Chaos and Cupcakes

After the nightmare surrounding Parker’s birth, my doctor told Jared and me to expect it to take several months before I felt better and “back to normal.”  It has been almost 14 months and I am still waiting.  I feel like a walking zombie 95% of the time.  I hate this.  I used to have so much energy and felt like “Supermom.”  Now I am just “Night of the Living Dead Mom.”  To top that off, my body is falling apart.  I am barely 30, yet I often feel like I am at least 30 years older than that.  No matter how much sleep I get, it is never enough.  I thought after I stopped breastfeeding, my iron levels would go up and I would feel better.  I don’t.  My migraines are pretty much a constant now.  And now I have this stupid torn rotator cuff.  I am so tired of feeling like this.  It is so depressing.

Now, anything you need to get off your chest?!

In lieu of making New Year’s resolutions, I am making goals for 2009.  Why?  For some reason, I think I will be more apt to work on a goal.  You may be thinking, “What is the difference?”  To me, New Year’s resolutions seem to be more trite and often forgotten by the second week of January.  A goal seems more habit-forming and permanent.

1)  Eat out less often.  I like to eat out.  I like someone else to cook our meal, serve it to us, and clean up after us.  The kids get to order what they want instead of having to eat whatever it is I feel like making.  However, the amount of money we spend on eating out is atrocious.  Eating at home can also be healthier than eating out, although when you have children who despise french fries and always order fruits or veggies as their sides, this isn’t as much a concern for me.  Anyway, this goal leads to the next one…

2)  Be more frugal and mindful of our spending.  Jared and I have never gone through the “poor, starving student” stage together.  We have been blessed to have great employment opportunities throughout our marriage.  This has utterly spoiled us.  We want something, we go buy it.  This has rubbed off on our children, much to our chagrin.  We are trying to teach them the concept of saving up for something that they really want.  Now it is time for me to teach myself this concept.  I need to take stock of all that I have been blessed with and learn to appreciate and value it.  This segues into the next goal…

3)   Be content with my blessings.  Instead of wishing I had a 12,000 square foot house with an indoor/outdoor pool and full-size basketball court in the sub-basement on a 10 acre lot but still in a city with a SuperTarget within 5 minutes of my 8 car garage, I should think about how blessed and lucky I am to have the home that I do have.  I should give thanks for the warmth we enjoy inside our home when it is 16 degrees outside and the food overflowing our pantry when there are too many people wondering where their next meal is going to come from.  Instead of raging about the unfairness of being 30 and uterus-less, I should realize how absolutely blessed I am to have the 6 brilliant and beautiful kids that I have when there are women struggling to bear one child.

4) Learn to let things “roll off my back.”  I have always been an (overly) emotional person.  I let things and people bug me and bog me down.  Jared, however, has mastered the art of letting things roll of his back.  He doesn’t let slights and situations bog him down and uspet him like I do.  Consequently, he sleeps much better than I do at night.  Which leads to the next goal…

5)  Learn to become a morning person.  I am NOT a morning person.  At all.  Never have been.  I detest mornings.  I am a night owl, just like my parents.  However, with 4 children whom attend school (early) in the morning, I would really like to learn how to not dread the sound of the alarm clock, to not hit snooze so many times that a indentation has formed in my snooze button, and to not walk around bleary-eyed and zombie-esque all morning long.  That’s where the getting a good night’s rest without rehashing life’s injustices comes into play.  Perhaps instead of counting sheep, I will count blessings.

6)  Become a better scriptorian.  Ask me about any Jane Austen, Jodi Picoult, Chris Bohjalian, Henry James, etc., novel and I will give you a full synopsis and opinion about it.  But my 7 year old delves more deeply into the scriptures than I do (true, the kid is an anomaly and is actually frightening in the depth of his knowledge and wisdom and photographic memory).  However, there is no excuse for someone who is such a voracious and enthusiastic reader to not be a better scriptorian.

So here is to 2009!  Let it be a transformative year!

I’d love to hear your goals/resolutions…

This past Monday marked our 9th anniversary.  The nine years have absolutely flown by.  I am so thankful to be married to the world’s most wonderful husband and father.  Jared is a very hard-worker, ambitious, intelligent, passionate about his job and family, witty, and fun.  He is truly my best friend.  Thank you for always taking such good care of us, Jared!

We celebrated a day late.  Last night we went to The Melting Pot for dinner and then went to a movie.  Dinner took longer than we expected so we didn’t get to see The Curious Case of Benjamin Button as we had planned.  Instead, my sweet husband (I told you he was wonderful!) took me to see Twilight.

