Insight

Tonight Sam picked up a section of train track that someone brought up from the basement.

Sam: Mom, this goes downstairs.

Mom: Okay, we'll put it away tomorrow.

Sam: But the basement is a mess.

Mom: Well, we'll just have to clean it up.

Sam: Do girls like to put things away?

Mom: Uh, about as much as boys do.

Sam: Well, you like to put things away.

Sam informs me on a daily basis that girls like things that are pretty, and boys like things that are cool and awesome. The other day we saw a huge rainbow from the back of our house. I told him we should get Dad to come and see the pretty rainbow, and he said no, it's not a pretty rainbow, it's a cool rainbow. I'm with him pretty much all the time. Where does he pick this stuff up?

We had 5 kids (at one point 7) at our house all afternoon. All of our guests had the same last name, but it was two different, unrelated families (whose dads have the same first name too). We had a lot of fun, but I'm exhausted. I also made 2 batches of banana muffins, and they're almost gone. Mike's friend came over and helped him fix our sad, leaky shower. The faucet was 30 years old and just wouldn't shut off all the way anymore. I wonder how many gallons of water that wasted.

Will thinks he's a big boy now, hanging out with the 3 year olds. Another little boy was napping, otherwise I'm sure he would have been in on it too. I really like hot wheels.

Love This Kid!

Pioneer Day

Other than not feeling awesome, Pioneer Day was the first holiday in months that something terrible didn't happen. After four holidays in a row of catastrophe, you start to get a complex. We got together with the Paul Perrins for some tasty dinner and fireworks.

Luke and Sam in their matching shorts throwing snaps. Poppers? The little white things that make noise when you throw them.
Sparklers!! Sam was either making really fast circles, or spelling his name.
Brownies and milk on the porch. We were lighting fireworks by the street, and when I turned around to see where Liam was, he was sitting by himself on the porch with a brownie in each hand. I wish Will would do that.
It wasn't dark, but it was still fun. It was more important to get the kids to bed at a reasonable time than to wait for three hours until dark. Some neighbor kids came and watched too. They seemed pretty impressed.

Mike and I saw Batman earlier in the day. 9:15 in the morning, actually. We went with another couple in our ward. Rodrigo is a movie nut. His basement looks like a movie theater. He used to produce movies back in the Philippines, and he LOVES movies. I thought it was good, but too dark and violent. At least a lot of it was implied violence rather than a lot of gore. Well, I guess there was plenty of gore. But I think CSI is worse. Michael Caine is the perfect Alfred. And I love Morgan Freeman in it too.

New Pool!

We had a fun little impromptu pool party. We finally inflated the pool (it took forever since we don't have an electric pump), and Sam was so excited that he just shed his clothes. Will was soaked in 1.2 seconds, so we just left him in his clothes. It's like our own private toddler water park. Slide, spraying water, basketball, ring toss. Nothing's too good for my kids.

We didn't realized we needed to tie the slide down before filling it.

Quite possibly the best face in the history of earth. It doesn't really even look like him. But I like it. A lot.

Camp

Will was such a trooper at camp. Being with 25 females for 2 full days can be pretty overwhelming for any guy. He got the little red mark on his forehead right after we got to the cabin. One of the girls was holding him, and his head somehow met up with her braces at a high velocity.

He looks cute and innocent. Full of mischief is a little more accurate.

So, if I splash I might get wet? I don't want to get wet! I just want to splash!

Cousins!

This is Liam and Will, second cousins. Together they are William. That was not planned. They're about 2 1/2 months apart, and you'd swear they're in cahoots. Liam decided to have a milk intolerance, so Will did to. Will, however, one-upped him and kicked in a soy intolerance for good measure. Liam is short for his age. Will is short for his age. Liam is (or at least was) skinny for his age. Will is skinny for his age. Liam has had a couple of hospital visits. Will has had a couple of hospital visits. It like no matter what Liam does, Will does it too. And so far it hasn't necessarily been very pleasant. But look how cute they are!

