They're gone??

Last night, after dropping Chloe and JJ off at Grandma Ellen's for the night, Kevin and I took Micah to my Grandma's house before surgery today. We stopped for dinner at Micah's choice, Mickey D's (with a playplace). He of course got a happy meal with chocolate milk before spending more than half an hour playing in the playground.

This morning, we left GG's house at 6am. Short talk in the car about what will happen at the hospital. At the hospital by 7. Dressed and ready for surgery at 7:30. They even gave him a bear with its very own hospital gown.

Surgery went great, the nurses and doctors all thought he was adorable. He was incredibly cranky coming out of anesthesia, but no more than you might expect from a 4yo. Lots and lots of popsicles and ice cream.



On the way home, Kevin made a comment about Micah getting his tonsils out and Micah turned to me to say, "They're gone?"

He's doing great, didn't even want to take a nap. Hopefully he'll continue to feel well even as he starts to heal. Thanks to everyone for praying!

Micah Update

Micah finally saw the second ENT last week in Springfield. She actually said his tonsils are weird. They're not huge, very large, but not huge. But they are weird. They apparently are a strange shape, not round, and have extra folds on them that can catch food and cause him to gag. That also explains why their size varies from day to day. So she scheduled him for a T&A (take 'em out) in November. The other day we got a call from her office saying there was a cancelation for this Tuesday and Micah's surgery was moved up.

So Monday night, we're going to my Grandma's so we can be closer to the hospital. Micah has to be there at 7am for surgery at 8:30. Please pray for us and the doctors. I realize the T&A is pretty routine, but it's still surgery and still a little scary for this mama. I'll keep you all posted after the surgery.

Not a post I want to write

Last week, I had several blood tests because of some cramping I was having. The first one was pretty normal, but later in the week, my hormone levels dropped dramatically. A couple days later I miscarried. Since then, I have been avoiding writing this post. I even asked Jody to call some of the family, so I wouldn't have to make the phone calls. Sorry for the short post, but I'm still having a really hard time talking about it.

Another 5 year old

Today we celebrated the birthday of number 2 in the Fab Five. Miss Katy. She's such a doll. She called me on Saturday morning with a very important question. Of course it only took 6 tries for me to understand that she wanted to know where she could get a "horsey piñata." Chloe had one for her birthday and apparently Katy's Mommy was having some difficulty getting her hands on one at the local Wal-Mart. With a little guidance, she was able to locate one that Aunt Jody went and picked up for her, Yay!


So today we had a cute little party with cake and ice cream and the long sought after "horsey piñata."

Katy and Micah have always had a pretty special relationship. They played so well together as babies. When Shelly and I went out somewhere together, people often stopped us to ask who the "twins" belong to. While I'm not certain that they really look that much alike, they are the same age and the same size and both have the same white blonde hair and blue, blue eyes.


Katy has always been a little spunky. When Micah had his tubes put in his ears at 15 months, the surgeon warned us he might be startled by loud noises for a while. Seeing Katy later that day was definitely trial by fire because if there is one thing that Katy is, it's LOUD! Still, she's cute as a button and sweet as any kid around. But don't you dare take her blankie, cuz she'll rip you to shreds.

Yes, I must be crazy

So many of you know this by now, but for those of you in internet land who don't, I have another baby in my tummy! At least that's what we tell the kids. Not exactly anatomically correct, but it'll do. Anyway, somehow, in the next almost nine months we're going to try to cram one more person into this teeny, tiny little house. Sounds like a great plan, huh?

So if any of you know of anyone, say, giving away houses with many, many bedrooms, just let them know we could be talked into taking it off their hands.

Seriously, we are very happy and we'll just continue to trust in God's sovereignty to provide for us whether that's here, or somewhere else.

On a different note, please pray for Micah and me tomorrow. He has an appointment with another ENT tomorrow. The drive is a little more than 2 hours one way, so it'll be a long day. The doctor comes very highly recomended so I'm very happy about that, but it's a long drive so we would appreciate all the prayers we can get.

A plane, A birthday, and a very sick baby

I realize I have been MIA for a while, but it's been a busy week around here. Last week, of course, we unexpectedly had 2 dentist visits instead of just one. BTW, the second didn't go any better than the first despite Daddy's appearance just before the trip in. Mom 2 Mom started on Friday and it was great, despite being an exhausting morning. I took about 200 pictures, but I'm not going to share them here as I don't actually have permission to use them outside of Mom 2 Mom.

After M2M, we headed out to a friend's house to see some airplanes. One of my best friends from high school is a big man at the local airport where there is an annual Stearman Fly-In this time every year. When we were in school, we all used to ditch class on Friday of the Fly-In to go out to his house where they serve lunch for all the Stearman pilots. I even got to go up in a stearman once. I was about the color of a marshmallow by the time we came down so that was the only time for that. But at least I did it. For those of you who aren't savvy with the airplane lingo, a stearman is also called a bi-plane (2 sets of wings) and it's completely open for both the pilot and passenger. Last year, I brought Micah and Jadon out to the fly-in luncheon with my friend, Val and her little girls, so since we're homeschooling this year I was really excited I could bring all the kids. They thought it was really cool.

Since I didn't take any pictures this year, I thought I would share a couple from last year.

