Easter celebrations

We went to our friends the Bradfords' house for a little Easter celebration Sunday. I'm happy they invited us, since I had literally nothing planned for my boys. I did buy some eggs and candy the day before, but I didn't even have ANYTHING for Easter dinner. I thought about it on Saturday, but I knew I wouldn't have the energy or leg-strength to cook anything by the time the afternoon rolled around, so why bother, right?

We ended up eating a box of Pasta-roni. And we only had one box so there wasn't enough for everyone. I didn't eat any (don't worry, I had eaten a bunch of chocolate at church) and Ben ate cold-cereal. Pathetic!

But we had a fun time at the Bradfords. They have an enormous backyard with lots of good egg-hiding places. Nikki is a much more conscientious mother than me, and her eggs were all filled with cute things like stickers and teddy-grahams and raisins and pecans and goldfish crackers. Mine were filled with cadbury mini eggs and jelly beans. Plus I brought two boxes of peeps and a bag of reeces peanut butter eggs. I'm afraid I completely sabotaged her efforts to keep Easter from spiraling down into sugar-frenzied madness.

I also brought some hard-boiled eggs to dye, and the kids had fun doing that. Although I'm also afraid we permanently stained Nikki's formica counter-top... Sorry, Nikki!!!!

So it was a pretty fun afternoon after all.



Ooh, pretty eggs.




Mosey dyeing his egg.



Brigham getting his just right.




Joseph with his mouth full of the good stuff after the Easter egg hunt.



I tried to get one good shot of all of my boys together. Well, I didn't get even one good shot. This was the funniest of the bunch, though.

Little things

Seems we've had a rash of bad luck with little things breaking around here. It's getting annoying. Here's a list of some of the things that have broken-- this is all in the past month.

1. Ben's MP3 player (this is the 2nd one since January)
2. The gear-shift sensor thingy (don't ask me, I know nothing about cars) to the Hyundai, $200-something repair, and 2 days at the shop
3. The battery cable connector thingy to the Hyundai. $130 repair plus the hassle of taking the car in and leaving it for a day. This happened the week after the sensor thing. I sometimes suspect car places of purposely breaking things just so you have to bring them back.
4. Right front tire to the Hyundai. These tires are just over a year old.
5. CD/DVD drive to my computer. Had to go back twice to the computer repair place and try 3 different drives. There's still some weird stuff going on with it, though, and I have the sinking feeling the issue wasn't the drive at all (there goes $80), but something weird with Windows. I'm pretty sure I'll have to re-install Windows which means wiping out all my files and programs which will be a MAJOR pain in the neck. Everything's backed up by Carbonite, but still...
6. Wireless keyboard to the computer. Keys started randomly typing out letters other than their own. $48 to get a new one.
7. Garage door opener. It's not the battery, I got a new one. It just won't open and close the door anymore. Don't know how to fix that.
8. Power cord connector to the other laptop (the one we got at Christmas). We got a new powercord, it wasn't that. Apparently this model laptop commonly has this problem. We sent it to get repaired ($120) and the people have had it almost 2 weeks now. Apparently the previous owner also had this problem, and "fixed" it by soddering this box thingy to the inside of the computer, making it now almost impossible to remove.

None of these things are huge, but together they are awfully annoying. There's a bunch of other random things that are not working right (telescope, door-locking mechanism in the van, a light bulb that broke off in the socket of the ceiling fan), but I'm not counting those.
On the bright side, my camera magically "fixed itself." I don't know how, but after not working for several weeks, it suddenly started working again. And I think that would have been a more expensive fix than any of those other items on my list, so I should consider myself lucky!