My anniversary gift

Jared's anniversary gift- new sunglasses

Today was a nice, relaxing, low-key New Year’s Eve.  We went to lunch at Chili’s and then did some shopping.  We came home and relaxed for a bit before dinner.  Inspired by our delicious anniversary dinner, we decided to make a new New Year’s Eve tradition– fondue!  The kids loved it!  Taylor asked me tonight if he had to stay up late, because he was tired and wanted to go to bed.  So we had a faux countdown to midnight at 9pm, sang Auld Lang Syne, had Martenelli’s, and sent the kids up to bed.  A funny story about the Martenelli’s– Taylor declined having a glass.  I asked him why and he said, “I don’t drink alcohol.”  I explained to him that Martenelli’s is non-alcoholic sparkling apple cider.  He said, “Can I read the ingredient list myself, please?”  Once satisfied with the “Contains no alcohol” on the front label, he accepted a glass.  I sure love that kid.

Start Slide Show with PicLens Lite

After I read Breaking Dawn, the thought came to me late one night that I would just jot out some thoughts that I had on it.  I didn’t realize that it would get a pretty good response.  I was talking about this with Jared and we came up with the idea to start a new collaborative blog.  We haven’t got it all set up yet so don’t go to the page just yet, but the website will be bookreviews.ottleys.net.  Jared, Taylor, and I are all voracious readers (and hopefully all the other kids will follow suit).  I read at least three books a week.  I get asked all the time by those looking for a good book what I am reading or have recently read.  So I thought this blog would be a great way for people to get suggestions on reading material.  Hopefully it will be up and running by next weekend.

We’ve got another blog coming soon, too!  It will be aspergers.ottleys.net.  If you go to that page right now, though, it is just blank.  I am waiting for Jared to get our new server set up and migrate everything over to it.  Hopefully he will get his priorities straight and get that done this week rather than doing his real job.  This spin-off blog will be all about Andrew’s experiences with Asperger’s and our experiences parenting a child with Asperger’s.  It will be authored by both Jared and me.  Our hope is to get a big enough reader community that we can have lots of guest posts by other Asperger’s parents, people with Asperger’s, and family members of Aspies.  We will also be asking our own kids and our parents to guest post from time to time.  I am really excited about this new blog and hope that it will be a great support to those out there who either have Asperger’s Syndrome or have a loved one who is an Aspie or who are just curious as to what life is like with this in it.  Look for it hopefully by the beginning of next week!

Since we have so many blogs in our family (Jared’s, mine, Taylor’s, and these 2 new ones) we will have a central page, www.ottleys.net,  that you can go to and access all our blogs (Taylor’s will still be password-protected).  It will be ready along with the new blogs.

We will be busy getting all this done this week!  It is the last week of summer vacation, as well, so we’ve got to fit in one last day at Seven Peaks.  We also just got back an hour or so ago from our four-day camping trip to Zion National Park (post coming soon about this) so I’ve got a mountain of laundry to do.  Hmm, suppose I should get off the computer now and get some of that done!

This week I have been trying to teach my baby how to sleep in his own bed.  Again.  Oh, did you think I was talking about Parker, my 8-month-old baby?  No, no.  I am referring to Taylor, my 7-year-old baby.  We let him sleep in our room after his tonsillectomy so that we could attend to his needs, get him drinks, pain meds, etc.  After 4 or 5 nights, we told him that it was time to go back to sleeping in his own bed.  Night after night, he keeps creeping back into our room.  It is like reliving when he was a baby and toddler and didn’t want to sleep anywhere but cuddled next to his mama.  While this was sweet at first, I am now trying to explain to Taylor that this is not a good habit to fall back into.  Does he really want to have to explain to his mission president that he needs his mom near to be able to sleep every night?  I really didn’t see this one coming.  After finally winning the battle and teaching this child years ago to sleep on his own, I had no idea regression could happen in just a matter of days and at the ripe old age of 7.  Now that the last baby has learned to enjoy the comforts of his crib, I was finally able to enjoy sleeping without being kicked, elbowed, and relegated to a small sliver of a king size bed.  And then I blew it.  Lesson learned.  So, Taylor, if you are reading this– you have a nice, comfortable, full-size, Transformers-bedecked bed calling your name.  I don’t think the Tooth Fairy delivers to my room.

