+ Most important: She shared a verse I dearly needed to hear this morning. My daily, inward renewal needs some work, but I know God will give it to me if I seek Him.

+ I.Love.Spring. Our lilac is in bloom, the crab apple tree next door is in stunningly gorgeous full bloom, violets are everywhere. It's all wonderful and amazing. I spent some time doing garden prep work outside yesterday morning while the kids soaked up sunshine too. The warm sun, green grass, and blue sky, are all so healing and soothing.

+ Summer is gradually weaning and going through some major sleep changes at the same time (I think we're in the middle of a hot mess of Teething, Weaning, And A Growth Spurt). Life is just a weeee bit exhausting right now, but we are heading the right direction.... it may take two hours to get her to go to sleep these days, but she's also sleeping longer stretches at night.

+ In the next 15 days we have: three therapy sessions, a midwife appointment for me, a singing at my parents' house, an afternoon spent helping Mark's parents with a project, my EKG, a paperwork meeting with First Steps, a stress test for me, and my sister-in-law's wedding (in which Keegan and Summer are ring bearer and flower girl). I had to laugh when I realized that the stress test is scheduled two days before the wedding... now that's what you call ironic.

+ Cool Note: This classical radio station is my all time favorite. They are based in Colorado Springs (I found out about them when we lived there) and completely independent (no NPR breaks and no tax money!). Right now they're having their spring fund drive and I sent them a small contribution, plus a note about where I lived and how much I loved their station. I sent the note via e-mail, so it included my signature line... a quote from A. W. Tozer about the timelessness and power of God. The station manager wrote me back, and part of her e-mail was this: "I adored your quotation about the infinite presence of God. You and I must share very similar ideas about the infinitude of God’s goodness; His omnipotent wisdom; and omnipresence. " ~ beautiful.

+ Big battles with the children right now: keeping Keegan from teasing his sister in physically rough ways that he knows are mean (pushing, hitting). keeping Summer from grabbing all of Keegan's toys and making a mad dash through the house with them. Their little quarrels drive me crazy, but they also adore each other. If Summer hurts herself, Keegan finds a toy for her instantly and brings it to her, saying her name in a gentle fashion the whole time. "oh, mummeee, oh, mummeee," as he gives her a toy. If Summer hasn't seen him for a while, she gets excited and hugs him as soon as he's back in her presence. These are the feelings that will win ot in the end... just, whew. These days, they are challenging.

+ It would help if they would sleep in a teeny, tiny bit, but they apparently think that idea is as lame as New Coke.

+ today's agenda: cleaning living room, cleaning kitchen, maybe clearing out some junk in the room I'm using as an eBay room at present.

Our dishwasher was the culprit behind the massive leaks... I guess I can't complain too much, considering the thing looked like it had been chugging along for at least three decades. We picked out a new model yesterday, one that looks gorgeously wonderful to me. Mark was hoping to get it installed today before work, but that wasn't feasible. We've been dishwasherless for over a week now and I KNOW that's what many people do daily, but I struggle with it under normal situations. Pregnant + two littles + a kitchen sink set up that keeps me effectively isolated from what the kids are doing means I'm really struggling with it right now.

Speaking of the children, they don't believe in sleeping in at all, and that's getting a bit rough. Today I am sitting here under waves of exhauuuuusssstttiooooon, wondering a) how I'm going to make it to their bedtime without being grouchy and b) how I'm going to manage to do anything productive. I just want to curl up and sleep. And then eat something for supper, and sleep a bit more.

Cool thing: Moe's sent me a coupon for a free entree with the purchase of a drink. I decided to take the kids there for supper before Bible study last night; I'd buy a kids' meal for them to split (they tend to be light eaters when we're out, unless it's a chinese buffet) and my drink, and it would be a fun splurge for not a lot of money. Got there and found out that Wednesdays are their Kids Eat Free days, so our total came to under $3. Sweeeeeeet! I think Mark now wants to go there for lunch next Wednesday, as he loves Moe's just as much as I do, so we'll make up for what we saved yesterday... heh.

I made black bean sloppy joes and an attempt at baked sweet potato chips today... yum, and both the kids ate a considerable amount of it too. I drizzled too much butter on the sweet potatoes and didn't cut them quite thin enough (in the future I'll use the processor to my kitchen aid, but I am tryiiiing to conserve dishes right now) so they weren't all that crispy, but were still delish. Keegan called them pancakes, which is fine by me. If he wants to think something tasting of sweet potatoes and rosemary is pancakes, far be it from me to shatter that illusion.

