Wherein I’m a Big Baby

So here’s the deal……tomorrow morning, I am having all of my wisdom teeth removed.

I’m not happy about it.

In fact?  I’m slightly nauseous just thinking about it.

Why?  Well, because I’m terrified of pain.  And not in a normal, everyday, regular-people-are-scared-of-pain-too kind of way.

If you don’t know this about me already, then you haven’t been reading this blog very long.

I’m terrified of pain.

Didn’t used to be this way.  But then I had a 10-pound baby in less than 55 minutes in a bathtub in Bavaria after 15 contractions and the violence of that experience left me with an extreme fear of replicating that kind of pain ever again.

(Wow.  That was an impressive sentence, wasn’t it?  Read it again really fast and it comes off as very impressive.  Trust me.  I know these things.)

This is where the “Big Baby” part of the title comes in.

I’m scared.

Like….REALLY scared.

Not so much about the actual surgery because I will be put to sleep completely, but about the recovery.  And how there won’t be any narcotics involved because I forget to breathe when I take narcotics, so no doctor worth his salt will let me get within 10 miles of a narcotic.

So Tylenol will be it.  Tylenol will help me make it through having 4 huge, bloody craters in my mouth.

See?  Big baby.

So if you think of me any in the next 24 hours, you can pray for me.

That I’ll make it through the surgery okay and will wake up from it and will not die from the pain thereafter.

And that the Lord will release me from the dramatics of this event and let it be NO BIG DEAL!

Please note that I will take no offense whatsoever if you use the words “big” and “baby” while praying for me.

I totally deserve it.

 

Birthdays

Our littler-type children always have this massive countdown to their birthdays.

I get to hear about it every morning as I’m making pancakes and I really do TRY to sound interested and excited but what I’m REALLY doing is figuring out in my head how many days I have until it’ll be too late to order  birthday presents from Amazon.

Nice, I know.

This morning, Almost-8-Year-Old ran to tell me breathlessly how many days until Almost-10-Year-Old’s birthday and then how many days until HER birthday.  (They are only 3 weeks apart….in different years, of course.  I’m not THAT fertile.)

Then she ran away back to the playroom but was back in 2 minutes, even MORE breathless.

This is what she told me……

“MOMMY!  Almost-10-Year-Old’s birthday is the day before Washington’s birthday!  She is SO. LUCKY!!!”  And she stood there with her mouth open wide in a huge smile and her eyes bright!

And I said, “Really?  She’s lucky?  Why is that?”

She said, “MOMMY!  It’s WASHINGTON’S BIRTHDAY!  Duh!”

And then she snorted and trotted off to start her chores.

Wow.  Doesn’t take much to excite HER!

Figuring out what to get her for her birthday should be EASY! 

Odor

The other day, I was helping 7-Year-Old with her schoolwork.  She was sitting beside me on the couch and we were both huddled over her workbook.

Suddenly, she said,

“What is that smell, Mommy?”

And I said, “It’s probably me…..I ALWAYS smell good!  You can just know from here on out that if you ever smell something that smells delicious, that it’s automatically me, okay?”

And then I turned to see if she was laughing too.

But, instead, she had a mixture on her face of concern and absolute revulsion.

And she said, “No, Mommy.  It does NOT smell good.  It smells really, REALLY horrible.”

And she kinda looked at me worriedly, like one part of her was scared she was hurting my feelings but the other part of her didn’t care because she was afraid that maybe I had eaten a rotting corpse and she was thinking that may not be good.

So I told her that maybe it was my breath because I hadn’t brushed my teeth yet because you can’t have toothpaste flavoring in your mouth and then go eat eggs.

(Well, maybe YOU can, but I can’t!) 

And then she said, “Yeah, that’s it, Mommy.  It’s your breath.  It DOES stink.”

It’s amazing how a 7-year-old’s assessment of your breath can kinda deflate your self-esteem for a few hours.

And kinda sad too. 

 

 

A Running Post. In Case You Came for the Chronicles of My Life as a Mom to Many, Many, MANY children, Half of Whom Are Having Serious Issues Being Obedient at Bedtime. But I’ll Save That for a Non-Running Post Since, Like I Said, This is a Post About Running.

(I’m good with titles, aren’t I?)

So I found three races to run this spring/summer.

