The Amateur Mom

Why I Love Two-Year-Olds

2011-09-19T16:28:00.001-07:00

Overhead while I was doing dishes:

Jay-Jay (to himself, while he was pushing a child-size chair to the counter)
"Hello, Jay-Jay, would you like a cookie? ......Yes, thank you."

An Ode to Laundry

2011-09-11T20:22:00.000-07:00

Hello, laundry sitting there,
On my couch and on my chair
Waiting unwearyingly to be put away,
Waiting all throughout the day.
And then another day comes you see
Full of work and fun and chores for me.
But still you sit upon that chair
Waiting for me to catch up there.
Children come and rummage through
Looking for pants and undies too.
Until your pile is no more
You’re just a heap upon the floor
And now we’re back were we began
A pile of clothes to wash again.

Inside Out

2011-09-06T19:46:00.000-07:00

On the way home from a very long day last week my husband turned to me and asked: “do I really have to go to ….(social engagement we were both waaaay too tired to attend).
I of course answered: ”Nope, I’m exhausted. Let’s skip it and go home!”
Husband: “I wasn’t really asking, I know I have to go…If you were a good wife, you’d tell me to go.”
Me: “If I was a good wife, I’d have homemade dinners every night, a beautiful garden, a really clean house and children with impeccable manners…and a lot of other stuff too.”
Husband: with a huge roll of his eyes “Oh my gosh … in what decade?”
Me: emphatically, “Right now, there are people who do it, I swear!”
Husband: “Like who? Name one!”
Me: “Well, this lady on the internet"
Husband: “Yeah, it happens so rarely for people that when it does, they post it on the internet. When it happens for you, you post it too”
Me: “No, some people just make it work all the time!!”
Husband: “You know you really are crazy.”

Yes, well I probably am. But this conversation got me thinking. I had seen a video on the internet that morning that had got me thinking along these lines. It was a beautiful twenty-something mom of four kids who had a video all about capturing “everyday moments.” She was beautifully dressed, had a great manicure, and a beautifully decorated home. The video showed her wiping down her immaculately clean kitchen counters and then photographing her well-dressed children who were playing in the middle of their completely clean bedroom. Just watching it, made me cringe when I thought about my messy, somewhat dressed children who were playing in their very messy rooms, while I was cleaning our very messy house (with my far inferior manicure!) And then it hit me. This “video” was on this woman’s website on which she was selling her particular scrapbooking system. Of course it looked perfect. It was a promotional video! I knew this in my rational mind all along, but my emotional mind was still quick to judge my real life not only by someone else’s standard, but by someone else’s staged standard.

I kept thinking about this throughout the day; wondering why I was so convinced that everyone else was doing a better job at what I perceive as my shortcomings. As I was walking up to our house just after dark, I realized that from the street with the lights in the living room on; I could see into our front windows. From the street perspective, all you can see is the top of the bookcases, a few of the pictures, and the lights. The impression was pretty nice. You can’t see the spots on the carpet, or the toys all over the floor, or the dirty dinner dishes still on the table. If you only see it from the outside looking in; you can imagine that the rest is really, really great. My rational mind knows that this is true of everyone. From a distance you can’t always see the tiny wrinkles or the small imperfections. I know that every life has its challenges and that no one makes it to the end without going through something that brings them to their knees. And yet…..I still sometimes fall into the trap of believing that everyone else is doing better than I am.

The next thing that came to mind was a quote that one of our former Relief Society presidents had shared with us at church. (I don’t have the exact source or quote – but I’ll give you the gist) She said that we should be thankful for our messy homes because they are a tangible reminder that our houses are full of life. And it’s true. If there were some horrible accident tomorrow, and I had no husband or little ones to mess up my house, I would have a beautifully clean home……and I would be utterly miserable.

My house is full of life. Wonderful, messy, real life. The kind of life that is two year olds and raspberries on tummies. The kind of life that is hectic mornings and lost homework and crying third graders trying to find their binder reminders on the way out the door. There are moments that I’m really good at being the mom. (really, really rare I know) And there are moments that I will never be proud of. There are hilarious moments and messy moments and moments full of vomit or poop. There are the moments that are completely mundane and full of laundry and more laundry and more laundry; and there are the moments I don’t like to remember when I’m sitting in an emergency room unable to get the smell of my child’s singed flesh out of my mind. There are moments of prayer and moments of peace and moments of sibling warfare. But they are my moments. And they make up my life. All of them.

Of course they are going to look different from the outside. I try very hard to make it look as nice as I can. But, it helps a lot when you can’t see the messy parts on the floor. Every real life has messy parts. Parts we don’t want to be judged on. And mine are probably different from yours. My triumphs and struggles are uniquely mine. But I guess I’m coming to understand that we all have them. That is the great common denominator. Everyone’s house looks different when you’re on the street outside looking in.

Ummmm

2011-09-01T20:00:00.001-07:00

So, I'm putting Jacob to bed tonight, and I lay down beside him to snuggle for a moment. He spends a few minute stroking my face, then turns to me and says:
"Mom"
"yeah"
"I could really use some hand sanitizer"

ummmmm.........okay, I'm done snuggling now.

When Your Heart No Longer Beats in Your Body

2011-08-31T21:30:00.000-07:00

One of the most surprising things about being pregnant for the first time (besides the fact that I was pregnant), was that phase after I was done being morning sick and started getting sick of being big. For the first time in my life I felt physically vulnerable. Not that I was a star athlete before I was pregnant, but the realization hit me that if someone wanted to mug me, all they would have to do is walk up to me, tap me on the head and I would tip over and roll around for five minutes before I could get up and stand again. Running away was definitely not a viable option at this point. It was an unsettling emotion.

Fast forward to the delivery room when they place my beautiful baby girl in my arms; all of a sudden I knew deep down that this feeling of vulnerability would never truly go away. It came over me all at once, that my heart no longer beat in my own body; it was beating in hers. A whole new vista opened up to me. Whatever happens to her, happens to me and there are a million new ways for my heart to be broken. What if someone is ever mean to her? What if she encounters a bully? What if a boy breaks her heart, or the college of her dreams fails to see her genius? Then there are the really scary things, like what if she grows up and wants to drive a car…..on the streets….with other drivers present.

And then, children two, three and four were born, and instead of the portions of my heart being divided equally between them, I just grew more hearts. And those hearts weren’t really mine either, because of course they beat in their bodies. Which is why when I am confronted with angry, defiant, belligerent children who are completely sure that I am making ridiculous rules for the sheer pleasure of torturing them, I often look them straight in the eyes and say “because my heart beats in your body.” And I endure the eye rolling and the sighing and even the arguing. I know that it just sounds crazy. I also know that someday, they will hold a very small person in their own arms. They will spend a quiet moment. And it will hit them like a ton of bricks and they will know exactly what I meant all those years before. And I will just sit back and smile, because the most humbling aspect of my own realization was remembering that I am someone else’s child.

The Moments That Give Me Hope

2011-08-11T19:32:00.000-07:00

Me: It's time for bed, do you want to say the prayer or do you want me to?
Jacob: I want Jay-Jay to.
Me: I don't think he's big enough yet.
Jacob: Yes, he is, I'll show you
Jay, say "Heavnely Father"
Jay: "eavenly ather"
Jacob: "Thank you for this day"
Jay: "anks for a day"
Jacob: "Bless for blessings"
Jay: "essings".....AMEN!!

And that is what big brothers are for!

Home for Lunch

2011-07-07T13:50:00.000-07:00

"Well Hi Jay-Jay how come you're naked?"
"Oh, we gave him a bath"
"Really?"
"Yeah, we had to, he was covered with shampoo"
"Why was he covered with shampoo?"
"Cause he dumped it out on himself.....and all over the carpet."

"The Hot Dog Rules"

2011-06-07T17:45:00.000-07:00

Keep in mind I wrote these when I only had the two little girls :)

Tonight dinner consisted of: a hot dog, a bun, and ketchup. Here are the rules that resulted from just one meal:

1. No touching your sister during dinner (Anarosa)
Sub-rules: (this not being clear enough)
a. No poking your sister during dinner (Anarosa)
b. No biting your sister during dinner (Alana)
c. No pulling your sister's hair during dinner (Alana)
d. No grabbing your sister during dinner (Aanarosa)
2. No playing under the table at dinner (Anarosa)
3. No dipping your hair in ketchup (Anarosa)
4. No dipping your sister's hair in ketchup (Alana)
5. You must keep your food on the table during dinner (Anarosa)
6. If you want more ketchup you must ask for it, you may NOT take it off of your sister's hot dog and wipe it on your own. (Alana)
7. No throwing food, ever. (both)
8. Singing and dancing and growling are allowed at dinner if you stay in your seat (both)
9. There is absolutely no screaming or shrieking at dinner (Alana)
10. NO taking food off of your sister's plate (both)
11. No grabbing your sister's food and smashing it in half (Anarosa)
12. If your mouth is too full you may take the extra food out and put it on your plate (both) but you MAY NOT take spit-out food off of your sister's plate and eat it! (both) See rule 10.
13. If you want a drink from Mommy's cup, you must first chew and swallow the food that is in your mouth (both)
14. You may not fish the ice-cubes out of Mommy's cup with your hands because you don't like water with ice in it (Anarosa)
15. No sitting on the table during dinner (Alana)
16. No feet on the table during dinner (Alana)
17. When Mom starts counting to five, you had better JUST FINISH YOUR DINNER!!!!!!!!

