Mommy moments that bring tears (and sobbing and wailing) to your eyes

Ever since I discovered my love of blogging, I have people ask me if the stories I share are true. Yes people, amazingly I am not imaginative enough to come up with these things on my own. Believe me, I kind of wish I was so I didn't have to necessarily experience EVERY one.

Yesterday I had two occasions that brought tears to my eyes. Firsts that I won't soon forget, and I have the pictures to remind me of these moments when I get old and can't remember if my recliner or the porcelain throne is where I sit to pee.

My oldest baby had his first piano recital. His name was third on the program and when the second child finished up we cued the video recorder and camera and moved into the aisle eagerly awaiting our beaming child's face in the view finders. We waited, and we waited, and then we checked the program to make sure he really was next. Finally his teacher leaned across the aisle and reminded him that it was his turn. We heard an exclaimed "Oh!" before he catapulted on stage at a speed that was rather impressive. So focused was he on getting to the piano and keeping things moving, he forgot to pause and announce his name and song.

He opened his piano book and played "Jingle Bells" without missing a single key. The greatest part was, his eyes never even glanced at the page in front of him. He found our camera's and beamed his way through his memorized music, before launching himself back into his seat. I have never been prouder!

After the recital reception where one child wiped Christmas cookie frosting all over his daddy, and another sat down in the middle of the food line to scarf down chocolate fudge, and I embarrassed myself by asking a woman who ended up not being pregnant when she was due, we loaded our children and our lovely first impression into the car and headed home to create a ginger bread house.

At home, my three kids all crowded together on one 3 foot kitchen chair to be the first to get their hands on the gingerbread pieces. Of course some one got pushed and some one else hit back and some one else fell off the chair, smashing their face into the hard wood kitchen floor.

Well the one on the floor unfortunately happened to be the 1 year old. As Kevin held him and I tried to wipe the blood from him face, I realized part of his lip was not in the same place that it had previously been in. I started crying. Caleb had nothing on my wails. The other kids, convinced their brother must be dying judging from my body shaking sobs, joined in the chorus.

Kevin looked at me and said, "Hon, you have to calm down". With tears soaking my shirt and on a hiccup, I wailed, "this is calm!" We all climbed in the car and made our way to Urgent Care. The nurse who checked our drooling, bloodied, baby in, commented that she remembered taking care of Kyler when he had his toilet injury. Must they tell us that every time we come in??

The urgent care staff took one look at the lip and directed us to the ER. I think the only reason they did that was so they didn't have to deal with my hysterical hiccups and questions about life long scarring on my poor babies face.

The older two were wonderfully passed off to Grandma, and we made ourselves comfortable in the waiting room of an amazingly crazy Emergency Room. We were joined by these parents who came in and sat down across from us. Their teenage son had decided to take a spin on his motorcycle around the neighborhood, minus a helmut and wearing house slippers. The end result was a rather fun road rash and ankle injuries that required local anesthesia to fix. They didn't just talk about this incident though, no they felt the need to reminisce about all of his antics. By the time they were called back into their son's room, I was hyperventilating and with horror I squeaked to my husband, "How will we ever keep 4 boys alive????"

I have worried about the grocery bill once we have 4 teenage boys in the house. No longer does that keep me awake. How the heck will we afford 4 boys' emergency co-pays???

After a record setting wait, they gave my 18 month old versed, a drug that made him think he was a puppy, discover amazing new qualities in his toes, and caused rather drunk giggles at random moments, after loudly calling for his daddy. We left the ER at 1am with 4 stitches in his little lip. My sweet Caleb is definitely Kyler's brother.

And so we add stitches to our last three weeks of contractions, infections, stomach viruses, and dead guinea pigs. I came home and fell asleep around 2am. I dreamed that I disfigured my face, payback for letting my baby acquire life long marks on his perfect little lip.

