why it's been so long...

hehe, you think I'm actually going to explain my absence? I've got no excuses except for my old standby. Once again, my body reminds me that I was *not* made for multitasking. If I'm gestating, that's about all I can do. After a short visit to the ER (silly protocols about 20-weekers), life has been much more predictable. I have to take it easy, but my body *is* doing its correct job.

I'm loving the new job and its flexibility.

I'm looking forward to having my sister and her friend move in and help me.

I've picked up some old knitting.

We spent almost six days traveling with family for the first time in years.

We're still healthy (this is actually the most incredible, especially after reading this post here.

And if you don't ever check my sidebar, I really encourage you to click on top pick of my shared files (it's labeled funny things from my friends). It's a post from someone on one of my g-tube groups that explained some things for me. It's a nice story about parents of children with special needs and how we relate to "other" parents.

Anyway...those are my bullet points. Maybe I'll fill it in, or maybe I'll post sooner enxt time. I even have some pics from Christmas that I might make HeaterBoy put up.

ps. We're having another girl...

hehe, what's a tag?

So, I only read a handful of blogs. But I still managed to get tagged anyway. :-) I know it's because some of my friends (thanks KM!) also only read a handful of blogs and don't have a huge group of people to tag. ;-)

So here goes:

Five things I Was Doing Ten Years Ago
1. sending a cute boy on a mission
2. Writing to HeaterBoy
3. spending my first year at Weber State (2nd year in college)
4. learning about myself and my relationship with my family of origin (does that ever end?)
5. getting ready to perform at a Christmas concert

Five things on my Life To Do List
1. make my own clothes from the raw materials I have grown
2. learn how to run a small hobby farm
3. empower women and mothers (or rather, help them to see that they already are :-) )
4. learn how to dance
5. learn how to weave


Five things I'd do if I was a Millionaire
1. STM was right, this won't go as far as I'd like, but...I'll buy a house...Modest and fits our needs, with cash
2. try to save the rest until somebody needs it. J and I can never find a shortage of good causes to donate to or support. (this will be my sub-list as I only did two things...)
A. LLL
B. Local business owners struggling to make ends meet
C. sustainable mom and pop operations
D. ICAN
E. Primary Children's Medical Center
F. any number of birth/family advocates


Five Things I'd Never Do Again
1. Ignore my gut-feelings (this one copied from KM, but totally applies for me as well)
2. Yell at my husband
3. stick my foot in my mouth by saying something totally inappropriate and rude (if only my foot didn't want to reside in that general vicinity, it would be easier).
4. allow (or rather, forcefully put)foreign chemicals into my body without first questioning the risks and benefits of said chemical.
5. question somebody's wisdom and education in having more than three or four kids. Or most childbearing decisions...

Five Favorite Toys
1. computer
2. spinning wheel
3. paper trimmer
4. jewelry tweezers/pliers
5. itunes (does software count as a toy?)

Five Things I've Read Recently
1. Warprize
2. Ina May's Guide to Childbirth
3. instructions on lung drainage postures
4. the ensign
5. pediatric drug dosages

Five of My Favorite Smells

1. newborn babes (also copied from KM, but does any body not like this smell?)
2. my husband (no really, it made me marry him. and sans cologne or aftershave is best...(sniff) aah, it makes me want him home:-) )
3. rain
4. fresh oranges
5. the absence of rotavirus ;-)


And now, Tag, you're it!!
Five People I'm Tagging...are there five people who read my blog?
1. Nicole
2. Dirtius Wifius
3. Sarah in NYC
4. Tola
5. anybody else who reads my blog... ;-)

Hospitals on the Holiday

So we're out. Buggy ended up spending 6 days in the hospital this time and it looks like we are finally finding some solutions to her long term health. They're not easy or fun, but it might keep her out of the hospital for longer next time. I posted a few times on Carepage, but I didn't make it to post this page, sorry. We now have three holidays at Primary's. :-)

The stress was so much better this time because J didn't have to go anywhere this week and we still had our nanny to help him out. I didn't have to worry about the big kids or what the house would look like when I got home. We may also be able to re-evaluate how we do the hospital thing as J now has a computer that he can work on in the hospital, so especially when the new babe comes, we may have J stay with Buggy instead of me. Now that she's a little older, he's the one that she wants anyway. She kept asking for him while we were stuck i isolation. (BTW, rotavirus stinks)

Joining the World of the Employed...

So J left yesterday for his first training trip. He's in Texas until Friday night. I'm not sure how I'll cope being a single parent for a week, but I guess it's baptism by fire, right? So far, Buggy seems to be having the hardest time. She spent about 1/2 hour crying for Daddy this morning.

