Individuals

Numerous reasons led me to schedule Ally's surgery a few days before Christmas. One of the most influential was my memories of Jacob after he had the same surgery at around the same age. He bounced back quickly. Obviously it took a while for him to be himself 100 percent, however I have no memories of misery.
Unfortunately I forgot a single important fact...Ally is not Jacob and Jacob is not Ally. Her recovery has been completely different.
This morning my Ally was miserable. She couldn't keep anything down and she was just so unresponsive. I was getting upset...the last thing I wanted was to have my daughter be so sad on Christmas Eve.
I will say that she really improved through the day. After I put her to bed tonight, she came back out to ask for a vitamin. (I was happy to hear her thinking about something so simple).
I really hope she will wake up refreshed and enjoy Christmas morning. But this has definitely been a good reminder for me about treating my kids as individuals. I cannot base the decisions I make upon what would work for the other kids. Each of my kids has individual, different needs.
Merry Christmas to everyone!

Recovering

Ally's surgery went well yesterday morning. She was the first patient of the day so we arrived at 6:30 and she was wheeled back to the OR around 7:30. Around 8:30, Dr. Benton came out and said all went well. He did tell me that her tonsils and adenoids were huge and we should see a "night and day" difference. I am excited to see the difference. Ally and I were headed home by 9:30. It's pretty amazing to think this is a surgery for which they used to need people to stay the night in the hospital, and now Ally was able to head home in around 3 hours.
Yesterday Ally was not herself. She was given a lot of medications during the surgery and I think she spent most of the day allowing them to wear off. I had expected her to complain about pain but instead she was pretty calm and wouldn't really try to communicate.
I was finally able to get her to eat some bites of a milkshake for dinner, but I could tell she wasn't really up for it yet. After I put Logan to bed last night, I fixed hot cocoa for Jacob and me. When I saw that Ally was awake, I squatted in front of her and asked if I could get her anything. She looked at me and pointed, and simply said "Cheese." I almost busted up laughing. But I worked hard to hold it in. I told her she couldn't have cheese. I offered pudding, yogurt or popsicles. But all she would say was cheese. I couldn't help but laugh.
Ally was up for a short time during the night and I think she seemed more like Ally. So here's hoping today is a good day for her.

The Snow Grinch

Spending most of my life in the Willamette Valley, snow is not a major part of my life. I have to admit this does not bother me at all. I lived in Ohio for 1 winter and that was 1 winter too many. I don't like the snow. It's too cold and it makes my life more difficult. This is not a popular attitude. It kind of makes me the grinch. Most people around me squeal with delight when they see the white flakes falling. I try my hardest to keep my bad snow attitude to myself.
But this week it was too hard. Last Sunday the snow began falling and I bundled up my kids to go play in it. My thoughts were better on the weekend when I don't have to be at work. However the snow didn't stop. This is really odd for this area. Our snow usually lasts for a day or two. Monday morning the valley was what most would refer to as a Winter Wonderland. For me, it felt like a giant nuisance.
A lot of people just didn't come to work, but for me I just left an hour early for work. Yuck! This week it was like the snow was never going to go away. Jacob only had school on Thursday this week and now he's on vacation. Lucky kids! But I bet they won't feel lucky when they are making up the missed days later.
But now I'm on vacation too! I took next week off for Ally's surgery. I feel bad for what she has to go through, but I am excited to not have to worry about work for a whole week. It seems like a long time since I have taken time off around the holidays.
So I guess that is enough rambling. I looked outside this morning and I see melting snow. It makes my heart rejoice to see this (I really am a Grinch about this). They are predicting another storm today but I am happy to say it is 34 degrees now.
The kids and I are going to spend time this weekend baking and getting ready for the holiday. Hope everyone else has a great weekend. And I apologize for my unpopular attitude toward the snow.

Early Christmas Surprise

Today I called my grandmother to tell her that my mom had received a package from her. My grandmother's reponse was, that's not possible, I just mailed it. After awhile Grandmother called me back and remembered that she had ordered Oregon State t-shirts for my mom and her husband and that was what the package was. She said she knew the shirts didn't come wrapped and so she didn't care that they would see them right away. Fun idea, I thought. We always love more Beaver apparel in these parts.
This evening when I got home, there was a UPS note. I somewhat expected this as Grandmother told me she had sent some packages to us. There was also a small package between the door and the screen. This looked like it had clothing in it and I assumed it was some pajamas that I have ordered for the kids, so I put it aside, so they wouldn't notice.
Fast forward to after the kids are in bed, so I decided to check on the pajamas and make sure I got everything that I ordered. My first thought when I opened it was that there was not enough there. I was trying to figure out which children I had actually received pajamas for, when I realized these weren't pajamas. It was Beaver shirts for me and Jacob. What a fun surprise!

