Frazzled But Loving It

Not enough hours in the day...

2012-01-24T10:09:00.000-06:00

I haven’t written a blog post in forever, but here’s a recap of what’s been going on.

The baby is still adorable:
*photo of Goblin in a Dr. Seuss outfit

Hollywood recently made it to state in both of her speech events (musical theater and ensemble acting). That kid has talent! She’s also been working as a hostess at Old Chicago. She recently got ‘promoted’ to server and earned $80 in tips her first day of waitressing. She loves interacting with the people, and really enjoys the money. She has a new boyfriend. He works at Old Chicago too. I warned her about getting involved with coworkers at a restaurant. Someone I know fell for the good looking cook at a 50s restaurant they both worked at in college. They’ve been together for over 19 years now and have four awesome children because of it!

The Boy continues to grow right before my eyes. A few weeks ago I noticed mustache hair. Seriously, you guys. There is hair on my baby boy’s upper lip!!! Then I noticed his voice is deepening. Last night I noticed that his hands are giant. GIANT! He likes to sleep a lot, probably his body’s way of recovering from all of the growing it’s been doing.

Bumblebee is a trooper. She has kind of gotten the shaft with this new baby thing. Usurped of her baby of the family status by another cute little girl, she has had some adjusting to do. But for the most part, she’s been wonderful. I have some mommy guilt about not being able to do as much reading together as we used to (there just aren’t enough hours in the day!) and I will stop and notice that she’s doing things on her own that just a few months ago, she’d have had me help her with. (Styling her hair, making her breakfast, etc.)

I returned to work after a twelve week maternity leave. I cried during the whole 40 minutes of my commute the first day, and for a few minutes the second day. But then I was fine. I have a good job and it’s flexible, and I work from home a day or two a week, so I really can’t complain. I had an amazing time bonding with Goblin during my maternity leave, and am so thankful that I was able to take the full twelve weeks. I don't know how people do it sooner. But truth be told, the work routine has been good for me and for Goblin. I’m very happy with her daycare provider. Lori seems to really enjoy the kids she watches, and Goblin greets her with a huge smile in the mornings. She appears to love all of the stimulation of daycare; she’s mellowed out considerably in the past few weeks.

Except for last night – she had a tough one. Cried for two solid hours, where nothing would console her. This is unusual for her. Although she can be fussy, she’s usually placated by nursing or if I put her in the Moby wrap and walk around with her. Neither worked last night. Even the last resort trick of stripping her down and letting her lay around naked didn’t work. She finally passed out from exhaustion after a couple of hours. She had a very full, very messy diaper this morning, so I think maybe it was a stomach ache, but I still don’t know.

I will try to do better at posting, but I’m working on a writing project that is taking up a considerable amount of my free ‘writing’ time. Still, I like to have this blog to look back upon what was happening in my life, and this is such a special time for our family that I’m sorry not to have written more. But again, only so many hours in a day… Anyone want to lend me a few of theirs?

Hey everyone, it's me. Natalie.

2011-12-22T11:40:00.000-06:00

Hi everyone, Natalie here.

*photo of Goblin:

Aren't I cute? I know that I am, because everybody tells me so about a million times a day! Mama has obviously been a slacker at blogging lately, so I thought I’d fill in for her today. Anyhow, I introduced myself as Natalie. N-A-T-A-L-I-E. I am not a Goblin, for pete's sake. What a wretched nickname! Also - look there to your right. Why hasn't Mama added me to her blog's background? I'm going to have to have a chat with her about that.

Anyway, I thought I might update you on what’s been going on lately around our house. Lots of things – it’s a very exciting place to live!

The big sister just got accepted to a place called ‘college’. People keep saying she’s a badger now. She still looks like a person to me. She's enjoying her senior year and Mama and Daddy keep remembering when she was a baby. I think that was about a thousand years ago or something.

The smaller sister is a hoot. Look at her being all silly with these French fries:

*photo of Bumblebee making a mustache out of fries:

She’s all jazzed up about Christmas. She keeps asking mama very specific questions about some person named Santa. Mama told her that Santa only brings presents to those who believe in him… I’m going to have to remember that in the future!

My sisters are both amazing and I love them so much. But let me tell you about my brother. He is so sweet. If Mama is ignoring me while I scream my lungs out (I don’t know why she thinks she has to do things like go to the bathroom and make dinner and fold laundry. She should be holding me all the time!) my big brother will come pick me up and talk to me. He doesn’t like to hear me cry, and he is so good at calming me down.

*photo of The Boy holding Goblin:

And he has cool hair. I hope my hair grows like his.

So I mentioned Christmas. I’m not sure what it is, but apparently it’s a big deal. There are lots of sparkly lights around the house. Smaller sister says there are usually more of them but Mama just got lazy this year and didn’t put up all of the decorations. She said there is normally a giant sparkling tree set up in the sun room! That’s crazysauce because we already have like three trees around the house. Why do we need another huge one? Anyway, the kids keep talking about what they want for Christmas, and there are pretty packages under the living room tree. I think I will like Christmas as long as Mama is there too.

I don’t like to leave Mama’s side. When she sits down to dinner, I scream to be fed, even if I ate recently. Why should everyone else get to eat and not me? She usually pulls out the Boppy pillow and nurses me at the table while she eats one handed. That’s called a compromise. Works for me! I'm glad the rest of the family isn't bugged by it.

I am so tired of Mama taking pictures all the time.

*photo of Goblin sticking out her tongue:

The Mamarazzi follows me everywhere with that big black flashy contraption. Make it go away!

*photo of Goblin covering her face:

Several days ago, I played the best practical joke on Mama. I slept through the night twice in a row! Mama was so excited, she kept telling me how awesome I am and smiling a bunch. Her face looked different too – the puffy bags under her eyes weren’t so noticeable. But guess what? If I sleep all night long, I don’t get that extra special middle of the night snuggle time with Mama, so… I decided to start waking up again. Maybe I’ll go back to sleeping all night, but I’m not so sure. I don't understand why she's so tired all the time. She's asleep whenever I wake up to eat at night!

I’m still mad at Mama for what happened last week. She took me to a place called the doctor. They took my clothes off, weighed me, and kept calling me things like ‘dainty’ and ‘peanut’ and ‘she’s so tiny!’. I did not like that. I may be only 9 pounds and in the 10^th percentile for my height and weight, but I am TOUGH and STRONG, darn it. Anyway, they did all sorts of weird things, poking, prodding, looking in my eyes, ears, and mouth with a flashlight, and so on. It was annoying, so I let them know that I was not pleased. And then… holy shit, you guys (oops, Mama says 2 month olds aren’t supposed to swear. Sorry!) the nurse stabbed these sharp sticks into my legs! What the hell was that for? I am never going back to that place, I don’t care what Mama says.

There is this thing called football at our house. Do you have it at yours? It’s where a loud noise comes from the TV. It sounds like a crowd of people talking, with some whistles blowing, and some clanky noises, maybe from when the men who wear tights bump into each other? Anyway, our team is the Packers and everyone in the house dresses up in green and yellow on Sundays. Mama is in love with some big muscly guy named Clay and Big Sister gets all googly eyed over Aaron Rodgers. They like to tease each other over whose 'boyfriend' is the best. (I'm on Mama's side for that one, but #12 isn't so bad either.)

We watch the game and Daddy yells a lot. Sometimes it’s good yelling, and everyone whoops it up. Our dog Reggie is the funniest – he’s a huge football fan. He runs around and barks when there’s a touchdown. And sometimes it's bad yelling. Then Daddy goes over to our punching bag and hits it. He says he's letting off steam, but I haven't seen any steam. Just a mad face and some talk about the blankety-blank refs not calling penalties. Anyway, I’m still not so sure about all of this, but I guess our team lost last weekend for the first time all year. Daddy was kind of disgusted and Mama wasn’t too happy either. But look – I didn’t mind. I love my football game outfit:

*photo of Goblin smiling in her Packers gear:

Well, I should get going now. I’m starting to get hungry. I like to eat about every two hours during the day which makes it tough for Mama to get anything done. But I know she loves every second of it, because she tells me so all the time while she’s sniffing my head. She says she has to go back to a place called ‘work’ soon. I don’t know what work is, but I think it must be like ‘doctor’ because she does NOT want to go back. She gets sad when she talks about it. Poor Mama. I hope she doesn’t have to get shots there.

Anyway, that’s about all I have time for today. Maybe Mama will be able to write another post soon. I hope you have a Merry Christmas!

Accepted!

2011-12-10T11:48:00.000-06:00

*photo of Hollywood looking at her laptop and throwing her hands up in the air in excitement:

This photo was taken of Hollywood at the exact second that she logged into her University of Wisconsin online account and read their admissions acceptance letter.

She got in! She's now an official Badger.

There was never any doubt in my mind that she'd get accepted. The kid's top of her class, straight As, great ACT score, tons of extracurriculars, etc. But it took them 12 weeks to give her the official 'we want you' letter. She was waiting for a long time to get it, and recently she'd been getting antsy. Wisconsin was the only school she applied to - after her visit to Madison this spring, she was 100% set on going there. It felt like the perfect fit for her, and she couldn't wait to get enrolled!

It was a rare moment in our family last night because we were all in the living room together, except for Bumblebee who was at a sleepover next door. The rest of us were watching the Iowa vs. ISU basketball game when she came screetching into the room. She'd gotten an email stating that the admissions decision was available online. She brought her laptop into the living room, logged into her account, and we all waited holding our breath. As you can see from the photo, she got the news she wanted.

I know that she can't wait to get this new chapter in her life started. Last night she spent time ranking the residence halls and reading up on the enrollment process. That smile never left her face and occasionally, she'd let out a giddy "Whee!" with a delighted clap of her hands. That enthusiasm was so contagious - we were all smiling. Even Goblin, who usually only smiles in the morning. While I'm a mess when I think of letting Hollywood go, I can't help but recall when I was her age and the world was so... limitless. She's now one step closer to her dreams, her future, the incredible time in her life when she writes the definition of who she is.

Congratulations, baby girl. We are so proud of the young woman you've become.

Expressions

2011-12-03T15:32:00.000-06:00

This kid cracks me up:

*collage photo of Goblin with many goofy expressions:

Imaginary Photos

2011-12-02T12:55:00.001-06:00

*photo of Flat Stanley with a giant turkey leg in front of him:

I can't believe it's December already. This week has seriously flown by. I have been planning on writing up a recap of Thanksgiving for several days, and now I've finally got a calm baby, a cup of coffee, and a brain in the mood to throw some words together. So here goes:

***

I didn't take many photos this year for Thanksgiving, which makes me sad. Photographs are so important to me - they freeze a moment in time, giving us the chance to look back years later and remember an event. Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday; I hope my children look back on their years at home and remember our laid back, family oriented Thanksgivings.

We hosted dinner at our house this year, which is why I didn't have the chance to take a lot of photos. Between the baby and the food (and the football game - Go Packers, 11-0, baby!!!) I didn't have the chance to walk around getting in everyone's face with the camera. I suspect people were pleased.

If I would have had the chance to take photos this year, here's what you would be seeing right now:

The first photo is of my mother-in-law, who came up the night before and spent the night so that she could make us a breakfast of ebelskivers - danish pancakes that were delicious! In our imaginary photograph, Judy is wearing her pajamas and she's standing in front of my stove flipping the donut-like pancakes. Her smile softly crinkles her eyes, and there's a smudge of powdered sugar on her shoulder. Bumblebee is hovering around her, waiting for the next batch of ebelskivers to be done (and so am I - those things were like crack!- but since I'm the imaginary photographer, you don't get to see me!) As usual, my kitchen is a bit of a mess, but it's still a colorful, sunny, and a happy place to be, especially on Thanksgiving morning. Our imaginary photograph has special powers, so you can smell the chocolate in the pancakes, the hazlenut in the coffee, and the pumpkin pies that were just put into the oven. Mmmmmm....

The second photograph is also of my mother-in-law. She's not as happy in this one, and if we had an imaginary video instead of a photo, you might hear her mutter some mild curses under her breath. She had the task of making a million deviled eggs because she makes the best ones I have ever tasted. This year the eggs didn't want to peel nicely, so she had trouble with them. In our photo, you see her hands fumbling with the egg shells, trying to coax them into coming off of the eggs easily, leaving a smooth surface of egg white. The smooth surface was not to be; the eggs had the crater-filled appearance of the moon - but I assure you that nobody in our family noticed as they gobbled them up.

Another photo shows my brother Luke, who was the first of my family to arrive. Luke lives in Kansas City and we don't get to see him as often as we'd like. This imaginary photo was taken outside in the driveway, just as Luke got out of his car. It was captured at the exact second that Bumblebee launched herself up into Luke's arms. Caught in mid air, you can see that she's got a big smile on her face, while he wears a look of concentration: the expression that comes from the effort of counterbalancing the energy of an enthusiastic 8 year old in order to remain standing instead of getting knocked to the ground.

There are other photos of my brothers and their families as they arrive. Smiles on their faces, arms bearing the food they brought to share. My nephews take off for the basement or the back yard to rough house with my kids, and there are dogs everywhere.

The next photograph is taken in our back yard where there is a crew of guys playing football. It's the end of November and the weather is beautiful - over sixty degrees, which is unheard of in Iowa. The dogs are participating in the fun, and in the photograph you can see Reggie tackling my nephew Alex as he ran with the ball. (It was all in good fun, but I do think it scared him a bit, and I feel bad for that. Reggie didn't mean any harm, I guess he was just taking his job as safety very seriously.) The sun is shining down on the grass, which is somehow still green in places and sprinkled with leaves from the neighbor's apple tree.

Moving back inside, we now see a photo of the women standing in the kitchen doing what is required of them on Thanksgiving day: drinking hefty amounts of wine. Hollywood is among the ladies, and has been given permission to enjoy her first glass of wine with the 'grownups'. There's a glint in her eye, she's pleased to be included in this adult tradition, but if you were to see her mom, you might catch a quick look of sadness cross her face - sadness at the thought that this is the last year she'll be at Thanksgiving while she lives at home. Next year it will be like she's a visitor. The rest of the subjects in the photo are Judy, my mom, my sisters-in-law, and the ebullient Bumblebee who insists loudly that Hollywood is getting drunk. We are all smiling and enjoying the warm-faced glow that comes from wine and good company.

The photographs taken at the dinner table show mismatched china (who has matching service for 22 people, anyway? Certainly not me!) over a pretty burgundy tablecloth. The kids' table is set up in the sun room, only a few feet away from the adults. The photos show people eating mounds of food - turkey, potatoes and gravy, stuffing, corn, green bean, and asparagus casseroles, and so much more. There is SO MUCH FOOD, you can gain ten pounds just by looking at these pictures. The photos capture a mouth stuffed with food here, a chin raised in laughter there, and a family squeezed close together around the table. Thank goodness my brothers aren't seeing who can go the longest without using deoderant anymore.

A guest photographer has borrowed my imaginary camera and has taken a photo of The Husband and me. The photo captures us from behind as we are seated together at the head of the table sharing the wobbly piano bench. The Husband has put his arm around me and leaned in to give me a kiss on the cheek and whisper his thanks for the food and for putting this all together. He squeezes my side and the camera captures my squirm, as he's gotten a ticklish spot. For the record, this is a magical imaginary camera and it shows no bra lines or love handles or back fat. I abhor photos taken of me from behind, but this one is as flattering as can be.

There's a photograph of my dad standing in front of the kitchen sink, washing all of the dishes by hand. Our dishwasher has been broken for a few months and while I ordered a new one a while ago, it didn't get delivered until the day AFTER Thanksgiving. So here's Dad in the photo, shirt sleeves rolled up above his elbow, while the dishes are stacked ceiling high to his right. To his left is the clean pile, waiting to be dried and put away.

In the living room, we capture a photo of my mom holding my five month old nephew, Simon. Nanna is slowly moving her fingers up and down, as you would if you were playing an imaginary piano. Simon is fascinated by this and can't take his eyes off of the moving fingers. His chubby little hand reaches for the moving fingers, and he eventually grabs one and puts it in his mouth.

The last imaginary photo was taken after all of the guests have gone home. The Husband went to bed early and the older kids are downstairs watching TV. The photo is of me snuggling with Goblin. It's been a busy day and she's behaved wonderfully - the noise and activity is calming for her, apparently. But I had many things to do today, and there were people who wanted to hold her, so I didn't get my usual dose of baby snuggling. So this last photo shows me sitting on the sofa, wrapped in my raisin colored chenille blanket with a sleeping baby in my arms. Goblin is making reflexive expressions in her sleep that look like grins, grimaces, and expressions of surprise. My neck is bent down with my nose on her soft head, smelling her sweet baby scent. I'm inhaling deeply, replacing the smell of turkey, pie, and other food with her precious scent that will only last for a short time. My eyes are closed, and I am at peace, thinking of the day and how wonderful it has been. Thanksgiving - oh yes. There is much to be thankful for.

In reality, Bumblebee had a school project and Flat Stanley had to get some photos taken over the holiday weekend. So we did take a few photos, but not many. I will leave you with this one: Flat Stanley's dessert:

*photo of Flat Stanley eating pumpkin pie:

We forgot his whipped cream topping! How rude.

Eighteen. (Wait, really?? How did that happen?)

2011-11-16T13:50:00.001-06:00

I just had a good cry. It was an ugly cry. A gulping, gasping for air, blotchy red face, leaving you with a headache cry. The kind where you don’t even bother to grab the Kleenex – you just let your nose run until you’re faced with the choice of wiping snot on your sleeve or letting it run into your mouth. No matter, the shirt I’m wearing needs to be changed eventually, right?

Hollywood turns 18 today. I’m not sure why I cried so much about this milestone. Perhaps I was mourning the loss of my first baby who screamed her pretty little head off for the first six months of her life. She taught me so much during her first months: how to do things one-handed, so I could hold her all the time, how to know when to step away and let her cry, even if it killed me to do so. And then when she got older and pushed every limit we set, I learned the art of patience. I wasn’t a quick study, I’ll admit, but I did eventually learn how to take a deep breath and count to ten before flying off the handle. And when she went to school and greedily devoured every lesson, she taught me about learning, and how there is so much in this world to explore. As she grew into a teenager I watched her be confident without being cocky, shower generosity on her friends and family, and rely on faith to get through hard times. As my firstborn, she paved the way for me as a mom and gave me my sea legs so that I could feel more confident parenting her brother and sisters. She has filled me with so much. So am I sad because she is no longer a child? That seems silly since the only alternative to growing up isn’t a good one.

Maybe I’m sad because I know she’ll be leaving soon. This coming summer, we’ll pack her things and move her into a dorm room in Wisconsin. She’ll live five hours away from us. I can’t even stand to think of her being so far away, not being here for silly family dinners where we sit around the table laughing until we cry, Packers games, and impromptu shopping trips. This house won’t be the same without her. It’ll be a little dimmer, a little quieter. But I know she’ll be making her own traditions; finding herself and making a life of her own. I am so excited for her to take those steps – to build her own life. College is an amazing experience and I look forward to seeing her soar into adulthood like I know she will. I feel like she was loaned to me, never really mine at all. She’s never really been mine, she’s been her own all along.

I guess there are a lot of reasons that her turning 18 could make me sad. But I’m happy and proud (oh, so proud) as well. She’s such a great kid. Woman? Yeah, I’m not quite ready for that yet. I’ll stick with ‘kid’.

Here is a slide show that I put together to celebrate her 18 years. Happy Birthday, Hollywood. I hope you know how precious you are to your dad and me.

I need to change the blog's masthead...

2011-11-14T11:58:00.001-06:00

My blog header states the following:

"The random and often rambling thoughts of a working mom with three kids and a husband who travels."

So I have to update it since I now have four kids. (That still amazes me. I am responsible for FOUR kids. Eek!)

But... guess what? I also have to change it because (dun-dun-dun) I now have a husband who no longer travels all the time!!!!! (yes, I used my allotment of exclamation points, but this is huge, y'all!)

The Husband started a new job this morning that will significantly reduce his travel time. He'll still have some out of town work to do, but nothing close to his old job. I am so excited to have him home more often, you can't even imagine... This new job is an amazing blessing and could not have come at a better time for our family.

