My Little Man

How can you not love that face?  Those dark, smoldering eyes?  His adorable dimples?  This kid is going to go places.  He is the most determined little person I have ever met (except for my niece Leah.) I can't imagine what our life would be like if we hadn't added him to the mix.

It took a while, but he's finally started to talk. Prior to this however, you could always tell what he wanted because he is so expressive; a look or a gesture and he knew he had you right where he wanted you.  My favorite things that he says are "my mommy" "ama's house," "agin, agin""tank you" "my b" and "Allrie."  To translate, those are my mommy, grandma's house, again, again, thank you, my binkie and any of these: Allie, Erin or Annie.

He has discovered cars and loves to play with his "vroom vroom".  He likes to play with our miniature Disney characters because he thinks it makes him like his big brother Jack with his Infinity characters.  He calls them "my guys."  I am a little concerned however, because he seems to gravitate towards the villains.

He hauls around his pile of blankets; kind of like Linus on steroids.  We call him "the ragman" at our house.  He has signs for many things, thanks to his late start in talking, so life at our house is sometimes a big game of charades.

Will loves to watch movies.  His favorites are MegaMind and Wreck-It Ralph.  He also likes Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs and Hotel Transylvania.  He and I like to spend our afternoons watching shows, since naps are becoming fewer and farther between.

Will has figured out how to climb out of his crib and open his door.  Most mornings he makes his way into our room about 5 am, which I don't love.  Just like Jack, he loves to climb, swim and run and has gestures that demonstrate all of these actions.

Will loves to play with his cousins Aspen and Grayson and especially loves his little cousin River.  He loves babies.  And dogs.  Fortunately for him, the dogs love him as much as he loves them.

Will has really missed the big kids as they have gone back to school this year, but I suspect that once I start feeling better, we are really going to have a great time; the two of us.  

Every day I am so glad that I get to be this boys mom.  He gives me hope for the future.

My Boy is Growing Up

I love this kid!  He's my buddy.  Slowly, but surely, however, he is starting to grow up.  Jack just started the 2nd grade.  He is loving school this year.  We'll see if he still has the same enthusiasm after Christmas.

He can read!  Although he doesn't like doing it.  I keep telling myself that I'm going to get a reader out of the four of these kids, but I'm not sure it's going to be Jack :)

Jack is still the most energetic kid in our family, although Will is starting to close in on him.  Jack is a math whiz!  That's good, because I'm not.  Jack has a tender heart and loves to snuggle with his Mom.

Jack rides his bike and scooter everywhere and is always wanting to play with friends.  He spends a lot of time with Nate, James, Landon and Luke.  He likes to play video games and watch Kick Buttowski, Phineas and Ferb and Gravity Falls.  He has already decided that the basement is HIS Man Cave, and he gets upset when you explain that if he's going to make the mess, he needs to be the one to clean it up.

Jack likes to climb on anything he can.  He takes things apart and puts them back together.  He is a big fan of Legos and likes to learn about soldiers and war.  He loves to swim and had so much fun staying with his grandparents this summer while we took the girls to England.

Jack loves to listen to music and definitely has an opinion on what he likes.  His current faves are Radioactive by Imagine Dragons and Safe and Sound by Capital Cities.

At seven, he likes to sleep without a shirt on and wants to get a shark to go in the fish tank his sister gave him.  Jack is enjoying gymnastics and is looking forward to playing basketball this winter.  He is excited to do anything with his friends and is really looking forward to baseball in the spring.  Jack really wants to learn to play the drums; just like his friend Brownie (aka Danny Smith.)

Jack still loves to roam the neighborhood and makes friends with everybody.  He is the bright spot in my day and my protector at night.  When Matt is out of town, he wants to sleep in my bed because he is the "man of the house."

After two girls, I wasn't sure that I'd know what to do with a boy, but I'm so glad I'm getting the chance to learn.  I could be known as Jack's mom for the rest of my life and that'd be okay!

