The Dreaded Thud

It's a sound every mother dreads. You've just put your toddler down for a nap and your 3 year old is contently watching Alice in Wonderland for the forty-millionth time, and you are happily in the kitchen with the laptop, pandering away precious quiet time reading up on why MSN says you are not trendy because you don't know that "belt loops and roomy pleats" on knit dresses "bring a fun, unexpected cool to a flared skirt." Dang it. Now you are neither fun nor unexpectedly cool. Just the average expected cool. Suddenly you hear a dull thud. You sit for a second, waiting for the cry which must be surely coming from the toddler's room, nervous about head injury. But then, there is no cry. Wait for it....wait for it...and then, the door opens and you hear the pattering of little feet. Your stomach drops. No...No...NO! She's learned how to get out of her crib!!! Serious panic. Suddenly she is staring you in the face. You sit, stunned. You resist the urge to cry as you realize what this means....the end of your sanity.

Yes, folks. That was me a couple days ago. I am now in an all out war with Allie to get her to stay in her crib and sleep. I am not ready to give up naptime. I am not ready to fight through bedtime. Hear that, Allie? I am NOT READY!! So it is now almost 11pm and I am venting. I have talked to all sorts of people trying to figure out what to do. Tonight I tried my friend's suggestion, who got her idea off of Super Nanny (which I haven't ever watched but now I'm thinking I should...) who said to just put her back in her crib every time she launched herself out. Don't talk to her, don't really acknowledge her, just put her back in her crib and close the door. It sounded good at the time. It actually worked at naptime. I only had to put her back in her bed 6 times.

Tonight? We did battle. Serious battle. It was a face-off. Like Hulk Hogan meets....a prize fighting Oompa Loompa (cause I'm big...and have long blond hair...and she's short and has many Oompa Loompa-like attributes...especially when covered with spagetti sauce..the resemblance is uncanny).

Guess how many times I put her back in her crib before I started calling my life-lines? Just guess. Nope, more. Nope, more. Actually, I don't really know, I stopped counting at 34. No joke. Thirty-four freaking times! AAAAAHHHHHH! Finally, Jevan comes home from a church meeting and puts in another few minutes on the battlefront. But this time, the Oompa Loompa was up against...Sasquatch. And he won. I think it was the combination of him getting really mad and scaring the pants off her, and she being really tired as it was now after 10pm. He says it's because she knows he's "alpha." Apparently, in our family we like to play Call of the Wild.

Honestly, what do I do? She is too little to go without naps and to play these games at night. She needs sleep. Time for a toddler bed or train her to stay in crib...can that be done? Honestly. Who voted me in as "Mom"? I'm not any good at this. I call for impeachment...of myself. There's some change I can believe in.

Darn body parts...

So today, while driving in the car, Jane tells me her tummy hurts. She has a history of getting carsick so I pull out my usual response of "Just look out the window, sweetheart. It should go away in a little bit." Most of the time, that does it, but sometimes we have adventures out on the side of the road and I'm washing the car seat cover once again. Is there really anything that smells worse than throw-up? I really don't think so....except for maybe the smell emanating from the rogue sippy-cup with pink milk in it that you gave Jane a week before, against your better judgment, knowing full well that it might disappear into the void of the basement.

Anyway, after I tell Jane to look out the window, she is silent for several minutes and I can tell the wheels are turning in her little noggin. Then her little voice pipes up:

Jane: "Mom, my tummy still hurts. Can I take it off?"

Me: "Huh? Take your tummy off?"

Jane: "Yeah. Can I just pull it off?"

Me: "No, Love. It's part of your body. Your tummy is inside your skin and you can't take your skin off."

Jane: "Please! Why can't I take my skin off? Can I take it off if it gets itchy?"

We then launch into this whole discussion about how you need to keep all body parts attached to your body. I tried to tell her if we took off a limb every time it hurt, we'd all be in big trouble. But you know, it sure does make sense. The tag in your sweatshirt bugs you so you take it off. Your shoes fit too small, so you take them off. You get a bad headache, you pull off your head. There are lots of times I think I would like to be separated from my head, and not always just when it hurts. I think we should be able to remove body parts, fix them, and put them back. I think I'll take it up with Heavenly Father when I die. For now, I just have to tell Jane to put up with her upset tummy...and plead with her not to lose her lunch because I sure don't want to take the darn carseat apart again!

