Surgery isn't so scary after all

Mark had surgery December 22nd. We got there right at 7:30am and did all the paperwork and then waited.

While in the waiting room Mark was playing and fell on his face. Of course blood started pouring out of his mouth and his lip swelled. Then they called his name to come back to pre-op.

In pre-op they gave him some medication and changed his clothes. The medication was to relax him and wow, we need some of that in our house. He was fascinated with his shoes. He refused to let us put them in his bag!

The doctor carried Mark back to surgery and we were back to the same waiting room. 30 minutes felt like 15 minutes. Before we knew the doctor came out to tell us he did well. The fluid in his ears was thicker than she expected. The adenoids were out and we would go back to see him shortly.

The hardest part of this surgery was holding Mark as he woke up. He didn't want the IV in his hand and was in some pain, confused, tired. He had to drink something before they would let him go but he refused to drink until the IV was taken out. My 2 year old has a stubborn streak. They finally took the IV out and he started drinking.

Before we knew it we were changing him back into his own clothes and out the door on our way home.

By the time we were home Mark was back to normal. He didn't act like he had surgery, just a little more cuddly than usual, but he still played with his brothers and was back to be ornery as ever.

Surgery isnt' so scary after all, but it's definitely stressful.

Christmas

This year Santa was on a budget. We knew exactly what we wanted to get the boys and how much everything would cost. We watched ads and online sales to get the best deals.

One of the deal we got was a train table and set online. We ordered it 10 days before Christmas and made sure it would arrive in time for Santa to put it together.

Here is my problem with delivery drivers: they are generally in a hurry and don't care about the package as long as it is delivered somewhere.

Luckily, our package was delivered to the right address. I had put a blanket out and a sign on the door asking the deliver driver not to ring the doorbell. I didn't want the boys to see it if the package has a picture on it. Of course the driver rang the bell and the boys rushed to see what it was. I was lucky the box didn't have anything but a label.

Patrick, my husband, took the box up to our room and we opened it to make sure everything was in there including more than one train. We knew the boys would fight if they didn't each have a train of their own. I told Patrick the reviews said it take 4 hours to put together. He was sure he could do it in less time and waited until Christmas Eve.

On Christmas Eve I came home from services around 1am. He had everything open and had only gotten two drawers done. I got everything else down under the tree including gifts from Santa and us. I put the cookie crumbs and empty milk glass on the table, made sure everything was just right. I went to bed at 2:30am and Patrick was still putting the table together.

At 3:45am Patrick came to bed. At 5:50am the boys woke up and found thier presents. Mark had just had surgery a couple days before and now had a fever. He didn't want anything to do with the presents. Luke and Daniel were ecstatic. They opened everything and played with everything.

Patrick, Mark and I went back to bed for a couple hours. When we woke up and came back down Mark was ready to open some presents but saw the train table and fell in love. He fought his fever to be able to play with his choo choo table.

Honestly, it was worth the lack of sleep to see their faces, especially when one fought to be able to play with his new favorite toy.

Merry Christmas!

Surgery can be scary.

Our youngest Mark is two and has a pretty bad drooling problem. We've seen doctors, tried speech therapy, had MRI's and ended up putting him on a drooling medication for children with CP.

We happened to go into the doctor's office for an ear infection and our pediatrician mentioned he may have an idea and sent us to an ENT. His adenoids are enlarged!

On December 22, 2010 my 2 year old will have his adenoids removed and ear tubes put in. Very minor surgery but it requires anesthesia which scares most parents. The loss of control is amazingly hard. Sitting there for 45 minutes will be the longest 45 minutes of my life.

No, you the baby!

My youngest Mark is finally starting to talk so you can understand him. He's almost 2 and a half and definatly has a very outgoing personality.

Lately, he's been repeating everything you say but now has added a twist. When you tell him to do something he tells you no, you do it. For example, if I tell Mark to put something in the trash he says, "No, you put it in the trash." This was cute at first until he did it in public.