I found the smell!!

2010-07-29T17:03:00.000-07:00

Yes, that's right, for the past week and a half there has been an obnoxious smell coming from our walk in closet. Both Mark and I have been constantly trying to figure out where it was coming from. We were finally getting convinced that some critter had died in the walls and we were going to have to pay someone to knock holes in our walls to find it, until today....when I moved the dresser to find a very large cup of chocolate milk!!! (complete with spoon to stir it with) hidden away behind it.......Yep......chocolate milk.

I thought about taking a picture, but I just had to hold my nose grab the cup barely by the edge and walk verrrrry quickly to the outside garbage can.

Anarosa's comment: "Huh, I could have sworn I took that out...."

Our New Friend

2010-07-27T06:41:00.000-07:00

We have officially adopted a caterpillar. The girls found a caterpillar in a bunch of flowers that were in Mark's office at church. They REALLY wanted to keep him for a pet, so we sacrificed on of my canning jars to make him a little home.
I was a little worried since, we've tried to do caterpillars before, but they never survive more than a day or two. This little guy has been here for three days and seems to be doing well. He certainly can eat!!
The kids decided to call him Stripedy (pronounced stripe-ed-eee).

Caught!

2010-07-21T21:40:00.000-07:00

We have a little spot bot carpet cleaner (which we use ALL the time!). I set it up to clean two little spots on the carpet (nobody knew how they got there...) Each cycle takes about seven minutes and everytime I walked by I had to re-start the cycle.

I finally found out who was doing it!!

Isn't he helpful, pushing buttons for me!!!!

A Slip of the Elbow

2010-07-20T18:22:00.001-07:00

"Mom! Mom! You have to come see this"

mmmm...hmmmm......

"It was a little bit of a natural disaster, it wasn't my fault though!"

Uhhhhh whatever it is just get a towel and clean it up!

"Well.....my elbow slipped"

Okay, I'm coming.....

Monkey Tales

2010-01-10T12:25:00.000-08:00

So I'm getting the kids ready for church and notice out of the corner of my eye, Jacob running around with Anarosa's scarf sticking out of the back of his pants........hmm..
"Jacob?"
"Yes, Mom"
"Why do you have a scarf in your pants?"
"I'm a Monkey Boy.......you said if I ate all those bananas I would turn into a monkey boy and I did!"
(I don't remember saying such a thing, but it does sound like something I would say, so we'll roll with it) I let him run around with the scarf for a few minutes thinking he'll get tired of it.
Pretty soon Anarosa comes to get her scarf back because it's time to leave for church. Jacob won't give it back.
"But I'm a monkey boy and I need my tail"
"Yes, I know, but it's really Anarosa's scarf and she wants to wear it to church"
"WHY would she want to wear a GROSS MONKEY TAIL TO CHURCH?, besides, if she pulls my tail off of me I will DIE!!"

Sooo...just how do you convince a monkey boy to give up his tail?

One Appendix Too Many

2009-12-16T14:10:00.000-08:00

On Monday evening Anarosa started complaining of a stomach ache. I didn't think much of it because all the kids have been sick with the flu, so I told her to go lay down and I would check on her in a bit. She started throwing up and her stomach wouldn't feel any better. At about 9:00 I got worried and called Kaiser. They told me to get her to the nearest emergency room right away. I called Mark and he had to leave his shift at work to come home and let me run her to the emergency room. Once we got there, it took us 6 hours, (they had forty admissions that shift), but we finally got a diagnosis of appendicitis. Luckily we got her there before it ruptured and they were able to do surgery at about 8 am Tuesday morning.
The surgery went great. She came out of the anesthetic without any problems. I felt bad for her, she was really tired from being up all night in the ER before they did the surgery so when she came out of the anesthetic she kept asking what had happened to her (she didn't really understand that she was going to have surgery) But she was up and walking in a couple of hours! She just came home this morning, and we are all happy to have her back! (especailly me, because I've been sleeping in chairs next to her bed for two nights!! and I am ready for my own bed.)

Some Confusion about Tithing

2009-12-01T15:52:00.000-08:00

So Jacob's birthday is coming up and he got a card in the mail with money in it! He was really excited about it. Dad mentioned that he could pay tithing now that he had his own money. He looked a little confused so Mark followed up with a simple explanation that we give 10% of our money to Heavenly Father. Jacob accepted that and without further ado started throwing one of his dollar bills into the air! Finally in exasperation he looked up and said "Heavenly Father, you're gonna have to come down here and get it"

Halloween!!

2009-11-01T10:44:00.000-08:00

So we had a great Halloween! Anarosa was a bat, Alana was a bride and Jacob was superman. (I was realy proud of Anarosa's costume, since we made that one ourselves!)

The girls had class parties and a parade at school (I got to go this year Yeah!!)

We carved pumpkins:

We went to the ward "Trunk or Treat" Party, and we loved having the McMullens, Uncle Steve, Auntie Sarah, Cousins Eli and Josh and Grandma Candi and Grandpa Wayne all come too!!!

We went to Sulpher Creek for their unhaunted house (sorry no pictures) Sulfer Creek is a nature park that does a halloween carnival with an "unhaunted house" where characters introduce native animals and let the kids pet them and ask questions ect... It's really cute and the kids get a piece of candy at the end.

And last but not least we went trick or treating!!!

And here is all the loot!

Mean mom that I am, I always make them combine candy at the end of the night, so we can't argue over whose is whose. But I really think we came away with a MASSIVE amount of candy. Especialy considering we only trick or treated one street!
And we only had one kid throw up in the car on the way home, so all in all it was pretty successful!

Happy Halloweeen Everone!

Hold the Pickles Please!

2009-10-10T13:55:00.000-07:00

Quotes of the Day:

(while driving home from Hollister)
Jacob: "I really want a massage when we get home"
Dad: "You want what????
Jacob: "A massage, they are reallllly good"
Dad: "Really?"
Jacob: "Yeah, but I don't want the pickles"
Dad: "Umm Okay"
Jacob: "You know the ones they put on your eyes at the end"
Explanation: apparently his little friend in Hollister had been trying to explain the spa to him. It sounded good to him, he just didn't want the pickles!! (um...cucumbers from the facial I'm guessing????)

While Getting Ready for School:
Mom: "Alana go brush your teeth, I can smell your breath from over here!!"
Alana: "What? You're going to take away my only defence from bullies???"
note: she is currently in the process of recruiting a first grade "army" to take on all the third graders at school, so I'm pretty sure she doesn't have much of a problem with bullies.

While watching an ad for disney princess on ice:
Jacob: "Mom can we go see that? Pleeeeeeeeease?"
Mom: "well maybe"
Jacob: "There's going to be a lot of princesses there and I'm thinking maybe not all of them will have a prince yet"

The Plauges of Egypt

2009-10-08T10:49:00.000-07:00

Warning: This may be a bit of a whine:

Okay, let me start off by saying, everyone is healthy and relitively happy (barring a few left over sniffles) but if I had known that Mark's new calling would call down the plauges of Egypt I might have thought twice about it.

So last week the sqealing sound the car was making was definately the brakes. (I kept trying to think that it was something else....you know something less expensive than the brakes....but it's not). Then the hard drive on the computer completely crashed.......and we can't get a new one until the end of the month because Windows is upgrading it's operating system and Best Buy won't even sell us one that will be outdated in two weeks. hmph.

This week it rained a little and everytime that happens we get ants. They come in the house and look around for a few days and then leave. I hate ants.
Next we find that yes, we do indeed have ferrel cats living under our house and they have had kittens! I do not like ferrel cats. (I know that makes me a bad person, but cats belong in houses with people who love them, not wild and under my house)
Since we have ferrel cats.....you guessed it, we now have fleas. I REALY hate fleas.
Now, the irony is not lost on me, as soon as we found the cats, I noticed that something had chewed threw our 3-day emergency packs and you guessed it we have mice!!! (Don't tell Mark he's got a phobia of mice......which is not good for me because now I have to deal with mice).
And just because God has a great sense of humor, I woke up at 4 am in the morning the night before last to hear obnoxious noises coming from the ceiling. Now my sisters can testify that I am TOTALLY rational at 4am. So I was convinced that whatever was rooting around and scratching on the roof or thereabouts was going to claw through the ceiling and land on the baby and that would be the end of the baby. So I made Mark get dressed and go up on the roof to scare whatever it was away and that's how we found out that we have Raccoons nesting in our attic!

Seriously??????

So, now we have a "wildlife removal specialist" scheduled to come today at 1:30 to see what he can do about removing our wildlife.
I've decided I'm the mama and I just brought another baby into my nest, and all those other little mamas with all their little babies are just going to have to get OUT and FIND THEIR OWN NESTS!!!!!!!!

7 HOURS!!

2009-10-08T10:44:00.000-07:00

WOO HOOOOO!!!!!!! I know that NOBODY is as excited about this as I am but the baby just slept seven whole hours last night!!!!

Way Too Much Fun w/ Sticky Notes

2009-09-23T15:31:00.001-07:00

So this is how I found baby Jay when I came back from switching the laundry..........

