ben + erin = samantha & ryan

tyler james

2011-04-30T17:44:00.000-05:00

better late than never, i finally have the baby announcements done and ordered! and now... three months later, i introduce my ty babe.

the light baby at the end of the, um, tunnel

2011-01-20T17:05:00.000-06:00

so i'm due this sunday, january 23rd and my doctor leaves the state for a week on january 25th. and last week when i went to my appointment, he didn't have any openings to induce me before he leaves. so today i was really looking forward to my appointment, hoping he'd tell me i was at a 6, and that labor was right around the corner.

but no such luck. i'm only dilated to a 2.5-3, and even though the baby has dropped, he's still really high. bummer. i might not meet this baby until february when my doctor gets back.

but then... my OB asks "do you want to be induced?"

"um, YEAH!" i reply.

apparently one of his inductions scheduled for monday was having her baby today. so i will go in sunday night and be induced monday morning the 24th. i will be holding my baby in no more than four days! that is, if everything goes as planned! and of course baby could always decide to come earlier, but at least there's an end in sight for this eager mama!

so in light of this news, the baby birthday contest is officially closed! thanks for all the guesses via the blog and facebook.

next time you see me here, i will announce the winner and introduce the newest little member of our family!

beached

2011-01-18T13:23:00.000-06:00

as of this morning, at 39.5 weeks pregnant, feeling like a beached whale is no longer on my bucket list. mission accomplished.

however, if that's still something you'd like to accomplish in your lifetime, i would be remiss in not sharing my fool-proof theory for fulfilling this huge life achievement. here's what you do:

first: be anywhere from 38-40 weeks pregnant. or, if that's impossible for you, strap a 40 pound bag of flour to your tummy, making sure it's impossible for you to bend and touch your toes.

second: fill a bath tub with about 4 inches of water.

third: hop in the tub. if you've chosen to take the flour route, you may first want to put the flour in some kind of waterproof bag as to avoid a very pasty mess!

fourth: lay down in the tub.

fifth: try to sit back up.

when you FINALLY make it out of the tub, go find that bucket list and cross off 'feel like a beached whale.' because if your experience was anything like mine, i'm pretty darn sure you've succeeded!

[the waiting] game's ON!

2011-01-15T21:02:00.001-06:00

remember this little guy?

well, he's not so little anymore. ~~he's~~ i'm actually quite big, and ready for my little love to make his grand entrance into the world. not due until january 23rd, i still have one week to go. BUT... it really could be any day! right now it's just a matter of waiting.

photograph © heather lutterman

so while i have to sit here and wait, i decided we might as well have some fun—time for a contest!!

here's what you do: guess the date and time baby boy will be born. example, january 15th, 11:22pm. yes, i'm being quite optimistic and unrealistic in my guess!

rules: 1. one guess per person.

2. make sure i have a way to contact you (email, facebook, etc).

3. and fianlly, you may NOT guess that the baby will be born anytime after january 29th. sorry, i absolutely refuse to even think about being a week overdue!

whoever guesses closest to the baby's birthdate will win bragging rights. and, of course, a little something else! good luck!

wordless wednesday—37 weeks

2011-01-05T22:37:00.000-06:00

and just because i'm cool like that...

wordless wednesday—thankful style

2010-11-24T23:16:00.000-06:00

wordless wednesday

2010-09-22T22:30:00.000-05:00

it's a...

2010-09-20T18:34:00.000-05:00

baby!

a sweet, small, snuggly, stubborn, smiling, thumb-sucking, stolen-my-heart.....

...SON!

(looking up from the bottom, you see his butt and legs—with 100% boy in the middle!)

hickory dickory dock

2010-09-14T20:05:00.000-05:00

the scene: me, on the phone casually chatting with my sister in law.

the location: my living room, sitting in my chair next to the bookshelf.

the time: 3 o'clock this afternoon, before ben got home from work.

and.... ACTION!

*chat chat chat, blah blah blah...*

me: can you hang on for a sec?

SIL: sure

*i'm quite, listening intently to hear another scratch scratch scratch. i hear it*

me: that's weird... the other day ben heard scratching behind my chair, so he looked to see if it was a mouse but didn't find anything. but now i'm hearing scratching and like a chewing sound. but it sounds like it's coming from underneath the bookshelf (which sits about 2-3 inches off the floor). i knocked on the side of the bookshelf but i still hear it.

SIL: maybe it's something outside.

me: no, it would be 3 feet underground where it's scratching.

SIL: maybe it's in the wall.

me: no, how could it get in? the outside is brick...

SIL: go get a flashlight and look under there and see if there's anything.

me: NO WAY!! what if i SEE something?!

SIL: well then go get some traps and set them under there. i'll stay on the phone with you and when you're done you can get some ice cream.

me: ok....

*getting the traps out. 2 glue, 2 snap traps. i smother them with peanut butter...*

me: hey, i'm sorry in advance if i cuss if these traps accidentally snap and freak me out.

SIL: wow! you cuss?

me, laughing: NO!!

*i carefully set them, then go scope out the bookshelf. not wanting to the mouse escape, i decide to blockade the entire perimeter of the bottom of the bookshelf (except for one side) with books. i set a glue trap on one end, another at the front of the bookshelf, and then go to set the snap trap in there. i gently put it down on the floor, slowly start sliding it under the bookshelf when this thought occurs to me: what if the mouse smells the peanut butter on the trap and comes get it while i'm sliding the trap under there?! i decided to run it past sis.*

me: hey, what if the mouse smells the peanut butter and comes and gets it while i'm...

*SNAP!!!*

me: AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!! OH MY GOODNESS!!!!!!!!!

SIL, laughing: what? did it snap? i don't think i've EVER heard you scream like that!!

*trying to catch my breath and stick my heart back in my chest.*

me: YES IT SNAPPED!!! OH MY GOODNESS THAT FREAKIN SCARED ME!!!!!!

SIL, still laughing: go get a flashlight and see if you caught it.

me: NO WAY!!! ben can do that when he gets home. there's NO WAY i'm gonna look.... oh my goodness—what if it would've smelled the peanut butter on my HAND when i put the glue traps under there and it came and got ME?!?!!!

*i blockade the rest of the bookshelf so that nothing can get out, finish my conversation, totally avoid that area of the living room, and call ben to tell him the story (meanwhile freaking out all over again) and tell him that HE has to look when he gets home.*

ben comes home and pulls my chair out from the wall so he can get a good look, and sure enough, scratch scratch scratch. i start to freak out thinking there's a whole family under there, when ben says, "it's in the wall."

me: what?! how could it get in the wall? and what did i catch?!

ben: did you put the trap under there really carefully?

me: YES! oh...unless it caught on one of the wires.

*ben pulls back the books, shines the flashlight on the trap all to discover that i caught....

...NOTHING!!

all that freaking out, screaming, elevated blood pressure, shortness of breath, and practically peeing my pants for nothing.*

well, one good thing, at least we don't have a mouse in the house!

walmart rant

2010-08-23T22:06:00.000-05:00

dear lazy and impatient walmart* parking lot drivers:

when i exit walmart* and push the cart to my car, please don't sit there waiting for me and holding up traffic just so that you can have my space. do you not realize that i have a full cart of stuff to unload, a toddler to get in a carseat, and a cart to push back to the cart corral? really, you're not gonna make me go any faster. on the contrary, i will go slower just to prove a point (whatever that may be). seriously, just take the empty space two spots down. do you really think my parking spot that is over halfway to the end of the parking lot is gonna be any better? no—you're still gonna have to walk!!

sincerely,
pregnant and irritated

*while such happenings have occurred many times at walmart, i do not exclude the possibility of this scenario taking place at any other store. and in no way do i blame walmart for the rudeness of their customers, as i myself am rude in purposely making them wait longer!

the details

2010-08-21T10:44:00.000-05:00

a little over a month ago, i surprised y'all with this news. then life happened, and i haven't blogged much since.

so here are the details—without, ahem, the details. you're welcome...

i am 18 weeks pregnant tomorrow, due january 23, 2011.

no, i haven't been to the doctor yet. i procrastinate like that. (no, really, i called for an appointment back in june, got very confused by the receptionist's directions; called in july, couldn't make an appointment then; called the beginning of august when we got back from vacation, and FINALLY got an appointment. for september 8th!)

yes, i have felt the baby move. about a week and a half ago i really started feeling movement. and yes, baby has already kicked at ryan, who was slapping my stomach one day. i hope this isn't a preview of the conflict to come with these two!

yes, we hope to find out the sex of this baby. we were surprised with samantha and ryan, which made labor & delivery so exciting (for lack of a better word)! but finding out with this one will help us plan a little bit better. and it will eliminate half of the headache of picking out names with my husband...

and finally, i have been feeling wonderful with this pregnancy. i've hardly had any sickness, just lack of energy (which i'm starting to get back!).

well i think i got the questions answered... more details to come as we find out!

deep thoughts

2010-08-03T16:47:00.001-05:00

if public restrooms have toilets with automatic flushers, automatic faucets and soap dispensers, and hands-free dryers or paper towel dispensers,

then why oh why don't they have automatic doors? all those automated hands-free contraptions are a complete waste if you have to contaminate* your hands by opening up the door, right?!

*i am in no way a germaphobe. i really don't care if i have to flush with my hand, turn on a faucet, or open the door. i just don't get the purpose of automatic everything if you have to open the door.

what are your deep thoughts today?

wordless wednesday—minnesota style

2010-07-21T23:40:00.000-05:00

from this...

to this...

(and yes, those little yellow lines are supposed to look like a heavenly light coming from the 20+ degree cooler forcast!)

*images from accuweather.com

this boy

2010-07-15T22:53:00.001-05:00

is a big boy now. he said goodbye to binkie and chewy (his lovey) at the same time he moved into a big boy bed. my baby is growing up. *sniff* now if we could just get him out of diapers...

is enthralled with trains. and has been known to play with them for days* at a time.
*you know, with a night's rest inbetween!

is usually half dressed.

suddenly found a love for broccoli.

has picked up on the phrase "dang it." i don't know where or how, but he says it—and uses it right. but the funny part about this is that he pronounces it "dune it." so when he gets frustrated and says "UGH!! DUNE IT!" it's extremely hard to keep a straight face while we tell him that he doesn't need to say that.

can count to 17. or somewhere around there.

loves ketchup. and chicken nuggets.

has had no seizures in over 8 months!! (praise the Lord and knock on wood!) we will have an appointment with his neurologist sometime this fall to figure out our plan of action. or non-action!

has no problem singing the B-I-B-L-E at the top of his lungs in the middle of target.

likes to shake his booty.

will lick anything and everything. including the hood of my car. right on the bird poop.

is still pretty much helpless when it comes to using his right hand.

loves milk.

has some gorgeous blue eyes. which may or may not get him out of trouble every now and then.

does not grasp the concept of a baby brother or sister.

likes to sit on the potty and pretend to be a "towdowl" (turtle) by pulling the lid forward until it's resting on his back.

can have quite the attitude at times.

became a 3 year old today!!

happy birthday ryry! i love you!!!

wordless wednesday

2010-07-14T19:53:00.001-05:00

pyrotechnophobia

2010-07-06T10:57:00.002-05:00

he's definitely not the pyromaniac of the family yet. for the third year in a row, ryan has hated fireworks. it started when he was 11 months old—he was lying on the living room floor, and through the mini-blinds he caught a glimpse of the "pretties in the sky", and freaked out. it was the same story at 23 months. we brought him outside to look at the fireworks and he instantly screamed.

so this year we decided to go buy some kiddie fireworks to do with him. we got chickens, roosters, a turtle, tank, parachutes, flowers, fountains, sparklers, smoke bombs, etc. we played it all up for him, saying we'd have fun and blow them up after dinner.

since fireworks are illegal in kansas city, we went to a nearby legal city to set them off. we got our chairs set up, and daddy handed ryan a couple fireworks. what he did next cracked us up. apparently when we said we were gonna blow up the fireworks, he associated that with birthday candles...!

after ryan "blew up" most of the fireworks, it was daddy's turn. unfortunately i didn't warn ryan what they were gonna do! he liked the sparks at first (notice his cute little laugh!), but when that first chicken whistled, he freaked out. pyrotechnophobia again. and when daddy "bloke" (broke) the chicken, it set him over the edge!

ryan cried for the rest of the time and repeatedly wailed "no want it fireworks, no want it fireworks....!!!!" so daddy told him we could leave. i put ryan in the car as ben set off some more fireworks. and wouldn't you know? things suddenly got much better (as you can see at the end of this video!)

all i can say is, for spending $20 on fireworks and only setting off about $1.50, it was definitely worth the funny videos we got!

decisions, decisions

2010-07-03T19:59:00.003-05:00

to eat ice cream, or to not eat ice cream—that, my friends, is not the question.

but rather, which kind to choose?!

tell me, which would you choose?

french silk, mint cookie crunch, mint chocolate chip, samoas, strawberry, strawberry cheesecake, vanilla, butter pecan, fudge tracks, cookie cough, peanut butter cup, southern blackberry cobbler, cherry vanilla, fried ice cream, cookies n cream, snickers, reeses, strawberry swirl, or chocolate swirl?

and of course, if you would prefer non-traditional bowl of ice cream, there's always sedona ice cream sandwiches, mini drumsticks, chocolate caramel brownie ice cream sandwiches, neopolitan ice cream sandwiches, popsicles, and ice pops.

what is your favorite kind of ice cream?

wordless wednesday

2010-06-30T23:09:00.000-05:00

me & my favorite 7-year-old. ♥

birthday blast

2010-06-29T16:13:00.002-05:00

sunday was our funday. it started out with a surprise for samantha—a huge birthday banner and a [semi] clean house (which she requested!). we went to church and samantha was very excited, to say the least, that her sunday school class sang happy birthday to her—complete with the cha cha chas! after church, we went to lunch and then it was time to come home and open presents! samantha was elated with her new barbies, littlest pet shop stuff, jewelry making kit, and american girl books.

then it was off to the zoo with my favorite gorilla, monkey, kangaroo! we had fun riding the camel, train, and tram...

seeing some of the animals...

and samantha was excited to go on her very first paddle boat ride! she even paddled all by herself to let daddy have a rest! ryan, on the other hand, was eager at first, but then decided he didn't want to "go swimming," hence his crabby attitude. thankfully he stayed in the paddle boat and didn't really go swimming!

then we ate our picnic dinner that we brought along. hoping to surprise samantha, i also brought birthday cupcakes. however, paired with the 90 degree heat, our dessert bit the dust.

we made the best of it though!

our day was not complete until we visited the lions and got proof that samantha's mouth was indeed smaller than a lion's (if you've ever had a conversation with her, you would question that fact!) ryan had a lovely meltdown, samantha ran through the misters in the trees, and then we ate some free ice cream!

we went home tired, worn, and warm, but also having had a successful day. it was so much fun giving samantha "the best birthday EVER!!"

this girl...