Allie at 11

Two things to note about Allie in this picture.... she's recently started wearing glasses and her bangs have FINALLY almost grown out to where they're manageable.

This kid is the spice in our life.  It is constantly amazing to me to see how two girls, raised in the same house, by the same parents, in a short amount of time can be so different.  Although there are many similarities between Allie and her big sister, she is definitely her own person.

This cute girl has just started the 6th grade, or as her teacher likes to call it, Junior High on training wheels.  She is having her first exposure to multiple teachers and inter-disciplinary assignments and is learning the ropes for next year.  She recently ran and was chosen for Student Council at her school; 50 kids applied and 12 were selected.  She is also her class photographer.

Allie is thrilled that she has a top locker this year and that she has lots of friends to hang out with.  She likes to spend time with Mia, Abbi, Bitsy, Anna, Courtney, Grace and Makayla.  She loves to bake and cook in the kitchen and she still really enjoys sewing.

One word that would describe this girl is mercurial.  She can go from happy and bubbly to crying and ornery in the blink of an eye.  She is passionate about everything and her great challenge will be to learn how to handle that.

Out of all my kids, I would say she's the most like I was as a child; so there's proof that what goes around, comes around.  In so many ways she wants to be a grown-up.  She wants to wear make-up and go to junior high like her sister.  She spends a great deal of her time and energy mothering her siblings, (much to their dismay.)

She is very creative.  She auditioned for and was admitted to a performing company at her dance studio this year.  She has dance for four hours every week.  She has gotten back into playing the piano and is making good progress.  Just yesterday, we picked up her violin at the music store so that she can learn to play that.

This kid is determined, and works super hard.  I never have to get after her to do her homework.  She is a self starter in all senses of the word.  She is uber responsible and wants to be accountable.  She loves to use her Kindle (although not for reading like her parents intended.)  This kid is a reality TV junkie and watches shows that make me cringe; My Strange Addiction, Say Yes to the Dress, My Fair Wedding, Clean House, etc... etc....

If I could give this girl one piece of advice, it would be to try and learn balance and moderation.  Being like her mother, she does not do halfway well.  It's Go Big or Go Home and sometimes that causes more problems than it solves.  She has got a bright future ahead of her if she can learn the lessons that it has taken me decades to learn.

I am grateful that this little ball of fire was put in our family.  She keeps life interesting, that's for sure, but I always miss her when she's gone and I'm so glad when she returns.  Keep being the awesome kid you are Allie, and always remember that I love you!

Erin at 13

It's been so long since I have blogged in any amount of detail about my kids that I figure the easiest way to catch up is to do a spotlight on each one of them.  Erin is the oldest, so she gets to be first.

Erin turned 13 in May and seems to be having much more fun at this age than either her dad or I did.  She has lots of friends, but mostly she hangs around with Charity, Anna and Ellie.  They like to do all sorts of things like shop at Target, bake at each others houses, watch movies, take pictures, or recently, watch U of U football together.  I am thrilled with these girls and the fun they have together.  They are all so nice to each other, and more important than that, are nice to others.  All of these girls are super sweet with my boys and are really good to let Allie tag along when she wants to.

Erin is an 8th grade class officer this year.  She is really having a lot of fun with student government and the 8th grade board was in charge of the Hello dance this year.  Our Erin picked the theme, the "Enchantment Under the Sea" dance, thanks to her dad's affinity for Back to the Future.  However, something got lost in translation and it ended up looking a lot like "The Little Mermaid."  Oh well, they got a bubble machine for the dance so Erin was happy.

She's been doing super good in school so far; nearly straight A's and she is taking several Honors courses.  She's very excited to be taking Honors American History and that thrills me!  She has just started taking voice lessons and is loving that.

