In the interim

Things that have gone on since December:
*not much.
*school is going fine and it's almost done for this semester. Two more tests, two more assignments and maybe 2 more at home tests that are really more like quizzes but the teacher in that class is so far behind that I doubt she'll get both ready and posted before the end of the semester.
*we've been making plans to visit family far and wide this summer, but I said it out loud and jinxed it, so that's probably not really going to happen. Really.
*my sister found out that she's having another boy and my sister-in-law found out that she's having another girl. How convenient for both of them, though I doubt that my sister has much left from the last one since he's almost 8-1/2.
*my youngest/last baby is potty-trained. It happened in a day and not because I wanted it to. I wasn't ready, but he wouldn't leave his diaper on anymore so I said, fine then. I think this is probably the last of my gifts-from-God-because-you-had-this-kid-even-though-you-were-so-totally-done-at-4-kids because mostly being potty-trained just means that he runs around naked anytime he can get away with it and at least I don't have to worry too much about him making messes while he's doing it, but I do have to worry that he's going to just whip out his junk wherever we might be. Today he was jumping on the trampoline and had to go, so he dropped them and peed through one of the holes in the mat. His sister says he made it straight through the hole without getting any on the mat, which is great for his aim - not that it matters since he's too short to reach standing up yet - but isn't exactly what I was concerned about. I guess the bright spot is that he night trained the same time, which is a great big miracle. Seriously.
*my oldest is starring in her first play. It opens tonight. I'm not there because I have to work AND we couldn't afford a babysitter this week so I might as well work. I'm going tomorrow night and Daddy is getting her the appropriate opening night flowers tonight.
*My inlaws are moving to Logan, Utah. Kind of ironic (at least in the Alanis way and I don't care enough to figure out if it's true irony) since we moved here from Logan to be near them. Ha.
*That middle one over there is turning 8 in May so we will have parties and baptism and a visit from my parents.
*I'm spring cleaning in preparation for the above which includes Kilzing and painting my cabinets. I'm debating between using the color I bought back in December and heading out to the Lowe's to find the color I really want.
*I am, in general, feeling much better lately - less tired, less stressed out, less blah. This probably means that something is about to hit the fan. See, I'm still pessimistic at least.
*I am also, in general, having a lot of dejavu. Someone once told me that this means that something big is going to happen in your life and though I know that I've had other periods heavy on dejavu, I can't remember if they preceded big events so that's no help at all. I've also been randomly remembering things, events, etc. from the fairly distant past (not childhood or anything crazy like that - those are still mostly gone except the ones from pictures), which is extremely weird since my mind has been a deep, dark hole on all that kind of stuff for a long time. Curiouser and curiouser.
*I just realized that I'm like 3 episodes behind on Project Runway and so that's what I'm going to do tonight - fold clothes, veg and watch a bunch of Project Runway. Awesome.
*We took family pictures on Easter and there are several pictures of the children that I don't hate, two that I love, and even one of ALL OF US that I kind of love too, which is pretty cool, 'specially since we were using a tripod.
*And that's all the news from here.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY SPY!!

June 2007May 2008May 2009 My last 2-year-old...

Wahoooo!

The Queen won her first acting award tonight. She was nominated for Best Actress in a Musical, along with the other 2 girls that played her sisters in the Christmas show, which they all lost to the lead from the adult musical. But the director likes to give awards to the kids (keep them coming back!) and the 3 sisters had a surprise nomination for Best Ensemble. They were up against the Winter Wind (OTG was a WW), the Jitterbugs, the Toy Soldiers, the Toys (Vatican was a toy), and the cast of In Sam's Head. The 3 sisters won, which is a good thing - they really were spectacular (ahem, better than the grownup who won. I'm biased, of course, but I'm also right.) So, anyway, it was a lovely evening - SE's ex-boss made the usual "traitor" dig, all of the volunteers were awarded, OTR fell asleep in SE's arms, and the Colonel was a pain in the butt until I decided to sing The Wheels on the Bus with him, which was MAGIC. I'll be whippin' that one out again, you can bet on that.

Fetch in a handbasket, I just realized that I have an essay due by midnight. Fortunately, it's about 2/3 done, but um, I'm supposed to be working right now. Ack.

The news we've all been waiting for...

