Submission

I gotta tell you, today I was going to blog about love today. True love. Or not so true love. True passion. Or not so true passion. True betrayal. Or not so true betrayal.


Actually it wasn't going to be that intense, but it was going to be about love. But now it is not. Why? Because something else came up.


It is zub teens today. We bundled up and went to playgroup and then went to the YMCA for a "picnic" lunch and workout. I finished my workout and headed out to the van with the boys. I spent 5 minute buckling a screaming Lincoln into his seat and then walked around the back of the van to get to the other sliding door to buckle the older boys in. I then went around to the driver's door. And that is when I finally noticed something was amiss. There were glass shards all over my seat. I glanced up and saw that the entire passenger side window was laying on the seat. In miniscule pieces.

Great. I got in and just sat there thinking things through. I glanced around and did a quick inventory. Radio/cd player? check. bag of trash? check. Odd assortment of papers? check. Even more odd assortment of umbrellas, hats, mittens? check. Work badge? check. stroller, sled, bike, trike and small car? check.

Nothing seemed to be missing. I really wanted to just drive home and deal with it there, especially since the baby was already almost asleep.

I gave Noah a courtesy call to let him know what was up and ask him about filing a police report.

Here is our conversation:

J- "My passenger window is shattered. Should I file a police report?"
N- "Is anything gone?"
J- "no"
N- "you probably should anyway"
J- "I think I will just go home."
N- "you can't drive home with no window with the kids in the car."
J- "yes I can"
N- "no, Julie, you can't. And you won't"
J- "actually I can and I will. Do you know how long it took me to get the baby in his seat? I am not going to do that again."
N- "you can not drive home without something over that window. Go into the Y and see if you can get some tape and a bag or cardboard or something."
J- Why don't you just get me the number for the police department?
N- "you can't drive home like that. The kids will be too cold. They don't have proper winter gear on."
J- "Noah, I don't put mittens and hats ON the kids, but everyone has 1-2 pairs of mittens, and a hood and a hat in the van!"
N- "I am surprised, but you still need to get the window covered."

So I drug them all out kicking and screaming without kicking and screaming myself. Do you know why? Because I remembered the passages in the Bible about submission. And I have been reading a lot about it. And I am really bad at it, but I am trying to get better. Also, Noah has never sounded so unyielding before. He may give suggestions but he never tells me what I can and cannot do. So I was slightly startled.

Anyway, we went in and the KidsStuff staff took the kids from me and got them all settled in and comforted back in the room and I went to talk to the desk and wait for the police. Guess what? the YMCA custodian went out to my car with a shopvac and cleaned up all the glass for me and covered my window with a bag. Wasn't that so nice? I LOVE my Y, and even more so now.

What I learned today?
1. The Y is a good place to have a car problem
2. Noah can put his foot down about things occasionally
3. Things actually turned out better when I listened to him instead of following my own plan
4. Sometimes, when it is zub teens, it is better just to stay home.

What I discovered today

1. When it is -15 out it is best to just tell your kids to run fast (like a blur) from destination to destination. This way no one can see that the coats may or may not be zipped, the hats may or may not be on and they may or may not be wearing gloves.

2. If your children's coats do not get fully dry in the dryer during the 36 hour laundry fest, they may or may not get hard and crinkly when they go back on little bodies heading outside.

3. Jello chocolate pudding powder apparently did not give the 3 year old the surge he was seeking.

4. Jello chocolate pudding powder all over a wood floor requires multiple levels of cleanup.

5. If you have your children walk across the Jello chocolate pudding powder in bare feet you can compare food prints to the prints left at the scene and deduce which child did it. Of course, your motherly instincts already told you who did it.

6. If you run into the church kitchen to grab the booster seat for the baby, your 3 year old will pick those precise 30 seconds to spill a glass of lemonade all over the gym floor and take 4 brownies from the dessert table.

7. Apparently people at church don't see enough spills. They all seem a little shocked when pink lemonade hits the floor. Prehaps they should come over for some desensitization?

8. The grocery store is essentially empty at 9:00 at night on a sub zero day (can we just call that "zub"?). However, at the moment you commit to a line and start pulling out your coupons and store credit, three crabby people will get in line behind you.

9. I can get through a day without exercising and not feel the least bit guilty.

10. There is nothing sweeter than an 18 month old pointing at you and calling you mama, and there is nothing more dangerous than an 18 month old pointing at you, calling you mama and knowing that there is nothing sweeter than he.

Tag Team Parenting

It has been a looonngg day. I need a shower and some food and then just to curl up with a book. But the house needs to be cleaned, Bible study needs to get done, laundry needs to get set up for the start of 36 hour weekly laundry fest and thank yous need to get written.

