Saturday Snapshots (10/30)

Deep conversations.

“Zach, do I really want to go to Heaven when I die?”

“Well, duh, everyone wants to go to Heaven.”

“Why?”

“Because God is in Heaven, and Jesus. And good people. Good people want to go to Heaven.”

“But I’m not always good.”

“Do you want to be good?"

(silence for a minute or two)

“No, sometimes it’s boring.”

“It’s not boring. Boring is being grounded to your room.”

(another moment or two of silence)

“Yeah, that’s boring. I guess I want to be good and go to Heaven then.”

(conversation from October 22, 2010 on the ride from school, picture from September 22, 2010)

Jedi or Sith?

“Bella, are you a Jedi?” (me)

“No Mommy, Bella’s on the dark side. She can’t be a Jedi.” (Ryan)

“Oh Bella, are you a Sith then?” (me)

*NO! I no dark side* (Bella is thinking)

“Sorry Bella, you have to, cause I’m the Jedi.” (Ryan)

*Mommy! Ryan I not dark side! I be Jedi too!* (Bella is thinking)

(pictures from October 15, 2010)

Well my blog readers

I’m going to miss you all.

For those that don’t know I’m going to be out of town for about the next two weeks. I leave in a few hours to go on to my grandmother’s, and in the morning we leave for Phoenix. It’s a three day drive from here to there, and once we get there we have to go to my cousin’s graduation and then help her pack and get her stuff loaded to bring her home.

I love to travel… but not with kids, so this will be a rare treat. Before having kids I often went on trips with my grandmother since we have a lot of the same interests and hobbies, and I’ve really missed that. It’ll be a little difficult for me since my grandmother is no fan of smoking, and I won’t be able to smoke in the rental car, but she’ll forgive my first day or two of testiness while my body gets used to a lower nicotine supply. Who knows, maybe it’ll make me finally end up quitting altogether.

I’m undoubtedly going to miss my brats like crazy. I already miss them and right now they’re only ten minutes away at my mom’s. I don’t even want to think about how it will be without John for that long a period of time. We haven’t been separated for any real length of time in the past seven and a half years we’ve been together. As some of my older readers know I have gone out of town for a week before without the kiddos, but never have I spent more than a day or two apart from John. I think that will be harder on me than the reduction of nicotine.

I’m really really missing the Belly right now. It hurts inside of me to know I’ll be away from her so long. When I was out of town for a week last year she was so little she wouldn’t really notice. And I’m sure for her, even now at a year and a half, she won’t notice too much, but she does have a hard time being away from me, and I from her.

I’m going to set up a few blog posts to run automatically during my absence. They won’t be an every day thing, more of an every other or every three days type. Just depends on how many I can get done.

I’ll be back sometime around the 4th or 5th, and should see you all again sometime around then!

Saturday Snapshots (10/23)

Report Cards and Conferences

Ryan’s Report Card:

Ryan’s Parent/Teacher Conference:
Ryan’s conference went really well! I was much more worried about his than Zach’s since Ryan had been getting into so much trouble at school, but his teachers said they’ve seen a real improvement in his behavior. They said he seems to be working very hard at remembering and following the rules of the classroom now, and that he’s turning into one of their better behaved students. He’s one of their quickest to pick up on what they’re going over, and he seems to really enjoy learning.

Zach’s Report Card:

Zach’s Parent/Teacher Conference:
Of course Zach’s conference went well, lol, it always does. His teacher says he’s a joy to teach. He pays attention when she’s going over things, and she said his level of concentration on his work is just astounding. She said he works so hard to do everything so perfectly and precisely that he does have to be prodded to hurry at times, but that she’d rather have a student so committed to learning than 5 students who just want to finish their work on time. She said he was the last person to finish his first 9 weeks reading unit test, but he was the only person to not only make an A, but he was her first student in three years to make a 100 on it. (You wouldn’t believe my huge proud mommy moment I had then. lol) She said he’s a very slow reader, but again, not because he has difficulties but because he wants to work out the words as perfectly as possible in his head before saying them aloud, and he’s generally working on two or three words at a time.

Sometimes I hate you.

Sometimes I hate you, body.

You’ve decided to have rheumatoid arthritis at the age of 23. Really, this is pretty unfair to me, who wants to enjoy my youth. Taking my medicines everyday has become a habit I’d rather have not ever had. True, it does help me remember to take my birth control everyday on time since I moved it to the same time as the Celebrex, which I will not forget to take, but I still hate it.

As I always do when it comes time to have to get a refill of the Celebrex I started wondering if I actually need it. Since I have to take it everyday, and take it at as close to the same time everyday, I don’t get to experience my body often without it. I mean, how do I know I still need it? Before recently these flairs of intense pain were very sporadic and not frequent. It could be I just had an unusually long flair and it has since passed, but since I take the medicine everyday I wouldn’t realize it. I mean, I just feel so good and normal. No pain, no helpless feeling of not wanting to do anything because my body is screaming in protest at the simplest tasks, even eating during those flairs seems like too much of a chore. And body, you need the food. Especially after you lost 15 pounds you couldn’t spare before we finally broke down and went to the doctor about the pain.

I let my refill lapse.

Not permanently, and not purposely. The doctor is kind enough to give me about 3 weeks worth of free samples since he knows we just can’t afford a running prescription. But the doctor was gone yesterday when I called, and he’s still gone today. Which means I didn’t take my medicine last night. Which means today the pain is back. The stiffness. The feeling like I can do nothing because just barely moving, even to type, hurts.

I do need this medicine. That’s a fact I just should stop questioning. I don’t want to stop questioning it though. I want you body to self-correct. To realize you are a 23 year old body, you should not feel so old. Now we get to be in the waiting game. Waiting for the doctor’s office to call you back about your medicine. Waiting the 1-2 days it’s going to take for the medicine to take full effect.

Waiting.

Sometimes body, I really, I do mean really, hate you.