5 of the 7.5 Clayton cousins. I really like Will's face in this picture.
Sam loves to play with Ben and Cory. They jumped off the little wall over and over. I couldn't get any pictures of them holding still.

Mike and our niece Alta. She feels right at home with Mike. Convenient, the whole identical twin thing.

Uncle Nels

Mike's great-uncle turned 90 a couple of weeks ago, so we made him some birthday cookies and went to visit him and Katie. They're so nice to let us come and invade their house. Katie is so cute with Sam, she always plays with him. She's very patient. They live just up the road from us, so we should really visit more often. Uncle Nels is a pretty amazing guy. It's always fun to listen to his stories.
They're in our stake, and their ward building is having some work done (HVAC stuff I think), so their ward is now meeting in our building. Our church time was bumped up to 8:00 AM, the next ward meets at 11:30, and Uncle Nels & Katie's ward is at 3:00 PM! Getting out of church at 6:00 sounds a lot harder than being there at 8:00 in the morning. Not that 8:00 isn't challenging. But better than 3-6.

2nd trip to Bear Lake

We had to make a second trip to Bear Lake to get our stuff after our little incident with Will (detailed here). We met up with one of Mike's buddies from high school and his cute family. They have twin boys (2-1/2) and a little girl (14 months). They're 18 months apart. That kind of seems like having triplets. We went to Minnetonka cave, where we had to wait for an hour and a half for our tour to start. Will was really good the whole time we were waiting.
2 minutes into the tour he started screaming, so that was it for us. I went back to the cabin with Will, and Mike & Sam caught a ride back with the Brunsons.

Sam and his goofy faces. He absolutely refused to wear the sweatshirt until the tour was half over. I believe it's 40 degrees in there.

Hanging out with his new friends.

The morning we left we saw two deer right next to the cabin.

It was actually a really fun mini-vacation. In true pregnancy style, I threw up in the car on the way home. I threw up twice in the car the previous ride home. I threw up again the last time I was in the car on the way home from BL. Since it was girls' camp I threw up in a non-family car. At least I had a bag. Still gross. I think I'm going to stop going to Bear Lake if I throw up every time we go home. Hmm...maybe my body is trying to tell me something. I need longer vacations.

Tag

Tagged By Kimbur:

Two names you go by : Mom and Becky Lou Freebush
Two longest car rides: The only places we go are Bear Lake and St George. Bear Lake is plenty long for us, especially with kids.
Two of your favorite things to do: For the next six months it will be eating and sleeping.
Two things you want very badly at the moment: To go to bed, and a clean house.
Two animals you have or have had: Mike and I had a beta fish for a few years. It died on Mother's Day.
Two things you ate today: Grilled kabobs with top sirloin steak in a yummy marinade and BBQ chicken with onions, peppers, and asparagus. And the most juicy, delicious nectarine from Sunflower Farmer's Market. I'm in love with that place.
Two people you last talked to: Mike and Sam, and we were just with Paul and Steph.
Two things you're doing tomorrow: Cleaning my house, kiddie pooling with the boys.
Two favorite holidays: Anything where we don't have some major catastrophe.
Two favorite beverages: Barq's Root Beer (in a glass with ice and no straw), and water.

Tag: Tami, just do it.

Slacker

I haven't been posting pictures lately because my computer crashed while I was at girls' camp, and I just got it back. I haven't hooked it up yet, and I didn't want to have to transfer all my pictures twice. Yes, I'm that lazy.

Sam just finished up baseball tonight, which is kind of sad. He loved it. He got a certificate and trophy, and of course the neon yellow shirt. He will only wear the shirt while at baseball. He'll only put it on once we're there, and then he insists on taking it off when it's over. It will probably never be worn again. He starts soccer in August. Then we'll have two shirts he'll never wear. I think he'll love it though. Running and kicking happen to be two of his favorite things. Well, jumping is probably his most favorite...do they have track & field events for toddlers?