Turkeys, Tummys and Toddlers

In almost 9 years of marriage I have never cooked a Thanksgiving meal. Thank goodness both families contain good cooks and we are with one or the other every year. This year the plan was to experience my grandmothers amazing cooking and eat ourselves into comas. The day before we planned to leave, my unborn youngest decided that he did not want to miss out on Grandma Troyer's cooking and has been doing his best to break out of his little cocoon. To discourage his early arrival, I am supposed to be taking it easy and not straying far from our hospital. I even have a prescription ordering Kevin to change all diapers. That part almost makes the contractions worth it!

After panicking at the thought of cooking a turkey, and deciding that I didn't want my water breaking at a restaurant, I sat down with my Sunday paper and clipped every Thanksgiving looking coupon I had before loading my kids into the car and heading out at what I thought would be a fairly slow shopping time of the day. Not two days before Thanksgiving.

I parked in the last spot at the back of the parking lot and hiked my way into the grocery store. I found my potatoes after standing in line for the potato bin. That was my first clue that this was not going to be a fast in and out trip.

Next stop was the turkeys. Seriously it was like black Friday for turkeys. Every time I found one small enough for me to lift and less than $50.00 someone snatched the thing out from under me. My oldest asked me why they put the dead turkeys in a net. I told him so they wouldn't run away.

Next I, along with the 50 people pressed in around me, heard the stocking guy mention that their shipment of oven bags never came in. Well I had a coupon for one of those so I scrambled to the bin and grabbed one of the last ones. I didn't even feel bad when a lady looked at me in shock since it was the one she was going for. After all she had my first pick of a turkey.

I had a coupon for broth. My mother-in-law always has broth on the counter when she cooks Thanksgiving dinner. I bought two just in case. No clue what she uses it for, but I got it and I got it on sale with a coupon. What does it go in???

I also had a coupon for sparkling cider. The aisles were lined with sparkling cider, just not the brand of my coupon. I walked up and down the same aisle 3 times before finding 3 of them...on the top shelf...at the very back. I thought about dropping the coupon on the floor and walking away, but I had already come so far. I made a spot on the bottom shelf for me to step up. Unfortunately I forgot about the middle shelf and my bulging belly and when I stepped up on the shelf, grapefruit juice went flying! About this time my youngest's shoe hit its perfectly aimed mark; his brothers head. Do I pick up the rolling juice first or stop the unnatural screams coming from my cart. If I ignore the screams, will people know its my cart? Whats more embarrassing, screaming kids or bulging belly's sending an avalanche of juice down the aisle?

I bought green beans, because the picture of the Thanksgiving dinner in the paper showed green bean casserole. Not a single person in my family will touch green beans!

So this is just the shopping trip! How will I ever pull off the meal?

Memory Lane

This time of year always seems to lead me down memory lane. As a teenager I didn't date a whole lot. Once a guy gave me flowers and I didn't leave my house for 3 days for fear I would run into him! I loved romantic movies and looked forward to getting married one day, but I just wasn't sure about the "boy" part of it.

So in October of 2001, a friend loaded me into her car and drove me to meet a guy who she felt would be a good fun guy to hang out with. I didn't say 2 words the whole ten minutes we interacted. I went home and did my biology homework and later went to Homecoming with a group of girlfriends, had a blast, and was perfectly content with it.

A month later that guy called me. He asked if my sister and I wanted to see a movie with him and his friend. No I did not. But my sister did and being under 16 it was the rule that she could only group date.

So this guy wasn't really into the whole set-up thing either. He had driven around outside his house waiting for us to leave when he found out I was coming to meet him. A month later he was bored, so he asked a girl out on a date. She was busy, and having just moved back to the state, he didn't have very many options in girls at that point, so he figured he'd go with plan B and call up the quiet girl from a month before. It was better than sitting at home for another weekend playing that video game he had beaten twice already.

Now my mom really liked that questions like who turns their head which way when you kiss, kept me just paranoid enough to never try it, so she smiled and waved goodbye when we headed out the door confident that I would be changing my phone number the next day.

