funny things

A conversation between me, Duncan and Mark.
Duncan: Rozzy needs a diaper change.
Me: Okay, let me finish wiping off the stove first.
Duncan: Can't Daddy do it?
Me: I don't know. Can he? (looking towards Mark)
Duncan walks over to Mark.
Duncan: Daddy can you change Rozzy?
Mark doesn't say anything.
Duncan: Come on, Daddy! She's your daughter!!

The other morning I was sleeping with my feet hanging out of the bed a little. I wake up to something licking my toes. There could only be one person in the house who would do that, Rozzy. She licked my toes, then covered my feet back up with the blanket and walked out of my room. I will never understand her, but she sure makes me laugh.

Let's talk about the kids

Well, here it is, Summer break.  I was actually almost wanting heat because the cold was lasting so long.  Duncan is out of school now.  With that came a little meeting with a group of people from his school.
Duncan has been doing well at school, but he has seemed to have difficulty paying attention.  That isn't shocking to me since I deal with the kid everyday at home.  He would get really frustrated with reading if it took him too long.  I talked to his teacher and she said that she would find out if he would qualify for the summer reading program at the school.
I thought it was a good idea.  I didn't want him to get behind in his reading at all and I thought it might help him focus a little more so that he wouldn't get so frustrated when reading took longer than anticipated.  She said that they would test him to see if he would qualify.
A little while later I talked to his teacher and she said that they were done testing and that it looked like he would qualify.  I was pleased.  I just waited for further information.  Then one day one of the ladies from the school called me to set a up a meeting with her about Duncan's testing results.  Didn't seem like a big deal to me.
Well, it didn't seem like a big deal to me until I got a letter reminding me of the meeting.  It had a list of many people who would be included in this meeting.  The school psychologist, the principal, Duncan's teacher, the school's special education teacher, me, Duncan and "anyone else who had a special knowledge of Duncan's situation."  I was actually really irritated.  I knew Duncan was such a smart boy and didn't really have a learning disability.  I knew he probably had ADD, especially considering my mom, my brother and my husband all have it.  I was used to it, I could spot it pretty easily.
After the usual kindergarten assessment at the end of the year our meeting was scheduled.  I didn't want to jump the gun and lose my temper with them, so I sat and decided to hear them out.
They said that they were concerned about Duncan.  He had difficulty paying attention in class and staying focused(not a shocker, I could have told them that) and he seemed disinterested at times.  I knew that already too.  I came to find out that the school psychologist had been studying him and that she and his teacher had done some tests with him.  They said that they were actually really surprised at the results.
They gave him an IQ test.  They were shocked at the results.  He had an IQ of 123.  They had never seen a score that high before with anyone else they had tested.  They said that put him in the "high superior intelligence range."  They said he scored way above average in everything they tested him on except for reading comprehension.  He was below average on that.  After talking to me they thought that must be due to his attention issues.  What they have decided to do with him and for him is, instead of sticking him in the special education class(which he obviously doesn't need!!) they would take him out of his first grade class once a day for 30 minutes and work on his reading comprehension until he no longer struggled with it.
I could concede to that.  After all,  my son has high superior intelligence.
Now to Liam.  Last week Liam thought it would be a keen idea to stick Q-tips in his ears.  Not only did he think that was an excellent idea, but he thought running with them in his ears was also a bright idea.  Since Liam is accident-prone, you can guess what happened next.  That's right, he fell and hurt his ears.  He didn't want to tell me anything, so he just walked around covering his ears.  Duncan came and told me what had happened.  I talked to Liam and he told me what he did and that only one of his ears was hurting still.  I made an appointment with the Dr. and Mark took him as soon as he came home.
He hurt his ear canal a bit, there was some blood, but no serious damage.  I was glad to hear it, especially since Liam is loud enough with 100% hearing.  I can only imagine how loud he would be if he couldn't hear as well.  The Dr. also told him that he was quite big for a 4 year old.  I was not surprised as he has been wearing size 5 clothes since before he turned 4.  He felt special about that.  He is 42lbs., only 2 lbs. less than Duncan and Duncan is still about 3 inches or so taller than Liam.
Gwenie has been growing up so fast.  She is now in size 4 clothes and is a little chatter box.  I love the way she talks, "This is quite heavy, Mommy." or "My baby is especially cute."  She has an imaginary prince named Willoughbob.  She loves her sister and they love playing and giggling together.  Whenever she sees Rosaline asleep in her bed she comes up to her and says, "She a cute baby girl.  Look, she's sleeping.  She's just my sweet baby daughter.  I need to give her a kiss."  She even does this when it's in the middle of the night and she is half awake to go potty.  She is just so sweet to her.
Rozzy, she is a funny chubby girl.  She loves to physically take down her brothers and chase her siblings around the house.  She is good at making us all laugh.  She loves her flip-flops, aka "she-bops."  She is learning to say all sorts of things.  She gives me her feet all the time and says, "kickle Mommy" so that I will tickle her feet.  She has a very large belly which she feels the need to lift up and push in during the day.  Her haircut is starting to grow and I have found a hairstyle that hides all the short pieces quite nicely.  She is our little brown baby.  She tans so easily, just like I used to before my fear of becoming all wrinkled came.  She loves to play outside with her siblings.  She has also found a new love, Daddy.

