7/12/16: Pregnancy Details...

Sorry it's been so long since I've posted. Winter semester got a little crazy, and then I got pregnant, but I didn't know that was what was happening at first, I just knew I felt nauseous and exhausted all the time. Once we found out (relatively quickly, working with a fertility doctor) the nausea was full-blown and I was basically couch-ridden for a month there in the first trimester. Not sure why it was so intense, but all I know is I was immensely grateful it was Spring semester and I could take the time I needed to just rest and recover every day.

I keep trying to think about what else to write about first, but I'm struggling because it just feels like being pregnant is dominating our lives and thoughts right now. So I guess I'll just stick with the pregnancy strain for now until something else comes up. And I'm sorry I'm not writing about how the recent news events are impacting me. It just feels a little overwhelming to try to dedicate a post to articulating all the feelings right now, but that's definitely never far from my mind right now either.

So...pregnancy. Since I haven't blogged since we found out, I wanted to document how it's been for us. It's been wildly different from the miscarriage last year, in a great way, yet I've been surprised how quickly complaints fall out of my mouth about the physical effects of pregnancy on my body even in the aftermath of the pain of infertility struggles. I have so many friends struggling with fertility and who would give anything to feel as sick as I did, so I try not to complain publicly at the very least, but Dave has definitely gotten earfuls about the seemingly endless vomiting, the peeing every 5 seconds, and the general fatigue that's making it difficult to function. As frustrating as these symptoms have been, though, I haven't stopped feeling overwhelmingly grateful and humbled for the opportunity to grow and eventually raise a healthy baby with Dave.

Last year when we saw the positive pregnancy test, I was filled with fear and trepidation immediately. I was afraid of a miscarriage happening, yes, but mostly I was overwhelmed by the idea of becoming a mom. I didn't feel ready at all to be raising a little one, and I didn't feel like I had worked through enough of my emotional stuff to not pass on some pretty intensely unhealthy patterns I had developed (Remember, I was finishing a master's program that had taken it upon itself to point out to me all of my flaws and weaknesses). I felt like I was doomed to fail as a parent and that I would inevitably raise a broken child who would struggle to succeed in life. Sounds a little dramatic, I know, but when I finally processed what the negative feelings surrounding the pregnancy were about, those were the fears that surfaced.

I don't know when that all shifted exactly, but over last year I've been able to work through the fears by honing in on who I really want to be, how I want to treat people, what's important to me and what's not, and learning how to truly unconditionally love and be loved. I feel like I'm in such a different place in my life than I was a year ago. I feel centered, strong, capable, kind, compassionate, empathetic, and loving. I feel like it's okay that I'll make mistakes parenting and I'll accidentally hurt my children sometimes--because I know how to say sorry, I know how to repair a relationship, and I know how to acknowledge that I'm not perfect and address it when I need to. Not that any of this is coming easily to me yet, but I have a really amazing husband encouraging me along the way and helping me recenter when I feel like I'm losing those pieces of myself. I've surrounded myself with friends who know what we call "Core Erin" and love her and support her when she chooses the harder right. And I feel like I've really got some amazing people who love me and want me to succeed. That brings a whole new level of confidence about this whole mothering thing I've never felt before.

So this time, when we saw the positive pregnancy test, I felt a little bit of fear that I might be miscarrying because I was spotting like last time, but as soon as we confirmed that things were normal and healthy, I didn't feel any more fear--just excitement and love for our little bean!! It's been entirely different this time around and I honestly can NOT wait to meet this little babe in December.  I wish it was December right now (and not just because I'd be one semester closer to graduating...)!! I never thought I'd be this unabashedly excited without the nerves when I was pregnant, but I really feel like, we can do this, and if it's too hard, we'll find help, and we'll survive.

