Joke

I seriously think someone is just having a funny joke with my life. Nothing can just be easy right now. Nothing! Ryan was on call today and overnight tonight. It was a big thing for me - go to church by myself? For some people, better than me, it might not even be a question. But, our kids are never just good for a few hours at a time, and both of us are usually holding one trying to get them to sleep at some point. So, knowing I wouldn't probably get anything out of going to church with three little kids by myself and it might be total crying and misery, I decided to go for Cash's sake. He needs the interaction, and hopefully learn a little about Jesus while he's there too.

Well, of course we got there late. But, no joke, as soon as I step out of the car - tropical downpour. Thank you hurricane season. I am soaked. My diaper bag sitting in the stroller is soaked. I'm trying to figure out how to get everyone in, but taking one baby out, he gets soaked. The rain is blowing sideways, so the other one in the car is still getting pelted in the face and is soaked by the time I get him out. Everyone, is screaming, Cash included because he's even getting wet and windblown and freaked out. I don't even know what to do because it takes so long to load everyone up, and how do I even go sit in a seat totally drenched?

So I give up and put everyone back in the car. I start the car. I'm trying really hard not to cry. I don't know why I even bothered coming. Then I realize that the babies are starving and really need to eat, so I can't even take the 30 minutes to get back home.

So this time I leave the babies in the car, and run Cash into the church. He starts screaming when he gets to nursery (typical), and they're not really getting my situation, but I'm like, "Look, I really have two babies out in the car and can you just take him??" Then I ventured out and got the babies. Then I attempted to make some sense out of our soaking wetness (did I mention I was wearing a white skirt? Nice). It's really unpleasant to sit through church in wet underwear. The whole thing was so not fun.


I guess I should be reminded of a few months ago, when I was 37 weeks pregnant with the twins, Ryan was at work, it was snowy and probably another 0 degree Wisconsin Sunday. I can't even describe how uncomfortable I was. Carrying Cash out back through the snow and getting him in and out of the car was agonizing. But I went to church. Sitting was so uncomfortable and my back was killing. But I remember sitting in Sacrament meeting and the speakers were done, but the Bishop got up at the end, and just said he felt impressed to say that people could have had every excuse not to come today. The roads were bad, the weather was awful, but as he looked out at the congregation, he saw mom's with young kids, mother's who's husbands weren't members, mother's with multiple children to take care of while husbands were busy with other callings. And he knew that that those women in that congregation were all mother's who knew. That congregation was full of mother's who understood the gospel of Jesus Christ. Mother's who knew.

I probably didn't have such a great attitude today. Maybe next time I'll remember that moment that had been exactly what I needed at that time and remind myself of it again when I'm wondering why I even bother going to church.

Hi honey, what did you do today?

Oh hooray.

There have been two times that we have been so excited because Ryan has gotten home early from work. (Like still a bad time in normal people life, but better than horrible like usual). I managed to document both of them:


The second one was actually today. Thank goodness he's coming to rescue me since I have mastitis!! I think I finally opened the door to clue him in that I need some freaking help out here. He finally heard Cash screaming and sat up in bed, started to mumble, "Cash, come h ...." and then I found him like this a few minutes later.

I must say, everything about his job has actually been worse than we expected. Well, the hours, that is. He does enjoy it and he works with great people. But the hours have gone longer than we thought every night, the night float has been worse than we thought, and then we'll be anticipating him coming home after being on call and he'll get home and say he has to be back in two hours for another meeting. It's so deflating. It's like I tell myself I can make it so many more hours until he gets home, and then find out he's leaving again. There's always just more, more, more. But hey, at least when he's here we get a nice view of his eyelids.

Mastitis: Round II

WAS I BAD IN ANOTHER LIFE OR SOMETHING?????


This has been another rough week. I wish I could tell you differently. Most of you should stop reading here because the rest is about nursing. And it's gory.

Last week I got some crater of a sore on my nipple. I didn't realize how bad it was (other than the swear words emitted every time someone latched on), until the babies started spitting up blood. Lots of it. Mine. So I had no choice but to pump. Sure enough, big drops of blood coming out. So I tried to adjust the pressure and do it lightly. I pumped for 24 hours. Fed again. More spitting up blood. Pumped for 48 more hours. Fed again. Still spitting it up. Pumped for 72 more hours. Fed again. Spitting up a lot of it.

No surprise with the open wound, that now I have full-blown, knock me out mastitis. AGAIN. So even if I decided now were the time to give up breastfeeding, I can't, because now I have to get the milk out to get the infection out.