Erin spent a lot of time and effort this summer helping me to reorganize our upstairs bedroom so that she could have her own room.  It has been awesome, and I know she loves it almost as much as I do.  That kid is a natural night-owl, so sharing a room with her sister has always been a problem.  I can't tell you how much easier bedtime has been since we made this change in June.  She's done pretty well at keeping her room clean, but still needs some work on getting her laundry done.  You know it's time to wash clothes when you're pulling out last years gym shirt to wear to school.

Erin did a lot of fun stuff this summer.  She went to Gettysburg, England, Girls Camp and a science camp at the Natural History Museum.  She spent a lot of time at Lagoon with friends even more time chatting online with these same friends.

She was very excited for school to start this year, which was a first and her good attitude at our house is contagious (her bad attitudes are also contagious, in case you're wondering.)

Overall, Erin is a very good girl.  She's a great big sister and a good friend.  There are several things about growing up that we continue to work on, but that's what life is all about; being a work in progress.  Erin is great with her cousins and loves to babysit.  Erin has a great sense of humor and I am often tickled that she is finally able to "be in on the joke."

I love this kid and I'm glad she's mine!

It's Complicated

The last week of my life reads like those quickly read, glossed over portions of drug commercials....

Nausea, diarrhea, vomiting, swelling, constipation, fatigue, ruptured tendons, metallic taste, take with food, and my favorite, gas with oily discharge.

It is important to note that I have not experienced all of these symptoms, but a few of these have darkened my door, and I will leave it to your imagination which ones have visited.

I have had a bit of a relapse and am experiencing an infection.  According to the CT scan that I got in the emergency room last Tuesday, my left ovary is obviously offended that it's "womb with a view" has been taken so it has decided to swell up in protest.  The dead end created by my doctor is having some sort of a bacteria rave in my gut and it has started to cause problems.

I am reminded particularly of those commercials that ask whether or not you have a problem starting or stopping urination.  Before this lovely adventure, the sound of a dripping faucet made me feel as though I needed to pee.... now I've started to take a book to the bathroom EVERY time! How maddening is that?

I have spent most of the last week hopped up on pain pills... the good ones.  Ibuprofen is not doing anything for the pain.  This is just the first round of pills for the day.  This repeats itself about 4 times!

Well, fast forward a couple of days and things are finally starting to look up.  It has been a long road, but I think I'm finally feeling like things are starting to get better.

After a week of infection and misery, I went to the hospital and had a drain installed.  It's actually more like a spigot in conjunction with a hand grenade.  I pray to all that's holy that I never have to have a colostomy bag because this blood pouch thingy that I'm carrying around is disgusting enough.  It goes in through my butt (as in cheek) and goes through all skin and muscles and everything.  I tell you what, you'll never realize how much you use those muscles until you're using them with a tube stuck in them.

The pathology report said they drained 90 mL of fluid out and that it was about 15 cm in circumference.... so softball size.  No wonder I couldn't go to the bathroom.  That sucker was bigger than even Erin's head.  Over the week, I drained probably 110 mL of fluid out.  All I can say is that I hope no one in my neighborhood gets murdered because if they use a black light to look for blood in the drain, I'm going to be their number one suspect.

Another thing about this last week.... I have been virtually helpless, and Matt has been gone.  He had the conference of his career this week and he couldn't miss it.  I couldn't drive, or do housework, or do much with Will.  I am so grateful for family.  My mom and dad kept Will and Jack at their house every night and ran Jack to and from school.  Mom helped run kids to lessons, go to the grocery store, take stuff to school for the kids and generally tried hard to keep my spirits up.  She cleaned my house, vacuumed my floors, dusted my blinds and did my dishes. The woman even scrubbed my toilets.  To top it all off, she was here, twice a day, to flush out my catheter.  Although not complicated, it weirded her out and I'm sure she wasn't thrilled to have to do it.  But, I couldn't reach it and the kids couldn't do it for me so, she was the one.  When I was growing up, my best friend Corrie used to call my mom the "Woman of the Year" and once again, the help that she has given me this last week proves it.  Thanks Mom!

