Babies, Brownies and Blessings

I've written several blogposts on being overwhelmed. Feeling like I don't have enough time, sleep, order, solitude. Just before I hit "publish" I hit "save" instead. What right do I have to complain? The fact is, God has blessed me hugely. My complaints are about lack of time, sleep, order, solitude. Not about a dying family member. A terminal illness. A child with special needs. A sick baby. An unfaithful husband. Lack of friends. How do you reconcile what you're feeling with the pain of the world around you? Is it ok to feel maxed out even though, relatively speaking, life has been easy? God has allowed us each to carry a different load. Our burdens look different, we handle the weight of them differently. While one mom would give anything to have her sick baby just cry, another may be so tired from her fussy healthy  baby that she's at breaking point. The little things of life can chip away at us. The ebbing and flowing of l...

Ten years ago I married the man I loved more than anyone. Ten years later, I love him more than I could have fathomed possible on our wedding day. The love I felt then, I have come to discover, was only a drop in the bucket. Experiencing life together brings about an intimacy that can't be fabricated. Ten years later we have three kids 5 years old and younger. Our conversations are interrupted constantly. Our time is not ours. Our laps are not ours. Even my boobs are not ours. That does a little number on the intimacy factor. As we were discussing this feeling of disconnect the only conclusion I came to is: We need more babysitters! I heard a sermon a few years ago on keeping a marriage strong and the pastor said this: Your marriage needs one night a week, one weekend a month, one week a year alone together. Sound logistically challenging? It's tough to find the time and money and willing personnel to cover childcare for that amount of time. W...

Do you have a pair of pants or a sweatshirt that you can't live without? The thing you wear when you're feeling _________ (fill in the blank). I have a few pair of jeans. Two of them are identical. The other few are different styles. One of those I've dubbed my Uffda Jeans. The ones I put on when I know I need to get out of my PJ pants but want to feel good, comfy, un-bulgy. They are forgiving but not quite "Mom Jeans". Loose in the thigh, always fit around the waist (because they ride low on my hips). I can gain a few and these jeans don't make me pay... I never have to wonder how my Uffda Jeans will feel. I know they will fit. Doesn't matter if I just washed them. There will be no squats, lunges, or leg kicks necessary to get them stretched back out to normal . I don't have to lay down on the bed to get them buttoned. No need for a loose shirt because they don't muffin-top me. I love my Uffda Jeans.

Nearly 24 hours have passed since we said goodbye to the nasty tonsils. The procedure went well, the waking up a little rough, and the waiting to go home a little long. BigBoy #2 surprised me with his voracious appetite for popsicles. He licked down 8. Sucked down 3 half pints of chocolate milk. Went to the bathroom 23 times. In 6 hours. Today he has been eating ice cream and taking his meds. By the time we are done the meds are going to be the most expensive part. Simply because we have to bribe him to take them since they rank high on the yuckiness scale. So far it's cost us a couple Chuggington trains and a DoodlePad. We may start taking donations. :) The care was excellent at Children's and I'm sure the fact that I'm employed there helped a bit. I felt right at home and didn't struggle too much saying goodbye after Caleb fell asleep. I saw several friends and was blessed to run into a co-worker as we were walking into the hospital. Her hug was j...

This feels a little like deja vu. Tomorrow is Big Boy #2's surgery. Out come the tonsils and adenoids. In with a healthy boy! We've been so grateful that God has surrounded us with a little bubble these last few weeks. It has been a record number of days between illness for our little man. The last round of antibiotics and steroids must've done the trick. So many of you have been praying for his health and we're so appreciative. Now for the hard part. Keeping food out of his tummy. I'm considering one or several of the following options: duct-taping his mouth zip-tying the fridge Tossing out ALL the food he likes tonight after he goes to sleep Keeping him up until 3am so he'll sleep right up until our 8:30am departure Waking him at 1am for a last big bowl of cereal I'm open to any suggestions you may have. Bri will be on special fridge detail from 5-9am. We learned our lesson, gotta play offensive with this kid (since my defense failed ...

I've been a reader my whole life. We didn't have a TV in our house until I was a tween. Reading was strongly encouraged to combat boredom. Lucky for Mom, my sisters and I (in particular) loved to read. Fast foreward a couple decades and my love of reading is still present. My reason for reading is different. I read to escape. I love to delve into the life of someone else. Feel the love, pain, joy, heartache, expectation. I read mostly "feel-good" books, though. Real life has enough sad endings for me. If I'm reading a story, it better end well. As I've been talking to some of my nurse-friends lately about reading I realized that it's an escape route for them as well. Many care providers have the joy and struggle of working with people who are in crisis. Life is not as they intended. Sometimes we can only do so much to fix it. When my head hits the pillow at night I can't always turn off the feelings I've seen or experienced at w...

My personality has a flaw in it. Well, several, but we're just going to hit one today. When I like something, I like it to death. I can't get it out of my head, or my stomach, depending on what we're talking about.   I could eat the same food for months. And I do sometimes. I just can't get enough! Until I've had enough. And then I'm done.   I'm eating something right now that I just realized I'm at the end of. Palmiers from Trader Joes. They are like little pastry rolls with parmesan and herbs in them. Absolutely delcious! But they don't hit the spot anymore.   I've done this with so many things: Sugar cookies from Perkins Mrs. Smith's Apple Pie Pearson's thin mints (frozen) Doritos (several times but I keep going back to them) Smooth and Melty Mints Sublime Ice Cream Sandwiches from Trader Joes (at 440 cal. a pop, it's a good thing I'm over them!) Chocolate Covered Pretzels Almond Steamers from Dunn Broth...