(I call them races because it sounds really cool and hard-core but in my case, it will be about running with a crowd of strangers and paying for that privilege.  Also, because it sounds like I run really fast when the reality is FAR from that.  Like, in another galaxy, so far away that scientists haven’t even discovered its existence yet.)

Some of my kids are going to run two of the races with me which is really cool.

If the novelty doesn’t wear off before May, which it could.  Right now, I think the only reason that some of them are even training for the races are so that they can run on that big motorized toy that sits in our laundry room……the treadmill.

The first two races are both 5ks, which ALSO sounds cool and hard-core but is really only 3.1 miles.

I’m almost to the point where I am back up to that mileage on a daily basis.  The miscarriage this past summer took a LOT out of me and it has taken me forever to get back up near the 3 mile mark.

(And no snorting and giggling if some of you run that as a warm-up.  If I catch you, I’ll have to play my Had-An-11lb.-Baby-On-The-Living-Room-Floor card and you do NOT want to make me do THAT!)

The last race is run near midnight one night this summer and apparently has a huge turn-out because of the midnight sun/running at midnight thing.  And now I have a weird desire to be part of that crowd and I’ll be dragging Yummy Man along with me.  I say “dragging” because Yummy Man likes running almost as much as he would like a bloody hole in the head with exposed and bulging brain matter.

But THAT race?  Is a 10k.

6.2 miles.

Scary mary, like my sister says but she never reads my blog so I can steal funny quotes from her without giving her proper credit.  Also?  She has way better skin than I do and she’s a MUCH sweeter mom than I am, but don’t tell her because she might get a big head and then she’d look weird.

Tonight I begin officially training for this race and I am pretty stinkin’ excited.

You know…..as much as I can get excited running like a hamster in its cage….. in my laundry room.

Yeah.  Not very hard-core, is it?

(I’ll make sure that I get back to my blogging roots in my next post because I know how much you all hold your collective breath, waiting to hear about my awesome life.  Wait.  I meant LOUD life.  Oops.  Typo.)

Grace

The other day as I was changing 3-Year-Old’s diaper (and don’t get me started on THAT!), he was asking about 9-Year-Old’s character development and spiritual maturity.

He’s incredibly smart, that boy.

But really?  He was asking why SHE didn’t get punished for that thing she did last night, but HE got punished for something different.

So I told him that what she had done had never been talked about before, so I was extending grace to her this time, and as I geared up to explain what grace meant in 3-year-old terms, he wailed loudly with tears running down his cheeks,

“I WANT GRACE TOO, MOMMY!” 

Now, just what do you do with that? 

Sad

Usually when something sad happens, it’s….um…..sad.

And I’m not talkin’ tragic-sad.  I’m talkin’ about sad-sad.

As in your dog dying.

When a sad-sad thing happens here, I try to find some way to lessen the impact it has on the children.

That usually means finding something funny or cute in the sad-sadness.

So here goes…… 

Our dog died on Saturday.

It probably isn’t as bad as it may sound because we only had her a year.  And she was free when we got her because she was so old.  You ever heard of an animal shelter having a Buy One Get One Free deal?  Well, they did that for us because we wanted her as a companion for another dog we chose and, because she was so old, they gave her to us for free. 

But she was a good dog.  

In a doormat kind of way.

Saturday morning, she was bloated and not acting normally so I told the kids to keep an eye on her.

We kinda checked her throughout the morning.  I checked on her before I went upstairs for my 15-minute nap and I saw her ear twitch which I considered an all-clear. Twenty minutes later, however, 11-Year-Old shakily informed me that she wasn’t just sleeping peacefully out on the patio.  

She was, in fact, dead.

Being the brave mother that I am, I asked him if any of the other boys had checked her out and proclaimed her dead also.

He said that they both had and that I just needed to quit being a big pansy, mother up, and just come out from behind the locked door already and take charge.

I’m not good with dead things.

One time, I was at my parent’s home alone with both of my elderly grandmas and one of them was sleeping longer than she should’ve.

Plus, she was really still.

And when I may have dropped something loudly so that she would jump, she didn’t.

So I did the brave thing and went and got my OTHER grandma and told her that I thought it might be possible that Granny Gumdrops MIGHT be…..um……gone.  

She got her walker and creaked her way to the bedroom of her sorta-relative and checked on her.

I know.  It’s shameful and I AM ashamed but not really because Granny Gumdrops was okay.  Just sleeping really soundly.  And being all pale and still and scaring me really badly which, if you think about it, is NOT a nice grandma-thing to do.

