the fortune of seeing two Captain Bogg and Salty concerts and gleaning a plum tree in between. The first concert was at the Bothell Library. For the first time ever, I was at a library before it opened. This was mostly a coincidence though, we left Doug's car at the park and ride so we had to ride out together. We got our tickets and had a nice spot in the front on the side of the room.

Dallas wanted to be held, Robin wanted to dance and Warren didn't want the same thing from minute to minute, he likes to change it up. I'm finding it hard to meet all the kids wants while at times like these. The odd thing is, the most difficult part seems to be that my kids, although eating all the way there and with the promise of food immediately following, feel like they are starving to death it they have to stop eating for half an hour. Doug joked we should try worming them, lol.

On the drive down to Bothell we were listening to Emphatical Piratical and Robin wanted to request a song and we couldn't agree. Dallas clearly wanted Purple Tikki because when asked which one he liked he would chant back wee oh-oh wee oh-oh, although it's heehoo heehoo he most often sings which is Treading the seas for pirate gold. Robin said Buccaneering Bunny Rabbits aka Bunnyjacks and I really wanted to hear Who's At Captains Table. When we had the chance ask for these requests, regretfully they were not on the days playlists. I was asked if there was any other song and my mind just went blank. clearly the answer should have been Wind from Prelude to Mutiny. It's the song that draws us to the Pirate Festival in hopes that we get to hear it again. It has to be Captain Bogg's finest. When that song plays the energy in the crowd changes and you get a shiver down your spine of excitement. Perhaps it's too much energy for a mall to hold. Then again, the celling was pretty high.

After the Bothell show I packed the now half starved kids into the van and loaded their little laps with snack foods and headed for the plum glean. It was a glorious tree overflowing with mid sized yellow fruit that was quite delicious. The home owner and I picked as many as we could reach and as we did, Robin would find one in the tree and ask me to hand it to him. I asked what he was going to do with his plums and he said he wanted to give them to the pirates because they couldn't have trees on a pirate ship and it was sad that they don't go home at night to sleep in a bed because they have to stay on the ship. This spurred two topic: 1) boats, especially ships have beds and food, and 2) The band is made up of real people who have real lives. I didn't know he believed they were really pirates full time. I know we had this conversation after the pirate festival, perhaps it didn't really sink in. We talked about how all the band members have real names and stage names, they don't have to stay on a ship, and they get to go home to their own families too. He was much relieved. He was highly concerned that they didn't have enough to eat seeing as how Sunny Jim only makes cinnamon toast, which Robin has never had but he knew they needed fruit too. So here comes the plums. He had carefully selected what he deemed the very best from the tree to give to his pirate friends and I had just told him they didn't need them. He looked crushed. I quickly realized that I couldn't let his last hour go to waist so we decided that they were still a nice gift because the library and the mall wouldn't have great plums to offer so he should go ahead and take them.

We go to the Crossroads mall and he gathered his treasure to deliver and he was a boy on a mission. When we found the stage he froze and whispered "Mama, I need you to do it. I just can't." The band was still setting up so I carried them to the stage and set them down off to the side telling them briefly how Robin picked them some plums. Looking down at Robin, I could see he felt he did a great deed. He was very proud. To him, he was feeding some starving pirates who surly would starve on just limes and toast and four little plums would save their lives. When Doug met up with us the first this that came beaming from Robin, before even saying hello was "I gave them plums!"

Henry Moses Aquatic Center of Renton

2009-08-13T10:21:00.000-07:00

We had a great time last night at the aquatic center. The first thing to note is it's well staffed and clean. there are several family bathroom/shower/changing rooms as well as the separate ladies and gents. I would have preferred larger lockers for that quarter they cost but we just locked up our phones and keys and brought the huge bright gym bag to the beach chairs and loungers. There were many. Warren was asleep and Doug didn't want to get wet and cold so he stayed out with the baby.

Since it was night, although it wasn't a very warm night, it wasn't particularly cold either. The thought of getting wet wasn't exactly appealing but I didn't feel like I would freeze either. I was glad to find that Pavy was not kidding, the water was heated! On to the features of this cool water park.

There is a lazy/rushing river depending on if your trying to go against the current to get out or not. There are plenty or intertubes of varying sizes. At one end there is a constant shower of water that fills these buckets that dump down on you. I don't really understand the appeal of suddenly getting drenched from above. The kids didn't either. It must be there to keep the staff in good humor. This river connects up to the landing pool for two huge twirling water slides. You need to be 48" to go on them. I'm not a fan of water slides myself but Robin was highly disappointed that he could not go.

They have a wave pool that has some really strong waves and goes to 6.5 ft. Dallas kept falling down and both kids went under for a second and decided they didn't like it after a short while. Robin kept braving it from the side and then backing out but I was worried about getting washed over Dallas or his falling under so the kids had to move on. The waves crashed pretty hard even in the very shallow part. I sent them to the spray island wading pool and got to go in the deep end for a wave or two. It was REALLY fun.

The shallow spray island/wading pool had many fountains spraying out but you could go under then if your not keen to be sprayed in the face. The kids could choose to stand or crawl for most of it and there are blue tile lines to clearly mark when it changes from one to two feet so the kids could see where too far really was. I didn't notice a line at the two to three foot mark but by then I was holding the kids so it didn't really mater. They were like fish there, not fearful at all just going for it.

When 10pm came around and it was time to leave we got a family restroom and found they have a shower in them and the water is also warm, warmer than the pool even. It made getting out and getting cold to change bearable. You pay to get in whether you swim or not. The cost was only $22 for all of us at the non-resident rate for the Wednesday night twilight special. It was a really great time and well worth the drive and expense.

Ah yes, the drive. We got back to Doug's car where he was too tired and had a nap, then we stopped on the side of the road so he could sleep a little more and I could change and feed the baby, After sleeping in the driveway, we didn't get to our own beds until 3am. Warren had been asleep since 8pm so after a couple change/feed combos, was ready to start his day at 8am again. I'm exhausted today after all the swimming and dragging kids through the water then staying awake to make sure we all arrived safely. I still hope we can go again next year.

Nothing much to say...

2009-08-12T22:45:00.000-07:00

But maybe I have said too much already. I feel like a dork.

I always feel like blogging in late summer. I think it's when I first started. Why? Captain Bogg and Salty I'd guess. I always right about the summer library tour. It's getting harder to find time to write though and as I found out today, it's getting harder to take photos too. I had a hold of two kids at all times at the show today. I hope I can get enough shots for a decent slide show.

I noticed on my phone, in my iblogger program, I have several unpublished blog posts. I realized the reason is I fear feedback or lack of. My blog auto posts to my facebook page. Is this a good thing or a bad thing, I have not yet decided.

Robin on tickling

2009-07-27T11:16:00.000-07:00

Robin says: I love to laugh so you can tickle me all the time, anytime and all day. Well, maybe not when I'm sleeping because then I would think you were a monster trying to get me. So tickle me all the time when the sun is up.

Crappy day on the farm

2009-06-23T14:22:00.000-07:00

Today has been a crappy day. Robin woke up early, before I was willing to get up and he woke me up every 15 minutes for the next 2 hrs but I was able to stay in good humor. The trouble started when I heard a car in the driveway. It was the same guy who always comes to leave us a pamphlet called The Watch Tower I called out the window to the man on his way to my door asking him to leave his literature on the table in the yard. I didn't want the dogs to get excited before they had been out to potty. I didn't hear them freaking out, but maybe they had.

When I came down after he had left, the kitchen floor was covered in urine. I got towels so mop it up, sprayed enzyme cleaner on it, walked to out of the room to get some gloves on and came back to Dallas slipping in a puddle of cleaner. He needed a quick shower to clean him off then I go back to cleaning it up.

I opened the door to let the dogs out now that they wouldn't be splashing through pee and find a dead baby red breasted robin and 3 rodents in various stages of being consumed, all involving entrails on the mat. The kids are used to seeing rodent parts by now but I know I have to dive out to get that baby bird before Robin sees it and we start in on a day of "Why did the bird have to die?" "Where/what is he now?" "How can we save the next bird?" It makes for a trying day because no possible answer will bring back the dead creature and that's what he really wants.

I let the dogs back in and by now the children have all been very patient but are very hungry so I go to get the milk from the fridge and almost step in a fresh bit of dog poop. I though animals didn't poop where they sleep. Everyone knows that right? Not my dogs. I don't know if it was Pokey or Junior but that the heavens it wasn't Titus. Clean that up and back to breakfast.

Fast forward two hours and I hear a goat yelling. I go outside and can see them down in the woods, not in a fenced area. The yelling is Kay Kay. She has horns so probably doesn't fit through the hole the others escaped from. I have to go to science group but can't because I now have to find a way to get the goats back in the yard because if they wander into the neighbors yard we might get a visit from the cops for having livestock at large or they might just shoot them, either is as strong a possibility. I come back inside to ponder my next step and slip in a puddle of....you guessed it....dog piss.

I'm going to give up now. I'm calling it a day. I'm not leaving the house, just going to watch to make sure the goats don't leave. They won't come to me, they know they are getting the greener brush on the other side of the fence right now. As long as they don't leave or eat my fruit trees, and the kids are still happy as they have been all day, I'm going to just go with the flow even if it's only a trickle.

Father's Day 2009

2009-06-21T11:09:00.000-07:00

This year Papa got the platinum edition of Arbans Method for the Trumpet, the trumpet bible so to speak. Here he is playing with Robin. Robin can buzz a mouth peice pretty well.

Robin gets a turn to play the horn.

A trumpet mouth peice no longer needs to be a unitasker since Dallas' discovery of it's handiness as a banana holder.

Junkfood

2009-06-16T11:56:00.000-07:00

On the way downstairs this morning, I asked Robin what he would like for breakfast, either flakes (bagged cereal) or oats (cooked steel cut). He said "I've been thinking about this Mama, and I want junk food for breakfast today." "Junk food?" I ask. "Yes, flakes." he replies. "You know why I call it junk food? Because Papa gives it to us and it's just fast. It's the good kind of junk and it's ok ya know?" "Ok then, junk food it is. Do you want raisins or blueberries on your junk food?" "Both!" he joyfully answers.

Eagles In The Yard

2009-06-12T17:16:00.000-07:00

Maybe I'm the only one who didn't know this before but having eagles in your yard isn't always a good thing. They can and do carry off cats and dogs and other small animals. Today while making lunch, Doug say an eagle swoop down into our yard and land it a tree. We have 8 cats out there and Junior (yorkie mix) was out in the yard too. It didn't move on so we ran out to scare it away. Doug beat me around the corner and started clapping to scare the eagle away. As he took off over the shed, Raven called out from across the yard, then 7 ravens took off out of the cherry tree. These are very large birds, not to be confused with crows in the slightest. We stood there for a minute, a little stunned wondering what we just interrupted when our Raven, the one that says good morning to me, the one that kept the hawks away from the chickens came swooping down over our heads calling out again. We said hello and then he was gone. Yep, Raven has our back.

Concurring The Mountains of Diapers

2009-06-12T02:13:00.000-07:00

This week I decided to try diapers a different way. Instead of washing every two-three nights and folding the next day I washed everyday and decided to put them away once a week. I just don't know if this will work out. It's true I didn't feel behind since I planned on folding at the end of the week and I still felt accomplished since I washed them every night. It's the folding that got me. I had to fold a day early because I was just out of diapers, but Burn notice and Royal Pains were on the DVR so I had something to watch. I'm just about half was through the third and final bag and needed to sit and have a break.

I am trying a different way of tackling the regular laundry too. It seems to be working well so far. Previously I sorted laundry by colors, darks and whites with bath towels and napkin/household towels separate. I was always behind on folding. I really hate that. Now the bins have been relabeled Mama, Papa and Kids. This has made it much easier because, maybe it's no big surprise, but most of the dirty laundry is generated by Doug. He wears at least two outfits every day, some days a couple more. The kids laundry has gotten a little easier since it's been hot they haven't wanted clothes. The plan was wash one load a day but I have not been able to do that and it has worked out fine. I just have to keep on top of Doug's laundry. There have been a few accidents lately such as a bathroom flooding as well as a child who takes his diaper off in his sleep that have kept the laundry busy with sheets and bath towels. Anyway, I think this might work out fine if I could only get these diapers finished. I'll put on a movie next time to help pass the time better....

Fear and worry: The despair squid

2009-06-12T00:20:00.000-07:00

I seems that just when I think I'm over this flu/cold/bug it comes back. Today I don't know what happened, I just couldn't stay awake. Doug was home sick too. He was really bad last night through early afternoon, then was able to sit downstairs with the kids while I went up to nap in the evening. While doug was still in bed, he told me he was scared. I asked of what? Being sick, not getting better, death? He said he didn't know, just scared. Right now, it hit me. I'm scared too but I feel scared of everything. He went to bed so I don't have anyone else to tell.

Anyone remember the despair squid on Red Dwarf? I would imagine that this is what is feels like. Suddenly I feel so afraid. I'm scared of what people think of me. I'm worried my relatives don't think I'm worthy. I'm worried I'm ruining my kids. I fear my kids will grow up and leave me all alone. I'm worried about money, not handling it well, not having enough. I'm worried about making the wrong choice in housing or wrong choice in state. I worry we aren't putting enough effort in to the animals, building new goat fencing, getting chickens again, scrubbing out the litter boxes. I fear I might never get caught up on the laundry again. I'm afraid of failing. I had a career once, did I fail that too? Someday the kids will be grown and I will have to find something to do with myself, what then? What if I died? How would they get along without me? What if Doug and I both died? Would my children find happiness again? I feel overwhelming despair. I'm going to list this out and work through it.

What people think: Why does it matter? It just does. Doesn't it? I guess is doesn't really. Everyone is entitled to their opinions and I doubt anyone is going to tell me theirs unless I ask and I just won't. It's when I get to hear opinions I didn't ask for, I'm always so stunned by such things, I don't have comeback ready. I guess there's just nothing I can do about it anyway, I am who I am and mostly, I'm happy with that.

Worried about what relatives think: I suppose I have to refer to the previous conclusion. What can I do about it anyway. I probably spend way too much time worrying about it. I may or may not live up to expectations what ever those may be. I can love them regardless. if they choose to love me or not is not my business.

Ruining my kids: I bet anyone who puts any thought into parenting worries about this. Is there anyone who had a perfect childhood? All I can do is try my best and hope it all works out. I guess they are suppose to grow up and leave though, aren't they? What I really mean is I worry as adults they won't like me. I see people who have had parents who were their friends and people who had parents that were removed and not really their friends and both aspect have issues. Which really works best? Is there a good combination of both? How to raise a child fears aren't going to go away and really can't fit in one page even. I'm not even going to try to fix this one today.

Money: Who doesn't worry about money. We are ok. I wish we didn't have any debt. I also wish we had a better home loan. I don't know why it scares me so much, we should just do it. We should refinance but we are both dragging out feet on it. Last time we got burned badly on the fees and costs but didn't walk away and should have. It's daunting.

Housing: We need more room, really we do. There are plans we like to build a new house added on here. I'm the one holding us back on this one. I don't want to lose what we have on a risk for something more. I'm too scared to take the leap. The economy isn't great right now. We can afford the mortgage we have on unemployment if we had to. If we added on a second mortgage, actually we would need a new building loan, we couldn't anymore. I was thinking maybe we should just pay off the house first but if we do that would we really want to mortgage it out again or just make due? What about moving all together? getting land again would be next to impossible. The price has gone up too much. We would need to look out of state for land. Could I leave this house where I gave birth to my children? I guess we need to work on more storage options and getting rid of stuff.

Animals: They are all fine and alive. We seem to have fertility problems with our goats. We feed them local grass that has been tested dairy quality but it's not alfalfa. I think we need to have more mineral supplementation. I have bought all they need but Doug doesn't remember to give it to them regularly and I have a hard time getting out there to do it. This is where I mean more effort is needed. We won't have any milk or kids this year. The mean old buck kicked the bucket too so we might not have any kids next year either. We need to buy a buck, a young buck. If anyone has one for sale please let me know. Raccoons killed every last duck and chicken last year. it was decided to take a year off and just buy eggs. I'll be ok until next year and we can build our new safely enclosed chicken houses this fall. Litter boxes stink, they just do. We are committed to changing and cleaning every cage and box at the season change so I just need to be patient.

Laundry: It's true I probably will never catch up. Right now I have the problem of size changes. Both Warren and Dallas are between sizes, moving up but still fitting some of the smaller size. Dallas has been borrowing Robin's clothes a lot. Some how we don't seem to have any pants that fit Dallas right now. Robin was using the toilet all the time at this size. Dallas will use the toilet as long as he doesn't have clothes on. With clothes he needs a diaper but the pants we have in his size don't fit over the diaper. We don't have space to store all these clothes we have either but I have found a lack of time to shop for clothes now. We used to shop thrift stores all the time, I don't know how we fit it in, now I can't find the time for it. I can't just get rid of what doesn't fit and buy more when the next kid gets there. If I could find the table I could sew him some new pants from some old clothes. That would clear some room in the adult closet as well.

Career: Oh well. Maybe I can go to college with the kids. I loved college. I don't know what I will do. I can't let myself worry about it now, I need to live in the moment. Who knows what there will be a demand for then.

