Kids – Page 6 – xangelle.com

2 Stitches

As if we didn’t have enough drama in our lives right now, Siah decided to shake things up a little last night.

Jon, Jeremy and Siah were down in the basement playing a video game. Siah was sitting on the arm rest of our futon and he unbalanced himself and fell forward hitting his head on the corner of a wooden toy box.

Breakfast

Mom, the girls, Judah and I were up in the kitchen and heard the thunk. It was that loud. Then we heard Jon yell and then we heard Siah crying and it was “one of those cries.”

I raced downstairs and met Jon at the bottom of the stairs. He handed Siah off to me and there was blood everywhere. I could see that his head was split open in between his eyes. We came up stairs and got a rag to try to stop the blood. It was apparent that he’s need stitches.

First Bite

We hoped that we could make it to the local clinic that did Jeremy’s stitches as we’ve talked with them about our challenges of dealing with germs and sickness due to Angelica’s suppressed immune system, BUT….it was 7:30pm and they were closed at 8pm and they were already over booked for the day and were not even answering their phone.

And so Jon headed to the ER.

The plan was for Jon to wear a mask into the ER and explain the situation and see how they could work with us to get Siah the care that he needed while attempting to keep us as germ free as possible.

The staff at Langley Hospital were amazing.

Geli’s Delicious Cinnamon Buns

They didn’t have any open rooms at the time, but they planned to get a room emptied and clean out and to bring Jon and Siah in and straight back to the closed room as soon as possible. They gave Jon a small mask for Siah to wear in and out and in the waiting time, they stayed in the van to minimize the possibility of picking anything up from other ill people.

They waited in the van and the triage nurse came out to the van to assess Siah and yup….he needed stitches.

It took a few hours, and in the mean time, Siah fell asleep.

See Food

When the room was finally ready, Jon carried the sleeping Siah in. He said that they got quite a few looks, as he’d been in and out with his mask on and now they were carrying a limp child in with a mask on….can you imagine that others in the waiting room must have been wondering what was wrong with this child that they had to wear masks????

Jon tried to wake Siah up to explain what was about to happen, but he had tired himself out so badly with his initial screaming when it happened that he was NOT waking up. He was in that drowsy state where you’re not really awake but not really asleep. They finally wrapped him like a burrito to keep him from being able to move his arms and the Dr checked to see that Jon was okay with what was going to happen and once he was sure that Jon wasn’t going to flip out….they started.

They had already put on a fast acting numbing cream and they started injecting the freezing and that’s when Siah woke up for real. So in his mind, probably, he went to sleep and was woken up to some dude poking his head with a needle. AWESOME! Jon said he screamed until he wasn’t breathing. Brutal! The Doctor only put in two stitches because he figured that was about all that Siah could handle and even though he was being quick, it was still pretty traumatic.

He told Jon that the cut was extremely straight and that it should heal amazingly because it was such a precise cut.

2 Stitches

They masked up again and came home. Siah settled down pretty quickly once Jon was able to hold him and was almost asleep by the time they reached the van.

They got home before 11pm….not bad considering the waits in ER’s now a days.

He went to bed right away and slept through until 6am when he crawled into bed with us.

This morning he seems to be doing okay and so we are just gonna take it easy today. Geli’s doing pretty good this morning too. We were attempting to adjust her meds schedule around so that we were not having to wake up at 3am to give her a dose, but that meant that she might be a little barfy this morning. She did feel a bit off and dry heaved for about 45 minutes off and on until the meds finally kicked in. Her and Siah are back downstairs in the basement this morning. She is teaching Josiah how to play the original NES Nintendo Super Mario Brother’s game. He’s thrilled and she’s distracted and it’s good.

This is now the 4th of our 5 kids that have gotten stitches in their head…..when she was about 8 years old, Geli wacked her head open on a floor heater and needed 3 stitches. When Xani was about 10, her cousin went all vmapire on her and tried to take a bite out her head while they were jumping on a trampoline and she needed 3 stitches. A few weeks ago, Jeremy got 3 stitches in his chin and now Josiah has had 2 stitches in between his eyes…..GAH!

I’m really hoping and praying that Judah stays safe and protected.

Do you have any cool stories about “that time you got stitches” or your kids……Please share!

First Days

I’m blown away that we’ve made it to the first day of school. That means that we’re in September and wasn’t it only like yesterday on June 16th that our world was rocked….

The whole summer has managed to slip right passed us and here we are staring fall in the face as it comes barreling towards us at full speed.