So basically, it was her fault that I was scared and she should’ve been scolded later on because I’m the cute, little granddaughter here who shouldn’t have been put in that horrible situation, right?  

Ahem. 

Okay…… where was I?

Oh!  Dead things.  Check!

Here’s the thing with the dead dog episode.

Yummy Man was gone.  It was gonna get dark in less than an hour. And?

It’s Alaska in winter which means that this poor little dog was NOT going to get a burial.  

We needed another option.  So Yummy Man found out that the animal shelters here take dead pets.

Except that it was Saturday afternoon which means that there was no one there and WOULDN’T be anyone there until Monday.

Then he found out that you could take your dead pet there and leave it in a special part of the shelter.

Kinda like a night-deposit box at a bank, but bigger and hairier.  I’m assuming this, of course.

And that’s when the dilemma began.

Drop her off at the Dead Pet Night Deposit Box where she would lie for a few days, maybe in a heap of OTHER people’s dead  pets and then get cremated at some point…….OR……we’d have to drag her into the woods and realize that someday in the near future, something large would have her for dinner.

See the problem?

So I did the brave thing and told the kids to choose. 

They chose the dragging/woods/bear fodder option which I maybe sorta encouraged a tiny bit because the pile-’o-dead-pets thing started to bother me a tad.

But then Almost-15-Year-Old informed me that Yummy Man wasn’t going to make it home before dark and gently alluded to the fact that I was going to have to have some part in the dragging/woods/bear fodder option.

And then my mothering gene kicked in and I realized that this oldest boy of mine was sad by the death and may not want to help in this.

So I told him that if he couldn’t do it, or didn’t want to, that I would figure out a way to get the job done myself.  I would be a Real Woman and suck it up and just do it.

But he told me that I couldn’t move her by myself and that I would need help.  Then I reminded him that I pushed an 11-pound baby from my body without anyone’s help, including an anesthesiologist’s, and that I COULD do it and WOULD do it if he couldn’t.  I would totally understand if it was too hard on him.

But I think I was bluffing because if he had said “No”, I would’ve started crying and begging and then I would be that Mother That I Can’t Stand.  The wimpy kind.  With the Cheetos and the Pay-Per-View and the inability to do anything hard in life.

But he told me that he’d certainly handled more dead animals than I had and it wasn’t really that much different.

Except for the pet part of the scenario. 

So he went and got the 4-wheeler while I got dressed in Dead Dog Dragging clothes.  We hoisted her up into the trailer and then I hopped on behind him and he drove to a place back in the woods where he thought would be far enough away from the house.

He drove us there while I prayed inside that I would be able to do this whole thing through ’til the end.  He found a good spot but we had to leave the 4-wheeler and carry her body back into some thick brush. 

Serious prayer happening during those few minutes.

We covered her with snow (and Yummy Man asked why just like you probably are but I can give neither of you a good answer.  We just did.  Maybe it was for her dignity or so that I could sleep at night thinking that we hid her really well and nothing was going to find her and she’d just kinda fade away in the night and go to Dog Heaven where all good dogs go, okay?)

The whole thing with this was that my almost-15-year-old was the man.  THE MAN!  He was so much better than I was and he told me what we were going to do and how we were going to do it and he thought of the best place and took us there and he made himself do an icky thing that he really didn’t want to do because he was the only other one here who could’ve done it.

And I hugged him a lot and told him how proud of him I was when it was all done and then yesterday, I hugged him again and told some people how great he is.

But then I thought about it all and figured something out.

It was the 4-wheeler.

He did it so that he could drive the 4-wheeler.

He LOVES the 4-wheeler and even if it means taking part in a chore that is less-than-pleasant…..hey!  He gets to drive the 4-wheeler!!!  So let’s go do this thing already!!!

But he really did rock the whole incident like a man and I love him even more now, if that’s possible.

Even WITH the 4-wheeler thing.

And that’s how I turned a sad thing into a not-so-sad one. 

*****In loving memory of our sweet dog, Salsha.*****

 

Two Things

I know I don’t usually do this kind of thing.

I’m usually all about kid-chaos and dirty diapers and snappers but this will be worth it.

I promise.

Now what you need to do is this…..if you have any kids, no matter what age, you need to call them to come to your computer because you have this really awesome thing to show them that may make your next few days much easier.

