A Survivor of Abuse: Remembering

Years ago there was a commercial for a fast food restaurant that supposedly had such a good deal a person was willing to break open an adorable piggy bank just to get that food. There was a moment when the little piggy was hiding in a closet and the shadow of it's owner would come through the wooden slats, a hammer in hand, ready to destroy the precious little being in order to obtain some sort of wealth inside.

I hated that commercial.

Why did I hate that commercial?

As I look back over my life there have been obvious clues that there was something deep within the recesses of my mind I was so afraid of letting out. Of course it's so much easier to look back and see the pattern unfolding, than to try and make sense of it as it's happening.

About five years ago I was coming to a crossroads. Things were simply not right with me. Though my depression was a bit more under control, I felt more attacked mentally, emotionally and spiritually than ever before. I knew I need help, but not the usual doctor/counselor/therapist/medication sort of help. Everything in my mind kept screaming at me that I was nothing. Yet this didn't make sense because all I had been taught in church said I was of so much value.

A few months previous my parents had been introduced to energy work. This wasn't my own first experience with it as I had been using it to get rid of many of my allergies through NAET. What my mom and dad had found, however, was a whole different line of energy work. My mom had offered more than once to introduce me to Sue, and had offered to pay for my first visit as well. One afternoon I was so desperate for the inner voices to go away I finally called my mom and asked her to make me an appointment.

It was awesome. It was difficult. I felt like a little child in her hands, something delicate and afraid and hopeful and trusting. Near the end of our second session she was deeply concerned that I had so many doubts of being worthy of happiness. She could sense that deep down I absolutely did not believe I deserved a happy life. In another session she stopped me once and said, "What happened when you were three?" I thought this particularly odd because only two years before my NAET doctor had asked me the same thing when realizing there was something that happened to me at the age of three that was keeping me from healing. 

"We moved to a new house," I told her. 

"Did you ever suffer any abuse?" she asked.

I answered with full confidence, "No." She sat there and stared at me, a subtle notion of I'm so sorry for what you're about to go through on her face.

Two different people asking me the same thing. What happened when I was three? I had no memory of anything bad happening. We had moved to a new house close to where I live now. We were there until I was about eight and we moved again. My best friend lived across the street, and my older brother's best friend lived two houses down (I always thought of him as my boyfriend).

One night as I had been pondering on so much I was in bed and a thought came out of absolutely nowhere. "I wonder if the reason I can't lay on my back is because he was so heavy." I've never been able to lay down on my back. I would get dizzy and disoriented and unable to breathe. I always thought it had to do with a nerve in my back that would somehow pinch. Not anymore.

I began to sob, gut wrenching, soul crushing sobs. I was afraid of waking up my husband so I went into our living room. I sat on the floor in front of our couch and pressed my face into the cushion to muffle the crying. 

I had to be making this up.

No way could this be real.

How could I have forgotten?????

After an hour I went to Facebook and not so subtly asked if it was possible to have forgotten something so horrible for so many years. The answers were a resounding YES! Many brave women came forward and told me they too had repressed those memories. I was grateful for their courage, but I hated the truth forced on me.

Still I didn't believe. The next morning was Sunday. The moment I saw my bishop and my husband I asked for a priesthood blessing. We went into the bishop's office where he asked what was going on. I told them, so afraid to look my spouse in the eyes. What if he didn't believe me? 

They placed their hands on my head and gave me a blessing from my Heavenly Father. I immediately felt peace, and was told in no uncertain terms that it was real, and it was time to start healing.

I have no doubt there is a time for everything, and in that moment I knew my body and my mind were ready to begin dealing with the horrors forced on me when I was too weak to fight back. That was when I realized why I hated that fast food commercial so much. For too long I was the little piggy bank, hiding in the closet, terrified of the shadow outside the door just waiting to take my wealth.

An Unusual Way to Gain a Blessing

Without a doubt this has been an unusual week. Not bad, just unusual. Tonight, though, takes the cake. Not only for weird things happening, but for the blessing it provided us.

Last weekend my husband noticed our older son's bike had been stolen. Again. This marked the second time this year it had been taken from our backyard.

