Boobs I mean. Must be a man thing. We were in Walmart the other day, passing by the bra sections. Caleb said rather loudly, while pointing at the bras, “Mommy’s BIG boobies!!!” Repetition is always necessary for sentences such as these. However, since there remains a slim possibility that no one heard this sentence, my friend Chris’s story still takes the cake. WARNING: You will find yourself drawn back to reading her blog day after day. Who is Chris? Well she has seven children between ages 12 and 2, who she homeschools…is there really anything else I need to say? She is superwoman, my hero!

On Miles turning 30 months:
You love to tell everyone that you have a penis. As we stroll through our local Wal-Mart you will suddenly shout out the the person next to us, “You HAB A PENIS? I HAB A PENISSSS.” You also like to tell people, “Mama not hab a penis. Her penis falled off.”

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…to ease the aches and pains. Especially when your toddler is laying on his belly in the bottom of your old cast iron tub staring down the drain hole, as he says “Bye bye big bubbles! Bye bye big bubbles, I love you! See you later! Byeee!”

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It all started with me calling to upgrade our internet earlier this week, on Monday I believe. I asked if anyone had to come out to our house. No. Just a new ethernet cord that they would be mailing. Simple as that. Mkay. Fast forward to Wednesday. Kim was here for speech therapy…it was a nightmare. Caleb was on the floor throwing tantrums. Trying to do anything BUT what she wanted him to do basically. She gave up, and proceeded to talk to me about the situation. His attention span has been declining for the past 3 or 4 sessions. She said ‘I’m just seeing a side of him I’ve never seen before, with the tantrums and everything?! You need to nip that.’ This was the point where I mainly just wanted to flick her perky little head right off her shoulders. NIP a 2 year olds tantrums??? Are ya kidding me? She acted like is was completely unheard of! I explained that I usually deal with tantrums by walking away. He doesn’t get his way, he doesn’t get attention, and God willing he will eventually give up this bargaining technique, hopefully while my sanity is still in tact.

I turned over everything and spoke through email with my friend Kelly. Her little boy had intense therapy because the doctors were concerned about him possibly being autistic. I asked her how they dealt with J not behaving during therapy. After much thought on the subject, I made some notes, and gave Kim a call. I explained that tantrums were certainly nothing new in this house, and were pretty normal for a toddler. I told her that I think we are seeing some boredom, thus he’s losing interest and acting negatively when we try to steer him back. She agreed, and we are going to try some different activities on Monday, as well as me leaving the room. So we’ll see.

So as I was saying, therapy started the day out on a sour note. After I got Caleb down for his nap, I came in here to watch TV. An hour into his naptime, he woke up screaming. He was soaking wet with sweat. It was pretty obviously he wasn’t going back to sleep, so I brought him in here to watch TV and cuddle. He just couldn’t get comfortable. He kept crying and fussing, then he’d arch his back, then he’d hug me and cry some more. He had woken up with a runny nose that morning, so after crying so much, there was snot everywhere. I took him in the kitchen to wipe his face with a cool cloth. He was screaming so hard by this point that he could barely breathe. I walked in his room from the kitchen, and out came the puke. Which of course made him cry harder. I grabbed stuff out of his dirty clothes basket to catch everything and try to get him cleaned up. All of this continued for almost an hour. Just screaming and puking. Unfortunately, the ONLY thing God didn’t change about me when I entered the wonderful world of motherhood was giving me the ability to deal with puke. Without puking myself. Maybe I’m eternally scared from all the morning sickness at the beginning of my pregnancy. And I use the term ‘morning’ loosely. Well in the middle of all the screaming and throwing up, someone knocked on the door. Bell South guy. He asked me if we were upgrading our internet speed, and then said he just had to put a part on, but it was outside. I asked if he needed to come in, he said no. He could check our connection at the modem, but he didn’t have to. I thanked him and returned to the screaming pukefest. By the time I was done and my poor baby calmed down, the guy was gone. It wasn’t for a few hours that I noticed, the DSL light of death blinking. Great. No internet. Sadly enough, it makes me crazy, I can’t stand to be without internet! *hangs head in shame* Hi my name is Rachel and I’m addicted to the internet.

