Just some random stuff...

...I am posting at midnight when I REALLLLY should be in bed.

Here's Ian doing his GQ pose. This kid starts kindergarten in the fall. I'll be down to 1 kid at home for half the day. WOW! I have to take him to the Dr. tomorrow for his pre-K check-up.

Good thing it is spring now huh? It has been spring for a week. I have crocuses growing in my yard and I have actually been enjoying some yard work. I always like yard work more in the spring than in the summer. Spring is great. Snow is not great.

This cute little stinker is still making pee pee in her pants. Today it was only twice, which is an improvement over yesterday when it was 5 times. I think it is because I have a new reward (bribe): painting the nails. She was looking at my nail polish and really wanted to have her nails painted, so that has become the reward when she can go a whole day without wetting her pants.

I think I did something to my belly button last week in yoga. Ever since yoga the muscles under Navelia have really been sore and hurting. Too many crunchy tummy poses. There is nothing like doing some yoga on the beach in Hawaii though. It kind of makes up for the snow we have been getting....

My kids are weirdos.

P.S. In case you didn't catch the sarcasm, I have NOT been in Hawaii doing yoga or ANYTHING. Yoga pics from www.yogadestin.com

My favorite yoga pose

One question: Why can't blogger get its formatting under control? Really. It does random psycho things and it bugs me. Some things are centered, some things are not. I can't use the bullets because they won't put them where I want them and not where I don't want them.... Oh, sorry, another question. Why can't blogger come up with a way to insert pictures where you want them and not add 2 inches of space between all the text whenever you upload pictures? (All you blogger friends will understand the annoyance of this.)

That's it. I'm OFF to bed.

Double Digit Midget

That is what Emilia is. That is what Elise called her anyway. Today is Emilia's birthday! She's 10. Holy cow, it is weird to have been a mom for that long. I can hardly remember what it was like to NOT be a mom!

We had a fun day today. I got up early and made biscuits, eggs and sausage for Em's special birthday breakfast. For some unknown reason she wore all black today. When I asked her about it all she said was, "I like black". I took treats to her class and took her to Wendy's for lunch (per her request). After school I gave her a new fleece blanket. We cut and tied the edges. She loved it. She has been asking for a new blanket for a long time. After dinner (hot dogs and curly fries, Y.U.M.) we ate mint chocolate chip ice cream pie. Kent gave her Lego Indiana Jones for the Wii.

The kids have been talking and talking about Indiana Jones ever since they saw the character on Wii Lego Star Wars. I swear this girl is addicted to the Wii.

Happy Birthday to my sweet and beautiful Emilia!

Outwit, Outplay, Outlast

Adele is ready to say goodbye to diapers forever (at least during the day). With all the stripping going on I have decided that she is "ready". It's one of those things where you just have to make the decision and stick with it. Despite accidents. Despite messes. Despite more and more laundry. It must be done. I was talking to one of my sisters about it the other day and she said, "You just have to do it. Take the diapers away and don't give them back ever. Eventually she'll get it." It reminded me of Survivor. Actually, any power struggle can be approached this way. And I am a "Love and Logic" follower so I really avoid power struggles at all costs. But if I get in one, I must win. I must outwit, outplay and most importantly OUTLAST. So we are taking the "Survivor Approach" to potty training. I will outlast. And for the first time in 10, yes ten years I won't have to buy diapers again (until I have to buy them for my aged parents or spouse, and we aren't even GOIN' there right now!!! lol! Oooh, just think of the MONEY I'll save! I can go out to lunch 3 or 4 more times a month with the savings!!! (Not that I will necessarily...)

Adele has actually been doing pretty well. We are on Day 3 and only 36 more to go until we know who the ultimate survivor will be. I should write a book. Forget potty training in one day, we know that doesn't work. But "The Survivor Approach to Potty Training: 39 Days to Diaper Immunity" would be a GREAT book.

Here I am in my buff (not to be confused with "in THE buff"), ready to go. Love the farmer tan. That's one thing you don't see too often on Survivor. Oh, and I have about 200% more bodily coverage.

As if on cue, Adele just came to me without any pants or underpants on. She just wet her pants. Let's see. That makes 4 times today. She does great when I put her on the toilet every hour. She has more trouble when she has to think of it on her own.

