Chaos and Cupcakes

I am very proud of my soccer-playing boys! On Thursday, Taylor played goalie (his favorite position) and stopped all 5 goal attempts. When the ball was on the other side of the field, Taylor could be seen inside the goal dancing a la Blues Brothers. He’s a soul man. I wish I had recorded it for Jared since he was in L.A. but between making sure I had all 5 kids, Taylor’s shin guards, and the treats for the team, I forgot to bring a camera and didn’t have enough battery power left on my phone to video with it.

On Saturday, Cameron scored 1 goal and Andrew scored 2. One of Andrew’s goals was so cool. The other team kicked the ball out of bounds. Cameron threw the ball in right to Andrew and then Andrew kicked it right into the goal. That’s teamwork! It’s funny because usually we cringe when those 2 are on the field at the same time as they become more interested in what the other is doing than what is going on in the game, but they really worked together on Saturday.

Olivia is getting very excited for January when she will start ballet and gymnastics. She likes to talk about how ballerinas only eat celery and then they throw up. We have absolutely no idea where she heard this and are trying our hardest to make sure she knows that it is unacceptable. So now we have 3 David Beckhams and a Victoria Beckham in our home?

Sawyer used to be such a quiet guy but lately has become a chatterbox. Along with his new jabbering has come a new possessiveness. Now all of a sudden everything in our house belongs to Sawyer: “Mine! Mine! Mine!”

We had a blizzard on Friday. Unfortunately, it wasn’t a snow blizzard. No, it was a hot chocolate mix blizzard. 2 pounds of hot chocolate mix all over my kitchen. Luckily, I like putting the suction on my Dyson to the test. That hot chocolate mix didn’t stand a chance.

While sitting in the doctor’s office today waiting for Sawyer’s elbow to be popped back in socket, I happened to notice a large, short chunk of hair sticking up in his otherwise long, natural mohawk.  I said, “Olivia, did you cut your brother’s hair?”  She affirmed it.  I said, “Why did you do this?  We just talked about how dangerous scissors are and how naughty it is to cut hair.”  She responded, “Because his hair was sticking up too much.”  Stinker.

Why does Jared have to be out of town again right now?

Why did Olivia have to cut two chunks of her gorgeous hair yesterday?

Why did Sawyer’s elbow have to pop out of socket again (I think this is the 4th time)?

Why did Jared’s phone have to break yesterday so I can’t even get a hold of him for help coaching me through putting Sawyer’s arm back in socket like the doctor taught us?

Why does the doctor have to be in a meeting right now?

Why is this happening to me?!?!?

About 7-8 hours till Jared gets home and we are all alive and healthy and not mad at other! It has been a long week but we made it through. The worst part has been just missing Jared. He is such an integral part of our lives. He is absolutely the best husband and father in the world. He is a very involved Dad and the kids really enjoy being with him. He is my best friend and I can’t stand to not be with him.

It sounds like he had a good time and I am glad for that. He works so hard that he deserves to have some fun, too. Although he did work in London. But for him, work is fun. He loves what he does. He’s such a geek!

So I have no gory stories of blood or vomit. No stories about catastrophes that made me furious at the time, but in a few weeks I would laugh about. It has been pretty quiet and boring around here.

Today I am working on making the whole house sparkle before Jared gets here. I love to come home from a trip to a clean house, clean sheets, clean toilets. I would mow the lawn for him, too, but that would probably be a pretty bad idea. Besides, if it takes him 3+ hours to mow it, it will take me twice that long. I did move the fire ring while he was gone as I didn’t like where it was. And I ordered 150 rose hedges so that will be a big project once they come in. But I love roses and think they will look really pretty. They are called a “living fence” and are variegated pink to red shades. They are supposed to be about 2 feet tall and then grow 2 feet a year up to 6 or so feet tall but we will keep them pruned to about 4 feet. We are swimming in summer squash right now, but I have a few tasty recipes for them and then will freeze some for the winter. Since we put our pumpkins in late (we had to wait for the sprinklers to be installed) I’m not sure how big they will get before Halloween but we should have a few nice ones at the very least.

Speaking of Halloween, we went and get costumes yesterday. Taylor will be a Star Wars clone trooper and Andrew will be Optimus Prime. Cameron wanted to be a ghost but after I made the costume, we tried it out. The sheet kept slipping, he kept tripping, and the eyes kept shifting out of place so we decided against. He will be the red Power Ranger instead. Olivia is going to be the cutest witch in the world. I am making her costume and it is adorable! Sawyer is going to be a puppy since he is obsessed with dogs. He sleeps with an assortment of stuffed dogs and won’t even get on his bed until I’ve arranged them around his pillow.

I’ve got all the Christmas shopping done and most of Olivia’s birthday shopping. I am trying to get it all done before I get really pregnant and get put on bedrest. Also, I can’t stand shopping during the busy shopping season. It is too frustrating.