I've received a couple of these in the mail, a letter explaining the use of their prayer rug, and a paper prayer rug that, if used, will bring many blessings. I don't post this to make fun, nor to endorse their church, so I've left off the name. I'm just confused. They provide a list of things for which you can pray. First column, fourth one up from the bottom.

It just doesn't seem to fit with the others. And I don't think I would ever pray for it.

Man, I could really go for a Taco Bell crunchy taco right now. Good news! We have a new Subway fairly close to our house!

Little Peanut at 12 weeks

Two inches long and counting. The baby measures about a week or so after my original due date, but they're keeping Feb. 5th for now. Who knows, maybe Peanut will come on my birthday. We won't find out for about 6 more weeks if it's a boy or a girl, but I think it's pretty cool that I already have a picture!

News! And Success!

And now, the moment you've all been waiting for! As you may have suspected by now, yes...we're expecting! Baby #3 is due this winter, just before my birthday. That's why I've been sick lately. I'm almost out of my first trimester though, so I think I'll start feeling better soon. I've only made dinner a few times this last month or so because I can't stand the thought of cooking when I can hardly keep anything down anyway. Poor Mike has suffered. Tomorrow I'm making a new recipe that I'm pretty excited about, Marlboro Man's Favorite Sandwich. I'll be posting it on my recipe blog this week.

Except for throwing up in the car on the way home, girls' camp was great! I wasn't sure how it would go since I took Will with me, I didn't know if I would be sick or not, and we have so many different personality types among the girls in our ward. Will was really good, I felt great (until Parley's Canyon), and the girls really came together and had a great time. I only had to tell one girl to stop texting the whole time. They weren't supposed to bring their cell phones, but I thought they would all be pocket texting constantly. I was so proud of them! We even had one girl come that was baptized years ago, but has never really been active. She just moved in recently, and she's never come to our ward, but she got invited to come to camp, and she came! I couldn't believe it because I would be way too chicken to spend two and a half days with 25 people I didn't know. She was so fabulous, such a ray of sunshine! She's a really good kid too, really trying hard to do what's right--just because it's the right thing to do. We stopped at the temple to do baptisms on the way up to Bear Lake, and we both stayed in the waiting room (since Will doesn't have a recommend), and we had such a delightful conversation. So fun.

Oh, and we kept calling it camp, but we stayed at my in-law's cabin. Best camping I've ever done.

I haven't felt like blogging lately because of being sick, so I have a lot of catching up to do. Mike's at a movie right now with his brothers, so I'm watching Pride & Prejudice. My all-time favorite. It has to be the A&E version though. The others are okay, but nothing comes close to 6 hours of my favorite book. I don't think I can even count how many times I've seen it. Probably not as many times as Thomas the Tank Engine, but more than any other adult movie. I just never get tired of it.

Part II

I have to be really fast because I haven't packed for girls' camp yet, and I have to be out the door at 6:00 AM. We had visitors tonight just as we were getting dinner. Thank goodness it wasn't those subscription solicitors. Instead it was the ex and family. Their boys are the same ages as Sam and Will, so they played while we had a nice conversation. I wasn't sure how that would go, but it was actually quite pleasant. His wife is really nice, and they even brought us cookies. It was a lot less awkward than I thought it would be, which is a relief. I didn't go in to this situation with a great attitude, but I've been putting forth an effort since yesterday to improve my attitude, and it actually started to change pretty fast. Good thing too, I was pretty surprised when they showed up tonight. Their little boy is now the only other boy in the ward that's Sam's age, so I have a feeling we'll probably see more of them. It will be interesting to see what happens, but I think it will be fine. Now Will and I can go to girls' camp tomorrow.

