Too Much to Write About

But I'll try. I may end up breaking the events of this week up into two different posts. We'll see. I also have two separate, single-subject posts I am anxious to get to. Sometime! I'm taking a cleaning break at the moment, as it is. Paul informed me this morning that since it is supposed to be 70 degrees tomorrow (!) and because he had just bought some shingles in a clearance bin at Menards yesterday he intended to call different men in our SS class and see if they would help him roof our garage tomorrow. Ack! This means I have to clean my house! I have had no time this week or last to follow my new cleaning schedule, so today I've been back to cleaning like a madwoman. Paul said, "All you have to do is clean the toilet!" Yeah, right! I have to clean every thing their eyes might possibly land on. That's a lot! So, I'm killing myself today.

That's Will, to the left, in his new picture. He turned 15 on Monday! Yesterday, as we were driving home from Boone (with me in in the passenger seat) I couldn't help but notice that he has whiskers above his upper lip - colored ones! My boy is so big! He said he had a good birthday. He wanted to go to a place out at Jordan Creek called Buffalo Wild Wings. I had never noticed it out there before, but apparently some of the boys in his youth group were talking about it, so Will wanted to try it. It was a noisy place, but the food was fine. If I'm going to pay to eat, I'd rather be somewhere where I can actually hear what people at the same table are saying. My brother called while I was there and I kept yelling, "What? What?" like I was some 90 year old woman! But anyway, it was a nice day for Will. We got him a second-hand shotgun (his "big" gift) and some other things. As his Uncle Matt said, "Any birthday where you get a gun is a good birthday!"...followed no doubt, by belching and belly rubbing!

The next day, while I was at the boys' dentist, I realized that my cell phone was missing. That always makes me panicky. I am convinced that evil is waiting to befall me momentarily since I am now incapable of calling for help! Since we were already on the West end of town I decided to swing by Buffalo Wild Wings and just see if, perchance, my phone had been left there. Sure enough, and thankfully, it was there. The manager told me not to feel bad - mine was the 3rd phone he had returned just that morning!

I did get a new niece on Monday. So, she and Will share the same birthday, which is kind of cool, I think. Now my parents' oldest and youngest grandbabies have the same birthday, 15 years apart. This is the first baby girl born into my family since me. So, my parents are pretty tickled! Somehow, I can't help but feel I let them down by producing only males...They named her Phoebe Grace Evelyn. She was Phoebe Grace Amelia for the first couple of days, but then they changed it. It was a scheduled c-section delivery. All my babies were c-sections, too, and you know, there is just something to be said about having babies that way! I went through labor - 16 hours of it - with Ben, and that was kind of painful! Especially at the end when my uterus ruptured! C-sections are just nice. I liked knowing the birthdate ahead of time. I liked the orderliness of the whole procedure. I hear stories about women tearing open their private parts and that does not appeal to me in the least - give me a nice, sterile, incision at the bottom of my belly any day! Of course there is the unpleasantness of the epidural and the recovery afterwards, but that's do-able. Percoset is one good thing to come out of modern-day pharmaceutical developments! Of course, I can say all this now since those days are behind me! I remember feeling like a failure after my first delivery ended in a c-section. I didn't know how good I'd just had it! But anyway, little Phoebe is here - with her perfectly round, c-section head!

We all got to meet her yesterday. My parents had been house and Jake (my 4 yr old nephew) sitting since Monday. So I drove up around noon yesterday. Matt and Kirsti and Baby got home from the hospital around 1:30, and my brother, Andy, and his family arrived from Minneapolis a little bit later. It was a little family reunion! I had to hand it to Kirsti for being willing to do this. I know when I got home from the hospital, all 4 times, all I wanted to do was drop (c-a-r-e-f-u-l-l-y-!) into bed and sleep! We had a nice time, though. At one point, Ezekiel, my 3 1/2 yr old nephew came into the house, announcing that "the big baby" was outside. It took us a moment to realize that he was talking about Sam, who by virtue of Phoebe's birth, is now the "big" baby!

