Joys of Motherhood

I took the kids to a dentist appointment, yesterday. On the way there, Max fell asleep. When we got there, I got him out of the car with some difficulty (He is getting big!) and juggled a bunch of stuff as I walked into the dentist office. Regular mother stuff, right. Right, until I sat down with him and waited for the kids to finish with their cleanings. At that precise time Max decided to release the pressure in his bladder and I got a very yucky warm, wet sensation that went all down my legs and into the seat of my pants. Max was wearing a sweatsuit where you couldn't even tell he had gone, but I looked like I had released a whole days worth on myself. A kind lady next to me went and got me paper towels, but I couldn't clean up much with those- especially with Max still completely out. I sat in that for another 15 minutes as the kids finished with their cleanings. Then I had Emma walk very close behind me and I used my purse and Max to shield the front. Of course, that day was the busiest I have ever seen in that office! Ah motherhood! What a Joy!

Verdicts

Sam had his first baseball game the other day (there have been a lot of rain outs this season). The verdict from Sam- "Baseball is boring!" Since both Robert and I agree, it was hard to be encouraging. Rob tried his best and we will slug through the rest of the season- 3 hours twice a week. Sam says he is ready to try football, but Rob wants him to wait until he grows a little more. Our poor short boy. They took team pictures the other day- I brought my long lens and took them myself (because, hello $30 a kid is not cheap or worth it when you have three!) Anyway, he was the shortest one on the team, including the little girl. Rob gives me the "this is all your fault" finger pointing and I give it right back. There are no short genes in my family!

Our friend Jodi came and visited from Hawaii. We didn't get to spend much time with her. Mostly it was just on Saturday and even then, we all separated. She took Emma to her soccer game, while I took Joseph to his and Rob took Sam to his baseball game. We did get to do a dinner with adults that evening for one of the guy's birthday party. Here he is a couple weeks ago after the Saturday morning mountain bike ride. Can you guess what he got for his birthday?
The Verdict: Three in sports at once is almost impossible without good friends. We need our Scott and Jodi back! Also, if you can get your kid on a soccer team where they are the only Caucasian, including the coach who can only say, "you Ok, Joe?" then you know that your team is going to dominate!

On our Spring break trip we began and finished the book "The City of Ember." The kids loved it and we had to immediately find the next book: "The People of Sparks." We are currently reading it. The movie is coming soon from Netflix. We will let you know the Verdict then. I tend to not enjoy the movies as much as the books. I think the only movies I like as well were the Jane Austin books and the only ones I have enjoyed more are the Shakespeare ones like "Much Ado about Nothing." The Verdict for the book: Two thumbs up!
Another book we just finished was "The Mysterious Benedict Society." It is about a bunch of orphans and runaways that are recruited to help save the world. We really enjoyed the tests and questions they posed in the book. We would try to figure them out before we read how the children figured them out. The Verdict: Loved it. Two thumbs way up! The kids are very excited to read the follow up book.
I started this new thing to help the kids get to know their grandparents better since we don't live by any of them and probably never will while the kids are growing up. I sent out books with a question for them to answer. So much of our every day lives are never written down. I always wonder how women handled things like periods back in my grandparents day- did they stay home from school? Did they use rags back then- how do you do that? How about how they dealt with the Civil Rights Act- did they see any of these terrible things that you hear about? Anyway, our first question was about the TV. When they got their first TV, what they watched, what they did instead of watching TV- things like that. We have gotten one grandparent and both great grandparents books back and they have been a lot of fun to read. The Verdict: A little expensive to send back and forth, but I loved the responses and reading about my parents' and grandparents' childhood. Even my grandfather who has done a ton of history writing, had to write some more to answer the question. I definitely recommend it!

