No title

This picture has nothing to do with anything.  It is our Thanksgiving tree we made back in November and which is still taped to our back door.  There's a bag of thankful leaves taped next to it for us to tape on when the spirit strikes.

This post has no title.  It is not coherent enough to warrant one.  Sorry.
This week went by fast.  All weeks go by fast.  I wish I had the energy to write some clever, pithy sum-ups at the end of every day, but it just doesn't happen often enough.  And now it's Friday and I can't really remember what we did all week!  :-)
Let's see.  Monday was Mosey's birthday which I documented.
Tuesday morning I had a dentist appointment to get a filling replaced.  They have fancy new tooth-colored fillings now, yay!  I spent the rest of the day with a numb left cheek.  I was trying to read from our science book to the boys and I sounded very odd.  :-)  We went through the boys' scout books.  They are *almost* through with their Bear requirements!  Joseph and Brigham had scouts in the afternoon and Mosey and I did... something.  I try to do something special with him while the boys are at scouts.  Tuesday was obviously so special I remember nothing about it.  I had a Relief Society presidency meeting that night, and locked my keys in the car.  Oops.  I also left my iPod in the car, which meant that when I went home I had to do all the evening chores with nothing to listen to!!  Oh, the inhumanity!  I did get to bed slightly earlier, though, since I wasn't looking for just one more thing to do so I can finish the chapter.
Wednesday, on his way to work, Ben drove me to where my car was locked.  Joseph and Mosey came with me.  It was freeeeeezing!  When we got home we looked at the weather, and it really was freezing!  31 degrees outside.  Brrrrr.  When I get chilled I have a hard time kicking it, even when the house is warm.  I ended up wearing a jacket with the hood up and draw strings tied under my chin to keep warm.  What would I ever do if I lived somewhere where it was actually cold??  In the afternoon after lessons we had our art group.  Everyone came to our house and all twelve kids painted pictures and ran around sword fighting and jumping on the trampoline, despite the 30-something degree cold.  I got some much-needed adult talking time.
Thursday (yesterday) we did our normal Thursday stuff.  Piano theory in the morning to get ready for lessons in the afternoon.  Regular school lessons.  Then piano.  Violin was canceled, which I was secretly happy about because it gave me time to go home and get ready for my relief society activity that night.  We had a "Cooking on a Budget" activity and I did a small presentation on menu planning and freezer cooking, which is pretty funny considering I never menu plan, and the one time I tried freezer cooking I forgot about everything I froze until about 6 months later...  But I did learn a lot and I actually think I am a menu-planning convert.  We'll see how it goes.  I do know I'm sick of realizing with a start that it's 5:45 (or 6:15 or 6:45) and I haven't the slightest clue what to make.  I'm pretty good at pulling things together, but it's always stressful.  The activity went well-- we had 29 or 30 people there, which, for our ward, is a huge turnout.  I always take the attendance of the activities I plan very personally which I know is totally stupid.  Before I had this calling, I skipped out on plenty of activities and it had nothing at all to do with the counselor, or, really, what the activity even was.  Things come up.  But still.  It made me happy and relieved that we had a decent turn out.  Maybe people like me after all.  :-)
Today was Friday, our easy day, so I slept in until 8:30 (having been up until 2:30 AM researching math programs, still trying to find the perfect formula for Joseph).  We did piano practicing and morning chores and reading, and then the boys got started on a volcano project.  We've been studying volcanoes the past couple of weeks, so they are each making a model volcano.  I read through instructions for really fancy ones made with paper mache and plaster of paris.  I'm not that ambitious, so we made ours with poster board.  It was a good project, though.  The boys spent a few hours cutting poster board, painting it, and drinking up the 20 oz. bottles of soda we bought at the gas station so we'd have bottles for our volcano calderas.  The sacrifices the boys make for their schoolwork.  Mosey drank his Orange Crush in 15 minutes.  He is truly his father's son.  :-)  After all the paint is dry we'll erupt them with vinegar and baking soda.  Stay tuned for thrilling video footage.  :-)