Well I didn't change my number and the day before Thanksgiving I decided to be ok with finding out who turned their head which way, and my mom was rather dismayed when flowers from a guy didn't make me hide in my closet, and my dad told the poor kid no the first time he asked to marry me, but somehow we found ourselves married, fighting over toothpaste brands, and parents to almost 4 boys just 10 years after that plan B date.

What doesn't kill ya can still come close!

I have discovered something this last week. Husbands are invaluable things to have around. Despite their annoying habits of leaving closet doors open, or mail on the clean counter, or mood swings during Sunday afternoon football, or insensitive comments about it being that time AGAIN, they really do contribute, even if only at times as another adult voice.

My husband is smack dab in the middle of a two week business trip; overseas; with no phone contact and very unreliable internet connection; with a young, long legged, blonde co-worker along for the ride. Combine this with an almost 8 month pregnant mommy of all boys experiencing minor stomach bugs, a snow day or two, Halloween with its mounds of sugar, a time change, and little irritants such as flipped breakers and lost keys, and you have half a neighborhood putting their houses up for sale.

The morning Kevin left, I got up with enough determination to take on the world; and then my kids got up and I am still trying to find what happened to all of that determination and good intent. I found myself saying so many times, "lets just not talk for the next 5 minutes". I threatened to tie everyone up if they kept fighting, and I let a kid in bed with me when he felt that 5am was a great time to get up. I even let M&M's be supper one night.

When Kevin skyped with us and in between broken connections said he had picked up a parasite and was really sick, I did feel bad for him. I wouldn't ever admit that the thought crossed my mind that at least he was miserable too! But when he told us about the chicken he had had for supper one evening that was crawling with bugs, I did genuinely feel a little bad sitting down to my bug free pizza.

The stories of cool places, and exotic food, and interesting people however have made me think that a girls day at the spa when he gets home should be in my future! One particularly difficult day, my oldest needed flowers for his teachers birthday, so I bought myself some as well!

Last week my oldest's piano teacher smiled in sympathy (because I refused to admit it might have been pity) when I forgot the check, the teacher sweetly kept her mouth shut when one kid showed up in a light jacket in the middle of a snow storm, the pizza guy didn't say anything about how many times he had been to our house in only a few days, and the Sunday school teacher reminded me that at least I got an hour of childcare while I was in church and was therefore worth wrestling everyone out the door by myself.

So far everyone is still alive! SCORE!

Highway character lessons

These days I find myself spending an incredible amount of time in my mini-van. I currently have two children enrolled in two different schools, one attending morning classes and one attending afternoon classes. I have a child taking piano lessons, groceries that require purchasing, and Church to get to every week. I have at least one family member heading to a doctors appointment every week, at least one child invited to a playdate or birthday party at any given moment, and book club, exercise class, or Bible Study just to keep my sanity. Just wait till basketball and swimming start back up!

As I have been spending more time in my vehicle, I am coming to realize that God is either trying to teach me something in the character department or truly does get his comic relief from watching me interact with the other great drivers of Colorado Springs.

I am proud to say that I have learned a few lessons recently.

Lesson 1: If you have a fish on your car I will do my best to stay far away from you, because you are probably driving 10 miles under the speed limit, come to complete stops, and graciously allow ever single driver in ahead of yourself. You will probably have a special place in Heaven along with those people who never lose library books, eat the recommended 12 servings of vegetables a day, and really don't talk on your phone in the carpool line at school. Yes, I realize you probably do all of those things as well.

Lesson 2: Girls just wanna have fun! There seem to be a lot of Coloradan girls out there who are young, have great hair, have an amazing talent to text and erratically weave, I mean drive, at the same time and apply makeup all behind the wheel of trucks with bumper stickers on the back mocking boys. The more I am on the road, the more I am astounded at the young female talent in our city!