Earlier tonight my husband and I were called out to a friend's house who was greatly struggling. Upon arriving home we were met with the sight of a young man (maybe 12 or so) entering our back yard. When he realized we were there to stay he tried to look as though he was heading toward our neighbor's yard. My husband got out to confront him, and was told the kid's friend was making him try to take a bike from our yard.

It was then I remembered the three boys kind of hanging around on bikes just a few houses down. I jumped back in the car and started chase. Two of them weren't fast enough and I managed to catch up to one. He was scared, that's for certain, and he led me back to an apartment where one of his "friend's" just happened to have 'found' a bike at the local park.

Guess what? Turns out this bike just happened to have belonged to my son! Another kid rode the bike back to my house where the police was just arriving so we could get a handle on what was going on with the first boy.

So here's what I figured out from the few things the boy said to the police: he and three other kids were looking for another bike to steal for him. The older brother of the guy I caught up to pointed out our house as a good place to look, but we arrived just as he was heading into the back yard. When the other three realized what was happening they took off, leaving the boy at our house alone.

The policeman told the boy to walk over to his house and he'd follow in the car. I could not just let him leave without saying something - he was so scared. As he walked off I kept asking him not to follow along with what someone says to do when he knows it's wrong, especially if it's just to impress some other kid. I wish now I had at least asked his name.

I'm not certain what happened after they left. My husband and I had another appointment we needed to get to and the policeman stopped by while we were out, basically saying he'd be keeping an eye on the boys.

I'm very happy J got his bike back, but oh I hate the way it all had to happen, in particular for the young man who was left behind by his so-called friends.

Sunday Inspirations April 4, 2010

I hardly know how to begin today's post. Some of you have heard the basics of yesterday's adventure, one I'm still attempting to wrap my head around. Before I go into detail, take a moment to think about the people in your life you love, yet have a habit of taking for granted. Their constant presence in your life, no matter how precious you remember them to be, can end up becoming commonplace. They are always there, so there's no need to think about them not being there. Only when something threatens the commonplace do we remember what makes them so special.

Yesterday morning started out almost as usual. I say almost because it was General Conference Saturday, meaning my hubby was working and I was preparing to listen to the words of religious leaders which were being televised. My oldest had called her grandparents to see if she could spend the day with them, and had planned on riding her brother's scooter over to the house. About halfway there road construction had blocked off the pedestrian access and M found herself needing to return home. I was certainly surprised to see her walk through the front door, and when she told me why I promised to drive her over as soon as I finished something.

My back had been turned when I heard her say, "Mom, I feel weird." I turned to see what was going on. At first it looked as though she had tripped over a little stool, legs folding up beneath her. Only when my eyes flicked up to M's face did I realize something was really wrong. Her face went blank, her head fell back against a box I had in the corner, and she began twitching.

I screamed her name. Over and over again I screamed her name. I took her wrists in mine to minimize her movement so she wouldn't fall off the box and onto the floor. Her eyes stared at me, but didn't see me. The pupils were so small almost all I could see was their beautiful blue, and into my mind came the frantic thought, "Will this be the last time I see these blue eyes?"

I had no reason to believe she wasn't having a seizure. It lasted somewhere between 10-15 seconds - an eternity. I couldn't stop sobbing, repeating her name over and over. Her three siblings had come in behind me, though I was not aware of their presence. Nothing existed for me but those beautiful blue eyes. Just as quickly as it had began, she came out of it. Her eyes returned to normal, her body relaxed, and as consciousness returned she asked, "What happened?"

Only then did I see the blood in her mouth. Something else was in there, though I couldn't tell just what as it was covered in blood. I thought it might be foam, then when she started talking funny I thought she might have bitten through her tongue. It took several seconds before we both realized it was one of her teeth. Somehow she had ripped one of her permanent teeth right out of the gums, which were bleeding profusely.

I can't imagine what it must have been like to "wake up" to the sight of her panicked mother, not knowing what was going on, and having an intense pain in her mouth. We got her situated on the couch (a no-no, I realize now) and through my muddled and frantic mind came the distinct thought, "Call 911." I did. It didn't take long for the paramedics to appear. Our little living room was suddenly crowded with all sorts of portable machines and official looking men. J and A stayed around, asking lots of questions to some very patient men.