Now, that's how I'm feeling emotionally. Logically, on the other hand, I definitely struggle when I think about the logistics of birthing a child and returning to school about a week later full swing with the hardest semester of my program yet. It's a little scary trying to predict how much my arms will be able to take of holding, nursing, bathing, rocking, and loving a baby, when right now just cutting out pictures for our Sunbeam lessons on Saturday nights have me icing my arms and wrists every Sunday...But we're trying to figure out carriers and find the lightest version of everything possible to help make the transition as easy as possible on my arms. And we know that during school we just might need some outside help because physically I may not be able to do it all. Also, it's always an option to delay a semester of my program, but I really would rather not do that if I can help it. Any delay of graduation makes it all the more likely that graduation will never happen, haha. I'm not the first, and I won't be the last MFT PhD student to have a baby during school, so I know it can be done, and I have some great friends helping me along the way already with it all.

So overall, I'm almost at week 16, the second trimester has been significantly better than the first, but I still have some random rough days, and I'm just getting more and more excited about meeting this little one!!

10, 14, and 15 weeks! And I LOVE maternity clothes already. :) 

In The Spirit Of Authenticity...

Guys, I have tried to start this post like a hundred times.  It's been 9 months since I last blogged and I feel like I'm a completely different Erin now than I was then.  I share relationship posts on Facebook at least 2x a week, but I'm sad that I haven't found the courage to really share my personal thoughts and feelings with everyone over the past 9 months.

It's been the hardest year of my life (#understatement) even though the pelvic pain has gotten miraculously better with the help of my new medicine.  It sort of feels like God gave me a reprieve from the chronic physical pain so I would have the energy and strength to tackle the emotional upheaval to come.  And tackle it I did, haha.

I really want to get on with blogging about the here and now and sharing what's happening in my life with you all, but it feels inauthentic because I really feel like before I do, I need to share the most vulnerable and painful experience of this last year.  It's changed me, and it's important to me that I don't pretend that it didn't.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

In February of this year, we found out we were pregnant.  I was immediately overwhelmed with mixed emotions.  I was excited and surprised, but also filled with a huge sense of foreboding and fear that I might miscarry, or even if I didn't miscarry that I might be in chronic pain again as I'd have to stop my medicine.  And it definitely didn't help that I didn't feel at all ready to be a mom!

We only knew I was pregnant for a couple of days before I went and had a blood test done to make sure everything was alright.  As I'm sure you can guess, everything was not alright.  My numbers were incredibly low--too low to really hope that this would be a viable pregnancy.  But we just watched and waited for almost 10 days because they were slowly rising.  Dave and I were on the biggest emotional roller coaster we'd ever been on (which is saying something after the last couple of years we've had) alternating between feeble hope that everything might be okay, and suffocating fear that I might be miscarrying.  Once the numbers seemed to plateau (still in a nonviable range), my doctor did an incredibly painful ultrasound to make sure it wasn't ectopic and finally ordered a D&C.  This all happened within the span of about two weeks, but felt like a lifetime for us.

After the D&C, it was impossible to ignore the intense feeling of loss and I didn't know what to do.  I wasn't that far along because I'd found out pretty early that I was pregnant, so I felt dumb feeling the grief so intensely.  Was this even considered a baby this early?  My best friend had just had a miscarriage a few weeks earlier and she'd been MUCH further along and I didn't want to add to her pain, so I didn't tell her.  I've hated myself ever since for not telling more people.  I needed support, but there was a strong feeling of, "It wasn't that big of a deal, you were only so many weeks along, and you don't want to make it uncomfortable for everyone around you."

So I pulled back.  I told my family, one of my professors, one other friend and then I shut off my emotions so I wouldn't burst into random tears throughout the day.  I completely lost all motivation to go to class, to be present when I actually made it to class, to be present with my clients, to emotionally engage in their pain, to attend choir rehearsals which I usually LOVE, etc.  It wasn't until about 2 weeks after the procedure that I fully let myself grieve the loss.  It was one of the most painful, yet bonding experiences Dave and I have ever had as a couple.  We had so many questions:  Was this considered a baby yet?  Will this baby be part of our family in the eternities?  Does this mean miscarriage is going to plague our childbearing years?  Was this because of the endometriosis?  Is it normal to feel this much pain and feel it so intensely about this? And there were so many feelings:  Sadness mixed with peace, relief mixed with guilt, fear mixed with love, anger mixed with hurt and confusion, and the list goes on.