Xandra and Jeremy are headed to school for…….are you ready for it……..an hour. I was tempted to just keep them home as the excitement of getting up and getting ready is completely chaotic and them to only have them home and “bored” in a hour…..well, that’s hardly even enough time to get a cup of coffee, sit down and enjoy it….throw in a couple of trips to the toilet for Siah, a feeding for Judah and well……so much for an hour of quiet time, eh?

Oh well….there is always Wednesday and let me tell you, I’m looking forward to Wednesday.

Jon and Geli are headed into an appointment at Children’s Hospital. They need to be there for 10:15am and once there, they need to find out Geli’s counts (which at last report were brutal, almost non-existent low and are expected to be even lower), then she has two intra-muscular injections (one in each thigh) of a chemo med, and one IV chemo med and then…….they come home. We are hoping, hoping, HOPING that the rest of this week is SO boring and that we have absolutely no medical updates on how Geli is doing because there is absolutely NOTHING to report on…..that would be the most awesome week ever.

(This is the most recent picture I have of Geli. She is growing up to be such a beautiful young lady.)

She is doing well. She is still a bit nauseous and gags and dry heaves from time to time. This is particularly frustrating as she is on 2 types of drugs to kill the nausea 24/7 and a third one if things are still bad. I hate that she’s on that much medicine all the time but if the alternative is barfing, well….that’s worse and we’ll do what we have to not deal with that. She has pretty much gained back most of the weight that she lost in her two to three week barfing stint.

We finally got a referral to a podiatrist regarding her toes and he was able to help some. He’s been able to alleviate some of the swelling and irritation which helps with the pain, but the biggest concern is with the infection in the tissue surrounding the toenails. With her White Blood Counts too low to be able to fight any infection, she must be on an antibiotic. What we’d really like to see is a miracle with her toenails growing out quickly and all infection gone.

She is annoyed and frustrated with the sheer number of pills she needs to swallow multiple times in a day. Its hard to “have” to be always responsible and take all your meds and drink 2+ Litres of water and eat at all the right times. She is doing well, but we can tell that it wears on her sometimes. There is so much for a 13 year old to be dealing with and really, no child should be dealing with all of this.

School will be interesting this year. Geli is excited about starting Grade 8 and I think that having something to do will be so good for her. She has definitely perked up since we started talking about school and school work and routines and supplies. We bought her an Agenda and she’s even started filling it out already with the dates of her Chemo appts and other dates that she knows in regards to school. She is enrolled in the local High School and will attend when her counts are good enough, but will also do a fair amount of work at home or in the hospital. There is a meeting at the school scheduled for this Thursday and we should have more info after that meeting.

We are in the final stretch of this second stage of the chemotherapy treatment, and the third stage is scheduled to start on Tuesday September 21 as long as her counts are good.

We just keep moving one step forward day by day and hoping and praying for the best. This is not an easy road and I can’t help but think of others who have been through this or similar roads and I feel sick that I didn’t understand or know or realize the extent of what they were going through, I’m so entirely grateful to everyone who is walking along side of us. There are times when Jon and I feel so overwhelmed and burdened and yet we know that we are not alone, and even in our darkest moments of pain and fatigue or when we “feel” alone we know that there are so many (YOU) standing with us and supporting us with your love and prayers and thoughts. It helps us to keep on fighting, and so once again – We thank you!

It’s “THE CALM” …………

I don’t want there to be any storm following this calm period and so we’re just stopping with, “THE CALM!”

This past week has been – shall I dare to day it – FABULOUS….you know as far as chemo and side effects and Lumbar Punctures and Full Body Bone Scans because of legs that refuse to un-gimp themselves despite physio and chiro and massage and…

Well, We’ve got one full complete week under our belts and Angelica is doing AMAZING.

Honestly, I think that she is feeling better than she’s felt in months. It’s awesome to hear her bossing around and bagging at her brothers and sister. It sounds so “normal”. She was so quiet and down and tired and….well, when I look back, I think she had been sick for a while. So not cool! She has life in her eyes, a spark in her step and… an edge to her voice (hee hee) that has been so lacking for a long time.

The chemo make her feel a little “off” but over all she’s doing okay. We are trying some different options for her with her oral meds and it seems like it’s helping with feeling yucky in the mornings.

Her leg has finally started playing nice and is stretching out nicely and not hurting her any more, and the bone scan showed that she has a fabulously healthy teenage skeleton with no issues.

She is headed into Children’s early tomorrow for another Lumbar Puncture and a IV shot of Chemo. They are going to take her bloodwork and we should know where her levels are at that point. They are expecting her levels to all have dropped or to be dropping and to be at their lowest by the end of this week. This can be a little scary or nerve wracking as we feel a bit on high alert for anything “going wrong”. She could get a fever and end up in the hospital for 2 weeks on a run of antibiotics and that would TOTALLY SUCK!

