My kids are hilarious . . .

I tried to type up some of the funny things my kids have said over the years. I thought I'd share some of them with you. 

2013

My 11 YO looked his father in the face and said, "Zombies like brains, so you're safe." 
After which he was wrestled to the ground and ordered to proclaim his absolute adoration for his father and his infinite wisdom.

Me: how can I make my covers more appealing to men? 
Husband: boobs. Big ones.

7 YO: no! You always tell mom!
3 YO (sobbing): I promise I won't tell her. 
11 YO: yes you will. You always tell her. 
10 min later w/ chocolate on her face: mom! We hid and had ice cream before dinner!
7 YO: *slaps forehead* told u she would tell.

Surgery went well. He came out combative-I WANNA PLAY THE WII! I had to laugh a little inside.

My 12 YO just came home and told me a kid told him a racist/off colored joke. His response, "That's not funny. It's racist." When the kid told him to lighten up, my son pointed to a kid of the race being mocked and said, "Why don't you ask him if he thinks it's funny."

My 4 YO is 5 today! She's a silly girly girl who regularly slays zombies and wants to know where vampires live ("even though it's just pretend, Mom!"). She changed her name to Rainbow, feels it is her right to play with friends all day, and makes up words because it's fun. Love her!

2012

10 YO: *groans* Mom, I'm book sick. 
Me: ???
10 YO: I can't wait a whole year for book 3 to come out!
Me: Welcome to my life, buddy.

Me: Honey, look at my cover! Isn't it gorgeous?
Husband: Why is there so much purple?
Me: Well, her wings are actually made of an aurora, which is purple or this ugly green. So we went with purple.
Husband: Why are her hands over her head? It looks like she's dancing. 
Me: She is dancing. 
Husband: Why? And why are there fairies around her? I'd take those off.
Me: *glaring* You no longer get an opinion.

My son is giggling in his sleep. Cutest thing ever. Also, I want in on that dream.

6 YO, crying and storming off, "Leave me alone! I just want to be left alone." 2 YO trotting after him: "Okay. I'll go with you."

2011

6 YO spilled his peas all over the floor. 9 YO looks under the table and says, "Is that the same as spilling the beans?"

6 YO goes under the table to clean up the peas. Calls up to us, "Mmmm these are good off the floor."

My 2 YO's screaming because someone ate her smarties. It may or may not have been me.

Don't judge me.

I try to get my 9 & 6 YOs to wear their coats. I try to give them rides to school. They LIKE walking in the cold. Their coats are too HOT, no matter that it's 10 degrees outside. I really do try . . .

6 YO Logic: If you build an AMAZING Lego ship, glue it together. Your mom doesn't let you use glue, so you'll have to hide in your room. Glue will leak out the sides, so you'll have to wipe it on the carpet. She'll ground you if she finds it, so cover it up with blankets from your bed.

Don't Eat Me

By my 9 year old son.

Reasons why not to eat me

I stink

I'm ugly

I'm full of fat (your diet, remember?)

I hate your cat

I'll eat the mouse

In your house

I'll mow the lawn

I'll sweep the floor

I'll vacuum your house

I'll pick up the floor

I'll throw away that banana from days of yore.

Just don't eat me!

I promised 5 YO that if he'd be good in his class while I went to aerobics, I'd give him 1 quarter. 
He thinks about it. "How about 4 quarters." 
"One is plenty."
"How about 2 quarters?"
I smile at him. "How about 10 pennies!" 
His eyes light up. "Okay, mommy." 

This past weekend, we decided to do a family day trip at a nearby cave system. As we waited for our turn on the tour, my 2 YO daughter fell head first off a picnic table. Even standing right next to her, I wasn't fast enough to save her. There was this awful hollow crack as her head hit the asphalt. I scooped her up. Instead of screaming in pain, she cried weakly. Then her little body went limp in my arms. Her eyes fluttered back. 

My heart collapsed inside my chest and I cried for my husband. An eternity later, her eyes focused on me. We watched her closely after that. Especially her eyes, to make sure they were equally dilated and reactive to light. I also knew it would be really bad if she started throwing up. 