Two funny exchanges

On Saturday afternoon I took the boys to the school playground. They played together really well. Mosey was exhausted (up crazy late the night before), and after a while came back to the car and fell asleep. I ran him back home (less than 2 minutes away), and went back to the park. I sat there feeling warm, tender, motherly feelings about how lucky I was that my two boys loved each other so much and played together so well.
Naturally right about the time I was thinking this, Brigham came running up the car, crying, with Joseph coming right after him.
Finally I managed to get the story of what happened. Joseph wanted to play a game, but Brigham thought it was "a stupid game." I told Brigham that he didn't have to play Joseph's game if he didn't want to, but Brigham said that Joseph just kept telling him everything he was doing was wrong. Brigham does tend to get really uptight about stuff like this, but Joseph can also be pretty overbearing.
I asked Joseph what the game was, and he said, "Well, it's too hard to explain all at once." So I asked him how could Brigham know how to play the game if he couldn't explain the rules? Joseph answered, "Well, I just tell him whenever he's doing something wrong!"
LOL!! No wonder Brigham thought it was a "stupid game."
I told Joseph that no one wants to play a game when they don't know the rules and someone is always telling them what to do, or telling them they're doing it wrong.

But Brigham was still very upset. Brigham also has the tendency, when he is upset, to blame anything and everything on someone else. So this was the next exchange between the two of them:
Brigham (to Joseph): "You made me hurt myself!"
Joseph: "How did I make you hurt yourself?"
Brigham: "You made me get a sliver!"
Joseph (incredulous): "How did I make you get a sliver?"
Brigham: "You made me mad and when I get mad I rub my hands on things and when I rub my hands on things I get a sliver!"
Joseph (disgusted): "I didn't make you mad, you made yourself mad! You are in charge of if you get mad or not!" (Glad at least some things I say over and over to the boys sinks in!)

Ha ha ha!! Good lesson for mom not to let her head get too big...

Happy Easter!!

Approval!!

Ben got word today from the VP of HR that they are approving my transplant! This is such good news, so many prayers answered. I was getting so discouraged that it would take a really long time. TMI will send off all the paperwork to M.D. Anderson on Monday and after that I'm sure things will get busy. I tentatively anticipate going into the hospital at the beginning of May, since there is probably a month's worth of stuff that has to be done before hand (MRI's, more exams, stem cell harvest, etc.). We'll keep everyone updated.

What good news for a Good Friday!

Spring is here!

Spring has been here in Austin for a few weeks, but now it is official! I was going to take pictures of the pretty tulips Ben planted along our front walkway, but on Tuesday we had a big hailstorm, and it knocked all the petals off the stems. :-(

It's so nice to watch the sun come up behind the trees with all their new leaves, I just love the luminescent green of new leaves.

Joseph

Joseph had to fill his quota of silly pictures. The only way I can get him to be in ANY picture, is to promise that I'll take a bunch of silly pictures, too.



Scary, huh? That is his "scary" face. I'm shaking in my boots.



Playing dead. Do people die with their mouths wide open like that? :-)



Giving me the thumbs up.



And a wave for good measure.



He told me he had his arm around his "imaginary friend." This must be an imaginary imaginary friend, because he doesn't actually have one!


We ordered a whole bunch of books from the Scholastic book order form he brought home a few weeks ago. They finally came in a couple days ago, and he's been pretty happy. He read all of "A Magic Schoolbus: The Truth About Bats" last night, sitting next to the open door in his room, after he was supposed to have gone to bed. He's got a brother that told me all about it though. :-) I told him I used to do the same thing, only my sisters didn't like the door open so I had to read by flashlight under the covers.

Brigham

So the boys weren't too excited about taking St. Patrick's pictures. They just wanted to take silly pictures, so I obliged.


I have no idea what Brigham is doing here.



He is roaring at me here. Scary, huh?



He is playing dead. After I shot this, he had to come and look at it on my camera's LCD screen to make sure he really looked dead.



He said he was "Being an indian warrior."

Brigham has had a few great lines recently. I keep forgetting to write them down before I forget them. But this one I remember. We were in the car and he and Joseph were talking. He says to Joseph, "Joseph? I want to know what you think and what you feel." LOLOL!! What the heck?!

