Incisions

Incisions are just gross. They itch, they are ugly, they pull when you move the wrong way. They are gross.

Incisions are amazing. Doctors can cut you open and your skin will grow back together. It will fuse into one piece and eventually you won't really feel anything in that spot.

But mostly...they are gross.

Feliz Navidad

I love the way that my family celebrates Christmas. It is such a relaxing and unhurried affair. This is a result of three basic Christmas rules that Ben and I have established. They are as follows:

1. Stockings will not be opened prior to 6:30 am.
2. There will be no presents opened until after we get home from church.
3. There will be NO presents opened until we get home from church. (Rule number two seems grossly unfair to our children and thus requires some repeating).

Usually we don't even open our presents until around 1:00 in the afternoon. After all, we can't open presents on an empty stomach. It is nice to make the joy and expectation last just a little bit longer.

Yikes.

Yesterday was one of those days. You know the type well, the type where from the moment you wake up in the morning things are going wrong.

First, I received a call from the babysitter that she was very sick and couldn't watch Sophia. This normally would not have been a problem except that second, I was going to have gallbladder surgery that day. Fortunately, we were able to have a friend watch Sophia at the last minute and my surgery went as scheduled.

We picked up the kids, came home and I put myself to bed. It seemed like the end to our trying day was in sight. However, we were to be surprised still further when Connor started throwing up around 7:00 pm that night. This mean that poor Ben now had to take care of a bed ridden wife, sick son, and nine month old baby.

Connor continued to throw up off and on throughout the night and Sophia did her part by waking up at 3:00 am in full giggle.

Connor has ceased throwing up, Ben could use a nap, Sophia is still a giggly chatterbox, and I feel like I had surgery yesterday, but things are slowly resuming to normal in the Ockree house.

Crawling

Sophia started crawling today. Ben and I were really excited about this until we remembered that now she will be getting into everything. Time to put up the gates!

What the...?

I have to have a HIDA scan to figure out this gallbladder stuff. I was wondering what exactly a HIDA scan was when I found this very comfortable image from the internet.

Thanks internet. Now I feel a lot better about this whole thing.

Sludge Factory

For the past six months (or if I am being honest 9 months) I have been experiencing a pain in my lower abdomen off and on. I have assumed this pain was a number of things - cramps, muscle pain, heartburn, a reaction to eating too much ice cream, etc. The pain comes on quickly and lasts for a half an hour to two hours and is gone in a flash.

On our recent trip to Illinois I again had one of these attacks. Typically my attacks happen late in the night. I'll wake up at 2:00 am suffer and then go quietly back to sleep. On this recent trip, I suffered an attack very early, around 5:00 pm or so, and Ben witnessed this. As such, he demanded that I quit putting off going to the doctor and make an appointment. He was sure I had gall stones.

Well, today I received the results of my lab work and I don't have gall stones. That's the good news. The gross news is that instead I have sludge in my gallbladder. How gross is that? I have some more testing to do in order to determine if that sucker is going to have to come out. For now, I will just walk around feeling like I need to take a shower..inside my body.

The Connor Challenge

Connor is a good kid...Connor is a good kid...Connor is a good kid.

This is the current mantra that Ben and I are chanting in the Ockree house. Connor is in a very challenging mood lately. If we tell him to do something he does the exact opposite, if we punish him it results in hysterics, if we don't punish him it results in him walking all over us.

These are the days that we want to pull our hair out and wonder what on earth we are doing wrong. How can it feel like we are making so much progress for a couple of months and then all of the sudden feel like we are back to square one...or even worse, behind square one?

During these days we have been advised to watch him sleep and remember that peaceful and quiet little face during the hair ripping out moments that are sure to come during the day.

What's it all about?

This morning Connor had a realization. God doesn't always say yes to our prayers - or better stated for Dr. Ziegler's sake God's yes isn't always what we think it will be.

Bright and early this morning Connor came and sat down on the floor in our room. He said that he had prayed to God that he would have a really good listening day and really good dreams yesterday. According to Connor, however, he had neither a really good listening day at school, at home, or good dreams last night. He then made the universal sign showing the inability to understand. He put his arms into a W shape and said, "What's that all about?"

I said that God always gives us what we need, but it is not always what we think we need and that suffering helps draw us closer to Christ. His response - "Huh?"

Hey Connor, maybe you should ask your dad about this one. It seems like a pastor type question.

There Were Three in the Bed...

For a few weeks now Connor has been coming into our room to sleep on the floor. This has been permitted because Sophia was moved into his room and has the tendency to at least once a night make a little noise.

