Quote of the day

We were all in the store together and I told Lars I would take the girls outside and wait for him so we didn't have the check out lane hassle. I told the girls to come with me and Naomi says, "But Mom, we weren't even stealing anything!"

The Phone Call

Friday morning I was in the midst of teaching pre-school at my house when the phone rang. "This is Whoever from the elementary school. Leah fell of the bars at recess. She says her neck hurts so we have it immobilized and we've called an ambulance." Ok, I'll be right there. I relayed the message to Lars before I really internalized what they had said. I strapped on my running shoes, ditched Lars with all the kids and took off to the school. We just live behind the school so it was faster to run than drive. In the two minutes it took me to get there, I said a little prayer and felt peaceful, but a million "what if"s" were racing through my head.

When I got there, Leah was laying underneath the monkey bars with the recess monitor stabilizing her neck and the principal towering over her. He had a soft spot for Leah since she had just given the announcements over the loud speaker that morning. About a minute later the EMT showed up. They asked her a bunch of questions-she answered correctly, wiggle your feet-she did, squeeze my finger-she could, does this hurt-no, no, no, yes! no, do you want to wear my sunglasses-yes. They said they didn't think her neck was broken, but just to be sure, they put a neck brace on her and strapped her to a board and wheeled her to the ambulance on a gurney. Leah was whimpering, but not making a huge scene so I wasn't too concerned. We got to the hospital and the doctor came in and checked her over. He concluded her neck wasn't broken but wanted x-rays of her right shoulder.

At that moment, Lars showed up with Heidi. One of the pre-school mom's took Naomi and Emilia when she picked up her son. Lars went back with Leah for the x-rays. The doctor came in and showed us Leah had broken her clavicle (collar bone). It was a clean break all the way through. Then he said they didn't set that bone, and of course you couldn't cast it, so they gave her a Snoopy sling and some Tylenol and plopped her back in bed. Two hours had elapsed by this time and Heidi was loooooong overdue for a nap. Heidi was crawling around on the floor, pulled herself up to standing by the bed, fell over and smashed her face on it. She immediately got a huge blue bruise right next to her eye, so I decided to take her outside and wait before any more damage could be done.

Lars and Leah came out a few minutes later and after a quick trip to Burgerville, all seemed to be right with the world. We got home and Leah wasted no time milking her injury. Naomi, can you give me that sticker because I have a broken bone? Yaya, I want to watch that movie because I have a broken bone? Dad, can I sleep on the couch because I have a broken bone?

Things had kind of calmed down a bit when we got another phone call. "This is Dr. Junn. The radiologist just reviewed Leah's x-rays and he can't rule out that her femur (upper arm) might be broken as well. Please bring her back in for more x-rays if she is complaining about any pain in her arm." We didn't take her back in because we wanted to wait it out and see if there were any complaints. I think we might bring her back in today or tomorrow just to be sure. Probably don't want to take any chances on that one.

Isn't it about...time?

When I only had Leah, I remember people saying to me all the time, "Oh, they grow up so quickly!". Um, no. Time did not fly by when I only had one baby and I stayed at home and documented her every move, took a picture of her every time she tried a new food and tried different clothes on her just to see how cute she looked in every outfit...with a coordinating bow. Don't get me wrong, I loved that time and wouldn't have had it any other way, but I didn't feel like time was racing by.

With Leah, any time she started fussing, among other things, I would check her mouth for any sign of teething. If I thought her gums looked swollen, or I thought I saw a tooth coming through I would pamper her and give her teething tablets, or rub her little gums with Orajel. Now poor Heidi cuts teeth and I don't even notice until I have to start brushing them.

I swear I bathed Leah every day when she was a baby. Now I'm pretty sure Heidi's full on baths have averaged out to one per month of her life. She gets the wipe down quite often to eliminate arm pit cheese and clean the cheerios out of the fat rolls, but more often than not that's as good as it gets!

I'd like to attribute these negligent parenting practices to the fact that there are a few more kids in the mix, and school, and gymnastics and swimming lessons. Often I do feel like my days are here and gone before I'm ever fully awake. Sometimes I worry that I've completely neglected a child during the day. One night I actually forgot to feed my children dinner. I tucked them all into bed and then Naomi said, "Um Mom, we never even ate dinner." My solution? I told them to stay in bed (wouldn't want to do that twice) and I brought them each a plate with a roll, grapes and cheese.