We'll be meeting with the sleep pulmonologist this Friday. I was really hoping that HeaterBoy could be there for that appointment, but I guess I'll have to do it alone. We have lots of questions for these docs and hopefully they will have some theories that will help us to get Buggy's lungs healthier. She is taking more and more steps independently. if the distance is small enough and she thinks she can make it, she will sure try. It makes for some funny falls, but she's getting better at those too. She is protecting her head better and getting faster at her motor patterns. We're getting ready for her new IFSP (service plan for Early Intervention) so we're going to be meeting with people we rarely see this month to get her all tested for that.

This morning the nurse came and she was surprised to see how well B is doing. She seems to do a lot of surprising. :-)

I've been chewing gum the past couple of weeks to keep from feeling like I'm two seconds away from vomiting. It's been working great...until two days ago. All of a sudden, my teeth started to get really sensitive while I was chewing, like I had a cavity. I got kind of freaked out, so I'm not chewing unless it gets really bad. It's also a good thing that we will have dental coverage soon. :-)

So that's our life this week. The kids had fun at Halloween, and so did HeaterBoy. Of course, I didn't take any photos. I have the cutest scrapbook pages and nothing to put in them. Such is life.

More News!

Okay, okay, enough with the news already. Our family seems to be in such upheaval, I'm amazed I make it out of bed every day. :-P No, but eally, somehow it doesn' feel as if we;re under a lot of stress, it feels as if so much stress has been removed.

drumroll...

HeaterBoy has a real-live, grown-up job! He tried for a job about six weeks ago and we just came to the conclusion that it's time for our family to be grown-ups. 9 years of school is great fun, but it's time for a new chapter. Well, that job came and went, we thought, and Boy started looking for other opportunities in his new chosen field that wold utilize his very expensive nine years of university education and we came up with some great career fits.

Before we could really start cranking out the resumes, the original company called back and they offered the high end of what we wanted our starting salary to be. Talk about relief. I mean, who really *likes* to look for a job.

So this new job has absolutely nothing to do with biochemistry, but everything to do with web programming, which is what HeaterBoy has been "messing around" with since we were married. All this time, I thought it was great he had found a "hobby" that was relatively cheap (fly-fishing anyone?)and he could justify all his time on the computer. Turns out he can actually make money doing what he's been playing around with for years. I'm so proud of him and I'm also excited that we might be able to buy a house sometime this decade.

It will be lots of traveling, so I'm not super excited about that, but we've budgeted for "compensations" and "coping strategies" so it'll work. The rest of the time, he gets to work from home! Doesn't that sound fun? Of course, I'll have to get used to "daddy's home, but he can't play with us, or help with the laundry, or make lunch, or do homeschool work, etc" but it's a switch I think I can make.

Here's to impending adulthood!

My weekend

So I spent last weekend with my sweet husband's cousin and his wife in Sacramento.I had an LLL conference and I was trying to save money, so I threw out to HeaterBoy "Do we know anyone in Sacramento?" He said his cousin lived there, and we emailed him. He and his wife were so gracious and kind that they made my stay such a wonderful experience. I was a little worried about how I would transport myself to and from the conference hotel. Brett's wife, Andrea, was able to drive me to and from on each of my conference days. It was wonderful.

The conference was amazing! I am so motivated and want to learn everything I can about positive communication and building relationships. I'd love to talk about with anyone who will listen...(hint, hint) :-)

A bit of News...

so, in case you were wondering...Check out my new widget. :-) As if we didn't already have enough on our plate, we're going to throw something new into the mix.

Seriously, as I've listened, first to the General RS meeting and then again this weekend, I have a calm that what we're doing is right. I still don't know how, but that's never concerned Heavenly Father before. Everything will work out, it always does. This may not be the path for someone else, but I know it's the right path for our family. Have fun watching the widget grow!

October and General Conference...

Although I look forward to General Conference and October is the most beautiful time on Cache Valley, this time of year is kind of hard for me. It's the anniversary of a "great and terrible" day for me. The actual date of Buggy's LTE (medical jargon for Life Threatening Event) was October 2nd, but it was the Sunday of conference, so I often remember the "traditions" regarding the day more than the date itself. So I compromised and decided to write about it today as I may be too wiped out to write about it on Conference days.

B was a beautiful baby. She smiled early and was so very social. She helped my body prepare and heal for her birth. It was the most amazing pregnancy in terms of talking to her and getting to know her before she was born. We never had any ultrasounds, but we had her female name picked out by the time I was 4 months along. I *knew* she was a girl. I also knew some other things about her. I knew that she had agreed to take on some additional challenges while on earth...challenges of the physical kind. I assumed I knew which ones, but I was wrong. I knew that she would need lots of extra care. I was kind of weirded out by the knowledge and so I didn't tell anybody about it until my due date came and went and my midwife (who is amazingly intuitive) said, "you're body won't go into labor. You're scared abut something and you need to talk to J about it." That propmpted me to tell my midwife abnd then my dear sweet husband. Neither one laughed or dismissed my feelings. They both discussed and supported me and hubby said so matter-of-factly "well, we've already talked about taking a child with special needs into our home and what that would mean for us in terms of treatment. Karin, we already know what we're going to do if that happens." He was amazing.