What if I died: I have life insurance and with it Doug would try to get the kids into a school like The Attic or another private school that will encourage free thinking and individuality. They will not go to public school.

What if we both died: I can't even imagine what their lives would be like without us. I can't, I just can't. Holly and Abel Rosas are to have our kids. The kids are very comfortable there and I know they would be loved. I'm not saying this in passing, I'm serious. If something were to happen to both Doug and I we want Holly to have our kids. If anyone wants to get in line for them, let me know.

What about the animals? I don't know. The kids love their pets so very much but I don't know where they would end up. Jannelle would take Uma, that's really all I have worked out. I would have to leave that up to Holly what she thought she could handle since the animals would belong to the kids. This is a depressing subject. I can only plan for it so much. I really don't know how to. Well, my head hurts now.

I just looked in on the sleeping kids and I feel happiness again. They just keep on growing. They all look so much a like and so very different at the same time. They look happy, not a care in the world. I hope they stay that way.

Fluffernutter

2009-06-05T17:34:00.000-07:00

Back in the day, before we started eating "healthy" we would buy Little Debbie Nutty Bars all the time. They were a payday treat we would buy if we had a couple bucks left over when we were at our poorest.

After stopping soy for even a month, we couldn't stand the mouth feel of the waxy "chocolate like" substance not to mention the body aches afterwards. They might as well call them flavored plastic. There was a time when they tasted great though.....

Today I had my first fluffernutter. It's a sandwich made with Marshmallow Fluff and nut butter. It was life changing. It tasted just like my memory of a Nutty Bar, just like they should taste. Happiness just flooded over me.

It has been hard to find/make treats that don't contain dairy, soy or gluten and taste like their off limits counter parts. I have found new treats to love and made some wonderful new recipes too but it was amazing to taste this fabulous treat that, to me anyway, tasted so much like my memory of earlier years. Here's how I made them: toasted gluten free Food For Life Pecan Raisin Bread, Natural Crunch Sunbutter (sunflower seed spread) and a thin layer of Marshmallow Fluff, no bread on top. Yummy!

Now for the sad part. My tub of Marshmallow fluff is almost gone. I puzzled over what to do next. Beg family back east to mail me some fluff? Ask a friend who's taking a trip out of state to pick some up for me? Search Amazon?? Yes, I figured I should search Amazon first. Although Amazon gets at very least monthly purchases from me, sometime weekly even, they did not offer the best deal, in fact, they only broker a 4 pack that is half original and half strawberry in smaller jars. I don't have any interest in the strawberry flavored kind so I decided to go straight to the source - www.marshmallowfluff.com. How great is that? The package looks so vintage but they are up with technology. You can order this stuff straight from Durkee-Mower, Inc. It's a product still made right in the USA. That makes me feel a little better about consuming near straight corn syrup and sugar.

Today's definition of good

2009-06-04T22:11:00.000-07:00

I made gluten free salmon berry cobbler last night but both kids fell asleep in their dinner so I saved them some and gave it to them tonight instead. I asked Robin if he liked it and he said "It was slimy, it was gooey, it was lumpy and messy so it was good!" He really liked it and asked me to go cook him more. I had to explain that we needed to wait until more berries grew to make more. He wasn't thrilled with this but agreed to go check for more in a couple of days.

I love you wanna tender

2009-05-20T12:13:00.001-07:00

Three years ago Doug sent me an email with a link to what was said to be the worst music video ever...Robin who was 1 at the time, loved it and still asks for it frequently. So here it is as Robin calls it "I love you wanna tender"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YPnGPIMUnus

Penny Pinching

2009-05-20T00:37:00.000-07:00

So I'm taking the kids to the LIFE is Good Unschooling Conference this year and we will be staying in the conference hotel. I can't imagine having to herd three under 5 in to the car and back out again for every snack and meal so I need to provide them in our room. The problem with this is just that it's not very simple. With the food sensitivities it's really rather hard. Let's start with a simple sandwich. The only gluten free bread that tastes worth eating and keeps for more the 24 hours comes frozen but you can keep it in the fridge. It does NOT taste ok cold. It doesn't microwave well either. The only way to eat it is slightly toasted, at least that's the only way my family will eat it. The room has a microwave and a mini refrigerator so I bought a little toaster oven to bring too. It was under $25 and if I eat more than one meal out of it, I have saved more than I spent. Remember no dairy, wheat or soy so fast food isn't even a possibility. Eating out even for just me and the kids is two entrees and that usually comes to around $20-$30. The boys eat a lot of food, you would be shocked what they can pack away. I'm also bringing a small crock-pot to cook dinners in. I might make oats for breakfast in it too. I have some frozen muffins to have for desserts in the toaster oven and can bake a tray of frozen fries and veggies easily. I am bringing the blender base and the blender cups for our green smoothies. I would really, really like tea so the water kettle is coming too. Cooking takes dishes and spices and well, food so I already have two suit cases packed full of kitchen type items. I have a suit case full of toiletries, vitamins and toys and a tote full of books and art supplies too. The large suit case is suppose to hold bedding, the non standard stuff like my two travel pillows I never sleep with out, the larger waterproof mat, the bed rails and our clothes. Now I'm worried I won't have room for the clothes, lol. That's 4 bags, 5 if you could the diaper bag, one large plastic tote of diapers, one toaster oven box and a large collapsible cooler that's still collapsed right now. I have gone over the list over and over and I can't figure what to cut so I guess this is really what I need to take the kids away for a week. Am I crazy? Yes I am, but I'm prepared......

1,2,3,4

2009-05-18T23:50:00.000-07:00

Here's the video for the song that Robin likes in his heart very very much

Plain White T's

2009-05-18T09:55:00.000-07:00

Both Dallas and Warren are sleeping but Robin just woke up. He asked me to turn on that group that sings Hey There Toolyla because he likes it in his heart very very much.

Working through it

2009-05-16T12:30:00.000-07:00

After announcing his intentions to fly away for a few weeks, I asked Robin why he wanted to go away for so long. His answer was exactly what I though it would be, he said "Well, you left me for weeks and weeks when you went to Indiana." I asked him if he was still mad about that, he said he was trying not to be grumpy anymore but he was. It didn't seem to matter that Doug was gone right after I got home, he's still only mad at me.

Last night Doug didn't come home again. He had driven to work and I had met him in Seattle to see the Imax of Star Trek so we have two cars down there. After dinner on the drive back home, although we were both tired, Doug pulled over to sleep. I eventually did too but I had the kids need to get them home and out of the carseats and he did not so he didn't come home and I had to get them all into the house, which is just over fifty yards from the cars (Doug's estimate). After the ordeal of getting to the house, the boys were wide awake so we watched a movie, it was movie night, and had a little bonding time. I think we are getting through this, slowly but it feels like progress.

He woke up this morning in a good mood. He has an imaginary bear today. Robin says this bear was mean and grumpy last year but now he's kind and nice because he's not angry anymore. The concept and comprehension of time plays a huge roll in our lives right now.

Missing friends

2009-05-15T15:56:00.000-07:00

While driving to Seattle Robin says from the back seat "Mama, I really want to see MaryClare and I know she lives far away so you can go ahead and drop me off at the airport and come and pick me up in a couple weeks."

Filled with Glee

2009-05-11T14:24:00.000-07:00

Dallas is learning to use the potty and it often involves him sitting on the toilet for long periods of time undecided about whether of not he is done. While trying to gage if Dallas was wanting to sit there on the toilet or needed a wipe (nope) Warren, who was in his bouncer in the livingroom started fussing. Robin picked him up and carried him across the room, set him on a pillow and pulled up his little piano next to him and started playing a song he was making up. Warren was holding on to the piano smiling at his brother. I came out and asked "What's going on?" Robin answered "I'm playing him a song filled with glee because he missed you and was sad but now Warren is filled with glee too." I couldn't reach a camera and knew the moment ould be lost if I tried so I did the next best thing, I called Doug and recorded it on a voice mail to him. We should all be filled with glee don't you think?

No time to stop

2009-05-08T23:27:00.000-07:00

Wow, I have no time to write anymore. I know they are only little once and this time shall pass sooner than I like. I think of blog posts all the time, I just never make it here to post. Even at this very moment, there i a baby fussing on my leg as I bounce him softly up and down, hoping to calm him enough for just one more word.....

Dallas the fossil

2009-03-07T13:31:00.000-08:00

Robin and Dallas are playing together and I turn to look at what they are doing and Dallas is trailing behind Robin with a string hanging from his mouth and Robin has a hold of the other end leading him along like a horse. Robin previously had the metal spring to a wooden clothes pin stuck onto the end of this string so I said to him "I don't want any metal put in Dallas' mouth so if that's what he has in his mouth please take it off" Robin replies "No Mama, it's just string and IF he did have metal in his mouth and IF he died he could just be a fossil instead, but it's just string.".

Warren smiling

2009-02-22T17:53:00.000-08:00

Gratitude 2/19

2009-02-20T03:23:00.000-08:00

I'm grateful for:
✿ Wearing jammies all day - It makes it just that much easier to go to bed at night.
✿ Take out - on days like today I cherish the discovery of Chinese take out we all like.
✿ Amazon food subscriptions -my case of wheat/dairy/soy free Pamela's cookies came today! The price is half off buying them at Safeway.
✿ Not following in my mothers foot steps. - My sister is going through a tough time because she makes the same mistake our mom did, loving liars. It's an unconscious choice my sister makes, she's attracted to jerks but at least she has the sense to leave when she finds out they have been cheating. I'm grateful I didn't choose that path. It looks sad and lonely.
✿ I found today's newspaper useful - it has become more and more rare that the local paper has been useful for much more than lining the bird cage. Today however I while skimming the paper, and I always do on Thursdays for the hike of the week there was actually things worth reading. Don't ask me what, I'm too tired to remember now but I remember being interested.

For the second day in a row Dallas woke us up crying and wouldn't go back to sleep. The day involved a lot of blowing up at each other followed by apologizing. Nap time was a battle of wills. It at 2 PM but sleep didn't happen until 5:45 and we slept until 7:45. They didn't fall asleep in their own beds but only on top of me after I had given up and said we could get up and go down stairs. Doug got home nearly an hour later around 8:45. A gas main had been broken in Seattle and he was stuck at a stop on the train waiting for the tracks to clear for the longest time. Tomorrow will be a day of catch up before the weekend starts. Friday is movie night and Robin has already requested Fiddler on the Roof so I will get almost 4 hrs to work. I'm looking forward to Saturday and the Mardi Gras celebration!

Robin's Past Life?

2009-02-19T23:41:00.000-08:00

Doug was reading Robin a book today that had peafowl in it. When Robin saw the picture of the male peacock he was so excited. He told us when he was a big boy, before he was Robin, he lived with his grandma and they had peacocks. It was said in a strange matter of fact way. It's not the first time he had seen a peacock either. There is one that roams around the zoo that we have seen.

Later he started talking about his horse that took him to school but it was two wild and he had to get rid of it but he loved the horse and he was so sad.

I feel like a super hero

2009-02-19T02:29:00.000-08:00

Today while serving breakfast which involves a lot of back and forth between the kids and the pan of steel cut oats, I noticed that Dallas' face looked pretty red. Doug was working from home and standing a the counter on his computer and I asked him to check Dallas out too. His cheeks were red, the bridge of his nose was red, his neck was red too. There was no way he could have ingested any allergens yet since he had only eaten some freeze dried peas, a common snack here and his steel cut oats with raisins, coconut oil and OJ and we eat this all the time. We took off his clothes to see if maybe he was reacting to a spider bite or something and his arms were red and so were his legs and the trunk of his body was splotchy red. I was very concerned.

I haven't ever turned red like that but have had hives before but for me it has always been accompanied with difficulty breathing. I have gotten hives as a reaction to antibiotics. Dallas had no signs that he was having any trouble breathing. Doug has had hives that have turned his body red before due to stress. He said it looked just like what Dallas had. For Doug, he was taken to the emergency room and they gave him epinephrine and Benadryl. In my case just Benadryl. We don't use medications very often but I do keep Benadryl in the cupboard because once you have your throat start to close up on you, you will not want to be without the antidote for it. I go to find the Benadryl and it turns out we have a bottle of hard tablets and a bottle of liquid that expired in May of 2002, both only for adults. We decide to get the kids ready to go to the store, we would buy and give him some Benadryl and if he didn't turn back to normal we would go to the hospital.

I had stop getting the kids ready to nurse Warren and I got the idea to pump some milk for Dallas and see if that helped. I pumped almost two ounces and put it in a sippy cup for Dallas. He was happy to drink it down and within two minutes the redness in his face and the trunk of his body started to fade. By the time we were able to get everyone in the car his arms and legs were also back to normal color. I wish I knew what caused it and if it was the breast milk that cured him or if it was coincidence. I feel like I helped him either way and I'm so glad he's ok. I do wish I knew what caused it. He didn't sleep well the night before so that could have been it I suppose.

Gratitude 2/18

2009-02-18T22:43:00.000-08:00

I'm grateful for:
✿ Having my own forest to explore - Robin, Dallas and I went out to pick up sticks to make a fire pit for Saturday evening. We are going to try and clear the floor of the woods and grow some grown cover for the goats to munch since they have taken out the blackberries in that area
✿ Casey sitting on my feet - He's 6 yrs old 100 lbs and still thinks he's a puppy. He will sit and stay pretty well. He does however feel like he needs to site between me and the kids while I'm still holding the kids hands! He kept running off to check on the goats and I can't really fault that since he is the livestock guardian.
✿ Dallas' compassion - He will kiss anything he thinks might be a hurt. He is so concerned with how everyone else is doing. Robin fell down outside and got a sticker stuck in his hand and Dallas was very worried about him. If he tosses a toy and it lands near you he will come and kiss you to make sure your ok. When Warren cries he comes up and tells him "is k, is k." while patting him and kissing him.
✿ Doug cleaning up the little toys - he moved some furniture and put away every toy he found. I know this takes a lot of time to do, I'm the one who usually does it and I am grateful that he did it for me.
✿ Getting to over hear my kids bath tub conversations They have rubber duckies, frogs and dolphins and they were having talking with each other. The big ones were the mom and dad (Robin) and they were telling the little ones were the kids(Dallas) about bath safety and rules such as: take care of each other and don't let the little brothers fall under the water, keep the water in the tub, look up when mama washes your hair and Dallas played the part of the kids just saying "no! no! and splash! while laughing at the mama frog and papa dolphin" Too cute.

Gratitude 2/17

2009-02-17T23:56:00.000-08:00

I'm grateful for:
✿ Getting the laundry put away - there were nine loads of laundry to put away. I'm getting caught up slowly but surely.
✿ Watching the kids imaginations run wild - I love how they play together. Play cooking is awfully fun to watch. Dallas feeds me imaginary food all the time. Robin likes to make me imaginary tea.
✿ Letting someone else make dinner - Doug made pizza
✿ Gift cards in the mail - Doug's aunt sent a gift card for Warren so now we can buy more cloth diapers. Maybe I can start washing every other day instead of everyday. I really fear what might happen if I forget to dry them in the morning
✿ The music of Fiddler on the Roof - Robin sings every song with me. Dallas is learning them too. They love to dance to them too.

Gratitude 2/16

2009-02-16T23:05:00.000-08:00

Today was the last day of a three day weekend for Doug. Warren is just over three weeks now and we finally heard from Doug's parents. They live in Bothell, just over an hour away. They didn't want to make plans to see him but talked to Doug about Linux. I am at peace with it. My kids can learn how grandparents are usually more interested by hanging out with friends who have involved grandparents. They got to see a fine example of what a grandma is like on Friday when we met Victoria and her mother-in-law Irene for a trip to the Seattle Childrens Museum.

I'm grateful for:
✿ Having reptiles, life wouldn't be complete without them
✿ Car carts at grocery stores - how lucky are kids these days
✿ Skagit Valley Food Co-op's cloth diaper section. If I still lived in Lynnwood I wouldn't know where to go but Bellevue to buy a Snappie when I misplaced the only one I hard or buy a daiper cover when it turns out all the smalls I had are missing
✿ Costco having a growing selection of gluten/dairy/soy free snacks. Today there was a bag of jalapeño chips for Doug and a bag of Veggie Crisps for the kids and I
✿ Freddy Land - The playland at Fred Meyer. Robin has such a good time playing there and the attendant always puts on Mary Poppins per his request. When we got there today A Bugs Life was playing. He said to me "Mama, this is a bad movie and it's scary so she will turn on Mary Poppins for me and I will be happy." I don't remember A Bugs Life being scary but I have not watched it since having kids to try and see it from their perspective. He was right though, as soon as he was in, she changed the movie for him.

Gratitude 2/15

2009-02-15T23:55:00.000-08:00

I'm grateful for:
✿ Wikipedia - without it how could I know what coconut gel really is? It has to be the best tasting stuff on earth. It almost tasted like bubble gum, but almost like juicy fruit gum. It's chewy and fruity and so yummy, after you have tried it you will think of it all the time. It's a product fo the Philippines and it's made from fermented coconut water.
✿ Sunny days - Doug got to take Robin and Dallas out to play today. They love going out and helping Papa in the yard
✿ Three day weekends
✿ Memories of Monday playgroups - yep good times.
✿ Trying new things - like coconut gel! I have a bunch of new bean thread noodles to try and a couple from other things like sweet potato too.

