To Zion and Back

The last two weeks just flew by and I am now just getting a chance to post about our trip to Utah for my littlest sister's wedding. This is a wedding that has been anticipated for a little over two years. My sister Laura and her now husband Jared Watts both decided to serve missions for our church before they tied the knot. Just six weeks after returning from their missions they planned a whirlwind wedding and we were able to be there for this wonderful day.

My beautiful sister Laura and handsome husband Jared (Thanks Matt for taking this great picture!)

It was one loooooooong drive to Logan, Utah but the kids did AWESOME in the car. Chloe, who is not a car seat lover did great--and we didn't even drug her. We were able to take a pit stop both ways at Birch's sister's home in Caldwell, Idaho. It was so fun to see their new home and let the kids play with their cousins.
Alysee's dress was made by my super duper talented seamstress mom. She actually created this dress from a women's dress that she bought at a consignment store. It matched all the little girls' dresses perfectly. Alysee felt like a princess all day!
Following all the wedding fun in Logan we headed to Salt Lake City. We were able to again stay with my adopted in-laws (they are actually my sister Emi's in-laws but they have been so gracious to us and have allowed us to take over the basement several times now). We were able to take the kids to Temple Square for the afternoon.

I love this picture of the kids admiring the Christus statue.

This picture was taken in December of 2004--my has our family grown since then! (actually Nate was born by that time but missed being in the picture)

Highlights of our trip would be the multiple stops for fast food, hike up to Zion's peak, dinner at IHOP with the Wrights, miniature golfing with cousins, doctor's appointment with Dr. Fairbanks, lunches at Grandma Gina and Rudy's home, stop overs in Caldwell, ID...but our favorite of all would be spending time with all our extended family!!!

Last but not least a farewell shot of our family! Wonder woman Leah (aka. my sister) took some great shots of our family for our Christmas card.

Bountyful Blessings

We had an awesome garden this year! The produce just kept on producing : ) We (mostly Birch) enjoyed fresh peppers, tomatoes up the ying yang, basil, cucumbers galore, squash, pumpkins, beans, sugar snap peas, yucky tasting corn, strawberries, and the quail loved our blueberries.
I made several batches of fresh salsa that got snarfed up at Birch's work, neighbor's and friend's homes.
Coop was a great helper with the salsa. He thought the onion looked so tasty that he tried several bites before he realized maybe it wasn't so great after all.
Birch and I (and Chloe in her Bumbo) spent one last night making pesto with all our basil. We had so much basil that we ended up sharing it with several friends.

We feel truly blessed to live in such a fertile land (can you tell, we have six kids!).

A girl and her jewels

Just prior to our trip to Utah, Chloe and I went on a special date to Claires. Although her daddy wasn't quite as thrilled as her mommy he knows how a sweet little girl with little earrings melts her momma's heart.

It's been interesting having so many reactions...sort of a love/hate thing. Well, I love it and you can see from the following photoshoot from my talented sister Leah that Chloe seems quite pleased with her new jewels.

just shy of 4 months old

looks a little mischievous to me

can't forget those precious little pink toes

Tinkle Toes

Gosh, I guess it has already been three and half months since Coop has been potty trained. The whole idea of poopin' in the potty wasn't my idea. Seriously! Probably in May Coop started asking to poop in the potty, and Birch and I happily jumped on board with him. But then in July when Cooper started asking to go potty in the potty I wasn't sure I was quite ready to give up the ease of diapers. Changing a potty diaper once a day is no big deal, but juggling a newborn while trying to pull down Coop's pants, lift him on the toilet, avoid being sprayed (which has happened more than once), wiping his bum, washing hands, etc...just seemed like too much at the time. But Coop was ready so I learned to juggle and balance pretty quick. We've gone through our fair share of undies but overall Coop has done an awesome job!!!
Coop is such a great kid! I know many out there are struggling with their two-year-olds so I feel extra grateful (but don't be too jealous - I have a six year old that throws a mighty good two-year-old tantrum). One of the things that makes Coop so fun are his great talking skills. This is something that is a rarity at the Ditto house for a two-year-old. Not only can Coop carry on a great conversation but he also says the funniest things. Take today's conversation:

Coop: "Mom, Jesus lobs (loves) mine peanut." (What he calls his penis)

Mom: "Yes, Jesus does love your penis." (He created him after all, right?)

Coop: "Jesus lobes your peanut too." (Pointing to me)

The rest of the conversation basically was a disagreement between the two of us as to whether or not mom has a "peanut."

