Dear Purse,

Last Sunday, when I wasn’t feeling well and needed to rush out of the house just before midnight to go to the ER, you were waiting for me on the stool by the laundry room. Sometimes I think you’re quite heavy…I debated leaving you sitting there that night, but I grabbed you anyway. You and an ipad. During most of my ER visit…the long hours spent waiting on the CAT scan results to find out why in the world my stomach hurt so much and was all yuck and bloated, you waited under my cloths on the chair in the corner. But then….I felt the need for some lip balm….and you had it. I tried to sleep, but Brian was trying to do the same and the one tiny bed was quite small. I was happy when the doctor finally came in with the results: a big ol’ ruptured cyst on my right ovary leaking (yuck) blood and fluid into my belly. He then advised a hospital stay that night. Um…but I didn’t expect not to go back home – I didn’t have anything with me. Or did I?

Purse, you came through big time my friend! After being a baby about not being able to go home…maybe there was a little sobbing on my part, I needed some powder for my red nose – you had it! Lip gloss always makes a girl feel better – you were there for me on that one too (different from the earlier lip balm, you’re so thoughtful!) Obviously you had my phone. I was able to let a few people know what was going on before being loaded on to a gurney for my fun little ambulance trip between the ER-only facility and the hospital nearest our home. It was late, past 5am and I was tired. Once settled in my hospital room, the nurses asked me if I needed anything – um…except that I couldn’t have food or water because they weren’t sure if I was going to go for surgery. What? My mouth was like the desert and I’m sure I was rocking some pretty bad breath. Thank you purse for having those minty sticks of gum!

I had worried out loud to Brian in the ER about what I was going to do with my contacts. Well purse, once they stopped poking and prodding me long enough to say I could get some actual sleep, you revealed what I had hoped for – you had a contact case! No saline, but I forgive you – the nurse gave me some sweet travel packs of saline….and I gave the ones I didn’t use to you so I know you’ve got my back next time!

A few hours later, I saw my doctor and they gave me the go-ahead for food and drink (sweet – no surgery), but I had to stay for an ultrasound which was just fine with me. Order up some room service, flip on some day-time television…much needed rest after such a night! I have never been so happy to get water in my life – and they brought it in the best cup EVER – giant, with a handle and a straw impervious to leakage….and it was filled with that amazing tiny circular ice. Purse, we really must find a refrigerator that makes that ice if our current fridge ever needs replaced!! So anyway, my hair was in a pony tail, but I had felt so awful the whole day before, I just took a warm bath and never a shower. Ug – greasy hair! Again, you came through for me purse because you had what I needed: a travel brush, my powder and lip gloss again, several bobby pins, pony-tail holders, barrettes….even a head band. I was able to limp over to my sweet little hospital bathroom and freshen up before my eggs and sausage arrived! I’m not sure if I mentioned it, but the ragged nail back in the ER – the emery board you had was just the ticket!

Ultra sound performed and analyzed, pain pills prescribed and a follow-up appointment scheduled, I was finally allowed to leave the hospital around 3:00pm on Monday. I finally got to slip back into my yoga pants and zip-up jacket and out of that awful hospital gown. I searched the room for a bag – I had a few things I needed to carry out. And guess what purse – you had it the whole time! Wrapped up small and tucked into a dark corner – you had a nice, compact reusable bag! In went the ipad, in went my book (which you carried to the ER for me – didn’t even mention THAT life saver!) and in went my totally sweet new souvenir water cup that’s giant, with a handle and a straw impervious to leakage!

I don’t care how many times I get questions like, “why the heck is your purse so big?” We didn’t even cover the wallet, the 1st aid kit which comes in handy like time and time again with three little boys…plus contains clippers that have helped open numerous crazy packages on-the-run, or my notebook and pen – which serves me and bored children in need of doodling! Enough said. Thank you.

I love you purse!

This was mostly going to be a post about the playtime experiments I’ve been conducting lately, but I found a bunch of other pictures I need to post. And yes, still no Punta Cana pics and no Easter. I spent the night at the hospital Monday and have been recuperating this whole week so I’ll get to those eventually :) I also have a post in my head titled “an ode to my purse” (yes, my purse) that I need to share as well….