I began looking around for B, and caught sight of him on the top bunk in his room. Though I ached to see if he was okay, I was needed in the living room to answer lots of questions about what had happened. The men took M's blood pressure and pulse rate, both a little high but expected considering what she'd just went through. They had her finish pulling out the tooth so she wouldn't swallow it, then had me wrap it in a damp paper towel. She wasn't thrilled when they took her blood sugar, and I can't blame her for hating the experience when I saw the mighty bruise left behind.

At last they finished, confident she was okay for the time being. One guy kept asking me what I wanted to do, and I couldn't help thinking, "I'm the one having the crazy experience here and you want me to think clearly?!?!?!?!" I asked for their opinion, and together we decided she wasn't bad enough to go to the hospital, that instead I'd call her doctor and see what he said. The men collected their belongings, said goodbye to the children, and left.

My first thought was to call our dentist. The sweet man doesn't work on Saturday but was happy to meet us at the office to see if there was any chance we could save the tooth. It would take him about 45 minutes to get there, so in the meantime I called the doctor.

As the medical assistant asked questions we came to realize M hadn't had a seizure at all. Sometimes when a child faints he/she will twitch, and will even keep the eyes open. This is precisely what happened. Had it been a seizure she would have been unconscious or "out of it" for a good half hour at least. Instead she was instantly alert, as might happen with a fainting spell. Our best guess was she'd been dehydrated, and then had overexerted herself with the hurried ride home on the scooter. It didn't help that she'd recently had a bit of a cold.

Only when we'd figured all this out did I finally call my husband to tell him what had happened. I hated doing so, as I knew he'd be torn between staying at work and coming home, but I knew he needed to stay at work as it was an important and very busy time. After assuring him we were getting things taken care of, and that my crying was not an indication of me going into hysterics, we said goodbye.

My incredible sister-in-law came over to watch the other kids while I took M off to the dentist, who had told me to put the tooth in lukewarm water with a tiny pinch of salt. It was a little weird sitting with my daughter, looking at her permanent tooth (which has a wickedly long root to it!), wondering if it would go back in. My daughter has such a beautiful smile. I couldn't imagine it being marred by such a bizarre experience.

Not until the shots were being administered to numb up her mouth did I realize it had been so many years since she'd had a cavity M didn't remember what the experience was like. I think it sort of alarmed her just as much as the thought of having the tooth put back in. Dr. B was great. He managed to glue the tooth back into place by 'cementing' it between the two surrounding teeth. We'll find out tomorrow if our wayward tooth decided to bond back into place, or if we'll have to go another route.

Needless to say this experience shook us all up. On the way home we stopped by 7-11 to get M a big ol' Gatorade to help with the dehydration, and she began opening up about what happened right before she'd fainted. It happened so fast, with such little warning. She began to feel lightheaded, and felt a funny tingling appeared around her chest. Then everything went blank. The next thing she knew I was crying out her name.

We managed to survive the rest of the day. She bounced back fairly quickly while taking it easy, calling a few of her friends to tell them about her adventure. I tried to lose myself in listening to the second session of Conference while trying to get a few things done around the house like dishes and more laundry, all the while periodically bursting into tears. Every chance I got my daughter was taken into my arms and told how much she was loved. The moment her dad came home she was in his arms as well.

As I put the other three to bed that night, each sibling had to tell M goodnight, and that they loved her. That's when I found out why B was on top of the bunk bed during all the commotion. He was so scared something might happen to her he went immediately into his room to pray for his big sister. Words cannot express what this action not only meant to me, but to M as well.

That night she was scared to go to sleep, afraid she might not wake up. Because daddy had to go to work early again I took her into bed with me, where we read until she felt tired enough to just drop off.

Of course, she woke up just fine this morning :)

Over the last two days I couldn't stop thinking about my daughter, who has lived in our home for more than a decade. Her presence is a blessing in our lives, though sometimes we as her parents sometimes become more focused on the wrong things. It took the tiny possibility of losing her yesterday to recognize just how empty this house would be without her here. Even her siblings couldn't stop talking about all the good stuff she does for them and with them. Though I try to tell my children several times a day just how much I love them, it truly took an experience like this to remind me of why.

The Intriging Things We Don't Know About Ourselves

I discovered something new about myself today. Where to start, where to start?