Lesson 3: If there is a friendly officer on the side of the road reprimanding another fellow driver, everyone will slam on his breaks to avoid the inactive radar gun sitting in the back seat of the car with flashing lights just in case the officer magically guesses your speed and feels it is more important to abandon the 3 pages of paperwork he has just completed on the already stopped car in front of him, to track you down and give you what you've had coming for several miles now. Granted there may be a few ADD people who honestly forgot they were driving when they saw the pretty flashing lights on the side of the road and the gas pedal is the last thing on their mind at the moment.

Lesson 4: If you think I'm crazy on the road just wait! I have 4 boys who will eventually be allowed out on the streets with a scary little card containing their name and picture! I think I shall start a petition to up the age of legal driving to...oh 25.

Who shot Humpty??

When I was a kid, my mom sewed us these super cute dresses. She made these quilts which people bought for lots of money. She made the cutest cakes for our birthdays. My dad painted these awesome pictures. He could draw anything!

Last year in Micah's preschool class, these mom's would make these flowers and objects carved from fruit and amazingly detailed bunny's out of cupcakes for their kids' birthday's. Valentines day found these amazing homemade valentines in my child's basket, and at Halloween one mom admitted after thousands of compliments that yes she did make the amazing gypsy costume her daughter could have won awards it and was up at 6 to do her hair!

I tried to honor my mother by sewing one time, now my husband saves up his patching needs until my mom comes to visit. I tried drawing, my kids thought my dog was an alien. For birthday's I bought a giant cookie and had them write my child's name across it. For Halloween, my kids wear whatever costume I find on sale at Walmart.

This Monday Micah informed me that they were supposed to wear nursery rhyme costumes to school on Thursday, and I broke out in a cold sweat when I saw the words "homemade strongly encouraged" on the paper. Strongly encouraged is not mandatory and I was convinced that if I did try next years paper would read "homemade strongly encouraged, except for Micah's mom". My dear son had his heart set on Humpty Dumpty so I began scouring stores and websites for the perfect costume. It didn't exist, and with two days to go I decided I better start looking at EASY ways to make a costume, GULP.

I found some rather simple instructions and set out to find white sweats for my little broken egg character. No one in their right mind dresses little kids in white, therefore no one carries anything in solid white. After 4 stores and 3 screaming kids, 1 leaking diaper, and a husband who was muttering inappropriate language under his breath, I found white leggings....in the girls section.

I took Micah into the dressing room and tried on the white shirt with the leggings. All was good until he noticed the thin line of lace around the ankles. "What is that??" he hollered. "is this girls pants??" The store associate who had helped me locate them could be heard laughing hysterically outside the stall.

I hauled my howling son out of the dressing room and paid for the lacy leggings and listened to threats from my five-year-old about running away from home all the way to the house. I sat down right away with the T-shirt paint to fashion a little Humpty bow tie. Hmm maybe I could do this. My husband walked by and leaned over to look at my work, putting his arm right smack dab in the middle of the red paint, smearing Humpty's suspenders and making it look like he was shot off the wall instead of falling.

As I tried to quick wash out the extra red spots, I realized the manilla envelope I had put underneath was bleeding into the white shirt creating a yellow spot with a red center. Uh oh Humpty's yoke was spilling from his bullet hole! Kevin sweetly encouraged me saying "its really not that bad for your first time."

I gave up and went to bed.

This morning I wrestled my 45 pound child into the lacy egg white leggings while he insisted that everyone would laugh at him and he would not get out of bed tomorrow if I made him wear them.

Micah assured me that every picture of Humpty had him dressed neatly in blue pants so we gave it a try. Notice the much happier expression on my stubborn kids face.

I am sadly outnumbered in my vote for the white egg like leggings. Oh well at least my kid will have some sort of costume tomorrow along with the rest of Mother Gooses cuties. And hey, I got to shop in the girls section at Old Navy for once!

Expendable...um extended family members

Recently we hesitantly, tentatively, squeamishly, under much force of pleading, decided to expand our family. (Um no I'm not talking about the growing watermelon that has turned me into a small whale)

We inherited two female guinea pigs. Or as they have been most affectionately called by myself, freaky little rats.

