Mom-Brain

Perfect, perfect example of the entire point of this post: I had a hard time not typing "mom brian". 
None of you thinks mom brain is a myth, right?  It is a serious affliction.  As my kids age, I get progressively dumber.  I am serious.  Okay, I was the stupidest right after Sophie was born, but man...that no-sleep fog you get with a newborn DOESN'T GO AWAY!  You know when they list all the things birth control protects against?  This should be one of them.  You will not be nearly as dumb if you don't have kids.
At least in my case.  If you haven't experienced this, i don't want to hear about it.  So pfffbt.
Which brings me to this.  I started playing Words with Friends on facebook...do you people all cheat or something?!  I have often played Scrabble with my family, and maybe its just because I'm playing against a 9 year old most of the time, but I thought I was alright at it.  But no. I suck big time at WWF.  I can't seem to win.  When its my turn to come up with a word, I will sit here and try to rummage through the recesses of my noggin to try to come up with something and all I find are dust, recipes, and the lyrics to all the songs on Elmo in Grouchland.  Its a tad frustrating.  My memory (okay, this is ridiculous...I typed "momory") is not great.  And by not great, I mean its pretty crappy. I have to WRITE EVERYTHING DOWN on a to-do list for the day or chances are, it won't get done. I like to pretend that I'm just really organized, but that's bull.  I'm forgetful! I have mom brain.
The upside to this, though, is that even though I'm losing these games, I feel like its exercising my brain at least a little.  I'm not just reading directions for cooking something, or scanning the netflix guide to find an episode of Dora, or taping a bandaid around the pink crayon because its broken.  I'm using a different part of my brain, and that at least feels good.
Of course, now I can't remember what I was going to do instead of typing this...

The good life

I posted a status the other day on facebook askin for ideas of things I could do to earn money from home.  I said the reason I can't really have a traditional job out of the home is because of our schedule with Gavin.  I've had people ask me about that, and so I thought maybe I'd elaborate a little.  While I figure most people shouldn't care, because we are of course adults, who can make our own decisions, I know other people (family included!) who have expressed concern over us not making very much money, yet still living on only one income. 
In today's world, material things seem to be a high priority.  People think they need things to survive that really, if you took a look at it, are definitely luxuries.  I know there are people who absolutely need to have both parents working full time jobs to make it day to day, and these people are awesome -- because I can't imagine doing this full time job of being a stay at home mom on top of a full time (or even part time for that matter) outside the home job.  If it was necessary, I would do it.  But since I'm not in that situation, I can't imagine what it would be like.  Being a mom is tough. 
If our situation was a little different, who knows what I would be doing.  If we only had Sophie, maybe I'd be working.  Even then, as Ernie and I have discussed, the majority of my salary would most likely be going toward daycare for her.  Something that doesn't seem to make all that much sense...seeing as how neither of us has a college degree, we don't have unlimited earning potential (kids, stay in school!!!).  However, we don't just have Sophie.  We have Gavin, too, who is a huge blessing but also takes some juggling with schedules. :)  We have Gavin 5 days at a time, which of course includes some school days.  I drive out to pick him up, and on school days, I take him to school and pick him up when school is over.  This has me driving around at different hours, and its a good thing I can because Ernie wouldn't be able to do it with work.  If I were to get a job outside the home, where would that leave us with Gavin?  Sure, Sophie could be easily covered in daycare during working hours (not an attractive option, but not impossible).  But the reality of the situation is that we would be reduced to having Gavin every other weekend, and that is it. 
That's not acceptable to us. 
We do struggle to get by...as most people seem to be doing.  While some people have acted as if we are poor decision makers for living on a small amount and letting me stay home and "do nothing", I just say we have far different priorities.  Are our priorities different than others in this 'day and age'?  Probably.  In order of importance to Ernie and I are:

1) God
2) Spouse
3) Children
4) Others

Material possessions and money are much farther down the list. :)  Is it hard to go without some things? Yeah, definitely.  Our culture shoves so much in your face that its easy to think "oooh, I want that".  But would it be harder to go without such a huge part of our family (our sweet little Gavin)? 100% yes!  I will take penny pinching and coupon clipping and going without 'necessities' like fancy phones, and TV, and new cars, and vacations, etc. to have our family be able to spend time together. 
No amount of money in the world would make it okay for us to give up the life we have now.

