Friday the 13th

So my big event today was this:

And my information about it is rather sketchy. I know that Hyrum, Morgen, and Ben were all in the front yard. I know Ben threw a rock which hit Hyrum in the forehead. I know it was an accident. I do not know *WHY* rocks were being thrown. And, considering the results, I very much doubt that I will ever be told the complete story ;)
I heard screaming and sobbing, and walked outside [assuming they were fighting over who got to play with whatever] and saw Hyrum standing on the grass with blood dripping down his face. So, Ben went home, Morgen grabbed a rag for Hyrum to press to his forehead, and I packed food and diapers for Myles into my backpack. I sat Hyrum down on the front steps with his rag still squeezed to his forehead, and walked Myles and Morgen over to Rebecca's house- thank goodness for neighbors! Then I ran back to my house, grabbed Hyrum and his shoes, and loaded us into the car. Hyrum's big concern at this moment was that he had no shoes on LOL. Once he heard they were with us, he was fine. Not very talkative, but looking around as we drove to the hospital. I realized that I am a frighteningly aggressive driver when I am that focused. Anyway, we got to the clinic in one piece, and I carried him into the lobby. They were playing "Over the Hedge," which he watched while I took care of the insurance forms and other minutia required before medical treatment is dispensed. I put his shoes on his feet, and grabbed my camera to take a photo of the wound. Mostly because he's a boy, and boys love gory things ;). He wanted to see the pics, and thought they looked kind of cool. It's hard to tell this from the photo [because I wasn't going to poke around so it was more visible], but that cut goes all the way to the skull. We watched 10 or 15 minutes of the movie, then it was our turn to be helped. The nurse asked Hyrum some questions, checked his temp and blood oxygen levels, then took us back to one of the suture rooms. Hyrum got to lay on the table there, and the nurse swabbed some lidocaine gel into the wound. She was quite thorough about it, and Hyrum held my hand while she swabbed. He complained a bit about how cold it was, and that it hurt, but didn't tear up at all. I put on my 'calm mommy' face, and we talked about the green exit sign, and the white lights inside the ceiling. After the gel numbed the wound, the Dr came in [I remember his first name was Jonathan- same as H's middle name- but can't recall his last name] and studied it for a bit, trying to decide how best to repair the damage. He asked another Dr to give him an opinion on the depth of the wound, and while we waited for that Dr to appear, the nurse washed out the wound with water and a syringe. I used a towel to keep the water from dripping into his eyes. Again, no tears from him. The second Dr confirmed that there was damage to the tendon [?] that covers the skull, so they decided to stitch that together lightly, in addition to stitching up the skin. He had a finger actually in the wound, and announced he could feel the abrasion on the bone where the rock impacted. I felt a bit nauseous watching him poke around like that. Then the nurse got out the needle and thread, and they covered Hyrum with a green surgical drape with a square hole cut out of the middle. Still no crying, but he asked to hold my hands. He wanted to see a bit, and they managed to fit the square over one of his eyes, as well as the hole in his forehead. The surgery took about 30 minutes. I got light-headed watching them [I can watch myself get stitches, but not my kids], so I sat next to Hyrum and held his hands. He held so still, and didn't cry at all; in fact, he actually fell asleep on the table about half-way through. And while he couldn't see me, I cried just a bit. After the Dr finished, he explained how to care for the wound and the stitches. Then I scooped up my sleeping boy and walked back out to the car with him. He woke up in the car, and talked with me on the way home. We walked over to get the other kids, and he was running down the sidewalk, already recovered and feeling pretty cool.

Oh, Jared and Walker were on a camping trip with the boy scouts, and missed the entire event!

And I'm going to bed before anything else happens LOL.

normal?! what's that?

Been a few weeks since I blogged; I was out of state [to virginia, not west virginia], then I needed to catch up on laundry, and my cute little baby boy is eating like a, well, like a pig. So I *meant* to blog earlier, but got sidetracked.

So, I flew to Virginia, and it was interesting- mostly in a good way- to fly with a 6 month baby. We hung out at Allison's house, and ate her food, watched her movies, and helped her spend money on clothing. It was a great vacation! Even if Myles took his own little vacation from sleeping at night.