And one brag. Brigham is a math boy. He just intuitively gets how to figure things out. He was trying to figure out how many seconds were in 15 minutes. He thought about it for a minute and then said, "I know, I just need to do fifteen fifties and then add fifteen tens!" And he did it! I thought that was pretty clever of him.

Mosey

Mosey's preschool class had an Easter egg hunt on Monday. They have Good Friday off, so Monday was the day! He had a fun time.







Mosey is getting an attitude. His favorite thing to say recently is, "WHY??" He pronounces it, "Why-uh?!" He says this whenever I tell him to do something or stop doing something. Really, it's charming.



Mosey showing me this slime stuff he got in one of his Easter eggs. Fun.




Mosey is getting better and better in his reading. Here he is reading "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." He will now sometimes correct Brigham or Joseph. We were driving past a restaurant with a "Now Hiring" sign in the window. Joseph looked at it and said, "Now hirring," and Mosey immediately corrected him saying, "No Joseph, it says no HIRING!"

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

I've always liked St. Patrick's Day for the sole purpose that it involves my favorite color, green! I think it is a fun holiday. No crazy sugar consumption, no crazy spending on presents, and since we're Mormon, no crazy consumption of alcohol. Just good, green fun.

We had green scrambled eggs for breakfast (ok, those really look disgusting, but taste good!), and for dinner I did a green motif. Irish cabbage, sliced pears and kiwi, green grapes, and mint and chip ice cream and lime sherbet for desert. Oh yeah, and leftover tacos for protein. But those weren't green.

The boys and I liked the Irish cabbage. It's easy to make. Bring 15 oz. of chicken broth and 2 tspns butter to a boil, then add a head of chopped up cabbage and stir around and cook for 20 minutes. Season with salt and pepper. Ben saw that I was chopping up cabbage and looked very skeptical. Then when I was cooking it he came in and said, "I hope you're hungry," implying I'd be the only one who ate it. He was on the phone when we started dinner, but when he came in, the boys assured him it was good. I put the TINIEST amount on his plate, and he tried one teeny tiny bite, and then put the plate in the sink and got a new plate and left the cabbage alone. Hmmm, I think I may not have the most culinarily adventurous husband in the world. Let's just hope we don't go through some hard economic times and we have to eat things like cabbage. He'd starve.

He did manage to refrain from saying "Ew, this is DISGUSTING" in front of the boys, so I give him brownie points for that. :-)

Embarrassing

Cleaned out the van before leaving on our trip. This is all the stuff that was in there. Bin on the left is stuff I have to put away. Bin on the right is trash. Also a bag of Tae Kwon Do sparring gear and a tricycle. Yeah, my van is my dirty little secret.

Spring vacation

Brigham and Mosey playing in the sand on Port Aransas Beach

Great sand for drip-castles

Joseph making a castle

Silly Mosey

In the water

Running out of the water

Running back into the water

On the boat

Brigham and Mosey peeking out of the porthole

Hard to see, but that is a family of whooping cranes out there. Whooping cranes mate for life.

Brigham at Rockport beach

Joseph working on his tan

Mosey being silly again

Those birds are called Black Skimmers. The boys attracted a whole bunch of them, throwing pieces of bread up into the air.

More black skimmers

Eating out of Ben's hand

Got it!

Ben and the boys on the Fulton Pier. Joseph wasn't into having his picture taken.

But he did deign to pose next to me.

So last week was the boys' spring break. For the first few days we pretty much just hung out at home, slept in, watched DVD's and otherwise loafed about. Wednesday I took them to ride bikes up at the church parking lot.

Then on Thursday we decided to go down to Port Aransas. There is a line of barrier islands along the gulf coast, very much like the barrier islands in Florida. South Padre Island is the most famous one, but last week was also UT's spring break, and South Padre tends to get overrun by partying college spring breakers, so we decided not to go there. Port Aransas is closer anyway, about 3 hours. It is a GORGEOUS drive through the beautiful countryside, and it was exciting to get back to the ocean.

