Here's to two more...

Ha. I just re-discovered this article I found about Miami before we moved here. It's even more funny and spot-on now that we've actually lived here. In honor of gearing up for two more years here, I thought I'd post it again:


MIAMI IS IN NO UNCERTIAN TERMS NOT LIKE MOVING TO ANY OTHER CITY IN THE US. Heck, it isn’t even moving to the U.S. What you must understand is that if you are from another part of the country, no matter if it’s some self-proclaimed “melting pot” like New York or LA or Dallas, you will experience culture shock when you cross the Dade County Line.

So buckle up and don’t unpack too much, because without the proper instruction you, like so many Americans who think this might be a fun place to live, will not make it through your first year.

I am not going to make it sound like this is an awful place to live, but you have to have the right mindset in order to survive in this city. It is not the fast-paced, competitive mindset of New York, or the laid-back mindset of LA, but more the frenetic, anything goes mindset of, oh, say, El Salvador.


If you are young and single, there is no greater city to live. People in your demographic are really the only sane people who should ever consider moving here.

Married, people, seriously, Miami is not the town for you. I’m sure you are a very nice couple, possibly with very nice kids, but that is precisely why you should avoid this place like your mother-in-law on Christmas. I can almost promise you that your family will be worse off for having moved here.


Typically the only people who decide to begin a new life in Miami arrive by raft, but if for some unknown reason you thought moving to a city full of sex, drugs and corruption was a good idea for a young married couple, then Bienvenidos!

Moving on, and not really moving on

Ryan had his residency graduation last weekend.  I almost would have forgotten that it's a big deal. I guess just the fact that we're staying here, not moving anywhere for fellowship and not starting a real job like we actually could be at this point just kind of makes it easy to look over since everything is pretty much staying the same.  But it was a really fun evening, and fun to have Ryan and the other graduating residents be the guests of honor, complete with a little slide show of pictures from throughout their life. We even had a spot at the coveted center table this year.  (You can see the gift boxes from Tiffany's as well. Of course every girl hopes to see something other than like a personalized candy dish in there, but hey, it was still cool and still from Tiffany's. :)

So many good friends we've made here over the past few years. It hit me that while we will still be here, a lot of them will not, and that was sad. Our friends the Jacobs are taking a job we've coveted in Minot, North Dakota (believe it or not, and we're just not done like they are or we may have battled it out with them)! I'm sure they'll be missing us though by, say, next January.  :)

Our neighbor, Ryan's ride for the last three years, and "cool uncle" to our kids, Justin (left) is headed to Atlanta, but at least we're keeping his fiance hostage in Miami so he'll have to come back and see us now and then.

Ryan and his fellow graduating residents and their program director:

I always get the shaft though having Father's day be the day after his resident's day so that when we're tired from being out late I have to let Ryan be the one to get the naps.  Speaking of which, happy Father's day.  There were actually a couple funny "telling" moments about my hubby this past week.  On Father's day I whispered to Cash to go tell dad he was the best.  Cash looked at me and said, "He's the best?" And I said "Yeah!" and he said, "Oh, but he never listens to you!"  I had a good laugh that even my 5 year-old can pick up on the tune-out-your-wife technique.

Then we were watching a little of the Bachlorette on tv and Ryan was just staring into the tv somewhat deep in thought and said, "Man, being the bachelor would be like the worst thing ever.  Just having to talk about your feelings with like 20 different women...all day long."  I laughed so hard. Forget 20 gorgeous women vying for your affection and doting all over you, having to talk about feelings is seriously my husband's worst nightmare.

Then we were getting ready for bed in the bathroom the other night and I was trying to discuss some issues and make plans.  When he walked off to go to bed I was like, "What the heck? Why can't you talk to me about this?"  He said, "What do you mean, we've been talking the whole time we were in here!"  To which I said, "Wait, you mean the 'conversation' that went like this?": 
Me:  "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah....??
You:  Shrug.
Me: "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah Blah blah blah, blah blah blah,blah....
You:  "Mmmmm."
Me:  "Blah blah blah, blah blah blah, blah blah blah blah blah blah, blah blah????
You: "Dunno."
"Is that the 'conversation' you were saying just happened??"

Ah, gotta love my "typical" guy.  But he's a darn good doctor and a great father, so I guess that makes up for a lot. :)

Anyway, back to the career, it's kind of weird being at that point where I thought we would be done, the time I had originally set my sights for being on a plane out of Miami.  But we're not. So I have to remind myself that graduation from residency is awesome and is progress even though nothing is really changing from my perspective. I'm sure Ryan will enjoy doing more retina surgery and stuff though. But it is another hoop jumped through and three years closer to a real job!  Now onto the two year fellowship.

