The Great Poop Caper...

That's what my hubby decided to name our quick trip to Albuquerque this weekend. I'll spare you the details, just know that it began LITERALLY about 5 minutes after we pulled into town and I thought it was over, but Miss G is determined to not let it end. The good news is that no one is "sick" per se...just ya know...not right. I have spoken to one friend who has a daughter in my son's class at school and they had the same stuff going on this weekend, so I'm guessing it is a little end-of-year gift from the school.

Sub!!!
Sub???
Anyone?!

No?

Okay, then. Off to the laundry I go.

The opposite of music to my ears...

Misery loves company, which is why I have thoroughly enjoyed reading Janelle's blog lately.

Wait. That sounds wrong.

I'm not enjoying the fact that people are being rude to her in the last stretch of her pregnancy, it's just that I'm happy to have someone else in the club. Lately, I have also had at least one person every single day make some sort of bonehead or insensitive comment.

Yesterday, it was boys on the brink of puberty that got to me.

We had to get the oil changed in the van since we're taking a little road trip this weekend. There is a little park that the kids like not that far from the Grease Monkey, so I decided that was how we'd spend the 45 minutes. I had both kids loaded up in the stroller and was hoofin' it as quickly as I could. It was at least 80 degrees and let's face it, pushing two kids in the stroller on a hot day is not the same experience that it was a few months ago.

Anyway - the path to the park runs behind an elementary school. The kids just happened to be at recess on the playground that backs up to the path. (I'm sure you can see where this is going.) All is well, we're talking about all of the geese, ducks, and bugs that we are seeing as we walk when I start hearing older boys' voices (the school goes up to 8th grade) calling me from the playground:

Hey, you!
Lady - look over here!
Hey, you in the blue stripes! (In hindsight, they were horizontal stripes. Probably not a good move.)

Now see, I just wasn't in the mood. I guess maybe I should have played along and given the kids the benefit of the doubt to see what they wanted, but I had seen them on the play structure as we approached, and they were being pretty rowdy. I just didn't get a good feeling about what they wanted to show me. (I sensed a bare butt or two, if I'm honest here.) So, I just decided to ignore them and keep walking.

Well.

They didn't seem to care for my choice. Pretty soon the same voices were following me with:

Hey, fat lady pushing the stroller!

Hey, you - with the big, fat stomach!

Hey, fatty. Where ya goin'?

You'll be happy to know that I didn't even turn around...even though I was tempted to do many things, none of which would have been appropriate for my kids to hear or see me do.

I just kept on walking, and thankfully (or should I say mercifully?) Mitchell didn't seem to hear them either.

But UGH!!! I think I might have preferred to get mooned.

A Little Dose of Miss G.

Ohhhhhh, my sweet girl. She is a nut.

And I mean that.

Doing what she does best...making a mess. (And loving it.)

Wishing with every bit of her being that she could get on stage in her "princess dress" with Mitchell and the rest of the kids during his program at school.

Here's a glimpse of her eye after her little incident in the bathroom on Saturday.

And, in case you have ever wanted to spend a few minutes with The Hurricane, here you go. They are short little snippets, but give you just a little taste of what things are like when she's in the room. Enjoy!

I know. After seeing those it's hard to believe that a graceful little bird like our own Miss G could ever manage to get a black eye, isn't it?

A Day For Moms...

Happy Mother's Day, friends. Whether you are a mom, a grandma, an aunt, an "auntie"...I hope that this day finds special joy for you as you reflect on the little ones that you hold dear in your life.

I'd also like to throw out a special big hug to those of you who are grieving this Mother's Day -- the loss of your mom, grandma, special friend(s), relatives...and to those of you who have lost precious babies of your own (no matter how big those babies may have grown to be)...and to those of you who mourn children you long to have or never got to hold in your arms. Mother's Day is for you, too - and I hope that through the pain you can hold onto some happy memories...and if there is only pain, or it's more bitter than sweet, my prayer is that you are granted an extra dose of grace, comfort and peace today. Know that I am praying for YOU today, though I may not know your name. Some of you know I am praying for you by name, and I hope you feel my hugs.

It seems like I get a little more sentimental and a little more weepy with each Mother's Day that I am actually celebrated for being a Mommy. I care less about the gifts and more about the true gifts that I am given each day in my children. Really...if I never got another card, another rose, another crayon or marker filled picture, it would be okay. For me, Mother's Day has become less about me each year, and more about them in that I use that day to really, truly reflect on how immeasurably blessed I am to be able to hold these little lives and hearts in my hands every day.