UPDATE:  Taylor and I have just reached what I hope will be a successful compromise.  He told me that the problem is that he doesn’t want Transformers bedding anymore.  So I asked him if we switch it out tomorrow for his Star Wars bedding (which he had for all of 5 months before wanting Transformers), will he stop creeping into my room and he agreed.  And the moral of the story is:  don’t spoil your child.  It will bite you in the behind.

Now tell me, so I don’t feel alone:  what is your biggest parenting battle right now?  (And you don’t have to have kids to have parenting battles- spouses, pets, roommates all count, too).

Dear Cameron,

Today you turn 5!  I can hardly believe it; time truly does fly.  I know it doesn’t seem like it at your age, when Christmas always seems so far away.  But trust me on this one.  Savor every minute of your childhood.  You don’t have many responsibilities right now, no worries, no cares other than whose turn it is on Lego Indiana Jones.  I hope these days slow down so I can have more time to enjoy your carefree childhood days.

Since Andrew learned about his birth yesterday, would you like to hear about yours?  Yours was a lot less eventful than his, but so special nonetheless.  The day before you were born was, obviously, Andrew’s birthday.  Dad and I took Taylor and Andrew to Chuck E. Cheese to celebrate.  After that, we all went to my doctor’s appointment to see how you were doing inside my tummy.  The doctor said everything looked great and I was a couple of centimeters dilated (your due date wasn’t until August 10).  We had been so worried that pregnancy as we had just had Andrew and gone through such a hard time with him.  I was very worried that you would be born too early, as well.  We had one scare a few weeks before you were born and so my doctor told me to stay off my feet.  I did pretty well with that until we went to Chuck E. Cheese!  But the doctor said everything was going so well that she thought we had at least another week with you cooking in my tummy.  We told her that we were predicting August 3 as that would follow the pattern of birthdates of our kids so far (1st child was born 5/1/01, 2nd was born 7/22/02).  Since you were the 3rd child and it was the year 2003 we thought you would be born on a day ending in 3.

The next day was pretty exhausting for me.  It was hard work keeping up with an energetic 2 year old and an even more energetic 1 year old.  When Dad got home from work I told him I was going take a bath.  I soaked in the tub for a while.  As I was getting out, I suddenly thought, “Maybe I should shave my legs just in case since today does end in a 3.”  So I got back in and shaved  my legs.  I got out of the tub, dried off, and went over to my dresser to get pajamas out.  As I bent over, guess what?  My water broke!  My water didn’t break on its own with Taylor or Andrew so I was in some doubt as to what had happened.  But I called my doctor and she said head to the hospital.  We called Grandma and Grandpa McGrath as they were going to be at your birth, just like they were at Taylor and Andrew’s.  They brought Colin to babysit the other boys and then Brianne came over to take care of them when she got off work.  When we got to the hospital I was already 7 centimeters dilated.  After a little while, your heartrate started skipping beats and getting erratic.  The doctor put a fetal monitor on your scalp and started talking about having to do a c-section.  They flipped me on my side and gave me some oxygen to help your heartrate.  I was going to have you without an epidural, but then had to get one in case they had to do a c-section if your heartrate didn’t stabilize. However, labor was going so fast that as soon as they got the epidural in, I needed to push.  So I had to push before the epidural had time to really take effect.  It’s a good thing, though, as you were born at 11:51pm.  9 more minutes and you wouldn’t have been born on the 23rd and the pattern would have been broken!  You were 7 pounds, 6 ounces and 20 1/2 inches long– really good for being almost 3 weeks early!

You were a healthy baby!  I had been told after Andrew that all our other babies would be born very sick and need to be in the NICU, so imagine my surprise when you were healthy and we were able to room-in together in the hospital!  I was ecstatic.  You were jaundiced and had to go home from the hospital with a bili-blanket for a week.  The only other health problem you had was a condition called hypospadius.  We can discuss that together another time.  You had surgery to correct it at 6 months and even though it was a very painful surgery, you were an angel throughout.  You never cried as a baby, including through that recovery.  You were also born with very dark hair and an olive complexion.  You hair lightened up as a toddler but is getting darker again now.  You had blue eyes until you were 6 months old and then they started turning brown.  Now you have what Grandma calls “chocolate pudding eyes.”