When she was born healthy, I was confused. I thought her problem was a specific birth defect (or several) and she was perfectly healthy. I even went to the ped the day after her birth so that he could check her out. Both of my other kids had heart murmurs at birth, so then I thought maybe that was it. When the doc listened to her, he also listened to her fontanels. He had a rare blood vessel malformation in his own brain that ruptured while he was on his mission. It was very traumatic for him and even though it is very, very rare, he still listens to baby fontanels in the hope of catching one early. I politely declined the gonorrhea eye drops and the hep shot, but allowed the vitamin K. I was planning to refuse all, and didn't know why I had caved about the vitamin K. He pronounced everything to be great. We took her home and fell in love. She was so calm, but she often cried in the evening. Her color was also very different from the other children. She looked very red. I wondered if her skin would end up to be the same color as her dad. We had planned to try ECing her when she was about six weeks old. I was too tired to try it from the beginning, but we had already caught a few pees.

After Conference on Sunday, I was nursing her in bed, trying to get her down for a short nap. I don't think she had slept well that afternoon. She was nursing, but fussy, like she couldn't quite settle down, you know that cry, right? All of a sudden, she completely unlatched and her cry changed to a piercing, very pain-filled cry.

And then she stopped breathing.

You never know how you're going to react in an emergency, whether calm or panicky, until it happens. I'm still not sure if I was as productive as I could have been. I wasn't thinking about that. I was just thinking I had to get my baby breathing again, and fast. I tried giving her a couple of breaths while I yelled for J to come. He was just in the next room, so he had no idea what was happening. I almost threw B at him and said "Breathe for her!" and I called 911. The operator was less than helpful. She seemed about a s stunned as I was ( I didn't realize until later that she was probably just a college student with likely none of the training that "normal" 911 operators have). She still hadn't started breathing and I knew from my own preemie CPR training that if she didn't breathe soon, we were going to need to start CPR. I tried to find a carotid pulse. There was none. I now know that you can't generally find a babies carotid pulse. You have to use a brachial (on the arm) pulse because their necks are too chubby.

I started CPR and told J to find a neighbor for a blessing. I didn't want anyone else near my baby. I didn't remember the number of compressions just that it was a high number as compared to adults. And faster. I took her out to the living room so I could lay her on the floor and we could find a neighbor. I left the operator hanging on the line because she didn't want me to hang up, but I knew B needed a blessing ASAP.

He found a neighbor whom we hardly knew and he came up and helped my husband bless our dying baby. I don't remember much of what was said, except that she wasn't supposed to die right then. What I remember was the change in the feeling fo the room. There was still pain and desperation, but now there was also comfort and love. It was almost as if a bubble had come around us and was cocooning our little family. The big kids started to get really concerned when they saw the blood coming out of B's nose and mouth and so I sent them outside and an insightful neighbor herded them up and took them to her house to pray and call the bishop. There were lots of people enjoying the wonderful weather outside so all knew that something was terribly wrong.

The wife of the neighbor who helped with the blessing said later that her husband came back ashen and said that he didn't think the baby was okay. he said, I think she might not be breathing. His wife assured him that probably wasn't true, but the neighbors slowly gathered up and huddled around each other waiting for news. That was when the police and eventually the paramedics came. When the police officer arrived, I asked him if he knew baby CPR and he assured me that he did, but I still wouldn't let him near my baby. I was the only one who could work on her. I never stopped the CPR. Her lungs had somehow filled with fluid and the air just wasn't making it in to her lungs, but I continued with back blows to try and clear some of it and CPR.

When the paramedics got there they cut her onesie away and started working on her. They couldn't get a single IV line into her and they sure tried a bunch. They shocked her a few times and when she was stable enough to transfer to the hospital they loaded her up. J followed in the car and i went in the ambulance. They had me sitting up front. Now that I've been in an ambulance countless times with B, I think they put me up there to keep me from getting too scared. They also had everyone in the back working on her. Since then, I have never ridden in the front. The whole time they were there, I knew that my life was going to have a big change. Our family was never going to be the same, regardless of what the end of the story was. That's a surreal feeling.

