All the things I needed to throw out...

This is gonna be down and dirty blogging. I have about ten things on my list of things I want to get written down, but I’m running out of time to get life at the Fashbaugh house ready for Declan. Today is my due date! I know I’m not having a baby today, so I’m running around frantically doing all the things that I’ve been procrastinating on. My interpretation of Murphy’s Law has been to put everything off, thinking that if I wasn’t ready, the baby would come.

Murphy’s got nothing on God’s timing, I guess!

So! I’ve packed a bag for the hospital for Jonathan, Declan and I, and I still need to pack a bag o’ fun for the boys in case they need to spend time at the hospital with us. But I’m on my last load of laundry, which hasn’t happened in…well, I really don’t know. It’s not all folded, but that’s on my list for this afternoon! And now all that remains is a few hundred other things I want to get done before Dex gets here.

My appointment is tomorrow morning and I’m going to try to talk her into not making me wait another week. My sleep deprivation and the toll it’s taking on my sanity with my children is getting ridiculous. One of the things on my list of things to write about is a note to myself: DON’T HAVE ANY MORE BABIES! Yes, they’re adorable and enrich your life to no end. But the beginning and end of pregnancy are no longer worth it. Adopt any future children in order to save your sanity!

- Gavi has the most annoying cry in the universe all of a sudden. He sticks out his tongue, curls it, then screams through it. It’s a gutteral, horrific sound that makes the birds around us quit chirping in fear.
- Caleb will now put his face in the water as long as he has his goggles on, which he calls “globbles.”
- Gavi uses any toy he has in the pool to be a shark. He’ll do the Jaws theme song notes followed by an announcement of his favorite animal ~ ‘duh nuh, duh nuh, duh nuh SHARK!” It never fails to reduce me to giggles.
- Speaking of sharks, we listen to the Jaws theme song a couple dozen times a day, which is why my boys are familiar with it. But Caleb has started to mix it in with his other stories, and this is what we come up with: “God TOLD Jaws not to eat us, so we were not afraid.” (Shades of Daniel and the Lion’s den, his current favorite story!)
- Gavi’s vocab is also growing hugely. His big thing is “sorry.” I hear, “Saw-wee, Mommy,” at least twenty times a day. And every one of those times is because he’s doing something naughty! He’ll come apologize to me as soon as he hits his brother, knocks my water cup onto the floor, or throws his dinner from the table. I’m glad he’s apologetic, but I can’t wait until we’re down to four or five apologies a day!
- Declan gets the hiccups in utero at least once a day. My other boys never did, so it just cracks me up! Something fun and different with every baby!
- To get the boys ready for the arrival of their new little brother, we’ve been spending some quality time in the Fashbaugh.com archives. I read through the birth stories, then shared the pictures with them. We looked at Caleb when he was first born, then Caleb and Gavi when he was born. It was fun ~ Caleb totally gets it, and even though Gavi gives my tummy kisses and can say the “Deckun” is in there, I’m not sure what he’ll do when the tummy baby becomes a real-world baby. We’re working on it, though!
- We went to the zoo for Jonny’s birthday a couple weeks ago, and little Gavers fell within ten minutes of our arrival. He tumbled over one of those little curbs they have around the plants and whatnot, then rolled down a little hill. We didn’t really think it was that bad until he lifted his face. His cheek was completely skinned, and there was a little chunk taken out of the corner of his nose. He screamed for about thirty seconds, then said “Down?” What a brave boy! I tried to keep the blood wiped out of his face, but we got some little looky-loos that made me feel like I wasn’t doing a good job.
- Car rides with Caleb are generally best described as torturous. Not because he’s rotten, but because he can talk from the second the car starts until we unfasten his seatbelt at our final destination. Since I most often make the trip to Loveland to visit my fam, that’s a whole heap of jabber. (I really DO wonder who he takes after!) So a while back, I said that we were going to have our drive be a quiet time since our Gavi needed to take a nap. He made it about ten minutes, then asked me about what was on the other side of the mountains. I said, “Shh, baby, you’re supposed to be being quiet.” He thought a second, then responded: “I NEVER be quiet. That’s the TRUTH OF ME!” (I had to call Jonathan on that one!)
- I had my latest baby appointment a week ago, and got all kinds of excited when I was dilated to four and seventy percent effaced. Of course, I assumed that meant I was going to have that baby. Until Terra reminded me that I was dilated to five and 100% effaced with Gavi for more than a week before they finally induced because of the Bell’s Palsy. That’s actually what triggered me to go back and read the birth stories. It was frustrating to feel like things were never going to happen, but at least I quit worrying about leaving my house! And here we are a week later. No dice.
- We decided that Gavi is SO much cuter with his shorty haircut than he was with curls. It’s sad, because I was the holdout on the haircut. I just thought he was so beautiful with his blonde head of curls. But now I feel like a big dope because he’s adorable with less hair – and it’s a lot easier to take care of.
- We’ve been keeping REALLY busy this week. We got to go meet Terra’s new Jackson on Monday in Colorado Springs, followed by the pool. Then Tuesday, we had the morning at the spray place at Great Plains park followed by time with my friend Tasha and her monkeys. Followed by the pool. Wednesday, we got together with Miss Evelyn, followed by the pool, followed by an evening with Uncle Chris and Auntie Sisa. This morning has been dominated with me trying to get things ready ~ after a DISASTROUS time finger painting! ~ and will consist of an afternoon at the pool. (Sensing a theme? The pool isn’t even all about the cool, it’s mostly about getting the weight of my ginormous tummy off my back!)

