Happy New Year!

Are you excited about 2009 being over????

We sure are...

Hope everyone has a great night ushering in 2010!

If you hear screaming around midnight, it's just my kids and the neighbor kids having their annual "Midnight Jump." It gets pretty crazy...one kid totally got stomped on last year. Don't worry, there was no permanent damage.

We're off to play the Twilight: New Moon board game. Don't be jealous.

See you next year!!

A month already??

Dear Evany

Today you are both one month old and 37 weeks gestation. You turned 4 weeks a few days ago, but I thought I'd wait for your official one month birthday to post. A month ago, right this very second, I was being rushed down to the operating room for an emergency C-section. I was certain I was going to lose you moments before you were born, that I would be someone who lost not just one baby just before birth, but two.

But you proved us all wrong and you've thrived, first in the NICU for eleven days, then here at home. You have observed or slept through about 72 plays, originally composed songs, and dance competitions put on by your siblings in your honor. You have been petted incessantly by your brother Seth, who calls you "Baba", which is apparently his term for baby. Today I caught him trying to pick you up and hold you himself.

Generally, this is still what you do all day, every day:

Every once in a while, though, you wake up and give us all some dirty looks until you get fed. You have a major frown already...I have a feeling you're going to be just as much drama as your sister. Everyone who comes to meet you exclaims at how small you really are...the pictures don't do justice to your size. You are still squarely in Preemie clothes, although you're outgrowing them. Newborn clothes seem to be completely out of your reach, though, and I'm not sure who had the bright idea to create this gap that seems to exist between the two sizes, but it really annoys me. On the upside, we've gotten a lot of use out of all of your Preemie stuff.

Tomorrow is New Year's Eve, and at one point I thought I would still be pregnant now, preparing to be induced sometime this week, which was been the original plan my OB and I put together. You were going to be a 2010 baby, although you didn't play ball with that game plan. You are, however, a very sweet little tax deduction. Part of the reason I wanted you to wait until 2010 to be born is because this year has been really hard for us. I wanted you to be born in a new year, one with fresh pages and a fresh start. But instead, you've redeemed this old year for a lot of people, and regardless of everything else that's happened, I'll never be able to look at 2009 as a terrible year the way I thought I would.

I'm not sure who you look like anymore...I think you look a lot more like the boys than your sister...she had completely different features than the four of you have. As your siblings have gotten older, though, they all look a lot like one another, and I'm sure you'll be the same. In fact, several people who've seen you immediately exclaim "Now that's a McCall Baby!" In fact, one person at church who didn't even know I had been pregnant ID'd you as my child based solely on how much you look like your brothers and sister.

There's not a lot to tell you about yourself yet, since you seem to be spending your third trimester very much as you might have on the inside. I don't know yet what you're going to be like, how you will grow and change. But I have to thank you for being such a good, easy baby...you have made the transition to having four kids at home seamless, and I'm still able to do lots of fun things with the older ones because you are okay with going along for the ride. You've never cried for more than about 5 seconds, although when you're getting hungry you do a whole lot of grunting. When you're not swaddled, your hand is always over your face, which is hilarious to me, because it's the same thing you did before you were born. It's the reason I don't have a single good ultrasound picture of you, that silly hand up over your face all the time.

Having you has been proof to me, all over again, that babies are themselves well before they are born. They're people, they count, they have habits and routines and little personalities whether they're inside or out, and although I felt that way before, felt like your brother was a real person who deserved to be remembered and mourned just like a baby who died after birth, you have confirmed it for me. Thank you for that. A little over a week ago, you became older than your older brother, and having those first weeks with you were very bittersweet for me, knowing you were younger than he was when he died, knowing that he was just as real as you, that he spent those weeks just as you did, sleeping and kicking and rolling around, but that he did those things inside of me instead of lying next to me.

I love you baby,

Mama

The one where you all see that I didn't learn to speak English until after high school.

Ahh, my JELKS. We had a choreographed dance to the Destiny's Child song "I don't Want No Scrubs." It involved this cool vogue-ing around the face movement and a lot of finger shaking. It was kind of outrageously awesome, if I do say so myself. We TP'd the houses of boys we liked because that's what you do, right? Kind of like how when boys are mean to you it means they like you.

We also, apparently, did not speak very good English and thought we were just a little ghetto. Or maybe that was just me. But I don't think so.

JELK. No S. With an extra L on the left. =)

Since the first installment of the JELKS soap opera, not a whole lot has happened. Jenn got offended that I called her a clown in the first letter, and it took about two days to get it cleared up, because we specialized in talking in circles. We continued to stress out about yellow tanks and overalls. We discussed finding a "man" for the S in our group, Sarah. She wasn't that thrilled with our proposed matchmaking. There was drama over Kara beginning to date someone we all really, really weren't fans of.

Then I wrote this gem of a letter.

Aaron and Kara                                                                                                               Sitting in a Tree                                                                                                                   !K-I-S-S-I-N-G!

9/9/99

12:14 AL

 K-Dawg (Ghetto nickname...check!)

Well, no one can man the balls like me! (No clue what that meant, but I guarantee you it wasn't what it sounds like). What up, yo? Don't have a lot of time - just wanted to let you know again that I'm cool with you and Aaron, (That was a lie.) and Jeremy thinks he's been cool lately...so that means double/triple dates could be fun...yay! Now almost everyone has a sigfig...(significant figure/other) (If you make up a term and have to explain it, it's probably not going to catch on.)  you, me, Linds, Jenn...now Sarah just need to get herself some fresh blood! Woohoo. That would be fun...Holland. Linds and Jim take the dome, J & I sit in the car...you and Aaron can play on the cheese! (Again, not as bad as it sounds. We were what you could call VERY innocent 12th graders. And I was referring to a playground, which is why I mention a dome and cheese...climbing equipment.) Princesses don't get Crumpets! (And it looks like I may have a strange case of something like Tourette's, throwing random phrases in everywhere. It gets worse.)

We're watching this video in 60's class and it just said "Girls who park in cars are not really popular, even to the boys who park with them." It also said "DON'T EVEN THINK ABOUT HAVING SEX." (It was a sex ed video from the 1960's. I was in a class that was literally all about that decade.)

Hey yo, when is the band banquet? To be a rebel you must have a ducktail and highwater jeans. I wanna be a beatnick, yo. (More random outbursts) Oh my gosh - Aimee S. just told me she ran into this guy I dated in middle school several times (dated several times=talked on the phone for a few weeks and went to exactly one movie.) and that he's hot and remembered me...lol! He went to Jefferson and I met him through Dawn...He was the first boy I kissed. (kissed=get surprised by a very gross, sloppy attempt at a kiss while attending a scary movie, freak out, and break up with "boyfriend" immediately and never speak to him again) Funny how you keep meeting up with the same people over and over. I almost forgot about all of this stuff and now I am remembering all kinds of stuff!

Well I better go

Love ya dnq

El

PS- Oh yeah! I saw Annoying Boy (JON) in the hall yesterday, and he was wearing a tech vest with NO SHIRT! He's icky. (The whole point of code names is NOT TO USE THEIR REAL NAMES. Seriously. Get with the program. That said, wearing a vest with no shirt underneath is pretty icky.)

Seriously. Seriously? I cannot believe I wrote this crap. And I really can't believe that it was not at all ironic but direly, heavily earnest instead. It's also surprising that I filled up a page with writing all about nothing, basically. Although, I guess I do that here fairly regularly, too. =)

Just wait, though. We all get dumped by our boyfriends or dump or boyfriends soon. Then our emotions and hormones all join together into a huge scary melodramatic giant and stomp all over the place. It's great.

I loved all of your stories about your own notebooks and funny notes from high school. Tell me more!

Christmas!