The ER did everything they could and there were people all over doing tests to figure out what had happened, why she had stopped breathing, they were also mighty quick about bringing in a social worker. I knew from past experience that that is a really bad sign. I already knew we were not in a good place. the Respiratory therapist was amazing and tireless in staying with B. Even when others ran around the room and took turns with her, he never left her side. The social worker then told us that if she ever needed one, he was the RT that she would choose. then she also divulged that he was her uncle and he would try his very hardest to make sure that she survived his watch.

They had to shock her several times while waiting for the life flight. When they were doing an MRI they found the problem. A cerebellar AVMwas the cause of all of this.

They wouldn't let either one of us in the helicopter as they needed all the room for hospital personnel, but our bishop drove us down to SLC as neither of us was in any position to be driving for that long. The neurosurgeon told us that only 10% of people survive the first 24 hours of an injury as severe as B's. He tied to be compassionate while still making the gravity of the situation clear for us. the PICU doctors were not focusing on her brain at all at that point. Her lungs were so ill that she needed a tremendous amount of support just to breathe. We never left her alone for about two weeks. One of us was always at her bedside.

I couldn't bear to leave her side even for a minute just in case something happened. I knew her life could be short and I didn't want to miss any of it. They kicked us out of the PICU during shift change, but we always had someone with her every other time. this was difficult because we had our two other children to care for and Rapunzel was still very young. She nursed all the time still. We had decided that we needed the children with us in case B died. We needed to be a family during this trial. My parents stayed with them at my grandparents home five minutes from the hospital for the first few days. As B held on, we realized that we could be at the hospital for months. They have a few RV pads for people there long term and my parents lent us their RV and that's where we all lived for that stay in the hospital.

Tht first day as I contemplated losing B, I would start to get lost in my sea of pain...I just kept thinking "No God could ask this twice of a mother. No loving Father in Heaven would ask a mother to lose two children." But as soon as I thought that, I would be swallowed up by such a feeling of peace as I had never experienced. J and I spent many nights crying in each other's arms, uncertain of the future, but knowing that, even in our grief, we would be taken care of. We both felt very much like the grief we were feeling was real and we needed to experience it, but that we were constantly being encircled in the arms of God. It's almost like a child when something goes wrong and your universe is falling apart and then mom takes you into her lap and just lets you cry. It still hurts. It's still real. It's still painful, but somehow there is an extra measure of strength, that whatever it is, you will face it together.

We had many blessings that month. J and I along with B and the other kids. J and I knew that this was B's trial. This was the new body that she had accepted before she came here. As much as this is painful for a parent to watch, this is not about me. It is about her and the things she will learn and teach others. I'm not a big believer in Saturday's Warrior doctrine, but I know that B agreed to do this and we agreed to help her.

Sometimes I wonder if people can tell by looking at her if she's special. I know, I can see, but can others? I think many who work with her and are watching for it can see. She has influenced many on her short journey already. She has gone with three missionaries (one uncle to Chile, one aunt to Japan and another uncle to Dominican Republic) as they needed stories of faith and strength, they would tell about her. People the world over have "met" her and prayed for her. At one time, I think we counted that her name was in about 15 temples, placed by different people in their spot of the world.

I am awed by the opportunity I have to be her mother. To facilitate her growth and bring her to meet those that she may be able to help.

Happy Life day, B!

I Hope they Call me On a Mission...

So my sister is getting home tomorrow. I hope she's been life-changed and that she won't forget it soon. I hope my kids don't get bored of Auntie Chicken's Japan stories and I hope she never gets tired of telling them. I'm almost offended when people talking about "getting back to normal" after a mission. I mean, do you really want to after an experience like that? Should you? Why can't you incorporate the new you into life AM (after mission).

For as long as I can remember my dad has been telling stories about the mission; he's told his life story in the context of PM and AM. It used to bug me. not anymore. Maybe I'm jealous that I never got to go. I have to live vicariously through my friends and relatives who have gone. I know that I've made the right decisions for me and they were in the right time, but back when Heater boy and I were dating, he said that he promised himself that he would encourage every person with the opportunity to go to take that chance. He even offered to wait for me. If I hadn't already received my own personal answer, that would have been mighty tempting. As it is, I have a hard time waiting for my season to go on a mission with my husband.

Speaking of seasons...it's time for our season of school to be over. Dh had declared his intent with his advisor and his course of study has officially been changed. As of December, we will no longer be students and my husband will have an MS in biochemistry. We're a little nervous where this road will take us, but we know that Heavenly Father will take care of us...He always does. He has tried for a couple of jobs and is looking for more opportunities to get his resume out there. Right now, he is looking in software and database web applications in companies with a chemistry leaning, but he's also looking for teaching jobs at jr. colleges or anything else that will fit his expertise. He's multi-skilled if you don't already know him and I'm sure he'll find something that is perfect for us.