Horseback riding was in the afternoon. It warmed up a bit today-- high was 46.  That's still way too cold for me, though, and I went to the barn with a long sleeved shirt on, hoodie jacket, big warm fleece pullover, fuzzy hat, and a hood over my hat.  I was still cold.  :-)  We came home to find a plate shattered on the kitchen floor and all my leftover black bean and corn quesadillas from my activity last night mysteriously gone.  Mister has been on a serious human-food-stealing kick over the past month, getting increasingly blatant and shameless about it.  He's been on my black list for some time.  The quesadillas were on my nice ceramic serving plate, covered with Glad press-n-seal, sitting way back at the very back of the stove.  He's never gotten anything from there before.  I was extremely angry since they were intended for part of our dinner.  I should be mad at myself because over the past few weeks Mister has shown himself to be absolutely, positively untrustworthy regarding anything not locked inside or put up on top of the refrigerator.  But still, he's never gotten stuff off the back of the stove.  How did he get it?  He's not that tall!  So I yelled at him a lot, which didn't particularly help relieve any frustration on my part, and which I'm sure did absolutely no good at all in deterring future escapades.  Anyone want a 12-year-old, food-stealing, fur-shedding, naughty, naughty dog?  :-)
Now I wish the boys were getting ready for bed.  Instead, Mosey and Joseph are listening transfixed to Brigham's long, ongoing story that apparently has a lot to do with cockroaches, cats, pus, and bone marrow, if my half-listening mom-ear is to be trusted.  This, after a really civilized dinner with Brigham serenading us with a whoopie cushion.  Life with boys.

Winner

Mosey loves his Nanobugs. 

Happy Birthday Mosey!

Today Mosey turned 7!

His birthday breakfast of choice was "Old McDonalds," so, still in PJ's, we piled into the van and headed down the foggy streets to McDonalds for sausage mcmuffins and hashbrowns. Before we got in the car, Brigham ran back upstairs and got a blanket and a pillow and stashed them in the car for Mosey when he got in, so he wouldn't be cold.  Isn't that sweet??  As we were driving, Mosey asked, "I wonder why Heavenly Father made it foggy for my birthday."  I told him, "He wrapped up the Earth like a present just for you!"  He laughed about that.

I tried to have a normal day of lessons, although we got off to a slow start because of breakfast.  I let Mosey only do a half-day of lessons, though.  So he did a lot of this:

In the afternoon we made Mosey's cake.  He requested a "snake cake," like the one I made Joseph a couple of years ago.  I made the batter, and then he got a package of raspberries from the fridge and asked to put them in.  Of course!

The plan was to go to Main Event (a bowling/minigolf/arcade type place) when Ben got home, but not until after he opened his presents.  Mosey was chomping at the bit for those presents all day!  :-)  So when Ben got home, I hid in my room and wrapped them, and then Ben brought them out to the living room for him to promptly unwrap (really, what is the point of wrapping?).  He got a movie ("The Fantastic Mr. Fox,"), a cubbyhole/bookshelf thing for his room (where he can keep all his Webkinz), another remote control tarantula (the remote for the one he got at Christmas has mysteriously disappeared.  I think it will turn up, but in the meantime, while I was at Target, I saw that they had one more for 75% off, so I nabbed it), and, and this was by far the big hit of the night, a Nanobug Habitat.  I hate buying plastic stuff, I really do, but I had my eye on these over Christmas, and I watched some videos, and I just knew it was the kind of thing that Mosey would L-O-V-E.  And he did.  So much so, that he decided to forget about Main Event and stay home and play with the bugs and his tarantulas (he can control both with one remote!!  Awesome!!).

Finally we pulled the boys away from the bugs in order to sing happy birthday and eat the snake cake.
Then, they watched part of Fantastic Mr. Fox, and off to bed!

So.  Mosey is 7.  That's just crazy.  He is a good little boy.  Today he cleaned up the playroom, all on his own, without being asked.  And he came up and gave me about 5 spontaneous hugs.  He looks so cute with his teeth missing.  I love my little guy.

