Cleaning With Children Is Like...

There is a meme going around Facebook that says, “Cleaning while there are children present is like brushing your teeth while eating Oreos.” I find this to be a generally true statement but sometimes it is compounded which makes cleaning with children present more like trying to brush your teeth with your mouth chuck full of Oreos, and marshmallows, and mint chocolate chip ice cream, and...crap, now I’m hungry.

Anyway, I have an incredibly busy week this week, like every moment is planned. Birthdays, cakes, baby showers, Republican women’s dinner, yeah, just nuts. Normally on weeks like this I ignore my house. Let’s face it, I’m good but not quite good enough to maintain a perfect house, do all the crap that’s required of me, and be a halfway decent wife and mother so I just pretend that I don’t live in a pigsty, get through my week and then spend the next week yelling about how we live in filth. But this week I have Bible Study at my house plus company coming on Saturday. I figured that I should at least make a decent path through my house so that people can walk and maybe sit. Things started out pretty good this morning despite the fact that William has not let me put him down without screaming for the last 48 hours. I got dishes washed before story time at the Library (go me!) and got my house vacuumed by 3:00pm. I know that doesn’t sound good but seriously, sometimes it takes me 2 days to vacuum my house. But then it happened, I made the mistake of going to the bathroom. I had just sat down when Asher came in with a cookie in his hands. I believe they hide food for this very type of occasion. Right before my very eyes he began to crumble it and then he walked out of the room to spread his cookie throughout the house. And I was helpless; stuck on the toilet until my business had been thoroughly conducted. Thankfully, this was a small mishap thanks to my handy dandy Dust Buster which still works despite Asher throwing it into the full bathtub. Crisis averted.

By this time the baby was crying after waking up from his 2 minute nap. I picked him up and carried him to the living room to nurse him. There is a rule of motherhood which states that one should always look before sitting. I forgot this rule and plopped down. Apparently now we store our kool-aid in our non-sippy cups right in the middle of couch cushions. I’ll end this part of the story here. You can imagine where it went.

Somewhere amidst all the chaos that is my day I managed to make dinner, do more dishes, clean the bathroom, Windex some windows, watch some extra kids, do a load of laundry, and some other stuff. Matt arrived home and we ate dinner and then I abandoned him…I mean left momentarily for the grocery store. The plan was that while I was at the store he was going to assemble the fabulous new cabinet he bought for the kids’ coloring stuff. I was gone about an hour in which time the children decided that they must get paper out and cut it into a million tiny pieces. No big deal. I can handle that. Then they decided to get a few decks of cards out and throw them about. Again, no big deal, I can handle that. Then they decided…wait for it…that the STYROFOAM that protected my fabulous new cabinet looked fun. As I sit here typing it looks as if there has been a snow storm in my house. I can’t handle that.

I have decided that I’m done. People can just kick their way through the crap for Bible Study tomorrow. I’m going to eat a hoho now.

William's Birth

For every one of my children I have written down their birth experience for them to read when they're older. Since I have this blog I thought I'd share. Warning...if you don't want to know birth details don't read this.

 Oh son, your birth was quite the experience. You would have thought that with you being the 5^th child I would have had the whole birth thing figured out but you wanted to make your appearance a little differently. The week before your due date I made an appointment with the Dr. to come in the Wednesday after you were due. I assured them that I wouldn’t be in as I’d never had a kid arrive late. Then when I was in the office that Wednesday and made an appointment for the following Monday I again assured them that I wouldn’t be in. Then that following Friday I had 9 hours of contractions that just decided to stop. By the time I walked in the office on Monday, February 25^th, I was very frustrated and just a bit cranky. They did a non-stress test and of course you decided to sleep. I finally moved in the chair and drank enough so that my bladder was invading your space and you began your assault on my innards.