Qui-est ce?

Well, I will tell you who this little baby is in my wombie!  It is Alastair Nicholas Smith!!  That's right folks!  We are back on the baby boy bandwagon apparently.  My boy stuff is not in great shape, so the convenience factor is perhaps not what it would be with a girl, but we love him nonetheless.  He is totally healthy and a wiggle worm for the ultrasound technician.  We almost didn't catch what he was because he wouldn't hold still. 
After Liam(aka the puke nugget) a lot of my baby boy stuff is not in great shape, so this will be a good excuse to buy more baby stuff.  Duncan was disappointed that it was a boy, but I am sure he will get over it soon enough.  He has always loved having sisters, but he loved Liam when he was a baby too, just doesn't show it as much now, haha.  Duncan and Liam have agreed to let the wee one share a room with them, their room is huge, so it's only fair.  I would totally post ultrasound pictures and baby a pregnancy picture, but alas, our scanner is not hooked up and I can't find the cord to my camera.

Sunday, Sunday

Sundays are hit and miss with me.  Sometimes I am totally cheerful and everything goes smoothly, other times I am crabby and nothing seems to go right.  Mark has been so good to me with my hormonal pregnancy crabbiness.  This Sunday was a "crabby nothing going right Sunday."  I feel somehow that my bad attitude just makes bad things happen.  I felt like I was saying a pray to myself about every 5 minutes, asking the Lord to soften my heart, help me feel the spirit, help me be calm and patient, help me not to sweat like I'm in a sauna, open my heart and mind to good things, etc...  Yesterday seemed particularly difficult. 
It's not like it was horrible, but I just had a bad attitude that I couldn't seem to shake.  After the sacrament I took the girls to the bathroom with me so that Gwenie and I could use the potty.  We went into the handicap stall so that we would all fit and be able to go.  First Gwenie went.  Then it was my turn.  I finished and as I went to pull up my underwear, my dear sweet little girls unlocked and open the stall for all to see my nakedness.  I repeatedly told her to close the stall and I ran to the corner to hide myself as I finished dressing myself.  The greatest horror was all of the mirrors in the bathroom and all the people I could see in them.
I went to wash my hands and all of he soap dispensers were out of soap.  This bathroom trip just seemed to get longer and longer.  I gave up and decided to use my hand sanitizer instead.  I couldn't even look at anyone as I left the bathroom.  I couldn't even look up at most people in relief society, I knew who was in the bathroom and who saw me and my nakedness.
Today, today I can laugh this off.  But yesterday it just pushed me over the edge.  I have always been really good at laughing things off in life, in general., but I just couldn't with that.  I think my lesson that the Lord was trying to teach me was to laugh things off again.  I need to change my attitude and this whole nakedness in front of my fellow ward members is something I was meant to laugh at.  So today, I laugh at it.  Ha ha.  Perhaps the next time something like this happens again I will laugh harder.  Thank you girls. Thank you Ashley for making light of it so that I could laugh at it a bit!!

The Experiences Brothers Get When They Have Sisters

The other night we were about to start a movie for family night, Duncan and Liam started this interesting conversation:
Liam:  Sometimes I dress up as a princess.  It makes me feel weird, though.
Duncan:  Yeah, I dress up as a princess because that's what Gwenie wants me to do.  It makes me feel weird too, but I get used to it.
Liam: Yeah.
Well, I think I need to get the boys some boy dress-ups of their own.  Hopefully they won't get too used to dressing up like princesses in the meantime.

