Adventures in Tueller-Land

It's been a long time since I've posted anything of substance. And since I'm supposed to be recording what happens in our family, I suppose that is what I need to do this afternoon. So, here goes:

I lived the life of a single parent for a week as Stephen went to interviews. One in Atlanta, and one in Salt Lake City. Another he has on Wednesday is for a job in Denver, but it will be via phone. Each place treated him well, and if we get an offer at each of them it will be very hard to choose one. We are praying that we will have inspiration. Actually, it seems that Stephen is praying that he'll have a strong preference, and I am praying that only one will offer something so I don't have to think about it anymore. Ha, the differences between men and women!

In the mean time, I decided (with help from Stephen, of course) that the upstairs freezing pipe problem had to be solved before selling our house. So, we hired an energy auditor to come figure out what the issue was since we had already

1. put an extra heater in that bathroom
2. put extra insulation in the kitchen ceiling/bathroom floor
3. wrapped pipes
   
4. given up and decided to use the down stairs bathroom during the cold snaps.

The auditor gave us some great news, followed by some bad, followed by some good. (Whew! That was a mouthful). The problem could be fixed. The fix was not easy, the exterior walls in our house have ZERO insulation in them, and the attic has an R4, when an R49 is recommended for our climate. I'm not happy with the folks that remodeled and re-sided our house. AND, although I think my house is awesome and I will tell all about how great my neighbors are when I sell my house, I will not be recommending buying homes from our neighborhood association to others anymore. Hence, my total resignation from the membership board.

The other good news is that although the insulation company will have to drill holes every 16 inches in each of our exterior walls to blow in the insulation, and bring huge hoses through our windows up into the attic to make the house livable AND that my heat bill could have been 4 times lower for the past four years (UG!!), is that NIPSCO gas has a program going on where they will pay half of a home improvement project if it lowers your gas usage. So, I can get all of this done for less than $2,000--which is good, since I'm saving up to move, and trying to sell my house. Oh, and next year, 30% of that can be written off on my tax files due to the new green infinitives.

The other upside/downside is that I have to pack NOW because per the clause in the insulation contract, they are not responsible for any broken things, and the house will shake when the air pump is turned on and there are hoses every 16 inches in my walls. I have to have everything cleared out so they can walk around with the hoses and not knock things down, and all things must be off the walls. Oh, which I will have to repaint. This is happening in March, so if you don't hear from me, assume I am cleaning/packing.

Honor Societies

This comic strip reminded me of recent conversations with friends on whether to join mensa (not that I'm smart enough to get in, I checked this week), and the regular mailings I get from 'Who's who in ________." Not that I'm discouraging anyone from joining these types of things, they do look good on resumes and applications. I'm mostly laughing at how seriously they can be taken.

"

In response

I didn't think something would keep me up like this, but it did. My friend Liz posted to her Buzz (the new Google facebook type-thing) an article about being feminist, pro-choice, and Mormon. It can be found here.

I have to say, I couldn't have disagreed more, and I'm not prone to commenting on their blog, so I'll post my rant here. I have three problems with their argument.

Their first point--You have to be pro-choice to be feminist. Um, No? I am very much a feminist (aack! I know, flog me now, dear readers!) and always have been. I didn't go to college to find a husband, I went to find myself, and in the process met an awesome man. Yes, I got married, and have three children and STAY HOME...but see, I chose to do that. I also choose to believe that abortion is wrong IN MOST CASES. I do give the exception for incest, rape or health, however; I believe that even in those cases it should be thought about strongly. Why? Because my mom was a single woman in the military when she got pregnant with me. It was definitely an option to abort me, but she saw me as more than a clump of cells at conception--she saw my future. Yes, we lived through financial hardships, but my life is worth MORE than the trials I've had, and she will tell you that she has learned a lot about herself through the trials she had (some of them more intense than you can imagine).