Here are 7 interesting things about Mosey right now:
1.  He likes math!  And he is very good at it.  He has a mathematical brain and he picks up concepts well.  And he likes it.  Please, help me not to beat that love out of him!
2.  He is a giggler.  He loves to laugh, and he laughs at almost everything.  He even has a (very loud) fake laugh that he can turn on at will.  And does so, frequently.
3.  He is good at telling jokes.  He likes to think of homonyms and make up jokes about them.  I'm so awful at remembering them.  Every time he tells me one, I think, "I have to write that down!"  And then I forget.  I will ask him to tell me some of them tomorrow.
4.  He hates wearing shoes.  (He gets this from me.  I've always hated wearing shoes.  The irony is that now I have to wear shoes all the time because of my AFO braces...)  The instant we are in the car after going somewhere, he takes his shoes off.  This can be a problem when he happens to take them off in Ben's car, and then he needs them while he's at work.  He also will just not bother taking them at all if he deems shoes unnecessary.  Last week he left his shoes at home while we went to piano lessons and violin lessons, and then was distressed when I needed to stop by the grocery store on the way home!  We need a pair of "car shoes" for him that he just keeps there.
5.  He reads everything.  He's reading the Old Testament right now.  He's the first one to claim The Friend magazine when it comes, and he devours the National Geographic Kids magazine, as well as the Highlights magazine my mom gave us a subscription to for Christmas.  He just finished a 528 page book ("Dragon Rider" by Cornelia Funke).  Today he was whining about not having anything to read which I thought was pretty funny since we have books and books and books and books.  But then I got out a stack of books and as I went through them he said, "I've read that one.  And that one.  And that one..."  Ooookay!  That's why I asked Ben for two big bookshelves for Christmas.  :-)
6.  He is a nightowl.  Still.  He's always been this way.  He needs the least sleep of any of the boys.  Or at least, he gets the least sleep of any of the boys, and it's not for lack of going to bed on time.  OK, maybe it is sometimes, but even when he's in bed early, he has trouble sleeping.  He has to toss and turn for at least an hour.  This year Ben and I finally made the executive decision that he has to sleep in his own room because he keeps his brothers up.  Unfortunately, he also gets this from me.  I just can't get away with it as much anymore, although when 11:00 PM comes around, I just can't quite convince myself of that.
7.  He has a sweet tooth.  Actually, I think that tooth that just got extracted was his sweet tooth!  He loves dessert, and is highly motivated to eat the prescribed amount of vegetables and "real food" in order to get dessert.  He was the first one to finish his Halloween candy (Brigham is STILL working on his!  Joseph just finished his 3 days ago), and when we're at the store, he's the most likely to try to sneak in a bag of skittles at the check-out line.  He also loves sweet drinks.  If he could live on soda, I think he would gladly do so.  If we ever do have a box of soda, he will drink it all, one after another, if he is not stopped.  This, however, he gets from his dad.  You can't blame me!  :-)

There are many other interesting things to know about Mosey, but since it is very nearly my bedtime, AND he only turned seven, that is it for now.

Happy Birthday, Mosey!  I love you, buddy.

Photos from today

Today was a pretty relaxed Friday.  We almost got through the lessons I had planned for the day.  :-)
I am trying to take more pictures of every-day stuff around here, so here are a few photos from today.

This is T-Rex and Spots.  T-Rex is our new leopard gecko that Brigham and Joseph bought for Mosey.  He's a cool dude.  I think it's really sweet how they lie across each other.  The side of the cage is really dirty, hence the blurry shot.

Brigham at horseback riding.  All the boys did really well today.  It's cool sometimes how you can literally see a jump in skill level.

Now it's Joseph's turn.

He did great today, too, despite wearing his shirt inside out for the whole entire day.  I don't even bother pointing it out to him, or asking him to change, because I know it will do no good.  :-)

This guy was peeking over the door of his stall as the boys were grooming Hailey.  I have such fun watching the horses at this barn.  Sometimes a couple of them will get in a neighing match, "talking trash" to each other.  They are funny animals with lots of personality!

Brigham cleaning Hailey's back hoof after riding.  I'm always amazed that these gigantic horses don't just step on the little kids!

 

On the way home, I admired the way some of the leafless trees stood out against the twilight sky.  A little blurry since I was snapping the picture while driving, but still cool.

And I love this one freeway underpass we go through on our way home every week.  I love Texas.

Pictures of the day

Waiting for violin lessons.

Brigham with his new violin case-- it has shoulder straps!