After over half an hour of crying, she finally settled down. Later, my ER nurse sister-in-law checked her out and proclaimed her fine. She said that children knock themselves out easier than adults because of their softer bones. As long as she didn't have any symtoms of a concussion in the first two hours, she should be fine.

But for those few seconds, I stood on the precipice of my worst fears. That something bad would happen to one of my children. That I would have failed to prevent it. 

And today we learned not to stick our tongue on trampaline frames.

"Connor, why are you wearing your brother's clothes?"
Connor hikes up shorts 3 sizes too big. "Because my brother told me to."
"Corbin, why did you tell your brother to wear your clothes?"
Corbin grins. "Because it's funny when his pants fall down."

8 yr old to his 4 yr old brother: "You're dead. I killed you!"
4 yr old's response: "Jesus will repair me!"

Connor with pointer finger pointing and a glare: "Mom, I get to make up all the rules, 'cause I eat all my food and now I'm big."

Connor said, "Mom, we're out of the damn juice." I blame his father.

Today Corbin asked me, "Mom, what's a pee can?" "Huh?" I responded. He showed me his cereal box. I started laughing. "Bud, that's pronounced pecan."

Connor grabs my cheeks between his hands (not those cheeks, think lower) and exclaims, "Mom, you have a BIG butt!"

We had a fantastic Christmas! Thanks goes out to Derek for picking up on the slack (I'm sick). Connor got a submarine. He came downstairs butt naked and asked if he could get in the tub. 1.5 hrs later, he came out looking all wrinkly lol. Lily was bound and determined to swallow SOMETHING inedible. Corbin just wanted Connor to leave his stuff alone. Best Christmas I ever had. 

Connor this morning: "Oh me gosh!"

Connor just said, "Mom, this pudding is damn good."

So, last night, Lily spat up almost her whole bottle. Covering me, two blankets, and herself. "Man, I wish she'd stop doing that," I growl. Corbin pipes in with the perfect solution, "Maybe we should duct tape her mouth shut!" And no, he wasn't kidding.

I asked Corbin what he did on his first day of school. "Well, recess was pretty fun." "Oh?" I say. "Whaddya do?" Without missing a beat, "Chased the girls." 

I'm in big trouble.

My ankle surgery (there are pictures--unflattering pictures)

Holy crap, it's been a hard year. In addition to my son's difficult diagnosis, his two surgeries, and moving to another state, I had ankle surgery on Sept. 19th (about a month after we moved). 

Ankle sprains have been an ongoing issue for me since I had a severe sprain, partially tearing the ligaments and a tendon in my ankle when I was a sophomore at a basketball camp. The ankle was ever after weak, and I sprained in numerous more time as I played rec and church ball. 

On June 22, 2014, I was running and stepped on a stiff hose. I heard a pop and I went down. I couldn't walk on it for two days. I called the doctor, but they said it sounded like a severe sprain, and there was nothing they could do. 

I should have gone in, but honestly, I was so overwhelmed with all my son's health problems--he was in a wheelchair again, and we didn't know if his leg would take years or months to heal. My husband was interviewing for a new job, and we were pretty sure he was going to get it, which meant him leaving our family until our house sold (did I mention our house was for sale at the time?). It meant moving to a different state. 

Also at this time, I was having tests done on my heart for an arrhythmia, which turned out to be related to stress. 

I didn't have time or the capacity to deal with being injured. I tried to suck it up, I even went running again two weeks later. It was extremely painful, and I realized I was going to have to take a full 6 weeks off for a sprain. 

At eight weeks, I was still in a lot of pain, and my ankle sprained every time I scuffed my foot on the floor, or my heel caught on a stair. 

So I finally went into the doctor. 

I had broken off three chips of bone (on both sides and the back), all of which were causing me pain. I had also completely ruptured one ligament and rendered useless another. I had also torn a tendon. 