And you might even thank me.

Because if your kids are like some of mine, the entire time they are watching this video, you may be able to see their wheels turning.  The ones inside of their brains.  The ones that are in the part of the brain that invents new things to do and thereby entertains the entire household.

But maybe that’s just MY kids because my kids are the coolest.

Watch this carefully.  You may need to watch it a few times to catch all the intricacies.

Okay, here it is.

You’ll be glad you did.

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Number two item…….

I like music.  I like putting fast music on when we do chores around here.

So do my kids.

I like to put on soft piano music at night or when we have company over. 

Music is what gets me on the treadmill each night.

I just like good, mellow music and toe-tappin’ music too.

(That sounded like I watched Hee Haw when I was little, doesn’t it?  Does anyone else remember Hee Haw?  That was quality TV, let me tell ya.)

So I’ve been mildly obssessed with this song since my Oklahoma Buddy put me onto it.  It’s a mellow song, but it’s so well done and just speaks to me.  Plus, when the full-on chorus comes in the middle of the song, I feel like I could win any race.  It just does that to me.  

See what YOU think.

Check out the link.

And that’s it for today.  

Next post, I’ll try to get back to diarrhea diapers and knock-down toddler fighting.

You’re welcome. 

To understand this post, you must understand something about Yummy Man.

He doesn’t show emotions.

For most of his childhood…..all the way until he was in the later high school years…..his family consisted of his mom, his dad, and 3 brothers, all of whom made him their official punching bag in more ways than just physical.

His brothers, that is.

His mom shopped and went to her boys’ ball games, and his dad just sat around being awesome, pretty much.

When he was little, and even later when he was NOT so little, if he cried over anything, he got beat up in one way or the other.

So crying for him is NOT an option, even at his age of 44.

He just doesn’t do it.

And he generally thinks that men who DO are a little questionable.

This has been a point of contention our entire marriage, but I have come to just roll with it.  It’s how he is.  It’s WHO he is and I just have become accustomed to the fact that I will ALWAYS be the emotional one.

And he will be the one who laughs at me when I cry at Facing the Giants for the millionth time, and get teary-eyed at our kids’ baptisms WHICH IS TOTALLY JUSTIFIABLE, I MIGHT ADD!

We have had various conversations about how I don’t want his lack of emotion to cloud our boys’ views of crying and feeling and blah, blah, blah and he has assured me that it’s not something that he’s going to construct a curriculum for and teach them that.

But I think it’s genetic.  And here’s what gave me the hint……..

This morning, 3-Year-Old ran into us from the playroom, crying.  We asked him what had happened and here’s what he said…..

3-Year-Old:  ”5-Year-Old yelled at me!!!!!!!”  (sobbing continues)

Yummy Man:  (sarcastically but in a nice, loving father way while also being amused at his wittiness) “Oh, and did that hurt your feelings?”  

3-Year-Old: “No!  It hurt my EARS!”

So there you go. 

There’s no hope left for HIM, but there ARE four other boys in our home.

Please, Lord!

———————————————————————————————————————

 In Thanksgiving news……

5-Year-Old spent the entire morning of Thanksgiving cleaning up the playroom.

In areas that he is NOT responsible for.

For fun.

LOVE that kid!

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And in technology ROCKS news……

I am sitting here blogging on the bathroom floor while keeping an eye on 3-Year-Old and 5-Year-Old who are taking a bath.

Downstairs, there is a LOT of noise happening from the other 8 children who live in our house.

Basically, it sounds like a tribe of Pawnee Indians have burst into our living room and are currently scalping them all.  (I know, historically, that the Pawnee were scalping Indians because I own Dances With Wolves so that makes me an expert.  See how smart I am?)

So I just picked up my cell phone (here in the bathroom with me), called the HOUSE phone and, when 14-Year-Old answered, told them to cease and desist with all the Indian noises.

Like I said, technology ROCKS!!! 

———————————————————————————————————————–

One more thing……

Yummy Man DID cry slightly at each of our children’s births so I DO have to give him credit for that, although I’m not sure if it was about the miracle of birth or just relieved that all the pregnancy whining was finally over. 

Hmm.

 

And that’s all I have for today.  I’ll try to blog earlier than January for the three of my readers who are still around.  =)   

 

 

 

I’m Really Not Sure

Have you ever had your child say something that was really funny, but you had no idea what he or she was talking about?

