Deeply touched

I read this post written by a lady married to a doctor. It blew me away. It was amazing. If you are married to a doctor/resident/medical student or you want some more insight about it because you may be considering it, you need to go and check out her post. A.m.a.z.i.n.g.

The real deal

Apparently you aren't notified when your child gets punched when your child doesn't actually get punched. Sigh.

So, today, after yet another discussion of what happened, and after questioning details that were changing this morning, I found out that Roo bumped his eye on the bus window when another kid accidentally bumped him and it only FELT like Q had punched him. Argh.

I spent the morning trying to do damage control with the teacher. Thankfully I caught her before Q was talked to. It would have been a really difficult apology if Roo had to go and tell him sorry.

Oh, the joys of children. Any thoughts on punishment? Obviously he has to apologize to his teacher. And I talked to him about how Q could have gotten in trouble because of his lie. He feels really bad and has been crying. Do I need to do something more to drive the point home? Or is apologizing to the teacher enough?? And where is the manual for this kind of thing?!

Cake and steak

On Friday, one of our wonderfully sweet neighbors brought this to our house.

I love this place. I really do.

Where does the steak come in? Steak goes on black eyes, right?

Roo told me that the aforementioned first grader punched him in the eye today at recess. Argh. He said this is the first time it has happened at recess and that there is no problems on the bus. He also said that Q isn't allowed to do Mileage Club anymore. I emailed his teacher any way, but I am slightly aggrevated. This kid has a history of this type of behavior so why don't they keep him away from the little kids? And why wasn't I told? Is it normal to not be contacted by the school or a teacher?

If I had a lemon today, I'd be squirting in a certain first grader's eye. :o)

New pictures and videos on Cookie. My mom requested all the kids singing the whole Pink song. Wish granted.

Making lemonade

My sweet bloggy friend Nicole gave me a thoughtful award. It is the Lemonade award. And yes, lemonade is my favorite drink next to rootbeer or ice water, so I was pretty happy to get it! Plus, it is also the first award I have won without Brad's help. :o) It is for people who can make lemonade from lemons. Cute, huh! This is what she wrote in my nomination:

"M&M's- This is a new bloggy friend of mine. She's witty, she's a talented writer, and she continually makes me laugh out loud. She seems to have some really bizarre things happen to her, but she has a good attitude and finds the humor through it all."

While the thought of being considered a talented writer had ME laughing out loud, I can't deny that my life is full of the bizarre. I am so glad someone else is laughing with me.

Having said that, my last award didn't go so well and my ladies (you know who you are!) declined to continue the awarding. So, I thought I would try something else entirely. Besides, how in the world can I pick just 5?! I'm turning it over to you guys to come up with my nominations. List as many as you want. I'd love to read the blogs that you guys find inspiring and positive. You might want to leave them a comment and tell them you gave them an award though, so they don't wonder where all the new hits are coming from. No stalking! KIDDING! You don't need to leave me a comment, just add their blog to the Mr Linky and he'll put it up for you. If you want to leave me a comment to let me know why you nominated them, that would be nice, but not required. You can ignore where Mr Linky says to leave one. I don't know how to take that off.

Come on! Go tell those bloggers you love that you appreciate their Lemonade! I know it says, "your name" and "your url" but just put up the name and URL of the person you are nominating. Unless you want to nominate yourself, and I'm cool with that too. :o)

Need a sweet second home?

My parents own a lot at Bear Lake in Rich County, UT. They've never actually seen it and how they got it is a long story. They will never use it and decided someone should get to enjoy all it has to offer.

It is Lot 20 Sweetwater Golf Course Sub 6. It is a corner lot has a view of the lake and is suitable to build your dream place. Lake? Golf course? Yeah, baby!

She would rather sell to family or a friend since it is a sweet piece of property, but if there isn't any interest, she will go ahead and list it. No pressure involved.

If you want more info, my email is linked on my profile.

Overkill

Yesterday was so beautiful! The kids just HAD to be outside. Being the ever-so-studly mommy that I am, I was able to assemble the boys brand new scooters that my mom got them for Jamo's birthday. So, there are a couple videos of that over on Cookie.

Actually, Cookie has about 6 videos and a slide show. The kids got my camera yesterday and went to town with it. There are some pretty cute videos on there!