Different subject now: Last week when we were at the funeral and at the graveyard, I was observing the different graves, some of which were decorated. I can completely understand how that would give bereaved family members a level of comfort to be able to do that. But then I had the thought of wondering if anyone decorates gravestones for Halloween. With its emphasis on things of the dead, might that be a little tacky? Well, no sooner did I think that and I saw a stone decorated up with vampire decorations! I'm sorry, but that is just too obvious and too over the line! Just do something autumn - some nice fall decorations and stay away from the Halloween stuff! Just my opinion here...

It's been a difficult week with Ben. We've had a lot of weeks like that. I'm to the point that I am seriously beginning to consider not homeschooling him. I plan to blog more about this later. But I'd appreciate prayer. This is huge decision to make and it's one I don't want to make. It's also one I don't want to screw up. There's just so much to consider and it's all very overwhelming, after being pretty much divorced from the whole system for 7 years now. But, as Paul mentioned last night, we have to consider my mental health. My mental health? Makes me sound like I'm teetering on the line that divides normal, loving, nurturing mothers between those that drive off cliffs into lakes with their children strapped in their carseats in the back!

We did have a minor "victory" with Ben this week. He went in for occupational therapy and it was so his therapist could see how he did with not having therapy for 6 weeks. She came out and said he's doing fabulous. She gave me a list of things to do at home with him and bid us a permanent farewell. So, after years of weekly OT sessions, we're free!

Sam had his last well-baby check up this week. He's so normal. Even his height has come down a little bit, back into more of a "normal" range. I don't think they got an extremely accurate measurement of either his weight or height, though. He was prancing around quite a bit on the scale and against the height measuring stick. But another chapter in his life his closed...Actually, he's lucky he went to the dr. at all. I took Will in for well-baby check-ups because I was a new mom. I never did with Ben because he saw different doctors so often for so many other things, that it seemed a bit redundant. By the time I had David I was seriously annoyed by most doctors because they tended to question some of my health decisions for my kids. But then I did find Dr. Steinmann who was very respectful of all decisions regarding the boys. And Sam had such a difficult first month of life that it seemed like a good idea to have him followed. They said to bring him back when he's three, but we'll see.

Sam's vocabulary has exploded in the last week or so. I do think he is ahead of where any of his brothers were, verbally, at the same age. I'm sure that's because he has much older siblings. One night this week he very clearly said, "There's a light on the bug!" ("There's a bug on the light") and today when my phone went off, he exclaimed, "The phone is singing!" Too cute! Last week when we celebrated his birthday with Paul's family, he opened a card and some bills fell out. Sam exclaimed, "Oh, Dollars!" I didn't know he even knew that word!

Tuesday night I asked Will to bathe Sam while we went to go vote. When we got home, Will informed me that Sam had had an abbreviated bath because he had pooped in the tub! Will has always been squeamish about bodily fluids, particularly those coming from other people's bodies! I just had to laugh. I have a very vivid memory of bathing with one of the boys when they were quite tiny and having a sudden southern explosion abruptly end that cuddly mother/baby time! It's a good thing I absolutely cannot recall which boy it was - might color how I view them today! Oh, and by the way, I won the election! I was re-elected to my council position. Only one other council person was re-elected besides myself. I wonder what that says about how the residents of Swan view their council? That councilman just had open heart surgery this week so it may be me vs. the newbies for awhile!

We found out today that Paul's re-application for his HVAC licenses was approved. $600 later and he gets to do what he's been doing all along! Sheesh...government! But the good thing is that he doesn't have to try and test out now. I was praying so hard as I opened the envelope today, "Please, please, please let it be a 'yes'"!

I know I said I'd never do it myself again, but today I did buy a box of brown hair dye. I just couldn't stand looking at my yellow head any longer! I didn't douse my head in it, but just combed it through, over the top. I'm pleased with the results. It toned things down and the fake color underneath (well, technically, it's ALL fake color now!) comes through as more of a highlight effect. Maybe I'll do this from now on and save myself bucketloads of money!

Well, I got it all done in one blog post - one, very L-O-N-G blogpost! Bless you for persevering to the end! It's been a long and busy week and I haven't been at my best. We didn't even get any school done, which I should not be advertising...so, shh! Next week will be better!