"uh... what are you guys doing?"

"just getting our babies to sleep."

cha-ching!!!

(yes, its been thoroughly cleaned.)

fyi: post-1982 pennies are made mostly with zinc, which, if lodged in the stomach erodes quickly and causes some serious ulcers. so. please check the date on your penny before allowing your child to put it in their mouth.

bennett's penny was 2004. a bit of erosion, but no signs of an ulcer. yet. that will come later when he is old enough to see all his mom has shared about him with the blog world.

x-ray vision

mason has 2 goals: eat as much as possible and sleep more. ahhh... how nice would that be? he doesn't know how good he has it.

bennett has one goal: no more swallowing pennies.

when the kids' fantastic pediatrician greeted me with the happy news that mason has climbed to the 3rd percentile for his weight, i countered with the un-happy news that bennett swallowed a penny approximately 1 hour and 45 minutes before our appointment. awesome.

so... off we went to get a special x-ray. just what i wanted to add to my day. my first thought (after bennett's welfare of course) was "oh cr*p. i didn't shove enough lollipops/fruit snacks/sugar filled candy in my diaper bag to keep my kids happy in yet another waiting room." oh, and i also don't have anything to calm my fussy baby... but what else is new.

poor little guy. he seems to be feeling totally fine. when the well-meaning, very sweet nurses at the pediatricians gently "teased" him about "no more swallowing pennies you silly little guy!" i thought he was going to cry. such a tender heart, that boy. and in the parking lot before the x-ray as i attempted to pump my little man up for the adventure of an picture of his insides, he looked at me with these sad eyes, his chin tucked down and asked in a scared whisper, "is it going to hurt?"

i had envisioned quite a long wait (because it isn't always) and when the nurse had handed me the x-ray order and it said "STAT" all over it, for a moment i honestly thought she did that for my sake and not because of the possible seriousness of a foreign object lodged in the esophagus of a 2 year-old. so when i said, "oh, thank you so much for that" she looked at me like i had lost my mind. (and truthfully, i have, so its ok.) then the doctor around the corner hears this and roars with laughter. oh, he thought i was trying to be funny. of course i played along and didn't allude to my self-first mentality. i already have a way under weight baby and a child ingesting coins. i should really be more careful about giving them any other reason to report me to the proper authorities.

so yeah, the wait was about 4 minutes. and everyone was really nice. especially the elderly couple smiling at us the whole time from the corner, all the while looking very sad. it made me think for a moment about the silliness of this visit, and of my life and the seriousness of things all around me. i don't know what tests they were facing this morning, but i had a feeling they weren't sitting there wishing they had remembered their camera. puts things in perspective and really, i am thankful that my "emergencies" involve pennies and laughter. my heart goes out to those suffering far worse days than me.


bennett was very, very still and looked very, very cute in his gown. instead of throwing the gown away, i realized it would make a super fun addition to our "playing hospital"... the still on-going obsession where my kids imitate c-section time and having babies cut out of their stomachs.

alas, the penny made its way to his tummy. and if all goes "smoothly", it should make its way on out in a couple days.

stay tuned...

now for the "slightly inappropriate, please don't report me" category...

had us a fun little bath time today. mason was a little unsure at first. most likely because his seat was more of a little boat since he doesn't weigh enough to keep it in place. he sorta floated amongst the other kids.

so tomorrow is the big day. i take him back to the doctor for a weight check. and if this double chin is any indication, i'm hoping he has climbed out of the .23 percentile.

so here's to gaining some weight! (mason, that is...)

nature calls

we had a glorious picnic at the park today. nice weather (if the sun is your thing), happy kids, un-fussy baby. green grass. yummy food. good times. i was just sitting there thinking to myself how nice it is to be out of the house and have mason happy all at the same time. and then:

ella: can i go pee somewhere?
me: yeah, lets go home.
ella: well, i really have to pee, but i don't want to go home.
me: sorry, we have to go home. there are no bathrooms here.
ella: i can just go pee over there. (pointing at the bushes)
me: ummm, no. we need to go home to pee.
ella: but why? there is no one around (dramatically indicating the absence of people with the swoop of her arm)
me: there are houses everywhere. and someone could be looking out the window at you. and i think its against the law to pee in public and you could get arrested.
ella: ok, lets go. (runs for the car)

and who says she's unreasonable?

we love the rain

hip, hip, horray!

poppa saved the day...

ella's prayer last night included the line: "and thank you poppa could come down and clean our house."

not only did poppa vacuum and clean our bathrooms (something that hadn't been done since the last time he was here... yeah, i'm not trying to hide anything. my house is a mess. why do you think i whine about wanting a housekeeper?), he took the kids to the park, put puzzles together, read stories, and most importantly for me, he held mason.

