Alchemy

There’s this sauce that can turn anything into cake. I promise. Oatmeal, bread, you name it. I got the recipe for it from a beautiful food blog called Simply So Good, whose author named this magical stuff fat sauce. Is your mouth watering yet? Mine is!

Last week we had 4 black bananas on our counter. So I whipped up a loaf of banana bread. But I accidentally cooked it too long so it was kind of dry around the edges. Enter…FAT SAUCE!

Now, normally banana bread is yummy on its own, but this batch needed something extra. I tried butter. I tried cream cheese. Neither one was quite what I was looking for. But then I discovered some leftover fat sauce in the fridge. Oh man. That did the trick! It transformed my dry slab of B-bread into a moist, sweet, decadent piece of cake.

All I did was spoon the cold sauce onto the banana bread and stick it in the microwave for 30 seconds. As my brother Brad would say, angels sang when I ate it!

Here’s the recipe, in case you didn’t feel like clicking on it up above:

Fat Sauce:

1 stick butter

1 cup sugar

3/4 cup cream

1 tablespoon vanilla

Combine all ingredients into a saucepan. Cook over low heat until the mixture comes to a boil and the sugar has dissolved.

Yum. It’s real-life alchemy!

Speaking of unlikely transformations, I have to post a picture of a Halloween craft that Jay and I did last week:

They’re old jars (jam, baby food, artichoke hearts, and peanut butter) painted with a mixture of Elmer’s glue and water, and plastered with tissue paper. They look extra cool in the dark with tea lights burning in them. I mooched the idea from Our Best Bites, another fun food blog (click it for the “recipe”).

Jay loved painting the glue on and sticking tissue paper strips all over the jars. He even made one all by himself, although I did have to remind him to move from one step to another—he painted our whole bowl of glue onto his tiny jar (it made a big glue puddle under the jar) before I noticed and told him to start sticking tissue paper on. He proudly gave his ghost to Grama Meri when we visited her.

One more transformation to note…ME! I am feeling GREAT! Ok, well, I’m still wayyy out of shape (even lifting the milk gallon feels harder than it used to). I’ve been walking about 2 miles on most days for a whole week now, and I’m sore! Every night I crash into bed, exhausted from trying to live “normally.” I can’t wait to RUN again! I tried jogging for two minutes during my walk yesterday (pushing the 100lb stroller), and my legs (and arms!) were SHAKY after that long 2 minutes. That jog convinced me to wait another week or 2 or 3 to run. -Insert sigh of longsuffering-

Last week I went in for a checkup and had an IUD put in. My womb and I both need a nice long break. I hope that’s not too much info, but it really gives me so much peace of mind that I had to mention it. It’s nice to have something as effective as sterilization to allow my body to rest from…occupation. Ha. I wish I could be one of those amazing people who has 10 babies and barely blinks, but that’s not how my body works, and I’m ok with that.

Now Jay is begging me to go play with him, so adios for now!

Lentil-fest

We actually DID things this week!  Proof:

I WALKED this week—to the doctor one day and to the park another day. And around some stores too. It was great. I’m exhausted! For now, I’ll rewind to Monday and tell/show you what happened:

Looks fun, huh?

Background: There are SO many opinions and methods and ideas out there for what/when/how to do at-home preschool. Structure, alphabet, reading, math, science, sensory activities, motor skills, you know. These words make teaching a 3 year old sound so HARD and scary. I just want to have fun with my kids!

I’ve been kind of wondering if, (now that I have a little more oomph), I should tackle the challenge to DO a little bit more to educate and, you know, enrich Jay (and Rose too, but she’s harder right now). I haven’t come up with a definite plan because I like being flexible and just choosing what we feel like doing each day. No preschool curriculum, no daily step-by-step schedule, just fun with a little knowledge mixed in. Too much structure stresses me out (so does too little structure, so as usual, it’s all about balance).

I’ve been wanting to get a “rice box” for months now—my little brother Kyle had one when he was little, and we all loved it! It’s just a shallow Rubbermaid box full of rice and some cups and toys to play with. An indoor sandbox, if you will. Or a sensory development box if you prefer…

Kyle in his famed rice box. I love old family photos. Isn’t he cute? I can’t believe he’s off in Montevideo on a mission right now. Sniff.

Pardon me while I digress briefly:

Here’s Kyle (on the right) with his companion. They are financial guys in the mission office right now (hence the money). A few nights ago, when Jay was saying his prayers before bed, he said “please bless Kyle on his mission to serve someone and give some people money.” I was baffled—why did he say give people money? Then I was reminded of this picture that Kyle emailed us last week. Jay just remembered that Kyle was holding money. Hopefully Jay doesn’t think that service and missionary work only involve paying bills! I just realized that Kyle and his companion have matching ties in this picture. I wonder if the Uruguayans can tell them apart.