So I managed to make my kids stay in bed on Christmas morning until eight! It was a real accomplishment, if I do say so myself. Seth was really into opening his own gifts this year. Of course, that didn't stop Ava and Jace from offering to open his gifts for him about twenty times. I think Ava was most excited about "unstuffing" her stocking, though. Evany slept through the entire gift opening extravaganza, but we were still thrilled to have her there and not in the hospital!

After we finished opening presents at home, we headed over to the kids' Dad's place to open presents all over again. I have to say that this is one aspect of us being separated that they are fans of...two sets of presents. We hung out there for a couple of hours and watched the kids throw themselves into a ditch over and over. I have no idea what made it fun, but they were having a total blast. They got to hang out with their Uncle Jason, who we haven't gotten to see since Eli's memorial service, and it was great to see him.

I spent all afternoon on Christmas day bemoaning the fact that I was starving to death and not one single restaurant near us was open because they hated me, and then I finally sucked it up and made spaghetti for me and the kids and our friend Jeremy, who is a bachelor and always has to cook for himself if he wants to eat, so I guess it was worth getting my lazy self up to make dinner for all of us. Even though I complained the entire time about how I'd rather be having pizza.

Our house literally looked like a toy store threw up by Christmas night. It was kind of making me twitch, but I managed to resist the urge to clean too much and just hung out instead, watching the kids run from one toy to another like chickens with their heads cut off. It was pretty entertaining, I have to say.

I'm getting old.

So I've spent pretty much the whole day today laying around my house wearing some other brand's version of a Snuggie (It's the best thing ever), watching my kids totally trash the house out playing with one toy after another. I didn't even mop once today.

Yesterday I started writing a post about the after Christmas hangover...how you get all hyped up about it and then there's a huge sugar crash afterwards and you get kind of mopey and sad because it's all over and you spent a lot of money on presents that are already turning up broken and hidden under a pillow in your kids room (or maybe that was just me...). But I did not plan on writing a post about actually being hungover, because for the most part, I don't actually drink.

It's not that I have an issue with drinking. I spent the requisite post-21 period of time basically going out all the time, and while I still enjoy having a drink or two, I rarely feel the need to go out and drink a lot. It could be because almost all of my embarrassing drinking experiences are on video tape thanks to my college roommates, and whenever I start to think back on those times too fondly I can break the tapes out and remind myself of what an idiot I looked like falling down that hill. And that no one should try to do a literal interprative dance to "Tempted by the Fruit of Another." And that super soaker fights in your new apartment are never a good idea.

Anyway, I don't go out much, mainly because I have several children.. But once or twice a year, all the stars align and I end up both not pregnant and with the chance to attend some event that includes alcohol. Last year on New Years, John had to work at the restaurant on New Year's Eve and wasn't sure if he'd make it by midnight. I bought a couple of bottles of wine for us to share, and when I went to the party I took them with me hoping he would make it. Then I somehow managed to accidentally drink the better part of them myself before he arrived. That happens, right? I'm still not sure how I did that, but it sure entertained him when he arrived shortly before midnight  to see his wife totally rocking out on the drums and talking about how she should have considered it as a career choice. Luckily for me, he thought I was cute at the time and not a drunken lush.

Sidenote: Surprisingly enough, when I tried to play the same drums sober, it turned out that I was not, in fact, a drumming prodigy. I know. I can't believe it either.

So to make a long story short (I'm not actually capable of that, but I needed a  transitional statement and this is all I could think of), I had the chance to go out without any kids last night. None. My friend Jeremy drove up from southern Florida to hang out for Christmas since his family is all up north, and my mom volunteered to keep the kids so we could go hang out. We decided to relive our dorky high school past and go shoot some pool. I even got to shower, dress, and do my make up all in one day, which could possibly be a record for me. We  drove down the road until we saw a sports bar and then we went in, planning  to eat dinner and play some pool and have a drink. Singular. Possibly doubular. (Which is not a real word, and I'm not even sure why I typed it, but there's no going back now.)

Ah, the best laid plans. We had just grabbed a one of the pool tables (out of about six...pretty small cozy place) when I looked out the window and saw John and his own Christmas guest, my brother-in-law Jason.

It really, is, apparently, a small world.

BIL saw me about the same time, so I went out to say hello and we all kind of said some variation on "Wow! Who would have thought this would happen! This is crazy!" Then we all kind of stood there and looked around a lot.

Why hello, frosty mug of light beer. It's good to see you!

Thankfully, things got much less awkward after that. It actually wasn't so bad and we ended up hanging out for a while.  BIL and I got to catch up more than we'd been able to do on Christmas when all the kids were underfoot, and John and I got to make mostly good natured but heavily sarcastic jokes at one another's expense, which I like to call my very own dialect composed entirely of sarcasm, implied meaning, and scathing honesty concealed by adding 'just kidding!' to the end of every phrase. It's going to be bigger than Pig Latin, I know it! I just need to think of a good name.

The problem was that that whole dinner plan was somehow completely forgotten, and the lunch I'd had eight hours before was just not cutting it. Eventually, some more of John's entourage arrived and so Jeremy and I played some pool, and I proved once again that one thing I know I will never be is a professional pool player.  I'd only had a couple of drinks, but I failed to factor in  my lack of dinner. And the fact that I haven't had a drink in at least nine months made for a stellar combo, let me tell you.

We had this questionable waitress who was near tears every time she came to check on us, and she felt compelled to share pretty much her entire life story, which was a thrilling ride through the junior olympics in ice skating, starting college at 14 (and still being in said college at 21), and not having a friend to call her own, although she did have 14217 friends on myspace.  Oh, and she went by what she called an alias instead of using her real name, and it was just a letter. One letter.

 Then I escaped that situation only to end up making the mistake of complimenting a girls green corset top in the bathroom. Now I know her life story, too. I can never make myself walk away, either. I just stand there and nod vaguely, inserting semi-related comments when there's a pause, and the whole time I'm thinking of something like what color nail polish I would choose if I were to get a pedicure.

So now I'm looking at my cluttered post Christmas house and not caring enough to do much about it, and I'm going to go find my Snuggie-ish wearable blanket and keep it on all night. If you're going to take anything at all from this meandering post, let it be that you should always eat dinner. And that you should always have an obvious signal to let your friends know when to save you from conversations you don't want to be having. And that you should get some kind of blanket with sleeves, because they're amazing.

That's all. Cute Christmas pictures coming soon, but apparently I felt like a story with no real point tonight. Have a good one!

Belated...

Merry Christmas! (A Day Late...we were a little busy yesterday!) We had a wonderful day...if you were one of the amazing people who were Santa to my kids this year...THANK YOU! They were incredibly blessed. Have a wonderful Christmas weekend!

Serenade

Our Christmas gift to you all is Ava and Jace singing a song just for you.

And no, they're not wearing pants. That's just how we roll. Who needs pants?

Hope everyone is having a great Christmas Eve!

My time management skills leave something to be desired.

My brain hurts.

It's nine minutes before it is officially Christmas Eve and I have nothing done. We need to bake cookies, make reindeer food, I have exactly zero gifts wrapped, and the light in my bedroom burned out again, so I can't even find anything to wrap it. Tonight was supposed to be a useful night when I would get tons of things done.

Yeah, not so much. If this was the Gong Show, I would totally get gonged. If it was some other game show, I would get the fail buzzer.

A really nice early Christmas present could be for me to wake up to find all the gifts wrapped. That would be great, thanks. Can we get some elves on this stuff?

Anyway, I'll leave you all with an adorable picture of Seth and Evany that my friend Chayil took the other day. Aren't they adorable?

Merry Christmas Eve, guys!

Strike!

Back in College, I used to bowl every Monday. I'm not sure why I capitalized college like that, as if I went to a school called College. Anyway.

