on the way to school today

Isaac (age 11): I learned yesterday that you don't have an adult brain until age 25

me: oh yeah?

him: yeah so you think you know what you're doing but you really don't

me: hm that's interesting because a lot of people get married before age 25. Me and dad got married before then. Actually we even had Abigail before we were 25.

him: really? how old were you?

me: hm, we were both basically 23 when we got married and 24 when she was born

him: you had a baby only a year after you were married?!?

me: well, it was more like a year and a half . . .

him: wow! that must be like really unusual because 99.5% of the time the sperm doesn't get to fertilize the egg . . .

me: {chuckling a bit while pulling up to the curb to drop them off}


Yep.
This conversation brought to you by the 5th Grade Maturation Program.
Fun Times.;)

my inspiration

Zac pointed out to me that my last post, where I went point by point through all my symptoms, reminded him of Isaac's Sickness Report that he very kindly wrote up for me a few weeks ago when he was sick. All the kids went through some type of sickness. Isaac is just very thorough and wanted me to have the full report on how he was feeling.


Maybe he was my inspiration in detailing all my symptoms to you.

Or maybe he gets it from me.
You never know.;)

sweetness

Recently, I keep going into the little kids' room in the morning to find Elisabeth climbed up and fast asleep with Samuel in the top bunk. They're not really supposed to do that, because they tend to talk and laugh and play instead of going to sleep. But it is kind of sweet to find them together in the morning.

Last night they were scared of something so we left their door open and hall light on. I peeked in when I walked by later to shut the door and saw Elisabeth's bed empty. And here they were:

My sweet, sleeping, open-mouth-breathing kids (and with partly open eyes, which they get from me).

I'll use this photo as proof as they get older that they really did like each other at one point.;)

Summer Fun {11}

1. homemade ice-cream-in-a-bag: check!

2. chunky rainbow crayons: check!

3. Homemade lemon Italian Ice (like Luigi's): Check! Check!

4. Caprisun and fruit slices popsicles: Check!

5. 2 silly kids insisting on wearing these "glasses" everywhere we went all summer long: oh yes. Check.

Today:

- I glanced over as I was pulling out of the driveway this morning and saw these "decorations" in our tree (courtesy of Samuel): - and Elisabeth put on some of her own makeup (plus some blueberries on her chin from breakfast):

(Just thought I'd check in and say Hello. It seems we've been busy with just a lot of stuff lately and my dear little personal demons have snuck out to taunt me, too. They like to keep me busy. So my head has been full, but with nothing that feels like bursting out into bloggy loveliness . . . quite yet. see you again soon)

it's not easy bein' green

So Elisabeth was very concerned about finding something green to wear today. She really didn't want to wear Samuel's old green striped shirt because it's a "boy's" shirt.

But then, after some searching, she decided she could wear this:



over top of the striped shirt. It's a plastic pull-up package. She cut out armholes.

I had a rough time convincing her she really couldn't wear that to preschool. I was particularly adament because she was going on a field trip to the grocery store. I just . . . couldn't let her do it. I ended up telling her that they'd think she was for sale and put her on the shelf. That worked until she came to the brilliant deduction that "they would see she has a face!!"

Ohh, the drama of life with a 4 yr old. Never a dull moment.

And how's your St Patrick's Day treating you?

totally normal

what?!? you see something wrong with this?!

This is completely absolutely perfectly normal.

Definitely.

song of the day

"We are okay,

we are alright
We sing very loud
Yeah, we're singing

We are okay,

we are alright
Close our eyes, close our mouth
yeah we shut our eyes though we're in doubt"

- Joshua Radin

This song came on my ipod this morning and I had to smile as I heard it and listened to Elisabeth singing (loudly) to herself from her room. Earlier she was belting out the chorus of "Angels We Have Heard on High" complete with her own little trills and ornamentation (and her own words of course). Yesterday, Isaac was singing "Day Tripper" as he got ready for school. (if you're my FB friend, you've seen these as my status updates, but I have no qualms about being repetitive here and there)

Anyway, it just struck me this morning how wonderful this really is. That my home is filled with kids singing to themselves. Or Abigail making up dances in the basement and writing stories. Isaac pacing the floors early in the morning, "thinking" (who knows what). He has a bit of insomnia and a brain that never stops. Samuel with his love of "rock and roll" and break-dancing (don't ask). ;)

But just in case I have neglected to mention it lately . . . I just wanted to tell you that today, this morning, as I think about my life, as I look around my messy house, my endless to-do's, and despite my many failings and the chaos that is often my brain, despite the craziness of kids that fight and refuse to listen . . . somehow in the midst of all of this, (sometimes),

we can "sing very loud,

yeah, we're singing . . .

we are okay,

we are alright."