Mosey giving me the stink-eye. Why, Mosey, why??

last week

My uncle and one of my cousin's triplets (Jane, I think?)

Picture stolen from my cousin's blog.  It is exactly how I will always remember Uncle Ron.

Last Tuesday I woke up to a phone call from my sister Rachel who was in CA with my family for Christmas.  She told me that my Uncle Ron died the night before.
Uncle Ron was my dad's older brother, the brother right above him and his twin sister.  He had ALS (Lou Gehrig's Disease) with which he had been diagnosed about 5 years ago. 
ALS stands for Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis, which sounds a lot like Multiple Sclerosis, and in fact has some similarities to MS.  ALS causes the degeneration of the motor neurons which control voluntary movement.  MS doesn't directly affect the nerve cells, but rather the myelin sheathing around the nerve cells.  As the myelin is attacked by the immune system, scarring occurs (sclerosis) which eventually interferes with or completely disrupts nerve function.  However in MS, all the nerves are susceptible, while in ALS only the motor neurons are affected, for some reason.  This means that ALS patients retain all their cognitive abilities, memory, and personality traits.  Many MS patients experience cognitive effects (although I haven't so far as I can tell, which is one benefit of having MS that primarily affects my spine.  Most of my lesions are in my cervical spinal cord, and not in my brain.).
Anyway, I was diagnosed with MS shortly before I found out about my uncle's diagnosis, and so in a way we've traveled this road together.  His journey ended far, far too soon.
I really loved my Uncle Ron.  He has 33 nieces and nephews just on my dad's side, and yet he knew me and always knew enough about my life to ask me relevant questions and to make me feel like I was special.  His house was always a fun place to be, although I can't imagine how disruptive it must have been to have all the Russ Frandsen kids there.  :-) 
His oldest daughter is almost exactly my age and we grew up together.  Well, she was in Utah, and I was in California, but I was always really excited to spend time with her during the summer, and she came to the cousin's camps that my mom organized.  I was always a little jealous of Jill because she is so pretty (all of Ron's kids are exceptionally good-looking-- my beautiful aunt Shauna is Japanese, and her and Ron's genes combined in the perfect storm of attractiveness for all 3 of their kids :-)), but I couldn't really be jealous of her because she's also the nicest person you'll ever meet.  Their whole family is just plain wonderful.  They are the epitome of "good people," and I love all of them.
During the darkest of my infertility days, my aunt Shauna was an angel.  She understood my heartache like no one else did, it seemed, and spent lots of time listening to me and talking to me.  And as it turned out, Jill ended up with fertility troubles, also, and my twins and her kids are all "lab siblings," products of the same fertility clinic.  She has GGB triplets and two younger boys, all born within 5 years, so for a while she had 5 kids 4 and under.  Jill is amazing.
My uncle's ALS first manifested in his hands and arms, and he lost the function of his hands and arms first.  My MS has primarily affected my legs, so for a while we used to joke that between the two of us, we made up a fully functional human being.  :-)
I've thought about my uncle thousands of times over the past 5 years.  Every time I do, I am grateful for the use of my hands and arms, even while my legs are largely useless.  Losing the use of your legs is a major inconvenience, but it is nothing compared to losing the use of your arms.  Think of all the things you do with your hands and arms, and imagine how you could accomplish much of anything in your daily life without your hands and arms.  Legs can be largely replaced by a wheelchair, but there is no wheelchair for your hands and arms. 
But my uncle never complained, and I never saw him without a smile on his face.  He knew for 5 years that he would not see his grandchildren grow up, that he would not grow old with his wife, that he would not enjoy the longevity that ought to have been gifted to him by his own parents (now both strong and alert and vigorous in their 90's).  But he accepted each new loss with equanimity and humor.  I don't think I complain too much, but I am frequently annoyed and aggravated by my limitations.  And too often humor is my very last reaction to frustration.  He was an amazing person and an absolute hero to me.  I've had some hard times since my MS diagnosis, and he has been an example of hope to me.  I've looked to him and seen him happy and contributing, and an important, vital part of his family, and that has given me hope as I've worried about what might happen if my disease takes another turn for the worse.  If he can stay happy and contributing and vital through his decline, then I might be able to do the same.  If he can navigate the cognitive dissonance between the tragedy of his terminal diagnosis, the knowledge of his inevitable decline and death, and the happiness there is to be found in family and friends and music and books and the simple pleasures of life, then maybe I can do it, too.
Anyway.  When I found out about his death, which was peaceful, although far too soon for anyone, I was filled with mixed emotions.  I can imagine his liberation as he was freed from his body which had become a prison.  But I am so sad that I didn't get to see him at Thanksgiving to tell him in person how much I love him.  And I am heartbroken for my cousins who have lost their beloved dad, and my aunt who has lost her husband, and the 6 grandkids (and all those that aren't even born yet) who won't have this awesome grandpa in their lives. 
I flew out on New Years Eve to go to his funeral in Salt Lake City.  I went from 70-something degree Austin to SLC which experienced a high of 15 degrees that day.  :-)  It was cold and snowy!  But the funeral was everything you could hope for a funeral to be.  My aunt and my cousins spoke and they all made me cry and made me love my uncle more and made me so happy to be a part of this incredible family.  I just about couldn't stand it as my aunt and cousins said their final goodbye to Uncle Ron and closed the casket lid.  I remember doing that with my brother and it still feels like a hole is being ripped inside me when I think of it.  How do you say goodbye to someone you love so much? 
This has been a refrain of a few blog posts of mine recently, and I'm no closer to an answer.