Occupied

Oh poor blog, oh, house, oh, details in life, oh, other children, you've all been so neglected. And really, this is the reason:

But seriously, how could you resist that face?  Anyhow, turns out that #4 isn't going to put up with being stuck in a bouncy seat or a corner somewhere, or sleeping half the day away while we carry on with all the details of our busy lives. Nope, being #4 I guess he came wanting to make sure to command some attention.  So he just likes things the way he likes them. And will only sleep being held. So if you come around our house, you may be put to use doing something like this:

I really have spent up to 6 hours a day holding this little guy. That is why you probably haven't heard from me much. But having gone through this three other times, I am realizing how fast these stages pass, and really, spending half your day holding a cute little baby certainly isn't the worst thing in the world.  It just seems to be a short term gain. I'm tired, he's tired. During nap time either I hold him and we all get some sleep or he cries and wakes up every 20 minutes and I fight and fight to get him back down.  So being held just keeps winning out.  And then he's well-rested and pleasant!

I never really even got around to blogging about the two trips my mom has made out here since the baby was  born, the one trip my sister made, or Ryan's trip to Ethiopia.  He did over 180 cataract surgeries in a week or less.  Amazing. Patients came from hundreds of miles away and just slept on the ground. He has some videos of taking bandages off for the first time from people who hadn't been able to see in years. It was pretty amazing. My mom and I did remarkably well with the kids and even managed to get out and have some fun. 

The first time she came back in March after the baby was born, she got in late at night and I wondered how the kids would feel waking up to her in our living room after not seeing her for months. When I came out of the bedroom that morning to this sight I realized I need not have worried.

And here was Grammy on parade in the halls with the crazies trying to burn off some energy.

 

And my cute sister who even had to spend her birthday with us.  Thanks to all the nice people who helped us out over the last few months. I haven't been very on top of things to thank you all, as you can tell!  

Feeling nostalgic

This beauty got sold the other day:

(The stroller, that is. Although depending on the day I may have offered the children as well. :)    But I'm feeling a little nostalgic.  This was such a part of our family and our home for the last few years. (How could it not be, sitting in the middle of our living space for the last 3 years??? That was the final deciding factor of why it had to go.Besides the fact they all walk everywhere now.)  This stroller allowed me independence, saw me through downpours, Disneyworld, restrained children who could scream the entire walk home, and brought us no lack of attention.  I will miss the comments. I will actually miss the stares. I will miss strolling down hip Lincoln Road with you and hearing the gasps and the commentary from the single and swanky crowd. I am sure you inspired birth control among countless passersby.   

But I will welcome the open spot next to the kitchen table. And the fair penny you fetched when we sold you. So long.  I doubt the next owners could ever look as cool in you as we did.  :)

Pay it forward

To whoever you are, nice woman, who stopped and gave me and my sopping wet children a ride when we were caught in a freak rainstorm, I sincerely thank you.  And I will write it down to remember someone in Miami was courteous to me one time while we lived here.  :)   (Seriously, this is a much more common scenario!)

I know this scenario of me getting caught in a freak storm with all my children out at the park is not an unfamiliar Miami story.  This time we were all out, along with everyone else in the neighborhood for Memorial Day at the park.  Ryan was about 30 feet away from me and I hear him yell to me, "GO! FAST!!"  I still didn't know what he was talking about until I looked down on the ground right in front of me and saw the splatter of a raindrop the size of a tennis ball.  Good grief, these things sure come out of nowhere.  I had the baby in my arms and tried to cover him with a blanket to shelter him, but with the sudden wind and all there wasn't much success to that.  Ashton was screaming so much Ryan shoved him in the infant seat in the stroller and I tried to herd the other two kids along, but with all the running and chaos, shoes kept falling off, bodies were lagging behind, and I wasn't sure whether we should try to make it all the way home, try to go run into a closer building, just huddle together and wait for a minute or what.  So there I stood at the edge of the road getting soaked, looking around trying to figure out exactly what I should do.

Then along came the nice woman who rolled down her window and yelled at us to get in. I protested that we would get her car all wet, but her nice passenger friend got out and even took sopping wet Phoenix onto her seat with her in the front while Cash and the baby and I climbed in the back. Ryan and the covered large child in small seat just ran through the rain.

Since thanks wasn't quite enough, all I could think to wish her was that someone would do the same for her someday.  Just like I always put a quarter in the meter for a stranger when I see their time has expired.  You always hope it will come back around.

The joys of boys

Phrases and happenings around here recently:

Cash saying in his sweetest voice to Phoenix, "Phoenix, will you take my socks off?''  To which Phoenix replies just as sweetly, "Okay!" and obediently sets about the task while his brother lounges on the couch. Ah, the privileges of being the oldest.

