Super Mom!

Yesterday I felt like super mom!

Honestly, there are many days that will go by and I think there is nothing to blog about b/c my life is pretty boring...and then I have a yesterday! Of course only drama and trauma classify as not boring to me so that tends to be what I write about. I do actually like the boring days in my life but don't feel that you would want to read about them. So, I will continue!

I woke up to my Monday morning getting the boys ready for school and then making plans for a quick play date with one of Elizabeth's little buddies in the morning only to have her throw up on the floor right before we were to get in the van. I quickly cancelled the date and was more observant towards Elizabeth's actions, which led me to lay her down for an early nap and a few hours of organizing all the household duties I am responsible for. After feeling better upon waking up and no more puke I agreed to another play date at the local indoor pool. This is where I felt like super mom - I took Elizabeth on a quick run through Wal-Mart (the worse place in the world to me) and bought her a life-vest. We then had the most fun swimming for over an hour at the pool. Afterwards I had one hour to kill before a scheduled errand so I took my chances and went to Kroger. Elizabeth was doing so good in the cart that I continued with my entire grocery list for the week AND I USED MY COUPONS! At this point I am feeling like the best mom ever...I have just enough time to come home and put the groceries up before going for my scheduled meeting and what do you think happened? ELIZABETH STARTS SPEWING THROW UP ALL OVER HERSELF as I'm driving down the road. I swerve over, put on my blinking lights and grab the swim towel to put in her lap. I reassure her after the flow up puke has finally stopped and pull back onto the road. I get home and pull her out of the car seat, undress her in the garage, leaving the puddle of vomit in the van and toss her into the tub! Feeling proud once again that I handled this drama without puking myself or crying...I call Nate and get the meeting rescheduled that I'm supposed to be at in 10 mts!!!! Nate gets home with the boys and bless him...he cleans out the whole car seat!

Then...the boys go riding their bikes down our road by themselves. Something we just let them do the day before! (by themselves) Nate and I are in the kitchen cleaning up from supper (Elizabeth is of course acting fine at this point) and I go outside to get a visual on the boys. What do I see? Eli racing to me yelling "Ian has blood all over him!" And then I see my little boy running down the road about a mile away screaming like a crazy person, holding his arm up in the air with blood all over his hand! Getting to the point now I'll just say he ran his bike into a brick mailbox and his handlebar rammed his hand into the bricks. It took quite awhile to see what exactly was cut and we still over 24 hours later can't see it clearly. But here is a picture for anyone interested...for others - I'm sorry! =)


I'm still suspicious that one or both of his fingers aren't broken but I do know his finger nail is torn completely on one finger and somewhere there is a big gash...he has allowed us to clean it with water but NO ONE is allowed to actually wash the blood off his fingernail. He did make it to school the next day with a huge wrapping of gauze and a promise from a friend that he would open Ian's lunch box for him.

So, today...Tuesday...what did I do? Took a two hour nap!

not for the faint of heart

I remember sitting in my living room rocking my first born child and watching Celin Deon talk to Matt on the Today show. It was all about Celin's new baby and Matt asked her what the best part was. Her answer...changing her sweet thing's diaper. Of course Matt was all "What! That can't be it!!!" But Celin's answer was, "it shows how my baby is doing." That's right...her baby's poop tells her everything! And so my story begins.

If you become a close friend of mine you will know when you have reached that point of intimacy because I more then likely will tell you a 'poop' story. Coming from a long line of women who have stomach issues we often share stories of irregularity and fast food bathroom drama. (and I have plenty of those to tell)

I remember when I went on my first weekend trip with Nate's family. We were just into our first months of dating and we all loaded into a borrowed van, the kind where everyone lays down in the back and sleeps on the road, and headed to a cabin on some river. It was a great weekend of tubing, playing in a creek and getting to know his younger sisters who kept watching me with a suspicious eye. But then on the ride home it all came out... literally. I just remember an emergency stop after a greasy meal I'm sure at some po'dunk gas station in the middle of no where and me being locked in the ONE bathroom for at least 45 mts. This opened up a whole new level of intimacy between his mom and I.

When Nate and I got married he became my bathroom savior. There were many a times he had to barge into the women's bathroom of a restaurant or gas station and come help me as I was on the verge of passing out in the stall. Sometimes it just took time (lots of it) for me to recover and all to pass through but other times I would have to be laid out on the cold tile floor and then coerced back into the car for the uncomfortable ride home to our own bathroom. The worst ever was when I ended up in the hospital ER in some, again, small town hospital as we were driving home from a lunch of Chinese food with friends. I kept telling the doctors I just needed to go to the bathroom but I was pregnant at the time so they wanted to monitor the baby's vital signs with all the cramping I was having.