BACK to the rice box…I haven’t managed to get a tub and some cheap rice yet, so I had to improvise this week. I love improvisation with whatever is at hand. When it works, it’s awesome. When it doesn’t, you either laugh or throw it out the window. Or both. A year or two ago I tried making lentil soup. It wasn’t very good. On Monday I discovered the rest of those lentils in the dark depths of our pantry. I don’t know how they made it through the  purge of our move, but I was glad they did. Mostly glad…

Jay and Rose each got a sandwich container half full of lentils. I gave them some spoons and toys to play with in their boxes, and told them to leave the lentils in the boxes—no dumping or throwing—ha. Then the phone rang. It was my sweet mother, so I got distracted and stopped caring what was going on with the lentil-fest. Whoopse! 10 minutes later, 90% of the lentils were scattered across the entire kitchen floor. They’re hard to see in the picture because both the floor and the lentils are brown, but believe  me. They were everywhere. I spent a solid 15 or 20 minutes sweeping them all up. They even skittered onto the carpet—lentils can sure FLY when you kick them. Jay and Rose had a blast blasting those lentils around.

Cringe if you will, but after I swept our whole floor, I sifted the lentils out of the dust and crumbs and saved them for another day. The next day only about 30% of the lentils ended up on the floor. That’s a pretty good learning curve! Soon (hopefully) the children will keep ‘em all in the boxes. Then they’ll be ready to graduate up to a rice box.

Len-toes

I have a few other things to talk about from this week, but they will have to wait for a separate post because it’s Sunday after noon and I’m tired! Before I forget, I have to tell one more story about Jay: today during a hymn in sacrament meeting, he decided to sing along too. But he couldn’t read the words to the hymn. So he selected a Primary song from his slim repertoire and belted out Give Said the Little Stream at top lung capacity. He drowned out the people calmly singing the hymn all around us, and completely disregarded the breathing pauses of the congregation. Needless to say, Jeff and I did not get much singing done because we were laughing so hard.

The Elusive Balance

Yikes! another pictureless post! I’m breaking my own blog rule. Sorry, I posted all the week’s pictures earlier. I’ll take more soon, I promise!

Tonight I realized how much I’ve been “gushing” about happiness and cuteness and goodness here lately. Then I turn around and call my longsuffering mother to describe a challenge (aka moan) and get a pep talk (aka sympathy). While I certainly don’t think that anyone who reads this (especially other moms) is crazy enough to believe that everything is always happy and perfect around here [as long as I’m not pregnant], I DO want to be REAL. I want to comment on all aspects of life in the White House, good or bad, preferably with a positive spin. It’s a trick to balance the sweet moments with the tough ones, especially when both often happen all at the same time!

Here’s an example of the sweet/tough paradox: Jay and Rose would NOT go to sleep tonight. They kept jumping on their beds, turning on the light, and escaping from their bedroom. It was the end of a long day and parental patience was waning. But every time I caught them escaping and told them it was bed time in a firm, slightly irritated voice, they wanted hugs and their cute little faces peered up at me cutely. Yarg. Paradox.

Another example: I cooked family dinner tonight for the first time in a while. Every Sunday we take turns cooking dinner for the whole family (us, Jeff’s parents, and Steph and Jasen). Cooking that dinner wiped my current wimpy body out. Jeff usually rinses the dishes and I load the dishwasher. But tonight I just couldn’t face any of it. I started doing my dish duty anyways, though, but I was moaning the whole time. Jeff marched me over to my chair and finished doing the dishes alone. It was so sweet of him to do the dishes, but I felt pathetic that I couldn’t just push through my pathetic-ness and help without complaining! Paradox.

One more: I keep expecting my body to just suddenly bounce back to its “former self” and it surprises and annoys me every single day when I feel exhausted after a small normal task or throbby after a little while on my feet. It is so hard to let myself take it easy. I can force myself to take it easy but then I grumble and feel guilty about it while I’m sitting in my chair “taking it easy.” Paradox.

Physical weakness is SUCH a weakness of mine! If I have any kind of pain or hunger or fatigue, my defenses are down and I am prey to any flash of irritation or cranky comment or negativity. It drives me crazy!