I'm not big on bringing all three kids shopping. It's a pain in the butt. They touch everything, hang on the cart, throw things in we don't need, have to poop when we're farthest away from the bathroom... Today it needed to happen. We were out of milk and eggs (and still are, by the way...I'm so forgetful sometimes!). A new Super Target opened in Woodbury and I was so excited to check it out! I was a little nervous it would be packed, it just opened about a week ago. It wasn't too busy and I was happy. The kids were rowdy but the aisles were big with few people so I let them run. And run. And run. Break from running to look at toys. Back to running. I really don't know where all this energy comes from! Finally I had had enough of the running (and the stares that came along with me allowing my children to be so rambunctious) and I told the boys to stop. They didn't. I grabbed BigBoy #2, told him to obey or he'd go right to bed ...

I love getting the mail. Even getting bills just makes me feel normal. Human. Noticed... The mail today held something uber-special. It was an envelope from Papa Murphys. Seemed kinda random but I thought maybe it was coupons. I'm a coupon geek and I sign up wherever I can to get a few bucks off anything I by frequently. I'm also a pizza geek/freak so this envelope had my full attention. Turns out, I won! I had signed up for some sweepstakes (for the coupons, I'm sure) and I ended up winning one of the prizes. Oh, and my prize was a $5 gift card to Papa Murphys! It's not every day I get a free 5 bucks in the mail and I really NEVER win anything (unless you count that one time I "won" a free consultation to some chiropractor in town which turned out to be nothing less than a gimmick that I fell for). I love little dumb daybrighteners. What is the best thing you've won?

What do you do when you get too much change? Or get sent an extra package even though you paid for just one? I don't know why I even have to think about it. But I do... The answer is easy. Return it to it's rightful owner, right? Sometimes I come up with ideas like...it was their mistake, they won't miss it, I shouldn't have to be inconvenienced for their error... I ordered some Envirosax on BabyHalfOff.com the other day. I got charged once. Received two identical packages in the mail a couple days later. Conundrum. Should I take the time to contact them and tell them about their error? I don't really have that much time to be monkeying around (or so I tell myself as I'm updating my profile on Facebook). This wouldn't be much of a blog posting if I had taken the easy way out so I'm sure you figured out what I did. I zipped an email to the Customer Service peeps. They asked me to return the 2nd package in the envelope I had received ...

It was a battle of the wills between one stubborn 3 year old and one frustrated mom. It ended with BigBoy #2 in his bed at 6pm (probably the safest place for him at that point!). As I was leaving the room he screamed , " MOM I WANT TO PRAY!" What to do? It was an obvious attempt at keeping me in the room. Would it just reinforce his stubborness, his manipulating endeavors? But he wanted to pray. So we did. We prayed about his attitude. We prayed about Mom's attitude. We prayed about disobedience and hurtful behaviors. He calmed down. I calmed down. I told him he had to stay in his room and he obeyed. As I was wrestling with whether I had done the right thing in giving into him a friend brought up this point: When BigBoy #2 was at his most upset he chose to "manipulate" with prayer. Even if his intention was to keep me in the room and get his way, God is bigger than that. Our prayers were heard. And maybe, later on, when life feels out of con...

I've had the same glasses for 3-4 years. I think I've changed out the lenses once or twice but haven't splurged on a new pair of frames. The day has come to retire the old and rejoice in the new. But I had forgotten just how expensive new glasses are! I have a fairly high prescription (-8s) which means I'm incredibly near-sighted. And my lenses are rather thick. I'm not complaining as I know there are many people who are blind or nearly so. I just can't see a darned thing without my glasses. For years I wore contacts but working nights ruined that for me. Seems my eyes just got to tired and dry from working the night shift. I went to the eye doctor yesterday and he affirmed what I knew: I needed higher power lenses. The optician was great, he picked out several frames for me to try. Apparently I have a narrow face and a pale complexion (not news to me!!) so we had to accentuate the positives. I found a pair I loved and since I haven't purchas...

It was a rare morning at our house. The boys played well together! It took a little reminding ("tell your brother you don't like to play that game, not me. Work it out, don't tattle!") but after a bit they were playing army with little green soldiers...for a couple hours! I had an eye appointment and when I returned Bri told me the boys had developed nicknames for each other. How cute?! He continued with the details: Apparently one of them had a truck that kept falling into a pretend ditch. They decided that BigBoy #1 should just be called "Ditch", then. Naturally, BigBoy #2 should have a name that rhymes. They chose the word that rhymes with Ditch and starts with B. Really? Not Mitch, stitch, witch, rich, pitch, hitch? I laughed so hard at the result of their innocent game that my eyes started to water. And just because I wanted to hear about this little bit of "fun" first hand I asked the boys about their nicknames. Sure enough, B...

When I was hired as a nurse back in 2002 I took a Night-shift position. It was 8 hours (11pm-7:30am), 7 shifts every two weeks and every other weekend. I never did a day shift rotation once I was done with my orientation. Nights worked for me. I loved the tone of the shift, my co-workers, the lack of extra management and family around. Eventually I went to 12 hour nights (7p-7a) and got to do every third weekend. After having BigBoy #1 I went casual. I tried several different part-time combos with hours but in the end we liked it better with me home more. Soon I was pregnant with BigBoy #2 and I remained casual status. I will confess, I worked very little for those couple of years! (and my seniority hours prove it!) When the boys got a bit older I took a Per Diem position. It's a glorified casual position that requires one weekend a month and 3 other shifts a month. It also required me to work Days on my weekend. I wasn't too keen on that as I had been comfy fo...