Late night adventure

Okay, sorry I didn't update more about my late night hospital visit.  My sleep has been all thrown off so I have been just in zombie mode around here for the weekend.
Friday night I stayed up with Ernie since he was off work, and didn't go to bed until about 1:30.  I was laying there reading and my chest started hurting.  I have had that problem before so I sat up, hoping it wasn't going to be like the other times.  But it got worse -- the worst part about that is, I start having huge amounts of anxiety about it because I haven't yet figured out why I have these chest pains, so on top of the regular pain, I have panic attack pain.  I start thinking in my head that I'm going to die.  Well this time the pain was worse, so I actually woke Ernie up and asked him if I should call 911.  The thought of this scares me WAY worse because I don't have medical insurance and I know how expensive the ambulance bill would be on top of the hospital bill.  Instead, after a while Ernie decided he was worried enough about me that he was taking me to St. Peters.  (One downside of living out here...no hospital in town!)  So at about 3am Ernie got Sophie up out of bed and we made the drive in.  It was no fun. However, once we got there, it was quite a bit different from our other experiences with the ER...just mention chest pain, and you get in right away!! 
I had an EKG done, chest x-rays, and blood drawn.  Most of the time I just laid on a gurney and had my heart monitored.  They pretty much treated it as a heart attack coming in -- gave me the aspirin and all that.  Which is really scary.  I'm 28 years old.  The good news was, my EKG was perfect, my blood pressure is low as usual, and my cardiac enzymes and chest x-ray were just fine.  The only abnormality was elevated white blood cells.  Basically, they don't know why I'm having the pains.  Which sucks...I would like to get it figured out so I know what it is and how to prevent it!!  They have been a ton better since we started eating paleo, so I feel like grains/wheat/fried stuff may have something to do with it, but there's been no definite answer as to what is going on.  Its kind of scary knowing these 'attacks' can still happen even with our change in lifestyle with our eating and all that. I thought I had it figured out and I would never have them again!  I also have a *ton* of anxiety about getting the hospital bill in the mail, but we will just cross that bridge when we get there.  I am trying to control the anxiety I have, worrying about having more of these pains.  They were about a 9 on a scale of 1 to 10, and the most pain I ever had in labor with Sophie was maybe a 6 or 7 to me.  So, I don't know really how to handle pain like that!  Especially when I have no reason for why its happening.  Its really scary!  Am I dying?  Am I having a heart attack?  I don't know at the moment its happening so its pretty hard to deal with.  The good news is, its gone now, I'm not having a heart attack in my 20s...
Another awesome part was how WONDERFULLY my daughter behaved in the ER at 3 am!  I fully expected a 3 year old who got woken up in the middle of the night to be grumpy and clingy and all of that.  And then to have to wait in the waiting room forever, I would expect whining.  But she did none of that.  It was like an adventure to her!  She got to wear her pjs out, and Ernie took her to the vending machines and got her orange juice and a bag of cookies.  She had a great time!  He even laid down on one of the couches and she sat quietly in a chair and looked at a book and played with her babies.  What a good girl!! She made it so much LESS stressful than it could have been.  She even told me "we're gonna take care of you mama." Awww.
I would appreciate prayers for me while I try to figure out what the heck is happening to make me have these!

