And He gave in! That’s right – I got in God’s face and screamed at him, “No, not this one, you can’t take this one!!!!” And then I went horizontal for a month – which is no easy task with a 1 1/2 year old and a 2 1/2 year old to take care of – but, I was determined, so we made it work!

Let me back up a little bit here. I had my first child on 9-22-93 and then I had my second child on 9-22-94, pretty crazy, I know. If you were reading in September, you already know all about that. Not too long after my second child was born, though – I had a miscarriage. That was in January 1995. And then in April 1995, I miscarried again.

And then March 1996 rolls around and I highly suspect that I am pregnant. And then the unthinkable happens – I can feel the miscarriage starting to happen. I will never forget sitting down at my kitchen table and yelling at God. I was sitting there yelling and crying – “No God! You can’t take this one!”

And God changed His mind. I believe that with every single bit of me. Some people say that’s silly, that God already has his plans made, his decisions are final. But you know what, my God is my friend, and I think that day we negotiated, and here is the outcome:

Ain’t she gorgeous?? (She was cold, on her way outside to catch the bus.)

So yeah, that horizontal thing – that was tough! I had two little monsters to take care of, not to mention, dishes, laundry, and all that fun stuff. This is what we did. I really did stay horizontal for the better part of a month. I laid around with the boys while they played, even taking them outside, where I laid upon a blanket in the grass. I’d sit up to change a diaper, or I’d get up to go potty myself, but, that was it. I guess I got up at breakfast and lunch and grabbed us a really simple meal. And then Mark did dinner. And he also did all of the other stuff – he went grocery shopping, he did the dishes, he did the laundry, basically, if it was a job that I could not do lying down – he did it.

After that first month, I slowly but surely began to get up more and more. And I eventually gave birth to my precious, 9lb 7 1/3oz baby girl ‘Beauty Queen’. And I fell head over heels in love with her! I was so taken with her. It came as a real surprise to me the depth of my love for her, because, I always knew I would be good with boys – and I just was never sure if I had it in me to raise a girl. I do, and I have, and I continue to do so.

I’ll continue this saga in another post and tell you all about her fun day last week!

The boys came home from school today and within minutes, were fighting. What were they fighting about? They were fighting over who was going to get to practice their instrument in their bedroom.

One plays the trumpet and one plays the trombone, and they are working on completely different songs. They do not play together. So practicing together would definitely not work.

So there they both were – in the bedroom – one setting up, one already playing. Both being completely stubborn and refusing to even consider any other room to practice in.

I went in there and sweetly and kindly directed Patrick to another room. (And if you believe that, I don’t know what to say! Ha!) I told him that it would be easier for him to move and forced him into my room, exasperatedly closing my door – to which Shawn slams his door.

Fine.

They’re both in a room, door shut – practicing separately.

The lovely part is – they have Monday off, so this is a three day weekend I have to look forward to, with these boys who argue about every single thing they possibly can!

I don’t remember the school board running this ‘Veteran’s Day off’ thing by me! Hrmph!

I just saw the cutest – and coolest – things for nursing moms and their babies and I just have to share it with you. Someone on one of my yahoo groups was talking about it.

They are nursing bonnets and they are called MoBoleez. They are cute, soft little hats with great big rims for the nursing babies to wear. They give mom a little bit of discretion and they shield the light from the baby’s face.

I would have loved one of these back in the day! I had so much trouble keeping the blanket up over my shoulder! If I moved too much, I made the blanket fall flat against my baby’s face. Or if I wanted to check on my baby, or coo at my baby, it was difficult to pull the blanket back discreetly and then get it back in place comfortably for both me and baby.

I know that a lot of people are in an uproar about public nursing. And I am totally on the side of the fence of the nursers – let them nurse where they want! For me, though, I preferred to be covered up for my own sensitivity. I did not hesitate to nurse anywhere, though.

So for a mom like me, these bonnets would have been perfect! I think they are a great idea!

And just look at the pics on the site – the babies look so darn cute under those big things!! I am really baby crazy right now, you’ll have to just excuse me. Must be something in the water!

I’ve got half a mind to hike up to our little hospital and beg them to let me rock some babes!!

Tonight is Shawn’s slumber party – my thirteen year old. He has four boys over and they are all juiced up on sugar, caffeine, and video games! I threw some hot dogs in there for good measure. This definitely would be a good day for me to try a hoodia patch, with all this junk food around. They are all outside playing right now, which I imagine I’ll have to call a stop to soon, as they are not doing that ‘quiet thing’ very well. It is 9:30PM here and I don’t want to upset any of the neighbors. All in all, they are nice boys, so it’s a good party, but, whenever you mix an odd number of kids, candy, caffeine, and slumber parties, there are bound to be little issues here and there. They seem to be handling them nicely, though. Thank goodness, because, I am sitting here at my desk, trying very hard to keep myself awake. I am just no good in the evenings, anymore. Around 8pm, I start fighting off the ‘sleepies’, so this is getting a bit too far past my bedtime. I am hoping my husband will be home soon to take over. He needs to probably blow up an air mattress for them, anyway. The floor in the basement doesn’t have any padding under the carpet, and there is only furniture enough for three boys to sleep on. (A couch, a big sidechair, and a loveseat.)

Last weekend Patrick had his birthday slumber party. He turned 14. He had two boys spend the night. It was definitely quieter, but, those boys were pretty darn sweet, too.

Uh oh, the boys are starting to yell a bit too much – I better go hush them up.

They are on the other computer, right behind me – searching ‘poop’ on Google – and laughing their butts off!

Lovely topic for a Sunday morning, no?

I hate to say it, but, I like that topic much better than the one they were researching last night – hunting videos on YouTube.

Oh, and last night they were also looking up girls they know on MySpace.

So let’s see here: Google image search of POOP, YouTube search of HUNTING VIDEOS, or MySpace search of GIRLS THEY KNOW

What happened to the days of arts and crafts and watching Barney?

Someone get the Calgon!

My two sweet boys…

In an hour and some minutes, Shawn will be 13 and then for ten hours, I will have two 13 year olds!

Two 13 year olds?! Agh! Where’s the door?! HA!

I cannot believe I am soon to be the mother of two
TEENAGERS! Yikes!

I had a super-sweet, ushy-gushy post mapped out a bit in my head, but, some of my aching, old-lady, mom-of-two-teens body parts are sore and sapping all the brain cells right outta my head!

Well, my aches have saved you from the sap. How ’bout that? Good for you – bad for me – now the sap is still stuck inside me somewhere… I’m sure I’ll come back and get it out sometime today!

FYI, Shawn was born at 9:34am and Patrick was born at 7:35pm – so that accounts for the ‘two 13 year olds’ thing. That and Shawn and I get so much pleasure out of giving Patrick grief for it. *Evil Momma*