I Moved!

Same Girl, New Place! If you want to kick it old school, stick around, but we are living it up over here these days! See ya there!

That's Gonna Leave a Mark!

I teach the important stuff...

This story is a little late, and I have emailed it to many already. But since I do not keep a journal I need to put it here for posterity.
You might remember long ago when Ethan was learning about Martin Luther King Jr. Well, it was high time Tyler learned a thing or two. Only I was teaching him about sorting laundry, not people.

We are living at Ryan's Grandpa's house and he has a huge laundry room. So over MLK weekend I thought I would teach the kids to separate their laundry like my Mom did, you know with laundry baskets with signs above them. I thought since the kids are young I would only do two baskets so they wouldn't get confused. I did one sign that says "Whites and lights" and one sign that says "Darks and Coloreds" (Hang on, let me smack myself in the forehead ONE MORE TIME, I don't think I did it hard enough the first 7 times). Perhaps you see where this is going...

So on MLK day, the boys were home from school and I was teaching them to be my slaves the value of hard work. I asked Ethan and Tyler to go sort the dirty laundry in their room ( our first attempt at the new sorting system). They came out and this was our conversation:

TYLER: Mom, I get it. (he said this with kinda a nod and a thumbs up)
ME: You get what?
TYLER: You always have such fun ways to teach us stuff
MOM: Well, you need to learn to sort laundry!
TYLER: No, not that mom!
MOM: What did I teach you?
TYLER: You taught us to separate whites and darks, just like Martin Luther King
(Right about here, my mouth dropped open, and he grinned and gave me kinda a "way to go" nod, hang on, I need to smack myself in the forehead harder this time)
ME: Tyler that is NOT what I am teaching you!!! I am JUST teaching you to separate LAUNDRY not PEOPLE!!!
TYLER: Why?
(Here I thought he was asking me why we separate our laundry, not why do we separate people...or whatever...I am confused now like I was then)
ME: Well when you do laundry you have to separate them, because if we wash the white with colors we will ruin the whites
As it left my mouth I realized I had just made this whole thing worse...

I tried to recover but Tyler was thinking a "People analogy" and I was thinking a "laundry analogy".

We sat down and talked all about it, and I think he understood, but then he wants to be a dollar when he grows up

Hello?! Is this thing on?

First of all, a few answers.

"Where have you been?" I have been here all along. I just haven't had anything pressing, or of importance to say. I have been lazy. I have been too busy with life. I have been busy reading some of my favorite blogs. And, don't forget, I am lazy.

"Are you coming back?" Oh, I'm coming back. Like, right now.

"How are things going?" Things are going. It has been crazy. We have done some moving and growing and settling down only to work ourselves back up again.

"Do you still partake of the sweet juices of the Gods" (a.k.a. Dr. Pepper) Well, thank you for asking. Yes, yes I do. Still diet, although no one told my backside it is diet.

The fact that people actually had these questions for me was, well, touching. Except for the person who asked me if I still had my kids. That was weird. Maybe he or she thought I gave my writing material up for adoption because I couldn't handle the madness. Whatever though, it was nice to be missed.

See ya much sooner. Like tomorrow. And it'll be good because leave it to my kids to shake things up the first minute I sit down in I don't know how long to write an entry. In the few short minutes I have sat here they have managed to probably get CPS called because I am so incredibly negligent. Maybe that's what that question about "do I still have my kids" is about. From the looks of my kids playroom and the fighting that has been going on in the last 10 minutes maybe I should reconsider this whole "comeback" thing.

Long time...no see

Man it has been awhile, huh? I have had some blogging withdrawals. First I was shaky, then sweaty. But I couldn’t stay away. Just couldn’t make a clean break. So here I sit, in front of my computer with a blank page, wondering what I should cover first…

• The fact that I look fat in these pants?
• How excited I am that Fall television shows are starting?
• Who is going to win Project Runway (I know that technically Project Runway could fall under the above mentioned “television shows” but this one deserves a bullet-point all it’s own…am I right or am I right?)
• Do I get serious for a moment about how far and hard I fell off the “No Dr. Pepper horse”? I am dangerously close to checking myself into Diet Dr. Pepper with Cherry and Vanilla rehab? There isn’t one you say? Well, then, I am about to start one and it will make me rich because I couldn’t possibly be alone in my sad but delicious little addiction.
• Or what about the personality traits of travelers? What it means if you are a over-packer or an under-packer.
• Or what about my moronic conversation with security at the airport. I talk too much, and apparently asking questions at the airport these days is grounds for arrest.
• Or dare I discuss a much more personal experience, like the reason I did traveling at all recently? It includes me loving my Grandpa.
• Or the fact that I am in a bit of a funk these days? I am. I have had one bad hair day too many lately.

