Bedtime And Baseball

The giant THUD I just heard above my head would indicate that Triple has fallen out of his bed, again. The first few times it happened I ran up there in a panic, only to get there and see that he'd already put himself back in bed with no extra assistance needed. So I don't run anymore (mostly because I am a brick house), because that kid can handle himself. Except for those times when I'm in a hurry or my attention is directed elsewhere. Those are the times he wants to do anything except the one thing I want him to do. The only motivation I can conjure to encourage any sort of cooperation is the threat of a swat. I don't know how I got to be that mom, and yet here we are.

Children have a way of holding you hostage to your own moral reservations.

The Nub is really into baseball right now. He had his first practice for his coach-pitch team and he was all business the entire hour. Paul surprised us by actually coming home after work tonight and they played and practiced for the whole evening. It's kind of the cutest thing in the world, especially when I don't have to be the one bending over to pick up the ball and throw it back to him for the bazillionth time. He's one of the smallest frys on the team thanks to his late summer birthday. Most of the other kids are coming out of kindergarten and headed to first grade next year. Not my Nub, he'll do more time in pre-school before we release him into his formal education. He'll thank me for it later I hope.

I'm tired. Who told the fat girl it was okay to stay up way way way past her bedtime for two nights in a row? Idiot.

Day Out With Thomas, Go Thomas Go! Heber Valley Railroad And Stuff.

I've gotten contacted the past few years about promoting the Day Out With Thomas event held by the Heber Valley Railroad over Memorial Day weekend, and every year I do it in exchange for tickets, except we've never actually made it TO the event. Whomp whomp whomp. We had something crazy going on last year (OH YEAH, WE BOUGHT A HOUSE) and the tickets sat unused, which was okay because my kids didn't even know Thomas from any other train. But seeing as how just this morning those boys watched 2 hours of straight Thomas on Netflix, the tables have turned and you bet we'll be going. Triple might die of a happiness coronary. Airplanes, helicopters, and trains are his kind of business. As a side note, I rarely do promotional posts unless they're of particular interest to my family or support a local business, and this happens to do both. So don't get crazy. 

Here are the details:

• May 24-27 is the Go Thomas Go event. The approximately 25 minute ride with Thomas the Tank Engine departs every 45 min, rain or shine.
• Tons of activities for the whole family.
• Meet Sir Topham Hat (the thrill)!
• Thomas and Friends imagination station with face painting, temporary tattoos, hands on arts and crafts activities. 
• Magic show, balloon twisters, merchandise and giveaways too. 
• Tickets are $18 for kids 2 and up (plus tax), you can get them HERE, or read more about it on Heber Valley Railroad's website. 

So yeah, you should go, especially if your kid loves trains like mine does. Maybe we'll see you there, yes? 

*obviously I was compensated with free tickets to the event for writing this post. My kids say "thanks Heber Valley Railroad"!

A Fake Sunburst In A Photo Doesn't Mean The Sun Was Actually Shining

I think a lot about how my kids will remember their childhoods. Will they later be weirded out about their nude pregnant mother walking casually from the closet to the shower (the negatives of the only tv in the house residing currently in the master bedroom), or will they instead remember how every morning they got to sip their juice like kings and watch Curious George in my bed before the day started? I dunno.

I don't have any aspirations of a photoshop-like, sunburst halo of perfection when it comes to this family that I've got. Sometimes days are long, little people are demanding, patience is thin, husband/dad is gone to work/more work/school/church/whatever, and I end up forcing kids into bed before the sun goes down (thank you blackout curtains) in an attempt to keep myself from saying bad words out loud and further scarring them for life. But then they get up at ungodly hours, both of them at different times, having peed through their underwear/diaper because I put them to bed so early and what tiny bladder can hold it for that long? I'm not mad because I had that coming and I'll gladly make penance when penance is due, even if it includes changing pee sheets and jammies at 1 and 4 am.

I want this life to be the kind of life they'll later realize they were lucky to have. And I think of these times right now - when we struggle and we're young(ish...*cough PAUL), and we deal with the everyday routine - mostly as times that we get to earn all of the good stuff that happens in the middle of it and of course all the stuff that's yet to come. I hope they feel like home is wherever we all are, no matter how spread apart that might be, that nothing tastes better than Mom's rolls or bread or whatever it is that I eventually decide will be my signature "thing", that brothers always defend one another no matter how much they fight with each other, and that more than anything they'll know they are and always were, loved and wanted and treasured. Never mind how many times they got sent to bed early  or yelled at for fighting, that kind of business is just how things go down in Verbie town. You know I keep it locked tight.