My second problem: they claim they are Mormon, but take a very myopic view of the "problems" that women will face if they keep an unwanted child. To claim you are LDS is to claim that you believe that we are brought here to learn. To become something greater than human, to exist in the eternities and be able to create worlds of our own. We claim we will have great understanding of all things, even as God himself does, and we will have compassion upon those around us. Now, I do believe in being compassionate to women in that situation, however they got there. Even a passionate night that was a mistake can wreak havoc on a psyche ifa pregnancy doesn't come of it, but if it does...yikes! And it does disturb that people aren't more understanding and supportive of single mothers. They have enough of a trial in being a single mother that they DO NOT need more judgment (which is not yours to give anyway) piled upon them. They have enough guilt that they aren't providing the perfect life for their child without being told how guilty they are. THEY KNOW. Give them a hand, would you?
With choices do come responsibility, however. There is a consequence for everything, even if it's not our fault. We as LDS members talk and shudder over the martyrdom of our Prophet Joseph, yet the scriptures tell us that God told Joseph that all the he went through was for his good. I realize it's not my place to tell a woman that these trials are for her good, but as LDS people I think we tend to forget that we are taught that hardship is a blessing. Our leaders (if we so choose to believe that they are our leaders) have spoken out against the ending of life except in extreme cases. Does that take away the right of the woman? Yes. But you are also taking away my rights to punch you in the face because it effects you, right? Well, if was your mother, and you were that little clump of cells, how would you feel? I do put myself in that spot often because I was that little clump of cells (and honestly, so were all of you). But we were only parasites for a short time, and then became living/breathing creatures with rights.

My third point is that I think we belittle the role of motherhood too often. We say, "Oh! What an inconvenience! Or, what if the mother dies? She shouldn't have to chose between her life and the babies." Guess what. Been there. Almost crossed the line into the other side. I know that mothers can die in child birth. I know I had awesome doctors who prevented it for me, and that others have not been so lucky--so don't tell me I don't know the risks. However, to hear it put as anything but a noble thing, to hear it called a problem, rather than an immense responsibility that will bring a combination of blessings and trials--is well, disturbing. I could go on for a very long time about ways we could change this, but again--as with most of my long posts, my children are calling, and I am going to go give them the love and attention they deserve--that I believed they deserved as soon as they were conceived.

Cute & Handy

So, what is the normal thing to do when a friend has an awesome product that you see all of your other friends love? You tell people about it!!


In this instance, my friend opened her own Etsy shop to sell these great diaper kits that are cute and fold compactly. Fun!
Now, I don't own one, but folks I've babysat for do, and it IS handy, even as the sitter, to know where everything for a change is and that it's at hand immediately. It's great to grab just the diapers and run out of a meeting (like church), without lugging the whole diaper bag. So, head on over to her site and check out the current patterns and designs--and get one!

jenga

Today Zachary and Chayce tried jenga for the first time. After the first round, they wanted to build with the blocks. There was an immediate disagreement.

"We're going to build a treasure chamber!"

"No, we're going to build a fairy house."

"No!!! The treasure chamber is a jail for the monster. And if you let it out, it will eat everyone in the world."

"But the fairy loves the monster, and I need to let him out so we can get married."

"He will eat you alive and (content edited for those not living with little boys...)"

"But she loves him! He will change for her..."

At this point I made a feeble and completely ineffective attempt to discourage my daughter from stereotypical dreamy girl irrational thinking. She's only four.

Eventually they compromised and built the fairy house with a sidewalk to the treasure chamber, and the monster was not released.

Toothy Grin

Here's a picture with the missing top teeth!

Birth Story #3

Well, I suppose now that Payge is almost two, I should write down about her entry into the world.

This was another of those long labors, but it was a little worse than Chayce's. For about three days before delivery I hurt so badly that I would cry if we rode in the car, sitting was uncomfortable, and standing only felt good for so long. My mom kept getting her hopes up because she'd flown out here for the birth and wanted some time with the baby. Plus, the due date had come and gone before she'd even arrived, so we really felt it could be any time.