Gratitude 2/14

2009-02-14T23:40:00.000-08:00

I'm grateful for:
✿ Purple mylar balloons
✿ How my dad always calls on valentines day
✿ The sweet card from Doug
✿ Five minutes to cuddle before a child needed attention again
✿ A lucky guess on the code my three year old set locking me out of playing any DVD rated over G

Gratitude 2/13

2009-02-14T08:29:00.001-08:00

As if it were possible I got even less sleep last night. I got to bed around 4ish and got up when Doug said it was time to go at 6:45. All things considered, the day went really well. Doug drove is all to his work and I slept for the last 30 minutes of the trip. Robin was awake the whole time and still awake when Doug parked the car and went into the office. I asked Robin if we could sleep in the car for a while and he said sure but 10 minutes later I awoke feeling guilty to make him sit there and wait so I got up and drove to the Pacific Science Center.

It took just over a half hour to get all the kids set and the stroller packed for a day out. Two of three needed diapers changed, one needed clothes changed, a bag with just enough diapers’ needed packing and snack cups needed refilling.

We couldn’t stay long before going to meet friends for lunch but they had a good time and barely wanted to leave.

They liked the lunch I packed! I always worry about that.

They had a great time at the Seattle Children’s Museum. It’s strange how the second we set foot in that place the kids loose the ability to hear me. It’s all children’s museums, not just one.

The kids fell asleep ok the way to the parking garage and Warren was the only one awake when we got to the car. He has to be put in first and didn’t like that. The older two slept through the crying though. Putting two heavy sleeping children into car seats in the back of the van was not easy but somehow I made it happen. After changing and nursing Warren we picked up Doug and went to Uwajimaya. That’s a fun store. Robin woke at the end in time to see a couple things we don’t see everyday. He wanted to try chicken feet but I talked him into crab instead. I told him we could try them another day. I wasn't prepared to figure out what to do with chicken feet. We drove home, I napped another 30 minutes. When we got home I sat to read stories and nurse the baby while Doug cooked crab and clams. We had Mochi for desert which Robin liked but oddly Dallas did not. Friday is movie night but I went up to bed while they watched something. It was a good day, a really good day.

I'm grateful for:
✿ Perfect parking spaces
✿ Packed lunches that the kids want to eat
✿ Friends to go places with
✿ Impromptu trips to Uwajimaya
✿ Coconut lychee jellies Yum!

I can't help it, I love them

2009-02-14T06:55:00.000-08:00

I know that this will come out as sentimental and just plain mushy but I love my kids. As easy as my third birth was, something in me changed a little. It's not that I didn't appreciate my children before but I am constantly thinking about how blessed I am. Maybe I felt my mortality a little bit. There isn't a single time I touch my children that I'm not thankful that I have them. I am so lucky to get to be a part of their lives. I am so blessed that everyday I get to look at their excited faces, kiss their cheeks and hold their little hands. I'm so joyful that I get to be their mother that it brings tears to my eyes. I can't even find words that fully express how I feel about them. Sometimes it's hard not to dwell and just live in the moment.

I love to watch them play and hear what they have to say. Dallas is just starting to converse and some words he has down very well. Just yesterday he clearly said his first three syllable word Papaya. He repeats most anything you say but cautiously in a quite growl. He and Robin communicate well together though. They have something between them that I can never be part of and it is so special. I really want to foster that for them. Robin is going through a tough time right now, changing from a toddler to a kid. Part of him wants to stay a baby but part of him wants to grow up too. It's sad to watch sometimes. Once you grow up you can't really go back. When I can see he is conflicted I tell him no matter how big he gets he will always be my baby. He has started to tell me that when he is feeling the pressure to be big but wants to be little. I can see it really helps him.
He is turning into such a thoughtful boy. He went through a selfish phase for a while, not wanting to share and what not but he's coming around. Today he saved half his cookie for his friend. If I make him cookies he gets so excited, they are really special to him. It took a lot of self control to not eat the whole thing, it was the last cookie after all. In the car on the way home from Seattle Dallas woke up crying and Robin passed him his snack cup. I had just given it to Robin not five minutes before because he told me he was hungry. I asked him where his cup was and he told me "I gave it to my brother because he was hungry too and I want to take care of everyone." I was so proud to hear that. He said it with such concern. (I found him the other snack cup too)

Although I'm excited to get to watch them grow and I know they need space to do that, part of me fears that I will someday lose them. That has to be my biggest fear, losing them in some way. I have worried that as they get older I might do something to drive them away but then I realize that the very act of worrying about it helps shape the future so that history won't repeat it's self. Doug and I as parents put thought behind everything we do. We don't subscribe to the school of thought of "That's just what you do." We have heard that a lot in the past from family as an excuse for doing this or that "That's just what people did." I believe in following your heart but there is no excuse for a "No brainer" in my book. At anytime if I let my guard down and try to connect with our extended families it's usually because I have wondered if our parents might feel the same way I do about my kids, but all I find at the end of that road is disappointment.

Gratitude 2/12

2009-02-13T09:23:00.001-08:00

Today started with waking up after only 3 hours sleep to Dallas screaming in my face. This of course woke up Warren. Dallas rams into you while he sleeps so can not sleep near the baby. He also will climb me in his sleep so really he can’t be near me while sleeping. I cried for a good solid 10 min about the sleep I wasn’t getting. I finally got Warren settled and went back to sleep. Robin woke up next and after arguing with him about if he could gold the sleeping baby or not, he went down stairs to play.

The second time I fell apart was after cooking breakfast and serving the kids Warren needed to nurse and I couldn’t get my water bottle, I had just given up my breakfast so the boys could have seconds and when I asked Robin to get my water for me he said no. I was just tired and hungry. Eventually he did get me that water.

Dinner took me 4.5 hrs to make. I mean I was chopping, stirring and actually working on it the entire time, between diaper changes and feeding all the kids. I managed to pull it off without getting too upset about it. I guess that’s just how it goes some days. It seems most of my problems come from lack of food and sleep. It has to be just a phase that we will pass sometime. If I can hold on until the weekend I can sleep again. As for food, well no one will feed me but me so I guess that might be awhile. Now on to the gratitude.

I'm grateful for:
✿ That I had enough tears to make it through the day because it really sucks to run dry
✿ Owning two slow cookers so I could make two kinds of chili, one with beans for the family and one without for me (my babies get colicky if I eat beans)
✿ Crickets in stock at the pet store so the frog and Dragon get dinner too
✿ That even though this was my hardest day yet, I was able to help Doug feel better after his terrible day at work
✿ Cool looking latex free bandaids that apparently take away the pain of nearly having your finger severed by the parrot (poor Robin)

Gratitude 2/11

2009-02-12T01:10:00.001-08:00

Doug worked from home today because we missed a lot of sleep last night. Dallas wouldn't go to sleep, Warren cried for most of the night because every time I got him to sleep Dallas would try to pick him up. After Dallas fell asleep Robin woke up. Doug slept through most of it
last night so I slept in today. Warren was happy to sleep in with me most of the time too.

I'm grateful for:
✿ Easy to win badges on pogo
✿ Learning that the key to happiness is not in material goods
✿ My ability to cook and please my family
✿ Watching Robin do a happy dance for getting cookies that he can eat too
✿ Seeing that Dallas naturally eats cookies like Cookie Monster whom he has never seen in this lifetime

Gratitude 2/10

2009-02-11T21:35:00.000-08:00

It was a difficult day today. I didn't get much sleep and even though
the kids were tired too they wouldn't let me take a nap. Hopefully
tomorrow will be a better day.

I'm grateful for:
✿ New friends
✿ Old dogs
✿ The yard when it's covered with snow and lit up by the moon
✿ Doug bringing me comfort food after I have had a bad day
✿ Tomorrow so I can try again

Picking the right seeds

2009-02-10T12:02:00.000-08:00

There is so much pressure to pick the right seeds for the garden. This pressure is mostly self imposed. Doug is putting on the pressure to get them ordered now but I'm the one worried about choosing winners this year.

Last year we did ok. I ordered a bunch of beans and they didn't grow well if at all. The cukes didn't even come up, not a single one of the three types we planted.

We had some real sucesses too. We had never grown lettuce before, it just wouldn't sprout but last year we had amazing lettuce. It was our best crop. The spinach did amazing as well. The tomatoes fruited a lot longer than usual because of the hoop house Doug built. He plans on making two more. The peppers didn't grow much but they never really have. The hoop house wasn't built until late last season so it didn't help the peppers much. I have higher hopes for this year.

We do ok with carrots, beets and peas. Usually the zuchini turns out ok but the variety we planted last year rotted really easily. Green beans have never been a problem before so I guess I need to order them from a different source. We have had brocoli grow well too but haven't had a caulifower reach maturity yet. We rock radishes. It's just too bad I don't like to eat them.

Potatoes and pumpkins pop up volunteers from years pasts plantings. The goats are also being moved to a lower pasture for the year and the three sisters, corn, beans and squash will be planted where the goats have been.

It sure would be nice to have an herb garden too. I have tried before but I can't seem to keep up with the weeds in an herb garden and a vegetable garden. I had some plants going for a couple of years but Doug tilled them in on accident. I actually cried when he destroyed my thyme. I still have sage out there.

I'm not sure how much I can do this year. So far Warren seems to be a baby who requires holding all the time. If he is awake and I set him down he screams. Robin was the same way except Robin would wake up if you set him down too. Warren will at least let me put him down sleeping. I'm sure I will be able to get the plants and seeds in the ground but this year I need an irrigation system. Last year I used a watering can and watered once or twice a day and it took just over half an hour to do in the begining. Did I mention how large the garden is? 33' x 45'

I found this great weeding tool at the feed store last year. It's called the hula hoe. It's a circular hoe and you just rub it back and forth over the seedlings and it uproots them with ease. Usually the garden is more of a treasure hunt through the weeds looking for edibles but the garden looked real last year. I'm certain this year I can keep it up at least partialy. Robin and Dallas will love the chance to go out and play everyday while I weed the garden and I can wear Warren on all but the hottest days.

Gratitude 2/9

2009-02-10T00:11:00.001-08:00

I'm grateful for:
✿ Not hurting myself too badly when I slipped on the porch and fell
flat on my back
✿ The baby didn't get hurt when we fell
✿ Doug gave Toto (the dog formerly known as Junior) a hair cut
✿ A thick glass jar for the coconut oil since I dropped it and it
bounced instead of breaking
✿ I'm very grateful I made it through my first day alone and still
managed to have dinner ready when Doug got home

Gratitude 2/8

2009-02-09T23:57:00.001-08:00

I'm grateful for:
✿ Seeing the sun rise before falling back to sleep
✿ The smell of a babies breath
✿ Invites to birthday parties
✿ Coming home to a freshly vacuumed rug
✿ Doug staying home two weeks

Gratitude 2/7

2009-02-09T23:55:00.001-08:00

I'm grateful for:
✿ Big tight hugs that squeeze the breath out of you
✿ The realization that we are the only family we really need and won't
let the lack of extended family interest get me down anymore
✿ A clean van (interior)
✿ Homemade play dough
✿ Tight fitting carseats

Gratitude 2/6

2009-02-06T23:41:00.001-08:00

It's getting harder to be original everyday but I suppose that's the point. Five things to be grateful for doesn't sound so hard, it's putting them into words that is. I keep noticing moments and thinking "I'm so grateful for right now" but if I tried to write it down I'm sure it would turn into a long boring story much like this has.

I'm grateful for:
❄ Children, everyday
❄ A freshly cleaned litter box which is NOT what I'm smelling right now
❄ Sleeping in on what feels like the last day I may ever sleep
❄ The many years of Sci Friday we watched while Stargate was still on
❄ Silly cats who play with the kids toys after the kids go to bed

Gratitude 2/4-5

2009-02-05T23:21:00.001-08:00

Yesterday when I finally had a chance to sit down and write my five daily gratitudes it was 12:03. I was three minutes too late and this app won't let you cheat and back date. To me, if I'm still awake the day hasn't changed yet so I went ahead and wrote them down anyway and decided to post 10 today instead.

I'm grateful for:
❄ Sleeping in with baby
❄ Kisses from my kids
❄ Medium starting up again
❄ Forgetting what day it is and finding 24 recorded and waiting
❄ When my children are nice to each other

❄ The silence in the house when everone has fallen asleep and all you hear is the cascading of water from the fish tank filters
❄ Turtles
❄ Pogo games
❄ Watching a baby grow while he sleeps
❄ Coconut bliss

Funny Quote

2009-02-04T02:48:00.000-08:00

"Don't piss on my head and tell me it's raining!" - Sonny Corinthos to Anthony Zacchara on General Hospital

Yes I'm a fan of General Hospital, I have been for years. I also watch One Life To Live but usually in fast forward these days. I'm not sure why admitting to watching soaps feels like a danger. Don't judge me for it! It's not like I sit around all day watching TV. The kids are not awake when I watch them either. I don't watch reality TV, I prefer my drama fake. No one really gets hurt that way. Doug hates soaps. I'm not even allowed to watch them in bed when he's sleeping, he says it keeps him awake. This from the man who can sleep standing up while in mid conversation. I have to either read subtitles, use headphones or watch downstairs after he's asleep. It's often what's playing while I wash dishes and fold laundry after every one else is asleep.

Dinner at The Crab Pot

2009-02-03T23:51:00.000-08:00

Today we went to the Seattle Aquarium followed by The Crab Pot for dinner. We have a membership to the aquarium and I have taken the kids quite a bit but Doug had not managed to ever make it down despite working so close. He was really looking forward to going today. We had a good time spending quite a while at the touching ponds. The fish that Robin loves was no where to be seen today but he wasn't too worried about it. Dallas is excited about all the fish but signed to me that he LOVED the octopus.

At the end of our aquarium tour we went through the gift shop. The boys picked out some frogs that have a flashing LED in their bellies. I always look at the jelly fish paper weights. I'm a big kid and I am still drawn to glow in the dark things and just love those sculptures. Doug surprised me and bought me one! It's so beautiful I don't think a picture can do it justice.

Everyone was hungry and we needed to eat dinner so we walked on over to The Crab Pot.
Robin loves crab maybe even more than I do and that's really saying something. Robin also has his fathers love for all things bivalve. In addition to a pound of crab to share we ordered a bucket of mussels and a plate of ribs for Dallas and I to share. Everyone loves this place. They put a huge piece of paper on the table and dump your crab, potatoes and corn cobs out in the middle and you all get wooden boards and hammers to crack or beat you crab with. After eating ribs and corn Dallas smashed potatoes and licked them off his hammer. Robin ate a shocking amount of food. He had some of everything then finished up any left overs nearly matching Doug bite for bite. Doug was kind enough to crack a couple legs and feed me too. Since I was holing the baby, I thought it best to keep my hands crab free since babies really shouldn't be exposed to shellfish. The ribs were wonderful though and the fries were great too.

While we were eating the people sitting in the next table over pulled a dine and dash. There had been four of them and they ordered a huge amount of food. The staff gave chase and caught one of the woman's purses. Since I was taking pictures of the family while eating, I had photos of the people sitting there. I offered them to the manager on the way out, he told us this time they had an ID so they could press charges but it has been happening very often and this was the third day in a row. I"m thankful that we could just go to The Crab Pot for dinner with out worrying about how to pay for it today.

Gratitude 2/3

2009-02-03T20:03:00.001-08:00

❄Memberships to the aquarium
❄A husband willing to feed me crab in a restaurant when my hands are
full with the baby
❄The ability to pay for dinner at The Crab Pot
❄Pamela's Dark Chocolate Chocolate Chunk Cookies
❄My D90 for great pictures at the aquarium

A good sport

2009-02-02T20:50:00.001-08:00

Gratitude 2/2

2009-02-02T20:44:00.001-08:00

I'm grateful for:
❄ Remembering there is a new episode of Big Love waiting on the DVR
❄ Sunny days so the kids can play outside
❄ A grateful husband for a turkey cooked well
❄The movie Ground Hog Day
❄Natural Cream Soda...Yummy

2009-02-02T20:32:00.000-08:00

Snuggled in a carrier.

2009-02-02T20:30:00.001-08:00

A sudden nap.

2009-02-02T16:27:00.000-08:00

This is the Robin flower closing because it's night.

Gratitude

2009-02-02T01:34:00.001-08:00

I've started a gratitude journal. It's suppose to be life changing. Everyday you write 5 things your grateful for and your suppose to do this for a month. I have a iPhone app for it so let's see if I can keep it up all month long. Here's my 5 gratitudes for 2/1.

❄ Listening baby snores
❄ I took a nap in the van
❄ Happy kids with snacktraps
❄ Uplifting and funny facebook notes
❄ Lettuce wrapped bonzai burgers

Some random thoughts

2009-02-02T01:27:00.001-08:00

When I was 16 I ate a poppy seed muffin before going to the dentist. My nerves are all in the wrong place so I would have to go in an hour before my appointment to get numbed. Because of the pain of repeated pokings and my massive panic attacks at the dentist the would always put the nitric oxide on as soon as I sat down. This was a long appointment, two hours and so I was breathing the gas for nearly three hours and after my boyfriend drove me home, I puked the muffin up in the driveway. Since then before a throw up I smell nitric oxide.