Mark and I were waiting to pick up his older brothers at preschool and the director came out and asked Mark if he was the baby. His reply was, "No, You the baby!"

Luckily she works with kids and understands.

I just vaccuumed!

My middle child, Daniel loves to help fix things or help me do anything around the house as long as I am doing it too.

We were about to have company over and our lower living room was a disaster area. Daniel and I started cleaning it and he claimed vaccuuming was his job. I usually let them vaccuum and then go back over it when they're done.

Daniel vaccuumed and even got the hose out and went under the furniture. I went over everything again and the room looked pretty good for a quicky job.

Later that evening we had company over and they went into the lower living room. About 15 minutes later I heard Daniel proclaim, "I just vaccuumed in here, what happened?"

I love you 100%

My oldest, Luke is really into doing workbooks right now. He's 5 but still in preschool and has done all the preschool level workbooks we could find so we started doing some Kindergarten and K-1 math workbooks.

Today I told the boys they were going to their Uncle Ryan's house for a little bit while Mommy and Daddy work. They were all very excited and Luke proclaimed, "Mommy, I love you 100% now!"

Tongue Out of Mouth

Our middle child, Daniel has a habit of sticking just a bit of his tongue out. It doesn't harm him or anyone else, but he looks like his tongue is swollen when he does it.

Last winter Patrick, my husband decided it was something to talk to the pediatrician about. The pediatrician ordered a very expensive sleep study. The result came back normal. Everyone was a little concerned why Daniel had this habit with his tongue. The doctor suggested we wait to see if he grows out of it. I personally thought it was cute.

Patrick's mother came to visit this summer and saw that Daniel and the habit and said immediately ,"Patrick used to do that as a kid too!"

Needless to say there was a lot of money down the drain on that one.

Reflections of Me

I have been working on staying home as much as possible lately. I'm not sure what is causing the need to be with my boys, but I have found I am the happiest making my boys happy.

Last week I took all 3 boys to the zoo by myself. Most would think I'm crazy to do this after reading this blog or meeting my children. They are full of energy and quite frankly, only hear what they want. Mark's excuse is he does have a small hearing problem.

While looking at the animals, riding the tram, visiting the petting zoo and having lunch I realized how much they reflect my husband and I.

Luke is the current me. He has strong emotions and he's not afraid to show them. Luke can go from crying to laughing to throwing a fit within a minute. I can also do that. Luke knows how to influence people to get his way. Apparently, I know how to do this as well.

Daniel is me in Kindergarten. I was very shy. I always listened and did as I was told in school. I also didn't like to be in front of the crowd, yet. Daniel is very quiet and hates to do things in front of a crowd. During t-ball he refused to do anything with the coach because people were watching him.

Mark is my performing self. He loves to make people laugh. He loves attention. He's only 2 and he's not afraid of anything when it comes to performing. He's hilarious. I used to perform and still do a little in churches and for operas. When you get in front of a large audience you either pretend there's no one there or you savor the feeling of all eyes on you. Mark and I savor the feeling.

It makes me curious about what traits my husband sees the boys have of himself.

Chocolate

Often the boys are home when I need to take a shower. When I do this I make clear rules about staying in the house, losing things if they fight, etc. Of course, I never cover every situation that might happen.

Today while I was showering the boys made their "favorite recipe." I came out of the bathroom to hear the boys working together to make chocolate orange juice. Here is the recipe:

One juice pitcher (usually full of juice in the fridge)
Bottle of Hershey's chocolate
2 servings of orange sunrise powder (only 5 calories per serving)
Lots of water

Directions:
Dump any juice out of the pitcher. Poor two packets of orange sunrise powder, a whole bottle of Hershey's chocolate into pitcher. Add water.

Try your favorite recipe and then decide you're going to get into trouble if anyone finds this. Dump everything out.

Put pitcher back in the fridge with just remnants of the chocolate left inside.

Don't tell mom.

How to entertain your children while you clean.