We are asking for prayer over this time that Geli would remain infection free and that things would just carry along smoothly and that we’d be able to continue along with the treatment plan with no side effects and no delay of treatment. If her counts go too low, they have to delay the treatment until her counts come up….

She is also scheduled to go and pick up her wig this week, and that should be so much fun!

I’m feeling….well, I’m feeling all over the place.

I’m trying to hard to stay on top of things….the house, the meals, the laundry, the kids….and I feel like if I don’t keep going, that I’ll get behind and everything will fall apart or become completely overwhelming. I feel like I’m going in super mega overdrive from the moment I get up until the moment I get into bed and even then….all I can think of is everything I didn’t get accomplished that is piling up on top of everything else on the list for the next day.

I also find that emotionally, mentally and physically, I have nothing in reserve and so it takes very little to deplete whatever energy I had and then I crash.

For someone who thinks she can “do it all” this is so SO frustrating. I feel so upset and angry at myself. I know that our child was diagnosed with cancer and then I spent 2 weeks living in a hospital with little to no sleep before I had a baby and then went home to care for 4 kids for a week, and then headed back to the hospital for another week with a newborn and that I was riding a wicked WICKED emotional roller coaster during all this time, but to see and feel how “off” I am – it’s so discouraging.

Geli went and visited my mom (across the street) on Saturday and so we took the opportunity to run a few errands. I went into the first store while everyone else waited in the car and by the time I came out – 15 mins later – I was DONE! Honestly, Emotionally and Physically, I was spent and yet……..We HAD to go grocery shopping and we also needed to hit another store on our way home.

I know that the easiest thing, would be to just say….well, we’ll do it later. But, honestly, there is so little “available” time with Jon or the van and by the time the evening rolls around…I’m so spent from the day…I’m not doing anything except praying everyone goes down early so I can too.

So, I powered through, got home and lost it. AWESOME!

But, we have groceries, and the rest of the week planned out and taken care of and so at least that’s one thing that I can scratch off the list.

Honestly, things are so “off” around here and its showing in everyone. Everyone is off just a bit. Xani is melting down regularly. Josiah is testing every boundary and doing so in either a whine or a scream. Jeremy is fixated on the computer to the detriment of everything else in life. Geli is addicted to solitaire on her iTouch. Jon is short and testy with everyone and I’m exhausted and so close to falling apart. It’s brutal!

This is so far off of how I “see” my family being. This is so far off of everything that I’ve worked for for years and yet…..right now we are just coping…and barely doing that.

I’m scared. I’m scared that Geli will end up in the hospital for another big chunk of time and I’m not sure that I could handle all of that very well. Obviously, I get no choice…I’d have to handle it and yet, it’s the “very well” part that I’m concerned about.

This is difficult.

I’ve sat down tonight purposing to write something…anything (as it’s been a few days) and yet I have nothing concise or well thought out to share. I feel like I’m just blathering on and on and on with no clear point to make and I don’t want to come across whining and yet…this is hard.

This is brutal tough road to walk and yet, walk it, we must!

It feels like we are just scraping enough energy together to just be able to put one foot in front of the other. There are a million e-mails that we want to respond to. Phone calls that need to be returned. People to be connected with……and no time to do it in. Or even if there is a smidgen of time, there is little to no energy to do it with.

We hope that no one takes it personally, if we don’t respond in any sort of a timely manner.

There are only so many things that we can cram into one day and some days………well, lets just say that most days we feel like we are sinking and a good day feels like we’ve treaded water all day and just managed to hold steady.

I’m trying to believe that things are getting easier and I think they are. Slowly, but surely…I think they are. I hope?!?

One day! One hour! One minute! One breath!……..

One too many things to juggle

I was talking with Patti the other day about the ‘costs’ of dealing with a child with cancer. The medical protocol is a well tuned machine at this point, but the schedule for visits, drug administration, tests, etc. has the hours of a full time job. We can see how a family could loose everything, or have to sell a house, or something to get through this, because you can’t go back to “normal”.

In our situation, there are some things that we are finding hard to balance. 1) we have a daughter who is fighting cancer (and winning). 2) we have a new-born son who requires a lot of holding and feeding and usual new-born stuff. 3) we have a 2 year old that is very busy and wants to touch and climb and jump and run and search for gum, not to mention spitting, throwing food, peeing his pants, dumping makeup on the floor, and he also has an egg and dairy allergy that keeps us on our toes. 4) we have work to fit in there somewhere. 5) oh yea, there are two other kids, one that has AD/HD, and one that has well developed adult emotions.