2010-06-27T23:30:00.001-05:00

loves to give back, shoulder, and neck massages.

will get out of bed at night to make sure i gave ryan his medicine.

works the camera like a model.

is a clean freak. and, in fact, cleaned the living room last night so it would be nice and tidy for her birthday.

loves Jesus!

will be in second grade this fall.

calls herself a "mommy in training."

enjoys playing farmville.

is beautiful!

loves to make up songs about God and Jesus and sing them with her horribly tuned guitar. and if you're lucky, you just might get invited to a private concert.

knows all the words to the theme song from "charles in charge."

shares my love of photography!

like to wash dishes, and loves to dust!

is an excellent reader.

is one of the best big sisters in the whole wide world.

always asks me to take a "solo" picture of her after she and ryan have posed.

makes the best homemade presents.

is not embarassed one bit to loudly sing "saviour, he can move the mountains" while walking through the store. or "how great is our God" while using a public restroom.

turned 7 years old today!

happy birthday samantha! i love you!

wordless wednesday

2010-06-23T17:17:00.000-05:00

father's day fun!

mama [never] said there'll be days like this

2010-06-22T22:25:00.000-05:00

let's just get right to the point—today is all about pre-menstrual syndrome. [if you're an uncomfortable male reading this, you have my permission to leave—i won't judge. however, if you're a woman and leave? i WILL be mad!]

anyway, i'm currently doing a beth moore Bible study, and one thing she said a couple weeks ago hit me (in my own words, of course. i'm a mom—my memory is shot.): women have a week of pre-menstrual syndrome, a week of menstrual syndrome, and a week of post-menstrual syndrome. that leaves ONE good week out of the month. and if you have daughters? you can kiss that one week goodbye.

now my mom never told me there'd be days like this. especially the days when i could wring my daughter's neck. and she certainly never displayed days like this. i mean really—my mom had THREE girls, and i only have one. and i don't think she ever got nearly as peeved with me and my sisters like i can get with samantha.

forget all other symptoms, it's my MOOD that wacks me out. it creeps up slowly. day one i start getting a little annoyed with the kids. the next day i start losing a little more patience. day three i start getting snippy. and the morning of day four? i warn samantha that "today it will be really easy for you to get in trouble." and she heeds my warning. it's like she knows exactly what i'm talking about.

i don't know what it is, but ryan could be horrible. he could throw a fit, color on the walls, etc., and i probably wouldn't be as mad at him as i would be with samantha if she gave me a funny look.

now if she's only 6 years old and can get under my skin this much, what's it gonna be like when she's 16?! maybe this is why my freezer is plumb full of ice cream. thankfully i—no wait—my kids only suffer two days of this mood and not a week.

help me out here, ladies. surely i'm not the only one with this problem—how do you cope with your children (and hubby) when you're pmsy? moms of teenagers, is there hope for me?! now for that ice cream...

rummage sale rant

2010-06-18T19:22:00.001-05:00

dear women who i don't know but shop at your garage sales,

thank you for your generosity, but please don't give my children free toys, dolls, stuffed animals, etc. especially when you didn't ask me if it's okay.

i know my kids are adorable, but that doesn't mean they want a doll with no eyes and no legs. and when you do give it to them? don't look at me and say, "you might wanna throw that in the washing machine when you get home." really? i might wanna throw it in the trash!

here's a thought: if it doesn't sell, donate it to goodwill—that's a much better home than it will probably end up having after it comes into my [kids'] possession.

sincerely,

a way too nice mom who didn't want to make a scene and graciously let her daughter take the dirty doll.

wordless wednesday

2010-06-16T14:03:00.001-05:00

our tiny, thriving, beautiful garden!

flippin' funny

2010-06-11T18:17:00.001-05:00

flip.

i love my flip. if it weren't for this tiny, convenient camera, i would probably have no video of my adorable kids. and their silly, yet cute father. i think the thing i love the most about it, is that i've been able to capture footage that would otherwise be lost, had i been required to drag out the actual gigantic* video camera, turn it on just to realize that there's no tape left and only 3 minutes of battery remaining.

[*gigantic shmigantic. remember the days of the monstrous camcorders that you'd have to lug around on your shoulder and look through the little eye piece?? yeah, i thought i was so cool videoing with that.]

anyway, i've caught a few humorous things on video. and i think it's only appropriate that i debut my husband first. (sound is kinda low. turn up your speakers!)

did you catch that last one? he can play songs on his mouth. (he can actually play songs on his teeth, too.) and here to prove it—playing the chicken dance song—my talented husband, ben.

what are your hidden talents? (my talent will be keeping my husband from killing me after he realizes that i posted this...!)

when the cat's away...

2010-06-10T13:04:00.001-05:00

...the mice will play.

and give themselves a pudding bath.

and then when the cat comes back? the mouse will be

busted.

cat will learn to never leave mouse alone with pudding again!

i love you this much

2010-06-09T15:00:00.001-05:00

i haven't talked to you for a while. i haven't visited you for probably a longer while, and there's been absolutely no reason to visit me.

you probably think i don't like you anymore... wrong.

or maybe i'm possibly mad at you... absolutely not.

in fact, i love y'all so much. (you can't believe how happy i was when i signed into my blogger account and i hadn't lost any followers. granted, it's 35 of you. but seeing that little number made me so happy!)

now where was i... oh yeah. i love y'all so much—and here's my proof:

this morning my mother-in-law came and picked up samantha, so it's just me and ryan today. and ryan naps. as a matter of fact, he's in bed sleeping right now. and me? i don't have a.n.y.t.h.i.n.g that absolutely needs to get done right now. and i'm tired—i didn't sleep well last night. so i could reeeeaaaallly go for a nap right now. but no, here i am, finally on the other side of the computer screen, saying hi.

hi.

and after i hit the little orange "publish" button? i'm gonna get a post ready for tomorrow. and hopefully upload a ~~funny~~ embarassing video of my husband for friday. yes, it's gonna be blog overload over here.

so while i could be lost in dreamland, or catching up on some missed tv shows, or ~~cleaning the house~~ playing on the computer, i'll be blogging. just for you! see you tomorrow!

how do you like to spend a lazy carefree afternoon?

wordless wednesday

2010-05-26T17:39:00.000-05:00

goodbye guilt!!

2010-05-09T22:34:00.001-05:00

in honor of mother's day, i'd like to share how bad of a mother i am: my kids are the ones who have to wake me up in the morning. breakfast usually consists of a pop tart, cereal, or sometimes a frozen waffle if i'm feeling generous. i hardly ever do my daughter's hair. i consider myself lucky that she brushes it before we leave the house. we let the tv entertain us during lunchtime. changing diapers and taking ryan potty are not a top priority. samantha gets into trouble a lot when i'm pmsy. i don't take them to the park enough. i yell at ryan to stop screaming. dinner usually doesn't get thought of until 5pm. i hate bathtime, therefore my children do not get bathed every day. even every other day is rare. and the list could go on...

i'm definitely not my mother, in that aspect. (she rocks. happy mother's day mom! thanks for always being loving, patient, kind, attentive, humble, and self-sacrificing. you are the best mother ever—definitely proverbs 31 in action! i love you!!) ok. back to our regular programming—i'm definitely not my mother...

but you know what? that's okay with me. i recently participated in a women's group at church and we went through the book, "mothering without guilt." until then, i never realized that most of my guilt as a mom comes from comparing myself to other moms. i would see all the good things other mothers do for their children: enroll them in extra-curricular activities, take them on trips and vacations, bring them to the movies, take them to the park, etc. and in light of others' successes as a parent, i found myself a failure.

and then i had my aha! moment one day when my friend spoke up and wisdom poured from her mouth, "A lot of times when we compare ourselves to others, we tend to compare our weaknesses with their strengths."

did you let that sink in? we are so cruel to ourselves when we only see the strengths of others and lay them side by side with our weaknesses. sure, someone else may absolutely love bathtime with their kids, but that doesn't mean i need to feel guilty because i don't enjoy it.

bottom line? God made each and every one of us uniquely for our children, giving us individual strengths. so let's not let guilt get in the way of the joy mothering can bring!

happy mother's day to all you wonderful moms. i hope you enjoyed your day—guilt free!

i was in a coma for a month

2010-05-07T23:44:00.002-05:00

that, or april was never here. i remember march 31st—i had just enjoyed an awesome 4 day visit with my sister and her family. i went to bed that night and awoke on may 1st. i had somehow managed to skip a whole month of my life. (now before y'all freak out, i really wasn't in a coma! my health has not been compromised in any way for the making of this blog post!)

april never came for me this year. well, at least not for my blog.

because if there had an april this year, i imagine it would've looked something like this:

my sister would come for a visit over easter, and we'd stay up till the wee hours of the morning watching episodes of the office.

my nephew would come home for a visit.

i'd get to see my totally cute auntie alice in wonderland (you made it on the blog, al!)

i would've gone to minnesota for a week to see my parents, sisters, nieces and nephew, and grandma and grandpa.

my husband's car would get broken into.

i'd let the kids pick rocks at lake superior.

i'd labor over doing my taxes at the last minute, then decide to procrastinate on them and play farmville....

my nieces would make their acting debut.

my garden would get planted.

samantha would crack her head open right before bedtime and we'd spend the next hour and a half holding a cold washcloth to her head and google "when does my child need stiches."

we'd have a garage sale.

i would have waited in line forever with the kids to meet spiderman.

but none of that happened. you know, because april was awol. not to worry though. i've reported it to the department of Months & Years that Spontaneously Escape, Leave, and Fade into thin air (MYSELF!) and this fiasco should not occur again.... i hope.

so. how was everyone else's month?!

everything i know about God i learned from my children

2010-03-25T13:28:00.002-05:00

i grew up in a Bible-believing, God-fearing, church-going, Christian school-attending home. growing up i learned a whole lot about God and Jesus and the Bible, and i thought i knew it all (which obviously i didn't and still don't!).

and then i had kids. i became a parent. instant love beyond all measure for this tiny helpless babe. from that point on, i started to understand God a lot better. i learned more about God than i thought possible through the miracle of being a mother. and while i'm not comparing myself to God, when you become a parent it's so much easier to understand how God sees us—His unfailing love; His ever presence; His mercy and grace; His omniscience; His forgiveness; His patience. i could go on and on... all these attributes of God became much clearer as i felt the same for my own child. and to think how much more God feels for me!

on to my point... yesterday was a bad day. i would almost go as far as saying it was an awful day. ryan is in the crying screaming fit stage, and we battled all day (and the day before, and the day before). my only reprive was his you're-getting-sent-to-bed-with-no-lunch nap. we even got to end the day with a screaming fit before bed time. you know, because going potty before getting into bed is definitely worth fussing over for 30 minutes.

fast forward to this morning. i was apprehensive about even getting out of bed today. what will set off the attitude bomb today, i wondered. it could be anything—from the color of his socks, to the temperature of his pop tart, to the expression on his teddy bear's face. regardless, it was a new day, and he deserved a new start and a second chance. and i don't think either of us would've been too happy if i left him in his crib today!

we made it through breakfast. we made it through going potty and getting dressed. i was amazed! i laid down on my bed relieved that we hadn't had a meltdown yet. and ryan followed. he climbed up on my bed and for the next 45 minutes, we played. we bounced, jumped, i was his jungle gym, we loved, hid under the covers, hugged, and laughed. "i love you ryan," i said. "love you mama too," he replied. i even got a snotty slobbery kiss. it was beautiful.

as he ran off to play, i continued to lie on my bed, pondering God and the new start that he gives me each day. The faithful love of the Lord never ends! His mercies never cease. Great is his faithfulness; his mercies begin afresh each morning. i'm sure there are days that i throw my own tantrums with God, let's say, yesterday for example. i didn't have the greatest attitude about my day. there were times i was upset, mad, angry, impatient, unloving, uncontent, etc. but because of God's love and his mercy, He has given me a new morning. a new day to start over and be a better wife, mom, and child of God. i can even hear him whispering in my ear, I love you, child.

i love you too, God! and here's my big slobbery kiss: muah!!

But you, O Lord, are a God of compassion and mercy, slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love and faithfulness.

Psalm 86:15 NLT

spring

2010-03-20T17:07:00.002-05:00

sun. beautiful warm sun

a glimpse of bright green grass

allergies

new life, pushing up through dark rich soil

flip flops

the ringing sound of the ice cream truck

the appearance of little creatures, apparently including snakes

the crying of little boys who don't want to come inside

open windows

short sleeve shirts

the smell of good clean dirt

a tall glass of raspberry lemonade

the end of winter

so why, then, did i wake up this morning to this?!

over six inches of snow?! i hate to think of what summer has in store for us!

what does this first day of spring look like at your house?

not me! monday

2010-03-15T10:00:00.001-05:00

welcome to not me! monday! this blog carnival was created by mckmama. you can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

first of all, i have NOT been MIA. i have NOT neglected my blog for a day shy of two weeks. and i do NOT have perfectly good reasons. you know i love my bloggy/online family, but my real family comes FIRST! so let me be the first to apologize if my blogging is sporadic for the next few months.

* * * * *

and now for the embarrassment. you know how you're a better driver when there's people riding in the car with you, right? well, apparently that doesn't make a difference for me. a week and a half ago, my sis-in-law, my beautiful niece (hi ricci! i love you!), ryan, and i went to sonic for ice cream. i pulled into the drive-in diner, ordered our ice cream, we ate, and then we were gonna leave. but i didn't want to drive with my empty ice cream bowl. so i spotted a nearby trash can (about 8 feet away), and when my sister volunteered to get out of the car and throw it away i did NOT say, "no, i'll just drive over there." so i pulled out of my parking space, and drove up close to the trash can so that i could throw my bowl out the window, and BAM!!! i did NOT hit the trash can. said can did NOT start to tip over. we all did NOT start laughing. i quickly backed up, the trash can stopped rocking, i tried again (this time staying far away from it), threw the trash out the window (thank goodness it went in the can!), and then i drove off, blaming my mishap on all the ice in the parking lot...

at our next stop i got out but couldn't see any damage underneath the filth of my car. so i have NOT refrained from washing the car just so that ben won't see any scratches!

* * * * *

well you know you have good neighbors when they'd pick up your trash for you. i do NOT know this firsthand... as i was taking the trash out the other night (at midnight) i saw my neighbors just getting home—a mom and her high school senior daughter that we'll call breanna. we started talking, so i walked over to them on my way to the dumpster. and right when i got over to their car, one of my trash bags did NOT rip open at the bottom, and trash did NOT spew everywhere!!! oh just wait for it—it gets better...

it was the bathroom trash.

i don't know about you, but in my opinion, bathroom trash is the most embarrassing. spew junk mail and food scraps any day, but bathroom trash?! diapers, snotty kleenexes, q-tips, etc...

i did NOT scurry and start putting the trash in my other bag (which conveniently had enough room), and then breanna did NOT bend down to help me. i did NOT almost yell at her and say "NOOOO.... this is bathroom trash. please, you don't need to help!!" she did NOT help me anyway. i was NOT incredibly thankful when i thought of the other stuff that could have been in there had it been a different time of the month...!

ahhhh.... happy monday! tune in next week. maybe i'll air my dirty laundry—literally!

imaginative inquisition

2010-03-02T18:27:00.000-06:00

the setting: this morning. quik trip gas station. walking around inside with samantha, amongst other patrons...

the conversation:

sam (loudly, for all to hear): mom, what would happen to me if you got arrested right now?

me: well, the nice policeman would take you for a ride in his car and bring you to daddy or nana or your auntie.

sam: i'd say 'oh mommy i'm so sorry you have to be arrested right now.'

me: well, that's why i try to obey the laws and do what's right so that i won't get arrested.

sam (cheerfully): oh! well at least i'd finally be able to see what the inside of a jail looks like!!

me: *in shock, mouth gaping, bewildered look on my face*

the reality: no, i do not have a warrent out for my arrest. just a REALLY creatively curious daughter!

has anything like that happened to you? do your kids ask you crazy random questions?! do tell!!

who...

2010-03-01T22:37:00.001-06:00

is glad that the olympics are over?

my answer?—yes and no. i really do love to watch the olympics, but it's a relief now that they are finished.

so... if you're celebrating that tv is back to regular programming, what show are you most looking forward to watching?

and if you're mourning the lack of what seemed to be 24/7 televised winter sports, what event(s) do you miss watching?

1437 days till sochi 2014!

technicality

2010-02-25T13:49:00.000-06:00

this is ryan.

ryan likes candy.

ryan found candy.

mommy told ryan not to open the candy.

mommy failed to tell ryan not to eat the candy. and the wrapper.

technically, ryan obeyed.

mommy learned an obvious lesson.

the end.

not me! monday ~ birthday edition

2010-02-22T21:36:00.002-06:00

we do NOT not do birthdays around here. confused?! with my birthday on the 9th, then ben's on the 17th, and with valentine's day in the middle, we don't get too hyped up with celebrations. usually we just go out for dinner and kill three birds with one stone.

but ryan's hand foot and mouth disease put the kybosh on my plans of taking ben out to dinner on his birthday last wednesday, so i came up with some last minute plans:

a cake was the first thing in order. i was NOT extremely relieved when i found a cake mix AND matching frosting in the pantry. ryan did NOT enjoy licking the batter (or ice cream as he called it) off the beaters and ~~decorating the cake~~ eating the frosting and sprinkles.

and then i had the not-so-brilliant-idea to make ben a happy birthday ~~poster~~ life-sized banner. i did NOT spend the rest of the morning printing and cutting out big colorful letters and making the kids color pictures. and then i did NOT get sidetracked—i had made ben coupons for his birthday (you know, like one free back massage, take out the trash for you, and get out of trouble free), and did NOT forget to print them out.

cue the break for lunch—i did NOT figure that i'd have plenty of time to finish my projects before ben got home from work, so i decided to sit down and eat lunch with the kids.

right after lunch ben did NOT call to say he was on his way home and that he'd be home in 30 minutes.