Dr. Owen told me that she doesn’t let people go past 41 weeks so we arranged a time for induction at 4pm the next day. My labors tend to be long involved processes anyway so I really wanted to avoid Pitocin. We talked, I cried, and then we left with her telling me to go get you to come out. So, that’s just what I did. I came home and walked two miles. I’m sure anyone peeking in my windows would have wondered why this giantly huge pregnant woman was “Walking Away the Pounds” with a DVD. Daddy had to go to his trustee meeting and I put your brother and sisters to bed and decided to get out the breast pump to start contractions….and it did. By the time Dad got home I was contracting fairly regularly. Dad had influenza and he decided to go to bed. I tried to but the contractions didn’t let me sleep. Unfortunately, they didn’t let Daddy sleep much either. At about 2 am I decided that we should go to the hospital. I called Dr. Owen because I sure was in a fair amount of pain but I was afraid contractions would stop again. I have a history of on and off contractions. Dr. Owen told me to come in and they would at least start my antibiotic that I needed before I could deliver.

We arrived at the emergency room at 2:30am on Tuesday, February 26^th, and I scared the registration woman half to death. She was sure that with this being my 5^th child you would just fall out. When I stood up to have a contraction she told me to sit back down because “the baby wouldn’t come out if I was sitting.” I assured her that my children have never just fallen out! I should be so lucky.

 We got to room 182 in the birthing unit and the fun began. It took nearly 3 hours for them to get me hooked up to the monitors, get my IV in, and get all their questions answered. As I write this I still have bruises from the new nurses trying to get my IV in. You would have been proud of me though, I didn’t yell at anyone, although more than once I was tempted to tell your Dad to get over to my bed and do it himself. It probably would have been much quicker. Anyway, 3 hours in bed did exactly what I feared it would do and slowed my contractions way down. I went from contracting every 2-5 minutes to contracting every 6-10 minutes. At this point the resident checked me and I was 4-5cm dilated. Not too bad a start. I sat on the birthing ball for a while and then rested some in bed as I was very tired from being up all night. At 7 one of my favorite OB nurses named Ann came in and told me that they wanted me to rest because they thought that they were going to have to try cervidil and still do the induction at 4. At that point I sort of freaked out. Here I was thinking that I’d been up laboring all night and then I was going to have to do it all again the next night. Thankfully, Ann talked me down and then got me some breakfast because I was starving. Dad and I alternated between walking the halls and resting until about 3pm when a resident came in and checked me again. At that point I was 6 and I told them to break my water. Shortly after they did Jane came in. As soon as they broke my water I told them I wanted the squat bar and the squat stool. Things really took off from there. As soon as my water was broken the contractions went to 2 minutes apart. At some point I asked for Nubain and that made me happy…well, happier. By this time your dad knows how to help me manage my contractions and we worked as a team. Jane also helped and they asked me questions while I was contracting to keep my mind off of how bad it hurt. At one point they asked me where I wanted to go on vacation. I told them I wanted to go on a cruise. Dad asked if I would go on a cruise to Alaska with him and I told him yes. Jane then asked what I would pack. I remember responding that I was going to pack a shotgun and have someone shoot me. I think that was probably at the worst part of the contraction. Finally, I knew you were close to arriving. I got out of bed and stood at the squat bar and remember thinking that this wasn’t going to stop until you were out and I just started pushing. I pushed squatting until you crowned and then they let me climb into bed and push on my hands and knees. It wasn’t long and you were out. You had been posterior for several weeks and you never did flip around, you came out posterior. I figure this means you’re going to be ornery…time will tell. You have a giant barrel chest that was bigger than your head and very broad shoulders and yes, I felt them come out.

I was so excited to see you. At some point I turned around and they put you on my chest. You were my perfect sweet boy and you were here! I was so excited. You were born at 6:45pm on Tuesday, February 26^th and you weighed 8lbs 10oz and were 20inches long! Wowza!

We brought you home the next day and your sisters and brother all ended up with influenza but you thankfully came through it all ok. When I took you to the Dr. at one week old you were 9lbs and 11oz. You will be two weeks old tomorrow and you are such a big boy. I love you lots and am so glad you joined our family.