And I needed surgery. Well, I was moving in two weeks, I couldn't have surgery. So we waited until after we moved and were somewhat settled. 

On Sept. 19th, I had surgery. It entailed cutting the ligaments, folding them over each other, and sewing them back together. The tendon was sewed back together. The groove where that tendon passed the back of the fibula was nonexistent, so the doctor drilled a hole and collapsed the bone to make a groove (so it would stop dislocating). He also drilled more holes and sewed synthetic ligaments through the bone (as even repaired, my ligaments were shot and would be easily damaged again). 

I felt pretty good right after surgery--that had everything to do with a nerve block. But when that wore off on Sunday, holy mother of all pain. It felt like a white hot branding iron was sitting on the back of my fibula (where he'd made a groove for my tendon). In tears, I called my doc. He called me in a stronger pain pill. 

It knocked me out, but the pain kept building. By Sunday morning, all I could do was cry. So my mom took me to the emergency room--I'm not proud to admit I sobbed the whole way, but it's the truth. 

As soon as they cut the soft cast off, I stopped crying. It had been too tight, cutting off my circulation. They checked me for blood clots, thankfully I was fine. After, they gave me a shot of tordol, and I started feeling pretty good. 

Not a very flattering picture, but I believe in being real. 

They sent me home with instructions to keep up on my pain pills so my pain didn't get out of control again. Problem was, I couldn't stop throwing up. Eight hours later, I was crying in pain again. The doctor called me in something to help with the nausea and I finally had some relief. 

The next few days were a blur of pain and reactions to the drugs. First, I would get dizzy and tired, then insanely hot. I'd feel loopy and stupid. And there was always the ever present nausea.

After a few days, I was just starting to feel better when I fell, stomping on my right foot to catch myself. The pain shot back up. I had some online retail therapy. There is no need to mention how much I spent.

On the 29th, I finally started to feel like I was going to survive. I'm still bed ridden, as standing lets all the blood fill up my ankle and the burning starts, but at least I can bathe and get up to use the bathroom without wanting to curl into a ball and cry after. 

I am so grateful for my church. Even though I barely know anyone here, a girl named Ann has taken my daughter to kindergarten each day. Dawn has picked my son up from cross country practice. They brought us supper every night for 5 days. My mom and mother-in-law came and stayed with me, taking care of my family and running errands. And my sweet husband has taken over and been super helpful since they left. 

I won't be able to walk on my leg until three weeks out. Won't be able to drive until 6 weeks out (thank goodness I found someone I can carpool to the conference I'm teaching at). But that seems like a piece of cake after what I've already been through.

Now I just hope I can get off these stupid pain pills.

*edit 10-9-14*
Not long after I wrote this post, I had an allergic reaction to one of the medications I was on (my doc thinks either the antiboitic or the arnica). I was covered in hives. Like, COVERED. My incision was the worst, and the burning and itching was so bad I couldn't sleep at night. My doc put me on steroids, which really helped with the reaction, but the night sweats and emotional mess they made me were a steep price.

Because my incision was covered in blisters, I wasn't able to remove the stitches when I was supposed to. So another week of stitches. Yay.

This can end any time now. 

I don't like asking for help

But I'd do anything for my son, so here goes. 
Connor has been suffering from medical problems for over a year, but it's recently gotten much worse. You can read all about it here and here and here and here.

The short of it is that he's in a wheelchair until further notice. Many of you have expressed that you would like to help, and one of my friends, Wendy, suggested that people could send letters or cards in the mail to cheer him up. 

He would LOVE that, and it would do so much to lift his spirits. So if you'd like to help, you can send something here:

*address removed. Thank you for all your support!*

For all you scary stalkerish types, this is not my address. It's a charity that forwards the letters onto me.

Thank you in advance for your support!

Why my son is in a wheelchair. Again.

I'm getting lots and lots of questions from people wondering what's going on with my 8 year old. So here's the synopsis. Last year, he slipped on some gravel and landed on the side of his leg. Either the fall was cause by or resulted in a spiral fracture of his femur. His femur was weak (he had a quarter sized cavity) due to a nonossifying fibroma. You can read a more detailed account here. And here.