Life truly has gotten MAD lately. Life with my kids is busy…Ryan is busy at work… all the stuff that contributes, greatly, to my Dr. Pepper habit. It is like a spoonful of medicine. Anti-Crazy medicine. So I can’t quit it just yet, not for about 30 more years. I am okay with that, except I won’t be getting any skinnier in my pants in the mean time.

Wanna Play Gay?

Tyler (my 6 year old) and I were hanging out the other day and that was the question he asked me.

TYLER: Wanna Play Gay?
ME: Huh, wha? Ummm... I'm not sure I know how to play.
TYLER: It's easy, we play it at school all the time!
ME: (inner monologue: Oh, Crap...) You do? Well tell me how!
TYLER: Well, pretty much I say a word, you use it in a sentence and the last word in the sentence is my word. Like I say "flower" and you say "The flowers are pretty." and then I make a sentence that has "pretty" in it.
ME: Why in the world (praytell) is that called "gay"?
TYLER: Oh, easy, because that was the first word Jacob said, so that's what we call it.
ME: Oh, right...easy. Duh. So do you know what gay means?
TYLER: Well, Jacob said it means happy, but, well that's dumb. Happy means happy. ( he was making a face and shaking his head like that was total bull)
ME: Well, it can mean happy. But it also means, when a boy really loves another boy, or a girl really loves another girl.
TYLER: Oh, you mean like how I love Dad.
ME: No, I mean like how I love Dad. When 2 boys or 2 girls kiss and stuff, that kind of love.

Tyler was looking more confused than ever. I saw his friendship with his best friend Braden running through his mind, or him thinking "I guess my brother Ethan" things like that. Trying to figure out what in the world I was saying. I could tell I totally just blew his mind.

ME: Whaddya think?
TYLER: But girls like boys and girls like boys.
ME: That's often the case, but not always.

And because I was curious about what he thought, I asked him this...

ME: So Tyler, when you grow up are you going to like boys or girls?
TYLER: Ya know, Mom? I just don't think I am ready to make that decision.
ME: Uh, Okay. Fair enough.

Just not ready to lock into a team yet. Not ready to make any commitments. Atleast he wants to make an educated and well informed decision. I mean, I can respect that.

Obviously a 6 year old doesn't grasp the concept, and in his mind, he does love his best friend, Braden. And his brothers and Dad. And in 6 year old land, that is the only kind of love there is.

The boy who almost wasn't

Calvin-Doobies is FOUR YEARS OLD today!!! I can't believe it. I look back at the day each of my children were born and each experience was an amazing, emotional, spiritual experience. But Calvin's birth was different. Very different, one that I thankfully never had to experience again.

When Tyler was 2, we had fully planned to wait until he was much older before we got pregnant again. We both felt really good about waiting. One day though I was sitting at church and out of nowhere I felt a feeling come over me much like a punch in the stomach. I was so overcome by the feeling that I started to cry, it was a feeling that I needed to get pregnant. NOW. I tried hard to fight the feeling for a few weeks, but it stayed with me. It was October when that happened, around that same time, Ethan started making a Christmas List. All he wanted for Christmas was a "nother brother". We explained how impossible and highly unlikely that was.In November, Ryan and I had an experience, we went to the temple, afterwards he came up to me and said, "Uh, Linsey..." and I just said "I know". We both knew we needed desperately to get pregnant. We did, and even in time for Christmas. we told Ethan and Tyler we were pregnant Christmas morning.

It was a difficult pregnancy for me emotionally. Life, outside the womb, was turning upside down. And the only thing getting me through things was that little baby in my belly.