I just sort of channeled my pain into really really working hard on my thesis so I could graduate in April and have a break as soon as possible.  It worked.  I got my thesis done, and it was a miracle, but I was broken.  I was so broken when I graduated.  I felt like a champion that day.  Like I had overcome so much and grown and changed as a person like I never believed I could, but I was hurting inside, and I was still healing.

When Mother's Day came around, I couldn't do it.  I really thought I'd be fine, but just an hour before I was supposed to run a choir practice, I fell apart--I couldn't stop sobbing.  I felt the loss so intensely--all day at church I was weepy and sad and confused about still feeling pain about this 3 months later.  Luckily Dave is super tuned in to my emotions and was able to just hold me and remind me that it's okay that I was still hurting and I didn't have to go to church if it was going to be too painful, and that there's no time limit on grief.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * 

It's been 6 months now since the miscarriage and I regret every day that I didn't tell more people when it was happening.  Even before I was pregnant, I was personally against waiting to tell people until your 2nd trimester because it doesn't make sense to me.  Don't we need support the most in the first trimester when we're vomiting all over ourselves and can't keep saltines down?  And don't we absolutely need support if we're in the process of losing a baby?  Anytime I've shared that I had a miscarriage since then, most women have responded with their own stories of miscarriage and how it was difficult for them too and how they understand the pain and grief.  It's SO comforting to not feel alone in this, so why did I keep it to myself for so long?

I said that this has changed me and I believe it has.  I think I'm exponentially more empathetic--meaning I understand better what it means to hold someone's pain with them and show them that they aren't alone in it.  I'm more sensitive to infertility and issues surrounding motherhood in a religious culture that celebrates motherhood.  I also took the time for myself to heal, which required some intense therapy and soul searching about how I want to be as a mother and how I can love fearlessly in this terrifying world.  I worked to surround myself with people I knew I could be vulnerable with because I trust that they love me and will support me.  I feel like I'm in a good place right now thanks to Dave, Heavenly Father, and other people who have loved me through this, as well as reading a WHOLE bunch of Brene Brown :).  But I still struggle to understand what exactly has kept me from telling my closest friends about the miscarriage until I felt like I could present it all tied up in a neat little bow through a blog post.  Any thoughts on what holds us back from being vulnerable with those we love even when we know they'll be there for us?

9/27/13: Oh hey, Winter...its okay, nobody likes Fall anyway...

Well, it seems that I've found the class I'm going to use to blog during every week--Research and Methods!  I just took the undergraduate version of this class 2 months ago and it seriously feels like I'm taking the exact same class again.  Same lectures, same expectations, and nothing much more complicated yet.

So, lucky for you, you'll get a blog every week probably this semester :)  Not-so-luckily for you, though, I don't have anything exciting to talk about (like I ever do...), but I'm bored so I'm going to write anyway.

This week in our lives a lot of things happened:

- This isn't really exclusive to our lives, but Provo has decided it's time to be winter.  It's literally about 40-50 degrees and cloudy/rainy every day and I'm loving it :)  (Of course, I have a garage to park in...)

- Emma got her mission call to Nashville, Tennessee, English Speaking, leaving January 15th!!  I have a very love/hate relationship with missions, so I'm extremely sad to see her go, but she's going to be an amazing missionary, I know it.

- We had everyone over for a back to school breakfast on Saturday morning.  It was great, and we are getting better at delegating so we don't get stuck paying for and cooking everything on our own.  Derrick and Rachel, Jim and Christi, Jeremy and Sierra, Annie and Russ, Emma, and Scott (Dave's brother) were all able to make with which was nothing short of a miracle.  It was nice to catch up and have a relaxing breakfast with everyone.

- We watched the BYU Utah game that night with Annie and Russ and we were pretty upset at how terrible it was.  Mostly because we stayed up so late for it and it ended up not being worth it.

- Choir started at a new time this week!  I just got called as the choir director for our ward and released as music chair (Is it bad that I'm happy about this?) and I decided to change the time from 4:15-5:15 pm to 9:00-10:00 am.  I know neither of these times are stellar, but I think 9:00 is more doable for the families with kids in our ward (i.e. EVERYONE).  So I made a bunch of calls the night before begging people to come, and so many people showed up!  We had like 25, which is about 5x as many people as normal.  Hopefully I didn't scare them away and they'll keep coming back.

