Chaos and Cupcakes

Over the last few weeks, Parker has been showing an interest in potty training.  He doesn’t want to wear a diaper and insists on wearing big boy underwear.  I try to get him to compromise by letting him wear undies over his diaper, but he usually will take his diaper off and throw it away the second I turn my back on him.  He also often wants to sit on the big toilet.  This morning he got on the big toilet and went potty and was so excited.  So I decided it would be a good time to get the little Elmo potty out and let him start using that all he wants.  A little while ago I heard shrieking coming from upstairs.  Sawyer and Olivia had just gotten home from school so I figured one of them must have taken a toy away from Parker.  I went to investigate and instead found Parker with his little plastic potty seat stuck around his neck.  He had taken it off the potty and pushed it down over his head.  It was upside down so the hard plastic rough edge was sticking up.  Jared and I could not get it off his head.  Jared had to get hedge shears and cut it off.  Leave it to Parker to do such a silly thing!

Here’s how our morning started:

And here’s how it ended:

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Jared has a new blog showcasing his burgeoning hobby of photography.  I think he is pretty darn good myself.  I can’t wait for him to take our annual family photos soon.  Right now he just has a few photos that he took last week on the blog.  I think his goal for this blog is to do a daily photo.  That way he is continually working on building up his photography skills.  This blog will be different from our gallery where we just throw up all of our photos willy nilly.

I am fully convinced (and already was previously to this) that my kids go to the greatest school in the country.  I love their school and this makes me love it even more:

“One of the pillars of our school is to ‘Inspire integrity and a spirit of citizenship.’   With that thought in mind, we have decided to air the live broadcast of this historical opportunity at the school for students in grades K-8.”

“We will have alternate classrooms with educational activities available for students whose parents would like to ‘opt-out’ of viewing the address. We also will have room available for parents who would like to come to the school to view the address together with their child.”

I am very happy that we are not subject to the decision made by the school district here, which was to not show the address (completely lame).

Obviously, I am just fine with my kids listening to the President of the United States encourage them in their education.  Of course, I also let Taylor read President Obama’s books when he saw them on my nightstand as I was reading them.  He is a very intelligent, intuitive, inquisitive child (although the word child really does not apply to him) who deserves the opportunity to think for himself.

Olivia and I were laying in her bed talking tonight and out of the blue she started asking me these questions:

O:  Mom, do I have to get married?  Do I have to have babies?

A:  Do you want to get married and have babies, Liv?

O:  No.  I don’t want to go to the hospital.  And I don’t like boys except my friends that are boys.  Do you like boys?  Do you like Jared?  I miss Jared.

A:  Why don’t you want to go to the hospital?

O:  I don’t want the doctor to cut my tummy with a sharp knife.  Does it hurt?

A:  Well, they numb you first.

O:  With medicine?  What medicine?  Do they give you the medicine before they cut your tummy?

A:  Yes, they give you the medicine first.  But you don’t have to have your tummy cut with a knife.

O:  So how else would the doctor get the baby out?

A:  Ummm, well, uhhhh, through your crotch.

O:  Really, Mom?  Tell me the truth.  I don’t think you’re telling the truth.  And I’m not letting the doctor cut my crotch or my tummy to get a baby out.

A:  Can we discuss this in a few more years and not tonight?

O:  Only if I can stay here to live when I’m a grown up.  In a big bed like yours.  In a big bedroom with no toys.

Today at lunch, we roughly mapped out the next few years of vacations.  We are a vacation-loving family (especially now that Jared works from home or wherever there is good wireless internet access and the ability to find a quiet room while he’s on calls).

We were having a conversation about maybe taking a long weekend trip over to San Francisco sometime this summer.  Here’s an excerpt of the conversation:

Me:  “Do you guys want to go to San Francisco for a weekend this summer?”

Olivia:  “But I don’t know how to golf!!!!!” (Yes, that many exclamation points were needed to emphasis the depths of despair in her voice).

And then she proceeded to go on and on about how we can’t go to San Francisco until she learns how to golf.

Can someone enlighten me on the correlation between going to San Francisco and knowing how to play golf?  When we went to San Francisco a couple of years ago, there was no golf-playing going on.  I don’t know where she is getting this from!