Myles was awesome on the flight back. I had a wonderfully kind man sit next to me from Charlotte to Columbus. He was flying out for business- he works M-Th in a town by Columbus, then flies back to Charlotte for FSS. He held Myles for me so I could make him up a bottle, and talked with me [and Myles too!] pretty much the whole flight. He even carried my backpack off the plane since we had those stairs to get down. Nice man! The flight to SLC was even better though. I fed Myles as we were taxiing out of the airport and he fell asleep. He stayed asleep the ENTIRE flight [which is almost 4 hours long] - woke up after we landed, when the "fasten your seatbelts" sign turned off so we could get our luggage off the plane. *gasp!* so cool ;)

Okay, so this is a pic of my cute little munchkin baby with Allison. I played peek-a-boo with him to get a smile.
It was terribly foggy on the drive to the airport; much like driving through clouds, since the fog came in large patches, and wasn't constant. We stopped at a grist mill on our way, and I got this fantastic picture. Because of the fog, it looks more like a painting. Pretty cool, eh?

Next on my list of things we did recently: visit the North Field. Yep, I always capitalize it, since it is a name as well as a place LOL. Anyway, we went up to check on the berry plants, and Jared took the kids fishing for an hour or so, and we had dinner and s'mores afterwards, and enjoyed every minute.

Walker played w/Myles; he's a great big brother, and Myles loves looking at him.

I spent a few minutes taking B&W photos of almost everything there. The sun was overhead, creating those lovely sharp shadows that show up so well without color, and I thought I might be able to capture some of the beauty and peace I always feel out here.

There's a little creek running through the property, and Jared put rocks into part of it to create a natural refrigerator. It's where we keep watermelons and soda, and other things that need to stay cool. Sometimes you can see minnows there, too.

Got this photo of Jared w/his tongue out. Kind of his normal reaction whenever he sees my camera pointed his way! Myles was reaching for the smoke- he could see it, but not grab it, which makes it a fascinating sort of toy.

Here's the kids eating dinner. Jared made foil dinners [hamburger patty with a slice of onion, plus carrots and potatoes, wrapped in foil and baked in the coals] for the grown-ups, and brought hot dogs for the kids. They serve a dual purpose- food, and entertainment- since we let the kids roast their own. Mixing food and fire is always amusing ;)

And a silly pic of them on the swing. I asked them to smile, but I always get pained grimaces, or weird 'showing all my teeth' shots. So I asked them to say "I have stinky toes," which gave me a cute photo, even if there weren't any perfect smiles. What hams!

Finally, our Easter. Normally we would do the egg hunt on Saturday, but we were elsewhere. So, after Church [and some meetings afterward], Jared-- I mean the Easter Bunny-- hid 70+ empty plastic eggs in the front yard. This way we don't have fights over who finds the most eggs and who got the most candy and it's SOOOO unfair. Plus, if any eggs escape our children, and the dog finds them, she won't get sick from the candy. Maybe from eating the plastic egg, but not from any sugar or chocolate she finds. And the kids trade those empty eggs for a bag of candy [which I sort into colors and count so there's the same amount of everything in each child's bag].

Oh, and I also made about 30 cards, some birthday and some blank. And I've finished [not yet folded, but that's today's job] 4 loads of laundry.

But, the absolute best thing this past month: while I was in Virginia, Jared got Hyrum potty-trained!!!!!!!!

YES!!!!

He rocks. Okay, they both rock. But my dh *really* rocks.

oh yeah, baby!

I have beautiful flowers in the spring- bulbs sprouting all over my front flower beds. Hyrum already picked the crocuses, but there are tulips and irises budding, and the daffodils are [obviously] already blooming beautifully. *sigh* I like spring!


Now I just need to add some plants for summer and fall color. LOL, I always remember during the spring, and never think to plant when it's fall. Maybe that will change this year...