(Elisabeth, May 2006, 3 1/2 wks old)

sometimes I just have to wonder if she's ever going to outgrow this . . .

random thoughts for today

1. Before we left for vacation we got an HOA violation notice for our "landscape maintenance" (ie. weeds in our flowerbeds). So when we got back we spent no less than 4 hrs doing yardwork. Called the HOA and told them we had taken care of the problem. They called a week later and said it still wasn't fixed. Huh? So we pulled some more little weeds, thinking this was getting ridiculous, called them back again. We heard back again with them claiming the problem still wasn't fixed. At which point I kind of lost it and exclaimed that I really had no idea what else could be done and if there was still a problem they needed to come show it to me personally, because this was really and truly ridiculous.

We finally got a call about a week later saying that it was resolved. They had been looking at the wrong house.
Seriously.

2. A couple weeks ago Zac announced to me that, although we can each appreciate each other's taste in music, we'd probably never really like the same things. And, you know, after 12 1/2 yrs of marriage, I think I can finally accept this. I just laughed. We do both like The Beatles (among some others) - and that is more than enough common ground for anyone. Don't you think? ;)


3. Our dishwasher broke about a month ago. And although there is something sensual and soothing about washing dishes with hands immersed in warm sudsy water, both Zac and I are very excited about our new dishwasher which will be delivered tomorrow!! It's also a quiet model. Which, after 8 yrs of not being able to watch TV with the dishwasher running, is quite exciting.

4. And speaking of other things which have broken, my laptop DC power input jack broke on Mon. This was very very sad. Luckily I found someone who could fix it for about $60. But this, combined with the dishwasher and the smaller replacements of our bathroom scale, blender and kitchen faucet, is making me feel like things are falling apart left and right.
It's also making for a rather expensive month.

5. Oh yes, and speaking of expenses, I suppose I should update you on Elisabeth's surgery. She seems to be doing well. Her post-op follow-up visit is tomorrow. But her tonsillectomy site started bleeding on Sunday after she threw a pretty big tantrum over something. It made me nervous because when I had my tonsils out (at 14) and started bleeding a few weeks later, I filled up a Big Gulp cup with blood on the way to the Emergency Room to get it cauterized. It was really yucky. Hers stopped pretty quickly, thank goodness. And we went back to movies in bed and sucking on ice chips and that seemed to help. She's been waking up every night screaming because her throat hurts and has been pretty grumpy. So I am really looking forward to her complete recovery.

6. Actual conversation just now:

kids: we're playing a game teaching the kids to dance

me: that's great but I really want you to get your chores done first

Isaac (groaning): you say that every day!

me: I know I do. And someday, you know what would be really great? If you guys woke up and did all your chores, and maybe even something extra, without me having to even remind you.

[pause]

Abigail: well, that's most likely never going to happen.

Huh.

And that is our summer at this point.

(Although I am making lemon bread for breakfast. And that. is. awesome.) :)

Elisabeth Songs

The other day I was out for a walk with Elisabeth in the stroller and she started singing a cute little made-up song to a tune reminiscent of "The Farmer in the Dell."

The words went something like:

"I Love You
You're cute, too
I want to kiss you all day long
muah! muah! muah!"

I told her I loved her song and asked her to sing another one.

The next one went something like this:

"You're hurt all day long
you bleed all day long
you need a bandaid
and then you die."

Um. Okay.

because I have so much to do I can't even think straight so I'm totally wasting time on the internet instead

My sister took this picture of Elisabeth yesterday.
And I just had to share. hahaha!

And now I am locking my computer away somewhere out of reach. Don't tempt me anymore, ok? I really have things I need to do. And this isn't one of them. Really. I'm serious.

see ya . . .

happy tuesday

I don't have much to write, actually.

I'm pretty distracted.

Trying to deal with some things.

It rained today and it was wonderful. I really love rain.

And I took Duran Duran off my ipod to make room for some Crosby Stills Nash and Young. (hahaha.)

