"Pieces of me you've never seen"

Happy Father's Day T!

Don't send a lame Father's Day eCard. Try JibJab Sendables!

OK....

On to a happier post :D  Ethan is at his nana's and Lucas is asleep.  I just finished my school assignment that I forgot was due today.  Yes! Ladies and Gentleman my real name is Petunia Procrastinator which can actually be interchanged with Flora Forgetful and Mandy Mombrain.  I know my last post was a sad woe is me kinda post, but it really hasn't been all bad.  We went to the pool at my mom's with family friends aka Ethan's 3 girlfriends Ellie, Vivian, and Ava.  He likes older women what can I say :D 

Then we took the boys to the zoo last Friday.  The zoo here is so cool it is on the side of the mountain and man it is a hike!  It's all switchbacks and uphill.  We gave Ethan the zoo map and he pretended he was Diego and lead us all over the zoo.  "Come on guys!  We gotta rescue somthin'!"  He is too. much. fun!

My great aunt Pat (my grams sis) is in town from Spokane.  She is 80 going on 30 lol.  I haven't seen her in 16 years so I am so excited that they are coming over tonight.  It should be a blasty-blast :D  Hopefully all the posts will be happier ones here on out.  No sad stuff!

Scattered

*Warning*  This is a pretty deep kind of sad all over the place post...

So it has been forever an a half since I last posted.  A LOT has been going on here in the Rockies.  First off Trevor went to be a Band Manager/Merchandise Manager for a band tour.  He is working with a band that is opening for his all time favorite bands ICP and Twisted.  Music I don't listen to and can only describe as loud and raunchy, but hey to each their own right?  He Left June 1st and will be back end of July.  Yes that is right I am alone with my boys for 2 months.  *sigh*  All I can say is that God for my family here.  My mom and Grams give me breaks and help me whenever they can.  Ethan is out of school for the summer so that has been the real challenge, but we have our routine and he has been doing really well, so it has been bearable.  It has just been so hard because Trevor can hardly get a chance to get away and have a conversation.  So it has consisted of a minute here, a couple minutes there.  He sent me an email saying he was homesick and missed me and the boys so much.  I just hope that this time goes by quickly because this is the hardest thing I have ever done.  I just keep telling myself that I will just get a big ol' pat on my back when it's over.  That and a HUGE drink.  Preferably Vodka.  Yeah Vodka!  Hell I am not really waiting for it to be over to sneak the Vodka :D  Yeah Yeah the kids are in bed.  At least it isn't at 10 in the morning when the need for a drink arises.  That has to count for something.

Lucas had his consultation with the pediatric surgeon last Thursday.  He is scheduled for Friday the 20th.  They will repair the right inguinal Hernia. Then they will stick a camera into his abdomen and look at the left side to make sure there is not a hole there.  The surgery should only take an hour or more if there is a hole found on the left side.  I KNOW that this is one of the most common general surgeries performed on children.  I know this, but it doesn't ease my mind at all.  I am still worried sick.  It hurts me to think that my happy-smiles-constantly-never-cries little guy is going to wake up and be uncomfortable or in pain.  I hate this and wish it wasn't happening, but it needs to be fixed.  The hernia is becoming larger and that be dangerous, so it has to be done....my poor baby :(

So I am all alone and last Thursday I was woken up by this loud truck idling outside of my open window.  They are still finishing up houses on this street that I am pretty used to trucks early in the morning, but this one was SO LOUD.  I was so mad so I jumped out of bed so I could see who it was to complain to someone.  I threw open the blinds only to see that the idling "truck" was a Firetruck.  Accompanied by another firetruck, 2 ambulances, and 2 police cars parked outside my house and my one neighbor's house.  Ok...Can we say Panic?  It is strange to me how the mind goes off into dark places when you don't have information.  I was so scared someone had broken into the neighbors house and murdered them all or something else in that realm of horror.  I spied while I got the boys up and ready for Luke's Dr. appt.  My grams showed up to watch Ethan, and by then the firetrucks and ambulances left without taking anyone with them, and then the fire department Chaplin showed up, and I knew someone had died.  Again I was panicking.  I don't "know" my neighbors.  I don't even know their names.  They have always kept to themselves, and I guess I do too.  We would always smile and wave or nod whenever we saw each other.  We would do the polite thing.  I left for the doctor and when I came back CSI was there and so was the Coroner.   I knew they had children, but I was trying desperately not to let my head go there.  I couldn't.  Then as I was looking out the window I saw someone carry a small body wrapped in a sheet to the Coroner's vehicle....and I lost it.  I wish to God I was not looking out the window.  I wish a million times over that I could un-see that.  It has played over and over like a little video in my head for a week now, and I fear it will play for the rest of my life.  I lost it and ran to Ethan and hugged him so tight.  My Grandmother went outside and spoke with the Detective and was told that the little boy died of "natural causes", and also that the father was in Iraq on his 3rd tour.  I later learned his name was Trace and he was a month older then Ethan.  Everyday I have had to see the poor mother in a trance-like state the grief etched onto her face like a mask. My heart aches and breaks for her.  It is unnatural to lose a child, and it seems cruel to me.  Since last Thursday I have hugged my kids more, kissed them more, and tried my best to be patient with them.  I have tried not to yell and get annoyed.  I try because that image plays in my head and I would die if the last moments with my children were of me being annoyed or irritated.  It happens, but I just try a lot harder then I used to.  Please say a prayer for little Trace and his family.