I WILL OUTLAST!

34. Yep, another year older.

It makes me feel so special to have Michael Jackson wish me a happy birthday every year.

Here are my gorgeous birthday pics. I look like I am trying to do the fire breathing trick but I am actually blowing out the match.

Round 3

Yep. The third bead. I don't know when the third bead was placed in the nostril but it may have been before or at the same time as bead 2. Now I am wishing I would have had the ENT check the other nostril while we were there. It doesn't really matter now though.



Adele: "I have a booger on my finger.... I got a bead out of my nose."
Me:" Oh, let me get you a kleenex, and the dr. got the bead out of your nose, right?"
Adele:" *I* got a bead out of my nose. See?"
(She showed me another pink bead. There was evidence that it had recently been in her nose.)
Me:" Holy cow girl, how many beads did you stick up your nose?"
Me: "Ok, is it good to put beads up your nose?"
Adele: "Mmm Hmm." (nodding)
Me: "Let's try this again: Is it ok to put beads up your nose?"
Adele: "Mmmm Hmmm"
Kent: "What should we do with the beads?"
Adele: "Put them in the box."
Me: "YES YES, put the beads in the box not in your nose!"


P.S. This is my 300th post! I was going to do a big '300 post' party or something but the beads up the nose pre-empted that.

Again, Again!

That's what the Teletubbies say.

Apparently Adele was thinking like a Telletubby and decided to stick a bead up her nose again. I saw her do it. I ran over to her to try to get it out before it got stuck in there and when I was trying to get her to blow it out she inhaled and it disappeared. Kent and I tried to get it out. My friend Christine and I tried to get it out. One of the drs. at the family practice tried to get it out with his special skinny tweezers. No luck. He could see it but he couldn't get it. So we went to the ENT about 2 hours later. It took him 3 tries to finally get it out.
Here's the picture of "Happy Adele" before the procedure.

I didn't get to take a picture of "Strapped-Down-Screaming-Adele" because I didn't want to look like a total freak: "Excuse me, will you wait a minute before you start sticking instruments up my child's nose? I'd like to take a picture of you torturing my child for my blog." (Yes, There are some things I won't do for the blog.) This is kind of how it looked, especially the screaming:
Here's a picture of "I'm-Never-Going-To-Stick-Things-Up-My-Nose-Again-Adele" (comfortable in her jammies of course.) Poor thing. I felt so bad for her. Hopefully we won't have any more things in the nose (or ear).

The whole way home from the drs. office she kept saying, "That was not very nice, guys." and "You are going to be in trouble" and "I am going to put you in time out".

Did I mention how much I love 2 year olds?

I really do. No, really. No kidding here. I do love my girl. And 2 year olds are very cute. Not all the time though. Today after the 3rd stripping and the 5th or 6th diaper (before noon) I decided we had to do something. I can't be going through 10 diapers a day. So I pulled out the cloth diapers. I used them for a few months with Ian when he was a baby/toddler so I have a stash. I have heard that cloth diapered babies potty train faster so we'll see. At least I won't be going through a box of diapers in a week. Unfortunately I lent some of my diapering stuff to someone to try out so now I'm down to the "rubber pants" and not any of the fancy "diaper covers". Hopefully we won't have to be doing this for too long.

And another thing we did today:

Removal of a foreign object from the nose with tweezers. I saw the pink beady thing when I was putting the "new underwear" on Adele. It's one of those perler beads for making pictures that you iron. It was tricky to get out. But not nearly as hard as the tiny jingle bell that Emilia put up her nose when SHE was 2. (When she exhaled it made a whistling sound.)

And lest you think I am just a tweezer-and-cloth-diaper-wielding-mean-mom who talks about how naughty my little girl is, know this: After the tweezing of the nostril I snuggled my little girl on the recliner until she fell asleep. She is, after all, a little angel some of the time (especially when asleep).

Adele's Stats

It is 2:25 p.m. Here are Adele's stats so far today:

Times stripped naked: 3
Shirts worn: 3
Pairs of pants worn: 2
Diapers worn/used etc.: 6
Poop on the floor: 1
Poop in toilet: 0
Nap: 0
Crazy mom: 1


Note: Naked again at 3:45

Adele having time out for stripping. (I hate it when I have to discipline my children for stripping.)