Side note:  I just absolutely love conducting choirs.  It's exhilarating and feels transcendent for me sometimes.  Even though we're no Motab, something about hearing a choir who's really polished and beautiful express their testimony by believing the words they're singing really inspires me.  I love it!!

-We had Bailey and Travis over for dinner on Sunday evening.  Travis and I were best friends freshmen year, and Bailey waited for him on his mission so we've stayed in touch over the years as well.  It was nice to catch up with them, and I think I inspired Bailey to start applying for the MFT program.  (She's a Psych undergrad) It'd be so awesome if she got in and we could be in the program together next year!

-Wow..all that was just the weekend...

-During the week, I went to the doctor because I'm still in pain and he asked me to come in to kind of reevaluate things.  He did an ultrasound and we were finally able to very specifically figure out why I'm still in pain.  It turns out that it's my ovary.  It's not the muscles or tissues around it, it's not adhesions or scar tissue.  I just have a painful ovary.  The pain is continuous and spontaneous which is frustrating, but that happens with endometriosis sometimes.  We didn't see any endo on my ovary during the surgery, which we were happy about because of fertility, but it certainly seems like there is some microscopic endo on my left ovary right now causing me pain.  I'm already taking the right hormone meds that should shrink the existing endo so we just need to give it some more time to see if it will help in the next month or so.

I was just happy that when he touched my ovary he could reproduce my exact chronic pain.  No one's been able to figure out what exactly is causing it before now.  Now that we feel more confident about what we are specifically treating, both my doctor and I are more comfortable with pain management medicines in the meantime.  He gave me a new, slightly less effective (and therefore, less addicting) drug than hydrocodone to use when I need it.  (Tylenol and Ibuprofen don't help at all)  I used it this week, and the next day I was completely pain free!

This felt like a complete miracle because it's been so long that I haven't felt any pain at all...I had so much more energy and I was happier and completely able to be productive all day long with no nap!  I just use that medicine as needed right now, but I'm going to ask my doctor if maybe it would be a more effective way to treat the pain continuously since it was so effective after just one pill.  Wish me luck!

The pain's back today, so I'm pretty sad about that, but I know this is how it goes; Good days and bad days--I'm just grateful I'm starting to have some good ones :).

- I don't want people to think that I define myself by the pain, because I'm trying really hard not to.  I don't want to live as a sick person for the rest of my life.  But it is my reality right now, and I can't really change that.  I'm at the doctor's office almost weekly because I haven't given up trying to figure this all out and I'm really reallyyy hoping to be healthy by the time I start seeing clients (in a month or so).  For right now, we're hopeful about having a good day this week.  Hopefully it was a taste of good things to come.  We're definitely praying for it!

- Let's talk about Dave for once, yeah?  He is really really loving his internship.  He's getting paid, which is always nice, but mostly he just loves the research he's doing, and he really feels like this is what he wants to do with his life.  It's all about how to help online classes be as effective for students as personal tutoring is.  He's also made tons of time to get out and go fishing this week.  And today he's going fishing with my Dad for the second half of the day after work.  I think they're crazy because it's 48 degrees and rainy!!  But fishermen are a special kind of people, I guess.

In other news, on top of thinking I have diabetes, my cohort probably thinks Dave abuses me now because I showed up to class on Tuesday with a huge blue and purple gash on the side of my cheek by my eye.  It looks like a bruise, but it's just a bad burn from my curling iron.  Hopefully it heals soon because it's really hurting and I don't want a scar on my face!

Please excuse the selfie, and keep in mind
this is covered with makeup.

Also...I eat chocolate chip Eggo waffles and In-N-Out like nobody's business all of a sudden.  And I'm not even sorry about it.




So that was our week over here.  Nothing too exciting, but school is going great for both of us, and after a few major minor freak-outs about whether or not I'm cut out to be a therapist, I am more excited than ever to see clients and start practicing the skills we're learning in school.  And tomorrow my sister receives her endowments and I can't wait to be there with her for such a special experience :)

Happy days here at the Rackham household!

A Day of Phobias...

