... And they're off!

Ever been to the race track? This photo reminds me of Del Mar...

This year our annual egg hunt was held at Grandpa and Grandma's park. Lisa usually heads this up but she was occupied with other things. Grandma was in charge of hiding the eggs. The kids' favorite eggs were those with special messages in them: a sleep-over at Grandpa and Grandma's house with ice cream sundaes, your favorite dinner made by mom, a craft day at Grandma's, a bow shooting session with Grandpa and an hour at the park with Grandma. The candy was popular as well, but Grandma and I were surprised to see the kids ditching the candy eggs and looking for the ones with the papers in them. I guess the parenting books are right, attention and time is always the best reward.

I colored eggs with the kids this year. I realized that I hadn't done this for a while, I think it might have been Gavin's first time (strange how we forget the details after a kid or two). Ofcourse things digressed toward the end, there was dye everywhere and they resorted to using their fingers instead of the hygenically designed dipping utensils. Thank goodness for newspaper and soap!

My Basket's Better Than Yours!

Wow, somebody sure knows what our favorite things are! Look at this beautiful basket from Nana and Papa. There's something for everyone here. Dan claimed the gourmet jelly beans, I went for petit fours, the kids had some of everything, and I hid most of the rest of it so we don't all turn into fat rabbits ourselves.

I promise...

Some cute Easter photos to come. I'm using my better judgement and NOT staying up til 1 a.m. to do this tonight. But tomorrow, I promise!

What the ???

This morning I was putting some things away in the nursery and found this. It seems that Tristan is doing science experiments around the house again. I don't know that for sure but it fits his profile more than anyone else who lives here. Somehow I just don't see Jolie as a bacteriological scientist. These are petri dishes and inside there are cotton swabs that I use to clean Jolie's ear piercings. They're sitting on top of the heat register in Mia's room. I'm very interested to get to the bottom of this...

Open Secrets

While we're on the subject of books, I wanted to make a recommendation to anyone who's looking for a good read. Open Secrets by Alice Munro is a collection of short stories. She's an amazing story teller, I really enjoyed this one.

Jolie's an Author!

Over the past few weeks I've been hearing a lot about Jolie's masterpiece. I had no idea it was going to be so enlightening, especially her opinion about the food we ate while we were at Disney World. Following is an excerpt from her book.

Three Wishes

Today over lunch, a friend recounted her kids' three wishes. She has a book where she writes all this stuff down and they love to hear the funny things they said in past years. (Ofcourse I told her she should start blogging).

So tonight Lara inspiried me to grant three wishes to everyone at OUR dinner table:

Jolie
"I wish we could have recess all day."
"I wish Mommy could be President." (huh?)
"I wish we could watch Spongebob."

Gavin
"I wish I could be a Rescue Hero."
"I wish I could fly."
"I wish I had a Rescue Hero toy."

Tristan (who took the longest to respond and really thought this through)
"I wish I could be a Jazz player" (which he said would also fulfill his wish of being rich and having everything he wanted).
"I wish there were no such thing as homework."
"I wish I couldn't get in trouble and Jolie and Gavin could."

Mommy
"I wish there were no such thing as housework."
"I wish I could scrapbook/quilt/read/play all day."
"I wish I could be healthy and strong and feel good every day."

Daddy
"Good weather"
"Less polution"
"World peace"
oh... and after I commented on how selfish the rest of us had been and how altruistic he was... he admitted that he wished for brainier beauty contestants. But now I can't figure out if that wish is for the betterment of society or if there's a selfish motivation behind this.

Anyway, if you see any genies please send them in our direction.

My Likeness

I know it's stepping on the wild side for me to customize my layout. I spent this evening after dinner lying in bed while creating my avatar. Dan was really sweet to offer his laptop while he finished dinner with the kids and cleaned up the kitchen. My leg was hurting like crazy and I just couldn't go through the last half of dinner. Anyone who's dined with us knows that to be the part where Dan and I beg and plead with our kids to eat their food and keep their bums in their seats. Tonight the controversy was over the tomatoes in the red clam sauce (linguini) and the mushrooms, tomatoes and avacado in the salad.

My solitude was short-lived. The kids were quickly in my room giving input about my avatar. Gavin argued for goth makeup ("mommy, pick the scarry face") and Jolie had me trying on all sorts of interesting clothing. Somehow tube tops and mini skirts just didn't seem right for me. Tristan was mostly concerned with getting my hair color right.

So what do you think? Before you answer, realize that it's harder than you might think to create a two-dimensional likeness of yourself. Especially when the options DON'T include worn-out, sweatpants-wearing, milk-and-baby-pooped-stained, limping, circles-under-the-eyes, mommy... types.