There is one of Roo singing "So What" by Pink. It is sooooo funny. But, for those of you who are unwilling to clicky on the linky, I have a couple of pictures for this blog too.

Here is the damage poor Odie sustained after my trip to the store last week. Poor Odie.

The grass is coming in on the side yard. Wahoo!!!

Screwing up my kids

This has just been a rough morning and it isn't even noon. I just want to hide under my covers.

I spilled my breakfast shake on myself while trying to go out to the van to go to cardio. I was carrying too much stuff and the tab closing the shaker cup popped off. Did I change my outfit? No, this totally classy mom went to cardio class complete with a huge brown wet spot on her shirt. Hey, at least I wiped it off a little bit and cleaned the floor.

At cardio, I was totally prepared for Pam to kick my hiney. I had 2 ankle braces and a wrist brace on. I was going to do those dang mountain climbers! My wrist and ankle did AWESOME! I was sooooo happy. But then on the second set, my knee went berserk. WHAT?! I've never had knee problems! Bad ankles, yes. Bad wrists, yes. Bad fingers, yes. But never my knee. That I can remember at least... I actually did not cry though. You can all be proud. :o) But I am super concerned. I can't give up my daily trips to the Y! I just can't! It is the only thing keeping me sane (other than blogging of course). I can't have a bad knee! It's been over 2 hours and it still isn't feeling normal. Argh.

I went to pick up the kids from Tot Watch and Roo was near tears. Apparently his friend told him he wasn't cool anymore because a new kid there has a watch that does neat stuff. I took it as a learning opportunity and asked him if Heavenly Father would rather have him be cool or be nice. Of course he answered right, but then he said how great the watch was and how he wanted one. I said that it did indeed sound like a cool watch, but it wasn't important. We can't take cool watches with us to heaven. The important things, our family, what we learn, etc. are the things we get to take with us to heaven. And then he really started crying. "I can't take my computer? Or my Webkinz? Or my Pokemon? WAAAHHHHH!!!" Great. Apparently 5 is a little too early for this kind of discussion. I told him that heaven would have everything he could possibly need. Being the smart boy he is, he said, "But can I take my toys?" "You will have everything you need there, sweetie." Smart kid asked again, realizing I wasn't really answering his question. As Monk would say "It's a gift... and a curse." Sometimes it is hard that he is so observant.

I'm just curious what you guys would have said in this situation. I thought I was saying all the right things, but I seemed to make things worse. Is he too young? Is he too materialistic? What have I done?!

Oh, I hope the rest of the day goes better!

***In good news, I heard the trash truck coming and got it out there literally the second he pulled up. YEAH!!***

Matches

This is Dr. Og, your anesthesiologist

Happy Match Day everyone!

No, not that kind, this kind:




Today was that exciting/terrifying day when some soon-to-be doctors get to find out which residency program they will be attending. Wohoo!

If you are married to a med student or resident, a few friends and I started a blog to get together and talk. It might be fun to read if your hubby is thinking about attending med school. It also might be funny to read if your hubby is an attending physician already. You can look back and be glad it is over. :o) So, please come and join us by clicking here. We'd love to hear some new voices. I also added the link to my blog list, so you can always find it there later. Come vent with us, ask questions, or give support. THANKS!

Hodge podge

Here is the good news:

I have figured out what I will be making for my 5 people. And yes, it will actually be cute. I can guarantee cuteness. That doesn't mean you will like it, but I PROMISE you will think it is cute. And no, I didn't use any of your suggestion(s). While a guacamole video featuring Stinkerbell would indeed be cute, I don't know that I could resist eating said guacamole before finishing a video. And now I'm craving pico de gallo. DANG!

So, because I no longer need suggestions or moral support, the contest will be over tomorrow at 11:59 pm instead. :o) Therefore, if you are debating whether you want to be subjected to a craft made by Melisa, you'd better decide quick. I had to unfortunately disqualify Brad. He doesn't have a blog to complete the requirements. Lest you all scream "FOUL!", I assure you that Brad will get his very own cute craft and it will be different from the winners. At this point, I could have 1 more person sign up and all of you would be getting your craft. If no one else signs up, well then, I got away easy, didn't I. :o)

And in another bit of good news for those so interested, I got a dozen new pictures up on Cookie. They are more from NM and 1 of Abigail looking shockingly cute. :o)