It was supposed to be a bonding experience for my store and several other stores in the mall I worked at.. You couldn't even imagine the level of high fashion layering going on in that place on Monday nights. I think at times we were wearing six or seven layers of clothing and it was still surprisingly revealing. I'm not sure how that worked, actually. But at the time, layering was in at my store. I think it was to encourage the customers to buy more clothes...if they saw the employees wearing a tank top, a tee-shirt, a button down, and a sweater all at the same time, artfully arranged to show at least a sliver of every layer, they'd be more likely to buy all those things for themselves. Or corporate just liked to make us look silly. But regardless, I could rock some layers. And I sometimes wore bowling shoes at work because I thought they looked cute.

So we bowled every Monday. I was a pretty bad bowler in the beginning, which worked in my favor as when people weren't laughing at me, they were giving me tips, and after a while I was bowling much better and learning to throw (roll?) a mean curve ball. I loved it. Even as I got to be a better bowler, though, I was never an attractive bowler. I could never figure out how to do the whole leg-kick behind you thing and so I just kind of walked up, paused, kind of bent a knee awkwardly, and sent the ball down the lane. But at least I wasn't granny bowling, right?

I haven't bowled much since those good old days, but apparently being in Christmas break and having some free time made me go a little crazy. Today was dollar bowling day at a local alley, and about a thousand kids from Ava's school met up to play. Or at least it felt like a thousand but it could have been about five hundred running around a lot. I figured it would be funny and entertaining and I could catch up with the other moms from school.

It was something, alright. Evany slept in the bassinet (sometimes I second guess that passed hearing test...that baby sleeps through everything.) and Seth crawled up and down the steps to the lane every two minutes and kept trying to crawl out onto the gutters. Jace actually did run down the lane at one point. None of the kids could figure out how best to throw the ball, and every time it rolled down the lane agonizingly slowly and every once in a while it didn't even make it to the pins...it just sat there, halfway to it's destination, looking forlorn. After about two frames, the kids lost interest and we had to go drag them out of the arcade to get them to bowl when it was their turn.

One game took two hours to play.

It was, literally, the longest two hours of my life.

I'm not even joking. It was like I was in the movie Groundhog Day and every time I thought we were on the last frame I would look again and another one would have appeared. We were on the last turn for about 45 minutes, no joke. I've never seen anything like it. It was hilariously ridiculous, and by the end, the adults were tossing the balls down the lanes to skip the turns of the kids who weren't in easy hailing range. It turned out a lot of them preferred pretending to play arcade games than actually bowling. Kids these days.

Apparently it's going to be awhile before I'm bowling regularly again.

Cloth? Really?

If you had asked me five years ago if I would ever cloth diaper my children, I would have probably have told you you were crazy. There was NO WAY I would ever cloth diaper my kid! (For the record, there was a time I said the same thing about nursing. Oh, man, you know everything until you have kids!)

Of course, then I had my first two children twelve months apart and it wasn't long before we were spending more on diapers than we were on gas. It was not fun. Eventually I started to contemplate cloth and do some research. I couldn't do just jump in...there is an explicit list of things that I have to remember about myself whenever I want to start something do. This is it, or as much as I can remember right now:

• I tend to shop when I'm down, planning a trip, or just plain bored. Is this a compulsive purchase?
• I get really excited about new things, have to have them, get them, then lose interest if it's not everything I imagined it to be (and it hardly ever is)
• When it comes right down to it, I'm kind of lazy. Simple is good. 

So I researched for a few months so make sure I wasn't jumping into things. I looked into every kind of cloth diaper to make sure I would buy the right type for us. Then once I had a good idea of what I wanted, I tried to find the easiest, most user friendly option.

As far as the actual diapers went, I found I was looking for a type that I could:

• Fit under my kids clothes without buying them a size up in clothes. Plus I just didn't like the super bulky cloth look. 
• Snap or velcro. My kids are wiggly...I didn't want to have to snappi or pin anything.
• Either an all in one or a pocket diaper...I didn't want to deal with covers AND diapers. 
• Able to go in the washer AND the dryer. 

Finally, when Jace was about 6 months old, I took the leap and visited a local retailer and bought my first stash. It was made up of the old version of the BumGenius one size diapers and Swaddlebee's Larges. I wanted one size diapers so that both kids could wear them, but at the time they were a little bulkier than I liked and the Swaddlebees were really trim, so I got a mixture of both. After using them extensively, I learned that I liked the liked the gussets on the legs of the BG diapers as they almost never leaked, and I loved the snaps on the Swaddlebees because my kids couldn't take them off. With velcro, by about 18 months they can just rip those diapers right off. It's annoying. With both brands, after washing I had to "stuff" the absorbent liners into the diaper, which didn't take long, but was kind of a headache. Overall, though, they met all of my requirements and saved us quite a bit of money. I think we had maybe 18 diapers between both the kids, and we did laundry every other day or so. I prefer laundering every other day even if I'm not out of diapers, as otherwise the dirty diapers are sitting an awfully long time and in my head I think it could affect the fabric, although I might be totally wrong, just seems to make sense.

We used those diapers until both kids potty trained...Ava was fully trained at 24 months and Jace was about 2 1/2. For various reasons when Seth was born, I fell out of the habit of using cloth because he was too small to wear the diapers I had, and by the time he was big enough, I had fallen back into disposables.

Then I found the BumGenius Organic All In One. It was the diaper of my dreams. Organic cotton on the inside was super absorbent. Snaps made it easy for me to use and hard for the kids to take off. It was adjustable from 8-35 pounds. It came in cute colors.It was an All In One, which means that there is no stuffing...the diaper comes out of the dryer completely ready to use. And last but certainly not least, it was practically as trim as a disposable diaper.

That's the brand I've used exclusively with Seth, and I'm still in love. Now that he's bigger I do add a doubler (extra absorbency) at night, but we never have leaks and maintenance on them is super easy. The only issue we've had is that a couple of the snaps have stopped "snapping" well, but that's a pretty easy fix and since it hasn't really affected the use I've been too lazy to send them to get fixed.

No matter which brand you try though...and if I had unlimited funds I would probably try more and probably fall in love with more, but since these work for us I haven't branched out...I find that cloth is not really any more work than disposables, believe it or not.

I used to use a diaper pail, but now I just use a wet bag on Seth's door knob. When I change him, wet diapers go straight into the bag and dirty diapers get shaken into the toilet then thrown in the bag. If your baby is nursing and hasn't started solids, it isn't necessary to dump anything in the toilet when a dirty diaper comes along.

When it's time to do a load of diapers, I pull the wet bag off the door knob, walk it to the washing machine and dump the diapers out and then drop the wet bag in as well. Then I do a cold rinse of the diapers before adding detergent and doing a wash on Hot with an extra rinse after the cycle. Then I throw them in the dryer, set them on heavy dry, and when they're done, they're ready to use. Basically all I have to do is laundry and aside from the extra rinses, it's identical to any other load of wash. When we're out of the house I bring an extra wet bag with a diaper or two in it and as I change him, I throw the dirty diapers in the wet bag until we get home and put the clean ones on Seth. That's pretty much it. I do find our water bill is marginally higher than before we used cloth, but not prohibitively so.

I know lots of people who swear by using prefolds and covers, and that's certainly a great, economical way to go. Other people love using wool and don't like using synthetic fibers on their babies, which I can understand. There are as many ways to cloth diaper as there are to parent, I think, and no one is right or wrong.

I just like the easy way, and believe me...If I am still using cloth, it is easy. Because like I put on that list above, when it comes down to it, I like things to be as simple as possible and if they aren't, I'm not likely to stick to them.