You are so tall for your age and always have been.  You have always been the tallest kid in your preschool and Primary classes.  You have always been way off the charts for height and down towards the bottom of the charts for weight.  That’s why your pants refuse to stay up, huh?!  And it’s why we call you the Jolly Green Giant.  You are so tall and always so happy.  You are so easy-going.  You have always been such an easy child to parent.  I wonder sometimes if you feel lost in the shuffle of our family since you don’t demand our time and attention.  But then you come to me for a hug and kiss and I ask you if you know that I love you with all my heart and you say that you know.  I really hope you do know, Cameron.  I have always said that Heavenly Father knew exactly what kind of baby I needed after all the trials Andrew’s birth brought.  And he sent us the most cuddly, happy, cute baby.  It made life so much easier.  Even when you were 5 months old and we were in Colorado with Dad and me shuffling back and forth to the hospital to be with Andrew when he was sick, you were perfectly fine with the strange situation.  You just always adapt to whatever is thrown our way.  I really appreciate that.

Luckily, you’ve remained a pretty healthy child.  We’ve had some scary asthma moments with you where we’ve had to rush you to the ER when you couldn’t breath and your inhaler didn’t help.  And not too long ago you had to get stitches in your chin, but you were so brave with that.

You love school and are such a quick learner.  You especially love math and continually surprise us with the amazing things your mind can do.  I know that you will be so successful as an adult and that gives me great comfort.

I love you so much.  You are such an important part of your family.  I hope you will always be quick to give me hugs and kisses like you do now, even when you are grown.  No matter how tall you get (and I’m sure it will be very tall), you will always be my baby.

Love,

Mommy

Dear Andrew,

6 years ago today was a very eventful day for our family. I haven’t really told you a whole lot about your birth before because it was so scary. You know that you lived in the hospital for a really long time. Do you want to know why?

2 days before you were born, I went shopping at Sam’s with Grandma. While we were there I started feeling icky and told Grandma we needed to head home so I could lay down. You weren’t due to be born for just over 7 more weeks, so I thought I was just overheated. It was July in Louisiana, after all. I went home, drank a lot of water, and went to bed. The next day, I still felt icky. Daddy was out mowing the lawn since it was Saturday and I went out and told him I didn’t feel good. He said to call the doctor. My regular doctor was not on call that weekend but his wife was. She told me to go to the hospital to get checked. At the hospital, the nurse hooked me up to some monitors to see if I was having contractions. I was but the doctor came in and said they were sporadic and I wasn’t dilated, so she told me to go home, put my feet up, and drink lots of water. I spent that night in the bath tub and drinking lots of water, trying to get the sporadic contractions to stop. I went to church the next morning but had to leave early because I was feeling so bad. Grandpa and Dad gave me a blessing after church. By dinnertime I was feeling a bit better so we went over to Grandma and Grandpa’s for dinner, like we did every Sunday when we lived in Louisiana. Taylor left with Aunt Aidan and Uncle Jeremy to go to Hattiesburg to see Jeremy’s grandparents. During dinner, I kept having to get up from the table every so often and walk around during a contraction. We decided I should go back to the hospital, even though the contractions weren’t regular. When we got to the hospital, the nurse said, “You’re in labor.” I said, “Then hurry and stop it and give me some steriods!” Steriods would help mature your lungs. The nurse told me, “It’s way too late. You’re 8 centimeters dilated!” The doctor hurried and got to the hospital. I was pretty mad at her for sending me home the day before. I decided not to have an epidural or any pain medicine because I didn’t want anything to get into your system when I already knew you were going to be so sick. The room was full of doctors and nurses since you were premature.

You were born at 2:29am on Monday, July 22, 2002. You weighed 5 pounds, 1 ounce and your length was 18 1/2 inches. That was really good for a 7 weeks early preemie! I only got to see you briefly before the doctors and nurses whisked you off to the NICU. After a few hours, a nurse brought me a wheelchair and let me come to see you. You were absolutely beautiful! You were very bruised since you didn’t have a lot of fat to protect you, but you had a ton of gorgeous light brown hair and beautiful deep blue eyes. I spent 3 days in the hospital and was at your side in the NICU as often as they would allow me to be.

After I was discharged from the hospital, I spent as much time at the NICU as I could. I tried to be there for all your feedings, which were every 3 hours, and then I would stay with you for a while. Then I would have to go home so Taylor would have some of my attention, as well. Grammie and Poppa Ottley came your 2nd week in the NICU to take care of Taylor for us. While they were there, we got special permission to take you into a small room of the NICU so that Daddy, Poppa Ottley, and Grandpa McGrath could give you a blessing.  It was a very special experience.  It was so hard for me to be away from you. I cried myself to sleep every night that you were in the NICU.