Ready for the bad news? Sorry, I don't have any. But I do have a quick story to share. It seemed blog worthy this morning, but less so as the day has worn on (and on and on and on). I got the boys up earlier than usual this morning. I was hoping to avoid resorting to my usual routine of yelling at them to hurry up 20 times and literally dragging them from their beds. It worked like a charm. I told them to get up once and they were up and getting dressed within the minute. I went downstairs with Stink to get her started eating and WWIII broke out upstairs. There was weeping and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Jamo had pushed Roo for lying. Roo denied having lied. I went to sort out the mess and it all started because Roo was wearing some pants that Jamo wanted. Jamo insisted they were not in the drawer when he was picking out clothes last night. I told him I knew they weren't in the drawer because Roo picked out his clothes first. "No he didn't! He got them out of the basket in your room!" "The only clothes in baskets in my room are my dirty clothes. All the clean ones are put away." He didn't believe me. How sad that my kids don't comprehend me putting away clean clothes. Sigh. Anyway, Jamo continued to sob in his undies for probably another 10 minutes. We were thankfully still on time to school, but that is only because I'd gotten them up early enough for such a buffer. I'd intended to use the buffer to avoid yelling hurry up, but that didn't happen. Because the buffer was spent trying to reason with the unreasonable, I still ended up yelling at them to hurry up. I'm glad tomorrow is a new day to try again.

What have I done?!?!!?

Here is an exact quote from Stacy's blog:

"This game involves a few of my favorite things: handmade goods, creativity, and gift-giving. Here are the tagging instructions: The first five people to respond to this post will get something made by me! My choice. For you.

This offer does have some restrictions and limitations:
1- I make no guarantees that you will like what I make!
2- What I create will be just for you.
3- It'll be done this year.
4- You have no clue what it's going to be. It may be a story. It may be poetry or an article on properly cleaning your face before a masque. I may draw or paint something. I may bake you something and mail it to you. Who knows? Not you, that's for sure!
5- I reserve the right to do something extremely strange.

The catch? Oh, the catch is that you must re-post this on your blog and offer a giveaway to the first 5 people who do the same on your blog. The first 5 people to do so and leave a comment telling me they did win a FAB-U-LOUS homemade gift by me! Oh, and be sure to post a picture of what you win when you get it!

I hope that I have at least 5 friends that will do this!

P.S. I know some of my Blog followers do not normally post comments, so if you would like to be "entered", send me an email and I'll do this for the first 2-3 friends who email me, too."

Now we get to the "truth in advertising" portion that is specific to me. I didn't realize I was signed up until last night. I had commented on her blog a week ago that I thought it was a super cute idea, but inside I was thinking, I would never be able to come up with a cute crafty gift. Not that I wouldn't LOVE to get something from Stacy. She made a blanket for Stinker that is one of her favorites. Stacy oozes crafty talent. I do not have a crafty bone in my entire body. Anyway, I was the 5th comment, and I just assumed she'd had a few emailed comments as well since it had been a day or two and everyone wants a piece of Stacy. But last night I was informed that I had made the cut. After the initial thrill of getting something from Stacy subsided, my stomach dropped at the thought of making crafts myself. Let's just say that rule #1 is in FULL EFFECT. And I may just use my whole year allotted to me via rule #3. And with my crafting skills, you can pretty much be guaranteed of #5. Yeah, I can see you are all jumping at this chance.

I'm making my own rules too. Here are my rules for being entered:

1. I have no clue what I'm going to do. Are you a crafty person with a great idea? Leave me a comment of some cute craft ideas. Are you as hopeless as me when it comes to crafts? Give me some general moral support so I don't hyperventilate.
2. I am going to use a random number generator to pick 5 comments. If I only get 6 comments, well then, that will be a pretty easy generating. haha! Good news is that you won't have to post this until your number gets generated.
3. I'm not going to include emailed comments because I don't want to try and figure out which email came before which comment and what actual numbers would be for the purpose of the random number generator.
4. Please only comment once or it will mess up my generator. If you need to say something else, just email me.
5. If you comment on this post, you are entered. Do so at your own risk. If you get selected, I expect you will do this. Hey, if I can do it, any of ya'll can. :o)

Okay. There you have it. I'll have the contest end on March 31st at 11:59 pm EST. Yes, I realize the next day will be April Fool's day. Kind of ironic, but I will not be using it to get out of my contractual obligations. :o)