SPY's echo was "abnormal." Even though I suspected as much, it still took my breath away. I was reading over the tech's shoulder and saw him label something, but since he used an abbreviation that has 2 meanings in the cardiology world, I was hoping it was the one and not the other. He will see a pediatric cardiologist at Children's Medical Center in Dallas. It's still not emergent, but I don't know if they will want to fix it or watch it.

Frickity, frick, frick, frick.

Tagged

I was tagged by E, but I'm supposed to be writing my autobiography in 500-800 words and so unless I can figure out how to make 8 things into 500-800 grammatically correct words, I'll do the tag tomorrow.

In the meantime, I have news. I called on SPY's echo yesterday and the PA's nurse called me back today.

To tell me that the results are back.

BUT the PA is out of the office on Thursdays. Guess I shouldn't have called on Thursday. Oh, wait...I DIDN'T.

And that's why living in the middle of nowhere sucks.

Took SPY to his echo today. It took almost an hour to get him to sleep even though he was properly un-napped and Benadryl'd and still nursing. The tech had the lights dimmed and gave him a warmed blanket, but I finally had to turn the lights up because that was too unusual and highlighted the shiny light in the ceiling and the interesting TV screen over there. After I finally clued in to that, he was out in about 10 minutes.

The tech said he didn't find anything emergent, heard and saw and took pictures and measurements of the murmur, AND we won't hear anything official for probably at least a week (unless the tech missed something emergent) and possibly more like a couple of weeks because it has to be read by the specialist in Dallas, who is apparently a fairly busy pediatric cardiologist.

And he's pitching stuff off the table again, so that's all.

Fetch in a handbasket.

So I got all smart and decided to take the Blogger bar off the top up there. And now I have no idea how to get to my dashboard to make a new post without going through someone else's blog who didn't take the bar off. I'm a dork.

Sam's echo is tomorrow afternoon, just to update.

He's teething his last front tooth this week, so not letting him nap so that he can nap during the test should be delightful.

Tonight SE tortured Banana by saying a$$. She got very indignant and was literally crying as she said, "Jesus doesn't like it when you say bad words, Daddy." And I'm going straight to hell because I had to bury my head in my arms not to laugh. Okay, I mean I WAS laughing my head off, I had to bury it so that it wasn't so obvious that I was laughing my head off. It was just the combination of what she said and the way she said it. Then Em started in about how Daddy was friends with Satan (we just had Sharing Time in Primary on Sunday about the war in heaven, etc.) and he said, yep, we send text messages and play cards. Em ran with that and decided that Daddy and Satan play Tetris together on the Wii.

And that was our Family Home Evening tonight. Yay!

New Year's Goal

My New Year's goal is to not suck in 2009.

There were some kick-awesome things that happened in 2008 (trips to NY, WA, and UT and SE's new job), but as a whole, I personally spent most of the year just sucking up a storm at a bunch of stuff.

This year promises great things - weaning Mr. Crankypants. Actually, I can't really think of anything else this minute. Spring Break is something I'm looking forward to - we're trying to decide where to go, something cheap and family oriented, an experience rather than a destination, if that makes any sense. More progress on school. SE's first summer off (which, if it goes like Winter Break, promises to be AWESOME in all capitals - seriously, he was a cleaning machine. I helped some, but still had the usual distractions and then some (3!! big holiday meals with guests!!) and he just cranked it out.)

Oh yeah, another goal is to read Twilight, not because I want to, but because I promised SE that I would at least give it a chance and read the first book. Which was easy to promise before he cleaned up the office and found the book. Crap. Now it's sitting literally inches from me and has been for days and I just can't make myself open it yet. I DON'T WANNA!!!

And finally, get working on the weight. I have a new goal - once my favorite T-shirt fits
(for the first time, it was too small when I bought it), then I'm done. Really, it will probably be the same size I was post-Jbot (when I GASP! fit back into my wedding dress) and right at what my goal weight should be. But I just really want to be able to wear my shirt!

To the ER after all

Sammy spiked to 104 this morning, so we headed to the ER - for the whole fricking day. Actually, he spiked to 104 axillary and that wasn't when it beeped, just when he decided enough was enough and yanked the thermometer out.

