Ready or not ...

When I was pregnant with E., I distinctly remember a lengthy period of time where I experienced anxiety over delivery. I had read numerous books and some were probably way too graphic and detailed for a first time mom. I did not want to have to deliver this baby! Yet I knew that one thing was for certain: this baby was going to come out and there was no way I could stop it.

So now I am on pregnancy #4 and up to this point, I haven't given delivery much thought. I mean, been there done that right? How many surprises could be left unless a dreaded C-section goes down? The real variable is that this will be hospital #4 and OB #4 (I am beginning to agree with E. that that we might move too much! But more on that below.). I have gone natural, I have gone epidural, and one common denominator remained: this baby was going to come out and there was no way I could stop it.

Like I said, up to this point I hadn't thought much about delivery ... until yesterday. That is when I went to the hospital for an emergency non-stress test for the baby. I started having a specific pain on my belly that I also had at the end of my pregnancy with P. It ended up with P. that the placenta had ruptured but we didn't know it until it had started to bleed out. Since this was the exact same pain in the exact same spot (sans blood), the doctor wanted to check it out. Changing into a hospital gown started to bring back that familiar delivery-related anxiety and I realized that I hadn't really thought about this delivery much at all. However, after the initial exam and the first five minutes of the monitors charting away, the nurse told me that the baby was doing great and I knew that they would end up sending me home. Since the test had to be at least 30 minutes long, I relaxed and was actually about to fall asleep when I heard it. Awful, awful screams. Through the wall I could clearly hear the final minutes of another mom's delivery--containing mostly profanity and cries of "help!" Then it all came rushing back to me with further clarity: this baby is going to come out and there is no way I can stop it AND IT IS GOING TO HURT. I left the hospital in a daze with one thing in mind: I am not ready to deliver a baby. I am not ready to deliver a baby. I am not ready to deliver a baby. Forget all the technology and super drugs available to me, I am not ready to deliver another baby! So that is where I am--within weeks (and maybe even days!) of delivery and I can't get the inevitable pain I am about to endure off my mind. And suddenly a "dreaded C-section" doesn't sound so dreaded at all.

Will the real nomad please stand up?
Last week, E. studied nomads during his history lessons. I was asking him questions like, "What do you call home? Where do you sleep at night? Do you move every few days or every few weeks?" Pretty straight-forward questions, right? Ones that we would all answer pretty much the same way? Not my son. His answers were so strange that I had to ask him what he meant. Bottom line: he thinks we move once a year and it waiting for us to reveal the next location! (We just passed our one-year marker in our house this past August.) Perhaps we have moved a decent amount since our marriage began, but when I asked him if he remembers how many times he has moved (answer: three. An average of every two years isn't so bad!) he didn't remember anything about living in Northern Kentucky and barely remembers any of our time in Chicago. I assured him that mommy didn't have any plans to pack up and move within the next five years ... at the very least. But what about daddy? Well, daddy started casually looking at houses online and talking about "our next house" a few months ago. Maybe we do have a nomad living among us!

Off to see the wizard

Tyler came home with a stethoscope from the hospital this week. He listened to our heartbeats and then the kids took a turn. Today, while trying to listen to my own heartbeat, one of my fears was confirmed--I apparently have no heart. Sadly, this explains quite a lot.

Gender revealed!

Baby Sparks "cooperated" today at our 20-week ultrasound. We took the kids with us so that we could all see the baby on the monitor. It was fun to see the baby and surprising how much the ultrasound shots of the face resembled E.'s ultrasound pics. (Hopefully that doesn't mean that E.'s allergy, asthma, eczema, and eye problems will also be present!)

For all of you moms, isn't it interesting that they make you wait until the end of the ultrasound before they reveal the baby's gender? Granted, we aren't there to just find out if we are having a boy or a girl--we know that is just a perk of the visit--but wouldn't it be nice if they told us right away so that we didn't have to wait eagerly for 30 minutes? I could have stopped straining my eyes at every bottom shot and enjoyed seeing the baby's bottom! But at least the shots we got of the bottom were conclusive--we are having a girl!