"Please mom! Please get me down!"

Laryngitis

Yep. I have laryngitis. I sound like Marge Simpson (with laryngitis). When I mentioned that to Kent he said that I did indeed sound like Marge Simpson. Maybe I should dye my hair blue to fit the part better. This morning Kent commented that it was weird because I am so quiet. I don't talk unless I have to. He said it is like living with a mime. Only I am not wearing stripes and doing mimey-stuck-in-a-box-hand things--just not talking. I have noticed a few things:

• I normally talk a lot.
• It is frustrating not being able to tell my kids what to do ("Stop bugging your sister/brother!" "Don't take your clothes off again!" etc.).
• Whisper yelling isn't as effective as regular yelling (I don't really yell that much but saying things like "don't go in the street!" just doesn't work when you have no voice and yes, Adele did go in the street yesterday).
• When you whisper to people they are more likely to whisper back. Adele keeps whispering to me when I talk to her.

Hopefully I'll have my voice back tomorrow.

1000 Words

I shouldn't say anything because really, what is there to say but EWWWW! I just want you all to know what I deal with on a daily basis. (This is the first time that the diaper contents made it out of diaper, but the fear is always there.) So, this is how it went down:

Kent: "Lisa! Can you come here and help me for a minute?"
Lisa: "Sure"
Kent then said something about Adele taking off her diaper. I knew it must be really bad if he was calling for me to help him. So I grabbed the camera as any true blogger would and ran downstairs and took a picture.
Kent: "You are NOT going to post a picture of that on your blog! You take HER and I'll clean up in here."
Lisa: "I just MIGHT post a picture on my blog. It's just poop. Everyone sees it every day."
Kent: "Yeah, but nobody wants to see pictures on your blog.
Lisa: "Well, you could animate it.... And make it sing...."
Kent: "Uh no."

(When he reads this he is going to shake his head. I thought it was blogworthy.)

Navelia and Survival

Just so you know, she has been named. She who was the belly-button-formerly-not-known-by-a-name has been named. My friend Kathi G. named her Navelia. Say "hi" to Navelia. (Kat, you are AWESOME.)

And for the record, we all survived the evening. There was driving. There was macaroni and cheese. There was an impromptu trip to the store where I stooped to the level of taking 4 orphanish children (hair uncombed, no coats) in my slippers. (They are slip ons. They mostly look like shoes. We all have our moments. I was glad I didn't see anyone I know. Heck, when I saw my reflection in the doors of the freezers I realized looked like an orphan too.)

Kent made it home. (Hooray.) We are all happy again. Especially Navelia. (But she was always happy.)

Would you like some cheese with your w(h)ine?

Yes, I'd like some cheese very much. Actually if you could make it some squeaky cheese from Gossner's in Logan that would be perfect.

If you don't want to read about me complaining just stop now. Just stop.

Ok, now that you have been warned here it is:
Adele is naked again.
I have been in the house all day with 4 kids and the wind is blowing very nastily outside.
My kids are whining (I wonder where they get it?)
I have to speak in church tomorrow. (Seriously?)
I have to teach a lesson in RS next week.
Kent is in Provo at a BYU basketball game.
I am so tired today from staying up til 1 am making no progress on my talk and then waking up too early.
My kids are shouting and looking over my shoulder, oh and we just had a good moan from Elise (Could you just go away for 2 mintues? Please? Go put some clothes on your sister.)
What is for dinner?

I think I am going to make some mac and cheese, throw some jammies on Adele, throw all 4 kids in the car and just drive for awhile. 3 more hours til thing 4 goes to bed.

"My shoe is off
my foot cold
I have a bird I like to hold
My hat is old
My teeth are gold
and now my story is all told."

AHHHHHH! Forget about the mac and cheese! We're goin' for a drive.

Quote by Dr Seuss, One Fish Two Fish Red Fish Blue Fish

Kent's Response

Hello, Kent posting here.

Hi, I'm not much of a blogger, but I feel as though the last post needs a response.