Well, off to put clean sheets on beds. Fun times.

Cameron: Mom, can I have a snack?

Me: Sure. What would you like?

Cameron: Ummm, goldfish!

Me: (Gets out goldfish.) Here you go.

Cameron: I didn’t say goldfish. I said a fruit roll-up!

Me: No, you said goldfish.

Cameron (exasperated): No, Mom, I said fruit roll-up in Spanish.

I thought I would sleep pretty soundly with Jared gone. He doesn’t exactly snore, but when he is on his back he breathes pretty loudly and I always have to tell him to roll over. But I slept terribly without him gone! I kept waking up and the darkness, compounded with my disorientation, kept turning the high bedpost on our bed into an intruder. I was relieved when Olivia got up to go to the bathroom as I then had her come get in bed with me. Unfortunately, she, along with the other kids, is stuffed up and was breathing quite loudly (I am a light sleeper). So I moved her back to her bed and tried to get back to sleep. That is when the niggling thoughts came pressing down on me. Exhaustion finally overtook the thoughts and I started falling back asleep. Then I couldn’t get comfortable. I am only comfortable sleeping on my stomach (my belly isn’t big enough yet to make it uncomfortable or impossible for me to sleep on it), but Parker doesn’t appreciate that and let’s me know. Also, my placenta is anterior, along the bottom of my “stomach,” and close to my cervix, so I get quite frightened sleeping on my stomach. The placental thought alone caused me 3 nightmares last night.

A recap on how my pregnancy with Sawyer ended: At 34 weeks I went into labor and was put in the hospital on meds and bedrest. I was sent home at 35 weeks on strict bedrest. When I left the hospital I was 4+ cm dilated, fully effaced, with a bulging water bag. Not really ideal conditions for letting someone go home, but I begged and begged and cried and finally my doctor relented (he had told us that I wasn’t leaving the hospital until I had the baby). I don’t like being in the hospital and I know it wasn’t easy for Jared trying to work from home while watching the kids. So I promised to be good and not get up from my bed. I stuck to that. The next week, just shy of 36 weeks, I went to the doctor for my appointment. The doctor was just getting in from a delivery and catching up so his nurse practitioner-midwife checked me. She got this horrified look on her face and said, “The baby’s feet are in my hands. Don’t move at all.” She ran out and came right back with the doctor who checked out the situation. He said, “We are getting a wheelchair and taking you to the ultrasound room. Try not to move.” So I shuffled carefully into the wheelchair, bawling all the while. Jared, meanwhile, had taken the kids to get some lunch while I was at the appointment. I called him and said, “I think you should come back here. RIGHT NOW!” Then I called my mom and said, “I don’t know what is going on but I think I am about to have a c-section. RIGHT NOW!” She, who was living in Louisiana at the time, immediately started freaking out. Then came the ultrasound which revealed that trying to push the baby back in and turn him was not a possibility as my placenta had ruptured. The baby’s feet were plugging up the blood flow. This now became a matter of life and death. My doctor’s office is connected to a hospital, luckily, but my insurance didn’t cover the hospital. My doctor quickly phoned my insurance, told them he was delivering the baby at that hospital right away and that it was life and death and there was no way I would make it to another hospital. They wheeled me over and prepped me for surgery. Jared rushed the kids to his sister’s house and made it back just in time. The doctor had to pull Sawyer’s legs back in and this resulted in Sawyer’s head getting stuck in my diaphragm. So the dr. had to get on top of the table and push his head out of my diaphragm. That wasn’t very pleasant as the spinal didn’t cover pain in my chest! Then because he had to be careful of the ruptured placenta he had to make an uncommon t-incision (horizontal and vertical). Instead of the usual 30 minutes for a c-section, mine took 2 1/2 hours. It was crazy.Sawyer was miraculously just fine. He was 6 pounds even, although he was very sluggish and quickly lost a whole pound, leaving the hospital 3 days later at 5 pounds. I spent the next several days in a haze of oxycontin as a result of the horrible c-section.

Anyway, that was all to show why I have crazy nightmares 3 times a week about my placenta rupturing and why, even though my body craves to sleep on my belly, even if just slightly on my belly/on my side, I am totally afraid to.

Well, that was quite a lengthy ramble! I guess that’s what happens when you have a whole, long day stretched out ahead of you and no other adult to talk to. Today is Stake Conference and I am not taking 5 kids to sit in hard chairs for 2 hours by myself.

Everyone thinks my house must be a zoo with 5 little kids, but it is actually quiet the majority of the time. Good thing, since it enables Jared to work at home. We don’t have loud kids. They are pretty much independent players and self-sufficient. They like to play games with each other, to read, to play with Legos, and play outside. Olivia and Sawyer like to play in her room and they are pretty quiet kids.