Everyone was excited except for one little guy that was really hoping for a brother. He didn't exactly cry, but he wasn't jumping for joy either. Maybe a male turtle or fish would suffice. ;)

And due to popular demand (yes, all TWO of you!), here is my preggo profile pic. Unfortunately, those pants probably won't fit me in two weeks. A bummer; they sure are comfy. (And if anyone is concerned about how we are going to keep a baby alive when our plants in the background are practically dead, don't worry, I am repotting them tomorrow. Hopefully they bounce back--they are the only plants we have been able to keep alive since we have been married!)

To post or not to post

We have our 20-week ultrasound on Wednesday. While we are interested to know how the baby is developing, we are mainly eager to find out the gender of our newest addition. With this milestone, I have been debating whether or not I should take a "preggo picture" to post on this blog. I mean, one pregnancy profile picture wouldn't kill me, right? At the same time, I have no interest in looking at myself getting bigger any more than I have to, so why would anyone else? It is already hard enough to bend over and walk up the steps, so should I have to injure my ego too?

So what do y'all think? To post or not to post? That is the question. Let me know what you think!

Chocolate fix fixed

I found myself eating straight out of a bag of chocolate chips last night, so I decided to make something with the chocolate in an attempt to eat less of it. After a quick cookbook scan, I chose Puppy Chow. I don't think I have made the stuff since Tyler and I have been married! The kids thoroughly enjoyed it and P. proceeded to liquefy her portion. What does liquefied Puppy Chow look like? Glad you asked. Glad you asked.


This picture hardly does it justice. Perhaps I should have taken a full-body shot. She somehow managed to suck all of the sweet coating off of the Chex and then deposited the soggy Chex onto her legs. As I was cleaning her up, most of the Chex fell onto the floor where the dog was eagerly awaiting a treat. He turned up his nose at it. What a picky dog! (I will have to add soggy Chex to the list of foods he doesn't eat, including Cheerios--perhaps he has a distaste for cereal?--any fruit, jello, and green vegetables.) So there I was, wiping down the floor of soggy Chex as P. gleefully ran from the room on her newly acquired sugar high. Perhaps eating straight from the chocolate chip bag is the better late-night option.

Angel food cake: a little piece of heaven

I like angel food cake. (It hasn't always been this way. I used to think that it resembled a cardboard-like sponge that was drowned in sugar to make it palatable.) We had angel food cake with strawberries and Cool Whip on Easter. It was light and fruity ... just how I like it! Later that night, I was looking at the ingredients list and read this odd warning label:

Excess consumption may cause stomach discomfort.

Drats. Wish I would have read that label before I ate the whole thing.

Burn and crash

"Kim, don't you mean 'crash and burn'?" Actually, no. Let me explain. I have been offline for over a month now. (Did you notice? Please tell me you noticed!) My laptop's power adapter started sparking and smoking one day while I was working. After a good scream--I thought a snake was coming out of my laptop, ridiculous I know--I unplugged the laptop and let both of us cool off. After ensuring Apple* that the adapter didn't burn our house down, I didn't have to call 911, and our insurance adjuster didn't come out, the local Apple Store graciously provided me with a new power adapter ... despite their claim that it happened because of "normal wear and tear." However, my laptop was never the same. Start-up became really slow, it would suddenly shut down, and then eventually I couldn't even launch any applications. It was totally dead. I never thought being unwillingly cutoff from the "outside world" would be so awful! Hopefully I will have another laptop soon and be able to connect with everyone again!

In the meantime, take it from me, unplug your laptop whenever not in use lest you burn your house down.

*Despite this little episode, I still widely favor Macs over PCs. Just wish they didn't cost three times as much!

Nothing special 'bout January

I remember learning this song in early elementary school.

There's nothing special ‘bout January
Not a lot going on
There are 31 days of nothing much
I get so bored I yaaawwwwn
Each day seems to drag along
With nothing to look forward to
So I guess I'll sign this little song
‘Til January is through

A friend with a January birthday used to take offense to this song, but it is hard to deny that January is a slow month in the Sparks house. It seems that all we did outside of our normal routine was repeatedly fight against various illnesses! I am optimistically looking forward to the blog-worthy months ahead, but in the meantime here are some January highlights.