Being a mother of 3 with a husband who works 7 days a week at the time can be difficult when it comes to getting the house clean. The boys are not old enough to be around any excessive fumes and they definitely get into trouble while out of my sight.

One day I was doing the dishes with Mark (2) helping me empty the dishwasher. He would hand me random plates or cups and I would put them away. When I started loading the dishwasher Mark disappeared. I had the water running in the sink to clean off the dishes. I had assumed Mark went to play with his brothers or watch cartoons. You know the old saying that assume make an ass out of u and me? Well, that was the case here. When done loading the dishwasher I shut the water off and heard water from somewhere else in the house.

I went up and there was Mark fully dressed in the bathtub with the water running. He was trying to clean the tub with a wash cloth and cold water. Cute, but wet.

Where did he get the idea to clean the tub? Me!

Earlier that week I wanted to clean the master bathroom and couldn't get the boys to give me some space. I put some hand soap on wash cloths and told them to scrub the bathtub in the bathroom on the other side of the wall.

Although they were able to get a lot of the scrubbing work done for me, they definitely remember the experience and try to do it over and over without my guidance.

Koolaid a la sink.

On most days the boys are awake by the time I take my morning shower. One Wednesday morning I was taking my normal shower and came down to the kitchen and found red kool aid powder all over the floor and counter.

I grabbed the Clorox wipes and cleaned up the mess and then turned to the sink and found their creation. The boys had filled the sink with water and poor as many of the individual kool aid and crystal light packets as they could open and had created their own drink in the sink.

When I found the boys watching cartoons they all had red feet and hands which proved their guilt.

It is amazing what they come up with!

A day in the life of a mom.

I'm working on writing a book with all of my experiences as a mother of three boys. It occurred to me that I need to explain a typical day of my life at this point in time.

Right now a regular day without any medical appointments looks like this:

7:30am Boys and I wake up (Patrick is already at work)
8:30am Boys to daycare, Rebecca to work at church
9am Rebecca works
2:30pm Leave work to pick boys up from preschool
2:50 pick up from preschool
4pm on some days teach lessons
5:45 Boys have soccer, swim lessons, piano lessons, etc
8:30 done teaching if it's a teaching night
9pm Boys bedtime (hopefully got a bath in)
10pm try to workout/watch dvr'd tv shows
12pm bedtime!

I am consistently let down by people I depend on

Being a mother is hard work. There is the never ending laundry, constant cleaning, diapers, buying groceries, trying to plan balanced food for three children, remembering doctor, dentist, eye doctor, soccer, piano, baseball, camps and preschool. Just a reminder all 3 kids are 5 and under.

I don't understand how people without kids or grown kids can constantly let me down. How can people just decide the evening before or the day of that they can't fulfill what they promised. No one owes me anything, but shouldn't people follow through with their commitments?

Before I had kids I was working fulltime during the day, teaching lessons three evenings a week and taking classes two evenings a week. On top of that I met my husband and found time to get pregnant. I kept that schedule even when I was pregnant and first had Luke.

This past year my husband was in his senior year of college taking 18 credits. I taught 2 nights a week, worked 40 hours at church and took care of 3 kids. How can I handle that and yet people with not even half of those commitments have issues making it to a meeting on time?

AAAAHHHHH!!!!

Every child is different especially when they come from the same parents.

All three of my children are completely different. I understand they're very young yet, but the differences are amazing.

Luke was a horribly baby. He had colic, had a milk intolerance, slept with us in bed and still cries. He is an amazing musician and athlete for his age. Luke doesn't care who his friends are as long as he has friends. Even though Luke is not a leader, he will be the first one picked for teams because he's good at everything he tries. Luke was scoring goals at soccer his first season at age 3 and was called the ringer on his team the second season. He has no fear and is always heard.

Daniel was a quiet baby for the most part. Although we had experience with a difficult baby, he still didn't have colic or a milk intolerance. Daniel was tested for speech delay just because he was quiet. You can tell he's smart but he is afraid to do anything in public unless he has it mastered. He loves soccer, baseball and sports but once he gets to games he refuses to play. He will not be a musician if he keeps this up. I have a feeling Daniel will be quiet and be the crush of every girl in his class as he gets older.