My kids have been really good through this whole thing.  Working hard at finishing their homework, bringing me the things I need, sitting and snuggling when all I want to do is lay in bed, and forgoing their burgeoning social lives to help with kids and home.

I feel compelled in this post to thank some folks.  This is not an exhaustive list, but it's a start.  I have had so many friends and neighbors who have brought in meals for my family, made phone calls on my behalf, sent words of encouragement my way, helped to care for my children and brought me movies and treats and goodies to cheer me up.  Every day someone has called to check on me, and I have had well wishes from many.  I feel so undeserving.  It truly does take a village to raise a child, or take care of a family, for that matter, and I am so happy to live where I do and associate with those around me.  If you happen to read this blog, please know how much I love you and how thankful I am for your concern.

Here's to the future, without a uterus, or a hematoma.  Let's hope that it can only go up from here.

A Farewell to Arms.... er, umm Uterus

This may end up being one of those posts that completely crosses the border into TMI; or it may not.  At this point, I'm not quite sure.  But if it does, and any of you are bothered by the discussion of my girly guts, I'll understand if you want to check the score of the game or go downstairs and watch paint dry.  I don't blame you.

On Tuesday, September 3, 2013, my dream came true!  It has been a dream that I've had since the spring of 1987 when I learned that what Judy Blume wrote about in "Are You There God, It's Me Margaret?" wasn't all it was cracked up to be.  I'm sorry, let me make it a little plainer... that was when I discovered what it meant to be a "woman" and consequently began to wish that I had been born a boy!

As I grew older, I learned to deal and cope with "that time of the month" but I have to say, it was nothing I ever loved.  Even as I realized that it was necessary if I someday wanted to have babies, I was left wondering about the logistics of the stork and the cabbage patch and why couldn't babies come from there?

So what is this dream of mine?  Actually, it was menopause, but thanks to a few recent medical developments, we've passed Go, collected our $200 and get to spend the years between now and actual menopause without Dear Aunt Flo.  I had a hysterectomy on Tuesday.

The recovery hasn't been too bad, so far, and I have to say that I'm honestly having a hard time finding a downside to this whole thing.  Strangely enough, when my doctor suggested this course of action, it was Matt that had the hardest time with the news.  I feel very comfortable with the decision we've made and am thrilled to finally have a definitive YOU ARE DONE HAVING CHILDREN sign.  Matt is sad to say goodbye to the baby phase of our lives, and although we knew it was coming, I think that his reaction was very sweet and touching.  I love that he loves our kids so much that he finds himself asking why we didn't have more, sooner.  However, after listening to him take care of things this week, I'm thinking he's probably counting his lucky stars that we only got to four!

In all seriousness though, it is a relief to know and feel like our family is complete with our two girls and our two boys.  This summer has been such a fun one with the kids in various ways that I can catch glimpses into the future; and I like what I see.

As I have had some time to sit and reflect on my childbearing years and experiences, I have had a few thoughts that I want to record for posterity (or just for myself since I'm evidently really old now.)  Some of them are poignant and some are practical, and some are just stupid, but whatever, my blog!

1.  I am grateful for my children and the joy they bring into my life.  I realize how lucky I am to have been blessed with four happy children, who so far, are not too big of a burden on society.  They have been healthy and I take great comfort in that.  We've had a few issues here and there, but overall, I feel incredibly blessed to have had the opportunity to carry and bear children.

2.  I am grateful for those girly guts and their potential.  As much as I HATED that week of the month (which let's be honest, could sniff out a vacation or Girls Camp or school dances at 40 yards and change dates on a whim) I love the fact that this process allowed me to appreciate the gift my Heavenly Father gave me.  He gave me a body; that is awesome (a little on the fat side, but awesome just the same.)  Having a baby is not for wimps; but going through the process was a real confidence booster for a girl who spent the majority of her life trying to cover things up and hide in the back row.  Finally, I had a reason to be proud of my hips that could "birth a nation."  I had big healthy babies, who ate well and slept through the night by six-weeks-old; something I'm not sure I fully appreciated until I heard friends tell tales of being up every night for the first two years of their kids' lives.