Fifth Disease Is No Joke

A week after we got home from Florida the Nub came down with the weirdest rash on his cheeks. It looked kind of like a sunburn but then began spiderwebbing its way across his neck and showed up on his arms and eventually to his legs and the rest of his body. After I noticed it and realized it had been a week since it first showed up, I took him into our pediatrician who gave him a good look over and said he thought it was an allergic reaction to the sun and that he wasn't really sure. Pediatrician FAIL.

Long story short, that's Fifth Disease right there. Fifth Disease is no big deal to most people (and most of those people are kids) who get it-some cold symptoms, a fever, and then the weird rash that takes forever and ever to clear and only shows up after that person isn't contagious anymore. And then once you've had it, you're immune from ever getting it again.

But if you're pregnant, it's a whole other mess of porridge. Click that link, yo.   

Longer story short, I had my blood drawn a few times and start to finish had to wait about 3 of the most anxiety ridden weeks of my life to confirm that I did indeed have immunity and that this baby was not in danger of developing any of those terrifying conditions listed. Fetal death? Severe anemia? Yeah, no thanks. 

So that's where we're at. I'll probably still demand a few more ultrasounds along the way to make sure all is as it should be because I'm high maintenance like that, but relief doesn't even begin to cover the wave of gratitude washing over me after that phone call from the nurse with my lab results. A healthy baby is nothing to take for granted. 

But really, this is all Florida's fault. Am I right? I'm right. 

There's Always Room For One More

Yesterday I sat in a darkened room with Paul at my left, watching a giant screen as the technician chased a wand across my ginormous already abdomen hoping to nail down this new baby for a solid assessment. It took well over an hour, the kid was on the move, and thankfully everything is fine with a proclamation of perfection given to every detail both large and small. It's all so crazy isn't it, peeking inside the womb for a glimpse of your future child? Counting fingers and toes, watching functioning heart chambers pump blood, a brain with all its ventricles and parts intact, a miracle for the 3rd time. It feels like a lucky roll of the dice.

We'll have another brother to add to this mix and I haven't been able to stop crying since. At stoplights, in my kitchen, watching Grey's Anatomy while folding laundry, answering text messages, in the shower - it's an epidemic. How lucky am I to mother these boys? I had so prepared myself for a daughter that the announcement of another boy actually caught me pretty off guard. A boy you say? Another? I made them check twice and indeed, there was no mistaking that digit to be anything other than what it is.

I don't know, I can't focus. I'm just so stupid happy my heart feels like exploding.

penis and bladder (I think) and some femur too, he'll thank me for this when he's older

Dispatches from Flo-Rida

I mean, really...

These children have barely left the pool long enough to do things like eat and sleep and it brings the kind of saturating joy to my heart that only sunshine and warm weather can provide. My brother and his family left this morning and I felt quite sad about that part coming to an end. We never get enough time together it seems, and the past four days have been more relaxing and fun than I could have asked for. These cousins who see each other only once or twice a year played together like long lost best friends, and their parents sat and laughed and talked without having to break up hardly a single tussle. My favorite was listening to the Nub and his delightful hockey hair sporting cousin (who is 5 months his senior and a whole head taller) plan out their following day after the lights were shut off in their room, "first we'll have some Magically Delicious (Lucky Charms) and then we'll go swimming and then watch some toons". 4 year old boys are my favorite, hands down. 

After they left to catch their flight back home, we did nothing with a side of nothing and later visited a Steak and Shake so packed with senior citz I looked around for a tour bus of sorts. But then I remembered, oh this is Florida, and then the whole moth to the flame analogy clicked in and we made small talk with some of the cute older couples waiting in line with us and I found myself wondering if Paul and I would flock to a place like this when we got old and crusty too. Sometimes I already think we're pretty old and crusty, at least Paul is, he turns 37 in a few months after all. Crusty is a pretty gross descriptive but sometimes I think it's pretty weird and off-putting how the body starts to actually break down on itself, you know what I mean? I imagine it almost feels like a betrayal of sorts. Ah the frailties of the human experience...and that sort of a thing.  