So I made the first of MANY phone calls (on my cell phone mind you, eating up my minutes, about 200 of them to be exact). The girl tried to troubleshoot, and more less blame it on me, which just infuriates me. She kept asking the same questions over and over. Had I moved my computer lately? Any thunderstorms? Basically refusing to take responsibility in any way shape or form, dismissing the remote possibility that the tech could have done anything wrong. My temper grew shorter and shorter. After 30 minutes of this, she proclaimed that a technician must be sent. So she set up an appointment for the DSL tech for the following morning. The most wonderful part is, they don’t make appointment times, they give you a FOUR hour window. So any way you look at it, you’re spending at least half you day waiting on them. Scott called back later that night, and made a weak attempt to get someone out here at 9pm. The person he talked to said, “Oh this is standard procedure, it takes 24 hours to update, so you should have your internet connection and phone back tomorrow.” I’m sure he could hear me yelling incredulously in the background, and could possibly even see my arms waving around wildly through the phone. So the next morning, I waited. And waited, and waited. I called Scott hissing under my breath at 12pm, the end of my four hour window. They never showed up! So he called in and asked to speak with a supervisor. This guy assured Scott that the tech was just running late, and would be here soon. He agreed to personally call Scott back 40 minutes later to be sure that the tech had arrived. Yeah that didn’t happen. Not only did he never call back, the tech never arrived either.

At 3pm, I’ve been sitting here staring at the driveway for 7 hours at this point, I call back. Again. I started off the conversation by saying, “We had an appointment scheduled for this morning between 8 and 12, and it is now 3pm. I’d like to know how much longer I will have to wait on someone to show up.” Same questions again, I re-explain our story for the 20th time, since you have to explain it no less than 4 times during each phone call. She put me on hold for a while, and clicked back over here and there to ask me questions. At one point she says “Okay, hold on for a few more minutes, I’m still trying to determine why your appointment was canceled, so you didn’t call to cancel it at any point?” My blood was boiling. I told her this was unbelievable. She kept apologizing, like that did any good. So she set up another appointment for Friday morning, saying that she needed to send a phone tech first, then a DSL tech. Apparently no one knows how to do both. The phone tech would be here first thing in the morning and the DSL tech would be here by 6, yes SIX PM. She said it like she was doing me a favor. I just spent the last seven hours waiting on someone that was never coming, and now you’re telling me I need to sit here for another 10 hours tomorrow???? I called Scott. He thought I was mad earlier. That didn’t compare. Many choice words followed. Scott headed to Steve and Debbie’s (the boss and secretary). He used a landline there to call and speak with another supervisor. This gentleman said he needed to call around and find out what was going on. He called Scott back about 10 minutes later. The original guy that came to the door during the pukefest fried our phone and internet!! Whatever he did knocked it out at the control box up the road. And he didn’t even have the you know whats to come to the door and tell me. He just hopped in his van and left. No phone call or anything. The 24 hour downtime after upgrading? They made that up trying to avoid the truth! Now that…THAT is customer service for you. This is Bell South ladies and gentleman. Avoid them if you can.

The supervisor said he would attempt to have someone fix it last night, but it would probably be first thing this morning. We were standing in the kitchen rediscussing this mess when the phone rang. It was a guy working on the control box down the road. Scott asked if he could come down here and look at our internet. Luckily this good old redneck boy was proficient in both phone and DSL work. He muttered about them being a ‘buncha idiots’ down there. He even scoffed at the 24 hours of downtime, is that true? “No it ain’t,” he said. Now I like this guy! He’s speaking my language! He headed back down to the control box, and replaced something in there that the other guy had messed up. When we returned from the grocery store last night, our services had been restored. Oh yes, I will be getting something for free. What a nightmare.

