2019 chapter 7

LOTS of places I could start. There always are. But, I'll start with this: 

NAPS ARE BACK ON THE TABLE!!! I lay down with them for 10 minutes (only way a nap will come about) and they either fall asleep or they're wiggly and then I tell them they don't have to take a nap, but they need to stay in their room and they feel grateful they dodged the nap bullet and then actually stay in their room. It's awesome. You'd think I'd be so excited to have some time to actually get things done, but you know what I keep doing? Waking up in their bed and then moving to my bed to take a nap. Which, I feel like is a decent use of my time. One afternoon I had to go grab my camera cause I just don't want to forget this view (this is always my view. Blake needs me to face her and lay my head on her pillow. Jac doesn't care and snuggles her back up to my back). Also, I'm going to miss their baby cheeks. The kind that when you kiss you can suck a tiny bit of cheek up. Am I the only one who does that? Wade's suckable kiss cheeks are gone. He has normal kid cheeks now. Dangit, I just went down a little rabbit hole of Wade's going to get whiskers one day. Dangit! 

 So, here's the real reason I'm good with taking naps in the afternoon - so much snow! And the kids have been helping me shovel. I didn't put that in quotation marks, cause they really are helpful. Kind of. We've got about 2-3 feet of snow. But, here's the crazy part, that's just in the last week. Everything melted last week, leaving a nice sheet of run off that froze to made a base layer under the new snowfall. The roads have been the worst I've ever driven on. So, we've been home. But, it's been a warm-play-in-the-snow-22°, so we've been out trying to soak it up before we plunge back into singel digits. Blake will still go out. She'll always go out.

Also been spending a lot of time doing this (homework from physical therapy): 

But, really, my house is never that clean right now, cause bending down is really hard. So usually it's this, but notice Blake is always there helping. Jacqueline always waits around to steal my hot pad and then she runs out of my reach. Sometimes she gets real close to me and tries to sneak it while I'm still using it. I had PT #2 today. Feeling good. Mostly feeling ridiculously grateful to have tools to help me and eventually heel. Downside, I find myself in child's pose or laying on my back with my legs up a lot. Upside, it's winter and I have a TV. 

Blake threw a tantrum and had to hold onto the stairs in protest. 

Blake needing Daddy to comb her hair. He kept making comments like, "How long since her hairs been brushed?" I responded, "That's just how it gets. Crazy, huh?" In fact, it had been 2 days..

Jac did her own hair: 

Told the kids to pick up the toys in the TV room (that's why it was clean in the above picture!) and it's so hard to bend down, so it's forcing me to get my kids to help. They did a good job, but it also resulted in this (but, they did get the clothes out of the tv room): 

We were on our way to a play date and Blake was asking where her friends house was and why it wasn't there and Wade educated her, "No, Blake, we can't see it cause we're not there and we don't have eyes to see the whole world, cause people don't have long necks like giraffes. Right mommy?" Nice of him to check his facts, I confirmed, those were all true facts, even if unrelated. 

Jacqueline loves my glasses. And I love when she raises her eyebrows. It's my favorite. When you see her, ask her to do it. 

***sidenote: my kids are in the same couple of outfits, not because I took all the pictures on two days, but because of the grosser truth that we haven't been leaving the house, so we haven't been changing. 

Wade made a tent. But, according to him, the power generator broke, so now it's just a table. 

The girls discovered my high heels. Honestly surprised it took this long. They tried on every pair and found the ones they could walk in the best (not strappy ones. I know this cause they're all on the floor of my closet. Still there, cause, bending is hard). 

With heels on Jac becomes mommy. She comes in and says, "We ready to go! But it just pretend. See, like, dry, dry, dry (drive)." 

The clean tv room got messy again, so Wade decided to clean up, then asked for a rag to clean the table, and then set the table for dinner. 

Saturday night Blake woke up with the craziest cough I've ever heard. No one had been sick, so it made it weirder. It sounded like she had something stuck in her throat and she was choke/wheezing. It was terrifying! I was patting her back and doing the heimlich on her. Bryan called 911, the paramedics came and told us to take her to the ER, but by then she had calmed down and she didn't need to go by ambulance. Turns out it was viral croup. They gave her a steroid and she's been fine since. Now she's got the cold to go with it, but it started out at the scary part. In hindsight it feels like we over-reacted, but in the moment, I had the thought, "and this is how people lose a baby." Grateful she's safe.

Last story. Our washer broke today. After the clothes were wet, of course. I had paused it to add a rag in and then it wouldn't start again. Awesome. Bryan came home and fiddled with it. Nothing. I read that you should unplug it. So I decided to try it - but, I prayed first. I started by complaining about random things that were going wrong and we didn't need another thing, but I stopped and realized I don't need to site my saga to Heavenly Father, but then stepped back and admitted that life is full of blessings and instead said, "we can handle a broken washer, but it'd be amazing if we didn't have to" then I spelled out what I was going to do. Then I did it and it worked!! Big blessing. Could it have happened the same exact way without the prayer? Of course.  Also, added plus, I bought new sweatpants and they're officially my favorite and they were in the load of wet clothes.