30 minutes!!!

i did NOT scramble to hide the cake on the washing machine behind the laundry basket, clean up my mess of paper scraps, and then hide all the letters and pictures and coupons in our bed underneath the sheets.

the kids and i did NOT welcome him home with "happy birthday to you," and then cancel school and totally abandon him to go work on our project. it did NOT take me about two hours to cut out and staple the coupons into booklets and glue letters and pictures onto the roll of paper.

well clearly i did NOT fail to think out the banner. because when it was done? and it was time to tape it up on the wall? waaayyyyyy to big to do it by myself. although i did do it by myself...

anyway, 129 inches later, it was all taped up on the wall. that's right, the banner ended up being 10 feet 9 inches long!!

it was NOT worth it though, don't you think?

overall, it did NOT turn out okay. and i am NOT lucky to have a husband that doesn't care if he gets a real present or not! happy 31st birthday ben! next year i will NOT plan better!

go visit mckmama.com for more not me! fun.

wordless wednesday

2010-02-17T11:48:00.000-06:00

not me! monday

2010-02-15T16:22:00.003-06:00

welcome to not me! monday! this blog carnival was created by mckmama. you can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week. but as for us...

i did NOT let ryan wear big boy underwear for a couple days just to make myself remember to take him potty. we did NOT have two successfull days with no accidents. and ry does NOT look super duper cute in his undies!

unfortunately, ry got sick last week so we've been taking a few days off. he did NOT have a fever last tuesday and wednesday, and then on saturday night i did NOT notice that he had a rash on his legs and arms. it did NOT turn out that the poor boy has hand foot and mouth disease. he does NOT have blister like sores all over his hands and feet, and inside his mouth. and i do NOT want to pop them so badly. (but don't worry—i won't do that!!!)

so remember last year when i realized that my mom had sent me the same birthday card three years in a row? well this year she didn't send me a duplicate, although she did tell me that was the first card she picked up in the store... anyway. every year mom sends samantha and ryan valentines. so i did NOT crack up laughing when samantha opened hers and exclaimed "MOM! THIS IS THE SAME ONE GRAMMA SENT ME LAST YEAR!!"

we don't usually do anything for valentine's day or get each other anything, so when ben had to work yesterday it was no big deal. but even though we don't do anything to celebrate doesn't mean i don't appreciate it when we do! so i was NOT super excited when he told me he'd go get dinner so i wouldn't have to cook! and then after dinner? ben and samantha were being quiet in the kitchen when suddenly he did NOT bring me the canola oil and ask "is this our vegetable oil?" when i told him yes and asked why, he told me he was just making sure it was okay. and then samantha, the queen of elusiveness, did NOT bring in the same oil and ask "mom? is this good brownie oil?" and then later, she did NOT bring me the rubber scraper and ask "do you want a lick of batter? it's not any special kind of batter, it's just brown batter."

well, it turns out that it was special batter. because can i tell you that those perfect ghirardelli brownies were NOT the best valentine's day present (and the best brownies!)?! Mmmmmm! i did NOT enjoy one for breakfast this morning. or two...!

here's to a good week—happy monday!!

history was never my best subject, until tonight

2010-02-10T23:25:00.002-06:00

so we've all heard the phrase those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it, right?

well, thankfully i learned from my past because this mistake did not occur again!

you be the judge

2010-02-09T23:21:00.001-06:00

it's my birthday today.

and i may or may not be totally excited to be 28...

i may or may not still act like a kid when it comes to my age and turning another year older...

i may or may not be [im]patiently waiting for two years to go by so i can be 30...

i may or may not regret this when i'm about to turn 30...

i may or may not have pre-ordered a cd for my birthday present just because it was going to come out on my birthday...

my birthday present from ben may or may not have been off of a pallet that he bought at the auction...

said birthday present may or may not have been pens... lots of them.

that may or may not have been the best present ever...

i may or may not have had ice cream three times today...

i may or may not have totally enjoyed all the birthday wishes from my friends and family...

i may or may not have requested that we don't go out, but stay home and order pizza for my birthday...

and i may or may not have had raspberries blown on my belly from my family instead of getting birthday spankings...

i may or may not have had one of the greatest birthdays today...

you decide!

not me! monday

2010-02-08T23:48:00.003-06:00

finally back with a not me! last monday i was NOT way too exhausted to even think about blogging. our about to be 5 year old niece did NOT come over the previous friday because her parents were out of town. she did NOT cry and whine going to bed that night. and then she did NOT wake up the next morning throwing up. i did NOT lysol, clorox wipe, and germex every furniture, surface, and hand constantly. and i did NOT do mounds of bedding and blankets. that night, thankfully, she slept awesome. it was NOT because of the heaven-sent tylenol and benadryl. the next night, however, different story. she did NOT cry and cry again. and then at 3:30, she did NOT get up repeatedly to go to the bathroom, or get a drink, or cry, or tell me about a bad dream, etc. this did NOT go on until 7am when i finally made her go sleep on the couch. she did NOT come and wake me up a little later with blood on her shirt and fingers and nose... it was NOT monday—her last day with us. that night? i did NOT sleep like a baby the whole night through!

one night, after seeing a commercial for feminine products, samantha did NOT start asking a bunch of questions about what they were for and why mommies had to use them. my dear husband, ben, did NOT tell her that they were diapers for me to wear in case i went potty in my panties... umm?! thanks hun.

and speaking of panties, my dearest daughter did NOT grab a pair of my panties, hold them up for my mother-in-law to see, and announce, "nana!! look at mommy's panties!" they were not my mesh, ruffled, hot pink panties...

my sister has NOT come to the conclusion that i am disaster prone after i unintentionally drank bleach one night. you see, the bleach dispenser on my washing machine seemed to be clogged. after the bleach (not just straight bleach, the thicker color safe bleach) finally drained, i poured some water in the dispenser to see if it would drain. it didn't. so i did NOT decide to shove a straw down the hole to see if it was clogged. i tried to blow into the straw to try to loosen up the clog. but that didn't seem to work. so in my state of stupidity, i did NOT then decide to try and unclog it by SUCKING on the straw. annnnndddd.... mouth full of bleach. i did NOT immediately spit it into the washing machine. and then rinse my mouth out. again and again. it was finally ice cream that took that awful taste out of my mouth.

go visit mckmama.com to see if there's anyone else as stupid as me... i know i'm gonna!

the scene of the crime: target

2010-02-04T21:20:00.002-06:00

the offense: passing up a ridiculously cute, cheap pair of hot pink converse shoes.

the offender: me

yep... that's right. on monday i went to target. i had my kids with me. and my soon to be 5-year-old niece. i had time to kill before i was supposed to drop her off at my mother-in-law's house, so to target we went. i had to get ryan's medicine refilled, so as we waited for the prescription we wandered around target, each member of our posse hanging on to the cart, and touching nothing. we meandered through electronics, housewares, toys, and finally arrived at the shoes. there, before my eyes, was a whole aisle of clearanced shoes. i carefully looked them over, waiting for a pair to jump into my cart and demand that i buy them.

and then i saw them.

converse. hot pink. 75% off.

i flipped over the price tag. $4.98

$4.98!!!!

i looked at the size. girl's 2.

ugh... i wear anything from a woman's 7.5 to a 9, depending on the shoe, unlike my sister who can fit into both women's and girl's shoes. i searched through the shoes anyway, just hoping there might be a pair that would fit. and then i found them. girl's size 5.5.

i tried them on. they fit! but for some reason i was deliberating if i should buy them, when suddenly samantha piped up and said, "MOOOOOOOOMMMM!!!" (no, not oo as in moon, but a long, drawn out, said-with-an-attitude 'MOM') "WHY are you trying THOSE sneakers on?! you're NOT even a TEENAGER anymore!!!"

i took them off, put them back on the shelf, got ry's prescription, walked out the door, and drove away. (you know, after putting the kids in the car...)

* * *

back at home i tweeted my offense. i knew ashley would yell at me, but i didn't think everyone would! i guess it was evident that i WAS out of my mind.

it didn't take much to convince me that i needed to go back and buy the shoes, so the next morning we ventured out to target again. i grabbed a cart and headed straight for the shoes. after a minute of thinking they were gone, i saw them. i snatched them up and stuck them in my cart. and all wrongs were made right...

yes, ryan is kissing my shoes. i may or may not have thought of doing the same thing...

moral of the story? and i have the bestest friends! even when i mess up, they're right there to set me straight. that is, after they threaten to not be my friend, and don't want to look at me for 3 months!

oh, and don't pass up a cute five dollar pair of shoes!

wordless wednesday — target style

2010-02-03T15:44:00.002-06:00

wordless wednesday — silly style

2010-01-27T22:38:00.004-06:00

oh sweet memory...!

not me! monday

2010-01-25T18:13:00.000-06:00

oh boy. where do i begin? there are just too many things that have NOT happened since my last not me! monday post. but today, i'll keep it short and sweet. er, uhhh, well just read...

last week, after the kids were in bed asleep and ben and i were about to get our nightly netflix fix (say that 5 times fast), i did NOT go to the freezer to get my nightly serving ~~and a half~~ of ice cream. i did NOT easily open the freezer door to a winter wonderland of snow and frost covering everthing in my packed freezer. yes... that's right—the night before when i put the ice cream away? i didn't shut the door all the way...

upon realizing this i did NOT slam the door shut, thinking that it would somehow reverse the problem, i guess. but then i decided to deal with it then and there. i started loading garbage bags with thawing frozen food and salvaging what i could. ben did NOT take over 6 bags of freezer food to the trash. and i was NOT sulking—not because we were throwing hundreds of dollars of food away, but because the ice cream was soupy and now i wouldn't be able to have any.

i started cleaning some of the ice out of the freezer (it really needed to be defrosted, too, so i guess this wasn't all bad), thinking that ben was out at the dumpster for a very long time... when finally he came back inside holding one of our [nine] quarts of soupy ice cream. he did NOT say, "hey, i was digging through the trash and this one isn't too bad. you could have some of it..." i was NOT thinking eww, gross, disgusting, but felt it anyway and it was frozen solid! i was still repelled by the thought of eating it though, thinking it had already been in the trash, when ben told me he did NOT go to the grocery store really quick to buy it for me! awwwww...... ♥

then my moment of you're so sweet got inturrupted. i looked at him, my eyes grew wide, and i did NOT say, "YOU DID NOT JUST GO TO THE STORE IN YOUR JAMMIE PANTS!!!" oh goodness. i'm sure that someday we will NOT end up on peopleofwalmart.com.

ahem.

so that was that. we enjoyed our cookie dough ice cream, netflix, went to bed, and all was well. until i woke up the next morning. the bag of frozen bread dough that i had set on the counter had NOT risen all night, exploded through the bag, and made a huge doughy mess. well thank goodness i threw it in the garbage before i went to bed—the mess was contained in the trash can! but it was quite funny to see a huge glob of dough bursting through its bag. i did NOT punch it down about 3 times before ben came home and took out that trash bag...!

and now fast forward to today. i was able to save a roast. so i decided it needed to be cooked today. i got it in the oven, left the styrofoam tray on the STOVE, and started making the kids' lunch.

yeah yeah... you're probably thinking the same thing my sister thought, ERIN! you did NOT turn the burner on did you?! no, people i am NOT that stupid (really, i am...). but my lovely daughter, smart as she is, did NOT think the bloody meat juice in the bottom of the tray was "vanilla that we use in cakes," and did NOT decide to dip her finger in for a lick. well, at least she has a little smarts—she told me she wiped her finger on the towel "because the vanilla was cold," and then licked it.

see? this is why i should NOT be entirely banned from the kitchen!

visit mckmama for more not me fun! me? i'm off to eat some roast!

it's all in the day of a mom

2010-01-23T23:07:00.001-06:00

today, i was...

a wedding coordinator—and helped samantha get barbie ready for her big day.

an architect—and made a blanket house for ryan.

a mechanic—and fixed ry's car.

a talent scout—and listened to a never ending concert performed by samantha montantha.

a short order cook—and made an assortment of foods for lunch.

a money launderer—and found some clean coins in the washer!

an interpreter—and figured out that 'wait a minute!' can mean something entirely different to a 2-year-old.

a heartbreaker—and didn't let ry have a cookie before lunch.

an explorer—and won a game of hide and seek.

a seamstress—and altered ryry's jammies with a safety pin.

a supervisor—and oversaw (overseed?) samantha wash the dishes.

a mediator—and stopped a sibling spat seconds before it started.

today, i was... a mom!

it's like getting behind on your bills

2010-01-21T14:36:00.006-06:00

that's how i've felt the past three weeks. first you miss one payment, then decide just to wait to pay it with next month's, and something comes up and you need the extra money for new tires or something, then you start hiding the bills so that you won't have to see them, with the hope that they'll go away...

i'm sure all of us have experienced at least something remotely close to that. and no, i'm not behind on our bills right now. but rather my BLOG, and blog reading. (i'll get caught up on everyone's blogs, i promise! i just may not comment on every post!) really i had something half written to post on january 1st, and then that obviously didn't happen, and about 5 different things to post after that. but the more i went without posting something on my blog, the more i wanted to avoid it altogether.

so here's my ~~mass payment~~ ramblings from the last month that have piled up in my head:

Christmas was great! i actually hope to post something on that later. (yeah, we'll just see how that plan turns out...) i learned some things this Christmas though. to name a few...

my 6 year old daughter can still wear size 4T snow pants. albeit they were a tad short, but they worked!

ryan would be satisfied with a train, a car, and an airplane for Christmas.

it's the little things that are special—a spontaneous slow dance to silent night with my husband and children, my 2 year old boy singing sentimental Christmas songs at the top of his lungs, and a homemade, hand-written, heart-shaped note from my daughter that said "i love you SO much mom."

our family does not need 10+ dozen Christmas cookies. case in point—we still have over half of them left.

spaghetti noodles can be mistaken for oral stitches, and vice versa.

i went to MN for 10 days to celebrate Christmas with my family, see my alaska gramma, and met my new grandpa! he had open heart surgery last friday and is still sedated, but getting better. thank you all for your continued prayers for him and my gramma!

my house is a complete and utter disaster. it's like getting behind on blogging—i don't know where to start. hence, i'm blogging today. yeppers, i'm making myself blog right now just so that i can procrastinate on housecleaning. it's a vicious cycle. but hey, at least my suitcase is put away and all the laundry from our trip is done!

i did something really stupid but funny the other night that deserves a post of its own. but just as a teaser, it involves me cooking mounds of food this weekend. let's hope that i don't burn down my house in the process!

samantha got me the perfect brownie pan for Christmas. it was actually very cute, because i knew that's what she was going to get for me. and when the infomercial would come on she would hint around and say, "don't you wish you had one of those, mom?!" and when we were in target one day and i was looking at a bar pan she said sternly, "mom, you don't need to get any pans for brownies or desserts because we have some at home, and maybe you'll get one for Christmas, OKAY?!" all that to say, i love my perfect brownie pan. i hope to write a review with the pros and cons, but you know how i am—in case it doesn't get blogged about, i'll tell you right now that i'd recommend it.

ryan is doing really good. he hasn't had any seizures since the last time i missed giving him his medicine. he is starting to use the right side of his body more, and is getting better at standing up and maneuvering the stairs. and he is definitely developing a mouth like his sister's—loud and never ending!

and now, i feel just a slight bit caught up. see y'all in another 22 days...!

just another day?

