And Today

This morning Krista phoned to see how I was doing. (Fine) Then she asked me what I was doing today. What does she think? Certainly not out duck hunting! I'm doing my level best just to make sure I don't trip up the stairs and bash my face. For those of you who knew our Young Road house, do you remember the time I tripped going up the stairs and just about put my face through the wall. I would have looked like a mounted moose for all of the Young Road traffic to see. I'm laughing all over again just thinking about it.
I'm going to be real careful on the stairs today.

I lost the fight

Today, a crazy story about me....again. But this is really crazy. Even crazier than disaster suppers (which was roasted cauliflower and roasted potatoes for those who still couldn't help but wonder) and meanderings in the dark without gas.

It really started yesterday when I went to get a cleaning, flouride and x-rays done at the UFV dental clinic. (For $10 - super duper and these girls clean every tooth to "glossy" because they're getting marked on it. Glossy was the word the instructor used to praise the dental assistant student who polished my teeth.) First the paperwork, "how are your teeth, any crowns, root canals etc?" "Nope", I proudly replied, "just my original teeth." "Beautiful teeth" was a compliment I heard from my pair of students and their instructors. I just couldn't help but feel a little good inside.

And then.

Today.

It went from a smile like this.
To a problem like this. (Les wanted to know if my name was Luongo or Leanngo?) :) And you would never imagine how it came to be. This morning I was babysitting for Bible Study when one of the moms came to tell me about some goslings that had been temporarily rescued on the church parking lot. I brought the kids to see them and they were delighted with their sweet peeping, and tiny fluffy bodies. I just never saw coming what these sweet little things would end up doing for my day!
After Bible Study was done the kind, soft hearted and gentle lady who had tried to prevent these little cuties from becoming road kill was still attemtping to shoo them to the back forty of the church parking lot so they could reunite with Mama Goose. I had seen the kids ooh and ahh and I couldn't stop myself from helping her with her most noble goal. She warned me that she had already nearly been attacked and so I accepted a SuperStore bucket to protect my legs from Mama's beak and used my sweater to wave and hopefully propel the goslings in the direction we were hoping they would go.
What I wasn't counting on was the direction which Mama Goose finally decided to attack from! Suddenly there she was, up in the air, zooming toward me like a Stealth fighter jet. I hadn't worn a mask and I really wanted to keep my eyes so I did what any self respecting human does in the face of a mad mama goose attack. I whipped around and ducked my head leaving the goose with my back side if she was still so inclined. Unfortunately what I had forgotten to take note of was the truck that was legitimately parked in the stall behind me. I came down, with speedy force, teeth first on the side of that little truck.
Did you want me to insert that picture in here again? I lost a good half of my middle tooth and the next tooth to the right was missing a chunk off the bottom and pieces off the back up to my gums. I couldn't believe it! I had lost my teeth for some goslings. That aforementioned dear lady encouraged me to search for the missing teeth and thankfully I found the middle tooth.
What to do next? I headed to my Mom's because if I could get into the dentist right away I was needing a place to leave the kids. No, dentist said, we'll do it after hours, show up at 5:00. I was okay with that. I tossed the tooth into a cup of milk and reached up to feel my head. I was feeling a sort of trickeling down my hair and sure enough the goose egg :) on my head was bleeding. Oh well, the blood wasn't gushing and I thought it would be okay.
Fed the kids some lunch and took them home.
3:30 this afternoon I started to wonder again. This hole in my head was still seeping. It just wasn't closing over. Phoned the doctor and they suggested I come in and get it checked out. By now my teeth were starting to throb and I was looking forward to getting something done to them soon. Doctor cleaned the wound and decided it would probably need a stitch to keep it closed. No freezing he said in a sort of sympathetic but authoritative kind of way. "Alright, I agreed, I've had a few babies I should be okay." Let's just put it this way, on a pain scale of 1 to 10 where minimum pain is 1, maximum is 10 (and giving birth is 15) pulling that stitch tight enough for the knots to stay was somewhere in the 7 - 7.5 range.
After that I drove off to the dentist where Dr. E. gave much better news than I expected. No nerves seemed to be exposed, no extra fractures to the teeth, a bit of broken teeth inside the second tooth, but no root canals or crowns expected at this point. I was SO very, very thankful.
Lessons learned from today?
1) Mama Goose and I have a lot in common. I would attack anyone seeming to threaten my children as well.
2) Next time tell the doctor thinking about stitching my head, that I'm really a wuss and ask for a bandaid instead.
3) If the tooth thing ever happens again I'm supposed to rinse it clean and pop it in a safe and moist environment, my mouth. Especially the doc said, if it's one of my kids' teeth. Yup, he reaffirmed, your mouth is the best place for that chunk of tooth. Boy, I'm sure hoping I never have to go there. For their sakes and for mine!
4) Never again will I proudly display my teeth for the UFV dental assistant students. Not necessarily because I've learned a lesson in humility, but because I no longer have any "perfect teeth" claims to make.