Random rantings of a pregnant woman

It’s been a bit of a rough day and since I am forgoing my iPod this week for a church fast I have had a lot of time to think, so read at your own peril. These are the random rantings of a cranky pregnant woman.

My first thought came to me while cleaning the bathroom. Lots of deep thinking takes place in the bathroom you know. It was about bleach. Bleach gets such a bad rap. I get tired of bleach being slammed so much. Bleach is bad for you, bad for the environment, blah, blah, blah. Everyone sings the praises of Lysol wipes and their special green cleaners. But have you ever read the back of those cleaners? In order to sterilize anything it has to sit wet for 10 minutes. Have you ever tried to wet something enough with a Lysol wipe to get it to stay wet for 10 minutes? I’m pretty sure it’s next to impossible. Can you imagine the poor helpless saps that spend their time trying to wring out a Lysol wipe so that the surface gets wet enough to remain that way for 10 minutes. Let me save you some time; it ain’t gonna happen.

The same thing goes for those green cleaners. They have to stay wet for 10 minutes to sterilize too. Maybe lots of people have time to let their bathrooms stay wet for 10 minutes but I certainly don’t. With only one bathroom in the house I’m lucky if I get to leave something wet for 10 seconds before cleaning it. Usually what happens is I spray my  cleaner and if by magic someone hears the sound of the spray and comes dancing into the bathroom with an urgent need to use the toilet that absolutely must happen now or I will be cleaning a puddle from the floor. But I digress.  So here we are, spraying enough of something to makes sure it stays wet for 10 minutes so we can actually clean the bathroom. Bleach doesn't do that. You spray that sucker on and BAM, you've killed your germs. None of this waiting just lots of germ killing. It’s a wonderful thing! And it’s environmentally friendly. According to my husband, water neutralizes the bleach…so spray, rinse, and done! Plus, if you grew up in my house you would know that nothing is actually clean until it smells like bleach.

I for one will be a defender of bleach. It is a trusty standby that has fallen victim to the latest fads in cleaning.

My second rant comes because I was reading a FB post by a local school district that was reporting that something was returned to someone completely “in tact.” Now, the last I checked, “intact” was one word. In fact (not to be confused with intact) every time I type “in tact” my computer goes bat excrement crazy trying to tell me that it’s one word. I know, everyone is entitled or maybe “in titled” to their spelling mistakes now and again but if you’re going to post for a school district I suggest checking your spelling prior to hitting the “post” button. I totally almost pointed it out on the thread, but I used the last modicum of self-control I had for today and let it be.

This minor incident is compounded by my recent visit to Marcos Pizza. In the shop there were many letters written by some lovely little school children thanking the nice pizza people for their pizza party. Each letter started as follows: Dear friends, blah, blah, blah. Does anyone see the problem with that? If you said that the “f” should be capitalized, you win! Every single one of those letters had a lowercase “f” in the word friend. This leads me to believe that the example they were following was done incorrectly as well. GAH! It’s enough to make my head want to explode…who are we let teach our impressionable young minds?

Well now, there you have it. Those are my rants for the day. Bleach and spelling…they have nothing in common...but they've made me nuts today and now you got to share in my insanity. You’re welcome.

I Find It Ironic That The Medical Realm Makes My Head Want To Explode

Well, I’ve had five pregnancies now and without getting too technical I can tell you that my platelet count has gone down each pregnancy. The medical term for this is pregnancy induced thrombocytopenia. Fancy schmancy for my platelets (which are supposed to be 150,000 – 400,000 and run on the low side normally) get down below the “normal” mark when I get pregnant. So it should not come as a shock to anyone when they do this again, right? Yeah, you would think…but not so.

I get a call from the Dr’s office this morning that goes something like this. Oh, but first you should know that my thoughts are in italics and my actual words are in quotation marks…they’re drastically different.

“Hi, this is Suzy (We’ll call her Suzy) from Dr. X’s office. We got the results from the blood we drew on Friday and your platelets have continued to drop” Um…duh…. “and so Dr. X has ordered you to have more blood drawn. Where do you want to have it drawn?”