My dedication page....

When I read books, I really like to read the dedication page. I like to read the ways in which authors express their gratitude to those who helped them through the laborious process of writing a book. I also like that their books are never dedicated to people with normal names; very seldom are they dedicated to just "Bill" or "my sister, Susan". It's usually to someone like "Barry 'Barrel Bottom' Bishop who gave me inspiration as well as donuts." Something like that, anyway.

This past week has been a crazy one, and I had a lot of people help me through the laborious process of coming back to the land of the living. I think I am starting to have some color in my face and I can walk up the stairs now without feeling like I hiked Everest. Only without the good views, just the kitchen.

I cannot even come close to describing how LOVED I have felt this past week. Really, really loved. If you are ever in doubt that you are loved, have something traumatic happen to you (although I don't recommend my route - go for something cool like a hip dislocation after wrestling a large animal to save a small child - it's more heroic and involves a lot less blood, which is a good thing, believe me). I have so many people to thank. So, here's my dedication page.

Thanks to Jevan for not letting me die - and still thinking I'm cute even when I look like something from the Land of the Living Dead.

Thanks to all of Jevan's family for taking care of my kids in crisis time and for always checking up on me. I LOVE all my commune dwellers.

Thanks to my family for all the phonecalls, flowers and good books.

Thanks to all my friends (my blog friends too!) for your notes and phonecalls expressing love and concern. I love my friends. Marie and Maris, thanks for taking my kiddos. You both always go above and beyond the call of good friendship. I can't thank you enough.

Thanks to my ward friends for the phonecalls, dinners and treats. It meant so much and it was so nice not to have to worry about dinner.

Finally, thanks to my wonderful mom who spent the better part of week at my house, making sure I got lots of rest and good food. She is a super star and I think Allie is more attached to her than she is to me now.

Thanks, everyone.

Oh, and thanks to Stephanie Meyer who kept me entertained with vampires as I was having blood fed through my veins. Ironic, no?

Grateful

Disclaimer: This post might be somewhat sentimental and sappy, but I (and this is Jevan, by the way. You can typically tell it's me because I spell the word "weird" correctly, but rather than make you hunt through the post searching for that particular grammatical cairn I'll just get it out of the way) reserve the right to do that every once in a while. It's been a rather eventful week here, one of those weeks that really makes you think about everything and do a little self-examination. I'm typically not good at introspective thought; I tend to think about things like how, given different circumstances, I would have been Batman, only cooler. But today, I am going to focus only on the important stuff. So, without further adieu, here is a list of things for which I am grateful:

1. I am grateful that Jane can speak: This might seem odd, especially for any of you that have spent much time around Jane, given her propensity for non-stop talking. In this situation, however, it was indeed a blessing. Em was at Young Women's so I was putting the kids to bed. Allie was exhausted so I decided to put Jane in the tub while reading Allie stories and singing her songs. I told Jane to make sure she turned the water off when it got full, something that I know she can do. At least I thought she could do. (At this point, I know you're thinking "I'm sure glad my husband doesn't do anything that stupid when I'm not around." Trust me on this - you're wrong. We all do stupid things like that. And they usually work. You only know about the few things that DON'T work) Anyway, I'm sitting in the chair, rocking Allie, who has fallen asleep, when Jane knocks politely on the door (a real no-no), opens it up, and innocently asks me "Dad, which way is off?" Fortunately she came in before the tub overflowed, so a crisis was averted.
2. I am grateful for modern medicine (part 1): We found out on Wednesday that Em was going to miscarry. We kind of had a suspicion that something wasn't right, as this pregnancy didn't quite feel the same as the others (no nausea, no real symptoms, etc.), so it wasn't entirely a surprise. This is also the reason we weren't broadcasting to the world that Em was pregnant. I am grateful for modern medicine in that we were able to know that it was coming and prepare for it to happen. The doctor gave Em a prescription and told her what to expect, so at least we went into the ordeal with what we thought were open eyes.
   