Buggy is taking small steps from one piece of furniture to another and it's so wonderful to watch. Her sleep study apparently went terribly, but her pulmonologist went out of town for the week, so we won't be able to actually talk to her for a few days. I'm just hoping to make it through the winter without any major pneumonia fights. If there's anything we don't need right now, it's extra time in the hospital. Of course, now that I've said that, we'll be there for several weeks soon.

We've decided that it's time for us to again approach the idea of adopting. We started paperwork just before we got pregnant with Buggy and when we discovered the news, adoption went on the back burner, but it's time to put it back on the front burner. (Sorry, that was worded poorly) We're not sure how it's going to work out, we just know that we need to get started with it.

Hope everyone has a lovely Wednesday!

The Joys of Teaching Your Own Children...

So the kids were having "project day" and Zeke decided that they were going to do something related to Ancient Egypt, his favorite subject matter right now. They found their book on the people who built the pyramids and then they disappeared into the bathroom. Now I knew that this generally means some kind of makeup/dressup debacle, but it was so much better when they came out.

They both had green penciled around their eyes ("mom, kohl was black or green") Zeke had removed his shirt and they were both wearing towels safety pinned into kilt-style. then they proceeded to make big huge dangly earrings out of paper and taped them to their ears. :-) We ended up going to Belen's physical therapy looking like this. :-)

I love seeing history come alive for Zeke and Abish and I love watching him read until there's no more light to read with. The path we've chosen is definitely not the easiest, but I know it's right for us. I also know that any parent who wants to can do the same thing. No one knows how to make a child excited about something better than his/her parents.

Someone from our homeschool email group sent a link to a youtube video of a 20/20 clip about education in America's schools. I won't lkink to it here, because I wasn't impressed, but I'm sure you could do a search and find it if you really wanted to. It was supposed to be about how stupid America's students were and how awful our education system is. Chaos was rampant and drugs and violence were everywhere. Anyway, after I had been watching a while, it became clear it was just a thinly veiled pro-voucher piece that also had some very pointed remarks as to the harm that the National Teacher's Union is doing (which is rather surprising as the Union is a very strong lobby as I understand it and has a lot of pull with generally liberal media). I could be way off base here, but that was a blow I was not expecting to see. After it became clear that the piece had it's own way of solving the education problem, I had a hard time finishing it. Couldn't there be another way to fix the system than just using vouchers? They kept talking about the choices available to Eropean parents and all of the schools they could choose to put their children in. Forgive me, but I thought most Governments in Western Europe ran ALL of the schools, not just most of them. Giving parents a choice between s "state-run" public school and a "state-run" private school doesn't sound like a whole lot of choice to me.

Enough venting. somebody correct me if I'm wrong. I'd like to know your opinions.

So finally, We got some extra memory and I can post photos! (I hope this works.)

These are the woolen things that I turned in for the fair. Nobody knew where to put them. They stuck the longies under "handmade boy's trousers" and the other in "baby other". I laughed. They are both handspun. The longies are some waste from spinderella plied with BFL (that's Blue-faced Leicester for the unitiated) and the other is some gray from a sheep on the Notlwonk Springs that I dyed with Kool-Aid.

I didn't want to post too many photos, so this will suffice for now. Look out for photos with Saori and my newest FO: a pair of lace knitted summer socks (I love them!).

Happy Labor Day!

ad campaign and Stinky politicians/pharm companies

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/08/30/AR2007083002198.html?referrer%3Demailarticle&sub=new

'nuff said

The doldrums...and birthdays!

Do you remember that movie? (I know, all of you purists will start ranting..."it's a book! It's a book") It was an old cartoon rendition of the Phantom Tollbooth. There was a song about the doldrums and how they just kind of slid around. That's what I feel like today: Kind of sulky that it's time to gear down for school, and really just wanting to *be*.

It's been to long since I lost wrote and I need to make a new goal not to write so much in each post. If I wrote more often I wouldn't have this problem. :-) Although, I have also given up with photos for now. Our computer is too full and won't load my photos right. In fact, I can't have more than two programs open at once, or it will give me a full disk error. It's such a pian, but one that hopefully will "shortly be remedied."

My baby is two today. We had a party for Buggy on Saturday where she choked on some watermelon. I mean really choked. It wasn't totally covering her airway all of the time, but she wasn't getting adequate air for several minutes. She turned blue once at the beginning, but she just couldn't cough hard enough to get it out. I started to get really nervous and HeaterBoy held her upside down and did everything you *can* do for someone who is choking and still getting some air through until I finally convinced him to let me call 911. Of coure, as soon as I had someone on the phone, she finally coughed it out-after a few well-placed fingersweeps by dad. After the excitment, she stayed really still in my arms for a while until she tried to get more watermelon.