Lots of News!

2009-09-23T15:09:00.001-07:00

Okay, let me see if I can cover everthing:

This past Sunday, Mark's dad came to visit from Nebraska. He rode the train, which is a forty-four hour ride! He said it is definately the way to travel if you have the time! The kids had a blast playing with Papa. They even took him to the Grandparent's day pancake breakfast! And he came to see Jacob get his name and blessing in church on Sunday!

Mark was also sustained as the bishop of our ward this Sunday, so it was a busy day! We've known about the new calling for about two weeks and last week at stake conference they announced a new calling for the former bishop so it was a long week with lots of questions, but we survived. In sacrament meeting when the stake president asked Mark to stand and be sustained as the new bishop, Jacob was sitting in the pew directly behind Mark and as soon as he stood up, Jacob grabbed the back of Mark's suit coat and hissed "Daddy sit down! Sit down right now." I couldn't help laughing.

The night before he was called, Mark took each of the kids aside and let them know what was happening the next day. Their resonses were pretty funny:

Anarosa: "Great that means you'll be at meetings a lot right? That means the yelling in our house will go down by fifty percent!"

Alana: "That's just crazy"

Jacob: "Oh No! That means you're going to sit up in front......And you'll be watching me the WHOLE TIME!

Then the very next day, we got a call from Anarosa's former elementary school. They finally had a spot for her!! Yay! So, we worked everything out with both principals and she went back for one last day on Tuesday and started back at her old school this morning. She was soooo excited to go back to her old school. She missed all her school friends and especially her best friend. It was nice to drop her off at school and see all her old class mates run up and hug her.

Well those are the updates for the moment!

Three Weeks Old

2009-09-10T21:54:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, Jay officially turned three weeks old!!

Anarosa's first day!

2009-09-10T21:47:00.000-07:00

Okay, so this technically was not taken on her first day of school. It was taken on her second full day of school. But Monday was a holiday this week, and we didn't get the call confirming her spot in the new elementary school until mid-morning on Tuesday. So we dropped everything and went to get her signed up. They let her start mid-day, since we had had so much trouble, and they wanted her to start as soon as she could. She had a little bit of a breakdown on the way, but once she was settled in her class it was fine! When I came to pick her up, she said that she had had the best day ever! I was sooo relieved that everthing had gone well.

She actually has two teachers (they are job sharing). I met both of them briefly the two days that I dropped her off (one teaches Monday & Tuesday, and the other Wednesday and Thursday and they alternate Fridays). They both seemed very nice. I went to back to school night tonight and they said that she is making friends and participating in class and seems to be doing great! She is still hoping to be able to transfer back to her old school at the end of the semester, so we'll see how that goes!!

First Real Bath

2009-09-10T21:43:00.001-07:00

So this was our first real bath. He did really well. Jacob was estatic that he got to help!

Brand New Belly Button!!

2009-09-07T17:14:00.000-07:00

Yeah! We finally have a brand new belly button! Now we can have a real bath...

First Day of School......Sort of....

2009-09-07T16:57:00.000-07:00

Last Tuesday was the first day of school for the girls. Alana was starting first grade and Anarosa is in third. We have them transferred to the next district over, which is a bit of a hassel every year, but we got all of our paperwork in and got them signed up and registered the week before. They both got their class assigments and were excited to get started.

Then we got a call the night before the first day of school. The principal called to say that Anarosa;s spot was given to a resident who had registered at the last minute. We were totally at a loss as to what to do! Alana started school the next day (and she did great! She knew the teacher and about 1/3 of the class was in her kindergarten class last year) but Anarosa couldn't go. She took it pretty well, but she's been out of school for the first week. We're 95% sure that we've got a spot for her at the next closest elementary school, but we're waiting to get the final okay.

Needless to say it's been quite nerve wracking to me! I felt sooo bad for her, sitting at home with her new back pack and school supplies, while all her friends were starting school. I also felt bad for Alana, we usually make a big deal out of the first day of school and take them out to lunch to celebrate. But it was hard to make a big deal for one child and not have Anarosa feel left out because she wasn't starting school yet.

The upside is that Alana didn't have any trouble this year, I think it helped that she knew her teacher (Anarosa had her for first grade as well) and she knew a lot of the other little girls in her class (they all got to sit together at the same table).

So hopefully tomorrow, I'll be able to report that Anarosa has a spot in school, and that everthing went great for her as well!!

The Logistics of 4

2009-09-05T09:53:00.000-07:00

So I am officially the mother of FOUR kiddos now. Which, I am finding requires a new level of expertise.
I took the kids back to school clothes shopping last Monday. (by myself) So, we all bundled into the minivan and drove to Target. The first obstacle was getting our stroller into the car, but once I managed to wrestle it in, we got on our way. The first few minutes went fine. I was pushing the stroller and Anarosa was pushing the shopping cart. We managed to find a couple of outfits for both of our school girls. At that point little Mr. Jay decided that he was STARVING and wanted to eat NOW. Of cource Jacob decides that he has to go to the bathroom at the exact same time, and no he absolutely cannot wait. So off we go with a cart a stroller, a screaming baby and a dancing four year old to go find the bathroom.
Okay, so we get that over with and Jay absolultely does not want the bottle. (Since it's been sitting in the diaper bag for over an hour, I'm going to trust his judgement on that.) So we have enough clothes to cover us for the first part of school, although we haven't tried any of them on, so now we rush through the shoe department and try to get something that will fit everyone. Much to Anarosa's disappointment they did not have "furry boots" in her size. (Aparently it is impossible to go to third grade without furry boots). But we got tennis shoes for everone, in sizes that I'm pretty sure will fit.
So now we're running late to get back to the apartments so that Mark can start his maintence work, and no one has had lunch (Jay's still crying). And it's time to get in the check out line. Now we begin the realy fun game of let's ask mom for anything/everything. Mom can I have......? The answer is always no. I'm just trying to find the shortest check out line, and find my ATM card and hold fussing Jay and make sure that Anarosa doesn't run into anyone with the cart, and I don't have time to look at everything you happen to see on the way. NO!!! (seriously why would you WANT an electronic poker game?) So we finally get checked out and as I'm paying Alana walks up with a small hand held fan with candy in the bottom of it. No... Ten seconds later, umm, Mom......I think it's stuck in my hair. What??? Yes, indeed the fan and the candy are firmly affixed to my six-year-old's head. So now the check out lady is trying very hard not to laugh, because I have officially become THAT LADY. (you know the one who is holding the fussy baby pushing a cart, pulling a stroller and leading the child with a fan stuck to her head to the customer service desk to find a pair of scissors to cut the fan out with!)

Baby Jay!!

2009-09-02T20:35:00.000-07:00

Hi Everyone, Sorry I've been absent from the blogging scene this summer, I was just miserable pregnant and then overwelmed with new baby, but I think I'm back in business now.

So to catch anyone interested up:

Short Version:

4th baby

Jay Collins Oakman

(yes we meant to spell Collins w/ an "s")

August 19th 2:23 pm

10 lbs 5 oz

20 inches long

Long Verson:

I went to see the doctor on Monday the 17th (a week after my due date) and we decided that it was time to induce. So, we started calling labor and delivery the next morning at 5am to see if they had room for me. Of course they didn't so we had to keep calling back every two hours to see if we could come in yet. Finally at about 12:00 they called and said that we could come in after lunch. Since we were already eating lunch out with the kids I immediately scarfed down half my lunch, told they kids that had about thirty seconds to eat, because I was DONE being pregnant and I did NOT want them to give my spot away! So, we dropped the kids off at home with my sister Sarah and off to the hospital we went.

It took a while to get in and settled so they didn't start the induction until about 3:00 in the afternoon. They usually start you off on a low dose of petocin and then up the dose every half hour. But somewhere after the first few doses they got really busy and kept missing the half hour mark, so then they would up it by more. We were anxious to get going because my sister was flying back to Utah the next morning at 11:00. And so we really wanted the baby to be born before then. One so Sarah could see him, but also so that Mark could drive Sarah to the airport and take over watching the other kidos. Because of that I put off getting an epidural, because I didn't want to slow things down. As the afternoon evening progressed, the contractions started to get stronger, but nothing very exciting. By this time we had come up with a plan B for the kids. Sarah stayed with them overnight, and our friend Liz drove up from Hollister in the morning to watch them while Mark drove Sarah to the airport, and then Liz took them to Hollister for the night (THANKS!!! You were a life-saver). Once we got that all figured out I felt better about getting that epidural!!

That Epidural: I have had epidurals with all of my deliveries so this would be my fourth (so I know what they should feel like). When they were finally able to come in and do it (they had an emergency c-section across the hall so that pre-empted me). The anesthesiologist came in and did mine. But it hurt, and it only numbed part of my right leg and one spot on the side of my belly. Everytime I told them it didn't feel right, they would have me roll to the other side, and wait a while, or they would increase the medicine in the epidural which only numbed the two spots that were already numb even more. They kept saying they would be back in five minutes to check on me, and then no one would come for an hour or two. Mark had to leave during all this to get Sarah to the airport so I was alone. In retrospect I just needed to be more assertive and insist that they get someone else to re-insert the epidural since this one was obviously a partial block, but I just wasnt' able to. To top everything off, the monitor on my belly that was supposed to monitor my contractsions kept coming off, so they finally gave up trying to re-adjust it. By the time the shift changed, I was just beside myself, they had upped the petocin again so I has having hard contractions with about fifteen seconds in between each one, the epidural wasn't working, and I was not having fun! I finally insisted that I wanted to see the doctor in charge of the shift, and they sent in the new anesthesiologist, He came in and took one look at me and said "We can fix this" Which is exactly what I needed to hear (didn't care if he was lying just wanted to hear it). He re-did my epidural, the new nurse came in and she just sat with me for about twenty minutes to make sure that everything went okay, and that the monitor was picking up all the contractions, and within about three minutes of the new epidural, I wasn't feeling the contractions at all.