For Inquiring Minds

Update:
Rob broke his fibula while running up to meet me at the gym. I had already run for 50 minutes and had jumped in my car to go home. He thought I would leave without seeing him, so he jumped off the curb while raising his arms in a very cute "Hello, I am here" pose and then forgot to look down at where the ground was. Everybody thinks it is very cute that he was trying to impress me after so many years of marriage, but I think that is the way marriage should work. Pretty soon I will be married to him longer than I was single and I will still want to impress him!
He was put only in an air cast, because they said that they only wanted to restrict the side to side movement. He was also given PT. He went to PT the other day and he said, " this is what they said, 'walk on it as soon as you can. oh, you are already? Ok, keep it up.'" He wasn't impressed and probably won't go back.
No he does not wear his air cast, except at night- big turkey! He wears his boots to work and figures that is all the support he needs. He wears it at night, because as we all know, children are attracted to your painful sights and they long to jump upon them!
Yes, he is swollen, black and blue and hobbling, but no he didn't stop working out. He even rode the stationary bike the other day and worked on Sam's baseball with him last night. He is a good Daddy! And apparently he rode his motorcycle to work- Crazy Turkey!

Trust who?

Why is it that the people we love the most are sometimes the people we trust the least? Mom has to tell us we are pretty, right? But when your Emergency Department nurse wife tells you that you have broken your leg, you might want to believe her! Can anyone else see the obvious indent in the lower leg on the outside? Rob had all kinds of excuses for it and so even though I called up the charge nurse in the ER and got a bed for him- going through the ambulance door, so all the other people who were waiting wouldn't know, we waited at home, he took an old percocet we had lying around (and then got a urinalysis today- oops) and then went into sick call this morning. Confirmed and vindicated! It's broke alright! And luckily the sick call doc gave him a prescription for Percocet or he would have had some explaining to do on that urinalysis!!

Spring break and Redneck Moments

Robert planned a Spring break trip for us this year. I thought he would have to work the entire time, so I hadn't any expectations. Remembering that it is still early spring and the temperatures are definitely lower than last year at this same time, don't be surprised when I thought he was absolutely crazy for planning a camping trip in Pennsylvania! I went along, begrudgingly, but trying to put a happy face on. We ended up only spending Thursday night camping, because it was suppose to pour rain on Friday. Instead, it decided to wait until Saturday- our day we planned to spend at Hershey's park.
Camping actually turned out pretty fun, except for the mating geese right behind us and the very cold night that I couldn't sleep through. Even Robert said, "I wouldn't have wanted it any colder." For Rob, my little heater, that is saying something. I am a naturally cold person and I think the older I get the worse my circulation is getting. Now, just getting in and out of the car and walking to the gym and then back to my house, freezes my hands until they are numb. It takes hours before I get the feeling back in them. The poor people in the ER hate me when I touch them- because the ER isn't cold enough, right? So the cold really was hard on me. Most of the time I was in a long sleeve shirt and had two jackets on top of me and was still cold. We had fun roasting marshmallows, building fires (we kept seeing everyone coming out of the camping office with bags of wood that cost them $5. We had just stopped at a park on the way up and gotten all kinds of wood that was on the ground. Then we picked up the wood all around our campground. There was plenty of it for all the fire we wanted, being early spring and all!),making foil dinners and playing around in nature. Before we left for the camp ground Rob had marked the boys, "in case they got lost."Max thought it was great fun to pull down his pants and show you his mark!Friday night we stayed in a hotel, but still had plenty of food from camping, so we opened the window in the hotel room and had ourselves a little redneck moment!While we were in Pennyslvania we couldn't resist a stop at Hershey's, where we bought entirely too much candy. I kept telling my children that I was sure the Easter bunny had plenty of candy to bring them, but who can resist a fresh Peanut Butter Cup?
After the rain let up on Saturday, we headed to Hershey's park and had a great time. Most of their rides have enough safety features on them that little kids can ride them as well. Joseph got to ride his first big roller coaster! I watched his little face. He had the biggest eyes, but never looked too scared or held on too tight. It was amazing! He was ready to ride it again. I told him the first rollercoaster I ever rode on was with my Aunt Karen- I think she and my brother Karl tricked me into it, because I remember getting to the head of the line and realizing what it was and begging to not go on it. I cried most of the ride, but then immediately wanted to do it again! We even got Max on a rollercoaster. We told him it was a train. Was that terrible? It wasn't that bad, but he didn't want to do it again and when I asked him if he wanted to ride the slow train, he said, "no!" Ok, I know, bad Mom!This ride he is actually having fun on- you just can't tell from the facial expression. That is why I took the picture. It is his concentration face. He is making the bee buzz by pressing a button over and over. He actually really loved this ride!
There were lots more rides we wanted to try, but the Easter Bunny had work to do, I had to get back and do somethings for my last sharing time, and I knew Rob would want to clean up before we had Easter the next day, so after a quick stop to get more treats we headed back home with our belly's full of chocolate! Thanks Dad for a great Spring Break trip, but maybe I should help plan the next one!

