Happiest Day of My Life

I thought it was when he was born…. but I was wrong!!!! 

Today Mr. President learned to clean toilets!

Tribulation, thy name is Mother

It is 11:30 PM.  I just got done cleaning up the bathroom floor which was covered in a puddle of urine.  A wonderful surprise left by a sleep walking son that I literally stepped into.  The same son woke me up at 2 in the morning last night to tell me he’d thrown up and didn’t make it to the bathroom.  Throw up on a bunk bed ladder… not so fun to clean up.  And sandwiched in between those two fun clean up jobs I got to clean up blood from a major accident at our house this morning.  I have had possibly the most exhausting day as a mother that I’ve ever had, but here I sit, blogging.  It is therapeutic, for sure.

Blue Jeans (hereafter in this post referred to as BJ) loves to run all over the house and today he decided to run and then slide head first into a corner in the kitchen leaving a very deep (to the bone) gash in his beautiful little forehead.   My other boys now know what gushing blood means.  Which is good because if I don’t want to be disturbed I always tell them not to bother me unless the house is on fire or they are gushing blood.  As BJ was gushing blood I was running around trying to get everyone out to the car, get my shoes on and keep a towel pressed to his head to slow the blood flow while not passing out.  I managed to get the screaming baby and the other two boys out to the car when I realized I was missing some important clothing items and ran upstairs only to have to sit down with my head between my knees so I wouldn’t faint.  My baby was bleeding to death in the car and there I sat unable to get up.  It was awful.   I had been making myself breakfast when BJ ran into the wall and so had no food in my stomach which added to the light headedness.  At that point Mr. Pres, who was home sick from school (see middle of the night cleanup job from last night for details) then came into my room hysterical that BJ was going to die.  Amazingly enough I was able to talk coherently even with my head between my knees and was able to convince him, though I’m sure I didn’t sound very convincing, that Blue Jeans would be OK.  Finally after what felt like 10 minutes I was able to get up and go down stairs.  I thankfully smelled the burning egg on the stove on my way out to the car and a possible house fire was averted.  Miraculously, the bleeding had mostly stopped by the time I got to the car thanks mostly to 2 big brother’s prayers, I’m sure. 

To the Urgent Care we went.   I herded all three little boys into the urgent care, myself and BJ covered in blood.  The people there tried to be helpful and not stare at the horrible wound on my baby’s head and then sent me to the ER.  So back in the car we herded, my arm about to break off from holding BJ so long.  An angelic visiting teacher saved the day and met me at the ER to take the two older boys.  Funny that it was at that point-when my friend came to help- that I finally lost it and started to ball.  I then made my way into the ER.  I should add here that everywhere I went people cringed at BJ’s head.  It was almost amusing to see the police officer on duty at the ER cringe when he saw BJ.  Almost amusing.  In the ER we got to wait.  And wait.  And wait.  While I sat anxiously waiting and trying NOT to think about the horrible scar this would leave on his head Blue Jeans was as happy as could be.   It’s as if he didn’t know he had a huge gash in his head.  He climbed all over the bed, pulled all the cords, played with the lights and was just fine while we sat in our tiny room waiting and waiting and waiting. 

As you can see he was in pretty good spirits.  Notice there is no picture of me at this point.  I was NOT in such good spirits.  No shower, no food, covered in blood and worried.  Not pretty. 

Finally 3 1/2 hours after the incident actually occurred, a plastic surgeon was able to stitch his little forehead back together.  That was the worst part.  The surgeon stitched, the child specialist blew lots of bubbles to keep Blue Jeans distracted, and Blue Jeans and I cried.  Well his was really screaming.  It was a horrific experience to sit there helpless while your little one screams.  The Dr. kept telling me that he wasn’t in pain (they had numbed the area of course) and that BJ was just really mad because he couldn’t move (they had swaddled him up good and tight in the “Papoose” which is baby slang for straight jacket), but I don’t know that I believe him.  Either way it was painful emotionally for both of us.  But 16 stitches later Blue Jeans was fine.  Well, as fine as one could be with 16 stitches.  He was up again and wanting to blow the bubbles himself.   Physically and emotionally exhausted we headed home.  And as I drove away from the ER I contemplated the miraculousness of the fact that with 3 boys I have never been there before now! 
I wonder what surprises my 3 sons will have for me tomorrow. 

On Being Consistent

3 boys + Family Council= Dog pile. For all those who got to hear Elder Bednar’s talk in our church General Conference last weekend, I thought I’d share our family council attempt for today.

Here’s to being consistent!

If you didn't get to hear Elder Bednar's talk, see Suggestion Number Three in his talk here:
http://lds.org/conference/talk/display/0,5232,23-1-1117-6,00.html

Twilighted

First, I caught him hugging my Twilight book.

And then the real truth came out….(note, you have to click on the pictures to get the full effect)

Happy October!

Dedicated to my mom who sang this to me as a child every Halloween.

Sunday Comics

As we were driving home from church the boys were talking about how far away our church building is from where we live.  (only 15 minutes, but to a boy that’s forever) and Go Go pointed out that Grandma and Grandpa Hymas are so close they can WALK to their church.  Mr. President then said,  “Wow, they must have paid extra for that!”

Though any of you who know my children will laugh at this, we do have a family rule called Peace at our house.  The boys know that loud yelling and fighting break the “Peace” in our home.  Yes, I know, we have a long way to go on that one.  But anyway, Go Go was once again yelling loudly at his big brother for a very small offense and so I tried to tell him that he was breaking the peace in our home by yelling so loud.  He looked at me blankly and said, “What peace?” 
Like I said, long way to go.

Growing Pains

The whole Friend thing is new to me.  We had virtually no little kids in the neighborhood in Duvall for the boys to play with so they always played on their own in our backyard or we had to set up a play date.  Now there are children on all sides of us and the boys want to play all the time at the neighbors homes!  In fact I just had to turn down a little boy who came to play because the boys were already gone at another neighbor’s house!  I felt so sad for him! 
This is all very new to me!  And part of me is thrilled.  But part of me is sad.  They come home from school in the afternoon and I want to spend time with them, read to them, play games with them or just cuddle like we used to and there’s no time!  Between school and friends and homework where is my time with my children?  As many of you know this was one of my reasons for wanting to home school the kids.  I want the best part of their day to be with me, not the leftovers.  So I’m torn.  They so badly need to learn to play with others and gain those skills and be free to run around and be wild and yet I am struggling to find time with them!  We haven’t even started any sports or other activities yet!  It’s just a hard adjustment to go from having them all the time to having them hardly at all.  Some people would be thrilled at the prospect.  But I’m not there yet.  They will only be this little for a short time after all.  As they all sat around the little table eating snack together I had a “Please don’t ever grow up” moment. 

And as if my pain weren’t enough as the older boys run off to play….

Really it just breaks your heart!  Growing up is hard.  For mom especially.