Well this has become whiny in spite of my good intentions of a positive spin. There are so many things to be happy about. It takes constant vigilance not to let the little things like my weak body or my mischievous children swipe my good mood. Like President Uchtdorf said in his conference talk today (paraphrased and personalized): we don’t listen to a piece of music anxiously awaiting the final note! We savor the melody and harmony and all the notes mixed together. My challenge is to let myself relax in my chair to enjoy each note and not let the little boy and girl banging on the end of the piano distract me from how lovely the melody is.

Even their bones are lovable

Happy October! We’re off to a good start:

General Conference was inspiring—well, at least the parts that we heard through Jay and Rose noises. I admit to a few moments of complete irritation when Rose or Jay (or both!) stopped squealing and I heard the congregation laughing at some missed joke. Thank goodness for the Ensign. My favorite talks were President Uchtdorf’s about being happy now no matter what, and President Monson’s talk about not-so-simple, simple answers to prayers. Gold!

My 7-day throbby headache is finally subsiding into the background, allowing me to notice how sore my wimpy unused muscles are. A few hours on my feet at the store the other day wiped me out! It’s hard to let myself take it easy and build up my strength slowly. Ibuprofen helps, though.

Steph and I went clothes shopping for Jay and Rose on Friday. I’ve never done that before! We’ve always been blessed with hand-me-downs and gifts (ironically, my friend Shauna brought over 2 bags of clothes for Rose the night before we went shopping—see above picture), so I’ve never walked into a store and bought much more than a shirt or a pack of socks for my children (I did buy a few clothes online for Rose once, but that’s completely different).  It was new and FUN. Jay got a Darth Vader shirt. Need I say more?

I got my hair whacked off at last. No more shaggy Shaina.

Rose’s hair has been looking so long that I tried a new ponytail style on her this week. Her hair only grows thickly on the top, though, so gathering the side whisps into a ponytail proved harder than I thought it would be. Poor pink scalp.

I am COOKING again! Oh YUM. I love my tried-and-true recipes. I am eating what feels like a TON. It feels so good to feel good after eating. Based on past experience, that happy feeling usually takes a long time to wear off, so I’m in for a few more weeks of deeply satisfying meals.

Speaking of cooking, it’s time to make dinner.

Happy

Life is GOOD! The absence of sickly pregnancy hormones makes it so easy to truly enjoy the little joys! I’m still anemic and my head hasn’t stopped throbbing in a week, but I still feel SO MUCH BETTER than I have felt in over 2 months. If only my body could heal as fast as my mind. Jay and Rose help their invalid-mama smile all the time—they still have their moments, but then they have these cute times that cancel those mischievous ones out.

One day they were sitting on this box giggling together just for the fun of it.

While I was going through the emotional rollercoaster of miscarriage last week, I was also re-reading one of my favorite books, The Running Dream. It is a super story of hope and conquering challenges. The girl loses her leg and learns how to walk and run on a prosthetic. Her grieving and coping process mirrored mine quite well. Here’s one part that I really loved this time around:

“Going over the finish line must be wonderful.”
I laugh. “Especially if you’re the first one there.”
“But…it means you finished. You made it. Even if you don’t get a medal.”
I look at her. “You’re very philosophical about the finish line.”
She gives a thoughtful nod. “It’s symbolic…Because it’s also the strting line.”
For some reason this thought startles me. And I think about all the races where this is true—the 400, the 800, the 1600, all the relays—and it shocks me that I have never looked at it this way.
Maybe because of staggered starts.
Maybe because starting feels so different from finishing. At the starting line you’re amped, set, coiled. At the finish line you’re completely spent.
So the thought that they’re the same line gives me a very strange feeling.  
---The Running Dream by Wendelin Van Draanen, p.214

Ok, I don’t want to be overly dramatic, but this little conversation hit me because it just felt so applicable to my own situation. I started out that pregnancy amped, set, and ready for the discomfort. And even though the finish came before I wanted it to, I was still completely spent when it came! The contrast between how [bad] I feel when I’m pregnant and how [good] I feel when I’m normal is so HUGE that it feels like a fresh start at the end. Every end is also a beginning. Believe it or not, it’s so much fun to be able to do the smallest things for myself and my family, like hug my husband, cook dinner, do the dishes, and even change diapers. Even though those small actions still exhaust me and leave my head pounding, I don’t have that nagging nausea and disinterest that I did when I was pregnant. Right now I feel ready to LIVE and love it! It’s such a fresh, zesty feeling!

How could I not be happy?

One more time…

Today’s challenge is to a. tell a sad story without sounding depressed, and b. tell a scary story without too much gore. Here goes.