Interview with Jamo 7 yrs even

1. What is something mom always says to you?
No fighting or I am going to separate you two

2. What makes mom happy?
when I clean up

3. What makes mom sad?
when she has to clean up our stuff

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
by telling me jokes

5. What was your mom like as a child?
Nice.

6. How old is your mom?
33

7. How tall is your mom?
38 inches

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
the store

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
work

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
because you're a girl

11. What is your mom really good at?
writing letters

12. What is your mom not very good at?
cleaning my room

13. What does your mom do for her job?
you don't have a job

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
rice and meatballs

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
helping us

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Cheese (from Sonic the Hedgehog)

17. What do you and your mom do together?
clean up

18. How are you and your mom the same?
we're both helpful

19. How are you and your mom different?
we like different things

20. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
Applebee's

21. How do you know your mom loves you?
by helping us

22. Why did God make moms?
to teach us

23. What ingredients are moms made of?
skin and bones
-what about sugar and spice and everything nice?
-oh, and that too

24. What did your mom need to know about your dad before she married him?
if they were like each other

25. Why did your mom marry your dad?
they both had the same things in mind

26. Who's the boss at your house?
mom and dad

27. What makes moms and dads different?
dads are boys moms are girls

28. What does your mom do in her spare time?
write on the computer and watch TV cuz I always see you writing on the computer

29. How much spare time does she have every day?
3 hours and 33 minutes

30. What would make your mom perfect?
if she had blue glitter on her cheeks

31. If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
if she had a guitar

Interview with Roo, age 5 yr and 5 months

I actually interviewed them last week, but I'm just now posting them. How is that for slackery? ;o)

1. What is something mom always says to you?
don't do it

2. What makes mom happy?
me cleaning my bed

3. What makes mom sad?
not doing what you want

4. How does your mom make you laugh?
tickling me

5. What was your mom like as a child?
a girl

6. How old is your mom?
32

7. How tall is your mom?
32 inches

8. What is her favorite thing to do?
watch TV and play on the computer

9. What does your mom do when you're not around?
work

10. If your mom becomes famous, what will it be for?
being nice

11. What is your mom really good at?
helping us

12. What is your mom not very good at?
reaching stuff. like if daddy puts something way higher than you can reach

13. What does your mom do for her job?
work by the doctor

14. What is your mom's favorite food?
pasta and meatballs

15. What makes you proud of your mom?
when you help us

16. If your mom were a cartoon character, who would she be?
Hannah Montana
-Have you seen Hannah Montana?
-No, we don't like Hannah Montana.
-I would be someone you don't like?
-No, I don't know any other cartoon girls

17. What do you and your mom do together?
eat

18. How are you and your mom the same?
because we both love each other

19. How are you and your mom different?
you're taller and I'm smaller

20. Where is your mom's favorite place to go?
Burger King

21. How do you know your mom loves you?
cause you help us

22. Why did God make moms?
so people can stay nice

23. What ingredients are moms made of?
eyes, noses, ears, mouths skin, oh and hair

24. What did your mom need to know about your dad before she married him?
that he was so nice

25. Why did your mom marry your dad?
because he was handsome

26. Who's the boss at your house?
our parents

27. What makes moms and dads different?
mommy born babies and dads don't

28. What does your mom do in her spare time?
work on the computer

29. How much spare time does she have every day?
7 hours and 59 minutes

30. What would make your mom perfect?
stylish stuff and Gum Gum Duck (one of his Webkinz)

31. If you could change one thing about your mom, what would it be?
you have a big nose

One of those days...

I have, sitting in my Inbox, the kid survery for both my boys. I did it on Sunday. I still haven't posted it. Oy.

Today was a bit brutal. Roo didn't have school due to conferences, but we did go to the doctor's office before my kettlebell class. It was a bit rushed. And we were locked out of the room for kettlebell and the CD was swiped. I should have taken that for a sign. Kettlebell isn't as fun when there is no thumping music! Jamo had a half-day so he came home soon after kettlebell. Stinker wouldn't nap since the boys were home during her nap time. How can she be expected to miss out on all of the fun?