Once the new epidural was in things went much more smoothly. Little Jay was born, just before 2:30 that afternoon. The delivery went realy well. He was 10 lbs 5 oz which supprised all of us! (my other kidos were all over 8 lbs but we weren't expecting him to be so big!!) He was 20 inches long. We stayed in the hospital until the next afternoon. (I can't sleep in hospitals and would much rather be in my own bed).

Recovery was good, I was up and about the next day and back to almost normal in about a week.

It's been two weeks now, and I won't be running a marathon anytime soon, but everyhing is pretty much back to normal.

Jay is doing great, he just went in for his two week check up. He isn't quite back up to his birth weight, but he's only off by a few onces and they aren't worried about it. He's doing everything he's supposed to be doing at two weeks old, which is great!!

Thanks for all the support and love!!!

Life in the Express Lane

2009-07-02T19:23:00.000-07:00

So I got home from work today. Spent an hour in the apartment office and then realized that I didn’t have spaghetti noodles for dinner tonight (rather essential for making spaghetti) So, I grabbed my purse and drove quickly to Safeway to pick up noodles for dinner.
Since I only needed a few things I didn’t bother to grab a cart, on my way through the produce section I grab a cantaloupe melon and a loaf of garlic bread to round out dinner, except that the cantaloupe is buy one get one free. Well, I don’t really need another cantaloupe but the last time I tried to get away with out my “free” produce item, they held up the whole line for five minutes while they found someone to run and get me a second container of moldy strawberries, much to the chagrin of the other customers behind me in line. And I certainly didn’t want to put us all through that again, so I just took the extra cantaloupe!
Now please keep in mind that I am eight months pregnant and I’m at the point where it’s uncomfortable to walk around, let alone carrying two cantaloupes, spaghetti noodles, and garlic bread. So, I head to the nearest express lane and gratefully drop my groceries onto the belt. That’s when I realize, that the lady in front of me has about two week’s worth of groceries in her cart!! (fifteen items or less……but who am I to judge) But it’s really not worth picking up all my groceries and getting into another line so I decide to wait it out – besides it would be rude of me to haul all of my stuff away, especially since I’m pretty sure I can’t do it without letting out a semi-exasperated sigh. So, I stay in the line and patiently wait for the checker to finish with the lady ahead of me.
Once he finishes scanning the items, he begins to bag them all (all the baggers work the non-express isles). Then she requests that he tie the plastic bags up (so they’re easier to carry), which he does. Then she can’t find her discount card, so he asks for her phone number to punch into the computer. Okay, now she needs to pay. So she rummages around in her purse for a while and pulls out her check book (good, she found it now we will get going!). She writes her check out while the checker finishes putting all the grocery bags in her cart. Then he asks for the check. She insists that she already gave it to him. He looks a little confused and starts looking around the check out area for the check. He doesn’t think she gave it to him. She insists that she did, they go back and forth for a while and then decide to untie all the grocery bags to look for the check!!! After searching through the bags she finally finds the check……..IN HER CHECKBOOK! Okay, NOW we can get going!!! But wait for it…. She needs her ID in order to pay with a check. Does she have an ID….no, of course not she shops here all the time WHY would she need an ID??? So off we go to find the manager, who thankfully, recognizes said customer and decides to authorize her check without the ID. Great!! Now, the little computer thingy needs her phone number. She insists that it is on the check. Only it’s not, so we go back and forth again about the phone number (one would assume that she knew her phone number, since she gave it to the checker earlier to get her discount….but I digress) The checker finally decides just to write “no phone” on the check. Now we finally have paid for the groceries!!! Woo Hoo! We can go now right??? Well, at our Safeway they always ask if you would like help out to your car, and you guessed it, as a matter of fact, she would like help out to her car! So now we have to find and extra courtesy clerk to help her out....

Just thought I would mention again what lane it was…… THE EXPRESS LANE.

the First Day of Summer

2009-05-31T19:07:00.000-07:00

Okay technically it's not the first day of summer, but Friday was a right of passage. The apartment pool opens on Memorial Day, but Friday was the first day I took the kids down to the "big pool." After all it was a balmy 65 degrees outside, and they have been waiting a whole year. So we all trooped down to the pool (which was empty....go figure) and they had a blast! Of course we did have to obey the time-honored rule "When Alana's lips turn blue, everyone has to get out of the pool"

For all the Hannah Montana Fans out there!

2009-05-29T19:15:00.000-07:00

Back to School Night

2009-05-29T18:14:00.000-07:00

So yesterday was back to school night. Mark took the night off of work but had to go to a stake meeting, so I took the girls to their school. (Mark took Jacob with him to his meeting - which turned out to be a life-saver since Alana was soooo excited she was literally bouncing off the walls).

Both classrooms were really nice. And both of the girl's teachers said they were doing great!!

Anarosa has been studying life cycles in her classroom and we finally got to see the tadpoles and lady bugs, and quail eggs that they have been observing.

In Alana's classroom they had writing samples up on the walls and I noticed some of the parents giggling as they read through them. (that should have been my first clue) When we got up to that part of the classroom I saw that the kids each had a baby picture at the top of their page, and then they were supposed to write a before/after phrase on their papers (when I was a baby I....Now I......) Here's a picture of Alana's:

Just in case you can't read it:

When I was little I used to dig in the gargage for chicken bones.

Now I don't like chicken

Nice..... (so that's what the other parents were enjoying)

Hate to admit it, but she's right, once Alana learned to crawl we had to keep the kitchen garbage can on top of the counter (especially when we had chicken!)

Memorial Day Program

2009-05-29T17:58:00.000-07:00

Last Friday was Anarosa and Alana's Memorial Day program at school. They had been practicing their songs for weeks! I took the day off to come. The kids had done crafts and decorated the whole courtyard outside the school it was really great!

Anarosa sang "God Bless the USA" with all of the second grade classes. They did fantastic of course!!

They had the kindergarten kids almost last on the program (really???) So they had been sitting in the sun for over an hour listening to the other kids sing and talk and the band/orchestra perform, so we were a little worried when the first walked up and Alana was in the front row and not looking too happy.......

The kindergarteners were supposed to sing "It's a Grand Old Flag" and do little dance motions that went along with the words. And about half-way through the song Ms. Alana decides that if she has to be up there singing, she might as well make it worth while. So she really starts to ham it up! She had the whole audiece laughing at her exagerated dancing....

It was cute, in the car on the way home she said: "Mom, did you hear all the people laughing??" (yes) "They weren't laughing to be mean, they were laughing 'cause I was FUNNY!"

Anarosa's Baptism

2009-02-15T15:07:00.000-08:00

Well, I can hardly believe that Anarosa turned 8 years old!! Last Saturday was her birthday and her baptism.

We started the day early with a 10 am baptism. We had a lot of family and a lot of people from the ward. Everything went really well. Anarosa had hand picked who she wanted to give talks and prayers and play the piano several weeks ago, which was really nice, since everyone who participated was special to her.

After her baptism, everyone came to our house for lunch and a birthday party. We had a pinata for the kids, even though it had been raining earlier, (we ended up doing it under the car port). We had cake and food and tons of people came. Thankfully I had Sunday and then that Monday was a holiday from work, so I had some time to put the house together again!

We're so proud of you Anarosa!!

of lunch ladies and life

2009-02-04T16:40:00.000-08:00

So Anarosa has been helping to serve the lunch in the cafeteria (everyone in the class gets a turn for two weeks). She has fun because her best friend in the class is doing it with her.
She came home yesterday and related that the lunch lady was getting frustrated because she didn't know the right way to wipe off the lunch tables (she was supposed to wipe all the food into a little pile and then throw it in the garbage) Apparently the lunch lady made a comment something like:
"Don't you know how to wipe off a table the right way, don't you help your mom do it at home."
Anarosa (in her innocient little voice) replied:
"In our house we keep our food on our plates"

I thought that was exactly the right thing to say to the grumpy lunch lady.
(good thing the lunch lady can't actually see our table after we've all "kept our food on our plates" though!)

Sent to the Principal's Office

2009-01-31T15:40:00.000-08:00

So I'm sitting at work Friday morning when I have the following conversation with Jacob on Mark's cell phone:

Jacob: (in his most tattle-telling voice) "Mom, Alana got sent to the PRINCIPAL's OFFICE cause she threw up her hotcakes onto her SHOES!"

Mom: "Oh, my!"

Jacob: "yes, so now we have to go back to school and pick her up from the PRINCIPAL's Office!!"