You didn’t have the ability to swallow at first so you were fed through a gavage tube inserted in your nose. You hated that tube and would pull it out as often as you could manage! The nurses taped it down so you couldn’t pull it out, but you were allergic to the tape and it gave you a rash. You also had a knack for pulling out your IV’s. The nurses had to keep moving them all over your body, even shaving your head into a mohawk to put them in your head. But those IV’s kept coming out. So the neonatalogist (a special doctor for NICU babies) put a PICC line in you so that you could receive your TPN (total parental nutrition- something to fatten you up!) and your antibiotics through it. Guess what? You pulled that out, too. She put in another one and yep, you pulled it out, too. You did NOT like all the tubes and wires!

Your neonatalogist told us that you were Coomb’s positive. That meant that your blood and my blood were incompatible. Your hematocrit (blood) levels were so low that you had to have 2 blood transfusions. My family and so many people in our ward and at the courthouse were Dad worked went to have their blood tested so that they could donate blood for you. They were all incompatible but they still donated blood in your name. Do you know whose blood was compatible? Daddy’s! Your first transfusion was with Daddy’s blood. Your second one had to come from some kind stranger as it was too early for Dad to be able to donate blood again. That’s why it is so important for people to donate blood. After a while, you got strong enough to drink from a bottle, but not strong enough to nurse. So I continued to pump milk for you and you would drink it from a bottle. You could only drink 1/3 of an ounce at a time and sometimes not even that much. One day when Dad and I were at church, we got a call on my cell phone that we needed to hurry to the NICU. When we got there, your stomach was the size of a small watermelon. The doctor had no idea what was wrong. They stopped your feedings and suctioned out your tummy. They ran all kinds of tests. After a few days, your belly went back to normal and they started feeding you again. They told us if all went well we could take you home in a few days. We got everything ready for you to come home. Then guess what? Your belly got huge again. This time, the doctor decided to send you to Children’s Hospital in New Orleans as she said you needed surgery. She thought you must have a blockage in your intestines and would need part of your intestines removed. We were so scared. An ambulance took you across the big lake to the new NICU. Luckily Daddy worked nearby and met us there at the hospital. Every day for a week, Aunt Brianne and Grandma took turns taking care of Taylor while I stayed up at the hospital with you. The surgeons at the hospital did all kinds of tests, ultrasounds, and x-rays on you and couldn’t find anything wrong! It was truly a miracle! They told us we could take you home on Friday. We were so excited! It had been 6 very long, hard weeks of NICU life. You had to come home with an oxygen monitor as you had apnea. Sometimes you would just stop breathing and the monitor would go off and we would have to thump your back to get you to breath again. You had that monitor until you were almost 5 months old.

You had a rough first few years of life. You had to spend 4 days in the hospital in Colorado when we went there for your 2nd Christmas because you had a nasty case of RSV. A month later your broke your arm your first Sunday in nursery. And then a week after that you had to have surgery. Or how about the time you jumped off Cameron’s bed and somehow managed to get a huge, gaping, round gash in between your eyes all the way down to the bone? You certainly scared me with that one! But you were such a trooper and continued to make us laugh and smile. You’ve had so many difficulties in your life. You have to deal every day with having Asperger’s and being somewhat different from other kids. But you have such a unique outlook on life and tell us all the time, “I’m ok. I can deal with it.”

Andrew, I love you with all my heart. I am so happy that you were sent here to our family. I am so thankful that I am your mommy. Thank you for being my Andrew.

Love,

Mommy

Last night we had what is a quite rare occurrence for our area of Utah- a thunderstorm, complete with some amazing lightening. After a particularly loud boom, Olivia came running out of her room calling for me:

Mommy, that loud noise woke me up!

It was just thunder, sweetie.

Oh, thunder! That comes with rain.

Yes, it is raining outside right now.

Well, I hate that thunder. Can I sleep with you?

Our Louisiana boys, the oldest 3, didn’t wake up at all during the storm. Even though they were still very young when we moved to Utah, perhaps they subconsciously remember thunderstorms, which were a very frequent occurrence in Louisiana. Sawyer, also, didn’t wake up during the storm but that doesn’t surprise me. Sawyer is the world’s greatest sleeper, thank goodness.

Olivia is a Utah girl, all right. There’s the not being lulled to sleep by a wonderful thunderstorm thing, something I loved about Louisiana. Also, she says “fir” instead of “for.” When I was a little girl in California and we would either visit my Utah cousins or they would visit us, I thought that we talked basically the same way except for a few things. They said “fir” and they called soda “pop.” So to me, that is the Utah accent. Now that we live here, there are a few more words that I have noticed (for example, “moun-in” for mountain). But I love it. And I am apparently becoming a Utah girl myself as sometimes I catch myself saying “fir.”