E. just started practicing for the Easter musical “Come, Messiah, Come” with his homeschool co-op and our church. He really enjoyed the first official practice and I was really quite surprised that he enjoyed drama, even initially. They will be performing on Palm Sunday and I think he will be a little orphan boy. (Hopefully he doesn't try to drop-kick any of the other “orphans”!) He is doing really well at school and we have officially moved on to first grade work this semester. We have spent a couple of weeks on telling time and after next week he will be totally able to read an analog clock. He wants to learn how to count money, too, but we might hold off a couple of months on that one. Once he learns how to count it, he will only want to spend it too! ;)

S. has been practicing her counting and is moving on to getting down 1-15 ... although normally she starts counting with the number 3. Thankfully she is also expanding her color repertoire and finally acknowledges that there is a color besides pink! I never took the plunge in trying to potty train her by fire after Christmas like I had planned, so she is still just using the potty a few times a day. It sure would be nice to get her out of diapers without all the MESSY work involved. There is an innovative job idea for someone—contractual potty trainer. A lucrative business opportunity that won't ever go down the flusher!

P. is getting so big. She is definitely growing faster than either of the other two ever did. Her little 12-month clothes just keep getting smaller and smaller. I was hoping to wait until spring before she needed to progress to 18-month, but I don't think I can hold it off much longer. ("Fat girl in a little coat ... ." Ok, just kidding; she looks nothing like Farley and her clothes aren't that tight!) Her hair is growing quite quickly, and unfortunately quite unevenly as well. I am in denial that her cute blonde locks need cut, and Tyler is trying to talk me into getting that first trip to the salon in before she has much more of a mullet. On a random note, she is also newly scared of Mickey Mouse.

As for Tyler and me, we bought a new broom and dustpan. Woo hoo—January excitement! Who says that January isn't special?

Me and my big foot

Yes, I posted a picture of my foot and I know what you must be thinking, "Get a pedicure already." Don't I know it—leftover nail polish from this past summer and all! But look closely at my middle toe. Nice bruising, eh? About a week ago I think I broke my toe. But before you send me flowers and feel too badly for me, it really doesn't hurt that much. In fact, with the right shoes on, I barely notice a tinge of pain at all. If it is indeed broken, this is the first bone on my body to break. And I wish there was a glorious story to tell, besides accidentally kicking the bunk bed when getting P. out of her crib in the middle of the night.

Random things you might find in our garage
When we moved into our new house, many outdoor-related items were placed in our garage that we needed to sort through post-move. Tyler has been working on getting our garage in order and we pretty much finished cleaning it out this morning. And you wouldn't believe some of the things we found out there! The most notable item was ultrasound pictures of P. Other items of note: leftover guitar strings, Tyler's wallet-sized diploma from university, and Christmas stockings. All very odd. During the cleaning, S. put on her bike helmet and practiced riding a tricycle. We then got E.'s old bike down and started working with her on that. She was so cute in her little helmet trying to peddle. I was thinking to myself that putting her on a bike all of the time might be a good way to break her of her finger-sucking habit (since she has to hang on to the handlebars). However, at the end of our "training" session, she just leaned forward on the handlebars and put two fingers in her mouth and one up her nose (totally S. style).

Procrastination

Why is procrastination so incredibly easy? Take tonight for instance. I sit down to start working and think, "Hmm, I better check our family email account first." Done. "Oh yeah, and maybe I can think of something witty to write as my Facebook status." I couldn't think of anything so I just read all the other postings. Then I thought, "Did that check for our new carpet ever clear?" "Ok, I am ready to settle into work now. Wait! I haven't read any blogs in awhile." Thankfully I took this detour because there were some really, really funny postings to catch up on. And I even commented on one, which I rarely do. And that's when I noticed it. It was there on my comment. You have probably noticed it, too. It was the profile picture for our family blog ... which is almost a year old! Yikes. P. looked like a fake little doll. And I looked, well, I will spare you that rabbit trail. So, still procrastinating, I thought I should get into my account and update that picture to something way more recent. And then I realized, "This is pathetic. I have only made two posts this month. Well, tonight is probably my last chance for the next couple of weeks because we are going to Family Camp this weekend and a wedding in Ohio next weekend." So here I am. Posting about how I haven't posted. Very intelligent, Kim.