If you're on the fence about cloth, feel free to post questions or comments, and if you use cloth, please chime in! If you think it's crazy to use cloth, you can say that too. You won't hurt my feelings, and I used to think the exact same thing!

Hope everyone is having a great Monday!

I hope that

Sunday Ramble

It's been cold here the past couple of days. When I was growing up and pretty much lived at the barn we always noticed that on cold, brisk days, the horses acted nuts. They would ignore cues, kick up their heels for no good reason, and spook at things they would normally go right by without issue. It was always on those days that our horses would refuse a jump or try to run off.

Apparently, my kids have a lot in common with horses.

They have been crazy today. Just the older two, of course. Seth has been fine except, of course, that he is attached to me at all times. But Ava and Jace have basically been uncontrollable. Things they know they're not allowed to do...things that they've never even tried to do before. In fact, they may or may not have scaled the van today, all the way up to the roof, when they know...KNOW that I don't allow that. Of course, it helped that we had friends over and the kids totally convinced Mike that they do it all the time and it's always totally fine with me. Luckily he's smart and didn't buy it for long. I guess they thought he was like a substitute teacher and they could totally put one over on him. They think they're so sneaky.

This morning at church, the kids got up on stage and sang Christmas Carols and it was just as entertaining as it is every year. I don't put Seth in the nursery to try to keep him from getting sick, so we killed some time watching the elementary kids practice their songs before they went on stage. Seth spent a few minutes with his face glued to the floor to ceiling window that looked in on the elementary room, but then he found a few of the life size inflatable snowmen...and all he did from then on was try to knock them over and look really confused when they kept popping back up. Then he cried because I dared to walk five feet away from him. Then he cried because someone else who he knows perfectly well offered to pick him up. Then he cried because I set him down. Yeah...it's a good thing he's the cutest thing ever.

It was especially fun tonight when we went to a covered dish dinner at church and he refused to let me put him down while I went through the food line. Have you ever filled two plates of food with one hand while holding a wiggly toddler in the other? Yeah, it's about as fun as it sounds. By the end I was throwing random food on the plates and hoping my kids would eat it. Finally I managed to appease him with chicken nuggets and he let me set him down to eat for a few minutes. I swear, we all thought the baby was going to be work...it's totally all the other kids, not her. All she does is sleep. And sleep. And then I wake her up to eat. And then she sleeps. I could post more pictures of her, but truthfully, it would be just like the last sleeping picture I posted with a different blanket or hat. If she's like Seth she'll start to wake up more as she gets closer to her due date.

Did I mention that our "extended family" next door is also expanding? Evany will be getting her very first best friend or boyfriend in the spring, and after everything they have been through, I have been through, we have been through together, I am so thrilled. They have been through four miscarriages in the past few years and while they have three amazingly cute and fun kids, I am so excited that they are adding one more. Although I am sad that we will never get to ride together in one car anymore unless one of buys a Dodge Sprinter.

Um, sidenote...I am in love with the Sprinter and I am so sad that they've discontinued it. High ceilings, shoulder belts in every seating position, and tons of seating positions with LATCH. It's a car seat tech's dream. Well, if they want to be able to stick a whole load of kids in one car, that is. One of my favorite things used to be driving places with friend in one car, and I hate the I never get to do that anymore. I love talking, and my kids never want to chat, they just want me to "Turn it up!" (The radio.) Every time I ask them something, they'll answer quickly and then be all "Okay mom, are we done? Turn the music back up, seriously!"

That just reminded me that last night at dinner, I brought food to the table and Ava's mouth just dropped open and she stared at me and said "Mom, this is NOT pizza." I was confused, because I never said it was pizza, but I just agreed with her that she was correct, it was not pizza, and to eat it anyway, and she just looked so wounded like I'd kicked her puppy. Then she raised her eyebrows at me and said "Um, you specifically said we were having cheese pizza tonight!"

Um, no Miss Sassy Pants, I did not say that, and I definitely didn't specifically say it. But you get bonus points for vocabulary, I guess.

The kids are in bed and quiet and I'm totally going to go find cookies I can eat without anyone asking me to share.

Oh, by the way...I've had a ton of questions over the past few months about cloth diapering, and I'm posting on that really soon. I promise. Like, within the next day or so soon.

Joy to the World

Christmas Carols were huge in my family growing up. Every Christmas Eve, we would have a huge party with all of our extended family, and after dinner, when all the guys had escaped into another room, all the women (and a token husband or two) would gather around and sing carols together.They were fancy singers, lots of harmonies and things like that. All the big, popular songs, and some that I've never heard sung anywhere else, like one about a snowman who gives up his life to save a family from a housefire. That one always made me cry.

I can remember being really small and sitting on the stairs, peering through the banister and watching, and then another year playing along on a xylophone in a particularly talented way (or so I thought...the carolers may have probably disagreed). As I got older, I joined in singing with everyone, and then my cousins taught me to sing harmony by teaching me this little three line song that ends in "joy to ma-a-a-an." It still gets stuck in my head all the time.

The point is, we are a family who loves Christmas carols. I grew up on them, and sometimes it just doesn't feel like Christmas anymore when I'm not spending the night before around a table with my mom and all of my cousins and aunts and listening and singing along with the awesome acappella singing of my grandmother and her three sisters. When I was young, my great grandmother would sit at the head of the table, just listening to everyone sing. Funnily enough, she couldn't carry a tune in a bucket, but she loved listening to the music.

Once, at a family reunion during the summer I was fifteen, one night was spent sitting outside singing. I may be remembering it wrong, but I could swear that even then, some Christmas carols were sung.

My kids, although they haven't had the benefit of growing up spending Christmases the way I did, have definitely inherited our love of singing. Christmas carols seem to be right up their on Ava's list, too, as she's woken me up every morning this week belting "Hark the Herald Angels Sing." Every year, the kids participate in our churches Christmas show, where all the preschool and elementary kids are basically herded up on stage and we all cross our fingers and hope for the best. For the record, "best" usually means that at least half the kids sing, most of them do the moves, and no one falls of the stage or burns themselves on the lights. Last year, Jace burnt himself on the lights. But they're adorable and everyone loves watching them every year.

Today was the rehearsal for tomorrow's show, and I sat off to the side while the kids practiced with Evany in the bassinet and Seth on my lap. He was very cuddly today, sitting facing me and patting my back at regular intervals.

Suddenly, the kids started a version of "Joy to the World" that sounded vaguely like a Glee mashup, and suddenly, Seth sat straight up and looked around. Then his face just lit up and he started swaying back and forth and bopping along with the music, holding my hands and making me clap. I was laughing and swaying with him, when suddenly it hit me.

Seth was hearing Christmas carols for the first time.

This time last year, Seth couldn't hear anything. He's never heard a Christmas carol, never been cheered up against his will by a particular song. While I've known that he's loved music since his activation, something about Seth hearing his first carol and responding automatically hit me in a way I haven't felt in a while and I started to tear up, and the enormity of it all hit me all over again.

This Boy;

This baby  toddler who I thought would never hear me read him a book, tell him I love you, yell at him for misbehaving...he was given a huge gift almost nine months ago. We prayed for a miracle, for a cure, but instead God gave us very specific opportunities to help Seth. He left clear signs for us to follow about the right things to do for Seth. When I thought it wasn't my place to "choose" CI's for Seth, he put people who had gone before us in our path. When I wasn't sure about which surgeon to go with, we walked in the door and saw Seth's personal verse emblazoned on the wall of the center of the surgeon we were leaning towards. When our insurance company wouldn't cover bilateral CI's, John's company suddenly changed to an insurance company that covered bilaterals. When that insurance company said that Seth was too young to do the surgery when we wanted it,  our surgeon had the denial overturned in 24 hours. While we were told to have low expectations at activation, that many babies don't start responding for weeks or a month, Seth made the entire journey worthwhile when I called his name and he smiled and turned his head towards me.