2009-12-31T14:10:00.001-06:00

so let's get right down to it—it's new years eve. but to me it feels like just another day. we have no plans to do anything tonight and no parties to attend. and ben and i were never into the party/drinking scene, so this holiday probably isn't as important to us as it is to other people.

and earlier this week as i was asked a few times if i was excited for new years, i'd say "no, it's just another day..." and at the risk of sounding exactly like my dad (which isn't a bad thing!) it is just another day. it's no different than yesterday or the day before. there really isn't anything super significant about this day apart from this: (and my dad's birthday—happy birthday daddy!!!)

it's another day that i'm alive!

it's another day that i get to enjoy my husband. my daughter. and my son.

it's another day that i can experience God's love, grace, and mercy.

it's another day closer to a new year, a new beginning, a chance to start fresh.

it's another day closer to Jesus's return!

so while it is, in fact, just another day, today i rejoice—for God has granted me yet one more day.

life is fleeting. it is a vapor, a breath, a blink of an eye. so not just today, but every day, take a moment to enjoy the gift of another day! that's what i'm celebrating today!

happy new year!

not me! monday

2009-12-28T23:30:00.000-06:00

well obviously i have NOT neglected my blog posting and reading to enjoy Christmas with my family, but now i'm back!

when i left you last, i was NOT looking forward to getting two teeth cut out. the oral surgery did NOT go great, with a little pain afterwards that has been easily remedied with advil. on Christmas Eve i did NOT slightly look like john mccain, due to swelling. and for the past three days? i have NOT had a bright yellow bruise on my cheek. but it is NOT so much better than super gluing my tooth!!

so speaking of Christmas... our plans for a lasagna dinner did NOT almost go up in flames. literally. while i was preparing said dinner, i did NOT place the box of lasagna noodles on the stove so that i could get my 9x13 pan out and i did NOT once again turn on the wrong burner, thus burning the cardboard lasagna box. and one noodle inside. i did NOT fess up and tell ben so he could lecture me before he smelled the burnt box and lecture me anyway. he did NOT come up with the brilliant idea to take all burners except one out of the stove. sounds good to me—what a great excuse not to cook!

the highlight of our Christmas with ben's family was NOT a "blush brush" that my 12 year old niece got in her stocking. i will NOT let the pictures tell the rest of the story...

yesterday it was warm enough that samantha got to go out and play in the snow. so i got her snow pants out only to realize that they were NOT a size 4T. surprisingly she fit into them. however, they did NOT come about halfway up her shins. so i did NOT lengthen the shoulder straps with ribbon and safety pins and then pull the legs down so that she could still wear them!

one of samantha's Christmas presents was a girl's day out with only mom which included dinner and getting her ears pierced. so i took her tonight to get it done, and all the way there she was talking about how excited she was, but also how nervous she was at the same time. and then she did NOT say to me in her teenager voice, "mom? i don't want a big audience there when i get my ears pierced, but i just wish dad and ryan could be there because they like just support me sooooo much and i just wish i could have a little more support there with me." i did NOT try so hard to keep from bursting out in laughter. and thankfully i did NOT succeed!

she did NOT do great and i was NOT extremely proud of her bravery. oh, and she did NOT age about 10 years. because on the way home, she was NOT constantly talking about when she'll get her driver's license and how she just wishes she could drive right now. oh boy...

before—could she be any more excited?!

after—my brave girl!

happy monday!

all i want for Christmas is my two teeth pulled

2009-12-18T23:38:00.000-06:00

alternately titled get ready for excessive parenthesis and italics!

about a month ago i posted that i broke my tooth and had super glued it back into place.

big mistake. nope, not super gluing my tooth, blogging about it and facing y'all's (pronounced yuh-allziz) lectures about how super glue is toxic and bad for me.

well i totally appreciate your concern, but i went against all advice and kept right on super gluing my tooth! you see, this is something that i HAD to do. (stay with me here, i'll get to my point sooner or later.) almost 3 years ago i had a root canal on my molar. i didn't get a crown at the time, since i didn't have insurance or the $600 to pay for it. about a year after i had this done, a quarter of my tooth chipped off (that's the black part in the picture—yes, i made a visual aid!). and then, four weeks ago, i felt my tooth crack as i was eating. after surveying the damage, the whole side of my tooth cracked all the way down below my gums (the black line in the picture).

the whole cracked part would pull away from my filling, but wouldn't come out. (not that i wanted to pull it out—ouch!) so when i'd eat and bite down, if the cracked part of my tooth was in any way out of place, it would hurt and my gums underneath the tooth would get swollen. so i've been pulling the cracked part out from the rest of the tooth with my handy dentist pic (and with my headlight on, of course), squirt super glue down in the crevice, and temporarily attach my tooth to the filling.

this past monday i was finally going to go get my tooth pulled. but after x-raying my tooth, the dentist said he wouldn't be able to pull it because it was cracked below the gumline. so i get to have it surgically removed. yipee. (sarcasm totally intended.) and guess what? my wisdom tooth* is growing in sideways(totally horizontal), pushing against my back molar. wisdom schmisdom. so i'll have to have that surgically removed also so that it doesn't damage my other molar.

*that's right. my wisdom teeth still haven't come in yet. i'll save you all the that's why she's so dumb jokes and say this: yes, that's probably why i'm not smart enough to stop toxifying my body with super glue.

so how does this all play into Christmas? (yes, i'm finally getting to my point.) well, i'm having my oral surgery on wednesday, december 23rd.

yes, you heard me right. two days before Christmas i'm having my teeth cut out! there goes our perfect Christmas... i have memories of my sisters laying on the couch, not being able to eat anything, and basically being zombie-ish after they had their wisdom teeth removed. so now i have visions of me being the same way. ben will probably have to fix peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for Christmas lunch, i'll be on the couch drooling, and in a moment of consciousness, i'll wish my family a meh-ee chis-us.

ok, really i think i'll be fine. i'm (hopefully) gonna have our dinners pre-made and all our other Christmas preparations done ahead of time. so i'm thinking Christmas movies for two days straight! and the one good thing about this? maybe i won't eat as many Christmas cookies and candy this year!

oh who am i kidding? i'll just load up on ice cream instead!

and, in the spirit of still being able to pronounce my R's, Merry (early) Christmas!

not me! monday

2009-12-14T19:39:00.000-06:00

it's monday... happy not me!

this week i have NOT abstained from peeking in my Christmas present(s). i do NOT want to peek so badly. and i just might NOT peek before Christmas gets here. but in other news, ben and my MIL were conspiring on the phone and searching the internet for something for me. and when they couldn't find it, i did NOT hear them say that they'd have to wait until next year. ahh! this past week has been hard enough not knowing what my presents were. how could i wait a whole year?! but last night? i figured out what it was!! i was looking for something on ebay and halfway down the page it had pictures of items recently looked at. aha!! when i asked ben about it he did NOT deny it and pretend he didn't know what i was talking about. after much interrogation he finally admitted it. ahh... sweet victory. and now i don't have to be in suspense for a year!

so if you thought the phlegm flying onto my leg was gross last week, stop reading. (don't say i didn't warn you.) as the week progressed, so did my cold. my head was so stuffy and my nose was so plugged, that one morning in the shower i did NOT blow my nose into my bare hands. nope. i definitely did NOT do that. instead i decided that not being able to breathe was better than doing something that nasty. only a man would blow green gobs of mucus into their hands, right?!

i did NOT rinse and repeat the next day. (read: i blew my nose into my hands the next morning too.)

i did NOT finish designing our Christmas cards/pictures online last week, but have yet to order them. the way i'm going, i am NOT thinking that they might end up being new year's cards...

happy monday!!

on the other hand,

2009-12-12T16:19:00.004-06:00

this present is totally peekable...

it

2009-12-08T19:21:00.000-06:00

all day it's been staring at me.

just me and it—whatever it is...

all alone with a pretty package and no one around.

temptation has taken hold of me.

i want want want want want to open it!!

but there's no peeking, because under a layer of pretty Christmas paper, it is hidden in a padded envelope, or so i've been told.

oh the tease that my husband wrapped it and left it out in plain sight.

argh!

how many more days do i have to wait?!

not me! monday

2009-12-07T23:12:00.002-06:00

ben was NOT home wednesday through today due to lack of work. and in our attempt to get some things done around the house, we did NOT get side-tracked by the mess of wires behind our TV. we did NOT spend one afternoon disconnecting, labeling, re-routing, and reconnecting cords and wires. i can NOT honestly say that the back of our TV is the only organized space in the house.

samantha did NOT have the whole week off school last week. this vacation was NOT unplanned and spontaneous. i am NOT counting wii games (she has to read), farmville (science), and shopping (social studies, math) as her school for last week, simply because that's about all she did!!

last week we did NOT get the tree up, 95% of the presents bought, gifts wrapped and placed under the tree. this is NOT the earliest we've ever had this done so we are NOT way ahead of schedule this year. now i will NOT be able to spend all my free non-stressful time cleaning the house....

this morning i did NOT go and soak in the tub after i told ben i was gonna jump in the shower quick. and i did NOT put my head under the water so i would not hear the kids and feel guilty for relaxing. and then i did NOT decide to shave my legs since i'm starting to look a bit manly. i did NOT have to pick globs of hair out of the razor a few times and i did NOT have to use more than one razor to thoroughly complete the job.

and just because i like to give y'all too much information and gross you out, while in the bathtub i did NOT have a coughing fit (remember we're all sick here) and a big glob of phlegm did NOT go flying somewhere out of my mouth. a couple minutes later i did NOT finally find it on my leg...

there ya go! what have you NOT been doing lately? join in on the fun or visit mckmama for some more not me! monday therapy!

i'd rather talk than breathe

2009-12-06T21:28:00.000-06:00

our household has been stricken with colds this week.

and there are two phases that always come with my colds. the sore throat, and the stuffy head/nose.

i could never figure out which was worse—the burning throat that hurts so bad every time you swallowed it feels like a baseball is going down your throat, or the stuffy nose and head that feels like it's gonna explode every time you breathe.

but this week when my throat hurt so bad i could barely talk, i realized that i would much rather be able to talk than breathe!

and i'm sure my family would rather have it that way too... right, family?

right??!?!

ahem.

what's your most annoying sickness symptom?!

picture from google images.

wordless wednesday

2009-12-02T12:47:00.004-06:00

monkey see, monkey do.

brace yourself

2009-12-01T17:29:00.000-06:00

this couldn't come soon enough. especially after ryan's tripping incident.

today we went and picked up his brace for his foot. and call me old fashioned, but for some reason i always thought it would look something like this:

image from yourprops.com

but apparently times have changed since 1950. although my desire to yell run forrest, run! hasn't.

ahem.

about a month ago ryan got fitted for a brace. it was quite an interesting process: first the lady put a double sock and a yellow train track on his foot and leg, then they wrapped some kind of tape around his leg that would harden. after it set for a couple minutes, she used her train scissors, and cut along the train track. then she cut one of the socks off and removed the mold of his foot!

pretty darn cool if you ask me. then we got to pick out what color we'd like and what ribbon we wanted. of course we had to choose the sport one!

so today we went to try it on and try it out! ryan did great with it on. it didn't even seem to bother him. it's designed to keep his leg straight and centered, and keep his toes up. and it's already working—he played around with a ball and was running and didn't even trip once!! the therapist was impressed!

so today he'll wear it for 2 hours. tomorrow, 3 hours, and the following day, 4 hours. if he doesn't have problems (redness around the foot that doesn't go away after 30 minutes) then he'll wear it as much as possible every day. he'll be able wear it around the house with socks and outside with shoes.

the shoe that the brace goes in needs to be a size bigger, so my plans were to go shoe shopping with him today. but coincidentally, i happened to buy two pairs of the same shoes in different sizes over a year ago. and they worked perfectly! thankyouJesus i just saved $35-$40!

wrong foot, ryry!

ryan will continue to have physical therapy on his leg and foot through the end of this year, and then we'll take a break for about 4-6 months and see how he's doing. but we've already seen improvements and now the brace will help even more!

so brace yourself, world. pretty soon this little man will be unstoppable and untripable!!

not me! monday

2009-11-30T17:44:00.000-06:00

what a fast, busy, fun week! we did NOT have a wonderful thanksgiving with ben's family on thursday. we did NOT eat to our heart's content and did NOT gaze for hours at all the black friday ads.

ben and i did NOT make a spur of the moment decision and we did NOT take his mom up on her offer to have the kids spend the night so we could go shopping on black friday. after deciding we weren't going to go to toys r us at midnight (the line was crazy long) we did NOT go get "dinner" (no we hadn't eaten dinner yet) at the gas station. i seriously did NOT eat a hot dog, half of an apple fritter, and a cappuccino at 1am. really, who would do that?! we did NOT stay up until 2:30am shopping online, go to bed, and then get up at 4am to go to target.

we did NOT have so much fun! after the day was said and done we did not go to target, walmart, toys r us, a different walmart, and a different target. and then on saturday ben did NOT go back to target. two times. we did NOT get a LOT of our Christmas shopping done!

we do NOT have a stack of items to return to walmart and target...

and speaking of Christmas shopping, ben did NOT tell me that he was going to buy me a present. (we normally don't exchange Christmas presents, so this was a surprise!) and then he did NOT tell me that it was in the ebay room. i have NOT been wrestling with the thought of going and finding said Christmas present.

the more i think of it the more i do NOT want to go peek...

i am NOT staying out of the ebay room...

how was your week?! go check out mckmama.com for more not me! monday fun!

furniture fighter

2009-11-29T22:40:00.000-06:00

my specialist of screaming, blower of raspberries, carrier of steak knives, tackler of daddies, breaker of dishes, lover of trains, expert of disobedience, epitome of cuteness, and master of mischief...

...can now add fighter of furniture to his repertoire.

the nightstand won.

worldess wednesday ~ stylin'

2009-11-25T13:02:00.002-06:00

not me! monday

2009-11-23T22:33:00.002-06:00

welcome to not me! monday! this blog carnival was created by mckmama. you can head over to her blog to read what she and everyone else have not been doing this week.

last monday my tooth broke. like the whole side of it cracked and was pulling away from my filling. so because i know that i won't be able to get into the dentist anytime soon (and because we don't have dental insurance and i don't feel like paying for a crown or a bridge—it's a tooth that's had a root canal.), i did NOT super glue my tooth. nope. not me! i did NOT get my handy dandy trusty headlight, my home dental kit (you know, the mirror and the pick thingy), and the super glue and i did NOT pull my tooth away from the filling and then squirt a bunch of super glue down in the crevice and push my tooth back into place. no... i definitely didn't do that! because if i did, i surely would've made a drawing or something. (sorry guys, i really did plan on making a visual aid, but i didn't have time today.)

after driving around to 4 local targets looking for a specific item, and calling my sister in minnesota to look for it, i did NOT convince my husband that we needed to go to a target 20 miles away. it was NOT an item that cost $2.50. i did NOT finally find it there, making the 40 mile round trip excursion a success. please don't ask how much gas we wasted...

on thursday i did NOT re-super glue my tooth.

on friday i decided to finally put away the groceries that had NOT been sitting on the floor in bags for about a week. and while i was over by the panty* i was NOT attacked by a swarm of fruit flies. ok, so i wasn't really attacked... anyway, in the bottom of my pantry i noticed that a walmart bag full of apples had a bunch of condensation on the inside. so i went to touch the bag just to find out that they were all rotten! (the bag was sitting on a couple other bags of potatoes and apples that were sitting on a couple 12 packs of soda.) so i got a trash bag to put it in, and when i pulled it out i realized the whole bag was pretty much liquid. it got all over the floor and all over me and it smelled like apple wine! a wonderful reminder of why i don't like wine... i cleaned out the rest of the stuff—the rotten apple juice had seeped down through the other bags, and through the packs of pop all the way down to the floor. needless to say, everything went to the trash. man, what is it with me and fermented fruit?!