My brothers Tristan and Colin and cousin Rachelle are coming over tonight to have dinner and play Wii. The kids will enjoy that and I love having people over so that will be fun.

In just 3 months, I seem to have completely forgotten what it is like to be at home with the kids without Jared.  I have gotten very used to asking him, if he’s not on a phone call or in the middle of something, to change Sawyer’s diaper or similar things along those lines.  I have also forgotten what it is like to have to amuse myself when the kids are playing independently (aka plotting to take over the world) and not asking me for drinks, snacks, or to wipe their bottoms.  I’m lonely!  And out of the 3 hours since he left for the airport to go to London for a week (lucky guy!) we have only been home for 1!  We have been at Taylor’s soccer game and then he had soccer pictures.  We came home, the kids showered or bathed, Sawyer is napping, Olivia is playing in her room, and the 3 boys are playing XBox.  Nobody needs me and there is no Jared to talk to!  The house is spotless, the laundry is done, nothing on tv, and I can’t seem to relax myself enough to get absorbed in a book.  I’m too busy wishing I were on a flight across the Atlantic.  Hopefully next time he goes we can get things worked out with childcare arrangements so that I can go.  And next time I won’t be pregnant and worrying about going into labor way too early.

Jared is excited and I can’t blame him.  He will have a good time.  One colleague of his is a “foodie” and has their meals all planned out.  Then Jared, who loves soccer, might go see England vs. Russia on Wednesday with his boss/friend who is a huge soccer fan.  Tomorrow he will go do the usual London tourist things.  Even though I am jealous, I hope he has a wonderful time.  He deserves it.

So, now I just have to survive the next 151 hours.

Last Saturday night, we went up to SLC with my parents and brother to meet my aunt and uncle and cousins for dinner. After we ate, we were standing around a fountain in Trolley Square talking. The boys got bored and, thus, rambunctious. Cameron went to jump off the ledge around the fountain and caught his flip flop on it. He fell head first onto a grate and gashed his chin. My dad scooped him up and I examined his face and said, “Ok, we are off to the hospital!” No biggie. My cousins, though, couldn’t believe how calm I was about it. I told them, “I have 4 boys- it’s part of life.” Although, really, Olivia has probably had just as many ER visits as they have (this is the girl who tore the ligaments in her wrist on a rollercoaster at Legoland in June).

When we got to the ER, Andrew followed Cameron and me back to the room. He intensely watched every move the doctors made and wasn’t at all grossed out watching Cameron get shots of lidocaine in his chin or watching the 9 stitches go in. He certainly has a stronger stomach than Jared, the guy who got sick watching me take out our dog’s IV. Alas, Andrew takes after me. I must admit to my own love of gruesomeness. I love doctoring up the kids’ bloody messes (not that I love that they are hurt, I just like playing doctor) and loved taking out IVs and drawing blood when I worked at the hospital. I loved watching Taylor’s fingertip get reattached after his bowling accident. I should clarify on that- it was torture to watch my child in pain but once they put him out and got to work, it was so cool. The only time I have been fazed was when Andrew had the marble sized hole in between his eyebrows and you could see bone. That was freaky, nasty, and incredibly frightening. Oh, and the IVs in Andrew’s teeny-tiny preemie shaved head freaked me out, too.

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I asked Jared if he would tape my c-section and surgery in December so that I can watch it afterwards. He isn’t going for that idea as his head will be firmly behind the curtain with me. I wish they wouldn’t put the curtain up at all, but it is policy. I would have watched the other kids being born in the mirror except for the fact that with the first 3 my dad was in the room and if I could see in the mirror, then so could he, and so down came the mirror. Then with Olivia, considering she slid out without a single push just as the doctor sat down on his stool and lifted the sheet, no chance to peek in the mirror then. Anyway, maybe I can set up a tripod at Parker’s birth. That would be cool.

Why is it that when people find out I’m having another boy they feel the need to say, “Ohhh, I’m sorry”? Do boys all have leprosy and someone forgot to tell me? Or the other reaction people have is, “Poor Olivia!” Yes, poor Olivia… she has an incredible bond with her mother, her dad spoils her like crazy, we all dote on her and make such a fuss about her being our princess (even Sawyer calls her “pin-cess”). The girl has got it made. She gets her girly playtime in with me and Sawyer (who is still young enough to be free of the stigma of being a boy and playing tea party) and then turns around and plays Star Wars with the big boys. She doesn’t have to fight over the role of Princess Leia or the Pink Power Ranger or Mary at Christmas time.

Do I want Parker to grow up knowing people pitied us for having yet another boy? That is like people telling a child that he was an accident. What a nice feeling for someone to have, thinking that they were unwanted.

At first I was really upset that when we told people we were having a boy (or that we were having a baby at all, for that matter) only a few people showed any genuine happiness for us. But you know what? We are happy and our children are happy and that’s what matters.

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