 

Back on topic: I was commenting to Brian the other day about how the boys play with their toys. For example, they got out some degadar tracks and balls on Tuesday (think giant marbles and marble tracks). They built a track in the front hallway, played with it for a while and then left it there. I picked it up and put the pieces in a plastic bin, then put the bin on the stairs to go back up to the playroom. An hour later, they had taken the pieces out and built the track again in the living room. They played with it for a while and left it again. This time I figured that they wanted to come back to it so I left it up. After a couple of hours, I got annoyed by it’s presence in the living room (it’s quite large) so I put it away again….and then Brady got it OUT again. As I was cleaning it up for the third time after the boys were in bed, I was laughing and explaining the situation to Brian. “Also,” I told him, “they never wander up to the playroom and play for any real amount of time until I tell them they have to go pick it up. Suddenly, they are up there playing with everything.” Brian said what he’s always said, “I’m telling you, you need to like rotate the toys, hide some of them and bring them out every once in a while.” I do remember how I used to clean up the baby toys every afternoon and evening because it seemed that Logan’s favorite activity was sorting through the toybox, playing with each thing just a little bit before taking something else out. If everything was already on the floor, he sort of stepped around it all and ignored it. So, I decided to give the plan a try. Aiden is currently on a video-game-play-time improvement plan (ie: I’m strictly enforcing a time limit of video games each week). He’s so creative – all it takes is a little encouragement.

 

So…Wednesday, I brought down the bin of trios to the living room and just kind of left it there. Aiden asked me to help him build some animals. We followed the instructions together and built an alligator. Aiden then had the alligator have a few adventures in the living room. It occupied the whole morning which was great – no video games!

 

I left the trios downstairs on Thursday, but there was little interest in them. So….I took those upstairs and grabbed these things Aiden got, and has rarely played with, for Christmas – tubes and zots. I looked at him sitting on the couch with my ipad, placed the bin on the floor and told him I was going to take a shower. 5 minutes later, he came into my room with this:

He’s a DJ with turn tables and big headphones! I died laughing!!! He’s making “chika chicka chicka” sounds…

He asked me to take another picture of him playing on the box he found downstairs, wearing the “spikey” belt that he had added to the ensemble.

I don’t mean to leave Brady out, but he somehow finds the strangest things to do with his time. For example, yesterday he asked to borrow the little jewelry box I have on my dresser because it’s got a super cool key. I took out whatever I had in there and agreed to let him use it “for a little while”. This became a treasure box, he filled it with other keys and buttons. The blanket basket in the living room became a pirate ship – he hid in there and had a snack. On Wednesday, his big thing was carrying his water bottle around….using a little silver strap he stole from a clutch purse that I have. Another day he played with a tire pressure gage all day. He’s easily amused! Today the boys are playing with the tubes and zots again. I think they are making swords (shocking).

So, speaking of Brady and his silly behavior. I think we all know how he used to drink milk ONLY if I added some of my coffee creamer to it. After going through gobs of creamer, I decided to go with the powder for me (it actually tastes the same) and put sugar-free chocolate syrup in his milk. I can hide the powder in the cabinet and it doesn’t get pilfered. However, I did some shopping yesterday and left my powdered creamer on the counter top. Brady found it – he likes to eat it (!) He also likes to experiment with things in the fridge when my back is turned. I came downstairs to find this: Brady with creamer powder all over his face, sampling the spray butter. Gross picture, but it made me laugh.

Two other funny Brady stories: this morning, all three boys seemed to wake up simultaneously. I heard them coming down the hall to my bedroom. Brady was yelling “cock a doodle dooooooo!!!!” Nothing like a chuckle to start your day. Also, he’s taken up a new instrument – he calls it the “bum drum”. It involves hitting someone's booty (usually mine) while he says, “bum drum, bum drum, bum drum!!”