*thanks for pointing out the typo, heather. no, people, i really do not keep groceries in my panties...

tonight i did NOT cook dinner. we did NOT eat at the kitchen table (third time in a week! *gasp!*). i did NOT put away the food after we were done eating. i did NOT wash the dishes. by hand. i did NOT then dry said dishes and put ~~most of~~ them away. my mom will NOT fall out of her chair when she reads this!

on thursday morning i did NOT stupidly cause a small fire in my kitchen. you'd think i'd learn from a mistake like that, right?! wrong. all day yesterday and most of today my stove did NOT look like this:

really, who would put the newspaper on the stove after they started a fire three days ago?! certainly NOT ME!!

the fire department is NOT on speed dial...

happy monday!

stupid. just plain stupid.

2009-11-19T22:05:00.001-06:00

it was a slightly normal morning. i hit snooze on the alarm clock a couple times and then (after 5 hours of sleep) got up to get ready for ryan's therapy appointment. i didn't wake the kids, as i wanted a few moments of peace before they woke up. i went to the kitchen and turned the tea kettle on so i could make myself a mug of chai, then sat at the kitchen computer to check my email and facebook. i groggily read through emails and statuses until i heard a soft little 'pop'—like the little poof when you light a gas stove.

i turned around to see what it was.

and then i jumped up!!

there were 12 inch flames shooting from the plastic pampered chef micro cooker that i left on the stove from a few nights ago.

yes, i turned on the wrong burner again...

i calmly panicked. i looked at the sink and back again at the flames. both sides of the sink had dishes in them. i looked back at the burning microwave-use-only dish and back at the sink again. so i quickly grabbed the few dishes on the one side of the sink, set them on the floor, grabbed the melting micro cooker, and hurried it over to the sink.

i grabbed the faucet sprayer and hosed down the remaining fire in the sink, then turned around to see the burner still on fire. the sprayer wouldn't reach that far, so i grabbed the dirty lid that i had set on the floor and covered the burner with it. but it's the kind of lid that has a hole to vent steam. so while it contained most of the fire, it didn't smother it all. i turned back to the sink to get something to put water in to pour on the fire. ah, the dirty pan on the floor... i grabbed it, put some water in it, ran over to the stove, turned off the burner (like, DUH, right?!), and picked up the lid. that big breath of oxygen made the flames shoot up again, so i dumped the water on the stove and went back for more. after the second dose, the flames were finally out.

i stood there, my legs shaking, looking at my mess and thinking about how bad this could have been: i never sit in the kitchen to check my email. never. i always use my laptop in the living room. and if i would've gone in there like usual, i would've never heard the popping noise.

and what if the kids would've woke up before i realized my mistake?! i could have been upstairs getting them dressed and not had a clue as to what was happening in the kitchen...

thank God i didn't experience a what if this morning. and thank goodness i didn't have to use the fire extinguisher (which was actually sitting right under the computer desk. and yes, the thought crossed my mind.), or worse, call the fire department!

well after all was said and done, i left the mess. the house was smokey and smelled like nasty burnt plastic, so i opened the doors, then went and got dressed quick. i got breakfast for the kids to eat in the car, then got them up and dressed, and we left for therapy. well, and to get away from the stench.

after therapy we went shopping, met daddy for lunch, then did some more shopping. we got home at 1:30 and the house still stunk. bad. so i opened the doors and windows again. thankfully it was a really nice day to air out the house!

when ben got home, i reenacted the whole thing for him, sans fire of course. i took a couple more pictures, and then i cleaned up.

needless to say, the burner and the drip tray went into the trash.

as did my one of a kind and just the right size for my itty bitty sink dish drainer.

oh, and also my mutilated micro-cooker.

i cooked dinner tonight, all the while with a husband and daughter who were cheering and clapping for me that i turned on the right burner, and used the correct pan on the stove.

oh well. it won't happen again... because i have no burner. and when i do get one? the knob will still be safely disconnected from the stove until needed!

not me! monday

2009-11-16T09:36:00.000-06:00

it's monday and mckmama's back for not me!! hop on over to her blog for some theraputic reading or to play along. of course, you know, after you read this post!

if you're friends with me on facebook, you may already know this story. samantha likes to play farmville on ben's facebook, and one day while playing it, she did NOT ask me, "mom, what does e-m-a-i-l mean?"

me: "why honey?"

sam: "because i'm signing up for facebook!"

me: "ummm.... no you're not!!! you're too young to sign up for facebook."

sam: "no i'm not too young. see..?!" as she's pointing to the sign-up page.

me: "no, you can't sign up honey.'

i did NOT think that was that, and go about my business, when a couple minutes later she did NOT ask, "mom, what year do i put in?"

me: "SAMANTHA YOU MAY NOT SIGN UP FOR FACEBOOK!!!!"

* * * * *

this week ben did NOT open a wii game (that we got for samantha for christmas) to try it out to see if it would be a good game to get for some other family members. he did NOT end up showing it to samantha and letting her play with it just so that he could keep playing it also. oh well, right?! so then a couple days later he did NOT do that with yet another game that we had gotten for her. and in the days since then, he has NOT played those games more than she has... ok, i admit it, i have NOT been playing them more than her either!

* * * * *

and not to leave ryry out, the other night i did NOT try to bribe him to give me a goodnight kiss in exchange for his binkie and chewy (his lovey). he did NOT refuse my offer. so therefore he did NOT have to go to sleep without said binkie and chewy.

when i tried that trick again last night, he did NOT cry and cry "BIIINNNNKKKKKIIIIIEEEEE" for about 15 minutes. and when i finally gave in and let him have it, he did NOT tearfully say "thaaaaaank yooooou." ahhh. it did NOT melt my heart. and speaking of the little peanut, he did NOT have some hard-working guardian angels this week...

* * * * *

what have you NOT done lately?! happy monday!

thankful thursday

2009-11-12T22:26:00.000-06:00

there are so many things to be thankful about concerning ryan, but as my day unfolded, i discovered a few incidents to be thankful for.

somehow ryan stuck his head in the handrail on our stairs this morning. it was lodged pretty good. and the metal balusters don't budge. at all. thankfully, after pulling and maneuvering, i got his head out. i'm SO glad he didn't stick it in there any further, otherwise i would've been calling someone. (who would i call? the cops? a blacksmith? do blacksmiths even exist still? boy i'm confused. i'm so thankful that i got his head out!)

fast forward to right before lunch. ryan emerged from the kitchen carrying a steak knife. apparently he's just now tall enough to reach the counter. i am incredibly thankful that his clumsy little self did not trip on the air and fall and letsnotevengothere...

and then at lunch stupid me decided to give ryan orange slices in a glass condiment bowl. bad idea. yes, he ended up throwing the bowl on the floor, shattering it to pieces. once again, i was quite thankful that he was restrained to his high chair—i would HATE to have to pick pieces of glass out his feet!!

oh, and i can't omit the immense amount of thankfulness in my heart when naptime rolled around. talk about my cup overflowing!

and as i sit here pondering the unexpected events and close calls of the day, i am thankful that tomorrow is a new day. let's hope he got all the accidents out of his system today!

what are you thankful for today?!

not me! monday

2009-11-09T10:24:00.002-06:00

happy not me! monday y'all.

after our mountain of halloween candy that was purchased last year (that we gave most away and didn't even eat), we did NOT go to 3 different targets looking for cheap clearance candy this past week. and even though we didn't really find any candy to buy, ben and i did NOT find costumes for each other for 75% off. so if you saw that couple in target with the desert dancer and french maid outfit in their cart it was NOT us.

ahem.

moving on...

i took ryan to a thrift store the other day and did NOT find the complete game of "lucky ducks" for him. as ry held it while we looked around the store, the game did NOT turn on while inside the box. there was NOT loud quacking coming from our cart. and when i opened the box to turn it off, i couldn't figure out how to turn it off. so i did NOT close the box, continue to walk around the store with a loudly quacking game, pay for it, and walk out to the car and stick it in the trunk. ryan did NOT show me how to turn it off later...

while sitting in the drive-thru yesterday, i did NOT roll down my window and attempt to dump water out of an old taco bell cup. however i did NOT stop to think about the fact that the wind was blowing in right at me. you see where this is going, don't you?! ...i did NOT toss the water out the window only to have some of it come back in on me. ben did NOT have a good laugh.

i am NOT on pins and needles today waiting to hear updates on stellan. please pray for him and mckmama (founder of not me! monday) as they face a very risky surgery today. get all of mckmama's twitter updates here, or visit mckmama.com.

happy monday!

ryan 101

2009-11-07T08:36:00.000-06:00

get comfortable and grab a drink—this may take a while! and pay attention because there's a test at the end.

just kidding! maybe...

last friday (oct 30th) i met with dr. h, ryan's neurologist, to go over the results of his MRI and EEG that he's had in the last 2 months. i was SO incredibly glad i recorded the appointment, because with big long medical words and an iranian accent (yes, i decided she is from iran, not india), i wouldn't have remembered one single thing!

i spent the weekend googling. and diagnosing. and writing down questions for dr. h. and after talking with her on the phone yesterday, i finally have some information about ryan.

here's what she said at our appointment:

from the MRI, both sides of ryan's brain are abnormal in different ways. the right side of the brain is abnormally larger than the left side. this is a rare condition called hemimegalencephly which can result in intrackable frequent seizures and also mental retardation.

ryan also has abnormalities on the left side of his brian. he has clefts, or slits in his cerebral cortex (the outermost layer of the cerebrum. you know, the ripply, wormy looking part of the brain.) due to migration defects or abnormal migration.

are you totally confused? yeah, so was i! as a brain develops inside a mother's womb, neurons in the ventricals of the brain migrate to the surface to form the different layers of the brain. and when problems occur with these migrating neurons, you end up with migration defects. (click on the link for some nice light reading. hehe!)

as for his EEG, the results showed slowing on both sides of his brain (meaning the rhythm of the brain waves is slower than would be expected). it also showed sharp waves (which indicate that partial seizures might come from that area) coming from both sides of the brian, but more from the left than the right.

now with ryan, dr. h is quite perplexed. with hemimegalencephaly (the abnormal enlargement on the right side of ryan's brain) it is common that there are abnormalities on the other side of the brain (which in ryan's case, there are) but usually the main symptoms come from the bigger side of the brain (the side with hemimegalencephly).

the confusing part is that ryan's main symptoms (weakness and delays in the right side of his body) are coming from the other side of the brain (the left side with migration defects). dr. h said this is unusual and was puzzling for her because after looking it up in medical literature, she couldn't find a similar report. she said she didn't really know how to explain that.

for what ryan's MRI showed, he is doing exceptionally well as compared to other kids with the same MRI results. he is not having frequent seizures (so far) and his delays are mainly physical (gross motor and fine motor skills) and not mental. as far as a prognosis goes, dr. h said we'll just have to go by what he shows us. most kids with the same diagnosis are not doing well.

soooooooo now that i've told you about the appointment, here's the update since talking with her on the phone yesterday! (hey, i warned you this would take a while!)

first of all, ryan had a seizure on thursday night (yeah, i forgot to give him his meds). it was different than his other seizures have been, but it started with his right hand shaking. this is good to know because it means that the seizure started on the left side of the brain (the side with migration defects).

secondly, in my googling and diagnosing, i came to the conclusion that ryan has schizencephaly on the left side of his brain (the side with migration defects), which is a rare developmental disorder characterized by abnormal slits, or clefts, in the cerebral hemispheres.

Symptoms can vary widely depending on the extent and the size of the cleft. Patients may show developmental delays that can range from mild to severe.... Paralysis of the limbs may be present... Abnormal muscle tone, including decreased tone (hypotonia) and increased tone (spasticity), can be seen. Some patients may have only seizures. Seizures usually present before three years of age.

thank you, answers.com!

when i talked to dr. h, she told me that the left side of his brain is causing more trouble right now. so he may not have hemimegalencephaly (abnormal enlargement) on the right side of his brain. the radiologist diagnosed it as that, and that's what it looks like, but it just doesn't make sense, medically. the neurologist and radiologists have a conference each month so she's going to discuss all of this with them to try and figure out if indeed he has hemimegalencephaly.

she also said that it looks like he has schizencephaly on the left side of his brain. ah hah, i was right! there just may be hope for me becoming a neurologist yet! she also said it could be polymicrogyria, but i won't bore you with the facts of that.

our game plan right now is to see an opthamologist (hemimegalencephly can have some findings in the eyes. this could help diagnose which type of hemimegalencephaly he has). he will also see a rehab doctor (because of his right-sided delays) and a speech therapist (just for an evaluation). we will continue doing therapy once a week (i'll update you on that later!) and continue on the anti-epileptic drugs. and if all goes well we won't have to see dr. h for another six months!

bottom line, God made no mistakes when he formed ryan's ~~little~~ large brain. ryan has a few slight problems, but we are blessed that his health is SO well!

and now for your test: if you made it to the end of this post, A+!

contraptionization

2009-11-03T10:37:00.000-06:00

i have made ~~an ingenious~~ a redneck contraption.

and this is it.

allow me to backtrack. i was washing clothes one night. mounds and mounds of laundry. the washer had worked fine the whole day, until that night. i went to put a load into the dryer and opened up the washer lid to find my washing machine filled with water and my clothes unspun. my washer had quit in the middle of the cycle and wouldn't spin. you know the switch (when you close the lid) that has to be down when it's in the spin cycle? come on, admit it. we've all stuck a pencil or something in the switch so that we could watch the clothes spin.

what? that was just me?? uhh...

anyway, well the switch broke and wouldn't spin a few months ago and then before ben got a chance to fix it, it started working again. when it first broke i could stick a pen or a toothbrush in the tiny little hole to trigger the switch and then take it out. and then that night it finally bit the dust. almost.

until my contraptionization instincts took over. i stuck the toothbrush in the hole and maneuvered it around until the washer started.

now how am i going to make the toothbrush stay at this angle?

ah hah!! the vinegar bottle! i'll just prop that up against the toothbrush...

but then how will i get the vinegar to stay? maybe if i lean it up against the lid. erg! the switch depressor on the lid is in the way and now there's a little gap so it won't stay...

hmmm... let's see if ben's paint bucket can prop the lid open. ugh! the bucket is sliding because it's too light. oh! i got it! i'll use the other paint bucket full of dirty brushes to keep the lid-propping-bucket in place.

voile! perfect!

hey, whatever it takes to be able to ~~cook and clean~~ read blogs or play online games instead of standing there for the entire cycle holding a toothbrush at just the right angle...

have you ever contraptionized?!

not me! monday

2009-11-02T11:16:00.002-06:00

i did NOT get ryan's EEG and MRI results on friday. and although i wanted to write an update that night, i was NOT incredibly confused by the diagnosis. so i have NOT been googling like mad this weekend. and after i read the first sentence of an article and was NOT totally perplexed by the terminology, i did NOT spend over 2 hours just reading about the brain and trying to understand basic stuff you'd probably learn in school.

i am NOT incredibly glad that i video recorded the appointment so that i could relisten to it at home. i did NOT just randomly hold the camera, so when i got home and watched it i did NOT enjoy watching the kids play during the appointment (and ryan sticking his tongue out at dr. h)!

i am NOT going to call the neurologist with some more questions today and hopefully get her email address in case i have more questions! then sometime i will NOT get an update for y'all!

* * * * *

in the process of making a cup of chai one early morning, i did NOT turn on the back burner for the tea kettle, all the while making sure the dirty plate (from the night before. not pictured.) on the front burner was far enough away. and then i did NOT smell something burning. maybe the dirty napkin fell off the plate onto the burner? and then i heard popping. as i went to see what was happening, i did NOT notice that i had in fact turned on the front burner, thus causing the food particles on said plate to burn. i did NOT grab the plate off of the burner, totally forgetting that it would be burning hot and almost drop it, and quickly set it on the cutting board that was on the other burner. it did NOT melt a ring on my cutting board.

for a cup of chai, it was totally NOT worth it!

* * * * *

we did NOT crack open the bags of 1-year-old halloween candy to see if they still tasted good. they were NOT still delicious. i did NOT double check their goodness. and we did NOT pass them out (along with our new candy) to the 100+ trick-or-treaters that came by. i do NOT think we should go buy some more clearance candy this week to save for next year...

ahem.