My mom and dad had to drive back to L.A. shortly after the funeral, and I stayed the night at my Uncle Tracy's house (the brother just younger than my dad and his twin sister).  It was a bit of a wrench of emotions as I left the funeral and arrived at the happy chaos of my aunt and uncle, their 6 kids, 3 spouses (and one almost-spouse, I think!), and 7 1/2 little children.  They were having their family Christmas celebration that weekend, and it was so fun.  It was especially fun watching the antics of all those little kids, and not having to have any anxiety over behavior, because none of them were mine!  I got great pleasure watching my cousin's 4 year old twins and remembering with fondness those days when my twins were younger (and a certain measure of relief that those days are over!).  My dad's side of the family is a family of multiples!  My grandma had 2 sets of twins, there are another 2 sets of twins among the grandkids, and 2 sets of twins and a set of triplets among the great-grandkids!  I stayed up until well past 1:00 AM, talking with my cousins and ringing in the New Year.  I love all my cousins and it has been too long since I've been able to hang out with them. 
My aunt Pat is amazing.  Between about 3:00 PM when I announced I was going to crash their family party, and 9:00 the next morning when they were opening presents, she managed to procure several presents for me to take home.  I felt very spoiled.


In the early afternoon, my brother Benjamin drove me back to the airport and soon (too soon!) I was back in Austin.  It's good being back with my own family, but it also did my soul good to reconnect with my cousins and extended family.  Plus my doctor uncle diagnosed my Shingles saving me a trip to the doctor, a co-pay, and another trip to the pharmacy, as he called in my prescription to a local store with a drive-through pharmacy (love that, need to find one around here...).

I have such an awesome family, and I know how lucky, lucky, lucky I am.

Greek and Latin Roots

As part of our homeschooling routine, we review Greek and Latin roots each day.  The boys have taken a shining to doing charades for our roots review.  Here’s a sampling of the pantomiming that goes on every morning before lunch.

Arbor/Arboris (tree)

Centum (one hundred)

Caput/Capitis (head)

 Dens/Dentis (teeth)

 Mosey's Dens/Dentis interpretation-- showing where his tooth *was,* in any case.

Digitus (Finger, Toe, Inch)

 Dormio/Dormitum (Sleep)

 Duo (two)

 Lithos (stone)

 Luna (moon, although they like to give me the "loony" sign)

 Necro (dead)

 Pes/Pedis (foot)

 Phobos (fear)

 Syn (with, together)

 Tres (three)

On a different note, Joseph had a rough day yesterday.  He didn’t get his school work done until 10:45.  And that would be in the P.M.  But we had a good talk afterward, and I am hoping today will be a better day…

