Moments

Some of my favorite moments this week:

Seth waking up before Gavin (not early!) and us listening to him waking up singing.

Hanging out with all my guys on the deck before dinner tonight. Just all of us being together.

My amazing nurse, Kathy, being willing to come every day to take care of my wound because it needs it, even if she doesn't get paid to do it.

Finally getting outside in the fresh air, and the muggy weather passing - at least for now.

Andrew not having to leave yesterday, and us having an extra weekend together.

Cooking 3 meals today for the first time since I went to the hospital.


Some of my not favorite moments of today (and this is just a small sampling):

Finding the boys hiding in the basement storage closets eating girl scout cookies stolen from the storage freezer.

Seth throwing a ball at Gavin and him ending up with a bloody gash on his eye.

Lets just say that I was happy to put them to bed, and am glad for a fresh day tomorrow.

Games.

After going 6 rounds with Gavin on Tuesday to reestablish my authority (the longest was it taking 4 hours for him to take his 4 minute time out...) we have seen a lot more peace and joy around here. Seth and Gavin have been really sweet playing together most of the time. The other night at dinner Gavin says to Seth: "When I say red you can talk, and when I say green you stop." They played this until they noticed Mommy and Daddy watching and got a little embarrassed and stopped. :o) I just love all the games they come up with for each other to play!

Yay!

After informing my doctor that the nurse removed 48 cm of packing from my wound yesterday, that I had attempted to go just ibuprofin and it was not very successful, and that my nurse recommended I continue with one vicadin a day, and that here is my nurse's phone number so you can call her for an update on the progress of my wound - my doctor gave me a week prescription and scheduled to see me in two weeks. She was on the phone trying to get ahold of Kathy (my amazing nurse and new friend) as I left with my appointment date for 1 June. So thankful for God's grace over me with this whole process. I am off to take a nap while the boys are playing at Dae'Vonn's house for the day. Thanks for praying for me.

Just so you know...

...Buffalo Wild Wings is a coffee place according to Seth. :o)

Health Update.

I am thankful for Kathy - my visiting nurse who has carefully unpacked, irrigated, and repacked my wound daily, as well as monitoring my health. I am making slow and steady improvement. I passed some large bloodclots yesterday, and now the wound is bigger - I guess it is one of those "getting worse before it gets better" situations. The inflamation and infection is steadily decreasing. Getting the wound dressed is very painful and I take one pain pill each day before she comes. I get tuckered out easily. I went on an outing with everyone this morning for about an hour and a half. After getting back and having Kathy take care of me I napped (for the second time today) for several hours.

These are my challenges:
My mind is fuzzy from the drugs,
My body is tired from fighting and I have very little stamina,
My skin around my wound is irritated and starting to bleed from all the dressings being changed at least once a day (but I am thankful for the ability to keep the wound sealed off and sterile to prevent a secondary infection from setting in),
My doctor at the clinic was not very helpful last Monday and thought that I should not need the heavy duty pain medication anymore (despite the fact that the packing is forced into the wound with a small dowel that scrapes at the infected and irritated flesh and Motrin doesn't seem to really touch that type of pain for me), and unless she is sympathetic this Monday I will not have any meds left after Tuesday,
Our insurance is saying that I should not be covered for the visiting nurse, and Andrew is having to appeal their decision (of course we found out 19 minutes to 5 on a Friday evening.)

I will be on my own with the boys as of Monday (with lots of amazing friends willing to help out if I need it.) I appreciate the prayers of everyone. I have been spoiled with people helping by cleaning, cooking, watching the boys, doing laundry... Humility gained from not being able to cope with regular life stuff, not to mention all my projects I have started around here is hard earned. It is hard for me to admit that I need help and cannot take care of myself or my family by myself. And I can't right now. So thank you to everyone who has helped and is willing to keep helping. I am being healed with love and kindness surrounding me. And the flowers and chocolates haven't hurt either! :o) Thank you.

Bright and Early

5:30 am. I heard an unusual sound and woke up to Seth standing in my doorway. He sounds different than Gavin moving in the night. I am glad I woke up. "Mommy, my bed is wet." I get up and as I walk into the hall I can smell the urine. (I think drinking lots of milk with Aunt Abby here has increased his fluid intake. He didn't believe me when I told him he had wet the bed in his sleep.) As I snuck into the room to strip the bed I hear Gavin - wide awake and cheerful. So we had bathtime at 5:30 am. Yup. Then dressed. I decided that we could snuggle and watch morning come, so I got the bean bag and a quilt and posted us by the back sliding doors to watch the morning come. We heard the birds, saw a grackle. Then Seth says, "Mommy, what is that?" I had seen a bit of fur next to the stair to the deck and told him it was a bunny. At that instant an opossum climbed up on our deck and meandered around!!!! Never seen one around here before, and it is on our deck. We watched from the kitchen windows (better angle once it was off the deck) as it gathered leaves with it's tail and made itself a nest for the day under the deck. We looked up some nature sites and youtube videos on possums. I fed the boys breakfast, and then went back to bed and let the other adults in the house take over. What a surprise for us! What a special moment with my boys. So thankful for the early wake up call (and my in-laws and husband who have been keeping up with all the peed on bedding while I rest up and rebuild strength.)

Telling stories.

With 5 littles getting into things, and 3 of them being big energetic boys... well, lets just say that things go wrong - things get messed up, people get hurt... So in the process of trying to figure out what really happened around here there have been some lies told and some timeouts taken. I think this is the best whopper of them all.

Abby came upstairs from the basement one morning to find Gavin eating a Butterfinger through the wrapper. She took it away from him, but couldn't get it out of him where it came from. He said the basement, but as she had been down there that was an obvious lie. Well, none of the adults had a clue how a Butterfinger turned up mysteriously. Our best guess was from Seth's Cubbies goodie bag. So at dinner last night I asked again out of curiousity.