Near the end of the pregnancy I got paranoid, like I do with every last 6 weeks of pregnancy. I would think I wasn't feeling him move or something was wrong. I finally called the Doctor and told him that I knew something was wrong. I felt movement but it had changed. We went in for non-stress tests and we detected movement and a heartbeat, but it was sometimes very faint. We did several ultrasounds and they measured him and said he was (they were guessing) a large baby, he was measuring big, but everything looked okay, except that his lungs did not seem ready to try to make it on thier own. We watched and watched his lungs for about 10 days. I went in one morning for my regular weekly appointment and the Doctor measured the outside of my belly and then with a concerned look, he looked at my chart. Then he measured again. Then he said "Where is Ryan" I said he is in the parking lot waiting with the kids so I can take the kids home and he can go to work. He said "We are going to have the baby, right now. Please make arrangements for your boys and hurry over there". Just as Ryan walked in, I was crying and me sweet Doctor who was trying to help me stay calm put his arm around Ryan and explained that we needed o go have this baby now. My stomach had been shrinking. In one weeks time it had shrunk nearly 2.5 cm. And with the weakness in movement and such, it was safer at this point to deal with immature lungs out side the womb.

When my water broke, he would not drop. And with every contraction his heartrate would drop. Because I had bleed so severly with Tyler, and my blood is so thin when I am pregnant, we were trying to avoid a C-section. I sat and stared at the monitor for about 3 hours watching the heart rate fluctuate. The nurse turned me to my side to see if moving me around would help him drop down a little. I turned over and continued watching the monitor. The nurse left the room and within seconds I heard the heart rate dropping I was watching the monitor, my Mom, Ryan's Mom and Ryan were in the room. Conversation stopped and we all watched. 130, 120, 110, 100, 80, 60...then nothing. No heartbeat. I started yelling for Ryan to do something and all of a sudden a team of nurses ran in flipped me back to my back, but oxygen on me and the Doctor came in. Apparently the cord was tangled up all around him, and withut the buoyency of the water, when I turned to my side, we were basically hanging him (terrible I know). So the Doctor came in and said that he was heading in for an emergency c-section, but while he was doing it, they would put fluid back in my uterus, to buoy him back up, and I would be prepped for a c-section. He was hoping that putting more fluid in there would help me to progress a little more, he said he would giveit the old "college try" while I was waiting for a C-section. He said a prayer with us and promised he would be right back. Calvin's heart rate went back up and I started dialating further. The nurse came in to check me and I was still a 4, where I had been for hours. When she left the room I my Mom and Ryan thatshe moved one of my many devices and it was really uncomfortable. It was hurting, I said to them that I knew it wasn't possible, but I felt like I needed to push. Bad. I called the nurse back in and told her that was what I was feeling and she laughed at me, as she lifted the sheet to check out with tube was bugging me, she said, "close your legs, don't push until the Dr. gets in here!" It was time, I went from 4 to 10 after HOURS in literally 3 minutes.

I was pushing and had my eyes closed, when I opened my eyes I looked at the Doctor and he was completely covered in blood, I looked at my Mom, and she had also been splattered. I looked around the room and it look like a kethup bottle had exploded. Calvin's cord broke. The Dr. said that as soon as he began moving the cord, was so dry and brittle that it just broke. What happened was it was wrapped so tightly around his neck twice and his chest twice, that nothing had been getting through it. The judged, by the dryness of the cord that nothing had travelled through it for about a week or two, whch was why he was shrinking. When it broke, the end that was nearest the placenta was like a kinked hose, and so it had much buildup that needed to get out. Ryan said it looked like a cartoon, when the hose is on and it is flying all over the place. they pulled him out and took him away. The nurse showed me how his skin was just hanging off his body, which is often a sign of significant weight loss in the womd. He weighed in at under 7 pounds, 2 ounds less then the earlier ultrasounds at measured.

They expected things to be wrong as a result of no nutrents getting to him those last 2 weeks. hearing loss and blindness, and poor circulation were the biggest concerns. He had really bad bruising around his neck and chest where the cord had been. His first APGAR was 2, and they said they were being "kind with that number because he was fighting so hard". One hour later, everything checked out great and his APGAR was way up.