We didn't get the kind of miracle you read about in the bible, the one that happens overnight and is some unbelievable immediate healing, but looking back at all the times our way was paved for us before we even knew we were going in that direction makes it clear to me...it was a miracle all the same. My son can hear. And I could not care less that he needs some equipment to do it.

And I have a feeling he is going to love Christmas carols just as much as everyone else in our family.

Opening myself up to a whole new level of dork.

I think I mentioned to you all that in high school, I was part of a self named clique very imaginatively called JELKS. I say it was imaginative because it just so happened that we chose the name by putting all of our first initials together. I know. Rocket Scientists.

Anyway, we hung out together just about every second. We had to approve of each other's boyfriend choices, and had veto power if we didn't approve. We took ourselves very seriously.

We had a notebook.

Because we didn't have very many classes together throughout the day, one day I wrote a note to Sarah (the S in JELKS) in a notebook I had, and when I saw her, I just passed the entire notebook to her. She wrote back, and thus, it began.

The notebook was passed to and from each member of our group, and if the boys who tried to steal it every day knew just how often we poured our hearts onto those pages they might have been too embarrassed to read it at all.

Here it is, in all it's glory. It's orange, because we had an overabundance of pride in our Marching Band, the Big Orange Pride (better known as the BOP...apparently throwing initials together was common at our school.).

And now, against my better judgement, I'm going to give you all a glimpse into the psyche of 17 year old me. There are more dramatic entries than the one I'm posting today, but I figured I should start at the beginning. The (manufactured) drama of our lives should probably be waded into rather than jumped into.

But wait, here is a picture of a portion of JELKS to help you visualize. Pre-Digital, Baby!

Here is the very first entry of the notebook. Underneath is a transcription of this very serious, soul searching note.

Wednesday, September 8, 2026

12:41 AL (after lunch)

Sarah-

It's a weird situation, with Jen - she mentioned to me that it seemed like she couldn't mess around with you anymore. She said that you never used to get upset when she did things like throw food or anything...and she said that when your necklace got broken she was just trying to scoot the clasp around and it got stuck on your tag. In any case, it's definitely conceivable that the way Chris acts has an effect on her - he's never had inhibitions and Jen may admire that. Who knows. I think she's just trying to figure out who she's supposed to be in our newly expanded group, you know? I mean, we all have identities within the circle, and she may be trying to play the part she usually is given. This may not be making any sense - it probably isn't. But Jen is usually set as the clown, and it may be carrying over. You never know.

Oh - do you have yellow overalls and a yellow tank top? That's what we want to wear for twin day, and Linds, Kara and I all have them. It would be cuuute.

I'm really nervous to hear what Jeremy's gonna say to me...I mean, it can't be bad because he said it was like my note but better, so...now I just have to wait because he's stupid and has to insist on the perfect freakin moment. Ergh. It's supposed to be what he says, not where he says it!!! Oh well. Are you nervous about Saturday? I'm mucho mucho nervous. Especially that we have no choreography to the 3rd movement and we do the whole show FRIDAY and then Saturday against grande schools. I'm not good at learning tons of stuff overnight. Oh well. I better split. Don't worry about Jen - I'm sure it will get better.

Love ya (dearly not queerly)

Ellyn

Wow. There are so many things I want to say to myself. If I could send myself at 17 a bulleted list, here is what it would say.

• Don't write a note talking about someone else who is going to see that note. It causes drama. 
• Is this note really about a necklace breaking? O. M. G.  
• Add two extra u's to the word "cute" kind of negates all the "mature" advice you're trying to give because you sound like a dork. 
• How do you switch from a serious topic to talking about overalls so seamlessly, as if they're both of equal importance? Crazy.
• You should be nervous about what he's going to say to you, since you're totally getting dumped, (oops, spoiler! =P) and you handle it so badly that it literally changes the course of your senior year of high school. 
• Throwing random spanish words like "mucho" and "grande" into your note really just makes you look like a tool. Pick a language. 
• Saying you love someone of the same gender doesn't actually mean you love them romantically. The disclaimer is not really necessary, even though it rhymes and you think it's catchy.You should get over that. 
• Also, you need to improve your handwriting. Thanks. 

There you go. Now you don't just know lots of random things about me now, at 27, but you've gotten a glimpse into my senior year of high school. Just wait to see what happens next! I know, you're on the edge of your seat with anticipation.

This whole 'being one with nature' thing is really uncomfortable!

You guys are funny!

Claire's "This whole being one with nature thing is really uncomfortable." got the popular vote and it cracked me up!

Mandy's "Um, mom? I don't think I want to be a Vegas showgirl anymore. The headpieces are way too heavy." had me in stitches.

Shawna's "Another baby?!?! I'm running out of places to find some peace and quiet in this house!" was great. It's funny because it's true.

I also laughed out loud at Sarah's "Mom said Christmas trees need to be watered!" I totally would not put that past one of my kids. For real.

I thought Sadie's "The things kids do to get a glimpse of Santa!" was pretty adorable, too.

Thanks for making me laugh, guys! I'll have to be on the lookout for a cute prize for the next time I end up with a caption-worthy photo.

_________________________________

We have done nothing today but lay around. We did rally this morning and get dressed and ready to go out, but then our motivation ran off somewhere and we ended up watching a movie (Ava and Jace) and taking a nap (me, Seth, and Evany) instead. Then we did some cleaning and organizing (yes, I do think that is a fun vacation activity. I know I'm a dorlk.). Now Jace is passed out on the couch and Evany is asleep in the bouncy seat and Seth is bossing Ava and I around trying to get us to do something. Not sure what, really.

Evany is doing well as usual except we're having some skin issues. The spots on her chest and belly where the sticky probe things go for her monitor are causing some skin breakdown and I'm not quite sure what to do about it. She's also getting a terrible diaper rash, and her skin is in pretty bad shape. I think the main issue is that her skin is still just fragile and thin, but it's definitely becoming an issue. Any tips from people who have been there?

I'm going to herd my kids into bed now and I'll be back later to post something with actual content.

Stocking Stuffer

Wouldn't you be thrilled to get this in your stocking this year?

Well, you can't have this one, actually...we want to keep her. But you can check out this picture of her stuffed into the stocking the nurses in the NICU decorated for her when we all thought she'd actually be spending Christmas there.

momof2bz and I apparently think alike...I had just uploaded this picture when I saw her comment about photographing Evany in a stocking while she still fit in one!

I just got a chance to really look at the comments on the picture of Ava in the tree, and I have to say they cracked me up. I'm still picking my favorites. If you read the comments and saw one you really liked, will you click the "like" button on the comment? That way I can figure out if we share the same sense of humor. ; )

I got a few questions about where we got our stockings, and believe it or not, they came from the Dollar Tree. So did the ribbon. I didn't think I'd be able to find decent looking stockings there, but I was pleasantly surprised!

____________________________

Several of you have asked what happened when John met Evany. Nothing really happened...the first time he saw her was kind of an accident as we had to meet up for some other things and obviously I had to bring her.   It felt weird to "introduce them", so I didn't really say anything, and neither did he. However, the past couple of visits he has been able to spend a little time with her and I could swear I caught him baby talking to her the other day, so I'm reasonably sure that Evany is getting him to fall for her just like she has everyone else. If she's anything like her sister she'll have him wrapped around her finger before he knows it.

For now she comes with me during visits since she's still on the monitor and nursing. As she gets older we'll reevaluate. John really does love our kids, and I do think that he'll love Evany the same way. Yes, I wish things had happened differently during her birth and NICU stay and I hate that he stayed away. But I hope that he still manages to have a good relationship with her because she deserves that.

