My children don't care...

My children don't care that we don't have a 70 inch flat screen tv.  All they care about is that I sit down and snuggle them while we watch a My Little Pony episode on our 27 inch boxy 10 year old tv.

My children don't care that we don't have smartphones.  All they care about is that Mommy can take a picture of them being silly with her basic phone and text it to Daddy. 

My children don't care that they have hand-me-down clothes or clothes from garage sales.  All they care about is that their skirt flares out as they twirl around the living room, imagining they are princesses.

My children don't care that we drive a 9 year old minivan.  All they care about is that I buckle them in safely and that I play I Spy with them as we run errands together.

My children don't care that we don't have a Dyson vacuum.  All they care about is that they get to take turns practicing running our funny sounding Bissell vacuum that a friend gave to us that they were going throw away because they didn't need it anymore, but it still does the job ok. 

My children don't care that we don't have a MacBook Pro.  All they care about is that we can watch a hilarious-to-them video of a cat jumping in and out a box on youtube on our $300 HP laptop that we bought on Black Friday 3 and a half years ago. 

My children don't care that we don't have an iPad.  All they care about is jumping for joy for the few and far between times that I let them play games on our 3 and a half year old iTouch that was Daddy's chiropractic graduation present. 

My children don't care that they haven't been to Disneyland yet. All they care about is that they can bring a seashell or two home from our local beach after they play in the sand for hours.

My children don't care that we don't have a gigantic bookshelf full of children's books just for them, but they do have a sufficient amount of books.  All they care about is that we make it to the library often to check out new books and that we read them all 800 times before we take them back.

My children don't care that we don't have extra plush hypoallergenic couches.  All they care about is that I watch them do flips and tricks and jump off of our 11 year old scuffed leather couches. 

My children don't care that they aren't taking piano, gymnastics, swimming, soccer, and dance simultaneously.  All they care about is that I take them to a splash pad, let them run and kick a big bouncy ball on the local baseball field, take them to go jump on their grandma's trampoline and pound on her piano keys, and have spontaneous dance parties with them in our living rom.

My children don't care that we don't have an Xbox with 50 different games.  All they care about it that I let them play Super Mario Brothers a few times per year when we set up our NES and also play Wii Sports, both systems that were given to us years ago. 

My children don't care that we don't own our own home.  All they care about it that I let them hang their pasted, taped, and glittery artwork on their whitewashed bedroom walls in our home that we're renting. 

My children don't care that they can't buy a toy every time we go to the store.  All they care about is that we let them pick a toy to carry and walk around with while we shop, and then they know that they have to put it down before we get to checkout and they do just fine with that.

My children don't care that we don't eat strictly organic.  All they care about is that they are fed when they are hungry, that they have a sufficient amount of fruit and yogurt and chicken and pasta in the house. 

My children don't care that they have to go to church for 3 hours every Sunday morning.  All they care about is that they get to see their little friends there and also learn the basics about sharing, praying, singing, the scriptures, and learn about Heavenly Father and Jesus. 

.....................................

I have never ever once heard my children give a genuine complaint for not having anything listed above.  An occasional whine about them wanting a candy bar or wanting to buy a toy at a garage sale? Sure.  But of the more expensive things in life?  No.  They.Don't.Care.

So why do I write this?  I write it as a reminder to myself, a reminder that it's ok to have simple inexpensive things. And I have absolutely NO PROBLEM AT ALL if other people have/do/have done any of the above, that's perfectly fine and everyone is entitled to spend their money how they choose.  No judgment passed whatsoever.  If you can genuinely afford it, go for it, you've worked hard for your money. 

Of course I occasionally covet nicer amenities, gadgets, vehicles, and vacations, but this is a season in our lives where we have chosen to not have most of these things.  Could we indulge in any of the above listed?  Sure, we definitely could.  But we have made a conscious decision to wait and to live simpler, to make what we have last as long as we can.  We have a Mt. Everest of student loans we are trying to pay down (they'll be paid off in abouuuuut 99 years) and we choose to put most of our extra money towards easing our financial future.  It's hard though, so very hard sometimes.  But we figure we will sacrifice now while our children are younger, while they still see the world as their playground and tangible things hold little value for them. 

My children want for nothing.  They have everything they need and they have a lot of what they want.

My children will choose me over anything else.  If we were to go out and buy a $500 Barbie Dreamhouse and 2 minutes after we got home and set it up I offered to go play outside in the dirt with them, 3 seconds later they would be outside up to their elbows in dirt, laughing and smiling with me.  They don't want stuff, they want me.  

Very very few of my childhood memories involve tangible items.  They involve people and experiences.  They involve road trips.  They involve church activities.  They involve joking around with my parents and my siblings.  They involve playing with friends. 

So during those times where I am debating whether or not to make a purchase that I think will bring my children happiness (I hardly doubt they will care if we get new couches or a flatsceen tv), I have to sit back and think "Am I buying it for them or am I buying it for me?".  And of course we occasionally splurge because I think it is human nature to have the intense need to indulge a little more than we should.  We've gone on vacations.  We've spent too much on unnecessary purchases.  We're trying to reign in our micro spending, $20 here and $10 there, it adds up and it adds up quickly.

One day I will have all of the above.  We'll have the nice flatscreen tv, we'll have the smartphones, we'll have the home, we'll have the Dyson, but right now is not the time for us, we need to spend our money elsewhere, we need to pay down our debt and I need to create memories with my children

And now you know why my children don't care.
    

The hardest lesson of 2012...

Last year was a pretty rough year.

Landon's pregnancy was BY FAR my most difficult pregnancy.  There was much nausea, much puking, much insomnia, much relentless aching, much fatigue.  I wasn't just sick for the first trimester, I was sick for the entire pregnancy, save a few weeks in the middle when I felt functional, but then the nausea and puking was back, making each day feel like it was a week.   

I was in survival mode.  My only focus was on me and making it until mid September when our little baby would make his entrance.  I was so sick a lot of mornings that Dean would take whichever one of the girls that woke up super early with him to go teach seminary because I literally couldn't take care of them in the morning that early because I would have finally fallen asleep at 4:30 a.m.. I desperately needed to sleep.  Even though my friends offered to take my girls to give me some reprieve, I always objected because as difficult as it was to take care of them throughout being so sick for so long, they were at least a distraction throughout the day, something that I had to attend to that took my focus off of the nausea for a moment.

However, my daughters watched more television during those 8 months of feeling like death than I'm proud to admit though.  You know it's bad when your 3 year old can tell you exactly which episode of Dora we're watching from the first 5 seconds of it being on, and there's about 80 episodes to choose from on Netflix.

I spent a lot of time in self pity mode.  Why did this pregnancy have to be so hard?  Why were none of the anti-nausea remedies working?  Why couldn't I sleep?  Why did my daughters seem to become exponentially more difficult overnight?  What in the world was I thinking, thinking that I could handle another child, giving us 3 kids ages 3 and under??!?!????  

I desperately missed and wanted my mom.  I ached to talk to her, to lament to her, to tell her how nervous and excited I was to have another child, to have her come over and just let me put my head on her lap and have her soft my arm until I had to go wipe a child's nose or get them a snack. I never had an experience of "I feel like my mom is close right now during my time of trial", which I had built up in my mind was going to happen, so that made it harder some days.  I just missed and needed her.    

Dean picked up all of my slack. The man did everything during my pregnancy.  Everything.