Patti is a very organized and capable person… she could do any combination of 1+2, 1+3, or 2+3, but 1+2+3 is too much. I could do the work thing, or carry the load of the one that patti cant carry, but both is really hard. We are trying to find balance and we have very understanding work situations and supportive family and it is still almost more than we can carry.

Today serves to show what I mean. I have a daughter that needs new glasses and needs a visit to the optometrist that we really trust in abbotsford, but he only works a few days a month here and we booked a visit… but had to move the visit because of a conflict with an appointment for Angelica. I’m not usually the one that would organize this stuff, but we are all giving-and-taking. the appointment got moved to Thursday and i made sure to take the last appointment slot at 6:00 so I could make it and I JUST made it after driving ALL day.

The receptionist looks at me blankly and says “I don’t have your kids booked today”. ???

It seems that NEXT Thursday they are booked and that detail was overlooked in the conversation between Angelica’s doctors and me taking the call from the optometrist’s office and trying to remember all the details for everything until I could write it down…

I sigh and realize that I will have to do this trip again next week and that… I have one too many things to juggle.

Jon

United Together – Day 4 Summary

It was a Sunday and normally on Sunday’s we are up and moving at the crack of dawn or depending on the time of the year….even before then. But yesterday, we slept in.

It didn’t help that we stayed up too late the night before watching a movie; but, it was a nice evening for Gelica, Jon and I.

We finally did get up and moving and while Geli ate some breakfast we watched another movie. Sometimes you just gotta do something to pass the time. And then at other times….you blink and you’ve lost the past 4 hours and it felt like 15 minutes.

Here is a picture of Angelica’s Room.

It’s tiny and the cot (for me to sleep on) doesn’t help with the squishy feeling). What you can’t see from this position is that there is a sink directly to the left straight ahead of my cot and a TV/DVD player hung up on the wall above the sink.

Nana Karen brought Xandra and Siah in for Father’s Day and it was nice to see them. Siah’s been aware of the change of routine and not having Mommy, Daddy or Geli around. He was very happy to see Geli today.

Angelica was allowed to be unhooked from her IV pole for 2 hours today and actually has a standing order for 2 hours a day unhooked….WooHoo! We decided to get off our ward and head on out exploring.

Well, We made it to the Lobby of the Hospital where we found the gift shop and Siah found a tiny toy station……. So we waited for him for a bit…..

It was SOOOOOO Exciting….NOT!

But, that is life with a little brother…..they like to play and explore and RUN REALLY FAST!!!!! Even in Hospital Hallway’s when Mommy and Daddy are yelling as quietly as possible for him to SLOW DOWN!!!!!

We made it over to the Starbucks and along the travels we managed to scratch Angelica’s left foot and run over the two smallest toes on her right foot. Seeing as her platelets were so low….that scored us a free bag of platelets once we made it back to the ward.

But, before our 2 hours of free, untethered time was up we made it down to the cafeteria for some fries and a Cheeseburger…..On our way back up to the room, we met up with Aunty Sherry. She popped by for a visit before she had to be at work at the hospital down the road….

After Aunty Sherri left Mommy and Daddy watched Siah in the playroom and Gelica and Xandra stayed in the room and played on the computer…..

And Colored…….

Geli looks so pretty doesn’t she?

Later in the Afternoon, Nana Cully came by with Geli’s Grade 7 Grad Dress. They are working on the last minute fittings…..it’s pretty cute isn’t it? Geli’s pretty excited.

She rested for about an hour before the time of the day that she had been looking forward to all day long…………Her school friends came to visit…but I think I’ll post about that adventure separately….

We’re all doing well. I’m feeling huge and although I’m okay with our little man staying inside a it longer….I’m also aware that every day we pass means that he gets a little bit bigger and if I’m being totally honest….I’m a little concerned about popping out a 10 pound baby. But……ya gotta do what ya gotta do, right?

We’re up and at ’em this morning (Monday morning) and we’ve (Me and Geli) already brushed our teeth and eaten some cereal. Fruit Loops for Geli and I had a bowl of Frosted Flakes – definitely the breakfast of champions…I might add some strawberries just to round it all out health wise, eh?

Jon stayed over night at the Easter Seals house which is about 3 blocks away. He was finding the teeny, tiny scrawny, short couch in the playroom to be a bit uncomfortable. Hopefully, he got a god sleep last night….it’s just 9am here and we haven’t heard from him yet.

Alright, gotta ditch the jammies and possibly put on some make up…..don’t wanna scare the residents away….