I fell down Thursday morning as the kids and I headed out to the car. I hurt like the dickens - wrenched my ankle, scraped my knee, and ended up with a good goose-egg on my arm. This morning I was doing okay, except for my arm. There was no problem where I'd hit it, but rather up around the shoulder.

I've had problems with this area before. The first time I remember really hurting it was my senior year in high school. Believe it or not, when I say I have an old badmitton injury, I'm not kidding! Badmitton was one of the games in a semester's Lifetime Activities class. My teammate Mimi and I were having a good old time batting the birdie back and forth at each other when something so very painful happened: I reached up and back in preparation to do a bit of whacking when something moved in my shoulder, causing intense pain to move down my arm. I couldn't move it for several minutes, and even then it was only done with great pain. Needless to say I didn't finish playing that day.

Yet neither did I really tell anyone what had happened. The pain eventually left, as did the numbness, leaving me with the pesky problem of feeling like something was continually pressing against the muscles - from the inside - whenever I moved my arm the wrong way. I began to hold my arm in place with my other hand, as this didn't stop for about two weeks. Though I can't be sure what did it, everything eventually moved back into place and the pain went away.

Since that time I occasionally have a hard time with the same arm. I took a weightlifting class once, but couldn't do certain machines as it would cause great pain. Even in the last year I've found myself having problems with this arm once again. My fall the other morning really hurt things again. I had a doctor's appt this morning and had him take a look. He ended up giving me some strength training maneuvers to help things out.

Here's where the intriging part comes in to play. I spoke with my mom earlier and began telling her about this when she interrupted me to tell me when I was very little my right arm used to pop out of the socket all the time! In fact, she got pretty good at figuring out how to twist things just right to get it to pop back in to place. I had no idea!

So (muffle) years later I find out my badmitton injury had NOT in fact been the first time I'd really hurt that arm. Who knew my old bones had been struggling for years to stay in place?

Cuh-razy.

It's Dentist Day!!!

Unlike their mother, who spent many years having horrific tortures inflicted upon her by these loving doctors of teeth, my kids are quite excited when they find out it's time to go to the dentist.
I don't blame them. With tv's in the ceiling and a relaxed atmosphere, not to mention picking out prizes at the end, it's a small bit of heaven.

M was not too excited to go this time. I could fully understand why as three of her teeth were refusing to come out (two on the bottom, one on top). She was terrified the dentist would try to take them out and it would hurt. These three stubborn bits were shoved to the side of her mouth, forcing the incoming teeth to grow inward. We didn't realize this until the teeth came out. And oh boy was that an adventure.

One of the dental assisntants came out to let me know what was going on: M was refusing to let them take out the teeth, saying she'd rather go home and let her daddy do it (uh huh, yeah right). I asked to come back and see her, and between me, two assistants, and the dentist we all managed to trick, uh, talk her into letting the dentist take them out.

I got to watch the process, and holy cow those things did NOT want to come out! The top one especially (one of her molars). She had to have a little bit of a shot to numb things up enough to allow for removal. Then she spent the next hour with bits of her mouth numb, and even refused to eat dinner until she could taste it, lol. Still, she sure scored big with the Tooth Fairy last night! Three dollars is not too shabby for a half hour in the dentist chair.

M knows I'm the tooth fairy, so she wrote me a note and thanked me for being there to hold her hand when she felt scared. Wow did that make me feel good.

J came out first and without any sort of problem - cavity free! Too bad B couldn't say the same. He's got two that need to be filled in two weeks. Poor kid. He was sad not to have his picture taken with the other two in the "Zero Cavity Club." Yet, ever the optimist, he can't wait to see if he gets another prize when he's all done ;)

A Rough Last Day of 2008!

We've just put the youngest three to bed, in the hopes the beginning of 2009 will turn out a bit easier than the end of 2008. With that being said, let's rewind a few days and enjoy some good memories :)

Christmas Day arrived (of course) with glee from all the children. Here are a few pictures of them opening presents. We decided to start a new tradition, where the youngest opens a present first, then the next youngest, and so on, so that we could all enjoy the gift opening (and Mom could get in a picture or two).