Ok, enough procrastinating for one night! I would like to get a couple of hours of work in before my husband gets home from work. Oh, and that profile picture update? Yeah, that will have to wait for another night.

Thirty-something

I am officially 30-something ... for the next 9 years! Thanks to everyone who sent me birthday wishes, cards, and gifts. Unexpectedly, I ended up getting a few more "birthday" surprises this week. (Note: none were actually for my birthday, it just ended up all happening then.) Tyler ordered me a new cell phone so that I could jump onto his plan. I haven't had the time to even set it up so he graciously set the voice mail and ring tones for me. That was probably a mistake! I will have to call my own phone to see how scary the message is. We also finally ordered new carpet for the house. They measured the rooms yesterday and we are well on our way to being odor-free. Hopefully. We also purchased window blinds for the entire house. Now we can walk around naked. (Kidding! Kidding!) It has been nice to get more things done inside the house to make it more our own and not such an eyesore. Now, if we could only decide on paint colors ...

Complete my sentence

Hey, readers! I have a job for you today. I am starting to learn something about myself and wanted to take a little poll ... or test perhaps ... a fill-in-the-blank test. =) But you are in luck; there is only one question:

Life is ___________.

Leave me a comment with the first thing that came to your mind. (Yes! The first thing, no matter how awful it may be.) I will soon reveal what my own sentence says.

Looks like a safe neighborhood

It has been confirmed: we live in a safe community. Let me explain. We had to meet our Realtor yesterday around lunchtime (a long depressing story, maybe I will get into it later) and both girls fell asleep on the way home. I carried them both inside and put them in their beds. E. has been going to VBS every night this week and when we went outside to leave last night, the sliding van door was still open ... from 6 hours ago! All of the kids’ toys, a bunch of store returns, our new kitchen faucet ... everything was still intact. Man, am I so out of it that I would forget to close the door? The worst part is that it is an automatic door and closes itself with the touch of a button. At least that proves that I am not just plain lazy!

And inside the house, it is not so safe
P. is an official crawling machine. Nothing is safe anymore—she is getting into everything. She particularly likes the DVD player ... which now makes for three kids who are constantly messing with the thing. Hopefully the novelty wears off before we move or I will have to hide it behind the couch or something! It is so cute watching her crawl around though because she over-animates with her arms and slaps her hands down. After we move, it will be nice to know where she always is by the sound of her hands slapping on the floor!

You haven’t moved yet?!?
No, we haven’t moved yet. To leave out all of the grueling details, our closing date has been postponed yet again. We just found out yesterday that the title company requires an eight business day lapse between the time the final loan documents are submitted and the closing date. We found out this morning that our new closing date is now August 4th—more than two months from the point of our contract being accepted by the seller. And four days after our townhouse lease is up. And eight days after all of our new appliances are scheduled to be delivered at the new house. Sigh. So where does this leave us? On the street apparently. No, just kidding. We have had so many people offer for us to stay with them (thank you!), but we are hoping it doesn’t come down to that. I believe the latest plan is for us to beg our apartment community manager to let us stay past our lease. (Never mind that we have been begging them for extensions since our original lease was up in May!) Hopefully it will fly. Or we are looking at a double-move of sorts. Or renting a moving truck for a week and parking our possessions somewhere until we close ... or rather, IF we close. (My pessimism is sneaking in again.) I wonder if any moving companies give extra discounts for that sort of thing, like a rental car’s rates that go down the longer you have it. That would be nice!

More milestones
P. and S. have both been hitting new milestones lately. While Grandma and Grandpa Foutz were here last week, P. started pulling up to standing. I was pretty shocked since she was still doing her crawlstep-crawlstep-sprawl routine at that point. Papa Foutz took her crib down for us and she is now staying in her pack-n-play. [Why bother dropping the crib mattress for a few more days in our townhouse? Oh wait!] S. has also reached the new milestone of now being able to count 1-2-3. Very cute. E. was so proud of her, too. He immediately started to try teaching her 1-2-3-4!