An Update

Tomorrow will be one week since my surgery and things are going well. I'm slowly getting my life back. I'm still not back to normal but at least my entire existance isn't consumed with pain management. I have my incision and some residual pain from the compressed nerve but I'm told that will eventually go away. I have to abide by some restrictions over the next 6-8 weeks, mainly no lifting over 10 lbs. I'm also not supposed to sit for more than 10 minutes at a time but I'm finding that to be easy with four kids to take care of.

The main challenge now is taking care of Mia. She's about 11 lbs. so I'm ok carrying her. I can't bend over to lift her from her crib or swing or go from sitting to standing with her. It's a little tricky but we've found some ways to work around my restrictions. The hardest thing is that I'm still not able to go anywhere with the kids because I can't lift Mia in her carseat. That's keeping me close to home and it makes driving Tristan's carpool impossible unless someone is here to leave Mia with.

Yesterday I drove for the first time in almost 6 weeks! It was surreal. It reminded me of when I returned home after spending several weeks in Europe. Everything seemed new. I'd forgotten the presets on my stereo, the DJ on my favorite radio station seemed like a long lost friend. I felt like a tourist as I drove through Kaysville. Really, it was weird. The strangest part was the realization that the outside world was exactly the same but that I had changed. Who could have known that a trip to Albertsons could cause such an epiphany?

Finally, I need to let everyone know that I am, in fact, at home and not in a Utah County rehab facility with Lindsay Lohan and Kirsten Dunst. I know there were many among my friends and family who were concerned that my heavy reliance on oxycontin would lead me there. At least MOST of them were subtle in their concern and didn't actually ask me outright how many pills I had taken that day... and then call me the next day and ask the same question. No, I'm not making this up. I have been thinking, though, since my medical bills have already started rolling in... I could probably sell my remaining oxycontin on the street and pay a lot of my medical bills. Would that make me a bad person?

Our Doll

I know this blog is becoming a shrine to Mia and you'd hardly know we had any other children, but I couldn't resist posting this photo. At two months she's starting to fatten up. She also loves to smile and study everything in her line of sight. She spends more time awake and ofcourse she loves to be held, walked around, and talked to. She has also discovered her voice and loves to coo at us and vocalize while she's nursing.

Yesterday Mia was long overdue for a bath. I asked Jolie to go upstairs and get the bathtub, a towel, washcloth and a clean outfit to put on her. After being gone for what seemed like a long time, Jolie came down with all the bathing essentials and the most impressive assortment of baby clothing you can imagine. She had a dress from Mia's closet which we've never put on her (mostly because we've never taken her anywhere), a onesie, some velvety shoes, a headband, and a pair of frilly socks. Dan and I looked at each other and told Jolie we were thinking more like jammies. I promised Jolie that someday she and I would dress Mia to the nines, but for now a nice pair of comfortable PJs would do.

Scalpel, please...

Well, I'm scheduled to have surgery on Thursday. I never thought I'd actually look forward to being sliced open but I am. The mylogram showed a pretty bad herniation of my disk at L5 S1 (what did I tell you?) which explains the horrid pain. I basically have disk fragments and inflamation sitting on my sciatic nerve. I talked to a woman from church who's had the same injury and the same surgery and she compares the pain to what you get when you bump your funny bone and get that sharp, almost electric nerve pain in your arm. Well, that's what this is except is starts at the lower back and goes all the way down the back of my butt and leg all the way to my pinky toe. All the time. It's horrid. So you can see why I'd do anything, including being sliced open, to have it end.

I was going to try to report some news off this subject but I can't think of any. This is pretty much our life right now. I'm going to get out and party big time when it's over. I never thought that something simple like running an errand or going for a walk would seem like such a privilege. I can't wait to get back to my normal life.

Starting to Thaw

The sun has been out the last couple of days. We haven't had snow for a whole 6 days! I took this photo a couple of weeks ago to show how much snow we had. I haven't been outside for a while but I think it's starting to melt off.

I had the mylograph and CT on Wednesday. It wasn't pleasant but I got through it. They had me lie face-down on a table while a radiologist guided a needle into my spine. They injected contrast (dye) into my spinal fluid so that the structures would show up better on the CT.

The worst part of the whole deal was that I had to lie flat for the rest of the day because there's a good chance of getting a spinal headache after people mess with your spinal fluid. I hadn't counted on this, as Tristan's drama performance was that evening. I wasn't sure how I was going to go as I've been house-bound since my injury, but I was determined to go and at least see his number. It was a really big deal to him. It was very dissapointing to have to stay home. Mia and I layed on the family room floor while everyone else went to the performance. Fun, fun.