“OK, what was the platelet count and what does she want drawn?”

Nurse Suzy reluctantly gives me the answers including the fact that the draw we are doing is for autoimmune diseases, there are technical names but seriously it’s all like, ‘blah, blah, blah.’

WTH…this happens EVERY time. Do we really think that it’s suddenly an autoimmune problem?

So I say, “Well, I have a really busy day today and tomorrow, can this be done later in the week?”

“No, this has to be done today, tomorrow at the latest.”

Let me just take a break here from the conversation to say that I don’t HAVE to do anything. Ok, maybe I have to breathe but that’s only if I don’t want to pass out and then die. This probably highlights some deep problem with authority or something that I have but seriously, don’t tell me I have to do anything. That’s pretty much the quickest way to make me ignore you. So now, I’m mad. Are you kidding me? Do I really have to drop everything to get a test done for a problem that we’ve dealt with five times now?

                Then Nurse Suzy asks again, “Where do you want to have it done? Here or the hospital?”

                “Your office would be easier”

                “Hmmmm, well, I’m not sure I can fit you in and I’m trying to think if any of these tests have to get to the lab within a certain amount of time…”

                THEN WHY DID YOU ASK ME????

                “Well then, you might as well send it to St. Charles”

At this point I hang up and consult with my medical counsel who says, “Just tell them ‘no.’” I almost fell out of my chair. That was not the answer I expected. Then he says, “Didn’t the hematologist do these tests before. Call back and find out if we’re duplicating tests.

So I call back and probably give the receptionist a headache when I refuse to leave a message and insist that I’ll hold for the NP. Yeah, I’m a pain like that.

After talking to the NP who says she’ll look for the prior tests she then says, “But can I get back to you though because we’re kind of busy right now.”

                GAAAAAAHHHHHHHH…..I’m not the one who made this sound so urgent that all my little platelets will keel over and die if I don’t get the test done in 30.5 seconds.

                But I say, “Sure.” See people….I have self-control and tact and I actually use it sometimes.

Turns out they can’t find any results from this particular previous test so she called back and told me that the Dr. so generously told me I can bump the test back to Wednesday.

I readily acknowledge that I have a problem with medical personnel, especially when I feel things aren’t necessary but I’m not completely unreasonable. Why must we use phrases like, “You HAVE to” and “It’s OK with me if you move your test back a day.” Is she the freaking Queen of England? Dern straight it’s OK with you. It’s either Wednesday or nothing.

This all ended with Matthew suggesting that I sign a waiver the next time I’m in the office to give him access to all my medical information. This is probably a good idea. I'm usually very serious when I say my favorite Dr. is Dr. Pepper. It is completely ironic that this is my husband's chosen profession. Maybe I should just let him do the talking from now on or I may end up getting myself sedated. 

And I'm Sure I'll See Her At Church On Sunday...

Everyone has their reasons for doing or not doing what they do. That’s quite a vague sentence but let me explain. When I was a young driver, oh heck, even now that I’m an old driver I refuse to flip someone off, even if they deserve it. I, to my recollection, have never flipped anyone off. I wish I could tell you that it was because I’m such a good Christian that I just never have the desire to do so but alas that would not be the truth. I've had the urge plenty of times but there is a fear that has kept me from gesturing rudely to anyone. This fear is (insert scary music here) that I will see that car in the parking lot of church the next Sunday. Yep, that’s what it is. Being from a small town and being the pastor’s kid from a small church can really mess with your psyche. Picture this. You’re driving along minding your own business and someone pulls out in front of you. You yell, you holler, you gesture wildly, then in your moment of victory when you are speeding past the offender you give the ol’ finger. You feel like you’ve won that is until the following Sunday when you’re running late for church. You speed into the parking lot only to discover a new car parked in the lot; the very same car that pulled out in front of you earlier in the week. Yes, I am positive that if I ever were to flip someone off this scenario would play out in my life.