A, as you can rather tell, was barely awake at the time she was offered the first of her gifts. J, who loves gifts - whether or not they're for him, had to be told to "back off" a few times to allow the others to open their own gifts. Santa provided all with their one special gift, and Daddy and I gladly took credit for all other gifts :) At the bottom you'll see M who requested a picture with her boyfriend.





Later on that day we took a trip up to spend a portion of Christmas at Grandpa & Grandma R's house, with cousins to boot. The moment my niece walked into the living room my camera absolutely had to come out. She looked "utterly fah-bulous dah-ling." We managed to wrangle all the grandkids together for a picture before they were too tired out. We learned that the hard way last year. Grandma always starts us out with the tradition of a tiny cup of rice pudding for everyone. The lucky person with the almond in their pudding gets an extra special prize. I won! It was such a lovely time - always is when we're with my brother's family. There are so many laughs, and it's fun to watch the kids interact. We missed my older brother and his wife terribly, however.

Later in the day we visited my in-laws, who are two of the most adorable creatures on the earth. Over the next few days Daddy, M, J and I tried building an igloo. We had a fantastic beginning, a shaky middle, and had no idea how to put on a top. Two mornings in a row one side fell in, requiring some fancy patchwork, but it was all to no avail. When it fell in a third time we gave it up as a bad job. The next time we try it, I'll have to google "How to Build an Igloo in Nine Easy Steps." The last of the Christmas parties came a few days later with my hubby's side of the family. We always have such a grand time with them.



Unfortunately this is where things started to go wrong. J, looking so happy above, had a rather nasty accident. Someone had unknowingly placed the 'key' into his aunt's treadmill (which no one was allowed to touch, but we're talking boys here). Both my boys got on, B started playing with the knobs, and it started. B got off in time, but J was standing at the end of the treadmill. He fell right off and his cheek got a fairly significant burn from the running belt. We immediately applied aloe vera, then I took him home quick to put on some Neosporin with pain reliever. I know - not a good idea. But at the time we didn't really know what we were dealing with. Here's a picture of it that same night.

I bandaged him up as best I could. It looked really nasty the next day, and hurt like mad when daddy put on some Tea Tree Oil. We kept the bandage off after that, but the next day we decided to call the doctor, even if it would only keep our minds at ease. Looking at the next picture, you might understand why.

My poor little man. The doctor did say it looked pretty good considering, so maybe all the stuff we put on it wasn't such a bad thing. He also said it'll look even worse in about two weeks, but we'll begin to see improvement after that, though it'll take up to six months for the redness to go away. As if all this weren't enough, we took the kids sledding today, and J got the bonk of a lifetime. Things started out really well. We'd accidentally come across a new place to try sledding, and everyone seemed to have a great time the first few runs. Then J went down and began coasting to a stop while another grown man did the same. I watched it happen as though in slow motion. My stomach turned as I heard the gigantic crack as their two heads collided, and I was a good 20 feet away! His head hurt mightily, and it took such a long time for Daddy to convince him to try again, this time going down together.

They started off pretty well, but went straight for a giant snow jump where J went flying off, and Daddy rolled over him. It took another hour, a lot of crying, a trip to a nearby Walmart where we bought some Motrin, and a promise to go home right after before I could get him to try one last time with me. I just wanted him to have one last lovely ride down so it wouldn't seem like such a terrible experience. Luckily it turned out to be a successful venture and we all came home relatively happy.

We managed to end the year on a good note, however. Grandmas and Grandpas came over to eat some great food and watch Wall-E - which we all loved!!! M tried to stay up to midnight with me, but I convinced her to head off to bed about ten minutes ago. So here I am, ready to ring in the new year, and hoping it brings a few less accidents and many more blessings.

Hypocritical Cupcakes

This is perhaps the busiest week birthday-wise in our family, with three to celebrate. Two of those birthdays happen to be two of my own kiddies, and with happy hearts they both took cupcakes to share with their school classes yesterday.

Both of them came out of class positively grouchy. In fact, B said, "You know the green monster on Sesame Street?"

"You mean Oscar the Grouch?"

"Yeah. I think I was really grouchy today."

Hmm.

After a bit of prodding, he finally told me he wasn't too happy with his classmates that day. Apparently he noticed kids who normally don't pay much attention to him were trying to play and talk with him at recess. He said they yelled if they didn't get the ring (decoration on the cupcakes) they wanted, and after a while they were just giving him a headache.