I found myself having a conversation with Kevin a few days ago along these lines. Kevin: "hon I think the guinea pigs are hungry." Me: "really? I fed them like....oh 4 days ago." Kevin: "I think they have to eat ever day!" Me: "but they are little, they shouldn't have to eat so much!" Kevin: "Shell, you know that when the baby's born even though he's little he'll have to eat like every 2 hours right???"

I know nothing about these things except I probably should feed them more and they like to run around their cage at the most intense parts of movies and the darkest times of night.

My boys think they are the coolest! Micah will sit and hold them and pet them and talk to them and thinks its dumb that they have to have names like "sugar" and "honey" and has renamed them "Tom" and "Jerry". The other night I heard him laughing hysterically. I came out to find him crouched over the cage trying not to wet himself as he held his sides and doubled over. I asked him what in the world he was doing. He told me that if you only give them one carrot they chase each other and play tug of war with it. The squeals that were coming from them did not sound normal. Yeah I think we need to feed them more. This is now Micah's favorite feature of our new family members. That they fight!

Kyler loses interest pretty fast if they don't do something cool right away. He has discovered if you growl at them they go running to hide. They become much more interesting to him if he can catch them emptying their bowels. I am somewhat concerned about the number of times I have had to remind him that we cannot let them out of their cage to play hide and seek at will throughout the entire house, or the number of "what would happen if we put them....." questions I answer every day.

Caleb's approach to the little rodents is, "Lets see what else she'll eat!!" If it fits between those little wires, its fair game!! Legos, cd covers, cards, you name it! Recently my little explorer has discovered the amazing joy of watching things fly down the stairs. The bigger the object the faster and louder and bigger the hole in the wall at the bottom and he loves it! This particular cage is supported by wheels. The cage sits several yards away from the stairs, but that is not an obstacle for this determined experimenter. Fortunately I have always discovered the "maiden voyage" before it takes off.

These animals came to us from a very sweet family of older, calmer, quieter kids who would take the time to sit and pet and spoil them. Every once in a while I catch the "rats" looking at me, and I can't decide if its hunger or sheer terror that is staring at me through those beady little eyes. I really hope the people who entrusted us with their tender loving care never read this blog!

Firsts

I have had a lot of firsts recently, and some, I hope, are onlys. Like chicken pox... twice.... after having vaccinations. Or camping....pregnant! A couple of weeks ago Micah had his first day of Kindergarten. After watching his mommy go through an inhumane amount of Kleenex leading up to the actual day, he sweetly requested on the way to his first day of class, that if I had to cry, I could only cry a few drops, after all he wouldn't' be gone too long and he would miss me too. This resulted in a whole box of used Kleenex.

His brother followed me around for the first week, asking me what I was doing, begging me to play dinosaurs with him, and pestering his little brother just to see if he could set a new record on how loud he could get him to scream. He informed me with exasperation one afternoon that he couldn't go play since he had no Micah's!

God smiled at me when I cried every day for the first week as I watched my little, tiny, big boy climb out of the car with his slightly too big backpack bouncing on his back, and head confidently into school. So to remind me why it really was a good thing that 5 year olds leave their mommy's for 3 or 4 hours every day to learn stuff they may or may not remember a year from now, he gave me a week of chicken pox.

As we spent the week disappointed about the school activities we were missing, watching a ridiculous amount of Veggie Tales, and breaking records on things to fight over, I found myself asking when he could go back to school and I could cry from missing him yet again.

Today I kissed my second boy as he looped his little back pack straps over his arms and headed off into the exciting new world of crayon wrappers and glue sticks. As he looked up at me and said "I'll really miss you mommy" I was convinced he was only making sure that he could squeeze tears out of me as efficiently as his big brother did.