First, Yes... I admit it! I did say that I prefer Lisa's old hair color. I like Lisa's natural hair color, I think it looks really good and I think she looks really good (Hot!!!) (Yes, 3 exclamation marks hot). It must be a guy thing, because even Billy Joel wrote a song about it, "Just The Way You ARE".
(Lyrics) (Song) (Another song that expresses a similar point)
And... To preempt the smack-down that will be coming, I want to say that Lisa's pure ultra-powered hotness overpowers any little hair color change. Sorry all you supermodels out there, you just don't measure up.

Second, Pictures taken of yourself by yourself rarely work out, so I offered to help take a picture that would show off the new hair better.

Third, Behold!! Lisa's Amazing Singing Bellybutton!

Feedback

Kent has given me some feedback about my blog. He says:

"Maybe I should take a different picture of you for your 'I dyed my hair' post". ("Hint hint, it's a bad picture 'dear' and sorry, but I just don't really like your hair. Maybe I'll get used to it.")

"You really should put those pictures of your belly button scar and the smiley belly button face back on your blog. Someone even commented that they wanted to see it." (So Chelsea, here you go.)

"Maybe I should do a post on your blog to try to drum up some votes for me on your poll."

So. Here are the belly button pictures. A select few of you may have seen the original post about my belly button. I decided to take it off because I was feeling a bit weird about it. (That post is actually what inspired me to start the poll about silliness.)

On my original post I commented that my navel is not a circle or an oval but a smiley face.

And then, well, I got a little carried away.

Nakedness

Anyone know how to get a 2 year old to stop repeatedly taking off her pajamas? (I'd say clothes here but since she wears pajamas about 95% of the time I'll just say pajamas.) Last night around 11 pm I heard Adele crying in her room so I went in there. She was buck naked, lying on the floor wrapped in a blanket. Her little bum cheeks were cold so I am assuming when she went to bed she stripped and then fell asleep on the floor. This is becoming quite a habit. I find her stripped to nakedness or near nakedness at least 4 or 5 times a day. Sometimes when she needs a diaper change she will actually take off her diaper and bring it to me. As you can imagine, this can be quite alarming and disgusting. Any advice?

A Change and Thoughts on Jeans

Sometimes ya just need a change. This week I dyed my hair. It's just semi-permanent. Kent doesn't really like it. He told me I looked like I had purple hair. I think it is more on the reddish side than purple. It's fun to change things up every now and then. Since I am trying to grow out my hair I couldn't cut it. The other option is a perm but the 80's/90's revival isn't quite back to perms yet so that one might have to wait. Maybe when I feel ready to wear tapered leg pants again I'll be ready for a perm. The sad thing is that I finally really started getting used to the whole flare leg thing. Now it's back to tapered legs. I said I'd never wear bell bottoms, and I guess technically flares aren't bell bottoms. I guess that means that "skinny jeans" aren't the same thing as tapered leg jeans. (But they really are. Same thing, different name. That way the people who swore they'd never wear them again will be tricked into going against their oath.) Me personally? I hope straight leg and bootcut jeans stick around despite all the tapered-leg insanity that is abounding. There is always the option of pegging the pant if we are really going for that retro (hideous) look.

A Valentine From Elise

My Bikini Days are Over

Not that I ever had bikini days. When I was a baby my mom never dressed me in a bikini and when I had flat, smooth, stretch mark-free abs I still didn't wear bikinis. Well, now should I ever WANT to wear a bikini, I just can't. (Well, I guess I could. We all have images burned into our brains from people who were wearing bikinis and should not have been. I was even going to post a picture or two as an example but I decided against it. Way too inappropriate.)

So, here are my 4 incision sites. The belly button (2) is the sorest and the biggest.

Here's Kent visiting me at the hospital. Being supportive (and watching the Superbowl).

And hopefully I have made this one small enough that I don't make anyone totally disgusted, but here's what used to be my umbilicus (belly button). I am really not sure what it will look like under there when we take the steri-strips off. I DO know that it is SORE and bruised though and I have a feeling it won't resemble its old belly-button-self.

