Nothing but a Classic Ramble… November 30, 2006
Posted by Kymberli in Don't look at me; I just live here, Not the mama. Just the oven., Simple (mindless) pleasures, You can't scare me; I teach 8th grade.add a comment
~My student teacher and her husband are having a baby girl! They’re naming her Addyson, but have yet to determine a middle name. The u/s pics were absolutely precious! 
~Sam/Tony was kicking so hard last night that I could easily see it. My tummy has stretched so far up that by evening, my ribs hurt. I think he’s going to be a pretty big boy.
~Happy birthday, Ella-girl! I’m sorry that you have the cooties today on your first birthday, but don’t go getting any worse. The last thing we need is a replay of the end of you first month of life when you spent two weeks in the NICU with RSV. Get better, girlie! Be Ellzilla not because you’re sick, but because you’re just being Ella!
~Today was a waste of a perfectly good school day. This year we’ve had to contend with nutcase students writing bomb threats on the bathroom walls – BOMB TODAY AT 2:30 – which has made us teachers feel less like educators and more like security guards beacuse someone has to be stationed at each bathroom every minute of everyday. The poor shmuck on “potty patrol” has to have the students who enter sign in in a notebook, then the teacher has to check the entire bathroom, stalls and all, for messages written after the students leave. When a bomb threat is found, first the school goes on total lockdown. Once all students are out of the halls, we have to evacute into our “evacuation area” which is about 300 yards from the school. These evacuations take at least an hour, but usually 1.5 hrs because the bomb squad has to come out and throroughly check the school. Today, some kid beat the system by writing BOMB TODAY on a sticky note and throwing it in a bathroom on his way down the hall. We went outside around 10:30 and did not make it back inside until shortly before 2:00. We had just enough time to eat lunch and leave. Good fun, man, good fun. At least we teachers earned a jeans day out of it.
~My butt hurts.
~Long-time friend, godmother to the twins, and fellow teacher Leticia was lucky and missed out on today’s festivities because she took the day off to go to a doctor’s appointment with her husband, Terry. I left my cell phone in the van to charge today, and as I was leaving work I noticed that she had left a message for me. She called me just to tell me that finally after three days of constipation, she was able to take a much-wanted poop. Friends don’t hesitate to tell you stuff like that because they know you’ll appreciate it and rejoice with them. So cheers to Leticia! Happy dumping, girl!
~Frank and I are in the process of redecorating the girls’ room. For the past year and a half, Jordan has slept alone in Kyra’s room and the twins have slept in the boys’ room. It’s just been more convenient this way with the different sleeping needs of the twins and Jordan at different ages. Kaelyn has been in the room with us since birth. All of our kids started off in the crib in our room; we just felt more secure watching over them that way.
Well lately, little Miss Kaelyn has been playing us. For a while she was sleeping through the night, but following a really bad flu that kept her (and us) up all night about 6 weeks ago, she learned that if she screamed, chances were good that we’d get up and put her in our bed. Nice try, little girl. Can you say EVICTION NOTICE??? Frank and I moved Jordan into the other room with the twins and repainted the girls’ room. We moved in Kaelyn’s crib, and she got the boot Monday night.
For us, cold turkey cry it out (CIO) got the three older kids used to sleeping on their own within 3 days. Monday, Frank held Kaelyn until she fell asleep, then put her in the crib. He did it again Tuesday night, but she woke up before we made our exit. We went ahead and left, and she screamed for a good 20 minutes before settling down and falling asleep. Last night, I put her in her crib sleepy, but still awake. She screamed and tried to get up. I stood there and tried to soothe her for a few minutes, but after I saw that she went into “I’m playing Mommy” mode, I laid her down again, covered her up, then took off like a bat out of hell out of the room. I kid you not – by the time I got the light off and the door closed behind me, she was instantly quiet.
