Sweet Words

My Dan Dan is an amazingly sweet little boy. He loves to lay in my lap and love on me and let me hug him. He even lets me hold him close and snuggle him like a baby. This is great because my 'baby' is in the "I can walk now, so don't even think about holding me like a baby" stage.

This morning Danny wanted a shirt on so we venture into my closet to grab him an outfit. We are perched on my bed together and I get him all dressed. He tackles me and I wrestle him into my lap where he lays down. We snuggle and talk for a few minutes. Then he sweetly puts his hand on his heart and moves him head in this way that suggests what is about to say is very important and sincere. He smiles at me and says "Mom" -dramatic pause- "This my shirt."

Uh Huh.

Here we go with Vertigo!

Boy did I wake up dizzy yesterday! It's a shame that the world doesn't just stop when mommies are down. Knowing that, I gathered my dizzy self up, and prepared to take on the day! With the room spinning in all directions, I managed to dress not only myself but also my youngest two children. Driving was not so bad, walking was another story all together. I had to run into the store to buy some cat litter, not optional, cat litter is something you NEVER want to run low on!

As I walk through the store I realize that I looked like I had a 6 pk for lunch when I should have had a V-8. I almost fell twice and talking on the phone added a whole new dimension of dizziness to the game. When you are pushing a little one in a cart, you need your hands to push and keep little guy happy, so what do you do if you don't have your blue tooth? You put the phone up to your ear and tilt your head sideways to hold the phone with your shoulder. Or, if you feel like you just got off a Gravitron ride at the fair, you don't. Because when you tilt your head ever so slightly to the side, the room starts to rocket around in circles while you look for something without wheels to hold on to. Then people start to look at you like you are drunk and you wonder if they are going to follow you out to your car and jot down your tag number.

After my trip into the store, I cancelled all scheduled errands and headed home. Thankfully my oldest three boys were with my sis in law. I knew that my head needed to visit my pillow in order for my world to be righted, so to speak. Getting home, I stumble into the house urging Aven to follow me. He meanders his way to the door, still making an ugly face at me for not carrying him from the car to the house. Oh, forgive me, sweet, selfish little one, for not wanting to smack your beautiful head on the door jam as I fall into the house while it spins around.

I put Aven to bed for his nap, and headed to my room for one of my own. Getting on the bed and rearranging the pillows proved to be much more difficult than expected. As I laid on my bed, the room picked up speed. Suddenly I remembered a trick that a life long friend of mine let me in on. She once told me this for when you come home completely smashed and try to hit the sack. She said when you start to feel that "Stop the room, I wanna get off!" feeling, that there is away to keep the room from spinning....put one leg off the bed, touching the floor. Not being a drinker myself, I had never used this tidbit of info, until yesterday. Already in bed and on my back, I did not dare rearrange myself and send the room into a faster spin. Instead of my leg, I reached out and grabbed a nightstand with one hand and it helped! The room slowed significantly and I was able to nap!

Today was much better, still a bit dizzy, but I can talk and walk like a sober person and my room is no longer spinning. Now, I just gotta clean up all this laundry that was tossed on the floor by centrifugal force.

Wooo Hoooo!

I am so excited! My sister in law and my niece have arrived from California! I am so glad that they are here. Since last time we saw each other wasn't exactly fun, I have been looking forward to June for quite some time. My family and I picked Tracie and Miranda up at the airport last night.

While I have been looking forward to them coming, I have also been a bit nervous. Why? You ask.... well, I have NOT been looking forward to when they leave. I have been almost fearful of their arrival because I know it will put them closer to the flight back home. They haven't purchased their tickets home yet. Tracie plans to stay about a month. I plan for her to stay about 2. I mean really, what is more important that chillin' out all summer with me?! I would really prefer to have them just move here permanently but they live with Tracie's grandpa, who is certain he can just not make it without her!

For Father's Day we are taking them to Enid so that Miranda can visit the grave sites of her dad and Papa. Then we will go to a big family picnic and visit with lots of relatives we don't see very often. It will be nice to see everyone for a holiday instead of a funeral. I hope that everyone has a wonderful Father's Day!