Thanks so much for praying for us. Geli is not feeling sick to her stomach or having any pain. So please continue to pray that her body responds to the Chemo by killing the Leukemia Cells and that there would be no negative side effects to go along with it. We believe that God can work miracles….and we believe that we are seeing those miracles every day. Thank you so much.

Also, you could pray for Jon and I that we would get good rest, be at peace always, and have wisdom and grace in dealing with every facet of this situation. And for the other kids and our family and friends that are helping us out that everyone would also be at peace and that everything would work together and that no one would feel tired or stressed or worn out or nervous or any of those other things that a situation like this could possibly carry with it….

Geli loves reading the comments from you all. It’s so nice to hear who’s praying for us and to hear how Geli’s Story has spread around around the world and is uniting so many people together in faith and hope…….

We love you all.

LIttle Bit ‘O This and a Little Bit ‘O That

I’m sitting on the main level of my house killing time listening to my baby scream his head off because he,
“WAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNTTTTTSSSSSS MMMMMMOOOOOOOOOMMMMMMMAAAAAAA!” and seeing as he is mostly over the whole measles thingy and I’m so tired of his incessant night waking, we have started to institute the

Back to Bed, Baby! Initiative.

This involves getting up every time he wakes up and putting him back in his own bed. He is in a bed, and so he can easily get out and the biggest issue that we have is not even him coming to our bed in the middle of the night.

The biggest issue is the fact that since the while measles thing, he’s been waking up around 11 or 12 and screaming for no reason that we can figure out. He is quite verbal (as in everyone who hears him speak can’t believe he’s only 2 years old) and his language skills are quite advanced and so if he so desired, he could tell us if there was an issue…..I think that he’s OVERTIRED and can’t even really handle himself. You should see the dark circles he’s currently sporting under his eyes. Poor Baby.

The 11-midnight scream fest comes in a close second in the frustration factor. The number one issue is that he’s decided that regardless of whether we let him sleep with us or if we put him back in to his own bed, around 2am, he wakes up and then is basically restless and awake from 2am until after 5am. This time usually involves TONS of thrashing around. Crying because the covers are on. Crying because the covers are off. Kicking mommy and daddy in the head/stomach/back/whatever happens to be closest to the thrashing feet. Crying because we won’t let him watch a movie. Crying because he wants to go to the bathroom. Crying because he doesn’t want to go to the bathroom. Basically, there is lots of crying and very little sleep.

And so, it is time to learn how to sleep again.

This likely means that we will get even less sleep over the next 3-4 nights as we sleep train him to stay asleep or at the very least, to once again stay on his bed. YUCK! but it will be so worth it by next weekend when we are all sleeping soundly. I hope I’ve not jinxed it by saying that.

************************

It was my baby girl’s 13th Birthday today. Angelica became a teenager today. I’m still a a bit amazed that I have a teenager and yet….it’s really not that different feeling from yesterday as she was quick to tell me. Time sure flies doesn’t it.

**************************

Jon and Jeremy went to church today and Xani and Siah and I stayed home. Siah’s still officially within the contagious time period and Xani was coughing like a mad woman. We made coffee cake and an egg/hashbrown hash-type breakfast. We cleaned the kitchen and then sewed like crazy.

I’ll be showing you over the next little bit some of the fun things that I made. Xani made 2 pillows and she did a pretty good job, if I do say so myself.

***************************

We’ve filled and hidden the kid’s Easter Baskets and tomorrow morning we’ll have a treasure hunt for the kids. They are looking forward to it and if it weren’t for Geli’s birthday being today we probably would have done them today, but I wanted to make her birthday special. We had her favorite meal of roast chicken, and potatoes, with carrots and asparagus and gravy AND…..Yorkshire Pudding. And she was a very happy girl. We’ve still not given her a gift or even had a cake so I’m not sure how special of a day it was, but ….well…….ya know……it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it?

****************************

I’m still trying to come up with a fun activity for us to do as a family tomorrow……ya know, one that involves being trapped inside the house with a contagious child….ya! should be fun! It’s been a long LOOOOOOOOOONG week and I still have a few days left to go.

***************************

The baby has been making the funniest movements. I’ve been bent over the sewing machine and apparently, he didn’t like being squished because he kept trying to streeeeeeeeeeeeetch out and kept kicking out the sides of my body towards my back. It felt so weird, and yet……….TOTALLY AMAZING. Baby movements are the best thing ever.

***************************

Some people from our complex just had a stillborn at 24 weeks. One week shy of when Nathaniel was born. My heart os breaking for them and all they are going through right now. I only hope that I can, in some small way, reach out and be a support or comfort to them. I’m feeling stressed that I’m pregnant, though and am feeling cautious as to how that might make them feel. So many sad conflicting emotions. In some ways, it’s like reliving the whole loss over again. So SO sad!