My head is still spinning

Looking back, the past days and weeks have seem to just flown by. But in the daily grind, I have been feeling like each day will just never end. Tyler and I are still trying to balance our grueling schedule and it has been miserable trying to just keep up with "life." E.g., two weeks ago we were so busy and had so much going on that it never crossed my mind that we hadn't been to the grocery store in over a week. (Thankfully we were out of food and not diapers!) Tyler just started another round of training at the hospital this past week which added another level of craziness because this time it was for a day shift (i.e., "my" shift). This, ultimately, will be a blessing once we get settled into an actual routine. Through it all, the kids have been really great and really flexible.

It came and went
Well, our initial closing date of June 30 has come and gone ... still with no house to show for it. A lot has happened since my last update, but the most notable thing is finding out that we needed an occupancy permit for the home in order to close. Not a big deal, right? Oh, except we had to have three more inspections to get the occupancy permit. That was both enlightening and dreadful at the same time. I was ready to cancel the contract (it was the very last day we could), but Tyler said that he would take care of everything. And he has done an awesome job handling every up and down that has come out of those inspections. As I type, he is waiting for the fire marshall to come back to the house to do the final inspection for occupancy. Praise God! We don't have a new closing date yet, but should receive one this week. Considering that we must be out of our town house at the end of the month, a closing date can come none too soon for us.

Freeze-Frame!

“Freeze-Frame! Freeze-Frame! Freeze-Frame!
Freeze-Frame! Now Freeze!”

Why are the lyrics to this old J. Geils Band song going through my mind tonight? Well, it all started with a yummy delish Starbucks Java Chip Frappuccino. [Freeze-frame: If you have never had a frappuccino, I highly suggest you go get one today!]

I think that when you have a baby, you should be given special "freeze-frame" privileges. Not in the taking-a-picture sense, but rather in the the-whole-world-stops-but-me sense. You know, like back in those early 90s TV sitcoms. If I could just "freeze-frame" whenever I needed to, life would be much more livable and much less regrettable.

Today P. had her 6-month check-up. [Freeze-frame: It went really well. She is still holding steady at 25% across the board.] I had an important errand to run prior to the appointment that went much faster than I anticipated, so we ended up being 25 minutes early. As a special treat—and because I had a gift card!—I decided to swing by Starbucks and get a frappuccino for the kids and I to share. I picked up that yummy, delish Java Chip frap through the drive-thru and then pulled ahead to the curb-side garbage container. E., totally stoked that we have a frap, jumps out of his seat and comes to the front of the van to get the first drink. [Freeze-frame: I should have known things weren’t going to go well when he accidentally stepped onto the cup holder and almost knocked the full frap and a full courtesy water all over the floor.] He began to take his much anticipated drink when another car pulled up behind me in the drive through lane, waiting. I told E. to hold on and I turned the corner to just pull off to the side of the parking lot. Well, E. lost his balance and the entire frap fell out of his hands, bounced across one seat (conveniently knocking its lid off) and then landed top-down onto the floor. I couldn't even believe it. [Freeze-frame: Sadly, I am not sure what made me more upset—that I never got a drink or that I now had a major mess to clean up.] The wonderful worker at Starbucks gave me some clean white towels to clean the mess up with. It was on the windows, on the side of the van, on S.’s legs [Freeze-frame: Who amazingly stayed asleep through all of this!], and all over the chair and floor.

[Freeze-frame: So how did this event get this song stuck in my head? Well, when the frap was in mid-air, I would have yelled "Freeze-Frame!" of course! From there, I am not sure what I would have done. Licked the frap out of the mid-air? Tried to get it all back in the cup? Ran inside Starbucks, taken a towel, unfreezed the frame, and caught the frap in mid-air? What would you have done?]

I eventually got it cleaned up as best I could and returned the towels. I was wondering if you could sue over a spilled frap because they didn't put the lid on tight enough, but then the wonderful worker gave me another one for free. [Freeze-frame: OK, just joking about the lawsuit part. I would never pull one of those McDonalds’ hot coffee stunts. But I am not joking about the free frap; she must have seen the distress all over my face.] All in all, I don’t think the frap was worth the pain. Especially when the pain of cleaning out the van is only just beginning. [Freeze-frame: At least the van will smell like Starbucks. I could think of worse things. Like that time I left a poopy diaper in there for a few days. Yeech!] Oh, and we were late to the doctor’s appointment. Go figure.