For those of you who might not know me well enough to be familiar with my quirks and idiosyncrasies, let me start off by informing you that I am a person of extreme reactions.  Not necessarily extreme emotions (though I'm sure I could make a case for that too), but mostly extreme reactions to things that happen to me.  I've already shared my phobia of needles due to my fainting a few years ago, but I've never mentioned how ridiculous I get when it comes to bees and wasps.

Don't be fooled by this happy little cartoon--I was just
too scared to look up images of real bees on google.  

I've never been stung, which I'm sure contributes to the irrational fear, but regardless, I have a really difficult time staying in close proximity to bees or wasps for more than about 10 seconds before having to choose between hyperventilating or running away.  This seriously embarrasses Dave on a weekly basis because it doesn't matter where we are--we could be attending a luncheon with the president at the white house for all I care--when a bee comes near me I release involuntary gasps and mini-screams, start swatting at the air, and jump up and down or run around in circles like I've lost my mind.

None of this really mattered, however, until I planted my own little garden in the front of our house.  We've had this dreadfully dead-looking planter full of dirt in the front since we moved in, and I'm always a little sad when I pull up to our house with absolutely no color except the green of the grass.  But this weekend my mom helped me plant some annuals just to have something in there until the snow starts to come again.  We picked some pretty shades of pinks and purples and I couldn't tell you the first thing about the kinds of flowers we chose except that the salvia pots were covered in bees when we bought them.

The dreaded salvia.

Now, I noticed this at the nursery and made a snarky comment about not really loving that about them, but the tall purple stalks of flowers seemed so perfect for a border in the back of the planter that I couldn't resist.  (Plus my grandma told me they'd be hard for me to kill, and let's be honest, I needed resilient plants.)

As we were planting the flowers, all was well, and actually for the first few hours all was well, but when I went out to water the plants that first evening, they were covered in bees!!  Of course, when I say covered I mean there were probably about 5 or 6 bees total in the garden.  But still...

I decided I would just be brave and hold the hose a safe, good distance above the garden so as not to get my hands close to the bees at all, and it worked pretty well.  At least it worked until Dave went out later in the evening, came back, and asked with a tone of mild accusation mixed with curiosity, "Um, why is there dirt all over the sidewalk around the planter out front...?"  I very casually walked outside with him acting mildly surprised, but upon seeing how much dirt had splashed onto the sidewalk realized that if I continued to water so high, it would do that every time and the beauty of the flowers would be overshadowed by the dirty/watery/muddy sidewalk.

I resolved to do better today, and after facing a pre-op appt. by myself complete with blood-drawing and absolutely no sign of fainting, I thought I could be brave enough to water the plants at a close distance today.  Unfortunately, my extreme reactions kicked in and I just couldn't do it. I ended up splashing probably more dirt and water onto the sidewalk than I did the first time because I freaked myself out by being so close to the bees!

I'm sort of stuck now.  I don't want my phobia to be the death of my beautiful new garden, but I'm so ridiculously terrified of these bees, what am I supposed to do?  Maybe I should invest in a beekeeper's outfit for when I need to water my flowers?

Thanks for the help Mom!!

 All things said:  I still absolutely love having flowers to come home to, and I have to admit that sometimes I just walk outside so I can look at them.  It really makes this house feel more like a home :)  Aren't they beautiful?

LOST Update...

Well, my last post left off with quite a cliffhanger about whether or not I was going to enjoy LOST.  So I'm here to report that I did enjoy it; but I only got about halfway through Season 1 before I started having nightmares.

I've had really horrific nightmares (maybe they're actually night terrors) for about 6 years now, but they got a lot better when I got married.  I stopped watching scary movies and TV shows, and I started sleeping cooler and they almost disappeared.  When I woke up screaming bloody murder at my family's vacation last week and almost gave Dave a heart-attack, however, I figured I needed to stop watching shows about freaky islands with evil things that kill people almost every episode.  So, unfortunately, I've had to leave Sawyer, Kate, and Jack behind for the moment and hope that someday in the future I'll be braver (or my subconscious will chill out) and pick them up where I left off.

The end.

On Rejection...