We stayed in Rockport Beach, just north of Port Aransas. On Friday we drove down to Aransas Pass, took the ferry out to the island, and spent the day at the beach. It started out beautiful, but then fog rolled in and it got just a little chilly. Ben still managed to get quite sunburned on the side of his face (he was lying on his side on the sand). The boys had a fabulous time, though, making sand castles, finding jellyfish, and playing in the water. Mosey ran into the water about 10 yards, then ran out again, ran in, ran out, ran in, ran out, for about three hours!! That boy is tireless. Port Aransas has the nicest sand I've ever seen at a beach, I think. Very fine and soft and perfect for making sand castles.

Late in the afternoon we drove down through Mustang Island and Padre Island, and then drove across the bridge over the intercoastal waterway into Corpus Christi. I was also totally impressed with Corpus. At least, driving up the coastal highway in Corpus is amazingly beautiful. We saw Horton Hears a Who (great movie, btw, Mosey LOVED it), and ate at Chili's before driving back to the motel.

Saturday we took a boat ride out of Rockport along Blackjack Peninsula, which is a wildlife refuge, and the winter home of the only wild flock of whooping cranes left in the world. It was a beautiful sunny day and we saw lots of whooping cranes and other birds. The water was perfectly calm, so no seasickness!

After the boat ride we spent the afternoon at Rockport Beach. This is also a very nice beach with calm, clear water, and NO trash. There were only families there, and everyone was well-behaved. The water stays shallow really far out, probably 200-400 yards at least, so it was really fun for the boys to play in, and I could just relax and not worry about them. At Port Aransas the day before, the water was rougher, and I freaked out a couple of times when Mosey left my sight.

I have to say, the beach is much more fun when you can walk, though. I managed to get across the sand (with Ben's help), and then waded a few feet into the water before just sitting down. Too hard to wade against the resistance of the water, and when I can't clearly see where my feet are going, it is impossible. But then I couldn't get back out! So I had to wait for Ben to get back (he got all our beach gear down on the beach, and then went to check on the dog at the motel) before I could get back up to my beach chair. But after that I relaxed on the sand and read my book and enjoyed the sun. It was very nice. When it was starting to get dark, we packed up our stuff and then drove around Rockport a bit, touring Key Allegro, which is exactly like the ritzy part of Ft. Lauderdale with enormous houses, waterways and posh boats winding around behind the houses (the waterways were winding, not the posh boats!). If someone had just dropped me there and I didn't know where I was, I would swear I was in Florida. Very nice. And expensive.

That night we ordered pizza and watched "I, Robot" on TV.

Sunday we tried to go to church, but after we finally found where the Rockport branch meets, there was a notice saying it was Stake Conference down in Corpus Christi. Oh well. So we checked out Fulton Beach, walked down the pier there, drove past the Fulton Mansion, and then headed home. We were home by about 4:30.

What a nice weekend!

Now we are back in school. The boys were ready to be back on a schedule, and even though it's hard to drag myself out of bed every morning at 6:15, it's also good for me to be back on schedule.

Sweet Mosey

Just going through my old pictures and doing some photoshop magic. I love these.

Assorted Pictures

Here's my handsome husband. He is sneaky and manages not to be in too many of my photographs. But he needed a headshot for work, so he agreed to pose for me this morning.
Good looking, no?




Mosey and Brigham playing on the swing today at Rose's house.




My sweet Mosey, two months old.




Here he is about 2 weeks old. He spent a lot of his infanthood in this exact position. He was such an easy-going baby, and loved the swing. He did NOT like napping in his crib, but he'd drop right off in the swing. Oooh, I miss having a little baby!

