Dominos

Owen participates in a program at his school called Amazing Athletes. In the program they are introduced to many different sports, practice agility and balance skills and learn about different muscles in their body.  The other day, while driving home from Lym and Popi’s house, Owen and I were discussing his muscles.

Owen told me all about his calf muscle; where it was, how it helps him walk and whatnot.  Next he told me about the ‘muscles in his tummy’.  I asked him what they were called…

“Mumble mumble mumble”

“What?? I couldn’t hear you”

He turned to me and said with a big smile on his face “Those are my dominos!”

Abdominals…dominos…anyone could make that mistake 🙂

I need to work on getting some rock-hard dominos.

The End.

Sunshine and Sprinklers

Oklahoma summers…hot, sticky and sweaty.  My boys love them.  I do not love them.  So, we compromise…boys play in the sprinkler in the front yard, while mommy sits in the shade, in her comfy chair, drinking iced tea.  That was my plan, anyway.

Checkin out the sprinkler… “okay, this is kinda cool, maybe…”

Ohhh okay, yeah!  This is fun!

Oh yeah?  Check this out, Mommy!

And this!

Yay, brother!!

Mommy…now watch this!

Me too!  Me too!

Time for a drink!

Oooohhh pretty flower.  Mommy got a little ADD with the camera.

Mooommmy…will you puh-leeease take the sprinkler away from Owen?

Mommy looks to relaxed and comfy in her chair…LET’S GET MOMMY!

Mommy’s response…”OOHHH look at Daddy, he needs to get wet!  GO GET DADDY!” … tee hee hee

Sometimes, bugs are cooler than sprinklers.  Owen was very proud that he caught the moth all by himself.  Poor moth.

Perfect way to end the afternoon.  These boys love watermelon!  And I do too 😉

Music to My Ears

So, my baby has started talking.  His own precious little language, “Blainguage” as we affectionately call it.  Usually, it sounds like lots of nonsense babbling, but then, we started to hear a real word here and there.  Among my favorites are:

“Owwaaa” = Owen

“I-eeeees” = Eyes

“Dye dye” = Bye bye

“…Arr oooohhh?” = Where are you?

And my all time fav…

“DOOOOO!” = NOOOOO!

The “doooo” is so totally adorable, especially when he says it while shaking his little head and putting his hand in my face.  I am sure I will find this to be not so adorable at some point, but right now it is quite honestly, music to my ears…

For those of you who know Blaine, know about his hearing impairment (he is fine otherwise, some people tend to assume he has other issues since he has hearing problems, but this is not the case).  He has about 50% of his hearing in each ear, and wears cute little hearing aids.  We weren’t really sure of his future in the hearing world and really had no idea how his speech and language were going to develop.  We see a speech therapist every week, who does great things for Blaine, and we have learned a lot from her. So, you can imagine our delight in hearing these few, simple words come from our youngest son’s mouth.  They are not only his first words, but they are words we didn’t know if he would ever be able to say.  Even though he has been saying them for a little while now, I sometimes find myself with tears in my eyes while listening to him proudly sharing with us, his handful of words.

Our speech therapist is SO very happy with Blaine’s progress recently, and says he is 100% on track and at the language level of a normally hearing child.  Yesss!

We are so thankful for all the support we have had thus far.  Hearts for Hearing, in Oklahoma City has been a wonderful resource for us, as well as all the ENTs, Audiologists, Speech Therapists, family and friends who have helped us on our journey in this new world!  Thank you, thank you, thank you!

Ok …now I have to stand on my soap box for a minute…

If your infant/child (or one you may know) has ever failed a hearing test…first, get them retested to make sure it was just a fluke!  (which is usually the case).  If they do fail a second time, GO see an audiologist to figure out what to do next, whether it’s hearing aids, cochlear implants, or neither, you need to at least figure out a plan.  DON’T WAIT!  So much can be done with early intervention!  Blaine started wearing hearing aids at 3 months, and I am 100% confident that’s the reason why he is completely on-track with his speech/language development.  Ok, I’m done 🙂

Thanks for reading and sharing with us in our excitement!

Baby Blaine, 3 months with his new baby blue hearing aids

8 months old, his eyes are kind of amazing

Complete with crusty boogers ... my happy boy 🙂

And yes, he is a little 18 month old boy, and SOMETIMES doesn’t like to follow his mommy’s rules about wearing hearing aids…

Beauty

“What is lovely never dies, but passes into other loveliness; star-dust or sea-foam, flower or winged air” -Thomas Bailey Aldrich

7 days

7…the number of days left in the semester.  5…the number of finals that stand between me and the beach.  3… the number of beers I drank tonight.  1…the number of  nights I will spend (er..already spent) relaxing between now and next Friday at 3pm.  I’m ready.  Show me whatcha got, med school finals!