Things didn't seem to go much better for M. She came out of school, the corners of her lips turned downward.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

She handed me the bag which contained the cupcakes...it was empty. There should have been about nine left, and that's if every one of the kids showed up at class that day.

M's supposed friend had grabbed the bag the moment they got out of class and yelled out to the kids, "Who wants another cupcake?" They were gone in moments, and M didn't even get to give a sweet little girl who wasn't in her class a cupcake. She was so upset. Frankly, so was I. A part of me wanted to go find this "friend" and have a good talk with her, then make her pay me for all the cupcakes she essentially stole from us.

As you can see, I was not a happy camper. M is talking about never doing cupcakes on her birthday again, and I'm not sure B will want to as well. Yet, there were lessons to be learned. B now knows there are people out there who will pretend to be your friend when it looks like they can get something from you (he honestly came up with that on his own). M is in the process of learning she needs to stand up for herself with her friends. Sometimes she allows their opinions and actions to overrule what she knows to be right and fair.

Never easy lessons, but both necessary. I suppose we'll just have to wait and see if we still do cupcakes for either one next year.

Unwanted Attentions

My daughter, M, has a suitor. An unwanted suitor. She's had them before, but never one quite so persistant.

They've known one another since preschool. They're now in 5th grade. I don't think it would be so much of an issue if he were well liked by other kids, but this little boy is often the butt of nasty rumors and jokes. It breaks my heart.

Of course I don't know what he's really like at school. I haven't seen the kid beyond an occasional hello over the years. M says he's disgusting, but most boys are disgusting at that age. I think her perceptions are formed largely around what her friends think, and none of them like him.

That makes me sad, but again, I don't know what he's really like at school. I can tell she wishes there was some sort of magic answer to make the problem go away. All I could tell her was to pray about it, that Heavenly Father would tell her heart what to do when the time was right.

Last night, almost as if he knew M had been talking about him earlier, he stopped at our front door with freshly picked flowers in hand (I think only one of them was from our own yard, lol). I knew he wanted to see M, just as I knew she was cowering on the couch unwilling to come to the door.

I told him the truth - she was ready for bed. Which she was. I promised to give her the flowers, and he walked off, unable to see the girl who's somehow captured his fragile little heart.

I think a part of M appreciated the thought. She wanted to put the flowers in a vase, but we couldn't find one. So they're currently wilting on the top of my sink.

A Morning at the Dentist!

It's not often you hear about three children who wake themselves up early in overwhelming excitement over somewhere they get to go every six months. This is especially true when you're talking about going to the dentist.

I recall my first dental experience. Unfortunately it shaped my unconscious view of what all things tooth related should be, and sadly I was not disappointed in many instances. I was about four or five my first time. I don't remember much about the doctor, only that he was a beastly man. Okay so maybe he'd been having a really bad day, but it's still no excuse.

It was time to take my x-ray, which in and of itself was terrifying. The doctor the told me, "Now don't move. Not one muscle. If you do, the x-ray is going to hurt really really bad."

I WAS ONLY FOUR! I was terrified! No way could I stay that still. What if I had to sniff? Or sneeze? Or cough? Could I blink my eyes? Did I need to hold my breath? It was too much! I began to cry.

The doctor attempted to shush me, but that only made me cry harder. Then he got mad. I don't remember much of what went on after that, I just remember being terrified, and wanting my mother desperately.

I never did get my teeth cleaned there, and we never went back.

Compare that to my own children. Dentist day is one of the best! There's a special "Winnie the Pooh Corner" with a painted tree house, and toys, and where movies can be shown. They're called in one at a time and get to sit in the big chair. The moment they've "assumed the dental position" they put some headphones over their ears and pick any fun show or movie to watch on the screen in the ceiling. That's right. They have television sets in the ceiling above each chair. Brilliant!

The only one to have a little cavity was B, and he was so great about having it filled he got to pick two prizes. We were out of the office in an hour. That would never have happened all those years ago when I was a kid.

Of course, I still shiver a little at the thought of the needle...