Currently Cooper is really into trucks, buses, motorcycles, ferry boats, and trains. We haven't really had a "theme" kid since Alex so it has been pretty fun. Birch and I have discussed whether this is because we haven't encouraged the kids to obsess about a particular theme (like dinosaurs, automobiles, sports, etc...) or maybe it is because we haven't "fed" the obsession. I'm thinking Christmas should be darn easy for this kid. Get him a ferry boat and he would be in heaven!
Coop also informed me the other day that he "lobe (love) this song." Who would have thought that a two-year-old would have a favorite song? Wanna know what his favorite song is..."Somewhere over the rainbow" by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole. Just so happens to be one of my favorite songs too.

Along with Coop's great vocabulary, having older siblings has also brought the interesting challenge of keeping "potty" words out of his mouth. It's hard to get mad at such a cute guy even when you hear him call his brother that is bugging him, "Stupid Man," or "Meanie Face," or "Meanie."

Coop wonders if "Today Friday? Daddy go on camping trip? Cooper too little?" He seriously asks me this almost each morning when he wakes up. He can sit in front of the computer for a half an hour just watching the screen saver of family pictures. Coop loves "de-ert" (dessert), riding his bike really fast, eating pizza, playing with his siblings and friends, eating Italian dressing on lettuce, reading books, coloring, playing with play dough, and doing anything with his daddy (which is kind of a problem when their are seven other of us that like doing stuff with daddy too). He loves sucking his thumb while holding "Froggy," his green blanket covered with little frogs.

Oh yes, I must make note of what a thankful boy Cooper is. No kidding...this kid thanks you for everything. It's as if his parents are Hitler Manner parents (If that were the case then wouldn't the rest of the kids be just as good at expressing their gratitude?). Back in his diaper days he used to thank us for changing his diaper. Who does that? Sure brightens my day to hear him says "Thanks Mom!" I'm hoping this attribute is not just a phase but a long lasting attribute.

We LOVE this kid!!!

Tale of Two Women

I've felt guilty since about twenty seconds after I posted my last post. I do love being a mother but I will not lie...it is full of challenges.

On Sunday I was borrowing someones scriptures and went to read an assigned scripture when I came across the following marked scripture:

1 Peter 3:10

For he that will love life, and see good days, let him refrain his tongue from evil, and his lips that they speak no guile.

It was almost like it was written JUST FOR ME. So I am trying harder to love life, see more good days, and speak in kindness.

The last few weeks I have been thinking a lot about an article a hometown friend wrote about the challenges of raising twin daughters (plus three other adorable girls). One of her sweet twins has CP and really has brought on a new aspect to parenting. I asked her if she would be okay with me "re-printing" this article on my blog for my readers to read. I know some of you already know who I am talking about but if you haven't had the chance to read the following please do.

I think it touched me so much because I was reminded that we are all given various challenges in this life but we each have a choice how these challenges are going to affect us.

Read on...

Friday, August 22, 2008

A Tale of Two Women

Some days, I feel like my life is consumed by cerebral palsy. I think about cp with all the special care and handling we provide for Sophia. I think about it when I see April walking. I think about it when Claire asks, "Will Sophia start Kindergarten a year or so after April?" It stares me in the face, it overrides what Sophia would be able to do if her brain were healthy, it impacts the entire family now and will in the future, and it doesn't go away.

Once, in college, I volunteered to help with "patterning" for a young boy in the local community. I knew only that it was difficult to move this boy's limbs into the patterns we were told he needed. His arms and legs were tight and seemed locked in certain positions. He appeared to be in some pain during these forced movements. It was only after Sophia's diagnosis and my subsequent research that I realized, looking back, that he had cerebral palsy.

Needing to talk with someone who had been through what was still unknown to me, I decide to contact his mother to talk with her about her experiences with raising him. I plan to ask her about resources in our community, and what she feels was useful for her son. I have heard that he is now attending college, and I plan to ask her how he is doing and hear of his success.

Procrastination.

Months after my plan to contact this woman, I hear that she had just been diagnosed with terminal cancer. Not long thereafter, she passes away. I attend her funeral, having never had the opportunity to learn the things that I know she could have taught me. The funeral is beautiful. Setting aside some of their sadness, her husband and several children speak of their love for this wonderful woman. They share with us, the audience, intimate parts of her life. There is no doubt that this is a noble woman who had passed on to the next life, and that she has an incredible family.

What is missing in the funeral talks is any mention of cerebral palsy. Once, her daughter mentions that the mother has always told her son that he was not limited by his wheelchair. That is it. I don't know what I expected -- maybe repeated references to how much she had struggled to help her son, or how she had struggled with accepting her son's diagnosis. To me, it is eye-opening. She had obviously dealt with cp since her adult son's birth, but it must not have consumed her. It is not even noteworthy at her funeral.