In retrospect, I did learn an important lesson from all of this: regardless if there is a frappuccino in the van or not, never let underage passengers drink while you drive. [Freeze-frame: In all seriousness though, it really was my fault. I never should have let him out of his seat until we were stopped somewhere outside of the drive-thru lane. Can I plead temporarily insanity? I mean, there was a frappuccino in the van! And people can do crazy things when fraps are at stake!]

Craft blast

E. and I worked on crafts all week for the summer camp that is being held at our church next week. It was fun, but I didn’t fully realize how time consuming it was going to be. E. is planning on finishing his last project tomorrow—a beaded necklace for P. (He really has a special place in his heart for her.) We made five items in all and E. is really hoping that these sample crafts get sent back home with me after camp is over—especially the beanbag ball. He and S. have both had a blast playing with that thing. Tyler even gave it a whirl!

A whole new world

Now that P. is sitting up all by herself, it has opened her up to a whole new world of toys. Below is a video of her playing with a toy that she got for Christmas, but hasn't been able to play with until now. The mirror on it is almost like a fun house mirror. Depending on the angle that you are looking into it, it will give P. a Jay Leno chin (see photo above). I always wanted my little girl to have one of those. ;)

New feature coming soon!

To shake things up a bit, I have decided to start a new “column” on my blog—a guest blogger. The first guest is almost ready and may post on Sunday. So stay tuned for this super exciting event that will open up our daily lives to you even more!

Family photo update

Do you remember me lamenting our disappointing family photo at church? Well, I promised to post it and I haven't forgotten! It actually didn't turn out quite as bad as it looked in the little thumbnail images from the day of the photo. E. might actually have one side of his lips upturned in a little grin. Overall, it is still pretty awful though.


P. update
P is feeling much better. Late Friday night she woke up screaming and when I picked her up she was absolutely drenched. Her fever had broken and her temperature had fallen to a meager 93 degrees. By the next morning, her temperature was back to normal and she was laughing and smiling like normal. Thank you to those who prayed for her. I am glad that this fever dissipated almost as quickly as it showed up.

The Halims
Our friends from college—Champy and Carrie Halim—stopped by on Friday evening on their way home from Kansas City. They have a 6yo girl that E. has been friends with since he was born. They also had two women that are on staff with Campus Crusade for Christ from Miami U. with them. It was a really great night of hanging out and catching up. It had been so long since we have seen them ... I think since S. was only 5 months old! They left around midnight and drove the rest of the trip home through the night. Here are a couple photos of their little girl playing with our kids.

Work, work, work
I don't think I have made a big announcement on the blog yet, but Tyler recently took a part-time job at a local hospital. He is an intake coordinator for their behavioral health division. As I understand it, when someone comes into the ER for psyche related problems or if the hospital staff thinks a patient needs a mental stability evaluation, then they call on the intake coordinator. He has had a lot of hospital training over the past few weeks and is now coming up to the end of the job shadowing portion of the training. I think he likes it so far, but it is a potentially very dangerous job. As with any hospital position, stories abound of some of the awful things that have occurred. Thankfully, one of his trainings was on how to take someone down! Memorial Day weekend has been pretty uneventful for us because Tyler has had to work most of it. Yesterday was the only day he had off; 12-day on Friday, 8-hr day on Saturday, and a 12-hr day today. I will be excited when we get out of this transition period with our jobs. There is a parade downtown this morning that I debated taking the kids to, but the rain and storms we are having here made my decision very easy.

Moving
We are also trying to transition with moving as well. We aren't 100% certain on where we will be next, but we are heavily leaning toward renting a home from our good friends. Tyler is interested in seeing four more houses that just came on the market, but so far we don't have any time to do it. I would prefer if he would just go ahead and go by himself. If a house looks promising, then I can go out and see it. Since we have been house hunting for 5 months now, I don't have much hope that we will find anything in this last week of looking. Pray that the days ahead would be filled with productivity in this area ... and clarity for our decision.