You can probably guess what the sad story is about. I had a doctor appointment and ultrasound on Thursday, and both confirmed a miscarriage. I was expecting the news because my body finally started showing signs of that possibility on Monday. I was a grump all day on Monday and I cried and complained and felt sad. Then I accepted it. So when I had the FINAL WORD on Thursday, it was more of a relief to know for sure than a shock. I felt very calm at my appointments.

They even took out my PICC line on Thursday! I was nervous about being vein-flossed again, but I was surprised that I didn’t even feel the nurse pull out that 40cm of purple tube from my arm. Now all I have is a little tiny bandaid on the hole, and I’ve been indulging in some much-anticipated arm-scratching where the big, waterproof bandage covered the same skin for 7 weeks. It feels great!

After my ultrasound and feeding tube-removal, I left the hospital feeling kind of excited that I wouldn’t have to go back there any time soon. Over the past 2 months, I’ve spent a lot of time in almost every corner of the Sunnyside Community Hospital and even though they are so nice and helpful there, hospitals are tiresome! They smell like plastic, antiseptic, and stale cafeteria food! I was free! On my drive home I saw a few runners on the bike path and I started feeling excited to RUN soon. So mentally, I was in a very good place for a miscarriage…”victim.”

Friday afternoon, Jeff came home from school early and I went to the doctor one more time. Dr. Weaver inserted a tablet that makes the pregnancy STUFF come out. Normally I’m a “let my body handle it naturally” type of person, but this late in the game it was advisable to speed up the process. Hence the medicine. It was very effective. I had the tell-tale cramps almost instantly, and they got stronger and stronger as the night went on. By about 6pm, they were approaching the pain level of active labor! I was so not prepared for that. I have to mentally prep and psych myself up for at least a month before real labor so I can handle it without any pain medicine. So having some medium-level LABOR pains unexpectedly was unpleasant and kind of hard. Before this, I never realized how much easier hard things like labor are when you’re doing them for someone else, like a baby. This time around I was just having gut-clenching annoying pain to END this long, gut-wrenching, painful 2 months. Not fun at all!

Now on to the scary story. The semi-laborish pains subsided around 9pm. Yay! But then the bleeding picked up. Like a lot. Here’s where I smooth over and edit out most of what happened between 10pm and 1am. Suffice it to say that it was incredibly unpleasant. I sat in my chair and watched Bones on Netflix, with frequent bathroom breaks. Around 1am, I got up to go to the bathroom again, and half way there I started feeling very weird. When I got to the bathroom door, I suddenly felt SO dizzy that I yelled “Ahhhh!” and sank to my knees and just curled up there. I could not move because if I did, I felt like I was going to pass out. Ahhh is right! I called out to my sleeping husband and he came to help me up very very slowly. When I made it back to my chair, I called Dr. Weaver. He told me to go to my favorite place—the hospital! Joy. Jeff called his long-suffering family and valiant Steph came over in the dark and snoozed on our couch (somehow—she’s 7 months pregnant!) while we made that DRIVE again.

I have felt weak from uncontrolled puking and long term hunger, but weakness from blood loss is so much weirder. It wasn’t just a wobbly weak feeling, it was scary because I felt like I was going to pass out at any moment. I must be a control freak because I don’t like anything that takes my body out of my control: I despise and avoid strong pain medicines, anesthesia, epidurals, and even local numbing shots. So feeling like I was about to completely lose control and faint was scary!  

We arrived at my “home away from home” and Jeff wheeled me from the car in a wheelchair. So…dizzy… My blood pressure was super duper low. In a room with bright lights, 3 or 4 masked nurses connected me to machines with so many wires that I couldn’t even roll over. It’s all kind of a blur, but I distinctly remember the irony: I had to get an IV jabbed painfully into my hand barely ONE DAY after I had my PICC line removed. They couldn’t get any blood from the IV so they went into my other arm and gouged around for a less-dehydrated vein to take some red stuff for tests (all the time I was thinking hey, there’s a very good steady source already flowing—why stab me?). Apparently blood loss dehydrates just as effectively as vomiting. I was given 2 bags of IV juice, and thankfully that helped enough so I didn’t have to get a blood transfusion. Whew! I felt much less dizzy and finally they discharged me around 4am. It was a long, sleepless night.

I crashed into my bed and slept a few hours. Jeff and I were zombies all day yesterday. It was hard to tell how much of my dizziness was from tiredness and how much was from my…condition. But everything has stabilized, and  now I’m on the mend! Not mended enough for church today, but I plan to be back in action as soon as possible.