That was a long post for a long story. Thanks to you if you stuck it out to now. And because you are usually a kind and caring audience, my teeth and my head are hurting more now than they have all day but the Tylenol is promising to make a difference. Hopefully a good night's sleep brings me back to perky in the morning. But first, I'm going to go try and sink my teeth into the blizzard Daniel brought over. :) Yum.... or ouch, we'll see.

This is not the post I was thinking to write today. I don't have enough time to get the intended thoughts out. But I couldn't help but share this.
This morning as we were heading home we saw our old neighbor answer his door. We waved and he waved and then he went back inside. And Sam piped up from the back seat, "he answered his door in his boobs and bellybutton!"
That's right, he wasn't wearing a shirt.

a project & a heart warmer

Yesterday I decided it would be really nice to change a piece of furniture. I got the drawers finished. I'll give you before & after pictures when it's done. Just don't hold your breath!

After a real inside day, I finally asked Leah to read some stories to her brothers. Fifteen minutes later I looked to see both of them had fallen asleep and claimed a shoulder. (She was still reading away ;) Aww, sweet.

Just a reminder

to you and me both that turning your back for 2 minutes is really not a great idea. Maybe I'll take cue from Michelle and turn the yellow wrappers into pretty plastic flowers :)

Ps. I've been wanting to figure out how to link within the blog a long time. I'm glad I took the extra two minutes to do that now. While I did, Cody and Cara moved from happy unwrapping to emptying the kitchen garbage can. :) Why would they even want to?

Cam's Response

Know what Cam said when he saw the Snakes & Ladders pictures this morning? "hey, I fink the green man is missing." Translation: I always play with the green man. When did you play without me?

Today Cam got to go and play at Gramma's for the day. Sam stayed home and did some things with me.

Like Snakes & Ladders. As you can see he was very happy to have this quiet game time without having to work around Cam taking his turn. Cam rolls the dice, picks it up and changes it to 1. Every single time. Then he proceeds to disregard his "roll" of 1 and zooms about the board helter skelter with no regard for the red or blue guy.
So Sam is happy to play S&L with his mom. Only.

And counting, making sure you're proceeding in the correct direction and identifying the number you land on is, as you can see, a very serious business indeed.

Hi everybody in blog land. Thanks for joining us to cheer Sam on to a landslide victory again. Com'on, have a little compassion and cheer for me for a change. I was 0 for 3 today.

Oh, oh, Sam just clued in that we're both in the frame.
And it just went down hill from there.

I rest my case. Should anyone out there finally have reached their breaking point of concern for my mental well-being of the last couple of weeks, no worries, you can send me to a sunny sandy beach for a few days and I'm sure I'll come back better. Anyone?

Ps. There were a few pictures I kept safely tucked away. Like the ones where you can see a tongue. Or two.

lost in the dark

I'm not sure I should tell you these stories. Combined with last week's posts they might give you fodder to doubt my competence in a number of areas :)
It all started with heading out to Yarrow last night for an informational evening on the government's plans to head into full day KG for 5 year olds, then 4 year olds, then 3 year olds. The meeting was lead by ARPA or Association for Reformed Political Action. The meeting was well put together, very informational and very inspiring and a bit scary if you think what the government really wants to do to your parenting. (minimalize it as much as possible and give the job to paid professionals who really know more about how to let my kids play than me, a stay-at-home-without much post secondary education could ever know or figure out) Do you know one of the perks they gave of this kind of program? To give the parents more time to do their own thing! I don't have the exact quote right now but I'm going to look it up and share it here. Freak me out, I don't want people with this sort of attitude influencing my 3 year old!

Or how about what the Lord commands us? Deut. 6 :6-9 makes pretty clear that as parents we are to be very active in teaching our little ones about Himself. I think 3 years old is way to young to be outsourcing that teaching.