Well, I'm off for a week of vacation- going to West Virginia to hang with my college roomie. I'm taking Myles- he isn't weaned yet- but since he has little or no opinion on how we spend time as long as we feed him, it's all good! The older kids will be in school, and Jared took the week off of work. By this time tomorrow, I'll be across the country- yippee!

random thought

"I am NOT anti-gun. I’m Pro-knife. Consider the merits of the knife. In the first place, you have to catch up with someone in order to stab him. A general substitution of knives for guns would promote physical fitness. We’d turn into a whole nation of great runners. Plus, knives don’t ricochet. And people are seldom killed while cleaning their knives. " ~Molly Ivins

A friend shared that w/me, and I especially liked the physical fitness part ;). I, just to be clear, am totally for guns. Not because I have anything against knives, even though I had to get *8* stitches in my thumb once because I was using Jared's pocketknife and it slipped...

On to other topics- we had SEPs today. Which means parent-teacher conferences. Except now the kids have to come, too, and the weird acronym [I can't remember the exact words] sort of means that the conferences are student-led discussions of what they're learning in class. And I'm all for hearing the good part of what you're doing in class, but it totally bites if your teacher has anything bad to say about you. Luckily, I heard only good things this time- Walker is an awesome speller. And I can actually read Morgen's sentences now- she's putting spaces between her words, and getting better with spelling.

Myles rolled into a bookcase today. I know because he suddenly began to cry, and it was his 'you hurt my feelings' cry, and when I went to rescue him, his head was right up against the bottom shelf. I really wanted to laugh, but I managed to contain my amusement until he wasn't looking at me- I guess laughing at your kids is supposed to be bad for their self-esteem...

Hyrum picked all my crocuses on Monday, and put them in the mailbox for the mailman. Unfortunately, the mailman didn't want them, and left the poor wilted blossoms scattered on the street. Apparently, Hyrum forgot to put postage on them ;).

It's spring!!! I know because I feel like cleaning. Only happens once a year; I'm thinking it is linked to the sudden emergence of baby insects from wherever they go in the winter time.

j

just a quickie

Myles is so grumpy! He's had a full dose of Tylenol, and I've given him teething tablets [they help with the pain, but they're safe to mix w/the tylenol], and he's been fed and bathed and changed, and he's still screaming. So he's now screaming from the comfort of his own little bed. Poor little tyke.

boom!

so I asked, the other night, exactly what Jared was learning about in Chicago.
Explosives.
I KNOW- he has the coolest job! Well, except for the traveling 3 weeks out of the month of February part...

More snow this morning- before we were up, though, so I couldn't sit at the window and watch it falling down.

No school tomorrow. Because it's end of term. Sometimes I think the people who make up our school schedule are the same kids who used to skip school at any excuse. So now they let the kids out for reasons no sane adult understands. Aargh.

;) enjoy your Thursday

odds and ends

It snowed all day Friday- big fluffy flakes, and tiny threads of sleet, and most of it melted in the sun we got on Saturday. Sunday it snowed again, for a while, but didn't stick to the pavement. Today when I woke up it was snowing- sprinkling really, at first. It kept coming down, thicker and thicker, until I almost couldn't see our backyard fence through all the flakes. Now it's sunny again, and people's roofs are beginning to drip. In the late morning, after the kids were off to school and my neighbors had driven to work, the snow had filled in all the footprints. I loved the silence of it.

Today I didn't finish a book. I tried to finish the last 2 books I borrowed from the library, since we always go to the library on Tuesday, and I like to return everything at once. Otherwise I forget, and get charged outrageous late fees. Anyway, my point was that, for the second time in my memory, I chose *not* to finish a book. I've returned books without reading them before; I get home and they don't appeal to me like they did at the library. But reading this collection of short stories, I could feel depression setting in. And the author was quite talented, and it made me mad that because of her skill, I was drawn into this hopelessness that spreads through her stories. Ick. I finished almost half of them, and it felt like she [the author] didn't believe in God, or in goodness; not that her stories were depraved or perverted, but *nothing changed* in them. People didn't save things, or become stronger or better, and it was like a weird universe where nothing has meaning at all. The people in her stories didn't learn *anything.* How utterly bleak, to be so completely self-centered that NOTHING can break through! I feel like I just swam through oil- not the light olive oil I cook with, but the nasty sludge we drain from the oilpan of the car. So I'm off to read something that will clean off that sticky, slippery, gritty feeling.