This was his schedule:
-Wake up at 5:30 a.m.
-Teach Seminary to a bunch of teenagers from 6-7 a.m.
-Come home and shower the girls and get them ready and fed
-Get himself ready, often times not having enough time to eat in the mornings
-Load up the girls so I can take Kara to preschool
-He goes to work
-Work,work, work
-Come home for lunch from 1:30 to 2:40p.m.
-He made food for the girls for lunch.  I was so nauseous that it was hard for me to prepare food for them.
-He goes back to work and work, work, work until 6:30 p.m.
-Gets home around 6:40-7 p.m.
-He made dinner and fed the girls
-Plays with the girls
-Gets them in their pajamas, reads to them, and puts them to bed
-Does dishes, laundry, cleans up the tornado of toys all over the house
-Gets his seminary lesson ready for the next morning
-Goes to bed around 11p.m. or midnight
-Gets up at 5:30 a.m. and does the same routine over again

Dean was mommy and daddy.  He would let me squeeze out every last minute of sleep in the mornings because I slept so little.  I would spend a lot of my day leaning over the kitchen sink, ready to vomit, or I would be on the couch with a bowl next to me.  I was just existing, not parenting.  Dean picked up all my slack.  Of course not all day of every day was like that, but it was more so than not.    

I'm not very good at taking self-pity and despair and translating them into tears, except when I get pushed to my absolute limit every few months.  Instead I sublimated my angst into anger.  And sadly I used my anger on the one closest to me.  Dean.

Through everything he was doing to serve me and our children, I still found myself angry at him for lots of little things.  Why was he cleaning the microwave when there was laundry to be folded?  Why was he making noodles for the girls when the smell was enough to send me running for the bathroom?  Why was he doing his seminary lesson preparation instead of sitting on the couch spending time with me?

Irrational annoyances. 

But they were there, nonetheless.  There was a wedge silently driven between us.  I started to get annoyed.  He started to get annoyed.  I REALLY started to get annoyed.  I felt completely not in control of my ever growing belly and body, I couldn't assuage my all day sickness, I just wanted this pregnancy to be done, yet I didn't because I knew Landon was going to be our last baby.  It was a bittersweet pregnancy.

And then we got to the point that Dean and I just orbited around each other.  Co-existed.  Roommates. He was so busy taking care of everything, and I was so busy taking care of me. We didn't hate living with one another, but we just lived with one another, that's all.  Significant communication was happening less and less frequently, and small talk was more common place.  We did what we needed to for our kids and then let life get in the way between us.

That's not okay in a marriage, at least not in our marriage.

Through a couple of happenings, a couple of months before I was due, I ended up calling my sister, who is one of my best friends and happens to also be an amazing therapist (good thing she's my sister and I get the free family discount because I'd owe her a brand new Mercedes Benz as back payment if she ever decided to charge me), and I unloaded all of my annoyances, fears, frustrations, and crazies all over her.  I knew she was safe, that she would help me through this tumultuous time.  I let the waterworks flow and cried myself to the point of exhaustion to her more than once.

Now, if you know me then you know that I don't publicly complain about my husband to family and friends.  I just don't do it.  Nothing more than "Dean didn't pick up his shoes and I tripped on them in the middle of the night" ever comes from my mouth.  People are ALWAYS going to remember the bad things you say about your husband at a 10:1 over the good you say about then.  That's just an agreement we've always had, we don't go verbally slaughtering the other one to other people.

But I felt like I needed someone, SOMEONE, to talk to and I know my sister well enough to know that she wouldn't be a gossip, she would have sound advice for me on how to properly handle what I was feeling, and that she would know when I just needed to talk and she just needed to listen.  And she filled her role perfectly.

I vented about my frustrations.  I vented about Dean's shortcomings.  Since I'm his wife, I know his chinks in his armor, and just had tunnel vision for his shortcomings.  I thought he wasn't living up to his potential in some very simple areas so I focused on that.  So I bark bark barked to my sister, and she listened and gave advice and listened and gave advice.  She and I did the same dance on the phone for a few consecutive days.

Finally on the 3rd or 4th day of me venting frustrations to my sister on the other end of the phone, she threw me a curve ball.  I still remember this conversation perfectly:

Me, crying: bark, bark, bark and give excuses about everything I'm annoyed and frustrated and despairing with.....
Sister: "Ok, Michelle, stop."
Me: "What?"
Sister: "Stop."
Sister: "Do you want me to be nice or mean right now?"
Me: "What???"
Sister: "I said, do you want me to be nice or mean?"
Me: Ummm, mean?"
Sister: "You sure?"
Me: "Yes."
Sister: "Ok."
Me, nervous: "Ok."
Sister: "Michelle, YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN HE IS."

One-two sucker punch to the stomach.

I was at a loss for words.

I just sat there stunned, silently crying into the phone as I let those words sink in.

It took me about .3 seconds to realize that she was completely right in every sense of the word.  I had put myself on a pedestal, I was better than Dean because I didn't have his struggles.

Those words were EXACTLY what I needed to hear, and my sister was brave enough to purposely and lovingly hurt me, she, knowing that I needed to be brought down and have a mirror held up in front of my face.

I didn't like what I saw in that mirror that was now held up in front of me.  I saw a girl with a lot of unfounded anger.  I saw a girl who was trying to do everything and nothing by herself all at the same time.  I saw a girl who had slowly pulled herself away from her Heavenly Father because she was afraid of the hurt and sorrow she would have to face to completely turn back towards him and do everything that she knew she was supposed to be doing.               

I had unconsciously and semi-consciously focused on everyone else's shortcomings in my life as to avoid acknowledging and dealing with my own.

Through talking with my sister more, she helped me to see what I needed to work on, what Dean and I needed to work on together, and we started to do the work.  It was uncomfortable to start to remove that wedge, it was uncomfortable to really start to talk again, it was uncomfortable to remove the distractions and de-clutter our lives, and it was uncomfortable to make the spiritual shift.

I often heard my sister's words, "YOU ARE NO BETTER THAN HE IS" swirling around in my head, reminding myself that Dean is my equal, that I need to work on my own problems and that I cannot work on his problems for him. We are both in charge of ourselves and the more we try to get another person to change, the more they will resist the change, they are the only ones who can make a true change if they so choose.  As I slowly practiced relinquishing control and nitpicking, the more of a positive shift I saw in our lives.

Effective communication will always be a lifelong effort, and it's something that will probably come in waves, but I don't even want it to put us to co-existing status again.

I like the slow shift that I've started to see occurring in me.  I'm by no means a perfect wife and mother and sister, but I'm trying harder.  And I've applied my sister's words of wisdom to all aspects of my life.  I've become MUCH less judgmental of others because I realize that getting involved and passionate about other people's drama just distracts me from working on me.  I cannot fix other people's lives.  I can compassionately listen, but I cannot fix their problems for them, it's not my job to fix their problems, and it is only emotionally draining for me to get so vested in their drama.

In a way, I'm grateful for that stressful time in our marriage because though I couldn't see the forest through the trees at the time, now I can and it's one of the most beautiful sights in the world.

Lost in Translation...

They say parts of the Bible have been altered, added, and deleted through the many many times it's been translated.  Kara was kind enough to clear up one of the alterations today:

Mary and her camel rode into Bethlehem in a Boeing 747.

My fridge...

My fridge:

The bottom third of my fridge is covered in alphabet magnets, animal magnets, bendable monkeys with magnets on their feet and hands, magnetic wooden plank painted art projects with sparkles poured on them that Kara proudly painted, and 3 big ABC magnets that click and have colorful beads in them to roll.

The bottom third of my fridge is scratched up from little hands sliding magnets with rough edges along the front of it.  There are sticky smudgy fingerprints everywhere.  There are lines of water that have dried but left their water spots from when Kara has over filled a glass from the dispenser.  There are bite and chew marks on the animal magnets. 

The bottom third of my fridge has been staked and claimed by my children.

