Grandparents to the Rescue!

I called and begged Daniel's mom to please come help us for as long as she possibly could. She's got a new job at the school in Ripley, but she agreed to use up her sick days for the year to come help. She and Grandpa Wayne arrived on Wednesday and are staying through Monday.

They've been such a help to us already. They watched the kids while Daniel picked me up from my ultrasound appointment. Baby Katie is just fine, by the way. My podiatrist is on the first floor and the midwives are in the basement, so I got quite a work out on my crutches getting from one appointment to the next and then back up to the first floor where Daniel was waiting with the van. Gloria was my assistant, carrying my paperwork and purse, etc.

Daniel's mom, Grandma Nancy, has been helping with cooking, cleaning, laundry, homeschool, bedtime, and even costume making. Daniel and I were also able to leave them in charge of kids and bus stops while we went to the DMV to get my 90 day temporary handicap passes to hang in our vehicle windows. Today Wayne is going to drive me to Brother's WIC appointment. They will not accept Daniel at the appointments, only me. I'm wondering how a place called "Women Infants and Children" can claim to be helping women or infants by making an 8 months pregnant woman with a broken leg come in for the appointment? Meanwhile, Daniel will be taking Miss Lady and Thumbelina to their visit with their parents.

Speaking of helpful people, apparently news of my injury has spread quickly. The church has called and said they want to provide meals through a ministry that they have for just these sorts of situations. I told them that if they could bring dinner on the nights that Daniel works it would be a real help. Our homeschool group leader called to ask how they can help, too. So we may have adults available to babysit while Daniel takes me to the kids' court dates in February. I also set things up with the school bus transportation dept. so that Brother is now being picked up and dropped off in front of our house until the end of February and the girls are allowed to walk Snow White to and from her bus stop from now on instead of requiring an adult.

Forced Rest

Well, I guess God found a way to get my attention and actually force me to rest. The bleeding in my early pregnancy didn't slow me down. The fainting and dizziness in the middle months only made me cut back a bit on the number of activities I was involved in. The shortness of breath in December got me to drop band. But the only thing that could have stopped me from the non-stop running that is my daily life was to break my leg, I guess.

I'm feeling very frustrated, worried, and useless right about now. I need help to do the simplest things like getting a glass of water or getting in and out of the van. Being eight months pregnant even makes it difficult for me to balance on my crutches, so I keep tipping over backwards. I can't have an actual cast on my leg because of the risk of blood clots during my pregnancy. So I'm wearing a splint for now. This means that the kids have to treat me like I have the plague and stay far away from my leg because if I bump it or hurt it in any way I'll have to have surgery to put the pieces back together. Right now the two halves of the bone (my fibula) are lined up neatly along the crack. Let's hope it stays that way.

I wish I could point to what caused the accident, but there's no reason for it. I was just walking normally down the stairs, holding onto the rail when all of a sudden my feet started sliding. About the 4th stair down I heard a crack and my ankle went the wrong way. I screamed for the kids to wake up Daddy. Daniel helped me scoot up the stairs and hop out the door. We waited in the ER for a couple of hours until they could X-ray it. Our friend, Debbie, from church came and took the kids home in our van and watched them for us until we got home.

Currently we are waiting on delivery of a special scooter that will help me get around a little easier without the need for crutches. Our insurance is going to pay for it completely. I'm thinking what I'm really going to need, though, is a small wheel chair. I'm already exhausted from trying to swing myself around on crutches. My leg and arm muscles are constantly shaking with the strain. Every time I use them it's pulling a muscle in my belly, too. It really hurts. So, while I'm out of action currently I've been spending a lot of time working on the baby blanket I'm making for Katie, reading scrapbook magazines, using the computer in bed, having bouts of weeping because I suddenly realize that I won't be able to carry my baby or some other problem, and generally driving everyone crazy by trying to micromanage from another room. How will we survive this for 8 weeks or more?

Broken

Fell down the basement stairs and broke my leg today. I'll try to have Daniel update my blog for me at some point. Thanks for your patience.

K'nex Constructions

Since all the kids were home from school today and we had a large snowfall, too, I decided to declare a "Pajama Day". The kids were excited because that is a very rare event in our house.

Just last weekend we bought the kids some new computer learning games. So they spent the morning playing those. Snow White really impressed me with her math abilities. I knew her teacher had said it was her favorite subject, but I didn't realize how quick she is.