This is often how our family planning meetings go.  But I firmly believe in letting the kids have a voice and a vote in these matters.  And I also think the things that come out of their mouths during these discussions are hilarious.

Taylor has far different ideas about where he wants to go on vacation than me.  For instance, today he tried to sway me into adding Okinawa to our destination list (he is into World War II history).  He thinks the places I want to go are too trite and touristy.  Just like Taylor, Jared also prefers to go to places with historical significance.  I want to go to places with a pristine beach and a glistening ocean.  Thus why we have to map it out a few years in advance so everyone is happy.  Since we went to California and stayed at the beach this year, Jared gets a couple of years beach free (party pooper).

Remainder of 2009:  Yellowstone (June) and maybe San Francisco

April 2010: Europe (without kids);    Summer 2010:  Seattle / British Columbia

Summer 2011:  Road trip to DC, NYC, and Boston

Summer 2012:  Hawaii

Now we just have to keep our fingers crossed that gas prices don’t sky rocket again (although I am sure they will anyway).

I think Taylor is now the only child whose birth story I haven’t posted yet.  His is probably also the least dramatic birth story.  That just goes along with him being the least dramatic child, I suppose.

From the moment Jared and I got married, I couldn’t wait to have a baby.  It was often all I could think about.  A few months after we got married, I started working at LDS Family Services.  I would see all these pictures of little babies who had been adopted and I would hear about the pregnant birth mothers and just yearn for the day when I was pregnant and for the day when I would have a baby.  Jared and I would babysit for the kids of 2 different couples who were friends of ours and that just sent my baby-hunger into hyperdrive.  Unfortunately, I had an early miscarriage about 6 months after we got married.  That was a hard thing for me to deal with, even though I was only 5-6 weeks along.  The very next month I got pregnant with Taylor.  I found out I was pregnant with Taylor on a Sunday and had to wait till Tuesday to see the doctor since that Monday was Labor Day.  The doctor had me come right in and do my bloodwork since I had just miscarried and he wanted to check my hormone levels.  Sure enough, my progesterone levels were extremely low and that was most likely why I had miscarried before.  He had me immediately start on progesterone supplements and I continued on those until I was 14 weeks along.

I had horrible, awful morning sickness with Taylor (as well as with the others).  I remember one morning going to the gas station close to my work to get some juice.  I walked in and was hit by the smell of freshly brewed coffee and proceeded to throw up all over the floor of the gas station in front of several people.  Througout the pregnancy, I would go to lunch quite often with my mom.  She worked at the nearby high school and I would drive over to pick her up.  One day, I drove up to get her and just as she was walking out to the car, I had to open my door and puke.  Just what the students wanted to see, I’m sure.  For the majority of the pregnancy all I could handle eating at our lunches together was either a baked potato from Wendy’s or a veggie sub from Subway.  We became fast friends with the workers at those 2 places and they kept up with how things were progressing throughout my pregnancy.

I found out during my pregnancy that my uterus was tilted backwards.  Because of this, the baby’s heartbeat was very difficult to hear with the Doppler and so I was able to have quite a few ultrasounds.  The most memorable ultrasound was around 20 weeks when I found out the baby’s gender.  I was so excited to finally be able to have a name to call my belly.  Jared and I had picked out Taylor’s name before we were even officially engaged.  Jared is for, obviously, Jared.  Taylor is for my all-time favorite musician James Taylor.  It’s also a family name on my side.

