Halloween

Dear Georgia, thanks for the elephant candy. The elephants didn't eat it. I did.

Scary Witch

I think this is her scary face

In our family you don't get dressed up for Halloween until you are old enough to appreciate it. Same with Christmas, when you are 0-1 years old you don't need any presents well, maybe 1 present, don't worry lil babies, mommy will share her new pots/pans with you.

A Chorus of Factory Girls

I have told you before that Hazel and CC do chores around our home. One thing I haven't mentioned is that we call the chores "Working in moms factory" And that the girls beg to work in my factory. (How long will that last?)

Here are some of the favorite chores they can do, I give them a spray bottle with soap in it and tell them to scrub and clean all the chairs and the table, or spray all the fingerprints in doorways, vacuum, sweep, clean all the doorknobs, pick up, put away, wash not very dirty pots or unload parts of the dishwasher. I try to give them good rewards for these, cheer them on and show them where else to clean.

The last thing I say before I cut them loose is, "after you are done I will come check your work." Oh man, it gives me at least a good 20 mins on my own. Blissful.

So working in my factory is different than making your bed or cleaning your room, those are personal chores, factory work improves the family. With personal chores, I just ask it to be done and you don't come out until it's finished. When I was a kid, it took me hours to clean or do one chore. Now I tell the girls, "just get in, do it and you can go play." My mom used to say it to me and I never figured it out either.

I ask Hazel and CC to clean their own room. Sometimes it takes them all day, they dillydally around in there for hours, coming out to go to the bathroom and tell me they are hungry, I usually send bowls of snacks in to the natives and let them continue with their non-existent cleaning. Those are the days that I see great and imaginative things coming out of their minds. In the end, I push and push and they get it cleaned up in no time flat, but it took them all day to get there.

Big Room Shake-Up

 A few weekends ago my sister Leah came to visit. She has 7 children and a wonderful husband named Jay (He and his family changed my life for the good, I should tell you about it some day). Over food preparation she confessed, "Jay is talking big room shake-up and frankly it has got me feeling a little anxious." It was said in a whispered voice, like it was something illicit, jay is talking one more hoist or one last big score, but room changing, how bad could it be?

It got me thinking about how we could get more space. N8 and I got all excited about our own "room shake-up"

This weekend we did the great room shake up and we are all exhausted. Disassemble and reassemble 3 cribs and a bunk bed, assemble shelves for toys, move all toys (what they have left after we sorted through them, my kids don't really play with toys they just step on them) move clothes and 'babyphernalia' around. So the triplets switched rooms with Hazel and CC and the toys moved to the extra room. Hopefully, this will help Hazel and CC keep their room a little more clean and we do feel more organized having sifted through so many papers, clothes, toys, 'babyphernalia' and so forth.

Friday is a Special Day

I am sure my own mother will have a great laugh about this.

I have been told that I am a mean mommy. I say "No" too much, I don't remember (as Hazel says, re-ember) everything like I should and I yell at them. I am not even the fun parent anymore. It is a sad day when Nathan has become the fun parent in this house. He doesn't even like tickling, and he springs from a father that is often so dry (but pleasant) that his own children started counting on one hand, how many jokes he makes a year. (I think last year there was only one and it came in late November. We are still looking forward this years joke...) So you can see I take it very personally that I am not a fun mom. Can't we both be fun? I am working on it. I told some wicked good stories tonight for bedtime, had them eating out of my hand and I think I regained my story telling crown.

Sometimes you don't know how hard are a time you are having until you get out of it. Maybe that is just me. I have to optimistic in the moment or it will crush me. I close my eyes and grit my teeth because that is all I know how to do and then once I am out of it, I look back and think, "Man that was really tough, how did I do that?"

I think this is why it is important for me to get out of the house. To do something different. I was sitting in the grocery store parking lot on Friday thinking, "Man, that is really tough back there at home." I just sat there for a while, with no one needing me or wanting me. And then it started to bug me. If I feel this way now, I better hurry home so N8 doesn't have to feel that way for too long. N8 must be more stress hardy than me, very few things ever get to him. I believe he is okay with all my Friday run- around- town- meanderings. He knows I need to get out, and he does a great job while I am gone.

Friday is a little special to me. I run around to all the stores and do all the errands that I can't do during the week because if I don't, I have to drag 5 children, 3 that don't walk and 2 that can only spin me in circles somewhere to get something. It is like trying to walk through drying cement or water, or run on sand. Library books, pick up dry cleaning, groceries, go to the Temple, other odds and ends, CC needs new Sunday shoes etc.. On Friday I can run around for a few hours and get it all out of my system.

I have a friend who's husband doesn't really let her get away. He feels like home is where a woman should be. In theory it sounds right. But I argue that a gal needs the release of getting out, change of pace and all that. 

N8 tells me I need a hobby, something to do to blow off steam. That is like him telling me to get a hobby while the wind and rain are blowing so hard I can't look up, my umbrella is flipped inside out and I am fighting to hang onto it and my hat. Get a hobby? I can't even think about that right now.

I suppose that is why I started writing. I feel a release of tension to be able to tell my thoughts to who knows who, thanks for reading by the way. As I write, I think about my old English teachers and friend Joe Richardson. I don't want to know what they think of this, they could pick it apart from stem to stern, but I do enjoy writing it!

Prevent Illness

I have always heard of the importance of being careful with Superglue. I always have been. But this weekend as I was gluing the jewel back into Hazels ring, I forgot. Somehow my mothers words, "be careful you don't superglue your fingers", didn't come into my head as they should have, my head was buzzing around with a little girl that doesn't hold still, bebopping around me while I was trying to hold very still and super glue her ring.