And finally, today Samuel threw an open bottle of syrup across the carpeted family room. Imagine that.

And a couple weeks ago he cut Elisabeth's hair. Snipped off a good chunk of her bangs that we were growing out. And that nice little piece sticking up on the back of her head. Lovely.

Just wanted to mention that.

8 more days left of school and counting . . .

so - more later:)

in the ENT's office today

. . . Samuel twisted the lamp on the chair and almost broke it, moved the attached foot support up and down up and down up and down, threw a couple books on the floor, grabbed the Dr's paper tympanogram report off the counter and crumpled it in his hand, pressed some buttons on the tympanogram machine, grabbed a couple ear spec things, opened a drawer and almost grabbed a handful of dangerous looking tiny tools, tried to turn on the light again, etc . . .

All within about a minute.
All while I was trying to talk to the Dr. and simultaneously divert him from his next attempt at disaster.

She kinda looked at me and said hesitantly "does he . . . have . . . ADHD?" and then, as she glanced at his chart (and I began to laugh somewhat maniacally, "hahaha, ohhh, ya think?") - "oh yep, here it is in his chart." Yeah.
At least I know I'm not the only one seeing it.

Anyway, this visit revealed no new news. He still has a slight conductive hearing loss in both ears. Not enough to worry too much about, I guess. He still has the eustachian tube dysfunction that he's had for about a year. Sometimes it causes his ears to hurt. But the only possible solution would be putting tubes in for the 4th time - but since it might not help at all - and he's doing ok overall (not in extreme pain, or causing significant hearing problems) she decided that doing tubes again wasn't the best thing to do, weighing the risks and inconveniences and cost against the potential benefit. So there really is nothing to do about it. Come back in a year.

She very kindly suggested that perhaps I wouldn't want him back in this office more than once a year, if we could help it. Agreed.

And that's it.

kids are funny #473 (who's counting?!)

Today while cleaning and listening to Blondie's "In the Flesh" (which goes something like: "just can't wait to see you . . . in the flesh" ) I had the following conversation:

Isaac: in the flesh?!?

me: yeah, that just means like "in person"

Isaac: that's disgusting.

ok, so maybe you had to be there. :)

Have a nice weekend . . .

Good Day, Sunshine

The sun came out to play today.
She was a most welcome guest. I had forgotten how much we've missed her.

Made me so happy, I felt inspired to take a self-portrait to share with you.

Sort of.

In other news, here's a conversation I had with Elisabeth this morning after her neighbor-boy-friend left and she was smothering me with hugs and kisses:

me: do you kiss him too? (wanting to nip the playground-chasing-kissing in the bud)

her: no, I only kiss you guys!

me: that's good

her: does he not like kisses?

me: um, I don't know (let's not get into this)

her: maybe he has green spit!!

ummmm . . . . . . . . . .

Well . . . . as long as she doesn't get too curious to find out for sure, I guess we're safe for awhile. :)

(and yes, my only reaction was to laugh hysterically. I mean really, what could I say?!)

automatic underwear dispenser - and other tidbits

So, this morning I discovered that somebody installed an automatic underwear dispenser in the boys' room and I didn't even know it.
It's deceptively simple. You merely open the dresser drawer seen here:


And, ta da! The pair of underwear falls out onto the floor!

Perfect.

In other news:

Elisabeth has been getting in lots of trouble lately. No big surprise, really. One day not long ago, she colored her fingernails with a red magic marker. I'm really not sure if she was trying to make them look pretty or just scary. Because it turned out looking kind of like freaky bloody fingertips. Today she found some of the christmas stocking candy and raided it while I was in the shower. She cut off some of her hair the other day (inconspicuously, thankfully!). She has dismantled pieces of our artificial christmas tree and scattered it around the room. And she keeps having accidents wetting her pants nearly every day. Every. Single. Day. She is just so independent, it doesn't even seem to faze her. She just changes her clothes, and goes on her merry way, and leaves the wet things on the floor somewhere for me to find later. It's driving me crazy. She may have potty-trained earlier than the other kids, but the other kids hardly ever had accidents once we considered them "trained." Elisabeth, however, continues to surprise us with her own way of doing things. Grrrrrr. . .