Last night Connor decided that sleeping on his makeshift bed on the floor was not good enough. He needed to be in our bed with us. After several attempts to get him to go to his room we gave up and he spend the night with us.

Sleeping with a five year old boy in the bed was a challenge. It reminded me of the good old days when Ben and I had a king sized bed and we could fit kids, animals, and extra pillow in bed without feeling the least bit cramped.

Last night in our queen bed I was feeling somewhere between cramped and sardine. I kept thinking about the song where there are seven people in the bed and the little one said roll over..roll over.

The Ockrees

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True Love Moments

There are moments in this world where I get a mere glimpse of what true love may look like. I always love my husband and kids, but they also frustrate me, annoy me and drain me of all energy.

Every now and then I have a moment, they are always very brief, where I feel extreme love for my family. A couple of nights ago we were all walking inside after being at the YMCA and it struck me how blessed I am to have been given this beautiful family to call my own. It was just a flash of brilliant, pure and unmarked love and just as quickly as it came it was gone. In its place was the regular every day love I feel for my family.

Odd, beautiful, mysterious and gone. It is moments like these that I hold on to and cling to during the tiredness, anger and frustration that normally accompanies our days.

Sleepless Nights

For several weeks now, Sophia has been very determined to go without sleep. She keeps waking up in the middle of the night and refuses to go back down. She is instead pursuing the pastime of staring lovingly into my eyes. For the first half an hour or so I just look back at her and it is a beautiful scene of mutual love and adoration. After that half an hour it starts to be a tragic scene of me wanting to sleep and her wanting to grab my face, hair, pajamas, arms, etc.

Perhaps I could think of some sort of fun middle of the night hobby or perhaps I should find some early morning television show to become addicted to. For the moment the only result is my new desire for a three bedroom house or apartment. I think that if she only had her own room it would be so much easier to let her cry it out a bit and get through this stage.

The good news is that I have plenty of time to think about this around 3:00 am every morning.

The breakdown

Everyday at about 5:30 we experience the breakdown. It is the time of day that we can count on Connor breaking down about something. Yesterday it was a picture he had colored and left at the YMCA. The day before it was a lost sticker.

Our new tactic is to charm him out of his breakdown by saying something ridiculous. A super lame joke seems to do the trick just right.

One of these days he may figure out that a little nap during quiet time at school would do wonders for him. Now if we could just convince him of that.

Single Mom

I have spent the past three days with my children without my husband. It has been pretty nice to have so much time with them and to be able to do fun things together. I love the fact that if I give either one of them a smile that I get a really sweet smile in return. I think they have really enjoyed being able to see me so much and all the extra kisses and hugs.

Extra hugs and kisses aside, I am really missing Ben. It is fun to spend time with my kids, but it is also exhausting. My head aches, I am tired and I would really enjoy taking a shower without keeping an ear out for screaming children.

I often marvel at how single mothers make it. It isn't even that Ben does the majority of the kid watching when we are both home. What he does do (and what I am greatly missing) is to recognize when I am sliding into the I'm completely stressed out and I just need five minutes to myself phase. He jumps in and takes the baby or strikes up a conversation with Connor. I miss that and I realize how much those two minutes here and three minutes there keep me from loosing it.

I let Ben know that he is not allowed to die until our kids are older. It is nice to be reminded how well we function together and how miserable we are apart.

24 more hours and I get my husband back from board game land. And yes, I am counting.

Scotcheroos

Scotcheroos are basically the most delicious dessert in the whole world.

Mmmmmm yum.

That's all.

The happiest place on Earth

Many people will tell you that the happiest place in the world is somewhere like Disney World, Paris, their Grandma's kitchen or with their beloved. While I do enjoy all these things (expect Paris because I am pretty sure that is in France), I am here to tell you that the happiest place on Earth is an Ikea store.

At an Ikea store you feel the empowerment to buy things that you never even knew you needed. How can you not buy this really cute rug when it is only $6 or that jar for your kitchen that is on sale for $2.99? In addition, for some reason Ikea has this air of coolness in the store. As you walk around you can almost feel your Euro Sheik Coolness factor rising.

Let's face it, that trip to Disney World is expensive and sooner or later Grandma is going to tell you to get the heck out of her kitchen because you are in her way. At Ikea, however, you can buy a brand new kitchen for the less than the price of a trip to Disney World and you can buy it with your beloved. And if you still have longings for Paris...don't worry, you can buy some fancy plates that will make people think you must have been there.