One day I hear Phoenix running out of the bathroom yelling, "NO!  I do it by MYSELF!!"  And I see Ashton running after him wailing, "Noooo!  I wipe Nee-nik's bum!!"  Really?  Who'd have thought I'd have to institute a we wipe our own bums in this house policy?

Cash is at that age where he can just talk and talk.  Our poor unsuspecting neighbor got an earful the other day when Cash descriptively told him about all the places on his body that he doesn't have hair like his dad does.  Yeah, I'm pretty sure that was more than he was looking for when that conversation opened up.  :)

And now I'm in hiding because my boys are all so curious after listing off all the people in the house who had little penises and then following with the ones who had big ones like dad, and mom.  After informing them I didn't have one they were all shocked and now keep trying to figure it out. And they keep trying to figure their own out.  Man, I really had no idea what I was getting into with all these little boys.   

If the name fits

I realized I should have put this on here in case I ever get around to making the blog into a book, and since any other form of scrapbooking is becoming less and less likely. 

It really was no illusion that I've been getting robbed of the baby stage with this little guy.  At his two month appointment a few weeks ago he weighed in at 14lb 7oz.  He was 95th percentile for height and weight.  I hope he keeps it up - if you've got three older brothers to wail on you, you're going to need all the help you can get.  At least we chose the right kid for the name!

Blessing

Blessing.  Great word.  We had Diesel's blessing, he is such a little blessing, and I even felt many small blessings that day and over the weekend. It was much needed coming on the heels of some rotten weeks.  One blessing about church on Sunday was that my kids stayed quiet during the meeting which is no small miracle, and Phoenix even fell asleep in my arms.  That has NEVER happened.  It was so sweet. Most especially since neither he nor I ever sit still - let alone at the same time.  It was so fun to be able to sit and look at him and study his little features and look for the baby face in the little boy he has become.  And there were 4 baby blessings that day in church.  I could have sat there and listened to them all meeting long it was so special.  It was such a happy day to hold and behold all my little ones.

 

 I tried out a few comparisons here just for fun.  It was hilarious to see how Diesel filled out every inch of the same blessing outfit that was so baggy on Cash.  Poor little Cash was the skinniest baby you ever did see.  Diesel was also a little older when we blessed him.  It's funny that when all my friends and I had our babies here 2 months ago, we noticed that you could line them all up and know exactly which family they belonged to.  So while Diesel is his own little man, I guess you can tell he really is one of us, and not totally unlike the twins either. Here are some comparisons:

Cash, Diesel, Phoenix, and Ashton

(Cash was just too skinny at his blessing to look anything like his future self, so the above picture is slightly older. The one below is a skinny version.)

Phoenix, Diesel, Ashton

Saturday afternoons

It was when the 4th body joined the bed yesterday that I realized there would be no Saturday afternoon nap for me.  :)

Survival mode

Alright, I'll admit we haven't taken to 4 children as gracefully as I had hoped.  I have lots of friends with 4 kids and they don't all seem ready to lose it at any second.  I even had a night full of dreams of how out of control I am - forgetting the baby and leaving him at the mall, driving the kids around without car seats, forgetting to pick up Cash (he's in tears if I'm ever a minute late) and having him never talk to me again, and then waking up to find my husband had gone over the deep end and chopped up all the furniture in the house to make bunk beds for the kids and I had to just smile and say it looked great because I knew the stress of his life had finally made him go crazy.  :)

Currently we're all sick, I'm going in for another MRI this week, spinal injections again next week, and every night seems impossibly worse than the last.  The baby won't go to sleep before 12 or 1am (which means neither Ryan or I either), and then last night there were periods of time when something was happening every 20 minutes. The baby was miserable and crying (he's sick too), the twins were having nightmares, and then Ryan's pager (he's on call) was going off all the time until he finally got called in at 3am.  Phew.  And next week Ryan leaves for Ethiopia for two weeks. At least he'll get a vacation from the chaos.  Thankfully my mom is coming to the rescue again - I don't think I've had more than 5 hours of sleep a night since she's left. And my house hasn't been cleaned since my sister left 2 weeks after the baby was born.  :)

This isn't really a cry for help or anything, we're doing the best we can. I'm trying to at least find someone to come clean the house or something, and I'm trying to eliminate any non-necessities right now.  I guess I'm just writing to have something to look back at someday when my kids are old and I miss these days.  :)  And then remember that I might not miss everything about these days. 

But I will miss this cute face!.

Anyhow, here's when your brother's try to play with you (I walked in the room and panicked for a minute when I couldn't find the baby!):

 

At least some things are making it worth it all.