- I won the Thanksgiving Point Membership from the giveaway on MormonMommyBlogs!! I know I mentioned it on Facebook, but I am really just so excited. I honestly couldn't believe it!!

- I have been a bit stressed lately. I've mentioned that, right? Along with the normal day to day stresses, we have the added mounting stress of Christmas preparations. We finished nearly all of our shopping for the kids a month ago, but then it occured to me that I forgot some small details - like shopping for Zac and our parents and stockings - and I still want to do some fun holiday type activities. And I still haven't decided whether to send out Christmas cards or not? Etc. etc. etc. I know there is a lot of buzz about reducing holiday stress, simplifying, toning things down and all of that, but really I just do the best I can. It will always be a little stressful. For me, at least. Maybe it's just because I am so easily thrown off kilter. Who knows. But I may as well accept it, I think. And then last week I thought that there was a possibility that something might have been going on with me physically that should not have been going on. And if it had been going on, not only would it have been unexpected and unprepared for, but it could also have been dangerous and even life-threatening. So that was quite worrisome. But it was unfounded. So that's good at least. And Zac is getting a pay cut come Jan 1st along with an increase in health care costs, and I cannot foresee any way at all that we can come up with the rather large chunk of money to make up the upcoming deficit in our monthly budget. I try not to think about it too much. But it is quite stressful (maybe I'll post more on that later and get your ideas on major budget stretching). And then there has been an extremely difficult situation going on with my extended family. Because of the people involved and the nature of the circumstances, I cannot talk about it (which is torture for me) but it has been very very difficult for me and I have had to make some heart-wrenching decisions. Anyway - so if you live near me and have seen me and I've seemed a little out of it or distracted, that is most likely the reason why. And if you haven't noticed, then I guess I am better at hiding things than I thought. And I guess sometimes that's a good thing. I had to kind of push these personal things aside for a bit so I could get that giveaway out there (even though I felt even slightly dishonest for posting something so lively when I really didn't feel like it) and to try to get other things done. It's hard for me to pretend that I am doing well when I am not (you may have noticed). So I guess that's why I'm confessing now.

Anyway - I think that's all my tidbits for today. I'll let you know if I think of anything else.

Of course.

And YOU HAVE UNTIL MIDNIGHT TONIGHT TO ENTER THE CHRISTMAS GIVEAWAY IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY!!! Winner will be announced tomorrow! yay!

until then . . .

newest news

So, today Samuel had a hearing test and follow-up at the ENT. For the last year or so (?) he has had abnormal tympanogram results (which measures the air volume in the ear canal) in one ear ever since that tube fell out. I am still figuring out what that means exactly. But she wanted to see if it was affecting his hearing - and to make a long story short, it is. In that ear he has a 20 db conductive hearing loss, which in his case is being caused by the ear drum not having normal mobility (I think).

She said that we could put another set of tubes in (the 4th ones) - which would equalize the air pressure and allow the ear drum to move properly again. But the only way to determine if that will be effective is to do it. In other words, we won't know for sure if it will even help until after it's done. yikes. And she agreed that she is reluctant to do surgery without knowing for sure that it is necessary.

So our plan for now is for him to come back in 8 wks and check his hearing again to see if it remains the same and then go from there.

A 20 db hearing loss is the very edge of mild hearing loss, and it is only in one ear (I think) - so it's not a major thing, I guess. Except that with all of his speech issues, we sure do want him hearing well so that he can learn to speak well. It's kind of important, don't you think? So I was quite disappointed to find out that he isn't hearing as well as he should.

Other than that, he and Elisabeth were positively monsters in the dr office - twice when I was talking to the receptionist (before and after our appt), I had to interrupt her to get Samuel to either A. stop screaming and pushing his sister, B. chase after them out the front door to get them to come back in because I wasn't ready to leave yet.

And then I made the BIG mistake of taking them to the store where I hoped to pick up just a couple things for Christmas and they ran around the aisles and climbed up shelves etc etc. And then after we got back home, they proceeded to continue getting into trouble ALL DAY LONG.

Tomorrow I am meeting with Isaac's school director to discuss test results relating to how they kicked him out of speech therapy last year.

And that's what I'm up to. There are also some other things stressing me out considerably right now that I can't talk about.