****************************

Well, after half an hour, it’s quiet and so I’m gonna sign off and head up stairs to bed. I hope you all had a great Easter Sunday with great food and hopefully lots of chocolate…….

28 weeks

The weeks are flying by. I feel like I just said that I have 13 weeks left and BAM! A whole week has passed by and I’m annoyed with myself that I’ve not “accomplished” anything on my “list of things to do before the baby comes”.

Recently I’ve painted my bedroom and my bathroom, BUT….I’m not finished the job. In my bedroom, I have to finish touching up the edges on two walls down by the baseboards and I need to finish up the trim in my bathroom as well. I have 2 small walls and around the shower and in a corner between my bathtub and a wall to finish touching up.

So, it’s not like I have a ton to do in either of those rooms, but the knowledge that it’s undone…..well, it’s weighing on me. Maybe I’ll try to get it finished up tomorrow……or maybe not.

I also want to paint a mini-crib that I’ll be using. I need to sand it, prime it and paint it. Then I need to pick up some fabric and make some sheets, a bumper and a blanket. I also want to make a few coordinating (with the crib set) covers for the change table.

I still need to get some curtains for my bedroom and to figure out what (art, photo, picture, etc) we are going to put on our walls. I also need to find a bed spread that fits in with the color and feel of my bedroom (not hard…I can just do all white or some combo of white, tan, chocolate and turquoise).

I do need to go through my baby stuff and figure out what I might need and what I want and to start to stock up on some of the disposable items.

Seeing how fast this past week flew by, I know that if I blink – then next thing I know I’ll be holding my baby and nothing will be done. Which, in the grand scheme of things is not the end of the world and I know that. Everything will eventually get done and even if it doesn’t, the baby will still come and we will make do and it will all be okay. BUT….I want to get all this stuff done – if I can!

Here is a picture of me from yesterday.

For a fun comparison, Here is a picture of me at 27 weeks (it was either that or the next one I have is at 30 weeks) pregnant with Josiah.

On another note, I’m having a bit of a “Fat Day”. I just feel gross and fat and awful about myself.

I’m sure that I’ll change my thinking soon. I do weigh more than I did at this point with Josiah, but that’s because I had spent 3 months losing weight and prepping my body to be pregnant when I got pregnant with Siah. With this pregnancy, I was attempting to lose weight and to get healthy, but there were no plans of a baby anywhere in those plans.

I’ve been exercising during this pregnancy and for the most part, I feel amazing about myself. Yes, I know that I am at a heavier weight than I’d like to be, but I am WAY more fit and I’m certain that I have built muscle and that once I can work a bit harder at “losing” weight that I’ll be able to attain a better, more suitable goal for myself.

I do spend a total of 6 hours a week in a too revealing exercise outfit in front of floor to ceiling mirrors and have come to love my body (for the most part) over the past 8 months. I rarely have “bad” days in regards to my body image and I used to have a TON of them. I see how I have changed and toned and tightened and I am mostly happy with myself. I see beauty where I didn’t ever think that I’d see beauty – fat, stretch marks, double chins, under arm flab and all.

And then today…..I saw some pictures of myself working out and then took these pics and while I know that pics do show the truth, they often show a side of the truth and that the full, moving view of myself is different than a still shot, but….still……I guess I’m feeling sensitive today.

I’m determined that I’m going to throw off this funk and feel beautiful about myself again. I’m worth believing in myself and seeing the strength and beauty in my personal shape and form. I want to live like that for myself and to be able to pass that belief onto my girls especially, but also, I want for my boys to be able to see that I believe in my own strength and beauty and for them to be able to find and see beauty in everyone………28 weeks pregnant and all.

Getting the Kids Involved

I have a 2 week meal plan.

I posted a while ago about wanting to try planning a month of meals and have never gotten around to actually making it happen.

I still believe that it’s a good idea and would like to test it out soon.

I am also aware that soon I shall have a newborn and all the fun and sleeplessness that brings.

As a general rule, I expect my children to help out around the house. I like to think that I have a pretty good balance or at the very least that I’m attempting to have a pretty good balance when it comes to allowing my kids to just be kids, but at the same time learning valuable life lessons.

All 3 of the older kids know how to do laundry from picking up the dirty clothes all the way through to putting the clean clothes back into their drawers. This does not mean that they always do their own laundry, nor do they always put their dirty clothes into the dirty clothes hamper, nor do they always put their clean folded clothes into their drawers, BUT….that is the goal and we manage to accomplish this a decent portion of the time.