I want to go to Indiana to show my extended family Warren but I also want to go on vacation somewhere tropical. Can I swing Indiana and Mexico in one trip?

I love pork rinds and don't understand why anyone would think they are gross. How can they be worse than potato chips or doritos? At least it's clear what's in them.

2009-02-02T00:47:00.001-08:00

Everyone says Robin looks just like me but I think he looks like Papa
too.

2009-02-02T00:32:00.000-08:00

Happy sleepers.

2009-02-02T00:27:00.000-08:00

Dallas almost ate more mustard than anything else.

2009-02-01T23:37:00.000-08:00

Mama and Warren

Not as prepared as I thought

2009-01-25T12:53:00.000-08:00

Am I one of those survivalist nut jobs? Maybe a little. I like the idea of being prepared for anything. I squirrel away food and supplies. I thought I had done a really good job and that we had the minimum required to last a year. Not according to the LDS recommendations. We don't have room for all the food I have stored now, it's seriously spilling into our living space but if we actually had the LDS recommendations, we might as well sleep on bags of flour and beans, lol.

Here, check out this link and see how you measure up.

http://www.thefoodguys.com/foodcalc.html

The Birth Story of Warren Miller Messick

2009-01-22T20:37:00.000-08:00

This baby was a completely planned unassisted pregnancy and birth. We had one ultrasound to see that the baby had all it's parts and the placenta was where it should be. We saw a midwife once to establish care in case of a hospital transfer. I have put plenty of research into birth, enough to know that birth is part of life, it should be safe in most cases and it is not a medical condition that needs managing. Childbirth is a natural function of the body, every mammal does it with little complication most of the time as long as not interfered with. I realize that there are some cases where nature needs a little help for the best outcome to both Mother and Baby but a midwife in my home wouldn't make a difference in my situation, if there was something wrong and an emergency, I'm just as capable of calling 9-1-1 as any midwife, more so since I know where I keep my phone. I'm not ignorant of potential complications, I studied all possible out comes and scenarios and learned what to do in all cases and when to call for help. It's not sheer luck as some seem to make it sound that the end result of unassisted pregnancy and birth is a healthy baby. In every birth, including with and OB or midwife, the mother is the only one truly responsible for her care and it is her responsibility to be informed in all aspects of her pregnancy and birth. A good friend of mine likes to say "Birth is as safe as life gets"

Doug's job in the birth aside from running around getting everything I call out to him, which he pulled off beautifully I might add, is to make sure the baby doesn't hit the floor too hard, lol. No seriously, I guided the baby out to his hands, he untangled him then passed him up while I was still on my hands and knees. Pretty easy really. We get comments that Doug must be becoming a pro at this and Wow Doug must be good at delivering babies and at first it offended me, now it cracks me up that people think that it's Doug doing the work of delivering the baby. I can't imagine what must be going through their heads to get that idea. Actually, after being at four different hospital births I guess maybe I can and the births of my children might be the un-comprehendible ones. I labor, I feel my pelvis expanding and my body start to push, get on my hands an knees and guide the head coming out, a minute later the body follows. Feeling Doug's hands on mine as he helps me catch the baby's body coming out is pretty magical though.

On to the actual birth story.
I fell asleep around 4 or 4:30 am while watching Scrubs on my computer. I woke up to use the potty at 5:25 and my back was sore, it has been for sometime but my pelvis was sore too so I figure I must have been laying wrong or with poorly positioned pillows so went back to bed and tried to go to sleep again. I woke up about ten minutes later and thought the pelvic pain was too irritating so I would watch the last 15 minutes of Scrubs I fell asleep for. Around now Dallas woke up from a bad dream and Doug had to get in bed with him, I told Doug to come back as soon as he got him back to sleep because I thought I would need him, I wanted him to rub my back. He fell asleep too so I left him alone. At 6:15 I woke him up and told him I needed him to run me a bath because I had an intense contraction and thought it wouldn't be long now. I had been saying that labor lasted about an hour, but I really didn't feel any contractions until this point, I was just awake with a back ache and that really wasn't anything out of the ordinary. I now conclude that my labor was really only 28 minutes.

We went downstairs, Doug rinsed and filled the bathtub, I sang a couple songs on my iPod and tried to sing low, think of relaxing my toes, (who can be tense with relaxed toes?) keep my jaw from clenching and thinking open, open, open. There was only one contraction that got too intense for me, I had wanted to get in the tub but Doug was in the way and I snapped at him for it, he was trying to move but couldn't decide which way to go and it was too late and I was stuck for a minute. I got in the tub and labored there for a little while, again snapped at Doug while he was brushing his teeth. I had grunted and he turned to watch me with excitement, I felt like a spectacle and lost focus. He had just set up the video camera and had been narrating behind me and I found that quite irritating, I tried to appoligize for snapping but I don't really know if it came out right. I think he understood. I hate the idea that I might have ever been mean while in labor. I did feel most of the labor in my back. It wasn't very pleasurable.

There came a point, not too long after I got into the tub that I couldn't get comfortable. Doug had left the room and I yelled to him that I needed a bucket because I thought I might puke. He went to get one but the feeling passed and I am happy to say I made it through another pregnancy without throwing up once. I hate throwing up. I threw up during transition with Robin but it was the only time in all three births. I have had many close calls, and several heavings, and with this one a few times when bile came up into my mouth from a well placed kick but no actual vomit!!

One contraction later I jumped out of the tub onto the floor where Doug had laid out two perfectly clean and matching towels (it's the details, and he knows I care) in anticipation of the birth, knowing it was time from my need for a bucket. As I was jumping from the tub to the floor, I knew I was in transition for sure because I exclaimed I hope there isn't something wrong! I could feel the baby's head coming but it didn't feel easy like Dallas' did. Doug is great and knows well not to touch me while I labor. He was going to go get Robin for the crowning and birth but I was positioned on the floor in such a way that he couldn't leave the bathroom without bumping me so he just stayed put.

I actually had to push a little with this one, the contractions were right on top of each other and I knew it was time to get that head down and I gave a little push and then gave a big push. My bag of waters exploded. I asked Doug to check if he could see any cord hanging out, he said no. Cord prolapse is really my only concern but at that point the most prudent thing to do, had there been a cord was push like hell since the head was already coming. After that push I could feel how huge his head felt and then tried hard NOT to push I knew I needed a minute to stretch. It was apparent to Doug, I couldn't see, why I was having some difficulty and needed to push with this one where I didn't with Dallas (aside from his head being three quarters of an inch larger) He was almost a face presentation, his forehead came first. He didn't have any molding to him at all. This could also be why my bones still ache a little. The pressure was up front, not so much in the back like with my other two so I added support where I could feel I needed it and tried to breath through it as not to tear. It's the strangest feeling having the head almost out and feeling hands and feet kicking and hitting inside of you. A moment came where I felt I had to finish the job, gave another push, out came his head, I felt a head, a cord and Doug's hands on mine and ran out of strength. His head wasn't trying to suck back in though so I knew he wasn't stuck, I just needed a second to get my baring again, then I pushed and out popped his body and Doug passed him up to me. He was born at 6:43 am.

Doug checked and it was in fact a boy and Doug went to get Robin right away. Robin didn't seem upset that he missed the birth, I told him he came really fast and we have the video for him to see and he seemed happy with that. He still wanted to be able to cut the cord. I squatted on the floor for a minute but the bath sounded nicer so I stood up and climbed back in. Robin wanted to be a good helper and got me drinks and I let him pour water on the baby and me to keep us warm. After the placenta came in the tub, we used the bucket for it and climbed out to go sit in my chair. The cord was short, much shorter than either Robin or Dallas. Dallas' cord was crazy long though, over a yard actually. This babies more like 18 inches. Robin's was in between, not long or short.

Dallas didn't want to wake up so slept in for another hour while Doug cooked pancakes at my request. Dallas then woke up and everyone was fed while the cord cutting supplies were boiled. I bought these neat cord bands to use. They are extremely unobtrusive for breastfeeding and I highly recommend them over cord clamps. The tool to put on the bands costs $90 but it wasn't hard to do with two curved tipped hemostats instead for a total cost of around $40 for the scissors, two straight hemostats, two curved hemostats and a pack of 150 bands (the smallest pack they sold). I also bought a stethoscope for infants, and a tape measure for the head and chest. It was easy to line up since it had slots to come back on it's self. His head is 14.75 inches, and his chest 15 inches. He is 21 inches long, the same as all the boys have been.

I didn't tear at all that I know of and feel great. I can potty without any pain, woo hoo! I don't have any swelling. The only thing that really aches is my tail bone and well my back is still sore. I had Doug help bind my belly and that feels good. I don't have that empty belly, guts falling out feeling this time. I'm starving though, and so thirsty. You wouldn't think I expended that much energy on under 30 minutes of labor but my stomach seems to think otherwise. Doug says it's because I can finally fit food in.

He's a great nurser, very eager and has a nice big latch but boy is this kid hungry! Dallas is most excited about the babies feet. He lifted the blanket and found his feet and said "kick, kick!" then pointed to my belly. He was telling me he understood that this was the baby who was kicking in me, and was now out. He keeps popping over to sign and tell me baby. Robin just wants to hold him and touch him. He's so excited. He kept telling me all morning, I'm so glad he came out good Mama, I'm so glad for him."

He notices everything

2009-01-20T13:31:00.000-08:00

Robin woke up this morning and came to wake me up. He said he was hungry so we went downstairs to have breakfast and let Dallas sleep a little longer. We have 5 indoor cats. Doug took the two boys to get fixed this morning. Usually the cats hide and sleep in the morning, at least I thought they do. No sooner do we make it downstairs he says to me "Mama, where are all the cats?" I said "They must be sleeping." He says "No, they aren't here. Where did they go?" He has doctor phobia pretty badly but I had to tell him where they were, clearly our little psychic knew the house was lacking a couple bodies. He says to me, "Gamma needs to get fixed but Goldar is good and we don't need him fixed, he's not broken!" and he starts to cry. Well I couldn't figure out a good way to explain exactly what getting a cat fixed was but I told him that Gamma needed his brother to go with him so he wouldn't be scared at the doctors and that Papa was bringing them back home tonight. He calmed down and seemed to except this. I don't know what I will tell him when it's Silver's turn to be spayed. I decided to wait on her until the boys are calmed down since it's a major surgery for a female cat and pretty minor for a male. She will go alone and he will probably cry again. Silver has been beside herself bored today. She always plays with the kids, but has her brothers to play too. The kids are getting tired of being pounced upon by her poor thing she's so lonely. I can't imagine not having all three of them, they love the kids so much and are such a part of our day, it is lonely with out the boys here. They will be back tonight and they will be ok.

Nothing new

2009-01-14T09:12:00.000-08:00

Yep , that sums it up. Nothing new.

Snoring

2009-01-04T02:34:00.000-08:00

Doug is snoring so loud the house is shaking. I hate that. It means the kids will wake up either grumpy or late and I won't get much sleep because when I finally do get to go to bed, I will spend all night telling him to roll over. If I take away the pillow he will mostly stop but then he wakes up and bitches at me and that's almost worse. I have bought all these things to try to stop the snoring, with his wakeful consent too but he won't use them. I have this snore clip that works by magnets and sticking in his nose, man that thing works awesome. He complains that it's too tight, well the rest of us can sleep, are you sure hurts worse than a foot in the back dear? I just got this snore spray to try and have asked him to please put it somewhere convenient for him since my getting up to get it in the middle of the night is very unreasonable as we have already established with the hip pain. It's STILL here on the table. There are exercises to try before sleeping that are suppose to help but that would break his routine. Honestly sitting her listening to this, I understand why some married couples sleep in separate rooms. I always though that would be the beginning of the end so to speak but what if it's really preventing the end by giving the non-snoring party a little sanity. It has gotten so much worse in the last couple years, I don't know what to do.

Ok lets meet this baby already!!

2009-01-04T00:40:00.000-08:00

I feel like I'm absolutely going to burst. Really, no kidding. I don't remember feeling so huge before although the pictures tell it otherwise. I really can't wait to meet baby, I also cant wait for my belly to stop hurting. I went to the Chiropractor yesterday and that helped with my back pain. I wish I could go every day. My hips felt so much better when I left but after sleeping on them again, how can I not, they hurt again. I did sleep the longest stretch I have in weeks, about 4 hrs without waking. So long that when I woke up and baby didn't I started to worry and had to get the doppler and wake the little baby up. Heartbeat was fine, I was just worrying for no reason.

I keep hoping to get that infamous burst of nesting urge. I have not had it yet, and did not with Robin or Dallas either. I keep working my ass off at night to make up for what didn't get done during the day like the dishes or cleaning up the toys. It feels so futile at times. If any project gets worked on at all, the regular stuff doesn't get done. I can't pick up all the slack, but Robin said Papa was working so I guess if he has to work on the weekend then I need to be the one to wash the dishes. Did I mention that I can't really reach the sink too well? I hate washing the dishes right now, but I feel strongly that in case of emergency, I would feel better knowing that it didn't look like EVERYTHING was neglected here.

I have been wanting to sew for sooo long but can't seem to get the table cleaned off. This sucks. Maybe the baby is just going to be waiting for me to finish the new carrier an if I could only find the table to do it, baby would come already. I know, I know not even my due date yet but I can't help but feel in a hurry this time for some reason.

It occurred to me today while chatting with my sister online, I had not spoken to her until recently, that my family is rooting for baby to be a girl. She referred to the baby as "she". My grandmother has told me she prefers girls, my mother has referred to the baby as "our little girl" (which cracks me up since she doesn't have time for my little boys so why would she would lay claim to any child of mine.) Uncle Fred thinks it's a girl but I don't think he really cares too much either way, he's a rather jovial fellow and was just making a guess. Why do people care? This baby shouldn't be a disappointment for anyone either way. If it's a girl we will still keep having children, if it's a boy we will still keep having children. I don't care what anyone else thinks we should be having. It sucks that it matters but I think I have written about it before, apparently it does to some people. The thing is, the people it seems to matter to most are barely around so it really doesn't matter does it.

Dinner and birth talk

2009-01-02T23:38:00.000-08:00

We go eat at this Chinese restaurant on a fairy regular basis and the waiter/owner (I think), he asked when baby was due, we told him and then he tells us that his sister has had two babies but she is small and the babies were big so she scheduled C-sections. Now it was really the swooping hand gesture under his mid section that made me come back with "I birth at home." It wasn't information that needed to be shared yet it really just popped out. He looked shocked. Either he had never heard of such a thing or I don't know what! He did admit that he watches a lot of birth shows on TV and said a lot can go wrong. I assured him that both my kids had been birthed at home and we are all well. He asked "Why would you not go to a hospital to have your baby?" My answer: "First, I don't really like doctors much, (that should have been my second reason but that's how it came out) and second, I feel that birth is more of a bodily function that we are meant to do rather than a medical situation. (truly my first reason but again, thats not how it came out.) Now at this point he is stunned speechless. He finally said make sure you have someone with you like this guy pointing to Doug whom only nodded.

The dinner conversation before this point had been perhaps non-conventional and the couple across from us didn't appear that they could take too much more. When I said birth was a bodily function the woman actually choked. It was really hard not to laugh. Previous I was telling Doug how this morning before Robin went down stairs, he climbed into bed with me to cuddle (Yeah for those glowing bears, still going strong with sleeping on their own!!) Robin told me that he really wanted to help the baby get born and we didn't need any friend to come over. He said that he would cut the placenta. I asked if he meant the cord and he said with a very stern and straight face "That is exactly what I meant to say Mama, I will help you and cut the cord so we can all cuddle and hold the baby." I don't remember this part being covered on any birth video we had watched and we don't watch the birth scare tv shows either. I wonder if he remembers the cutting of Dallas' cord when he himself was only 2 yrs old. Anyway, I thought it was a strange request but we will see. I usually do that part myself.

He is so excited every day he comes up to me and says you know what Mama? There's a baby in your belly, or did you know there's a baby in your belly? Or sometimes he will ask me, where's the baby? An I will point down and he will say oh, just checking. We were using the doppler one day, we don't use it often so it's a big deal. Dallas was sitting on the side of the chair I was on and the baby kicked and everyone saw it. Since then, he loves to come and pull my shirt up and demonstrate to me where he saw the baby kick and he kicks the air while poking my belly in the same spot. He has been kicked before but I think it was just so visible that for some reason that time really stuck with him. I don't think Dallas will be as excited as Robin when the baby comes. He does however have baby fever. Everything is a baby and he stuffs them down his shirt an will sometimes even nurse his dolls and animals. I have a feeling I'm going to need to make a couple little baby slings for these two.

A child talking in his sleep...

2008-12-31T08:25:00.000-08:00

Robin says out loud suddenly from a deep sleep with eyes still shut "Happy Winter!!" in the brightest cheeriest voice a 3yr old could muster. Yes, I think it's going to be a good day!

This baby is dancing a jig!

2008-12-27T01:45:00.000-08:00

I just made some coco and have drank half a cup and this baby is going crazy! This kid is dancing a jig, I think it likes it. It's home made:

160z Vanilla Rice Milk

2 tsp Rapunzel Baking Cocoa

about three pinches Guar Gum (to thicken the rice milk)

2 tsp of Agave Nectar (roughly)

Stir it together and simmer on the stove. When it is heated I fill a mug 3/4 full and then add cold rice milk so that it is drinkable right away. It's tasty for sure!