A Rough Morning of Learning the Hard Lessons

I had all sorts of fun things planned with the kids this morning. They involved good times like the library and free samples at Costco. Then, as will happen from time to time, all of it had to be cancelled because of one bad choice.

Before I get too far into the story I should explain that Grandma Glenda has a little hair salon attached to the back of her house, and two of her grandsons live there. While M was getting her hair cut yesterday my boys were allowed to play in the rooms of the grandsons, who are several years older. All seemed well...until this morning.

J came in and slyly pointed something out to B, who gave him a conspiratorial look. My SuperMom sense of danger immediately went off. J and I immediately started playing, "Tell Me What's In Your Pocket - No I Don't Want to Get In Trouble." Know that game?

In my head I was expecting a forbidden piece of candy or something belonging to their older sister. Imagine my surprise when he pulled out a pocket knife. My mind went immediately to the day before and his chattering about how cool it is ______ got to have a pocket knife.

"Where did you get that?" I asked.

"At the park," J said.

"Are you sure it isn't ____'s?" I asked.

"No Mom, it isn't," he said.

So I pulled out the super-sneaky-get-results-quick card. "So if we went over to _____'s house right now and I showed him this pocket knife he wouldn't say it was his?"

Oh the tears, the blaming on little brother, the finding out a Batman toy had also made it's way into our house. We immediately packed everyone into the car and took the two minute drive back to the scene of the crime. By this time I could see the thought of fessing up to the person he stole from had J really scared.

We knocked on the door, handed over the pilfered items, apologized, and headed back out. By this time J was almost hysterical. He grasped my hand tightly with both of his and I knew I needed to stop and talk before we even got to the car.

I asked him how he felt right then. "Really bad," he whispered. So the two of us talked about not making a bad choice even if your brother or best friend is telling you to. We talked about not stealing, and not lying to me about it. We talked about remembering how he felt at that moment, and that if he ever feels tempted to steal again that he should remember how he felt at that moment and decide if he wants to feel like that again. Hopefully B listened hard enough and learned a few lessons himself.

They've just spent an hour in their room, and won't be allowed any privileges today. We'll see how long this lesson lasts. Hopefully it's one that will stick.

A Rough Morning of Learning the Hard Lessons

When we got M's hair cut yesterday my boys were allowed to roam the house. This has never been a problem before. The two boys who live there are a bit older, but haven't had a problem with my kids playing with their stuff. None of us had any reason to think there might be a problem.

This morning J came out and slyly showed something to B. Not taking the item out of his pocket sent warning signals up to my brain. I asked his what he had. J got the smile he gets when he's being "tricky," and we played a game of, "Tell Me What You've Got That You're Not Supposed to Have." I was fairly certain it would turn out to be some type of food, or something belonging to his big sister. Imagine my surprise when he finally pulled out a a pocket knife.

As he was going through some of the toys yesterday he found said item. Things happened, brother's dared each other, and the next morning they were confessing what the other had done. Soon I was looking not only at a pocket knife, but a Batman toy as well.

To say the least I was vastly disappointed. We quickly packed everyone into the car and headed back to the scene of the crime. J began to cry heavily at the thought of admitting what he had done, and giving the stolen item back. He hated the thought of what this young man, whom my son respects immensely, would say.

It wasn't easy to watch the process. While B simply handed the Batman back and said a quiet, "Sorry," J was in absolute tears. He felt so bad. I knew from the way he was crying his chest probably hurt, he was struggling to breathe, and he felt the entire thing down in the depths of his little heart.

I Did Exactly What I Threatened

Earlier this year my oldest decided she wanted to try and grow her hair out to donate, like her mama. I told her one thing, "You take care of it yourself or we chop it off."

"I promise, Mom, I promise," says she. Night after night she'd carefully wash and condition her hair, even taking the spray on conditioner just to be certain. Then she'd come innocently into me so I could brush out the tangles and braid it.

"All right," I thought. "At least she's making an effort."

Then school got out. No longer did she take her nightly bath. No more did she come into me to comb out tangles and put it up in braids. She'd brush the top down so things looked relatively normal at first glance. It wasn't until I tried running my fingers through her hair that I almost lost them in the mass of giant knots that had formed underneath. Was she building a nest for birds? Was the effort of getting the hair next to her neck so tremendous her arms lost their strength too soon? I don't know. I just know it was starting to get old.