Okay, that’s ENOUGH! Sheesh! I need to go fold all that laundry I got washed!

More randomness...

I found more of my “wanna blog” moments listed in another notebook, so these aren't in order with my last post, but I need to get them out because some of them are just too perfect not to remember later in life! I will again throw out that this is the only scrapbook I have of my children’s lives, so it’s kind of important to write a FEW things down!

I mentioned two posts ago that Caleb was going to the dentist for the first time, but I never got around to posting how it went! It was GREAT! First of all, he acted like a big boy, and second of all, he has NO cavities! There are two teeth, top right and bottom left molars, that we thought were rotting out, but the dentist said they’d always been like that – it’s something called “hypocalcification,” and the teeth never formed correctly. It was something that happened before they even grew in. There are a lot of theories – maybe I had an infection or took ibuprofen while he was in utero – but the bottom line is that we just have to take super-close care of them, but then when his adult teeth grow in, they should be normal.

It was a real relief for me, since my little man does NOT eat too much sugar, plus I’ve been kind of a juice nazi. His pediatrician said not to even brush his teeth until he turned three, so I was prepared to go on a rampage over those cavities. You know, the now non-existent ones? However, the dentist did recommend that we take care of Gavi’s teeth starting now, so we’re not going to wait for HIS third b-day to roll around!

Gavi didn’t do well with the pool at the beginning of the summer. Have you ever just made a sweeping generalization because you were scared? I mentally despaired that my entire summer was ruined because Gavi was scared of the water. I’m not kidding. I was depressed for DAYS thinking about getting through this lousy pregnancy without the benefit of a swimming pool. Then after about a week of trying it every other day, he got comfortable. Now we spend as much time in there as possible. We’re all brown little beans even though I coat them obsessively with sunscreen. (Myself, not so much! I like the brown, but I started using the sunscreen once I hit a certain color level.)

The boys have swimsuits with the lifejacket built into the chest, and it has made my life SO much more comfortable. Caleb is actually safe on his own with a noodle – within reaching distance, anyway! I switch them to regular swimsuits every so often because the full length ones are such a hassle to get in and out of and I don't want them to rely on them too much, but they make me feel safer when it’s just me with the two of them. I’m actually starting to wonder what I’m going to do at the pool when my Dex comes. Anybody out there with three or more kids have a solution?

They are OBSESSED with sharks. I believe I mentioned that before. I’m not sure I mentioned that we listen to the theme song for Jaws multiple times a day, or that Gavi now sings those few notes when he’s in the pool with his toy dolphin that we all call his shark. It cracks me up! And Caleb will narrate everything he’s doing as if he IS a shark – “now I’m the angry shark. Now I’m the NICE shark. Now I’m the nice, angry shark snuggling his little brother.”

We had a trip to the fire station with MOPS last month! It was such a joy, although Gavers was just a little too little. Caleb, being three, seemed a perfect age. I had to be a little proud of him when the paramedic invited questions and his was the only one that had anything to do with her job – every other little kid their just recounted their owies or their daddy’s owies. (Which was adorable in itself, but I was still impressed with Caleb’s focus!) Gavi just wanted to play with their weight sets, stuffed Dalmatian and basketballs.

One night, nearly a month ago, we had seen Chris and Alisa every day for a week. Rather than getting tired of them, it made a day without them seem really long. So Caleb says to me as dinner was fast approaching, “When will Auntie Sisa be here?” I said, “Sweetie, Auntie Sisa might not be coming over tonight since she has some things to do at her own house.”

He thought for a moment, then said, “Let’s pray for Auntie Sisa to come over tonight.” I figured that the prayers of a cute kid avail much, so I prayed with him. And I’ll be DARNED if she didn’t come over half an hour later! Which only empowered him to ask God other things: like when he asked me when HE would be the boss, and I said that he could be the boss when HE was the daddy. “When I will be the daddy?” I replied that only God knew.

“Let’s ASK God when I’ll be the Daddy!” I love the faith of a child!

Did I mention before that Gavi “finds” mice these days? He just scoots down to the ground, picks up something imaginary and says, “Mouse?” It is adorable! For a while, he was finding ants, too, but that got a little weird when Daddy told him that he should EAT the ant, and when he pretended to do so, I saw that he ACTUALLY had an ANT! Grr. So we don’t eat imaginary pests anymore.

But it doesn’t stop him from finding them!

Okay, I’m going to post this now since I’ve been writing on it for almost a week now. I have other things to write about, but I’m concerned that I’m going to have a six mile post and then lose it or something…

I can admit when I'm wrong...

Just heard Gavi count to five unsolicited. He had the one in there. So I guess the nursery workers were right - he's brilliant...

July is here! As are my excuses for being a slacker!