He'll be doing the same type of work, but the company he's with now has contracts with some of the large local businesses, so there will be more service/maintenance work and less on the road installations. Yippee!

There's only one downside to TH being home so much. I expect that he won't appreciate cereal for dinner as much as the rest of us do.

Ack. Be still my heart...

2011-11-07T18:01:00.001-06:00

Friday was another day like all of the rest around here. I woke in a haze after getting far too little sleep and moved the milk machine operation from the bedroom rocking chair into the living room so that I could supervise the older kids as they got ready for school.

The Boy had to go in early to turn in his pads and football equipment, so Hollywood dropped him off. The school is only a mile away, and so she came back home to finish getting ready for school. Bumblebee had gone off to the bus stop during this time (the bus stop is just a couple of houses down the street). I don't know why - there must have been some subconscious thought process going on, but when Hollywood came back inside, I asked her if she saw Bumblebee at the bus stop. She said that she was there, safe and sound. I had a thought, but again, it was fuzzy, and not fully formed. "She's not the only kid there, is she?" I asked.

Well, she was. And then I remembered. It was Friday. November 4th. And we had BREAKFAST WITH PARENTS on our schedule.

Shit. Shit. SHIT.

I asked Hollywood to call Bumblebee in from the bus stop. I didn't want her to be the only kid on the bus, when all of the GOOD parents remembered to go into school early to have coffee and donuts with their kids. Hollywood did as I asked, but I was in such a frenzy that I ran outside (in my pajamas) and hollered at her myself. "Get in the car!" I yelled. "It's breakfast with parents!"

So... I sprinted to the bedroom, changed out my pajama bottoms for a pair of jeans, and threw on a sweater. I tossed the baby into her car seat and headed for the car. I didn't comb my hair, brush my teeth, or put on makeup. I looked scary. I only hoped that the sweater covered up any breast milk stains that might still be on my shirt. I'm glamourous these days, y'all.

But it didn't matter what I looked like - I had to get to the school with Bumblebee. As I was getting into the car, Hollywood said, "You're a good mom." I looked at her, about ready to cry. I'm three weeks postpartum, people. Hormones! I raised an eyebrow and she quickly added, "No - I mean it! I know you forgot the breakfast, but you're doing everything you can to get there. You're a good mom."

Ack. Very high praise from a teenager. I couldn't speak, so I hugged her and ran to the car.

I was pretty sure we didn't make the breakfast, but my goal was to at least drive Bumblebee to school so that she didn't have to ride the bus by herself. In the car, I apologized fifteen times for forgetting Breakfast with Parents. Bumblebee, ever the sweetie, said, "It's ok if we missed it, Mommy. I don't really like donuts that much anyway."

Again with the Ack. Can she be any sweeter?

Turns out that we got there in time and as a bonus, they served breakfast pizza instead of donuts, so Bumblebee was stoked.

Later that night Hollywood apologized to me for how she acted when she was 13 and, in her words: "I was cranky and fought with you and hated on you all the time." I asked her what prompted that and she said they were talking about it in her English class and she thought back to those oh so fun times. It made me smile. I reassured her that I only got what I deserved, since I did the same thing to my own mother at age 13.

I'll leave you with one last 'Ack' moment. The Husband found this sticky note stuck to his laptop the other day:

*photo of a sticky that has a heart with me + Dad written inside:

When you turn it over, this is what it said:

*photo of the sticky that says "P.S. Me is Vali"

It's these tender moments that make me cherish being a mom. Even if I am a scatterbrained, forgetful one these days.

Two weeks

2011-10-30T11:38:00.000-05:00

Goblin is two weeks old already - I can hardly believe it.

I don't have much to update - this is pretty much what's been going on for the past fifteen days:

*photo of me holding Goblin:

I hold her all day and most of the night too. Good thing I love snuggling babies! I've got everything set up within arms' reach of the sofa and if I want to change things up a bit and move to the recliner, I can do that. We got a good start on cloth diapering and that's going well too, although I'm still using disposables for overnight.

Goblin is a good baby, but she likes to cluster feed in the evenings and nighttime, my worst times of the day. In the morning she is alert and cute as can be. Which explains why I look so exhausted here. But I'll take it - wouldn't trade it for the world.

Someday I'll come back and post something that is mildly interesting. Promise.

Goblin's birth story, part 2

2011-10-22T12:37:00.001-05:00

So there it was. We had a new baby girl! The Husband and I spent the hours after her birth watching her and snuggling with her. She was alert for several hours, no doubt wondering what the heck just happened to her.

Early Sunday morning, Grandma J brought the kids up to meet Goblin. Hollywood took her first and snuggled her:

*photo of Hollywood with Goblin:

As Hollywood was holding the baby, Bumblebee jumped into bed with me and we had a good snuggle ourselves:

*photo of Bumblebee and me in the hospital bed:

Then it was Bumblebee's turn to hold Goblin. This is one of my favorite photos ever:

*photo of me, Bumblebee, and Goblin on the hospital bed:

The Boy got to hold her too, and although he was hoping for a brother, he doesn't look so disappointed here:

*photo of The Boy holding Goblin:

Then it was Grandma J's turn:

*photo of Grandma J holding Goblin:

I can't explain how amazing it is to watch your children open their hearts to a new sibling. My kids were so gentle, and so excited to meet their new baby sister.

It was Sunday afternoon, and the Packers weren't on TV, so The Husband and The Boy got all decked out in their Packers gear and went to watch the game at a restaurant:

*photo of TH and TB in their Packers clothes:

My brother and sister-in-law brought Nanna to the hospital to see Goblin. This photo of Nanna exploring Goblin tugs at my heart:

*photo of Nanna holding Goblin and checking out her fingers:

And of course Brother Z and Sis-in-law M had to get their snuggle time in too. Check out that adorable knit hat that Aunt M made Goblin!

*photo of M holding Goblin:

*photo of Brother Z holding Goblin:

The visitors left late Sunday afternoon, and The Husband and The Boy came back to hang out for a while. After they left to go home and get dinner, I spent the rest of the evening holding Goblin and starting at her perfect little features.

*photo of me holding Goblin:

I still can't believe she's here and she's ours. I've been holding her almost non stop for a week now, and don't plan on doing much else for the rest of my 12 week maternity leave. I know I keep saying it, but we are so very blessed to have been given the gift of another child to love and raise.

My cup overflows.

Goblin's birth story, part 1

2011-10-21T07:55:00.002-05:00

Dear Goblin,

You are sleeping next to me as I type this. Every so often you make a sleep squeaky noise that is so adorable I just want to scoop you up and snuggle you. Which is what I have been doing non stop for the past five days. I am sleep deprived, have sore lady parts, and am basically a walking zombie because we haven't slept much this week. But I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world. These first few weeks of bonding and snuggling with an infant are among my most precious memories, to go down as the happiest times in my life.

But let me tell you how you came into the world. You were due on Halloween, which is why I've given you the nickname "Goblin" on this blog. I was pretty miserable these last few weeks - feeling very clumsy and uncomfortable. I had a pregnancy symptom called PUPPS which made me itch uncontrollably for several weeks. I was hoping and praying that you'd come a little bit early to relieve me of my misery, but I never really expected you to. You see, your sisters and brother were all overdue, so I assumed that you would be too.

On Friday night, your dad and I went to the varsity football game to walk Hollywood down the football field for senior night.

*photo of TH and me walking Hollywood down the football field:

Everyone asked me if I was ready to have you and I said, yes! I sure was - I couldn't wait to meet you. After we got home from the game, Daddy and I watched The Five People you Meet in Heaven and had a nice relaxing night together. (Daddy doesn't like to watch movies that much, but I sure love it when he agrees to!) I wasn't feeling great that night - had cramping and was hoping they would turn into real labor, but by early morning they had fizzled out.

Saturday I didn't do much. A little laundry, not much else. I was bummed that the pains from the night before didn't turn into anything. I took a late mid afternoon nap while Daddy went to the grocery store to get some chicken to grill. It was a beautiful October day - sunny, temps in the high 60s. Nice night for BBQ chicken! But... you had other plans!

When I got up from my nap, my water broke. I won't gross you out with the details, but there was no mistaking what happened. Oh. My. Goodness. We were going to have a baby!!

I told The Boy to call Daddy and tell him that my water just broke. The Boy and Bumblebee were both so excited. It was so sweet. After calling Daddy, The Boy texted Hollywood, who was on her way home from work. She squealed with the news. Daddy left his cart of groceries sitting in the middle of the aisle he was in when The Boy called him. He shot out of there and headed home as fast as he could.

It's a rare occasion to have all of us home at the same time on a Saturday, but as we left for the hospital, your brother and sisters were there to say goodbye. I hugged each of them, and a tiny tug of sadness pulled at me. Not because I wasn't over the moon at your impending arrival, but because things just wouldn't be the same anymore, and there's a certain sadness in that reality. They were so excited, that I got over that feeling very soon.

We made it to the hospital, and got checked in. I won't go into the details of your labor here, because, gross! But let's just say it was the longest of my labors (by 4 minutes, according to the nurse). It wasn't terrible, and I caved and got an epidural that made it feel wonderful. You made your appearance at 11 minutes before midnight on Saturday, October 15th!

We didn't know if you were a boy or a girl, so the doctor asked us if Daddy wanted to tell me what you were. He did, and when he told me you were a girl, I felt the tears rush to my eyes. I was so happy. Daddy cut the cord and they laid you on my chest. Here's a really gross picture of you:

*photo of Goblin right after birth:

See how purple you were with that white gunk on you? Don't worry - they cleaned that up real quick. But not before I got to snuggle with you, and explore you, and count your ten perfect fingers and toes. It's amazing, that feeling of having an infant created out of love between your husband and you placed onto your chest.

*photo of me with Goblin on my chest after delivery:

They cleaned you up and set you on the scale. You weighed 6 pounds, 8 ounces and were 19.5 inches long.

*photo of Goblin being weighed:

Then it was Daddy's turn to hold you.

*photo of TH with Goblin:

We're both so proud to call you our daughter. But here it is, almost time for you to wake up and eat again, so I will close this and write more about your birth later.

We love you, Natalie. We're so very blessed to have you in our family.

Love,
Mama

Introducing Goblin!

2011-10-20T17:55:00.000-05:00

Goblin was born on Saturday night - October 15th. Her name is Natalie Caroline, and she was 6 pounds, 8 ounces and 19.5 inches long.

I will write up more, but want to do her birth story justice and my sleep deprived brain isn't wired for writing at the moment.

So I'll leave it at this: we are very blessed.

*photo of Goblin:

Insomnia

2011-10-13T07:41:00.003-05:00

My body has been preparing me for the lack of sleep that Goblin will inevitably bring by giving me a wicked case of insomnia night after night. I used to fight it, and it about drove me crazy. I'd lay there, trying to get back to sleep, as panic built up inside me with each passing minute of the clock. My alarm is going to go off in three hours... My alarm is going to go off in two and a half hours... My alarm is going to go off in an hour...

I have since learned to get up and do something productive. Sometimes it's laundry, sometimes I read a book. Other times I spend the wee hours of the morning cruising Pinterest and thinking of all of the fabulous ways I could decorate my house if only I didn't have this pesky thing called a job to keep me busy.

Last night, I whipped out the paint and glue and craft supplies and started working on Bumblebee's Halloween costume. I'll wait until it's complete to reveal what it is, but here's a teaser. It involves foam board, spray paint, and those push lights. And it's going to be awesome.

Had a doctor's appointment yesterday. Here's what I wrote on twitter:*I won't embarrass myself by tweeting the details of the condition of my cervix. I'll just say this: not good enough, uterus. Work harder:

There has been a tiny amount of progress, but my doctor teased me by saying: "I'd say you have an excellent chance of... being pregnant a week from now."

Oh well. I suppose it would be too much to ask Goblin to come out a couple of weeks early just to make his/her momma more comfortable. We'll see the little critter soon enough.

In the meantime, look for me doing creative things at 2 in the morning.

Checking in (aka Yes, I'm still pregnant).

2011-10-11T10:22:00.001-05:00

Just in case you wondered... because everyone has been asking me this lately.

I drove to work this morning with a thick, hazy fog all around me. The full moon, ringed by the fog, was glowing in the western sky. It was eerily beautiful, but I couldn't help but look around and wonder if I was on the set of a zombie movie. I turned off my audiobook and finished my commute in silence, letting my thoughts bounce around as they will. I have serious ADD lately, and I don't know how much of it can be blamed on pregnancy. I suppose a lot of it can be, because the hormones and lack of sleep have to be affecting my attention span. But occasionally it's nice to ride the 40 minutes to work, with no noise or distractions, alone with my thoughts.

These days my thoughts are usually surrounding the impending birth of our Goblin. I am due in 20 days. Less than three weeks. In some ways, that feels like an eternity. But in others, it's a terrifyingly short duration of time. Don't get me wrong, I'm ready, for the most part. The bag is packed, most of the essentials have been purchased (babies don't really need much those first couple of weeks, after all) and Lord knows I'm ready to have my body back to some version of 'normal'.

But I'm worried that I will be spread too thin for a while to give my older children the attention they deserve. I remember when I was about to have The Boy, I was heartbroken because I felt certain that I'd never be able to love another human as much as I loved my Hollywood. I honestly stressed about that for a long time. I know this is a common fear among second time mothers... And that miracle that happens when the younger child is born - the virtual doubling of the heart's capacity for love - is an amazing feat that still awes me. I'm not worried about being able to find room to love all four of my children. But I am worried that for a while, the older three will not be getting "all of me". If that makes sense.

This weekend, The Boy got confirmed. Here is a photo of us all decked out for the occasion:

It was a lovely (although long) mass, where the Bishop of our Diocese officiated over the sacrament that welcomed these teenagers into the adult community of our church. The Boy chose his sister to be his sponsor, which I think is really special. He sees her as a role model for his faith, and I'm glad that they can share that together.

After confirmation, we went out to dinner with my brother and sister-in-law, and then the rest of the family went home while The Boy and I went to see a movie together. It was his request to go to the movie, he wanted me to take him; was glad to spend his Saturday afternoon with his mom at the theater, when he could just as easily have asked to meet a friend there. I treasured those couple of hours with him - and I felt just a little sad that because I'll be the sole food source for an infant for the next several months, I won't get true one on one time with The Boy like that for a while.

I don't mean this to say that I'm not ecstatic about the arrival of Goblin. See the expectant smile and (gag) glow on my face as I show off my belly?
*belly photo of me in front of the crib:

I can't wait to meet our little guy or gal, and am looking forward to caring for an infant again. I know these thoughts are similar to the ones I had when Hollywood was my only child and I was about to change her world forever by bringing her brother into the world. It would appear that his existence didn't damage her too terribly much.

But enough about that... I haven't blogged in a while because life has been going on around us in the whilrwind of activity that defines our schedules. Here are a few photos of some recent activities:

At the beginning of October, we had a great time at our annual tailgate with my dad's extended family. The kids got to talk with my grandma for a while. Grandma V took the kids by the hand and said to each of them, "Now tell me all about YOU." by way of the conversation opener. She spent all afternoon talking to her grandkids and great-grandkids and learning more about who they are. What an amazing woman she is:

*photo of Grandma V with Bumblebee:

*photo of Grandma V with The Boy and Hollywood:

We've spent time doing other things this fall - hiking the trails at Ledges (a state park that I'm in love with):
*photo of The Boy and Bumblebee with Reggie at Ledges:

And of course there have been school activities (Hollywood emceed the Homecoming Pride Night Event), sports (Hollywood is running cross country and The Boy is playing football), and a packed social calendar for the kids. It's been a beautiful fall so far, weather-wise. Soon enough, the vibrant colors of the trees will fade, the cold will creep upon us, and winter will be here.

But before that happens, I'll be a new mommy again. What a thought!

Fifteen Years

2011-09-13T20:04:00.001-05:00

*photo of TH and me cutting our wedding cake:

Tonight I’m sitting on my deck on perhaps one of the most beautiful evenings of the year. September really knows how to do weather right in Iowa: light, tickly breeze, beautiful blue sky, a perfect 73 degrees. I hear lawn mowers in the distance and the crickets are already chirping their evening symphony, even though it’s just after 5 p.m. Reggie is crunching on the remains of a bag of Tostitos that was left outside by one of the kids. His ears perk up when he hears the bark of a distant neighbor’s dog.

Bumblebee is inside doing her homework, or pretending to do her homework anyway. The last time I checked, she was distracted by the coupons from the Sunday paper that were strewn around the dining room table. 50% off soft serve, add your own toppings ice cream is more interesting than the rules of plural words. So we’ll see if she’s done when I go inside. Later, we’ll snuggle in bed as I read another chapter of Harry Potter to her. I’ll nuzzle her close to me and smell her shampooed hair as I read about the adventures of Harry and his funny friends.

The Boy’s at football practice. Later on, when I pick him up, he will smell nastier than I thought my sweet little guy could ever smell. He’ll be drenched in sweat, his awesome curly hair will be wet along the hairline, and he’ll greet me with a cheerful smile and because he’s a sensitive kid with a heart of gold, a “Hey, Mom, how are you feeling today?” before he slides into the car and I have to put the air freshener up to my nose like a gas mask so I don’t pass out from his sweaty stench. Because I’m not feeling well this evening, he’ll happily make dinner after he’s cleaned up from practice.

Hollywood is at cross country practice. She’ll stop home, breeze through the house like she does so often these days. Always on her way to somewhere else; her constant absence is God’s way of preparing us for her departure next year. On her way to the shower (she’s got to work this evening), she’ll share a bright and funny story about one of her friends with me, or she’ll ruffle her sister’s hair and chat with her until she absolutely has to get ready for work. Then she’ll head out the door, with a quick hug goodbye, looking like she belongs on a television show.

Goblin is calm at the moment, but that won’t last long. Soon s/he’ll start practicing the dance moves, or perhaps it’s soccer, or maybe a ninja competition that s/he’s training for. This pregnancy hasn’t been easy on me, and I complain to my family about my discomforts far too much, but in reality, I’m enjoying every second of it. There is life inside of me. I’m about to add a fourth child to this beautiful, perfect family of mine.

Do you know who’s responsible for all of this? Well, God, of course. But He chose The Husband to walk with me through this life. It wasn’t a traditional beginning and I’d be lying if I said there weren’t doubts along the way. But look at everything I have now. I have our modest, but colorful home in a beautiful neighborhood. I have three of the most amazing children on the planet, and another one on the way. I have a dog who annoys the ever loving snot out of me at times, but who I wouldn’t trade for the world. And the cats? Well, this is a counting your blessings kind of post, so I’m going to skip over them for now.

I have all of this because of the man who will share an anniversary with me tomorrow. A man who I can truly say means a thousand times more to me on this beautiful evening than he did on the day we got married. I don’t know how that’s possible; I was very much in love with him then. But it’s amazing how experience, life, and years make that feeling grow.

Fifteen years ago we got married on a beautiful September Saturday in a park with our family and friends. Counting the years before we married, I have been with The Husband for half of my life now. We don’t have an ooey gooey romantic relationship. We went out to dinner for ‘cheap Mexican’ (with Bumblebee in tow) this weekend under the pretense of celebrating the milestone. Truth be told, I just didn’t want to cook that night. We didn’t give each other gifts this year for our anniversary, and we didn’t get to take a trip together like we usually do. In fact, we won’t even be spending it together in the same state because of TH’s work schedule. But that’s ok. We have a marriage that works, and has grown stronger, especially in the past few years, because of our respect and commitment to each other. The Husband has given me, quite literally, my world. This world that I’m taking in as I write on my deck and look out over the beautiful September evening. And I’m counting that as my anniversary present. It’s a pretty kick-ass gift, if you ask me.

So… Happy Anniversary to a couple of kids who got in way over their heads when they were young. It was a rocky, scary beginning, but it led us to the serenity and comfort that we have today. We’ve come a long way since those days, and I couldn’t be happier to be celebrating fifteen years of being married to The Husband.

Love you.

------------------------------------------------------

Here's a walk down memory lane...

Here we are while I was in labor with Hollywood. The doctor peeking out behind my mom is the same doctor I see today. He has less hair now.

And here we are as a young family. (Love TH's studly sunglasses!)

At my brother-in-law's wedding when The Boy was a baby:

I have no idea when this was taken, and it's not particularly flattering of me, but holy cow. The Husband looks like a movie star here!