I got myself so good with the superglue that N8 had to pull my fingers apart. Ouch. There has been good that has come from the dilemma of superglued fingers. Here is my dilemmonade. I feel that with super glue stuck on my fingertips, I am unable to retain the moisture in the tips of my fingers needed to keep germs alive, therefore I believe I carry and harbor no germs. If I do pick up germs, it is neither comfortable nor pleasant to scratch mucus membranes near tender-tissued eyes or nose, thereby preventing my own inoculation. 

I also have the darnedest time feeling my fingers as I write, and using the touch pad on computer. I do have however, excellently exfoliated skin, as the broken glue on my fingers serves well to expel unwanted skin.

Drivers

Looks safe enough, my James Bond driver

Last night, deep in conversation N8 and I both confessed that we would like to be limo drivers. Well, N8 would just like to be someones driver, oh correction he would like to be a body guard/driver.That is different, James Bond... 
I have space issues so I'd rather drive a limo.
Sorry mom, I know you raised me to be more than that, but here we are two old marrieds, aspiring to drive rich people around. Oh and Dad, I haven't crashed the limo not even close yet.

Dove Conditioner

I just have to say the Dove Conditioner for people with frizzy hair, is all that.  Soft hair, mmmm. Why didn't I find this sooner? I have wasted money on the salon stuff for too long.

Tips I Don't Want To Forget

Our bottle station. We buy formula from Sams Club, it doesn't froth up like Costco and Similac do. Less bubbles and gas. On a different note, I can tell you how many baby wipes it will take me to clean a messy bottom based on the brand. Pampers, 3 wipes they are a little thin and soggy, Huggies are too thick and sometime dry so they are less aerodynamic but it would take me 2 wipes and more time. Costco has the best wipes, easiest to pull out, quickest to wipe with, not too soapy, not too dry, good smell, it will take me 2 wipes -one to clean the big mess and one for fine tuning.

We froze all of our food flat for better storage space, in this case grated zucchini for soups and breads, chili and cut up cooked chicken.

We made extra meals while I was pregnant and listed them on the side of the freezer with a dry erase marker

We always bathe babies in a blanket or towel so they stay warm and we wash their hair last so they don't lose heat through their head

I read once that if you paint the ceiling of your porch blue, you will have less bugs. For nine bucks and a little labor it was worth the effort. It totally works, no spiderwebs or tiny fly build up out there.

Celiac Sprue

I have celiac disease. I have wanted to post on this for while but I don't want it to come off as lists of don't. Let me tell you what celiac means:

I don't eat white flour, wheat flour, barley, rye or oats. All of these (except oats) have a protein called gluten. Gluten is in just about everything. Besides pasta, breads, crackers and cakes it is found in random things like some soy and BBQ sauces, dips, salad dressings and seasonings. Some people with celiac disease cheat. They will eat something like a donut or fried chicken if they can't resist it, but I would move heaven and earth not to eat it ever. I feed gluten to my family, that is how I get sabotaged.

 These are things that have sabotaged me in the past. My strawberry has picked up bread crumbs off the counter when I put it down and picked it up again, kisses from gluten crumbed little mouths, sharing drinks with gluten crumbed little mouths, glutinous crumbs in the peanut butter or mayo (now I have my own jars, they say Moms GF). Often oats are grown next to wheat and harvested in tandem. Gluten can be transferred to the oats. I sometimes eat oats, but I am always scared and never truly enjoy it due to worry. However, a celiac does struggle to get enough fiber in their diet so I do use oats for variety.

Gluten has secret names, sometimes it's an ingredient in modified food starch, malt, caramel coloring and a few others. Sometimes, flour is used in the process of dry roasting nuts and it's not listed on the label. I just knew 'cuz I felt crummy all week. I think the gluten protein was in the blood transfusions that saved my life after I had the babies.

French fries used to be a major vice for me, but since they are fried in the same fryers as breaded onion rings and nuggets, no thanks.

What I can eat, I do! Lots and lots of Mexican and Thai food. (Corn tortillas and rice noodles). My breads or cookies consist of exciting flours like millet flour, coconut flour, rice flour, amaranth flour, tapioca or potato starches and my personal favorite sorghum. Some of them are really nutritious, some are super light or too heavy, some have lots of fiber, most don't and some don't taste so good. I usually use a variety of flours maybe 3 or 4 mixed together to make something I find tasty, the right texture and nutritious. I also have to add Xantham Gum, this ingredient allows the flours to stick together like gluten does.

Here is what happens when I eat gluten. My stomach starts to rumble and I have a tummy ache for a few days. I would probably cheat if that was all that happened. When I eat gluten, and it wipes out the villi in my intestines, I can't adsorb any nutrients til they grow back (no matter how healthy I eat). That is crummy because it puts me at heavy risk for osteoporosis and colon cancer. Regrowing them can take from a few weeks to a few months depending on the damage. During that time, I also can't eat any dairy. Villi take part in digesting dairy so while I am sick, dairy is out. Here is the reason I never cheat. After the tummy aches, I have anxiety and depression for about 2-4 weeks. I think that the mental, emotional challenges that come after eating gluten are so much more difficult than my tummy sickness. There is static inside my head, I don't think clearly, everyone is standing too close, everyone is talking too loud, I hurt like a 90 year old lady, real smiles are hard to come by, things that should be nothing, are a big deal. Right before I think this is never going to end- I am going to check myself in, the clouds part and I am laughing all day, thrilled to be me and ready for the world.

I would like to tell you about some of the helps I am learning in dealing with anxiety and depression. I have started writing the post but it hasn't all come together yet. Stand by...