A few weekends ago I was supposed to be studying for a Bacteriology exam.  Instead this is what was happening

And a little of this goodness

Sometimes, spending quality time with loved ones > med school

It was a delicious meal, by the way.

Then we all took naps in the sun…ahhhhh

I may have missed a couple hours of study time, but hey, I’m a big picture kinda gal.  And big picture says, it’s totally fine.

On another med school note…I was spending some quality time with my camera the other evening and was feeling quasi-philosophical whilst looking at the trees in my backyard.  So, it turns out trees are a lot like med school.  Trees.  Big nice trees that are easily seen, unless you are Dr. Sanford while you are mowing your lawn…anyway, trees have smaller subdivisions like branches and leaves.  Not as easy to see from afar, but upon closer inspection, easily identifiable.  The leaves have veins.  Again, not easily seen unless you really want to see leaf veins.  Finally, there are these things pictured below…teensy tiny ity bity little lines that intersect with one another, on many different levels.  THAT is what med school is all about.  Minutia and it is all interconnected.

One more thing…please try to find me a happier person than this kid…I betcha can’t 🙂

Weekend Project…

Plant vegetables!

I had some really super helpers too…Owen did the digging, and really enjoyed pulling the plants out of their containers.

Blaine did a lot of jabbering, telling us how to do things, and would intermittently run off to play with his scooter.

Spending time with the boys I love while planting healthy, beautiful, vegetable-producing (hopefully) plants = Great Success!

Rebel

It’s nice to look down and remember that at one point in my life I was rebellious and crazy…jumping out of airplanes, getting tattooed and hiking around on glaciers…  I may not be much of a rebel any more but I am most definitely still a bit crazy.

Warm Fuzzies

Today I miss this place.  Just looking at the picture gives me warm fuzzies inside.

It was a simple time.  Our little shop-house out in the middle of nowhere, where this guy was our closet neighbor

We went to visit him often.  We took our daily walks up the driveway to get the mail

And this is where we spent most of our days

We had a beautiful vegetable garden

And a swing.  Lots of good talks were had here

And a wood-burning stove.  So warm and cozy for sleepy Sunday afternoons.

This was the accepted daily attire, for some

Or this

We took baths in metal tubs

And went for rides on daddy’s big orange tractor **Go Pokes!**

Addy loved our land too…maybe even more than I did

I miss the land and the space and the simple goodness of all it entails.  There is something about being close with nature that can renew a tired soul.

I can’t wait to be back here

But for now I must be patient and work hard and be happy where I am.

 

Hats

I feel so blessed to have my family, but sometimes it is difficult to live up to all the expectations that are set on someone who wears so many hats.  There should probably be a limit to the number of hats one can wear.  I’m usually switchin through about 5 hats a day.  My head gets really tired.

First there is my mommy hat.  My happy-go-lucky, running around the backyard barefoot with my boys, make-believing, story-telling hat.  It’s a fun and happy hat, covered in bouncy balls, balloons, and bubble blowers.  I love to wear it but it can be really hard to put on after a 7 hour day at school, even though I am longing to put it on basically the entire time I am wearing my third hat *see below*

Second is my wife hat.  My romantic, loving, dinner-cooking, in-depth conversating, OMMing hat.  It is a really beautiful hat to wear, it has lots of pretty feathers and diamonds on it, but kinda like my mommy hat, it is really difficult to put it on after a 7 hour day at school plus 5 hours wearing the hat mentioned above.

Third is my med-student hat.  My intense, studious, usually interested, procrastinating, late-night cramming hat.  This is a cool hat, like a fedora.  Learning to be a doctor is cool but tough.  Listening to 7+/- hours of professors lecturing on viruses, cardiology physiology, vascular brainstem lesions and the like, can be extremely exhausting, mentally and physically.  And then I am supposed to put this hat on AGAIN after wearing the a-fore mentioned hats??  You’ve got to be kidding me.

Fourth is my health-nut hat.  My running, working out, meditating, healthy-meal preparing, water-drinking (usually) hat.  This is a hat I try to wear a lot, it’s really more of a sweatband.  Sometimes it is tricky to wear this hat with my other hats.  It’s a small hat but a very important one.  I believe I am still sane today because I make a serious effort to put this hat on each and every day.

Fifth is my home-maker hat.  My cooking, cleaning, dog-feeding, laundry-doing, shower hat.  Yes I included showering because I see it as a chore.  If I don’t put it on my to-do list, it won’t get done.  And that is gross.  This hat is my least favorite.  Mundane.  But these things must get done.  The good part about this hat is that I get to make lists…which I love…and then I get to cross things off.  Double love.

So those are my hats that I get to wear every day.  Sure, by 11:13pm my head is pretty sick and tired of the changing of the hats, and I can tell you for sure, I DO NOT want to put on hat #3 right now.  But I’m going to.  It’s just what I do.

Soul Mate

When I look at the spaces between my fingers, I know yours fit perfectly there