Ah, kids...

Yesterday morning was one of those mornings I would like to forget. Or not, it did have some comedic value after all.

It was sort of a prickly day. If you couldn't tell, life has been sort of prickly lately. We've been working hard to make lemons out of lemonade, and I think we've done a fair job. Could be better, could be worse, but we're trying and that's what counts.

Well, we woke up yesterday with a Little Man in our bed. He had a high fever the night before, and a cough, and he wanted to snuggle with mom and dad. I love snuggling with him as much as he loves snuggling with me, and I especially love to snuggle when he needs me, so how could I refuse? The point being is that having a feverish, coughing pre-schooler in one's bed kind of interferes with getting a good night's sleep. Whatever, we got up, made coffee, breakfast, got going a little bit, when Little Man tells me that he's pooped in his pants. Uh-oh, I think. Then I remembered that he woke up in a dry pull-up, and I hadn't changed him yet. Oh thank goodness! I go to check on him, and my thankfulness lasts for only about a minute, for when I went to change him, I saw that he had poop running down one of his legs. Gross.

Did I mention that he happened to be standing on a pile of toys at the time?

Why, Little Man, why?

You rarely if ever just stand on a pile of toys, yet you do so when you have poop running down your leg??!!

I took a deeeeppp breath.

So, I got on to cleaning him up, and trust me, it was a big job. Anyway, I guess I wasn't quite all the way awake, because I didn't realize that there was a mess on the toys, and on the floor. Now the rest of the story reminds me of a sitcom. While I was changing Little Man, Baby Girl stole his breakfast, a granola bar, something she covets yet rarely gets to eat. It was a chocolate chip granola bar. Whenever she sneaks one of these she makes a huge mess of the chocolate. So when I saw that she was covered in "chocolate" I didn't think too much about it. (It was early, obviously I needed my coffee, I was a little slow that morning.) I continue to clean Little Man, which takes a while. In the meantime, Baby Girl is walking around, getting on the couch, playing with different toys. After several minutes, I go to wash the "chocolate" off of her. Now maybe by now you've realized that it wasn't actually chocolate on Baby Girl. I don't really have to write what it was, do I? Let me just say, it was a mess. Two children ended up taking a bath at 8 in the morning, toys and sofas got wiped down and sanitized with Lysol, and Mama wanted a glass of wine in the worst way. I hope it's not bad that I wanted a glass of wine at only 8 am!

Don't worry, I was good, I waited until 8 pm for that wine.

There's more, but it's not as funny. It has to do with a sippy cup that became wedged in between Little Man's mattress and his bed frame. The sippy cup was full of milk. Was. The several day-old milk seeped into the side of his mattress. Still working on getting that one out. Wish me luck, man alive...


This last one is really funny. After the whole leaky poopy thing I was really trying to watch what Little Man ate. Well, we had just bought strawberries at the store the day before. Expensive, organic strawberries. After shopping, as I was loading up the car with our groceries, with Baby Girl in the front of the shopping cart and Little Man in the back, what did Baby Girl do but to reach in one of the grocery bags, pull out the expensive organic strawberries, open the container, and spill most of them out into the cart and pavement. Oh it hurt, hurt. An aside: I don't like to spend money on food. I'm still getting used to this whole new lifestyle of buying healthy, high quality food instead of whatever's on sale. Anyway, I saved most of the strawberries, but they had been in the yucky cart. I decided a good washing would be enough...cough, ahem, maybe. I wasn't about to throw away $5 strawberries, maybe I have flawed thinking here, but it is what it is. Well, as of yesterday morning I hadn't washed them yet, and Little Man wanted strawberries. I told him he couldn't have any because they could make him go potty, and goodness knows we didn't need anymore pottying around here. (I didn't know if his diarrhea was a fluke or an actual bug - thankfully it was a fluke.) So, after the kids had a bath, I went upstairs to put Baby Girl down for a nap while Little Man watched cartoons downstairs. While I'm upstairs, and out of sight, Little Man gets an idea. He thinks he should eat some strawberries, so he does. He sneaks six of them. (Oh, it just makes me want to throw up, why didn't I wash them immediately!?) Here's the funny part. The only reason I found out about the one-man strawberry party is that I found the stems. He had hidden three in the fridge. I found those immediately. Later on that night I found three more, in the freezer. By the time I had found them, Little Man had already gone to bed, and I couldn't help but laugh out loud. It was creative, all right. Gonna have to watch that one, and well, the other one, too. ;)

Looking up...sort of.

So many emotions are swirling around inside me right now. I'm a big ole merry-go-round of fear, sadness, relief, guilt, and hope, with a big dose of a fight-it attitude.

The results of Mom's second test came back, and her doctors are recommending surgery. The good news is that her ovaries are fine, not a speck on them. The bad news is that she has two very suspicious tumors on one of her kidneys. I learned that after 50, lumps/cysts/tumors on the kidneys are normal, but the doctors don't like the looks of two of these spots. A biopsy is not recommended, because the tumors have a bit of fluid in them, and they don't want any of the fluid to seep into Mom's system, in case they are indeed cancerous. So...she's having a portion of her kidney removed, in a little under two weeks.

This is one of the scariest journeys I've ever been on.

I'm thinking a lot about my sweet husband, who lost his father to cancer a little over two years ago. One of my most recurrent thoughts, "Ahh, so this is what he felt like. I'm so sorry, sweetie, I only wish I'd known..."

This is the stuff of life. This is what makes us who we are. This is what makes us savor, enjoy, and eat up with a spoon the normal, beautiful, everyday days that make up our life.

In a weird sort of way, this is the perfect mother's day gift. I know that sounds morbid, but nothing makes one appreciate a mom like the thought of losing her. I'm reminded of all the fun times, the sweet, selfless things my mom did for me. Forget all the other stuff. In the 3 1/2 years since I've been a mom, I've learned that mom's make mistakes, too, sometimes big ones.

Remember the good, forget the rest.

"Finally, brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable—if anything is excellent or praiseworthy—think about such things (Philippians 4:8)."

Unsettling

Well, mom called. Her scan was not exactly normal. She is going in for a second test today.

This is scary. Honestly, I'm in shut-down mode. It's either that or full freak-out mode, which would not be helpful to anyone.

Wishing this weren't happening. I'm having to remind myself to trust in God. He will pull us through, whether this turns out to be just a scare or a full-fledged family situation.

Agenda for the day:

Trust.

Have Faith.

Pray.

Listen.

Take a deep breath.

Love on my babies.

A few hours later -

Ok, so to be honest I'm not in shut-down mode. I know this because I feel like I'm barely keeping a panic attack at bay. Heart racing, feels like my blood pressure is through the roof, having a hard time getting a deep breath, just want to sit on the couch or lie in my cozy bed and forget the world exists. Not going to happen, I have two little monkeys who are bored and letting me know it. Still waiting to hear back from mom. Seconds are trickling by like hours and hours have been stretched out like days. This is the longest day ever.