Saturday, December 31, 2011

Meet Mr. Bounce House

The newest member of the family!  Yes, we bought a bounce house.  I got the idea from a friend, the thought had never even crossed my mind before a month ago.  But shortly after hearing about it from her, i became obsessed with the possibility, and started praying.  Could this be the solution to my loathing of the fall/winter/spring Oregon weather? (Which in itself isn't bad, it's being the backdrop to my life with 3 energetic boys that's the problem)

This is not something i'm going around telling people about (except for the five or so people that read this blog!), mostly because it gives the impression that we have a lot of money or something.  Believe me that's not the case.  Rich people spend 250 bucks on motorized hummers to cart their kids around.  Smart parents spend 250 bucks on something that will WEAR THEIR CHILDREN OUT.  Thankfully i had enough gift cards saved up from previous birthdays and i received just enough money for Christmas so the whole thing cost us zero out of pocket dollars.  We are blessed with a very giving family, God gave me the desire of my heart and the item came back in stock just in time to get here a couple days before Christmas.

We did our usual Christmas family celebrations, got home from mom's house, i did poop hour with Ian, then got the boys all ready to head to bed.  I had the boys come into the play room, said i wanted to show them something cool, turned off the lights and distracted them with some glow in the dark drawing (thanks Aunt Beck!).  Joe announced before we shut the door that he had to go to the bathroom, but was really dragging in the bouncy and proceeded to blow it up.  I heard the humming of the fan, told the boys it was time for bed, we opened the door (joe being true to his alibi was sitting on the toilet as if there the whole time) and walked out acting as surprised as the boys were.  A note from Santa (man, writing in cursive was a lot harder than i remember it being!) was laying at the entrance, which read, "Dear Ewer Boys, This special gift was too big to fit on my sleigh so i had to make a special trip just for you.  I will leave it here with you as long as you play nice and do not ever fight in it.  Keep being such good little boys.  Love, Santa Claus"
  


In and out, in and out, the giddy-ness was unbelievable.  Within a few minutes they were breathing heavy and getting drinks of water.  My insides were doing jumping jacks and screaming Woohooo, my plan is working!  They have used it every day since, many times a day.  It fits perfectly in the garage, where it lays waiting til joey runs out to push the switch to blow it up.  They jump, get tired, turn off and come in.  No adult intervention necessary.  It's a dream come true.  And now the kids are actually getting some exercise.









How do i know it was worth every penny?
Just look at that face:-)

Merry Christmas to me:-)

Friday, December 30, 2011

Playtime

If you want to come play with Oliver, sorry he's a busy guy.  Lots of important stuff to do, his agenda goes something like this.

Climb in a box




Fall out of a box


Applaud oneself for looking ridiculously cute



 Dump out everything in sight


 Don't be a quitter, keep shaking til every piece is out

Give practiced not guilty face to mom


Erratically kick at and spread around anything that gets in the way

Smile with pride at a job well done



Finish with a game of peek-a-boo, from which he's lucky he doesn't have a black eye.  Kid uses his fists instead of palms and practically punches himself in the face.



Sunday, December 4, 2011

The Nightmare that was my Friday

As i squatted on the closet sized family bathroom at the mall, staring at ian's body covered in poo, with my baby in a stroller screaming his head off, and my five year old inquiring when we can get out, i thought you know, this would be a REALLY funny story if it weren't actually the life i live everyday.
So our computer starting clicking, that's not good.  Somebody came up with the un-brilliant idea for me to take the boys to the Mac store after picking joey up from school to get the computer looked at.  I un-brilliantly agreed to this plan.  Over 20 minutes after our scheduled noon appt., they still have not even looked at our computer (the place is a madhouse), and i glance over at Ian who is holding his behind.  I inform an employee that we have a bathroom issue and will have to come right back.  I drag my entourage out of the store, where in the bathroom i see that Ian also has poop on his shoe.  That's quite unusual since the underwear usually contains any accidents he has.  Then to my horror i peek inside his pants.  The child did. not. put. on. the. underwear. i had laid out for him to wear.  It was absolutely awful.  Somehow i ended up clogging a sink and a toilet in the whole cleanup process, and it was a very long process.  THANK GOD i had an extra pair of jeans for ian in my bag that i had put in there a long time ago, otherwise it would have really been a sight to see as we walked out.  Ian's shirt was still a little smelly though so he left the bathroom with only a puffy coat on top and a soaking wet shoe on his left foot.  The boys and i all took turns in the bathroom having meltdowns, but we made it out alive.  I was planning on saying screw it and just heading home, but as we were walking past the Mac store, somehow i became brave again and marched the kids right back in.  A super friendly employee (they all are in there, it's pretty weird, but refreshing) said he was glad we came back, asked if we were all right, yeah yeah, we're fine.  He seemed more concerned than what would be expected for just a trip to the bathroom so when he emphasized again that the important thing was that the little guy was okay, i gave him a little more detail about how he doesn't know when he has to go, blah blah blah.  And he started talking about his nephew, and how he can't believe how much can come out of the little people sometimes.  Cause it was a lot, he said.  I just stared at him.  And he said, yeah there was kind of a little trail.  I really wanted to die at that moment.  I almost got teary-eyed.  What could i do but say i'm so sorry.  I thought i had lost all dignity in giving birth to my children, but i realized then that it would happen many more times in my life in many different situations.  My kid's poop left a trail on their floor that somebody had to clean up! I know for sure that if i had known that, there is no way in H-E double hockey sticks that i would have gone back in. Oh my goodness.  So finally, computer gets looked at, it's toast.  Didn't have all photos backed up to date, so we'll have to have a specialist look at it to get that info recovered.  And we had to buy a new computer.  Bye-bye budget.  Temporarily.  What did you do on Friday?
:-)

