Casualties of Failing to Compromise

It is a tough lesson. One that might be harder for some mothers, at least for me. I am so used to be able to do everything and do it right (for the most part). But, tonight Gianni reminded me why I need to step back and do just a little less. While I was going above and beyond for dinner tonight Gianni took a dive into the piano. When I heard the crunch, I knew that it couldn't be good and I immediately went into the living room with my dirty hands to investigate. Things didn't improve from there when I saw Gianni with his hands in front of his mouth dripping blood. As always, the phone was ringing and Dan wasn't home.

To make a long story short (too late, and if you get that one thank Tim Curry and a great movie called Clue) Gianni has damaged at least three of his teeth and completely out them through his upper lip. We contacted the dentist tonight, who told us that there wasn't much to be done to repair them and to call the office if there are more problems tomorrow. I will be calling in the morning to have them looked at, as two of the teeth aren't lined up properly any longer and I don't want to have any more damage done to my beautiful son's mouth.

Ugh. This is where I need to start letting go. I remember that I felt this way when Vinny broke his leg when Gianni was young. If I try to do too much, it isn't just me that will suffer. My children suffer too when I am this distracted. I have spent the last week feeling ditzy. I can't keep my head on straight. I seem to need to write everything down before I say it. Multi-tasking isn't working for me at all these days. Perhaps this is my reminder, the damage to my poor son's mouth, that I need to stop and smell the dandelions (a book on my mother's shelf all my life, but that is for another post). I need to slow down. I need to take a breath and I need to do less. I just wish I could learn this without my children being injured in the process.

Life is Chaotic...& Beautiful

I don't even know if anyone else is reading this, but for my own heart's desire and the ability to remember what the early days of three looks like. Here goes.

As my last child, time with him as an infant is going way to fast. I am floored that he is already eight weeks old. In this short time he looks entirely different, he is more full, the cute little baby folds have taken over his once lean (and dare I say chicken legish body). He truly didn't have nearly enough fat on him when he was born, the leanest of my children and I am grateful to see him add on this weight and ensure that he is healthy and that he is eating sufficiently.

Everything seems to come bittersweet these days. Frankie won't be put down but twice a day for naps. Sweet, I love to hold him and it forces me to take the time to notice the moment. Bitter as I can't get anything done and I sit still and watch the house, my life, anything for myself spin further from my grasp. It is getting better but again with that sweet and bitter note of watching Frankie mature and grow.

And Gianni, I fear that he is getting lost in the center. He doesn't have the strong go get 'em nature that Vinny has, the notice me NOW personality. Sometimes (and late at night quite literally) I think that he is being squished and absorbed into invisibility. And when it hits critical mass, then the screaming of "Mommy, Hold ME!" occurs and he screams (oh so loudly) his need to be held. And unfortunately, frequently while I can't hold him, when I am in the midst of an unstoppable event or feeding Frankie. But the sweet moments when he curls in my lap and once again he is my little baby. He is growing so fast and will I be able to notice it? I don't want him to be lost, or worse yet to feel inconsequential. Oh, the balancing act just got so much harder.

And while we're going through my children, Vinny. He is growing and spinning away from me so fast. It is sweet to watch him play with his Dad and waiting for his Dad to come home. And those sweet moments when he is telling me a story (one of his favorite things to do). I love his way of getting his needs met, while it sometimes overrides his siblings (oh, I need to pay attention to that).

And me, I feel like my brain is leaking all of its beautiful talent of balancing the world. I don't know how working mothers do it. I can't keep it straight. And I fear that I won't be able to teach again. I so loved teaching but I waited so long for these boys, I don't want to miss a second.

So to Ecclesiastes, to each thing there is a season. And this is mine, short and bittersweet. I look forward and dread the day that I can work out this balancing act of mine. I only hope that I find it with some grace. And not too soon. I rather like this feeling of all my beautiful boys around me. Even if a little of me is lost in the rush. I fear that I will find it too soon when they wander off to school and points beyond.

Once Four, Now Five

So, it seems that all I was able to manage this year is this little one. No blogging (or barely any since March), little scrapbooking, little quilting. It was enough just to barely keep up the edges of what I normally do. For me it was the experience of a lifetime, just like the arrival of my other two sons. Today is his official due date. It seems that we worked all year towards this date and now that he is safely here, I can breathe a sigh of relief and joy. It has taken me a couple of weeks (ok 2 and a half) to decompress from the stress of the last nine months and begin to enjoy our new life. And, we are quite proud as you can see. What a joy to change the title of this blog to the Buffo Five.
Life has returned somewhat to normal, all of the visitors have gone home and Dan has returned to work. The big difference is the addition of this little gift to our home. Frankie is doing really well despite a rough start in the feeding department. After dropping too far from his birth weight (at the lowest point weighing 6lbs 1oz) while in the hospital, yesterday at the 2 week check-up he weighed a whopping 7lbs 10ozs. This was another big increase, on last Wednesday at the lactation clinic he weighed 7 lbs even. He seems to be catching up in a big way. This is bittersweet for me, on one hand it is nice that my milk has come in and we can stop worrying about that complication. On the other, I realize that this is the last time he will be this small. Soon he will be running around with his other brothers and our baby era will be over forever. But, I get so far ahead of myself that I fear I will miss these special moments with our littlest one. So, here's to a dirty home, undone laundry, takeout and perhaps the missing Christmas poem (that hasn't yet been given up on completely) I am going to focus on these moments right now.