Tristan didn't give me a hard time when I told him I couldn't come, but I happened to see his journal entry he next day. His teacher must have asked the class to journal how they felt about their performance. He wrote, "I felt good because we did a good job. My grandparents said 'good job!'. I felt sad because my mom couldn't come." It broke my heart when I read that.

Mia's Smiles

I'm going in for a mylegram and CT on my spine today. They'll inject dye into my spine and then do a cat scan to see what's going on. I wish they'd just take my word for it... that I've ruptured my disk (L5 S1). I'm not looking forward to another catheter in my back but I'll do whatever it takes at this point.

These photos are of Mia's recent smiles. She's very happy and that's the one thing that's getting me through this. At least I know that all the pain and suffering was for a good reason.

Blessing Day

Today was Mia's blessing day. It was a very special day and an especially bright spot after a couple of difficult weeks for me. Dan blessed Mia in our home. Brother Brown from our bishoprick was here as well as my family. Mia looked angelic in the beautiful dress that my mom made for Jolie six years ago. It was a little big, though. I think that Mia is probably about the same size at 7 weeks as Jolie was at birth (nearly 10 lbs.)

Laid Up

I'm afraid I'm writing from bed this morning. I brought my laptop in here several days ago after I did something horrid to my back. I had back surgery a couple years ago and I'm sorry to say that my symptoms resemble what I was experiencing back then. I'm pretty sure I've re-ruptured the disk. As with most other things, only someone who's been through it can truly understand the horrid pain I've been in the last week and a half.

The good news is that I've been seeing some improvement through a combination of rest, anti-inflamatories, narcotic pain killers and physical therapy. I was amazed to find out that I can still nurse Mia on these drugs. That's a huge blessing because I don't know if I could make it without them and I would have been VERY sad if I'd had to stop nursing her at only 6 weeks old.

I'v gotten to where I can cope here at home but I'm not really able to go anywhere because I'm not able to drive. Sitting causes excruciating pain. The only time I've been out of the house in the last ten days is for physical therapy and I've had to be driven by someone, plus someone to look after the kids while I'm gone so it's quite an undertaking.

I think HF is trying to teach me patience and empathy. I never thought I'd have to go through something like this again. Did I not learn the lesson the first time around?

So Much Snow

We're in the middle of another humongo snow storm. It's already dumped about 14" at our place and it's still coming down.

This winter has been one storm after another. You'll hear a lot of people around here complaining about the snow but I'm not one of them. I used to love the snow purely and for no other reason than the great powder skiing opportunities it provided. That seems like a lifetime ago. Now I love the snow because:

(1) It's pretty (beats looking at the brown soggy lawn all winter);
(2) A big storm adds some excitement to an otherwise blah winter day
(3) I rarely HAVE to drive in it (no more long, scarry commutes from Syracuse to downtown or the U);
(4) Giant snowmen all over the neighborhood
(5) I love how the snow flocks the branches of the trees right after it falls.
(6) The sound of the snowplow coming through the neighborhood (one of Gavin's favorites, too)
(7) This will seem weird, but I love it when the car slides just a little.

That last one reminds me of when I was a teenager and I was with my parents and sisters when we slid off the freeway into a gully between the northbound and southbound lanes of I-15. Now that was a little TOO MUCH sliding. I do remember us laghing about it though while we were sitting in the gully waiting for help. (Or maybe it was everyone but mom laughing).

1 Month

Today Mia is one month old! She's getting very close to flashing us a smile. We've noticed that she watches our lips when we talk to her and a few times she's taken on a very serious look and tried to move her own lips into a smile. She hasn't quite got there yet but it's likely to happen any day.

I still remember the first time Tristan smiled. I was on maternity leave from my job and I'd spent many days and nights caring for him and getting used to the rigors of motherhood. The day he first smiled at me I knew it was all worth it.

My Failed Photo Shoot

We were all home today and the sun (kinda) peeked through the clouds, so it was a perfect day for a photo shoot. I've been trying to get to this all week as I'm excited to get started on Mia's birth announcements.

After doing a few of these in the past, I've discovered that the fundamental ingredients in a successful newborn photo shoot are:

(1) Someone to help me so that the baby is positioned correctly and doesn't roll off the couch. And not just ANYONE will do. This is a highly specialized job. This person needs to be patient and needs to understand my need for perfection. They also need to be willing to sit under a heavy fleece blanket in the sun for a rather long time.
(2) Patience
(3) A south-facing window
(4) A sunny day
(5) A cooperative baby

Well, all of the ingredients were present today... except for #5! I guess we'll try again in a few days.

Is it ok to Spoil a Baby?

At three weeks of age, Mia is already spoiled. She's definitely figured out when she's being held or carried around, and when she's lying down in her crib. It's pretty common for her to wake up and start crying when she's laid down.

I wonder how this could have POSSIBLY happened!