As my partner in life Nate has endured many a gross things in the bathroom with me. He is a trooper. I heard a friend share with a group of us that she wouldn't "pass gas" in front of her husband much less use the bathroom in front of him. I just snickered to myself at the thought of what Nate has heard much less seen!

But now the legacy has continued with my oldest. I guess Celin's poop story cursed him that day because he has had his own bathroom issues ever since he started using the white thrown. As he has gotten older there usually isn't a day that passes where Eli doesn't say "my stomach hurts." And my reply is always "go sit on the potty." Sure enough that will solve the problem. It is sad to see the same thing that has cursed you for years in your own child though. The cramping, dizzy head, nausea. But at least I can speak the lingo with him. "Did you have a good poop today?"

Just so you know I have been to the doctors; I have had tests run; I have had the 'scope thingy' done; I have tried different kinds of medicine; and I'm still trying new things. All they can say is IBS (irritable bowel syndrome) or Spastic Colon. Just a fancy way of saying your digestive system is screwed up! Just last night I bought Benefiber to put in our drinks each day. I heard recently via my sister-n-law that it has cured her. So I will continue to bear this thorn of bathroom torture in my life and laugh with my friends and family after the fact of my latest escapade in some backwoods store's stall.

tick insanity

It's day 4 since we were on that semi-camping adventure and still the remnants of that trip are finding their way into our house. Ticks! That's right...I have now found a tick on each person spread out over 4 days.

It started with Eli on Saturday night. He was in the bathroom, sick, and started yelling "a spider is biting my penis!!!!" Nate and I glanced quickly at each other (as to say, "what the..." and took off running to the bathroom.) We found our skinny little boy screaming, looking at his privates with a look of horror on his face. It was a nice big old black tick stuck right to the underparts of his...well...whatever you call those things at your house (oh, they are called many things here with two boys but usually it is followed up with me yelling in shock, "WE DON'T SAY THAT!!!") I'm all about the 'real' word for parts of our anatomy!

So, what followed was Nate holding Eli across his lap and pulling that tick off his manhood! It was a sight to see, especially when Ian comes walking in to see what all the screaming is about and says, "ARE YOU PULLING THAT OFF OF HIS WEINER?" You can tell my anatomy classes have gone well with the boys.

Next day...Nate finds one crawling on my pants in the van. Later he finds one stuck in his arm.

Next day...we decide to do another head to toe check on everyone only to find one stuck in Ian's head. Then Nate checks me over to find one stuck on my hip.

I don't think these have been there since camping. They are infesting our house I tell you! I'm sure it has something to do with the fact that we dumped all sleeping and tent supplies into our living room b/c of the monsoon going on outside. So, today I'm cleaning the house...dusting, vacuuming, washing sheets!

And yes mom, I have saved the majority of the ticks in a jar of alcohol in case we come down with some rare disease. The good doctors can do a biopsy on our friends the ticks to see what caused our insanity! I do listen to you...sometimes!

The past 48 hours

I like to recap my life in increments of 12, 24, or 48 hours...it makes for a more interesting story of the Callender household!

Friday night...6pm We arrive at Camp Boxwell for our first "family" (minus sister girl) cubscout campout. Boys everywhere...men feeling manly putting up their tents and providing for us women and kids with marshmellows and hotdogs on sticks...me and my friend herd 9 little ones out of the tent area on an adventure through the woods to find the half wrecked pirate ship and fort.

Darkness creeps upon us and we head back to camp with the crazy ones so they can continue running around and chasing each other around the tents and all those ropes tied down. Despite multiple threats from many adults the running continues into the dark now with glow sticks in hand. Adults sit around in the dark and chat.

10:30...surely it's late enough to make them stop running? A few of us round up our boys and head them to the tents to begin the long night of "shhhhh" and "go to bed".

10:30ish a very large family that we do not recognize arrives and decides to put up camp right behind our tents. And the chaos begins...

This is what I hear (along with everyone else in our camp site): "Ohhhhhh, my OCD is acting up!" "Do ya'll know how to put this tent up?" "Here are the directions!" "I'm going to pop you in the jaw if you don't stop that!" "Ya'll quiet down" (the momma continues to YELL at her kids...I'm thinking, "do you know how loud you are talking to them!!!!???)