We spent a few days in the hospital and the doctor put in a plate. We spent 6 weeks in a wheelchair/walker, after which my son gradually moved up to more strenuous activities. Over the last year, we've monitored his leg with xrays. It appeared to have healed, and because his leg is still growing, they wanted to take the plate out.

That was the surgery he had on Thursday. Only when they took the plate out, the bone around one of the screw holes collapsed (the doctor said the bone was only as thick as egg shell). He stuck a scope in the hole and found that the fibroma had not healed at all (that's the black spot shaped kinda like a #9. The grey spade-shaped thing is the tumor "track" where the tumor has migrated with the new growth).

Feeling that the bone was diseased, and therefore not healing, the doctor scraped out the bone around the fibroma, making the cavity silver dollar sized. In addition to the cavity, my son also has a hole on the outside of the bone from the collapsed screw hole (the doctor said the hole is about the size of the tip of his finger).

What this boils down to is his femur is extremely fragile-to the point that merely putting weight on it could break it. He's in a wheelchair and walker. The doctor did not put the plate back in (though he considered it), because he's hoping the bone will heal and we won't have to do another major surgery (the incision they have to make is 9 inches long and requires an overnight stay). His incision is healing, so his pain is lessening. It's really hard to get him to stay down when he's feeling close to normal.

It's also really hard because we live in a four level multilevel, making the wheelchair practically useless in our house. He crawls a lot, and we haul the walker up and down stairs for him. Their are only bathrooms on the topmost and bottommost floors. He also has a few additional medical conditions that complicate things.

If I could sell my house tomorrow, we would be gone.

Honestly, my son is probably holding up better than I am. I went into the surgery thinking we would have crutches for five days and a few restrictions on sports and jumping. I came out with a son in a wheelchair and no idea when or if his leg will heal.

So we're playing the waiting game. And I hate it.

I'm not sure how I'm going to get my next book out either. The pacing of my life was already to the point where I could barely manage it. And now this. Something has to go, and I've already pared down my life about as far as I can take it.

I've stopped doing my hair. Or wearing makeup. And I probably won't make my deadline.

I'll be completely honest, the day of and after his surgery were some of the worst of my life. I can't imagine how parents of children with scarier conditions deal with it. My husband got me through it. He kept doing silly things to make me laugh--and he never does silly things.

Last year, our deductible was $4,000. This year, our max out of pocket is $10,000. Thank you, Obama (you don't want to get me started on Obama, trust me).

Anyway, I'm doing better now, I still have my good and bad days--today was one of the bad ones.  My son is enjoying all the attention, though he misses playing with his friends--I think he's kind of lonely. And very bored.

Barnes and Noble's "Pubit"

B&N has come up with a newish tool for their site. It's called Pubit. For the past few days, I've had the opportunity to experience it first hand. And I absolutely hate it.

For you nonpublishers out there, I'll keep it simple: Pubit doesn't recognize simple formatting ("page breaks" for chapters are ignored. You have to use "section breaks"), so the book comes out looking like one big chunk of text. There's no chapters (even though there are). Pubit's solution? Insert random breaks through the document. 

And you can't delete the breaks. 

My left eye is starting to twitch. 

So you can either go through your document and manually change all the formatting just for them, or you can do it from their very own program. The program looks like it might be easier, so you try that. 

Three crashes and starting over twice and the whole left side of my face is twitching. 

So you try to get a hold of customer support. They're too busy to talk to you. So sorry. 

N'kay, Pubit, let me take your hand and tell you how it is. Publishers are a busy lot. I don't have time to play with your crappy program. Just accept my document with the industry standard formatting so I can move on with my day. 

If you don't, you're simply giving me more reason to hang out with Amazon . I don't like to play favorites, but Amazon doesn't make me jump through hoops. They answer all my questions promptly and take care of crap on their end. Also, I make 10X more money with them. 

You can see how our relationship is feeling the strain? 