Not Quite so messy of an Easter

For me Easter is about new church clothes. OK, I know. It is really about our Saviour and the price he paid for us, but you can't hear about that in your old church clothes according to my twisted mind. My husband reminded me that last year he decided to make Easter breakfast and then he was ridiculed for quite awhile afterwards when the DD decided to spill grape juice all over her new Easter dress. This year we decided to have cereal- something we rarely do, and some white grape juice. Emma came down in street clothes and the boys were not allowed to wear their Easter shirts until they were done. Of course we had to have at least one mishap. Samuel didn't think that hot chocolate drinking was part of the being done requirement to putting on his shirt. Needless to say, we did a little quick washing before church.

I forgot to get a picture, before half of us were out of our Easter outfits, so only the boys are in the "Family Easter Photo." We will get a belated one next week.

After church (where I was released from my calling in the Primary Presidency- and that is a whole new set of ramblings for another time) we came home and then went to a friends for a BBQ and an egg hunt. The kids all had a great time!

Why I hate DC or My learning curve is pretty steep

Sunday after the first session of Conference we decided to go see the Cherry Blossoms in DC. My idea! I thought that since the big parade and street fair was yesterday that this would be a great time to go and take some pictures without a million people running around. Can I just state here that I hate DC! Everyone always says there is so much to do and see here, but the problem is you can't do or see any of it, because there are so many people trying to do the same thing! We live right outside of DC and so it doesn't take that long to go into DC. We spent 4 hours in the car- 40 minutes on a very short bridge and in the end we just turned around and headed home, because the traffic and the parking and everything else was impossible. We never even made it to the tidal basin. Yes, we have seen the Cherry Blossoms before, so it wasn't a huge deal that we didn't get to see them. It just made us sore, tired and extremely grouchy. What's the use of stuff to do, if you really can't do it, because of the crowds? Really there are a ton of things to do and see, but you just have to learn the "when" and the "how".
Sometimes mass transit is the only way you are going to get around- yesterday should have been a mass transit day (unfortunately it was Sunday.)
You can't go anywhere from 6 am-9 am and 3 pm-7pm.
If you want to go out to dinner on a Friday, go early- before 6 pm and it doesn't matter when you go on Saturday, prepare to wait!
Never leave your house at the start of Spring break, Summer break, Winter break, etc. If you do decide to go somewhere on those breaks, be prepared for a lot of traffic and frustration or go at like 4 am on Saturday morning.
Try to avoid free and opening day events unless you don't really care if you see just a little bit and don't mind hoards of people.
Just be happy you went to the Easter Egg Roll at the White house. Most people never get to do that. Don't actually expect to be able to roll an egg. You will wait all day long and it will close before you get the chance to roll or do anything else.
Any nice day in DC from the beginning of spring until fall will be packed! One of these days we will realize that and start going on days when it is pouring rain! Of course on those days, you will be shoulder to shoulder with every other person in DC if you try to go see one of the Smithsonians!