Occasionally I will sit down, take off all the magnets, open up a canister of Clorox wipes, and sanitize the heck out of all of the magnets on that bottom third, as well as the front of the fridge.  I'll then put all the animal magnets back on the left door, trying to make as many animals fit as close to each other as possible creating a Pangea of magnetic wildlife.  Then I will alphabetize the alphabet magnets in 2 straight-as-an-arrow lines, 13 letters on each line.  The 3 big ABC magnets are arranged in an arc, trying to resemble a rainbow.  The flexible monkeys are contorted into the shape that I think best resembles a frolicking monkey, and then they're placed above the 26 alphabet letters.

I spend no less than 20 minutes on my keester performing this cleaning, restructuring, and organizing ritual.  The bottom third of the fridge looks great when I'm finished.  It's shiny!  There is order! It's germ free!  Alike groups are tightly bound together!  All things are in their proper place! 

I stand up and proudly survey my work.  Immediately, from the other room, Kara and Leah's mommy homing beacon starts beeping and they levitate to the kitchen against their will.  The intoxicating smell of sanitation wipes draws them closer.  They feel off kilter. They realize that something is not right.  No, no, not right at all.

And then they see it.

They both lunge, jumping horizontally at the bottom third of the fridge, not caring for the belly flop that they will sustain in 1.2 seconds, and not 5 seconds after I had given myself a proverbial pat on the back for my cleaning and organizing victory, they each eradicate the newfound alphabetical and wildlife order with one fell swoop of their extended sticky hands.  Letters fly left and right. Animals that can't fly are now airbound heading towards the oven, countertops, and pantry.  The flexible monkeys have magically come to life and are trying to climb to higher ground on the fridge by scaling up it to escape the ensuing carnage. After Kara and Leah bounce up from their belly flops, each girl grabs one of the big ABC magnets, throws it down as hard as they can just in front of their feet making it bounce and leaving a dent in the lineoleum, and do an endzone victory dance.  They then ask me for a string cheese, turn on their heel, and walk out of the room, going back to whatever they were playing with before. 

They, too, believe everything has a proper place.  And that place is on the floor.  Every single bit of it. 

Now allow me zoom in on my fridge, to this, the upper right hand side:

There is order.  Pictures and magnets are squared off and aligned as to be pleasing to my eye.  Multiple times per day as I purposely, yet sometimes mindlessly, make my voyage to the fridge to open it and retrieve whatever sustinence I'm craving or my children are pleading for, I always look at the upper right hand side before opening the door. 

I see my 3 children forever frozen in their perfect newborn state in the form of a birth announcement that my wonderful friend Ashleigh created for me for each of them. 

I see Dean's refrigerator chiropractic conversation magnets that he received in a packet at an orientation for Palmer.  We used to have a ton of them but they've gotten lost or thrown away or somehow lost their magnetism through the years so now we're down to these 6, which are very fitting. 

I see the picture of Dean and I holding hands while each holding one of our daughters with the ocean in the background.  That was at out first ever Davis Family Reunion in October of 2011 in Port Ludlow, WA.  We rented an oceanfront house on a cliff that had a gorgeous view and a tiny living room.

I see 3 different German word magnets from a German conversation magnet set that I bought Dean at an LDS bookstore in Logan, Utah when I was helping take care of my Mom in 2007.  They say "Honig" which is what I call Dean and it means "honey", and the other 2 are "Sonne" and "Monde" which mean "sun" and "moon".  Dean said he put them by me in the pictures because I'm his sun and moon. Awwwwwww.

I see my "I Love My Mommy" picture frames that Dean gave to me last Christmas with a picture of each of the girls in them, Leah with crazy bath hair, and Kara making a sweetie cheesey face.  I'm a sucker for small things like that, i.e. my childrens' handprints, footprints, art projects, etc. 

I see the picture of us when we were just a family of 4 in front of the Salt Lake City Temple, taken from atop the Conference Center across the street.  We had driven down to Utah to attend our friend's funeral, and we stopped in Salt Lake to go take the Conference Center tour, to walk around Temple Square as a family, and to see the Christus statue. 

I see our Washington D.C. thermometer magnet that Dean and I bought in D.C. just a few weeks after we started dating in 2004.  We've never walked as much as we did that vacation, and we learned that the Capital lawn is a good place to just lie down in the humidity and let your heel blisters breathe.

I see an old fashioned photo strip of Dean, Kara, Leah, and I that was taken in the arcade on Pier 57 in Seattle in March 2011 when my sister Tawny was here visiting. Leah was only 6 itty bitty months old in that picture.  Sigh.

I see the picture of us in a corn maze at Maris Farms in Buckley, WA.  We went with my sister-in-law, Chelsey, her daughter Tenley, and my mother-in-law, Terrell.  We had a great time talking and laughing and gossiping throughout the maze, which took way too long to get through, and we were happy to have finally made our way out of the muddy maze. 

I see the square flowery background magnet that Terrell gave us that says "Mothers hold their children's hands a while, and their hearts forever."  Amen.

And in the middle of all those pictures and magnets and frames and baby announcements is a plain white piece of computer paper that I took off my Mom's fridge after she died and we were cleaning out her house.  The paper has been cut down, laminated, and had a sticky strip magnet slapped on the back.  It has a generic Microsoft Word boarder around the edge of it, and the font is nothing special.  It's what's printed in the middle of it that makes it beautiful.

"Wherefore, be not

weary in well-doing,

for you are laying the

foundation of a great work.

And out of small

things proceedeth

that which is great."

D&C 64:33

 

 

Weary. Well-doing. Laying the foundation. Small things.  Great.

Beautiful and powerful words.

 

There are days that my children make me weary, oh so weary  The days where they obliterate their bottom third of the fridge.  The days where I organize their toy bins so that just the train tracks are in one bin, the Marble Madness pieces are in another bin, their books are arranged from biggest to smallest from left to right in the 3 top bins, but my girls dump everything out 2 seconds later.  The days where I can't find my toothbrush that Leah was playing with but later find it shoved in the dishwasher.  The days where they have a full-on-melt-down-fight over who gets to use the Monsters, Inc. spoon and not the cruddy Cars spoon.  The days where Kara spills an entire cup of juice all over the ground and then purposely steps in it to splash it everywhere.  The days where I can't seem to get one second to myself no matter what I try, or where I try to stealthily sneak off to. 

 

The days that they make me weary, I look at this simple magnet with this powerful scripture, and I try to remember that even though my children are demanding and narcisstic and tempermental and sticky and naughty, they are also sweet and giving and forgiving and snuggly and thoughtful and hilarious and perfect.  I am laying the foundation for who they are going to turn out to be by my small deeds and service for them.  I will keep putting their toys away because eventually they will catch on that it's better to have a house of order than a house of chaos.  I will keep wiping up their spills because they will see that a nice clean floor is better than a sticky floor.  I will keep letting them play with my toothbrush because I want them to not be afraid of the toothbrush and to establish good oral hygeine.  I will keep having days where I want to scream because I can't get any time to myself, but eventually I know I will be the one going to them for attention, and not vice versa.

I want to help them become great in whatever aspect of their lives that they want to.  It is the small everyday things I do for them, the experiences I provide for them, the laughter that I provoke from them, the hugs and kisses and praises I give them for a job well done, and teaching them about all things spiritual and good that will help them become great.  I have such an essential and almost overwhelming duty and privilege to raise my children correctly.  There will be bumps and chaos along the way, but I get one shot, only one shot, at raising my babies.  I don't want to look back when Kara is 10 years old and say, "Man, I really wish I would have paid more attention to her instead of always being on the internet wasting hours each day or watching mindless tv or distracting myself with a million other things that could have waited."  Of course I'm not perfect and I have found myself distracted or wasting time, but Dean and I are making a concerted effort in our lives to remove more and more distractions, and we're finding ourselves feeling more and more fulfilled with our family life, even though it has its' expected stresses. 