I think it’s safe to say that she’s fairly accustomed to being on her own at night now. However, it’s now come to our attention that she’s going to have to go through yet another change this weekend – she gets to graduate to a toddler bed. Her crib mattress is already at its lowest setting and Kaelyn is quite the midget to be 14 months old, so how she managed to climb out of her crib today is beyond me. Frank put her down for her nap around noon. Around 15 minutes later, he heard her SCREAMING with a panicked tone. He rushed in to see what was wrong, and she gripping the rails with all her might and her toes precariously perched on the edge of the mattress OUTSIDE the crib. I’m simply amazed because she seems too small even to be walking (she’s barely 18 lbs), much less climbing out of her crib! I think she has part goat genes.
~And just because I think this is hella funny:
Fragility November 29, 2006
Posted by Kymberli in Uncategorized.add a comment
Today has been somewhat of an emotionally “odd” day. I can’t quite describe what I’m feeling. I guess you could say that I’m in awe, but that connotes some astounded magnificence, which is really too “happy” for the emotion stirring within me. Perhaps “pensive melancholy” comes close, but my current emotional state is blended with some emotion that’s brighter than pure melancholy, but still dimmer than joy or happiness. Obviously I’m at somewhat of a loss for words with trying to describe how I feel; I’ll just explain today’s events and perhaps, dear readers, you’ll understand my reason for having such an ineffable emotion right now.
This semester I was given the honor of supervising a student teacher. She’s been with me since the school year started with the three days of pre-planning in late July before the students arrived. On her first day with me, she told me that she was at the end of her two-week wait of her second cycle on Clomid. She and her husband had suffered a miscarriage about a year before that attempt, and since then, her cycles were off making it nearly impossible to achieve a pregnancy. Coincidentally, she was also a patient of Dr. Blohm’s. So there she was, at the end of her 2ww and me, newly pregnant thanks to the reproductive expertise of Dr. Blohm. She found out that weekend that she was, in fact, pregnant, and I was so excited for her. Imagine some of the hormonal hell my students have gone through with having not one, but two pregnant teachers in the same classroom!
She and I are three weeks apart in pregnancy. We spend a good part of everyday discussing our pregnancies and our excitement about the different natures of our pregnancies. She looks to my pregnancy for things she can hope to experience in the coming month. Last night, Sam/Tony was having a party inside and was quite active, and I can’t wait to tell her al about it. Today she was not at work because she and her husband had THE ultrasound to determine if they’re expecting a baby girl or boy. I’ve been waiting on pins and needles to hear from her, and above all, I’m praying that this ultrasound revealed a healthy baby.
Tomorrow is Ella’s first birthday! When I think of everything Sarah and Paul had to go through to bring this little (or not so little) bundle of chubby-cheeked happiness into the world, it just makes me marvel over how so many pieces can fall together to create something so great. I just love little Ella so much, as well as the family who surrounds her and who I consider a part of my family. Happy birthday to ALL of you on your one year anniversary of becoming a family of four plus one angel who is always in our hearts.
Earlier today, Becky emailed to let me know that her mother’s best friend Marsha, who is like an aunt to Becky, finally lost her battle against a rather aggressive form of cancer. She was only diagnosed in late August and the initial diagnosis was grim; she was not even given until the end of the year to live. About three weeks ago, the cancer which grew in her lungs was found to have invaded her stomach and intestines; the cancers grew so fast that she bloated to the size of a woman 8 or 9 months pregnant. Her level of care was downgraded to “comfort measures.”
Though Aunt Marsha died today, the way in which she passed was nothing short of a miracle in and of itself. She was pronounced dead while not in the company of her husband or of Becky’s mom. The details are unclear because Becky was giving second-handed updates from her mom, but sometime after she passed away (perhaps 10-15 minutes later), Marsha regained a pulse. Her “coming back” allowed her the opportunity to say goodbye to her husband and to Becky’s mother, who had both made it there after she was pronounced the first time.
The heartbreaking thing (even more than the death itself), is that her 12-year old daughter Shelbi was not able to make it there at all, so she missed her mother’s final moments. Please keep this family, especially the daughter, and the extended family and friends, in your prayers through this holiday season which should be a joyous time, in your prayers.