Brother and Kevin were also very happy about their new pre-K Sesame Street games. It cracks me up watching Kevin show Brother how to use the mouse. They did well with most of the games, but Kevin struggled a little on the one that showed four objects and asked which one didn't belong. It's a tough concept for a two year old, I think, to understand that three things are made to travel in and one is a musical instrument. Later tonight he came upstairs to find Daniel playing my Book Worm game that consists of attacking enemies by making words from the given letter blocks. He got into Daniel's lap and said, "I know how to play this game. I played it at my friend's house." We just laughed and let him be the one to click the attack button.

Lately he tells us all kinds of inventive stories about something his "friend" or his "brother" did. They are quite a bit like the "Mary" stories that Gloria used to tell last year. Sometimes I hear Kevin tell the other kids that he is the mom and they have to listen to him. When I tell him that no, I am the mom, he just looks exasperatedly at me and says, "Actually, I'm just pretending." I have to keep asking Daniel if he's absolutely certain our son is two.

Swirly Curly

To relieve the endless wait for Katie's arrival I decided to make a change in my appearance. Since only one person at church noticed the difference on Sunday morning, I guess it's not quite as drastic a change as I thought it was. Saturday evening I went in to get it done and came out two hours later hoping I hadn't made a mistake. Personally, I think it looks nice. And it's taken my focus off my increasing resemblance to the GoodYear Blimp.

On a side note, our insurance company has informed us that they will not cover a home birth or any midwife who does not have a contract with them. The only midwives they cover are the ones at the center I'm currently going to and another one just like it in Commerce City. Meanwhile, our caseworker has said that we cannot leave our kids home with the baby sitter for 24 hours because she isn't 18 and approved by the county. So I guess I'll just send Daniel back home every few hours so that we can say she wasn't watching them for 24 hours straight. It's going to be an interesting labor and delivery this time around. I wish Daniel's mom could be here.

Cravings? Just One

Lately there is one thing I cannot get enough of. Dairy products. All day long I have to have dairy at every meal. Whether it's grated cheese, sliced cheese, yogurt, cheddar soup, cheese pizza, or the must-have requirement every Tuesday night at Fazoli's: chocolate milk. Sometimes my entire meal consists of dairy products. At Fazoli's I can consume 3 whole containers of their chocolate milk and still be looking around for more.

Daniel apparently has noticed my fixation. Last Tuesday night he decided to take several photos of my beloved chocolate milk at Fazoli's. I blame this strange obsession entirely on baby Katie. I think she may come out mooing if this continues.

Grocery Clerks

We found some of the girls' old aprons that they decorated just before Kevin was born. Now they happen to be the exact size for Kevin and Brother to wear. Kevin especially likes his and spent an entire happy day walking around with his bucket full of plastic foods and serving anyone who was interested in pretending to eat. I'm really not sure how the goggles Gloria wore fit into the game, but she had fun.

Delayed Update

I know I said I was going to have Sunday be my night to update the blog every week, but I'm begging off tonight. I've been having painful contractions since around 6pm (no, not with any regularity, but frequent and requiring me to walk a LOT) so I'm exhausted and just want to go to bed. I've got some nice photos of the week and plan to update my blog tomorrow. The kids all have the day off from school.

34 Weeks

Or 7 and a half months, however you want to look at it. It's strange counting down the weeks this morning and realizing that I only have 5 maybe 6 more Sundays until Katie will be here. We started a Due Date Prediction game. All of the kids (even Sarah and Shannon) and Daniel and I got to pick a day on the calendar that we think Katie will be born. My guess is the 10th. Whoever guesses correctly will get an ice cream from Culver's. If I am very overdue then we'll just all make new guesses I suppose.

In other baby related news, I finally found a midwife. I'll be meeting with her on Tuesday to talk about what all is involved with having a home birth. Monday we're going to call the insurance company to verify that they'll cover midwifery expenses, but the midwife, Peggy, said that United Healthcare usually does cover it. Daniel is also going to be talking to his boss this week about scheduling the PTO days he plans to take when Katie arrives.

Looking at this photo that I took Friday night it still seems unreal to me that so many people still tell me that I "don't look pregnant" or that I don't look very far along at all. I feel like yanking up my shirt and pointing to this enormous beach ball I'm carrying around just to prove that I am, indeed, very pregnant.