I would say, they're 6 months old now. That's fine to stop. But truthfully, it's the only thing I can actually do well. The doctor who thought I was mentally unstable asked if nursing them was causing me stress. When I thought about it, I realized, "Actually no. It's the only thing I can do well. It's the only thing I can do at the same time, no one's crying, everyone's happy, and I can even have my hands free, which I can't always do with bottle feeding."

And off goes Ryan to be on call tonight. I can't actually even move. I appreciate the sympathy. I really just needed to vent.

At least I spared you the picture of the last bottle of red milk I just pumped.

Surprise

Last Friday, Cash woke up to the best surprise: his three best friends - my sister Julie and her two boys Dawson and Carter. Within a few minutes they were all like this:


Ready for the pool. It's nice living somewhere that seems cool to people now since we have a pool.

I get lots of smiles at the pool when I'm like this.

(Uh sorry, this year's cleavage doesn't fit in last year's swimsuit).





We also hit the Children's Museum here. Even had a fire truck there. And cute firefighters.

It was Julie's birthday while she was here, and all we could give her was a tropical storm. But take that, Fay, we even went swimming during you:



It was nice to have people here though so I could get out and realize that, hey, there really are some good things about this place.


Now we're lonely again!

Darn you, Costco

I remember a rather colorful freshman boy who lived in a neighboring building my first year at BYU. One day his roommates related the story about how he had just stormed into Blockbuster, slammed the overdue movie on the counter and blared: "D@*# you Blockbuster and your five day rentals!!!" He claimed he was onto the conspiracy: Let them rent the movies for 5 days and of course by that time they'll forget they ever even rented a movie and the late fees will come rolling in!!!

Well, I had one of those moments the other day. We finally decided to break away from the parents and get our own Costco membership. It was always in Ryan's name, so he had to go in with me, and we all know that is definitely not happening anymore. And yes, we know you can have a spouse card. We tried going in to get me one when we were first married. The girl looks up our membership records, then looks up at us confused and says, "Um, you already have a wife and her name is Danielle" (his sister's name). Uh. How do you respond to that? Turn to Ryan and yell, "WHAT?!?! You lying cheat!!!" trying to make the woman suddenly feel uncomfortable? Explain that yeah, we're from Utah - that's just the way things are out there....?

So anyway, we finally decided to get our own. So on Saturday I had one of those rare moments when I was by myself. I did my shopping. Honestly, it didn't feel much different from any of our other Costco trips. I remember deliberately passing up items to save money. I remember feeling like we always buy a ton of stuff there. When I got to the register the woman rang me up. And then, my jaw hit the floor. I mean, we all know you can't get out of Costco without spending at least a hundred dollars. But five of them????? I knew it had been a beastly trip, but Costco always is. I knew I really wished I had two carts with me. I knew I hadn't been since we moved and needed to stock up. I knew we had company in town so we'd eat a little more than usual. I knew I wouldn't be back for quite a while, but GASP?!?!?

My first thought was: put on your hoodie and RUN!!! Leave it all behind and just RUN!!! My second thoughts were: Ryan is going to kill me. Will someone else take me in for the weekend? But then I reached my final thought: D@*# you, Costco and your ridiculous-sized products!!!!!

Looking at my receipt I still can't figure out how it got so high. It seems like pretty much everything you buy there is around $10 (although everything is getting more expensive now). I mean, we do have to buy multiple boxes of diapers. But then there were other culprits, like razor heads. Good night. Have you ever bought those there? $40 for freaking razor heads!! We buy the Mach 3 kind or whatever it is, but good grief. My leg hairs better not grow back for a month at that price. At least I'll still be using the same package when I'm 45.

I actually felt I had to buy the toaster pastries there. Seems like something I could have cut out, right? No, I had to buy them just for the principle of the fact that they were the cheapest thing I saw in the whole store. The only thing in the store that goes for $2-something. Maybe we will just be eating toaster pastries from now on.

Ugh. I know it's a ridiculous place. Like who needs 75 rolls of paper towels at one time? Who wants to be discovering them shoved underneath cracks in the floorboards years later? Who can eat 8 pounds of spinach before it goes bad? (Personal note: Why did I EVER buy a Costco-sized box of condoms?? Especially for someone who's usually on birth control? (I know, you can't tell.) Do you know how many cross-country moves that box has made???)

Anyway, I know you don't care what I think, Costco. You will go on packaging up 18,000 rolls of scotch tape in one box because somebody else will always fall for it. I know you will continue to let people think, "Hey, I'm only buying 5 items," and then slap them with a $200 bill. And I'm sure I will begrudgingly be back soon. Because now I have to get my money's worth out of my membership fee.

Pics of the everyday

The two peas in their pods:



Boys watching the huge thunderstorm out the window (apparently it caused a tornado about a mile away!) :



Did I mention the awesome views we have of the parking garage?