We went home from the fly-in to take naps and give Chloe her first math test. But then JJ woke up from his nap with a fever which has continued off and on ever since. He actually seemed just fine on Saturday and Sunday, we even went to Andy's birthday party on Saturday (can you believe he's 11?)and to church on Sunday, but by Monday morning, he was feeling pretty crummy. Anyway, we've gone to the doctor twice and he seems to be doin a little better today. But I suppose we'll see tonight if he actually sleeps or if he's crying all night long like the last several nights.

Not my week

I think it's about time for me to start my week over entirely in the mothering department. If you count Saturday, I have locked my kid in the car with the keys, done only 1 full day of school(that's why you have to count Saturday) and yesterday I was completely baffled by disciplining my daughter.

Let me back up a minute.

Remeber this girl with the missing tooth? Well she has since lost another and has several more wiggling around. The problem is she's never actually had a dental checkup. It kinda slipped my mind for a while when I was having babies and putting tubes in their ears.(If you're healthy, you apparently don't get enough attention around here) So when she started kindergarten I just signed her up to get her teeth checked at the school. Then I forgot about it. And didn't remember to talk to her about it a month later when the fateful day came. Anyone who knows my girl can imagine her reaction when a stranger tells her she wants to mess around in her mouth. Not good. So the nurse called Grandma Ellen (I have no idea why she didn't call me) and Grandma let her watch the other kids, but that girl was getting nowhere near a dentist's chair.

So I eventually got around to making her an appointment with another dentist. Yesterday. She was really excited. Ready to let them do what they could to keep her teeth healthy. She sat very still and calm for the cleaning and the first part of the sealants. That's where things got dicey. They did sealants on one side but when the stopped to change sides, Miss Chloe decided she didn't want anyone to do anything else inside of her mouth. AT ALL. She screamed and cried. She clung to the arms of the chair so she couldn't be held back. To my shame, I even tried to bribe her. All to no avail. That girl would not be moved. So we made another appointment for today when Daddy would take her.

The thing of it is, this is not my girl. Never have I seen her admit what she is doing is wrong, tell me what she should do and then tell me that she will not do it. After stubbornly refusing to tell Kevin if she would obey him or me yesterday, she was sent to her room until she made a decision whether or not to lay down in the dentist's chair and obey. The girl was resolute. After about 10 minutes, she called to Kevin... just to tell him Jadon was in the room with her. Her obstinance still evident in her demeanor. Some time later, she called for him again. He fully expected her to remain in the room the rest of the day based on her previous behavior. But when he entered, it was as if Chloe had returned. She was no longer a disobedient, unrecognizable child. She was our girl. She apologized and told him he didn't have to take her to the dentist, she would obey for Mommy and the workers.

Now, we were very impressed with this change of attitude, but we are also not stupid. Daddy will be less than 5 minutes away from the dentist's office when we go today. But we will be praying it is an unnecessary precaution.

You know, the funny thing is, Chloe herself admitted several times that nothing hurt. It didn't even taste bad. She just decided she didn't want to do it anymore. I think that's the thing that scares me the most: how strong her will is, for no real reason other than asserting it. So anyway, if you find yourself with a spare minute this week, please pray for me. I think I need it.

Mother of the Year

You ever have one of those days that you just feel like a terrible Mom? Saturday was one of those for me.

It started off a little crazy, Jody called to say that all the girls (from around here) and all the kids were going to the "big city" to go shopping and did I want to go with them? Of course I did. So off we went. It takes about an hour to get there, with a short stop at the bank to get the air conditioned car from Daddy.

We did quite a bit of shopping as well as playing at the park over lunch. Around 5, Shelly and I were in the Marshall's parking lot trying to decide whether we were going home or going to Target or whatever else we could decide.

I put Jadon in the car so he could climb around and not play in the parking lot. He was pushing buttons, but the door was open and I was watching him, so it was no big deal.

That is until big brother thought it would be funny to shut the door on him. With my purse in there. And my keys in the purse. If you want to really freak yourself out, just lock your baby in the car with the keys when you are an hour away from the nearest spare set. I won't keep you in suspense, it took about 25 minutes for the police to get him out. We were trying to get JJ to unlock it himself, but he kept pushing "lock" instead of "unlock" (I'm guessing he did that about 15 times.)

Jadon stayed pretty happy most of the time. He thought it was a game. And he certainly enjoyed my half-full Dr. Pepper.

The officers who unlocked the car were fantastic, as were the paramedics who came to check him out, just in case. But the police officer stationed in the parking lot was a real bonehead. He kept asking me if I had OnStar and telling me that they can remotely open the car. They did that when he locked his dog in. I wonder what made him think that was helpful. And, Jadon's my kid, not my dog, definitely not the same thing to have your baby locked in a car.

I just realized that this is not the first time I've commented on boneheaded policemen. Please note, that I was very grateful for the 2 that came to unlock the car. I'm even grateful boneheaded guy was there. I can only assume he was unmarried without children to have made the comments he did. Totally unrelated to the policeman's duties. Just in need of some life experience.

Also, we have recently dealt with many police officers, many more than I have ever wanted to have need for. I am really grateful for their assistance with the baby in the car and the vandalism to the same car. And even blocking the traffic so I could turn around when Kevin was helping Tyler out the other day(another ridiculous car story). So many thanks to the boys in blue. Just be a little more sensitive to us crazy, tired Mamas.

Just a note: Jadon has now been fully educated on which button to push to actually get out of the car. Pray he never needs to remember that lesson.