All this and much more until...1:00am. Yes, 1:00am I remember looking at my watch as I had laid in our tent listening to their conversations since 10:30! It was a true test in patience for me that's for sure!

Wake up, go to sleep, roll over, wake up...you know what sleeping on the ground is like.

5:00am Our cub scout leader starts running around to each tent telling us to get up and pack everything b/c we have less then an hour before the storm hits! WHAT???? I go into panic mode (which isn't hard for me when talking about storms) and run over to the boys' tent yelling at them to get up and then I start walking around like a crazy person trying to act calm as my husband very cooly starts packing up the tent.

About this time Eli starts crying telling me he is going to throw up. And so his adventure begins. Between packing up the van for Nate as he rolls everything up (God forbid we throw the stuff in the van) and rubbing Eli's head as he dry heaves in the bushes and freaks if I leave him alone in the dark by the van we manage to get everything put away and leave.

6am We watch the dark clouds roll in behind us as we drive away from the camp and stop quickly at McDonalds for breakfast. Perfect timing for Eli to throw up officially and me to know he was not just "tired". Reports on the t.v. show yes indeed tornadoes are coming. So we haul into the van and speed back to the 'boro.

7am Everyone gets into bed and falls asleep for a good couple of hours.

Noon We brave the rain (tornadoes haven't hit us yet) to pick up Elizabeth and grab some tacos. Eli is feeling worse.

2:00 Tornado sirens are blaring. I've got Elizabeth in the closet asleep on the floor. Eli is throwing up in the toilet. Ian is in charge of Honey Bunny and Nate is standing watch over the t.v.

Hours pass...flooding is everywhere...Eli's in pain...Elizabeth gets a 103 fever.

8:00pm I've got Elizabeth asleep now. Eli is in bed with the occasional dry heaving and bad cramping. Ian is eating a hot dog and ice cream cone on the living room floor watching a movie. Nate starts to feel sick.

9:00pm - 6:00am I've got Eli and Nate throwing up in our bedroom. Elizabeth waking up crying from some mysterious illness with fever. And the rain keeps coming.

Then all day today we have been recovering. No more rain. Lots of horrific pictures on the news of people stranded on the interstate. Houses flooded. Nate is sleeping the day away thank goodness he is not throwing up any more. Trying to get Eli to eat something other than a donut! And I've got a huge tent set up in my living room to appease the happiest one of us (Ian) for a few hours.

More storms on their way. More hours to practice my patience.
Signing off...nurse Sarah!

THE BUNNY

The perfect pet. No, seriously...I've never seen such a mild mannered rabbit. He comes when you call. Doesn't run away unless you are about to step on him and pull his ears (Elizabeth!!!) and won't bight you. We call him honey bunny or bun bun or bunny! And he loves to be held upside down in anyone's lap... immediately falling asleep once in said position.

Now if only I can keep my sweet little sister girl from going all WWF on him and slamming his head down on the ground after picking him up by a lock of hair and a corner of the ear. Oh yeah she does...and if that's not bad then once she has stunned him she comes down with the foot stomp move! He is probably so mild mannered b/c he is slowly dying from internal injuries. If anyone has a suggestion for correcting this horribly mean behavior towards those smaller then ourselves please notify me! Trust me we have tried EVERYTHING and it is not working!

Recapping the past two weeks...

I immersed myself in preparing for the "traditional" ways of Easter by yes, volunteering to oversee a kindergarten class dying eggs...on a windy day...in an open field (very far away from any bathroom). Was I crazy? Yes!



We then celebrated one of my most favorite Christian traditions...Easter Sunday...where we worshiped with family at a very 'on fire' church in Franklin (The People's Church) and remembered why we are forgiven and free - our risen savior Christ Jesus!