____________________

Around three or so I walked out into the parking lot after attending Ava's Christmas party with three dirty, sugared up kids (Evany was not dirty or sugared up, so I'm not counting her), and as soon as I got them all buckled in and got into the driver's seat, I felt the biggest weight lift off my shoulders...I am intensely thrilled about three weeks in which I can sleep in, never change the kids out of their pajamas, and do fun Christmas Break type things. I probably won't do all of those on the same day, but who knows. The first week home with four kids has gone well, and I've managed to make it to each kid's school drop off or therapy appointment on time, so I'm counting it a success, but I am still really excited about not having to get them all clean, dressed, and out the door by 8 am for a while.

Speaking of, when I wake up Ava in the morning, she actually says "Five more minutes!"

She's five. What in the world? What five year old says they need more time to sleep? She's so funny.

Mish Mash

I may be sleeping with my eyes open right now. Mondays and Wednesdays are always hectic days because we have homeschool co-op and John also visits the kids on those days, (Does that answer the question some of you had?) so I'm normally out of the house on those evenings. Today was insane, since it was the last day of homeschool before Christmas Vacation. The kids were completely insane. Tomorrow is the last day of actual school and there will be the Christmas parties that go along with it. The kids are completely nonsensical at this point. They're really nothing but jibbering monkeys running around forgetting everything they're supposed to be doing because SCHOOL'S OUT! Who knew it started in elementary school?!

We were running around literally all day and never got back home until almost four in the afternoon, and a large chunk of that time was spent running around Jo-Ann's getting supplies for a Christmas gift for Ava to give a classmate at her party tomorrow. Ava and Jace were crazy. Nuts. A trip that could have been fifteen minutes stretched out to over an hour because they either run way ahead or lag way behind. That bugs me. Why can't they just walk next to the stroller? Don't get it.

This is another reason I couldn't post until now:

She may look innocent, but I just took this a little while ago and she was totally demanding to know why I wasn't feeding her already since she had gone to all the trouble of waking up and all. You have to read between the lines of that sweet look. I think today might have been the first day I've heard her cry and it was for about two seconds.

Her pediatrician appointments have been going alright...her bilirubin is still not going down, although it's also not going up, so we're in a holding pattern until we go back Friday to recheck it. She went to have it checked on Monday and Tuesday of this week. Her weight is fluctuating a little...she's been everywhere from 4 lbs 14 oz to 5 lb 2 oz. Hopefully by Friday we'll see that she's going in the right direction.

I have to tell you guys that this monitor is the biggest mixed blessing ever. I love it because I don't have to worry about her and check on her every second, but that alarm is incredibly loud. Today she alarmed at Jo-Ann Fabrics and popped right out of it on her own (Bradycardia), but the machine had already gone off and totally freaked out all the little old ladies who were fabric shopping.

That was nothing compared to the other day, though. We were heading from the waiting room at the pediatrician's office to the back, and Jace accidentally stepped on the cord of Evany's monitor. It disconnected and started alarming and no matter what buttons I pushed, it wouldn't stop. When I was trained on the monitor, the lady showed me how to shut it off. Then it just so happened that the machine we had didn't work, so she had to go get another, and it's slightly different. Apparently one of the differences is in the way it turns off, because no matter what I did, I couldn't get the stupid thing to shut off so I could regroup and reconnect Evany. It literally felt like years before I could get it to turn off. It was like an air raid siren, so loud and crazy and Seth was screaming and Jace was freaking out and the stupid thing just kept alarming.

Love/Hate, I tell you.

Want to talk about something I just plain love, though?

I spoke the other day about not having stockings for the kids, but I've rectified that situation. Check it out:

I'm kind of in love with it all, and I think they look really cool! The red ones are for me, Ava, and Evany. The greens are for Jace and Seth, and the gold one is for Eli.

But the best part? The stockings? $1. Ribbon? $1. Stencils and glitter pen to personalize the stockings? $5. Hook things to attach them all to the cupboards? $3.49. We already had the wreath. So whatever that adds up to (basically less than $15 to decorate and hang all six stockings), I think it's pretty good, considering how expensive they are everywhere else. And I think they look pretty nice for $1 stockings, personally. The letters stand out a lot more in person, and they were still drying in the pictures here.

Also, you totally get a glimpse of my cluttered kitchen. Those are the perks of an open floor plan, I guess! Usually things are more orderly, but once again...visit nights are crazy.

Ok, now I really am sleeping with my eyes open. One more day then we get almost three whole weeks without school or therapy! It's too good to be true.

I hope you're all having a great night! If you're already asleep, I am totally jealous of you.

What's this thing you call a sister?

First off, I'm sorry for making some of you think Seth actually broke his legs. He didn't. He's just missing being the baby.

Speaking of, here are the pictures from Seth's very first meeting with Evany. He seemed to go through a variety of emotions, but all in all, it could have gone much worse!

i

Apparently, a new baby is no laughing matter. He is very serious about all of this. Now that I think of it, he has yet to crack a smile when he's around Evany. He mainly just steals her pacifiers and hats and hides them. He's helpful like that.

Have a great night!!

Is your leg broke?

So, Seth's legs are broken.

I can't figure out which bones are affected...In fact, I can't find anything visibly wrong, but seriously...

He won't let me put him down. Like, at all. Ever.

So his legs must be broken, right? Because otherwise, I have the most spoiled almost 17 month old in the entire world.

Case in Point: Evany had to go back to the pediatrician today because her bilirubin counts are going up instead of down, which is annoying and could land her back in the hospital which I am not a fan of. Anyway, we've found an interesting way to make our way to and from the car these days. When Seth is in a good mood, he'll either walk holding my hand or even crawl right out my front door and to the car while I carry Evany's car seat, my purse, and the Apnea monitor. But when he's in a bad mood, or a middling mood, or even a not so thrilled mood...it doesn't go so smoothly.

So for the past few days, we've made a lot of trips with the monitor over my shoulder, the car seat with Evany strapped in on one arm, and my huge 16 month old baby on the other hip. Which is fine. I can deal with it. Except for one thing, and that's that Seth has never learned how to help himself be carried. He doesn't hang on, he doesn't grip with his legs. Well, he does grip with his legs, but not until you're trying to put him down. Then he's a monkey. Otherwise, he's a 26 pound limp, wet noodle. So by the time we get to our destination, he's usually managed to slide halfway down my leg and I'm holding on to him by one shoulder or something equally questionale, and the kid doesn't even blink an eyelash. He'll deal with being carried like that, as long as you never ever every even let the thought of putting him down cross your mind.

So today, we're at the pediatrician and I'm trying to undress Evany with one hand while holding him with the other and, if you've never noticed, it's incredibly hard to unsnap snaps when you only have one hand available, and Evany had roughly thirty seven snaps on her outfit today. Then I had to scoop one naked baby up in one arm while still carrying Seth in the other arm, right out to the scale, then back into the room. Repeat similar situations in various ways for days now. And in the meantime, Jace is like, building something dangerous out of random supplies he found in the cupboards of the doctor's office and the pacifier he stole from Evany.

I know, your first thought is why I don't just put him down. If I put this child down when he wants to be held it's literally the most pathetic thing you've ever seen. He doesn't even get angry, he just collapses onto the floor sadly and cries, facedown, snotting everything up and pounding the floor half heartedly with one fist. I can't watch him that way. If he was angry or tantruming in a traditional way I would, but this is just like his heart is broken and everyone one he loves left him and his dog ran away and his best friend ran off with his girl and he has nothing to wear to the party after the big game. It's that serious.

So yeah. I've been carrying him a lot. And he's so darn thankful you feel bad for even wanting to put him down. You pick him up and he just lays his head on his shoulder and pats your back, and if he's really happy about it, he'll give you a back rub, which I'm a total sucker for. He's so cute.