He's got an infection, probably in his throat, which was red. His ears were lovely on both sides. He didn't have enough pee to test and his chest x-ray looked okay. Blood tests were done and were abnormal in more than the expected ways, which I will discuss later when the followup ones come back okay. Which they are going to. Because I said so.

The doctor wants him back on Sunday morning to recheck to see if the antibiotics are working.

Tomorrow is David's big test for certification.

Prayers for all would be appreciated.

Sam is sick.

And it sucks.

He's getting raging fevers, but isn't pulling on his ears. He had diarrhea last week, but it was finally starting to get better when he started spiking the fevers. He's a complete boobaholic, so I'm thinking his throat hurts - or it could just be that he's miserable. He seems achy and 'tis the season, so I wouldn't take flu out of the differential. His nose is a little runny, but clear and not gross or even copious. He still has tears and saliva and wet diapers and he's certainly drinking tons, so not dehydrated yet.

Those are my Dr. Mommy observations. They don't seem to be doing me much good. Usually I can pinpoint it and fix it, but it's not working and his doctor's office is booked until Monday morning. No urgent care available. It's ER or wait. My intuition still says wait.

I need to go to bed, because I finally got him off the boob - seriously, I missed work tonight because he would fall asleep but I couldn't get him to stay asleep if I removed the boob.

Okay, one slightly humorous story. Somehow boob became Sam's word for nursing. Fortunately, he's usually pretty discreet about it, but last night I was at a presidency meeting at the church with the help of the youngest 3 kids (a whole 'nutha delightful story - if you like stories about 100 thrown crayons and little girls who like to test their reading skills on mommy's notes and are pretty sure that what they have to say must be said RIGHT NOW, especially if someone else is talking). I had nursed Sam earlier in the meeting when it had been just me and the prez because our secretary couldn't find us and we're in the process of getting another counselor, but then our bishopric counselor over Primary had joined the meeting. Sam was tired and was just at the start of getting feverish and he WANTED THE BOOB. So he started asking Boo, Boo, Boo and doing the insistent head fling into position and started lifting my shirt. He wanted boob and he wanted it NOW. Poor Bro. C. was trying to avert his eyes and asked if he should leave. I ended up taking Sam out because they were discussing finding a new counselor and well, it'd be nice to have one of those sooner than later. Oy, oy, oy.

I'm really going to bed now. It really is 1:09 in the morning. Everybody pray that Sammy feels better tomorrow. My house is a disaster, I'm supposed to have a babysitter tomorrow night, and I still haven't finished my lab paper that was due on Tuesday. Craptastic.

JOSH!!!!!!!

I always want to do that scene from City Slickers where Billy Crystal's mom calls him at the exact time he was born, but I don't really know how it goes, so instead I'll put up his birth story, which is one of my 2 favorite (shh, don't tell the girls, but their births SUCKED except for the end and Emily's even sucked then since she was whisked away to get air - oh and Hannah's sucked after too since I was unconscious and didn't see her for 2 hours and someone else held her first, besides even David, for which he has endured years of torment). Anyway...

It was a dark and stormy night.

Not true.

It was in the middle of a blizzard.

(thought I might get you with that one since it IS November - HA, it's Texas, people.)

It was a day pretty much exactly like today, sunny and lovely, with a little bit of a brisk breeze...
**********swirly time-traveling music**********

I'm actually going to start with the day before. I had an appointment scheduled for 10 am, just a regular appointment and to maybe schedule an induction for Thursday or Friday, but that appointment got rescheduled because the NP had sick kids.

I got a call at 8:30 Thursday morning from the receptionist saying that the doctor was wondering where I was since I was scheduled for induction - oops, someone forgot to tell ME. She said if I wanted I could just come up and do it or I could go to the rescheduled appointment, get checked, and then decide. We decided to go to the appointment.

We got to the appointment and after chit-chatting with the NP about her son and how he's doing and school and stuff, she checks me and I'm 5-6 cm dilated! She says that this would be the point where they would like to send me over to L&D. We're pretty much in shock because Thursday was "booked" for David and I was not having any kind of pains. We ask if we can still just wait until morning and she says, "well, it could be any minute, so we'd really like you to go over there."

We decide that I'll just go over and sit and wait and David will go and do his stuff and if I last until after he's done, which we figured I would since NOTHING was happening, then we'll look at popping the bag then. So, we head home to get the bag and make the calls, etc.