These next two are fairly recent, within the last few years anyway:

It's kind of crazy looking at how we've aged through the years!

I should probably write a real blog post one of these days, huh?

2011-09-12T20:13:00.000-05:00

Yeah, I know. And I will. Soon.

Fall is chaotic with school activities. I'm getting HUGE. There is no more room in my stomach to eat food, so I'm eating ice cubes and getting calories through Kool-Aid.

I don't think I'm waddling yet. At least I'm trying REALLY hard not to. If I'm living in a dream world and you have seen me waddle, please don't shatter my illusions. I do not waddle.

Seven weeks left, folks. The home stretch. I can do this. Really, I can. I've been telling Goblin that if s/he shows up a couple of weeks early, I'll forever consider him/her to be my favorite kid. Think that's incentive enough to leave my comfy womb?

Bumblebee's Crafty Birthday Party

2011-08-20T20:27:00.000-05:00

Whew. I'm exhausted. Bumblebee had her birthday party this afternoon. Ten girls showed up to celebrate, so we had a houseful of very energetic girls:

*photo of the girls being goofy:

I decided that instead of gambling on the weather and scheduling too many outdoor activities, that we'd keep indoors and do crafts instead. 8 year old girls LOVE crafts, y'all.

*Photo of the girls doing crafts:

We decided to do two crafts. The first was to make rock buddies.

*photo of supplies:

We grabbed a bunch of rocks from our ~~weed~~ flower garden outside and washed them. I made sure to get large and small rocks so that if kids wanted to glue smaller 'heads' onto larger 'bodies' it would work. I painted most of the rocks a variety of colors. Then I set out some glitter, googly eyes, pom poms, markers, and glue, and we were set. We also had feathers and other stickers from the other project, so those got use very creatively as well. The finished product:

*photos of the pet rocks:

These were Bumblebee's rocks. A ladybug and a bumblebee - appropriate, no? I hot glued the smaller rock to the larger rock:

Our second craft was to decorate wooden photo frames. I took a picture of the girls when they first got there, and printed off eleven copies of the photo. These are the supplies we used:

*photo of the supplies:

The wooden frames are available at Michael's for $1.00. We also used foam brushes, acrylic paint, feathers, sequins, markers, stickers, and glue.

The girls painted the frame whatever color they wanted:

*photo of a partygoer painting a frame:

Then they added whatever embellishments they wanted to the frame. I set out the frames to dry, and once they were, I added the photos to the frame:

*photo of the frame with the photo in it:

Super easy, and they get to bring home a fun keepsake of the party. In addition to their pet rocks and the photo frames, I sent home a fun little project for them to do at home.

*photo of play-doh kit:

In their goody bags, I put these homemade play-doh kits. I found the recipe on Pinterest (which is my new addiction). It's super easy, you just put together some salt, flour, and kool-aid mix. Then you put them in a cute bag, tie them up, and write out the recipe. All the girls' folks have to do at home is mix the ingredients with a couple of tablespoons of vegetable oil, and voila! they have homemade play-doh.

The girls spent at least half of their time making these crafts, and then they roasted some hot dogs (or 'weenies' as Bumblebee likes to call them):

*photo of the girls roasting hot dogs over a fire in the back yard:

Bumblebee really wanted to have time to watch the movie Soul Surfer, and they gave it a try:

*photo of the girls watching a movie:

See how calm they are? Yeah, that lasted maybe five minutes, but there wasn't time to watch the whole movie. Before long, they were off to eat some of these:

*photo of cupcakes:

As they sang Happy Birthday to Bumblebee, she belted out, "And many more...":

*photo of Bumblebee singing:

Here's to many more fun birthday parties. This one was a success. As the girls were doing their crafts, one of them said, "best birthday party ever!" and it made me smile. You can't beat that for praise, can you?

Senior Pictures - sneak peek

2011-08-10T00:46:00.000-05:00

I'm taking Hollywood's senior pictures myself instead of hiring a photographer to do it. Initially I thought that would save me money, but after all of the photography equipment I've purchased over the last year, it hasn't saved me a dime. But that's ok - it's something I enjoy, and Hollywood is genuinely happy that I'm doing it because she likes to help with some of the edits on the pictures.

It's been fun and also challenging. Two headstrong creative types with ideas on how things should turn out makes for an interesting experience.

Tonight we went down to Downtown Des Moines and got some fabulous shots. Bumblebee was my assistant and she helped hold the reflector and carried my tripod around. I rewarded her with a happy meal from McD's afterward.

Here's a sneak peek at one of tonight's photos; my favorite of the evening:

*photo closeup of Hollywood standing by a wrought iron gate:

It sure doesn't hurt that this kid is so photogenic! More pictures to come in the weeks ahead. There are so many to edit and play around with!

Missing the man

2011-08-03T18:44:00.002-05:00

The Husband travels a lot for work, especially in the summer. He's an audiovisual technician and installs distance learning classrooms, video conferencing units, etc. The summertime is especially busy for him because he travels to a lot of little schools (usually in Nebraska) and upgrades or installs new systems in their classrooms while school is out for summer break.

This seems to have been an even busier season for him than normal, and he's been gone Monday through Friday for months now. I'm used to it, I really am. He's been doing this for fifteen years. But sometimes it gets to me.

I think it's particularly bad right now because of my pregnancy hormones. I keep having dreams of him leaving me. I've always had those dreams while pregnant and they can be very unsettling, even when they're not particularly realistic. Like the dream in which he left me to run away with a seventy-year-old motel front desk clerk who he met (and apparently wooed) while working in Nebraska. (Dude, he thinks Martha Stewart is hot, maybe it could happen!) I'm not normally an insecure person when it comes to my marriage, so these subconscious mind screws are not welcomed.

Lately, I feel clingier to The Husband than I usually do and I crave his attention. When I don't get it, because of work or perhaps something else that he's chosen to do when he's home (I get it; he can't spend ALL of his weekend time with me. The lawn does need mowed after all, and I'm certainly not going to do it, ha!) I feel pouty and have to resist a tantrum. (And while we're on the subject of tantrums, it should be said that I have had far fewer of them with this pregnancy than while carrying my other kids. Either I've matured enough to recognize irrational behavior, or the physical symptoms of this pregnancy have beaten me into complete exhaustion; rendering me incapable of producing the energy to throw a proper tantrum. I'm not sure why I bring that up, other than to say "Yay me!")

But back to The Husband. I also notice his appearance more than my non pregnant self does. He's an attractive guy (and he knows it) and I've always been appreciative of that. But while pregnant, I don't know, I guess he just seems even more attractive to me. He's got this ridiculous shirt that I loathe (think Hawaiian style shirt, but with huge ugly fish on it instead of flowers) and the other day he put it on and it didn't look all that bad on him. And when we went to the amusement park for Bumblebee's birthday on Sunday, he wore this ratty, redneck cut off t-shirt that he'd gotten 16 years or so ago in New Orleans with voodoo icons printed on it. Normally I'd beg him to put on something more respectable. Sunday I was checking out his arms all day long. (Dude's got some nice looking guns, even after all these years.)

I wonder what the biological link to these feelings are? Don't some female animal species completely ignore - or worse - KILL their partners once they've successfully knocked them up? Maybe with humans (or at least with me - I shouldn't lay claim to what all humans feel during pregnancy) it's so that fathers feel appreciated and don't take off when our hormones take us on a trip down the crazy highway. Who knows.

When people ask me how I can stand having him gone so much, I sometimes reply with a jokey, "It works for us; we'd kill each other if he was home all the time." But the truth is that I miss The Husband when he's gone. Not because I have to take the garbage out and climb on stools to change the light bulbs; not because running a house with three busy kids while working full time is difficult; and not so that he can referee the fight over a Nintendo DS charger that broke out between The Boy and Bumblebee. But because he's my guy and he makes me feel safe and happy and I wish that he were here all the time. That would be awesome.

Maybe I should look into a nice little overnight getaway for our anniversary next month. Or, if that's too much effort, a date night might do. I'm not picky, as long as it doesn't involve a Quentin Tarantino movie.

Eight

2011-07-30T05:25:00.034-05:00

Guess who’s 8 years old today?

*photo of Bumblebee:

I really can’t believe that it’s been eight years since she joined our family. We’re so glad she’s here. Her quick wit and spicy attitude keep us hopping. Here’s an example:

I always give the kids a chore to do when they’re home in the summer. Yesterday, I gave Bumblebee and The Boy the chore of folding a huge laundry basket full of socks. There were hundreds of freaking socks to fold. I figured I had them held captive for hours with that chore! While I was at work, she called me and got my voice mail, but since The Boy was within earshot, she pretended that she was talking to me.

"Hello, Mom? Um, we're doing chores and The Boy’s not folding any of the socks and he's just laying here making me do it all."

Pause

"Yeah."

Pause

"Ok. I'll tell him."

Pause

"Love you too. Bye."

To The Boy, as she's hanging up the phone: "SHE SAID GET OFF YOUR BUTT AND HELP OR YOU'RE GROUNDED!"

*photo of Bumblebee laughing:

What a little punk. I think we’re in for an interesting ride when she becomes a teenager. Happy birthday, Bumblebee.

I love you so very much.

And I want to squish those adorable freckles of yours.

*photo of Bumblebee:

Making the right choices.

2011-07-28T08:02:00.000-05:00

The Boy is fourteen, and a good kid. I’m lucky that he’s got a strong head on his shoulders and a definite understanding of right vs. wrong. His adolescence hasn’t been easy for him. Not that it’s easy for anyone, of course, but he’s had some struggles lately. He’s not as open with me as Hollywood has always been, so getting information out of him can be a delicate balancing act. I don’t know if that’s because he’s a boy or if it’s because his personality is just naturally more reserved. I can’t push too hard to get him to tell me about what’s going on in his life, or he closes down. But I can’t wait for him to come to me all the time, because he’s not an attention-seeking kid, and I’d have a long wait if that were to be my strategy.

All of this is to say that I worry about what I might be missing with him. He has a friend (Friend D) who has been going through a troubled period and making bad choices. The Husband and I decided that we didn’t feel comfortable letting him spend the night at this friend’s house anymore, unless another friend was there too. Friend J is another good friend of The Boy’s. He lives down the street and is a well behaved, responsible kid. So as long as Friend J goes along with The Boy, we decided that they could sleep over at Friend D’s house. Yesterday, they planned a sleepover.

Last night, I was in bed trying to fall asleep when The Boy walked into my room. I about jumped out of my skin because I didn’t hear him come into the house, and he was supposed to be gone. He was clearly agitated – pacing back and forth and running his hands through his hair, which are classic signs of distress from The Boy. I sat up and said, “What’s wrong? Is everything ok?”

He took a deep breath and let it out shakily, and then told me what happened. Friend J and The Boy were over at Friend D’s house, when Friend D decided he wanted to go to Casey’s (a gas station/convenience store). Hey – we live in the middle of nowhere. That’s what passes for entertainment around here! Friend D’s parents had gone out for a quick errand, and weren’t home. Friend D decided he would just take his sister’s car and drive to Casey’s himself.

Friend D is also only 14, and doesn’t have a driver’s license. (In Iowa, you can’t get your license until you turn 16.) Driving to a convenience store five miles down the highway is clearly not a great decision. Friend D asked The Boy and Friend J to go with him, and they declined, knowing they’d get their asses handed to them if their folks found out they’d gone along. Friend D went anyway. While he was gone, his parents came home. The Boy and Friend J had to tell them where Friend D was, and they awkwardly stuck around, not knowing what to do. A few minutes later, Friend D came come and after a brief conference with his angry parents, told the boys they had to go home.

They came to our house and The Boy explained what had happened. As he told me the story, he was so agitated and nervous that I worried he might be omitting something. But he assured me that he was flustered only because he didn’t know what to do in that situation. I told him he did the right thing, and that I was proud of him.

And I am proud that he made the decision not to get in the car with Friend D. It would have been easy to rationalize the wrong choice. Nobody will know, we’ll only be gone for 10 minutes. I can get a RockStar Energy Drink, that will help me stay awake all night long while we play X-Box for hours on end! But he didn’t. He knew it was dangerous, and wrong to ride with Friend D. He’s got a lifetime of similar decisions to make ahead of him, and I can only hope he continues to make the right ones. But as I tried to fall asleep last night, thoughts of reports about underage drivers and fatal car crashes danced in my head.

Oy. Parenthood. It’s not for wusses.

Get moving...

2011-07-25T09:27:00.003-05:00

I’m now 26 weeks along. Goblin is due in a little over 3 months. That seems so far away. I look at this belly of mine and can’t figure out how it’s going to continue to grow for another three whole months. God help me.

Lately, my body is trying to tell me something. And that something is, “Get off your ass and MOVE.”

I have been having horrible insomnia lately. I will lay awake for hours, stressing out over the time, and flopping from right to left side, like a giant fish, trying to get comfortable. I’m a stomach sleeper, and since that’s not possible, unless I were to carve out a watermelon shaped hole in my mattress (hey… that’s an idea!) I can’t sleep the way I want to. It’s very sad, and I’m looking for a piece of junk LaZBoy recliner on Craig’s List, to keep just for the next couple of months so I can actually sleep at night.

I also have been having restless leg syndrome (RLS) something fierce. It gets so bad sometimes that I physically can’t sit still. I want to kick, stretch, or completely saw off my legs when this happens. I keep asking The Husband to get a hack saw and just saw them off for me, but he claims to like me better with legs, silly man. There’s an old remedy for RLS that seems insane to me, but people swear it works: putting a potato into a sock and sticking it in bed with you. I know… it sounds ridiculous. But don’t think I won’t be trying it…

Here’s why I think my body is telling me to get physically active. Both of these horrible pregnancy symptoms are relieved, though not completely eliminated, by good old-fashioned exercise. The nights that I go for a walk with the neighbor, or work on the floor tile project (it’s still going on, and man, is it a pain in the ass. But progress is being made) I sleep much better, and the RLS makes me fidget a bit, instead of kicking my legs in absolute frustration.

I have to force myself to get in the habit of doing something physical each night before bed. It’s hard, though, my energy is not where it should be, and I just want to veg out and relax when it’s hot outside. But I have to say, being able to sleep and not having the RLS too bad is worth an hour of sweaty exercise. So I’m going to do my best to stick to that routine. Wish me luck.

I've also read that regulating your body's blood sugar can help with RLS too. Yesterday was a particularly bad day for my RLS, and I did not have a good eating day, so I am going to try to stick to foods with a low glycemic index and see if that helps as well. Those foods tend to be more healthy anyway, so I won't be hurting Goblin any with this experimentation.

Sigh... the things we do to bring humans into the world. Wouldn't trade it for anything, though. I got to hold three babies this weekend (my 5 1/2 month old niece and nephew twins on Saturday and my 3 1/2 week old nephew Simon yesterday) and they made me so excited to meet Goblin!

Photostory: Iowa in July

2011-07-24T08:56:00.000-05:00

These pictures, taken from the passenger seat of my car on a long drive to visit my in-laws are why I love Iowa in July.

Everything is vivid greens and blues, sprinkled with a splash of red from a barn or outbuilding, for miles and miles. Sure, it's no city skyline or beautiful water scene, but it'll do for me:
*photo of a windmill in a field:

*photo of the sign for a winery in Minden:

*photo of the beautiful rolling hills of corn:

*photo of a red barn and outbuilding in the middle of the green fields:

"I think it's dead..."

2011-07-18T20:43:00.003-05:00

We spend the weekend at a softball tournament for Bumblebee.

It was HOT. The heat index was supposedly 120 degrees at one point with a steamy dewpoint. Everybody kept asking me how I was dealing with the heat. Truth be told, the heat doesn't usually bug me too much. Even while pregnant, I'll take the heat over cold/rainy/windy any day. My fingers and toes looked like sausages by the time we got home, however, and I'd be lying if I didn't thank my stars for our shiny new air conditioner that is working overtime this month.

The kids didn't have much trouble with the heat. Mostly they hung out and were goofy:

*photos of the girls on the team being goofy:

Leave it to my kid to be the one with the spazzed out smile when the other girls look so nice and sweet:

I love watching Bumblebee play ball. She's got spunk, that kid, and it's evident when she's up to bat. You'll hear people from the opposing teams comment on how tiny she is, and then they'll chuckle when she does a practice swing. Seriously - that kid has a cut like no other. Her backswing is about as fast as the forward motion. It's pretty funny to watch. And when she connects, she can crack that ball.

*photo of Bumblebee up to bat:

Lately she's been doing this thing where she smacks home plate with her bat several times before giving her practice swing a whirl. It's pretty funny watching her because she's ALL BUSINESS. Yesterday, during their last game of the tournament, she beat home plate with her bat a few times while she was warming up. The crowd chuckled as she did it, because she was giving the plate a serious beating.

"Easy, there, sweetheart." the umpire said to her, "I think it's dead."

Ha!

The girls won the lower bracket of the tournament, and got to take home individual trophies. They were SO EXCITED about those trophies, they may as well have been made of solid gold.

Sure, it was a hot couple of days, and The Husband and I weren't able to get anything done around the house because of the time commitment, but watching Bumblebee play with her friends and socializing with their parents was great. These are the memories I love about sporting events.

Goodbye, Harry Potter

2011-07-15T09:31:00.002-05:00

I took the kids to see the final movie in the Harry Potter series last night. It was fantastic, as I knew it would be. They did a marvelous job casting for the films, and the special effects were amazing. For me, the books were more enjoyable than the movies, though. An escape into a place so richly developed that, after I finished reading from them, it would take moments for my brain to clear and realize what reality is.

I started reading Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone to Hollywood when she was seven or eight. It was a challenge at first, because of the British nomenclature that was difficult to explain to a second grader. But of course the story won out. We read the first two books together, and then she grew out of our reading together stage and finished the series on her own.

The Boy became obsessed with them when he was old enough to read, too. He's read the entire series at least five times and can tell you exactly what happened in each story. After reading the first couple books to Hollywood, I waited until book seven was complete and then read books three through seven in a Harry Potter marathon that ruined me for other books for a couple of weeks. (No small feat for someone who has to constantly be reading something.)

The movies have been a family event for us too. We saw one of them at the drive-in theater in Door County, Wisconsin on vacation, we went to one for The Boy's birthday party. We aren't huge movie-goers, but there was never any question of seeing each of these films in the theater, and then buying the DVDs as soon as they were available. Last night was special - it was the first time we've gone to a midnight showing of any movie. The crowd was fun to interact with, people of all ages, but many of them teenagers who have grown up alongside Harry Potter, saying their final goodbyes to Hogwarts. Bumblebee is a bit young to understand it all, but we let her come to the movie last night because it would have been mean to keep her at home. She stayed awake for the whole movie, although I question how much of it she understood. She's old enough now that we will begin reading the stories together this coming year. I'm looking forward to starting the adventure over again with her.

I'd say what everyone has about the series. The wonderful stories got kids interested in reading. They got kids and adults talking together about a place that lives in our minds. (What do you mean Diagon Alley isn't a real place?!) Kids were jazzed - it wasn't geeky to love seven stories about a wizard, it was just what you did! For our family, it was a springboard for conversation. The Boy and I will go for a walk with Reggie and talk of Harry, Hermione and Ron for an hour. And don't forget Snape - as I was reading The Deathly Hallows and Snape's story unfolded, revealing that he was on Harry's side, protecting him, all along, I was a sobbing, blubbery mess. I cried so hard that I had a headache for the rest of the day. The Boy was amused at my emotional response to how that part of the story unfolded, and we have talked about it as though Snape were a relative or someone we knew.

Because, you know what? He was. They all were. And I think it's amazing that a story about a little boy with messy hair and round glasses could bring a family together, giving them so much fodder for conversation and happy times like this one did.

Goodbye, Harry Potter. Thanks for the memories you have created for our family. I will see you again this fall, when I crack the pages open and begin the adventure with Bumblebee.

This is not a complaint post, honest.

2011-07-14T19:40:00.001-05:00

Ok, well maybe it is. A little bit.

Or a lot. But we all have the right to complain from time to time, yes? I had to leave work early today because I got such horrible gas pressure and pain in my stomach that I felt like it was going to explode. Raw veggies tend to do this to me during this pregnancy, but a gal has to try and eat healthy! I knew I should've had the chicken fingers and fries instead of a salad.