Decorating the Tree...

So Excited to Decorate the Tree

Logan Distracted by Toy Trains

My Very First Christmas Ball

Posing for Pictures

Our first kiss picture attempt...

2nd Attempt = Success

Mean Mommy...

I feel slightly mean. Today I met with the doctor and scheduled Ally to have her tonsils and adenoids removed on December 22nd. Yup...you read it right...3 days before Christmas.
I hope it will be a good present for her. I hope it goes as well as it did for her big brother when he had it done 2 years ago. And then I hope she will be able to breathe again.
This means that I get a week off for Christmas to take care of my little patient. Between insurance and being able to actually get time off from work, Christmas week was the perfect choice for us.
Ally's ready and likes seeing the doctor. Again...here's hoping that all goes smooth and maybe Ally will get to have ice cream and pudding for Christmas dinner.

All I Want for Christmas is My 2 Front Teeth...

Crazy Mommy

I truly believe being a mom has taken away some of my IQ points.
Today I was ready to begin washing bedding from all around my house. I emptied the dryer, because it is inevitable that there is always something in my washer. I open the washer to see a diaper on top. I was pretty impressed with Pampers, as this diaper had absorbed a lot of water. I picked it up and threw it away. Then I began taking clothes out, questioning how a diaper ended up in the washer, when I discovered the other diaper. This one had not done as well as the other. The insides of it were all over our clothes. If you have never seen what comes out of a diaper when it explodes, it is interesting. A lot of little crystally, foamy things come out. Not so interesting when they are all over your clothes and coming out of your washing machine.
My irritation level at this point was really high. I had tons of bedding sitting on the floor in front of my washer and now I had to clean all this up and re-wash the load of clothes that were in there. My head was searching for a way to blame one of my children for this, because surely I wouldn't have thrown diapers into my washing machine. Unfortunately, as I looked at the clothes, I remembered throwing the contents of a backpack into the washer. Of course, there were diapers in the backpack too.
Fast forward to bedtime. The kids and I are hunting for a book that we had just sat and read together. After looking downstairs and then upstairs, we were about to go back downstairs, when I find the book on the bookshelf.
I said you kids make me crazy. To which Ally responded, I love making you crazy!

Long Week...

For those people out there who read my blog, I am sorry for my lack of posting. This week just felt crazy. Work was busy and the kids managed to keep my evenings busy.
We did attend the local Christmas tree lighting. Santa rode in on a fire truck and passed out candy to all the kids. It was a fun evening. Logan just stared at Santa with wide eyes. I can't wait to take him to sit on Santa's lap. Jacob has been pushing me to get ready for Christmas. So this weekend we are pulling everything out and starting to decorate.
We have driven through the light display at the Pepsi company. My kids are at such fun ages for the holidays. Logan is beginning to talk non-stop. There aren't full sentences, but I usually understand what he is saying. When I drive, Logan spends the entire time pointing at the Christmas lights that he sees. And he says, Mama, I see, I see.
In other news, Jacob lost a tooth yesterday. This was the first one he has lost on top. This makes it much more visible than the others he has lost. I will get some pictures of him and post them soon.
I also hope to do some Christmas decorating and post some pics of how much the kids are loving this season. It always amazes me how fast time goes. Another week down...

The Joy of Reading

I have always loved reading. Within the past year, I have found that helping Jacob learn to read has brought me so much happiness. It is so wonderful to share the things that you love with your children. When I spoke with Jacob's teacher earlier in the year, I was full of questions about helping him with his reading. She explained that most kids really seem to catch on to reading around the holidays and she said to just keep working and being patient.
Tonight Jacob and I sat down with his assigned reading book and he just seems to have come so far. He went through so confidently. So then for a bedtime story, we chose one of Logan's books...

I decided this book probablly had a lot of words that Jacob knew, so he read the majority for me. It's so exciting to be able to have him pick up a book off the shelf and recognize over half the words within. Obviously friendly was a challenging word, but it doesn't phase him as long as we take our time and I am there to help. However the word fish was actually more of a challenge. First he said fishies, which didn't really bother me, but I did read the title back by saying 10 Friendly Fish. He responded with where is the "s," indicating the word fish. I explained there is no such word as fishes. But why, Jacob asked. I responded that it is like the word deer; there would be 10 deer, not 10 deeres. But why, Jacob asked. Um...just because. God bless the English language and all of the question that must be answered, just because.
I have spent time studying language, and I know our language makes very litte sense. Lucky for my kids, I love the language and I am a grammar freak and I will constantly tell them the rules. No matter how annoying I am or how many times I have to say, just because. :)
Well, speaking of reading...I have moved from the Twilight series to Stephanie Meyers' "grown up" book, The Host. And I am loving it. She does an awesome job of developing characters. So I am off to spend some time reading, before I go to sleep.