* * * * *

this morning i did NOT realize that i still have a love for sesame street. i did NOT pause my computer work to watch bert and ernie's great adventures...

* * * * *

as i'm sitting here on my laptop, ryan did NOT just bring me the broom and the stick vacuum. i am NOT gonna take a hint, get off the computer, and clean the house. well, maybe i'll clean after i go shopping...

happy monday everyone!!

happy halloween

2009-10-31T16:45:00.000-05:00

we don't celebrate halloween. we don't go out trick or treating, and we don't dress up. (go ahead and judge, because i don't have time to explain why right now.) we do hand out candy though, as you should very well know...

but this year i changed my mind.

some people dress up. some people dress up their kids. some people dress up their dogs. but me? i decided to dress up my house! and this year, my house is gonna be a dirty, messy house for halloween.

that's right. i made sure the beds weren't made, the carpets were dirty, the bathrooms far from sparkling, and the dishes unwashed. i went the extra mile to make sure there was dust on every flat surface, used diapers rolled up on the the living room floor, sticky spilled soda spots in the kitchen, and even an unusual stench coming from somewhere.

and the 2 liter of root beer i just emptied into my cup? my better judgement told me to just leave it on the counter instead of throwing it in the nearby garbage can.

and the bad part?! my house actually doesn't look as bad as it has in the recent weeks!

maybe next year i'll try to dress it up as a clean and tidy house—whatever THAT is!

moving on...

2009-10-28T23:34:00.000-05:00

we* have moved on

*ryan

from a love of ketchup

to a love

of

barbecue sauce!

not to worry, though. ketchup has not totally left the picture. ryan can still be found dipping his apple slices into ketchup...

what are your eat-out-of-the-container, can't-live-without, must-have favorite condiments?

not me! monday

2009-10-26T10:39:00.001-05:00

last monday i did NOT spend the whole day cleaning for family that was going to come for a visit, only to take a break to go to the grocery store. i did NOT end up coming home with 23 bags of groceries!! and in the 3.5 days that my family visited, we only ate here twice. uh huh... i do NOT have a lot of food in my house!

this past week i did NOT have a blast with my parents and my three nieces (9, 7, & 4 years old) who came for a visit. we had only a couple mishaps while they were here... it was very warm the second night they were here, so i did NOT decide to prop the front door open to cool off the house. we got the girls to bed, dealt with some homesickness, and then got the girls settled in bed again. we were sitting around chatting when i did NOT hear screaming from their room. i bolted upstairs and as i was running down the hall a black cat did NOT come running out of their room and out the front door!!! nope, a stray cat did NOT come in our open front door, go up to the kid's room, and scare the panties off 3 almost asleep overly tired little girls. needless to say, the door stayed closed from then on...

while my family was here ryan slept in our room with us. so he would NOT wake up when ben got up for work. since then his sleep habits have been way off. instead of getting up at 9-9:30, this morning he did NOT wake up before 8am. i am NOT dreading the time change this saturday and having him wake up before 7AM!!! (here is your friendly reminder... daylight savings time ends on sunday, november 1st. don't forget to set your clocks back one our this coming saturday night!)

i have NOT forgotten to give ryan his medicine about 4 nights this week. ugh. i will NOT have to start writing notes as a reminder. and speaking of ry, his neurologist did NOT fail to call me this past week, or the week before with the results from his EEG. and because i don't enjoy calling them and leaving a message for them to call me back, i did NOT decide that i'm just going to wait until his appointment this week to find out the results. besides, dr. h has an accent and i'm NOT afraid that i won't understand her over the phone! so for those of you who have been waiting for results, i will NOT get them at his neuro appointment on friday!

on saturday night we (yes. the whole family. ben included.) did NOT go to joann fabrics to get a couple things. (we were NOT there until closing time!) after we finally left the store, walked to our car, and unloaded our purchases i did NOT decide that i would give the cart a shove toward the store and let it roll there so i didn't have to push it back. well maybe it was the slight breeze, or maybe it was the downward slope of the parking lot, but the cart started going straight towards the store and then did NOT veer way to the left (right in the picture) and was headed right for one of the 5 cars in the parking lot. ben did NOT see what was happening and did NOT sprint over to the cart just to grab it right before it plowed into the side of the lady's car. the lady that was NOT just walking out of the store... i was NOT laughing my head off at what happened, and i'm sure the people that were sitting in their idling car did NOT get a good laugh either! and no, i did NOT draw a picture again just to better explain it...!

happy monday y'all. go visit mckmama for some more not me! monday fun!

wordless wednesday

2009-10-21T22:43:00.003-05:00

would you rather

2009-10-20T22:40:00.000-05:00

if you could pick only one,

would you rather have

a maid to clean your house and do your laundry,

a chef to cook your meals,

or a live-in nanny to watch your children?

because my mom is here now so i have all three!!!

i ♥ my mom.

not me! monday

2009-10-19T08:03:00.001-05:00

monday monday! it seems that i have done 400 loads of laundry this week. so now it's time to air the [not so] dirty laundry...

on saturday, ryan did NOT somehow change the snooze on my radio alarm clock from 10 minutes to 1 minute. so yesterday morning when the alarm went off and the radio came on, i hit snooze and rolled over. and then it came on again playing the same song. i hit snooze. and again, the alarm went off still playing the same song. in my tired state of mind i did NOT wonder why in the world the radio station kept playing the same song over and over again, and then did NOT feel stupid when i realized what had happened. i did NOT then turn off my alarm clock and go back to sleep!

* * * * *

remember that 47+ pounds of candy that we ben bought last november? well we do NOT still have about 4 unopened bags of it. and ben certainly did NOT suggest passing it out to the trick-or-treaters this halloween. after i vetoed that idea, i did NOT consider opening a couple of the packages to see if it tasted okay to hand out to the kids...

* * * * *

i have NOT been busy cleaning my house for the arrival of my parents and my three nieces later today. samantha has NOT been begging me to have the house clean so that she can impress them. i may NOT take a video of my clean house as proof. because this (a clean house) does NOT happen only about 2 times a year!

* * * * *

remember how i checked the mail in vain last monday? well my mail lady did NOT do the same thing! i did NOT laugh (and feel so much better) when she told me that last tuesday!

* * * * *

samantha has NOT started writing in a notebook-turned-diary recently, and last night she did NOT tell me i could look at it. she does NOT have the pages numbered like she's having a spelling test at school. and this is what i did NOT read:

1. I;m fablus. [yes, she used a semicolon instead of an apostrophe. and don't you love how she spelled fabulous?!]

2. God loves me.

3. I love you.

4. I have a boyfrend.

i did NOT gasp when i read #4. it is NOT our neighbor boy! and she has NOT told him that she loves him already.... we are NOT in trouble!!!

* * * * *

i did NOT cook a real dinner for my husband 3 times this week.

'nuf said.

* * * * *

happy not me! monday!!

inevitable

2009-10-16T14:38:00.001-05:00

i realize that i haven't really talked a whole lot about how i met ben here... or about how exactly i ended up in missouri. so today, i put your burning curiosity to rest. that, and my friend mary is having a bloggy carnival about first dates. join along if you'd like!

it was 12 years ago this coming november. the year was 1997. i was a minnesota born and raised 15-year-old green bay packer fan and lover of brett favre. i had recently discovered chat rooms online, and one inparticular chat room that i occasionally visited was a football chat room. one afternoon i happened to start a discussion about the packers with an 18-year-old missouiran and rival minnesota vikings fan. at the end of our conversation, for some reason, he gave me his email address, benk1@thisisnolongerhisemailaddress.com.

so i emailed him.*

and he emailed me back.

and thus my friendship with ben started. we emailed back and forth and chatted online for 2 years. and then one lovely afternoon in august my friend jessica and i were watching a movie at my house when i got a call from john henry with the internal revenue service. (remember that jess?!) mr. henry informed me that he had 6 documents stating that i hadn't paid my taxes for the past 4 years and if i didn't cooperate that he would hand the case over to the authorities. my parents weren't home, so i was kind of freaking out. and then he said something like, "so this is what you sound like." yes, that mean mr. henry who wouldn't believe that i'd never had a job was actually ben calling me for the first time. (and yes, he had written out his whole speech prior to calling me...)

and that was the beginning of our endless phone calls and tons of money spent on phone cards. eleven months later, in july of 2000, ben came to minnesota to meet me in person for the first time. i was 18, ben was 21. and at the airport it was love at first sight! he stayed at our house for nine wonderful days. we toured the city, went bowling and mini golfing, went fishing, had a pizza picnic, soaked each other in a water fight, and played a ton of games! i don't remember exactly what our first date was, but i do remember that we kissed the second night he was there. i gave him a hug goodnight, and then it sort of awkwardly but wonderfully turned into a kiss.

it was inevitable and unavoidable. and incredible.

and thence our relationship set sail.

our first ever picture together. please excuse my big looking head and my extremely white face. and the quality of the picture—it's from our scrapbook.

it was also inevitable that ben had to leave after our nine-day venture. but i will save that for another post! after all, this was only supposed to be about our first date!

hop over to mary's blog to read some more first date stories, or write your own and play along!

*in no way do i condone 15-year-old girls meeting boys online. he did not know my first name for months and did not give him my address or phone number for years. and yes, we will be coming up with a different story to tell our daughter someday...!

wordless wednesday — "hide-n-seek" style

2009-10-14T10:22:00.000-05:00

puh-lease tell me!!!

2009-10-13T21:23:00.002-05:00

why is it totally okay and acceptable for a husband to pass gas in front of his wife?!

but when the reverse happens and wifey is a little flatulent, it is gross, nasty, and absolutely disgusting?

there is definitely something wrong here!

not me! monday

2009-10-12T17:33:00.000-05:00

happy not me! monday. not only can we admit our imperfections without guilt, but this month there's also a chance to WIN! check out mckmama's blog to play along or for some hillarious reading material!

this week...

i did NOT take ryan to scary target the night before his EEG. i did NOT buy him $50 worth of toys to play with. and i certainly did NOT make him leave them in the boxes so that we can take them back...!

i did NOT clean the majority of my house on thursday (and it looked great!!), just to have my husband bring stuff home from the auction on friday. there is NOT a little path through my living room again.

in an effort to get out the door to make to church in time, i did NOT totally dump half of my mug of chai on my pop tart. and because breakfast is the most important meal of the day, i did NOT still eat it. and although i would never recommend a soggy pop tart, i am NOT trying to figure out how to make chai flavored pop tarts. because YUMM!!!

today i did NOT check the mail about four times and was NOT surprised to find nothing. on my fifth attempt to check the mail i did NOT remember that it is a holiday today. my retired mailman father is NOT laughing as he is reading this!!

i did NOT almost forget to call about ryan's EEG results today. the nurse told me that dr. h wasn't in today, so if she didn't call me this afternoon that she'd call me next week. hmmm.. (i wonder if she thinks it's friday?!) so our results are NOT that we have to wait for the results! i'll let you know when and what i find out!

ryan did NOT accidentally hit the enter button and post this before i was done. i am NOT scrambling to fix it before any of you see it!

happy ~~columbus day~~ monday!

thankful thursday

2009-10-08T17:49:00.000-05:00

if you read yesterday's post, i think today's thankful thursday should be rather obvious!

today i am extremely thankful for all of you, my dear friends and family, who lifted up ryan, ben, and myself in prayer yesterday. what an amazing experience it was to feel those prayers and see them answered!! i can't say thank you enough!

* * *

ben and i were able to take a little bit of video yesterday while ryan was getting the electrodes attached to his scalp. many of you have seen them on facebook, but i thought i'd post them here too, so that you could see a little bit of the process. and yes, that's max screaming. now see why i'm so thankful for your prayers?!

* * *

what are you thankful for today?!

priceless.

2009-10-07T23:36:00.001-05:00

elmo live: $60

fur real duck: $13

bubbles: $2

many prayers on ryan's behalf to stay awake and happy this morning: priceless.

and i really do mean priceless. because after only 4 hours of sleep NO toddler should be this happy!

ok, so the elmo live was on clearance for $30 and it is going back...! i thought i'd prepare for what would seem like a long night and morning with ryan and buy him some ~~returnable~~ new toys to play with. but in all reality, i don't really think i needed them. after a few tired tears this morning (from ryan, not me!) we managed to breeze through the morning with some cartoons, toys, a bath, and breakfast.

then we were out the door on our way to the children's hospital. ryan stayed awake the whole way there (at the exact time a few of you were praying. coincidence?? idon'tthinkso.nope!!) and was pretty much rearing to go.

when we got there we chatted with a mom who's little boy (let's call him max), a little younger than ryan, was also going to have an EEG. she had an awful time keeping him up until midnight and waking him up at 4. it sounded like they had a total opposite morning than what we had.

ryan got called back very quickly for his EEG at the same time max did. amy, the technician, asked a few questions about ryan and then we got started. first she had to take a lot of measurements of his head and then she marked on his head with a red marker where each electrode would be placed. after that she had to clean each spot with a toothpaste-type gel.

then it was time to attach each electrode. amy placed one on his scalp, put a piece of gauze over it, then brushed some smelly let's-get-high glue on the gauze. then she used very cold air to quickly dry the glue. the whole time we could hear max in the next room crying and crying. so i was relieved that ryan was exceptionally good during this process. he was busy playing with daddy's phone, and every now and then he'd say "owie." and after each electrode got attached he'd say "thank you!"

after amy got all 28 electrodes attached, she wrapped gauze around ryan's head and then it was time for him to fall asleep. i sat by his bed, prayed that he would quickly fall asleep, and watched his brain waves on the computer. he fell asleep very easily. again, three people (that i know of) were specifically praying at that moment!! awesome!

he slept for about 15 minutes and then amy woke him up. she put a strobe light about 12 inches above his head and did about 8 different tests with it. ryan loved it. i could tell he's had his picture taken plenty of times because he kept saying "cheeeeeessseeee!!!!!!" and each time she'd turn it off he'd say "all gone?! more??" after a couple more breathing tests it was time to take off the electrodes. amy used something that smelled like nail polish remover so we had to cover his eyes with a towel. this was actually the hardest part for ryan. he did NOT want to play peek-a-boo!

she combed some of the glue out of his hair (he has quite a bit of glue left in his hair and he'll be flaky for a few days. but it's all good—ryan loves taking baths) and then took him to get a treat. he got goldfish, elmo stickers, and a bugs bunny blanket! all in all it was a fantastic morning. on our car ride home i was thinking about poor max. we heard him cry so much before and after his EEG. which made me realize how much prayer can make a difference and made me appreciate all your prayers so much more. because without them i'm sure it would've been possible to have a bad experience like max did. so thank you!

we have to wait three business days to get the results. ryan didn't have any seizures that i know of during the procedure. although there were some very funky looking brain waves at one point while he was sleeping that she kept looking back over. but i obviously don't know how to translate anything that i saw on the computer, so i'm gonna leave the worrying up to God and just pray for answers!

thanks again for all the prayers—i'll hopefully post about the results early next week!

T minus 4

2009-10-06T23:51:00.001-05:00

it's T minus about 4 hours here.

in a few short minutes, ryan will finally get to go to bed, and i'll be right behind him! he has his EEG in the morning, and for this test he needs to be sleep deprived. so we have to keep him up until midnight tonight (which has so far been a breeze!), and then at 4am we have to wake him up and keep him awake until his appointment at 7:30am tomorrow morning.

if you're still awake and are so inclined, or if you're awake at 4am (why on earth would anyone in their right mind get up that early though?!), please say a little prayer for us that we'll have a good early morning with ryan and that we'll be able to keep him awake! i have some tricks up my sleeve to hopefully help in this endeavor (including a $60 elmo toy that was bought tonight with all intentions of returning it after we play with it tomorrow morning!!) so hopefully all will go well!

thanks a million!

not me! monday

2009-10-05T10:21:00.000-05:00

thanks to mckmama, there is now a reason to love and look forward to mondays! hop on over to her blog to join in on the not me! monday fun!!