Well, to the story at hand, the scary part of the evening really started after the meeting was done. I hung around for a bit, catching up with a friend I haven't seen in a long time and with a friend I usually see once a week so it was dark by the time I headed out. I didn't even get to the end of the parking lot when I realized my headlights were not on. Now this is a problem, though not an unusual one, as we have to manually plug and unplug the lights otherwise they somehow turn on and drain the battery even when the switch is pointed to off. (Anyone out there have a diagnosis and a free solution? I thought not. Oh well, we'll just keep plugging along :)) So I hopped out of the van, lifted the hood and felt around in the dark for the plugs. I'm not a real mechanic type and I usually get a little nervous about losing a hand to a whirling belt or electrocuting myself. But, thankfully I got it figured out.

Here's where the evening fell apart. You see, I thought I would take the Bailey Bridge home again. I'm not real familiar with the area but I had made my way there by this route and really didn't foresee a huge problem returning the same way. Oh, if only I had night vision goggles. I'm sure it would have made all the difference in the world. Instead I drove around, hunched over my steering wheel, trying to make out the features around me. That's the lovely thing about country living, you see. The starry night skies are incredible because the street lights are rare and far between. There I was with Vedder Mountain before me and Sumas Mountain behind me and sometimes vice versa and I was never sure what was what and when was when. I knew I wanted to head toward Sumas Mountain but when I hit No. 4 road I knew it was Vedder looming over me.
A side note, have you ever tried to back into a narrow driveway with a significant ditch on either side when it seems to be pitch dark out? It makes turning around a little exciting.
But I'm writing all about it so obviously I managed. As I retraced my tire tracks I remembered my low gas situation and glanced down. Sure enough, it was the moment I started to get nervous. I didn't have enough reserve to be doing this too long. Well, I ended up making some huge kind of loop and came back into "town" from the opposite direction. Thankfully with only one main street I easily knew where I had to start this maze again. Wisely I chose to drive out to No. 3 Road and get on the highway there.
I limped into the driveway so very thankful to be in familiar territory.
And this morning? Well, thankfully I had enough gas to make it to the gas station.

Michelle, next time I'm carpooling!!

On Saturdays

I have found, even though it is not really my ideal, that going to Superstore at 7:00 on Saturday mornings and then scampering out ahead of the crowds is really the best way to get the most done on a Saturday morning. I even had time to hit a few garage sales long before lunch. (it is very significant to note that it was my dear husband who had the company of our children!)

Today I needed to head back for the few things that are not available at 7:00 and I went at 3:45. The crowds were already starting to thin out, traffic not nearly as snarly and overall it made for a productive day.

Now I'm just trying to convince myself that 6:30 IS sleeping in.

And for a bit of miscellaneous...

Imagination + Play = great entertainment for parents

Personal opinion is they look delicious like this. (it's cause I also know how zwitzally yummy they smell)
And just in case I always make you feel sorry for Cody, that's Cara on the bottom.

I'm still licking my wounds. Come back in a few days.

Oh, really it's not that bad. Tuesday night's supper Steve said, "this is gourmet spaghetti!" and that was even before he knew about or read the blog. Tonight he said, "this is a great dish". It was in full knowledge of the blog post but I still think he meant it. He ate enough :) That said, you know what Jeff said when he sat down at the table??!! With great trepidation he asked, "this isn't leftovers is it?"

What neither of them knew about tonight's supper was the huge pan of rice that I overcooked. It's still on the counter. I really wanted to flush it down the toilet before anyone would know about it but I have a big problem. My toilet isn't flushing. Unless, of course, I want to stick my hand in the tank and do it manually. But I don't. Want to, that is.

So, I'm waiting for Steve to fix the toilet. Then I'll get rid of the rice and go cry myself to sleep.

About Monday's supper. I will tell you two things. It wasn't that it tasted bad. Really the problem was that it didn't really taste at all. The other thing? Well, Steve asked me, "is there anyway to make cauliflower taste good?" That's all I'm saying. The tears are already welling up.