Where Did We Go? Everywhere!

I had this brief notion of trying to add in everything that we've been up to since April. In the words of Inigo Montoya, "let me sum up." (And for all of you who aren't familiar enough with the Princess Bride, Get thee to a Blockbuster). The answer is Everywhere. We've been busy with the boys, the pregnancy, church, life, the house. It has been a whirlwind of a year. I only feel now like I have been able to surface and I think that only because our most recent scare with the pregnancy placed me on bed rest. So, I am doing what I have been dying to do...blog about Tahoe!

Let's see, it was a BIG trip for us. It was planned long before we knew we were pregnant and we made a few changes to accommodate my growing condition. The main change was Karen. So, let me start from the beginning. We began on the Tahoe City side of the lake, near Auntie Teri for those of you (in Oklahoma) that don't know Lake Tahoe geography (next year in Tahoe!). As you can see from the photo above, Dan's friend Nate joined us again this year for the 4th and we had a great time. It was a new campground for us and we enjoyed it immensely. The morning of the 4th dawned and we headed off to Truckee for the 4th of July parade with Auntie Teri, Uncle Pete, Nate, his girlfriend Elise, Nanagrande and Nano. It was great fun and we had fun catching candy and watching the floats go by. We then headed back to Auntie Teri's and Uncle Pete's for the midday rest and then off to Donner Lake for dinner and the fireworks. This was a big change for us as we usually do the 4th of July off of Nevada Beach. We had a great time at a home that

Ladybug Central, April 29, 2009

So, at our house these days we are overwhelmed by ladybugs. This is a good thing for my roses, as they were recently overwhelmed with aphids. This seems to have abated and the boys are loving to have some many beautiful "lady bird beetles" as my biology teacher would have corrected me, in our little front yard. We put together a holding tank for them so that Vinny could share them with Daddy in the evening. Vinny is becoming quite the ladybug wrangler, snagging a record of 10 in one afternoon. I suppose there is something to be said for not being a great gardener (it frequently just looks overgrown). It has provided the boys we hours of pleasure during piano lessons. I like that they get to be outside and they like that I am not shadowing their every move. Gianni has taken to calling every bug a bee and running from them despite our best efforts to get him to say ladybugs. While he has finally got Vinny and Gianni down in his vocabulary, this seems to have eluded him. He talks more and more each day and it is great fun to have him join in on the conversation. He understands more than he says, but he has Yes, No and Okay down just fine and will carry on a conversation for quite awhile and be able to communicate what he needs or at least wants.
But, back to ladybugs. We agreed from the beginning that it would be a catch and release program. Every night Vinny releases the ladybugs just before his bath so that they can eat and rejoin their family. There is a small snag though. Gianni has figured out how to untwist the lid, so there are frequently some escapees, this is exacerbated by the fact that Mom may have punched one of the air holes a little too big. Frequently these days we find ladybugs on us, or the walls or the window trying to get out. We then will gently move them to the door so that they can go back outside and eat our aphids. Vinny has a very good understanding of what Ladybugs eat and he is always on the lookout for aphids to feed them. Just yesterday I found him relocating ladybugs from our garden to the lawn in front our our house because he thought they were hungry and there would be more aphids in the lawn. After explaining that we have all the aphids they'll ever need, he relocated them again, back to the mint. I just love watching them explore and enjoy the outside. I hope it never ends.