This one fear has never transferred over to other areas of my life until recently. The other day I was out of bread and milk and Matt was gone on a rotation which meant that if I wanted bread and milk I would have to take all four kids to the grocery store….ALONE! (Insertion of scary music would again be appropriate) So, I did what I had to do. I loaded everyone up and headed for Miller’s. We entered, we shopped, we paid and left the store. There is something about successfully taking four kids, six and under, to the grocery store and everyone making it out alive and nothing being destroyed in the store that makes a Mama feel like super mom! I was feeling victorious!

I walked out to my van to see another van parked next to mine. It was an older model, forest green, Ford Windstar. Yep, I know what kind of car it was. The woman from the car was standing outside of her car screaming in the window at her kid. Her cart was directly in front of my car. Previously in my life I would have judged the fact that she was screaming at her kid but since I nearly popped a blood vessel in my forehead the day I stepped on a Barbie hairbrush that is no longer the case. Instead I was more annoyed that her cart was in front of my car.

But I did what any normal human being would have done and completely ignored the screaming and the cart. I took the girls around to the other side of the car and loaded them in and returned to the side next to the screaming woman so that I could load Asher into his seat. I did have to wait though because by this time her teen-aged son was done getting yelled at and had gotten out of the car to return the cart to the store. She had her door open and was S-L-O-W-L-Y getting into her car. Those of you who know me know that while pregnant with boy babies I have slight rage problems. But I was doing well….I was not screaming or yelling. I was just waiting. OK, so I was annoyed and waiting but I was waiting. As she got into her car and sat on her chuck covered seat (yeah, hospital chucks on car seats weird me out) she looked at me with my son and said, “Wait until he gets older,” to which I responded with a vague sort of nod thing. At that very moment that the nod thing was happening I opened Asher’s car door to reveal 3 little girl heads peeking out of the car. The yelling woman on the chuck covered seat in the green Ford Windstar let out a giant gasp and said, “Holy…….(I’ll let you finish that).”

Methodically I finished hooking in the children, never turning back to acknowledge chuck lady, got into my car and drove away. Now, I’m sure I could have been meaner, but I certainly could have been nicer. I probably should have said something friendly or something or made a joke, but I didn’t. I pretended that there were no chucks in my immediate vicinity and I drove off and I’m absolutely, most assuredly convinced that there will be a green Ford Windstar with a chuck on the seat in the church parking lot next Sunday…

How Does My Garden Grow?

My pastor talked about gardening today and it made me think. Basically, he was talking about how he thought he had bad soil because he hadn’t had much success growing plants in his garden. But then he was talking to a gentleman who began telling him how any soil can be good soil, you just have to dig it up, till it, work it, and sometimes add things to it until it becomes good soil. Then my pastor began relating it to our spiritual lives. Sometimes to get things to take root in our hearts we need to till it up. After all, our hearts can become hard rather quickly, at least mine can.

But this analogy didn’t stop there for me. I began thinking about the gardens that Matt and I use. We have two gardens, one behind our house that we dug and tilled ourselves, and another one at his grandparents’ house. This garden has been used for years and years and is extremely fertile. The first year we planted the garden behind our house it really didn’t do too well but the first year we planted at his grandparents’ house we got a bumper crop. Now that it’s been 5 years or so the garden behind our house has done much better. Last year we had so many green beans that we are still eating from the ones I canned. And of course the garden at his grandparents’ house is still doing well. As I was thinking about our natural gardens God made a connection for me. Matt’s grandparents’, by tilling and planting and working their garden, have made it not only beneficial for themselves but for their grandchildren. They have also “worked” their hearts and left a Godly heritage for their children and grandchildren. My parents and Matt’s parents have also left Godly and fertile soil for their children to plant in.

I think sometimes we get so wrapped up in ourselves…what works for me, how it affects me, whether I want to or not, that we forget we’re planting a garden for our children. My children will either benefit or be hindered by my “garden.”