The knock you over hug I got from him when I picked him up assured me that he really did miss me, and made me feel like all those spankings over looked, all those imaginary friends I brushed teeth for, every 20 goodnight kisses each night, were worth it.

My very wise mother assured me today that there really was no way of slowing time down, instead I needed to treasure every moment. I think I will take her advice as my 5 year old reminded me, that my 1 year old baby gets to go to preschool next!

Queen Me

Today I had pictures taken of my insides. In my insides was this squirming little human being! Little toes made themselves very familiar with a blob that was labeled "bladder", and little arms tried to come through my belly button. I have experienced this unique photo opportunity more than once in my life, but it never really loses its wonder.

The lady doing the ultrasound kept commenting on how active this little one was, and how big it was, things my bladder and ligaments really didn't want to hear! She commented on its head, heart, spine, kidneys and toes, before I finally looked at her and blurted out "yes, cute toes, what's between them???"

She responded with this shot, blown up nice and large on a TV screen for no one to miss.

"Oh that" was what came out of my mouth. You see this has been the very proud display of each of my tumbling intrauterine blessings.

My dear doctor who, just last visit was flipped off by my charming 4-year-old as he proudly displayed a hurt finger, asked me if I thought this one was displaying temperaments like that of any of my other boys. I think she wanted to be prepared for anymore surprise gestures when she opens me up to pull this trying-to-keep-up-with-my-big-brothers angel out.

Speaking of those big brothers, they have already discussed the benefits of 4 wii controllers for 4 brothers and who will win Mario Kart more often.

I think its safe to say they are cool with adding another male to their tribe, although Kyler has informed me that this addition can't have his dinosaur shirt since he plans to just keep stretching it so he never outgrows it.

I have been asked if I am disappointed. My answer is yes and no. I am disappointed that the great deal I got on the pink suede coat last year will now become a great shower gift (all you having girls, feel free to send me an invite to your showers; its adorable!) but I love how close my boys are to each other, and I can't think of a better way to grow up than having your best friends surrounding you and always there for you. Plus now I still get to pee in public by myself, and Kevin has to haul 4 boys into the stall and groan as they talk about how far they can pee and who stinks the worst loud enough for the restaurant next door to hear!

The Wonderful World of Boy

Before I had kids whenever I pictured myself being a mom I pictured myself being surrounded by cute little girls all in dresses, hair in bows and ribbons doing ballet, having tea parties and painting fingernails. Little girl giggles and princess stories and sweet flowery smells painted my senses. Its not that I didn't want boys, nor did I think I wouldn't have any, I just pictured these perfect little cherubs as my offspring. And then I had a boy...and another one....and another one.

My life has never been the same. Instead of dresses my laundry consists of dinosaur shirts and jeans with huge holes in them, even the brand new ones. The hair usually has sand and jelly in it, there is not a bow to be found in my house. Ballet is karate and tea parties have been replaced by food fights. There are, however, plenty of giggles especially at suspicious noises followed by smells that would wilt any flowers.

I must admit I have laughed more and rolled my eyes more and been more thankful than I ever have in my whole life, with these loud, dirty, rowdy treasures filling my home. My boys proudly display their bruises and scars and know exactly what happened to achieve them. They know who can pee the farthest standing at the top of the swing set. They have memorized all of their favorite dinosaur movies and wrestling is inevitable no matter how loud I yell to cut it out. This is one of my favorite descriptions of boys: Boy, n.: a noise with dirt on it. ~Not Your Average Dictionary

My typical day usually includes three spills, minimum, 5 episodes of my heart completely stopping in pure terror as I watch a child jump over the railing at the top of the stairs and pray he makes the 12 feet without breaking anything or as I try to figure out what went up the nose this time, or who is locked in the washing machine. It includes at least 5 lectures on why you can't take your swimming trunks off standing by the pool, on why you can't tell strangers I am not your mommy, on why you can't put anything other than DVD's in the DVD player just to name a few.