"Gavin, where did you find that Butterfinger?"
Gavin is eating his dinner in the dining room, "It was in here..." (he starts looking around and waving his arms) "...it was just flying around and around..."
At this point we all just crack up laughing. Gavin admits he made up the story but we still couldn't get a straight story out of him. (I finally got him to spill the beans today after follow up stories - "it was in the playhouse, Audrey and Hannah brought it up there" and "it was hiding in your closet."
We have an issue here, folks. It is funny cause he sure can tell a whopper, and it isn't funny that I can't trust my kid!!!!!

Coolest Socks EVER!

I have pretty much been wearing nighties and my softest jammy shorts all the time, but it has turned cold, so I need long socks to go with. I found these ones yesterday on sale and had to snatch them up. Gavin said "WOOOOOW! Can I wear them?" So we tried them on together.
I know. You are all jealous!
You can see my bandage peeking out from the leg of my shorts, and the skin marker line of how bad the infection got last week if you look really close. So glad for my visiting nurse that comes and dresses my wound each day and keeps the infection from getting worse. It is a painful process, but I seem to be moving in the right direction. Thanks for continuing to pray for my healing - looks like we have weeks to go.

Cousin Car Party!

The boys asked if they could have a party. Abby asked what kind of a party they wanted - a CAR party! So we planned it for last night since tonight we have Seth's Cubbies Award Night and tomorrow the cousins head home. I got Isaac a helium balloon since the first one he ever remembers having from Red Robin on Mother's Day flew away - VERY traumatic! Of course I couldn't get just any balloon - we needed a talking mylar balloon with Cars characters on it. So now it is someone?'s birthday, and it has at least 50 plays and is all Abby will be able to see in her rearview mirror as she drives home. "You are welcome, Abby! I am the best auntie EVER!" Daddy got out the Cars racetrack that he let the boys get for Christmas, and they have been fun letting their Cars characters race around the track. We had a special dinner with cool napkins. Tire pizzas (on bagels.) Seth ate the edge off of his and told us his tire had a flat! Then we had brownies for dessert, decorated like the finish flag. Except Abby didn't cook them right and the middle was still batter with a tiny crust on top! Nice going, sister! :o) It was fun, and the boys are having fun with the racetrack again today. We sure love having cousins around!

"Get the Underpants!"

Yesterday Abby and I were in the kitchen with Audrey when we heard quite the ruckus coming from the basement. Abby went down to investigate and cracked up laughing. The boys and Hannah were playing "Get the Underpants." They were yelling and laughing "get the underpants." Hannah was the underpants. They were picking her up and putting her in laundry baskets. Then they saw Audrey who had followed Abby downstairs. "Yay!!!! More underpants!!!!" We had to take a picture, but when they saw the camera they all jumped into laundry baskets for the picture. Here they are!We had bathtime last night, and the girls went first, then the boys. The girls ended up in the basket of dirty laundry that Abby had ready to go to the basement. I figured it was a great way to keep twin 2 year olds contained (since a few moments earlier Hannah had come downstairs and smeared the Vasoline she had all over herself all over the leather couch. I just laughed and told Abby she got to clean up the kid, couches are much easier than two year old twins!) After Seth got out of the bath he joined them and was reading them Bible stories. Then Gavin joined them. Then the boys brought up more laundry baskets... Why do we buy them toys?


We think that Hannah thinks she is one of the boys. Audrey pretty much does her own thing. Hannah is usually in the thick of it with the boys. These cousins sure are going to miss each other!

Life Unexpected.

This week I got carried around like a princess, only it was a stretcher and I was headed to the ambulance and taken to the ER. Not how you imagine things. I got a strange and sudden infection on my inner thigh between Friday night and Sunday morning when I had to have it lanced open at the base Urgent Care. I was starting to become septic with a blood pressure that was dropping to the 50's and 60's so they pumped fluid into me and sent me to the hospital. I ended up staying till today. It is a staph infection, but thankfully not MRSA. I am on the mend, with an open seeping wound that has to be repacked daily till it heals - maybe 2 weeks? Abby came from Colorado and my boys did great having a sleepover with friends, and then with cousins. I am so thankful for all the people who love me and made the effort to show up in our lives and help take care of us in our time of need. We are so grateful to you all. I am resting and drugged up. Abby is bathing little girls and little boys. Andrew is back at work flying and trying not to worry about me. Thank you, everyone, for praying for me.

Three Bears Bread and Pumpkin Soup.

We were going to go to Nebraska City for Arbor Day, but it was cloudy and overcast and our friends couldn't go. Then Seth was asking if we could make some recipes from his High Five magazines. So we decided to do that instead. We picked Three Bears Bread and Pumpkin Soup. Then we walked to the store to get the ingredients we needed. I realized after we baked them that our bears had no ears. The boys put craisins on theirs for eyes and mouth. The pumpkin soup actually was pretty yummy (the boys didn't care for it as much.) I won't tell you what we had for a snack later on. :o) It wasn't a healthy snack, but it was yummy.
Andrew and I got to go on a date for our 8th anniversary. I took him to Blue (A sushi restaurant, since he loves sushi and I had been in Feb. and loved one of their chicken dishes...which was no longer on the menu. I was VERY disappointed after looking forward to taking Andrew there and eating that dish for 3 months.) It is amazing to think that it has been 8 years. We have lived in 5 states. Had 2 children. And learned a lot from each other and together. I am so thankful for Andrew and the man he is. I am also excited about the man he is becoming. I have no words for how thankful I am that he loves me, crabby pants and all. Love you, Andrew!
And now we having our busy weekend of odds and ends of chores to be done and projects to be finished...