Of course I felt bad because she had said that her stomach hurt that morning, but in my defence she also told me that her arm and her leg and her elbow hurt. (I just figured this was her way of not getting dressed and ready for school) Oh, well, guess I'm out of the running for mother of the year.

The good news is she didn't get sick after that. Just a one time thing I guess.

Catch Up

2009-01-26T19:53:00.000-08:00

I'm trying to think of a really good excuse for why I haven't kept up with my blog. I haven't come up with a clever one, so I'll just try to catch you up.

Our big news is that we are having another baby!! I'm due August 19th, and we're very excited! (Okay, I will be very excited when I'm done with the feeling sick and being tired part) Everything is going great, with the exception that I'm not getting morning sickness, I'm getting evening sickness. This works out great for work (since I work full-time) but not so great for housework. (So, if you pop by my house unannounced this is why I'm talking to you on the front porch!) Also not so great for blogging, since I used to do that in the evening too!

The kids are all really excited. Jacob keeps talking to my belly trying to convince the baby to be a boy. He keeps promising to share his superhero toys if it will only be a boy. (I'm not sure if bribery will help at this point - but I supposed it can't hurt!) Alana of course has decided she wants a girl so that she can dress her up as a princess!

In other news, last week when the kids picked me up for lunch (Friday is the girl's early release day from school so we all eat lunch together). As soon as I got in the car, I was informed that Alana was running for president! (well, really this was just a matter of time, and honestly I always imagined that with her it would be more of a military coup) She was running for president of her BEDROOM! and Jacob was running against her! This worked out well for Anarosa, who being the only other occupant of the room was the only consituant allowed to vote. A fact not lost on her since she declared very loudly that she wouldn't vote for anyone who didn't have a campain poster and a speach! So the rest of the afternoon they spent preparing their posters and their speaches (lots of campain promises that were just too funny) They got so into that they they compltely forgot to have the election! So we never did find out who won.....

Well, that's the news so far...

The Long and Short of it...

2008-10-28T09:43:00.000-07:00

Monday morning I was determined to turn over a new leaf. I spent Sunday evening making homemade cherry muffins for breakfast the next morning. I prepped a lunch for Mark and Jacob to eat during the day. I was going to be organized and we were going to have a nutritious, well-organized morning with no unpleasantness!!

Of course as soon as the alarm went off things started going wrong. Anarosa would NOT get up, because she had gotten to sleep later than usual (because she was busy crying that she was missing all the “fun” - people were coming to our house to pick up campaign signs and she had to go to bed). She finally got up and into the shower, but when she got out she still had a big blob of conditioner in her hair. She insisted that she had rinsed it out already and under no condition would she get back in the shower again! So of course I had to insist (it really was a big blob) and so she finally got back into the shower for a total of five seconds and then got out again. I decided maybe this was the time for natural consequences and stopped pushing the issue.

Next everyone complained about the breakfast. Nobody wanted cherry muffins, and scrambled eggs were just insulting, fresh fruit? - what was I thinking? So two out of three drank their orange juice and nothing else. To top it all off, I realized we had forgotten a math page from Anarosa’s homework packet so she had to sit at the table and finish doing the last page of homework.

Now, it’s really time to get going. Alana decides to throw a fit because she’s NOT taking a bath (she washed her hair last night) and runs around the house refusing to get dressed or brush her hair. Well, I finally catch her and get her dressed. Then Anarosa starts complaining that she can’t find her pants. By this point I’m getting a little exasperated but calmly walk back into her room to help her find pants. There are no pants….period, she has one pair of short shorts in her baskets, but that is it. So… I go downstairs and check the dryer, none there. I check the washer, none there either. I even check the dirty laundry pile, nope, all of her pants were dirty or had been packed up for the daddy-daughter campout this weekend and got dirty because they all got shoved into the same backpack and had dirt all over them.

This morning is not going well. We finally end up rushing everyone into the car. Anarosa wearing her shirt, undies, socks and shoes and drive all the way to Union City to Walmart to buy pants!! Then we had to turn around and drive all the way back to Castro Valley to get them to school!

And to top it all off, I forgot to pack up Mark and Jacob’s lunch so we ended up eating lunch at McDonald’s anyway. And the homework that I had Anarosa finish – was left on the kitchen table….

Tag!

2008-10-15T19:10:00.000-07:00

Katie tagged me! So here's my list of 7 things you may not know about me….

1. My favorite food in the whole world is cheesecake (okay, many of you know that about me) At my last job, they knew if I’d had a particularly hard day if I came back from lunch with an entire cheesecake and wasn’t sharing!

2. I used to be an Emergency Medical Technician. I went to Chabot and got my EMT certification. It expired when I was on my mission and I never recertified. I loved it! But they didn’t pay much more than minimum wage. I considered going on to get my paramedic license but got married and had kids instead!

3. I love to read. It was hard when I first had kids, but since I’ve discovered on-line classics I’ve been hooked. Just about anything that is out of copyright you can read free online. I found a site I really liked and started with the A’s. I’m working on the B’s now (including short stories there were over 200 titles starting with A)

4. I ALWAYS get lost. I have been lost in every major city I have ever driven in. (Including the city I grew up in!). I’m getting better, the best thing to come along in a long time is yahoo driving directions, but I still manage to get myself turned around and going in the wrong direction. However, I have always come back, and I find this encouraging.

5. I can never find my keys. I’m forever loosing them and my husband Mark has to find them for me. I always keep on the good side of the maintenance personnel at work because they have to unlock my office for me every time I loose them. Mark and I have an inside joke that I can never leave him….I’d never be able to find my keys to go!

6. I love poetry. Dr. Seuss and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow are my two favorites!

7. I love to do crafts. Having three kids works out well for me because people don’t think I’m nearly as strange when they walk in the house and there is a construction paper rainforest on the living room walls and a paper pirate ship in the hallway! I used to do a different theme with the kids each week, but since we’ve moved out of the apartment and into the house we haven’t done very much. (too many windows, not enough wall space, and well it’s too nice to tape things onto.) So last week, I cleaned out some space in our unfinished basement and now we have a “craft cave” under the house. Woo hoo!!

A Matter of Semantics

2008-10-13T20:52:00.000-07:00

Alana has been in a persnickety mood today, and arguing about every little thing. So, today when she and Anarosa were coloring with markers, she looks over at Anarosa’s drawing and asks her what it is. When Anarosa tells her it’s a pumpkin Alana says “that pumpkin is soooo unprofessional.” (Normally this is where Anarosa gets upset and tattles on Alana) But she just looked up from her picture and said “It’s not unprofessional it’s unique.”
They argued back and forth about it until Alana finally pulled me aside to ask me what “unique” meant. After that she let the matter drop!

The Emergency Room

2008-10-11T18:30:00.000-07:00

It was our normal Thursday afternoon. I had just gotten back from work, and we were all trooping in the front door. Jacob had to sit in the naughty chair because he wouldn’t hold my hand in the parking lot. During all the commotion of getting everyone in the door and sitting down to do homework, Jacob was flailing around in his chair (mind you a child-sized chair) and fell off of it. He started to scream and I walked over with the intention of telling him to knock it off and just sit still, when I noticed the blood.

Well, he somehow managed to cut his ear while falling off the chair (I still can’t figure out exactly how, but there was nothing but him the chair and the wall). And now he is bleeding at a steady gush from the top of his left ear and I’m not quite certain but it may have cut through. Well I grabbed a kitchen towel and scooped up the screaming Jacob. Ran outside and stopped Mark from driving to work, jumped in with Jacob and drove to the emergency room.

(At this point please note what I did not do. I did not calmly pack a bag with snacks, crayons, books and other assorted distractions. This is important because it comes up later.)

It just so happens that this is a busy Thursday afternoon at my local Kaiser emergency room. It’s only a mile and a half away so we get there relatively quickly. Once Jacob calmed down enough to know where we were going, he emphatically declared he did NOT want to go to see the doctor (we’ve been to the emergency room before). Well, the parking lot was full so we had to go park in the parking garage and then walk through the other side of the hospital with a kitchen towel on his head to get to the emergency room. By this time he isn’t screaming, but he isn’t happy. We get to the front desk and they take his card and tell us to have a seat.

So then the waiting begins. The two and a half hours of waiting. Jacob tries whining. Surely I will feel sorry for him and take him home. Then he tries to reason with me. Then the fun begins.

He declares quite loudly that he has to go to the bathroom. We get up and go to the bathroom in the emergency room, but he doesn’t want that bathroom, he wants to go down the hall and find one “someplace else”. No. (We have to be here when they call his name or we go back to the bottom of the not-very-important list.)

Then he wants to go for a walk. No we can’t do that either.

Now, you have to understand that Jacob only has one volume setting and it’s loud. So all of the following conversations EVERYBODY in the crowded emergency room can hear.

“If you don’t take me home, I’m going to call the police and they will come and put you in jail.”
“hmm jail huh?, well if I’m in jail who is going go cook your food?”
“Daddy will. He can make ice cream and stuff”
“Oh, well, okay, but who will do the laundry?”
“Oh Anarosa can reach, she’ll do it.”
“Well you seem to have this all figured out.”
“Yes, so go to jail!”

When that didn’t work, he decided to very loudly discuss all of the private parts that he happens to know the correct names of, and everyone he knows who has one!