In other funny things, the cats keep stealing the kids balloons at night. The three kittens, whom are not so little anymore but may forever be referred to as the kittens, have learned where to bite the balloons on the stem so that they won't pop and can be carried around. They will turn the balloons with their paws, claws retracted, until they get the end then carry it away, usually to under the sink where the litter boxes are kept. The poor kids never know where their balloons have gone, but we keep a bag of them handy for replacements. Balloons are defiantly on my list of favorite things and so I keep them stocked. When I was a kid I said I would always have balloons in my house, balloons and cats. I didn't know that would work out so well together. When I got older I vowed to always stock bubble wrap too, I bought the kids a 100ft roll for Christmas off ebay, it was maybe $15 after shipping. Dallas and I have popped several feet together already and I can imagine we will keep buying it as we run out since it is good fun.

I have had to get over the fact that not everything I do will be eco friendly, I love balloons and bubble wrap. To trade off for that blemish in my world footprint, I only use eco safe soaps, cloth diapers and "green" toilet paper. I always bring a bag to the store and if I forget them in the car, I will use the cart to get my stuff out and bag in myself when I get to the van. We use cloth towels instead of paper, recycle to the fullest extent of our ability and even use biodegradable kitty litter rather than clay. It's ok but there is something to be said for clumping cat litter. We even recycle disposable plastic or corn utensils if we have to use them. They do clean up in the dishwasher just fine. I don't buy water bottles because I use a stainless steel one that I fill at home. The toilet paper was the hardest switch for me. I really loved my Charmin. I think I'm doing ok. I put a lot of thought and effort into green living and I have decided to still keep balloons and bubble wrap. I'll just make one less trip to town to trade off my petroleum quota, ok? Jeez, I might think about this too much.

Christmas day - A winter wonderland

2008-12-26T19:26:00.001-08:00

It's beyond my control and I can't take it!

2008-12-23T18:43:00.000-08:00

I feel like Christmas has been ruined, at least my giving portion of it. Back in August I purchased through a co-op a large number of Stainless Steel water bottles, Klean Kanteens to be exact, as Christmas gifts. Who knew that doing your Christmas shopping in the middle of Summer, directly from the manufacturer, would mean that you would be gift-less come holiday time. So far I will have 6 extra bottles on my hands, could end up with as many as 12. Who needs that many, especially when I already purchased plenty of extras for ourselves.

I bought Doug's gifts through Amazon. They are all suppose to be here by now. I don't think they are going to make it, they didn't make it today anyway and I'm trying not to be too hopeful for tomorrow. I just read the winter storm warning on Weather.com for our area and it looks like nothing more will be coming until next week at this rate. I really shouldn't mind, it's the season for giving and for us, it's not about one particular day with the exception that it sure would be nice if everyone was able to open their gifts one the same day. Maybe we can draw it out so we still can open everything when Doug's stuff gets here. I'm really impatient though and waiting for the 25th is hard enough.

Life is tiring but good all the same

2008-12-22T02:39:00.000-08:00

So Dallas woke up again in the middle of the night (1:30) because he fell asleep before we got home for dinner. He cried and cried and Doug slept through it. I had hoped Doug would wake up and carry him down stairs for me as it's hard for me to make it up and back down all by myself right now. I brought him down, changed his diaper and then sat down with him. He just wanted me to hold him for the longest time. We watched the cats play. We read some web blogs. We had a snack. He's coloring right now. How blessed I am to get this one on one time with him right now while he is still the baby. He gets my full attention, if only for a couple of hours. I'm so tired. I had hoped to go to bed by now. He's wide awake and ready to go. He doesn't want to sleep now so for another hour or two, I will keep trying to meet his needs and keep him company. I tell both Robin and Dallas all the time, they will always be my babies. Robin gets it, I hope Dallas does too.

Yule Tide Bears

2008-12-21T14:57:00.000-08:00

We celebrate Yule at our house. Yule for us is the time to look forward to the new year and prepare and plan for the next season. It's when we think about our goals for next years garden. We also plan for next years animals for the farm. It's a good time to plan as the days grow lighter. The solstice is the longest night of the year. To celebrate and welcome back the light we give gifts of lights and musical instruments and have a feast for our family.

This year our lights came in the form of 24" GloE Panda bears. The kids have other GloE bears and love them. They have the 12" dog and monkey for the car and the 16" teddy bears for bed. I know what your thinking, this should be enough. I bought the bears/animals we already owned on Amazon and had the good fortune to fine one of the 16" bears at Value Village for a couple bucks. They use them every night and every time we get in the car.

We were shopping for some groceries at Fred Meyer last night and while walking by a checkout register I noticed someone buying up a stack of colorful boxes that caught my eye. I stopped to see what it was, it's notable when someone is buying 6 of the same huge box. They were all 24" GloeE bears and they were only $20. We went to the toy isle next.

We don't normally shop at "regular" stores for our toys. After being part of the advertising world, Doug and I both feel very strongly against character items, very strongly. (more on that later) In addition, we want our kids to have more open ended toys where imagination it the key not batteries or instructions. Most toys at Fred Meyer and Toys R Us are limiting in this.

Back to the point, we found the bears we were seeking and promptly bought 3 of them. One for each of the boys and one for my niece. She is 10 and an only child. After getting home I realized she might be too mature for a stuffed light up bear so we might end up keeping it for the baby. I sent and email to my sister to ask what she though so we will see.

When we got home last night we decided to give the boy the bears before bed time. They were so excited to see them. They are huge compared to the kids. Dallas' bear is almost the same size as him and Robin really isn't that much taller. Doug got the kids ready and in bed while I detached the bears from their boxes, they were not easy to get out. Who plans this stuff, how many attachements to the cardboard insert do they really need to stay put? 14 seems excessive to me. Anyway I took them up stair to the boys waiting at the gate and passed them over. They hugged them and kissed them and crawled into their beds.

These things really light up the room. They are a little different from the 16" bears, the smaller ones have different light shows to choose from and only stay on 15 minutes at a time. The larger Pandas stay on for 30 minutes and only rotate through one rainbow light show. They are much brighter too. Perhaps they have more LEDs in them, I don't know. The kids usually wake up in the early morning and crawl into bed with us, or me if Doug has gone to work already. Last night Dallas woke up as usual, needing a diaper change and Robin woke up from Dallas crying so loud. After his change the kids turned out their bears and stayed in their beds. They stayed in their bed! All night long!

Now this could be a fluke, I'm not holding my breath here but I do have hope. I have been worried about how to fit 5 people in one bed after the baby comes. Doug and the boys are all three bed hogs and I have to fight to stay on the bed without being mauled. Doug steals any and all blankets and tries to roll to the center all night. Robin and Dallas used to sleep one on each side but for the past 7 months I have been making them sleep on the same side so that they could get used to it before the baby came. When they are in my bed they fight in their sleep over who gets to be closest to me and often end up sleeping sideways to they can both have their heads on me. These bears have given me great hope that I might get some sleep for the last few weeks before the new baby comes. Maybe I will be able to nurse my baby in my bed without having to fend off sleepy heads from trying to butte the baby out of the way like they do each other. I can't wait for the morning cuddles of three little bundles of love though. Cuddles are the best!

Blizzard Update

2008-12-21T10:36:00.000-08:00

The power went out briefly while we were sleeping but came back on before we woke. If we have downed trees, I can't see them from the house. Finding them in the woods on the spring is quite a great treasure hunt. Doug did not realize I had unplugged the washing machine and became quite worried when he couldn't get it to turn on. I was awake to help him out so the panic didn't last long. All in all, we all stayed warm enough and all is well here. Wishing every one a happy Yule!

Snow flurries or is it a blizzard?

2008-12-21T00:16:00.000-08:00

We went out today for the first time since Tuesday and it started snowing while we were in town. The drive back at night in the dark was really cool. It was the closest thing to an actual blizzard I have ever seen. Large snow drifts sailing over the road in places, little snow tornadoes here and there, it looked like dark grey smoke dancing on the road in most places. A picture couldn't' have captured it and I doubt video would have gotten it right either, it was really an experience. We have been home since about 9 and Doug had to run back out to the car for something and said the path he made through the 20 something inches we ended with is almost gone from new snow and wind.

I'm a little worried about the wind since the trees are already so weighed down, but I guess the wind is blowing most the snow out. We do have a generator but it's pretty far from the house and lots of shoveling would be involved to get it here. We heat with propane and electric so we won't absolutely freeze without power and at least the freezers on the porch would stay frozen with the temp under 20 here.

I wish our house was a little more breeze proof though. We have one metal chimney pipe into no where. We did cap that off with 4 layers of Aluminum foil and a large rubber band to hold it in place. We have tried to take it apart and remove it from the inside but it doesn't work that way. It needs to be pulled out from the roof but the pitch is a little too steep and the roof is really too high for that to be safe for one person to do and I'm not getting up there to help so, there it sits.

There are gaps in the way the roof was made too. I'm not really sure how but if you spray a hose up onto the metal roofing over the bathroom, water will rain down onto the floor. I know they build this house themselves with little help so when we do build an addition, and we will likely do a lot of the work ourselves, I will be in charge of QC. I'm a real stickler and I wouldn't have let gaps in the roof boards just go as good enough. Their solution was to insulate the house off from the bathroom. The consequence of this is the toilet seat gets so cold, you don't really want to sit on it for fear of getting stuck to it. The claw foot bath tub is heavenly, except in the winter when it's a huge ice cube. It's solid cast iron and it's soooo cold. You need to run the hot water for a while before even taking a shower for fear you might brush up against it and go into arctic shock! Really I love how deep it is though.

There is this door built onto the little closet we keep the dust old neglected mop in. It was for passing wood through and they didn't insulate it. We did seal it up with a chunk of insulation but I bet it could have been done better. I considered it a theft danger and we sealed it up for safety not heating reasons so I really can't say how well that was done.

The original owners used older parts when building our house and we have a couple antique single pane windows and every window seems to let in a little breeze. We usually seal the house up with that plastic that you vacuum seal on with double sided tape and a hair dryer. I know, it a little ghetto but it's smart for the gas bill. We didn't get to doing it in time this year. The windows are sweating too much and the wood frames will be too wet for the tape to stick now so it's just too late.

I did make these nifty draft dodgers that are made from a wool blanket rolled up and I used my snap press to put industrial plastic snaps on the roll then nailed some to the door so it snaps in place and can be taken off and unrolled to be washed, not that I have ever done that in my memory, but it's an option. They work great with the exception that they seem to be irresistible to kids and kittens. They love to unsnap them and I am forever putting them back on. On the bright side the older cats and kid don't bother them anymore so it's just a phase we have to get past.

I need to get to making some heavy curtains for the windows. Actually I already made them I need to now figure out how to hang them. I also didn't get the pull mechanism correct. I was planning something like Roman shades but they don't lay how I would like them to. I might just let them hang down at this point, just to save on heat. I really do need to get back to them.

The wind is howling out there and the lights keep flickering. I have unplugged the most surge sensitive items in the house, the UV mercury vapor reptile heating lamps and the front loading washing machine. I have a few buckets of water sitting in the bathtub to manually flush the toilet as needed. All the pets waters have been topped off too. The well pump doesn't work without electricity and our generator isn't wired for 220. I have charged up all I could think to charge laptops, cameras, phones. I have a flash light handy just in case. I better do the dishes before we lose power and running water. If an outage were to last a few days and they have before, dirty dishes laying around would really irritate me.

I was on the ball today!

2008-12-18T23:59:00.000-08:00

The snow was deep this morning! It read 17 inches.

I got so much done today, I'm really proud. I finished all the holiday shopping this morning, although that might be considered last night, it was in the 12:00 am to 11:59 pm range so I'm gonna take it. I bought the birth kit supplies from both sources necessary. I bought a new bed and it's been on the list for a while now. I finished the Frontier order. Really I'm very happy about the birth kit. There were some things in Frontier for the birth such as capsule kits and Bach Remedies. I had a fair amount of research to do to get it all done, figuring out what herbs I needed, what the right cord clamp/cutting supplies we would like to use, looking up fetoscopes and stethoscopes to see if I was buying the right pieces of equipment and if I would know what to do with it all afterwards. Then there was the placenta research. I was tossed between lotus birth and placental encapsulation, and after talking with Doug we decided to go with encapsulation.

I followed up with the company I plan to order Robin's Booster seat from. He will be moving to a Britax Regent sometime after the baby is born. Robin is almost 35lb, the rear-facing weight limit for his seat. I have two weeks to purchase the Regent at the sale price. If anyone is looking to buy a Britax seat soon, Albeebaby.com has them on sale right now. I have bought car seats from them before, two actually, and the customer service is great, I call and ask silly questions like how fresh are the seats (meaning what date were they made) and they never give me trouble, they just answer the question as if I'm not really neurotic for wondering. They ship fast too.

Now I just need to decide if we are buying more diapers or going with what we have and if we are getting a baby hammock for downstairs or not. They are spendy but I really would like a safe from siblings place to set the baby to cook. I'm not comfortable cooking holding an infant and things can get rough in here sometimes. I think hanging the baby from the ceiling may be my safest bet!

I still have not made those cookies I keep trying to get to though. Maybe tomorrow!

The Coffee Bean Incident

2008-12-16T13:44:00.000-08:00

While I was getting breakfast ready today, Dallas wanted to eat an orange while he waited and Robin wanted to play with his animal toys. He was getting hungry but wouldn't come to his chair to eat. I didn't realize how hungry he was. Somewhere between the living room floor and his high chair he ate something off the ground. He starts whining to me "Mama, Mama! I ate a bad raisin!" I'm in the kitchen and don't see him for a second what runs through my head is all the animals we have and who knows what gross thing he might have in his mouth! When I get to him with a towel in hand he slightly chunky black looking fluid gushing out of his mouth. He smells like coffee. Oh crap, he's going to be walking on the ceiling! I tried not to laugh and certainly didn't mention that people actually eat these beans willingly. I wiped his mouth out, got him so water to spit out in the bathroom and then we brushed his teeth really well together. He his tummy started hurting, but I can't imagine he could have swallowed much, so I suggested breakfast to get something in his tummy. He thanked me for taking care of him and we sat down to eat. I offered him some real raisins to eat too and he said "Thank you, these are much better." How cute!

Naming a baby

2008-12-15T22:10:00.000-08:00

I didn't have any troubles naming our first two children. I rarely have troubles naming pets either. We have and have had lots of pets to name. It was said to me more than once that I was going to run out of names before I had kids. I really don't think that's true. Each pet's name fits them perfectly and I don't see how I could have named them anything differently. Well maybe the last three kittens were not the pest choice. They are named after a black and white Japanese dubbed TV show I watched as a kid named Space Giants. There where three characters, Goldar (father robot), Silvar (mother robot) and Gamma Ray (cloned shape shifting child/rocket). There was also a little boy, I think his name was Johnny but I'm not sure. I already have a cat named Johnny. The show was quite cheesy. The bag guys turned into puddles of ink when they were shot. I was 5 at the time and didn't want to go to advanced kindergarten because I didn't want to miss the show. I still can't believe my mom left that choice up to me, seriously there had to be more to it than that, anyway this isn't the track I was going for. We named the cats that because Robin wanted to name the grayish girl Silver and the fire point Siamese one looked like he didn't mind being Goldar so the grey tabby became the name sake of my imaginary friend Gamma Ray. Yes I had an imaginary friend. In kindergarten I got very upset if someone sat on him in the empty desk next to mine. I think I have already written about this before.... any way back to names. Naming a child is a big responsibility and I don't want to screw it up.

First off sorry if I'm repeating myself, I can't remember what I have written down and what I don't.

Robin's name just came to us. Both of us. At the same time. You just can't deny that type of thing. We were at Doug's company Christmas party, I was somewhere at the end of my fourth month of pregnancy and we didn't know the gender yet. We had been talking about names on and off for a while but nothing seemed memorable. We were standing around or mingling I suppose, and there was an announcement for this lady who was to run the gift exchange. Doug was new to the company and didn't know many people's names yet. When she was introduced, oddly Doug and I both heard the man introduce Robin. We turned to each other in a way that would make a youth yell jinx and we both said "Robin, that's a good name!"

We thought it was perfect, it would work well for a girl or a boy. It had a good meaning: famed, bright, shining. A week later he had some business with the woman who we thought was introduced as Robin. Her name was Harmony. It didn't even sound like Robin. There was no Robin in the company, no one knew of a spouse named Robin, the name had truly appeared to us from thin air. We say Robin named himself.

I'm not sure exactly how we first came to the name Dallas. My great grandfather's name was Dallas. I hear I met him, my aunt has a picture of it but I was way to young to remember. I have this very noble picture of him, black and white, sitting in this ornate chair with his wife Ophrah standing at his side. He looked like a king, or at least a very very rich man. He also looked kind. My dad didn't talk about him much. Dad didn't really talk about his family too much at all but when he did I soaked it up. I had always liked the name Dallas and I asked Doug if he did to. He did and actually it's also a name that could go for a girl or a boy so we decided to go with it. Although the name Dallas has a longer duration or popularity as a male name, it hit it's most popular point as a female name. It still didn't hit very high and we like that. We don't want to name our children odd names with ghetto spellings or made up names that only a celebrity could get away with, while still being laughed at of course.

