Monday, November 20, 2006

A Tale of a few Stories

Just to prepare you I'm going to write a few different stories all in one post.


* My son and I both got a stomach flu. Man I hate puking, but I hate wondering if/when I'm going to puke more!

* My husband tries so hard to take care of me and the house when I'm sick but it drives me crazy that he won't come near me with a 10 foot pole because he's worried he's gonna catch something.

*It's been 4 days now and luckily my daughter and husband didn't catch whatever it was we had.



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* Did you ever hear the one about the girl that got ice stuck to her hand? You didn't! Well let me tell you about it! The kids love the fact that our new fridge/freezer comes with an icemaker. They couldn't get enough of that thing when it was warm outside. They would be constantly in the freezer getting ice then running outside and throwing it on the patio to watch it melt. We tried not to be too upset about it, we never had to worry about getting stale ice, the kids made sure to recycle it frequently.

Now that it's getting cooler they don't get into the ice quite as often but I still catch them in there sometimes. Nowadays though it's so they can have "cold, cold, COLD water". They'll get a little plastic cup, run into our bathroom (it's the only sink in the house they can reach) fill up their cup with water then run into the kitchen to get some ice. I've gotten used to this scenario so I tried not to let it bother me. It's just water, if it spills it will dry. I was pretending not to notice what was going on when I was brought out of my reverie by my little girl crying. Not surprising when she and big brother are together she's prone to start crying, but this was a different kind of cry. Besides Big Brother wasn't even near her.

When I found her she showed me her right hand. It had ice cubes stuck to every finger and a few stuck to the palm of her hand! She tried shaking them off and they wouldn't move. She tried pulling but they were pretty stuck! I think she was crying the most because it scared her that they were stuck. I tried not to laugh in amazement at the situation and walked her into the bathroom and ran water over her hand to get the ice to come unstuck. She must have tried to get some ice out of the freezer with wet hands. It had me giggling pretty good when I told her Daddy about it later. And you know what?!? They haven't played in the ice since!


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*It's always hard to accept that we're growing up, that we're getting older, that we're no longer the full of energy youngin's we once were. But you know what is even harder to accept? Knowing that our parents are getting older too. My husband and I were shocked with this revelation a few weeks ago while talking with my Mother-in-Law on the phone.

She grew up in Idaho, her father was a potato farmer, she studied horticulture in college before getting married. You might just say that there's a little dirt that runs through her veins. I've always loved going to their house in Idaho, there are so many beautiful flower beds all over their property. It's like walking through a plant catalog walking around the yard. She has worked for 15 years on those flower beds. She had a little help from her husband but mostly the help came from her two sons. My husband left and went to college, got married, moved away, she lost her most helpful assistant but she still had Sterling at home. He didn't LOVE gardening like my Mother-in-Law and my husband but he felt inclined to help. Now Sterling is away at college. My Mother-in-Law is a 4th grade teacher, working on her Master's degree and no longer has her son's around to help her with the yard. Yes, Juell, her 12 yr old daughter is still at home but isn't nearly the assistant as the boys were.

She just turned 50 this spring. Maybe that birthday made her realize she was getting older. Maybe the lack of helpful hands around the house made it frustrating. Maybe just understanding she doesn't have as much free time as she once did with teaching school and working towards her Master's pushed the decision. Whatever the reason it was a sad day when she had her husband rip out all the plants from the flower beds (except for two) and cover them over with mulch. She cried while it was being done. My husband and I practically cried when she told us about it. We're scared to go to the house and look at the yard and not see all the plants (yes even though it's dormant now). We never thought the day would come when she would think herself too old to keep up with her gardening. We definitely were shocked to learn the news.

(P.S. My husband asked me to write about this. He felt it was something important I should blog about.)


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* Wha....?!?! How did this happen? Well, ya, of course I know HOW? But How? It wasn't supposed to happen this way! We had it all planned. We had it all scheduled for when it would work the best for us and our little family. This was truly unexpected! It just goes to show you that no matter how much we think we got our lives under control, He knows what we need and when we need it more than we do!

I've gone through the full spectrum now. Having a hard time, not understanding why we weren't being blessed with something we so truly wanted and then expecting at exactly the best time for our situation. Then the getting what we wanted at exactly the time we wanted it even though it was a little close to the last one. Then this time around, where we were preventing and somehow it happened anyway.

This time around I have all the jokes running through my head:

-"You DO know how this happens, don't you?"
-"You know what causes pregnancy, right?"
-"Give me the name of a birth control and I'll give you a name of a child."
-"What did you do wash your underwear together?"
-"Did you get into the shower after him?"

And of course I have the insane thoughts too:

-"She's a walking baby factory now, isn't she?"
-"All she knows how to do is have babies huh?"

Yes I know, those are unfair, I am imagining the thoughts of other people and thinking that they're actually thinking it. Everyone knew we weren't going to have ONLY two kids. They should have expected an announcement of another pregnancy eventually. She is almost 2 1/2 now.

I just have to keep telling myself He knew better than we did. He knew another baby was supposed to come into our family NOW not a year from now. My due date is July 12th. My daughter's third birthday is July 17th.

"Every baby is a blessing."


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* We fly to Idaho tomorrow for the Thanksgiving holiday. My son's fourth birthday is on Wednesday. We have been counting down for literally two months now. He's so excited to fly on an airplane tomorrow and then his birthday is the day after that! I'm just excited I don't have to hear "I want that for my birthday." "I want to put that on my birthday list." Now I can look forward to hearing "I want that for Christmas." "I want to put that on my Christmas list."
Posted by ABQ Mom :: 11/20/2006 12:03:00 PM :: 6 Comments:

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