Finally, one evening (a day and a half before my mom had to be on her plane) a friend of mine suggested acupuncture induction. Her husband is a chiropractor, acupuncturist (and a bunch of other stuff) and he agreed to do the induction for me on their living room couch for free! They are such awesome people. That was about 9PM. All the next day I felt worse, but no progress, just lots and lots of trips to the potty (hey, this is a birth story, I can say that). My mom was getting nervous because her flight left the next day at noon, and since she was flying out of Chicago, she had to leave by 8ish AM. That night (so I guess about 24 hours after the induction) I went full swing. I was at a six by the time I made it to the hospital! BUT she still didn't enter the world until noon. Yes, my mom missed her flight. I called her while I was in labor and told her I'd buy her another ticket. Yeah, I could still talk. In fact, my contractions never got closer than three minutes apart. It was a pretty easy labor. Funny things happened during this delivery that I'll never forget. Things like: Seeing the word "push" on the soap dispenser, and finding it funny that it was so fitting, sitting there staring me in the face like that when I was washing my hands before delivery; calling my mother in-between contractions, and talking like nothing was going on; getting to use wireless monitoring rather than being strapped to a table (I loved this!); my nurse bringing me food and drink, even though I was in labor with a VBAC.

Delivery, on the other hand, was harder. See, it turns out that I'd hit a ten, little Payge had descended, bruised my cervix with her huge head, and it was starting to swell shut. Luckily, my doctor noticed that I was working very hard with very little progress so decided to check me while I pushed. He looked at me and said, "You have to push this baby out now, push and don't stop!" while he was using his hands to hold my cervix open. So, I pushed Payge through his hands (yeah, it was as painful as it sounds, remember--this was my completely drug free baby!), then I rested. I think the best part was the end (isn't it always?) but not for the usual reason. See, my bag of waters was actually behind Payge, it hadn't emptied, so when her shoulders emerged, all assisting staff got really wet, the doctor said a few choice words, and a large clean-up effort took place.

My doctor was amazing and really on the ball, and I'm grateful for that. In a way, I'm grateful I chose no epidural as well, because about 8 other women went into delivery mode at the same time I did, they had epidurals, and my doctor said that those without pain meds get first dibs on his time (they were all his patients!), and the others had to, uh, hold it. Sorry to any of you women who have been told to hold it in, but I was glad I came first that day. I was especially glad because if he hadn't checked when he did, I would have been looking at another c-section. Whew.

So that's it. The third and final story I have. Will there be another? I don't know. I love my children dearly and want more children just like them (well, of course they'll be different...). But I'm afraid. I've had three deliveries and all three have had something weird happen: emergency c-section, half-body epidural, swelling/bruised cervix. I'm not really ready to know what other surprises await me. But yet, what if there are no more surprises--at least not horrible ones? What if it would have gone beautifully? But if not? What if it's worse than them all? I guess I'll just have to wait and see--see if my faith grows enough to take that jump.

Strep=Tummy Aches?

Wow, wow, wow. My past three weeks have been crazy! Do you ever have those moments when you look at your life and think, "I never would have expected this, it was not in my teenage day dreams when I was wishing I could be the adult."? Yeah, well, I do.

As you probably already know, we spent a week with a very sick Daddy here. Then the week after we were all...kind of better. Then a week with me sick. Then yesterday, we were sitting at the table and Zac cried out in complete pain! He didn't know what hit him, neither did we. We were very worried that it was a hernia because Stephen had his first at age 11, and it seems to be a genetic problem we hoped we'd not gotten.

We got Zac into a doctor's appointment today and she said his stomach was pretty distended (ouch!, poor kid...). But then she said something that totally caught me off guard: His lips are red, did he have a sucker or does he have strep? Well, we knew strep was going around our family but never knew that it could become an infection in the tummy. Turns out it can. No hernia, just a strep infection.