Prime Rhyme Time

My husband is again away
For what seems like all day
It's been all work and no play
But what can I really say

He pays all the bills
So we could get new wheels
I get the deals
And make all the meals

While he's away, we miss him
I can't wait to kiss him ; )
While giving the yard a trim
I got whacked with a limb

I also got a poison rash
It happened in a windy flash
Mowing and avoiding trash
And trees to avoid a crash

Little Stephen was on the back
Helping me stay on track
It was getting dark, time to hit the sack
Mowing job looked like it was done by a hack

While he was hanging on the rear
He looked out and spotted a deer
It lingered by us very near
With the noisy mower, it had no fear

Maybe it was deaf or something
Or perhaps afraid of nearly nothing
But a joy to mowing it did bring
More beautiful than this linguistic string

The other day I saw a snake
That will make my best friend shake
But probably not scare her son Jake
Oh, it was out in a field for goodness sake!

We do, after all, live out by the lake
And quite a walk you'd have to take
To kill it with a shovel, not a rake
And snake skin nothing you could make

For a snake it was rather small
And it certainly wasn't tall
Towards the fence it did crawl
I think it wore diamonds, as I recall...

So now Dawn is probably sweating bullets
And it may even seem she's developed Tourette's
She thought we should get a bunch of pullets
Will she again darken my doorstep with her silhouette?

That last one was rather hard
Talking about our crazy barnyard
Easier to rhyme with a word like card
And throw in a gross word like 'lard'

Lard is gross, you have to admit
Make me eat it and I'll throw a fit
I'd much rather eat a banana split
Then I will happily eat every bit

After all, I do like sweets
I'm all about the chocolate treats!
My husband, he prefers BBQ meats
But all in all, we like GOOD EATS!

We didn't get this size by eating light
Some foods are just a pure delight
Others foods are just 'alright'
Maybe we should start a diet tonight...(yeah right!)

I think it's time to go to bed
If I can sleep when I lay down my head
And snuggle up under my comfy bed spread
I may lie awake waiting for that man I wed.

Though it may sound like some old cliche
I don't sleep well when he's away
That is much to my dismay
So I will spend some time with God and pray

No One Knows Like His Nose Knows!

Right on the nose! That's where the cup landed when it slipped out of my hand with Aven underneath me eagerly awaiting a cup of milk. Thankfully it was empty. Even so, we had a little bloody nose to deal with. It did seem to bleed for quite a while, but not a terribly large amount.

Next come boogers. I hate boogers. I cannot stand for boogers to be peeking out of my kids noses. I attack! Aven hates it and usually flails about anytime I wipe his nose. After having a bloody nose, he had lots of little bloody boogers. I had to be very gentle about removing any boogers so that I did not restart the flow.

Several days later he and I were playing together in the kitchen. I toss him up in the air and then swing him down to the ground. I notice a dark shadow up his nose, same side that was bloody days earlier. I saw what I suspected was the last of the 'bloody boogers.' I so wanted to get it out! It wasn't really peeking out, so I left it alone not wanting to start the whole process over again.

Fast forward two days to Memorial Day. It was almost an instant replay of the playtime days earlier. I tossed him up over my head and then gave him a ride down to the floor and laid him on the rug. He was laughing and when he tilted his head back while I tickled him, I saw it! It was not a bloody booger, it was something blue! "STEPHEN!" I yelled to my husband. "I need you!" Click on the picture and when you see it full size you can see the little blue thing!

I grabbed the tweezers and we held him down to investigate. It appeared that he had shoved a broken off tip of a crayon up his right nostril. I tried to retrieve it without victory. I called my best friend and asked if she could keep the other three kiddo's while we visited the emergency room. When I told my husband we could take them to her house he said "Uh, I don't want to go to the emergency room. I'll stay here with the boys!" My sweet husband is a big hypochondriac. Don't worry, he knows it. He admits it. I called my best friend, Dawn, back, explained and asked if she would go. Thankfully, she accepted. We don't get to spend a lot of time together, so we take what we can get!

Being Memorial Day, the waiting room at the ER was full of folks who had injured themselves in a variety of ways. There was also lots of sick folks around. It's a good thing my husband didn't go with me. If he had, he would certainly have left there with a broken ankle, heart condition, badly cut hand, and the stomach flu. He may have also contracted all sorts of lovely diseases from the germy waiting room. The wait was long. Very long. Like the hour that we sat there, one, possibly two people where taken back. My sweet friend got on the horn and found a minor emergency center that was open. This was during the day and most of them don't open until evening.

Dawn wheeled Aven in his stroller out to the car why I waited to check out with the triage nurse. She told me that the first thing they would have me try when they took us back, would be for me to try and dislodge it. She said that when I get out to the car I should hold the empty nostril shut and blow forcefully into his mouth. Wha?!!! I ask if I could hurt him doing that and she assured me that all would be fine. As I walked through the parking lot toward my car, I hollered at Dawn not to buckle Aven in yet.