This time we are not sure. We learned with Robin that people will say the worst things when they think they still have the power to change your mind. My family was the worst. That's no big surprise though. My mother pointed out that we had a neighbor with the name Robin and she was pretty sure that my dad had slept with her. My sister said "I'll just call him the boy wonder then" My mom went on to tell me it was a hooker name. She really didn't like it.

This time I have told two people the proposed name, the name we liked. One person said well, you have to think about what the kids at school might say. Actually that's what they both said in a way, after laughing at me about it. Well my legal name is as plain as Jane (although it's not Jane) My name ranked #1 in several states the year I was born. It was in the top 5 for the entire country. I still got teased. I was teased about my last name since I shared it with a beer maker "She was made the American way" kids would say. Now that might seen rather obvious or benign but teasing is teasing and at the time it was offensive to me. My initials were a teasing point too. MM or M&M, "do you melt in the mouth?!?" boys would say to me in 6th grade. I don't know if they really understood what that could really mean either but again embarrassing. I went by a nickname most of my life and had to hear from every "adult" who learned my name "Play Misty for me!" I have to admit, I still don't fully understand what that means, all I know is it has something to do with a famous old movie. Another one I got a lot was "Oh I had/have/know someone who has a dog/cat/gerbil named Misty!" I might have well been named spot.

Doug told me he was constantly teased for his name too. He didn't go into detail. His mother named him purely on the basis that his initials could not form any word or acronym. He really dislikes his middle name since it's without meaning and pointless. All my kids will have my maiden name for their middle name.

My kids won't be going to public grade school so hopefully they won't be teased. Frankly most of the kids names these days are more teasable than my kids are anyway. Every year the local paper has a cutest baby contest. I admit, I read it to crack up that people would actually name real kids some of the names they do. I know my kids have nothing to worry about. At least so far and in this area.

We know the name, I know we do. We will just have to wait until the baby comes to be sure. This one doesn't speak as loudly as Robin or Dallas yet. I ask what they think and they are just too easy going and seem to say "what ever you like" I need to see this one to know for sure. We are almost there but this is the one thing that seems to be making me feel the most unprepared. All I can do it call it Freckle Baby for now. Robin came up with that nickname because babies start out as small as a freckle he says. He's so smart. I have explained that the baby will need a real name when it comes out and he says he knows, but the baby will always be my freckle baby just like he will always be my munchkin and Dallas my sprout.

The joy of soy...not!

2008-12-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

Today has been hard. It could have been a lot harder. Thankfully Doug was here and he let me stay up in bed all day. I ache all over and have such bad heartburn but it's so much worse than heartburn, I keep suddenly and without warning throwing up a little in my mouth. That is so gross. I have the brita pitcher next to me and have drank two of them down and I'm half way through my third pitcher. It's like by body wishes to wash the soy away.

Robin had wheat for dinner last night. He has some potstickers and didn't get his enzymes down well. That combined with the soy he has had a very trying and grumpy day. Doug hasn't been feeling good either, he just feels like sitting around. Robin said "we ate soy and out tummies have headaches and now we don't want to clean up" That pretty much sums it up.

Today was another adventure

2008-12-11T23:40:00.000-08:00

It was the kind of day where nothing really goes as planned. I needed to be at the Azure drop point at 8:30am. The night before I wasn't able to sleep until 4am and Doug started calling to wake me up at 6:30 so I only had 2.5 hrs of sleep. That makes things move slower. I wasn't able to get out of bed right away, in fact I tried to get up but didn't get there until 7:30. I had to pack the diaper bag and get clothes for the kids, generally get ready to go. I was on track to leave the house on time with a few minutes to spare. I knew I had to make three trips back and forth to get everything and everyone where they needed to be so I started my journey carrying a sleeping Dallas to the car in his jammies wrapped in a blanket. The night before I had not taken my Cal-Mag that I need every night to prevent leg cramps and apparently it does more for me than I though. I started having stop you dead in your tracks contractions while carrying Dallas to the car. All I could do to press on, because it was also damn cold and I forgot my coat in my haste, was count the steps to the van. There are 70 to get Dallas in the van. I headed back to get the cooler and bags. 21 lb must be my carrying limit because it happened again, I had to go slow but this time I could hunch over a little. On the way back I realized I dropped my hands free device somewhere in the mud along the way during the first trip so had to walk back and forth searching. I found it. I think I was just getting tired at this point, I had to go back up stairs and get Robin. I was able to carry him down the stairs and I knew I couldn't make it to the car with him so I begged him to walk on his own. He started to fuss about it and I resorted to something I have never done before...I bribed him. I told him we would get him a cookie at the co-op later if he could just hold my hand instead. The second that came out of my mouth I felt like I was the worst person in the world. I was manipulating my child with food no less. How shitty is that. What kind of weird food complex was I going to be giving the poor kid, he's not a dog! Well I had to get over it, at least he was walking to the car with me. Ok in the car and driving to the drop point. I"m late at this point, late and exhausted. I make it to Francis road going no faster than the posted speed limit due to other cars in my way and traffic comes to a halt. A double wide mobile home is being moved and we are waiting for it to get out of the way, or something. By the time we get moving again there is 2 minutes to make a 20 min trip. I know that Amy will be at the drop point so all my food won't be sitting on the sidewalk alone but still I would rather be there. Clearly I didn't make it but Amy loaded my van for me, thank fully! I'm so grateful!!

We make plans to go for a play date and Amy's house next but I remembered that I need to pick up a car seat off Craigslist in Alger for the baby. I head out to the bank, pick up the car seat from a wonderful mama who I had a nice chat with then back to Amy's so Robin can play and Dallas can eat.

Amy made these wonderful Gluten free bar cookies for me, I can't remember what they were called but they were just heavenly. We chatted, the kids played and I waited to hear from Doug. His company had some lay-offs yesterday and there was some sort of meeting he needed to go to that would be related. I tried to wait patiently and I was very glad to be with Amy or I would have been a nervous wreck. The meeting started at 10 and I didn't freak out until just after to noon. I left a text message first, then an email to his work address, then finally I gave in and called leaving a voice mail. He didn't respond until 1:45. When he called it was of course when I finally had chased down Dallas to change his poopy diaper under his strong protests. I needed help holding his legs even and could not answer the phone. In short his position is still secure but I don't know how I feel about a company doing any lay offs. Every time they start they don't seem to stop. We have been through this before and every time he tells me, this situation is different and this time he's in a good position. I guess maybe it bothers me so much because it's not even my loop to be in but effects my life so much, what happens at Doug's work.I feel completely helpless and out of control in the matter.

The play date was over and Robin didn't want to leave. He had to be carried to the car and not by me, there would have been much more tantruming then there was and he actually had gotten down on the floor kicking and screaming he wanted to stay longer. He usually doesn't do that but actually I am proud he handled it that way. Clearly he felt very strongly that he was having a good time and he didn't want it to end and he let that out without hurting himself or me (that's often the case, I get hurt) The next plan was to go to the co-op for lunch.

The parking lot at the co-op was full and I had to circle twice to find a spot. Dallas had fallen asleep. I tried to reason with Robin that we should just have taco truck and drive on but he was instant that we go to the co-op. It was packed in there, I could see from our parking spot. He said he didn't want to eat anything he wanted to shop. I could tell he was just as tired as Dallas was and knew that he wouldn't be listening to me while in the store and I really didn't have the energy to try so I put my foot down and said no and we drove away. He was asleep before we hit the freeway. The plan now was to drive to Seattle and meet Doug to go to the aquarium. I started feeling sleepy and by Everett I knew I couldn't make it any further and probably should have been off the road already. I parked at the transit station and sent Doug a text that I couldn't make it but would pick him up from the train. I slept for about an hour in the drivers seat. When I woke up in pain again, I tried to move to the passenger seat but that woke up Robin and he needed to use a toilet. We all bundled up and went inside. Over the next hour we walked back and forth to where the train comes 3 times, ate a banana and the left over rice cake from Amy's house and watched two short movies on my phone. Finally the right train came. Funny thing, Santa got off the train before we found Papa. Santa didn't say anything to the kids but waved and Robin hid behind me and Dallas got all bright eyed and pointed saying that..that..that! We met up with Papa and he carried Dallas. We watched a freight train go by then left for the car while Santa was still waiting for his bus.

The kids were hungry having missed lunch so we were going to go to this bbq rib place we have eaten at before. They were closed. I should have see that coming. We decided to try some place new. I'm so sick of Mexican right now we went for chinese. We found a place while still in Everett and it didn't look bad but the food was horrible. Everything tasted of soy to me. I had an enzyme but couldn't eat it. They did have beautiful garnishing though and I would give them an A for presentation. SOmehow even the fortune cookie tasted bad. Anyway I was again thankful for Amy's gluten free treats as that's what I ate when I got back to the car.

The kids slept on the way back home. Doug and I talked the whole time. It was good, I feel a little better about the work situation now. I think Doug feels a lot better about his situation too. We have a plan for the future. Again, I'm not in control of it so it still scares me but I have to let go of what I can't control and let it flow right?

Here's what didn't get done today that was planned to be done and the trade off:
Meet the Azure driver for drop - Amy helped me load the van instead and a play date was set
Swim at the health club - play date at Amy's
Lunch at the co-op - kids napped in the car so I grabbed a Arby's
Aquarium trip - Saw trains, strange people and learned that Santa takes public transportation
pot stickers and humbow in Seattle - crappy chinese I couldn't stomach but had cookies for dinner instead
make cookies at home (had been the plan all day be we got home too late)- fed the kids and husband coconut icecream and sent them off to bed so I could sit here and type out my day.

I think it all turned out ok in the end. It was a full day at worst but we did have a lot of fun. Oh I got some decorating done too. I washed some windows and mirrors and put up some gel decorations. I also sorted through all the paper stacks I could find for shredding and recycle. Now I'm off to bed. It's not even 1 am yet, this is another accomplishment for me. Now only if the dishes could wash themselves while I sleep.....

Remembering the little things

2008-12-10T23:33:00.001-08:00

I can never remember my blood type. Why is that? Is this something other people remember? I had to call my mother to ask and the answer is A+. Now it will be published ot the grand world wide web and will never be forgotten. I can't remember all sorts of things, like my shoe size. Maybe I don't buy shoes often enough to remember this. After wearing Birkenstocks almost exclusively for nearly 8 yrs (are you really surprised by that?) I finally now remember that my size is 38R. I have to look at the tag on my bra to know that size and check in my Keens to see what they are, somewhere between a 7.5 and an 8.5 but I know for sure that a 7.5 in Kalso Earth is too small (I have bought two pairs form eBay expecting they would fit but they didn't.

My kids, I can remember what size they are. I also know what size pants and shoes Doug wears but can never remember the dress shirt sizes. As far as clothes go for me, I would rather not know right now but luckily most maternity clothing is in S-M-L and I can wear some of all depending on the item so it really doesn't matter it all needs trying on. I hate shopping for clothes. It seems apparent that I don't shop for shoes often either or I would know my size.

What else don't I remember.....I guess I forgot, lol.

I have a really hard time remember birthdays, even those I have been at. I find myself reciting the date after I give birth for fear I will forget when they were born. I have a really hard time remembering peoples names. I need a name tag for myself to wear to all functions that says "My name in Misty, I forgot yours already." It's true, I likely have. Now if you have a cat or dog that I have met there is a high chance I will remember your pet's name. I really don't know why isn't that so backwards?

This problem I have remembering got so much worse after my second car accident, the one with where the drunk driver hit us from behind and totaled the Tracker. I actually went to a specialist and was tested for memory loss and I passed well above average. I guess the guy asked the wrong questions or maybe I can only remember the really unimportant things like which was first and last in the line up of pictures he had. The specialist said it was clear I must have had some loss but I was still above most people so they couldn't help me and I probably had an amazing memory before hand, as if reminiscing about what I had lost would some how make it better. I guess it did, he acknowledged that I did have the ability to remember more at one time then I do now. I guess what "most people" can remember needs to be taken into consideration too. While working at Premera most of our materials for the general public couldn't be written above a 4 grade level, some item even lower than that.

I miss my ability to articulate what's in my head most of all. It goes back to remembering too. I might have a word in mind but fear I'm getting it crossed with another so often don't bother saying anything for fear of sounding stupid. I guess if I look above I would realize that I wouldn't sound stupid to miss use a word, I'd just be part of "most people" or "general public".

You might be wondering happened to the guy who rammed into us and what we got for our pain and suffering aside from months of physical therapy. Well the drunk guy who hit us drove home and he was a white male in his 40's and didn't even get a ticket even though he was drinking and left the scene before the police arrived. The 4 door hard toped Tracker was crushed up like an accordion. At the time all I could think was thank god we hadn't had kids in the back seat. The spare tire that is on the rear door was jammed in between the driver and passenger seats. The drunk was pulling out of a bar and accelerated into us as we were stopped at a read light. There were three separate jolts, the impact, the bumper giving and the back seat crushing. Really for the impact and the damage the car took it pretty well and we could have been hurt a lot worse. Doug permanently impacted his shoulders (he was driving) and still has problems to this day. We did not own the car and when the insurance company informed the bank the car had been totaled they demanded payment in full immediately so Doug had to settle to gain the difference from what the insurance company paid for the car (well under blue book) and what the loan amount was. My head hit the dash or window, I'm not really sure which. I had whiplash pretty bad and hurt my lower back too. I was given $5000.

So what did my memory get traded for? I bought a 3/4 ton pick-up that's out in the drive way. It's nothing nice. I don't even drive it myself. It gets hay to our house once or twice a year and Doug takes garbage to the transfer station with it. It has too many miles on it, the paint is peeling in places and it has strange patches of moss growing on it. The driver side door hinge is bent so I have to climb through the passengers side to drive it. I call that truck my memory. I lost my memory in that accident and all I have to show for it is this run down Silverado. Yep, life is strange. I take picture now, it helps as long as I don't need to know your name ;-)

Dallas' first potty

2008-12-03T15:03:00.000-08:00

Dallas used the potty for the first time today. He made a poop on the toilet and was very proud. Robin was quite proud of him too. Robin was much easier, he usually grunted before pooping and would come and tell you he had to go so you could get him on the baby toilet in time. Dallas however, rarely gives any sign except for running from you if he has in fact already pooped. He has always screamed if you set him on the little baby toilet, the nice wooden child's toilet or the seat that sits on the toilet. Every night though, he tries to stand on a stool and potty with his father and brother before bed but has not been successful yet. He tries but can't find the right muscles to make it happen. I think today he was most proud that he was able to make potty in the toilet.

If it's not one thing it has to be another

2008-11-21T12:31:00.000-08:00

Well I can't get on to Facebook for a month. I can update my status from my phone but I get an error message every time I try to comment on someone's status. I feel like I'm ignoring everyone. I have really grown to love Facebook. It gives me the illusion that someone out there is paying attention to the mundane in and outs of my life I might post. I feel like I have an adult connection to the world and the children are better off for it. Why do I need such a thing? Can't I just be happy with myself? Well it seems the answer is no and I can accept that. I'm sad.

I feel pretty good about the food front now. The freezer is practically full already. I'm going to be making broth tonight or tomorrow to can. That's my base ingredient for my "gravy from nothing" as Doug calls it, to go with the meatballs I picked up at Ikea and any leftover steak we might end up with. I like to slice the meat thin and heat it in the gravy then serve over noodles. Our steak is usually cooked rare enough that a second heating doesn't over cook. Although Doug doesn't yet know the gravy technique it is quick and easy enough that I can do it with little effort and that's really what's important.

Oh here's some smelly revenge to report. The neighbors dog has been back in the yard everyday since we blocked the neighbor out of our internet. Well remember all that Salmon I wrote about (I did remember to blog the 200 lb of salmon we processed didn't I?). All those guts and bones had to go somewhere so we piled the compost near the property line and covered it with manure from the yearly barn scooping. So imagine that pile! It is covered with a tarp. Casey was barking so Doug went out to see why and low and behold, the dog was standing in our front yard playing with Junior. Doug got Junior into his kennel then quietly moved away to get the garbage can while watching the dog who, now bored but never scared, went over, lifted the tarp and started rolling in the poopy gut pile!!! HA, HA, HA!!!!! ROTHFLMFAO!!! There are not words to describe how funny this is. I really hope they let the dog in before they realized what he had just done. Perhaps now they will keep him home, if not the pile is still loosely covered with the easy access tarp. Suddenly I don't mind the foul smell nearly so much!

I'm not even sure of the gender of this dog either. Junior is an intact male Yorkie-Chihuahua and looks like a scruffy tan Toto. If this brindle boxer is female, I think I'm going to have to demand a puppy as fee for stud service. Wouldn't that make the funniest puppies ever? Junior is getting up in years and I don't really think he still has it in him though but the thought is funny all the same.