* * *

sooo.... now that we all know the difference between pt and ot, i have to get this off my chest: when ryan's pediatrician told me that he needed physical and occupational therapy, i did NOT immediately think to myself, but he's not even remotely close to being old enough to have a job... nope, i am NOT that blonde!

* * *

while cleaning out the closet the other day, i did NOT find my bridesmaid dress from my sister's wedding 11 years ago. i did NOT proceed to try it on.... and it did NOT fit!!!! (ok, granted it was a slight bit more form-fitting than it was when i was 16, but it zipped all the way up. and i could breathe!!!) i was NOT so excited that i did NOT wear the dress for about 40 minutes while i called my sister to tell her.

* * *

during one of my coughing fits this week (due to this wonderful head cold) i did NOT cough up a big gob of phlegm and it did NOT go flying out of my mouth and land on my arm.... ummm, no. that really couldn't have happened because i always cough with a tissue. well, at least i do NOW!

the same thing did NOT happen to samantha. and she did NOT come and show me the glob of mucous in her hand...

* * *

since i now have a somewhat clean pantry, there is absolutely no way that i bought another jar of peanut butter at target last night. it was NOT on sale and i did NOT have a coupon. so of course i was NOT obligated to snatch up a good deal. and on top of that, we most certainly did NOT buy 3 more boxes of cereal...

* * *

happy monday y'all!

musings from the pantry

2009-10-04T15:10:00.001-05:00

i don't know how this happens or if i'm the only victim, but somehow my pantry has a way of devouring my groceries and hiding them in every crook and cranny until it's bursting at the seams and demands my attention.

so i cleaned it out the other day. and had this lovely conversation with myself while organizing...

* * *

why in the world do i have five jars of peanut butter in here? and why are three of them opened?! man, sara would be proud of me.

eww... best by april of 2006?! *trash*

chick peas. why the heck did i buy a can of chick peas?!

oh yipee—the mouse hole is still successfully patched up! gee, i hope we don't get another mouse this winter. *knock on wood*

jello anyone? you'd think i was my mom or something! i don't ever make jello so why do i have 31 boxes of jello?!

oh my goodness!!!! i almost bought three packages of jello the other day because i had a coupon...

blech! cheez its. (go ahead and judge my disliking of those cheese flavored crackers...)

oooohh! ketchup! we're almost out of ketchup!.... and jelly? why are they right next to each other? then again, why not?!

mmmmm.... ramen noodles. i bet those don't ever expire.... oh! they do expire! man, you can learn something new every day!

man, that was a great sale special k, fiber one, and pop tart sale at target. which reminds me, i still need to blog about couponing.

wow i have a lot of random thoughts. i should grab a pen and paper and write them down so that i can blog them.

note to self: don't buy special k or fiber one bars for about 3 years. or pop tarts.

i wonder how long the orderliness of this pantry is gonna last?

oh! iced animal crackers!

27 boxes of cereal in the pantry.... 27 boxes of cereal.... take one down. throw it away. 26 boxes of cereal in the pantry....

well it's good to know we won't be dying of starvation anytime soon.

note to self: don't buy anymore cereal either. or jello...

wow! i got rid of a lot stuff!! i better throw it all in the dumpster before ben gets home otherwise we'll probably end up keeping half of it!

dang, i wish i would've taken a before picture, cuz this looks WAY better now!

* * *

and now, more cleaning. tune in next week for musings from the bathroom.*

*totally kidding!

all righty

2009-10-02T23:48:00.000-05:00

it has been a do nothing, medicine taking, soup eating, nose-blowing, nap taking, vitamin C chewing, sick week for us. ryan and samantha both had the coughs and sniffles on monday, samantha had a high fever for three days, ben and i have been trying to fight it off, and now we (ben, sam, and i) all have bad head colds. ryan has been fine since monday—i've been praying the crud away from him—and samantha was pretty much back to her normal self today. hopefully this will be the extent of our sickness this winter....

oh, who am i kidding?! now starts the continuous need for puffs plus lotion tissues!

——————————

last thursday ryan had his first therapy session to help improve his motor skills on the right side of his body. he's doing both physical and occupational therapy. the general difference between the two is that occupational therapy(ot) works with the body from the waist up, while physical therapy(pt) works with the body from the waist down.

our first appointment was more of an assessment for ryan. i talked with both therapists about ryan's weaknesses in his right side and they played a few 'games' to see what they had to work with. they said he has a lot of potential, so hopefully our weekly therapy visits will pay off!

yesterday ryan had his second appointment. amy, who will be working with ryan's arm and hand, said that he has good movement in his hand and she was encouraged that he could actually open it. amy taped ryan's good hand so that he would be forced to use "righty." and she sent two rolls of tape home with us so that we can do therapy at home with him as well.

andrea, the physical therapist, told me that ryan has good range of motion in his right leg and foot. but he needs to build strength and muscle. and to help with that, next week we'll look into getting a brace for his right leg/foot or, as ryan also calls it, "righty."

we're all righty around here now. show me righty, get it with righty, use righty, and so on. it definitely would've been easier if we would've started this a long time ago. but thankfully we're finally on the right track!

——————————

in other news, ryan's EEG got way bumped up from november 18th to october 7th—this coming wednesday. he needs to be sleep deprived for this test, so the night before—tuesday night—we have to keep him up until midnight. then we (me AND ben) have to wake him up at 4am and keep him awake until his appointment at 7:30am. he'll have about 22 electrodes glued to his scalp (no, they don't have to shave his head) and then he'll have to fall asleep for 10-15 minutes, then they'll wake him up and do some tests to try to figure out what has triggered his seizures. this will take about 2 hours, and then we'll come home and SLEEP!

i've had trouble with how i should pray about this. i don't know if i should pray that ryan will have a seizure while he has the test, or if i should pray for normal EEG results, or what. so i'm just praying for answers. i know y'all will be praying for answers along side me, and i will definitely remind you to pray, but please also pray that we'll all stay awake on wednesday morning and that ryan won't be too crabby!

ok, i'll be honest here. please pray that i won't be too crabby either!!

my week in numbers

2009-09-30T11:31:00.000-05:00

102.7—samantha's temperature last night.

3—days that samantha's had a fever.

81—our forcasted high for today. one last nice day before "cold" october hits!

6—the number of times i've almost forgot to give ryan his medicine.

0151—the alt keyboard shorcut for my new favorite frequently used punctuattion mark—the em dash.

1—the percentage of my house that is clean—i.e. my ceiling. oh wait, scratch that. i see a cobweb...

11—the time samantha got up this morning.

60—the number of peppers on our plants outside. peppers anyone?

0—the number of seizures that ryan has had since last wednesday.

7—days until ryan's EEG. yes, we got bumped up to october 7th!

23—cars strewn about my living room floor.

480—the number of minutes that samantha will probably lay on the couch and watch tv today.

92—days until 2010. can you believe how fast this year is going by?!

5—how many nights ben will get to be home this week. finally—a week where he's not gone 5 nights!

78—things that i need to do today after i post this.

12—things that will probably actually get done!

not me! monday

2009-09-28T16:28:00.001-05:00

so if you've read my blog lately, then you already know what's been happening around here this past week. i was a little too stressed to have many not me! moments that were blog-worthy, so today we're gonna take a walk down memory lane... today i'm NOT gonna admit to some pretty stupid, embarassing, and unknown facts from my childhood days. enjoy...

when i was probably six, i was NOT way more naive than samantha is for her age. i didn't know what any "bad" words were, and even if i did, there's no way i would ever say them in front of my parents. well one night my mom's friend FROM CHURCH came over and we were going to show her our baby chickens. (yes, my family used to raise chickens.) none of them would come out from under their box, so i did NOT decide to call them the A-word. in front of my mom. and her friend. thank God that my dad wasn't there! when my mom asked me what i said i did NOT stammer and say "uh, i called them axes..." this is NOT one of my favorite memories of getting in trouble. probably because my mom was so shocked, and also because she doesn't remember it!

one morning before school, as i had just about gotten my bangs to poof just right, i did NOT decide to curl them one more time before heading out the door. i grabbed the curling iron and stuck it in my hair right next to my scalp. i was NOT horrified when i took it out and my bangs were standing straight up. i did NOT look like cameron diaz in there's something about mary. and my bangs did NOT have a bright red substance in them. after freaking out, i did NOT discover that my curling iron had been resting up against my red candle. it did NOT melt the wax all over my curling iron, and then it did NOT harden in my hair. i did NOT try to brush it out—youch!—and pick out as many pieces that i could on the way to school. i did NOT walk around all day with little pieces of wax in my hair, making me look like i had bad dandruff. and i did NOT throw away that evil candle when i got home.

i have always had a ~~small~~, ~~weak?~~, ~~overactive~~ bad bladder. call it what you like, but i've always been the one who has to use the restroom ALL.THE.TIME. so when i was about 13 years old, the thought did NOT cross my mind i wonder if one of those huge, uncomfortable, ginormously thick maxi pads would work if i had an i-need-to-go-NOW emergency??... my curiosity did NOT get the better of me and i did NOT experiment one day—thankfully in the confines of my bathroom and not out in public. because it did NOT fail to work as i hoped!!!

what have you NOT done this week? or last month? or 20 years ago?!

scary target

2009-09-24T21:37:00.000-05:00

remember how ryan doesn't like going to target? and that he cries and cries when we go by the scaries, or in other words, halloween stuff? well that little bugger is so smart that he figured out a way to avoid it—have a seizure.

last night after i dropped samantha and her friend off at church for awana, i decided to head over to target to grab a couple non-essential items. ryan and i got as far as the greeting cards. i was looking through the cards for a couple minutes and finally successfully picked one out.

*side note: i should SO make greeting cards. i'm sure i could come up with some better stuff than what was there. and even if i couldn't come up with anything, did you know that there was a blank cheap looking card there for over $3?! ridiculous...

anyway, i picked out the card, turned around to put it in the cart and ryan was seizing. his back was arched, his head was tilted way back with his eyes rolled back, and his arms were twitching. i grabbed my phone to check the time, tried to snap him out of it, then decided to jet outta there.
there was some humor to this, too, because i had to decide if i'd push him out in the cart or just grab him and run. i didn't want to carry my suitcase of a purse, and i had a mcdonalds bag in the cart too. so i ditched the card that i was intending to purchase and headed for the doors. but when i got to the door i realized that the envelope was still in there. i was looking around trying to figure out what to do with it and where to put it, and i finally just put it in another cart that was by the door. looking back i should've just shoplifted the envelope and then bought the card today.

anyway, i pushed him in the cart out to the car, called ben (who, thank God, reminded me that children's mercy urgent care was about 5 blocks away), and drove over there all the while watching ryan in the rear view mirror to make sure he was doing all right and to see if he was still seizing. by the time i got there, his seizure had stopped (it lasted about 2.5 minutes) and he had thrown up on himself. i ran into the clinic and they brought him back to a room right away because, as i later found out, the nurse said he was a little blue when i brought him in.

i laid him on the bed and as they took all his vitals (his temp was 99.5—they said this was not a febrile seizure like we suspected his first one to be.) he started responding to me a little bit. i was telling the nurse who was triaging him about his history and his recent MRI, and then i stopped mid-sentence. ryan started shaking, like he was shivering all over, and he wouldn't respond to me or make eye contact anymore. they called the doctor in. that seizure lasted a minute. he came back fairly quick after that seizure and from then on he was fine the rest of the night.

the doctor that was there called the neurologist that was on call that night. he prescribed keppra, and antiepileptic drug, for ryan to start on (if a person has 2 non-febrile seizures, they're pretty much considered epileptic). we also got a drug called diastat to carry with us, which will stop longer seizures FAST if needed.

we were discharged about an hour and a half after we had gotten there and man was ryan happy to go home! after i put him to bed i was all out of sorts. i was confused at what i should do with his meds, overwhelmed by all the "stuff" i needed to educate myself on, overloaded with questions in my head, tired, and totally chocolate deficient. thankfully i was able to go to bed with my mind at ease a little bit. i feel so incredibly blessed by my two friends (who have epileptic children of their own) who were able to encourage me and answer some of my questions. thank you nicole and cheryl!

this morning i took ryan to his first therapy session, which went great! i am going to save that for another post though. you're welcome. and then we went back to the scene of the crime so i could get that card that i picked out at target last night. and as nerve-wracking as that was, you have to get right back on the horse after you fall off, right?! thankfully, ryan didn't have any seizures, and he didn't even cry when we walked by the scaries!

this afternoon i was busy on the phone talking with dr. h, ryan's neurologist at children's mercy hospital here in kansas city and lynn, dr. h's nurse. i got a LOT of information and some questions answered. dr. h told me that she wasn't surprised to hear that ryan had more seizures. she said that with the findings on his MRI, you would expect seizures and she was actually surprised that he had only had one before. we will start ryan on his medication to hopefully prevent him from having any more seizures right now, and we have an EEG tentatively scheduled for late november, although lynn said that it will most likely be bumped up to october or early november.

after all my phone calls today my mouth hurt from talking (not the first time that has happened! haha!) and my head hurt from listening. i had an i-need-to-cry headache. i took a spoon and ate a couple bites right out of the chocolate french silk ice cream carton. i gave samantha a crash course in what to do in case of a seizure. and i cried. samantha asked me what was wrong and i told her i was sad about ryan. and the wise 6-year-old that she is answered me with "mom, he'll be fine. he was fine the first time he had a seizure. and besides, we'll all be healed someday. from Jesus." ohhh, what a blessing she is!

thank you all for your prayers and concerns and encouragement that you offered last night—it means so much to all of us! and also, if you made it to the end of this post, congratulations! i will try not to be as talkative (or would that be typative?) next time!

worldess wednesday

2009-09-23T13:49:00.000-05:00

because you learned this when you were a toddler...

2009-09-22T18:17:00.004-05:00

how to walk.

how to use utensils when you eat.

how to dress yourself.

how to drink out of a cup.

life is not very complicated as a toddler. it is not rocket science, these simple life skills that are learned at an early age. but as evidenced recently, some people need a little refresher course on one particular developmental milestone. and this is probably something that is repeatedly drilled into a toddler/young child's head: wash your hands with soap after you go potty!!!

seriously, you don't see adults crawling around, shoveling food into their face with their hands, and drinking out of a sippy cup. so for the love of mike (or bob. or jim.), please tell me why are there grown people that act like babies when it comes to common bathroom etiquette?!?