3. I am grateful for modern medicine (part 2): Not entirely knowing what to expect, we decided that Sunday would be the day for Em to take the prescription and... I can't find the right words, but you can guess. Anyway, I had planned on watching the kids and supporting as necessary. Well, not getting into the gruesome details, suffice it to say that by the time Em had passed out for the third time and was completely unresponsive for a good 5 minutes I decided to make my very first call to 911. The paramedics were there in less than a minute. They took a look at her and decided to take her right in. They loaded a disoriented and confused Em onto a stretcher and took her for what has to be the shortest ride in an ambulance ever (.3 miles). Literally across the street. Awesome.
4. I am grateful for family (part 1): So, in a panic, I called Stephanie again and asked her to come back and watch the kids. She, of course, dropped everything and came rushing. The poor girls were at this point distraught at seeing their mom carted off on a stretcher; I was too. I headed to the hospital and went to find Em. At this point, she looked pretty much like a corpse (albeit the most beautiful corpse I have ever been married to...). Come to find out she had lost about 40% of her blood, which even in my non-doctor ignorance I know is a Bad Thing. They decided they needed to do an immediate 'd and c' (look it up if you're curious, but this is a guy-friendly blog and I can't break one of the cardinal laws of Guydom by talking about gynecological procedures in anything other than vague terms and acronyms). My mom was there for moral support, which was wonderful.
5. I am grateful for irony in a time of trauma: While the doctors were running in and out, running tests, pumping Em full of IV fluid, and all the other fun stuff that was happening, the funny little paramedic from the Fire Truck came over to me and told me he had to give me a pamplet. I asked what was in it, and he said it basically said that the fire department would not tell any of our neighbors that they had come to our house and taken Em away on a gurney. Right, because parking a 40-foot fire engine outside of my house on a cul-de-sac and sending 4 paramedics in to carry Em out was so discreet.
   
6. I am grateful for modern medicine (part 3): So, finally they got Em into the surgery center, where the medical staff quickly performed the surgery and immediately got the bleeding to stop. She took 2 units of blood that night and 2 more again this morning and is finally at home, snoring away next to me. I can't help but think that if we lived in the middle ages or were Scientologists she would likely not be alive.
7. I am grateful for family (part 2): My family had the girls all day, Em's mom was down in the afternoon and is going to come over tomorrow morning to help out, and all of our family members have been very helpful over the past few days. We love you all!
   
8. I am grateful for neighbors and friends. Throughout the day, people from the neighborhood have called and asked what they could do to help. So nice to have people around that are concerned about your well-being.
9. I am grateful for perspective (part 1): This was never really a life-threatening ordeal for Em, so I didn't really thought that she wouldn't make it. I can't imagine what it must be like for people that see their loved ones go in to a procedure and not know if they're going to see them alive again. That being said, I had a real moment of panic when I gave her one last kiss before she was wheeled off. It's those times that make me realize how much she means to me. I'm glad she's ok, even if her snoring does make it tough for me to concentrate.
10. I am grateful for perspective (part 2): With all of the additional hoopla around the process, it isn't lost on us that a miscarriage is a tough thing to go through. I think we'll have a little more time to grieve and go through that process once things calm down. That being said, I am grateful that there were no complications and that we'll be able to have more kids in the future.
11. I am grateful for my 3 beautiful girls: I love them all.
    
12. I am grateful for sleep: And thus concludes my post.
    

October Madness

Great News - It's not too late to enter this year's October "Madness" pool. Here are the brackets as they currently stand:


Just mark your picks and email them to your Congressman by 5:00 PM today. The entry fee is 20% of your retirement savings and is non-refundable if you lose; unless of course you bet $25 billion or more, in which case you might be bailed out if you smile real nice and say pretty please. The pool winner gets 65% of the pool and a $25 million severance check. Pool counsel, the lobbyists and various other influential hangers-on get 35%. The loser gets a third-position deed of trust on a no-money-down, half-built $800,000 condo in Fresno owned by some guy whose livelihood entails front-line delivery of circular Italian-American food products.