I'm also more appreciative of the gifts I've been given in the form of my mom, my grandmothers, aunts, "second moms", my husband's family, and my friends. Being a mom myself makes me really take a breath when I stop to think how fortunate I have always been to have been surrounded by such special and amazing women.

Every year there is more to think about, more to celebrate, more to appreciate, more to smile about. Each year I've watched more people that I love and care about suffer through hardships and losses in their lives, and it makes me ever more grateful for what I have in my own life. So many days I take for granted things that I should not. So many days I do NOT count my blessings, nor do I give appropriate thanks for them. Mother's Day is sort of my "reality check" for myself in a lot of ways.

(By the way, my husband is currently downstairs baking some brownies for tomorrow and the intoxicating smell is very distracting! Stuff like that is definitely a bonus, too!)

We had a little scare today with Miss G as we were getting everyone ready to go to a family dinner party at my parents' house. She slipped on a wet spot in the bathroom and fell right into the tiled corner of our bathtub. I was putting the hair dryer away and when I heard a thud I looked over to see her in a pile holding her hand over her eye, and after a very long pause, her blood-curdling pain-filled scream filled my heart with fear. She looked up and I immediately saw a trail of blood coming out from just underneath her right eyebrow. (You know how anything on the face and near the eyes bleeds like crazy.) My husband (who was combing his hair) scooped her up and was trying to get a look at her eye.

I'm sure many of you can relate when I say that my husband is very good at comforting our kids and is completely competent in that department. BUT. When she was in that state and I wasn't physically holding her -- oh. my. word. It was like he was literally holding my own heart in his hands and as I watched a small goose egg instantaneously form above her little eye, I just kept saying "Give her to me. Give her to me. Give her to me." All the while, she is holding her arms out to me saying "Mommy......Mommy....."

*ache* It truly makes my heart ache remembering that moment.

It was probably only about 15 seconds from start to finish, but I just would not have been okay until I was holding her in my arms and physically pouring my love and comfort onto her. Chris (thankfully) didn't fight that and just handed her over. He knew better than to be offended or to take anything personally. He just sort of stood back and let us do our thing. She just melted into me, and really - I did the same to her.

We clung to each other, both crying, for a few moments until my overwhelming emotional tidal wave subsided and some reason set in. I gave her about three kisses and handed her back over to Daddy so that I could run downstairs and grab some ice for her eye. I prayed with each and every step for my sweet girl and tried to keep my heart from beating out of my chest. When I got back upstairs, Georgia and I reached out for each other again and I just headed straight for her rocking chair. She was NOT happy about the idea of ice coming near her eye, so I settled for just having her be still and sang to her as we rocked.

Thankfully, it quit bleeding very quickly as the corner of the tub made more of a puncture-like cut in her skin as opposed to splitting it open. Our focus of concern then changed from the bleeding to swelling, but that also slowed down rather quickly. In other words, we are so very, very fortunate. It's one of those "a millimeter this way or a centimeter that way and things would have been different" sort of injuries. We are SO lucky that she will likely end up with a small scab (hopefully not scar) and a black eye and nothing more.

I was a mess the rest of the day. Truly. It just shook me up. I know I'll get a jolt when I see her for the first time in the morning, too. *shudder* Thank you, Lord - for covering our sweet girl today. Talk about an easy transition into the Mother's Day perspective that I described earlier. Yikes.

I will leave you with a glimpse of my first taste of motherhood with each of my sweet, precious treasures. I am beyond blessed and eternally grateful for being able to say that. Happy Mother's Day.

Mitchell - about 5 minutes old. Can you tell we had a rough start to our journey?


Georgia - one day old and I was already smitten.


Baby Loo - 28 weeks and still cookin'... For those of you who I *know* will be giggling about it, please just this once, ignore the faucet. I was REALLY tired when I took this and forgot that it ends up there. *sigh* So silly.

One Eyed Wonder...

That's me! I am somewhat of a cyclops this week. You see, sometime while I was sleeping Monday night, I developed pink eye. I got up to go to the bathroom and noticed that my eye was sort of itchy. And watery. And sort of gooey.

Fun, right?

So, in the morning when I got up, I noticed that it was worse, and also very pinkish/red. *sigh* Who doesn't love a good dose of pink eye in the morning? Yeah. So. As the day went on, my eye continued to get worse and worse. I *had* to go to the store with the kids, as we were literally on our last diaper/pull up for Miss G. The cashier literally gasped when I pulled up my sunglasses to see the pinpad to pay. I was like "I know. It's bad. I brought my own pen, don't worry."