All three of the kids also know how to cook and while Angelica and Alexandra obviously know more than Jeremy does, I am confident that all three of them could put together a decent meal with very little prompting using both the stove and the oven and having a balance of veggies, carbs and protein in the meal. This is not to say that if we had a box of sugar cereal in the cupboard that they would bypass the sugar cereal to have a well balanced meal….no, they are actually normal kids, BUT, they do know HOW to prepare a balanced, nutritious and delicious meal AND…..they regularly get the opportunity to grow these skills.

Each kid helps out with making meals and with cleaning up after them about twice a week. Even Siah gets in on the action in whatever small ways he can. That kid can help to make a mean batch of pancakes, let me tell you.

I know that with the new baby coming that I will need the kids to pitch in and help out, maybe even more than they are right now…

I don’t want it to feel like I’m “dumping” anything on them when the baby comes and so I’d rather start preparing them now so that when the baby does come….it’s just a normal part of their lives and responsibilities.

I had the three older kids sit down with me on Sunday night and we planned out the next 2 weeks of meals. They each got to pick their favorites and which nights we would make them on and I think that also helps for them to feel invested in this concept of meal planning.

They are constantly asking what’s for dinner anyway and so now we have the next two weeks planned out and listed on our big fridge calendar and the kids are excited to help out on their nights to be able to make their favorite meals.

Here is what we had/have planned for this week

Monday: Homemade Chili and Rice

Tuesday: Chicken and Bean Fajita’s

Wednesday: Beef and Broccoli

Thursday: Almond Chicken and Veggies over Rice

Friday: Roast Chicken with Potatoes & Veggies

Saturday: Nacho’s

Sunday: Bar-B-Que Chicken and Potatoes and Salad

I love that the kids are excited about helping out. It makes such a HUGE difference that they have “buy-in”. I’m looking forward to seeing how this idea plays out.

Again, it’s not that my kids are perfect, and they have their days when nothing seems to go right for them and they melt down regardless of how excited they were at one point, but when they are looking forward to something and it was their choice…..there are a lot less break downs, melt downs and flip outs. And that makes for a much less stressed and a much more peace filled environment.

Do you have a meal plan? Do you involve your kids and if so, how? What seems to work best for you?

Keeping Records or Creating Memories

I spent a good portion of yesterday creating pages in a scrapbook.

I bought a small scrapbook for this baby because I really wanted to be able to keep a record of this pregnancy and to be able to “hopefully” capture the memories after.

I figured that if I went with one of the small scrapbooks that takes pages that are 8″ x 8″ that maybe…just maybe the smaller sized page wouldn’t seem so intimidating.

I also told myself that I wasn’t looking to create “the most gorgeous scrapbook” out there. I wanted this to be a cross between keeping records and documenting the memories. I was looking to create the feeling of an old spiral bound paper covered scrapbook.

I have some old scrapbooks from when I was a teenager and I love the informality that my old paper covered spiral bound scrapbooks have. It’s like they hold all my secrets.

Years ago, when my girls were little, I started a scrapbook for each of them. The big 12 x 12 pages….

I’ve realized a few things that really got me bogged down in regards to those scrapbooks.

1. I was trying to create the most gorgeous, elaborate pages ever known to man.

2. I tried to document EVERY. SINGLE. PHOTO that we took

3. I was trying to “copy” other people’s ideas of a scrapbook

I managed to work through a few things (in my head) yesterday and that leads me to a plan that I believe will really work for me.

1. I’m creating a more laid back feeling scrapbook.

Yes, I’m still using pretty paper and the odd sticker or ribbon or embellishment, BUT….these books “look” way more like me. A little laid back, but neatly laid out with special memento’s of certain days and events tied in with the pictures.

2. I’m highlighting only key moments or ages or events.

I actually worked on both this baby’s scrapbook and on Siah’s scrapbook. While working on Siah’s book, I’ve decided that I’m going to scrapbook ahead with this baby’s book and create pages for 1 month, 2 months, 3 months and so on…up to 12 months. I’m going to create first visit pages for the grandparents and for other key visitor’s. I’m currently working on Siah’s book even though I have no photo’s printed out. I managed to create about 12 pages for him yesterday and have a list of pictures that I know that we have on the computer that I need to just print out. I’ll just load them onto a USB and run down to the closest Shopper’s Drug Mart and print them out with the instant photo center and then slap them in and VOILA! A ton of pages completed.

I’m actually going to go and pick up another 3 scrapbooks and recreate books for Geli, Xandra and Jeremy, highlighting the first month, then a monthly pic or two and possibly some Easter or Halloween or special holiday’s. I think that I can get MUCH further with WAY less personal frustration and I’ll feel WAY more productive and good about actually accomplishing something with these “memory” books.

