Sleeping Arrangements and Fit Throwing

I'm having a struggle and I'm not sure how to handle it. Ever since Doug left for Boston, Carter has been having nightmares and has been coming to sleep in my bed every night. I tuck him into his own bed and he falls asleep in his own room, but he often wakes up crying, comes into my room and snuggles up next to me until he falls back to sleep. I've let him sleep with me because when I asked him why he was sleeping with me he said it was because he was afraid to wake up and find everyone had disappeared.

The big problem with this is that I can't sleep at all when he sleeps with me. He travels in his sleep and snores and takes up the entire bed. I've done some reading on the subject and everything I've read says to send him back to his bed when he comes into my room. However, I feel so guilty doing this, especially when he's crying. So, when he's crying, I let him lay down with me and I rub his back and let him calm down and then I send him back to bed. But I still feel so bad, like I'm doing something harmful. He's 7 years old and I know he's too big to be sleeping with me, but he's my baby and he's obviously hurting and afraid.

We're also dealing with some major fits. It doesn't seem to matter what I say to him, if it's contrary to what he wants to hear, he has a complete melt down. And this isn't just once a day, it happens several times a day. It happens over anything from telling him that he can't have a fruit snack for breakfast to telling him he has to wear socks with his shoes. He screams and runs to his room and slams his door. The fit only lasts a few seconds and then he'll do what he's told. I have tried everything from ignoring the fits to making threats. Nothing works. He's always had a stubborn personality, it's just gotten really difficult lately. He's such a precious little thing. I'm trying to be patient with what he's going through. I'm just not sure we're both going to make it to his 8th birthday....

Corrections, Apologies, Exciting News, and Sweet Anecdotes

So, I made a comment in my last post about a policy my Relief Society presidency had regarding unwed mothers. I have since had a very sweet conversation with my RS president and I feel I should apologize for assuming that what I had heard was true. I should have gone to the source instead of passive-aggressively continuing a chain of gossip. I believe that the comment had been made by someone in my ward, and this person is a consistent source of gossip, but it is not a RS policy. My RS president is my neighbor and her children are friends with my children and I would hate for bad blood to exist between us. She and her husband have done a lot for me. Therefore, I publicly and sincerely apologize.

Our super exciting news for the week is that my very shy Ethan ran for Student Council Vice-President and won!! We are so excited for him that we can hardly stand it. We celebrated by taking him, his friend Skyler (who won Student Council President) and Brayden (who also ran) to Pizza Pie Cafe in Provo. Then we went to Eric's to play night games. I am so proud of Ethan and his friends for being brave enough to run. They are an awesome group of boys.

Tonight as we were taking Brayden home (again, I apologize to his parents for making him late....) my kids noticed that someone had toilet papered our neighbor's house. Ethan got really mad about it because he thinks my neighbor has enough to worry about and didn't need to clean up a mess in the morning. So my kids grabbed garbage bags and headed over there to clean up the toilet paper. Mckenzie then comes inside when they're done and declares that she will find out WHO did that to our neighbors and WHY they did it and she will report it as soon as she finds out. I know I brag a ton about my kids, but how sweet are they? I have to beg and threaten to get them to do anything at home, but they see a beloved neighbor who needs help and they're there!! Gotta love it!

Baby Seth!

We found out last week that we're having a baby boy! I could not be more excited to meet my baby boy in January. It was so fun to see him on screen. He moves so much and the ultrasound tech had trouble getting good angles. You can also see that our Baby Seth has his daddy's Navajo lips. Even the ultrasound tech commented several times about how cute the baby's lips are.

I think I'm past the really crappy part of this pregnancy and despite finding out things like my ward Relief Society doesn't support unwed mothers, I'm starting to really enjoy being pregnant with this baby. Like I said, he moves ALL the time. It's starting to be full on kicks and nudges, not just flutters. And Baby likes to swim from one side of my tummy to the other.

I'm starting to show and Mckenzie LOVES to hug my tummy and feel the baby kick. Carter talks non-stop about Baby Seth. Everyone is excited to prepare for him.