That night, as I lay in bed and my mind circulates with these thoughts, I pick up our local newspaper to read before sleeping. A few pages in, my jaw literally drops, and I express verbal surprise at what I see. There is an article about a woman across the country who faces a trial for a crime. Her crime had been to enter the home of someone else with a loaded gun, and hold a man and his wife hostage until police intervened. This woman has a son with cp. He was born (at term) the same time that April and Sophia were due. She believes his cp had been caused by the doctor's malpractice at the birth of her son. She carried much anger with her, and she had postpartum depression, and it all culminated in her entering this doctor's home and holding him and his wife there at gunpoint. She had planned to kill herself, making the doctor wait the same amount of hours she had to wait for him to arrive for an emergency c-section to deliver her son.

The reason my jaw drops when I read this article is that she is an online acquaintance of mine. She and I are both members of a message group, and we e-mailed each other once or twice upon realizing our children's similar ages. I know the circumstances surrounding her son's birth were terrible, and I know that she was angry. I can understand her anger, and I remember thinking that she seemed to have more anger than she could bear. I can relate to the despair she felt concerning her son's diagnosis. I sincerely hope that the jury that hears her case is compassionate, and I am grateful that no one was physically hurt on that nightmarish day. I feel real pain for this woman and her family.

The day I attend a funeral and then read a random AP article in my local newspaper, I recognize a great contrast between these two women. Both have sons with cerebral palsy. One had overcome the obstacle of cp to the extent that it was not even mentioned at her funeral. I imagine she had many days of tears and despair when her son was young. She had the benefit of years to learn that cp did not define her son, and also did not define her. The second woman, her wound still fresh, had felt the pain so greatly that she had made decisions that will affect her and her family's life much more than the cp. That day, I realize that cerebral palsy should not consume my life. This is something necessary for me to work toward.

The Noblest Calling

All my life I have heard it said that "Motherhood is the noblest calling on earth." The other day I was thinking the following:

• How noble does it feel to be fishing around in your child's poop looking for a parasite?
• How noble does it feel to scrape up red Gatorade throw up off of the carpet and then work another two days at trying to get the stain out of the carpet?
• How noble does it feel to put your child to bed for the umpteenth time when they keep coming out of their room for a new reason?
• How noble does it feel to clean up poop in the bathtub after your toddler decides the tub is now the toilet (or diaper)?
• How noble does it feel to spend the afternoon making a yummy dinner and then have the first child that comes to the table declare how disgusting the meal looks?
• How noble does it feel to sift through your child's hair looking for lice after you get a letter from the school saying your child has been exposed?
• How noble does it feel to come in the bathroom and see potty all over the wall NEXT to the toilet?

Oh the joys... Is it okay to gripe once and a while about the "Noblest of Callings?"

Disclaimer: the above questions may or may not have happened at our household

My Girls

This morning the girls and I (plus tag-a-long Cooper) went on a date to the doctor's office. Alysee was having her well-child check up for turning six, a month ago and Chloe was having her two month or what for us was her 12 week check up.

Beautiful Alysee actually made it on the height and weight chart this year. She is 41 5/8th inches tall (3 % National Average) and 32.5 pounds (1% National Average). She was quite the trooper when she found out that she needed to get two vaccinations.
Alysee is a fun-loving girl who loves life! I was just visiting with her first grade teacher this morning and her teacher was raving at what a good student and friend she is. When Alysee gets home from school she loves to play "teacher" and instruct all the kids (which sometimes are her siblings, other times stuff animals). Yesterday she found that if she wipes water on her eye brows they look darker, which she has decided is quite pretty.

Alysee was cracking me up the other day when she was trying to make braces for her cute little teeth out of a hair rubber band. Why is it that you want braces so bad when you are a child? She asked me for some suggestions but I didn't disclose how my sisters and I used to make braces out of the wire twisty ties. She enjoys taking care of Chloe for short periods of time and has the capacity to be a great sister. Watch out if you catch her on a bad note, though--we still have not figured out what triggers "Wild Alysee."
Our sweet Chloe Ruth is twelve weeks old. It kind of makes me sad how fast she is growing up (just a little sad, though). Chloe is 22.5 inches long (23% National Average) and her weight is 10 lbs 7 oz (14% National Average).
Chloe seems right on target with her growth milestones. She loves to suck on her fingers and make happy cooing sounds.
She surprised us last week when she started rolling over from front to back. She has a very strong neck which I am sure is attributed to her tummy sleeping (yes, I know that is a "no, no"). She nurses during the day and then has a bottle of formula at night before going to bed. Regularly she'll fall asleep around 9 or 10 pm and then wake up around 3 am for her next feeding. Then round two of suckling comes around 6 am. During the day she'll normally take two longs naps, though I still wouldn't say that we have a predictable schedule yet.
Overnight she also became our resident worm. We found out in quite a sad way when she quietly scooted off of my bed after waking up from a nap and landed not so quietly on her poor little noggin'. Mommy felt really bad about that!
We love both of our girls and all that they add to our family! It's a challenge keeping up with all those painted toes but we are trying our best : )