When my children go kamikaze on the front of my fridge and annihilate my cleanliness and organization that I try to provide for them, I sometimes walk away from the magnetic chaos for a little while, but sometimes I kneel down with them and have them help me put everything back on, magnet by magnet.  And we don't organize it, we don't put everything on left to right, there is no rhyme or reason to how everything is put back on.  But that is how my kids like it, that is what makes them feel more comfortable.  They are teaching me that it's ok to have chaos at this stage in my life, that my world will not end.  And in the cleaning effort it helps to bring me down on to my knees, to their eye level, where I am suddenly one of them.  And I can see the world from their view, and without fail every single time I get down to their level in front of my fridge, they run at me to give me a full on hug and tell me they love me.

So I'll keep organizing those magnets for them because I really get the better end of the deal in the clean up. 

I'm sure one day when my kids are grown and gone, I will find a gallon ziploc bag of alphabet magnets and magnetic animals and flexible monkey magnets in a storage bin that's been on a high shelf in our garage, untouched for years.  I'll go sit down on my kitchen floor, open the bag and dump everything out, clean them with a Clorox wipe, and put them on the bottom front of the fridge from left to right and in proper order and groups.  Then I'll look at them, smile, and then attack the front of the fridge, scattering and sending all the magnets airborn.  And then I'll sit there, I'll smile, and cry.

Sometimes....

Sometimes Leah makes me laugh until I cry when she climbs up on top of the highest semi sure footed object in the room and proudly yells "MEEEEEEEE!".

Sometimes I think not nice words in my head when my children stain my clothes with their grubby little pasta sauce covered hands and mouths.

Sometimes Leah mopes around for no reason at all.  It's hilarious.

Sometimes I look at my never ending to-do pile that I avoid and want to chuck it across the room.

Sometimes I literally feel like I can't contain the excitement and love that builds up in my chest when Landon smiles at me.  

Sometimes I wish the man who invented PlayDoh would have never been born after I see it ground into my carpet.

Sometimes I stop and take a good long look at the picture of my Mom on my mantel and wish she wouldn't have died.

Sometimes Kara does back somersault splits off the couch, and she's freakishly good at them.

Sometimes I wish I could sing well enough to sing a solo in public, i.e. church.  I belt it out in my van, but that's about it; my vocal confidence doesn't permeate beyond the confines of my minivan.

Sometimes I wish that I liked cooking.  I like baking, not a fan of cooking.

Sometimes Dean gets up with Landon in the middle of the night so I can continue sleeping.  Bless that man.

Sometimes I wish that the tv cable company would let us subscribe to only HGTV.  I don't want the other 500 channels, I only want HGTV.  I would pay $15 per month for just that 1 channel. 

Sometimes I wish I wasn't so hard on myself.

Sometimes I love building train tracks with Kara and having her line up ABC animals on them so that the train coming can "feed the animals".

Sometimes I wish I was a better sister.

Sometimes I realize how fleeting this stage in my life is, the stage of having newborns and toddlers and preschoolers, and I savor those stages.

Sometimes I wish this stage would hurry up.

Sometimes I tear up when Kara and Leah go pick dandelions for me, and ask me if I love them as they hand them to me with such proud smiles.

Sometimes I smile when Kara prays "that we don't drink tea and coffee, that we got a pony at a garage sale, and that we have bear" in every.single.prayer.

Sometimes I wonder how I got so lucky.

Sometimes I get so frustrated and exasperated by the end of the day that I know the healthy outlet would be to have a big ugly cry to get it out but instead I sublimate my rage and ball it up in my chest and shut down. Not so healthy.

Sometimes I wish I did more service for others.

Sometimes I wish that I had a weekly housekeeper.

Sometimes I yell at other stupid drivers when my children aren't in the van with me.

Sometimes I'll go 3 or 4 weeks without shaving my legs.  And I'm ok with that.  It's been 3 weeks so far.

Sometimes I think I see spiders or bugs crawling in my peripheral vision, but nothing's there when I look. 

Sometimes I think that I'm the only mommy with young children who feels like she loses her patience too often with her kids.

Sometimes I feel like the best and most loved mommy in the world when I instigate and play the "Let's hide! Tell mommy what animal's going to get us!" game on my bed while Kara, Leah, and I dive under the covers and laugh our heads off together..

Sometimes I fall asleep in the middle of Dean and I talking in bed.

Sometimes Dean falls asleep in the middle of us talking in bed.

Sometimes I look at my children sleeping, and I am so happy that their biggest concern that day was whether or not they got to go to the park and if they get a Dora fruit snack or a Disney princess fruit snack.

Sometimes I get way too stressed out over trivial things.

Sometimes I'm very chill and go with the flow.

Sometimes I will fall asleep on the couch and without asking, Dean stays up until midnight hand washing all of the baby bottles and all of my pumping supplies.

Sometimes Landon grunts so loud in his sleep that it wakes me up.  He's a loud grunty sleeper.

Sometimes life gets to me and I wish things were different.  I wish I handled things and situations and conversations differently. I wish I had closer relationships with some people.  I wish I was a better mom.  I wish I was a better wife.  I wish I was a better sister, daughter, in-law, niece, cousin, etc.  I wish I was a better friend. I wish I was a better person.  I'm doing what I can with what I have right now, at this insanely busy time in my life with 3 kids 3 and under.  I'm not going to say "I'm doing my best" because that's not always true.  Some days I only have so much to give, some days I purposely hold back, but some days I truly do try my best.  And those days where I truly try my best are the better days in my book.  The days where I push myself a little more out of my comfort zone, when I tackle just 1 little project that I've been avoiding, when I don't say "just a minute" when my kids want to play with me right that very second, where I bake cookies just because, when I stop and hug Dean instead of us walking by eachother to go help one of the kids for the 173rd time that day, when it's more important to turn off the tv and let my kids tackle and jump on me as I lay on the floor and then go hold my newborn son and feel his body melt against my chest as he tries to hold up his flailing head. Those are the best days.

Sometimes I realize I'm human.  
 

Leah does what she wants...

If you know Leah then you know that she is one insanely stubborn and headstrong child and will put me in an early grave.  Instead of constantly telling her no over everything like I feel like I do every day 8 billion times, sometimes we just let her run free and do what she wants and only discipline when she's in danger or being mean.

"Hello?  Where are all the balls??!  I don't want to have to pay for this game."

 Sometimes you just need to take a nap on a Skeeball game.  Carry on, Leah.  Carry on.

This is one of my absolute favorite Leah pictures of all time, and it hits my funny bone every.single.time. that I look at it. 

Daddy and Kara were mini golfing just beyond that rock and Leah was bored with mini golfing long before this was taken so she just ran on the greens and walked on the bricks that edged them while Daddy and Kara golfed.  Landon was only 9 days old when we went to Leavenworth and went mini golfing so Mommy held Landon and made sure Leah didn't jump into the creek that was flowing through the golf course.  She decided she needed to come over to where the hole was and then she got really mopey all of a sudden (she pulls an awesome pouty mopey face and takes a neanderthal stance) and then just dropped to the ground and laid like this for 20 seconds or so.  I couldn't grab my camera fast enough, and I was laughing so hard.  She's such a nut.

4 exhibits...

 I'd like to present you 4 exhibits regarding Leah:

 Exhibit A:

Exhibit B:

Exhibit C:

Exhibit D:

 I believe that those 4 pictures are enough to prove to the court that Leah officially hates having her picture taken.

She.Is. AWESOME.

Happy Halloween 2012

Kara had her Halloween party for preschool today, and I think that she and her best friend Parker were just a wee bit excited.  CANDY!!!!