Next, we try the bathroom excuse again and again, until people in the “audience” actually start to giggle every time he declares he has to “go.”

We discuss me selling him to pirates and whether or not he would enjoy swabbing the decks or walking the planks.

He found a blond girl to talk to and actually broke down in tears when her mother returned and sat next to her.

My favorite person of the whole night was the fifty-something-year-old man, who actually got down on the floor and blew little pieces of paper with Jacob, across the floor in a race.

After about an hour and a half Jacob actually stood up on his chair, put his hands on his hips and yelled “I WANT TO GO HOME NOW!” to which several people in the waiting room answered back “me too”.

Once we finally get to see the triage nurse, she is totally unimpressed with his cut ear. She doesn’t really think he’ll need stitches, well maybe one, but if I really want to, she can get me an appointment in two hours at the minor injury clinic. By this time Jacob is as uncooperative as he can be and will not for love or money or stickers let her take his blood pressure and temperature.

So we drive back home, still covered in blood to wait an additional two hours to go back. I however, use this time to feed Mr. Grumpy and pack a diaper bag with about two hours worth of super hero toys, snacks, crayons and even considered taking the dvd player (just in case). We get back to the hospital and get in to see the minor injury doctor. Who was totally not impressed with the ER nurse, who didn’t think we would need stitches. He did need stitches, three of them to be exact. (not his personal record) But we had to wrap him up and hold him down to get the stitches in. He was in a much better mood for the second visit, but was not very pleased with getting the stitches in. And after all this we had to stop on the way out to get him an antibiotic, because that cough and cold he had was really an ear infection.

So we survived our latest trip to the ER. But I seriously think it’s Mark’s turn to do this next time one of the kids has to go!

2008-10-11T18:25:00.000-07:00

October 1st

2008-10-01T12:31:00.000-07:00

Well, this week has been fun. I am having a crazy time at work. We are moving offices and September 30 is the end of our grant’s fiscal year. So all of the fiscal reports are due about this time. Mark has been called into court the next three Tuesdays (which is always a challenge for us since we have two school kids on different schedules, the court date, my work and only one car!!)
Jacob wasn’t feeling well yesterday. He’s usually a pretty accommodating little guy, but he gets grumpy when he’s not feeling well. Apparently he yelled at Danny (the guy who does the maintenance at the apartment complex) Luckily Danny has four kids of his own, so he understood sick little boys. By the time I picked him up to drop Daddy off at court he was warm and of course he threw up in the car on the way to pick up Anarosa from school!! When we got home I took his temperature and it was 103!! So he spent most of the rest of the day in bed (which was just fine with him!) I tried to give him something to take the edge off of his fever, but he wouldn’t have anything to do with it, so I just let him sleep it off. He woke up this morning feeling great!
Anarosa was cute this morning. She asked me what day it was, and I told her “Wednesday”
and she said “No, what DAY is it??”
“October 1st.”
“Oh, I knew it was something special”

So to everyone out there, Happy First Day of October!

10 days for Alana!!

2008-09-22T19:59:00.001-07:00

Since Alana had such a rought start to Kindergarten, we thought it would be wise to bribe her for good behavior. We made her a deal that if she got ten green days in a row that she could take her little best friend to Marine World!! (In her kindergarten class they all start the day with a green card and if they get in trouble it changes to yellow and then to red) And she worked hard for those!! We had to count a couple of yellow days as 1/2 days, but she kept with it and she earned her trip!! We were so proud of her!!
The dads took them this Saturday and apparently they had really great time. Alana and her friend held hands everywhere they went, and Mark said even the employees were laughing at how cute they were on the water ride. Apparently the couldn't stop giggling the whole time they were on the ride.
This kindergarden thing has been a wild ride, but I think she is finally starting to settle in. And so am I; thank goodness! For a while there my day revolved around finding out she had done at school. Luckily I have some great friends at work, who have heard all about my kids for forever. I even had a few who would ask for the "Alana Report" to see how she was doing at school that day! They were all cheering for her and they were happy to hear that she had finally earned her trip!
So rest assured everyone, Alana got through her first month of kindergarten!!

2008-09-22T19:53:00.000-07:00

2008-09-21T10:43:00.000-07:00

2008-09-21T10:39:00.000-07:00

This Saturday it was just me and Jacob at home. So we went to the farmer's market. I'm a big fan of farmers' markets and so are my children, but they always seem to find the only non-fruit & vegetable offerings in the market. Jacob wanted to get kettle corn, which he got. But then he decided that it was only for the "children to share"; which incidently worked out great for him, because he was the only child there! So he spent the rest of the day upset at me for trying to take taste's of his kettle corn!! I tried to get him to pose for a picture next to the flowers, but he wasn't having a bit of it.

Farmer's Market

2008-09-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

Mom and Dad and Other Stuff

2008-09-01T16:29:00.001-07:00

Well this has been quite an eventful week. It’s hard to know where to begin. Last Thursday my Mom and Dad came down from Utah to pick up Sarah. We had such a blast visiting with them and getting to spend time with Grandma and Grandpa! We got to go to church in the ward I grew up in and say Hi to everyone we hadn’t seen for years. Even though it was very sad to say goodbye to Sarah. For the next few days Jacob kept walking around looking at the ceiling and saying “Sarah, I said COME BACK!” It was very cute, he insisted that Sarah could hear him on the airplane!

After my Mom and Dad left we had one day to get ready for school! So we went supply shopping and got our two big school girls new pencils and backpacks and stuff like that. We had a bit of drama when we went to register the girls at their school. We have them transferred to a different school district, and we received their transfer approvals at the beginning of the summer, but when we went to register them they only had Anarosa on their list not Alana. So we turned in all the paperwork and did everything we could to get Alana in. It came down to the day before school started and we finally got a slot for Alana! Talk about stress!
Well the first day of school came and we got up extra early and got our school girls fed. Then we packed everybody up and got them off to school. I took the morning off so that I could come too! Anarosa walked right into second grade. She is a pro at this by now. We dropped off Alana at her first day of kindergarten and said goodbye. Then Mark and Jacob and I went out to breakfast together.
Alana gets out at 11:40 for the first week, so Mark went to pick her up. Apparently the first day did NOT go well for her. The head kindergarten teacher was waiting for him when Mark arrived. Alana had gotten in trouble three times and had been sent to the principal’s office on THE FIRST DAY OF KINDERGARTEN! (we are still not exactly sure what she actually got in trouble for – the head teacher wasn’t actually in the classroom) But, by the time Mark got there, she was quite upset. And the school was actually talking about expelling her (which they can do very easily because she is a transfer) The head teacher actually asked Mark if we tolerate this kind of behavior at our house!! (Yes, of course we do, we give all of our children lots of candy whenever they have a tantrum) But then again, we also don’t expel them from the family the first time they have a hard time. At any rate, her next two days and kindergarten went by without a hitch. So we’re chalking this up to first day jitters! (admittedly a rather extreme case!).
So we managed to survive the first week of school. On Thursday however, Jacob managed to be standing behind the sliding door of our minivan when Anarosa swung it open. He has a nice long bruise right between his eyes.
Our other excitement was on Saturday night when Mark and I were going to bed. We heard a noise outside and upon further investigation found that half of the ancient pine tree in the front yard had fallen onto the fence! It hadn’t broken clean off but was also leaning over the car ports of the apartments so Mark and I spent about two hours taking off as much weight as we could. So that it wouldn’t snap completely off. That was fun! For those of you who have not recently deconstructed a pine tree they are full of spiderwebs and sap!

Well those are the highlights this week!

I've been tagged!!

2008-08-27T18:15:00.000-07:00

a close up of the plastic frogs.....

(cause every kitchen sink should have plastic frogs!!)

The Kitchen Sink....

What the kids are doing right now....

Okay this one I cheated on, but only because what the kids are really doing right now is running around the house naked because they just got out of the pool (and nobody wants a picture of that!) But this is what they were doing right before on the way home from picking me up from work!

My Favorite Room is my new Kitchen

(because it actually has room to cook in, AND cabinets!!!)

My Favorite Shoes!

The Bathroom.

My Closet

(those are all Mark's Clothes by the way, mine have to live in a little tiny cabitnet)

My Refrigerator....

Quotes of the Day

2008-07-30T21:20:00.000-07:00

Jacob: "If you're the world's greatest mom, how come you can't juggle???
(hmm... good point)

Mom: "So Anarosa, why do you think they call it a Canary Melon?"
Anarosa: "I think its cause the Canadians make them."

Mom: "Jacob it is definately time to change your diaper!"
Jacob: "No, no, no!"
Mom: "Do you want to just hop in the bathtub, I think that would be easier"
Jacob: "No, I want you to squirt my bottom with the Aquaman Squirting Submarine!"
Mom: "I don't think that will work."
Jacob: "How do you know?"