The Encounter

I hadn't been to church in several weeks because of Will and all the illness going around our house. I finally made it to Sacrament Meeting last week. Hooray, I thought, Life is starting to get back to normal. The first announcement was new membership records. The ex and family. Hmmm, that's interesting. It didn't end great, so I knew it was going to be awkward. I was picturing things at church...introducing him to Mike, meeting his wife, etc. So I was standing in the cereal aisle at Smith's and someone walked up behind me.
Ex: Becky?
Me: Oh...hi.
(Handshake)
Ex: Wow, it's been a long time.
Me: Yup.
(I had Will with me)
Ex: So, this is your son? Well...obviously...
Me: Yeah, one of them.
Ex: I have two boys...
Me: I know.
Ex: (Looking very confused) How do you know?
Me: Because we're in the same ward now.
Ex: (Now looking shocked) We are?
Me: Yeah, I live down the street from you.
Ex: You do?
Me: Yeah.
This is really where the conversation ended. I can't hide emotion on my face, and since I hadn't been feeling great, and I was still in my lawn-mowing clothes, and I was taken completely off-guard, I think I had a fairly unpleasant look on my face. I ended by saying something like, "Well, it's good to see you..." He said see ya, and then he walked away. Well that didn't go as planned.

Breathe

It's probably going to take several posts to fully update from the last couple of weeks. Here's a short recap, so the next time I'm posting I won't forget any of the fun.

• Another trip to the ER
• Two trips to Bear Lake (about a day and a half total)
• I've been sick
• Will's been sick
• Sam got stung by a wasp
• The ex moved in down the street and is now in my ward.
• More doctor visits and tests for Will

It sure felt like a lot more was going on, but probably because it all happened pretty much at the same time. I'm ready for boring. When does boring happen?

(July 23, 2008) I'm just going to update this post because this all happened so long ago. We decided to go up to Bear Lake for the 4th of July. We got up there Wednesday night, pretty much in time to put the kids to bed. We woke up early the next morning (because Will doesn't sleep as well when he's not in his bed). We had breakfast, watched some kid show, and then I told Mike we should go on a walk. We were getting ready to go, and since I'm so fast I was playing with Will on the bed. He was laughing and crawling away from me. He tripped over his hands or something, and ended up faceplanting into the pillow. Mind you, he was on his hands and knees, so it was about 6 inches. I don't know if it just scared him, or if he strained his neck or what, but I picked him up right away and he started to cry. I could tell he was starting a breath-holding spell, so I started blowing in his face to snap him out of it. [Breath holding is a reflex that about 5% of kids have when scared or in pain. Some kids just do it when they're really upset] He didn't start breathing, and then his eyes started rolling. Mike was right there at this point, so I handed him over (Mind you, we don't know what's going on right now because this has never happened before). Mike thought he might have been choking, so he was sweeping his mouth and hitting his back. Will was going limp and was unresponsive, and we started to panic. Bad. He came to after about a minute, so we put the kids in the car and drove straight to the Bear Lake Clinic. We were trying to leave Bear Lake West and a couple of old people were stopped on the road in their vehicles chatting. In all the years we've been there, this was the ONLY time we've ever seen people block the road. Mike stuck his head out the window and yelled at them to get out of the road. They looked at him kind of funny, and then resumed their conversation. He yelled again that we had to get our baby to the doctor, and then they finally moved. Seemed like an eternity. I know they didn't know, but Mike never yells unless something is really wrong. We sped to the clinic and went straight back to see a doctor (with a lot of stares from people in the waiting room). They said they didn't know what had happened, but one possibility was that his heart stopped, causing him to lose consciousness and stop breathing, and that we should have an EKG. They could call an ambulance for us, but it would drop us off in Evanston or Logan. He recommended going to Primary Children's ER to have them check him out. Mike went back to the cabin to grab a couple of things, but we left pretty much everything there. I threw up in the car as we were leaving the parking lot, and then again about half way down to Salt Lake. I felt awful, but I also felt compelled to look back and check on Will every minute while he was awake, and every few minutes while he was asleep. It took us 2 hours to get to Primary Children's. Mike's dad met us there to take Sam, and we stayed for several hours. After a CT scan, an EKG, and waiting forever, they finally determined that he just passed out from a breath holding spell. That was it. We were scared out of our minds. The most terrifying thing a parent can experience is when something happens to your child and it's out of your control. And it was just breath-holding. Will is turning out to be one expensive child. Holidays are CANCELED.