Pregnancy is not new to me. I've been down this road a time or two and know firsthand that each pregnancy is unique, with different quirks and symptoms. But still, I am shocked that this time around it is so much harder.

Pregnancy at age 20: Physically, it was a piece of cake. I didn't gain very much weight, you couldn't tell I was pregnant until I hit at least the six month mark, I didn't get stretch marks. I jogged several times a week until my doctor told me to stop because he wanted me to put on more weight. Bwahahahaha! That makes me laugh so hard now. I couldn't jog with this watermelon gut today if I was being chased by a giant smelly foot.

Emotionally it was very difficult. The Husband and I weren't married yet and our future was uncertain. We were broke, I was still in college, and there was other stuff going on in my life that complicated things. I tend to block out the emotional hell that I went through back then.

Pregnancy at age 24: All I remember is that I needed to eat. And so I ate and got big and ate some more and got even bigger. The Husband and I were married and things were more stable in our relationship, but we were still poor, both of us starting out in our careers. Even though I gained something like 45 pounds, there wasn't much discomfort other than lack of sleep.

We lived in a rental duplex at the time, and there was a cockroach problem. When dealing with bouts of insomnia, I would come downstairs at 2 a.m., place my fingers in my ears, squinch my eyes shut, and flip the kitchen light on with my elbow. Then I would count "5...4...3...2...1..." to myself and open my eyes and take my fingers out of my ears. That usually gave me enough time for the cockroaches to scurry across the seventies patterned linoleum to their hiding places, without me having to see or hear them. Then I could get a snack and deal with my insomnia. Shudder. Funny that my pregnancy with The Boy is filled with memories of food and cockroaches.

Pregnancy at age 30: I remember it being tougher on my body. My joints and hips seemed to be sore more frequently, and all of a sudden I felt fatigued. I didn't feel tired at all with the first two kids, so this was something new. I gained exactly the right amount of weight (25 pounds) and still felt pretty awkward there toward the end. Even though Bumblebee was born at the end of July, I didn't have much swelling and the heat wasn't terribly bothersome.

Emotionally, though, this pregnancy was a nightmare. Two years earlier, our son Joseph was stillborn and I was terrified of it happening again. I spent that entire nine months worried sick, even after we knew Bumblebee didn't have the chromosome disorder that our second son had.

Pregnancy at 108: (Oops, I mean 38.) I feel old. And bloated. And huge (even though I'm right on target to gain the 'right' amount of weight again). Every single symptom that you can get in pregnancy, I have. Except varicose veins, I guess I don't have those. (Damnit, I'm sure I just jinxed myself. Should I stock up on support hose now?) Heartburn? check. Edema/swelling even when it's not hot outside? Got it. Nausea/vomiting, even still at 6 months along? Yep. Dizziness and vertigo? You betcha. Fatigue bordering on exhaustion? Yes. This is the worst.

I'm not joking when I say that I feel ancient and decrepit. It's taken a hit on my confidence and I know I've been guilty of tarnishing genuine compliments with my commentary on how huge I am or how gross I feel. I have to stop doing that. I'm supposed to be big. There's a kid inside of me. A ninja warrior, from the feel of it.

Physically this pregnancy has been very challenging. It has been such a surprise to me (because my other pregnancies were not physically taxing at all) that I'm working through depression-type coping strategies. Feeling so unbelievably awful for so long has definitely taken its toll on me. I can't help but wonder how people with terminal or long-term illnesses can cope without losing their minds.

However... emotionally, things couldn't be better. Funny how things try to balance themselves out. The Husband and I are both well established in our jobs, our finances aren't scary, we have a great support system nearby, and we know how to be parents. I have a job that allows for a flexible schedule, taking time off or working from home as needed, and a great home/life balance. It really is a great time to be having a baby.

My aching back and upset stomach would say otherwise, however.

I have a brand new nephew!

2011-06-29T14:47:00.000-05:00

My brother called me this morning to tell me that his wife had their first baby today. A little guy named Simon Christopher. Well, last I heard, Christopher was the 'tentative' middle name, but for now, that's what it is.

Simon is just the cutest little guy name. It goes very well with the name we have picked if we end up with a Goblin of the male variety - an old fashioned, British sounding name. My brother said that if we have a boy, we'll have to get Simon and Goblin together to eat scones and drink tea.

Congratulations to the first time parents, K and D. I'm over the moon for them and can't wait to meet the little guy.

I have five brothers. Three of them have had children now. All boys. So on my side of the family, I have five nephews and zero nieces. Testosterone, anyone?

Why I wanted to have another baby

2011-06-24T14:53:00.004-05:00

My grandpa passed away last week after a long battle with Alzheimer’s. (Today would have been his 89th birthday.) When I finally got a chance to talk with Grandma at the visitation, the first thing she said to me was, “Now tell me the truth, Monica. Are you happy about this baby?” It made me smile, especially after she told me that the idea of her youngest child took some ‘getting used to.’

We've actually gotten some comments that leaned to the offensive side, but most of what our acquaintances have said made me laugh. I’d be more offended if I didn’t understand their viewpoints. I get it. It’s unusual to have a kid when you’re our age, unless you’re newly married, or have been trying for a long time, or are just now getting around to having kids.We're none of those things.

I understand the shock of it all. Some of the comments we got when we went public with the news of Goblin’s pregnancy were funny. I think “Holy SHIT, Monica, are you crazy?!!” was my favorite. But “You do realize by now how this happens, right?” was a close second. Yeah, we kind of figured that out.

The thought has been bouncing around in my mind for a few years now. Perhaps it’s because Bumblebee is growing up so quickly. Or that Hollywood and The Boy are both in high school, preparing to leave the nest. The Husband’s family has had a veritable baby boom recently (five babies in the past 3 years) and that only awakened the sleeping tiger inside me that is baby fever. Last fall, my step mom passed away. While MJ’s time ended and Dad’s future became complicated and uncertain, my brothers and sisters-in-law gathered together and faced that awful situation head on. We had each other to lean on, to share the burden of what was not a pleasant experience. We found time to laugh, bitched about things that annoyed us, and bonded in our close but not touchy-feely way. When I thought about how grateful I am for the gift of my family, the tiger woke from a fitful sleep, stretched out its muscular body, and let out a roar.

I want my own kids to have that some day. Sure, the dynamics will be different. Hollywood will be 18 years older than Goblin, so their relationship will probably not fully develop until later in life. Who knows, I could be in a nursing home, completely off my rocker by then. But still, they will have each other.

People have had other questions about having another child when we already have three, spaced 10 years apart. Some people might wonder why I don’t pursue my career more vigorously at this stage in my life. I’ve done quite well with it so far, moving into a position last year that secured me an ‘officer’ title. Having an AVP in my title is pretty cool, I won’t lie. I’m proud of my career, and for the most part, I enjoy what I do, and I’m good at it. So one might wonder why I’m choosing to delay further ascension up that corporate ladder by having another baby. I guess my answer to that is simply that work is not my life. I do my best to make sure that I’m happy enough in my current position to maintain a healthy home/life balance, but I work to live, I don’t live to work. When I retire in 25 years, I doubt I’ll regret the decision to have Goblin instead of powering ahead for an executive vice president position.

Other folks have asked me if I’m a glutton for punishment because I try to make it to most of my kids’ games, concerts, events, and activities. They ask, “don’t you want your own life?” To that I say, “This is my life.” Now don’t get me wrong, I do things for myself too. I play bunko with the neighbor ladies and go to book club monthly, and I try to have the occasional social event with my girlfriends from time to time… The Husband and I have been good about scheduling at least a long weekend away together each year, in order to reconnect with each other outside of our frenetic home life. But I have to tell you, that the softball games, and the football practices, the show choir performances, and so on, are social in themselves. I talk with the parents of kids who are on the teams, we become fast friends, at least for the duration of that particular event’s season.

My manager asked me how I would handle having another kid with all of these things going on. I can see her point – The Husband is often gone for these events, so I’m there with a kid or two in tow. It’s not easy, but babies are portable, and I think the enjoyment you get from having a child outweighs the burden of having to tote them everywhere when they’re little. Bumblebee was carted to the older two kids’ activities from the time she was an infant. She’s used to it, and is a fairly adaptable kid.

Others wonder how I can bear to deal with the sleepless nights that a newborn brings. I think of what awaits me this fall: I will be so sleep deprived that I’ll put the cell phone away in the refrigerator. I’ll have bags under my eyes, and my body will be too chubby to fit into anything other than sweatpants. My hair will fall out by the handful. But that won’t matter much, because I won’t find the time to shower for days and I won’t do anything other than a ponytail to my hair. My time will be spent feeding Goblin and watching The Husband and our older children interact with their new brother or sister. I’ll explore tiny hands, stroke a sweet-scented, silky head, and I’ll rarely put that kid down until s/he’s a month old.

I honestly couldn’t be more excited for that if I tried. We are blessed, The Husband and I. And why not go for one last blessing while we still can?

The waxing and waning of life.

2011-06-15T10:30:00.000-05:00

Life’s been getting in the way of blogging again, but Summertime will do that , and I’m not complaining.

*photo of Grandpa B and me, taken a couple of years ago:

My grandpa is very ill. He’s been suffering from Alzheimer’s for a few years now, and a week or so ago, took a turn for the worse. His treatment has been changed to focus on comfort/palliative care, and the Hospice team has been engaged. It won’t be long before he passes away. I don’t want him to suffer any longer; I know he’s lived a long, full, and happy life. But I’m sad to think of him no longer being here with us. I haven’t lost a grandparent yet, which is unusual for a 38-year-old. But Lord knows I’ve been to enough funerals for family members over the past year or so.

Is it cheesy to conjure up thoughts of the great Circle of Life as a segue to my next topic? Yeah? Oh well, too late. I am now a little past 20 weeks along - officially halfway through this pregnancy. I haven’t talked about my pregnancy much on this blog because I’ve been uneasy to do so. As many of you know, we’ve suffered three pregnancy losses. Two were miscarriages, and one was a third trimester stillbirth. So to say that I’m nervous when it comes to pregnancy would be an understatement. It’s more accurate to say that I’m a completely neurotic nutball much of the time.

I’m trying my very best to enjoy the pregnancy, to savor the fluttery movements and little jabby kicks that happen once Goblin wakes up in there. It never fails to make me smile when I feel those movements. Well, except for when s/he tries to launch a 70 yard punt with my bladder. That isn’t such a smiley moment. It’s getting easier to relax, the further along I get into the pregnancy. It’s very obvious that I’m pregnant now, my belly is huge already. I guess when you’re 5’2” there isn’t much room to grow, except for OUT. I’m feeling better most days, although my physical energy level is still much lower than I’m used to, and getting tired all the time is, frankly, driving me crazy. But I’m still scared of the unknown. Scared of what can happen, because I’ve been there when things went wrong.

We have a detailed ultrasound in two weeks, where they will measure limbs, check out the heart, brain, spine, organs, etc. They will have a pretty good idea if the baby is healthy or not, based on what they see in that scan. I’m trying not to focus on that date, but it’s hard. I’ve been telling myself that the outcome is not within my control, so worrying is only going to make things worse. And that helps a little bit. I’ve been blessed with three healthy, robust children. If I’m given one more, I will be overjoyed.

I can’t help but think about this new life growing inside of me when I think about my grandfather. Grandpa’s time here on Earth is winding down, and Goblin’s is gearing up. It’s an interesting concept, this waxing and waning of life.

Time to cut off the 'fro.

2011-06-05T21:17:00.000-05:00

Somebody needs a hair cut:

*photo of The Boy with his crazy curls:

The Boy has awesome hair. I'm jealous of it's texture, the curls, and of how amazingly thick it is. He lets it grow long and crazy curly, and when it gets this way, his friends call him Frodo. A combination of 'fro and a hobbit from the Shire? Who knows...just as long as his feet don't get all crazy hairy like the hobbits on the LOTR movies.

Anyway, I love the curls, but The Boy's hair is so thick and coarse and curly that in the summer it gets really hot. So... we chop it off at the beginning of the summer. By the fourth of July, the curls will be back, and by the time school starts, he'll have that curly mop top again.

I have to admit, I miss the curls. But... for a brief moment, he looks pretty respectable, doesn't he?

*photo of The Boy with his hair cut short:

Did I say 'respectable'? I meant he looks like a freak in a can:

*photo of The Boy doing a really goofy face:

Bring it, Summer!

2011-05-28T08:22:00.000-05:00

*photo of The Boy on the boat with a fish:

This weekend marks the unofficial start of summer. The kids' last day of school was yesterday, so now we have a senior and freshman in high school and a third grader. That is crazy, yo. CRAZY.

Summer means the following to us:

Fishing on the boat - as the photo of The Boy shows above, he caught this beauty Thursday night when his dad didn't catch a thing. He was mighty proud of 'showing up' his old man.
Softball. Today and tomorrow, Bumblebee has a softball tournament. Wish it were a little warmer so I could soak in some sun while I watch the games, but the heat will come to Iowa. Eventually.
Camping trips - the easy way. We've already told my mom that we're going to camp on her land. We get the benefit of a bonfire, cooking over the flame, roasting marshmallows, telling scary stories, sleeping under the stars, and waking up smelling that easygoing smoke scent in our hair. All with having showers and bathrooms within easy walking distance.
Homework assignments. Yep. That's right. The kids will get them each weekday this summer, unless there is a special event going on. I send them different assignments each day and they have to get them done by the time I'm home from work.
Trips to the lake or the pool to swim and catch some sun.
Weddings (a big family one this summer will be fun)
Hiking with the dog and the kids. Someone convince The Husband that hiking is really fun. Please? We love it, and there are a lot of fun trails to discover within a short drive from our house.

I feel almost as giddy as the kids this morning, as I look ahead to the summer before us. In the snap of a finger it will be the fourth of July, and then, another instant will bring Labor Day. Summer just doesn't last long in this part of the country. Perhaps that's why it's so precious to us.

Happy Summer, y'all!!

Update on what's been going on with us lately:

Goblin has decided that his or her days of making mama sick are over. I have felt great for at least a week (knock on wood) with no nausea in sight. Which means I've been eating like a... well, something that eats a lot.

Bumblebee had a nasty accident with the treadmill Wednesday night. It could have been so, so much worse. The Husband saw her fall, sprinted across the family room to help her (she was stuck between the belt and the wall) and she still ended up with multiple skin burns that are pretty gross looking. Poor thing kept telling me, "I'm so mad at myself. You and Daddy tell me not to play on the treadmill. Now I know why. I wish I would have listened." We are very thankful that she wasn't more seriously hurt, as it could have been much worse.

The Husband is ripping out the nasty, pet stained carpet in the family room today while I'm at the softball tournament. There is concrete beneath, and if we are lucky, it'll be in good enough condition to stain it and seal it. We'll throw some area rugs around in there, but until we have pets and kids who don't ruin things (read: never) concrete and rugs seems much easier to keep clean than carpet.

So that's about it for us. Hope you all have a great Memorial Day weekend.

First Communion

2011-05-19T08:31:00.000-05:00

My little Bumblebee had her First Communion this past weekend.

*photo of an angelic Bumblebee:

There is just something about the magic of a child and their perspective on God. Doubts haven’t begun to creep into their beliefs and at the age of seven everything is pure, simple, and in a word: holy.

It was a lovely day. The weather was a bit on the chilly side, so I don’t mean beautiful to describe the weather. I woke up early to decorate the cupcakes I made for the luncheon we’d be having before mass. Just a small group of family, nothing too stressful to manage, which is good since I’d spent most of Saturday parked next to my barf bucket. (Our little Goblin is still giving its momma a hard time… someday we’re going to have a chat about this.) The Husband and the kids woke up fairly early and helped get the house in order. At one point, when all five of us were busy doing some sort of chore to get ready for the luncheon, I stopped and smiled, while thinking to myself, This is teamwork, and it’s lovely.

The grandparents were there:

*photo of Nanna with Bumblebee:

*photo of Grandpa E with Bumblebee:

*photo of Grandma D and Grandpa C with Bumblebee:

*photo of Grandma J and Larry with Bumblebee:

As were Uncle Z and soon to be Aunt M:

We even got a picture of her with the neighbor girls, her best friends:

It was nice having the family together for the occasion:

*photo of the family:

*photo of just the kids:

Mass was a nice, sweet event. The readings were done by the children in their high, sweet, slightly halting voices. Father Dan addressed the children specifically in the homily and all eyes were on him. They were listening to his message on becoming an adult in the church community and making their own decision on taking Communion.

Bumblebee got to read some of the prayer petitions, and she did a lovely job. Her voice was clear, the volume was perfect, and she pronounced the word catechists just as we practiced it. It made me cry. I’m such a sap.

When it was time for the children to go up and receive Communion, I choked up again. Gah! I don’t think I can blame these emotions on hormones, because these were just normal rite of passage waterworks. Bumblebee took the host, and then the wine. When we all got back to our seats, and were singing the song during Communion, we cracked up to notice that Bumblebee had the hiccups.

Every time she tried to sing, she hiccupped.

Yep, that’s my kid. Zero tolerance for alcohol. At least it’ll be easy to spot if she tries to steal from the liquor cabinet as a teenager.

It really was a lovely day. I can’t believe she’s big enough for this. Many thanks to the family who made the trip to see this special event. She was proud to have you all there, and enjoyed her special day.

This weekend is another busy one. Soon to be Aunt M’s bridal shower and bachelorette party. Should be fun! Guess who’s going to take a lot of pictures and be the designated driver?

How to pass the time when you have an hour to kill at a track meet...

2011-05-06T10:27:00.000-05:00

...and it's too cold outside to actually watch anybody but your own child run:

*photo collage of Bumblebee and me goofing around in the car and making silly faces:

A photo tour: Hollywood's Junior Prom

2011-05-01T11:20:00.000-05:00

Yesterday was Hollywood's junior prom. She's been looking forward to this for months and months, ever since she saw the dress online. She and her boyfriend have been dating for about a year and a half now, and were excited to glam it up together.

I was happy to be a part of it all. For those of you who know me well, this first picture will astonish you. With the exception of powder smelling baby tootsies, I don't like feet. It was a joke in high school, in fact, my high school crush once taped a piece of foot skin to a card, wrote the words words "yum, yum, foot scum" on it, and mailed it to me. (shudder) At any rate, this is how much I love my firstborn. I gave her a pedicure!

*photo of me scrubbing Hollywood's feet, giving her a pedicure.

After that, I did her friend Nicole's hair. It turned out pretty:

*photo of Nicole's hair:

Hollywood was her friends' sought after makeup artist, so she did a few girls' makeup:

*photo of Hollywood putting false eyelashes on her friend:

Then I finished up Hollywood's hair while she did her own makeup:

*photo of me doing H's hair:

Then it was time to put on the dress. This thing has a fancy corset back which means I had to lace it all the way down and cinch it tight so that Hollywood's dress would stay up:

*photo of Hollywood being helped into her dress:

Why, yes. That is a picture of Barack Obama's head superimposed onto an underwear model's body on Hollywood's door. I have no idea what the story is there, and quite frankly, I'm afraid to ask.

Once we got the dress on, this is how it looked. It's just beautiful. I have honestly never seen a dress like this before - it's unique and fun style truly fits Hollywood's personality.

*photo of Hollywood in her dress:

Then it was time for more photos. Here are some of the girls who were hanging out at the house:

And then the boys showed up. Here's Hollywood's date. Isn't he adorable?

*photo of Thad:

"Don't poke me!" He's thinking here, as Hollywood attempts to attach his buttoneire. She was pretty creative in how she attached it, but it seemed to work!