2008-07-28T21:54:00.000-07:00

My Day

2008-07-28T21:52:00.000-07:00

Well, my day started off well enough for a Monday. I got to sleep in because Sarah is back from girl’s camp, which means that Mark can drive me to work without me having to get all three kidlets up and dressed. Work went as well as could be expected. I came home for lunch as usual, and I was heading off to Oakland for a work meeting after lunch. I of course was late getting on my way to Oakland, but I had my trusty yahoo driving directions in hand. Of course I got lost. I followed the directions implicitly only to discover that I had typed in 100 Broadway instead of 1000 Broadway. But you can’t fool me for long. I figured out that the county health department was probably not housed in the Barnes and Nobles at Jack London Square, so off I go to find the real county health department. I eventually found the right building, and the parking garage, and the correct elevator, apparently I took the back elevator first, and had to go all the way around to find the public elevator. By that time I was twenty minutes late, and I had to leave the meeting a half hour early in order to get back on time for Mark to leave for work!! But, not to worry I got lost finding the freeway on the way back too! The happy thing about this story is I did eventually find my way back home. A fact that I found rather encouraging at the time….

Of course once I got home, I knew I would have to take the kids swimming in the big pool. Anarosa and Alana had earned dollar store inner tubes on Sunday by sitting through Sacrament Meeting and staying in Primary the whole time (I know, but apparently I am not above bribery, and Jacob hasn’t been to primary in five weeks!! So I’m getting desperate) Jacob didn’t quite make it for the whole time so he is going to try again next Sunday. Well, the girls have been beside themselves waiting a whole 24 hours since they got the swimming inner tubes! And we have been repeatedly warning them not to be too rough with them or they will pop! Of course as soon as I get home they are ready to suit up and get to the pool. Once I say we can get ready everybody changes into their suits and in the excitement Anarosa “accidentally jumps” on her inner tube and it pops. Literally, not a small hole, an 8 inch whole on the inside of the tube! She immediately falls into hysterics so we hunt up the duct tape, and do the best we can to repair it.
Once we get that done, we head to the pool.

As soon as we get there, Jacob realizes that he is the only one who doesn’t have a tube, and he immediately falls apart. I know, I know, but I really need him to want a tube bad enough to go to Primary and to keep the yelling to a minimum in Sacrament meeting… So I am not going to give in, the girls can share with him if they want to, but you guessed it nobody wants to. So he is miserable and lets me know it. Next, Anarosa’s inner tube deflates in the water, the duct tape just wasn’t able to do it. And she immediately falls back into hysterics. Now my Anarosa has always been the sensitive one, which can be a very endearing quality. This however, is a full blown tantrum. And no I cannot make Alana give her, her inner tube just because Anarosa’s broke. And yes, I do know that I have ruined her life, and we spend the next 20 minutes with Anarosa throwing a fit! (Jacob also still upset) Next, comes Alana who declares she cannot swim with all this crying and yelling (I’m sure the entire apartment complex agrees with her by now). And you guessed it she starts crying too. Yep, it is definitely time to go home now! Besides it’s like 65 degrees outside and overcast and it looks like it’s going to start raining any time now! So I pack them all up, howling and crying and drag them all home. Jacob unfortunately had to sit in time out as soon as we got home, because the whole time we were walking back to the house, he kept calling me a Dufus, and after the third time I had told him to use his nice words, he went from saying under his breath to yelling it as loud as his rebellious three year old lungs could do it. By this time, Sarah is the only on who I haven’t made cry (although I offered to try if she felt left out).
So we finally get them home, and changed, and fed and put to bed. And yes, I am still the worst mommy in the WHOLE WORLD! Especially since at 8:00 I MADE THEM GO TO BED!
But the really great news is that once I finish with all that I still get to go clean the bathroom of one of the recently vacated apartments!! Well at least tomorrow already has something going for it……it isn’t today!

Fourth of July and Other Stuff

2008-07-10T22:14:00.000-07:00

We, packed up and drove to Hollister for the long weekend. They called us a few days before to tell us that some of their kids were sick, but that they were pretty much over their little flus. We were going to spend three days and two nights at our friend's house (they have four kids all five and under, so they're the same kind of wonderful crazy that we are!) We got there on Friday afternoon and the kids had a great time running around and playing in the backyard. About every five minutes they asked if it was time to set off the fireworks. Finally, around seven thirty it was time. So we sat them all down on the front lawn and started to set off the fireworks in the culdesac. The kids abosolutly LOVED it! They jumped and screamed and laughed. Finally, a bunch of neighbors came out with their kids to see what our kids were doing, and we ended up with an impromptu block party! We didn't get to bed until waaaaay after bedtime.

This was definatley the kid's favorite fourth of July. That night our hosts got sick with the flu though, so we had to cut our weekend a little short.

The next night Sarah came down with the flu. And then on Tuesday Jacob woke us up at 2 am by coming into our bedroom and throwing up on our bed. But so far, no one else has gotten sick (knock on wood). For me it's kind of like watching the dominos fall and wonder who will go next. But it's been three days and no one else has gotten sick, so maybe we're done!

Mark had an interesting incident in the park. I won't go into detail, since I'm sure he'll end up testifying in court about this one, but he ended up stopping some people in the park, getting a weird vibe from them, calling in their license plate number to the police department and finding out that the car they were in had been carjacked! It's never boring for him....

This week has just been hot! Today was the first non-miserable day for me. Although the kids are loving it, because I finally broke down and bought them new bathing suits (the only box we lost in our move was the "summer" box that had all the pool toys and bathing suits in it) and a new inflatable swimming pool that is shaped like an alligator. They love their new little pool! Although I think it probably has a leak in it by now, apparently cheap inflatable swimming pools do not hold up well to three rambunctious kids who have been couped up in a hot house for a week. But I also got brave and took them to the big pool in our apartment complex. We usually go a lot during the summer, but this year was more difficult since we are now the full time managers. I hate going to the pool, because we are also the pool police and have to deal with everone who sends their kids to the pool unsupervised (really people!). But, our kids are little water babies and they love playing in the big pool. Our big excitement is that Alana has grown and can now stand up by herself in the 3 feet area!!!

Well I know this rambled a bit, but I think those are the major updates.

playing in the water

2008-06-22T21:58:00.000-07:00

Father's Day

2008-06-22T21:57:00.000-07:00

Autie Sarah is here!!!!

2008-06-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

2008-06-22T21:08:00.000-07:00

I know, I know it's been forever since I've posted anything. I just love Saturday mornings at my house. It's one of the only times I get to .........ahhhhh.. .THIS IS WHY I don't get a chance to blog very often! Just as I sat down to write this miss Anarosa got out of bed to tell me that her tummy didn't feel good, and you guessed it, puked all over our three month old carpet!! (and the kitchen coutner, and the bathroom floor and the bathroom sink, but you get the picture! (and is it only my kids who can stand on a tiled floor and still manage to puke on carpeting?)
Now that I've finished with that, Jacob is busy trying to convice me to give him a high five with my teeth! (????)

Anyway, as I was saying last Saturday it was cute because we were just hanging out in the morning in our pj's and Jacob was on my lap. He started to give me a shopping list of things he wanted me to buy him, among them new EYEBROWS, snow for the back yard (which I can understand that would be cool) and a car, with only one seat (so he doesn't have to share with Alana) that he can really drive in the street! Well that's my boy!

As most of you know, my sister Sarah came out last week to spend the summer with us. The kids just LOVE her! Everything is better if Auntie Sarah does it with them. They are having soo much fun with her, especiall since she doesn't mind them spraying her with the hose in the back yard! (Mom is not nearly as fun as that!)

And it has been hot this week! I know that we have great weather in the bay area and that everyone else in the country has to put up with much more than I do, but I am still the biggest babby when it comes to dealing with temperatures over 85 degrees. I refuse to turn on the stove, so we have to subsist on cereal and milk, and every day when I get home from work, I send all the kids to the back yard and turn on the sprinklers!

Thankfully we only had three days of high temperatures this week. We ended up buying a second portable air conditioner. I didn't think we needed one that badly but Mark did. Come to think of it the heat doesn't bother Mark as much so maybe he needed ME to have another air conditioner! hmmm.....

Balloons, Balloons, Balloons!

2008-05-06T18:43:00.000-07:00

Now, the first thing that you must understand is that my children LOVE balloons. They are not just amused by or fond of balloons; they love them more than life itself, more than candy, more than toys, and definitely more than each other (or so I thought). I even have a “No Balloons!” rule in our house, since I am so tired of constantly refereeing fights that inevitably end in somebody popping somebody else’s balloon and the bloodshed that immediately follows.

So imagine my joy when we went to an outdoor birthday party for their three year old cousin and they immediately shrieked at the sight of the helium balloons that were tied to each picnic table. The begged and pleaded until they were each allowed to take a balloon, and were running all over the field with them. Of course, Anarosa’s was the first to slip out of her hands and fly away. And of course there was screaming and crying. Jacob was soo happy to have his balloon, but of course his was the next to go. Now being three-years-old and going to someone else’s birthday party is hard enough, but to loose your balloon is unbearable. But, and here is the strange part of the story, Alana saw him from across the field ran over with her balloon and said: “Look Jacob, I’ll let mine go too” she let her balloon go, put her arm around Jacob and said “Look there it goes… it’s up there with your balloon! Look how high they’re going, Look! Look!

And that my friend is what can bring a grown woman to tears at a three-year-old’s birthday party.....

Jacob dancing - he wanted to get the camera and take his picture!!

2008-05-05T18:18:00.000-07:00

2008-05-05T18:17:00.000-07:00

He thinks he's so funny!

2008-05-05T18:14:00.000-07:00

The Kids having a waterballoon fight in the backyard.