i'll be real honest (those of you sensitive to mommy honesty may want to stop reading here): i'm pretty much over the baby-ness of my life right now. yeah, i hear you saying i'm horrible, but i asked you to stop reading. i love mason, but seriously, i'm tired of holding him every waking moment of the day. i mean, a girl has got to brush her teeth... go to the bathroom... fill some sippy cups... waste some time on facebook... so it was nice to have poppa hold the fussy baby for me so i could do those things listed above as well as sit and do nothing at all. thanks for the break, dad. and really, he has the magic touch. mason is quite content with him.

i have moments when i think to myself, you might miss this someday. then i laugh out loud. i know about not rushing this stage and it goes so fast... blah, blah, blah. i agree with you. in about one more month that is how i will feel. but i am most certainly not wishing this stage to go on forever. seriously, let's sit on our own... hold a toy for 30 seconds... maybe eat a few cheerios. no wonder my house is a disaster and my other children are attention deprived. this little baby takes up my whole day.

some people tell me they miss this stage of babyhood because their babies slept all the time. ahhh... now there is the difference between them and me.

in case i sound ungrateful, i'm not. i feel very blessed to have 3 fantastic children. and maybe, maybe, when mason is a teenager i'll say, "oh, i wish i could just hold you in my arms." but even if i do say that, i won't actually mean that i want to do it all day, every day. maybe just a few moments here and there. and besides, when they are older i plan to make my kids hug me anytime they want the car keys, allowance, dinner...

and i have checked with the doctor to make sure nothing is wrong with mason. he assures me he is healthy and there is nothing to worry about. so what he is really saying is, its just his personality. lucky me.

he does have happy moments. they are generally when he is being held.

and in daddy news, as a result of a pretty crazy month and a half of very long, semi-stressful days, my hardworking husband informed me this week he has lost 15 lbs.

15 pounds, you say? yep, we are definitely trading places for the month of february.

choose life

well, after my lovely post on ill children and my husband who loves them, i ventured over to read what my sister posted for the day. and i must say, instead of wasting your time here reading about the stomach flu, i would like to encourage you to read her blog. its not long, but it is very touching and if you are sleep deprived like me, you might find it difficult to fight back the tears and prevent your blood from boiling all at the same time.

and clearly, you have some time to waste. after all, you are reading my blog.

seriously, just read it: aunt gigi

my husband, my hero

reason # 256 that i love anthony: he cleans up after the kids when they have the stomach flu.

i can't do it. i can't even fake it. i can't pretend like i'm even offering to do it. i just let him take the lead. thank you, Lord, that vomit only happens when daddy is home.

late, LATE last night, after getting bennett safely tucked into bed on old sheets on our floor and explaining AGAIN why there is a big empty bowl next to his head, anthony said, "good thing this happened at night." (meaning, while he was here.) "yeah," i said. "because if not, i would have taken all the kids in the backyard and waited for you to come home." i wasn't joking.

at least bennett is cute a sick kid. after one of his little "episodes" last night, he calls to us saying, "i spilled some." poor thing. and only a couple minutes later he was smiling at us. well, i mean, he was smiling at me. anthony was in the laundry room rinsing out the clothing...

i love you, honey.

someday...

i just might look back and laugh at the following: (read at your own risk)

1. mason pooped all over me.

2. bennett's diaper leaked and he pooped all over ella's bed.

3. my husband hasn't had a day off since Christmas. (and yes, i'm counting weekends)

4. ella hit me after her spanking today. her strong will, defiance and extreme temper-tantrum (or possibly mental breakdown) resulted in the loss of her play kitchen, her cd player, her doll bed, her dolls, her markers... i'm trying to find what works. so far, no luck.

5. while battling my daughter's will, i told her, "honey, you are not going to win." she looked me squarely in the eye and said with a frightening amount of assurance, "oh yes i will." clearly, she doesn't know who she is messing with.