Last night in the nursery

I don't think it was technically the *last night,* but it was one of the last nights the boys' spent in their crib before I moved them into their "big boy bed" in the fall of 2003. I wanted them in their regular bed well before Moses was born in January. They were just over 2 years old in this picture.
Joseph and Brigham shared a crib from birth, and got to the point where they would not be able to fall asleep without the other one there. When they got a little older, they would make some trouble. As you can see here, they routinely stripped their crib of all sheets, blankets, and pillows, and unceremoniously dumped them on the floor before finally falling asleep.
I've heard other moms of multiples saying how they have to separate their multiples because one will wake another up, but that wasn't the case with my boys. Well, for their first 18 months or so, they had no choice since their room in our tiny little duplex wouldn't have fit two cribs, plus we were too poor to buy another crib (this one was given to us), so they got pretty used to each other.
Anyway, I used to love to go in their room and see how they had fallen asleep, usually snuggled up against each other one way or another.

Foot drop

Talked with the UHC contact today and she said she hadn't heard from the committee on Friday. They had emailed her asking for a few more things, which she had sent them, but no word back. She said, "You need to realize that yours is not the only case they're meeting on," which really bugged me. Yes, of course I KNOW I'm not the only case. But she said she'd call me on Friday either way to let me know the status of things, and she didn't, so I don't think it's that unreasonable for me to make one phone call today. Maybe she didn't mean it in a snide way, but it annoyed me. Anyway, the news is that there is no news. She said she'd call me when she heard anything.

I also got a call from MD Anderson from someone in the business office telling me UHC had sent them a notice saying that they are my *secondary* insurance, and would I please let them know who my primary insurance was with. GRRRRRRRRRRRR. UHC is our ONLY insurance, and I've been dealing with UHC claims people since my hospitalization a YEAR ago, and they should KNOW that by now. So I called UHC and the girl on the phone just said, "Oh, ok, I'll make that change right now." Ugh. Someone must have changed that very recently, because when I asked the UHC transplant person about it, she said that there was nothing in her paperwork that indicated UHC was my secondary insurance. How can someone at UHC just change that? It's kind of a big thing! A mistake like that could potentially mean delays and more delays, which would not be a good thing for me! But Annette (the UHC transplant contact) said that she is sure everything is cool with the committee as far as that goes, as it would have been the very first thing they asked her about weeks ago. I hope so.

I think the steroids are not working so well this time. Maybe I'm just impatient, because I know there is some delayed benefit for a while after the steroids are discontinued, but I'm just not seeing that much improvement. It is very disappointing. I have what is called "foot drop" in my right foot. It's significantly worse today than it has been. I don't think you're supposed to see *worsening* if you're still getting benefit from the steroids. Anyway, foot drop is when the muscle that flexes your foot stops working, so every time you lift your foot to walk, it drops toward the ground. Over the years that I've been walking (about 30 now...) I've gotten accustomed to my foot working properly, and when I walk, my leg automatically knows how far to lift itself so that my foot can actually clear the ground, but not so much that I look like I'm marching. But now if I take a step without consciously thinking about it, I'll trip right on my own foot. It is annoying and embarrassing. I still have slight movement with that muscle; if I lift my leg and let my foot drop completely down, I can raise it a tiny bit, but I can't get it even close to 90 degrees to my ankle, so it doesn't help with the walking.

Whine whine, groan groan.

I'm feeling a little sorry for myself tonight. While he was getting his PJ's on tonight, Joseph said, "I wish you didn't have MS, mom." I said, "ME TOO!" and then asked him why he said that. He said, "Because if you didn't have MS you could go ice skating with us and go on bike rides with us and do fun stuff with us." Yeah, there's a stab in the heart. We went to Chuck E Cheese tonight for FHE, and I sat at our table the whole time while Ben went around with the boys playing games with them and stuff. I felt... pretty irrelevant I guess. Sometimes this MS thing really stinks.

On the positive side, the sun broke through late this afternoon after two days of clouds and rain, and I think tomorrow is supposed to be a nice sunny day. And I did get two loads of laundry folded and put away, plus the dishwasher unloaded and reloaded. Small victories.

Spring Forward!