Hm. Keegan has just had three meltdowns in ten minutes and Summer is lolling about on the floor on her back ~ maybe I should try and put them down for a second nap? then they won't go to bed 'til later, but that's been par for the course the last two nights anyway (which is WHY I WANT THEM TO SLEEP IN, for pete's sake).

Keegan's numbers were good enough that we are holding off on another blood draw for a month. w00t! He used to get two pills a day, but now he's getting 1.5. It's a small reduction, but still a nice one.

I think it's a slower ramp down on his dosage than the doctor was expecting, but I'm not surprised (being Keegan's mommy and all). He had two draws at this new dosage... one looked a little high, but the second one looked perfect. After a month we'll see if it's been climbing the whole time or still keeping stable at the new dose. If it is, I suspect we'll be dropping down to one pill a day and doing draws pretty close to each other again.

SO glad we have a month reprieve! I told K what we were getting ready to do when we left for the hospital this last time. He got a very somber look on his face, held out his arm, and said, "arm?" in suuuuuch a sad voice. Then when we got to the hospital and had to go back to the registration desk again before getting the draw, he sat there and said, "bye? bye? bye?" half a dozen times, crying when I said no.

His "bye" means: "Can we get outta here, mom?"

His "bye ouf" means: "Can we get outta here, mom, and go home?" He says that if we've been visiting for a while at the church building and he's hungry. Ouf=house.

He says shoes ("oosh"), but his speech therapist has yet to hear it... the picture she's got of shoes look remarkably like a pair that Keegan's Uncle Will has. Anytime he sees that picture he goes, "Wiiiiillllllll" (imagine Wee-lllll said with a southern drawl, and you've got Keegan's version). We are getting speech therapy weekly and his therapist is impressed with his vocabulary and with, as she put it, "you can get him to say anything you want!" Summer has also had a mini-language explosion the last few weeks and I know that will help Keegan in the long run too.

(and considering this week's weather, there's a double meaning to this post ;)

Earlier this year we had some water issues that were a relatively quick and cheap (under $150) fix... over the last couple of weeks, though, we've had a host of new ones... there's a major leak going on somewhere, and it has meant water under our living room carpet (under the couch. briliant. :P), under the hallway carpet, under our bathroom floor (squish). We are paying for one of the nicer warranty services through our home insurance, so we're going to call them tomorrow and hope there's a solution that way. Mark thought he knew what was causing it, but now he's not sure, and we don't want to dig further on our own before checking with insurance. Headache. :P

In the midst of talking about the Family Marsh, my midwife called. She's ordering a full thyroid panel blood draw for me *and* a set of EKGs.... becauuuuuse I've had two episodes of heart palpitations followed immediately by a quick blackout in this pregnancy. The palpitations are nothing new for me, but the blacking out is... and the midwife said she wouldn't be concerned if it were just palpitations or just a quick blackout, but the two together indicates not enough oxygen and she wants to follow up on that. It's been WEEKS since the last episode but I agree that we'd probably rather be safe than sorry on this one. Adding to that feeling is the remembrance of me telling Mark weeks ago, before this midwife appointment, that I felt a lot more winded this pregnancy and I wasn't sure why. So. More headache. I'm not that stressed about it all (again, it's been weeks since I had a problem) but it's going to add a lot more running around to our already slightly hectic schedule. Keegan is back on blood draws every 7-10 days while we see see about tweaking the dosage of his medicine.

OY. And I HATE the inefficiency of hospital efficiency. Since Keegan needs so many blood draws, his specialist wrote a standing order for them, which SHOULD mean we can skip the whole registering garbage every time we go to the hospital and simply go to the peds unit. I'll believe it when I see it, though, because this is what has happened the last three times...
Time 1) "Oh, yes, we'll get you all registered today and then you're good to go for a year! No need to stop by the registration desk after we're done with this paperwork!"

Time 2 (less than a week later) ~ Keegan and I go straight back to the peds unit and are told, uh, oops, sorry... we've installed a new computer system and so everyone has to register again under it. We backtrack through hospital hallways to the registration desk and do it alllllll over again. "But, hey! now that you've done it you don't have to do it again for another year!"

Time 3) {yesterday} We get to the peds unit and are told we have to register. I respond with less than immediate compliance, because I am tiiiired of getting told two different things. The sweet nurse doesn't have an answer for me, she just knows she can't even access the order for the blood draw 'til Keegan and I trek down to registration AGAIN. And once we're there, it turns out that the person who registered us Time #2 put the order in wrong, making it look like a one time order instead of a standing order. "But, hey! now that you've done it you don't have to do it again for another year!"

