I Am So Scared

He has the sweetest spirit, our E-Tron. He has a smile that will light up the darkest of rooms, eyes that shine forever and a giggle that can make the grumpiest old man grin. His touch is naturally gentle. He is surprisingly kind, for a three year old. He is the child that will sit next to the kid in time-out, bring toys to the baby that doesn't have any, and loves others instantly. His heart is made out of gold. I've always been so proud of him, his gentle heart, his sweet spirit. He made me 'Mommy,' he is my first baby-love, only he can fill that Tron shaped whole in my heart that I didn't even know I had until I saw those two pink lines on the home pregnancy test I took at work (does that make it a work pregnancy test).

Last Thursday he went in to get tubes in his ears for the 3rd time, we knew what to expect, we were comfortable with the procedure, even though it's hard to let your child go to an operating room without you, we knew it would only last a few minutes. My husband and I sat in the waiting room for only about 20 minutes when they let us know our 3 year old was ready for us in recovery.

I always look forward to the recovery room, not that I look forward to any operation, but I look forward to that alone time with my babies. Whether it is the recovery room after birth, or the recovery room from a simple operation, it's just them and my husband and I. It seems almost peaceful, all that cuddle time. While we were in recovery, the anesthesiologist let us know that they needed to monitor his heart for a little longer. I didn't really think anything of it, I was assuming it was a standard procedure. A while later they came back and let us know what they found.

During the operation the anesthesiologist found that my sons heart did not have a normal beat, his rhythm was slightly off. They wanted to monitor it longer to see if it would go back to normal, it didn't. They did a wonderful job about making me feel comfortable though, letting me know that it didn't seem like there was anything to worry about, but they did want us to meet with his pediatrician the next morning.

While meeting with the nurse practitioner at the pediatricians office, it was confirmed that my sweet little man not only had a heart murmur, but also an arrhythmia. She said that the murmur was not a concern, but the arrhythmia was. She was so sweet, I didn't realize what all she said until I was driving home with my son. She didn't want me to be concerned (they never do) but these arrhythmia's are one of the reasons why children have just dropped dead (yeah, she said that). She mentioned that they were concerned that my darling 3 year old may have SVT or VT.

Now I've looked into both of these, and anything that suggests that you be prepared to administer CPR at any given moment is no friend of mine!

After we had an EKG, they decided that we need to meet with the cardiologist on May 12th. Ugh, I hate the waiting game..........

Wouldn't Change a Thing

I've decided that I don't really have any regrets in life. I guess that's not true, I do regret not going to bed earlier last night, leaving the dishes for today, and spending all of that money on candy last Thursday. I guess that I should say that I choose not to dwell on my regrets. I believe that most of my decisions in my past have worked together to create where I am now and who I am now. I know that I have flaws (lots of them), I know that my life isn't perfect, but I wouldn't choose to be anywhere else. The thought has crossed my mind that if even one thing was changed, it would have a chain reaction and change where I am now, I'm pretty sure there is a movie about this concept out there somewhere, but I haven't watched it. When I think about some of the things that I would be missing out on;

the man I have fallen in love with,

the family I share him with (band family),

babies with books,

babies with dimples,

friends we can be ridiculous with (even when we shouldn't be),

and the 80's dying of typhoid (just seeing if you were paying attention),

I become more grateful for what I have, where I am, who I am.

I Think I'll Blog About It: A Silent Proposal

I Think I'll Blog About It: A Silent Proposal: "Every little girl dreams about the moment that the love of their life will propose to them. We imagine beaches, flowers, dinners, romance o..."

A Silent Proposal

Every little girl dreams about the moment that the love of their life will propose to them. We imagine beaches, flowers, dinners, romance or adventure; an extra special day they will remember forever. I tried to imagine every different way that day could unfold.

When I started dating my husband, I was pretty sure he was the one right away, there was just something so different about him. We met through our bands, I was in an all girl Christian rock band and at that time he was in an alternative rock band. I've never been the type to think that I would be in a band, but God does things His ways, and I'm sure glad He does. We tried dating for a minute about 6 months after meeting each other, but the timing just wasn't right yet. After about 6 months of little to no contact after we broke up, he started to come around and hang out again. I made an active effort to be that really cool ex-girlfriend that made people feel comfortable, but not show any interest. I put a lot of energy into playing aloof. You see, I still had interest in him, but he did have a girlfriend at the time, so I didn't want any one to know I still had feelings for him. After all, I would never want to make anyone feel uncomfortable or try to interfere with a relationship.

Well....... it worked! He realized how 'cool' (my word) I was and he still had all of these feelings for me. So he broke up with his girlfriend and about awhile later he told me about his feelings for me, that was at the end of February.

Towards the end of July I started to get a little insecure. My band was getting ready to go to Greece for a little over 3 weeks to participate in some street and music ministry during the 2004 Olympics and I was panicking about every little thing. One day I lost it and just started crying at his apartment, I felt so silly. He was being so kind and gentle. He told me he could make me feel better. He grabbed my hand, led me to a bed and let me lay down, he said, 'I know how much you like to sleep, does this make you feel better?'

Really? I'm opening my heart to you and crying like a baby and you point out that I can have a tendency to be lazy? How do you think this is going to make things better? Needless to say (but I'm going to say it anyway), I started crying a bit harder. He just held me, me laying on the bed, him sitting on the bed.

The lights were all off, so I thought he was just going to sit there until I fell asleep to take a nap until the rest of our friends arrived for the movie night the guys were having. He grabbed my hands and I felt a little velvet box in his hands, it was open, I could feel a ring.......