This experience has been full of a lot of crazy emotions. People who think they know more than me tend to think they need to remind me that I'm not married and this isn't the best situation to bring a baby into or to expose my children to. Well, DUH!! To those people, mind your own damn business. Let my kids and Eric and I enjoy this baby. We are fully aware that the circumstances are not the best, but what's done is done and we're having a precious baby boy.

We've decided to name him Seth William McCabe. William is after my grandpa whom I miss like crazy.

Big Sigh

It's been a long summer. We've had our fun moments of swimming, hiking, BBQ's, picnics, family, movies, and other activities. But for the most part, having a sick mommy has totally dampened my kids' summer fun.

We're all happy school has started. The kids totally love their teachers. Carter is having a hard time being away from mommy. With his daddy in Boston, he's been having a hard time sleeping on his own and being alone for any period of time. Not having his siblings/guardians around to help him feel safe, he's been little scared of school. Luckily, his teacher is Ms. Burke who was Mckenzie's 3rd grade teacher last year. That makes things a little easier since Ms. Burke already knows him and loves him.

Ethan has started his final year at Windsor! He is in 6th grade and so far he loves his teacher. He even admitted it on Facebook! He has Mrs. Seedall whom I've heard is wonderful. I hope so. Ethan has been blessed with having great teachers.

Garrett, Chase and Mckenzie are in 4th grade this year. They are so cute and so excited. Despite Garrett's awful year last year, we decided to keep him in the Spanish Immersion program. He really likes Spanish and wanted to continue. He has Mrs. Ramos (formally Ms. Clayson.) We've heard good things about her and are looking forward to a much better year!

Chase has Mrs. Maughn whom Ethan also had in 4th grade. This woman is a total saint and I love her dearly. I know she'll adore Chase and he already loves her. Chase, like Ethan, has also been blessed with awesome teachers.

Mckenzie has Mrs. Erickson. I don't know her, but so far Mckenzie loves her and Mckenzie is tough to please, so that's a good sign! Mckenzie has had good teachers as well, but she needs someone to challenge her to move out of her comfort zone. I hope Mrs. Erickson can do that for us.

I also started school the same day the kidlets did. I'm so in love with all my professors! It's going to be a challenging but interesting semester. I'm really excited. I had a rocky summer and went from a 3.5 GPA to way under that but I'm determined to bring that back up to where it needs to be. My doctor, bless his heart, has been so helpful in trying to make me more comfortable and relieve a lot of my worries and stress. I've started to move past the nauseous stage but I'm still exhausted. Hopefully that will change.

For now, things seem to be ok for us. It would be nice to have Doug home from Boston, but he needed to seize the opportunity he was given. It's good for his career so we're doing our best to support him. He comes back next week to visit the kids and they are very excited.

My wedding plans with Eric have been put on hold, but he and I are still trying to forge some kind of relationship. My kids adore him and frankly, so do I. I think the stress of the situation and the impending responsibility of NINE children got to both of us. We're trying to see what the future holds for us. I have my desires, we'll just have to see what happens.

In the meantime, I bought the cutest little denim jacket for my baby yesterday! I promised myself not to buy anything until we know what we're having, but I couldn't help myself. I figure if it's a girl, I'll sew on little flowers or something to make the jacket more feminine. But it was so cute and so tiny... it was just calling my name. Plus, my little redhead convinced me that we had to buy it. She also tried to talk me into buying more baby clothes, but I told her we needed to find out if we're having a boy or girl and she reluctantly agreed.

I'm now 18 weeks, almost 19. We find out the sex of the baby on September 8th. We've had some complications but hopefully we solved most of it. I had to get an early Rhogam shot because my doctor is concerned my body might be trying to attack or reject the baby because I have A- blood and they baby may be positive. I've been bleeding, spotting and cramping a ton and since I received the shot yesterday I haven't bleed at all. Of course, it's only been like 24 hours, but I think it's a good sign. Right?

My seizures and headaches have been another issue. Holy crap.... they've been an issue. I've been off my seizure meds until recently because I didn't want to add chemical stress to my developing baby.The withdrawals were super fun and I did ok for awhile. However, situations necessitated that I get back on the meds. The result has been ugly. But I think I'm adjusting again and the side effects are diminishing.