Yeah.

This morning, as I was getting 3-Year-Old dressed, he said this…..

“Mommy?  My snapper hurts.”

(Aside.  AS I AM TYPING THIS, tears are running down my cheeks.  That’s how funny this is to me.  And I don’t know why.  I just had to wipe my eyes with the sleeve of my sweater.  Seriously.)

I immediately started laughing but not in a loud, THAT-IS-SO-STINKIN’-FUNNY kind of way.  

It was more like a I-have-no-idea-why-that-word-makes-me-laugh-in-relation-to-this-child’s-body-but-I-can’t-stop kind of way.

I literally had tears running down my cheeks and DROPPING ONTO THE CARPET.

I KNOW!

So I asked him what his snapper was (laughing again just typing the word), and he kinda vaguely and confusedly fluttered his hands over his body, pulled down his wool kneesocks and showed me  where it hurt.

For all you medical types out there, apparently your snapper is somewhere close to the back and/or sides of your knees.

I’m thinking it’s where the tops of your kneesocks SNAP onto your legs when your mom puts them on but I can’t be sure.  I’m certain that there is some medical website or journal you can look in to confirm this.

I didn’t have the inclination to look it up at the time.  I was too busy CRYING my laughter while this hunk of Amazingly Adorable Kid stood in front of me with a confused grin on his face, secretly vowing to never say the word “snapper” again.

MAN, I hope he forgets!

Switcharound

So I’m going to try writing about my running here.

Why?

Because I think only 4 people read my running blog and they basically have to because two of them gave me life, one of them has put up with me for 22 years and 13 pregnancies, and the other one just really likes me for some reason.  Still mulling that one over.  (Hello, OK buddy!)

I’m back up to 2 miles.

And not just “back up to” but am running it the easiest I’ve ever experienced.

That’s a milestone, I think.

And if you happen to be reading, Uncle Who Has the Daughter Who Qualified for Boston on Her First Marathon EVER, just remember the whole long-fiber/short-fiber thing.

See, my dad and uncle are basically Sports Physiology Geniuses.  They know everything there is to know about the muscles and fibers and tendons in the human body and how they all work together .  And my dad has told me that everyone is made with a certain type of fiber that determines if they will be sprinters or distance runners.

I’ve got the kind that sprinters have.

I know this because when I was growing up, every Thursday night in the summertime, my parents would take me and my brother and sister to An Important College in my hometown where they held track meets for kids.

I pretty much blew away every other little white girl that dared to show up.

And just when it started to get boring, hauling home all those pretty first-place ribbons, suddenly black girls started showing up for the races and basically ended up stomping all up and down my bony white butt (or bottom, if you’re my mom), (and denominator if you are my kids or know the reference from Life of Fred math books, and if you DON’T, you totally SHOULD).

It wasn’t pretty to watch, I’m sure.

So I know that my fibers are sprinting fibers. And I’m just so certain that this is the official term.  See how well I listened growing up, Dad?

Anyway, all this talk is to say that 2 miles for a sprinter who has had 10 babies and is 42 years old is pretty decent.

Even though I don’t know any OTHER runner-moms who’ve had 10 babies and are 42 years old to compare with, so I’m not really sure.  It’s possible it’s really not that great of a feat and that I stink at running.

Anyways.

Before I had the miscarriage, I was close to running 3 miles at a time, but it hurt.

Well, not really HURT, but it was kinda torturous.  (Can you use “kinda” right before “torturous” or is that like being a little pregnant?)

And this time around, although I had to start over somewhat, I am letting myself get back up to mileage slowly and I’m totally rockin’ it!

It’s more about the boredom of the treadmill and how, with each step I run on that thing that is in my laundry room,  I am reminded to do (step) the (step) laundry, rather than think about how each step REALLY IS going to be the last step before I collapse right here and wake up in heaven.

I know that sounds dramatic BUT IT’S TOTALLY NOT!  (See, if I tell you first that it’s not dramatic, then that cancels out the actual drama of the words in all-caps.  Pretty nifty, huh?)

So there you have it.

A slightly braggy post about my running.

I’m fairly certain that my kids will tell me tomorrow that I tell THEM not to brag and look here what I just did.

But I’ll just play my I’m the Mom and You’re the Kid, Plus It’s My Blog and You Can’t Boss ME card.

That’ll make it all better.