Cooking for the freezer

2008-11-20T09:58:00.000-08:00

I have this huge worry. I'm scared we will all starve if I'm not able to cook dinner. I'm worried after the baby is born I won't have the energy to spend a hour or more cooking dinner every night. With our food sensitivities, I can't just open a can or box and heat. Cooking for food sensitivities is like needing to reinvent the wheel everytime you want to cook. You know what food should look and taste like but the wheel you are used to doesn't work for you anymore so you have to find another way. I guess there may be a few things out there that are gluten, casin and soy free but the ones I have tried tasted like crap. I'm on a mission to pack the freezer with items I can grab out and reheat or prepare with little effort, things that have instructions so Doug can easily prepare after coming home from work if he had to. I'm not saying that Doug can't cook but I do most of the cooking around here so frankly I am better at it. It's kind of my job to be. There is also the problem that I fear Doug won't really take any time of work then I'm really in a bind for feeding everyone. He gets home at 7pm and is hungry when he walks in the door. If food isn't ready he tends to get a little grumpy and already that is wearing on me so I would rather avoid it if I can.

Last night we made lasagna, lots of lasagna. I was very thankful for Doug's help with the ingredient prep and for cooking the onion. I'm the only one with a true allergy, an anaphylactic reaction to raw onion, my lips and tongue swell and throat starts to close. I have usually caught it before swallowing anything, only once did someone try to kill me with onions but we won't go into that now. Because of this cooking raw onion is really hard for me too. After it is cooked the enzyme I'm allergic to dies and I'm good to go. Onions do add so much flavor, so many foods wouldn't be as good without them, I just need them cooked first.

So I had planned on making 4-11x7 pans of lasagna then realized that I only have two Stainless steel pans for freezing and that they could not be popped back out and vacuum sealed when I was done because the bags are not that big. I decided to make 2- 11x7 pans (after all that's what I bought them for) and 4-8x8 pans lined with parchment so they can pop out easily and get vacuum sealed. Now after the fact I realize that I should have done them all in 8x8 because that's the size of everything else I have frozen so it would all fit nice and also it's the size of one meal for the family. In the case of the lasagna they are so dense that it might still be two meals. The 8x8's weighed 4 lb each! In the end my kettle could not have held anymore sauce than I made and it was only enough for 2-11x7 and 2-8x8. I have extra meat mix and mushrooms so everything else was the right amount. The left overs will make great pizza toppings, another item to freeze!! Here's my recipe:

Gluten Free, Dairy Free Lasagna
Ingredients:

Meat mix
3lb ground beef (2 would probably do but I wanted to increase the meat with the lack of cheese)
2 small bulbs garlic - minced
4 large onions
2 bell peppers
Italian seasoning
Sea salt

Sauce
(This is very close to what I make for spaghetti sauce as well but I like it a little thicker for pasta sauce)
5 lb carrots-shredded
1 head cauliflower- chopped into 1" chunks and steamed
1 large handful spinach- steamed
2 6oz cans tomato paste
2 28oz cans diced tomatoes
1/4 cup nutritional yeast
Sea salt
Triple Flake
Italian Seasoning

Additional layers
2 lb fresh mushrooms
4 cans olives sliced (or as many cans of sliced olives as you like, depending on your brand)
16oz spinach- steamed and chopped

Meat mix
Brown your beef in batches seasoning with sea salt and italian seasoning to taste. Sweat out the onions and garlic until just transparent then add bell peppers until soft. Mix with beef, cover and set aside.

Sauce
Shred 5lbs of carrots in the food processor. Add to large kettle with a little water and a tight lid, cook on med-high until soft. At the same time steam your cauliflower until soft. Add to carrots, change water to avoid bitterness and steam your spinach for about 2 minutes. Puree together with the 2-6 oz cans of tomato paste. This is the easiest way to get the paste integrated. When you have the desired consistency add in 2-28 oz cans diced tomatoes, 1/4 cup nutritional yeast or to taste (adds a cheese like flavor) and season with sea salt, kelp or triple flake and italian seasoning to taste. Add water as needed to thin the sauce so it is quite spreadable.

Assembly
Boil water to cook your noodles one pans worth at a time. Mine took three minutes to cook. Take the noodles out immediately but do not rinse. Now is the time to work quickly before you noodles dry out and stick together.

I kept kitchen scissors on hand too for fitting ends. If you plan to remove them from the pan when frozen, don't forget to cover the bottom with parchment paper.

Start with a thin layer of sauce. Place in a layer of noodles. Top with cut steamed spinach squeased out well to remove as much of the water as possible. Just rip off little pieces from what is now a ball of spinach in your hand and dob all over. Next layer olives, then mushrooms then a healthy handful or meat mix. Add sauce and spread it out. Apply your next layer of noodles. Top with olives, mushrooms, meat mix and more sauce.

Repeat this as many times as you have pans for. When finished cover with several layers of plastic wrap, label and freeze. I added little cards listing the ingredients, and approximate cooking times. I *think* they should be baked at 350f for 35 min covered with parchment or foil then uncovered for 10-20 minutes or until done.

Sleep-a good thing!!

2008-11-13T01:04:00.000-08:00

I got a nap today. Woo Hoo!! I know it doesn't sound like a big deal but to me it is. The kids and I all slept for two hours! I have to admit when I looked in the mirror this morning I scared myself. I though, "Wow. Do I always look this bad?" I looked much like a zombie. After a two hour nap I felt much better and when Doug came home, out of the blue he said "You look great!" Ok well I guess the question is answered, he doesn't usually say that so yes, I normally do look like a zombie.

We got salmon today. A friend picked some up from gleaners for us because we didn't think we would make it before it was all gone but Doug went by after work and found that it there was in fact some left over. He was able to get about two canner loads and dinner out of what was still good.

Tomorrow night we will start back up on apple cider pressing. I also have plans to freeze a bunch of "London Broil" rolls. I have the hamburger all thawed and ready to roll so to speak. That should make at least three dinners for the freezer and dinner for tomorrow night. Perhaps if we get started early enough we can get two loads of cider canned before bed time., That would be about 100lb of apples down. I really need a bigger stove, with a five burner gas stove top I could can two batches at once. Imagine all the time we could save!! Maybe someday....

!!Warning!! Pregnant lady ranting!!!!

2008-11-11T02:13:00.000-08:00

Last week it really hit me. See Wednesday is my change over day, the day we start new week of pregnancy. Last week we hit 29wks. That means 10 weeks left until due date. Now hold your hands out in front of you, fingers spread, that's right JUST THAT MANY!! Where did the time go? I'm so not ready yet. 10 wks is only the due date too, not the "safe" date Robin was born quite before his due date, nearly 4 weeks before. I get dizzy and faint when I think about it, I try not to think about it but it keeps coming back. There is so much to do. I can't currently keep up with the normal day to day stuff right now because:

1. I can't bend very well - when I do I either get stuck on the floor because the kids climb me or my indigestion gets so bad I have to stop.
2. I'm so tired I don't feel like doing much when I have a free moment anymore, mostly because I'm too uncomfortable to sleep and shortly after going to bed usually the kids pig pile on top of me, so that makes three kids sleeping on me, kicking me and head butting me at the same time.
3. Both my 3yr old and 19mo old want to be babies right now probably because they can sense change is coming and they are regressing - they want to be carried everywhere, both of them, they won't hardly even feed themselves right now and my 3yr old thinks he wants to be in diapers again rather than use the potty some days and he has been using the toilet for over a year!
4. My house is so small I don't fit anywhere - I can't fit to carry a laundry basket up the stairs, just can't make the corner and not being able to see my feet makes the stairs a little dangerous anyway. I have to shuffle sideways to get around things here now, most of the time because the floor is a mess with toys (refer to list item #1)

My point is I'm already so behind on the regular things. for instance, I worked my ass off getting all the laundry caught up. It has come to a point that I can't fit to get back to where the laundry hamper is so I can't get the clothes out to sort and wash them, also I can't carry them downstairs from the floor upstairs, where clothes get dropped off the ends of beds for me to trip on because I nearly tipped over and fell down the stairs last time I tried. I need to hold the rail and can't carry laundry at the same time. I asked for help with this but other things were always more important and it was never gotten to. It's been over a week since I have washed regular clothes. This is a real problem for me since I only have 4 pairs of pants. I went to a concert on Saturday but had to wait to have my pants washed before we could go, I really had literally nothing to wear (unless I was to see Danzig in my striped Hanna Andersson pj's) That's just one thing, how about the dishes. I have to wear an apron if I go near the sink now because I am guaranteed to get soaking wet. I'm short, no really I am. My arms don't reach too far and with a short torso my belly sticks out so far that I have a hard time even reaching into the sink to wash the dishes. It's that it really strains my back to do it. Then there is putting them away when they are washed. I want to cry sometimes because out house was designed so poorly, I can't reach to put the glasses away. I have to get on the floor to put anything in a cupboard and getting up and down is hard for anyone I'm sure. Oh and here's a kicker, Dallas can unpack the dishwasher onto the floor faster than I can get back and forth to where the dishes go. If I leave a cupboard or cabinet open and turn around for a second, he can have that unpacked onto the floor in seconds as well. The bin I had for him to play in, that was always enough for Robin bores Dallas and he's not happy unless he's actively "helping".

It's harvest season right now and we just gleaned an apple orchard and have around 1000lb of apples to make into cider and then can, then there's the salmon runs we need to can about 4 or 5 load of fish, possibly twice.

So then there's all the things still to do to get ready for a baby coming. Let me put this into a list as well.
1. Place for baby clothes - I mean a dresser, a full sized one, not a plastic tote
2. A safe place for baby to sleep - I need to order an organic co-sleeper mattress. I can't get the big kids to not sleep on me or to even stay to one side. I fear they will try to sleep on the baby if I don't put him someplace else. The kids are not doing so good at staying in their own beds all night.
3. I need to order more diapers. This alone is a $300 purchase. We know we want the Motherease onesize because we have some and love them. We would have enough diapers for both kids if Dallas could wear the fuzzi bunz but he has been getting a rash from anything synthetic so needs the cotton diapers too and with they way he poops, prefolds just can't hold it all the time.
4. I don't have a swing, bassinet or hammock to set the baby down in while I take care of the other two. - Yes I baby wear but sometimes you still have to set them down for their own safety and here the floor ain't' it. We own a large floor model swing but Doug took it out to the shed which means it's gone forever. I told him to bag up the fabric pieces first so they didn't mold and I'm near 100% sure that didn't happen because he didn't think it was necessary. Besides, there isn't room to put it anywhere in here. We had one on the table for Dallas and we might have to do that again. It's a little portable swing but it eats batteries like you've never seen and doesn't really work that well. It will have to do I guess.
5. I don't have a birth kit set up. I need to look into what I need to get and what I still have. I know I need to order new peri bottles, the kids stole all mine for bath time pouring.
6. I meant to line up a care provider but have not gotten around to it yet. I really wanted Doug to go with me but he had meetings all the time that he can't miss so for 29 wks I have been waiting for him to make an appointment he thinks he can keep. This also makes me worry about being all alone after the baby is born. He has said make the appointment and he will be there but I actually did try that once and all three of the days I gave him didn't work for him. If he can't make the prenatal appointment because they need him at work so badly, how can he possibly take off time to say home and help me with the kids?
7. Go through the baby clothes and get rid of what's ruined and put away all the stuff I have bought that is sitting in boxes waiting to be fit in the the proper sized tubs.
8. Cook a bunch more meals for the freezer so we won't starve when the baby comes and Doug is at working until late and I don't have energy to cook while not getting any sleep as I predict will be the case even more so with three kids.

A friend of mine just had her baby at 33wks. Her baby is doing great by the way, but I had not though of what to do if the baby came really early. Doug and I talked it out and at least have a plan now if that were to happen.

Can you all tell I'm very nervous and needing someone to talk to. When I try to talk to Doug about it I feel like he just blows me off. I'm sure that's not his intention and he probably doesn't mean to. He has a large list of things he feels are more important to him. I understand, it's a different perspective and his things are just as important in his eyes, they all need to get done. The difference is my things require him to help me and I can't even help him with most of his tasks either besides keeping the kids occupied. Here's the list as I know it.

1. The animals need to be set up for winter - the goats need some weather proofing and straw
2. The yard needs to be cleaned up - Doug's not home much right now during daylight and the yard is full of recycle and crap to take to the dump.
3. There's about half an acre of kids toys to be put under cover, requiring cover to be build or cleaned out.
4. The garden needs to be prepped for winter and two more green house frames need to be built before spring. I think this is on his before January list.
5. Plan the garden, pick and order seeds (this one is my job also requested to be done before January.
6. Bee hives - we need find plans for the right type, build hives and buy bees.
7. Pick house plans. He wants house plans for the expansion picked and nailed down before January for some reason.
8. Fence the property. Doug has said all he wants for Christmas is fencing. He wants to get the fence put it before Christmas and he wanted to ask my dad to help. I don't think he will. It has been my experience that he can tell you how to do something in theory but seems to get upset if you need him to help. I found this was the case when working on my car. I changed my own breaks but couldn't get the seized calipers to budge so had to ask for help and he was really irritated at the time (he did help though). The thing with the fence is it can't be done any other way but right. He built some bee hives differently then the plans said because he had help that thought it should be done a different way and the hives are now useless. I don't know who we could ask for help on this fencing but I don't think he can do it alone. (If anyone wants to volunteer please speak up)

Then there's the project I have that need attention not exactly baby related but still needing to get done before the baby comes.
1. get the toys under control - we need to pack a bunch away, sell a bunch and donate a bunch. They need to be organized. They don't get played with just thrown around if they aren't put away together. If the blocks are with the puppets the kids won't dig out the blocks from the puppets they get side tracked and throw all the puppets on the ground, and oh look blocks so they take them out and then oh look bouncy balls, so on and so on until all the toys are out, nothing is being played with and everything is mixed up, all because I couldn't put them away myself and had to let it be good enough (aka not good enough since it's the source of the messy floor)
2. There is a stack of things in the corner where the tree would go, were we to have a tree this year and as of now, it looks like we can't. Does that make it a sad christmas? Maybe so but I can't do anything about it and WILL NOT let it all get shoved elsewhere of thrown on the porch, that's a death sentence for any item as "the wind" will knock it off never to be seen again regardless of what it is or how much it means to me.
3. I'm very behind on entering receipts, have changed platforms and don't even have access to my old program and I'm not sure how to do the book keeping anymore.
4. I am quite behind on scanning to PDF all the bills and filing. I have a huge stack to do but have not yet even figured out how to get the scanner to work with this computer.
5. I need to sew lots of things. Like the maternity yoga pants I can wear for another 10 weeks. (the pattern is not for maternity I was going to alter it so it's not money lost.)
6. Put up those new shelves for the kitchen I blogged about months ago. To start requires climbing ladders and pulling stuff down from on top of the shelves. If that could be cleaned off we could transfer the shelves pretty easily.
7. When the shelves get replace, the kitchen needs to get painted actually probably before the shelves get put in. Again I can't help Doug with this, someone has to stay clean for the kids.

I feel lonely and scared, very scared but hope putting this all out will at least let me calm down enough to sleep at night rather then worry about it all. I'm sure everything will work out in the end, after all life keeps on rolling even if not how planned.

Nothing in particular...

2008-11-02T22:52:00.000-08:00

I felt like writing something but I don't have anything in particular to say really. I'll just ramble about my feelings then. I feel great stress over the election. I made a mistake and voted for the wrong county commissioner and I don't know if I can open my envelope and change my vote. I'm going to go to the court house tomorrow and ask if there is a way. I feel so strongly that I made the wrong choice on this one person that I am wondering if perhaps I shouldn't keep my ballot rather then send it and and vote for the wrong guy.

We went to an old friends wedding today. I could tell the kids had no intention of keeping quiet so we waited until we thought the actual ceremony was over to go in. There is absolutely no way to keep a 3 year old quiet when he has a mind to make noise because he gets bored. Dallas on the other hand is a very hungry fellow and at 18mo a cup of freeze dried peas will still keep him happy for a while. We had to leave the reception before the bride and groom left because Robin got bored and wouldn't stop drumming with forks on the glass wear. He also started throwing the fake flower petals at the candles and almost caught one on fire but Doug pulled it out in time. That would have been just great my kid setting a fire and causing sprinklers to go off. There was no diverting his attention elsewhere. It was also cake serving time and we can't eat that so he might have felt upset by that too. Either way we said our congratulations and good byes and packed into the car to head home. Robin didn't want to leave and yelled at us for talking saying he needed some quiet time. We honored that and he fell asleep shortly after. It's interesting to see him tell us when he needs a break or time to think. He does mirror our reactions and when I get upset I have been trying to tell him I need a time out or some quiet time to calm down rather then yell at him and clearly it's working for him too. Yep, good to see this parenting stuff I'm working so hard at does work sometimes.

Karla was such a beautiful bride. She looked so happy and Mark was so kind to her and attentive especially how he had to carry her train every time they had to walk somewhere. It was cute. I wish I could have seen the actual wedding but I know it was the right thing to do, waiting until the kids didn't need to be quiet. The day was about Karla and Mark and I certainly didn't want to ruin any moment.

On a humorous note, when Robin saw Karla he said to me, "Mama, I love Karla I want to marry Karla, Mark can't!! I was really surprised for one thing he hasn't spent a whole lot of time with Karla but the few times he has seen her must have left a strong impression, second He doesn't really throw the word love around and last I heard he was going to marry me, then MaryClare. When I told him that she already married Mark he looked like he was going to cry but I said, look how happy they are, and he did and he said well ok Mama, but I love her too. I understand kiddo. He then took some pictures of them and was happy for a while. He's really going through a shy phase and people kept talking to him and he didn't know how to handle himself. Dallas is still a ham and loved the attention.