Now before anyone starts to panic and call the authorities, I can reassure you that while I may not be the most organized, I love these girlies with everything in my soul. I am so grateful to be a mother, to stay home with my little cherubs, to love them and kiss on them and serve them and deffer many of my own desires to put them first. Oh, and did I mention learn patience? (As I type this Yaya is on the ground throwing a fit because I won't let her color on her new dress with a blue crayon.) This is what life is all about.

Biscuit

Shortly after we moved here I made some biscuits and mistakenly put in four tablespoons of baking powder instead of four teaspoons. Needless to say they were a bit on the disgusting side, so we chucked them out the back door for the birds. Well, a blue jay came and ate them up. The girls were so excited they named the bird "Biscuit" and we have been throwing bread crusts out the back door and Biscuit has been visiting us daily ever since.

Recently, a cat has adopted us as well. It is a fluffy white and brown cat that sleeps in our stroller any time I am negligent and leave it outside overnight. It follows us up our sidewalk and waits for us to invite it inside. Doesn't happen. Aside from footprints on our windshield and an occasionally hairball in the stroller, overall the cat doesn't bother us. But apparently she bothers Biscuit.

Yesterday morning I woke up to the sweet sound of Biscuit squawking relentlessly outside my window. I got up and looked outside to see the cat sitting my the back of my neighbor's car and Biscuit perched on top of our van. The cat was staring at Biscuit and Biscuit was staring back and yelling at the cat. Eventually the cat jumped down and Biscuit chased her away! It was bizzare, but I haven't seen the cat since!

The Sound of Music

I was in the living room and overheard Yaya singing in the kitchen.

"I've got a blister, blister, blister.
I've got a blister and it's green.
It's never going away because it's green."

:)

A Blustery Day

So last weekend my husband randomly suggested we go to the beach...in five minutes. Ok, great idea. We all ran around gathering buckets and shovels, hats, sandals and sunscreen, loaded in the car and headed west. As we pulled into the parking lot I noticed the seagulls flying overhead, only they weren't moving. The wind was blowing against them so hard that they were flapping, but remained at a complete standstill in midair. We all piled out of the van and Lars took the three girls down while I changed Heidi's diaper. Before I even got to the sand, Lars was back with the girls who were all shivering and crying. Thankfully I had packed an extra change of clothes for everyone, so they just layered them on top and we gave it another try. Even with the extra clothes and blanket, they only lasted long enough to make an attempt at a sand castle. Considering Yaya's lips and cheeks were various shades of purple and blue, we called it a day and headed twenty miles south to another beach, Newport. This time we enjoyed the coast line from the car and looked at a bunch of the shops. Of course we had to eat clam chowder at Moe's and get salt water taffy. Overall it was a really nice day and we had alot of fun.

somebody please explain

Scented baby wipes. Changing diapers is gross enough as it is. I suppose the idea behind a scented baby wipe was to make it a more pleasant changing experience if you could capture the relaxing scent of cucumber and green tea instead of...the diaper contents. A good idea it was, on paper, but I wonder how extensively the scent combinations were researched before being put into production. It would be my guess that a more natural scent such as "baby powder", or "clean linen" would lend itself to a sweet baby's bum. Instead each time I wipe my baby's bum I'm smelling poopumbers and green pee. Let's get some more effective market research going here Huggies. Ask the ones changing the diapers.

Swine Crazy

"Dr. Mel Kohn, Oregon’s acting director of public health, said Saturday that the state needed to be prepared for the swine flu to stick around into the fall. "
Courtesy of DHS

Does this mean school's out for the summer? They have already shut down for this whole week and told everyone to keep of the playgrounds. It seems a bit suspicious and a little too convenient to me that the school system is SO concerned about transmitting this virus. There has been a panic about school funding for the past few months with rumors of cutting several weeks of school because they couldn't pay the teachers. If you ask me, this was just a great excuse to do that anyway without having the school board bear the grunt of the matter. Perhaps they are fabricating evidence. Hmm...I smell a conspiracy.