Let’s face it, tilling, planting, weeding, etc. can be work but the end is extremely worth it and once we have invested in the first few years of work we really don’t have to work that hard anymore. The ground has been loosened; the old plants that we’ve tilled back into the ground have added nutrients. We don’t have to go back in and scrape all the grass off the top. Also, from experience, I know that the more you weed one year, the less you have to do the next. I want my life to be like that. I want to let God work in my heart not only for my benefit but so that I leave a heritage of fertile, soft soil for my children.

The next time I’m tempted to stuff that emotion or that anger. The next time I’m tempted to ignore the problem and hope it goes away, I hope to take a step back and look. If I deal with it now will my kids not have to? If I learn to trust God and His work in my heart, I am leaving that experience to my children because they will see the process and remember. Pulling a weed now is always easier than pulling it later.

Water boarding

I always half jokingly refer to bath time in our home as water boarding, but seriously, either my children are overly sensitive or I should go to work for the CIA and TSA and maybe even the IRS as an advanced interrogator. I am trying to work on not being so angry but it seems that I am just not capable of getting through bath time without a fit. Let me give you an anecdotal tour of bath time in the Widmer home.

Usually the three girls get into the bathtub together. This will soon be coming to an end as Elaina is beginning to fill the entire bathtub up all on her own. This leaves the other girls to find random spots where they can fit. Once they are all squished, tetris style into the tub then we must add the Barbies. I believe we have no less than fourteen hundred mermaid Barbies and their accessories (dolphins, seahorses, etc) that must join the tub at bath time. I mean, obviously, you can't play with mermaid Barbies without water. My children really don't know how good they have it. My mother NEVER let me take a Barbie into the water. It might have something to do with the massive amounts of plastic hair that must be removed from the tub and drain after the bath is over, but I digress. So, now we have a tub full of girls and Barbies. This is now play time. During play time I must listen to them yell and scream at each other that they are not playing right, or not to get them wet (Um, you're in the TUB), or that they want the one Barbie that the other child is playing with. Then someone takes a big cup of water and sets it on the edge of the tub and then "accidentally" dumps it over the edge all over the bath mat. Next comes the need to pee or poop. Usually during bath time two of my children have to go to the bathroom even though they all just went before they got in the tub. When getting onto the toilet from the tub it is a dire emergency so that they cannot possibly dry anything off before sitting on the toilet. The result is a massive puddle from the tub to the toilet and a massively slippery toilet especially if you didn't realize that it was wet (trust me). Right about this time, I am completely and totally frustrated with the situation so it's time to wash them and get them out. Evelyn goes first since she has to use special soaps that do not bother her baby eczema. She never wants to go first and usually flails like a fish that Jillian has caught with her pishen hoe. Overall though, she is my easiest one to wash. There is only a minimal amount of whining that occurs here and is most of the time very tolerable. Next comes Jill. Jill has ear tubes so she must wear earplugs in the bath. We start washing Jillian's hair and she starts screaming that it hurts. I don't know how washing hair can hurt. I try to be very gentle, but when you get me really mad I figure if she's gonna scream no matter how gentle I am, I might as well give her a reason to scream. Then her earplugs fall out. I don't know how. Maybe it's the screaming. Maybe she just has an uncanny ability to push earplugs from her ears without using her hands. It's a gift. Anyway, then she's done and it's time to move to Elaina. Elaina is completely capable of washing herself except for most days she "doesn't feel like it." This is convenient because I always feel like washing her....yeah, that's it. Oh and she gets water in her eyes and then she "CAN'T SEE!" I did not know that water caused blindness, did you?

Once we have made it through the girls then it is Asher's turn. This is must less eventful. I have to tell you though, that every time I give him a bath I am amazed at how early boys discover their "man parts". And why on earth must they be pinched!? I think that should hurt. All I know is that it's a good thing that the good Lord did not give the male species big boobs as well or they would never get anything done.

When all is said and done the children are clean. I have a headache and very wet socks, but the children are clean. Someday, I know I will look back at fondness at some of these situations just as my mom now looks back with fondness at my brother's "fun baths" (this is where you fill the bath up as full as you can and sit in it and play but don't actually use any soap). Until then, I will be content to know that it is, at the very least, decent blogging material.