Out of nowhere...

Just a totally random thought.  I took this picture the other night at the signing.  I was just looking at it and I started thinking about how someone in 1930 could have been standing in that room and had their first kiss, or met their best friend.  Old buildings do that to me.  I always think that someone could have been standing in the same spot as me and I wonder what they thought.  Man you should have been in my mind when I lived in Norway and stood in an 800 year old church......craziness!

Stephenie Meyer = fun with new friends

I went to my very first Book signing last night and it was, seriously, SO. MUCH. FUN!  There was a 30 min Q & A some on the new book The Host, some on the Twilight Saga, and some on the actual topic of the writing process.  There was not a question re Twilight that I had not heard answered before.  The interesting part, for myself, were her comments on her process and how this is not what she saw herself doing. 

The thing that I have really liked about Stephenie is how this whole career of hers started.  She was "just" a 29 mother of 3 boys who had a dream one night.  She woke up, wrote it down and started writing Twilight.  For herself.  It was never something that was supposed to see the light of day.  But she had a big sister who encouraged her and told her that other people needed to meet her characters.  It was a book written for herself.  Not for fans, not for profit or the idea that it would be published, but just for her.  She has inspired me to start writing again.  Something I had abandoned because I felt like "What was the point?" Now I know that there doesn't need to be a point.  For that I am grateful to her.

Miss Kayla came with me.  We had a blasty blast acting like giggling fan girls. The signing took place in the most amazing building.  It is a high school that was built in 1924, and OMG it had a freakin' clock tower.  *sigh*  I can only imagine how much the kids that go there don't appriciate the beauty and history that they are surrounded by.  But come on....a CLOCK TOWER!

After the signing we went and grabbed a coffee at one of THE coolest bookstores "The Tattered Cover".  It is just one of the places that i want to climb all over the shelves and pull the books down and roll in all their glorious bookness.  Ok so maybe that would be a little to corner pointy/paper cutty, but any true book lover would catch my drift.

And of course I had to take the prerequisite photo of my serious-going to a signing-meeting an author face :D 

*edited* I just realized that I have been spelling Stephenie's name wrong all this time.  Woops :D

Ode to The Biter Biscuits and Stephanie Meyer

I have been sick sick sick with a sinus allergy thing.  Sick as in shoot me now to put me out of my misery, take care of my kids kinda sick.  Ok so maybe my mother was right when she said I was a touch dramatic.  So really just a picture post of sorts.  More tomorrow, as tomorrow I am going to meet Stephanie Meyer.  Author of my beloved Twilight addiction and her newest book The Host (ranked #1 on the New York Best Sellers it's 1st week out).  I am going to the book signing and am so excited!  I have never had interest in meeting an author before.  So more on that tomorrow :D

So without further ado (yeah ADO!)

Ethan @ 6 months

And Lucas @ 7.5 months

Oh Lordy I have cute kiddos!  I just want to bite those cheeks. 

Also this little cutie Lukey is turbo charged now.  In a matter of a week he has gone from rolling around to crawling, sitting, laying/crawling to sitting, pulling up onto his knees, and just this afternoon to my shock and horror I walked into his room to find him full on standing in his crib *gasp*  Lord help us!

He has also discovered that there really isn't an invisible wall between the living room and the kitchen so he has just made that his new hang out.  He likes to talk to the really cute kid he seens in the oven...and dishwasher.  I have little Luke Face prints all over the oven door.

Just messing around with the color...for some unknown reason. The pics remind me of this old picture of my mom.  She and Lucas look a lot alike.  They have the same eyes.  Look at the hand thing :D

Three

My "baby" is 3 today.  This last year has been one of the most scary, crazy, all over the place, funny, thrilling years of this little man's life.  Now having only been on this planet for a mere 3 years, one might think how can there be anything to compare it too.  For Pete's sake he is only 3 and not 47, but there was so much packed into the last 12 months that it has often felt like 40 years. 

He started school for the first time.  I crossed my fingers that everyone that encountered him would think his Halo was the shiniest, and that he just HAD to be the coolest kid they ever met, because I mean come on....look at those eyes!?  But then he would hit a classmate or throw a screaming fit because he still couldn't be bothered with that pesky sharing thing.  I had to come to terms with the fact that my totally normal kid would be liked for his sweet hugs and funny comments and that would hopefully endear people enough to make them bear him a little easier when he flung himself onto a toy screaming MIIIIINE!