The kids and I hung out around the house this morning, trying to prepare for the day and instituting a new "screen time" award system. Then it was lunch and off to Gym and Swim for the afternoon. I actually swam with Roman today which was fun, and also got a 3.5 mile run walk in. Deacon did a .5 mile run/walk with very little walking. Straight from there I drove to my moms to drop the boys off so I could go into work for a few hours to help out a coworker.

Noah picked the boys up and then got a babysitter so he could get to his meeting. I came home from work and threw everyone in the van to bring the babysitter home. Then we had to stop for gas. Finally everyone is home and in bed. It was a lot of work! Especially in sub zero temps!

Everytime I work an evening shift I suddenly remember how stressful it is. It feels like you spend the whole day preparing for it and getting geared up for it and you go straight from Mommy to nurse without a break.

That is why I like working nights. I help put the kids in bed and then take a 1-2 hour nap. Get up, take my time getting ready and go into work. In the morning I sleep while the kids are at my moms. I guess it is important to me to have the transitions before I jump into the next mode.

Now, I'd better get started on my list or I will never get to my book!

ER visits

I am sure there will be a lot of ER visits and broken bones in my future, having 3 boys and all. Up to this point, however, things have been pretty quiet on the medical front. We have made 2 trauma dental visits and 2 after hour care respiratory visits, but no ER.



I actually diligently avoid the ER. It is expensive and takes so much time! In the middle of the night when Roman could barely breathe I would neb, check capillary refill and check for pinkness. Monitoring, monitoring, and hoping things wouldn't get worse. And telling myself continually that the best place for him was at home. I didn't need to go to the ER for simple reassurance, and they really hesitate to admit healthy kids with respiratory ailments because of all of the hospital germs.



As a child I did get stitches twice. Once when I cut my lip open on a fireplace fall and once when I dropped a glass pop bottle and got a piece of glass in my leg. Of course that was after I had confidently assured everyone that I WOULD NOT drop the glass bottle.



When I was a sponsor on a high school missions trip to New Orleans I spent a number of hours in an ED there with one of the students. It was suspected that she may have broken her nose. All I remember about the experience was that it was really, really cold. A little overkill with the AC.



My next time in the ED was when I was newly married and in my first year of hospital work as a RN. I was walking across the street (in the cross walk but against the light) from the parking lot to the hospital. Right in front of the ED. I got hit by a car and thrown through the air. Anyway, they brought me into the ED, of course. Pretty embarrassing. I was fine. I had some Xrays and a pretty scary ride on a gurney thing. Ended up with some PT for my knee. It wasn't a true ED visit, however, because I didn't have to wait at all. I was wheeled in, taken care of and sent home. (They covered my shift, wasn't that nice).



My last time in the ED didn't end up being a true visit either. I was about 32 weeks pregnant with Lincoln and I got the flu or food poisoning or something. I am one of those people that generally does not vomit, and if I do it is usually once. Or twice. Anyway, I was SO SICK and was getting really dehydrated. My OB decided that I should go in and get fluids. She said just to go to the hospital and they would decide there based on who was busier if I would be treated in the ED or Labor and Delivery. We got there and the ED was packed, apparently. Because I was so far along a L & D nurse was going to have to be in the ED monitoring me and the baby anyway, so they just sent me up to L & D where I was treated promptly with some fluids and sent home. (I was very pleased that the nurse agreed that it was time to come in. A 32 week pregnant woman who needs 2-3 liters before she even needs to pee is a seriously dehydrated person!) Oops. Did I just let the Too Much Information Turtle out?



Anyway, on the cold, snowy Monday- what are your ED stories?

How my brain works...sorry, guys...

Here is Deacon on the new bunk beds. Well, this picture was actually taken when we first got them up. Now there is a railing and the spiderman sheets are on the upper bunk by the spiderman (removable) decals. The Cars sheets are on the lower bunk by the Cars (removable!) decals.

Deacon does wear shorts and teeshirts even in January.

We got the ladder for the beds yesterday and Lincoln can now get up on the top bunk. Problem is, he has no concept of edges. So I am doing a lot more monitoring then usual and the ladder may end up getting nixed.

In other news, I am not getting any shifts at work. What that means is that I will have 20 extra hours of freetime each week and no money. What that means is that I will be doing more of my free activities: blogging and running. And I may start couponing. I actually did some really great transactions at CUB this week that made me feel like I saved a lot of money. I think I did. And since I came up with a dynamic and fool proof housecleaning plan I am not going to have to spend as much time on that as I previously thought.

So I also may start reading some fiction. Or I may start studying for a nursing exam. Or I may start preparing for homeschooling.

And I decided to teach Deacon how to read, so we are working on that.

The part about the dynamic and fool proof housecleaning plan? It is probably not dynamic or fool proof and it is bound to take more time then I have allotted for it.