Me trying to free up some time:





Their demure looks:



Fighting over their favorite toy and other fairly mundane baby footage:

My next purchase

While I was in Utah, I went into a beauty supply store there and saw these new clip-in hair extensions for the first time, called Hairdo. They were created by Ken Paves, who is Jessica Simpson's hairdresser, and she's the marketing tool behind them. They had a sample there that I could try, and I think it was this one she has on - a 23" wavy look. As soon as I put it on I thought, "wow, I really do look like I have Jessica Simpson hair" (just the hair, unfortunately). It helped that my hair also happened to have leftover curl in it, so it blended really well and looked awesome.

The extensions are kind of a circle - the girl at the store told me you're supposed to put the bottom half of your hair in a bun or something and then put the extensions over them, like around the bun. I didn't really like the idea that you just covered up the bottom of your hair, I would rather just add them to it. But I just found this video that shows him demonstrating them, and I was glad to see on the second example that he just added them in and must have not clipped in the bottom part or something, he just lets it blend into her natural hair. They really did look good on. I think the wavy ones looked a little more natural than just the straight ones, but the girl said you would cut or texturize the straight ones a little to make them look more natural. I really should have bought them then, they were cheaper there than I'm seeing online anywhere. And I'm not even sure these are the exact same thing I saw because the ones I saw had colors like wheat and Swedish blond. These are more just like blond, medium blond, etc. Anyway, click here for the video if you want to see it, it's on the right side. And woah - I've never actually heard him talk out loud before. Yikes.

Strike two

So we had our next experience with the health care here. It took us three hours to get a total of 10 minutes of ultrasound done (their hips are definitely fine, no harness needed). Basically it was like being dropped off in a third world country to get your medical care. Not just the fact that we were the only white people around and the place really is run by foreigners, but it was excruciatingly slow and inefficient. We waited an hour and a half just to get our information verified. I didn't even know why I was waiting in this other office forever, but then to find out that's all they were doing - verifying information I had already given them on the phone, I was so ticked off. And I think the root cause behind it all taking so long was that the one lady they had doing it talked so stinking slow and by the time we were done I knew all about her summer vacation, her children, the charity group she's a part of, what she says to people who don't believe in God, her philosophy about traveling, and I even managed to get invited to go to the zoo with her. I WAS SERIOUSLY READY TO GNAW OFF MY OWN ARM I was getting so aggravated.

Ryan works at the eye hospital that's next to the hospital we went to and he has to go over there all the time for consultations (apparently the eye center is nice; much better than the hospital). Since this was my first time being there, I realized two things:
1. I am going to require that Ryan be hosed off before he ever enters our house after work.
2. If there was ever a question before, I will definitely not give birth while I am here for fear of being admitted to that hospital.

Look at us, we're beautiful

If there is one thing Miami is not lacking, it's beautiful people. EVERYWHERE. There is honestly an unbelieveable amount of hotness here. I thought Utah had attractive people. I thought California had attractive people. (Uh, sorry, I did not think New York had attractive people. Unless they were imports from another state.) But Miami has the corner on the beautiful people market. And they're not just cute, pretty, like Utah. They're gorgeous and exotic looking. With AMAZING figures. When you used to look at movie stars and stuff, didn't you think they all had perfect bodies because they were the exception to the rule? That they were rich, so they had time and money to be skinny? Well, that must have been what I told myself, that they were totally unique, and average people never looked like that. Well, here, that is the average.

And frankly, it's impossible to compete. You know, I get ready to go out, think I'm looking pretty decent, and then I get on the elevator here and there's some Brazilian model in a strapless cocktail dress, and suddenly I feel a little deflated. Modestly Mormon dressed me just can't stand a chance next to these people. But I know, it's ok that I'm not a scandalous dresser. It's just much hotter to wear so much more clothing than everyone else does!

Even the people with kids here manage to look totally amazing and chic. They're all back in their bikinis two months after having babies. What? Where are all the normal people? Where are the Utah families, walking around with their 6 kids, all dressed in their Old Navy clothes, the moms carrying around 20 extra pounds from having all her kids 15 months apart, and being obviously frugal because they have so many kids and the moms stay home? These families here are walking around in their skimpy clothes, tatoos, stylish cars, and their beautiful bodies. Sigh.

Oh well. I guess it's just another one of those things that I'll get used to, like the humidity. Maybe I won't even notice them after a few years.

Ryan finally came and walked around the park with us the other night. I told him it was a probably a good show for him - everyone finally got to see the big stud who sired all these babies. I'm pretty sure people always look at us and think, "Haven't they heard of birth control???"