My last month of pregnancy with Taylor was filled with contractions.  All.  The.  Time.  It was so nerve-racking for a first-time mom who had no idea what labor was like to have contractions constantly but never go into full-blown labor.  2 nights before Taylor’s due date Jared and I decided that I should go to the hospital.  I had been having contractions all day and spent the majority of the day in the bathtub to deal with them.  At the hospital they confirmed that I was 4 cm dilated, which I already knew since I had been 4 cm dilated for a few weeks by that point.  In fact, at my 37 week appointment my doctor told me that I was 4cm dilated and that it would be any day now.  Yeah, right.  Anyway, after monitoring my contractions for an hour the nurses sent me home because there was no pattern to my contractions.  Jared’s dad was in town for work and was staying for the weekend in case I had the baby.  So the next day, Saturday, we decided to walk around the mall and go for a bumpy drive to try to get things going.  No luck.  I was still having plenty of contractions but without any pattern to them.  Dad O. left on Sunday still grandchild-less.  On Monday, I went in for my check-up.  My doctor suggested an induction the next day.  The day before (April 29) was the due date based on my LMP, although based on early ultrasound my due date was May 5th.  But with me being at 4cm for 3 weeks, he felt an induction would be safe and easy.  That night I went for my nightly swim with my parents at the rec center in our neighborhood.  (We lived one street over from my parents at the time).  In the locker room, a lady asked me when I was due.  I said, “Yesterday.”  She said, “No, I asked when you are due.”  I said, “Yesterday.”  She didn’t believe me.  I suppose since it was my first baby and my stomach mucles weren’t shot, I never got very big with Taylor.  I actually never got very big with any of them but with him people remarked all the time that I didn’t look very pregnant.

The next morning, Tuesday, May 1st, Jared, my mom, and I headed over to the hospital bright and early in the morning.  I was hooked up to the monitors, started on Pitocin, and had my water broken.  Around noon, the doctor came back to check me and I was still at 4 cm.  He suggested that I have an epidural to relax me and speed things up.  I had wanted to have Taylor without drugs but decided to go ahead with the epidural.  It did the trick and 2 hours later Taylor was born at 3:14pm.  He weighed 7 pounds, 11 ounces (my biggest baby).  He had a headful of dark hair, which later fell out and came in white-blonde.

Taylor was an amazing baby.  He rarely cried.  I think he cried maybe a handful of times as a baby.  He was an early crawler, walker, and talker.  I always say that he was never really a baby, but was born a much older and wiser person.  He has always been extremely mature for his age.  I cannot imagine a better start to our family.  He is the perfect big brother.

The 8 years since Taylor was born have absolutely flown by.  I cannot believe I have a baptized Cub Scout now.  I am so proud of the young man that Taylor has become.  I can’t wait to see what the coming years have in store for our oldest baby.

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Olivia potty trained Sawyer last week.  I had planned on doing it after my surgery and mentioned it in front of her.  So she decided, being the little mama that she is, that she would do it herself.  I helped by being the one to set the timer and fill the little jar with chocolate chips for a potty reward.  She would then take him to the bathroom, encourage him, clap for him, and hand him a chocolate chip.  Now we don’t set the timer- she just takes Sawyer to the potty everytime he says he needs to go or she takes him when she needs to go.  And I just sit back and eat the chocolate chips.  It’s a great system we’ve got going here.

Sawyer prefers boxers over briefs:

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Last weekend we spent 3 nights camping at the Grand Canyon. Jared and I were in charge of his family’s reunion and as we had already planned on going to the Grand Canyon this summer, this became the plan for the reunion. The Grand Canyon is absolutely breathtaking. We will definitely be returning to it again. In fact, one of my sisters said we ought to do a McGrath family reunion there and I agree. The kids loved earning their 3rd Junior Ranger badge this year and can’t wait to earn more.

Taylor is busy at work designing a computer game called National War about National Parks competing to be the best. We bought a National Parks pass and he wants to visit all the parks as research for his game. We have a ton of National Parks within a day’s drive from us. We will go to Yellowstone at least once in the next year. We are planning and deciding which other ones we want to visit. Jared, of course, would prefer to camp at the parks as it is the best way to truly experience the National Parks. I, however, am not much of a camper. Camping and a fear of dirt don’t really mesh well. But I think I got over the whole trying to avoid getting dirty thing at the Grand Canyon pretty quickly. The first night we were there I did try to wash the kids in the cold water faucet that was available to us, but by the second day I was fine with a cursory wipe down with baby wipes. I did wash my hair every day but was completely fine with the lack of hot water. So for the sake of experiencing this beautiful world with my family, I am willing to become a bona fide camper.