3. I’m being true to myself in what I’m creating.

I want a book that is a combo of pictures and special treasures or notes. For example, one of the pages that I created for Siah was a page with “notes” that I scribbled down in the early days with him. I had saved all the cards that people gave me and I was able to create a pocket with one of the cards and I tucked these “notes” into this created pocket. I love that I can look back one day and pull out a piece of paper that I wrote down little notes about his feeding, sleeping and pooping habits. One note has his weight on one day within the first month scribbled onto it. Another piece of paper has notes to myself with a grocery list, a note to book swimming lessons for the kids and a few different Dr. Appointments listed down. I tucked some ribbon that I had saved from one of his first presents behind the little envelope and the overall look is something casual, but cute and I love it.

I think that this will work for me. I think that I can actually accomplish this.

Seriously, I probably knocked out over 20+ pages yesterday and it was amazing to feel like I could have kept going. I am looking forward to creating more pages for both this new baby and also for Josiah and I’m feeling really good about being able to put something together for the older 3 kids as well.

I do also keep a small “treasure box” for each of my kids. It has their first outfits, the hat they got in the hospital, their first shoes, their first sweaters, hand prints and/or foot prints from different ages……the first tooth, first hair cut. That kind of stuff. The kids LOVE to go through their boxes and look at their stuff. They also suggest that we keep and put stuff in the boxes. So I know that they love and treasure these boxes, just as much as I do.

Do you scrapbook? Why or why not? Are you amazingly creative or do you just throw things in a book and call it done? Did you keep scrapbooks when you were younger? Do you have some other method of keeping memories and treasures?

Let me know what works for you?

Guest Post – recent noteables

*** Guest Post by Jon ***

As Patti is consumed with prego related stuff, I thought I would jump on here and record some of the fun little things that have been going on here that I will want to come back and read one day later. You know the saying “One day you’ll look back and laugh”… That saying means that you are not laughing now and yet you need the presence of mind to record the events, ’cause you know that one day you might just snicker a little.

File these under 2 yr old experiments…
1) Both boys stayed home sick today and I got the short straw and Patti went into the office. I was helping J with some overdue homework (and working at passing another level of his video game) and Siah got into Patti’s makeup. He poured an entire bottle of foundation makeup on his hair and then covered that with a liberal helping of baby powder. Then he applied the same mixture to the new flooring in the bathroom and skated in it. Turns out that the foundation is oil based and took eight wash and rinse cycles with our not-so-cheep-hippie shampoo to get out (and he still had a nice skin-tone hue in his hair for the rest of the day).

2) Tonight, Siah found a tube of antibiotic cream and dosed his hair one more time (in case you are counting, this is the same day as #1). This effectively used up the rest of the shampoo. I will say that he has had a life-long aversion to getting his hair washed. He got soap in the eyes once and since then, he freaks and goes into the fetal position whenever I go to rinse his hair. When he has a good lather on, the fetal position does an effective job of getting more soap in his eye, thus proving again that shampoo is bad. Today we cured that. The last shampoo (I think this is lather and rinse cycle #15) he managed to stay looking up through the whole rinsing cycle. Attaboy!

3) OK, this is the one that I really need to record so that I can look back and laugh… I now own three new wax rings for my toilets. These are nifty little seals that connect your toilet to your floor/plumbing. You see, you need these whenever you have to remove your toilet, because they are not reusable. I have four toilets in my home, and Siah has become fascinated with the flusher knob / spinning water / gurgling sounds / filling up again thing. He has a particular interest in watching his precious movements go round and round and round and down. Because he cannot repeat the movements often enough for his interest level to be satisfied, he has gone through our house in search of poo-sized objects that he can use instead. Right now, I have three toilets that will not flush at all. I own an industrial toilet plumbing snake (He is our forth kid and we have learned a few things), but no dice! The snake does not move the water one bit. I mentioned that we have four kids, and it seems that non-flushing toilets are fine to use for nasty, disgusting colon cleansings, or at least they are fine until you realise that THEY DON’T FLUSH… OMG! ITS FLOODING!!! HEEEELLLLLLPPPPPP! (I’m keeping a good supply of grade 3 towels on hand).

So I have to 1) convince Siah not to flush anything else down the drain, 2) scoop brown water from the bowls into some bucket that will never get used again for ANYTHING! 3) remove toilets and find and remove blockages (this requires grade 3 towels as well) 4) use the nice new wax rings and replace the toilets.

I Kid You Not… My eldest just came in while I am typing this and told me that toilet #4 is blocked.

one day I’ll laugh.