It's just too bad his legs are broken, because I think this is going to affect his walking. Hopefully he can recover in time for therapy this week.

Rock My Socks!

I started my first blog in college. It wasn't called a blog then, though...I'm not even sure what I called it. It was basically just a place before myspace and facebook appeared where I could keep in touch with my best friends from high school, and I'm reasonably sure that we were the only ones who read one another's journals. Mine was generally very dramatic and almost always about boys. Actually, I think it was always about boys. I mainly posted when I first met someone and was super excited about them or when we were breaking up. I never seemed to journal the happy mediums of life.

When Ava was born I started a new blog where I wrote about her and the kids and got about fifteen comments total in the years I posted, always from people I already knew. But there were lots of cute pictures of the kids. I stopped writing there when I was pregnant with Eli, and after he died, I stopped writing completely.

But even when I'm not writing I'm writing in my head. In fact, the things I write in my head are way better than anything that makes its way to the screen, because the perfect words are always in my head until it's time to write them down...kind of like a songwriter who carries a notepad around with them so that they don't lose any good ideas. I've tried that before, but when I go back later, none of it makes sense, like it was a dream I can't quite grasp.

When I got pregnant with Seth I started another blog where I posted about four times throughout the pregnancy, mostly about how scared I was that he would die, too. All the posts from that blog are actually on this one, as well.

When Seth was born and diagnosed, the first humorous thing I thought was that we named him Seth and that rhymes with deaf and how ironic is that? Actually the first thing was that I wouldn't have to make the kids learn to be quiet when the baby was sleeping, but the rhyming thing was second. I also thought it was kind of cool that the word "Profound" could mean so many different things.

So of course, I immediately reserved the domain www.profoundlyseth.com, then did absolutely nothing with it. Then October rolled around, and for some reason, I started writing. About Seth. About Eli. About our family. And somehow, people started reading. Not a ton, but more than I'd ever had before, and it's still overwhelming to think of the way people came together to support us as we did a fundraiser to earn money for Seth's surgery by selling bracelets.

I still don't know how it is that blogs become popular, really. I never set out to have a lot of readers...I was writing to write, and then we had the opportunity to do a fundraiser for Seth, it was awesome that so many people online wanted to be a part of that. There are a ton of blogs out there that are bigger than mine, that have more traffic and more readers and more giveaways and...etc.

Sometimes I try to think of what this past year would have been like without this blog, without everyone to write to and talk to. It's not fun. I love this, the outlet, the people, the support! And recently, I have become even more sure of one thing...I have the best readers, and the very best commenters. Because not only did people want to help with Seth...they want to help, period. You all comment when I'm sad and make me feel good. You share things that are sad and silly and thought provoking. They make me laugh and they make me cry, sometimes all at once. Most of all, my readers have the biggest hearts in the world.

I share a lot on this blog, I'm pretty darn transparent on here, even when it's not pretty. I write a lot about me, my kids, my family. After my husband left, this became one of my favorite outlets. I write about not being able to make it off the couch, or how huge an accomplishment going a whole day without crying is to me. There's also I lot I don't share, even though it may seem otherwise. There are a few things even I keep to myself. I can't think of many right now, but I know they exist. I think.

I knew everyone loved Seth. But the way that people have opened their hearts not just to Seth but to Ava and Jace and me, has been amazing. And Evany is one of the most blessed babies in the world, thanks in part to all of you and your prayers. It's crazy to me the way everyone has embraced our family, how so many of you have become friends even though we've never met in life.

And that's why sometimes, I mean to think twice before I complain about some things, because you all are some crazy supportive people! Which is why I was both entertained and touched today when a few of you decided that since I mentioned not having a double stroller that you wanted to help me get one. You guys are so sweet, and you've got some crazy initiative! (Becky, I'm talking to you!) It blows me away that everyone wants to help.

The thing is, even going through what I'm going through, even when finances are incredibly tight, especially compared to what they were previously, we are still a richly blessed family. My oldest daughter is beautiful and thoughtful. My oldest son is hilarious and loving. I have a safe place on this blog where Eli will always be remembered. My younger son, who started out unable to hear anything at all, can now hear normally thanks to the surgery that many people helped us achieve. My youngest, my show-off, impatient to arrive baby girl is healthy and home when it so easily could have gone another, very bad way. Our home, the place I am dreading losing, is still not in foreclosure. Every time we need something, God provides for us, even when we didn't know we needed it. Our cupboards are full and the kids are mostly happy and healthy. I have carseats and a vehicle that can transport all of my children, which is saying something. I still have a DVR for my television, which, if you know me, is maybe the greatest blessing of all (Kidding! Kind of). We have family and friends who have surrounded us and lifted us up in prayer and in person over and over through the years. I have a stem mop.

With all of those things on the "Have" side of my have/have not list, not owning a double stroller is pretty much inconsequential. Yes, it would be nice, but it's a luxury, not a necessity, and while it would make my life easier, we really are getting by. And believe me, if I continue what I've been doing, which is basically carrying Seth one one hip with Evany in the car seat on my other arm, I am going to get some amazing arm muscles. Kind of like how if you wear those weird Nike shoes it tones your legs and butt....my two babies are going to get my some rockin' arms. We've been so blessed it's kind of ridiculous, really, even though we struggle, too.

Thank you for being led to help us out, no matter in what way. It's extremely appreciated...in fact, I have to pinch myself sometimes because of how sweet you all are.  But there are other, more deserving families and people who are truly in need. If you felt led to put five or ten dollars towards a fund for our family, I would love to see you donate that to some charity close to your heart instead. Sponsor a Compassion kid, or just give a one time donation. Donate five dollars to Now I Lay Me Down to Sleep or the Liz Logelin Foundation. That five dollars could make a life changing difference to someone, and that's the way I would love to see you spend your hard earned money, not on us, although the thought is extremely appreciated.

And no, I'm not being stubborn ( I told you guys I read all my comments!). I just feel strongly that there are many people less fortunate than we are, and that we have already be blessed beyond measure. I'm not saying things aren't hard, because they are. But I have no doubt that we'll find our way, somehow, and that everyone of you who visit here are very dear to my heart. Like I said, I may not have the most readers, but I do know I have the best! You all amaze me all over again every single day.

Thank you for thinking of us. I feel incredibly loved, incredibly blessed. You all rock my socks off.

Because it's the logical place to sit.

So I don't often do this, but I feel this picture is in dire need of a title, caption, or comment.

I have no clue what she was doing or thinking. She's a trip.

And she's wearing her brother's pajamas. She does own some that fit her, I promise.

 There is no real prize involved, except you'll be making me laugh, so that's something, right?

Ready, Set, Go!

Whew!

Wow! Second day in a row that I didn't open my computer one time until after the kids went to bed! There were about a thousand little things that needed to be done as we settle back in at home, and you all know I had to break out the steam mop. I think I was going through a slight withdrawal. Or maybe a major one. I'm not going to talk about exactly how much I missed mopping because you'd think I'm a big dork. Although you probably think that already, so...I was itching to get my hands on the mop again. It's kind of like magic. 

Ava was begging to go back to church today, so we went and I never actually made it into the sermon because every five feet I stopped to catch yo with someone else. Evany was very well received, and people were really great about not touching her or getting too close. I did get one person who asked me if she was my baby because she didn't know I had been pregnant, though. That was entertaining. It was really nice to start to get back into the swing of things since I've been out of commission since Thanksgiving. 

It was a little crazy, though, because between this blog and Ava's school and the fact that my best friend's husband works at the church, mostly everyone knew everything that happened with her birth and NICU stay even though I haven't really talked to anyone. When I know someone reads the blog I always kind of clam up because first, I figure they know what's happening, and second, I get kind of weird about whether I've already written what I'm about to say and how dorky that would be to say exactly the same thing they've already read. It's weird, and since I tend to over think everything, sometimes I get stuck in my own head. 