His job was much easier - the corsage just slid on her arm:

After taking the indoor shots, we headed out to the back yard, where the kids were met with a stern warning to look out for dog poo. The yard had been cleaned up and mowed earlier in the day, but you never can be too careful. It was a beautiful day, which was a relief, since we've had a couple of weeks of gray, rainy, cold weather in Iowa. Here is a group of them outside:

We didn't take all poses completely seriously, as you can tell:

*Hollywood and Thad doing goofy faces for the camera:

*another goofy shot:

*A goofy pose with Bumblebee hiding under Hollywood's dress and her dad smiling next to them:

Then we took some sweet pictures. I love this one of Hollywood giving The Husband a kiss on the cheek:

This is a picture of the back of the dress:

And, of course, a shot of the back of Thad's tux:

I think they were wiping off glitter here - Hollywood was wearing some glitter powder and Thad ended up wearing a lot of it too:

I love this picture - the girls circled around, enjoying their day. A couple of them were underclassmen who weren't going to prom (the blonde girl is Thad's sister) and they came over to watch the girls get ready:

Two of my brothers were visiting for the afternoon- here they are feeding Hollywood giant burritos:

*photo of K and Z with Hollywood:

My sisters-in-law look pretty low key here, but don't be fooled. Their burritos where hiding behind their backs:

*photo of D and M with Hollywood:

We got a nice shot of Hollywood with me. I love that everything is finally green and leaves are budding on the trees!

This is a closeup of Hollywood's corsage. Beautiful purple gerber daisies, with tiny orange accent flowers and rhinestones, along with an orange sparkly bow:

And one last kiss on the cheek before heading off to dinner:

*photo of Hollywood giving Thad a kiss on the cheek:

There was a huge group of kids who rented a party bus and went to dinner at The Latin King, a restaurant in Des Moines. They had a nice time there, and the bus dropped them back off at the site of the dance, where the whole community was waiting to watch them all walk into the prom:

*photos of the community waiting for the kids:

Bumblebee found some of her friends and held council at the second grader's prom attendance meeting:

*photo of Bumblebee with four other girls from her class:

Finally, the bus arrived and the kids lined up to go underneath the red canopy and begin the walk into the prom. As they walked down the pathway into the dance, an announcer read their names, where they were from, and who their parents are.

*photo of the kids lined up to walk under a red tent to begin their promenade:

Hollywood and Thad were one of the first couples to enter the dance:

They were in a hurry - look how fast Hollywood is walking!

But finally, they stopped for one last photo before they headed off to the dance:

*photo of Thad and Hollywood before entering the dance:

After the dance, the kids came home and changed into sweatpants and headed off to the after-prom event. The event was held at Incredible Pizza, one of those game/arcade places. They had games, prizes, a hypnotist, etc. that lasted until 5 a.m. when the bus brought the kids back to the school to come home to sleep. Hollywood won an emergency car care kit that comes complete with jumper cables and roadside flares. Not a bad prize, but she was hoping to win the laptop or ipad.

She came in at 5:30 this morning, with a smile on her sleepy face. Off to bed she went, to sleep for the next several hours.

All in all, I think it was a wonderful night for her. I was happy to be a part of it all, and I so enjoyed seeing her off on such an adventure.

Failing the test...

2011-04-27T16:56:00.000-05:00

I was rather a mess last night. I was rushing around, preparing dinner after work, before getting Bumblebee ready for her spring music concert when my cell phone rang. I glanced at it, didn't recognize the number, and ignored it. Seconds later, the home phone rang. The caller ID on the home phone said it was the hospital in Ames. It was my doctor calling. I turned down the teriyaki chicken on the stove and went into the sun room, where I could shut the door away from the kids and pets who were swarming me at the moment.

Dr. L was calling about my Down Syndrome screening. The test itself is a combination of an ultrasound and a blood test. The ultrasound measures the length of the fluid filled space between the neck skin and the spine. Last week as I had it done, the ultrasound tech and the doctor who oversaw the test were both very positive. The space measured small enough for them to say that things look 'good'. I left the appointment with some great ultrasound pictures (the baby - who I will be referring to henceforth as "Goblin" since s/he is due on Halloween - looked like an alien instead of a blob - that's progress!) I was feeling very happy and optimistic and did a dorky Facebook announcement that evening.

In my sun room yesterday afternoon, I listened with a kind of shock as Dr. L told me not to freak out (does he know me or what?) but that I had technically failed the screening. I have a 1 in 86 chance of having a baby with Down Syndrome. That is slightly worse than the regular risk for my age, but still not horrible odds. He did the math for me and told me that it means that I have a 98.8% chance of having a baby without a chromosome disorder, but that if I wanted additional testing, I could do an amnio.

The Internet is a scary place sometimes, and I went to some online communities and looked at what other people my age had gotten as their test results. Most of them had much more favorable results. 1 in 400 chance or a 1 in 5000 chance, etc. Mine was definitely on the low end of the results. I was concerned.

I finished dinner in a haze, got Bumblebee ready for her music program. My mother-in-law came up to attend the show and I fear that I might have been distant with her (sorry if I was, Judy!). After what seemed like an eternity of kids singing "Kookaburra," "Honk, Honk, Rattle, Rattle", and "Take me out to the Ballgame", I finally came home and had time to think. All I wanted to do was talk to The Husband about it, and I knew he'd be calling from his hotel room soon.

I worried, it's true. My mind raced through the what-if's, and the why-me's, and the seriously-can't-a-girl-get-an-effing-break's? Then I took some deep breaths and centered myself. When The Husband called, I told him the news. I hadn't cried about it at all, until I talked to him, and as I was explaining things, I choked up. He quietly listened to me haltingly tell him what Dr. L had told me.

Finally, when I was done, he asked "What is the purpose of having the amnio?"

I explained that it was only to find out definitively if Goblin has Down Syndrome or not.

"Pft. Doesn't matter. Don't do the amnio." he said. Simply, surely, immediately. I swear to you, I fell in love with that man all over again when he uttered that sentence to me. He made me realize in an instant that it doesn't matter if Goblin has DS or not. We will love him/her no matter what. And if that is what happens? Well, we're good parents and I think our home would be a great place for a DS baby.

We're not going to do the amnio. I'd be lying if I said I won't worry or wonder what will happen when we meet our little Goblin this fall. But I think no matter what, everything's going to be ok.

An Egg of a Good Time

2011-04-20T13:26:00.000-05:00

Yikes. Two depressing posts in a row is not cool. How about we brighten things up with some pictures of Bumblebee and me decorating Easter eggs last night?

First, you have to start by putting the coloring into vinegar. It works best if you use your husband's late grandmother's china tea cups. I love how it fizzes:
*photo of a closeup of the fizzy coloring liquid:

Then, you make sure to stir up the fizzy liquid. Bumblebee is wearing my sun hat. You know, the one I wear when I'm outside so that I don't wrinkle up like a prune? It looks cuter on her than on me. Boo.
*photo of B stirring the liquids:

Then comes the fun part. Decorating the eggs with crayons before coloring them. I like to draw springy things like bunnies, butterflies, and flowers. Bumblebee likes phrases such as "rock out". It's a personal decision.
*photo of an egg with a flower drawn on it:

*photo of Bumblebee coloring on her egg:

*photo of Bumblebee holding up her "rock out" egg:

After all of the coloring is done, we gently put the eggs in the colored vinegar and let them sit. I like to let them sit for a long time, because the color is more vibrant:
*photo of an egg printed with "Vali-Kate" soaking in the coloring:

When you're done, all you need to do is stack the eggs on a plate, pop them in the fridge, and give the camera a goofy grin like Bumblebee is here:

Oh, and get ready for lots of egg salad sandwiches in your near future. I have to say that I love this holiday tradition so much more than carving pumpkins... So much easier!

Happy Easter!

Ten Years

2011-04-19T10:23:00.001-05:00

It’s been ten years since we lost you.

A sharp fragment still lives deep within my heart

that surprises me with a quick stab, stealing my breath for a moment.

But I am not sad today, of all days. At least, not yet.

When night sets in, and I close the door to my bedroom to go through your memory box,

I will let the tears come.

It’s cold and rainy today; the trees are creaking and the wind is howling.

It’s the weather that always reminds me of April, and of those horrible weeks

when we knew we were going to lose you.

I remember a cold and dark night, after you were gone,

waking up to see your father’s side of the bed empty.

I crept downstairs to find him gently cradling your teddy bear shaped urn and sobbing quietly.

My memory fails me now: did I console him, as he had for me time and again?

Or did I creep back upstairs like a coward?

I want to believe that I held him until he was calm, but I don’t remember.

Your little sister is here today because you could not be.

She is a joy in our lives and her spunky personality makes us smile even on rainy April days.

We got to hold her squirming body in our arms because you were born so still.

I sometimes wonder what it would be like to have you here with us,

a ten year old boy running through the house.

Would you look up to Jakob and wear his hand me down clothes?

What kind of mischief would you get into with your cousin who is the same age?

But these are fleeting thoughts, because I can’t truly picture you as a ten year old,

nor can I imagine our family without Valerie.

Your father gave me a necklace on the Mother’s Day after we lost you.

It’s a golden heart, with an angel inside.

I wore it for a long time, and eventually, when the pain began to fade,

I put it in a safe place in my jewelry box.

We lost another baby in January. Early on this time, so the pain wasn’t as raw.

Before we knew it, another was on the way. One who is thriving, growing,

and making me nauseous and chubby.

In a superstitious move, I will wear that angel necklace these next six months, without taking it off.

It makes me think you will look after us somehow. And we will be safe.

It’s been ten years, 120 months, 3,650 days since we said goodbye,

Since your dad and I held your tiny body, draped in a white dressing gown.

Since we printed the words ‘Some people only dream of angels, we held one in our arms’

above your footprints and put them in the frame that hangs on our bedroom wall today.

Ten years.

If you want cheerful, this isn't the post for you.

2011-04-08T09:39:00.000-05:00

A man I went to high school with was killed in a horrible car accident yesterday. A 19-year-old in a stolen SUV was racing through town at speeds greater than 80 MPH when he ran a stoplight and t-boned Chad’s car, killing him instantly. I hadn’t kept in touch with Chad since high school, and my memory of him is slightly blurry, as if I’m looking back on him through someone else’s glasses. He went to our youth group, as I recall, and I remember his smile, and that he was a genuinely nice kid. I can’t wrap my mind around the thought that he got up in the morning, showered, dressed for work, and kissed his wife goodbye, only to be gone in an instant. He leaves behind two sons, a wife, and an ex-wife. My thoughts go out to each of them as they come to terms with their world that has been turned upside down.

A good friend of mine recently lost someone who meant the world to her to cancer. He was in the prime of his life: young, attractive, a man who made an impression on everyone who knew him. I didn’t know Casey, but offered to go with my friend to the funeral last week so that she didn’t have to stand there alone as she said her goodbyes to him. It was so difficult watching her suffer through the funeral mass. I fidgeted sadly as I sat watching his family and a church full of friends struggle as they said their goodbyes. The church was full, as it often is for the funeral of a young person, and I spent the time looking around at the crowd, wondering how they knew Casey, and what he had meant to them. He was a good friend to my friend, and they had many things in common. She has some fun memories to cherish of the time she spent with Casey, but why only memories? Why did he have to go and leave so many people behind who are crushed because of his untimely passing?

I had lunch on Tuesday with a former coworker who is dying. Doctors recently stopped treatment for her cancer and she expects that there are only weeks left of her time in this world. As I drove to the restaurant to meet the group of friends who were gathering to see Janet, my stomach was in knots. This lunch was planned to celebrate her life, to share some laughs, and create memories. I wasn’t sure I was up to the task, but in the end, it was a beautiful lunch. There were about 10 or 11 of us, we were loud, boisterous, sometimes crude. Janet joked about putting one of those motion-detected recordable trinkets on her grave that would say, “Help, let me out!” or “Get the hell off of me!” when someone came to visit. Someone had asked about a trip she had previously planned to take to the Badlands. She’d been hoping to go this summer, before things took a turn for the worse. In true Janet style, she quipped, “Is that what we’re calling this? My trip to the badlands???” in complete deadpan. “I was hoping to go to the other place, but I guess we’ll see what happens.” She managed to put us all at ease, and when I said my goodbyes to her, knowing that it was for the last time, she looked me in the eye and grabbed my hand. With a soft squeeze, and a genuine smile, she thanked me for coming.

These thoughts are swirling around in my head today, leaving my mood as gray and cold as the weather outside. Why do things like cancer, accidents, and loss, happen to good people? I’m generally an optimistic person, but today things look glum. Why do good people have to die when they are at the prime of their lives?

I think my boss summed it up quite succinctly this morning as we were talking about Chad’s accident. “You have to live each day like it’s your last, because when your time is up… boom. It’s up.”

This cheery post is brought to you by the sucky month of April. Returning year after year, April can be counted on to conjure up sad memories, crappy weather, and melancholy moods.

Frazzled: (adj.) worn out; fatigued: A party that left us frazzled.

2011-04-07T11:51:00.002-05:00

(Ha! I love that definition of frazzled.)

Well hello there, blog pals. Welcome to SPRING! My third favorite season. The weather here in Iowa alternates between cold and gray to sunny and nice, but seems to always come with a wicked wind that blows things around that make me sneeze. Ah-choo.

Here’s what’s new with us:

Track season is in full swing, and Hollywood and The Boy are both out for it this year. Track meets are long and cold, and there seems to be some law that the kids will run events that are spaced as far apart from each other as possible, so that I am required to spend hours and hours at the track, freezing my lady bits off.
Softball season has started for Bumblebee. She’s playing in the regular little league, and got asked to be in a fancier tournament league as well. I think we’re crazy for signing her up for both, but she seems to love it.
I have abandoned my camera and it’s making me crazy. I’m itching to get outside and play with it; to get updated shots of the kids and the pets, and to play around with perspectives, lighting, angles, and everything that makes photography interesting.
Lots of fun family news: my baby brother is getting married in July. Another brother his wife are moving back to Iowa from Kansas City, and they are becoming first time parents in July!
Speaking of becoming parents… The Husband and I are expecting a new addition to the Frazzled family. “Peanut” is due in late October.
Hollywood and I are going to visit the University of Wisconsin next Friday. Squee! We are both excited about the trip. I’m looking forward to spending time with a beloved Aunt who lives in Madison, as well as her family. But more importantly, I’m looking forward to the look on my beautiful daughter’s face as she explores the campus that will likely become her home in just 16 months. What an awesome adventure my little girl is heading toward.
When I started this blog and described my life as “Frazzled but loving it” I must have had April and May in mind… Every night is full of kid activities, sporting or school/music events, and so forth. The Husband has been out of town a lot lately, so I’ve been running ragged trying to get to everything without losing my mind, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.

So that’s what’s going on here… I realize that I buried a pretty big announcement in that list... For those of you who know me on Facebook, please keep it quiet until I make the big reveal there. I’m going to wait a few more weeks, though.

Crazy dreams, man. Crazy dreams.

2011-03-22T08:42:00.000-05:00

I had a dream last night that Aaron Rodgers (the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers) and I were in a war together. People were fighting all around us and we were using weapons like machine guns and hand grenades. At one point, the conflict was taking place in the parking lot of the old Drug Town in Newton where I grew up. We were huddled between rusted out cars that hadn’t been driven in ages, with enemy forces all around us, feverishly planning our escape. We needed to make our way diagonally across the main street in Newton, past the old gas station, and over to the Hy-Vee grocery store.

There were people all around us and Aaron was irritated because a blonde woman kept trying to snuggle up against him while he was trying to clean his machine gun and talk to me about strategy. She disappeared in a huff, outraged at his rebuff, and we planned our escape to the neutral ground across the street.

I’m not sure if we ever made it to the Hy-Vee, but at one point, Aaron joined sides with the enemy and I was left to fend for myself. How could my beloved #12 do that to me? The war continued and I moved up the ranks of the military and eventually ended up in a really cool apartment in Manhattan. It was huge, circular, lined with windows that showed the sparkling lights of New York City below, and decorated with sleek, modern furniture and appliances. The apartment was like something you’d see on a Spiderman movie. It was there that my forces won the last battle of the war (with shockingly little damage to the tricked out apartment) and the victors met over drinks and tiny little cakes and sandwiches to discuss future plans.

During this victory planning session, a bruised and injured Aaron Rodgers came back to see me, explaining that he had defected to the other side to gain intelligence on their plans, and it was clear that he was instrumental in our victory. He pled his case, and I was instantly on his side, but the other victors would not believe him; instead, he was branded a traitor and a high price was placed on his head.

Naturally, this is when four thugs from down the street came into the apartment wearing ski masks and carrying clubs, threatening to steal things from the beautiful apartment and leave us beaten and battered. The rest of the victory team fled. Instead of allowing the robbery to happen, we negotiated with the thugs and agreed to let them sublet the fabulous NY apartment from me while Aaron and I went to live in London while his name was cleared.

What? It could happen…

Spring Break

2011-03-16T09:25:00.001-05:00

I have this week off work. Don't be jealous, I'm not really having a fun time. My to do list is full of the following:

Get a new furnace and A/C installed. (because, you know, spending ridiculous amounts of cash on new appliances is almost as much fun as going to a beach somewhere...)
Do the extra kind of cleaning. (ceiling fans, windows, cobwebs in the corners, that kind of thing)
Clean out the hall closet, the coat closet, and the linen closet. (ugh.)
Get completely on top of laundry, including things that don't get washed often but should (i.e. the shower curtains and sofa blankets.)
Take Sully in to get declawed and neutered. That little bastard is destructive! It's a good thing he's cute.
Plant some herbs so I can quit paying $4 for a sprig of rosemary.

And so on. The list is actually longer than that, because I've had like 9 days to do these things. I'm superwoman, right?

Wrong. Today is day five of my "vacation" and the guys did come and replace the furnace (my house was actually too hot this morning) and I did get the cobwebs out of the corners of the walls, but that's it.

And, to make things worse, the rest of the house is a pit and so I have to do the regular cleaning and organizing before I can get to the extra stuff on my list. Sigh... I have not been feeling well this week, which is not helping matters.

Anyone know of a good housecleaning fairy who could come to my house and wave her sparkly magic wand?

The plan of action for today is this: I downloaded an audiobook (by Maeve Binchy - I love her work for a light, breezy read) and am going to pop it into my ipod and GET TO WORK. Wish me luck.

Book Review: Every Last One

2011-03-08T20:10:00.003-06:00

I just finished Anna Quindlen's latest novel, Every Last One (2010). I am still breathless from the story, still shaken because it would seem that Quindlen somehow found a way into the locked recesses of my mind and camped out in my brain for a while.

I can't remember what else I have read by Quindlen, but I remember liking her. Seriously, it's like she knows me. Perhaps she knows every small town working mother who, like me, is busy running a household. The authenticity of her narrative, of the inner workings of the protagonist Mary Beth Latham's mind, is so vivid, so powerful, that at times, I felt like I was the originator of those thoughts.

Mary Beth's family is vibrant, busy, full of life and love and problems. Her home is the center of their universe, where her three children and their friends gather on their way to and from their activities. She has a special relationship with her 17 year old daughter, and has twin sons who are very different from one another. She has a solid and comfortable, although perhaps not passionate marriage to her husband Glen.

When tragedy strikes this family, it is horrifying. I tend to stay away from stories like this, because they leave me wondering how I would handle the aftermath of a terrible ordeal like the one that happens to Mary Beth. But I'm glad I didn't pass this one over, because it was so amazing, and Mary Beth's actions and thoughts both before and after the tragedy seem so much like my own.

The complexities of the relationships she has with her friends and family after the horrible thing happens were compelling too. I found myself thinking, "Yep, that's how my friend J would react, if I were in Mary Beth's shoes."

This is definitely a kleenex book. It made me sob at times. My heart broke for what Mary Beth was going through. And it broke for me too - the imagined me that I kept going back to. What would I do if that happened to me?

I still think Anna Quindlen might have put some kind of thought tracking device into my brain to write this novel. In so many ways, Mary Beth was me. Thank goodness I haven't had to go through what she has.

Grade: A
Gripping story line, excellent writing, perfect character development.

Fourteen

2011-03-03T06:10:00.001-06:00

I'm setting this to auto-post at 6:10 a.m., because now The Boy is officially fourteen years old.

He is many things. My only son, my most content baby, the child who still hugs me every night and tells me that I'm the best mom in the world. And yet, he's turning into a man. Just look at him:

*photo of The Boy with Reggie:

Happy Birthday, Buddy. Best son in the world.

Life's like an hourglass glued to a table.