*image property of washinghands.net*

yesterday at one of my frequently visited one-stop-shopping-centers, samantha needed to use the restroom so i accompanied her and waited patiently outside the stall. i thoughtlessly sized up the bathroom situation while waiting for samantha: two other stalls were occupied. samantha exited her stall. and even though she would know to do this in her sleep, i reminded her to wash her hands.

a toiled flushed and a woman around 65-70 years old vacated her stall, walked over to the automatic sink, placed her fingertips under the water for half of a second, glanced around for the towels, then proceeded to ask me where they were.

now i have respect for my elders, so naturally i did not say what was going through my head. but come on, what would her mom have said if she was there?! i'm sure she was taught to wash her hands, right? and you'd think older people would wash their hands to avoid getting sick, right? right?!

i will have to admit that thankfully the woman was thoughtful enough to portray that she was actually washing her hands. because i can't tell you how many times i've been in a public restroom and people have flushed the toilet, walked out of the stall, and exited the bathroom without even a glance toward the sink. really people?! i don't care what your bathroom routine is at home, but please have the courtesy and take 10 seconds to wash your hands as if it's an everyday habit.

even if i go into the bathroom stall with samantha and don't actually use the toilet or touch anything, i will still wash my hands upon departure. because in all reality, i don't want to be the guest subject of any bathroom etiquette blog post!

and while we're on the subject, i have another bathroom story from our vacation this summer. our whole family went camping together, and one of the best parts about camping is the little gas station nearby that sells ice cream cones. it's a daily (if not bi-daily) occurrence for us to venture down to the gas station for some ice cream, or tea cream, as it's more commonly known in our family.

this gas station also has a washing machine and dryer, so one day i went there to do a load of stinky, skanky, smoke-ridden clothes. after getting quarters from the lone employee sitting behind the counter, i decided i'd do my hair and make up in the bathroom right down the hall in order to pass the time. just as my beautification process was about done, said employee entered the restroom, went in the stall, quickly emptied her bladder, flushed the toilet, exited the stall, and walked right out the door.

i'm sure shock was written all over my face as i couldn't believe that happened. sure, i know she didn't want to leave the store unattended for a long time, but what could've happened in the 20 seconds it would've taken her to wash her hands?! i just don't get how people can do that with witnesses present... thinking it couldn't get any worse, about 30 minutes later i went to pay for some firewood and there she was, scooping up ice cream for some poor unsuspecting family... i went back to the campsite and told the story to my equally shocked family. we didn't get ice cream from her that day...

so... have you ever experienced this kind of bathroom behavior? do you wash your hands?! do you have an interesting public restroom misconduct story? do tell! although, if you don't wash your hands, please keep that to yourself. otherwise i just might blog about you!

not me! monday

2009-09-21T10:11:00.000-05:00

good morning and welcome to not me! monday!! hop on over to mckmama's blog for some more hillarious not me! monday confessions (but right after you read mine, of course!)

i did NOT blog about treating our house for fleas, and then blog a few days later about how i don't clean my house. i did NOT realize that this would make us sound like sloppy, messy, white trashy people. and while i can assure you that we're not, i will admit that we're simply NOT a little disorganized! (and our house doesn't look that bad anymore...!)'

samantha did NOT finally start school last tuesday only to have wednesday off because her friend came over. we are only a few weeks behind now and i did NOT just order the rest of her curriculum on saturday...!

while ben and samantha were gone all day saturday, i did NOT decide to go to target with ryan. and when we were walking towards the entrance ryan did NOT start saying "scary, scary." (all because we went to target a couple weeks ago and ryan bawled his head off because he was terrified when we walked past the halloween aisles.) after we made it through the store with only a few tears and $50 spent, i did NOT decide to go to another target for a repeat performance. hello, my name is erin, and i am NOT addicted to target!

i did NOT take a pregnancy test last monday after thinking that there was a ~~slight~~ huge possibility i might be pregnant. it was NOT negative. (although really, it was negative!) and as the week went on and on i did NOT get more and more nervous that the test was wrong. i did NOT resolve that i would take yet another test this morning, until finally last night my aunt flo did NOT show up eight days late! i did NOT breathe a sigh of relief and silently say thank you Jesus! because even though we do NOT want to have more kids, we're not quite ready to pursue that venture right now—sorry auntie di and gramma! (oh, and sorry dad if that was a little too much information!!)

on friday, i did NOT whack my head on the washing machine whilst bending over to pick up ryan. it still does NOT hurt. yesterday ben did NOT throw out his neck while he was clearing his throat. and this morning, i did NOT wake up to a thud when samantha fell off of her ladder. i am NOT wondering when and how ryan will hurt himself. might as well make this a family affair, right?!

happy monday, y'all. have a blessed day!

i felt like a 1950's houswife.

2009-09-16T23:37:00.000-05:00

today i got a visit from someone i figured was long extinct. there was an unexpected knock at the door, and when i answered it, there standing in front of me was a door-to-door salesman selling household cleaner. i never knew door-to-door salesmen still existed. i had only ever seen them in old episodes of classic tv shows like i love lucy and such.

so for a minute i felt like june cleaver. until i looked down and realized i wasn't wearing a dress and high-heeled shoes. and then i glanced back at my unkempt children and my messy house and i swiftly came back to reality!

our conversation was quite interesting, as i'm not usually very good at dismissing an unsolicited sales pitch. that, and if you've ever seen my house, you know that i'm not really in the market for cleaning supplies. so i thought i'd share our banter...

me: "hello?"

man: "hello ma'am, how are you? my name is james and i'm with the blah blah blah company."

me: "hi james, how are you today?"

james**: "fine thanks."
**names have not been changed to protect the innocent.

and then the conversation turned to the little spray bottle he was holding. he mentioned that this cleaner was non-toxic, didn't have harmful chemicals, and was great for people who are going green. *gag me*

james: "so what is your hardest cleaning job that you have here at home?"

me: "um.... i don't really do a whole lot of cleaning..."

james: "now you have kids right? because i know your feet aren't that small!" *he said as he glanced at samantha's shoes that were sitting on the front steps.*

me: "yes."

james: "have you ever gotten marker get on your carpet?" *he digs out his white rag and sharpie and scribbles black magic marker all over it.* "have you ever seen anything get out magic marker?"

me: "yep!"

james: "really? what?"

me: "alcohol."

james: "you're supposed to drink that! but really? alcohol? like rubbing alcohol?"

me: "yep."

james: "well have you ever seen it come out this fast?" *as he sprays his product on the marker and rubs it out. then he went on to another question:* "so who does the cleaning here at your home? you? your husband?"

me: "um.... well, none of us, really!"

james: "well what about cleaning your car? this stuff takes bugs off the front of your car just great!" *points to our car about 15 feet away.* "do you see all those bugs on the front of your car?"

me: "no."

james: *goes over to our vehicle, sprays his cleaner on the front fender and starts scrubbing.* "did you know that if you leave bugs on your car too long there's an acid in them that starts eating the paint chips?"

me: "no." *thinking to myself, good—then it will match the chunk of paint that has been scratched off for 3 years...*

james: "well, your husband probably knows that." *moves over to the tire and starts cleaning the hubcaps.* "this also cleans brake dust off of your hubcaps and protects them for 4-6 weeks."

me: *laughing* "sorry, we don't get that detailed!"

james: "well this also gets off fingerprints and scratches under your door handle."

me: *?! does this man really not realize that i don't clean? let alone UNDER the car door handles?*

james: "i work with the company out in california. where are you from?"

me: *?! that's random. wouldn't he assume i'm from...* "here..."

james: "do you have any spots in your car on your upholstery that have been hard to get out?"

me: "sure, try this one."

james: "is that a stain from a beverage?

me: "no, i think it's just mud from the winter."

james: *cleans the spot on the floor and shows me all the dirt. then proceeds to spray my seat and clean it. wipes it up and shows me the rag that hardly has any dirt on it!* "well, the cleaner comes in a bottle and it is sealed. it's a concentrate and it will last you for about a year and a half."

me: *a year and a half? try about 6 years for me then!* "well i don't think i'll buy any right now, but can you leave me with any information?"

james: "all i have to leave you with is the bottle. a quart is only $48. and next time you order you'll call the 800 number and you'll get ten dollars off and free shipping."

me: "sorry, i can't spend $48 today without talking with my husband. and we just got new tires on yesterday so that cost quite a bit of money. if we want some in the future i'll just look you up online."

james: "well you won't get the $10 off or free shipping."

me: "that's okay, thank you!"

james: "it will also get rust spots off of your railing up by your door."

me: *walking up to the house, um... we don't have rust spots on our railing..!* "thank you for stopping by..."

me: *walked inside, googled the product, read the reviews and found out that it really isn't that great of a cleaning product!*

so now, friends, i want to hear your stories—have you ever had an experience with a door-to-door salesman? have you ever bought $48 cleaner only to realize that the off brand dollar store stuff works better? do you clean your hubcaps?!

the results are in

2009-09-15T23:43:00.001-05:00

and this year's best female video goes to...

ok. just kidding.

i heard from ryan's neurologist yesterday evening and she gave me the results from his MRI. we got a good report—better than what was originally suspected!

ryan did not have a stroke at birth, nor does he have a cyst on his brain. however the MRI did show an abnormality on one side of his brain. dr. h said that he has a developmental abnormality in which one side of his brain didn't develop all the way and is therefore behind. now i'm not sure if this is referring to his brain development when he was inside the womb or after he was born. if his brain didn't fully develop inside the womb i guess it kind of explains the "something" on his CT scan at birth.

this is something that may or may not be genetic. [insert erin is abnormal jokes here.] we could possibly get a blood test done on him and see a geneticist, but the only reason it would be recommended that we find out is the fact that our future kids may or may not have a similar problem. which would mean that if i got pregnant the doctors would probably want to do tests to see if there was anything wrong with my baby and to give me "options." sorry, but if we have more children, i'm not going to deny my child a chance at life because he or she may have a developmental abnormality!!!!

ok. thanks for letting me rant there!

back to ry: dr. h also told me that he's at a higher risk for seizures and if we notice any symptoms like staring or twitching that he'll need to be seen again and have an EEG. again, some unknowns—i don't know if he's at a higher risk because of his brain abnormality or because he's already had a febrile seizure.

there are some questions we don't and probably won't have the answers to—dr. h isn't sure how this will affect him in life. she doesn't know if the one side of his brain will always be developmentally behind or if, with therapy, he will be able to develop that side of his brain more and catch up.

with all that ~~said~~ typed, our plan of action is to get ryan into therapy to develop his motor skills on the right side of his body. he'll have physical and occupational therapy starting a week from thursday. from what we can tell right now, ryan's delays seem to be mainly with his motor skills. intellectually he's very smart. he talks up a two-year-old storm, loves to sing, knows his abc's, and can count to 10.

other than therapy, there is nothing else that needs to be done with him right now. if we so choose, we can have a follow up appointment with dr. h to go over the results and see the mri. but as for right now i don't think that will be necessary.

thank you all so much for your prayers! all your sweet and caring comments were greatly appreciated! now go celebrate the good results with some ice cream!

not me! monday

2009-09-14T19:12:00.001-05:00

this week...

i did NOT almost put my foot in my mouth at ryan's mri appointment when i almost told one of the doctors that nurses are better than doctors!!

and speaking of his mri, i did NOT forget all about it this weekend and totally forget to call today to find out the results until ben phoned me to see if i heard anything! i am now NOT waiting patiently for dr. h to call me with the results.

we did NOT have a bug scare this weekend and have NOT taken precautionary measures and treated our cars and our house for, ahem, fleas... (that our car picked up somewhere else). my washing machine has NOT been running non-stop and my carpets have NOT ever been vacuumed this many times in one weekend!

because of the flea scare, we did NOT decide to royally clean out ben's work car. we did NOT fill over six garbage bags of trash and ben did NOT find something that he got from a job over a year ago!!

yesterday we were minus samantha, so we decided to try out a new to us hole-in-the-wall mexican restaurant. i did NOT have fajitas for the first time ever. (go ahead and judge, people.) they were NOT incredibly YUMM-Y! (why hasn't anyone ever told me how good they are?!) and we did NOT have the cutest little waiter. he did NOT remind me of a latino elmer fudd!

i cleaned out my pantry today (yea me!) and did NOT find a few items that were over 3 years expired. and i also did NOT find a sinful amount of cereal. and jello. any guesses as to how many boxes?!

you can find more not me! fun at mckmama's blog. happy monday!

happy happy

2009-09-11T15:55:00.001-05:00

this is the face...

...of a boy—a happy boy...

...a happy boy who had a 6 hour nap!

———————————————————————

things went exceptionally well yesterday for ryan's MRI. he was only the slightest bit crabby due to no breakfast and no lunch. we got to the hospital at 12:30, got signed in and registered, and then ryan went to get his IV put in his hand for his sedation.

that went great too, considering we had to wait 40 minutes after he got the IV in for him to be put under. he wasn't very fond of the big "owie" in his hand, so he kept kissing it to try and make it better!

ryan finally went back for his MRI, which lasted about 50 minutes, and was just waking up when i got to his sedation recovery room afterwards. in the 5 minutes that he was awake, he made sure the nurse took his owie off of his hand, whined about the blood pressure cuff on his leg, refused anything to drink, and then zonked out in my arms.

when we got home i cuddled with my sleepy baby for a few minutes, then I put him in his crib where he was beyond conked out until I decided to wake him up at 7:30pm. as i was forwarned, he was quite tipsy from his sedation hangover when I got him up. he stumbled around the living room like a newborn foal trying to stand and even after a couple hours he still didn’t have his sea legs back. but that stand in the way of his appetite—he ate a good dinner and was ready for bed!

all in all it was a successful day. thank you all for your prayers—i will definitely post when i hear the results next week!

———————————————————————

what's that? you want to see some more happy happy pictures? why certainly...!

wordless wednesday and more

2009-09-09T23:48:00.001-05:00

wordless wednesday (scroll down for the more!):

the more:

and now for the news on ryan. if you remember, a little over a week ago i blogged that we had a neurology appointment for ryan. the reason for this was that he is and has always been extremely left-sided. not only does he possess strength in his left side, but he lacks strength in the right side of his body. we always thought this was an outcome of swaddling him for 8 months (the neurologist assured me that it wasn't from swaddling) and that he would eventually gain gross and fine motor skills on the right side of his body.

remember when he started walking? did you watch the videos? he would drag his right leg when he started walking, and when he'd clap, he'd bring his left hand to his right hand instead of clapping with his right hand. he's always been physically delayed as far as sitting up, crawling, and of course walking. and since he's turned two and still can not pick up any given object with his right hand, we thought it was time to make sure everything was a-okay with him.

oh, and when he was born he was in the NICU for a week with breathing and apnea problems. he had a CT scan and the neonatologist told me that there was "something" on one side of his brain (yeah, i can't remember exactly what he said. i was a sleep deprived, hormonally whacked out mama.) but that it was probably nothing and he didn't think there was anything to be worried about. minor detail, right?!

we met with a neurologist, dr. h, about two weeks ago (sorry i didn't blog about this sooner. it's been a little crazy!). after assessing ryan and asking us gobs of questions, she came to the assumption that ryan may have had a stroke right before, during, or right after birth. hmmm... makes a little sense. there is also a possibility that he could have a cyst on his brain. and the only way to confirm that is with an MRI.

the good news is that dr. h doesn't seem too concerned about this since it hasn't progressively gotten worse—ryan's walking has improved tremendously and he can now pick up certain things with his right hand, although awkwardly. and if the results of the MRI conclude that he indeed had a stroke at birth, 98% of infants go unaffected later in life

tomorrow afternoon ryan will be having the MRI. since he'll have to be still for about 45 minutes, he will be sedated for it. so he cannot eat solid foods past 6:30am and cannot have liquids after 10:30am. please pray that tomorrow isn't too crazy for him. the boy loves his food!! and no breakfast and no lunch should make for a fun day

we won't get results for a few days, but i will try to update via twitter tomorrow.

and since it's late and i'm tired and my creative juices are not flowing and i don't really know how to wrap this post up, how about another gander at my little ry! and yes, that is a princess pull-up!

new mercies

2009-09-03T23:38:00.001-05:00

rewind 8 days ago.

i had a bad day.

like really really really (really really) bad.

i was sad. i was scared. i was confused. i felt hurt. i was shocked. i felt crazy. i couldn't focus. i was tired. i felt alone.

*note: before you go assuming what happened, no one died, our marriage is perfectly fine, the kids are great, etc. etc.* :-)

the night before, tuesday night, i found out something about myself that i didn't know. which brought me few hours of sleep followed by a crazy wacked out couple days.

my husband came home from work wednesday night with a sad look on his face and said, "i couldn't wait to come home and see you and make sure you were okay. i've had this sick feeling all day for you."

awwww....

and later that night, as i was sobbing and having a heart to heart conversation with ben, he held me. then he prayed for me.

now the only reason i'm telling you this is because this is what i'm thankful for today. at the time i could've sworn to you that this would never make a thankful thursday. but through this bump in the road which rattled me for a few days, ben and i felt a rejuvenated love for each other that was different than either of us had ever experienced.

but at the same time it was oh so familiar.

i realized that every morning i experience the novelty of God's great love for me. His mercy and compassion are new for me each and every day!

Because of the LORD's great love we are not consumed, for his compassions never fail. They are new every morning; great is your faithfulness.
Lamentations 3:22-23

and so, i may still be a slight bit sad, a tad confused, and a lot crazy(!), but tomorrow morning i will wake up to a brand new day and soak up all the refreshed love that God has for me!

and that, dear friends, is definitely something to be thankful about!!