Another five weeks went by, and while I tried to make notes about the things I wanted to remember to blog about, I’m totally overwhelmed by the sheer amount of time that’s passed! So buckle in for another stream of consciousness from the Queen of the Ramble!

First of all, my sweet Gram Ruth went to be with Jesus this past week. I went and spent a couple hours with her on Tuesday, but she had already slipped into a coma, and passed on the next evening. Still, I was glad I got to spend a little bit of time with her ~ I got to grieve with her while she was still breathing so that when she was actually gone, I could just rejoice over her current circumstances! It made for a much nicer funeral!

And then, sliding back a few weeks, VBS ROCKED! I was the preschool director, which basically just made me kind of a shepherd who watched the clock and made sure all my little angels changed stations when they needed to. I took a lot of pics, then realized that it might not be prudent to post other people’s children’s images on my website. So if you look at the most recent pics, you’ll see my banyan trees and boats that I was so proud of. Decorating was probably the most stressful thing!

We had between forty and fifty preschoolers every day – and between 120 and 130 total kids every day. Just in the preschool, I had more than thirty volunteers! It was an amazing time, and couldn’t have been more appropriate for my own little preschooler – FEAR NOT! Even Gavi still does the little chant, and he just knows it from Caleb! It’s really precious.

It also made me feel like a real part of our church, and that was really important to me. As MANY of you know, I consider myself socially inept, or at least shy to the n-th degree, and even though I’ve been at Hope for more than a year, I only knew a dozen couples ~ and them mostly because I work in the nursery! So this was good for Caleb, good for Gavi to finally spend some quality time away from Mommy, and good for me all at once. AND, we had a lot of neighborhood kids bring their parents to church on Sunday for the wrap up. God planted some real seeds in a bunch of those kids! (Caleb was one of them!)

By the way, the only reason I’m able to write this right now is because I’m being a PERMISSIVE parent and letting my children play in the ash pit from our barbecue in the backyard. I generally don’t let them because it’s so ridiculously messy, but I REALLY wanted to get a blog entry done before another month passed! So I’m typing just as fast as I can before we have to hit the bathtub once again today! (I'm reading a book about parenting styles, and while I try to be in the "authoritative" category eighty percent of the time, I spend about ten percent in the permissive and ten percent in the authoritarian category. This is my ten percent for the day.)

Next up: RAPTORS! What’s the connection? None except it’s the next thing I thought of! At this motorcycle place near my parents’ house, there’s a velociraptor statue from Jurassic Park. It’s very cool, and Caleb asked about it last month. Actually, he asked about the “robber,” and it took me a while to process what he meant. Then he asked me, “What does raptor mean?” Being the Chricton fan I am, I explained that raptor means “bird of prey.”

He thought about it for a minute, then asked, “Does that mean he thanks Jesus before he eats his chicken?” Holy smokes did I get a chuckle out of that!

Gavi is light years farther than he was last month as far as language is concerned. If I could estimate his vocabulary, I’d have to say it’s close to two hundred words. Actually, they admired him at the nursery at church this past week for counting to five. I asked if he remembered the one, and they admitted he didn’t. That doesn’t count for me! But it’s making it a little easier on me when he’s able to communicate what he wants – I feel like his meltdowns are happening less frequently. On the other hand, for the last week, he’s been teething or SOMETHING, and gets a good many spankings and time outs every single day. Mostly for being violent still – he hits Caleb or myself by about eight o’clock every morning still. We’re still really working on that!

But his growing up a little has made my life SIGNIFICANTLY better, because he and Caleb are becoming a LITTLE more independent of me. It always drives me bonkers when Jonathan is home and they don’t need to be with either of us. Just having another person around cuts the invisible tether they have to me. (Which is why I adore playdates!) But it’s like that at my parent’s house, too! They’ll just play peaceably with their blocks and their trucks and take no notice of me other than a quick cuddle every so often. Now, I’m starting to see the same thing in my own home.

Just as there is light at the end of the tunnel, we’re three weeks away from Declan’s arrival and I get to start all over again! Maybe these two big boys will continue this trend of playing together so that I don’t have to worry so much about them while I’m dealing with the new baby. Fingers crossed, prayers said! Gavi points to my tummy and say, "Baby!" Then I ask him what the baby's name is and he goes, "Deckun!"

OH! And Caleb is learning buckets of bible verses! He has one per week during the summer, and gets a prize at church for saying it for his teachers! He’s on his fifth verse, and remembers all the previous ones, along with their reference! I think Gavi will learn some of them just by hearing them so often, too! When I say, “Caleb, what is your Bible verse this week?” Gavi pipes in, “LOVE!” which is the first word of the verse from two weeks ago. And I can confidently say that it’s good for me, too! Sometimes it’s AWESOME having kids!

Okay, it’s awesome ALL the time!

My mom also had knee replacement surgery last month, the Fashbaugh grandparents were out for a week, my dad decided to retire in November, and my brother-in-law golfed his best game ever – under eighty. Just so you don’t think I only care about my kids.

Okay, I’ll pause for now and try to get more out before Dex is born. After all, we’ve got Jon’s thirtieth b-day this week! I’ll need to get that talked about!