I have to go in to the dr. office in 2 weeks for a follow up visit. They'll take the tape off, the stitches out (I am not sure how many there are) and hopefully I will find out what kind of cells my Meckel's was made of. They sent it to pathology so I am sure they'll look at it more closely and describe it. I am interested to find out if it had pancreatic or gastric cells in it. I also have a few questions for my doctor about Meckel's diverticulum in general, and more specifically what mine was doing that was causing me pain. I have been recovering pretty well but I am still quite nauseated from the anesthesia and the trauma to my guts. I hope that will get better soon because I am tired of feeling barfy. The dr. said it would take 7-10 days for it to go away.

"The Surgery: Another one bites the dust, part 2: Biting the Big One"

Ok, wow. I have so much to catch up on. I have had so many people asking for details of the surgery and pictures of course. So if you don't like pictures of people's insides, please feel free to skip this post.

So it all started Saturday night around 7pm. We had a really busy day on Saturday cleaning out the closets and reorganizing toys. The kids were real troopers and we told them we'd take them out to dinner for a reward. So we went to Sizzler. The food was nasty and I was reminded why we never go there. We vowed to never go there again. My stomach started hurting around 7 and I thought it must be from the Sizzler food. Stomach aches are not uncommon to me though so I just figured it would get better. I was feeling like a type of stomachache I have had since I was a kid that was once diagnosed as a "muscle spasm". Around 11 the pain had moved more toward the right side and I started to wonder if I might have appendicitis. We called a friend to come over but when she got here I decided that I should wait a little longer and see if it would get better. So she went home and we went to bed. I couldn't sleep because it hurt so badly. Whenever I touched the area on the lower right side it just HURT! So finally around 2 am we called the friends again and our friend Steve came over to sit with our kids. We got to the ER and the doc said it really looked like appendicitis but that they wanted to do CT scan and some tests etc. They said they wouldn't have anyone in to do any surgery or anything until 8 or 9 a.m. so they suggested Kent go home while I rested comfortably with drugs. They got me all doped up and Kent left. They did the CT scan, which came back normal according to the radiologist. My surgeon thought it looked a little suspicious though and because of the presentation he decided to take the appendix out anyway. At about 9:00 am they wheeled me into surgery. I started getting nervous at that point, but after I "breathed into this mask 4 times" I was out. Next thing I knew I was being wheeled back to my room and asking questions 100 miles a minute. The Dr. said my appendix looked perfect but I had another problem: a congenital growth called a Meckel's diverticulum. (This would explain why I have had bad stomach aches all my life). See the fabulous pictures below. For those who didn't want to click on the link and read about M.D. here's a brief explanation: It's a remnant from the embryonic yolk stalk and can contain gastric or pancreatic cells and leak enzymes or acidic fluid. It can bleed. It can cause pain like appendicitis and can actually cause a person to bleed to death according to my dr. Don't worry though, I wasn't bleeding to death... ;) Some of these picts are kind of chopped weird since they were printed 4 on a sheet. The Sharpie writing is the dr.'s comments.

That gorgeous thing you see below is my belly all blown up with air and with some strategic fuzzifying.The Dr. said my diverticulum was 4-6 inches long.
Do you feel like your life is complete now that you have seen pictures of my intestines?

Some gorgeous post-op cell phone pics.

I made Kent get a picture of my hot leg warmers. Actually they are little inflatable leg warmer thingies the help keep the blood flowing from your calves. They inflate and deflate alternatively and keep you from developing blood clots. Kind of like having a leg massage.

I just have to say thanks to all my family and friends who have brought food, watched my kids, visited me and wished me well, and those who will do so in the next few days. I have some really amazing friends. Thanks guys.

And a special THANKS to Kent who has had to play Mr. Mom and nurse for the past several days. He has been so GREAT! Here's a big smooch for you!

Another one bites the dust

Everyone in my family is sick! Well, not everyone. Ian just got finished with his anti-biotics (ear infection), Elise is still taking them (ear infection) and so is Adele (sinus infection and snotty goo coming from her eyes). Kent just went in to the dr. after being sick for 5 days and got HIS medicine (sinus infection). That just leaves Emilia and me. Let's hope we can stay away from the dr. We are getting an early start on our deductible this year.