End of Break Skate

To end the kids Christmas break time with a special event Daniel took all the girls skating at Skate City. The bad news is that they were overcharged by 10 bucks and the manager wouldn't do anything about it except let Daniel leave his name and number so that if they had extra money at the end of the night they'd give him a call. The good news is that the owner called the next day and said that they actually came up short and he thinks the manager or someone else may be stealing from him... and he says that Daniel has a free pass there to bring his whole family, all nine of us, next time!

While Daniel and the girls were skating the boys and I had our own fun at home. I pulled out some brand new puzzles that we worked on for a while. Then we colored together and played with play dough. I left the room for a few minutes while the boys were at the kitchen table using the play dough. When I came back in Kevin said, "Why you in here, Mommy? We're okay. Go!" So I sat in the living room to read while my very self-sufficient two year old showed his four year old brother how to make a handle for the cup he was making. It was a good night. It's hard to believe we'll be back to the school schedule tomorrow morning.

Scrapbookers in Training

The girls actually asked for scrapbooks of their own for Christmas, so I happily obliged them. We had a fun Saturday morning all working on our albums together. Friday night I went to Sam's to print a bunch of photos for each of them to use. Snow White was especially happy to finally have pictures of her half sister from our trip to see her a couple of weeks ago. They all did a good job and got a lot of pages done. Miss Lady completed a whole album again in just two days. I told her this time I'm just going to get her some extra page protector refills instead of another album. She's just too quick!

Merry Christmas 2008!

The best gifts this year were our kids expressions and happiness. We managed to succeed in making sure that each of our seven got a couple of things on their wish lists and a few really good surprise gifts, too.

After a flurry of present opening, somewhat controlled since we hand a gift to everyone and then say, "1, 2, 3, GO!", we spent the morning prying toys out of complex packaging, inserting batteries (even in a puzzle!), and assembling certain gifts. Brother and Kevin both got some cardboard blocks that had to be carefully folded since they start out flat. We also had a difficult time figuring out how their new Transformers actually transform. We still can't find a head that popped off one of them.

It wasn't all work and no play, however. Daniel and I spent some time that night playing the new Playstation 2 games he got. I finally gave up on ever receiving the Lego Starwars 2 game I ordered from Amazon for our anniversary back in August and went ahead and bought it for Daniel as a Christmas gift at a local GameStop. I think we can all agree that this was one of the best Christmases we've had.

Twas the Night Before Christmas

Following our standard Christmas Eve tradition, all the kids got to open one present on Christmas Eve. It's always a new pair of pajamas. This year we found matching PJs for all five girls. They looked adorable. For the boys we found Spiderman PJs for Brother that came with a robe that lights up and Lightening McQueen PJs for Kevin.

This year I even got in on the act since Daniel had gotten me some new polar bear pajamas. Usually I'm the one who gets him a pair of PJ bottoms, but this year I forgot. Chalk another one up to "pregnancy brain" as I like to call it. It's a handy excuse. Miss Lady says that when we go out somewhere together she's in charge of being my "brain" for the trip and remembering whatever it was I originally went out to get. Otherwise I'm likely to buy 5 things and totally forget the only thing I was actually looking for. Now if I could only get her to remind me to bring my purse with me when we go...

Special Xmas Eve

This year on Christmas Eve as Daniel was heading off to bed (having worked the night before) he mentioned that he'd sort of like to have a special dinner that night. So I grabbed some groceries while he was sleeping and the kids and I prepared a surprise dinner. We had chicken, mashed potatoes, cinnamon yams, corn, wheat rolls, veggies & dip, and deviled eggs. Anyone who knows my usual cooking style of "open the box and dump it in the pan" surely understands that this was a much bigger undertaking for me. We had a lot of fun and Daniel was very happily surprised. As a final treat for the kids we had them all dress up in their fancy clothes, turned down the lights, and ate by candle light. The girls thought it was wonderful.

Good Hearts

Our friends and occasional babysitters, Sarah and Shannon, are really good kids. Definitely not your typical self-centered teenagers. Not only did they come over to watch our kids while we got our Christmas shopping done this year, but they went and used their babysitting money to buy presents for all of our kids.

Sarah even took the time to "play Santa" and let the kids sit on her lap and tell her what they wanted for Christmas. Then she did her best to fulfill their wishes. To top it all off, Sarah and Shannon were in a car accident just two days earlier and still made time to come and deliver the gifts on Christmas Eve!