Get it together, Barnes and Noble. You're already playing catch up. 

*Warning* Whine fest ahead

I don't want to write. 

I can't explain how epic that sentence is for me. How devastating. Writing has always been hard. Like weaving something from nothing hard--but it was also an addiction--a high I craved every day. But for the past year, it has been work--comparable to cleaning the toilet (which I hate). 

Part of this is because of the stage of life that I'm in. My daughter is my little shadow. She's constantly climbing on my lap and asking me questions. I've found that I tend to be the most productive when I can have four hours of uninterrupted time. Getting her to watch a movie for even a couple hours so I can get a few words in is nigh impossible. 

I used to write at night, but honestly, I'm so tired I can't focus on much except what's on TV (which is in the same room). Long story short: I need an office. 

I also need some motivation. I want my desire back, but I don't know where it went. 

I need to get it back if I'm going to get Witch Fall out in October. 

When everything falls apart, you fix it.

And if you can't fix it, you let it go.

Many elements combined to create the perfect storm that was bent on destroying my launch party and first three signings.

First, the place I originally ordered my back-up books from fell through. I hurried and ordered them from my publisher. Those books were delayed. Now they will be arriving after my launch party and first signing. The day after.

Not a huge deal, right? The bookstores should have my books.

No. My print run sold out so fast (from preorders and such), there were no books for the bookstores to buy. The bookstore where I'm having my first signing can't get the books in. The bookstore for my second signing can't get the books in. In the last 36 hours, I have spent hours on the phone trying to fix things.

I called my publisher, who called my distributor and printer. I called other bookstores. No one has my books. No one can get my books for another one to three months.

Insert panic attack here.

And then my publisher fixed things (for the most part). *hugs to Rhemalda* Bookstores can now order my books and have them in ~10 days. Much better than 1 to three months. And we won't be having this problem again (they switched our distributor and printer).

I was able to round up 20 books for my first signing (we pulled the newspaper article and will run it later when I do another signing).

At my launch party, people will preorder the books and I will sign them and drop them off at the library for people to pick up.

I have two more shipments of books coming which I will use for the conference and signing the next weekend and the signing the weekend after that.

That's the best I can do, and it will just have to be good enough.

Q4U: Have you ever planned some huge event and had everything fall apart last minute?

No! You Can't Have My Money

Have you ever scrimped and saved for something, only to have a huge repair bill smack you upside the head?

For instance, last month our van ("You drive a minivan!" you say. "Yes." I respond. "And I look quite sexy in it too.") needed new tires.

So of course, I'm in the waiting room with two of my children who are determined to see just how far they can splash the water from the drinking fountain. As the man with the tick in his cheek will attest, it goes quite far. Then hallelujah, my name is called.

Tire man looks at me with a sad reservation I'm sure is forced. "You need new breaks too."

A stack of tires wobbles precariously. "Just a second," I respond. I grab 5 YO just before he crests the fifth tire in his ascent to 10 Tire Peak, haul him over to the counter, with 22 MO in my other arm.

". . . tires off . . . rotors are shot . . . replace them." That was all I caught as I tried to corral my 5 YO and not drop my squirming 20 MO.

"Okay, but I'm the room mom for my 8 YO Christmas party and it was supposed to start 5 minutes ago."

Needless to say, I was late. But thank heaven, so was the party. A week later, I returned for said brakes and rotors. This time, the tire man was smart kind enough to give me a ride home and come get me 4 hours later.

For all this, $700 bucks.

Fast forward a month. I wake up shivering in the night. It's 60 degrees in my house. My husband does what he can to fix the furnace to no avail. We call the repairman. 3 days, 6 hours, and $200 dollars later, he informs that the part is under warranty, but it cost 200 to deliver and 400 for labor to install (which is oh so generous of the furnace manufacturer).

But he thinks we should just get a new furnace.

He recommends the 2,000 dollar one.

So you know that vacation we were going to use our tax return on? To Washington DC for a visit with my SIL. Well now we get to stay home in our warm house. Or maybe we could go for a ride in our sexy minivan.