Happy 7th birthday to my niece Elena! She is the first grandchild on my side of the family. I remember learning about her birth, 7 years ago, sitting at my desk when I was working for Pharmanex. I remember how long and difficult Rosalynde's labor was, and how the nurses refused to take care of the baby even for a little while so Rosalynde could get some sleep! I imagine Rosalynde is happy it is 2008 and not 2001.

So the time change took me by surprise. I did find out about it yesterday, just by chance. I'm still a part of the Davie Relief Society email list (from my Florida ward), and the Relief Society president sent out a reminder about the time change. Otherwise I would have had no idea! It was fairly painless, because our church doesn't start till 11:00 anyway, so getting to church at 10:00 (or what felt like 10:00) wasn't too terrible. And this week is Spring Break so we have a week off of school to get adjusted to the change. Not too bad. I do love the extra light in the evening, but the time change means it will be pitch black when I have to get the boys up and ready for school. Yeah, I know, I get no sympathy from any early-morning seminary folk out there, but it has been nice the last few weeks to have the sky turning pink and blue as I get up in the morning.

Here's the report from the week:

No word from UHC yet. I don't know if they met about my case on Friday or not. I'll probably call the UHC contact again tomorrow to find out if they met, and if they didn't, does that mean they won't meet again for another week? I actually haven't been anxious about it (I guess I'm getting used to waiting for things), but I know some of you out there ARE anxious, and I promise to immediately contact everyone when I hear word.

I caught a cold this week. I started feeling really miserable Tuesday night, and Wednesday I felt awful. I thought for sure I was getting a bad flu, my whole body ached, even my skin hurt! But Ben stayed home from work again on Thursday and let me sleep and rest most of the day, and now it's just a normal cold, which I can deal with!

Brigham had his VIP experiment on Friday. I emailed his teacher to try to arrange a time, but never heard back from her, so after getting Mosey from preschool, I just went over to the school to see if I could talk to her in person. Turns out Brigham's class had a substitute, which was why Mrs. Autry didn't write back to me, and Brigham's class was about to go to the library. But the sub said she'd bring the kids back a little early so we could do the presentation before recess. Brigham is fascinated by optical illusions, so we did a little presentation about the eyes. We told briefly about how the eye works, and Brigham handed them little strips of paper with two marks on it so they could "see" (or not see) where their blind spot on each eye is (should that read "so they could see where is their blind spot on each eye?" No hanging preposition, but it sure sounds weird!). Then we passed around a couple of papers with some interesting optical illusions, and I showed them how to make their own "floating finger" optical illusion (hold your hands up a few inches in front of your eyes, your two index fingers pointing toward one another, an inch or so apart. Then look at something just beyond your eyes and observe the "floating finger"). We brought sweet potato muffins (sweet potatoes are rich in beta carotene which is excellent for eye health), and that was it! We found a great website for optical illusion of all sorts. My boys and I were pretty entranced by it, and probably spent over an hour looking at everything. http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/ My favorite one is http://www.michaelbach.de/ot/mot_mib/index.html. It will totally blow your mind!!!

Friday night we tried to look at Saturn with our telescope. I got a really nice reflecting telescope for the boys' birthday. It was like 75% off at Fryes, because it was missing this electronic hand control device. I finally found one on ebay (long story of several months trying to track one down, the company will NOT sell them seperately), and got it working this week. Saturn is at it's brightest/closest point to the earth all year long right now, and it is great time to try to see it through the telescope. But Ben and I are both really lousy astronomists and we could not manage to find the thing in the telescope's sights. I can see it in the sky, but I just don't have the finesse to get the telescope in the right position. There must be some kind of art to it, but I don't know what it is. We had gone to the school parking lot, but both Ben and I couldn't figure it out, so the boys just played in the playground instead. One of these days when the moon is out at a decent hour, we'll look at the moon. Surely I'll be able to find the moon in the telescope! Daddy, I wish you were here, you would have been able to find Saturn for sure.