So, my application for BYU's Master's in Marriage and Family Therapy is due tomorrow and I am overwhelmed.  Don't get me wrong, I haven't procrastinated this one.  I have secured 4 excellent letters of recommendations from my favorite professors, I took the GRE more than a year ago, I started my letter of intent about 4 months ago, I've had about 6 drafts of it since then, and my bishop came over to our house last night to interview me for an ecclesiastical endorsement.  I am just struggling to put the finishing touches on my letter and click submit.

Maybe I'm just scared.  It's been a long time since I've done something with so much uncertainty. I really don't know if I even have a shot of being accepted to BYU's program as it's one of the best in the nation.  My GPA is less than stellar, while not horrific, and I am desperately hoping that they take into account that I am an English major and have taken difficult professors but have come out a better reader, writer, and critical thinker because of it.

I think it's just a difficult thing to come to terms with.  There may be a huge rejection at the end of this long road.  I may have to tell all 4 of my professors that I wasn't accepted.  I may have to face the fact that I am graduating with an English degree and no idea what to do with it.  I just might not be allowed to do the one thing I have been so incredibly inspired to do over the last few semesters--help people with their families and relationships.

The problem is, I'm emotionally attached to this.  For once, this isn't just about the degree, or doing something just to keep moving forward.  This is about feeling called to help people and feeling like I have been given a gift to develop and use.  This rejection will be much more to me than just the fact that my GPA wasn't satisfactory; it will feel like the rejection of my hope for my future right now.

Anyway, now that I've procrastinated, I think I better get to work on finishing that letter.  Pray for me please!!

The Fear of Mediocrity

You know those self-deprecating thoughts of "I won't ever be as good at this as so and so" or "I can succeed, but I just can't ever excel in this" or "Why is everyone else so much better than me"? If you don't, then I congratulate you and cannot relate.  I was talking to my sister today about feeling discouraged because she felt that no matter how hard she worked she would never be able to be "the best" at her specific field.  As I empathized with her I also unintentionally reflected on my own experience here at BYU and in life in general.

It all started when I was little. (Doesn't it always?) I was ahead of the kids in my classes with my shapes, reading, math problems, etc. from about preschool to third grade.  We just liked to read at my house a lot I think.  And the whole 3 kids older than me led to some self-induced learning competition as well.  This led to the idea that if I wasn't the best at something, it was not pertinent to my life.  No adult imposed this on me, by the way.  This was completely all my own faulty logic.

Then we moved to Southern California with its incredibly competitive schools.  All of a sudden I wasn't the best anymore.  Almost everyone in my classes was smarter, funnier, more clever, and more successful than me.  This paradigm shift in my life led to some (who am I kidding?  LOTS of) meltdowns and discovering through trial and error that it was okay if I wasn't the sharpest tool in the shed.  I could still be worth something even if I was just mediocre compared to my 5th or 8th grade class.

In high school, I always took the honors and AP classes, so I guess that's not considered mediocre, but I sure felt that way.  So much so that I hesitated to make comments in class because my essays never received A's, my comments never led to my teachers telling me they appreciated my input, I always felt that whatever I had to contribute everyone else had already thought about and dug a few levels deeper to come up with some brilliant comment.

When I got to BYU, I actually felt pretty successful at first.  My freshman year of English classes I felt like I could hold my own.  But as I progressed into the 300 and 400 level courses, my self-esteem began to plummet again.  It was like I was reliving my AP English class again.  Everyone had noteworthy comments except me.  Everyone could come to some earth-shattering meaning from the readings lightyears before me.  And everyone received A's with seemingly no effort.

The difference between my university experience and my high school experience is that I stuck with it.  I received so much satisfaction from my Literature classes that I wouldn't dream of dropping the major, but I really felt that I would never be able to measure up to my professors' or fellow students' brilliance.

Fortunately, I started to really get to work and met one on one with my professors to work on my writing and reading skills.  I developed some amazing relationships with these professors and my writing has skyrocketed.  I feel confident in my papers for once (rather than writing a shamefaced apology on a post-it note when I turn it in).  I receive A's or at least high B's on my papers.  And I feel like I can keep up with my professors and classmates when I actually read the novels before class (which is a struggle in and of itself).  I've never felt this way before and I just want to encourage my sister to keep with it.  3 years of not feeling "excellent" but pushing myself to become so has led to the greatest satisfaction I have ever felt from any English classes I've ever taken.  The way I read and think has completely changed and I have learned to value my own opinion as much as anyone else's.