So anyway, that’s where I’ve been for part of the week. And to be honest, I haven’t had much heart to write after my last entry. I’ve thought about that family a million times. I’m a fixer. I’m a helper. And no parent should ever have to hurt like that. I can’t even wrap my mind around it. Every fiber of your being is interwoven with you children. Toys everywhere. Dance lessons. Pottery Barn Kids magazines in the mailbox. Carseats in the car. Photographs of three little angels that now have wings. It just makes me short of breath. All I can do is pray for this couple. Parents should never have to bury their children. The mother said she now realizes that the only thing worse than burying one child is to bury three.

When you have your own children, you come to an amazing realization. My parents love me this much. The love from a child to a parent is a strong bond, there’s no doubt. But the love a parent feels for their child, there are just no words. You can never understand it until you have a child of your own. It gives you a little understanding to why your parents act so stupid sometimes! They do things that you just find unbelievable. Mine sure have. But they do it because they love me like I love Caleb. I always knew they loved me, but I didn’t realize until after Caleb was born, just how much. I feel sad for people who cannot or choose not to have children. For those that make a decision not to, I couldn’t possibly imagine living my life without having ever felt this love. It would be so empty and meaningless.

And with that, I’m all out of words now. Caleb managed to wipe enough snot on me in the last two days to transfer whatever mess he had to me. Again. This happened a few months ago also. Luckily I get the mutated 10 times as bad version. Last time he had a little cold that ran its course in 48 hours or so…Me? An upper respiratory infection. Of course I rather I have it than him, but ugh, I’m off to melt away aches under the hottest water I can possibly stand.

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my heart hurts

Jun 23

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, current events, parenting

for this family. They lost all three of their children in a tragic car accident last month. I just mentally, physically cannot imagine. Please keep them in your prayers as they begin a lifelong journey of simply living day to day. I don’t know if they will ever heal. Read about Kyle, Emma, and Katie…

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one, two, free

Jun 22

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, caleb isaiah, funny friday, memories

I’ve been working with Caleb on counting. Just before I got the camera out, he counted to 19 by himself. Then out came the camera and the interest in performing went right out the window. He had just been rattling off numbers on the couch, when I was doing something else. But here he is…one, two, free, four, fie, sis, sesen, eigh, nine, red car, ten, pick nose, eeyeyen…

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so far…

Jun 21

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, caleb isaiah, memories

I’ve been playing with the website mentioned yesterday. I put together some pictures from Caleb’s 2nd birthday party…I think it turned out cute!

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uhoh

Jun 20

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, crafty, photography

I think I just found my new home away from home. I haven’t had a chance to play much, but I think I’m in love…Go find out what the big deal is

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it’s been forever!

Jun 19

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, i want that, ramblings

I haven’t written at all lately. We went to Diego last Friday, then the computer came Saturday, and the old has, needless to say, been turned off and unhooked ever since. I didn’t know how to log in to my account cause I’m a big dork. I have everything bookmarked and I’ve never paid attention to the address. Somehow in my theme editing, I removed my Meta section and never put it back. We totally love the new computer. It is AMAZING! I hooked the old one back up last night, and after getting spoiled to this monitor for two weeks, it is nearly impossible to look at the old clunker. Everything is tiny and has this ugly greenish yellow tint to it. The difference is night and day when looking at the same picture on each monitor. No wonder nothing I printed ever came out like it looked on the screen! So I’m back…more to follow about Digeo later!

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I’ve been trying to pinpoint how I’ve been feeling lately. When I look back on your first year, of course I am proud of all of your accomplishments. You cooed, you crawled, you made yucky faces at pureed squash, you walked, then ran. I got all of my weekly email updates on your development as it progressed, and you followed right along with the ‘average’ ages that babies achieve new feats. Of course I was happy, but I think I just expected it to happen, it happened, I was happy. I never really thought about the possibility of you not progressing right along schedule.

Then I started recieving all of these emails about the beginning of lauguages, communication, and the vocabulary explosion. But silent, you remained. I started to get a little nervous. Certainly it could be blamed on the french fries I ate when I was pregnant. Or maybe it was the fiery hot peanuts. Are you one of those kids that reacted negatively to a vaccine? Did the nurses drop you on your head the one time I sent you to the nursery for an hour before you demanded to be returned (by screaming from the second you were pushed through the nursery doors until they called me and told me they would feed you formula or bring you back because you had been screaming for an hour and they couldn’t make you stop. You stopped the second you saw that you were back with us. I fell in love. Again. At one day old). So anyway I blamed myself, as most mothers do, for your lack of speech.