Then I had Jamo's parent/teacher conference. I won't go on and on about how amazing he is, but I will say that I am so impressed that my 1st grader is capable of reading 3rd grade material. Okay, I'm done bragging now. While I tried to talk to the teacher, Stinker destroyed the classroom to the best of her ability. 2 yr old + highly stimulating environment = mom with headache. I didn't actually get a headache, I just thought that was funny. But the poor teacher looked like she was getting one. :o)

Back at home, the boys got in a fight and Jamo threw a trashcan at Roo. Wow. That was completely unnecessary. Yeesh. Meanwhile, Stinker was tired and crabby as all get out. Whining, hollering, demanding, etc.

I went to the basement to do laundry and beg for mercy. I came back up and Stinker was AWOL. Found her in her bed with the blanket on. It was super late for a nap, but I couldn't mentally handle the thought of waking her up and dealing with the crabbiness. It is called 'survival parenting'. You know you are doing something you shouldn't, but you are just trying to get through the moment. She only slept an hour, but her mood improved considerably. That and I ordered pizza. All is well in the world. All but the 5 loads of laundry that need folding.

Just for laughs

This isn't a serious, thought provoking post. I just saw these new FRUIT SNACKS at the store and busted a gut laughing!

I would totally buy these and give them to Brad, but I would spend more on shipping then the cost of the snacks. :o)

Tooth troll

The night after the kids got home, Jamo lost another tooth. The poor boy's 2 front teeth still haven't come in and they fell out back in early December. So now he has 3 teeth missing on top. I don't know how he eats. ;o)

You might remember that the last time he lost a tooth, I had to borrow one from Jamo's piggy bank because I didn't have any gold dollars on me. I decided to buy a few extras for his next lost tooth. But when the day arrived, I couldn't find them anywhere. Uh oh. So, I went to borrow one again from Jamo, but there weren't any in his piggy bank. There must be a black hole sucking all of our gold dollars into it's vortex. I finally had to bust into my kids' coin collections and hope I could replace it back after I got some more gold dollars. I went to take the tooth out of his tooth pillow and put in the gold dollar and I couldn't find the tooth anywhere! I should probably add here that this was at 3:30 am. For some thankful reason, I woke up at 3:30 and realized I hadn't done it yet.

Anyway, I just put in the gold dollar and decided to look for the tooth later, assuming Jamo doesn't know it is missing. After school, I told him the tooth fairy said thank you for the tooth.

"The tooth wasn't in the pillow. I lost it."

gulp "She told me that she found it. Where exactly did you lose it?"

"Somewhere on my bed."

I make a mental note to hurry and go look before he gets upstairs and Tylerr pipes in.

"It was probably taken by the tooth troll. He likes to collect teeth before the tooth fairy can get there to make his necklaces. Sometimes he doesn't even wait for them to fall out."

My boys stare at him for a few seconds before loudly proclaiming he is teasing.

Oh, the joys of uncles. And for the record, I did find the tooth on his bed before he realized what happened.

Here is my brother Tylerr in front of the Magic Johnson statue.

Also, on the Cookie blog, there are pictures of the boys' basketball stuff and Jamo's birthday party. It was super low-key. Poor Brad has missed everyone's birthday this year and I've lacked the energy to do a party by myself. We have one in October, November, December and then Jamo's in March. I take that back! He left the day after Roo's party in October. Hopefully we'll be back together before Brad's birthday in May.

Last night we got to chat with him via webcam. That was lots of fun. The kids had a blast, but I think they were watching themselves dancing as much as they were looking at him. haha!

Identity theft

I'm pretty sure this isn't what the solicitor had in mind while he was annoying me the other day.

This morning was the boys' last basketball game. I dropped off Tylerr and the boys so they could get there early for practice. Then I went to park and bring in Stink. While getting her out, my racquetball buddy parked next to me. I was sufficiently distracted talking to her and since it wasn't very cold outside, I forgot to put on my coat. In my coat is my Y ID. I went to check Stink into the Tot Watch, but I needed a picture ID. I was too lazy to go back to the van, so I just left my driver's license. I had a really bad feeling about it, but I ignored it. The boys' game would be starting soon and I wanted a good seat. And I'm lazy.

The boys' game went, uh, okay. They won the game, making their team the undefeated champions of their league. Sounds good right? Let's just say the team won despite my boys. How bad was it? They got in a fist fight in the middle of the game. With each other. Utterly humiliating.