Finally, a dear friend of mine found out today that she has made the first official step on a long, arduous, and heart-consuming journey. Out of respect for privacy, please forgive me for not being able to go into great detail at this time, but I’m sure that as more time passes, I will be able to fully disclose the circumstances. Writing about it will be somewhat therapeutic for me. Please pray for this undisclosed situation. I’ll just suffice it to say for now, that life literally hangs in the balance in this situation.
Life hangs in a precarious balance…feeling firmly secure and comfortably stable, most of us go through life not paying much attention to the simple fact that at any moment, one of the things we depend on can change and completely alter the course of or lives. We don’t often think of “those things” which could so suddenly pervade our lives and make us focus on and consider the delicate fragility of life.
Things happen – good, bad, or somewhere in the indefinite middle – everyday. Sometimes they happen to us. Sometimes they happen around us. Sometimes they make us wish we could freeze time so that we can avoid those life-altering changes altogether, and sometimes they make us want to accelerate life so that those changes can make us get through the mysteries of the unknowns and “what-if’s” even faster. But we know that’s impossible. The world keeps on turning, and like it or not, things keep on happening.
Things happened around me today. Something joyous, something tragic, and something somewhere between which speaks of hope but has a heartrending, terrifying undercurrent lurking somewhere beneath. Life is fragile; let those close to you know how much you love them. The world keeps on turning.
I Am Sam…Am I? November 20, 2006
Posted by Kymberli in Not the mama. Just the oven..add a comment
I am now 21 weeks old and I’m definitely starting to make my presence known inside of Kym’s belly. I make sure to get in my day’s dose of exercise by using Kym’s bladder as my personal trampoline, much to her chagrin. I’m starting to kick more and more and I know that Kym can feel me moving around, and I think I’ve heard her say a few times how she can feel me on the outside now. By the time I have my next prodding session (translate that to prenatal appointment), I know that Mom and Dad will be able to feel me as well, and I can’t wait for that.
We had my 21 week appointment today and Mom and Dad, along with Grandma Angie and Grandma Marilyn, got to see what I’ve been up to inside of Kym’s tummy. I’m sitting in a perfect frank breech presentation with my butt down low, head up high, and my legs sticking straight up and my feet right above my head. At times, I’d show off my budding athleticism by bending one leg or the other, but for the most part I was content just to keep my legs pike-straight.
Mom wanted Angie (the ultrasound tech, not my grandma) to take another peek between my legs to be sure that my willy didn’t somehow disappear. She’s been buying lots of blue and returning lots of pink since my last appointment, and thankfully, she was able to see that all private parts were still present and accounted for.
Dad played it cool like he usually does, but I wish that you could have seen his face light up when he saw me again. He has huge cheeks that seem permanently frozen into a bulging smile whenever I’m on screen. I hope that I get his cheeks so that I can smile like he does. Mom did her usual thing and stood behind Angie the Ultrasound Tech chattering away and asking a zillion questions. She did quite a bit of grinning herself, and if I’m not mistaken I’m sure that I saw her tear up a couple of times.
Grandma Angie and Grandma Marilyn were tickled to see all of my moving. I put on an extra special show for them and moved my fingers in and out of my mouth and even let out a huge yawn after I had worn myself out from all of my playing.
Most importantly, everything on me and in me has grown and developed just as it should. I’m healthy and even measuring two days ahead. Now my business is just to sit back, keep growing, and make my presence more known on the outside so that Mommy and Daddy can feel me moving by the time we get to our next appointment, which will be the week before Christmas.
Mommy and Daddy’s business is to figure out what to call me. As Kym told you all before, my name is definitely Samuel Anthony, but whether or not I’ll be called Sam or Tony has still yet to be decided. While we were waiting to see Dr. Edwards, Kym said that she tends to call me Sam when I’m behaving, but calls me Tony when I’m up to my usual bladder-butting, cervix-stomping mischief or when I’m giving her heartburn. Mom and Grandma Angie call me Tony. Dad thinks we should wait until I’m born to see which name suits me best, but he’s leaning towards Sam, which of course is what Grandma Marilyn calls me.
Whether I am Sam or I am Tony, one thing I do know is that I am loved.