I started to get somewhat worried while Georgia was napping in the afternoon as this was quickly turning into something other than your typical run-of-the-mill pink eye. My doctor, my eye doctor and my husband's doctor all had policies that prohibited them from calling in a prescription for medicated eye drops without seeing me first. At this point, I was unable to get an appointment with my doctor until Wednesday morning and I had a feeling that waiting that long would not be a good move. I was reading up on conjunctivitis in my kids' pediatrician's book and started to become concerned that I was having what could be symptoms of cellulitis. My dad said he could come stay with the kids while I went to the urgent care clinic before Mitchell's soccer game.

You know it's probably not good when the DOCTOR gasps upon seeing your eye for the first time.

Apparently, my "allergy" week was more like a sinus infection week. I had green yucky goo in my right sinus cavity and fluid behind my right eardrum. This explains how the pink eye came to be, as they all drain or not drain in the same spot, but she was stumped as to why it was so violently attacking my eye. She said there was a lot of bleeding in there...most likely due to the fact that my eye had so much pressure from the swelling. She put me on an oral antibiotic as well as antibiotic eye drops and told me that if it wasn't improving by the next day, I'd need to go to the ER.

FOR PINK EYE. Seriously??? Only me, I swear.

So. That night was horrible. I couldn't sleep at all. It felt like it wasn't improving at all. The only good thing about no sleep was that I could put my drops in every 2 hours all night long. Thankfully, when I woke up in the morning the swelling and redness in the skin surrounding my eye was better.

So, 3 days later here we are. The discoloration and swelling in the skin around my eye is lots better and I'm not having too many goobers anymore. That said, I 'm still very uncomfortable and still very cyclops/bloody eye looking. Seriously. I went shopping today for a few things and it was the topic of conversation each time I pulled my sunglasses down. Fun, fun. Chris would love it if I wore a t-shirt proclaiming that it's pink eye, not a black eye, by the way.

One funny thing did come of this whole thing last night. I had started to doze off on the couch while we were watching tv last night and my hubby said my name and tossed me something. When I first opened my eye, I couldn't see too clearly. I could swear to you that this man threw me a blackberry. All I know is that it was black and white and rectangular. And cold. I was squinting and trying to figure it out while I sat up and Chris starts laughing at me. He says "It's an ice cream sandwich, you dork." I started laughing, too...I told him I thought he got me a new phone. Maybe you had to be there, but it was pretty amusing. We decided the only way it would have been funnier is if I had put it up to my ear and said "Hello?"

I have never washed my hands so much in all my life. They are just raw, despite using more lotion on them than I have in all my life. So far, so good in the way of no one else getting it. (Any prayers to keep it that way would be much appreciated, by the way.)

Okay - if you are squeamish -- avert your eyes. I know that some of you are dying to see what it looks like, so here ya go. The first picture is about 1 am Tuesday and the 2nd picture is from last night before bed. Gross. Totally gross, I know. Okay - off to do eyedrops before bed!

Randomness...

Wayyyy back in 2005 (3 years, really??) when I started this blog, I noticed that I often was blogging in the middle of the night. Guess what? That pattern stuck.

Maybe it's because I'm pregnant half the time. Ya think?

Anyway - here I sit at 3:44 am. Heartburn is winning, though I'm on round two of my Tums. And what is up with nature deciding to "move" in the middle of the night lately? Very inconvenient for me. I can handle the handful of sleepy potty breaks, but the other urge just makes it all but impossible to go back to sleep.

Annnnd, I'm sure you all wanted to know that, right? Riiiiiiggggghhhhht.

Speaking of being up in the middle of the night, I became a victim of an infomercial a few weeks ago. One of those steam cleaners -- not for the carpet, but the hand held kind. Complete with floor attachment. I believe I was still in the aftermath of the whole norovirus drama and they had me at sterilizing. Yep, there I was. Watching all of this steam power away germs and dirt and generally gross grime. And then there I was, on the phone buying that thing. It hasn't arrived yet, so I'll let ya know how big of a turkey I am. Who knows? Maybe it will end up being a beloved cleaning tool. I think I'll probably name it...it seems like the kind of thing that needs a name. (Yes, I'm a dork who often names inanimate objects.)

Moving along in the randomness...this next part could probably appear braggy, but I assure you it is simply an amazed Mommy report. You see, it appears that Mitchell has fully figured out this whole reading thing. In the last few months he has really, REALLY improved in the number of words he's able to figure out but I think it's kind of like when kids grow out of shoes. You know they're getting tighter, but then one day the shoes just don't fit anymore and you're left wondering EXACTLY when that happened? (Maybe it's just me.) I mean, I have seen him getting better, but the other night I was absolutely blown away. Last week, my parents took us, my sister-in-law and my two nephews to see this local production of the very Frog & Toad book that we own. (It was actually mine from when I was little.) Well, as you can imagine, he was very excited to come home and read it at bedtime. As usual, I started reading to him after tucking him in and I only got about 3 words out when he said "Mommy, I want to read it to you tonight."