We went to a follow-up appointment with Will's pediatrician and I mentioned that Will wasn't a very good eater anymore. He sent me up to Primary's (again) to have his blood drawn to make sure he wasn't anemic (and yay! he wasn't!!), and he also told me to take him to a pediatric GI specialist to make sure he doesn't have some kind of stomach issue (like reflux or a blockage). It's common that a stomach problem is the cause of a good eater turning into a bad eater. Since I made the appointment, Will's appetite has actually improved, and he's been putting on a little weight.

We went back to Bear Lake the week after the initial trip to get our stuff. We ended up having a nice mini vacation and hanging out with one of Mike's high school buddies and his family.

We were enjoying a nice, quiet evening on the deck one Sunday just before Sam went to bed. Sam jumped onto one of the deck chairs and was immediately surrounded by a swarm of wasps (or was it hornets? I can never tell). Mike jumped up as fast as he could, grabbed Sam (who was now screaming in pain), and we all ran inside before they came after us. Poor little Sam got stung on his foot. Thank goodness for Web MD. We fixed up his sting (amazingly he only got one), and he went right to bed. There was a wasp nest on the underneath side of the chair, and Sam jumped right on top of it. There was also one behind the chair on the wall. We also had three inside our grill, and two on the front porch. The ants have been bad this year too. I think we need one of those bug barriers. It's been so bad this year, not sure why. One of the nests in the grill is back. We're firing it up tomorrow...wasp roast!

Boys are Pirates

Sam frequently reminds us that boys are pirates and girls are princesses. This is not something we've taught him, but he's adamant. His cousin Osie LOVES to be a princess, which is probably why Sam is so firm in his opinion. Osie is, after all, a girl. We were at my mom's house a couple of weeks ago, and they have some really fun toys. When you shake the little pirate sword it makes a noise.Sam just said to me, "I don't like to be a princess, not at all. Boys don't like to be princesses, only girls do...huh?" You know all that nature vs. nurture stuff? Garbage. Sam has never ever been interested in dolls, pink, or anything else that might be remotely related to girls. He's been exposed to it a lot, but he just doesn't want anything to do with it. He loves pirates, trains, trucks, cars, gross noises, throwing stuff, bugs, and most other typical boy stuff. He's all boy. Will, thus far, is the same as his brother. I realize that boys can like girl stuff and vice versa, but I think kids just like what they like. It's not because we trained him to like boy stuff, he just prefers it. The feminists are wrong.

*Mike wanted me to add that his very, very liberal brother (who used to buy into nature vs. nurture) is now a firm believer that girls like girly stuff and boys like boy stuff. Just because it's how they are. I have one niece that likes to be a princess and a pirate, but all the other girls in the family are very girly. All the boys are very boyish. Just like men and women. Not the same.

Silly Boy

I was in the kitchen, and when I turned around I saw Sam sitting on the couch under the cooler completely enclosed in his blankie. It took me a second, but then I realized he had taken my phone and was playing Brick Breaker, his favorite game. Every time he won a level he would poke his head out and yell, "Mom, I won!" He would wait for me to congratulate him before re-burying himself and continue playing.

Conversation

I made frosting for some brownies. It went something like this:

Mom: Sam, did you share with Will?

Sam: No.

Mom: Oh, really?


I'm a little suspicious.

Onion Ball

Will's favorite game: pick up whatever he can get his hands on, and throw it all around the house! My onion was an unfortunate casualty. Usually he does this with a ball or some kind of toy, but when I'm making dinner and leave the cupboard open, everything is fair game. He always goes for the onions.

Binoculars

In between all the sickness, or maybe it was before it all started, Sam and I made binoculars! We took them on a walk so he could explore with them, but he put them in the stroller basket and promptly forgot about them. He really likes them though. His favorite part was putting train and truck stickers all over them.