Joshua Tree, April 17-18

We intended to go camping the first weekend in April. But we had to move it due to unforseen circumstances. Vinny was so distraught and so instead of canceling the reservations, we just changed them. As we couldn't get away on that Sunday we were only able to stay one night. It was a wonderful time though. Vinny so had been begging to go camping. He loves it! We are so glad because we are a camping family. We don't go nearly as much as we desire, but we go at least once or twice a year. This year we are aiming for three times! Woo Hoo!
This is such a change for me as I went camping at least once a month with my family growing up. But, we have different schedules and Dan's vacation doesn't work quite like the Navy (which still requires me to do some adjusting in my expectations). So, with all this in mind we took off Friday afternoon and headed for the closest National Park, Joshua Tree. It wasn't as far as we thought, it actually is just around the corner from the Redlands temple (ok, maybe an hour, but still close). Our campground was great, set in the Joshua Trees and the park was much more mountainous than we expected. I guess when I think desert, I am forever stuck with the idea of flat sandy areas, but rarely is that the case, in fact Joshua Tree is more like the desert I grew up with. It covers the Mojave and Colorado deserts, and you can travel between the two. We picked a good weekend because all the cacti were in bloom. And of course my favorite, the ocotillo. We woke up in the morning and let the boys goof around with their trucks in the campground. They had a great time just filling them with dirt and dumping it out. Gianni, forever the rock hound, collected all the rocks he could find and dumped them out. Mommy, who had felt better just got to watch and take photos with her big lens, it was fun to just relax and the boys just loved goofing off at the campground. They just can't wait to go back again. Then we took off to do some hiking, we had the best of intentions, but this was shortchanged by Noelle not feeling so great. We altered our plans and took the 3o mile drive from the top of Joshua Tree down through the Colorado desert. At the bottom, we discovered that we were right about the Salton Sea. This was surprising to me because my family had driven all over that area, but never made it to Joshua Tree. We would regularly drive to the Salton Sea, I suppose with the fond hope of swimming, even though that is not possible anymore. Somehow though we never made it the five to ten miles north that would have brought us to Joshua Tree. It was a lovely weekend and we look forward to going back and exploring when we are all feeling better. Vinny keeps asking for the Joshua Trees and when we can return. I am grateful and look forward to more adventures with them.

Easter 2009, April 10-14

With great excitement we picked up Nana Karen on Friday from the airport. We hadn't seen her since Christmas and it was exciting to get to spend four days with her. On Friday, we finished up our Easter shopping and picked up the supplies to make birds nests. As it was a little on the chilly side it was great to just be inside and relax and make cute treats. We had a great time mixing the sticky marshmallows and shaping them into little miniature nests. Vinny's favorite part was eating the little birds eggs M&M's. Always one of his favorite things to eat. We had to finally move them so that there would be enough eggs for all the nests. As it made quite a few nests, we had plenty to share and enjoy over the weekend it was such fun. As we prepared to eat our little Easter feast on Friday, Dan called to say that his motorcycle had a flat tire. We were ever so grateful that he got the flat in the parking lot during the day and not while he was riding. That would have been horrific. After learning the cost of replacing motorcycle tires, which was a lot more than we expected as there was more work to be done, we began our Easter celebrations. Dinner was fabulous with Dan's request of a standing rib roast and other yummy additions. We had a great time visiting with Nana and getting the boys to bed nice and early. Saturday brought more fun as we went to the ward Easter egg hunt. Mommy learned that the big kids will always get tons more eggs than they need, and filed that away to teach her boys that they should always be looking out for the little guys. It was a new experience for her as she had never gone to a hunt with her children before. Nana was most understanding and said that she had similar feelings the first time she brought Daniel out to hunt. But, we did have fun and the boys were unaffected receiving enough eggs to satisfy them (see previous post about their contentment with just a few). We relaxed Saturday afternoon again (we've been doing that a lot lately) and finished the afternoon off with egg decorating! Mom's favorite and Daddy's least favorite tradition of the year (I think pumpkin cleaning out takes second place). Daddy hates messes as either boy can tell you. Uncle Mike joined us in the evening and the boys had fun goofing off together. Sunday brought the Easter Bunny (with a hole in his basket of course) big wheels and Dr. Seuss books for the boys. An Easter Egg hunt in the garden too! Church, then off to Grandma and Grandpa Lehman's in Lake San Marcos (about an hour and a half south of us). We had a great surprise waiting for us as Grandpa had made both boys trucks! They are just beautiful and the boys play with them non-stop. We are so grateful that we have such great family! We had a great Easter dinner with Uncle Jeff and Aunt Roz and enjoyed an afternoon ride on one of Grandma and Grandpa's friends boats. The boys had fun sitting outside with their friend on the front and watching the waterfowl go by. Dan and Mike left late that evening, and spent quite a bit of time in traffic. Nana, Mommy and the boys stayed so that we could go to the Wild Animal Park on Monday. It was a lovely visit to the park, with amazing Nana doing all the stroller pushing. Although there was a bit of a line for the butterfly exhibit, it was wonderful and magical. Poor Vinny waited patiently for a butterfly to land on him, or any of us for that matter but it wasn't to be. We did enjoy looking at them close-up. It was beautiful. We took Nana back to Grandma and Grandpa Lehmans. The boys were asleep within minutes of us getting in the car so there wasn't a goodbye. They were so upset and begged please to go back and get Nana Karen. We had such a lovely weekend and a great Easter together. Just as before it was so hard to choose just one or two photos to place on the blog. Look for the Flickr set hopefully this evening!