Edited to Add: Dear Reader, please be aware these last two posts have been written completely tongue in cheek. Any tears that have been mentioned are related to the hysterical laughter written about in the previous post. And take note, that hysterical laughter is me, laughing at myself, not a horrifying echo of Steve laughing at me. Why did I record it in such a way? Well, one, I do hope I made you smile, maybe even chuckle. But also if one day God graciously gives us grandchildren, hopefully we can read through this story and share this bit of ourselves with them. At least they'll know we used to know how to have fun :)

A Tough Moment

Last night I tried something different for supper. (I didn't use a recipe, I just made up something yummy sounding in my head.) Then after a few minutes of sitting at the table with my beloved and our 5, I looked across the table and popped the question.
"I'm just not a gourmet cook, am I?"
You know what my beloved did? He took one look at me, glanced around at the state of everyone's supper eating progress and started to laugh. Hysterically.
I really hadn't meant it to be a funny moment. Nor was it meant to be a rhetorical question. Acutally what he was supposed to do was reassure me that it wasn't that bad. He totally missed his cue. Except for the sausage I had so carefully taken out of the freezer and warmed up in boiling water. That, he said, was delicious.
And don't think for one minute I'm going to tell you what I made for supper. I really can't talk about it anymore without shedding tears, the kind of tears that accompany hysterical laughter.

a couple of weeks ago when the weather was warm and not windy

Sam the Man loves sports. In fact, at this time he's hoping to go to the Olympics "for soccer, football, basketball, hockey, baseball, skiing, tennis and golfing. And that's all."

He just gave me that list himself. The first 5 are a firm 5. They have been on the list since he first started dreaming. The last 3 are ones he's added more recently. So big on hopes and dreams, so blissfully unaware!

In the meanwhile, Auntie Yen came for a visit one afternoon and Sam was delighted to have her play some soccer with him.

He smoked it right past her. Go Sam! Maybe we need to look into some community sports.

The rest of us? We just sat around getting fat eating the yummy donuts Auntie Yen and Leah picked up on their way home from school. Thanks, Auntie Yen!!

You know you're tired when...

Cam was watching Sam play on the computer.
He was very tired.
He laid his head down on his arms.
He just needed to close his eyes for a little minute.
In 3.5 seconds he was all but snoring.
It's a good thing he didn't slip sideways and hit the chair.
He would have woke up and it wouldn't have been pretty. Instead I picked him up and laid him on the couch. He hardly stirred.

Can you imagine being able to fall asleep never mind stay sleeping like that? I can't.
I think I'm a wee bit jealous.

Lil' Buddies

It must be a wonderful thing to have someone just your size to play with in a tiny dark corner in the closet.

Their New Sandbox

It's a great big sandbox. There's room for everyone to play cheerfully at the same time. The kids are very happy with their new sandbox. Me? I waited until I had some pictures to share before I wrote something about it. Otherwise I might of forgotten all the nice things I could say. Like the hours of happy play time.
Sometimes I get lost in the details. The amount of sand that gets into the house astounds me. The feeling of sand constantly under my feet grosses me out. The sand that gets trailed into the (was sparkling clean) van kind of saddens me.
And though I do not like to admit it, this is my own fault. I insisted, without any forethought, that the current location was absolutely where I wanted Steve to put it.

As soon as the lid comes off it usually gets filled up like this.

Then Cody comes along and claims the "digger".

He really likes the digger. It may be his favorite sandbox item.

Wouldn't ya know it? Cara wants the digger too.

He said no. She got mad.

Had a fit, lost her balance and made her hands all dirty. What to do?

Run to Mama and wipe hands clean on her pants.

Go back for second try on the digger.

Leah had a really nice "sandcastle" going and it was neat to see her and Cam playing together.

We have a bit of a problem here now. I actually decided that I was willing to put up with the sand and then the wasps came out. One was terrorizing Cam and even landed on his nose. It was big and his slightly freaked out mother did not help his stay-calm-and-stand-still-when-they-fly-around-you reactions one bit. No, I think I planted more of a flight response in his little mind.

I have an excuse. When I was big and round with the twins I tried to protect my 3 oldest babies from the nasty wasps that were flying around our back yard. Problem was they got a little annoyed with me and my broom and I got stung 7 or 8 times. It hurt. I won't soon forget and I'll do my best to keep them from getting at my kiddies. (and to think I used to laugh at Martin)

So, we'll try to do a little wasp control and then I'm sure you'll be seeing plenty more pictures of our new sandbox.

They love their Daddy

and so do I but that's not the point tonight. :)



No matter how much they've eaten for supper and no matter how much they've refused to eat more off their own plate, Papa's plate always seems to have delicious things they need to pick off when he eats his supper later than the rest of us.



And they still love to drink their bottles before naps and nighttime snuggled on the couch together with one of us.

They really are getting so big and yet they are still so little.

(I think that will only make sense to a parent.)