I opened the back door of the Yukon and stood the little guy up back there. Dawn stood behind me and held his arms down while I held one nostril shut and blew into his mouth. It did a great job of making him very angry and not so great a job at dislodging anything but a few boogers. I decided to try again, this time with a little more umph. I gave it another go and this time I dislodged not the little blue thing, but lots of snot and boogers! I had some of the most disgusting tasting stuff in my mouth! I was trying not to gag! Since this attempt failed, we headed to the minor emergency center.

I told Dawn on the way that I though maybe someone who didn't love him as much as I did would be able to get it out with tweezers. My husband called for an update and said that he thought someone that wouldn't be as gentle could probably get it out! Great minds think alike!

We only had to wait about half an hour before we were taken back to see the doc. He came in and said "What do we have here? Something up the nose huh?" I laid him down on the table and the ole' doc had that sucker out in less than 10 seconds. He held up the blue thingy and said "Well, it's not a crayon. Whatever it is, it doesn't belong up there" and with that he tossed it in the trash can! Aaaaahhhh, I needed that! As soon as the doc finished talking, he and the nurse walked out. Before I could say anything, Dawn has digging in the trash to find the blue thingy. Luckily it landed on top, in one of those papers that they tear off the bed after each patient. Unable to identify it, I slathered it with the antimicrobial wash from the wall dispenser and promptly shoved it my purse.

Aven fell asleep on the way home. I probably would have too! When we got home and I pulled out my little napkin wrapped blue thingy to ask the family for their help figuring out what it was. I didn't have it out for 3 seconds before Randon looked over and said "Oh, that's a part from my boat." A couple of weeks ago, I let Randon paint and assemble one of those little woodworking kits from the craft store. Evidently the little smoke stack will slide right up your nose and the boat looks just as good without it's smoke stack.

What I learned from this:
1. That little warning on boxes that read "Not For Children Under Three" isn't just for choking hazards.
2. The cup that caused the bloody nose likely caused it because there was a foreign object up there already. Even good moms fail to notice what would seem like the obvious!
3. You can have something up your nose for almost a week without anyone noticing and with minimal whining.
4. People do stupid things on Memorial Day, avoid hospitals.
5. Painted wood will lose some of it's paint if smothered in snot for a time.
6. Babies do not like tweezers anywhere near their faces.
7. It takes a lot of force to blow snot and boogers out of someones face and onto your own.
8. Snot, boogers, tears and saliva taste really nasty together, and probably separately as well.
9. When you are 19 months old, Live and Learn does not really apply. Aven still attempts to shove something up his nose almost daily.
10. You can shove about 5 pieces of macaroni and cheese up your nose in the time it takes your mom to hand your brothers their dinner plates.

Castle On A Cloud

Try to imagine falling asleep as visiting your very own Castle on a Cloud. You can see it in the distance and you are drifting nearer and nearer. My castle is gray. The comfiest of colors! A gray t-shirt and pair of sweats just makes me want to curl up on the couch with my kids and some books. Then there would have to be some pink somewhere, so my castle has bright pink flags atop each tower. Lets make it have pink curtains flowing out of any open windows too. My two favorite colors complimenting each other perfectly in my very own sanctuary of rejuvenation!

Sometimes my castle sees to float in the wrong direction, or I'm floating in the wrong direction. Either way, I want to get to my castle and I can't seem to get there! Sometimes I can get to it, but I can't get in! My castle has become this seemingly impenetrable fortress. As I struggle to infiltrate, the army of wakefulness taunts me. Thoughts, worries, to do lists, memories, questions and images are all part of this army. It's a powerful army and sometimes for hours it will push me back, and keep me away from my castle.

For a time, I was only allowed a visit to my castle every other night. After a while, I stopped trying to gain access on my 'No Sleep Nights.' I had become convinced that my castle was to far away. Then, on my 'Sleep Nights,' I would clamor to my castle! The army is unable to fight 36 hours of exhaustion catapulting it's way over the castle walls, landing deep inside.

After an evening of fellowship and prayer with some girlfriends, I regained my Draw Bridge Opener and was welcomed into my beautiful gray and pink castle every night. The army was held at bay and my sleep was restored.

Then I faltered. I stopped praying for it, because I was already getting it. Why keep asking for sleep when I already had it. Cuz it didn't occur to me to think that I was given access to my castle because I was asking for it! I know He has purpose in my castle free nights. Maybe it's so I will spend more time with Him, undistracted. Perhaps it's to remind me that all things are possible if I rely on Him and sometimes we need help just climbing up to a Castle on a Cloud.