While there at the doctors office Chayce says to me, "Mommy, this finger that I've been holding in my fist (she'd been keeping her hand in a fist lately, but I hadn't thought much of it, sometimes she pretends she's holding imaginary creatures and I've learned to be respectful of that) is really hurting today, do you think that the doctor might have a Dora band-aid? That would fix it."

I look down to see that her finger tip was dark red, and around the nail was swollen and green. Oh. My. So, I ask her to show it to the resident who happened to be following our pediatrician around today, and she said, "Oh, we really should fix that." So, the doctor's secretary slipped me some paperwork and it became a two-child appointment. I felt like a horrible mom, not having noticed that she had an infected hang-nail. The doctor had to cut it open to relieve some pressure (OUCH!), and then put her on antibiotics as well. I was so glad that Stephen had taken the time to be there today, so he could hold each child down for their procedures (Zac's throat swab and Chayce's finger slice) since Payge was being a little pill. I think we might actually wind up with some terrible two's from her, which is shocking because she's been so pleasant thus far.

But, she used to be the one who would sing "Team work, clean up" and clean up the puzzles for me. Now she throws them and cries as I urge her to pick them up. She dumped a bowl of cereal on purpose, and then tonight at dinner THREW her plate. Luckily, it landed face up, and the food was still on it. Yay for the staying power of shepherd's pie! I kind of hope she just doesn't feel well and this will pass. We snuggled tonight and she seemed happy for that. I put them all to bed early tonight, hoping that will make for a better weekend.

Unfortunately, I was thinking that with Zac having strep, I will probably have another weekend of no church. That's three out of the last four we've missed. I'm feeling in-active, and I don't like it as much as I thought I would.

Please tell me that we're getting all of 2010's illnesses over with, so the rest of the year can be smooth sailing. PLEASE.

A little More Valentines.

Didn't have valentine cupcake liners, so we did some improv... Cookie cutters used to cut the cake!

Frost and sprinkle!

A little more stitching, because in order to have a good play cookie party, you have to have lots of cookies!

Making Chocolates

Valentine's Day Activities!

First, some fun Valentine reading...

An hour or so of stitching.

Some window art...

Smiles!

Things that go ___ in the night

Every night, between the hours of 1 and 3 am, our home gets invaded by a clamorous little monster. Instead of just getting out of bed, he stands up on his bed and jumps off. This makes all the wall hangings rattle. After the well-planted landing, he waits for several seconds, trying to remember why he jumped off his bed in the middle of the night. Oh, yes. Now he remembers. He has to go to the bathroom. With all the finesse of a 20 minute old over sized bull calf, he opens his door in the loudest way possible. And then he slams it shut. The wall hangings again rattle, and I can hear the dining room chandelier clinking around. By some strange miracle, his sisters and mother sleep through all this. But the loudest is still to come.

Now that he has escaped his room, he proceeds to go down the stairs. Apparently he has once again forgotten that the rule to stay out of Mommy's bathroom (which is upstairs) is temporarily lifted from bedtime to sunrise. He begins his descent down the stairs. Somehow he is able to make his two feet sound like all seven dwarfs rushing to rescue Snow White. Then it gets loud as he practices his t-rex imitation across the wood floors. This measures at least 3.0 the Richter scale. The toilet seat is lifted and slammed against the tank.

Things quiet for a bit, just long enough for me to fall back to sleep. Then I'm suddenly jolted back into consciousness a repeat of the above detailed performance, all in reverse order. Upon being woken this time, I feel like I have been sleeping for hours, but no, a check of the clock reveals that only 2 minutes have passed.

In one ear, out the other, and back in the first ear with a slight delay

"Zachary, go brush your teeth** with your new tooth brush"

** Zachary runs out of the room at this point

12 seconds elapse; Zachary comes running into the room with great commotion.

"Hey dad, I'm going to brush my teeth with my new toothbrush, do you think that's a good idea?"

"Ummmm...yes, Zach, that is a good idea."