At some point, David decides that it would be a bad idea to try and go do the school presentation and make it back in time, so he calls them and they are TOTALLY fine with moving it; in fact, the principal tells him that if anyone asks, SHE cancelled it. This was at the little bitty school that Hannah went to for Kindergarten, so they all know me too.

We eventually get to the hospital, where I already have a room since they were expecting me EARLY in the morning. It's eerily quiet - only one other mom in labor, no babies and no postpartum moms - the whole floor is empty. Which is crazy, considering that when I toured L&D, it was hopping and only the "closet" and the "dungeon" were available. I met my nurse, Darla, who was an angel and told me that if I don't want to do this, then I don't have to because she had heard that I didn't really want to be induced, but we update her on the sitch and I get in the gown and she checks my BP (fine) and contracting (none) and baby (fine and +1) and dilation and says I'm 5-6, but stretchy to 7, maybe 8. The doctor is at lunch, so we decide that we'll do some walking.

I get dressed again and we walk for an hour, running into about a dozen people we know, so I'm not certain how much actual walking we did - only 1 lap in the hour. We head back up to see if the doc is back and get a BP check - she's not and it's fine, so we set out again. About 15 minutes into the walk, we find a door that has a balcony off of it, so we decide to sneak outside for some sun - as I said, it's a beautiful day, but we were told to stay inside the hospital just in case. We get outside the door and it's actually the back entrance for the doctors and coming up the steps is mine. Oops, caught!! We walk back in with her and chat some more about HER kid. I go to get undressed and get hooked back up. She comes in and we decide to go ahead and pop the bag and hold on the pit. She checks me and I'm 7 (woohoo!!) and pops the bag (1:45 pm), all the time chatting with David about the school that he teaches at and her daughter who goes there and on and on and on. At some point, I start actually having contractions and give him a glare. Anyway, she goes away and we hang out watching TV and having ordinary contractions. At some point, Darla comes in and says that if I want to avoid pit, I should try some tricks, so we do and get some good contractions. At some point, I got out of bed and when I got back into bed, the change in position apparently helped things start going on their own, about every 2 minutes or so and hurt enough to breathe through. After about 15 minutes or so, they start to get where I am not just breathing through them, but obsenitying through them (which makes David laugh), so I call Darla and ask for a smidgen of Stadol, which she brings right back (ANGEL!!). She told me to tell her when I started feeling drunk and David said, well, that'll be tough, she's never been drunk. After about a minute, I felt drunk. It was perfect. She said, let me know when you want to push and I said okay, I will. It was 3:45 and I jokingly told David I would be pushing at 4:30. At about 4:20, the contractions started to get their edge back and David said "are you ready to push?" and I said no. On the NEXT contraction, I was ready to push, so everyone came running. The doctor had gone over to her office just after I got the Stadol, so she came running back from there. I had a REALLY bad contraction and David started rubbing my head, which really annoyed me and so I yelled "HEAD!!" which they interpreted as the baby's head coming out and he kept rubbing and so I yelled "NO HEAD!!" which really confused them, so I finally had to say, "Get your hand off my head!!" Then the nurse tried to put my legs up in the stirrups on that same contraction, so I yelled at her too. The doctor made it in and took her coat off and put her keys on the rocker. Got in position, got gloves etc, and I pushed on the next contraction (about 4:30), 3 sets. She said, the next one is it. I had about a 3-4 minute break and then pushed 3 times and he was out (4:39). The doctor started laughing and yelling - "he's peeing on me!!"

I was in TOTAL SHOCK that he was out that quickly; literally, I couldn't believe it. I kept saying, he's here? It's really over? I'm done? Everyone was like, yeah he's here and laughing at me. Then I got to hold him for just a second and David and the nurse took him to be weighed. They came right back with him - 8 lbs, 13-3/4 ounces - but SOOO tiny-looking to me after Haley and Emily's nearly 10 pounds!! He nursed and then the pedi nurse took him to the warmer (in the room) and did all his stuff right there. I showered and came back in and watched Survivor in peace and quiet. David made his rehearsal at 5:30 - he asked me first if he should go and I was still high and relaxed, so I sent him on. I totally botched changing the first diaper (well, second, David did a great job with the first), he peed and pooped all over his stuff and my bed.