A Bit of an Update

Well, I haven't been on here much, OBVIOUSLY.  A lot has happened since my last post and I just wasn't sure if I was ready to talk about it.  First of all, I received an email from Awkward Family Photos.  They said that they were told that they would have over 200 pages for their book but were told recently that it was actually a little over 100.  That being said, they told me that my picture will not be in this particular book, but that if they are allowed to do a second one, then they would love to use my picture in that one.  So, boo hiss about that, but cross your fingers!!
Next up, as many of you know, my dad ended up dying.  The day that he was intubated would be the last day he would be fully conscious.  He had a lot of scarring on his lungs from all that they had been through, fungus, infections, pneumonia, etc...  The doctors told us that barring some miracle the scarring would only get worse and couldn't be reversed.  He couldn't have a lung transplant because he was in such poor health anyway.  By the next week, things got pretty bad.  He received a blessing that said the Lord would work a miracle for him if that's what he wanted, but that the decision would be up to him.  We prayed that he would have the strength and desire to stay with us, and he was fighting up until the end.
The last day of his life, my mom and three brothers were by his side.  His heart rate was pretty fast, his blood pressure was very low, his oxygen was turned up all the way and he was unable to take all the oxygen in that he needed.  Things were pretty bleak.  He was given another blessing that released his spirit and told him that he was forgiven of his sins.  It was then decided to take him off of the ventilator.  Even at that point he was fighting.  He was still trying to breathe, they turned up his narcotics.  He passed peacefully with my mom by his side, holding his hand, rubbing his forehead and talking to him.
I know he is gone, but it's still so hard for me to actually believe it.  I try not to think about it at all.  I avoid it all the time.  I have hardly cried simply because I push it out of my mind the moment it comes.
My dad was a good man.  He was strong in the gospel.  He loved the Lord and his family.  His didn't always know how to show us how much he loved us, but he showed us by working hard to take care of us and teaching us well so that we could grow up to be good upstanding people. 
I do have many fond memories of him.  Walking halfway to his bus stop to meet him and walk the rest of the way home with him.  On Sundays, after his nap, he would come downstairs and play "tickle monster" with all of us.  I remember in the summers cuddling up next to him, laying my head on his chest while he watched TV.  I didn't even watch the TV most of the time, it was just nice to be close to him. When I turned 8 and was baptized, my dad gave me a Book of Mormon with his testimony written inside.  I hardly have used it because I want to keep it always.   One Christmas when we got new scriptures, he, in his robe, put on a Santa hat and went around handing out scriptures calling himself "Holy Claus."  I remember when I knocked my teeth out he was the first to show up and he was so worried and caring.  When I had to have surgery on my teeth he took the day off of work and stayed with me during it.  Then when we were waiting for my mom to pick us up, he sat and read one of my American Girl books to me for an hour until she showed up.  When I got a solo in elementary school for our Christmas program, he was the first one to ask me to sing my part for him.  When I got married in the temple he told me he was proud of me.  When I came to visit right after I had Duncan, he was so excited to hold him.  He walked in from work and said, "Let me hold that baby!"  He held him so lovingly, it made me realize why he had all eight of us.  His face said it all. 
I love my dad so much.  I wish I didn't have to wait all this time to see him again.  It's true that you don't realize how much you love someone until they're gone.  I look forward to seeing him again.
On a much lighter note, during this difficult time I had lovely nausea.  Nausea from a pregnancy!  That's right, #5 is on its way!  My dad got to know that one before anyone, since he probably has already met the child.  I am 15 weeks along.  It has been a rough first trimester.  I have been so sick and exhausted.  I got the stomach flu, a couple colds, a UTI and they couldn't get a heartbeat when I went to the doctor.  Luckily, we were able to have an ultrasound and see the little baby, who looks quite human and healthy.  I have been a cry baby about all of this.  After the whole scare with Rosaline, I break into tears at the first sign of something being wrong.  I am due in October.  I am very excited about this baby.  I am so happy that I have the gift, blessing and joy to have another child.  Mark has been wonderful through all of this.  He works so hard, but has been so kind and understanding to me and sympathetic.  It has made this go much more easily.  I love him so much.
There you have it.  I bit of an update.  Hopefully this will restart my blogging desire, especially once this nausea goes away and I am not associating computers with nausea and vomiting.