I can't believe Buggy is doing so well. The day she was born was such a miraculous and spiritual day for me. It was such a peaceful Sunday morning. It went exactly as I had envisioned, with my small but very effective supporting team, and my amazing husband there to hold my hand as I experienced something so new and scary and wonderful and exciting and empowering and did I say scary? I had worked so hard that pregnancy to find trust in my body and my baby. I worked to reconnect with my spirit and make a safe place for my baby to be. I don't know if I'll ever forget how empowering and wonderful that day was. It has helped me to better mother. There is a quote that someone on one of my lists has in her siggy and it says "There is a secret in our society and it's not that childbirth is dangerous, it's that women are strong." I don't remember who said the quote, but I think about it every time I see it.

Buggy helped me to be a strong woman. She helped me to see that strength isn't originated in ourselves but in our God. We are strong. Mothers are given so many gifts just by virtue of motherhood and womanhood that it constantly amazes me. I am so grateful for Buggy and all that she has taught me. Also, the things that I have learned from God because I am blessed enough to take care of her.

I didn't want to write a ton about her "accident" as that anniversary isn't for five more weeks, but I do want to mention that after that happened, and she survived it, that we were left wondering how much longer she would be with us. Whether it would be months or years, nobody could tell us. The last two years have been such a lesson for all of us in patience, compassion, trust, faith and love that we could never have foreseen. Every day is a special gift and I don't know if I'll ever be non-neurotic enough to stop watching for her breathing, but I'm grateful for the time we have.

The five weeks I had with Buggy before her accident are so precious to me. She was so neurologically mature that she was truly smiling within one or two weeks. She spent so much time in awake, alert stage that I was amazed. She just wanted to take in the whole world. She loved getting to know her siblings. She allowed me to dress her up and tolerated it all. she had some colic at night, but we figure that they were headaches and not tummyaches. Even with the headaches, she was so easily consoled. I would just throw her in the sling and walk up and down 800 East. She nursed like a champ (my first easy nursing experience) and she even made tandem nursing not so ferocious.

I miss that girl. Although, she was so precocious, would she have been telling me about the spirit world before she forgot? :-) I grieve the future that every parent wants for their child. I also celebrate what she is able to do in *this* body at this time. I am realizing that dichotomy in emotions is possible. It's what makes us human. Buggy was supposed to come to us. She was supposed to be like she is. Who knows what that means for the future? I know my family can be eternal and I'm going to try as hard as I can to keep it that way. Earth life can be so temporary.

Aack! I'm, trying to upload my photos and it's just not working. I turnd in my knitting and got...

BLUE RIBBONS!

Nevermind that most of the contestants in Cache Valley get blue ribbons. It still felt good and I think I made about $6. I'm not sure, I haven't picked up my prize money yet. That's better than a kick in the pants. Especially considerng I spent about $40 at the fair that weekend. ;-) Wouldn't it be nice to make back what I spend? Maybe I'll knit and spin like crazy this year and attempt the feat.

We also sent Saori off this morning. This is part of my lack of posting this last two weeks. We have been going liek mad dogs, trying to get everything in. We still didn't make it to some places like the Great Salt Lake (I know, it's gross, but you have to go at least once while you're in Utah), Golden Spike, Hot Springs, Aquatic Center. But we made it to most of Belen's appointments and got some of her shoppig done, so it's good. Rapunzel was so very sad to see Saori leave, she refused to giver her a hug goodbye for quite some time. Buggy slept through most of the final picture taking. We (the grown-ups) were up until after 2:00 last night just talking, so I set two alarms to wake up and I *still* missed both of them. We were going to get her some salsa that she liekd at Lee's early, but it just didn't happen.

We were so glad that Saori came to stay with us and we hope that we can see her again someday. Maybe I'll send my sister to find her while she's gallivanting around with my parents next month. :-) She has becmome a new part of our family and we are all so grateful to have had the opportunity to have met her.

Once I can figure out my computer glitches (grrr), I'll post some pics of all of us at Aggie Ice Cream. And my blue ribbon stuff :-)

The beginning of the End

of Summer, that is. I can see things start to wind down. My nephew already started kindergarten last week. We went school shopping already for cool things like pencils and sharpeners and of course, the new color pack of Sharpies.

We are really excited to be hosting an exchange chaperone from Japan on Sunday. We will have her with us for two weeks. We don't have kids old enough to host a teenage in the program, so it will be one of the chaperones, which is great because she has kids the same age as ours. She'll be without them, but it should be lots of fun. The kids and I have been thinking of fun (preferably free) places to take her. Any suggestions? She may have been to SLC already, so I'm thinking more local. We're already reading a bunch about Japan to get ready and Frodo is having fun reading about the Samurais.