3.  I am glad to have had the experiences I've had, because I'm sure that they prepared me to mother my daughters.  I am hopeful as we head into these teenage years that I can be candid and honest with these girls and we can have open discussions about the things they will question.  I openly make a promise to them that we will never have a house devoid of feminine hygiene products, so that they may always feel comfortable menstruating in our home.  There will be no Christmas Day runs to the 7-11 to look for beef jerky and tampons.  I will not force you to buy your own at the grocery store when the cute boy in Madrigals with you is the only checker open.  I will save my future son-in-laws from the litmus test of "how much does he really love me?"  I will make sure that you always have what you need and what you like; no off-brands for my girls!  This goes for after you've moved away and married too, because like I said, Aunt Flo is vindictive sometimes and she comes for a visit whenever she wants.

4.  I am AMAZED (and no that is no exaggeration) to find out how many women I know that have had this procedure done.  I can't tell you how many ladies have told me to gear up for the best years of my life.  Hallelujah!  Glad there's finally an upside.

5.  I am grateful and humbled by how many fantastic people I have in my life.  As I have recovered I have been so fortunate to have such great care and concern from neighbors and friends.  My family has been fed (which thanks, now, they've come to expect) and my children have been loved.  Especially my boys.  They've spent time with friends and with grandmas and have had a great time.  Although, if you've asked Jack what I had done, he'll tell you that I had surgery on my butt.  Obviously I'm great at explaining things to him.  Unfortunately, I now have a few more explanations I need to make to others.

6.  I am happy and a little bit sad that my kids reaction to this whole thing was disappointment that there would be no more babies at our house.  I guess I'm kinda sorta doing an okay job at this mom thing.  When I was pregnant over the years, I had average bouts of sickness and tiredness and what felt like laziness.  With the boys I started having panic attacks and migraine headaches and those 9 months felt like scenes from Lord of the Flies.  Ketchup goes good on Saltines, right? Fruit and fiber; exactly.  I was touched that my kids have enjoyed these child-bearing years and experiences as much as I have and that they'll miss them.

7.  Thank you to my Grandpa Jones and my Aunt Suzy for the beautiful flowers they sent.  I love flowers.  I know they die, either by themselves or with my help, but they're so nice while they're here.

8.  Sorry to my sweet niece Stella, who was blessed today without me there.  Not that she's going to care or even remember, but sorry I missed it all the same.

9.  Another random thought.... I can totally see how people become addicted to pain pills.  I am in love with my Percocet and am rationing the 25 pills they gave me when I left the hospital.  It is the closest thing to the relief and comfort of an epidural and a warm blanket during the delivery of my babies.  On a related note, I may or may not have said or done things I shouldn't while under the influence, so please accept my apology.

10.  I have greatly enjoyed being in my house.  Although I straight up told the doc that I wanted TWO days in the hospital after my surgery, I was antsy to get home and lay in my own bed and get more that six channels on the TV.  A shout out to my awesome husband Matt who helped me rearrange the furniture and change the sheets and duvet cover on my bed last weekend in preparation for my recovery.  Oh, and then go and buy me new bedding because Will crapped on said sheets and duvet cover.  I have thoroughly enjoyed laying in bed, watching way too much Food Network and HGTV.

11. Finally, because every list has to have ELEVEN things (whatever).... I am grateful that my bowels and bladder were not prolapsed and that I can poop again (yep, just crossed the line.)  Never underestimate the power of a good BM!


Let me close this post by saying that I am feeling better and hope to actually wear pants and a bra tomorrow.  However, please don't pass judgement if you see me walking around the neighborhood in my nightgown; it's new and is silky, so I might just have to show it off.