Already in a bad mood, I went to get Stink from Tot Watch. My driver's license was gone. I asked the attendant and she said that only 1 other person had been in after me. We tore the entire room apart, going through boxes of books, plastic fruit, toys, bean bags, etc. I finally decided that one of the kids was not to blame, leaving only the lady. We had her paged. She didn't answer. She didn't have her location on her sign in, but the attendant knew where she was. Tylerr volunteered to go ask her if she'd seen it. I've mentioned before that I come from a tall family, so he can be an intimidating presence. She told him she only left an ID and didn't take one. We tore the room apart again. No luck. I went to the front desk and explained the situation. I'd have to file a police report if my license went missing. You don't want your ID floating around. I asked if they could please talk to her as it might mean more coming from a worker than my brother.

Then I went back to the Tot Watch and waited. The worker came back holding my ID. PHEW!!! She said the lady was very embarrassed. I'll bet. Especially since my brother already asked her. Anyway, don't leave your driver's license out people. Don't be stupid like me.

And lest you think that was the end of my exciting day, the rest of the day included Jamo's birthday party and driving an hour and a half in the pouring rain to get Tylerr to the airport. Who me? Stressed? Nah....

You picked the wrong day, buddy

Last night I was getting the kids ready for bed and I noticed a huge wart on Roo's foot. It wasn't looking very good and I noticed a small pebble had gotten embedded along the edge. Ouch. I got the rock out, but decided to still take him to the doctor and get it frozen off this morning. So between dropping off Jamo and getting to kettlebell, I managed to get Roo to the doctor. Welcome back, chaos.

Things were pretty mellow after that. The bus called to say they were coming 20 minutes early, which was in 10 minutes. Oy. I tried to get Stinker to take a nap. No dice. I finally gave up at 2 when we went to my neighbor's house to reward Tylerr for flying across the country with 3 Monsters. How? They are friends with Magic Johnson, Tylerr's lifelong hero. They had pictures, articles, books, balls, etc. to share. Tylerr looked like a kid in a candy shop. Stinker looked like a 2 yr old in a new environment, in other words, into everything. Ugh. I managed to keep her busy most of the time, but it was an exhausting hour. 2 yr olds are balls of energy.

The boys came home a little bit later. Resume chaos. Papers by the dozens. I'm trying to read through weeks of papers and convince the boys to get all of their school stuff put away and it is just a mad house. Tylerr offers to buy pizza for dinner. I have the great idea of having a party and eating it in the living room while watching CARS. Considering it was a 7, 5 and 2 yr old eating away from the table, it didn't go too bad, but was a little stressful.

A little down time and then it was homework and baths. I got them going on homework and then had Tylerr supervise while I got Stinker in a bath. Then the boys came upstairs, and I tried to orchestrate getting Stink dressed, the boys bathed and dressed, toys cleaned, etc. At this oh so inconvenient time, a telemarketer decides to call and offer me identity theft protection.

"Is this a monthly fee thing."
"Yes, but we'll send you the information and you can decide in the comfort of your home, blah blah."
"No thanks, I'm not really interested."
"But everyone needs a credit report. When did you last check yours?"
"Sept, so it wasn't that long ago."
"We recommend getting them every 6 months."
"Then I'll go to freecreditreport.gov and get it there."
"It is important to have your credit numbers."
"How about this, I'll pay your $9.99 a month and in exchange, you guys quit charging me out the nose for interest. Is that a deal?"
"Thank you for your...." and then he hung up mid-sentence.

I try to be nice. They are working, just like the rest of us. But give me a BREAK!! From now on I'm not going to say anything but no over and over until they hang up.

As soon as the kids are asleep, I'm going to the store to get cupcakes for Jamo's class and a cake for the family party. Why couldn't their first day back be nice and simple to break me in slowly? They've been back all of 24 hours and I'm already pulling out my hair. Argh.

The Meanest Mom

It would be super great if you guys could go here and vote for Jana, aka The Meanest Mom.

http://www.scholastic.com/parents/blogcontest/

She is living in Philly and has been super sweet and helpful to me despite the fact that she is a busy blogger.

THANKS!!