Finished Harry Potter. Kind of sad, it's an era for me. HeaterBoy had tons to say concerning her editing, or lack thereof, but she's a good storyteller.

We went to SLC twice this week for appointments with Buggy. A barium upper GI study showed that her stomach is fully 1/3 above her diaphragm. That could cause problems, but it's not right now. Her Nissen is still holding and that is good news. It's held for 22 months now and so it will probably be okay. Shes' eating tons by mouth this week, so I'm hopeful that it will continue. It's so much better to digest your food with the enzymes that are included in your saliva. It's made a difference in her rashes.

Our tomatoes are getting ready to redden up and I picked our first zucchini this week! It was so exciting. HeaterBoy was commissioned to make some ice cream for a party, and he might actually make money doing it. The Gardner's Market has been fun for us.

I have been working on a pair of socks, but I refuse to take a pictuere until they are complete. I will be taking some pics of some other things. A friend and I are going to enter some stuff in the couty Fair. I've never done it before, but I think it will be fun. I'm going to put in Buggy's Flirty Skirty and one of her longies. I spun the yarn for both. when I get them ready I will post here too.

Oh, For goodness sake...

I was just making a comment on a friends blog (Good Luck JP!) and I realized it's been a while since I updated. Here I am trying to upload some pics. I've been trying to post a bio pic and it just keeps freezing up. I'm not sure what the problem is, but I'll try uploading photos to my post this time.

I just have to say, that I'm sorry that karatemommy had a rough time, but I'm glad she's back. It means I have friends at home. And Doreen is coming home early next week! I'm so excited. It's been so lonely to be out of the Villa and my best friends gone. My kids aren't even tan!

As a tangent to explain...All summer long, in the Villa, my kids were outside playing with their friends. They got *really* tan in the summer and I did too. Last weekend we went to Bear Lake and they weren't even as dark as my sister's kids! I was shocked. Mine are usually darker, but my sis just moved into a neighborhood where the kids run from yard to yard on their cul-de-sac and mine now live on a street with college students living on all sides of us. It's too hot to be outside unless there is real motivation and playing with siblings just isn't it.

So..to something totally different, a couple of weeks ago, B was being tested by her Speech Pthologists for her regualr eval and they asked her to identify one of four pictures on a page. They were objects that she knows the signs for and has repeated them back to me numerous times. She wouldn't do it. We waited for a long time and she just wouldn't do it. I chalked it up to age-appropriate beligerence and didn't worry. But her vision therapist has asked me to start working with her on some abstract shapes so that she can identify them and then we can test her acuity. Once again, she has never done it for me. Meanwhile, back at the ranch of the CommD feeding clinic, another speech path gave her a "voice box" which talks for her after she pushes a button. It has pictures of objects she likes and she pushes them when she wants what it shows on the pictures (for example, a button has a pic of some crackers and it says, "I want a snack." She has a couple of "favorites" (see previous example) and she won't touch the other buttons.

When the vision therapist came back to test my progress at getting B to obey, I started putting everything together and asked her if that could all be connectd. She was very convinced that it was and that B proobably has a vision processing problem and possibly (I think probably) a language processing problem as well. We won't know the extent of it or what exactly it affects for years. I asked pne of her speech teachers today if we were dealing with it appropriately, and she said that the only way processing problems are treated is by repetition, but it almost certainly would improve with what we are doing. Oh fun, I can't wait to see how this manifests as she gets older. How do we tell people who spend large amounts of time with her (primary teachers, for example) in a way that they can understand? I don't even think I can understand it to my own satisfaction. I guess we just keep doing what we are doing.

So this first pic if my beautiful B in june. The second one is the birthday one that I promised to post. It's me in my "birthyda outfit" from omi and the cute purse/knitting bag that she got for me. (of course, my appendage, aka Rapunzel, is with me).

Enjoy!

Good Reads!

I just finished a book from one of my all-time favorite authors. I admit, I like romances, and I love old Gothic ones, but right now, I adore Juliet Marillier. I fell in love with her Sevenwaters Trilogy and she has newer series out called The Bridei Chronicles. I just read the first book, The Dark Mirror. They are yummy books to curl up with. Lots of subtext and complex characters.

Anyway, I spent all of my birthday money at knitpicks. I've never bought anything from them in loyalty to my LYS, but I thought I'd better try them just once. I'll have to send a pic when it gets here. 12 balls of yarn! I'm so excited I could almost wet myself. I've started a new pair of socks and I love how the lace is shaping up. I've finally finished the longies that I spun up and started for Belen last November (why did I think that I would finish them last winter?) well...kind of. I still need to graft and weave, but who counts that, right?