Spotted with Santa

We took the kids to Fazoli's kids' night on the Tuesday before Christmas. They were having a Santa photo shoot. I got the opportunity to try out my early Christmas present. Yes, since Circuit City was going out of business and Daniel found my dream camera on sale for about half of it's usual price, he bought me an Olympus E-520 DSLR. It's quite a step up from the high end point and shoots I've been using the past few years. It's going to take me a while to figure out all the cool things it can do, so my photos aren't going to look nearly as good as they should for a while.

In this photo of Danya with "Santa" at Fazoli's you can see by clicking on it to enlarge it that she has mysterious red blotches on her face and neck. Later that night at around 9pm I was putting the older kids to bed when we discovered that Danya's entire torso was covered with these red marks. I got my next door neighbor, Marge to come over and stay with the kids (who were all in bed), and I took Danya to the emergency room. It turned out to be an allergic reaction to strep throat. That brings us up to three kids taking antibiotics for strep now. That same day we had also picked up new prescriptions for Gloria and Kevin since the Amoxicillin they were on wasn't working. I'm just glad we got everyone to a doctor before they were all closed for Christmas.

Gifted Again

Friday we received another surprise package of early Christmas gifts in the mail, this time from Aunt Jennie. For once, I have to say that Aunt Jennie's radar was set a little bit askew. Almost everyone was thrilled with their presents. Gloria, though, was suffering from a serious case of the green eyed monster.

A couple of the other girls got monkey themed presents. Gloria has sort of declared this year that all things monkey related are her specialty and no one else is allowed to like monkeys much less receive any monkey themed gifts. So this was particularly hard on her.

Kevin had a much simpler solution when he saw something else he wanted. Snow White got a Hanging Monkeys game that has a long curved plastic tree for the monkeys to hang from. Kevin waited until Snow White left the game out on the floor and walked away for a minute. Then he snatched up the tree and ran upstairs with it tooting into it and telling us it was his "tombone". I eventually managed to convince him to trade me his "horn" for an empty wrapping paper tube. At least all these early presents have helped to relieve the kids' long wait for Christmas.

Elmo Live!

My Aunt Kathy surprised us all by sending the kids Christmas gifts in the mail. The older kids were all ecstatic to see clothing and money among other things, but the absolute smash hit was the Elmo Live doll that she sent for Kevin.

He is now our 2 year old's best friend and woe to anyone who tries to play with Elmo without Kevin's permission. They stand in the kitchen and dance together with Kevin laughing his head off. Today Kevin led me by the hand to his darkened bedroom doorway and whispered, "Mommy, there's a monster in my room!" I looked in and, sure enough, there was. Elmo was standing on the desk under Kevin's loft bed and all we could see were his eyes and nose. So we went in, opened his window blinds to let in a little light, and danced together with his favorite furry red friend.

Explaining it to the Caseworker

Why is it that Kevin insists on finding a way to injure himself any time a caseworker or GAL is about to arrive? This week our family worker, Danna, made her monthly visit and inspection on the same day that Kevin managed to get a three inch bloody scratch on his face. Fortunately, he was happy to tell her the whole story and act it out when she asked about his ouchy.

He showed her and told her how he and Gloria were fighting over a box of crayons when Gloria suddenly let go. Then the box cut his face. Poor guy. He's had a tough week. Yesterday we took him to the doctor because it turns out that Gloria was kind enough to share her strep throat with him. We're praying that none of the other kids get it since the doctor's offices will all be closed half of this week for Christmas.

Adoption Update

Briefly I thought I'd let everyone know where we're at in the adoption process. Last Thursday was supposed to be the day that Snow White and Brother were made legally free for adoption. I went to court since it was going to be the official "TPR" which means Termination of Parental Rights. Unfortunately the case got delayed over an hour and the judge agreed that there wasn't enough time before the lunch recess to get the whole thing done since the kids' bio mom had decided to contest the TPR.

Her lawyer argued that he would be unable to fairly present her case since he hadn't known she'd changed her mind about agreeing to the kids' adoption and because she had been unable to contact him since she was in jail for the past three weeks. Two different jails actually on two separate charges during that time. So the whole case has been postponed until February. It's possible that if, after her criminal case hearing, she ends up out of jail, she could get visitation started with her kids even though she hasn't wanted to see them for the past six months. She had one visit with them in November that we foolishly agreed to when the caseworker suggested it as an opportunity to get pictures of her with her kids to keep in their album in case they ever wonder what she looked like. We're praying that this is just a bump in the road towards adoption and doesn't affect the kids negatively.