We did a snippet of Universal on Sunday, long enough for me and my Harry Potter loving sister-in-law to get a wand at Ollivander's and sip a tasty slurp of butterbeer (tastes like cream soda). I was a nice mom and shared with my kids too, they don't know how lucky they are, ungrateful muggles. 

Tomorrow we are off to Disney World and I can hardly wait. The nice thing about having a connection to all of these sorts of things is that the pressure is off, you didn't have to drop a small fortune to buy this experience for your children which in effect means you can sit back a little and enjoy the ride(s); the sense of urgency and the rush rush rush is practically non-existent. I don't even know what's going on back home and that makes me pretty happy. For our first family vacation in the history of ever, I think we're doing it up right. 

Guilt Is A Vicious Cycle

Things I feel bad about:

• The yelling at the children. So much yelling. Okay maybe not as much yelling as you think but still, enough yelling for me to feel bad about it. When I try to be calm and use reason and logic with these children they don't understand and the situation just gets worse and then eventually escalates to yelling again. Sometimes I want to walk around the corner and flip them off when they can't see, like how Paul does it to me when we fight. 
• I don't craft or do artsy things very often with my kids. I don't personally enjoy it a great deal and they seem to get bored really quickly when I do put a project out there. Have I shortened their attention spans beyond repair with too much PBS? How can that much Curious George lead to a stunting of left brain creativity? Maybe I should go fill a plastic bin with rice right now and let them play in it. Except that's a terrible idea.  On a related note:
• Too much television. I think maybe it's just the winter that's got me down on this because friends of the internets-my children have watched A LOT of t.v. over the past few months. They love nothing more than to plop themselves on my bed and park it for an hour or two for a solid session of entertainment. And I'm busy, so I let them do it probably for too long. Please tell me if you notice any residual effects like they try to fast forward through conversations with live people. I'm hoping that when we relocate the television to the basement family room (which should be getting close to done this week, glory!), this will become less of an issue due to lack of convenience. Also, the sun has started to shine again which means in a few short months we'll be back outside. Bless all the hearts!
• The iPhone is causing problems. I have nightmares that my later in life my kids will be reminiscing about how Mom never was without her white phone, even in the bathroom. It was my New Year's Resolution to lay off the thing, but then the baby hormones from hell kicked in and made it so I could do nothing but lay in bed and try not to die. So me and my iPhone became best friends again seeing as how she was my only connection to the world of the living. Shut up, you know you take yours in the bathroom too. 

I think maybe those are all the things I'm feeling bad about for today. I could add carbs, refined sugar, caffeine, and stretchy pants to that list but I'd have to feel bad about them first. 

We leave for Florida in one week. Disney World, Universal, rental house with pool and hot tub, beach, this vacation has it all. Can't wait to fly for 6 hours on a plane with Triple. Pray for us. 

It's What Paul Really Gave Me For Christmas, How Thoughtful

What is it, March?

Finally.

We're going to Florida in a week and basically I've been tearing rings off my virtual paper chain all winter long to keep from strangling myself with it instead. Can you strangle yourself with a paper chain? I'm just saying, it's possible.

Anyway, this blog has been dead since Christmas which, not coincidentally, is right about when I found out this was happening:

It looks much larger in this photo than it is in real life, at least that's what I keep telling myself. I must have had a full bladder or a large sandwich or something. Geez. So anyway, yeah, we're doing this again. Officially, Little Verbie #3 is supposed to get here within the first few days of September. Based on measurements and the whisperings of the Holy Spirit I'm betting the last week of August, especially since my baby basket likes to prep for these things way in advance. Going overdue? I can't quite fathom, but kind of wish I could since our flex spending total resets as of Sept. 1st and we've already spent this years allotted amount on 1 twice broken leg (Nub), 1 crown with root canal (Paul), 1 visit to instacare and 3 chin stitches (Triple), and a series of very expensive medication I have to take to stay pregnant - and it's not even April yet! There is miraculously still a small balance left which will likely go to a 2nd crown and possible root canal after Paul broke off a chunk of another molar yesterday. Seriously, the guy stares down his 37th birthday in a few months and starts falling apart. Did I mention he gashed open his hand today at work when a piece of glass they were handling just up and exploded? 6 stitches later...go team! We like to keep things interesting I guess. We're also in the middle of finishing off the basement to make room for all these children, and taking the first vacation we've ever taken as a family. My checkbook runneth empty, and that's okay. I'm just trying to figure out how to budget that epidural in - should I decide I want one this time around. Kickstarter fund?  