We felt very strongly the presence, and assistance, of Ryan's Grandma, who died 2 days before Calvin was born. We know she kept him safe during the whole experience. In fact, waiting and watching for those 2 weeks before we delivered was necessary, because Ryan's Grandma needed to pass first, so she could help Calvin.

I recieved flowers from a kind Doctor in the lab of the hospital that afternoon, he and a nurse brought them in and said they were so sorry. I panicked because I didn't know why they were there and Calvin was in the nursery getting checked out some more and so I thought maybe something had happened to him in there. Turned out when the Doctor was doing whatever they do to the placenta, he thought from the looks of the cord and placenta that he was still born. He said he had never seen a cord like that come from a living baby.

He was a fighter then and he is a fighter now. He is a special kid with the BEST sense of humor. He is so much fun. He is the middle child and it shows, he always feels like he needs to prove himself... fight harder, work harder, play better, be smarter, be the funniest. He is a sweet kid.

When we celebrate his birthday I am reminded of the precious gift my children are. How lucky I am to be a Mother.... and a Mother to FIVE kids? It's the best.

Today he introduced himself to someone as Doobies, I said "Hey, Doobs? When you turn 15 can I still call you Doobies?" He said "You better Mom, cuz that's my name!".

I love the Doobs.

Made for T.V.?

Before I begin my rant, I just want to say I am sorry. I know my background is a bit blinding. If Ryan ever has a moment, I am going to have him fade it down a bit and clean it all up and stuff, but until then, sorry. And yes that is me, some one asked if that was me, and I don't always look fabulous, but I don't always look like that, and I only wear my straightjacket when I am going somewhere special... and with just the right shoes and clutch...

So, I have mentioned before about how I watch soap operas. General Hospital to be exact. In my defense, I rarely sit and watch, it is more like background noise, but it is there nonetheless. An embarrassing quality about myself, I can admit, but we all have them. Right?

So here is the thing. I mean, ONE of the things. There are a lot of silly things about Soaps, like that they are called "soaps", but here is the thing that really gets me, this week. So on General Hospital, and all soaps, it is a general rule that even when one dies, you can't count them out. For the only thing certain in Soaps is that death is not certain in Soap Opera Land. On General Hospital, people drive cars off the side of a mountain or get a monkey virus plague from the Markum Islands or they get shot... TWICE... IN THE HEAD and just have a little temporary memory loss or they get possessed by demons or they drink vial's of fatal poison, but they never ever, ever, ever, ever, ever die. Ever. Well, I take that back, they die, but just for a minute. And the other thing is it all happens in like 2 episodes. Someone has a baby and by the next Friday, the baby is pregnant and the father of her baby is her stepbrother. Wha? Or Someone takes vicodin (mmmm..... vicodin....) on Monday and by Friday they are FULL ON addicts taking 40 pills a day and sleeping with teenage girls for their "fix". But here is the kicker for me, they tackle issues like demon possession, the mob, monkey virus plagues, you know real issues. Then the next thing you know they are wasting their time with stuff like "bi-polar disorder" and "cancer". Why bother. I mean, someone can get chopped up and burned and still come back from the dead so what's a little cancer scare? I mean they can just magically make it disappear right? Or if they die they can just come back later. I don't mean to make light of serious things (like bi-polar or cancer), but if you are gonna mess around with all the other garbage, just leave the real stuff out, ya know? Plus, they find out they have cancer and by Friday their "fatal, spread to far" cancer is miraculously cured. They have the guy who doesn't have bi-polar but he just plays a guy with bi-polar on t.v. come on at the end of the show doing a public service announcement saying "If you or someone you know is suffering from this or this or that or this, contact them or them or these guys..." But what if my friend is in the mob??? Or has a monkey he brought home from the Markum Islands and he has suddenly fallen ill? Where is my PSA then? Who do I turn to when my husband get possessed by a demon if a soap opera actor hasn't told me who I should call if me or "Someone I know is suffering from 360 head spins or green projectile vomit and a creepy voice with red eyes"??? What then???

And I am sure there is a reason they are called soap operas, but what is that reason? And who stamped the approval on that one?

I'm just saying...