WHEW, there’s the story. It’s long. Every single thing about this pregnancy was ultra-intense and HARD, even the end. I’m just glad that since it was going to end sans-baby, it ended now instead of waiting longer! On my grumpy day I kept asking why couldn’t it have ended earlier to spare me the…everything? But while the trial is still to fresh for me to really appreciate it, I do feel grateful that I made it through.

Hopefully now that I’m finally feeling more normal, I can do better posts without so much jumbled pain and drama! More pictures, less pain. That’s a major perk of being un-pregnant. The best part about all of this is I LIKE FOOD AGAIN! Bring on the menus! Bring on the recipes! I still have 5 pounds to gain!

Books, Bread, and Church

Sunday crepe-lunch aftermath:

These kids can put away the crepes. And when Rose is done, she often rubs Nutella in her hair.

At least three good things happened for me this week:

1. On Tuesday, I went OUT for FUN! I went to our book club. It was so pleasant to sit and chat with friends. We actually only discussed the book (Persuasion by Jane Austen) for maybe 45 minutes of the 2 hours! I love book club because it’s an excuse to get together, eat a treat, and hang out. And I love books too.

2. I made bread for the first time in a long time on Thursday, and now I’m addicted to it. It’s been hard finding things that I want to eat, and homemade white bread has replaced almost everything. My daily menu has shrunk (or grown) to smoothie for breakfast, bread n butter during the day, and McDonald’s fries and McChicken sandwich for dinner. I really did make Jeff bring me McDonald’s every afternoon this week! I’m trying not to think about how NOT healthy this routine is. Hopefully I can manage more of a variety soon—or start cooking again?

3. I went to church today for the first time in 6 weeks. It was so good to be back. I felt the Spirit so strongly while I was just sitting there singing the hymns. I remember feeling the same way when I went back to church after my Rose-sickness too—thinking “it’s been so long! I love church! Sniff!” Everywhere I looked, I saw someone who has helped us out in the past 6 weeks: with babysitting, dinners, or just calling or visiting to check on me. It made my heart so FULL of gratitude. And nobody said anything about my gruesome arm tube or my almost-mullet, shaggy, cut-it-this-week-no-matter-what hair. More proof of their kindness.

Sidenote/picture insert:

Jay loves to play on our Kindle Fire. Rose loves to watch him play. Lots of times they sneak off to the basement and watch Sesame Street on it before I notice. It has been a nice distraction for them when I’m feeling too tired or yucky to do anything.

I love it when Rose lays her head on Jay’s shoulder while she’s watching him play. That ray of sunlight snuck into this picture and lit up my little blondies.

Oh, today was the famous Primary Program at church! I felt kind of sheepish for just being a spectator because I’m a counselor and I didn’t do anything to help out after I wrote a few parts for the program way back in August. But I’ve got to admit (kind of sheepishly) that it was fun to watch all those sweet kids sing and speak without crawling around whispering lines in their ears or living through long tedious practices.

During the program, the older nursery kids who are already 3 years old got to go up and sing The Wise Man and the Foolish Man with the big kids. It was Jay’s sacrament meeting debut, and he did not disappoint! For the first half of the song, he stood there grinning and getting his bearings or something. Then he started singing and doing the actions to the foolish man verse. The funny part was he was completely not in sync with the rest of the kids—he just decided “ok, I’m ready to sing!” and he was doing the actions for the foolish man built his house on the sand while everyone else was singing the chorus! We might never have known he was off if there hadn’t been hand actions to the words. I was cracking up. I can’t wait till Jay is in Primary with me next year.

Here’s a short sample of Jay singing that great song. Jay is not in to unnecessary repetition, so he hardly ever sings each line enough times. He just moves on. I wish he had sung the chorus when I took this video, because he sings “the rain came down and the flowers came up!” instead of “the floods came up.” 3 year olds are awesome.

And last up we have a weather report: Air stagnation advisory! Well, actually I just have to comment on the eerie smoke hanging in the air. Over by Wenatchee, there are some big forest fires right now, and the smoke has been coming our way for a while. This week, the haze has gotten so thick that we can’t even see the brown hills on the horizon. The SUN has been so different shining through all that thick air. In the morning it looks blood red, and at night when we can see it, it becomes a giant orange basketball sinking into the fields. It’s intense. This is a picture of the sunrise, out our kitchen window. That net is strung across the whole back of the high school to catch soccer balls. Disturbs the view a tad.

This Thursday is my next doctor visit. Hopefully they can find something GOOD this time…

Better than Netflix

This morning I turned on the Rose song and we ended up listening to it 3 times in a row before Jay and Rose got their fill of dancing. Rose was so dizzy from twirling by the time I took this video that she could barely stand up. And Jay’s jammies are elastic-less. I never would’ve guessed I could hurl one minute and then be so happy the next.