6. my 4 1/2 months without a good night of sleep can be added to total a cumulative almost 2 years of waiting for my children to sleep through the night. there is no anti-wrinkle cream that can reverse the aging i have experienced the last 4 years.

lovely

mason slept until 4:30 this morning. yay....

i would normally be celebrating such a feat. that is, if i weren't up instead with a vomiting 4 year-old.

awwww... thank you for that collective sigh of sympathy.

now can we all say a prayer this doesn't work its way through the rest of us? (specifically my emaciated baby who has no calories to spare and my 2 year-old who hasn't yet mastered the whole make-it-to-the-toilet skill.)

tea party

ella still takes a nap every day. i realize most 4 year-olds are past this phase, but in our house, it isn't optional. some days she doesn't nap, but she still plays in her room for awhile and then stands in the hallway until i see her and she says, "i'm ready to get up now." i say, "no way." she cries and the drama ensues. so i've learned to not look at the hallway. and i've learned that if i don't look, she'll stand there for a loooonnnnnggggg time, waiting patiently. i'm evil, i know.

but since she usually does nap, she often doesn't go to sleep until 10:30 or so. yeah, its way late. but she still "goes to bed" at 8:00 and plays in her room, listens to books on cd, colors, writes letters, etc... its her creative time and i've convinced us that she really loves it and we don't need to phase it out with the naps. she likes her alone time. and so do i...

sometimes she builds some rather interesting structures with blocks. or decorates her room with flashcards and hair ties. and then there is "exercising." seriously, where does she get the energy to jump on the bed for 2 hours?

the other night, it was tea party time.


if only i could train her how to fold laundry...

7

as in the number of scorpions found in our home. just in case you are keeping track. because i sure am.

i just have to say how much i hate scorpions. i mean really. my skin is crawling as i write this and when i close my eyes i envision hundreds of them scurrying across my floor, up the crib legs, into my children's beds... yeah, i really hate them.

you might be one of those people who would tell me they may be scary but they aren't going to kill you. if that is the case, you don't know my dear friend rachael, whose daughter was air evaced to the hospital where she went into convulsions as scorpion venom attacked her central nervous system. yeah, its serious stuff, people.

i spend many waking hours walking through this house in the dark. its a creepy feeling, thinking you are going to step on one at any moment. i now wear slippers, which are laid carefully on my night stand and slipped on after a little shaking, just in case they crawled up the wall or something. but could my slippers really stop one of those little monsters?

this particular scorpion (#7) was found crawling across the kids' playroom. great. they NEVER go in there...

at least i didn't scream this time. not like i did with # 4 when it was crawling out of the drain when i leaned down to spit out my toothpaste. or #5, which i found in the dish i was pulling out of the cabinet.

when we were in kauai (back in the glorious days of sleep and relaxation) i remember seeing houses raised up on stilts. this was of course for flooding, but what a great idea...

or even better... we could just move to kauai...

dress up

last night, ella wanted to play "dress up and show." which means, dress up and put on a show of dancing/jumping on the bed to "bingo" and other annoying children's songs. (when she said "dress up" anthony heard "sweat shop." now there's an idea... we've never played that one before but the play room is disaster so maybe we'll try it out today.)

ella was concerned and said, "mommy, don't you have anything you can dress up in?" oh yes i do! we went to my closet and i got out my wedding dress. funny thing, though... it appears my ribcage has expanded in the past 8 years because it wouldn't zip up. hmmm... at least i got an idea of what i would have looked like had i walked down the aisle already with child.

moral of the story: don't try on your wedding dress after just having your 3rd baby. its not good for your self-image.

a must see

"So great is my veneration for the Bible that the earlier my children begin to read it, the more confident will be my hope that they will prove useful citizens to their country, and respectable members of society." - James Madison (as displayed at From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Bible in America)

i couldn't even tell you how many bibles we have in our house. i could count them, but since i shouldn't even be sitting here blogging, i certainly don't have the time to count our bibles. but trust me, its a lot.

i share this, not because i think you actually care about our bibles, but because i have realized how easily i take for granted my access to the bible. not just to own it, but to even be able to read it. or to hear it read to me in my own language.

without my children in tow (meaning i could actually concentrate), i had the opportunity to walk through an amazing bible exhibit where i saw fragments of the dead sea scrolls, beautiful torah scrolls, significant bibles hundreds of years old... and i read with fascination how we came to have the bible in our own language. this was no small feat and includes those who risked (and some who sacrificed) their lives so God's Word could be heard.

when reading the accounts of tyndale, wycliffe, luther, etc... i am humbled and convicted that i own numerous copies of the Word of God that i can often make it through the day without reading. so important is his Word that some risked their lives in order that common people could read it and understand it. and so powerful is God that in spite of all earthly obstacles, his Word still remains, true and unchanged.

so yes, i am here to tell you this exhibit is definitely a must see. whether the bible itself interests you or not, the artifacts on display are remarkable and the story told is fascinating.

oh, and the director of this ministry is a total babe.

"...so is my word that goes out from my mouth: It will not return to me empty, but will accomplish what I desire and achieve the purpose for which I sent it." Isaiah 55:11

From the Dead Sea Scrolls to the Bible in America
http://www.dss2009.com/