 Landon was a stud baby and slept all through the party so that I only had to really keep my eye on Kara on Leah.

 Kara's preschool class.  She's such a happy buzzy bee buns.

 Annnnnd then when I was taking pictures of Kara's class, Leah snuck off to the preschool room and was playing in the castle all by herself.  And then Kara promptly tried to drag her out of the room.  Leah is DYING to go to preschool.  It breaks my heart every time she cries and screams to go in when I drop Kara off 3 times per week.

 

 Then we went and visited Daddy at work just as it started to get dark.  

 Since Daddy had to work until 6:30, at 6PM we went with our friends to an assisted living home so that the girls could trick or treat from the elderly people who live there.  The ladies couldn't get enough of baby Landon because he's so young and bitty and I got asked if the girls were twins more than once and everyone ooohed and aahhhhed over them.  

 This lovely lady at the assisted living home gave Landon his very first Trick or Treat candy ever, a KitKat that's right by his head.  She was in love with him and I just had to take a picture. 

 They got to go "fishing", and then Kara promptly sat down in the middle of the room to go through her Ziplock bag of fishing prizes.  They were BEGGING me to just open up one piece of candy for them to eat.

 Toss the ring on the ghost game.  Kara threw the rings, Leah walked right up and put them all on.  

 Then we finally met up with Daddy and we headed to a neighborhood to go trick or treating.  This is the very first house of the night.

 Since we're awesome parents and forced Kara to go through the haunted house at the church trunk or treat party last night that pretty much gave her PTSD, naturally we forced her to go through this one tonight.  She actually liked this one though, hallelujah.

 One of the rare minutes where Landon wasn't crying while trick or treating.

Had to take a picture for proof that he was actually there since he was in the double stroller the whole time. 

 Leah checking our her loot in her bucket down below, Daddy being happy with our kids like he always is 99% of the time, and Landon being a fuss.  That was pretty much our night.

 Daddy, Kara, and Leah trick or treating.

 My sleeping babes.

 It's tough being a baby.

 Once we were done with the first neighborhood we came home because Landon was losing it and I needed to nurse him and Daddy said he wanted to take the girls out again.  I went in right away with Landon as soon as we pulled in the garage, and Dean got the girls out of the van so I thought he'd just have Kara walk and would put Leah on his shoulders, but lo and behold, this is what he ended up doing, toting around 70 extra pounds of kids for 45 minutes.  THAT'S a man who loves Halloween.

 AWWWWWWWWW.  The 4 loves of my life.

 Two buzzy bees and 1 candycorn baby.  Adorable.

 Kara and Leah LOVED their pumpkin.

It is my favorite pumpkin of all time.

 Leah asking for candy and Kara oooohing over her lit pumpkin.  And a dirty diaper on the floor by the stove.  Mmmmmhhmmmm.

 

We emptied out our trick or treat buckets and this was our stash.  I think someone is going to be a little upset that they gave away their baby.  We'll take him though.  He's pretty stinking cute and sweet.

Landon, the Great Pumpkin Baby

Landon knows how to walk at 6 weeks so he took a stroll on over to our pumpkin that we just happened to have sitting on a brown sheet backdrop that was draped over the back of our couch in the middle of the front room. 

"Daddy, will you please shove me in a hollowed out pumpkin?  And please make sure that my booty is just a little too big so that you literally have to pop me in there."  

Done and done, son.

.

"This is so gross!!!!!  This is nothing like being in the womb like you said it was!! Liars, the both of you!!!!"

 Baby's First Halloween bib.  I will make pumpkin soup and my first ingredient will be baby.

 "I said get me out of this thing!! This is so demeaning!"

"Wait, this isn't so bad.  This year I invested in pumpkins. They've been going up the whole month of October and I got a feeling they're going to peak right around January. Then bang! That's when I'll cash in!  Buy low, and sell high, that's my motto."

 "FORGET IT!! I WANT MILK!! NOW!"

 We had Kara draw what she wanted her pumpkin to look like on a piece of paper.  I'd say Daddy delivered.

He Has A Name!!!....

Landon Dean Sheldon

Born on September 18, 2012

2:59 a.m.

9 pounds 14 ounces

21 1/4 inches long

And absolutely perfect

Baby Boy Sheldon is here!!!!!!...

 He's here!!!!!  Our sweet little Baby Boy Sheldon is finally here just 2 days past his due date!  

He was born today, September 18th, at 2:59 a.m. and he weighed in at a hearty 9 pounds 14 ounces and 21 1/4 inches long, and he has the most beautiful cry in the whole wide world.  He's perfect and oh-so-handsome in every single way.

15 hours of rocking contractions never more than 2 minutes apart.  An entire emergency room filled of people staring at chelle as she worked through 2 huge contractions back to back while leaning on the check in desk. 3 nurses unable to get a vein to start an IV, finally the anesthesiologist had to come in to start it and he finally got it on the 3rd try which made a grand total of 9 pokes that we can find.  3 epidurals gone wrong, he finally got it in on the 4th try.  My water breaking and literally exploding all over Dean like a water balloon while I was having a killer contraction during the anesthesiologist  attempting to put an epidural in (I'm not kidding, it literally exploded all over Dean's shorts, leg, and down to his shoes).  Then pushing my sweet baby boy out 2 hours later and only had to push 40 minutes, and my doctor was a superstar at getting him out.  Every single minute of pregnancy and labor was absolutely worth it.

We're still deciding on a name for him so that news will have to come later.  

We're completely head over heels in love with him, and we feel blessed beyond anything we could possibly deserve. Thank you Heavenly Father for blessing our family with such a perfect little man that we have the privilege of raising.

 Mommy meeting him for the first time just seconds after he was born.  I immediately fell in love with him and couldn't stop crying and his cry is permanently recorded on my heart.

 Daddy holding his son for the first time.

 My heart will explode with love for him.  I can't even stand the cuteness.  We make unbelievably cute babies.

 First picture of Mommy and Daddy with Mr. Chunka Man when he's about an hour old.

 What a cute crybaby!!!

He has a squnch of fat at the top of his nose between his eyebrows!!!!  AHHHH, SOOOO CUTE!!!!

40 weeks today....

In case you were wondering what a woman pregnant with her 3rd child at 40 weeks looked like, here's a little glance to satiate you:

 I promise I'm not wearing leather pants even though it looks like I am.

Yup, 40 weeks prego today with Baby Boy, and I've been a Braxton Hick'ing machine for the past couple weeks, and yesterday and today they got really intense, but no genuine contractions.  Finally after church today I had 3 really low low low grade wavelike contractions, but they only lasted 18ish seconds and were crazy irregular and then they stopped all together and haven't returned.  Mr. Man is comfy in there, and that's ok with me.  I do have a pretty amazing uterus, so I don't blame him for not coming out just yet.

I have a doc appt on Tues so we'll see if/how dilated I am, and if he doesn't get his act together by next week we may have to talk induction which I really don't want but I'm not really a fan of that whole placental deterioration bit so we'll see what doc says.  We're going to the Puyallup Fair again after the doc appt and I'll walk my booty off again (we went last Tues and I walked for probably 9 hours total, my feet hurt for 3 days afterwards) to see if I can't get him outta there. 