Halloween 2008

2008-10-31T23:59:00.000-07:00

For Halloween I took the kids to the indoor playground at the Mountlake Terrace Pavilion for the Little Pumpkin Party. The fee was kind of steep, $13 per kid but I figured it was ok since we weren't doing anything else dress up and it sounded craft centered rather than focused on candy. Well, as with most days I over booked. We had been sick the week before and were just getting back into the swing of things. This was only our second time out in a week and the kids didn't feel like moving fast at all. It was hard to get everyone suited up and out the door but we did and we made it with 30 min left of a two hour party we already paid to go to. They refunded us half the price and let the kids go play in the playground.

We were not the only ones so late, another couple kids came in with us and also paid half price. The organizer came in and offered crafts but the kids weren't interested, they just wanted to dive in the ball pit. She did let us say as long as we wanted and that was really nice. So after an hour and a half of playing we left for some food.

I took the boys to Tony Romas for a late lunch and we all had ribs. I was surprised that at 3pm it took 20 minutes to be seated and we barely made it out of there in time to make it back to the Pavilion for the Spook and Splash family swim.

We did make it however and it was a blast. There weren't many people there so lot of toys and room to move. The kids really love it. That place is like a really tame indoor water park with the lazy river and the long water bridges for the kids to run down and jump in. Robin is getting so brave, he always wants to try it and does well too. The toddler area is shallow enough in places for Dallas to walk around too but he preferred to hold on and be dragged in the water this time. When the family swim was over I took Robin with me and Doug took Dallas. Robin, whom usually isn't so crazy about showers wanted his own shower and washed his own hair and let me help with the conditioner. He's really getting so big. I brought snack cups in the swim bags to keep the kids entertained while the parent got dressed and that worked well for me, Robin ate dried fruit while I got dressed then got dressed himself.

We went home to a great big roast ready and waiting in the crock pot. and had mashed potatoes, gravy, peas and yummy yummy roast beef. Dinner was followed by suckers and the book Good Night Goon, a parody of Good Night Moon, still the current favorite. I have to read this book at least 4 times a day, Doug reads it at least 3 and Robin reads it to Dallas at least 4 times as well. It's a neat book though.

Well that's Halloween folks, we did not participate in anything candy-centric and had a great time anyway. I was a three ring circus, Robin was an elephant, Dallas was a lion and Doug was a Tiger.

I got my Macbook!!!!

2008-10-17T20:40:00.001-07:00

I'm so excited, I finally have my macbook pro. It was quite a journey to get it. It started off yesterday, well it really started Tuesday but yesterday is when the traveling started. I called every store in Washington to see if they had one in stock. No one did, not anything higher then the base model and I wanted the next one up.
Wednesday morning I realized that for warranty purposes buying a computer through my Visa was a better idea then cash so I sent the super sized payment but it wasn't going to go through until midnight so even though I found two at the Bellevue store I had to wait.
On Thursday I called Alderwood, the first store on my list and they had a few but couldn't tell me how many. When I got there they told me they had just sold out and I should call back tomorrow. This is what they said on the phone on Tuesday and Wednesday too. I believe this is what the people at the Alderwood store tell you if they don't deem you worthy. I always feel snubbed at that store. The day wasn't a complete loss, I needed to pick up a package of socks I ordered at REI anyway. Doug took a bus from Everett to the mall and met us at the play area. We went out to dinner and then drove home. Driving home was a separate adventure all together. Doug was too tired to drive so I drove. He didn't want to leave his car at the bus station so I dropped him there to pick it up but he was so tired he didn't make it home and needed to pull over to sleep. I took the kids home alone, had to catch and cage the remaining 4 chicks so they didn't get eaten by the raccoons as was the fate of the 6 others the night before. That was no easy task, they are small, were scared and I don't fit in the pen so I had to lift it and chase them out, then around the yard. Titus helped by sitting where I told him to, keeping them from running away too far. Robin was upset that Papa wasn't home to go to bed and was "worried that a mouse was going to scare him" I fed all the critters I could, the rest had to wait for Doug. He didn't come home until 6 am and didn't get into the house until 9 am. I was a little ticked off, to say the least. Anyhow, the night wasn't all bad. The kids both slept in there beds for the first time. Robin fell asleep while waiting for me to bring laundry up and Dallas needed me to lay down with him. I was surprised that I fit on a toddler bed with him, but I did and he fell asleep and slept there until morning. They didn't get to sleep unit after 1 am but woke up at around 8:30.

This morning I woke up early with the intention of getting ready and door busting the Alderwood store since it's the closest to my house and figured at 9 am if I'm standing there waiting they would have to sell one to me. I realized I needed to pack for our stay at the La Leche League Conference so decided not to go get a laptop and put it off until next week. Doug noticing that I was still angry called around to find a macbook and then sprung on me that I needed to leave right away to go to Bellevue to pick it up. Here the craziness starts.

We arrived at Bellevue square, which if you are expecting to see that we are in a recession, Bellevue square in the middle of the day on a Friday is not the place you will find it. It was packed parking was packed, the streets surrounding the mall were packed. I found myself a parking spot in a garage outside Nordstroms and headed in to find the bathroom them go to the Apple Store. When we got in the elevator the lights went out for a second then turned back on and we went down. I didn't think much of it at the time, perhaps it was a power saving feature or something. Well went the elevator stopped half of the downstairs of Nordstroms was dark, the whole makeup, perfume and ladies shoes were without power. That didn't stop people from shopping, not at all. I thought it strange but was on a mission so continued to the Apple store where a steady stream of people were on the way out the door. The mall was to be evacuated, they had no power in the store and were all going to Starbucks. We went outside with everyone else. After walking around the outside to a main entrance we found a place to sit and wait for word of what was going on. I checked my phone to see if there was anything from the local news stations about it but they didn't have any news.

After nearly 30 min of waiting outside a security officer came out and said half the mall was still on and open. A portion of Bellevue was out of power for no known reason and they didn't know when it would turn back on but we were welcome to go in. The kids ran around the mall for a while and after what felt like forever, I couldn't watch the clock, I would have gone crazy, I called Puget Sound Energy to see when the power would be turned back on. We had missed lunch and needed to know if I could leave and come back later. I was the first person to report the outage in the mall. I talked to a customer service operator who took down the information. Not a single person who worked in the mall, or shopped there for that matter had thought to call and check on the power until that point! They only had 4 calls for the entire Bellevue outage! Since they didn't know the power was out they had not dispatched anyone to check out why.

We left to go seek allergy free food. We waled down to this mexican dive on Main Street I used to go to all the time when I worked off Main. Most of the street had changed, not much was the same at all, except for the mexican place. It still had the bins of pasta and chillies encased in glass at the front of the ordering counter. The tables were still rusted metal card tables with Mexican beer logos all over them. They still had pinatas and crap hanging from the celling and the price was still surprisingly high for what you got and what you had to get for yourself. The kids loved the food though so it was worth it.

After our tummies were full we headed back to find the Apple store packed. I got on the list and as soon as my name was called I was told they just sold the last one to the person before me. I was ready to cry. I spent all day waiting for them to open, I was likely the reason the power was back on in the first place and I didn't even get my laptop I had so patiently waited for. On the way out the door the woman who first put me on the list asked if I got everything I came for, I said no not at all, I had a terrible day and nearly started crying. I blurted out that after calling first, the third day in a row, I was told they had them in stock. I came from a nearly two hour drive after calling two more times to make sure they had them on the way. I could help but go on, that after finally finding parking and rushing in I found everyone leaving the store because the power was out and I had been walking around waiting for them to open ever since. She seemed genuinly sorry and said she would call the other stores to see if anyone had one. I almost told her don't bother they don't but I said ok instead. She left me with some poor guy and asked me to tell him all about my day. I think this was new employee training of some sort, babysit the pregnant lady and try to keep her from crying, lol. She came running back and asked if I would really drive to Alderwood. I said YES! YES!!! and I waited for instructions as she went back to the phone. She came back and told me they don't hold computers for anyone but they made an exception this time. I hurried back down to Lynnwood as fast as traffic would allow. I walked in and told the first person in a orange shirt I could that I was there to pick up my laptop. I watched as there was discussion about wheither or not they were going to give me one. Someone there didn't like me. The same man I spoke to the day before, the very person who had already turned me away again was saying they didn't have one for me. A second person intervined and went into the back room. It felt like an eternety waiting for someone to appear out or the back room door and walk my way. Finally after watching 4 other people come out, none of them for me the guy in orange appears with a box in his hand! He said "ok here it is, I need to find you a tech now." His words were as common as if he had only answered a phone. Could he have known how I felt hearing those three little words "here it is"? The kids were sleeping in the stroller, it was probably best or I would have picked one or both of them up and danced around the crowded store. The man who came to take my money in exchange for the computer was less than enthusiastic, more so I'd say irritated with me. It was really more likely irritated with the world in general, not the very friendly type yet had to have a smile on his face. Finally the laptop was mine, I had been waiting for months and finally it was mine!!! It was hard not to open it right there outside the store in the cold wind, sitting on a wet bench in the outdoor area or Alderwood Mall. The kids although covered would get to cold so off I went to the car to drive to our hotel in Redmond so we could start dinner, go to bed and make the La Leche League Conference on time in the morning.

When we got checked in to the hotel room Doug let me play with my new toy and he went to unload the car. This mac is a thing of beauty. I was really hoping for a touch screen, I mean how cool would that be? Maybe in a few years huh? It does have an amazingly huge touch pad and the whole thing is a button. The screen is beautiful, all glass like the ipod and iphone. So far is it feels lighting fast. After putting up with my failing computer like I did, anything might seem fast. The keys on the keyboard are so quiet yet they have a very satisfying feel to them. They are truly inspirational to use. I can see why artists of all types love the Mac. I have not used a Mac in years, not for any length of time anyway so it's taken me a minute to figure everything out but really it's not hard to learn a mac. I love it. I really do. I'm so very very very happy, I'm floating on a cloud!!!

Will "I had sex " be enough?

2008-10-01T00:10:00.000-07:00

Premera Blue Cross wants to know what?
I had a prenatal ultrasound last week. My insurance company Premera Blue Cross, wants to know exactly how and where and when I sustained my "condition", who's at fault and if any covered family members were involved. It seems pregnancy isn't self explanatory enough, they need a lesson on the birds and the bees.

As I see it, this can play out one of two ways. On one hand they are threatening to deny the claim if I don't give them some pretty personal information. Common sense would dictate that a prenatal scan doesn't normally require proof of liability. It's a little outrageous that no one processing the claim bothered to read the claim. If anyone had would they really still have sent this form? My name and address is hand written so it's not as if a human wasn't involved. The letter in fact didn't have enough postage, was sent back opened, and resealed with additional postage added on the back. This form has been handled. Additionally this form has not only gone through hands at the claim department at Premera but they moved it on to their overpayment detection division called Calypso and I can tell it's a Premera company due nothing but the horrible logo design (after coming to that conclusion I also looked it up, indeed it is a Premera affiliate.)Was this intentional? Do they harrase all women who get prenatal ultrasounds in this manner. It clearly states if I refuse the information they are asking for "Describe how you sustained the condition" "Date of condition", "Address and location where injury/onset of condition occurred" and "Do you own this property?" Do I really need to tell them that?? It appears I do if I don't want to pay the $400-$600 the scan costs.

Second option either pen them a quick explanation of conception "When two people love each other very much, sometimes they....." How about the version I told Robin "Mama and Papa made a seed together and planted it in Mama's belly to grow a baby" He is only three after all I and remember being told WAY too much after walking in on my Mom and Dad at around that age and was traumatized at the idea of any and all genitalia for a very long time. I wanted to wait on the true detail on intercourse until he can at least properly pronounce vagina. (girls have kaginas don't you know) I could just print out and enclose some graphic detail on conception and pregnancy from wikipedia or webMD. There has to be lots of resources for that. Any one have any witty ideas to add? I have 14 more days to turn this form back in. I would love to here what you think.

What is wrong with them?

2008-09-27T20:34:00.000-07:00

So now it's out, I'm over 6 mo pregnant and all the family knows now. Well I assume they all know. We didn't personally tell siblings but they usually hear from parents. It's not as if we have a really close relationship with any of them on either side, some even less others. So the verdict is in. They are all rude. I don't know exactly what to say. I'm a little surprised. Not a single family member volunteered a congratulations. My Dad was the first to know. He saw me at 5 mo. Let me start by saying I became quite visibly pregnant at 3 months, without a doubt pregnant not just pudgy. He said to me "Are you pregnant again?" I said "Why yes I am!" He said "Oh, I didn't know if you were pregnant or if that [fat] was left over from the last baby." Now, try to tell me that isn't unbelievably rude!!! WTF!! First off, he had seen me before I became pregnant and I had lost a ton of weight. I was doing great. I weighted less than before I got pregnant the first time by almost 20lb. I just don't know what to say to that.

Next was my mom. She came to one of the concerts with my Grandma and my niece. The look on her face was of surprise and shock. I admit I didn't come out and announce "I'm pregnant" but with her, she could say anything, usually offensive so I didn't, It was clear I'm pregnant no stranger had doubt. It's a long an complicated story but my grandmother prefers girls and while at dinner with my mom and grandparents, grandpa passed his camera down to show me "the" four generation picture of my grandma, mom, sister and niece. To my mom's credit she suggested that grandma could get a picture with me and my kids to. She said I suppose we could take one with everybody. Clearly not enthusiastic. My mom that same night asked me "when will we be expecting our little girl" I don't think I even answered the question she wanted the answer to I only said, "there's no guarantee that you will be getting a little girl." While talking on the phone to her a couple calls later she asked when the baby was due. I told her late January and she said "I already knew you know, you can ask Justin (brother) I told him months ago." I called her out on it. I wasn't going to say anything but couldn't hold it in, she started it and I couldn't just let it go. I said "You didn't know, I saw your face and yeah you might have guessed and said something to Justin but you didn't know. Not like last time when I tried desperately to get you to see me for 5 months and be part of my life. This time I didn't bother trying. I know you don't have time for me and that's fine. Why didn't even say congratulations or that you are happy for me? After all the trouble we have had with miscarriages and having such a hard time even getting pregnant you can't even be happy for me you just say 'I already knew'." She mumbled something about how no one knows what to say to me. I couldn't figure what she meant. Did she mean because of my previous miscarriages? They were all early and we don't even tell anyone until we are past that point. Did she mean to say I react oddly to a congratulations? I would have been so happy if she were to welcome my children but it's not as if she even wants to be a part of their lives.

Now on to the last to know, Doug's parents. Why were they last? They have been in and out of California most of the year. When they were back up here we usually didn't know and I gave up trying to go out of my way to contact anyone anymore. I won't announce something like this on the phone. I fear/hope that things get misunderstood when not in person. Let me give you an example. After our first three miscarriages we went to a fertility OB who ordered some extensive testing including testing where they compare your DNA for compatibility. This meant seeing a genetics specialist and UW and we had a very thorough family history review. We had to contact people on both sided of the family to get all the answers, Doug's parents included. Now even after getting information from both my maternal and paternal grandparents about all health ailment my extremely large extended family might have had including down to great-great aunts, cousins and uncles, my family had relatively few issues, most lives to very old ages and died of such. Doug's family on the other hand didn't have the knowledge to go back as far as mine did but was littered with ailments such as cancers, high blood pressure, diabetes, near every genetic ailment you might have commonly heard of was listed only as far back as his grandfathers generation. At the end of the conversation with his parents his dad has the nerve to say "If there's something genetic it couldn't be you Doug, you come from pretty good stock! (says the man who has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, boarder line diabetic, legally blind who's father died when Doug was a toddler of cancer) Ok clearly that flipant comment he made really hurt me. When a mother loses a child there is enough self blame, when she loses 4 it's a tremendous pressure. To have someone actually put the blame on you is just uncalled for.

Back to the point. We went out to dinner with them on Wednesday. At 23wks pregnant I already have people thinking I'm due now, strangers of course. When we got to the table Doug says "We were waiting to tell you in person, so I wanted to let you know we are expecting another!" His mom said "we figured you would be since you said you wanted more and it's about time again." No "Congratulations", or "How exciting", or "We're happy for you", just a "yeah we figured".

What is wrong with them all? I get more support from strangers than I do our families. The waitress at the restaurant had more enthusiasm then the grandparents did and yes I realize it's her job to act interested but really, come on.

Homeschooling buyers co-op

2008-09-25T20:06:00.000-07:00

I found this neat homeschooling co-op site. I have not tried it out yet but plan to soon. I'm a bit of a co-op junkie really, I hate paying full price for much of anything. Most of the items are a bit over my kids heads yet but there is a piano teaching program group buy I would like to get and I think I'm going to get a microscope too. Let me know if you want to sign up and I'll get you a referral code.

Homeschooling's
#1 Way to Save

a bit of advice

2008-09-23T00:14:00.000-07:00

This may seem obvious but I'm going to say it anyway. It's not good to fall asleep at the table while you are sitting on a yoga ball. Yes I did this and just woke half way to the floor. I'm quite awake now!