Time went on, and your second birthday approached. But nothing. I would point to my mouth, and you would watch carefully, but never ventured to try out a word or two. You stuck to the words you knew, and had added to your vocabulary around 9 months old (mama, dada, baba, nana, etc). Each day that passed, I worried a little more. I enrolled you in speech therapy, and you picked up a few signs, but still weren’t saying much outloud.

I never had any doubts that you understood me. You have the hearing of coyote. You could easily follow complex directions, and show through play and daily skills that you understood everything I said. Just before you turned two, you became an animal dictionary. You began adding animal noises to your few spoken words. Before I knew it, I could ask you what 15 different animals said, and you would respond appropriately.

Then it happened. Almost overnight. The sudden language explosion that I had heard so much about. I would guestimate the first twenty or thirty words; They were pronounced absolutely perfect. Like you had been holding them in to be sure that when you tried it outloud, it would be perfect. Since then, we’ve seen a little less concern with perfect pronunciation, and lot more delight of saying hundreds of words. I has been truely incredible. I find myself beaming every single day at something that just blows me away. Yesterday, you looked at our new gateway monitor box. It compared in size to the box that Scott’s RC monster truck was packaged in. Please keep in mind I gave that to Scott last August. But you were convinced that Daddy’s truck must be in that big monitor box. It was of similar size and dimensions, so that must be it. You demanded my 100% attention, and began clapping your hands wildly (which is the best way to describe the sign for open). “Ohen bi box, dada bi yewwow tuck, ohen bi yewwow tuck box” Translated: Open big box, daddy’s big yellow truck, open big yellow truck box. Upon further examination of the contents, you said “All gone bi yewwow tuck. Bi yewwow tuck here.” All gone big yellow truck. Big yellow truck here, as you pointed toward the back porch where Daddy’s truck is up on a shelf. Amazing.

Just a few minutes ago, you noticed a hole in my ratty pajama pants. You’ve had a few books to say the least that have required ripped page repairs. So pants must work the same way. After sticking your finger in the hole, and telling me it was there five or six times, you said “need tape, fis hole.” I needed tape to fix the hole. Why of course! So we went and got the tape out and fixed my pants. Thank goodness.

You can count to 10. You can say and recognize at least half of the capital letters in the alphabet! Hands down, your favorite book right now is Dr. Seuss’s Are You My Mother? You have a few favorite shows, Wow, Wow, Wubbzy, Go Diego Go, Dora the Explorer and the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse.

And me? I’m just glowing. You take my breath away on a daily basis. I feel like I need to call and bore tell every single person I know what you’ve said and done that day. I know they probably wouldn’t share in my total amazement. Of course they would humor me and say oh that’s so great. And they’d probably hang up the phone and be sure to be ‘washing their hair’ around this time tomorrow. But I can’t help myself. I’m so…well…proud. I’m so proud of you. And I love you so much.

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woo hoooooo

Jun 09

Posted by: Rachel in: blog, i want that

I just ordered our new computer!!!!! I am so beyond excited, it is pathetic. We’re getting an HP. 4GB of memory. That’s right. FOUR. I currently have 256MB!! It should be able to open a task before I can think about it. Yes. I can’t wait. I will be able to actually use Adobe Photoshop and Lightroom. 2.4GHz processor, 400GB hard drive, top graphics card. And we just purchased a HUGE monitor at Best Buy the other night, a 24 inch Gateway LCD. I’m loving it already. My pictures have taken on an entirely new perspective. The colors of pictures I’ve seen a million times are suddenly brilliant, vibrant and lifelike. It is incredible. And here’s the icing on the cake. I may be getting another lens for my camera too! Oh yes, it has been an amazing week. I love my hubby so much!!! You rock Prince Charming!! Please report directly to the Royal Den after KOTC is put to bed tonight ;)

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