Whiny Britches

Does anyone know how much I despise driving anywhere except for around town??  I HATE IT.  I wouldn't say I'm a wuss, but it just gives me huge anxiety.  It didn't used to be that way, but it is now.  Living in Yelm, I really don't have reason to drive anywhere else but to Olympia, and out to Spanaway to get Gavin.  And there's not really even any traffic on those drives. 
Today, I had the DELIGHTFUL task of driving to downtown Tacoma to pick up Ernie's race packet for the Tacoma Narrows Half Marathon that he's running tomorrow morning.  Okay, so I wasn't looking forward to driving to Tacoma in the first place, and add on top of it that today is Friday, which is Awesome Traffic Day in the area, especially after 2 pm, which is when the packet pickup started!  Sophie and I left home at 1 pm and went on our merry way.  I got to drive through the armpit that is Spanaway/Parkland (by the way, I can read about 1/4 of the signs in that area.  Not that I mind Spanish...) and when I got to Tacoma, hooray: road construction!  I took the detour, and by this time I really REALLY had to pee.  We found a parking spot several streets and a steep hill away, and finally Sophie and I made it to the hotel where they were set up.  The actual packet pick up was super easy and quick -- I gave them Ernie's name, the lady pulled his stuff out and put it in a bag, told Sophie she was cute and smiled at her, and we were done!  It was fun dragging a tired 3 year old back up the steep hill ("mommy this is too much, its making me SORE") and then it was time to drive home! 
Also, I am terrible with directions.  Usually, if I say something bad about myself, or whatever, my dad will say "oh no you're not"...when I mentioned to him a couple weeks ago that I'm bad with directions, he said "I remember".  So see, I am.  So I printed off directions there AND the reverse directions.  I made it back through the detour and out of downtown in one piece.  I even made it through Spanaway, and by that time the Friday traffic was in full force.  The one bright spot: I got to get a coffee at Big Foot Java, and there aren't any of those near enough to us for me to visit on a regular basis. :)  SOOOO...back to Yelm, had to stop at Walmart (which is also a delight on Friday afternoons) because Sophie is going to make a t shirt to wear for Daddy's race. 
4 hours of my life that I'll never get back later...I'M HOME.  I think when I snapped at the dog for hacking up her lung is when I realized I am super wound up and stressed just from that drive!  And I would consider it a success: I didn't get in a wreck,  I didn't get lost, I didn't scream at anyone...
Tomorrow, we get to drive back out there! I'm so looking forward to it.

I think I need some chocolate.

What a pain

I've been looking for something to help with pain relief that isn't going to kill my liver, like ibuprofen.  Unfortunately I feel like I take too much ibuprofen and it isn't something I enjoy.  I have quite a bit of lower back pain way more frequently than I can just 'deal with'.  So I decided to try this stuff called DLPA, which is supposed to be a natural pain reliever.  It also has anti-depressant qualities, so score!  I took my first dose today.  I am going to try to keep a record each day of my pain level/type so I can see if this stuff really works.  I'm pretty excited to see how it goes!

Best $20 day ever

Today was hot.

I had told the kids last week that after they got back from camping, we'd go to Charlie's Safari.  And God bless them, those kids remembered.  The same kids that can't remember what I lovingly told them to do 2.5 minutes ago, remembered through 4 days of heavy activity one sentence I uttered.  But you know.

So after Ernie left for work (and 4 hours of Sophie saying "can we go to Charlie's Safari now?!") we loaded up in the car.  Gavin has ridiculously thick hair, so we stopped and got him a haircut.  Pretty humorous to see the tan lines around his head and from his glasses. ;) 

So finally FINALLY...we made it to Charlie's Safari.  I'm pretty sure if you could have listened to the kids thoughts you would have heard the Hallelujah Chorus.  They just almost cannot stand it, how much they love that place.

I know I have written about this promised land for kids before.  But seriously.  Best $20 ($10 per kid) you will ever ever spend on a hot summer day!  That place has glorious arctic air blasting in there for all the sweaty kids.  Its so huge that the screaming is not overwhelming at all.  And there are plenty of tables for me to sit at and enjoy my hours of nearly uninterrupted reading.  Oh happy day!  We stayed for 2 hours -- 2 hours of not a peep out of the kids except to ask for water.  No fighting.  No whining.  No bugging.  No sweating...just me and my book and magazines, with my feet propped up on one of the other chairs at my table with that frigid air blowing on me.  It was delightful.  And once we got home, these kids had worked up such an appetite that I didn't have to remind them even once (let alone 47 times) to eat their dinner.  AND, they are worn out, so Sophie is already in bed snoring.  I love it!  And I love you Charlie, whoever you are.