Tuesday, September 23, 2008

What Would You Say...

A picture might be worth a 1000 words, but the things that tend to fall out of the mouths of children are priceless...

Our New Antique Upright Piano

"Mom, how am I supposed to practice at the piano if Reagan keeps coming over and banging on it and screwing me up? Can't we make a schedule where I get it for a few days, then Caitlyn gets it for a few days, and then Reagan can have a few days when she gets a little older."

Caitlyn's Ear Piercing

"Mom, Dad is going to freak out when we get home and he sees that I got my ears pierced. He is gonna say 'What the Hell' isn't he?"


Reagan's Halloween Costume

"Reagan if you wear the hat, I'll give you a piece of candy. Want some candy?"



Slide Rock National Forest...In Flip Flops...

Total Outdoorsy Wife and Kids


Mom, next time we go in the mountains I want to wear my other shoes, these frickin flip flops are freakin me out and my legs are all itchy."

"Dad did they just paint these rocks or something, they are all so red."

Tuesday, September 16, 2008

Ballerina Girl

Well at the ripe old age of five, Caitlyn has reached another milestone. No she isn't reading yet. She hasn't lost her first tooth yet either. Although, she does constantly wiggle teeth to see if any are loose so that she can get some cold hard cash from the tooth fairy. No, the milestone this month is that she has offically quit her first sport. Yes she traded in the ballet shoes for bare feet and has moved on to gymnastics. Frankly, I blame the Olympics and Nastia Lukin. I think she saw that cute little blond on the balance beam and thought, "Wow that could be me. I almost look like her." See why tv is bad? It puts way too many ideas into kids heads! So now there are no more matching tu-tu's and hair bows. No more clicks of the tap shoes against the asphalt as she bounces into the dance studio. Nope, it's just a leotard, and some pink crocs on bare feet. Goodbye wood floors, hello athletes foot.



When I took that picture of her as we were walking out the door, I began to tear up. No, not because she looks so grown up, or because she is becoming this great little person who is exploring her world and who she wants to be; I teared up because I looked at her and thought to myself "Man I would kill to look that good in a skin tight leotard!"

Caitlyn and her little leotard are still just as adorable in gymnastics as they were in dance, and she LOVES it. In the end, I suppose that is what matters most. That and the fact that she has a sister coming up behind her that I can hopefully talk into being a little ballerina girl. Although, with the way she climbs things, I am sure she will be in gymnastics too. Or maybe karate. Oh man, pray for me!

Monday, September 8, 2008

Doctor Doctor Give Me the News...

It all started on a rather mundane Tuesday morning. I was in the kitchen making french toast for breakfast and packing peanut butter and jelly sandwiches for lunch; the kids were getting dressed for school. Then, quite suddenly, I hear from our bedroom a rather odd moaning sound. Then I heard it again. At the risk of burning the only shot at breakfast my kids had, I tried valiantly to ignore the moans. Well, those moans progressed to the nasty sounds of retching. In between dry heaves I heard, "Kristi I need a bowl now." I quickly threw Logan a plastic bowl, and told him to run it in to dad. The retching continued for several minutes and finally Nathan said that he needed to go to the doctor right away.


Being the overly compassionate and truly sensitive person I am, I let out a sigh of exasperation and said "Ugh, fine, I guess I will hop in the shower." So I dropped him off at Urgent Care, and took the kids to school. When I returned to Urgent Care they had already called the hospital and told me that it was either a kidney stone or appendicitis. The doctor informed me of this in the hall as Nathan was throwing up in the exam room. The doctor's parting words for me were, "You need to take him to the hospital as soon as he is done with this." I knew that with my levels of compassion I would make the perfect doctor!


Once we arrived at the hospital, the ER nurse immediately took him back into a room as I waited in the lobby with Reagan. Thank goodness Aunt Joce came to the rescue and took Reagan! They were buddies most of the day. After getting Reagan off, I wandered over to Nathan's room. By now they had already given him some serious pain meds. He was "Intervention" high! Every nurse that came in the room was greeted with a "You're awesome." And every time he woke up just enough to notice I was in the room, I got a "You're so pretty." After about 3 hours, they determined it was a 4mm kidney stone and sent him home with some serious drugs and an appointment with a Urologist.


We could go home, as soon as we found the keys that is. Yes, in my infinite wisdom I gave Reagan the keys to play with so that she wouldn't cry. Dumb, dumb, dumb. About 20 minutes before we were discharged, I got a text from Joce in the lobby saying "please tell me you have your keys." After three trips around the courtyard, the hospital main lobby, the ER, the children's ER, lifting the grates in the water fountain, and talking with hospital security, I began to think that the boogieman found the keys, went to the car, got our address off of the registration, and was now on his way to rob us. The day was really shaping up to be fantastic!! Thankfully, the ER front desk person returned them to us after someone turned them in when they found them in the vending machine. That's right, a prayer was answered with the purchase of a Pepsi.


Well, after four days of misery, Nathan decided it was time for surgery. So the following Tuesday we went back to the hospital and left Aunt Joce to do "the hair," get breakfast, and take the kids to school. During pre-op Nathan had an EKG which read that he was having a heart attack right there on the table. Obviously he wasn't, but that didn't really calm any one's nerves. The Anaesthesiologist came in to read it, he called the Urologist, who called the Hospitalist, who then called the Cardiologist. Not a good thing to have 4 doctors outside your hospital room talking about you. Of course I remained sooo calm. Nope I didn't think "Oh my gosh, he is going to die and I am going to be left all alone with all of these kids, that's a lot of baggage." I certainly never thought, "How in the crap am I going to pay all of the bills? Do we have life insurance? I haven't worked in years, who would hire me?" Turns out, that it was a normal heartbeat, the machine had an "error," so it was a good thing there was no freaking out.


That actually turned out to be the best news of the day. After an hour and a half in the operating room (when the doctor said it would only be 35 minutes) the doctor came out and called me into the "special room." His first words were, "It did not go well, he was a tough, tough case." Not exactly what you want to hear. The surgery failed and we were informed that he would have to have a different surgery at another hospital two weeks later.




Those two weeks went by slower than paint dries in the tropics. But last Friday he went back in for surgery. Reagan made cookies for him the night before, and again, Aunt Joce took the kids, and even went to Caitlyn's class on Friday for Grandparents day. She was the youngest grandma there! The check in and pre-op were so uneventful - it was fantastic! Instead of having to go in with a scope and try to explode it, they put some sound wave machine against the kidney and explode it without invasive surgery. However, the surgery was extensive enough that he was still under general anaesthetic. The doctor was able to find the stone right away and dissolve it in 15 minutes. Halla-freaking-luah! The stone is gone.











Nathan felt great when he came out of surgery. He was only in post-op an hour before he was discharged. I tried to talk him into stopping at Costco on the way home. I even told him he could use one of the little electric carts, but he vetoed the plan, and I took him home. So, no more pain meds (thank goodness, I don't have to call A&E now), and he even felt good enough that he took Logan to the ASU vs Stanford game Saturday night.

A woman gives birth and goes home to feed the baby, change diapers, do laundry, and take care of the family. A man has the pain (they say) equivalent to giving birth, has it removed, and goes to the football game he really wanted to. Men really are from Mars.