2011-03-02T07:50:00.001-06:00

*photo of Bumblebee and me with my birthday cake:
It’s been a chaotic week. Exhausting in many ways, but that seems to be par for the course lately. I had a wonderful birthday. The Husband and the girls made my birthday cake (yay!) and Hollywood frosted it with homemade purple butter cream icing. YUM. I even got to sit there while the family sang to me. Bumblebee wasn’t convinced that just one candle would be sufficient, but I explained that the fire extinguisher needed refilled, so we couldn’t put all 38 candles on there. (Ba dum bum. Lame jokes come with old age, yo.)

Saturday morning, we went to see Hollywood perform in her individual speech competition. She chose ‘musical theater’ as her category, so it’s really not much like the ‘speech’ of my time. In my day (sheesh – you turn 38 and all of a sudden start spouting phrases like ‘in my day’?? Scary.) speech was mostly extemporaneous, persuasion, etc. You know, we actually had to write and give speeches. None of this fancy theater stuff. We got to see some of Hollywood’s friends in different categories. Friend Eric did a dramatic acting scene where a prisoner who was in solitary confinement went crazy. He was so convincing I wonder if I should let Hollywood hang out with him… he might snap on her someday. Friend Tessa did a poetry reading where she chose a theme and selected three separate poems to read. She happened to write one of them herself. It was cool.

So definitely not the speech competition from the stone ages of the early 90s. Hollywood’s musical theater choice was the song Part of Your World from The Little Mermaid. Speech competitions tend to run early sometimes, so we arrived ahead of time and got to see four performances before Hollywood’s. Most of them were decent; one was painfully awful. Listening to that poor tone deaf girl sing In My Own Little Corner about made my ears itch. When it was Hollywood’s turn, I looked at her and could tell she was nervous. Her chest was flushed (mine does that too when I’m nervous or emotional about something) and she bit her lower lip and smiled as she got up. I squeezed her shoulder and told her she’d be great.

I honestly can’t think of anything more scary than to get up in front of a room full of people and sing and dance to a song all by myself. Remember those nasty game/reality shows where people could win money by letting spiders crawl all over them? Yeah. I’d rather do that. No lie. And here is my child, who looks quite a bit like me, talks like me, has a fiery temper like me, but is so completely her own person. My heart was in my throat as she strode up there to her spot. The accompanying music began, and she…

Knocked it out of the park. It was great.

Tomorrow is The Boy’s birthday. He’ll be fourteen. In the past year he has grown about 5 inches (he’s dead even with me now) and is losing his baby face. Sigh. This shouldn’t make me sad, he’s a great kid. But it does because he’s turning into a man. The Boy has a girlfriend now, and while we don’t let them do much of anything other than go to a movie once a month or so with a group of people, it’s pretty serious for him. He and she talk on the phone sometimes, but they spend a lot of time chatting on facebook. I suspect that when he finally gets a cell phone (psst. It’ll arrive tomorrow) he’ll be texting her non stop.

The Boy has such a tender heart. He told me how his new girlfriend has times when she’s sad or depressed. Her sister has serious health issues that cause her to be hospitalized often, and she herself has medical issues, along with pretty bad vision. The Boy said sometimes she likes to be alone at lunch and he lets her have her space and then talks to her after school. These are adolescent problems, not little boy issues. It’s just crazy to me that he is getting so big, and it’s fun to watch him that way. He’s going to the middle school winter dance Friday night. I hope I can sneak into the dance and get a picture of him with his new friend.

There’s a lyric to an Anna Nalic song that goes:

Life’s like an hourglass glued to a table. No one can find the rewind button…

Isn’t that the truth? Lord help me.

It’s all about the cake…

2011-02-22T11:28:00.000-06:00

Somebody around here has a birthday coming up. It’s not a big one, doesn’t end in zero (thank God), and that certain someone has already asked that there be no fancy presents or dinners this year because of additional expenses. Expenses like prom dresses, bridesmaid dresses, flower girl dresses, first communion dresses, and sweet baby Jesus, there are a lot of dresses to be purchased in this family! Ack!

But that person would like a cake. A vanilla cake with almond buttercream frosting. This recipe is the bomb, and it's what I made the valentine's cupcake frosting with.

Is it wrong that the soon to be birthday girl purchased cake ingredients this past weekend and told the kids that they were there in the cupboard, just waiting for them to spend an evening in harmony together, using the mixing bowls and cracking the eggs?

The gal just wants some cake, dangit. That’s all.

I finally read A Farewell to Arms. And I'm not sure how I feel about it.

2011-02-17T18:38:00.000-06:00

The Husband has been asking me to read A Farewell to Arms for a few years now. He loved the book, thought it was great, and thought I would enjoy it too. Well, I finally read it, and I don't think "enjoy" is the right word. It took a while to get into, but was much easier to understand what was going on than For Whom the Bell Tolls, another Hemingway novel that I've tried unsuccessfully to read on several occasions.

The rest of my review will contain spoilers, because I think I might be the last person on earth to read this book, but here are some random thoughts.

Good GOD did Lt. Henry like to drink. So did most everyone in the book, for that matter.
I need to get me one of those relatives who will let me write bank drafts to fund my lifestyle.
I wanted to slap Catherine throughout most of the book. She was the biggest doormat ever, and I don't recall her standing up for herself even once in the book, except maybe to assert her decision to get married only after she was thin again.
The war scenes in this book were thankfully nondescript. I appreciate that Hemingway didn't get into the grisly details of the war. Then again, Hemingway doesn't go into details about anything, so this shouldn't be a surprise. I was thankful that i didn't have to read about a lot of gore, missing limbs, etc. I'm not a fan of war stories for this reason.
I didn't fully understand what was going on in the war. This is probably my fault because history and geography are my two worst subjects. A decent knowledge base in both would have been helpful, I think, for me to understand the tactical and strategic parts of the war. I was mostly lost until I realized that the Italians were going to shoot him because they thought he was a German wearing an Italian uniform, or because they thought he was an officer who abandoned his regiment. See - still confused.
The ending of this book sucked. Thanks to The Husband spoiling it for me years ago, I knew basically what happened, but there were so many loose ends that weren't tied up. What happened to the priest? Did Rinaldi have syphilis or not? Maddening. And then, (spoiler alert) to kill off Catherine and the baby like that and just abruptly end the book with Lt. Henry lost and alone in Switzerland? Maddening. The Husband says that's just classic Hemingway.

I guess I'm glad I finished it, but I'm not a fan of the sparse description and I didn't fall in love with any of the main characters... And quite frankly, the story wasn't fantastic. The second half of it was much more gripping than the first, and I was interested enough to finish it, so that's something, but I don't know, it was a war book, with lots of drinking, a love story, an unplanned pregnancy, a frantic escape from authorities, and then tragic death.

Grade: Overall, I'm giving it a C. But only because it's Hemingway; his fame makes me want to boost his grade a little. If some unknown author had written it, I don't think I'd have gotten past page two.

Mmmm, cupcakes...

2011-02-14T20:34:00.000-06:00

*photo of the card and cupcakes with pink icing that I made the kids for Valentine's Day:

Why I don't like Valentine's Day

2011-02-14T14:56:00.004-06:00

I shouldn’t be a hater. The Husband has never failed to get me a Valentine’s gift. He’s very sweet about it. This year I got a Clay Matthews t-shirt. I have a ~~major~~ minor obsession with the Packer’s linebacker, and TH got me a shirt to proclaim my love. Now that’s a husband! I certainly haven’t gotten him any Megan Fox t-shirts lately.

As a kid, I loved Valentine’s Day. Making the valentines, getting candy, having a party at school. What wasn’t to love? To make it even better, My grandparents always sent something to us for Valentine’s Day. One year, when I was about 10 years old, my grandpa made me a jewelry hanger out of painted wood. It has has two hearts with a rainbow arched above them. One heart has my name painted on it, and the other heart says ‘Grandpa’. I love that thing, and it hangs in my bedroom to this day.

But as I grew older, the holiday just made me feel lousy. Valentine’s Day reminds me the most of junior high, and reminders of that awkward stage in my life are not welcome in this brain of mine. 7^th and 8^th grade were awful years. I was so self-conscious, chubby, with bad hair and teeth. I wish I could go back and tell myself that almost everyone looks awkward in junior high, but, being in that adolescent ‘it’s all about me’ phase, I thought I was alone in my misery. At my school, you could pay a dollar to send a lollipop with a personalized note to your sweetie. They were delivered in class, and sure enough, the girls who I was convinced had everything you could dream of, would get one or two lollipops per class period from their admirers. If I ever got one, it was from my best friends. It’s not that I didn’t appreciate them, but let’s face it. It wasn’t the same as getting a lollipop from a BOY.

To make things worse, the school distributed these computer generated match maker lists. Five boys’ names were matched to each girl and sent out to everyone. I’m sure it was a random generator, I don’t recall filling out a Match.com type of survey or anything. But everyone wondered who their ‘perfect matches’ were. If you got a popular boy on your list, you might swoon. If you got the geeky guy from your biology class who offered to dissect your frog for you, you weren’t as impressed. I was convinced that if a boy got matched with me, they either thought, “ew!” or, more likely, “who?” I had some confidence issues back then, you see.

Later on, in high school, we had our Sadie Hawkins dance around Valentine’s Day. This dance was less formal than prom or homecoming, where the girls asked the boys to the dance. I’m ashamed to admit that I never went to a Sadie Hawkins dance in high school, only because I was too much of a chicken shit to ask a guy to go with me. See? I told you I had issues!

I'm happy to report that my kids didn’t inherit these rather pathetic tendencies. Hollywood struts her stuff, and knows that she’s got it going on, but not in a conceited or cocky manner. She just accepts it, and her confidence mixed with just the right amount of humility is charming. She gets that from The Husband, who even as an ancient 42 year old (ha!), accepts without wonder that he still turns the ladies’ heads.

The Boy just recently asked a girl to be his girlfriend. He seems to be the only child of mine who might have some of the insecurities that I was plagued with at his age. Which is why I’m inordinately proud that he overcame them to ask this girl out. They went to a movie this weekend together – with a group of other friends, of course. He’s only 13, after all! He even held her hand. Today he brought a teddy bear and some chocolate to give to his girlfriend at school. Isn’t that sweet? Even sweeter is that as soon as she said she’d go out with him, he called me to tell me that he had a girlfriend, even though I was only out at the grocery store and would be back soon. The fact that he called me to tell me the good news right away made me almost weep. Yeah, I still have issues.

I’ve spent the last 19 Valentine’s Days with The Husband. He’s always given me a gift and told me he loves me. I’m now much more confident in the knowledge that I’m a successful, likable, attractive woman who has a family that I wouldn’t trade for anything. And yet, those memories of feeling lonely and left out are still back there, in the recesses of my mind. Which is why Valentine’s Day will never be my favorite holiday. (That distinction goes to Thanksgiving. Food, family, and football. Ah…).

I hope you have a good one anyway. Happy Valentine’s Day!

Book Review: Freedom

2011-02-03T16:37:00.000-06:00

I may have mentioned before that I love to read. I decided that I should try to do a book review of the stories I’ve been reading. I think it will be nice to be able to look back upon these reviews when I’m trying to remember what I thought of a particular book that I’ve read.

I’m not an expert reviewer, in fact I think I'm pretty bad at it because I don't take a lot of time remembering what I liked about a book. I also don’t spend a lot of time analyzing the technical proficiency of the authors I enjoy. I couldn’t even tell you what kinds of books I prefer, except that I love good character development, and feel good about a book if it teaches me something I didn’t know before I read it.

With that said, my first book review is going to be for Jonathan Franzen’s Freedom.

(Huh, I just looked it up on Amazon to get the link and see that it was an Oprah selection. I didn’t know that. Not that it matters, I just wasn’t aware.)

Anyway, the book is 576 pages long, and was published in August of 2010.

I’ll start by saying that I loved this novel, and was impressed with it because it took the story of a regular middle class family, with their believable problems and made it truly interesting. If someone were to ask me what the book was about, I could say that it’s about a long time married couple who struggle with the relationships they have with their kids, and who aren’t quite sure of their commitment to one another. That sounds pretty boring, though. And how would Franzen fill 576 pages full of that?

He did it by weaving a web full of complex characters with ordinary problems. Walter was ‘too nice’, and yet he had a wicked angry side. His wife Patti was confused, but competitive. Richard was the bad boy, the kind of man every self-respecting good girl falls for in college, and yet he was drawn to his friend Walter, perhaps because of his goodness. Patti and Walter’s kids had believable issues: shacking up with the neighbor girl at age 13, sibling rivalry and a daughter who thought she was above all of the struggles.

The relationships between each of the characters was fully vetted in the novel, and in the end, there were strands woven from one person to the other resulting in a tight web of a realistic and entertaining story. I wanted to know if Joey would ever forgive his mother for the mistakes she made as she parented him, trying to get him to be on her side, to love her the most.

I think what captivated me the most about this novel is that it shows the cycles that a long time marriage go through. The story breezed through the easy years, highlighting what worked between them with a lighthearted view. The focus was on the rough patches in the marriage. The bitter betrayals severed the artery of Patti and Walter’s marriage, but they also led each of them to find themselves and become whole again.

It would take pages and pages to detail what I loved about the characters in this book. I’m a character snob, and nothing annoys me more in a novel than an author trying to pass a character off as perfect. We all have our flaws and quirks and insecurities, dangit, and that’s what makes us interesting! Franzen made this novel interesting because his characters had flaws. Major flaws that made other people dislike them. You loved Patti and rooted for her to succeed, but you can understand why the ladies of her stylish neighborhood didn’t care for her.

That’s real life! And I loved that much of the story was based in Minnesota. That’s unusual in itself – sometimes it’s hard to find enough glitz and glamour when you drop the family of a complicated novel in the middle of the ‘boring’ Midwest.

Politics played a huge part of the story of this book, and while the main characters definitely leaned toward the left, it was interesting to see the dynamics of Democrat vs. Republican, especially when family members took opposite sides. There was a lot of content devoted to things that I know nothing about (mountaintop coal mining, bird species preservation, population control, etc.) but these parts didn’t drag or become too dense for my enjoyment.

Overall, it was an enjoyable read, and I flew through it faster than most novels of its size. As I’ve mentioned, a truly enjoyable novel pulls me in by dropping me into a world of interesting, yet believable characters. Freedom did just that, and I was very sorry when my Kindle displayed that final blank page at the end of the story.

Overall grade: A-

This is why I'm glued to the couch on Sunday afternoons...

2011-02-02T11:25:00.001-06:00

I'm not a very consistent blogger these days, am I?

First things first. Thank you for your prayers. I needed them and they helped me get through a difficult time. You all rock.

And now, onto happier subjects. Did you hear who's going to the Super Bowl this weekend? Oh yeah. It's my Packers. I love football, and I especially love my Packers. This year, I'm minorly obsessed with this guy:

Clay Matthews (#52) is a linebacker who missed out on the Defensive Player of the Year award. He was beaten by a hair (only two votes) by Steelers safety Troy Polamalu - the curly haired guy on the head and shoulders commercials. So the Packers were this close to having another defensive player of the year (last year Charles Woodson won the award.) I'm pretty sure Dom Capers (defensive coordinator) has a secure job for a few years. But, back to #52. Clay is awesome. My wee little fixation is 100% because of his tremendous contributions to the team. He was our first round draft pick in 2009, and this year has had 13.5 sacks in the regular season, and 3.5 in the playoffs. My obsession has nothing to do with his arms, honest. (Oh, how I will miss seeing those arms every Sunday after this weekend. Sigh.)

Anyway, I probably shouldn't get too attached to Clay because whenever I start to swoon over a player, he goes somewhere else. (I'm still heartbroken over Darren Sharper, who went to play for the Vikings, and then the Saints.) And yes. I do actually pay attention to the game, and not just the players. I'm looking forward to the Super Bowl, and it'll be the first time in 13 years where the commercials will take a back seat to the game.

Anyway, that's all I know at the moment. Life is trucking on, moving faster than the ballsy semi drivers who flew past me on the interstate during yesterday's blizzard. But hey, at least it's February. Spring is only a few months away.

If you're the praying type...

2011-01-19T09:13:00.000-06:00

Sometimes life is such a ridiculously turbulent roller coaster. Happiness. Sorrow. Joy. Dread. Excitement. Doubt. Anyone know where I can find a level road to travel on for a while?

I can’t go into specifics, so please forgive my vagueness. But if you’re the praying type, would you mind sending a word or two up to The Big Guy for me? He’ll know what it’s for.

In times like these, I find it soothing to remind myself of the very many wonderful things I have in my life. It puts thoughts of my struggles into perspective and helps to calm me down. But every once in a while, fear and doubt bubble up to the surface, choking off my attempts to remain positive. Which sucks, because positivity is something I really try to focus on in my life.

Anyway. Thank you in advance for your thoughts and prayers. And for reading nonsensical thoughts like these.

(Today’s post is brought to you by the Cryptic Company, who specializes in ambiguous and puzzling content.)

Thank you cards

2011-01-08T14:40:00.000-06:00

My mom sends out a weekly letter to family and friends. A while back, she sent one that explained how disappointed she is that the practice of sending thank-you letters seems to be going by the wayside. Her letter made me stop and think. When was the last time I had my kids sit down and send thank you letters?

I'm not going to lie. It's been a while. I know I've done it from time to time, like around birthdays or something, but I can't remember doing it after Christmas. Sure, I could excuse it by saying that we lead busy lives, and in the midst of school, basketball, church, show choir, work, and all of our other activities, it can be hard to find time to write out letters.

But, to use a word that my mom loves to use, that's hogwash. We do have the time, and this year, we are making an effort to send letters to those who gave us gifts this holiday season. Especially now, when generous gift giving often means scrimping and saving for weeks. I'm embarrassed that I haven't done this very often. You'll never meet anyone who drills politeness into the heads of her children head like I do. I've been known to go ballistic if my kids didn't thank someone while trick-or-treating. And if they don't thank someone's folks for giving them a ride somewhere, they get a 10 minute lecture from me. So why have I chosen to be so lax on thank-you letters? I'm really not sure, but I will say that it makes me feel ashamed.

But, this year, we're turning over a new leaf. Perhaps this is the kind of New Year's resolution I can stick to.

I decided to make it into a fun craft this year, so Bumblebee and I got out the paint and some foam stamps and we created our own thank you cards.

*photo of Bumblebee with paint and a foam stamp:

The kids will write their thank you message inside of the cards, and I will get them in the mail.

Hopefully before the fourth of July.
*photo of Bumblebee with her thank you cards.

Wow, I am a slacker.

2011-01-06T08:32:00.001-06:00

It's 2011 already? How did that happen?

The holiday season flew by this year. It was wonderful - we spent a lot of time with family and I truly enjoyed every gathering we attended. I paused a few times to think about Mary Jane, and how we miss her so much. But I was pleased to see that my dad is doing the best he can to carry on and enjoy his life. 2010 was a rough year, but we've said our goodbyes to it and are hoping for a better year.

2011 is looking to be a great year already. There are some very happy things going on in the Frazzled home.

Not the least of which is this little guy. Meet Sully, the newest member of our crazy household:

*photo of our new orange kitten:

He's awfully sweet. And is becoming more and more brave, even though a certain giant dog keeps wanting to lick him all the time.

We are in full swing of the basketball season for The Boy and Bumblebee. Hollywood is in speech competitions and show choir. So it's a crazy time of year, especially since The Husband is traveling a lot for work lately. I'm hoping that I don't get that cranky, depressed feeling this winter. I'm trying to stay positive. After all, the days are getting longer now. That's good, right?

Happy New Year!

The first snowfall of the year

2010-12-12T18:31:00.001-06:00

The first snowfall of the year hit with a vengeance this weekend. I started out as a nice soft snowfall, with giant flakes gently falling to the ground. But then the winds hit. They howled in at 40 MPH, causing white-out conditions and a noisy racket most of last night. Good thing I stayed at home in front of my fireplace all weekend!

I'm not a big fan of snow. I hate to be cold, I don't like driving in it, or clearing it off of my car.

But it sure is pretty. And Bumblebee loves to play in it:

*photo of Bumblebee dressed up in snow gear outside:

She and the neighbor girl played outside for a long time today - I couldn't believe it since it was so cold outside! Only about 10 degrees or so:

*photo of Bumblebee and her friend playing:

I took pity on them and made them some hot chocolate:

*photo of the girls drinking hot cocoa:

Bumblebee seems to like it!