 

While finding the pics for this post, I came across a few others that were on the camera or on my phone:

 

This one is called: my boys hate shoes

These are from a series called: Brady waters the flowers

I snapped these a couple weeks ago: daddy plays soccer with the boys in the backyard (this is also when Brady was watering flowers)

Some robins are trying to build a nest in the window above our front door. Denay suggested doing what the shop owners in San Fran do when they leave their doors open, but don’t want birds to fly in: post an owl. This is “Owliver” standing guard on the transom. The birds haven’t been back since!! See the mess they already left!? I feel so bad, but I already tore down 2 “starter” nests up there. We did let them build and lay eyes a few years ago. We let the boys climb up on chairs and see the baby birds. It was cool, but it’s a mess and the birds get quite protective over our front porch making it difficult to come and go. I figure if they are just starting to build, I’ll encourage them to do it elsewhere :)

In our house we have no more: cribs, pacifiers, bottles, diapers, kids who can’t find and put on their own cloths (100% matching success to come later), kids who can’t brush their own teeth, necessary strollers, baby toys, little kid toys deemed as “baby toys”….the list goes on and on. Today Brady had a very specific request as we arrived home after dropping Aiden off at school. He said it was time for him to learn to ride his bike without training wheels. He even found the appropriate tool and removed one of them himself.

He must have been ready because it took maybe 2 tries before he got it. Shocked mom? Yes! I took a video for Brian

 

No More Training Wheels (on this or any bike at the 554!)

Happy Easter! We celebrated, once again, by getting up FAR too early and eating WAY too much candy. Between the hunt at home, baskets, and visiting Memaw and Grandpa’s house, I think the boys are set for candy until Halloween rolls around again! I’ll do a more complete, picture-filled, re-cap later, but I had to post this one picture on it’s own. Brian read a funny article listing various Easter facts one of which was:

Chocolate bunnies should be eaten ears first, according to 76% of Americans. Five percent said bunnies should be eaten feet first, while 4% favored eating the tail first.

Last year, Aiden decided to bite the rear-end off of his bunny and stuff the insides with other candy. All three of the boys thought that was a great plan this year as well. It’s hard to tell because the picture below is from the end of the day, but trust me when I say that our children are obviously in the 4% that think the tail should be eaten first. These bunnies belong, in order from left to right, to Aiden, Logan and Brady.

Easter is only a couple days away and I haven’t even posted St. Patrick’s Day yet! Ahhhhh! We were on Spring Break last week and the week before that I was packing, packing, packing. Of course I have (literally) about 800 pictures to look through from vacation so…maybe I’ll do a post on that sometime in the near future :) For now – pics from St. Pat’s!

 

First off, Logan went to see The Lorax that morning for his friend’s birthday party. She is a St. Pat’s day baby – so I made her this bag and card :)

In the afternoon, we had some of the neighborhood kids over (most of them wandered in). The night before, I had made a couple white cake batters, dyed them various rainbow colors and put them into squirt bottles. Each child got a color. My friend Susan and I helped them squeeze them into the whoopie pie tins in lines. Aiden, of course, would NOT let us deviate from the standard rainbow patter ROYGBIV (have I ever mentioned how ALL of the art work he brings home from school is colored in rainbow? Like everything….seriously!)

They turned out really well! I used Brian’s favorite cream cheese frosting for the middles.

Susan, Pete and their kids stayed for dinner. It was nice enough to sit outside and eat, so we did - despite the fact that we don’t have our patio furniture pulled out yet.

Aiden gives the whoopie pies the thumbs up!

 

Here is the delicious treat Brian created. He took corned beef, froze it and put it through the meat grinder. That turned into corned beef patties which were covered in swiss cheese and a cabbage coleslaw that he put together. Not a fan of coleslaw, but I could probably eat this particular one by the gallon! It was gooooood!

Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling well the next day (a bad head cold and a sore throat that I mostly chose to ignore on St. Patrick’s Day settled in and took over). I woke up and told Brian that I would be “calling in sick”. It was Sunday so he said I could. But…this is what happens when I leave Brian in charge:

Aiden and Brady “washed the car” then did a variety of other things with water on the driveway

Some “dry snorkeling” was clearly involved. I got up from my bed at one point to look outside (our bedroom looks out over the driveway) and they were trying to spray passing cars with the hose. SERIOUSLY?! Brian and Logan were sitting on the couch watching a Kung-Fu soccer movie (yes, such a thing does actually exist!) I yelled down, ran outside, sent the crazy duo to the backyard and gave Brian a lecture about ruining my neighborhood reputation ;) In all fairness, a friend had driven by and “played” car wash with the boys so they thought maybe everyone wouldn’t mind getting sprayed. Oh well. Memories.