A weekend with friends

This past Friday, my friend Angie graduated from Covenant. (She is going into counseling just like Tyler.) I spent most of the day with the kids and made a graduation cake for her party (see pic). She had these really fun Hawaiian graduation plates and napkins that I tried to match. This was one of the hardest days I have had in a long time. We started the day by going to WalMart and S. kept throwing fits because she didn't want to ride in the cart. When I let her down to walk, she didn't walk (if you know what I mean). So I ended up putting her back in the cart with more thrashing, screaming, and kicking. It was a lovely time. When we got home, I was feeding P. and S. got into the frig for her drink. Well, I guess the new gallon of milk I just bought was in front of her sippy because she pretty much pushed it onto the floor. It endured a 4 inch crack along the side resulting in the milk pouring out onto the floor. I got there in time to save about 6 tablespoons of it; the rest went under the stove. After sitting on the floor crying for 5 minutes because I wanted to strangle my daughter, I pulled out the stove and began cleaning up the milk. Oddly, it didn't seem like a whole gallon.

When Tyler came home from work he noticed something dripping downstairs into the common area from the duct work. He told the maintenance guys and one of them checked it out. The maintenance guy then came upstairs and said, "Did you guys have a spill? It looks like milk." Doh! So, that is where it all went!

I ended up finishing the cake around 1 am. That had some disasters of its own due to extremely high humidity that day. But, despite being the perfectionist that I am, I stuck it out and finished the cake. This was actually quite a big deal because numerous times I almost gave up and opted for a Sam’s cake instead. If anything, I have a new respect for cake makers and now know how not to flip a 12 x 18 inch sheet cake over.

Getaway
After the graduation party on Saturday, we left straight for Branson with friends. It was a really fun trip. We stayed in a cabin for the weekend with 18 other people. Our friends Paul and Rebecca organized the trip and they did an awesome job! It was really relaxing and fun to hang out with everyone. And since there were tons of kids too—13 in all—our kids had a blast. E. spent the majority of his time either racing friends up and down the big hill outside or playing Wii. S. followed (minus the Wii part). And little P., well she stuck with me! The cabin backed to woods and the last night there the adults ate dinner outside on the deck. A wolf was howling so loudly, it was almost freaky. We were joking that he must have just caught a bear ... or the bear caught him! The next morning buzzards were flying over the woods so something must have went down.

I have to give a shout out to our friend David. He totally served us by taking care of Chester while we were gone. Thanks, David! We so appreciated your help!

And we’re off ... almost

We are getting ready for our long trip to the Cincinnati area today. I was packing things up for 6 hours last night. And now the last articles of clothing we need are in the dryer and then we can load up the van. I have everything waiting by our back door to be loaded and Tyler went down there this morning and just said, “Whoa.” Yeah, there is a lot. But with good reason, and not just because I am a chick! Besides being gone for a week and everything that goes along with that for three kids, we are staying at the house on the Museum’s property and need bedding, towels, food, etc. We even need bottled water because the water there is truly undrinkable. (I grew up on well water and this water, well, is plain ol’ awful!) If you want to check out where we will be, visit the Creation Museum’s website.

Hopefully we will get to see a lot of friends and family during our downtime. I will be back blogging upon our return!

Downtown

We had some really great weather this past week, so Tyler took the older kids downtown for one morning to play soccer, ball, etc. That is an interesting thing about this city, at least compared to Chicago. You can decide to go downtown for a few hours and it isn't a big deal. It is like going to the mall or to a restaurant ... with a few more constraints on the available parking. In Chicago, you definitely had to use public transportation from where we lived. (Of course, riding on a train to and from downtown was all part of the fun! But it also meant a large time commitment in order to make the trip.) In Chicago, there always seemed to be a parade or festival or some other function occurring in a part of the city that caused mass congestion everywhere. When you go downtown here, there really isn't that much going on, not too many people around, and really not that much to do. You can drive through the downtown area, get across the bridge into Illinois, and never have to press on your brake. While I don't miss the Chicago traffic, I do miss that there was always something to do! And sadly, we just never had the time to do most of it. When asking about this year's family vacation, E. asked to go to Chicago!

Practice, practice, practice
I have been giving P. every opportunity possible to practice sitting up. She almost has it! She is just about to the stage where she is sitting up but has that forward lean. I sat her down in the chair today for a little photo shoot before the older kids woke up. She absolutely loves affirmation, so when she sits really well I start praising her and clapping and she just smiles so big! Her other new item of interest is that she has officially found her thumb and sucks on it whenever she is tired and trying to fall asleep. E. never had any interest in his thumb (he took a pacifier until 4 mo.) and S. is a two-finger sucker (you have all seen the pics ... and if not, just look back through old posts!). So P. will be my first thumb sucker. And she sure is cute doing it.