But my day always holds 5 or 6 sticky kisses, hugs that sometimes make me worry I won't be able to turn my head for days, and "I love you's" in all shapes and sizes. It includes compliments, like "you look like a princess" and "your just as fun as daddy is!" And when my kid is wearing the goalie jersey and is picking his nose letting the soccer ball fly over his head into the goal I couldn't be prouder or love life more no matter that there are no tutu's or Swan Lake.

True my dreams of shopping trips and pedicures, have been replaced with the rodeo and baseball games, movie night will probably never hold romantic comedies, and I will have to learn how to handle the countless ulcers that come with the amazing daring adventures my boys set out on. I can't wait to see what tomorrow holds! Who knows, there might be bows in my future yet....

Is that a giant octopus in my bathtub?

When I became a mom my goal was to be the best mom ever. Oh and never ever yell. After a while my goal became to be a very good, above average mom and only yell when it was a very serious situation. After I had my second son, my goal became to be a good mom and I left out any and all yelling goals. My goal has evolved into "keep them alive" and it would be a bonus if they left home with all appendages still attached with minimal life long marks on their bodies. Oh and don't lose my voice from yelling more than twice a week.

Every once in a while, I have been accused of being paranoid, but lets face it, these people weren't there the time my then 3-year-old managed to almost drown in swim class, or had to dig french fries, peanuts, or legos from body parts, or been in the urgent care because a toilet caused a lost fingernail, or dancing broke a foot. My children have a unique and uncanny ability to create very reasonable circumstances for paranoia. Even my last unborn child managed to work his cord into a knot which could have created any number of complications, not one productive to my goal of keeping him alive. So I may be guilty of imagining giant caterpillars snatching my children up, or worrying about a meteor shower over my house, or having an exit plan if giant bees suddenly invaded my vehicle while we were in it.

Thankfully I have been lead to or stumbled across countless number of very practical and helpful resources that have given me courses of action or information that I can put to use in my goal of keeping my children alive. There are to many to put into a blog, to many anyway to keep anyone's attention and prevent them from falling asleep and smashing their head into their computer screen, but I have been asked about these resources by my amazing mommy friends who have somehow managed to learn how to lose their voice from screaming much less than I have, and have decided to highlight a few of my favorites here.

The first one is the one that helped ease my fears of an invisible suit being invented and my children being kidnapped before my very eyes by an invisible bad guy. "Protecting the Gift" by Gavin de Becker

I highly recommend this book to all parents. Its very practical and actually helps you eliminate fears instead of creating new ones (a myth that kept me from reading this book for a while). Now I feel confident in having plans if alien lifeforms in the form of my children's friends tried to brainwash them; ok so he doesn't actually cover that exact scenario....

The next one, though somewhat controversial in my circle of friends is still one I think all parents need to read, even if they decide to follow the typical recommended timeline for child vaccinations. I believe its our job to at least stay informed on how to protect our children from illnesses and protecting them from the various forms of protection against illness. The book is "The Vaccine Book" by Dr. Robert W. Sears.

My first two kids had very few side effects from vaccinations, therefore I never thought twice about giving them whatever my doctor recommended. When Caleb was born he had every single side effect. The nurse would tell me, "oh don't worry only like 1 in a gajillion babies has this reaction." and later that day I was calling the nurse to let her know she was safe for the next gajillion kids since my kid was the 1! My doctor has been 100% supportive in letting me choose which vaccines to give when and I am so thankful for that!

The last one that I will talk about here is "The Minds of Boys" by Michael Gurian.

This book is awesome for parents of boys. I tend to believe that my children are rare little geniuses, but I still worry about what might happen if it turns out that the time my husband dropped the baby down the stairs at 2 month old left permanent damage, or if the son that thinks glue sticks can double as suckers can't remember that C always comes after B. This book is awesome in promoting a learning environment as early as in the womb. It has great tips on getting your child in the right schools and institutions, how to handle problems, even what foods are best for breakfast so boys can focus better in the classroom. Again a very practical book that can offer some reasonable information and action plans for making sure your boys succeed in becoming all they can be.