Saturday was spent picking up the house (me and the boys) and repairing the back fence (Ben and the boys). Mister is an escape artist. Keeping up with his latest escape scheme is a bit like playing whack-a-mole. He has found the weak spots in our back fence, don't ask me how, and has managed to loosen the boards enough to make a gap big enough for him to get out. Grrr. But things are sealed off again, at least for the moment.

Today was a nice day at Church. On the drive up to the church building Brigham asked, "What would happen if Heavenly Father made it easier living on earth?" Wow, talk about a deep question for a six year old! I told him it would be like if he were never required to go to school or study. He would never learn anything, and he wouldn't be able to become what he wanted when he grew up. Good answer?

I was asked last week to give a talk on Easter Sunday. NO pressure there!! The topic is how to make the Atonement personal in our lives. I've been thinking about it a lot and reading various conference talks and stuff. My thesis will be that we can find personal meaning in the Atonement of Christ by consecrating our sorrows to the Lord. As a jumping off point, I'm using Elder Bruce D. Porter's talk about offering up a broken heart and a contrite spirit from the October Conference. I have some good ideas (I think) and I'll probably send a copy of the talk to some of you to look over before I give it. I would like to hear from any of you who wish to share about any experiences or anecdotes from your own lives when the Atonement has had deep personal meaning to you, and how that happened. I haven't given a talk in Sacrament Meeting since 2003, so I'm a little nervous! Actually, what I'm most nervous about is how I'm going to be able to stand at the podium. I really don't think I'll be able to stand there for 20 minutes without my legs giving out. I need to talk to the bishop about that so we can make alternate arrangements. Has anyone ever seen someone give a talk from any other position than standing at the podium??

All right, that was our week! Have a great week coming up everyone!

NY Climate Conference

Here is a great run-down on the Climate Conference in New York last week. I wonder if there will be a publication including synopses of all the presentations? I'd buy that. I wish all the teachers at my boys' school (at least) would read this.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/03/ny_climate_conference_journey.html

What happens in the playroom

Gosh, it just makes me so happy to see my boy bitten by the book bug. He finished "Midnight on the Moon" in just a little over an hour this afternoon. He's getting fast!

Brigham working on a viking ship made out of Kapla blocks. He can be found on the floor of the playroom building something or other most afternoons.

Sorry for the messy playroom in the background. What can I say? My boys actually play in there!

6 years ago

Here's one of my favorite pictures from when Brigham and Joseph were babies. I'd take them to the park and swing them both in the same swing. Weren't they cute?
I want to post more pictures, and since my camera is not working, I'll have to dig through some old ones. Plus, putting together Joseph's and Brigham's VIP posters had me going through some old folders and boy, do the memories come rushing back.

No more IV's

Quick update since I'm determined to get to bed really early tonight.

I'm done with the Solumedrol, thank goodness. Just like last time, the IV went bad just before my last dose, so I had to have the nurse come back and place another IV for the last dose. Ugh. I am getting used to it, though. I still find it creepy having this plastic catheter floating around inside my vein. I can't think about it too much or it starts to gross me out.

I'm definitely seeing improvement in my legs. It is gratifying to have positive signs so quickly. My strength is already much, much better. I was able to be up and about in my kitchen making dinner tonight. Ahh, the little things!

The Solumedrol just gives such nasty side effects. I'm resolved to start eating really well again, to try to cleanse my system, not only of the steroids, but from all the junk I've been eating just to "get myself through." Sugar cravings galore! Not a good thing. I went to the store and loaded up on fresh fruits and vegetables and tonight we had a pretty healthy dinner of brocolli and black bean burritos. Then I ruined it by making bread pudding for dessert, but I only had a small piece. I really need to be accountable, I just can't take the emotional upset the steroids gives me, PLUS the self-loathing I develop when I'm undisciplined in my eating. It's funny how our minds play tricks on us. I tell myself, "You're going through all this awful stuff with the steroids, you should just give yourself a break and have that bowl of ice cream," and it makes perfect sense, and so I do, and then afterwards I think, "You're going through all this awful stuff with the steroids, why did you just go make yourself feel WORSE by eating that bowl of ice cream??" There's no good way to logic myself through the steroid madness, so I just need to set clear ground rules for myself, and stick with them no matter what my brain tells me. Including going to bed early, so I really must make this fast.