Cue creepy music: So now I'm left wondering, do the rotors count as my third in the law of three, or do I have one more to go?

Does this kind of thing ever happen to you? Just when you've saved enough money for something fun, it gets sucked into repair costs?

Why I Only shaved One Leg Today

I come out from hiding under the covers. The first thing I notice is that 18 MO is fussing from her crib. But sad to say, that's not what forced my brain to kick on. Strange, metallic clangs are coming from the kitchen. Baby on my hip, I trudged down the stairs, still half asleep (it'd been a long night). Mid-yawn, I step into the kitchen to see burned toast crumbs spilling from the counter onto the tile floor (which I'd just swept the night before) all around my 8 yro's bare feet. He looks up from where he's shoving a butter knife into the toaster.

"What're you--"

He cuts me off before my lecture has even begun, "Someone put batteries in the toaster, Mom."

Still befuddled with sleep, I step closer. Sure enough four rechargeable batteries. All toasted a nice crispy black . . . kinda smells like my sister-in-law's idea of the perfect bacon.

"Who did that?" I demand.

8 yro shrugs. "I don't know. Not me."

I take a deep breath, pull out a rag, the broom, and dustpan and get to work.

After I'd finally finished feeding everyone breakfast, I picked my 18 month old up from her high chair. Of course, she'd figured out how to unscrew her sippy cup a few days before. And of course she dropped it. All. Over. Me. Soaking wet, I clean her off and penguin walk toward the bathroom.

Before I've made it up the second step, my 8 yro comes bursts  back into the house. "I forgot to have you sign something." Winter wind whips in from the open door, freezing my milk soaked pajamas to my legs. Shaking, I sign it and hope against hope his teacher doesn't think he forged my handwriting.

At this point, I know there won't be time to clean up the kitchen if I'm going to make it aerobics. I jump in the shower, just to rinse off my bottom half. Then I fight to get the kids out the door, find shoes, and convince the 5 yro that the little kids WILL NOT chase him anymore.

When I get home, I jump in the shower for the second time. Just as I'm starting to shave my second leg, 5 yro bursts into the bathroom, his voice high and panicked, " . . it ing . . . off . . . waw."

Wiping soap out of my eyes, I move the shower curtain back. "Huh?"

He's dancing from one foot to the next. "it . . . fell down . . . waws."

He's spinning in circled and miming something falling. "Do you need to go potty?"

"No!" he shouts in exasperation.

"Is your sister okay?"

He takes a deep breath, as if finally understanding I'm not going to get it unless he speaks very slowly. "The ite ting fell off the waw."

At this point, I've decided it's time to rinse off. "What white thing fell off the wall?"

"You know," he points to the ceiling. "The white ting above the tabwe."

It suddenly clicks in my head. Shutting off the water, I run downstairs, dripping water all over the carpet as I go. In the kitchen, the mess that awaits me has reached epic proportions. The ceiling light has indeed fallen from the "waw". It's now teetering serenely on a box of Multigrain Cheerios. Another box of cereal has been knocked down, spilling Life (how perfect is that metaphor?) all over the table, chair, and floor.

At least nothing is on fire. Yet, I think. And no one needs to visit the emergency room. All in all, not as bad as it could've been.

And then I realize something profound. I'm standing, perfectly naked in my kitchen. And all the blinds are up.

With a little squeal, I rush back up the stairs to dress (at this point, toweling off seems unnecessary). Of course, when I finally pick up the box of Life cereal, milk has practically dissolved the cardboard. The sack would have prevented the cereal from flying everywhere, except when my 18 mo had spilled it the day before, she'd ruined said sack. And with the cereal in nothing but the box, I know have SOGGY cereal all over me.

Of course, the phone would have to ring at this point. As I screw the light fixture back into the ceiling, phone propped on my ear, I remember the flyer my church handed out recently. About training for disaster response.

Disaster Training, ha! I'm already an expert.

And that, my friends, is why only one of my legs has been shaved today.