'Yes!' I exclaimed. 'Yes!' I was so excited, and I jumped off the bed and turned on the lights to see the splendor that was my ring.

~Notice how I didn't tell anyone his wording for the proposal? Hmmmm? Yeah, that's because I didn't give him time to talk. I would have felt really sheepish had that ring turned out to be just a nice, 'Hey, you're kind of special, so I thought you might like this,' kind of ring. ~

Out of all the ways I thought that I would be proposed to, I never imagined anything like that. Thinking about everything that I imagined that I wanted for that day, none of those would have made me feel as special. He still loved me and knew that he wanted to be with me while I was acting so silly and full of flaws.

By they way, he did make me feel better, he's pretty neat like that!

Pregnant Women: The New Public Property

Although I'm not pregnant right now (and I don't plan on being for a long time), I find myself talking about this topic often, as I'm sure most women who have had children do. It never ceases to amaze me how people tend to treat pregnant women like they are public property. It's almost as if being pregnant is seen as an invitation for people to say, or ask, whatever is on their mind. And why is it that complete strangers feel that it is alright to touch a pregnant lady's belly? Would they touch it if she wasn't pregnant?

Here is a sampling from my three pregnancies (What I wanted to say in italics):

'Wow, are you sure you're not having twins?'
(Now you're just calling me fat, sir.)

'My wife never got that big!'
(Good for your wife, was she 5'2"?)

'I never got that big.'
(I hope you get fat one day.)

'You look like you're going to pop any day now!'
(Is that supposed to be a compliment?)

'Are you past the constipated stage?'
(Do you really want to talk about my bowel movements?)

'You know what causes that, right?'
(Yup, don't plan on stopping that any time soon.)

'Why would you bring more children into a world that is already over populated?'
(Try doing your own research before jumping on the overpopulation train.)

'Are you sure you can afford more children?'
(Do you want me to whip out my finances for you, and I don't know why it's any of your concern.)

'Sex is supposed to jump start labor!'
(1: I don't even talk about sex with my husband. 2: I am literally a house for someone, sex is not on my list of to do's, neither was my husband for that matter. 3: I'm at work right now, this is not the conversation to have with me!)

'C-sections are only an excuse for lack of proper birthing education, anyone can have a vaginal delivery, that is what a woman's body is made for.'
(Are you being serious right now? I don't even know how to respond to you. You have no idea what happened during my first labor.)

My favorite of all time was a lady that had come into my place of business and was talking to a co-worker of mine. I could hear that she was talking about me, not a big deal, most people did since I was clearly pregnant and due at any moment(or so they thought). I just smiled a said 'Hi' to her. She said to me, 'You're pretty big, how old is your youngest?' My reply, 'Tukey will be 2 in December (this was about September).' She said, 'Oh, that's it, you just didn't loose all your baby weight yet.'

Whaaaaaaaaaaaa? Excuse me? Although I just laughed it off, I wanted to say, 'Yeah, how old is your baby?' I did, by the way, loose all my baby weight, plus some, but I didn't say anything, it was best just to let her be on her way.

In all seriousness, I know that most of my responses would have been emotional, as I get very irritable and emotional when I'm pregnant. Thank goodness I had the wisdom to keep my mouth closed and the Good Lord whispering in my ear that I would be laughing about it later.

So please, dear friends, please think about what you say or do to your local pregnant women. We are a very emotional people, and if one snaps back at you, don't take it personal.

An Introduction

I should be cleaning right now. The boys are in bed, all three of them, it feels amazing. I should be cleaning, so......... I started a blog. I've been wanting to start a blog for a long time now, it's just, well......I just didn't. It's not that I didn't know what I wanted to blog about, it's not that I was too busy, I just didn't.

I was so excited to start this blog! I've had ideas running through my mind since I first thought about it. I thought that I would write about life, motherhood, aspirations, work, travel, my relationship with God, marriage, pretty much everything. As I clicked in this little white box, everything left my chain of thought. 'Come on, you're creative, you've got ideas and you have stuff to say,' I told myself, 'blog about it!' (See what I did there? That's part of my domain name, clever right?) By the way, do you know how hard it is to find a domain name that is not already taken? There are way too many people out there blogging. Maybe I'll blog about that someday.

In all seriousness, the most beautiful thing in my life:





Do you know how hard it was to get this photo? We had to bribe them with suckers to get this, we are not above sweet bribes, this is a judge free zone. This was a quick shot taken at church for our church directory, it was crazy. E-Tron, our oldest in red, started crying right at the beginning, it went something like this:


Yeah, this is what the first few shots looked like. I don't know if you notice Tukey (in blue). He is actually pushing E-Tron and saying 'Push.' He likes to narrate everything that he does, and at that time he was pushing E-Tron. No, that is not why Tron was crying, Tukey was just being a little brother, you know how little siblings are.

I think one of the best parts about that day was during our picture break. After Tron started crying in the first set of pictures, we took a break to try to calm him down. As I was getting them suckers, Tron walks right into the next families picture. Now remember, he was crying hysterically in our pictures. He was happy as he could be while he was trying to get into the other family's picture. Walked right up there like that was where he was supposed to be, saying 'cheese' and all. Everyone just laughs as I sneak in there and try to grab him away (he starts crying again). I'm not joking, as I turn my back to pull Tron out of the picture, Tukey stands against the wall and slowly slides himself into that same families photo. *Church body cracks up* Although I'm laughing, that little voice says in my head, 'They are only 2 and 3 and already want to be in a different family, geeze!' But alas, suckers=smiles and smiles=family photo! By the way, did you notice how sweet and adorable T-Bear was?