Mysteries

How does Rose DO this?

Poor little Bink! Rose seems to be exploring her physical limits these days. I think she found at least one this week. Rose has had 3 black eyes in the past few months and they have all been self-inflicted. This week’s model came from Rose twirling around until she got dizzy and stumbled cheek first into the coffee table. OW! she hit her cheek down where that little mark is, and the bruise traveled up to make her biggest shiner yet.

The good thing about Rose is she never lets anything get her down for long (ok, this is a fake smile, but you know what I mean. Rose is just naturally happy).

I am trying to follow Rose’s example right now—not the black eye, the cheerfulness.

On Thursday I had a doctor appointment. Dr. Weaver smooshed around my tummy for 10 solid minutes with the doppler heartbeat detector with no luck. He put it away and said “ultrasound time!” and sent me off to the hospital. The ultrasound showed a sac there with nothing inside it. They even did an internal ultrasound. Nada. No heartbeat or little baby-blob was visible. Yikes. I began to get very nervous. Dr. W sent me off to Yakima for a second ultrasound with a better machine and tech. Jeff drove me there while Steph watched Jay and Rose. After another external and internal ultrasound, we had the same results: EMPTY.

Dr. Weaver and his consultants were rather mystified by these results for a few reasons: 5 weeks ago I had an ultrasound and we heard a heart beating away in there just fine. If there hadn’t been a heartbeat way back then, they’d just call this a blighted ovum and miscarriage. But since there was a heartbeat 5 weeks ago, nobody knows why there was nothing visible or audible this week. I haven’t had any signs of miscarriage. The only possible sign is that I’ve started feeling a little bit better, but that’s not a very reliable gauge because I’m not all the way better—I did stop taking my puke-free pills on Friday, but I’ve still barfed for the past 2 mornings. Dr. Weaver said it was possible that there is still some life in there, and that it’s just too small to see. So the plan of action is my favorite patience test: wait and see. I have an appointment in 2 weeks to check things again.

Arrr! I will admit to shedding plenty of tears over this horrible dilemma. And most of the tears were completely selfish. It has always been one of my top pregnancy fears to go through the deadly sick phase and THEN have a miscarriage. It just seems SO stinking unfair! Yes, not having a baby is also very sad, but during the first trimester I rarely care about the end because I’m just too sick to care about anything. My mind does take comfort from the idea that all this sickness will give me a cute little drooly squishy reward, but mostly I just feel sick and ignore everything. So to suddenly emerge from the haze to the very distinct possibility of NO BABY-Reward, is even less fun than being sick.

We spend lots of time all crammed into my recliner together. Reading books or watching shows.

Waiting to know the verdict is hard because I still feel pretty yucky. It’s nice to be off the Zofran medicine, but I still feel nauseous all day long, with an a.m. heave. I still HATE food except for plain muffins with butter. My body is still underweight and my muscles are atrophied and weak. I’m still an invalid, but I may or may not be a pregnant invalid. Mentally it’s harder for me to lay around doing nothing all day if I’m not 100% pregnant, even though I can’t physically do much right now anyway. Arrr!

IF we ever have a 3rd child, these group photos are going to get even harder than they already are!

Ok, that’s the whole mysterious story. I do have a small hope that this will all still end with a fuzzy little baby, but it’s almost more than I can bear to hope too much, you know? I don’t want to feel the pain of LOSS again! Sigh. But all the crazy stories I’ve heard and read  tell me that anything goes when it comes to pregnancy. So I hope. Jeff hopes. Jay and Rose keep playing. And the days take a little bit longer to pass.

Just around the corner

Today I’m feeling happy. Relaxed. Optimistic!

12 weeks down! Wahooo! Almost ready to kiss the first trimester goodBYE (or more like KICK it goodbye). This morning I had such a pleasant surprise: I did not barf! I’ve been nausea-bound for 5 weeks now (has it only been 5?), and this morning was only the second, maybe third time that I didn’t heave-ho first thing. I hope this means that less-yucky days are just around the corner.

This week’s baby-fruit is a LIME. I think they need to consider genetically modified produce when they make these comparisons because I’ve seen some pretty BIG limes, and it says that a 12 week fetus is only 2 inches long. When’s the last time you saw a 2-inch lime? In fact, I’m pretty sure we had some grapes that size this week.