That afternoon we discovered we had a new member to the Callender family...honey bunny...or bun bun! (don't ask - I still have a 6 year old who speaks baby talk at times)


I have trudged through teaching preschool alone on Tuesdays and Thursdays which I must admit is no longer fun...no one should be left alone to run around crazy all day with 10 classes of 1 to 5 year olds!!!! But I've sucked it up and made the best out of the situation... (sorry no picture of me going on a bear hunt and doing the hokey pokey 1,000 times)

Between just two kids (yes two kids) I have visited various doctor's offices 8 times IN TWO WEEKS (imagine the co-pays please???). Discovered Elizabeth had a HARD WALL OF WAX that we were told we had two weeks to dissolve or she would need her tube replaced (and a bad infection behind it - reason for such urgency). Discovered Ian had the beginning of pneumonia and then through an x-ray discovered he had a mysterious cyst in his arm bone. This led to more x-rays and more specialized doctor visits at Vanderbilt (our second home between Ian and Elizabeth). Then we discovered it was indeed benign and we were to forget we ever saw it. Oh, the joys of modern medical procedures and discovering things in our body we don't need to know are there...Then more doctor visits to follow up on said ear problems - YEAH...TUBE IS CLEAR and pneumonia...BOO, LUNGS STILL INFECTED...but YEAH...NO ASTHMA! So, more medicine and we'll wait and see!

Soccer starts - thank God only Eli wanted to play! Daddy coaching makes life a little easier!

Eli turns 9 = one spend the nighter with four boys - movie night... trampoline jumping...being loud until 11:30pm and waking up at 5:30 am...just a little low growling from me and some t.v. watching to solve that problem!

I learned a lesson in standing up for what you feel strongly about this past week! There was a situation at school that I felt so burdened over where my children were involved in learning a life lesson of equality and fairness for all. Sometimes you just have to speak up and let your voice be heard even if feels uncomfortable. I have learned not to sit back and just shrug my shoulders, saying oh well, there is nothing that can change it. I also learned through this experience that so many people walk around daily numb to the feelings of others outside their own bubble. As long as it doesn't effect me or my kids then why should I care...that is the attitude of a lot of people.

And last of the Callender adventures: sweet sister girl is fast approaching her 18 month milestone. She plans on attacking her 2's well before humanly possible. How do I mean? Well, she is the most outgoing, energetic, doesn't stop, doesn't 'shut up' (sorry), people person I've ever met! Busy...Busy...Busy! I think her toddler years are going to put me in a crazy home! When the boys get in the van after school and try to talk to me what does Elizabeth do? Scream a high pitched scream with a sweet smile on her face the entire time. The louder they get...the louder she gets!
She will not sit still for more then a few minutes and those few mts. must include her putting something in her mouth. Eating at restaurants, car rides, stroller walks...all real fun! She has decided the most fun thing to do outside when the boys are jumping on the trampoline...run as fast as she can under the trampoline and get right in the middle so I can't reach her without crawling in after her. Yes, you can imagine me screaming like a crazy woman for the boys to STOP JUMPING...FREEZE...DON'T MOVE... for fear of my baby girl's neck getting snapped! (we are going to Lowes this weekend for a remedy to that problem!!!) But she sleeps hard and long! God does have mercy!




So, maybe the next two weeks will be quite and uneventful...oh, wait a minute! Who am I kidding?

It takes control

I have learned something this past week. Sometimes life just throws a lot of curve balls at you and before you know it you have to make a choice...

I had to make a choice to just keep trudging though and force my mind to stay on the positive. We had received some surprising news at the beginning of the week concerning one of our children. When I heard it I took it so well. I didn't cry. I didn't let my mind wonder. I listened to what the doctor told us and trusted him when he said "I am very confident that 'this' is nothing to worry about but to be on the 100% safe side we will get a second opinion." I held it together when I told family and wrote an e-mail to friends asking for prayer this week. I didn't want to over-react...I mean the doctor said he was very confident. But then a few days went by...

I realized I was having to force my brain to stay in the positive. It was so easy to let my imagination run crazy and go down that path of drama and "what if's," especially as friends and family called to make sure we were okay. I finally gave in to the drama unfolding in my brain at the end of the week and just lost it. Thankfully I lost it with my momma on the phone (love using the word 'momma' when that is what I needed). She said all the right stuff that I knew...you have no reason to worry being the most important! And then I was okay. I have been ever since that good cry. I guess that is what I needed to allow myself to do. So I could look back at my moment of drama and say, "now see there...what's all this carrying on about...no need girl!" And then I snapped out of it.

It just made me think about how sometimes when life throws us those curve balls we are not expecting we have to actually work very hard to keep control of our minds and stay in the positive. It is so easy to just fall apart and let go of the hope we have the promise we have that God is in control and no matter how bad things get it will all work out one way or another in the end. And there isn't much we can do about it in between. I haven't had to do that in awhile...and it isn't much fun. But I'm still in the waiting stages and I am still clinging to the idea that everything is going to be okay...and I still have to make my mind stay focused on what I do know, not what I don't!