Admittedly, sometimes I wonder why in the world I would want to put myself through a completely different discipline that I have NO experience with next year when I am finally feeling like I truly fit in with MY discipline and can compete.  But I'm just trusting that my new-found skills are transferrable to the social sciences...

I thought this only happened in movies...

So I realized why I don’t blog very much anymore.  It’s because I have someone to tell everything to.  After having told Dave my stories from the day, there’s little motivation to write them all out again…But since Dave is backpacking in the Grand Canyon this weekend with no cell service, I finally have a story that is just too good not to share.   And he’s not here to tell it to, so I’m finally going to blog.

So…Dave’s mom is a twin.  And my mom is a twin.  And they say that twins skip generations, so basically—we’re doomed.   I’ve never wanted to have twins.  And after this weekend, I feel validated in not necessarily wanting to struggle with double trouble as a new mom.

So there’s these two twins I have been babysitting lately who are 4 years old.  They’re adorable.  They love anything they can do with a ball—soccer, football, I just taught them volleyball, and handball.  But they also love to dance and perform (and scream).  You get the idea, right?  Incredibly high energy, loud, and constantly vying for my attention as I’m babysitting them.  These girls are also very sneaky, however.

You have to know before I write this that I am a pretty attentive babysitter.  I don’t typically turn on the tv for hours and let the kids watch until bedtime, I don’t fall asleep while the kids are still awake, I don’t forget to feed them, I don’t lose them.  And I have never had to call a mom while I was babysitting her kids to ask for help with something.  Everything yesterday was a first for me…

We were downstairs in the family room just having a good time playing with the camera on my phone.  They love to take pictures of themselves and me and flip through them over and over.  We were playing with the phone when one of the twins decided she needed a drink.  I went with her to the kitchen to grab her a glass of water while the other twin sneaked around the corner with my phone. About 5 minutes later I called out to her, “Where’d you go?”  And she came running back oh so innocently showing me all the pictures she had just taken of the stairs.  Looking back, I should have known something was up when she came running back so quickly, but at the time, I thought nothing of it. 

Everything went well for the rest of the night while we played at the park with our bikes, razors, balls, and Frisbees.  We ate dinner and they went down with just 2 bedtime stories and a half-asleep, “Will you come back tomorrow to play tea party with us?”  Once they were down, their mom called and told me I could go because their older son was going to be home to just keep an eye on the house until they arrived home. 

I was happy to have successfully put the girls to sleep and done everything with no mishaps when I walked right out the door to my car, my hand sifting through the contents of my purse for my keys the entire way down the driveway and across the street to my car.  When I got to my car I realized my keys were nowhere to be found.  I shamelessly knelt down and emptied the contents of my purse on the street searching desperately for my keys, but alas, they were not there.  I resourcefully flipped on my “flashlight” app on my phone to search through the windows of my car to see if I’d accidentally locked my keys in there.  But I couldn’t see them so I concluded I must’ve left them on a counter inside somewhere. 

When I went back to the house at 7:30 expecting to find my keys carelessly laid on the kitchen counter, I found a house completely void of my bright blue BYU lanyard attached to my keys.  At this point I started to realize one of the girls had probably taken and hidden them, so I retraced our steps for the day.  I searched the toys in the garage, the refrigerator, the lawn chairs outside, the dress up room, in between the cushions on the couches, the pantry, the dirty clothes, under the girl’s pillows and sheets in their bed; everywhere I thought possible.  I called their mom and asked about secret hiding places, I even splashed the girls with water and woke them up to ask if they knew where my keys were.  I turned that house upside down before my parents called wondering where I was around 8:30.   Luckily, I had a spare key at home in my backpack so my mom came to bring it to me hoping my keys would be locked in the car, but when she arrived, they weren’t there.  At this point I was terrified, remembering the time one of the girls went to the bathroom by herself while we waited for her outside in the garage.  I was convinced she had dug to the bottom of my purse, pulled them out, and flushed them down the toilet.  My mom even stuck her hand in there to check (thanks mom!).  We continued to search the house for another hour until at about 9:40, we ultimately gave up. 