*photo closeup of Bumblebee drinking her hot cocoa:

Ok, I have to admit, it's nice to have snow on the ground. It makes everything pretty and it looks like Christmas outside. But I won't feel this way when we get a storm in March!

1DUMDRVR

2010-12-07T11:55:00.000-06:00

I almost got a speeding ticket yesterday. Turns out that I had a really good excuse for speeding. One that the state trooper would have to accept, so that a warning would be issued instead.

See, I was driving down the interstate at my usual rate of speed. Traffic was three lanes across at this point, and a minivan came from behind me, weaving in and out of traffic to get a couple of spots ahead. I didn’t notice who was driving as the minivan passed me, but when it pulled in front of me, after passing several cars, it slowed down. I had to hit my brakes and adjust my cruise control. Grr. I was annoyed. A swear word was likely uttered under my breath.

Then I saw the license plate. It said 1HOTMOM.

Seriously? You’re driving a minivan and you want your plates to say 1HOTMOM?

That’s so dumb.

Personally, 1BADDRIVERMOM would have been more apt, but I don’t think that would fit on the license plate. I just HAD to see what 1HOTMOM looked like. I mean, was she one hot mom?

Naturally, I tried to pass her so I could see what she looked like. As I got in the left lane, she decided she didn’t want me to finish ahead of her in the imaginary interstate race we were competing in. So she sped up.

I sped up too.

Then she did.

And I did, and so forth. We were both very speedy. Which, incidentally, is my favorite word to say. I know that’s a random thought. But say it out loud. Now.

No, really, I mean it. Go ahead!

"Speedy. Speedy. Speeeeee-deeeeee." It sort of rolls off the tongue, and is genuinely fun to speak, right?

Anyway. Back to the interstate. I would not be denied my look at 1HOTMOM. I had to know what she looked like. So I finally caught up with her. And you know what?

She was cute, sort of. In a rather plain way. Maybe it was her morning to drive the carpool and she’d been up since six and didn’t have time to get all fancied up, the way I imagined 1HOTMOM to look. I was picturing botox, fake boobs and a velour track suit. But nope. 1HOTMOM was just kind of blah. More like 1WARMMOM. Lukewarm, even.

Why then? What would possess someone to put that on their license plate? Think of the pressure. If you're not always all glammed up, that plate is going to give you nothing but trouble.

I can’t have been the only person to pass her in order to get a glimpse of 1HOTMOM. In my case, I got my gawking done, checked my speedometer, and saw that I was pushing 90. Yowza. I slowed back down, and just as I had the speed under control, I crested a hill where a state trooper was waiting to pounce. Yikes.

But really, it would have made a good excuse, right? Anyone would've gone over the speed limit to try and see what 1HOTMOM looked like. Am I right?

A craptastic day

2010-11-29T20:32:00.000-06:00

I'm warning you now. This is a disgusting post, and the title gives the content away. Don't say I didn't warn you!

Yesterday was, quite literally, a shitty day.

It was Sunday, I was planning to sleep in a bit, get ready for church and then the family was heading over to my mother-in-law's for dinner. I was hoping for a nice end to a wonderful Thanksgiving holiday weekend.

But it was not to be.

I woke at 6:45 a.m. to a weird scratchy sound. I thought maybe the cat was stuck in a room with the door shut and was batting her paws on the door, her signal to be let out. When I got up to investigate, a horrible smell hit me like a ton of bricks.

Now I don't have an easy gag reflex. (That's what he said? Oh... never mind.) What I mean is, that I normally can stomach gross things. Puke, crap, dirty laundry, sour milk, old garbage.Usually , I can deal. I don't like to smell it, mind you, but it doesn't knock me flat like yesterday's smell did.

I groaned and looked around for the inevitable pile that I knew Reggie had to have left somewhere. I found one by the front door. "Aw, what a good boy." I thought, "He was trying to make it outside!"

I cleaned it up, let the furball outside, yelled at him to get out of the neighbors' yard, and called him in. As I was getting ready to go back to bed, I noticed that the smell wasn't quite gone yet. I followed my nose and found the most DEEESSSSGUSTING sight. On the stairs.

The carpeted stairs. An explosion took place on those stairs. It was all down the stairs and on the wall. It was everywhere! Seriously, I can't figure out how Reggie managed to defecate in such an extraordinary manner. I want to hurl just thinking about it. It was early morning, everyone in the house was still asleep, so I found some rubber gloves, put on one of those mask things that make you smell your own breath for as long as you wear them, and got to work cleaning it up.

Did I mention that we hosted Thanksgiving dinner for 17 people? Uh... there were recognizable bits of said dinner on my stairs. I know that's gross, y'all, but I'm painting a picture here.

Anyway. I spent close to an hour cleaning up the mess. Afterward I decided to shower and get ready for church. I put Reggie in his kennel while I was getting ready. I got out of the bathroom and was instantly hit again with THE SMELL.

Poor pup had gone in his kennel and was bathing in his filth. It looked like a mud puddle. Too much description? Sorry.

So I had to give him a bath and clean out the kennel, and then bleach the bathtub and the tile and the floor that Reggie walked on the way to the bathtub. But as I was doing that, I heard The Boy shout at the dog. He'd started to go AGAIN in the kitchen and ran away from The Boy through the dining room and living room, leaving a trail that looked like Hershey's syrup the whole entire way.

God in heaven, how did he have that much shit inside of him?

I almost pulled my hair out. By this time, the whole family was up, thanks to my screeching like a complete lunatic, and The Husband got the dog outside and put him on a chain so he wouldn't go anywhere.

I set to clean up the trail of nastiness, and all of a sudden, The Husband calls to me from the basement. "Hon, you'd better come see this..."

Turns out that the Big Guy Upstairs didn't think we had enough crap on our plate to deal with, so he decided to have the effing septic tank back up into the basement too. All over Hollywood's floor, coating her clothes (she of course hadn't cleaned her room), her area rug, and into The Husband's workshop.

Not kidding. Now there was dog shit upstairs and shit water downstairs.

Needless to say, we didn't make it to mass yesterday, and we had to call my mother-in-law to tell her we'd be very late for dinner.

But, after scrubbing and cleaning, and bleaching, and burning every scented candle I could find, I think it's safe to take a deep breath in our house again.

And Reggie? Well, he's much better today. In fact, he's back in his favorite spot on the couch next to me, hogging the pillows, as I write this:

*photo of Reggie on the sofa:

It's a good thing we love our furball so darn much.

Thankful

2010-11-23T11:22:00.001-06:00

I’m pretty sure that Thanksgiving is my favorite holiday. I’ve always tried to do my best to thank God for my blessings. I’m not a huge fan of turkey, but oh my goodness, I love me some stuffing. Mmmm, mmmm... And pie, and potatoes… food, food, food. Throw some family in there and football in the background? You’ve got the perfect holiday right there.

Thanksgiving isn’t as stressful as Christmas. It’s more laid back, and there’s none of that blasted gift wrapping to do. Unlike the sugar high that the kids get from Easter candy, Thanksgiving food contains tryptophan, which makes them sleepy. See?

Thanksgiving is just an all around win.

I’m hosting dinner at my house this year for my side of the family. My mom is spending the night tomorrow night and we’ll drink some wine as we prep the food. I’m looking forward to it.

I'll be busy the next few days, and won't have time to post here, but I am most definitely thankful for all that I have in my life. This year, I'd like to pay special attention to the immediate family I've been blessed with. They are my world.

So, without further ado, this is what I'm thankful for this year:

* * *

I’m thankful that I was given this man to share my life with:

*photo of The Husband:

Even though I've spent nearly half my life with him, I've been having those ooey-gooey, butterflies in my stomach feelings for him lately that remind me of when we first met and he charmed me with that smile. That smile! Lord have mercy. It has clearly been the purpose of my life to have babies with the owner of that smile.

Speaking of babies, I am so very grateful for the times in my life that have been spent snuggling babies. Look at me in the picture below – I’m chubby and I look absolutely exhausted. But if you look closer, you can see that I’m glowing with that bleary happiness only a sleep-deprived parent of an infant can pull off. And look at Tiny Bumblebee, all crashed out, safe and secure, on my chest. God help me, I’d have ten more babies if I could.

*photo of me holding Bumblebee as an infant.

I don’t just love the baby stages, though. I’ve enjoyed all of it. My kids' teenage years have been pretty great so far too:

*photo of Hollywood:

Even though one of them is threatening to be taller than me at any second:

*photo of The Boy and me:

Sigh. Sometimes I can’t explain how happy these four people make me. I’ve said it before, but I mean it. I am blessed.

I hope you have a Happy Thanksgiving this year. Gobble, gobble!

Seventeen

2010-11-16T07:00:00.002-06:00

*photo of Hollywood at age three:

She's brave.
She is beautiful,
Creative, insightful,
Quick-witted.

Her smile lights up the universe.
Her voice moves people to tears.

She's not afraid to believe, to hope, and to dream.

She's wise beyond her years, but not afraid to be silly and youthful.

She's the six pound, eleven ounce creature who first made me a mama.

And I can't believe that she's seventeen.

Happy Birthday, Hollywood. I love you.

photo of Hollywood now:

*the above photo is from her school play that she performed in this weekend.

Movember

2010-11-12T09:07:00.000-06:00

I love this man.

*photo of The Husband laughing. He has a mustache.

Have you heard of Movember? I think it was started in Australia. It's when men grow mustaches for the month of November to raise awareness for prostate cancer and general men's health issues. The furry lip becomes symbolic, like a pink ribbon would for breast cancer.

I'm not normally a fan of the 'stache. But this is a great program, and did you see that picture? How cute is that husband of mine?

Check out this video if you're interested in learning more about Movember.

Table of Plenty

2010-11-10T10:36:00.001-06:00

I joined a small group at my church several weeks ago, and last night it was my turn to host our weekly meeting. Our meetings are very informal and I wasn't sure whether we'd sit in the living room or the dining room for the evening. The food and beverages made that decision for us, and we gathered around the table for our small group session.

We did what we normally do in our small group, which is to talk about our faith, share personal stories, and enjoy the company of each other. It was a beautiful fall evening, and maybe it was the beer, but I felt that warm, glowy sensation as we sat around the table and chatted.

I started to think about my dining room, and about our table in particular.

*photo of my table, decorated with a fall tablecloth and centerpiece:

I love my table. It's an old table of my in-laws' that was rescued from a shed on The Husband's grandma's farm. I spent a long time refinishing it, and even though it's not perfect, it works for us. I like to put pretty centerpieces on it:

*photo of the fall centerpiece:

I like to dress it up for Christmas:

*photo of the table decked out with a Christmas tablecloth and decorations:

But sometimes it's just a plain old mess. Stacks of papers clutter the clean lines of the table; cereal bowls full of milk and shriveled cheerios often replace my decorations. Usually you'll find a dog leash or a gym shoe sitting on it too.

I've often heard about the table being the cornerstone of family life, and how important dinnertime is with the family. We, like many other families these days, are running in a thousand different directions. One kid will have basketball practice and Confirmation class, while the other will have to work or go to play practice. We try our best to sit down together for dinner as often as we can. For a little while, at least, time slows down and we can enjoy each others' company.

I have fond memories of hilarious conversations that ended up with snorts of laughter that caused milk to come out of someone's nose. We play 'Would You Rather' and come up with obnoxious scenarios. One of them was something along the lines of "Would you rather eat pea soup off of an old man's beard or drink warm mayonnaise?" Something like that. Gross. Stories get told and retold at that table, and The Husband tells his eye-roll worthy jokes there. The TV is off, cell phones aren't allowed, and the dog sits at our feet, scavenging for dropped crumbs. We enjoy each other at our table.

It's been there for birthday celebrations:

*photo of Bumblebee with her friends on her 5th birthday:

*photo of The Boy with a birthday cake:

*photo of Hollwyood on her last birthday:

Even when the birthday celebrants aren't so enthusiastic about getting another year older:

*photo of The Husband flipping off the camera with a birthday cake in front of him:

The table's been a place to do homework. Sometimes Bumblebee even gets help from her big brother:

*photo of The Boy and Bumblebee doing homework together:

It's a place to eat a hearty breakfast before the first day of school:

It's been a place to carve pumpkins and be goofy:

*photo of Bumblebee with a lampshade on her head:

Some of my favorite memories in my dining room are of our large family gatherings, with dozens of people crammed around the table:

*photo of everyone crowded around for Nephew E's birthday cake:

*another photo of the gathering:

It's been a place for serious conversations. We've made life changing plans at our table, and talked about dreams and wishes there. We've broken bad news to one another around the table, and we've argued bitterly while sitting there.

It truly is the centerpiece of our home. If our table could hear what went on around it, I wonder if it would appreciate the crazy family that often gathers there. Especially this time of year, with the holidays approaching, I'm thankful for our table and what it means to this family.

To my sixteen-year-old self:

2010-11-08T10:51:00.001-06:00

Photo of me in HS:

To my sixteen year old self:

(I’ve seen this across the interwebs lately, and I love the theme, and am totally stealing the topic.)

You are not fat. You really, really aren’t. I know you won’t believe me, but you’re going to have to trust me on this one. You are cute and you look nice in leggings. When you are in your late thirties, leggings will make a comeback and you will be too old to partake in the madness. So wear them now. You totally rock the look. I’m serious.
If you’d stop perming and trashing your hair with sun-in, it would grow out nicely, and not look so scraggly. Oh, and by the way… brown looks much, much better on you than blonde. Stick with what God gave you on this one. Trust me.
Your smile may not be perfect, but it’s not as bad as you think it is. In fact, one day you will meet a man who thinks that the gap formed by your sideways tooth is charming. So smile more, and don’t stress out over the fact that you don’t have perfect, chicklet teeth.
Even though you suck at all things athletic, you should exercise more. It will make you feel better. Those headaches you get? They’ll almost completely go away if you exercise regularly.
You know that best friend of yours? The one who went to the Bon Jovi concert with you and lets you watch MTV at her house? Give her a hug. Because she’ll be there for you twenty years from now. (queue Bon Jovi earworm "I'll Be There For You") And even though some things about your relationship will be complicated, she will still be your best friend. I don’t think I’m supposed to tell you details about the future, but I can tell you this: she’s an amazing grown-up.
Your mother is the smartest person you’ll ever know. At 16, 37, and probably at 90. Pay special attention to what she says, because she’ll be more reserved with her advice as you become an adult. At 16, she offers it freely. So listen to her, and take it. Also, tell her you love her. Right now.
Even though your friends have boyfriends while you only have a track record of one really bad experience, don’t lose faith. You are not a hideous troll, and boys don’t think you’re invisible, even though that’s what you might feel right now. When you go to college, you will be asked out on more dates than you have time for, and this will surprise the hell out of you. There’s some confidence inside of you somewhere. Find it and let it shine.
Those annoying little brothers of yours? Yeah. Give them a hug. They’ve got a few tough years ahead of them, and will need you. Your brothers are the best gift your parents ever gave you. You'll be glad for that gift over and over again in your life.
You aren’t the smartest, the most beautiful, or the funniest. But you are smart, beautiful, and funny. And although you doubt yourself right now, you won’t when you’re 37. You’ll appreciate the gifts you’ve been given. You might bemoan the extra padding your love for food has bestowed upon you, but you’ll feel pretty good about yourself overall. The sooner you can see this, the happier you will be.
You will make mistakes in life. Many of them. Some of them will seem huge. In the end, because you learned from them, and they shaped your life, those mistakes will turn into the best things that ever happened to you. You will continue to make more of them until you die.
It is important to have a good job, so you should definitely work hard in high school and college. Your career should be fulfilling, and you should enjoy doing whatever you do. But your job will not define you. What you do outside of the 8-5 window will be your world.
You are strong in your faith right now. Hang on to that conviction, your hope, and those beliefs.
Seriously, you’re not fat.Go buy a bikini.

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-31T09:43:00.000-05:00

Happy Halloween, from a scary vampire, a junior high nerd, a teenager, and the dog!

*photo of the kids in their costumes (Hollywood was herself):

Be on the lookout for tiny little girl vampires - they're scary!

*photo of Bumblebee looking scary:

Watch out - she'll sneak up on you and be deadly:

*photo of vampire Bumblebee biting the neck of The Boy Nerd:

I spent yesterday carving pumpkins. That always takes about a thousand times longer than I think it will, but it's a good way to expend some creative energy. Plus, the dog was in heaven since he LOVES pumpkin. Every time a chunk of pumpkin would fall to the ground, he'd scramble over and eat it. He had so much of it that I made The Husband do a google search on whether pumpkin was harmful to dogs. Turns out, it's actually good for them!

Behold, the alien pumpkin:

The scary face (aka Jack from Nightmare Before Christmas):

and last, but not least - because it was the hardest to do - the Packer's football helmet pumpkin:

*photo of all three together:

Hope you have a Spooktacular Halloween!!

The post where I get all deep and thoughtful, à la Dr. Phil

2010-10-28T14:30:00.000-05:00

I’ve been trying to write this post for a week. I keep starting it, working through my thoughts and then scrapping it. The thoughts are nagging at me, though, and I want to get them on paper so they can leave me alone! They’re swirling around, faster and faster in my head. Kind of like when you stir liquid in a bowl and get going so fast that it sloshes on the counter. That always happens to me when I make instant pudding. (Speaking of which, don’t try the pumpkin spice instant pudding. DISgusting.)

Or my thoughts are like when I’m in spin class, spinning the bike pedals so quickly that I can’t stop or my leg would pop off and fall to the ground. Popped off legs remind me of Barbie, and how Reggie likes to chew them up, leaving the dismembered body parts in the middle of the hallway floor. Sometimes I’ll get up in the middle of the night and step on something. When I stoop to pick it up, and my bleary mind registers that it’s a mutilated Barbie leg, I drop the mangled limb in disgust and curse the dog.

Hold on. Pudding and Barbie legs are not what I want to write about today. I really do have a serious subject, and some thoughts that have been weighing heavily on my mind. I’m going to try to plow ahead. Bear with me.

I have a very dear friend who is getting a divorce. She and her husband haven’t been happy in a long time, it’s been a difficult marriage for her. I’m sad for my friend, because I know she’s in for a rough ride, but I have faith that because she’s strong and capable, she will figure things out in her own way.

I’m surprised at my reaction to her news. My primary reaction has been concern for my friend. I hope she knows that she has my unwavering support through this tough time. But that’s not the reaction that surprised me. In the back of my mind, a tiny seed of thought began wiggling up through the soil of my mind, making me feel scared and vulnerable. If divorce can happen to my friend, it can happen to anyone. Which means it could happen to me.

Intellectually, I know that divorce happens all the time. One in every two marriages ends in divorce, or something like that, right? The Husband and I are both children of divorced parents. I have other friends who have gone through a divorce. I know that it’s common, and I’ve always known that.

This particular friend of mine and I have known each other for 25 years. We go back to a time of awkwardness, braces and fluorescent, oversized clothing. We had crushes on the same boys, navigated the angst-filled halls of our high school together, and went off to the same college. She got married a couple of months before me. I know that her marriage has been challenging – we’ve talked about it before. I remember commiserating with her during times when my own marriage was rocky. Within the last few years, her marriage deteriorated to the point where she felt that she had to make the choice to end it. Like I said, my first reaction was sadness for her and I wanted to make sure that she knows she has my support. But my second reaction, an internal, private reflex, was to personalize her tragedy and feel very vulnerable.

Here’s where I get honest and hope that I’m not sharing too much information. The Husband and I have had some rough times. It once got bad enough for me to seriously consider separation. So I understand that ‘things are beyond repair’ feeling. In our case, we spent a weekend apart to think things over. That weekend didn’t make the issues we were facing disappear, but while I was away, I knew that I couldn’t follow through with a real separation. As angry and confused as I was with The Husband over our troubles, I realized that I just don’t want to be without him.

I won’t go into the nature of issues that we faced, but I will say that for a long time I felt that The Husband needed to change. For many years, I nagged at him, shot him disapproving looks, and in the really bad times, argued bitterly with him. After the realization that I didn’t want to be without him, I began to think long and hard about what I could do to be happy in my marriage. I knew without a doubt that I didn’t want to be apart from The Husband. But I needed to figure out how to be happy with him.