And he so TOTALLY did!

I think in the entire chapter he missed about 10-15 words, max! It was absolutely amazing!! I was tempted to go to the basement and get my Running Record forms from my school stuff to check his accuracy, because I'm nerdy like that. Instead, I turned off the teacher side of my brain and let the Mommy side of my brain just go to goo. I helped him when he asked me to, but mostly I just sat and listened. And smiled like a complete goofball who had taken about 4 too many valium or something. I just couldn't help it.

I think that what happened is that I saw myself in him. He was just LOST in this book. I, for the first time, really saw him figure out how magical reading can be. I sat there snuggled up with a five year old male version of myself -- that child whose real world melted into the scenes found in the pages of the book. I can tell that he is going to be just like me. Called 14 times for dinner, only to be physically hunted down and found to have his nose in a book, oblivious to the fact that there is still life outside of those pages. That makes me grin ear-to-ear because I know that I witnessed him experiencing one of the great joys in my own life: reading.

He was so proud of himself, almost as proud as I was! We talked for awhile about our favorite parts of the play, how it made the book even funnier now, and again about how wonderful he did when he was reading to me. Of course, he begged me to do another chapter right then. I encouraged him to read another one on his own, but that it was bedtime. (He most often falls asleep with books on his bed.) When I left him, he was snuggled under his covers, holding his book in the air, saying the words "Chapter 2." I came back to check on him about 15 minutes later, and he was sound asleep, Frog & Toad still clutched in his little hands.

I remember the day I figured out how to read. I was sitting on the steps in my house with my mom. She was tying my shoes and I was reading to her from my Winnie The Pooh And The Blustery Day book. She stopped tying my shoes and said "You just READ that to me! You know how to read!" I think I was about 4 or 5 years old and to this day, I can still remember what a special feeling that was. I knew I'd just unlocked a whole new world and I could tell by how excited my mom was that it as a big deal. I hope that Mitchell remembers his Frog & Toad moment the same way...that he knows it is a special thing.

Okay - enough babbling for one middle of the night session. I think the Tums are starting to win. Maybe I'll try going to bed again. I took some time to say hello to all of you bloggy friends tonight. It was so fun to catch up!! Hopefully I won't be such a stranger anymore.

Night, night!

Motherhood in a nutshell

This is my entry picture for this contest.

I was tempted to use a sweet, awwwww-inducing moment, but in the end - I really do feel like this one sums it up for me. I guess the general idea is to hang on tight and try to enjoy every moment. (Even the sleepless, poopy, and tear-filled ones.) Even though it may not look like the textbook definition of it in this picture, I know without a doubt that I'm holding two priceless treasures in my arms. My smile gets bigger every time I look back at this moment.

Yep, that's motherhood.

A good day!

Wow. 2 blog posts, back to back. Try not to fall out of your chairs!

I am having such a good day. It started this morning when Mitchell crawled into bed with Chris and I before we were ready to get up. He asked if I was still sleepy and I said yes so he said "Well, then I'll just rub your back, Mommy."

And he did, too! Little sweetie.

Then, he decided he would pick out clothes for himself and for Georgia. They are all matchy matchy today with jeans, the same long sleeved shirt and a short sleeved shirt over the top. So cute!

Two of my three clients cancelled for today, but my in-laws still wanted to keep the kids the whole day so that means I get time *gasp!* to myself!! Amazing. On top of THAT, my dad called and asked if I had time for lunch today, so for the first time in years...I got to have a little date with just my Daddy. It was so fun!

I stopped on the way home to get a Chipotle gift card for my brother's birthday and well, Starbucks is next door, so you know I was all over that. (It's snowing today - definitely a coffee day since I skipped having any this morning!) Last year sometime, Sarah posted about one of her favorite drinks there and while I've tried it iced, I've never had the hot version.

'Til today! And girlfriends, it is gooooooooood.

Oh, and because it's soooooo not the way I ordered it, but it's the way the cashier told the barista to make it, I will share with you the official way to order it: grande, decaf, 1 pump cinnamon dolce white mocha with no whip. It really does taste just like a snickerdoodle! Mmmmmmm!!! Such a great little treat for me today.

Now, I'm off to fold laundry and run the vaccuum. Later, I think I'll lay on the couch and watch tv until it's time to get the kids. I still have 2 and a half more hours of me time! So cool.

Thank you, Lord for giving me days like today and for people who love me so much to make days like this possible.