So Thankful

Sunday night I came home to find Seth lying on the couch with a terrible stomach ache.  After a couple of hours, we called the hospital and the nurse recommended we take him in.  We were lucky that I was having a pretty good night (usually I spend my evenings puking), so Seth's dad came to stay with the kids while I brought Seth into the ER.
By about 12:30, they were pretty sure it was appendicitis.  So I went home to get some sleep, while Seth spent the night doing more testing. At 8:30 in the morning, they took out his appendix, and he was discharged from the hosptial by 6:00 that night.
We were fortunate that we went in right away - his appendix was nowhere near rupturing and his recovery has been pretty quick. Normally we're the type to wait it out before we go into the doctor, and I'm glad we didn't do that this time.
It's a little sobering to know that 150 years ago, I would have been a widow by now. To say we're thankful for modern advancements in medicine would be an understatement.

8 Years!

Happy Anniversary to my wonderful and loving husband.  It's been a great 8 years and I hope we get to enjoy many more decades together. I'm too sick to write much so I'll just put up a video.

One of the things I love most about Seth is seeing how much fun he has with our kids.

  

Elena is very excited to help out when the new baby comes - and I'm hoping that excitement won't wear off too quickly.  Helping during the pregnancy, however, is apparently not as appealing to her.  I've learned that children have very little sympathy for their parents.

As an example, here's a conversation Elena and I had yesterday.

Elena (yelling from the living room): Mom, are you throwing up?

Me: Yes.

Elena: Oh......Can you get me a snack?


Seth has since talked with her about helping me when I'm sick, so this morning when I was heaving into the toilet, Elena was  much more helpful:

Elena: Can I get you a banana?

Me: No, not right now.

Elena: What would you like?

Me: Maybe a glass of water.

Elena: Ok - I'll get it.....would you like a jelly bean with that?

Me: No, thank you.

And I'm happy to say that she promptly brought me a glass of water (without spilling). Hooray!

A Memory Like and Elephant

Elena has a great memory, or "membery" as she calls it.  Like many things in life, this has both advantages and disadvantages.

Elena's lastest interest has been hearing stories from when we were little - she asks us (and any other adult) to "tell stories from when you were little."  I'm getting to a point where I'm running out of stories. 

Anyway, the other day Elena had the opportunity to ask my Uncle Paul for stories when he was little. She lucked out there because Paul is a great storyteller, and his stories are never dull.  So she heard all about how he used to go rat hunting by the garbage dump when it was set on fire each night and how he (accidentally) shot a dead man's rear end when he was 12.  The next day she was telling Seth one of the stories she remembered:

"One time, this guy took a newspaper and lit it on fire, and then he was using the fire to burn the hair off his arms.  And then Grandpa Lawrence came in and said, 'What are you doing?!!?'"

Just as I was about to breathe a sigh of relief that she didn't remember exactly what Grandpa Lawrence had said, she corrected herself, making sure to get it exactly right: "No, wait - he said 'What the hell are you doing?!!?'" 

We told her that she probably shouldn't repeat that story to her friends...

There's a baby on the way!

A couple of weeks ago we were headed to Marshall, and Sam suddenly piped up from the back seat, "Mom, I think there's probably a baby ready for you to pick up at the hospital.  We should stop by there and check."  I explained to him that it doesn't really work that we and we skipped the unnecessary stop.

I didn't even know it yet, but he was sort of right.  I was just barely pregnant at the time, and am now offically about 5 weeks along.  We don't really bother to wait telling people because in about a week, I'm going to have to explain why I'm puking all the time anyway :)

The kids are very excited, although I think Sam might start doubting that a baby is really on the way.  His first reaction was, "Let's go to the hospital right now to pick it up."  After we explained that the baby is in my belly, he came over, lifted my shirt and looked into my belly button to try to see the baby. He now checks my belly a few times a day to see if the baby has grown. Every time he checks, his conclusion is the same: "No baby yet." Elena wanted to know how big the baby was, etc. so I showed her pictures of what it looked like online.  According to Elena, "it looks like a lizard."  I reminded her that she looked like a lizard at that age, too.

Elena is convinced it's a girl because "she prayed for a baby more than Sam did." She has already started collecting pretty things to give to the baby - a boquet of flowers, shiny rocks, etc. Sam, of course, is rooting for a boy. He told his babysitter today that the baby would be a boy and he was going to wrestle with him. ("Not until he's older!"Elena quickly reminded him.) When their sitter asked Sam, "What if it's a girl?" he replied, "It won't be."