A few pictures to summarize the last week or so...

In reverse order because that's how Blogger uploaded the pictures, even though I swear I added them in chronological order. We also saw HSM3 on Saturday (right before we found the super-fantastic deal on Halloween stuff at O.N.)
It was fab-u-lous, of course.

Halloween Costumes

Emily as a good witch, Josh and Sam as her twin pet bats

The Love

Sam helped make pizza dough, cinnamon rolls, and pie crust for quiche.

I'm not actually sure which time this picture was taken, but one of those.

Sam at the Park

My sister and her son visited on their way to Florida.

We went to the park and they climbed to the top of the rocket ship.

My new favorite picture of most of the kids

I should have taken Sam out of the stroller :-(

Shirts I designed for Homecoming

I like these as much or more than the ones I made for the girls last year. I didn't get any really good pictures of the girls' logos - the main logo is the same as the boys' but they have "Hannah Bear" etc. under the logo in different fonts. Josh's is the only one through the wash so far and it's pretty faded, but still visible. Everyone's has to be bleached, but my photo transfer paper is only good on white, so white it is.

Oh, and look at this picture. David singing the National Anthem at Homecoming - his first time ever at a game. He was AWESOME.

Well, flip, the laptop decided it doesn't want to cooperate. I'll try again later. For now, just imagine a picture of David with a microphone on the 50-yard line.

Now it won't let me move the picture where I want it, so since y'all are doing such a good job imagining, I'm just going to leave it.

36 hours, not that I'm counting or anything

Bought new shoes today. BOGO!! which I just want to point out is not really a BOGO, but a BOGOHO, but that's not good advertising, now is it? I wanted to link a picture of them, but I have not found one yet (they aren't on the website anymore). I'll google and see if I get anything. Okay, they look just like this except black and much, much larger and the insides are plain black instead of snazzy. Shut up, I still like them. The other pair is also a ballet flat, cream and with pink details. I LOVE them. David hates them. Double sweet. I started out with plain black ballet flats (well, with a black bow), but they just weren't me. They were probably more appropriate for the outfits in general, but I decided I just didn't care and I took them back today. Yes the sales person laughed at me, but she was really nice about it.

Something I realized while shoe shopping - I had forgotten how much I LOVE shoes. I've never had a TON (at least not by Imelda standards), but I've always loved the ones I had. Well, for about 10 years or so, I've not been my usual shoe buying self and have dwindled down to about 5 pairs of shoes, none of which I really love, and of those, was wearing 1 (quite ugly, but neutral) pair 90% of the time and tennis shoes the other 10%. Sad, sad, sad. So, now I have 2 pair of shoes that make me happy. Soon I will work on the replacing the rest, starting with the tired old tennis shoes.


Today is Love Day, so I've gotta go get the Shells and Cheese made and then work on folding more laundry. OH YEAH. The other thing I wanted to post about - I am about 2 batches from being done with ALL the laundry. I kid you not. Glorious day.

Things I Meant to Blog, but Have Been Way Too Busy - Bullet-style

• I keep blogging stuff in my head, but due to the brain sucking which has rendered my memory virtually useless, that stuff will probably never be blogged as intended. Which stinks, because most of it was brilliant.
• Took J to the doctor today. No, actually, I took S to the doctor and mentioned J's rash. The NP thinks it looks like staph. Perfect!! So the child most likely to touch himself, not wash his hands, and put those hands, oh EVERYWHERE, has staph. Fab-U-lous.
• S is doing fine mostly, except that he has "fallen off the growth charts." He's a runt, but we love him anyway. Note: J, who is now in the 97th percentile in weight AND height, was also a runt when he was a baby. No worries on the runtiness of S. It's just the way we grow boys apparently.
• My hair. I don't want to talk about it. Let's just say it is not fixed yet.
• I've been crafty lately - sewing, gluing, more sewing. More to be done. Mostly enjoying, we'll see how long that lasts :-P.
• No school this week. Yeehaw??
• As usual, I should be working right now. So not in the mood tonight. Anyone happen to notice how often that happens when I have an ESL doctor up?
• Actually, none of this is stuff I meant to blog, it's really the way too busy.