Poor Mosey

Mosey had a hard day.  He had a cavity filled about 3 1/2 weeks ago, and it had been hurting him on and off since then.  Yesterday he got hit (not hard) in the cheek and he came running to me in tears.  I looked at it (or tried), and from my brief glance, it looked swollen, so I called the dentist.  Sure enough, the dentist looked at it and it was infected.  Since it was a baby tooth, he extracted it right then and there.  It was a little more than he bargained for.  I think the dentist didn't give him quite enough numbing medicine, because when he was pulling it, I could tell by Mosey's body language that it was hurting him.  But Mosey is one tough kid.  By the time we were in the car driving home, however, he was crying hard. 
I gave him tylenol and lay with him in bed and watched a Scooby Doo DVD.  Scooby Doo fixes a lot of things.  :-)
After the tylenol kicked in, he was fine, and ready to work on his K'nex rollercoaster that we've been whittling away at for a few weeks.

 Poor Mosey, after the numbing medicine, before extraction, watching Sponge Bob.  He looks a little worried.

Connecting the last bit of track.

All done!  Well, nearly.  We still have to connect 260 links of chain, but then it will be done.  His poor mouth is still swollen, but he hasn't complained about it since earlier this afternoon.

siren song

The boys had a friend over today.  This friend knows about all kinds of free internet game sites.  Unfortunately they are absolutely useless,  mind-numbing games.  Look how zombified they all are, when only one of them is even playing! 
I let them play for a while today (last day of vacation), but I warned them that starting tomorrow, those games are banned until the weekend.  They are exactly the same as T.V. which is banned from our house entirely.  Maybe I'll ban those games entirely.  There are lots of fun educational games to be found online!
I'm looking forward to the moaning and groaning when they realize I am serious.

Shingles

Amidst all the holiday fun last week, I got shingles.  Merry Christmas to me!  :-)
Here is how Buzzle.com describes it:

Shingles is a sister disease of chickenpox and is more annoying in nature.  (Editorial note: I agree.)  Shingles (also known as Zoster) is a medical condition in which painful blisters are developed on the skin. Zoster is caused by a virus ‘Varicella Zoster Virus’ (VZV) that also causes chickenpox in humans. Any person who has had chickenpox in childhood is at the highest risk of developing Shingles disease.
If a person develops chickenpox, even after recovering from the disease, remains of the VZV virus still remain dormant in the patient’s body for the rest of his/her life. Shingles disease is also considered as revisiting chickenpox disease, which surfaces once the required conditions for the disease are met such as: patient is under stress or his/her immune system is damaged (certain medical conditions/disease cause significant damage to patient’s immune system such as AIDS (another editorial note:  Also bone marrow transplantation-- 1/3 of all transplant patients develop shingles)) which gives way to the virus to attack the nervous system of the patient. As it is chickenpox re-surfacing (shingles), it becomes more painful than its sister disease chickenpox that keeps annoying the patient even after the patient gets rid of the painful blisters.
 
Fun, right?
The rash develops along the nerve line, in my case from the middle of my back, around my side, and across my abdomen to my belly button.  It's really ugly.  I showed the boys ("Boys!  Do you want to see something really disgusting?"  "YES!"), and Joseph asked me if I was going to take a picture and post it on my blog.  Um, no.  I'm not interested in recording the horror for my posterity.  You can look up images on google, if you want.  Although I don't know why you'd want to.  Mine is worse than any I saw on Google, for what its worth.  Hey, whatever I do, I do it right!  What kind of perfectionist would I be if I didn't?  :-)
Actually, the poor souls who get it on their face and eyes are the absolute worst off.  I can't even imagine.
The good thing is that I have some degree of numbness from my ribcage down, and it would definitely be more painful if I had full sensation.  Go M.S.  Oh, wait, if it weren't for M.S. I wouldn't have this disease.  Oh, well.  :-)  It should clear up in 3-4 more weeks, so it's not forever.
So, in lieu of a picture, here is an internet diagram of the course of the disease.

Enjoy!

Christmas season is over...

Well, Christmas is over, New Years is over, and lessons start up again this week.  I suppose that means the holidays are really over for another year.  Time to put away the Christmas decorations.  I love Christmas!  I wish we could keep everything up all year long.  Maybe I should wait until 12th night-- that would be Wednesday, right?  I think that's a very good idea.  :-)

Happy New Year!