I'm in the sleep like absolute garbage phase, I have to pee at least 2 to 3 times per night minimum, have low grade heartburn, I have about 1 millisecond of patience for all things right now including my kids (thank heavens they have the most forgiving little hearts), I'm forgetful as all get-out, I've gained about 70,000 pounds this pregnancy, my legs and feet kill every night but Dean is a stud and massages them for me every.single.night. and puts me to sleep doing that, and I have whacked out dreams almost every night.  Honestly, this pregnancy has absolutely kicked my trash.  I have no clue why it is leaps and bounds more difficult than Kara and Leah's, but boy howdy, it has given me a run for my money.  I puked more than any woman should puke,  I dry heaved all the time, I burst blood vessels in and under my eyes multiple times from how hard I would retch, I hated any and all food for the first 5ish months, I have no energy at all, he's the most active baby in the world and keeps me up all the time because he thinks that nighttime is time to practice his roundhouse kicks, and I still get nauseous sometimes even now. I still love being pregnant, but I'd be lying if I said there weren't moments where I want to reach up there and yank him out myself so that I can feel back to normal.  I've just felt so "off", if that makes sense, pretty much this entire pregnancy.  

But he's my last baby, and that's why I'm ok that I'm 40 weeks pregnant and he's still content to be in there because I'll never experience this again, and I want to revel in it for these last few remaining days.  I feel like I just got pregnant with Kara 2 seconds ago and suddenly here I am at the end of my childbearing time, and it makes me sad.  I'll have 3 kids 3 years old and under when he's born, and we're so happy that we had our kids closer together (21 months apart and 23 months apart), but I feel like it's done as soon as it began.  Three kids is a good number for us, and unless the heavens open up and angels tell us we need to have another, we're going to stick with our 3 and be content with that.   

Wish me luck for labor whenever it happens.  I'm guessing he'll be born on the 20th and he'll be 9 lbs 3 oz and he's going to be a spitting image of his cute daddy. 

Walmart, naked in the bathroom, and Olive Garden...

It took us 4 months to get pregnant with Kara.  We planned our lives around that highlighted, starred, glittered, and puff painted weeks on our calendar where the Greek goddess Aphrodite was going to bless me with fertility.  We were that crazy couple who tried 3 times a day minimum during my tracked and mapped out fertile time each month, and of course tried a couple of times on the non fertile days for good measure just in case.  I kept my rump up in the air afterwards to assist gravity in getting those swimmers to their final destination. I drank bottled Walmart water in hopes of having twins.  I only socialized with women who were baby making machines in hopes that their fertility juju would transfer over to me.  I taped a cutout of my face on the TV over the face of the laboring woman on A Baby Story because that should be me, and visualization has a proven success rate. 

By the 3^rd month, trying wasn’t so often wasn’t so fun anymore.  “You ready to go do it?”  “Yeah, sure, whatever. Will we be done before Survivor is on?”

Every month we tried to get pregnant I spent a small fortune on pregnancy tests because even though First Response claims they’re “The ONLY test that tells you 5 days before”, I would take one 6 days before my expected period in hopes that my HCG levels would be just high enough to show me that little pink line a day early.   And then I would take another 6 hours later just in case my HCG numbers decided to suddenly spike. And then another 6 hours later just in case.

Every month that coveted little pink line didn’t appear on that plastic stick, I cried.

The 4^th month of trying came and went.  I took a pregnancy test 6 days before.  No pink line.  I took one 5 days before.  No pink line.  I took one 3 days before.  No pink line.  I resigned myself to the fact that we’d just have to try again next month.  I cried.

My Mom flew into O’Hare in Chicago around 11:30p.m. on the night of April 25^th, 2008.  It was her first time ever coming out to visit us in Iowa since we’d moved there in October 2005 so it was long overdue.  We lived just over 3 hours away from O’Hare so Dean and I drove up there knowing that we wouldn’t be pulling back into our driveway until well after 3 a.m. on Saturday morning.  But we’d done the drive to Chicago no less than a dozen times by that point, we knew every toll on I-80 by heart, and knew the spots cops liked to sit and radar cars. 

Dean and I had a great time talking and laughing on the way up there, and I was beyond excited when I saw my Mom standing on the curb at pickup at the airport just before midnight.  We hugged her, loaded up her suitcase, she took shotgun, and I drove so that I could sit up front and chat it up with her, and Dean, bless his heart, was asleep in the back seat within a half hour because he was so exhausted from a long week at school.  

About an hour into our drive I started to feel this weird dull yet sharp pain in my lower right quadrant by my pelvic floor that I couldn’t ignore.  I’d never felt anything like it before so I was perplexed and a tinge worried about what it could be. It would happen intermittently, but I never said anything out loud to my mom about it because I didn’t want her worrying.  Every time the pain would happen I would not hear a word my Mom was saying because I was so inner-focused on trying to decipher what it could be. 

“Oh my goodness, I probably have a tumor.  Yup, it’s a tumor.  Nothing else would randomly cause pain like that.  Or maybe I have a gas bubble.  Yes, that’s it, a gas bubble.  No, nothing’s coming out so it’s not that.  Ok, I have a collapsed ovary that’s fallen to my pelvic floor and is trying to burrow its’ way out of my body.  Pfffft, stupid ovary.  A lot of good it’s doing me so far, won’t even release 1 stupid egg for me so I can get pregnant.  Go ahead, burrow your way out, I don’t need you anyways.  Ok, no, I do need you.  I’m sorry ovary.  You’ll release an egg next month.  Just give me 1 egg.  An egg?  Wait!  AN EGG!!!!   I’ve read about women having round ligament pain just after the egg implants in their uterus!!  Oh my goodness, maybe that’s what I’m having, round ligament pain!  Maybe I am pregnant!!!!!!!!!!”

Once that thought popped into my head, it completely dominated my thoughts, and my answers to anything my Mom had to say or ask consisted of, “Mmmhmmm.  Yup.  I know.  Really?”  I was in my own pregnancy thoughts dominated world, and if it would have been just Dean and I in the car we would have pulled off to the first gas station we saw and bought a pregnancy test and taken it right then and there in the aisle.  But I had to play it cool and get home first of all, and then find an excuse to go to the store without my Mom the next morning.

I convinced myself that I was pregnant for the rest of the ride home.  That was the only logical explanation for this pain I’d never experienced before.

When I finally pulled into our driveway at 3:30 a.m. on Saturday morning, I levitated up the stairs to our back door, willed it open with my positive thoughts, gave Mom a quick tour around our townhouse, and then we all went to our rooms to go to bed.  The millisecond I shut our bedroom door behind a sleepy Dean, I pounced on him excitedly to tell him what I’d been experiencing and thinking on the drive home while he was sleeping, and of course he was just as excited as I was. We said our prayers, went to bed hopeful, and fell asleep in each other’s arms.

The next morning we were up by 9 a.m. even though we’d slept less than 5 hours that night.  We went into my Mom’s room trying to play it cool, and chit chatted with her for a little bit.  I told her that we had to run to the store to grab some milk, and for her to just take it easy at the house because we’d be back in 10 minutes.  She protested saying that she could come with, but I managed to convince her to just stay in bed because surely she was still tired.  Normally I wouldn’t have cared if she would have come with, but trying to buy a pregnancy test without her noticing might have been a little difficult.  Absolutely no one in the world knew we were trying to get pregnant.  Nope, sorry Mom, you’re staying home.

Dean and I drove over to Walmart, which was practically in our backyard, raced one another to the pregnancy tests, snatched up a box, and then hurriedly made it to a checkout lane.  One minute later we were $15 dollars poorer, I had a box of 3 pregnancy tests clutched in my fist, and we stood there looking at one another.

I couldn’t take the pregnancy test at home because I was going to cry if it was negative, and I was going to cry if it was positive.  I have a very obvious I’ve-been-crying face because my eyes get insanely red and swell up, and my Mom would ask why I’ve been crying. 

I had to take it at Walmart in the bathroom.

Dean gave me a hug and told me he loved me, and I did the same to him.  I was more nervous to take this test because if it was negative then I needed to figure out what in the world this strange pain was I was having.  I was nervous for it to be negative, but I was also nervous for it to be positive.  So I left Dean standing there outside the woman’s bathroom at the front of Walmart, walked in the bathroom and picked a stall in the middle, closed the door behind me, and opened the box of tests.  Ok, this was going to work.  This was going to be the day.