Last night I was putting together Brigham's VIP poster and really got myself in a really bad mental place. I won't bore you by it, but I ended up literally not sleeping at ALL last night. So Ben stayed home from work today and took care of Mosey while I got some sleep upstairs. But I am still quite behind, and sleep deprivation is the last thing I need.

We went on the Crop Walk on Saturday. It was pretty fun, although the boys got a little tired and whiny by the end. Ben and I just had to laugh because we had been telling them about little children who must walk several miles each day just to carry water for their families. Boy, wouldn't we all have to toughen up really darn quick!

Ben has been teaching Brigham and Joseph to play Civilization and Sim City on the computer, and I guess they are getting pretty adept. It was fun on Saturday to sit at the kitchen table and listen to Ben explain to Brigham how if he raises the taxes in his city too high, everyone will leave and he'll actually end up with less money for his city. Don't you love early indoctrination? :-)

We went to the Colemans' house for dinner last night, and they have a Labradoodle (half lab, half poodle). Mosey was entranced by this dog. She is very intelligent (as you might expect by the mix) and could do all sorts of tricks, including... FETCH!! Mosey was in heaven. I think that is his dearest dream-- to teach Mister to play fetch. Saturday night I was laying in bed with all three boys watching a program on Animal Planet called "It's me or the dog," which is about really, REALLY badly behaved dogs, and a trainer who comes in a tries to rescue the situation. Like Nanny 911, dog style. Anyway, we watched a couple of episodes and I decided to forgive Mister for his bad behavior last week regarding the lunch meat. Really, he is a very, very good dog, all things considered. And maybe it's a good thing to have animals around to be a little buffer zone between my irrational outbursts and my children? That's probably not a very good reason to have pets. Anyway, I'm not mad at him anymore.

Ben talked with the UHC transplant nurse today (while I was sleeping) and she told him her paperwork is all done and submitted to the appropriate committee and that they will probably meet on Friday. She made no promises but said that they might be making a decision then. Whether that decision is to go ahead and approve me, or to send my case to some committee above them or to the employer review, I'm not sure, but at least it will be another step down that path. I'm anxious to get this show on the road, but I'm also getting a little scared, so it's hard to know what to think. I guess I'm ok with just waiting things out for the moment.

Rachel, I hope you have an awesome birthday tomorrow! My twins were 9 days old when I turned 24. Gosh, that seems like a long time ago. But anyway, 24 was one of my very best years ever, and I hope it will be for you, too. I was very, very happy that year. I hope you have sunshine and lots of people who remember your birthday. I'll always remember being 7 years old and really ticked off that the nurses wouldn't let me (or the rest of us kids) go see you and Jacob in mama's hospital room, the day after you were born. So I didn't see you on the day you were born, I think it was 4 days later, actually. But I do remember the weird snow-storm we had that night you were born. We made snowballs and kept them in the freezer for a while. I probably have told you this story lots of times but I like to remember specifics about the births of each one of my siblings, and that's the memory I have of the night of your birth. You were such a beautiful baby. I felt sorry for Jacob because he was so homely compared to you (but I never would have said so at the time). I felt so lucky to have TWIN babies in my family. And I still feel so very lucky to have you and Jacob in our family. I am not sure we would really recognize our family in the absence of the profound effect Jacob has had on all of us. And you are such an important bridge between siblings, not just between the "older kids" and the "younger kids," but I think in temperament also. You bridge some of the more polarizing personalities in our family in a really important way. I miss you so much and I hope someday we can live close to each other. Have you looked into any graduate programs at the University of Texas? :-)

Anyway, happy birthday my dear, beloved sister.

And that's it. Don't you love how "short" my "short" updates are??