On the way home from the Grand Canyon, while the experience of camping was still fresh in our minds, we made of list of what we need to buy to round out our camping supplies. As a family, we have only camped one other time together. Jared had taken the 2 older boys camping in Louisiana with the scouts, but we had only camped together for a couple of nights in Idaho for a family reunion. So we don’t have a ton of camping supplies. We have a great tent that we bought 2 summers ago for the Idaho camping trip. We had our dog Molly at the time so we bought this tent with a pet den. Now that we don’t have Molly the pet den was perfect for stashing our stuff. We had plenty of room for our 2 queen air mattresses and were still able to walk around. But the problem was that the kids had a hard time going to sleep when they were all in the same room together. They just kept each other up until Jared and I gave up and went and laid down with them. So we have been researching tents since we got home. At first we looked for a bigger tent with multiple rooms. But the biggest tent we’ve seen is 17 X 10. Our tent is 15 X 10 so we wouldn’t be gaining much more room and since the dividers to make rooms are just fabric pieces, this doesn’t seem to be a better solution for us. So we’ve decided to get a second tent for the older boys to sleep in. They are already used to sleeping in a room together; it’s Sawyer and Olivia who had a hard time falling asleep with the older boys in the tent with them. Now we just need to find the perfect tent for them. This will work out well as it will give us additional space to store all our stuff. I told Jared the best way for me to be a happy camper is for me to be able to have everything organized and orderly.

In addition to another tent, we also need more space to transport all our gear. We saw this attached to a Suburban at the Grand Canyon and decided it is just what we need. Then we just need some things like a camp stove, pots, dutch oven, and some odds and ends and we are all set. I don’t know that we will do much camping this summer since we have so many other things going on, but at least we will be all ready by the time next summer rolls around.

UPDATE: We are going camping in Zion National Park for Labor Day! The kids are so excited to earn another Jr. Ranger badge and camp again!

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We went to see Mount Rushmore a couple of weeks ago for Spring Break. Mt. Rushmore and the Black Hills are beautiful and there was so much to see. It is definitely a place we will visit again. The trip, which we took with Jared’s parents, was a lot of fun and went really well. But traveling with a child with Asperger’s does pose some challenges.

Asperger kids (Aspies) function best with a set routine. When the daily routine is all mixed up, an Aspie’s life becomes totally off-kilter. So bedtime in a different place at a different time posed some challenges. The trip involved a lot of car riding; Andrew did really well with this. He brought his Game-boy and a clipboard with plenty of drawing paper. That kept him pretty happy. But when the battery on his Game-boy would begin to die, he would start to freak out a little even though he knew that we had his car charger with us. We would have to hurry and get it plugged in before a melt down occured and sometimes we weren’t fast enough. Andrew would also get so involved in his game that he would ignore us totally. So when we would stop and ask who needs to go to the bathroom, he would just brush us off. Then 10 minutes after our stop he would tell us that he needed to go to the bathroom. We would ask him if he could wait and he would say that he had to go RIGHT NOW! He ignored the need until he couldn’t possibly wait another second. That was pretty annoying. Andrew would also get so wrapped up in his game or drawing (obsessiveness is a hallmark of Asperger’s) that he wouldn’t eat when we stopped for a meal, only to wind up claiming later that he was STARVING and we were trying to kill him by not feeding him.

While at Crazy Horse Memorial, I made the mistake of grabbing some Junior Ranger booklets for the boys. In order to get a Jr. Ranger pin, you have to complete the booklet. The booklet at Mt. Rushmore wasn’t too involved and didn’t take too much time to complete. The one at Crazy Horse was very involved. We were short on time but Andrew insisted that he complete his booklet and would not listen to us when we told him we didn’t have time. So we had to rush to finish the booklet so he could get his pin. I’m glad he was able to get it, but a little flexibility and understanding would be nice every now and then.

We learned from this trip that we need to make sure we stick to a schedule with Andrew when we are traveling. It might not be convenient, but it will go a long way in keeping us sane. We will also have to do something to curb the obsessiveness while traveling in order to make sure Andrew listens to his body’s needs.

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I realized today that Parker will be 1/3 of a year old next week. Then I flung myself across my bed and sobbed for a good 20 minutes (a tad longer than I sobbed after watching August Rush the other night). Then I looked up failure rates for cauterized tubal ligations. 1 in 1000. I would say that knowing how my body likes to “beat” the odds (the rate for uterine rupture with a previous c-section is 0.16%), I shouldn’t give away all the baby clothes yet.