Jared is going to be selling homemade ice cream at the Gardener's Market tomorrow. That is, if they let him, he hasn't technically been approved by the market powers-that-be. I tasted some of the respberry ice cream that he'll be making and I'm sure that it will run out before the market is over. He's only planning to make three batched so you'd better come quick! He's taking Zeke with him in the car and I'll follow on the LTD with the girls. He's running around the house madly right now, gathering everything and making sure everything is ready.

Birthdays are...

yeah, it was my birthday yesterday. I'm 29. I look at that number and I feel a lot older than that. Other times, I feel so much younger. I don't want to minimize any one else's experiences, I just feel like I've had my fair share for a while. I usually reflect a little on my birthday, and make some goals, but I'm not really in a place to do that right now.

Anyway, Yesterday was GREAT! I went to the Temple with a dear friend in my playgroup. H was baptized a year ago and has been chomping at the bit to go to the temple. At 9:00 am we were all seated in the Logan Temple and about 1/3 to 1/2 of the people in the endowment room were people there to support her. Someday I'd like to know I've had that much influence. Micheal Ballam was there for her! After that, I had to mow the lawn (Ick!) so I also had to take some benadryl....

Then we went to my parents house and they took us to Famous Dave's. It's a restaurant that I really like. The kids all ate their food and then omi and opi took the kids while we traipsed around Layton for an hour and a half. I realized that while I enjoy window shopping, I don't really like "real" shopping for myself. All sorts of guilt and frustration for not finding exactly the right thing. Ah well, if I don't find the right shoes, I can always find some yarn to spend my birthday money on, right?

My mom got me this cute purse and an outfit, along with some spending money and Jared took me to look for a table for my basin and pitcher! I haven't been able to find just the right one, but it will come.

All in all, it was a pretty nice birthday. Oh yeah! My bil and sil said they would take the kids for a night for us as a gift as well. I'm so excited! I took a coupe photos, so I'll post those as soon as I find the camera...

Joining the rest of the Universe...

Okay, Okay, I've done it. I'm now a blogger. I won't have a witty blog like Yarn Harlot (I'll make that a witty link when I figure out how...) and it may not be very funny, but I'll try to be genuine. This won't be a strictly knitting/spinning blog or a music blog or even a mommy blog as I don't do enough of one thing to make that even remotely interesting. I may be on a soapbox or two occasionally, but I'll try not to do that often.

so...I told the kidlets that I was going to have a blog and they could even post if they wanted to, the only rule was they couldn't use their real names :-)

That got them so excited!

They realized the world of fake names was open to them and they started thinking in earnest for the perfect name to be on the blog...

Son #1: I want to be Ammon, that's a good name...and then he thought of all the superheroes he could be. He came up with Frodo all though he may change that as we go along. :-)

Daughter #1: I want a queen name, can I have a queen name? Not a kid name, mom, it has to be a grown-up name! We came up with Queen Rapunzel although she is both a kid (according to her) and a princess, but it seemed to be exciting enough, that she acquiesced. (She loves Rapunzel right now)

Daughter #3: She's taking a nap right now, so we get to choose for her. I think we'll call her Little Buggy because that's what we call her anyway...

DH will be HeaterBoy and I won't explain that one because that may just be TMI. :-)

Now that we've got that all set up...

I have to vent about this week's happenings, Buggy got a respiratory infection that Rapunzel brought home (isn't it nice when kids share everything?) and I was afraid it was getting worse. Tuesday night's SATs were terrible and we had to turn up her oxygen to 5 whole liters! After a fiasco with the dr's I finally called my midwife and she was so kind and gentle. She's also amazingly intuitive. Every once in a while, I question her and wonder how she can be so spot on, but Dh and I agreed to try her course of herbs for 24 hours before we started the antibiotics (nobody really believed it was bacterial at this point, but they didn't want it to get there).

Can I just tell you how much I love my midwife? Overnight, Buggy's oxygen needs got steadily lower until this morning she was on no supplemetal oxygen. She woke up chipper and the mucous doesn't seem to be out of control. She even ate breakfast this morning. I know that there are many doctors who feel it is their "calling" to heal people and that is why they choose their profession. My midwife feels the same way. I know they are both right, I just know that for me, I'll use pharmaceuticals sparingly and use the plants that God gave us for healing as much as I can.

Yesterday I had a small breakdown and the kids were there to witness every bit of it...I was so ashamed. But because of that, they started talking about their own fears surrounding Buggy's frequent hospital visits to the Children's Hospital in Salt Lake. It was tender as they revealed how afraid they were of losing Buggy and me. That one kind of blindsided me, but it was definitely one of those eternal teaching moments and I know that they feed me spiritually as much as I feed them.

So that's my first post...