There are so many more wonderful resources out there, and if you have some that you recommend let me know. Currently I am still searching for books on selective hearing, how to be a millionaire as a stay-at-home-mom instead of broke, and any books on remedies for getting your voice back quick. Who knows I might end up writing a book on proper Urgent Care decorum!

How did that Happen?

When I was a kid I had somewhat of a reputation for finding my way to every emergency room in every city I happened to be in. My husband is not unfamiliar with bumps bruises, and holes in his shins that go clear to the bone either.

We have found ourselves parents to three boys who seem to have inherited our ER gravitating genes. In May we found ourselves hauling our 4 year-old to Urgent Care after his brother slammed his finger in the toilet. We were excited to learn that we were the first toilet injury in there that day, even though we couldn't save the nail.

This weekend held adventures of high fevers and diarrhea which allowed us to visit our old friends staffing the Urgent Care yet again.

Settling in for a long and boring week, which I looked forward to with enthusiasm, my plans were thwarted with a fall from our 4 year-old who must of gotten a double dose of our genes and some we didn't know existed. Dancing in the middle of the unusually clean living room he toppled over himself and screamed as if the world had come to an end.

As there may also be a few genes in the drama department residing in one or more of us, we threatened him that if he didn't stop the banshee wails we would send him over to the neighbors yard that has a hound dog that sounds much worse at 5am than any injured 4 year old could, and really has it coming to them.

The next morning the child still wouldn't walk and feeling a little guilty for not listening to his wails that his foot was broken and he would never walk again and he might die, I made my very familiar way back to Urgent Care.

The technician who casted my son's broken foot came into the room, dubbed my son the toilet kid, which said kid found kind of cool, and promised to keep a room open for us for the next bizarre mishap we happened to find ourselves in.

Today I found myself wearing my tires thin as I drove all over the city searching for someone who had a boot the size of my tiny child so I wouldn't have to endure a cast for 6 weeks, but the highlight of my day had to be when I realized they made children's Motrin in 8oz bottles instead of just 4oz. I bought two just to be safe.

Tonight I breathed a sigh of relief as bedtime was less than an hour away when my 5 year-old came to me asked, "Mom, what would happen if you stuck a finger nail up your nose?" That child is sitting with a Kleenex trying to get the fingernail out and bedtime will not happen on time yet again.

Be Fruitful.....

I started this blog so pumped about getting to do two of my most favorite things; write and talk about my crazy offspring. I wrote 3, yes 3 whole blogs! My excuses for my inconsistency included all of the laundry my fabulously curious 4-year-old created in the backyard mud hole, the urgent care visit my accident prone 4-year-old generated, the crazy conversations my 4-year-old started with surprisingly interesting strangers in the grocery store, and then all of the antics of my logical and intelligent 5-year-old, and the mischief of my independent 1-year-old. My biggest excuse, however, became known at the end of April.

My dear husband was woken from a deep sleep by me leaning over him whispering, "I'm pregnant." He didn't believe me, but after he saw the evidence himself, he looked at me and said, "We really need to figure out what keeps causing this!"

So in between craving potatoes and popcorn, and running towards the bathroom if anyone even mentions hamburger, I have answered questions about how daddy really got the seed in there, and have ended fist fights after a tooth became loose, and forced children to eat 8 marshmallows with 1 bite out of each, even if the first bite is the best, and I have run myself ragged chasing an amazingly fast baby who takes for granted that you can jump from the top step and expect someone to be at the bottom of the next 18 to catch you every time.

My youngest will be physically joining us around the 29th of December, already proving that it has a very unique mind of its own whether it fits with my plans of NO CHRISTMAS BABIES or not. Kevin thinks this indicates a girl attitude, but I know just how charming little boys can be and tend to think more testosterone will soon be residing in my already boyfabulous home. Stay tuned to see who will win the gender pot.....