Mark was a very happy baby. We seriously had no problems getting him to sleep. He would wake up to eat and go right back to sleep at night. Mark is always smiling. He is always heard. I can see Mark will be a leader and have something special about him. He has a twinkle in his eye that makes you love him before you even get to know him. He's the child that is cute even when he's being naughty.

It's amazing how much different these boys are despite being 18 months apart. They all look different. Luke has glasses, is tall and has curly hair. Daniel has straight hair and has a solid build. He'll be tall but not as tall as his brothers. Mark has lighter skin and curly hair. I think he'll be the tallest of the boys, although his father disagrees.

I'm in love with all of them because of their differences. I truly believe God made them different so parents can't have favorites. All three are my favorite.

Sweet Dreams

This evening the boys decided they would sleep in the other bedroom with one twin bed together. Luke and Mark would sleep in the bed and Daniel would sleep on a pile of blankets on the floor.

When I kissed the boys goodnight Daniel said he had room in his bed for me. Sweet little guy wanted to share his bed with me!

Blood and Yogurt

Most people would say it's normal to deal with yogurt or a little blood once in a while, but how many people can say they deal with blood and yogurt at the same time, several days a week?

Yogurt is like a drug to my boys, they sneak it out of the fridge and up to their rooms, they beg for it at lunch and dinner, basically anytime they are just a little bit hungry. I have found several yogurt containers in their room.

Today I dealt with yogurt splattered in my face, yogurt in Mark's hair, yogurt on Daniels face and yogurt on the kitchen floor. While cleaning all that up I had to clean up blood from a bloody nose all over the kitchen.

After all this cleaning you may think I was the one who gave Daniel the bloody nose, but he had gotten it from hitting his face on Mark's head trying to lick the yogurt off. Later, they did the sprinkler and the bloody nose began again, after cleaning him and the floor up I was asked by all three, "Can I have yogurt?"

Kids talk from their hearts, not their brains

My oldest son Luke is very honest with his thoughts and opinions. Unfortunately, he hasn't learned why you can't state the obvious.

My grandmother had had a stroke and was in the hospital. She looked pretty terrible with her hair a mess, no teeth in and a hospital gown on as most people who have had major strokes do. I took all three boys to see her. Luke walked in and said, “Are you dead?” My grandmother didn't hear him so he repeated, "are you dead?" Grandma responded that she wasn't. Luke looked at her and asked her if she had been. Luckily my grandmother wasn’t offended.

Privacy?

Do you remember my first post about not having privacy even in the bathroom?

One morning I needed to take a shower, but was home alone with our youngest, Mark who was 19 months. I decided to give him some cars, his pillow and put some cartoons on in the big boys’ room across the hall. I left the bathroom door open so I could hear him. Everything was going fine until I turned to grab my conditioner and there was Mark standing in the tub with his blue footed pajamas playing with one of his cars.

Since I wasn't done showering and had no one to take care of a completely drenched but fully clothed baby, I had to let him stay there. I'm thankful that he decided to play in the shower and not the toilet which later became his hobby.

Bathroom Fun

Having three boys at different stages of potty training can be an adventure. Sometimes the oldest reverts to where his younger siblings are in the process and other times the younger ones like to pretend they're older and try to do what the oldest does though they don't quite have the skills yet.

Daniel was almost 2 and wanted to be like his big brother who went potty. We were getting undressed to take a bath and Daniel decided he too wanted to go number 1 in the potty. I turned and there was Daniel spread eagle trying to go in the toilet, however he was much too short and only managed to hit the bottom of the toilet bowl and floor.

There are other times when they use their bathroom issues for revenge.

I had just given Luke and Daniel a bath, wrapped them in their towels and started them on their way to the bedroom to get dressed. I realized I had forgotten the lotion in the bathroom, so I grabbed it and started back into the hallway. All of a sudden I heard Daniel, who had just turned 2 say, “I peed, ha ha!” I scolded him and cleaned up what I could quickly. I threw the dirty towel into the laundry basket and all of a sudden I hear, “I peed again, ha ha!”