These pregnancy posts are pretty slow going, so I’ve been wracking my brain for another “angle” so you, my patient family and friends, can get an update here without falling asleep. How about a day at the White House? Hmm, making this exciting may be harder than I thought. I’ll do my best. Here’s what this week’s average day was like:

5am: Jay springs out of bed begging for breakfast. Jeff stumbles out of bed and gets out some cereal. This 5am wake-up-ravenous phase seems to have ended already, thankfully. Now Jay’s back to his 6am wake-up. 

5:45am: Jeff leaves for work. (He likes to get things DONE in the early hours of the day)

Story time with Jay: Jay loves to sit by me and “read” me books. He knows all of our stories so well that he actually does a pretty good job of it. Of course Rose has to sit and read in her chair too. I think she’s munching on the mini dictionary again in this picture.

6am: I sit up and confront the daily dilemma of what to do first: To pee or to puke—which need is stronger? After that battle is won (or lost, depending on how you look at it), I try to recover in my chair while Jay reads me a story or talks about Star Wars.

6:45am: Rose wakes up, and I send Jay to open the door so she can come out, Bink-hair and all. She greets us with a cheery “Hi Mommy! Hi Day! (Jay)” The children beg for breakfast. I beg for mercy, but hobble in, grab some cereal and milk for them, and then quickly throw together a purple BB smoothie (blueberry banana) for myself. Collapse back into recliner with frosty purple drink. Sit still while stomach settles. Start sipping smoothie. I have no idea why something so flavorful works so well for me so early in the morning, but I’m not complaining. After the purple smoothie, I normally eat plain unflavored oatmeal.

after breakfast: coach Jay through helping Rose out of her booster seat and coax her over to me with a dish rag to clean her up.

7:30-ish: Rose poops and I have major issues changing it.

8am: Steph comes to check on us. Sometimes she changes Rose’s diaper instead of me, if the timing is right. It’s awesome.

Sometime between 8:30 and 9:30am: a sweet friend comes and picks Jay and Rose up to play, leaving me in blissful undisturbed peace. I have 3 friends who have been taking turns watching my children one day each week. They are THE BEST. It helps me so much to have quiet and no kids to care for. One day this week I had Jay and Rose all day all by myself, and it was SO HARD. It made me even MORE thankful for my wonderful friends’ help. Jay woke up on Friday and said “whose house am I going to play at today, Mommy?”

9am-2pm: I ignore my nausea as best I can by watching Netflix, taking breaks to grab food from the kitchen. Ramen won every day for lunch. This week I finished Scarecrow and Mrs. King (on Amazon) and started Bones (on Netflix) again. Nothing like a suave male agent with an inexperienced female sidekick to distract and even entertain a sicklady.

Sometime between 1:30 and 5pm: Jay and Rose get home. Rose takes a nap (if necessary) and Jay watches Sesame Street.

4:15pm: Jeff gets home.

5 or 6pm: Dinner! A kind person from our ward delivers dinner to us on most Mondays, Wednesdays. Fridays, or Jeff dreams up a quick meal on Tuesdays and Thursdays. One night, Jeff let Jay and Rose eat at their kid table. Rose kept escaping though, so she got stuck back in her booster at the big table.

6:30pm: Jeff cleans up the kids and the food and starts getting the kids ready for bed. Family scripture and prayer time.

as close to 7pm as possible: Bed for the children!

7:30pm: Jeff collapses on the couch to rest from his long day. We watch an episode of BBC’s Merlin on Netflix sometimes.

9-9:30pm bedtime for the rest of us.

Funny quirk: Jay is still a tippy-toes boy. He has been all his life. He shuns shoes and walks on his toes. Even when he stands still for a long time, he’s usually on his tippy-toes.

Can you believe that even in my weakened state I didn’t take any more pictures this week?

Adios, August

August was long. And suddenly September is here! Why is time like that during pregnancy? It slogs along like a snail and then one day you look back and realize that a whole month has passed. Or it seems to fly past but when you pause to check the calendar, it’s only Tuesday when you were sure it had to be Friday. The pregnancy time warp kind of makes sense: when I’m normal, time acts normal. When I’m blah and moving in slow-mo, time does the same thing. I could go on, but I’d better just leave time here before I get too…philosophical.

Jeff went back to work on Monday (one week of in-service, then classes start up after Labor Day). We all miss having him around all day. I wonder if I’ll ever get used to his schoolteacher 10 months on, 2 months off schedule—right when I’m used to having him home all day, school starts again. Rose adores her Daddy. After naps when she’s still trying to wake all the way up, she likes to snuggle (see picture). I was nervous about not having Jeff at home to serve my every need, but his sweet sister Steph saved the day on Monday. It was her birthday and she’s 6 months pregnant, but she took care of Jay and Rose and drove me to and from the hospital. Later that day, she came over with Jasen and vacuumed, did our laundry, AND finished painting our kitchen!!! I had to do my best not to think too much about HOW sweet and awesome all that service was because it made me want to cry (ok, ok, most things make me want to cry these days—I even teared up when Luke Skywalker got his medal in Episode IV yesterday—but all this selfless service is at the top of the list).