Anyway... things seem to have started to even out. I'm breathing a BIG sigh of relief. I just hope things continue to run smoothly.

Band Aids, Eggs, and Empty Boxes

As a mother, I tend to over stock when it comes to items like band-aids, neosporin, and sun screen. However, I've noticed that when I actually NEED those items, at times when say Ethan runs over Carter with his bike and Carter's leg is covered in deep slashes filled with gravel, I can't find a single band aid. In fact, we had to get band aids from a neighbor.

And of course, NO ONE is ever responsible for using the band aids unnecessarily. We run out magically. It could have nothing to do with the fact that a child in my home may get a scratch and need to use 15 to 20 band aids to cover the scratch, no matter how large or deep the scratch may be.

I've hid the first aid kit, which is not always a good idea because if I'm not here and someone needs a bandage, how would they get one? So I've hidden a stash of first aid products and put band aids out for general use. Still, the stash is always found and used. Empty bandage boxes are left in the hiding place so I assume we have bandages because I see the box. This same tactic has been used in the treat cupboard. My kids will inform me we're out of treats and I'll be shocked because I just checked the treat cupboard and there were boxes there. I've learned to check boxes to see if they are empty.

I've had long discussions with my children regarding these things. They know they have access to bandages in the kitchen cabinet and the bandages in the first aid stash are not to be played with because they are for emergencies. They all look at me with their precious little faces and nod understanding and make sweet promises to never touch the stash. I then move the stash to a new hiding place.

Then, after my darling neighbor carries my screaming six year old home, with blood streaming down his leg, I quickly look for the stash so I can clean and bandage his wounds and lo and behold.... EMPTY BOXES!!! No wipies, no neosporin, no band aids. What is wrong here?

I again lecture my kids, hoping that this new example of a bleeding leg and having to have kids run all over the neighborhood searching for bandages will have some kind of impact on them. We have yet to see if it applies to bandages.....

However, I was trying to make some brownies and went into the fridge to get some eggs from the carton that was in there. What do you think I found? Eggs? No.... an empty egg carton. Where were the eggs? An unknown suspect, no one would fess up, decided it would be fun to break the eggs outside. Everyone saw the eggs being broken but no one actually saw the egg breaker. Interesting.

I'm losing my mind and counting down the days until summer is over.....

I do love my children. I said that, right?

My News

Well, as you've no doubt heard from my children, I am pregnant. I'm about 10 weeks along and Eric and I will be expecting the baby in late January.
Obviously, this wasn't planned. And obviously, it's not an ideal situation. But as my friend pointed out to me, what is so bad about a cute, pudgy baby?
Members of my family and some of my friends are no longer speaking to me and we don't have a lot of support. Eric's family isn't thrilled but they are being very sweet to me. And a few of my close friends are being supportive.
So, here we are. If you've heard the news and wondered if it was true, yes it is. My kids are somewhat confused, but excited. But I'm somewhat confused as well.
We'll see what happens.....

Garrett had his EEG done at Primary Children's Medical Center last Friday. He was quite the trooper. As you can see from the pictures, he thought the whole thing was a barrel of laughs. He kept cracking jokes and he would not sit still! During the strobe light portion of the EEG, he was like, "Remember from Bugs Life.... Don't go towards the light! But it's so pretty!!!" We completely cracked up. He also begged his dad to take pictures and post them on Facebook. Crazy kid.

The good news is that his neurologist did not see anything abnormal in her preliminary scan of the EEG. WHAT A RELIEF!!! She says we probably can chalk it up to the trauma he suffered at birth. He was breech and stuck in the birth canal. He was bruised up and it was touch and go couple days with him. Plus, he was a preemie. The neurologist also told us that she hopes it's just a one time thing and will never happen again. That's what I've been hoping all along. Garrett was under some stress, his teacher was not the calmest person in the world, so maybe this summer he'll relax and all will be well.

Anyway, it's hard to keep the kid down! I had the kids move the trampoline away from the deck and our big tree because all the kids kept climbing the tree and jumping onto the tramp! Including Garrett who knew better!! Argh!!! So if you see him around and he's acting crazy, advise him to take a breather.... and remind him his mother will kick his little butt.