I finally made good on my promise. Okay so it wasn't a completel chop, but Grandma Glenda did cut off a good six inches! I've recorded a before and after picture. The nice thing is, with that face, just about any haircut looks awesome.

BEFORE

AFTER

A Night Spent in the ER

It's my first time, and that's saying a lot considering I've been a mother for over 10 years now. After watching my older son barely escape breaking just about every bone in his body, I thought it would have to happen sooner or later.

Fortunately we're still waiting for later.

Our ward (local church congregation) had just finished up a party where all my kids'd had a wonderful time. I thought for sure they'd all fall promptly into bed and be asleep before I could finish calling out, "G'night!" No sooner had I flipped on the computer, ready to have some "Mom" time, when a wrenching cry erupted from the boys' room. My older son comes out, head tilted up, his crying emitting an odd gurgling sound. That's when I noticed the blood oozing out of his nose and mouth.

I raced him into the kitchen, doing my best to keep any and all blood from trailing down to the floor, and piled a box of tissues on his face. Folks, I've never been so frightened in my life as we went through tissue after tissue with no indication the bleeding was going to stop. As we switched fresh tissues for drenched ones I noticed his nose, normally so petit, had begun to swell. It was at that moment I thought for certain he'd broken it.

Fortunately after a few more minutes the bleeding showed signs of slowing down. I managed to get someone to watch the kids, grabbed an ice pack to place on his nose, and drove him over to the church so we could tell my husband what a fun night we were about to have (please note the sarcasm). Sadly, I even had to stop and get some gas, as this was one trip I hadn't planned on. To the hospital we finally went, and soon enough he was checked in, the nurse had taken a look at his swollen nose, and he'd had that annoying blue bracelet placed on his wrist. We went to find a seat or two in the crowded waiting room, when my son discovered Spiderman 3 was playing on the T.V. Normally I wouldn't let him watch it as I feel he's still too young, but he was injured and there was nothing else to do. There was an added bonus - neither of us could understand a word because the movie was in Spanish.

We met all sorts of people there. Most everyone brought in children who were sick. I saw so many tiny babies who were having a hard time breathing or couldn't stop coughing. One couple's daughter, who was maybe a year or 18 months, had been diagnosed with pneumonia just two weeks before. Her antibiotics had ended only two days ago, and her breathing had only gotten worse. I could see her struggle for every breath.

My son and I met a nice kid who had a great time telling us about every time he's broken a bone or his friend broke a bone. He helped wile away a good 40 minutes of the two hours we spent in that waiting room.

Around 10:30 pm my son kept asking if we could just go home. You'd better believe I said no. There was no way I was going to drive all the way up to the children's hospital and not see some form of doctor. At last we were called into a room where we....you guessed it....waited some more. I watched as the clock ticked away minute after minute. I watched as my son, who you normally can't get to sit still, began to slow down both in the rapidity of his questions as well as physically. At last he plopped down on the bed, his eyes barely able to stay open, and fell asleep. It was 11:25. At 11:35 the doctor came in (figures, right?).

I did my best to explain that my boys were playing Indiana Jones, and as Indie ran away from the bad guy he hit his nose really hard on the metal bed post (not Indiana's finest moment). We rolled the sleeping explorer onto his back where the doctor listened to his heart, checked his ears and mouth, and then tried looking up the nose. Indiana didn't notice much. He just didn't like being on his back (he's more of a stomach sleeper like his mama).

The doc basically told me there wasn't much to do at this point. An x-ray wouldn't tell us much. We really needed the swelling to go down, but so far as he could tell it didn't look as though the nose was broken (HUGE sigh of relief). I'm supposed to check it on Wednesday when the swelling has gone down more to see if it still looks all right. If I see any kind of curving of the bone I'm supposed to take him to an ENT (Ear, Nose and Throat doc) to try and realign the bones before they completely set.

We got out of there around 12:30 in the morning and finally arrived back home at 1:00 a.m. He crashed for the night and I spent a few minutes trying to wind down before heading to bed myself.

My poor son now looks worse than he did that night. He's bruising all under his eye and along the bridge of his nose. The good news is it doesn't seem to be hurting him much.