This month...

This month, Jared has gone to:

• Alaska, for cold-weather scenarios. It was the same temp [low 50's] as it was in Utah. So all that cold-weather gear he packed? yep. Didn't need it. But hey, they got lots of happy hours in at the local bars...
• Las Vegas, to help another unit prepare for certification. Jared got to play "mad scientist" and come up with a training scenario, to test their preparedness. *evil laughter* I suggested he take the little dead mouse bodies from the freezer, but he's apparently saving those for a more appropriate time.
• Tennessee, to learn all about radiation. Now he has a t-shirt, and I have a mug, that says "Where you learn to handle the hot stuff." That's actually one of the better slogans I've seen as far as classes go. Some of them are just lame. And no, I'm not digging through my pile of free hats/tshirts/mugs/keychains/etc to share the lame ones w/y'all. Mostly because I *gasp* threw them away. [hope Jared didn't read that...]
• Chicago, and I have no idea what he's learning there. That's this week, though, so I'll be hearing about it shortly!

*sigh* I love the military. No, really. At least he gets to come home, sort of! He flies in Saturday, does his laundry, repacks, and leaves Sunday for the next class. Oh, except for the one week he was home this month. He did buy me flowers, though... xoxo
So, while Jared was away, Myles has learned how to roll over, and is chewing on everything to prepare for his teeth. Hyrum has learned how to scrape the top off every batch of brownies [3 so far] I have made. And this last time I found him behind the couch with a gallon of milk and a cup he'd filled with that milk to drink with the brownie shavings. The gulping milk noise gave him away. Morgen got to have "BUG" [being unusually good] lunch with her principal, and she also got "Student of the Week." Walker went on a 10-mile hike, and is excited about doing a 50-miler this summer with the boys' youth group of our church, and his dad.
And, I found out my library offers e-books, which I can check out and download over the internet. Cool.

babies

Last weekend we had a wedding [Jared's sister] and a baby christening [Jared's nephew]. Melinda and Jon right after the ceremony- we were all on our way outside [brrrr!] for pictures.

Since his family was all together for these events, we got all five of the baby boys together for some pictures. They range in age from 5 months to 1 month. We laid them down in order of age- Saxon, Myles, Carson, Zachary, and Sloan-left to right.

Myles was sleeping until Saxon punched him LOL. But he kind of got it from both sides, since Carson was waving his hands around too. I have to say, though, if Myles had been awake, he would have been waving his hands around and hitting his cousins too.

Once he lost his thumb, he got a bit upset. LOL, he's used to lots of touching and "loving" from his siblings, and normally he handles that fine, but he started teething this weekend [I know, I am SO lucky!].

Found this at Target- it's a cool little seat for babies. He's old enough that he likes to look around, and coo a lot, which means I spend a lot of time holding him. The view from the floor is a bit limited, after all. Anyway, I can put Myles in this, and talk to him while I scrapbook, and he drools all over my papers. He can't get out of it, but he wiggles around until he can chew on the arm rests. And he can coo at me, and I'll talk back, and I get some creative time in while he's happy.

And this is the latest trick Myles has learned: he rolls! front to back and back to front, now he can move all over the floor when we set him down. Usually he'll spit up somewhere, then roll to a new and cleaner spot before spitting up again ;)

Oh, and my younger brother just got engaged- they're getting married in May. Wow!!

family ties

I look at this photo and see happiness, cooperation and playing together as siblings should. I want desperately for them to continue to play together, to be closer than friends, through their growing up years and into adulthood.

I know a lady who is dying, and her children are bickering [already] and fighting with each other, making these last few days of hers painful and chaotic. And it tears my heart, to witness the hate and cruelty they harbor, when they should be supporting and loving each other. I know that death brings out many emotions, but jealousy and greed are so ugly to see. *sigh*

Okay, so in the spirit of togetherness, we played a game together for family night last night. Over Christmas, we ended up playing a lot of games with family members, and I've realized how much fun I have doing this. So I've made a goal [may be silly, but if it works...] to play a game with my kids at least once a week. LOL, and we got a few family games as presents, so there we go!

Time to be together with Myles- he's demanding food again, LOL.