Like I said, I have yet to be convinced.

oh! and: the peds unit is right across the hallway from the elevator used by the Life Flight crews. Because of this, a hospital employee or volunteer has to escort us back to the peds room. Today we were escorted by a very sweet, very sloooow, and very ooooold volunteer. I am pretty sure that if I were really the Scary Sort, taking her out would not have been a problem. gah. :P

~ ~
The children and I are hanging out in the family room this afternoon, to keep them from the temptation of sopping wet carpet and fans on the sopping carpet. Keegan has already bruised the bridge of his nose (he looks like a prize fighter) and they've had a Major Disagreement about a cardboard box. On the cheerful end of things, Keegan spent a happy 15 minutes playing with a tunnel I got at a thrift shop a few weeks ago but hadn't dragged out yet (it was for such a time as this) and once they resolved their differences about the cardboard box, they were both happy to play with it together for a few minutes.

I made a blueberry peach crumble for dessert today... frozen peaches dumped in a pie pan, covered with a can of blueberry pie filling (on clearance at the grocery store), and a homemade oatmeal crumb topping. Keegan stuck up his nose at it when I offered him some; I was totally okay with that.

Sure there could be more, but methinks this is quite enough for today.

Edited to Add: Should have mentioned this when talking about the EKG and stuff... I *have* had an EKG before for some of the same symptoms (the palpitations, like I said, are nothing new). It was more than five years ago but less than ten (forget exactly) and the doctor said they looked really good to him. This is another reason I'm not majorly worried right now. :) I do agree with my CNM that, as she put it, "we want to be sure, especially since you're taking care of a baby right now too," but some of this stuff has been done before, with good results.

I'm almost to week 12 of this pregnancy (I knoooooow... I never officially posted about it on Pleo. EPIC FAIL) and, no surprise, the general exhaustion has been a drain. So thankful that Keegan's pregnancy (the incredibly rough, throwing up almost daily for seven months) was first so I could spend hours in bed without any worries. With this pregnancy, when I have to make a run fo rthe bathroom, the children just join me and giggle at the funny sounds mommy is making.
Back to the subject... I keep getting frustrated at my exhaustion, but I'm not matching that by taking my Vitamin D and prenatal supplements. DUMB, Nicole, DUMB... especially as Summer is still nursing night *and* day.

Keegan is doing soooo well right now. Speech therapy once a week, pt every other week. His speech is still majorly garbled, but he is actually communicating with it and I can probably understand 70% of what he says.
Funny/frustrating: He still says "mi" for mommy. "Summer"=mummy. There have been a couple times when people act like I must be the Dopey Mom of the Year when he calls his sister and I insist that it's her he wants and not me. Oh, well. I know I'm right.
We met with his specialist at Riley and he said that some children with this condition outgrow their need for medication... somehow their body starts to figure out what calcium levels are Not Dangerous for them (still higher than normal, but comfortable for their body types). So this week we're doing a 25% reduction in dosage and we'll do a blood draw tomorrow to see how it's worked. If it seems to be okay, we'll cut back some more and do another blood draw in a week, and so on. Still keeps life busy, but in a good way.

Almost two weeks ago I started a whole bunch of seeds.... three types of tomatoes, two types of peppers, and celery. They were doing beautifully... 'til yesterday, when Keegan dumped all my trays out on the floor. Yes, Proverbs discipline was applied (he had been told not to mess with them) and then I had a huge pity party. My sweet husband carefully replanted as many as he could and I'm going to get some more seeds started tomorrow or Saturday; it'll be a bit late in the season, but hopefully not too terribly much.

Names for the baby that are (currently) top picks: Violet Irene for a girl and Alaric Hutton for a boy. I've got no feeling one way or the other about the gender and we're not going to have an ultrasound, so we'll get to be truly surprised (skipped an ultrasound for Keegan, but there were clear signs he was probably a boy and we had an u/s with Summer).

Summer is.... oy vey. Still teething (the girl only has six or seven teeth), hugely independent (except when she needs to be held constantly), an adrenaline junkie, starting to babble some words (including "neh" for "no"), and fairly good at screeching in a way that sounds physically hurt when her brother doesn't do what she wants. She is also adorable. Of course.

Nothing dramatically new for Mark at Subaru. He got four days off b/c of FMLA in February because of being really ill (he spent three of those days in bed) and we're SO thankful for his full time benefits! March was rather a slow month, but there's a very good probability we'll see a bunch of Saturdays start to hit us. Money will be nice, but we'll miss daddy so much.

Uhm. I am 30% through my re-read of Les Miserables, according to my Kindle.

Aaaand now I should go fix Summer's wardrobe malfunction and then take them outside to enjoy the sunshine. Might help my Vitamin D, too. ;)