I never had Jeff take a good picture of the finished paint job so here’s another recliner-view. Jasen also hung our above-the-counter lights for us. Now all we need is some sort of light fixture over the dining table!

Steph, plus only one hospital visit plus one Mom-visit made this week a pretty good one around the White house. My Mom stayed from Tuesday-Thursday. She is a genius at feeding and encouraging pathetic pregnant people. She showed up with a couple grocery bags full of mystery food and kept bringing me new little snacks that I didn’t have time to think myself out of. By Wednesday, my hitherto concave stomach had unstuck itself from my backbone, and now I have a soft, smooshy little pooch again. Hopefully I can keep it up and regain some weight before I have my next doctor visit in 2 weeks. No 6 foot tall pregnant lady should weigh this much under 140 lbs.

Jay and Rose loved having Grama Meri spend two nights at our house! She got her fill of peew-ing from Jay, and her fill of sweet smiles from Rose. When it was time for her to leave, Jay’s chin started to quiver and big fat tears rolled down his face while he said “you’re leaving?” in a high, shaky voice. It was tragic. I almost cried. My Mom stayed a little longer and gave him dinner. Jay thought Grama Meri had moved in with us—he called the bedroom she slept in Grama’s room and everything. We hope she can come back and visit again soon!

The dear Relief Society from church also stepped in this week to help. We had 3 hot dinners delivered to our door. So many of my sweet friends from our ward have been calling and setting up days to take Jay and Rose for a few hours. My loving mother in law Leslie visits me every day after school (she’s a teacher). There are so many people taking care of us! I started a list so I don’t forget to say thank you when I’m better, and it already has a dozen names on it. SNIFF. sniff. SNIFF.

First popsicles of the summer on August 31st. Next summer we’ll do better! Jay and Rose didn’t really seem to like their popsicles much, oddly enough. Or maybe this is just the first food that was too cold for them to swallow in one bite like they do with everything else.

Yesterday, Jeff, Steph, and Rose went Labor Day sales shopping while Jay and I stayed home and watched Star Wars together. Something seemed rather backwards about that to me. But Jeff found some very handsome new work clothes for himself, and he even came back with this sweet $3 hat (coupons plus discounts made it only cost $3!). All he needs now is a tweed jacket with leather elbow patches, a shiny-topped cane, and an old-fashioned stopwatch. And I actually paid attention in Star Wars Episode IV for the first time in my life—I read all the words at the beginning (usually I stop after “a long time ago in a galaxy far far away.”) and what do you know, the movie makes a whole lot more sense when you’ve read the prologue and listen to the dialog! It’s pretty good.

Star Wars makes me think of Jay. How about a paragraph for him? Jay is still fluctuating between terror and angel. He’s mostly super sweet, but if I ask him the wrong way for something, he can be impossible! It seems like he’s just testing his powers and trying out his independence. It’s hardest at night when we ask him to put his PJ’s on or say his prayers. He doesn’t have temper tantrums, he just decides not to listen to a word we say if he doesn’t want to do it. When we get a reply out of him, he has started saying the infuriating “I don’t know how.” Lots of nights I just don’t have the energy to discuss these things with him, even from my recliner, and Jeff just manhandles him into his jammies. Prayers are trickier because you can’t force someone to pray. When Jay finally decides to pray, he often uses a silly voice or gets up and leaves or slugs Rose during the prayer. So far the only thing that works on Jay is if I hold him and have a very serious talk about how important it is to be reverent in prayers. The other night I told him it made Heavenly Father very sad when he was rude in prayers. Then I helped him say a good prayer and say sorry for being irreverent to Heavenly Father. When he was done, he looked at me and asked, “is Heavenly Father happy now?”

And now for a few (and by a few, I mean a lot) ULTRACUTE pictures. Rose got some new pretties this week, so she got to wear pigtails with matching bows to church today. I played around with my fun camera settings and took these from my recliner (as usual) while Rose read her dictionary and bounced around in the chair next door.

(it’s called the Vivid setting…I can see why)

And as usual, I got sort of stuck on Sepia…

Stick out your tongue!

Winner. The very last picture I took turned out to be my favorite. Few things are as photo-worthy as a happy one-point-five year old. Few things make me as happy either.

(Rose likes to play this little piggy went to market)