We had the arrival of a new brother, which completely changes who Ethan is.  He will forever be a Brother.  No matter what that will never be taken away.      He is not just Ethan, or a son, but he has the opportunity to have a bond with another little person for the rest of their lives that only they can have.  Perhaps I am making that bigger then it is, but to me, it is an amazing thought.  As an only child myself it boggles my messed up mom mind to think about that.  He has been an amazing brother.  He helps and wants to be with Lucas all of the time.  He talks to him, sings to him, brings him things and 90% of the time it is unprompted.  I lucked out in that department.  Of course I am sure we will be revisiting this topic next year.  We will see how Ethan does once Lucas is mobile and steals all of his toys and puts food in E's hair.

He has had to deal with his entire world being turned upside down and shaken like a snow globe.  As the flakes began to re-settle he screamed like a Banshee and threw himself on the ground in Academy award winning style.  Scarlett O'Hara would be proud.  We had to pull him out of school, his home was in upheaval from packing, boxes everywhere, and we were leaving all of his friends.  I tried with all that I had to hide any of the bad things that were going on, but I am sure that on some level he knew something was not right those last 3 months in Florida.  He faired better then I had anticipated, but I am sure it will come up in therapy when he is 30.  He is more then welcome to blame me, but he can never EVER say that he wasn't hugged or kissed or loved enough.  Nope! Freud can kiss my butt on that one!

We drove across country twice, the last time for good.  He was amazing in the car, and seriously I don't know how any of us traveled without DVD players before.  That is just crazy talk! We settled into our new home and it still makes me happy when Ethan randomly states "I like my new house mom!"  Thank goodness!

We potty trained, switched to a regular twin bed, re-started school, and see Nana everyday.  That pesky Binky is still around, but we are working on it.  He can sing the whole alphabet, but only to me and never when asked.  His favorite song is London Bridge, and when he sings Row row your boat he screams at the top of his lungs "Merry Merry Spiderman DREAMS!"  He gives the most amazing hugs.  The ones where he rubs your back and then says "Give me a big hug.  Give me a kiss".  He is hopelessly addicted to Ben 10 and Ben 10: Alien Force.  I think Mickey has been long forgotten.  Which is fine by me because I actually think Ben 10 is cool.  He says things that make me giggle constantly, and he knows he is funny. 

Some say that 3 is worse then 2, and I can see where that point of view comes from.  It must be so frustrating for a child who is pure emotion to try and control that.  Everyone at any given time KNOWS what Ethan thinks about something.  When he feels something he FEELS it.  It makes for a good show most days, but it is exhausting.  I just have to keep reminding myself that with big personalities comes a lot of drama, but i would not change having a kiddo with a big personality for anything.  I will just have to handle the drama and laugh....a lot.

OME!

Twilight in HD

Stuff and things and such

Just messing around tonight.  I dyed my hair myself for the first time in years.  Oh the Woes of not knowing a good Hairdresser yet.  It turned out fine, excuse the makeup-less face of mine, or the goofy look.  Oh, and those are not boxes that need to be unpacked behind me...nope....no sir.  *ahem* well I am technically in the room where all things go to hide/die.  So unpacked boxes are totally allowed.  Because I can just close the door and pretend.

And this little gem reminds me of when I used to scare my old roommate by cocking my head to the side holding a butcher knife ala Micheal Myers and stare at her in the dark.  hmmm...Guess you had to be there.  She thinks it's funny now.  Or at least I have tricked her into thinking that she does.  Oh the gifts of my friendship that keep on giving!

Yay food!  he says ^.^  This little nugget had his 6 month appt the other day (at almost 7 months)  He weighs in at a slight 17.5 lbs and a freakish 27.5 inches long.  Long and skinny this one.  I know I say it often, but seriously, this kid is the sweetest little boy.  He just is calm and happy.  Watches and just is content to be here.   He actually crawled tonight.  Usually he gets up and leans forward without moving his arms forward and falls on his face.  Doesn't seem to bother him one bit though.  *sigh*  The thought of him being my last baby....hmmm....maybe just one more wouldn't hurt.  They are awfully cute.  But then.....

The little boogers get to be almost 3.  That look of disgust and annoyance on his sweet little face is all real.  I was not expecting that look for oh, I don't know, maybe 10 more years.  But there it is in all it's annoyed glory.  Yes, I could have just let him eat in peace, but then where would  I get my entertainment.  And nothing is more entertaining then bugging your child.

Bad Bad Words

Ethan: Don't say those words mama. Those are BAD words.

Me: Why can't I say that word?

Ethan: Only I say it. You can't say those words to me. They are BAD!

The offensive word that incensed him so...... "NO!"