Mark at almost two had just taken a bath. I was finishing up dressing Daniel, 3 when Mark started to climb up the ladder of the bunk beds naked. The next thing I know I hear a splash and it's Mark peeing all over the bed from the ladder. Clothes, sheets, blankets, the ladder and my pants leg were all splattered with baby pee.

I'm a little concerned if my 3 boys have managed to relieve themselves everywhere in our house, what about the family with 19 kids? That house can't possibly be sanitary!

Burps vs. Farts

I once read in a book that you put the portable potty training seats wherever your child is the most comfortable, that their fear could be the cold, stale echoing environment of the bathroom.

So we had this little portable potty that Luke wanted smack dab in the middle of the living room so he could watch television while he did his business. I was okay with this since he had yet to actually go in the potty.

While sitting on the couch with Daniel who was 6 months. Luke sat on his potty and was trying to go. All of a sudden a little fart came out of his tiny behind and he turns to me and said, "Mommy, I just burped out of my butt."

I laughed and agreed with him. He continued to call them burps a few time the following year while still not being potty trained. Little did I know that this mix up would haunt me.

A year later I was pregnant with our third child and had the boys in Walmart. I burped a lot with that pregnancy for no apparent reason other than I was miserable. In line at the checkout I burped again and Luke exclaimed that I had farted. I quickly corrected him but that resulted in another even louder claim that I had just farted. Of course it's Friday afternoon and we're at a standstill in line with people before and after us. Luke insisted that I had farted.

How did I respond to this mortal embarrassment?

I loudly said, "Yes Luke, I farted out of my mouth because I'm so pregnant."

Peanut Butter Mural

My husband works all 40 hours on the weekends, so I'm basically a single mom for three days every week.

One Sunday evening I was cleaning the kitchen. Dishes, counters, tables, floors. When you have 3 young boys nothing ever seems to go untouched. The boys were up in their room watching tv and playing with toys. I ran downstairs to put another load of laundry in and when I came up Luke (who knows how to open all the childproof locks) was running back up the stairs to his room. I figured he grabbed another pack of fruit snacks and decided getting the kitchen clean was much more important.

About 20 minutes later I started smelling peanut butter. I couldn't figure out where it was coming from. I heard the boys giggling and realized it had been quiet for some time now.

As I walked up the stairs the smell of peanut butter got stronger. I walked into their room and was surprised by a peanut butter mural on their wall. All three boys were spreading the peanut butter with their hands all over the wall. They were
so proud of their creation and proclaimed how they had made the picture FOR me.

Peanut butter all over their sheets, mattresses, tv, dresser, their clothes and the wall. (which is textured by the way)

I hate peanut butter.

How do you punish three boys who just wanted to show their love through peanut butter? The boys were given baby wipes, wet wash clothes, and dry towels to get the peanut butter off their entire room. They were then stripped down and given baths and put promptly to bed.

This happened about 6 months ago and I'm still finding peanut butter in random places. Each time I am reminded of their love for me and to never buy the value size peanut butter again.

Kids

I have 3 kids. Luke just turned 5 on July 20th. Daniel is 3. Mark will be 2 in August. They're all 18 months apart. I'm pretty sure everyone thinks I'm crazy for having them so close together. Yes, for two weeks we had three in diapers because our oldest decided he wanted to be a baby again. (That quickly changed once he went to preschool)

Life is definately different with kids. One of the biggest differences I noticed was no personal time. I don't remember the last time I went to the bathroom completely by myself or without someone outside the door asking me why they can't come in. Just this morning I opened up the shower curtain and there was Daniel sleeping on the bathroom floor with his spongebob pillow.

I often wonder why my husband Patrick and I haven't gotten divorced yet. I'm guessing it's because we're too tired to call a lawyer.

Life is definately different with kids, but I love them.