So there it is. I'm feeling pleased to be out of the window of despair and extreme exhaustion/severe nausea that hit me through January and February and happy to be looking forward to another summer spent sweating like a beached hippo at the community pool. All three of these children will be celebrating their birthdays within a less than 30 day period in case you cared to know. Looks like I need to find a new hobby during the months of November and December. Knitting might have less of an impact on my reproductive bits. 

I'll look into it. 

I Need A Good Holiday Sedative

2:51 am - day after Christmas

We've had the plague circulating at our house for the past week and it's woken me up with coughing fits at ungodly hours the last several nights which would explain why I fell asleep on my bed at 8:30 pm on Christmas day, only after falling asleep earlier in the car on the way home from Connie's. And now it's 3 am and I've been awake for an hour dinking around on the internets, doing whatever it is that you do when everyone else in your house is justifiably asleep.

Tomorrow is gonna be amazing, I just know it!

Today was good though, really good. Even though I was awake at 5 am and my kids didn't wake up until 8, I managed to pull myself together for the occasion. Opening presents and making Christmas breakfast in my own house was 7 different kinds of magical. I'm not sure when I'll ever get over this whole "beholden unto none but myself" golden era I seem to be stuck in, but it seems like a fairly happy place to be. My favorite gifts received: a microplane zester and new measuring cups. The thrill! Favorite gifts given: 2 bouncy, inflatable donkey things (see HERE) promptly christened "Maxi" and "Julie" by the Nub. My boys spent their waking hours at home today bouncing Maxi and Julie all over kingdom come and probably giving themselves brain damage in the process. Worth it! Paul got a new air compressor he gifted himself weeks ago and some clothes. Oh, and a beard trimmer since his old one bit the dust. We like to keep things exciting!

Does anyone else come down with instant depression the day after Christmas? What's left to look forward to? January, February and March, that's what, the three triplet sister months of despair and stir-crazy when I find myself hitting the local fast food play land circuit more times than I'd ever like to admit. Nuggets and repeat exposure to communicable diseases for everyone! It's a pretty mind-numbing time of year for mothers of small children, am I right? I wonder if I'll ever stop wigging out about it and learn to deal, probably not.

Did I tell you we finally took away ye olde pacifier from Triple (or "fah-foo" as he calls it, don't ask)? I never thought I'd be one of those parents with a kid way past the age of normal still attached to a self-soothing device, and yet somehow I ended up with one thumbsucker and one paci-lover. We didn't end with any grand gesture, no paci-fairies or ceremony to signal the end, I just stopped giving it to him. He cried a little and got himself stuck under his bed looking for one before naps that one time, but mostly it hasn't been that big of a deal. It made me a little sad truthfully! Goodbye babyhood, although I think Triple passed that milestone about 20 lbs ago.

And since we're talking about pacifiers, I'll wrap this up with a video of babies fighting over one (thanks for that Rachel):

Merry Christmas!

We've All Got Dreams, Mine Involve Stitches And Broken Bones

Someone needs to tell me what's up with my kids and why they feel the need to drive me to the poor house with junk like this. First up: double broken leg for the Nub! Second act: split chin and 3 stitches for Triple.   I assume we'll be trading doctor's visits like this for the next 16-18 years so pretty much get used to it, right? We need better insurance is all I know.

Boys. 

Blood and gore doesn't gross me out, I watched that giant head you see above barrel through my own lady bits on the day of his blessed birth if you need proof. Go ahead and conjure up that image, you're welcome! And really it was fine and he was fine until the doctor stabbed a huge numbing needle right into the middle of that gash and then did it again about 6 more times. Triple screamed and cried and I held him down and felt his sweaty little body shake and stiffen. My eyes filled with hot tears and I told him it was almost done and this was the worst part and that I wouldn't leave him. My boy is a stout little fellow, and as soon as that part was over and even with a blue sanitary sheet draped over his whole face, he stopped crying, gripped my hands, and held still while those stitches were being stitched. What a tough little babe. 

I'm sure it's a scene we'll re-play many times knowing these boys of mine. The role of seasoned mother who thrives under pressure is one I'm learning to play. Stitches, broken bones and all, I know...I'm living the dream. This is right where I've always wanted to be so lucky, lucky me.