My first taste of a southern accent came when my uncle Pat married a Texan. I loved the way my aunt Cathy talked. When her family came out for their wedding in California, her niece who was my age came over to play with me. I thought I’d make her feel right at home so when we were introduced I said, “Hey, ya’ll! Ya’ll want to play with ma Bar-beees?” I truly wasn’t mocking her. I loved her southern accent and wanted one of my own.

Be careful what you wish for. A few years later my dad was relocated to Mississippi with Lockheed. I, who had perfected the art of being a teacher’s pet, got in trouble on my very first day of school in my very first class. My English teacher asked me a question. What came out of her mouth sounded to me like a foreign language and I had not a clue what she said. So I responded, “What?” This was a perfectly acceptable thing to ask of a teacher in laid-back California. Not so in strict Mississippi, where paddling was still an acceptable form of punishment in school. My teacher said, “I don’t know how you are allowed to speak to your teachers in California but here you will say, ‘Excuse me, MA’AM?!’” I might not have understood every word of what she just told me, but I sure got the gist and “ma’am” and “sir” immediately became a part of my vocabulary. Other things took a while longer to get down, like calling soda “coke” instead. I got laughed at many a time for asking for a “soda.” Guess it was retribution for thinking my cousins were silly asking for a “pop.”

I appreciate the variety of accents we have in the U.S. I love being able to guess where a person is from by their accent or vernacular. My own son sounds like he is from Brooklyn! It’s funny, too, because every time we ask Cameron where he wants to go on vacation he says, “New Yawk City!” Guess he feels a certain affinity for the place which he has never been to but certainly sounds like it’s where he was raised.

So I suppose in our home, our accents are a nice mish-mash of California-Louisiana-Mississippi-Belgium-Utah-New York?

I’m blogging from my hospital bed in a percocet and oxycontin haze so please bear with my rambling! I’m in a considerable amount of pain but the meds are quite helpful. The surgery was supposed to take an hour but took 3 hours as apparently I had a lot of scar tissue from the rupture. I lost some blood, too, but thankfully won’t need any transfusions. They also had to pack some mesh in when repairing internal damage.  But all in all, I think things went pretty well. The doctor told Jared I should be able to come home later in the day tomorrow. When I came out of the anesthesia I was quite emotional but the nurses said that was completely normal. I was feeling pretty mad at my body and felt like it has failed me too many times. I wish things were different but they are what they are. I have 6 gorgeous, intelligent, sweet, and amazing kids and I am so thankful for that.

I know that we have our trials to help make us stronger. I have done some thinking today while reading my Ensign while I waited to go into surgery and made some resolutions. I focus so much time and energy on my children’s growth and spirituality and well-being and tend to neglect myself. But children learn through example and I want to be the best example I can to them. I want to be a better person and a better daughter of God and do all I can to grow closer to Him. I want to be a better mother, wife, daughter, daughter-in-law, sister, friend, neighbor, and missionary. I am so thankful that back in December I was given another chance to continue on with life here on this earth as I still have so much learning and progressing to do. I am so thankful for my temple marriage and my eternal family. I love my husband, children, parents and siblings, and Jared’s family so much and am thankful to be part of their lives. I love the gospel and feel so blessed to live in this day and age when the gospel has been restored.

Thank you for all the love and support and prayers at this difficult time. It is greatly appreciated!

When Andrew has a bad day, he tells us, “This just hasn’t been my day.” Well, this just hasn’t been my week.

My week kicked off with a bang with Monday and Tuesday mornings being spent in my neurologist’s office while he spent an hour and a half each day alternately shocking my arms and legs and poking them with a hypodermic while electrodes recorded my nerve impulses. It was as fun as it sounds. All that to tell me that I have nerve damage. Duh. The numbness and tingling alerted me to that.

Now I get to look forward to a lumbar puncture (spinal tap) tomorrow (along with 4 more vials of blood being drawn in addition to the 5 drawn last week). Then I am supposed to spend 24-48 hours in bed so that I don’t leak spinal fluid. It’s only going to be 24 hours as I have a parent/teacher conference and 3 pediatrician’s appointments on Friday.

At least I have one highlight to the week- I am going to get a manicure/pedicure with my mom tonight. I think we both deserve it!