I am also putting lotion on everyone around here. If you come over I will try to put some on you too. (In a perfectly appropriate way of course, like your hands or something). See I cleaned my linen closet. I am too embarrassed to show you pictures of what it looked like. But it was bad. So I cleaned it out and now I have some things that I just want to use up so they will be gone. Like samples and stuff. This week we are all going to have soft skin and nicely conditioned hair and Listerine breath.

Did I tell you about the time that I accidentally drank mouthwash and Noah called poison control? It really is a good story. We were living in our first apartment, newly married. I am not sure what happened. Maybe I was laughing? Or maybe I wasn't. Anyway, I swallowed some mouth wash. Not good. I was like gagging or choking or whatever one does when one swallows mouthwash. Noah grabbed the bottle and it apparently said that if it was ingested poison control should be consulted. But he didn't have the poison control number handy so he called HIS MOM to see what it was. So he gets the number and calls. I didn't know what he was doing, until I hear from the other room. "no, she is not a kid. She is my wife! She is 20". They told him to have me drink some water. I am sure the consultant just died of laughter after they hung up. Thanks, honey. It was somewhat sweet that he was concerned.

I had my wisdom teeth out this week. It was a simple extraction so I just had Novocaine. Anyway, the last 2 nights I have taken a Tylenol PM before bed to help with the soreness and to help me sleep a little sounder. This morning I had a terrible dream in which Noah died and some EMT at some sporting event stuck a needle in my arm to draw blood without even feeling for a vein! Now that is poor practice and is definitely not cool. So then Noah died, of what I am not sure. But I was crying in my dream and I woke up and I was crying for real. I think I have done that once before, but it is a very strange experience to wake up crying because your husband is dead but you can hear him conversing (notice I didn't say yelling?) with the boys downstairs. So I may lay off the benadryl for awhile.

I think this is enough randomness for one post. By the way, I am not planning to do much in the way of 500mile updates on here because the participants progress is being charted on the new spreadsheet. Feel free to leave your own comments regarding the challenge if you have something (kind) to say.

Diorama pics! Finally!

Embattled Santa, read the story HERE!


Without further adu, the Gingerbread House. Or is it a Military Diorama? From the twisted wreckage of summers playing WWII [we didn't play "army" - that was for kids who watched GI Joe, who weren't nearly as literal, and who hadn't seen The Longest Day, A Bridge Too Far, Bridge Over the River Kwai, Twelve O'clock High, Von Ryan's Express, Kelly's Heroes, Combat!, Tora! Tora! Tora! and Patton] colliding with winters building gingerbread houses out of Graham crackers under the watchful eye of jean-jumpered homeschool moms (and playing Battle of the Bulge in the snow).

And to be fair, while the idea had germination in my mind from too many model magazines and books like this one, I had plenty of help from Matt, Emily, and two other parties, both of whom didn't seem eager to take any credit for this. Maybe it's because one is a lawyer and the other a conspiracy theorist. Dunno.

Anyway, gaze upon the marvel that is the bombed out gingerbread house Matt built. Seriously, it looks right out of WWII.


And that's the gingerbread house. Yeah, that's it.

Well, there was the rest of the diorama. Here is a guy repelling onto the scene.

Yeah, he's repelling. What? I didn't mention we had a helicopter?

We did. And Humvees.

And eight tiny reindeer. Well, seven, after that turncoat Prancer gave up Santa. [We had to do something, JoAnn Fabric only had seven reindeer ornaments]

Mother Nature has not left reindeer without natural defenses. Here several reindeer are attempting to retrieve the M2 machine gun from the crashed sleigh, and Donner lines up the bazooka.

This is one of my favorites. Each of the reindeer had to be modified with a Dremel tool and then reglued into suitable battle poses. I gave Blitzen the BAR. Because BARs are cool. And so is Blitzen.

A good diorama is in the details. Here are a few more.




It was funny, a lot of people studied our work for a long time, yet a good number of them managed to miss the helicopter. And yes, there was a pilot in the helicopter. Some people seemed suprised, but we weren't going to miss that.

Lastly, here is the whole thing again. This pic does the best justice to the beautiful wall Matt and Emily built. Sadly, I didn't get a great shot of the cool crashed sleigh Matt built up out of gingerbread.

The Three 22nds

Twirling each other in the blue chair in the new school room is the favorite activity. And I thought the room was to be used for education. No puking yet though, so I am not complaining.

Lincoln thinks that multiple games of ring around the rosie is a huge thrill. Deacon is glad to comply. And I am glad that he is. I always get dizzy. And yes, that is peanut butter and jelly all over their faces. Deacon probably decorated the toast that morning.

This is Deacon discussing Christmas presents with his buddy Evan. He is really embracing the new cordless phones.

Post Awana applesauce. What could be better?

This picture was actually before Deacon popped in. Who knew applesauce was so good?

Deacon and Roman are very close, but they don't normally get in trouble together. But these younger two? Not good. Not good at all. Look at them, can't you just see it?