I realized that expecting him to morph into an unattainable version of my prince charming was unfair, and nagging and fighting about it was fruitless. I couldn’t force him to change. But I could change myself. I decided that I should try to find happiness by becoming the person I wanted to be. I began taking more time for myself, going out with girlfriends, exercising more, and spending time doing things I enjoy. It seems counterintuitive that spending more time apart would bring us closer together, but for me, that’s exactly what it did.

As I began to feel happy and fulfilled in my life, I naturally began to dwell upon The Husband’s faults less and appreciate his strengths more.

DUH, right? That’s common sense. But it took me years to realize that the key to happiness is in ME, and not in him changing into someone I think he should be. Some of the issues that seemed so huge and insurmountable before have naturally begun to erode. He became more helpful around the house, he became more emotionally available (which is chick speak for ‘he talks to me about his feelings more’), and we began to treat each other as a priority again. That, right there, is what I was after all along. To feel that our marriage is important and a priority.

It has made all the difference in the world to me.

So back to my friend and her divorce. I have obsessed over this in my mind. (It's amazing that I get anything accomplished with my mind constantly working on overdrive like it does.) What can I do to make sure that The Husband and I don’t end up on the other side of the divorce statistic? Not because I believe my friend is wrong or that divorce isn’t right for her, but because I don’t want to lose what I have built with The Husband. We’ve worked so hard to get where we are, and I value his partnership and I love so many things about him.

Also, he's really cute.

Watching my friend’s marriage end has made me sad for her, and I wish her nothing but the very best. I know she will find happiness and things will be ok, and that this is the path she is meant to take right now. But it’s not the road I want, despite any struggles I may face with The Husband. My friend’s divorce has awakened some need inside of me to continue this quest to find satisfaction within myself, and by extension, to my marriage. But it has also stirred up anxiety too. Are we ok? What if we don’t make it? Am I doing everything I can to make sure he realizes how important he is to me? Probably not. I know I can do better at this.

I guess that’s a place to start, and maybe having something to work on will ease my mind. So, tell me… Have you ever been affected by a friend’s divorce like this? I can’t be the only neurotic one out there, can I?

The Cafe

2010-10-22T18:19:00.000-05:00

*photo of Hollywood behind the counter at work:

Hollywood has her first part time job at an adorable little small town cafe. She makes food, takes orders, serves ice cream, lattes, desserts, you name it.

The cafe is the cutest place ever. Outside there are little metal bistro tables with flowers on them:

*photo of Bumblebee seated at one of those tables:

Inside, the decor is amazing. Not only did the cafe's owner paint all of the decorations herself, but she did it in purple and orange. Purple and orange! My favorites!! I love it:

*photo of the interior of the cafe:

The Husband thinks I take too many pictures (who me?) so he tries to foil my plans by putting on a goofy face in them. In this case, he seems to be thinking really hard. "Should I order the patty melt or the reuben?"

The best thing about the decor at the cafe is the bathroom. There are four paintings on the wall depicting each of the seasons. Check it out:

*photos of the bathroom

I think Hollywood's boss did a great job of decorating the place. It's small and comfortable and did I mention they have coffee and a dozen flavors of ice cream and homemade desserts? Well, technically they're cafemade desserts. But they're good. Trust me.

Hollywood gets to work with her friends - here she is with her good friend Mason:

Watching her work brings back memories of when I was her age and worked at the Maid-Rite in my hometown. There were so many fun people to work with there. Even though it was smelly and greasy and we had to deal with cranky customers, it didn't really feel like work as long as our friends were working too.

I'm sure she'll have similar memories when she's out of school. I realize the theme of 'she's growing up so fast' keeps popping up here on my blog, but DUDE. I'm not kidding! She IS growing up so fast!

Little Avril Lavigne

2010-10-16T11:35:00.000-05:00

I was on the way home from work yesterday and had my iPod doing a random play of the gazillions of songs I have on it. The song I’m With You by Avril Lagivne came on. And oh. Oh. The memories.

Hollywood was a huge Avril Lavigne fan when she was about 10. She dressed like her and kind of looked like a miniature version of her. With less eyeliner:

*photo of younger Hollywood next to Avril Lavigne:

She used to dress up and rock out with her child’s guitar. Like this:

*photo of 10 year old Hollywood dressed like a rock star:

The song I’m with You has the word ‘damn’ in it. I remember Hollywood singing the song in her bedroom and skipping that word because it was a swear word. So cute.

Sigh… Hollywood, you're growing up so quickly. Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?

Football season can't be over already!

2010-10-14T21:57:00.001-05:00

*photo of The Boy is his football uniform:

Tonight was The Boy's last football game of the season. I can't believe it! I know he'll miss it - he mentioned that he won't ever have to practice on the 'practice field' again because in high school football, they get to use the real football field.

I'm not even sure if he'll go out for football next year, but if he does, I'm sure he'll enjoy goofing around with his buddies like he did this year.

*photo of The Boy goofing around with two of his friends:

And he'll miss the team huddles and the camaraderie:

*photo of a team huddle

And the action:

*photo of a football play:

Even the action on the sidelines is fun:

*photo of the guys on the sidelines:

But going after a big guy and getting a tackle is even better:

*photo of a football play:

Time for everyone to shake hands:

*photo of teams shaking hands after a game:

Good game. Good game. Good game.

Sick day.

2010-10-13T09:35:00.002-05:00

Bumblebee started claiming that she didn't feel well last night. We were at a Mexican restaurant having dinner when it started. At the time, she wasn't fabricating an illness. She had a bad case of indigestion. Or constipation. Or the opposite of constipation. Who knows, that kid has bathroom issues. I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that she ate little more than a plate of refried beans for dinner.

But anyway. She wanted to snuggle with me last night and she woke up this morning saying that she didn't feel well. Even though she had stomach issues last night, her illness transformed into a cough and sore throat by this morning.

Look at this face. She wouldn't ever tell a lie. Right?
*photo of Bumblebee, closeup of her bright blue eyes:

Of course not. She's an angel. And since she's got it in good with all of the other heavenly beings, she called in a miracle today. I'm not kidding - as soon as the school bus drove past our house and she deemed that it was too late for her to make it to school, she was cured.

*photo of Bumblebee:

Completely, 100%, dancing around the living room in her dress-up clothes cured.

I'm not one to encourage sick days. But I needed an alone day with her as much as she wanted one with me. Maybe even more.

Bumblebee, go get Finding Nemo. I'll make some popcorn.

Thoughts on a very difficult week. Part 3

2010-10-12T13:24:00.005-05:00

I wrote about the rest of the week in my journal, but my memories of our time in New York are a blur of tasks to accomplish and emotions to deal with. As a result, the account that I’ve written isn’t fit for public consumption. Here, then, are a few disjointed thoughts:

Even though my dad claimed to hate the apartment he and MJ made into their home in Buffalo, leaving it was emotional for him.
There was a lady who worked at Tim Horton’s (a coffee shop) who moved me to tears. She took Dad’s coffee order every morning and got to know him well enough to ask about Mary Jane and have his order ready without asking him what he wanted. When we visited Tim Horton's to say goodbye, she came from behind the counter to give my dad a huge hug. They exchanged addresses (for Christmas cards) and she wished him well. People like her restore my faith in humanity.
I missed The Husband something fierce while I was away. Especially when I watched my sisters-in-law giving comfort to my brothers. He needed to be home with our kids, and I knew that, but I missed him, and would have welcomed his arm around me or the soft grasp of his hand. And I'd have sold my soul for one of his back rubs. I took this photo of my sister-in-law (this is Kim, who helped me all week) and my brother as we visited Niagara falls. It encapsulates the sadness and beauty of the week perfectly:

I am a control freak, but I feel like I did a decent job of controlling those control freak tendencies. (Don't laugh at me, Kim. I could have been so, so much worse!) I learned that if it will ease tension or give someone comfort, letting go of that control is worth it. Even if you want to take charge of a situation so badly that you have to stuff your hands in your pockets and bite your tongue clean off to keep from acting upon your irrational control freak urges.
Writing a eulogy is hard. I know how to write, and can usually ramble on about any subject fairly well. But I felt pressure while trying to create our family’s official goodbye to someone we loved very much.
The song “Me and You” by Kenny Chesney will make me cry from this day forward. It was played on the day of Dad and MJ's wedding and at my step-sister’s funeral in January. It was played again for MJ at her funeral, as a dedication from my dad.
I didn’t know my two step-brothers and step sister-in-law all that well before this craptastic year, but I left New York knowing that I will miss them very much. I hope we can stay in touch. Here is a photo of all of us, taken after the funeral luncheon:

The focus of the past week has been to make sure my dad is doing ok. Kim and I spent every minute of our trip to New York making arrangements, comforting him, and trying to ease his pain. When we got home, after the longest drive of my life (we were dumb and drove straight home, 14 hours through the night) Brother Z and I got Dad settled into his home. When I finally stumbled into my own house, weary from my trip, the kids went to school and I was all alone. I wanted to crawl into bed and let sleep carry me away into welcome oblivion, but it was the first time that my mind allowed me to confront the reality that Mary Jane is really gone. Instead of succumbing to sleep, I began to grieve.

I will miss her loud, clear laugh. I will miss her thoughtfulness. I’ll miss getting text messages from her. I’ll miss the way she and my dad giggled together like teenagers.

She became a part of our family almost seven years ago. I have no idea why God chose to bring MJ and my dad together when they lived 900 miles away from each other only to tear them apart a few years later. It makes no sense to me. But that’s not for me to understand. She is gone, she is missed, and we are all grieving the loss of a true ray of sunshine.

Thoughts on a very difficult week. Part 2

2010-10-09T09:55:00.005-05:00

*photo of the rear view mirror in my car showing the cars behind us in focus:

Kim and I got up and hit the road right away. It was pouring down rain as we drove through Cleveland on Sunday morning, and driving through that city isn’t fun in perfect conditions. I’ve driven through many big cities and I normally don't get too worked up over traffic, but this small town gal thinks the stretch of I-90 through Cleveland sucks! I was glad that it was Kim’s turn to drive. The rest of Ohio and Pennsylvania weren’t bad, though, and we arrived at Dad and MJ’s apartment in the early afternoon.

Dad was glad to see us and greeted us with emotional hugs. “She’s not hurting anymore.” He said. This comforting thought was repeated throughout the week. She was in so much pain towards the end that even a slight touch on the shoulder, arm, etc., caused her to wince.

Nick, Darin, and Amy (my step brothers and MJ’s daughter-in-law) were at the apartment with Dad when we arrived, and we talked about how things went rapidly downhill. Even though we knew the end wasn’t far off, you could tell they were shell shocked by how quickly it ended. They’d lost their sister in January – MJ’s daughter died in her sleep and the cause of death was never explained. Weeks after she returned to Iowa broken and empty from burying her daughter, MJ was diagnosed with terminal cancer. The boys only had these past few warm summer months to spend with her.

The mood was somber on that first afternoon, but I picked up on an undertone of relief. They’d been on edge for days, sitting around her bedside, watching to see when she’d take her last breaths. The stress of it all had to be exceedingly hard to bear, so I think their relief was natural. We discussed what had to get accomplished before the visitation and the funeral, and came up with a plan of action for the next few days.

We knew that Dad wouldn’t want to stay alone in the apartment, and so Kim and I had him pack his things and come to the hotel room with us. Sunday night we got him settled into the hotel and I called my grandma to tell her how Dad was doing. After I’d given her the update, I handed the phone to my dad. Dad doesn't hear well, so Grandma was speaking loudly, and Kim and I could hear the conversation from both ends. Dad's voice was full of grief and Grandma was comforting. As she finished the conversation with, “It’ll be ok. You’ll get through this, sweetie. I love you.” I realized that you’re never too old to need the comfort of your mother.

Speaking of comfort from your mother, my own mom writes a weekly letter that she sends out to her family and friends. This week’s letter included a remark about how proud she was of me for going out to help my Dad, and doing the hard work in situations like this. I read her letter as I was sitting in the hotel room, taking deep breaths and trying to stay in control of myself during that first tough day.

Dad was happy to have a comfortable bed to sleep in (the hospital bed he'd used for the past four months apparently wasn't comfortable) and after a while, he settled into sleep. Kim and I sought refuge in the hotel bar. For a couple of hours it was nice to relax, drinks in hand, and watch football. We even had a man buy us a round of drinks. It didn’t matter that he was an old dude who looked like a deranged Danny Glover. Also, the odd fact that he was at the bar wearing pajama pants didn’t bother us, because, hey – free drink!

Dad was still asleep when we returned to the room, but he didn’t stay that way for long. His sleep was fitful, and he awoke several times in the night. I could hear him crying softly, trying not to wake us. I thought about how awful it must have been to wake up, blissfully unaware for just a second, before the realization that she is gone washed over him. None of us got much sleep that night.

(to be continued…)

Thoughts on a very difficult week. Part 1

2010-10-08T20:59:00.002-05:00

*photo of the hot air balloon that MJ and Dad went on:

We got the news late last week that Mary Jane had taken a turn for the worse. Her body was shutting down and she was in the final stages of her fight with cancer. I struggled with the decision on what to do. I wanted to drive the 900 mile trip to be there for my dad, but knew that she could linger for days or weeks, and I couldn’t leave things behind indefinitely. On the other hand, my Dad was a wreck and he needed someone out there with him.

My sister-in-law made the decision easier when she offered to go out with me. Her generous offer to leave her own family to help Dad with me would turn out to be the biggest blessing of the trip. It is not something I could have done alone.

We set out for New York on Saturday afternoon. The first leg of the trip was easy, an evening of companionable conversation and decent travel conditions. At 1:30 a.m., we checked into a hotel in Toledo, Ohio. As I closed my eyes to sleep, I saw visions of the road before me. Endless miles of interstate rolling on by.

We were jerked out of sleep at six a.m. on Sunday morning by the shrill ring of my cell phone. My heart skipped a beat, and when I saw that the display on my phone read my Dad’s name, I knew this was the phone call we were both dreading and expecting .

“Monica?” He said, his loud voice shaking. He broke down crying and told me she’d just passed away. Dad and her children had sat at her bedside since Thursday, holding her hand and telling them that they loved her. Her sons went home early Sunday morning to get some sleep, and Dad stayed awake with her until 5 a.m. They had matching hospital beds set up next to each other in the rooms so he could lay beside her. He fell asleep holding her hand, and a half an hour later, one of her sons came back to the apartment to check on her and she had passed away. I like to think that she waited until nobody was looking to slip out of this world. She never did like for folks to fuss over her, so this seems just about right.

(to be continued...)

*MJ had always wanted to ride in a hot air balloon. She finally got her wish in September, and the photo above was taken of them on their ride.

Me. Today.

2010-10-01T11:01:00.004-05:00

Oh Bella, (my mother-in-law's dog) This is about how I feel today too:
*photo of Bella yawning, but it looks like a snarl:

Back off, world.

Although... I have a nice weekend planned, so hopefully my mood will improve a bit when this work week is finally over.

Weekend Recap

2010-09-13T09:18:00.005-05:00

What a great weekend. I'm sad that it's over.

Here's how I spent it:

Reading (if something ever happens to my Kindle, I will DIE.) I'm currently reading The Stand (Stephen King) for an online book club I'm in, and What is the What (Dave Eggers) for my other book club. I haven't read anything by King in several years, and was hesitant to try this one, but I am thoroughly enjoying it. What is the What is a fictional autobiography of Valentino Achak Deng, a refugee from the Sudanese civil war. I'm about 1/3 of the way through it and it's excellent, although heartbreaking.

Watching football. My Cyclones got HAMMERED. Here's a picture I took of Brother Z and his fiancee that sums up the game:*photo of M 'punching' Z. M is wearing Hawkeye gear and Z is wearing Cyclone attire:

But at least my Packers pulled off a win. Can I just say that Clay Matthews (linebacker) is a STUD? Sure, the dude needs a hair cut, but he's awesome.

Taking pictures with my new camera. Still trying to figure out how to use it. Here's an awfully sweet one of my mother-in-law with Bumblebee:

The Boy cut his thumb pretty bad on Saturday. He shut it in his friend's car door and yanked it out, slicing the pad of his thumb pretty deep. Poor kid was in a lot of pain, but it'll be ok. He's going to have to take extra care of it in football practice. But it wasn't all bad - he got out of dishes duty for the week!

My favorite part of the weekend was a conversation I had with Hollywood. That kid is growing up, and oh how she makes me proud.

I am blessed indeed.

Race ya!

2010-09-11T11:45:00.002-05:00

It's a beautiful September day. Perfect for some outdoor play.

Reggie is part collie, and collies are herding dogs. He loves to herd. The kids will start running around the back yard like this:
*photo of The Boy and Bumblebee running outside:

and Reggie'll go nuts and run as fast as he can in circles in the back yard. He's warming up for a race:
*photo of Reggie running:

Bumblebee is stretching her legs too:
*photo of Bumblebee running:

Ready,

Set,

Go!
*photo of Bumblebee and Reggie running together:

C'mon, Bumblebee, you can do it!
*photo of Reggie taking a slight lead over Bumblebee:

Push it! Faster, faster!
*photo of Reggie taking an even bigger lead.

Don't let the furball win, Bumblebee! Run FASTER!
*photo: Reggie has an even bigger lead:

And it's Reggie for the win! Better luck next time, Bumblebee.
*photo of Reggie way out in front.

What's the matter, pup? Are you wiped out?
*photo of The Boy rubbing Reggie's belly as he's sprawled on the grass:

How about an ear scratch?
*photo of The Boy scratching Reggie's ear:

All Reggie wants to do is chill out. He's not even harassing the cat!
*photo of Reggie and Mabel sitting together:

Or, maybe... A nap sounds better.
*photo of Reggie taking a nap.

I agree, Reggie. A nap sounds perfect.

Allegiances

2010-09-10T10:40:00.003-05:00

This is the weekend of the annual Iowa/Iowa State football game. It's a huge rivalry around here, and people really get into it.

The workers in my office at Giant Ass Bank are clad in their Hawkeyes or Cyclones wear and departmental food days and team building tailgate parties are underway. There was a group of people having a bean bag toss tournament earlier this morning. (And I wonder why The Husband thinks I have a fluff job and never have to do real work.)

It's a big deal. GO CYCLONES!

The University of Iowa is on Hollywood's short list for college choices. The Husband and I both went to Iowa State University, so while we are incredibly proud of our overachiever daughter, we like to kid her about going over to the enemy. In the past, she's tried to stay neutral and like both teams, but that's tough. I suspect that she's an all out Hawkeye fan by now.

And it hurts! Actually, in Hollywood's case, it's pretty cool. She's growing up, and becoming her own person. I'd like to wrap her up and keep her in my pocket forever, but I can't. So I'll just have to be content with her being "the enemy" this time of year.

But my seven year old isn't supposed to be growing up and asserting HER independence. Not yet, anyway.

Last night, we were talking in the car on the way home from The Boy's first football game of the season. We talked about the fact that the NFL kicked off last night too. The Boy and I were hoping the Saints would pummel the Vikings.

Bumblebee decided to drop this little bomb on us: "Momma. I LIKE the Vikings. Better than the Packers."

Oh HELL NO. I can handle a Hawkeye for a daughter, but a Viking? For real?? Anything but that! Well almost anything. She can't be a Bears fan either. I won't allow it.

When I asked her why, she said it was because 'Vikings' starts with V, just like her first name does.

How can I argue with that logic?

But then... she said that her friend Reagan likes them, so she does too. Oooh, here's my chance to get her back on the side of the green and gold, I thought. I launched into a lecture on being an individual, and liking your own thing. I explained how being different from your friends is good, they'll respect that you have you own ideas and opinions. Blah, blah, and more blah. With a few yadda, yaddas thrown in. I spread it on thick.

Do you see the irony here? I was lecturing her on maintaining her individuality and not allowing others to influence her. Because she likes a different football team than I do.

Oy.

She picked up on it right away.

Bumblebee: "I don't like the Vikings just because Reagan does, Mommy. I told you. They start with a V. And that's cool."

Me: "But... but... It's just not right."

Bumblebee: "And besides, MOM. You like the Packers because you fell in love with Daddy. What kind of individual are you?"

Damn it. She has me there.