I had decided I must have dropped them in the street and one of the neighbors had picked them up.  I texted the mom and told her I was leaving and hadn’t found them, asking her to check with her neighbors tomorrow.

So this morning, I woke up to a text at 8:30 telling me they had found my keys!!  One of the girls had hidden them in the library of the house.  Unbelievable!  We thought we had checked every possible place, but were still outsmarted by a 4 year-old.  I didn’t know that kids actually played tricks on their babysitters, but it looks like they do!  I think I should take it as a compliment—they hid my keys because they didn’t want me to be able to leave, right?  At least, that’s how I am going to look at it J

P.S.  Last time I babysat, they managed to flood the family room by plugging the bathroom sink, turning it on, and closing the door so I couldn’t hear the water.  Yeahh…This kind of thing happens in reality.  Who knew?

So Maybe I Have a Slight Phobia...

I don't really know what to write, but I feel like I have seriously failed lately in the blog department. I mean, I don't just feel like it...I definitely have failed. I just need a place to write down the plethora of random thoughts and memories swimming around in my head. So here I sit. Staring out at this little slice of heaven. A beautiful lake reflecting the sun setting on the green mountains of Coeur D'Alene, Idaho--compliments of Aunt Kendra and Uncle Michael's cabin :)

hmm...What did I blog about last? It looks like it was when I had just gotten home from school. Well, to be honest, not much has dramatically changed, but there was some excitement last week I want to make a record of.

I was at the urgent care because I had a slight sinus infection and needed some medicine to clear it up, and the doctor decided to give me a steroid shot. Now, if you know me, you know that shots and I do not agree...at all. I'm definitely a phobic. But I wasn't scared or anxious for this shot really. He gave it to me quick, I hardly felt it, and I let myself sit there for about 5 minutes just to make sure I was fine. I was patiently standing at the counter waiting to pay for my appointment and medicine, silently congratulating myself for not so much as tearing up during the shot, when the next thing I knew, I was having an out of body experience!! I heard a high pitched scream (somewhat similar to Harry Potter's experience with the dementors on the train in the third movie) and then saw someone lying sprawled on the floor choking. All of a sudden I was the one screaming and I was shouting at the nurses telling them I couldn't breathe.

Once I came to my senses and realized I was lying on the floor with someone clearly pounding a nail into my head with a giant hammer, I became quiet very quickly. I realized I must have blacked out and hit my head on something very hard (...something being the counter and the tile floor...)and the doctor was able to calm me down enough for me to listen to what had happened and be wheeled into the back room to lie down with ice on the back of my head.

Of course, this being an urgent care, they were extremely busy and there wasn't really an extra person around to tend to me so I was left in the room by myself for somewhere close to 15 minutes. I'm sure they all thought being alone in a quiet room would help me calm down and relax, but on the contrary, the isolation seemed to invoke an extreme panic attack. All of a sudden I was crying unstoppable tears about things I hadn't thought about in months. Lying there on that cold, stiff, bed with the ultimate brainfreeze from the icepack "pillow", I just wanted someone to hold my hand, my head to stop hurting, and my breathing to go back to normal. None of these things seemed likely, however, while I was left alone in the room with no one paying attention to me, thus the increased heart-rate, shallow breathing, and other symptoms of panic attacks.

Eventually, my mom made it to the office, and the doctor came in with a pink-frosted cake donut covered in sprinkles. Although I had no appetite whatsoever, this little attempt at kindness(...or raising my blood sugar...) helped miraculously. Within minutes, I felt much better and I was breathing normally again. We walked (very cautiously) to the car and made it home. Needless to say, I had a pretty uneventful weekend after that. Lots and lots of rest on the couch, painkillers, and tv.

I am almost back to 100% after my little fainting spell, just a little kink in my neck to be worked out, but overall, it is all just a laughable memory now (almost laughable, I have to admit my breathing is a little shallow just thinking about the shot and blacking out and everything...)

Well, I was going to write more of my random thoughts, but I decided this is enough for one post. Until next time!