I took the test, put the cap back on it, and then laid it level on top of the toilet paper dispenser so that it could work its’ magic uninterrupted for the 2 minutes that the box recommended.  I got myself decent and put together and then sat back down on the toilet seat and prayed with my whole heart for at least the 2 minutes that the test ran its’ course, never once opening my eyes until my pleading yet fervent ‘amen’ was said in my head.

Ok, I was nervous but also ready to look.

I saw two lines.  There were two lines!  HOLY CRAP, THERE WERE TWO PINK LINES ON THE SCREEN!!!!! I’d never seen 2 lines before!! Hot diggity dog!!! I immediately started shaking and crying tears of disbelief and joy and relief and excitement.  I snatched up the test, grabbed my purse, and busted out of that stall as fast as I could.  There was a woman washing her hands at the sink and I blew right past her, and I’m sure she thought I was disgusting for not washing my hands before leaving.  Forget you, woman! Newly pregnant women don’t have to wash their hands, sucka!!! 

Dean was standing right outside of the bathroom, and I was crying so hard that all I could do was shake my head in a ‘yes’ motion as I fell into his embrace.  However, Dean in his ever-so-compassionate mindset thought that I was crying so hard and saying ‘yes, it came back negative’ so he just held me and stroked my hair.  “Oh honey, I’m sorry. It’ll be ok.  We’ll eventually get pregnant.”  As soon as he said that I realized that he misinterpreted my head nod and tears. I pulled back to look at him while still sobbing and managed to blubber out the words, “No, we’re pregnant!”  His eyes got huge and his smile lit up the store and he exclaimed, “Honey, you can’t do that to me!” and he started laughing.  “Are you really pregnant?!??  The test is positive???” and I started to laugh while still crying and nodded my head yes and he picked me up with his enormous hug.  I pulled out the test to show him and we were laughing and crying like two giddy little school girls at a sleepover.  I don’t know how long we just stood there and hugged and laughed and exclaimed “I can’t believe it!” over and over, but we eventually made our way over to the double doors to exit, and I still remember everyone at all the checkout stands staring at us with looks of confusion at the girl walking by who was laughing and bawling and her husband with his arm around her that couldn’t stop smiling and laughing.

We went out to our car, said a prayer of thanks together, laughed some more, I kept on crying, and then we took a few pictures with our handy little pocket camera for memories’ sake.  Since I was still crying and the waterworks were flowing, I eventually got my composure under control and we sat there long enough for the redness in my eyes to go away somewhat and we headed back home with no milk to go see my Mom.   

Apparently I didn’t look like I had been crying because she didn’t ask what was the matter.  Win-win!

The next day was my Mom’s birthday, and Dean and I decided that she would be the first one we told, and we would just wrap up the test and give it to her for her birthday.  We went to church, came home, and sat down on the couch together and gave her her present.  She of course started crying which made me start crying and then it was a happy birthday crying fest in the Sheldon household.  She said that was the best birthday present she’d ever gotten.  True that, Mom!  Then we called all of our other family member’s to tell them and they were excited for us, too.  Dean and I were on cloud 9 all the time thinking about our little peanut roasting away in my belly.

See? It’s not all “Crap, my baby’s daddy ain’t gonna be happy I’m knocked up again” pregnancy tests that are taken in a Walmart bathroom.  Sometimes normal hysterical crying people find out they’re pregnant there, too.

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It took us 3 months to get pregnant with Leah.  We got pregnant just 2 weeks after we moved from our teensy slummin’ it townhouse in Sumner to our beautiful view of Lake Tapps townhouse in Bonney Lake.  I probably didn’t get pregnant in Sumner because my ovaries were afraid to release an egg for fear that it would fall out of me and a rat would climb down through the hole in the ceiling in the kitchen and eat it.

I told myself I was going to have some self control this time and not spend a ton on pregnancy tests to take every time a bird chirped or the wind blew.  And I must say, I did ok with my self control.

I also told myself that I was going to surprise Dean this time in some cutesy way and not immediately go and bawl my eyes out with joy to Dean.  Uh huh, riiiiiight.

Thursday, February 4^th, 2010.  Dean was home from work for lunch and he was in the kitchen feeding our little 13 month old Kara, and his Mom was over at our house for some reason that I can’t remember.  I decided I was going to go up to our bathroom in our room and take a shower because I needed one badly.  Let’s be real, there are some days as a mom that you really should shower but it just doesn’t happen.  There may be some days as a mom where your hair is so greasy that it looks wet but it’s not.  There may be some days as a mom where you are fine with wearing the same outfit for the 3^rd day in a row, same underwear included, you’ll just make sure that you don’t see anyone who’s seen you in the outfit in the past 2 days. There may be some days as a mom where your husband sits next to you and while breathing through his mouth says in a loving way, “Umm, honey, I can watch Kara if you want to go shower.”  Message received.

So I headed upstairs, hopped in the shower, scrubbed the baby food out of my hair, the dried snot off my arms, and cranked that streaming shower to boiling hot to singe off any other food/bodily fluids that were on me that I didn’t know about.  I was clean and it felt oh so good to be clean. 

While I was in the shower I thought, “Hmmm, ok chelle, it’s 3 days before you should be starting your period.  You haven’t taken a pregnancy test yet because you don’t have a good track record with taking them 5 days before.  Should you take one today to see?  Yes? No?  Yes!!!!”  For some reason I had a little inkling that I might be pregnant, and it wasn’t just a wishful thinking inkling. 

So I hurriedly rinsed off and hopped out of the shower, gave myself a quick 3 second pat down with a towel, and then grabbed the only pregnancy test that we had under the sink.  I took the test, put the cap back on, set it on the counter, and all of a sudden I got really nervous.  I walked my naked-as-the-day-I-was-born self out into our bedroom, looked at the clock so I would know when 2 minutes was up, and then I said a little naked prayer that it would come back positive.  After I prayed I just sat on our bed waiting.  I waited an extra minute just for good measure, and then I walked my little birthday suit self back in there to look. 

Two lines!!!!  There were two little pink lines!!!!!  Shoot dang I am getting good at this getting pregnant business!!  I immediately got all verklempt, I threw on my dirty pants that I had been wearing for 3 days because they were the closest thing to me, and then I threw on my dirty shirt, sans bra.  I quickly whispered to my Mom, who had already passed on almost a year before, that I was pregnant because Dean and I had said that my Mom would always be the first to know when we were pregnant since she was the first to know when we were pregnant with Kara plus she’s my Mom!  Since Dean’s Mom was downstairs she would pretty much find out at the same time as he found out because heaven forbid that I keep a secret to myself and actually surprise Dean other than crying and shoving a pregnancy test in his face.  So I guess technically my Mom knew before Dean even knew.  Whoops!

So cry I did, from joy, of course, and I took the stairs down 2 at a time and went bawling into the kitchen with the pregnancy test in hand, and Dean was so incredibly excited when he saw what I was holding, and we did our ‘we’re pregnant so let’s hug and laugh and let chelle cry because she’s so excited’ routine.  Dean’s Mom came out of the bathroom where she had been cleaning it (Can I just interject a sidenote? Yes, I can, it’s my blog. I love when people clean my house just because. It doesn’t happen very often, but there is no better way to show me love than to scrub a toilet or mop my floor because you want to.  Heck, I don’t even care if you do it because you think I’m gross and the week old orange juice spill on my kitchen floor is annoying you every time you step on it and your shoe makes that sticky “ffffrrrrrrrt” sound.  Cleaning anything for me is you speaking my love language and I always appreciate it.  Hence why I remember that Dean’s Mom was cleaning our bathroom when I walked downstairs.) and said “Did I hear that you are pregnant?!!”  and we told her yes and she gave us each a big hug.