Warning! Busy week up ahead!
I have a very busy week coming up and I am really dreading it. I am not dreading the week's activities, just all of the unknowns that come with it. (I am a control freak and not having everything laid out and planned causes me unnecessary anxiety. This is just one of the negative side effects of my perfectionism.) My employer just finalized yesterday that I need to go into the office for four days (Northern KY/Cinci area). Normally I just have to go for a couple of days, but this time there are extra meetings I need to attend and a new online store feature that I need to get launched. (I am the manager for our online bookstore: www.AnswersBookstore.com. We are launching a new "live chat" feature where customers can chat live with our customer service team without having to call in.) The dreadful part is that I am nursing P. and she has only ever taken a bottle once . . . and that was over 3 months ago. Not only that, but if she isn't on site for me to nurse, I will have to spend a significant amount of my day pumping. Not fun, but the real anxiety comes in that our office is so fast-paced that many days go by so busily and quickly that it will be 3 o'clock and I will realize that I never had lunch. So stopping to pump every 3 hours for 45 minutes - 1 hour is a stretch for me, not to mention that I have to then find the time somewhere in the day to make up for all of the missed time pumping. If it wasn't for the physical discomfort of not pumping, I would forget entirely. So now I am debating if I should ask a grandmother to stay on site with the kids so that P. can be "delivered" to me whenever hungry or if I should just pump. I mean, pumping would be a nice lesson to me in drawing boundaries and walking away from loose ends in the heat of the moment, but it would also cause strain on P. by switching her virtually cold turkey as well as on the poor grandmother that had to try and feed her . . . while watching the other two. Wow, am I irrational and a worry wart or just super protective and cautious? I normally call this critical side of myself "realistic," but maybe "pessimistic" would be a bit more accurate! On a postive not (yep, I just have one), we will get to see all of the grandparents while we are in town. My days in the office are a Thursday – Tuesday, so we will get to see Tyler's mom and stepdad while I need to be at the office and then we are going to drive up north to see my mom and dad over the weekend. If anyone is up for it, drop in and see us!

Baked Goods

This past weekend I met five friends at a place called Baked Goods Pottery. It is a studio where you can choose a ceramic item, paint it, and then they fire it for you. I don't have any artistic skill whatsoever, but it was really fun. The hardest part was trying to figure out what I should make! I ended up choosing a small bud vase because I broke ours in Chicago. It was interesting to see what everyone else made and secret, hidden talents they each have. The first picture above shows a portion of the wall where you browse to find what you want to paint. In the second picture, P. and I are holding my vase while my friend Angie is holding her super cute tea light holder. The paint is really chalky in color until they are fired, so it is hard to even see what was painted in the picture. We can't pick up our items until the 10th and I can't wait to see how they all turned out!

The nurturer
S. is becoming really nurturing. She is giving kisses and hugs all of the time. She is always looking out for others and bringing them potentially “lost” items. And recently she has been wanting to make sure P. is okay and covered up with blankets, has a stuffed animal, etc. While we have to be careful because she doesn't fully understand not to cover P.'s head, it is really cute to catch her in action. While cleaning up after dinner tonight, S. was doting on P. again. I “caught” her kissing P. and then tucking her in with a dish towel!

State taxes
We finally finished both sets of our state taxes last night. I had been putting it off because our federal taxes had already been filed and I wasn't too excited about tackling the state filings at the same time. They took much longer than I thought they would and to my dismay I uncovered that we also have to file in Kentucky. It appears that I have been filing our Illinois taxes wrong for the past three years and each year I should have filed in both IL and KY because of my employer being in KY. Oops. IL has a special agreement with KY stating that KY won't take taxes from employees residing in IL, and vice versa. It actually worked out to KY's advantage because they should have been paying me my overpayment and not IL. (You, dear reader, don't work for the IL Department of Revenue, do you?) Sigh. Thankfully April 15th is still a decent amount of time away and I can wait for my third wind to kick in!