Ah, the joys

Being married to a doctor leads to some interesting situations. Take this for example:

It was a late night, and I got distracted, so it was nearly 11pm before I called Brad. I expected he'd be sleeping, seeing as surgeons are up and going by 5, and I'd leave a message apologizing for not calling him sooner. But it was nothing that I expected. A woman answered his phone. Our conversation went thus:

"Hello?"
"uhhhhh...." (I was in a bit of a shock that a woman answered the phone and my head was trying to come up with logical explanations)
"Hello? Hello? {Dr Mons, I think it is your wife.} He's in surgery, he'll have to call you back."
"uhhhhhhh..... thanks....."

I figured out what the situation was before she said something, but I confess to being momentarily stunned. It isn't every day that a woman answers your husband's phone. He wasn't even on call that night, so I didn't expect him in surgery at 11 pm. Naturally, I made sure that his phone was on his belt holder and not in a pocket, because then I'd have to chew him out.

She's here!!!

Aubrey had her baby! Sweet little Abigail has arrived! A have a couple pictures of her on the cookie blog, but she is brand new, so the multitude of pictures are being anxiously awaited.

You all know I can't stand shopping for clothes. Truly, I hate it. But, it needed to be done and I decided to go while I was kid-free. I got 6 shirts, 2 dress pants, 2 work out pants and 3 skirts all for $33. Gotta love Goodwill! I'm bummed that the pants I wore last night were total high waters on me. Sigh. At least it was only a waste of $3...

First born tag, aka Jamo's birthday!!!

1. Were you married at the time? Yes

2. What were your reactions when you found out you were pregnant? We were so thrilled. We'd had a miscarriage already, so it felt like forever before I got pregnant again, even though it was only 6 months.

3. How old were you? I was 25 when I had him

4. How did you find out you were pregnant? I took lots of at-home tests. :) We were really anxious. I started spotting at 6 weeks and thought I was having another miscarriage, so I went and got an ultrasound. Just seeing that little heart beat brought me to tears. I was so thrilled.

5. Who did you tell first? Brad and probably my mom

6. Did you want to find out the sex? He was a surprise. We got lots of yellow and green at baby showers. :)

7. What was your due date? Mar. 4 th

8. Did you deliver early or late? my FABULOUS doctor was going out of town, so he induced me on the morning of 28th of February. It was a 17 hr labor, so I didn't have him until 3:53 am on March 1st.

9. Did you have morning sickness? I puked for all 9 months with all 3 of my kids. (((Shudder)))

10. What did you crave? pickles. Believe it or not, I never really cared for chocolate until I got pregnant with Jamo. Now I'm a total addict.

11. Who irritated you the most? I worked as a bank teller while I was prego. Every day, 10 times a day, I would get asked if I was having twins. My belly gets SOOOO huge. My Young Women used to tease me that I was carrying a basketball.

12. What was your first child's sex? A boy

13. How many pounds did you gain throughout your pregnancy? 40 exactly

14. Did you have any complications during your pregnancy? Um, more concerns than complications. My miscarriage was in France, and at the time, I didn't know I was A-, so I didn't have any Rhogam shots. And then when I started spotting again, they worried about the possibility of antibodies. So, we had a few days of worry while waiting for the bloodwork to come back. And I had a TMJ disorder issue the first 4 months where my mouth clamped shut and would only open about as wide as 2 of my fingers. Made puking all the time annoying and quite painful. And when my water broke, there was meconium staining, so we had to have a pediatrician at the delivery. He was not happy to be there at 3 in the morning, let me tell you!

15. Where did you give birth? Stillwater Medical Center

16. How many hours were you in labor? 17

17. Who drove you to the hospital? Brad

18. Who was in the delivery room? Brad, his mom, and her hubby.

19. Natural or c-section? Natural

20. Did you take medicine to ease the pain? haha! I thought I'd try it without. I made it 11 hours, but once they started the pitocin, I said, screw it, this isn't worth it. Once the anesthesiologist finally made it in, 2 hours later, I was really ready for that epidural! The rest of it wasn't as bad, except still vomitting, and needing to be on oxygen.

21. How much did your child weigh? 7 lb 10 oz

22. What did you name him/her? "Jamo" Bradley Mons. I found it in a book with the meaning "Jehovah has heard" which I loved. We stuck with the traditional spelling of it, but later found out my cousin named his boy the same name with an alternate spelling. There are 3 of them on that side of my family now. hahahaha!

23. How old is your first born today? I was saving this post for today. His 7th birthday. Sure went fast! I'm putting some pictures of him up on the Cookie blog, so check it out!