p.s. I'm typing this at the library.  My dear husband is giving me a much needed sanity break, and writing for me is therapeutic in itself.


God is Good

Throughout Tuesday night whenever i awoke my mind could not turn off thinking about Ian.  I kept going back and forth over which route to go with treatment.  Wanting to do one thing but knowing our pediatrican who i had just talked with recommending the exact opposite.  I sent an email out to the ladies in my bible study group saying that i missed being with them for the last few weeks and asked for prayer specifically for healing for Ian, and for wisdom in knowing what to do.  I desperately wanted to move forward with confidence believing that i was doing the right thing, instead of feeling like i was in some sort of twilight zone.  Well, that afternoon, joe called me and said he had just talked to someone who completely agreed with the route that i wanted to take and confirmed all the doubts that i had about the course on which the dr. wanted me to take.  Not that we should base our decisions on one person's opinions obviously, but for me it was the answer from God that i had been looking for.  The conversation joe had with this person also helped him to have a better understanding of the process we were about to embark on.  I felt like i could breathe for the first time in days.
That night though was awful.  I had to do my bathroom time with Ian while taking care of Oliver too, cause the Joes were at Awanas that night.  Ian was crying, at some point i was crying too.  I went to bed that night completely exhausted and woke up even more tired and discouraged.  I was begging God on the drive to school for any type of encouragement He could give me, something, anything.  An hour later one of the moms on the Soiling Solutions forum wrote a long email telling the story of her 10 yr. old daughter, saying that she had now been accident free for nine months.  She didn't say when she found the SS protocol, only that her daughter had dealt with encopresis for years and years, and that now she finally had her life back.  The mom said that they had family members who still believed that the daughter had done the soiling on purpose all those years, that she was just manipulative.  Only parents who have children with this condition can understand what it's like, and the lack of knowledge people have about it.  The part i needed to hear the most though was the mom saying how hard it was in the beginning, how she and her husband had to hold their daughter down while she fought the enema with all her might, how she wondered and doubted if this could possibly be the right thing for them to do to their child.  But the day she wrote the email, her daughter had come up to her and actually THANKED her mom for holding her down in the beginning, and for continuing with the protocol, because she understood then that they were doing it to help her, and now she could have a normal life.  This is similar to the email sent by a mom a couple weeks ago who said her 8 yr. old son had recently thanked her for sticking with the protocol because if you hadn't, he said, i would probably still be wearing pull-ups to school.  Ugh. My heart breaks for these kids.  I kinda feel sometimes that we won the unlucky lottery, seeing as how it's such a rare condition, percentage wise.  But it could be something much worse than this, like cancer.  And even though i of course wouldn't want that in a million years, those kids are looked at as superheroes and brave soldiers.  Kids with encopresis are looked down upon and shamed.  Please Lord let this end soon, and give me the strength to keep up the fight.  Thank you for giving me little glimpses of hope just when i need them the most, and letting me know you do indeed care when i start to doubt you're near.

Saturday, December 3, 2011

Quote of the evening to crying wife while rubbing away tension..

"There's a light at the end the tunnel, you just can't see it right now." -Joe the Barber

That about sums it up.