2008-05-05T18:13:00.000-07:00

Alana

2008-05-05T18:11:00.002-07:00

2008-05-05T18:11:00.001-07:00

Anarosa

2008-05-05T18:08:00.000-07:00

Friday's Dinner

2008-04-23T17:05:00.000-07:00

Alana dropped the Pizza!

2008-04-22T11:44:00.001-07:00

It’s never just as simple as “Alana dropped the Pizza” it’s always just a bit more complicated than that.
It was the end of a hectic week. Friday was slow in coming, but had finally arrived. Mark decided that I wanted a new cabinet for the bathroom, and incidentally, a matching cabinet for the wall. (Actually, Mark decided that there was too much of my stuff, on the very small bathroom sink and no place for his razor.) So he spent most of the afternoon and evening in various stages of “putting them together.”
Now I don’t at all mean to sound ungrateful. I certainly don’t like being the person who has to put stuff together using in the ridiculous instructions and using the even more ridiculous fake tools that inevitably come in the package. That being said, I have (after 8 + years of marriage) finally accepted the fact that during this process, I cannot make things better. There will be grunting and the occasional outburst, and it is best just to stay out of the room and take the kids away from underfoot.
This particular Friday I was tired, and had to stay late for a meeting at work that my boss hadn’t bothered to show up for. I spent the first hour-and-a-half after I got home, straightening up a minor mess and catching up on some housework that hadn’t gotten done, and by the end I was way too tired to even think of making a roasted chicken with several sides for dinner.
But knowing that we all were needing a little break, I decided to go to one of the “take-and-bake” pizza places, and pick up a pizza or two. Alana had been particularly good that day (and she was fully dressed) so I very quietly went up to her and asked if she wanted to go get pizza with me. She was busy on the computer and after thinking it over for a second decided that she really didn’t want to come. That was fine, I asked Anarosa if she wanted to come. Yes she did! Of course Jacob overheard and he wanted to come too. Anarosa just needed to find shoes, but Jacob was dressed in a princess skirt, batman cape and glass slippers. So we had to get him dressed from scratch. And once they were both ready, Alana decided that she didn’t want to be left out, so she was coming too! Well, twenty minutes later we all get into the car.
We were just a tad rowdy getting into the car. By this time, they’re hungry because dinner is late. And so before we get out of the car to go into the restaurant I give them the “we are going to listen to mommy and be good in the store” speech. Now, I’ve been watching Super Nanny lately, so I’m very sure that this is a good speech and given in just the right “kind but firm” tone of voice. In fact I’m very proud of the speech. We get inside the store, and order the pizza, the kids do reasonably well, with just a few reminders that they need to stop jumping off the bench and trying to land on the pizza logo in the middle of the floor!
We finally get our pizza, soda, and breadsticks home. Everyone wants to carry something into the house, Alana gets the pizza, and after several warnings to carry it with both hands straight upstairs. She of course tries to pirouette in the driveway, and in slow motion the pizza tips and then, everything falls to the ground, toppings first of course!
Words cannot describe how frustrated I was! (Well now, yes they can, but I can’t cuss, so I didn’t) I just yelled ALANA!!!! And went upstairs and hid in my room for about 10 minutes, when I calmed down, I took the sobbing Alana and went back to the pizza store, to pick up another pizza!

2008-04-15T10:49:00.000-07:00

Well, not much to report this week. We've been doing everything we usually do. We thought that Anarosa might have another case of shingles. But, the doctor we saw yesterday didn't seem to think that that's what they were. (she gave us the medicine for shingles anyway, just in case!) I think she could tell that I wasn't quite convinced that they weren't shingles, and I was prepared to come right back in the next day if they got worse!
Mark went camping with the young men last weekend! He hasnt' been camping for a while now, so I'm sure he had fun. We got to stay home all weekend (since Mark had the car) It was nice, and I finally got a Saturday to catch up on housework! Oh, my other big excitement is that Mark helped to pick a TON of lemons off of our tree. I bought a new citrus juicer, and after juicing less than half the lemons we collected I had four cups of lemon juice in the frig! So I have a feeling we'll be drinking lemonade for a long time!

April Showers

2008-04-09T09:40:00.000-07:00

And speaking of Jacob, the little stinker……

I took the day off yesterday, and naturally didn’t get around to taking a shower until mid-morning. Jacob heard the water and immediately wanted to get into the shower with me. I’m not sure what came over me, but I didn’t particularly want to share my shower, so I said no. Now once I’ve said “no” I’ve painted myself into a corner. There was pleading and wining and crying. But I held firm, (on principal) I had said no and I meant no.

Jacob went away but came back about a minute later, and knocked on the bathroom door, “Can I come in mommy’s shower” “no” knocking on the shower curtain, “Can I come in the shower” “No” Now, he does his version of whistling at me – Which is really just yelling Whoo, wooo woot! “NO!”

He goes away again, and about 30 seconds later comes back.
“I have to go to the bathroom.”
(we’re trying to potty train)
“okay”
“I need help taking my pants off”
“okay” (pants come off)
“I need to take my diaper off”
“okay” (diaper comes off)
“I need to take my shirt off”
“no just leave it on”
“I can’t I have to go potty NOW!”
“all right” (shirt comes off)
“I don’t have to go potty anymore, I’m ready for my shower”

Needless to say I got out of the shower, and Jacob got in. I’m not exactly sure, but I think he earned it.

2008-04-08T09:49:00.000-07:00

Flying Kites

2008-04-08T09:43:00.000-07:00

Flying Kites

This title immediately makes me think of the last scene in the movie “Mary Poppins”. An idealistic family, whose distant father has now become a bastion of familial attentiveness, skipping arm and arm down a London street singing passionately about the simple pleasures of flying a kite. My own experiences with kites have not been the same.

I arrived home from work yesterday tired, but ready to tackle the challenges of the day. The house was in need of immediate attention, by that of course I mean that lunch was still on the table in all its glory, and someone other than the ants should start cleaning it! I was immediately greeted by three very enthusiastic offspring who had evidently been waiting with baited breath for my very arrival. All of whom were under the impression that I had come home for the express purpose of taking them to the park to fly kites!

“Kites, I said we don’t have any kites!” (I know this because I purposefully did NOT buy them kites at the grocery store the last time we were there – but I digress)Yes, Kites, and then I spied the kites, my mother-in-law had included in their Easter baskets…….Well, as a parent this is the moment of decision. Do I crush their eager faces and give in to the mundane demands of housekeeping and the social pressures of maintaining at least a “presentable” house, or do we through cleanliness to the wind and head off arm and arm down the street singing the praises of high and holy motherhood? Well the first I must admit. After trying diplomatically to come up with several excuses as to why Mommy didn’t think it was a good idea to go to the park today, and explaining multiple times how I didn’t think that flying them on our deck (beneath the pine tree) was a good idea, I finally succumbed to the fall back position: “why did your dad tell you I would do it anyway.” This not being entirely fair since Mark took off the minute I got home to go finish the maintenance at the apartment buildings. (He also left before I could see if he was smirking, so generous as I am I will give him the benefit of the doubt)

Well after 20 minutes of stalling and furious cleaning on my part, and 20 minutes of whining and crying on theirs we finally grabbed the keys and the kites and headed to the car. (okay 20 minutes of cleaning and whining and 15 minutes finding shoes, but you get the idea).

After settling everybody in, and buckling about 500 safety buckles, we are finally on the road, and I am feeling immensely proud of the parent I have become! We are being spontaneous, I am responding to the call of childhood. So, we reach the park whereupon I realize that I have three children and three kite packages, but not enough parts to construct three kites! So after some very interesting negotiating we decide how to divide two working kites between three very avid kite flyers.

Now the hard part. I had naively assumed that being an adult of average intelligence I would be able to assemble a child’s kite. But alas, this was not to be. We finally constructed something very much like a kite, but at this juncture Anarosa decided it was finished and ran into the wind. It never really flew, but she had fun and only got it caught in two separate trees. The next kite was put together much more easily, but unfortunately with little more success. It however was also fun to run around the empty field with. It was a very windy day and we were right off of the shore, so thankfully the kites were always “flying” just never more than about four feet off the ground. Jacob and Alana took turns with the other kite and Anarosa took turns instructing them in the art of kite flying (which consisted of “This way! This way! Not that way!) After the first thrill of flying the kites was over, we began to squabble over turns and why they weren’t flying and anything else we could manage to squabble over. The kites of course at this point are intertwined and Jacob wanders off to the playground to slide on the slide.

Since I’m about ready to wrap this whole kite experience up. I calmly give them a “five minute warning” at which point Alana realizes she has not yet swung on the swings. Seeing her, Jacob naturally wants a turn and while I am turning around to help Anarosa untangle the kites, Alana lets go of the plastic swing, which immediately hits Jacob in the face and gives him a bloody nose.

So the next time you’re watching Mary Poppins and the Banks family skipping merrily down the street, flying their beautiful kites in the London air, you may now picture me, the mom with the three dollar-store kites, two of which are tucked under my arm, one howling three-year-old with blood covering his face tucked under the other arm, dragging one very sulky five-year-old with one shoe and calling out to a sobbing seven year old who is still trying to “fly the kite to the car.” And you will have the part of domestic bliss that Mary Poppins forgot to mention.