And of course I had to immediately run to the store to buy another box of 3 tests so that I could take another one just to be positive because this wasn’t the “first pee of the morning” like the box recommends.  I chugged my weight in water between my house, the store, and back to my house to make sure I’d have enough to go, and sure enough the second test screamed back that I was definitely pregnant.  Annnnnnd I may have taken another the next day just to be extra sure.  We were so excited to be having our second little baby!! 

So it just goes to show that you’re more likely to have a positive pregnancy test if you take it while you’re naked.

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It only took us 2 months to get pregnant with Baby Boy Sheldon.  The first month my fertile time was just after Thanksgiving so I don’t even remember if we tried because we were in such a tryptophan induced coma for several days after Thanksgiving dinner.  I remember something about Black Friday, leftovers, and a leprechaun.  So who knows, maybe it only took us 1 month to get pregnant with him.  We weren’t as Nazi-ish with “do it 3 times per day for a week” like we were with Kara, heck, we didn’t have time for that nonsense.  Our second month of trying fell right over Christmastime and we all know that stress levels go up around the holidays, we’re all busy busy busy, I was trying to keep my kids from opening the presents under the tree 80 times per day, and I was stressing over how much money we spent on presents.

But as stressful as the holidays can be, Christmas is still my absolute favorite time of year because of the meaning behind it, and also because of how happy it makes my kids.  Kara was really starting to get into it, Leah was terrified of Santa Claus, and they both nakified the lower half of the tree every day from taking off each ornament and bringing it over to me to tell me how pretty it is or to ask me what it was.  It melted my heart every time, and of course Dean and I wised up and put all the unbreakable ones on the lower half and all the breakable ones up top.  Only 1 ornament was killed by the hand of Leah.      

So baby making time came and went, and then the post-holiday busyness just barged its’ way right in, too.  I was due to start my period on Sunday, January 8^th, 2012 but it didn’t happen, and miraculously I hadn’t taken 1 pregnancy test yet that month.  Dean was so busy with work and seminary and our girls and family in town, and I was so busy with the girls and family in town and trying to keep our house from being condemned because it can get that level of disastrous if I don’t stay on top of cleaning every day.  But on Saturday, January 7^th, a day before my expected period was due, I knew.  My body was having the exact same round ligament pain that it’d had with Kara just on the lower left side of my pelvic floor and I just felt different, pregnant different. 

I still wanted to take a pregnancy test to be 100% sure before I surprised Dean so I was going to wait until Monday to go buy a test, but then stupidity got in the way.  Dean and I got into a stupid disagreement over something ridiculous on Sunday evening, and I, in my logical womanly mind, wasn’t ready to let it go completely just yet.  And I certainly wasn’t going to go buy a pregnancy test, take it, have it be positive like I already knew it would be, and then be one of those wenches who chucks it at her husband and yells, “THERE! LIKE YOU EVEN CARE ANYWAYS!” Of course I knew he cared. If you know my husband then you know he’s the biggest softie in the whole world, and he absolutely lives for me and our children and would have 500 kids if I was game for it. I just wanted there to be no annoyances or contention between us before I took a test, and I wanted there to only be positive memories associated with finding out we were pregnant again. 

So I finally pulled my head out of my butt on Monday evening and completely smoothed things over with him, but I didn’t make it to the store by myself to buy a test until Tuesday evening so I opted to wait until Wednesday morning to take it with my recommended first pee of the day. 

Wednesday morning came, Dean went and taught seminary at 6 a.m., he came home and then we got the girls ready, Dean went to work, and then Leah and I dropped Kara off at preschool.  I was practically seeing the color yellow from how badly I had to go and how long I had been holding it all morning, so I plucked Leah out of the van, ran inside the house, strapped her in her highchair and dumped a box of snacks on her tray, then bounded to the bathroom in our room, grabbing our digital camera off the kitchen counter en route. 

I took the test, set it on the counter, and immediately turned on our video camera and switched it to video mode and pushed record.  I zoomed in on the result screen and watched as the liquid made its’ way across the screen from left to right and within the next 2 seconds a bright bright pinkish maroon line showed up on the left hand side.  Ok, 1 line down, 1 to go.  Then about 30 seconds later another line showed up, much more faint than the other one. 

Two lines again, baby!  I own those pregnancy tests!  I stopped recording, and grabbed the instructions on the box and it said that the line on the left will tell you if you’re definitely pregnant, and by golly, I definitely was pregnant by how bright it was.  None of the other tests I had ever taken with my girls showed up with a line that prominent.  I was an HCG making fiend!  I was so excited that I started tearing up and crying, and I will admit that I stopped myself from calling Dean to tell him, but I knew I only had until the end of the day before I couldn’t keep it from him any longer. 

I wanted to surprise him in some sort of way, and I’d always had this cute little idea in my mind of making a music video with footage of the girls to a song that we love and having them hold a sign at the end telling their daddy that they were both going to be big sisters.  Buuuuuuut that didn’t happen.  That’d take too much time and I would blurt it out to him before I even shot the first scene of it.  But I knew that I wanted to do something cute for him to tell him so I decided that I was going to write him a poem because he likes to write poetry and he likes reading poems that I write so there I had it. 

I wrote him a little poem while he was at work, and then told him I was starving when he got home and that Olive Garden sounded really good.  We don’t go out to eat a lot at all so when I suggest that we do he’s all over it and will never say no. 

We had to go to Olive Garden for my poem to work.  I handed him an envelope with the poem in it, and he read it while Leah was trying to climb on the table and Kara was trying to drink a boat of alfredo sauce.  The look of surprise on his face was priceless and he was so excited and touched that I’d told him like this.  And yes, I cried with joy when he was all done reading it.

For your reading pleasure, here’s the poem that I wrote for him:  

Christmas at Olive Garden?

Christmas Day 2011,

It was a busy day,

Presents, family, candy galore,

We were spoiled we surely can say.

We came home that afternoon,

And started to put Christmas away,

But soon we were done with that,

And went and took a roll in the hay.

You gave me another present that night,

In fact you gave me 200 million little guys.

Those little swimmers are pretty competitive,

And all strive for one common prize.

Well one of them was mighty,

It swam faster than the rest.

It saw a little egg,

And it knew it had to be the best.

It whipped and choked those other swimmers

With its’ mighty tail.

It knew it had to get there first,

And it knew it could not fail.

When all its’ competition was behind it,

And it finally reached the egg,

It took a little breather,

Then it had to run its’ final leg.

It pushed and nudged and squirmed

On that egg to get inside,

SUCCESS! OH YES! IT DID IT!

Now those merged 2 cells started to divide.

So you gave me a Christmas present,

Far better than the rest.

You’re going to be a daddy again

Parents of 3! That’s going to be the best!

I love you very much,

The past 8 years have been beyond great,

Now that you know my big news,

Will you please pass me a pasta plate?

I only have a couple of days

Before I start to feel like crap,

I need to eat all the things I love now

Before I feel like puking and only want to nap.

But now back on a serious note

And all joking is aside,

As I write this and I think of you,

All I feel is overwhelming love and pride.

Pride that you’re our children’s daddy,

And for the remarkable husband that you are.

Pride that around September 17, 2012

You’ll hold our 3^rd perfect little star.

Dean and I were meant to be parents together.  We were meant to have Kara, Leah, and Baby Boy in our home and for us to specifically be THEIR parents.  We can provide them with what they need and want and it is our privilege to do so. 

Maybe next time I get pregnant I’ll find out in an airplane bathroom….