One of the strangest things to get used to is the fact that a whole lot of people I know "in real life" read here, and now they know all kinds of personal stuff  I wouldn't usually share when I'm chatting with someone at church or school. It's always a little crazy when someone approaches me that I don't know well to tell me they read the blog, since I feel like they have a huge head start on embarrassing knowledge about me and I know absolutely nothing about them. Luckily I've been able to kind of just not think about it and I've tried really hard to keep it from affecting what I choose to write here. 

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So yesterday the kids and I trimmed our tree. I should say that Ava and Jace and I did...we waited until Seth was down for a nap and Evany hung out in the bouncy seat and we sailed through it, for the most part. Unfortunately I'm a little...particular, so admittedly, there was a lot of  "Spread the ornaments out! Take a step back and look at the whole tree!" Yes, I expect my four and five year olds to be able to accurately determine the best aesthetic placement of ornaments. It's important to have high expectations so they have something to work towards, right? Or maybe I'm just a little weird. I mean, I did tell you all I was going through withdrawal from my mop. 

Anyway, here's the finished product. I really like how it turned out this year. Apparently it's been christened "The Candy Cane Tree."

Now I just need to get my kids to stand still so I can get pictures of them with it. So far it's a no go. Seth likes to rip the ornaments off, and Ava and Jace like to play complicated imaginary games with them, so it's all been pretty much rearranged by now. Luckily, the bows are secured to well for anyone to remove them, so even if all the ornaments disappear, the ribbon and bows will keep it looking festive. I can handle that.

So far, the only kid I'm getting to pose nicely for pictures is this one:

She's pretty darn photogenic, if I do say so myself! She smiles so much...it blows me away that she's not even supposed to be born for 6 more weeks...I wonder if she smiled a lot when she was on the inside. I guess it's kind of a chicken/egg question. I've never seen an ultrasound of a smiling baby though...have any  of you?

She's doing well, although I'm struggling to keep her temperature up. It's a good thing we live in Florida, because even down here, she is in several layers of clothes/blankets/et cetera. If we lived up North she'd probably be one of those babies you have to keep in a box by the stove to keep warm.

Apparently in my brain if you go North you also go back in time, because I'm relatively sure that no one has had to keep their baby in a box by the stove to keep them warm for quite a few years. Oh well.

I'm adjusting to the monitor...thanks for the advice on how to wear her with it! It still bugs me, because the thing I love the most about wearing a baby is that I don't have to hold/carry anything else. Although I did find a plus to the monitor today...I can fit diapers and wipes in the bag and I don't have to carry a diaper bag! Score!

Someone asked if I had a double stroller and recommended the Phil and Ted's, which cracks me up, since I owned one of the first e3's sold in the US and talked up that stroller like no one's business. I loved it. It was the best theme park stroller ever. I'm a love 'em and leave 'em stroller gal, though, and although I tried a ton (the store I did car seat education at also sold many strollers, so I know them all pretty well), when I was done using them, I always sold them to someone else. Jace was done riding when Seth was born, so I've never needed a double since Ava and Jace were little. This time around, it's different...Seth is going to need to ride for quite a while yet. Because of his CI's, I only use strollers with reversible seats or handles so that I can keep a close eye on him and make sure he doesn't rip them off, take them apart, and basically cost us a lot of money. I also really like being able to see him as we walk and I can do lots of therapy since he can face me...basically talk his ears off about basically everything we see and interact closely with him.

So nope, we don't have a double...my plan had been to wear Evany and let Seth use the stroller for the time being, but that didn't pan out quite right. There are not a lot of double strollers with the reversible seat option, and besides, it's not in the budget right now to buy something, so we're going to soldier through for right now, and I'm sure we'll survive somehow! One of the singles we have does have a ride on board, so eventually Seth should be able to use that.

Wow, this rambling was pretty much pointless, huh? I should really re-read all of this and make it actually understandable, but I'm not going to! I know, I know...I'm really living on the edge, right? I'm just too tired to actually do anything but hit the "Publish Post" button, so hopefully you all can make some kind of sense of this post!

Hope you've all had a great weekend!

Isn't that always the way?

So we'd only been home a handful of hours last night when Seth started wheezing.

If you've been reading for any length of time, you'll know how serious that is for us. He was as bad as I've heard and seen him since everything that happened in Indiana. After breathing treatments with two different medications and several trips outside, though, he had improved enough that he was showing some personality again, which is always a big tell for him...helps me to know just how sick he is if he's laying around doing nothing, since this is a kids that is never, ever doing nothing.

Plus, at that point it was coming on morning, and he always improves during the day. My mom was spending the night and helping, so I could have taken him in, but I didn't want to expose Evany to the emergency room and I had left all her pumped milk at the NICU accidentally. So we decided to soldier through and he did improve quite a bit as the morning wore on and I continued giving him nebulizer treatment. It was strange this time, though, because he didn't have any symptoms of illness, and the wheezing was really the only thing going on. With Ava, her asthma started the same way...she would wheeze when she was sick and then, as she got older, she started wheezing randomly, until she was diagnosed with asthma and got put on preventative medication.

Still, though, it was not the first night home I was expecting, but that's always how it seems to go.

But we made up for it today. We had to make an emergency Target run (I know you've had those, right? Where you cannot get by one more hour without some necessity? ) and let me tell you, it was an experience. Evany was the most well behaved of all four kids.. Ava and Jace were acting possessed and Seth kept throwing everything out of the cart. Adjusting to normal life again is going to be interesting.

Speaking of Evany, she is the easiest baby ever. That's not actually true...Seth was also a very easy baby, but since he's not the baby anymore, she gets the title. She eats every three hours, when I also change her diaper and make sure her temperature is staying up, and then she goes back down until her next feeding. That's the one plus to the NICU...kids come home with an awesome routine already in place.

Seth was pretty interested in her today...I have some cute pictures of him meeting her for the first time at the hospital, but the one above is actually from this evening, when we were trimming the tree. He actually kind of likes her, or is at least very curious about her, which is a switch from the other day when he burst into tears when he saw Jace pay attention to her.

I got a few questions about what Evany is attached to. A condition of her discharge was that she use an apnea monitor for a while. She is still having apnea and bradycardic episodes, so I'm learning how to deal with carrying a tiny baby around tethered to a bag that's bigger than she is. It's a bummer as I had planned to wear her most of the time, but luckily she seems happy being swaddled in the bassinet in the stroller and I can throw the bag with the monitor in it in the basket. Seth will just have to learn to walk.

 We also had a little setback just before discharge yesterday. They did an echo of her heart and found a couple of issues, one of which is pretty inconsequential and one that is a little more concerning. We'll be following up with our Cardiologist in a month, and will find out more about what's going on then. Because Seth has a PDA and PFO that have still not closed, we already have a Cardiologist, so it will be nice to get in a little faster and easier than if we were brand new patients.

Overall, though, I'll take Vivi being home on a monitor over still being in the NICU any day! I'm still reeling about her being released so soon. It's awesome. The kids only have one more week of school before Christmas vacation, so we'll get a few weeks to do nothing and have no therapy, which will be great.

Even though the kids were basically crazy today, it was so nice being able to hang out with them and decorate the tree and listen to Christmas music together. Now I'm just praying that we can get through the weekend with Seth with minimal breathing issues.

Alright, time for a feeding. I hope everyone's Saturday has been going great! If you've emailed or called me recently, I will eventually call or write you back. I promise. No, really. I never even looked at my computer or phone until just a little while ago, since the kids and I were having a very hands on day today.