So, in a nutshell, I'm just a wee bit stressed out. Cheers . . .

life as a mom

Last night, in the midst of a parenting crisis of mine (Zac being out of town, realizing Abigail had left about half of her homework assignments at school, Samuel and Elisabeth insisting on running around the house shutting off all the lights and throwing things at each other, and me very quickly losing all of my patience, etc. etc. etc), Isaac came and found me where I hid for a moment in my room, and handed me this note.

It said:

Dear Mommy,
I love you so much and I love that you feed us good foods and once in a while let us get treats. I'm glad that you're my mom Mommy I love you.

(and don't forget: make hot cocoa)

(can you make something delicious today?)

- Isaac

It was very very sweet. I think he could tell I was on the brink of losing it big time. But then, also, did you notice that even after such sweet words of love, he was still making more requests of me?

I suppose he couldn't help himself.
I'm still the mom, after all.

little miss Elisabeth is lucky to be alive

You know I like to share the stories of the crazy things my kids do. I do this because I am banking on these things actually being humorous someday. And also because writing them down gives me some distance from the experience and I can put it in better perspective. And when my kids have kids, I can go back and say, "yep, you were the same way! Serves you right!" And yes, sometimes I do just need a little commiseration.

Anyway - when I first started blogging 2 years ago (!) it was mostly Samuel that was giving me grief with his daily disasters. You may recall the time(s) he sprayed my entire kitchen with the sink sprayer, or when he painted his toys with shoe polish, or when he and Elisabeth tore the insulation out of the walls in the unfinished basement. Those were some of the most memorable incidents.

Well, thankfully, he has grown out of most of the destructiveness! WHEW!!
But what is not so nice - and came as somewhat of a surprise - is that miss Elisabeth has now stepped up to fill those naughty shoes. She's doing a pretty good job of it. I'm not sure if he just taught her so well by his example, or if it really just has something to do with being 3 (although the older kids did NOT do these things), or being the youngest, or having some "issues" we have yet to uncover, or what! I really don't know.

But let me tell you about some of her incidences from this week, just to illustrate what I mean:

First, she dug out the halloween make-up from the Halloween bucket that we haven't put away yet. And of course she decorated herself quite thoroughly, her arms, legs, face, etc. And she got it all over the carpet, too, of course. So I spent an afternoon scrubbing that out.

And then she found some play-doh and played with it in her room, unbeknownst to me. And she tore it into tiny tiny pieces and spread it all over her carpet. So amongst all her toys and stuff on her floor, there was orange play-doh sprinklings all over that I had to clean up.

Then I left Isaac with the 2 little ones for just 2 minutes while I drove Abigail to her violin lesson down the street. I returned to find Isaac standing on the garage door step waiting for me, and screaming hysterically at the top of his lungs. Because apparently in the 2 min that I thought they could stay alone and happily watch TV, Elisabeth climbed up onto the kitchen counter and tried to get up onto the fridge to try to get down the halloween candy that we had put up there. And she had slipped and fallen from the counter to the floor and Isaac was freaked out not knowing what to do. Lessons learned: Isaac is apparently not old enough to babysit for 2 min. And Elisabeth cannot be trusted to behave by herself for 2 min.

I learned that again the next day when I asked her if she could be good for a minute and play in her room so I could take a shower, to which she replied "yes, mommy." Oh she can seem so sweet and compliant.
I should know better.
But I went and got in the shower.
A few seconds later, I heard a huge rumbling and crash and then Elisabeth screaming. So of course, I grabbed my towel, jumped from the shower dripping wet and went out to find that she had tipped over my entire 6-drawer chest of drawers onto herself. LUCKILY, only her one foot was pinned by one of the drawers (and is fine) and she was otherwise unharmed. Unbelievable, really, considering the stacks of books on top of the dresser, and a lamp, alarm clock, and several drawers emptied onto the floor.
I am not entirely sure what happened. But I do know she has tried to climb up the dresser front using the handles as footholds in the past.
And I could tell from putting the drawers back together that she had been doing some rearranging of my jewelry in the top drawer. ARRRGGGGHHHH!!!!!
I think I was still shaking several hours later (after I finished my shower). Because that could have been a lot worse than it was. I don't even like to think about what COULD have happened.

So, you see, little miss Elisabeth is lucky to be alive (literally) because she seems bound and determined to hurt herself one way or another.
And if it doesn't come to that, sometimes I think I might just kill her (figuratively, of course).
If we both survive her childhood, it will be a miracle.