12): American Idol, Sex, & Contests (& Bonus Takes) Edition

By bobbi
May 4, 2012
2 Comments

– 1 –

Better Late than Never – It’s been a busy week, but May is usually a busy month anyway! I was late posting yesterday’s {pretty, happy, funny real} but I posted them this morning. They are photos from Matthew’s first birthday. 🙂

– 2 –

That Sex Book – I have been working on rereading the book Style, Sex & Substance by Hallie Lord and I have been posting my thoughts on each chapter online. When some of my family members heard that I was posting about the book, they were a little concerned and a little opposed to “that pink Catholic sex book.” I tried to explain that it wasn’t actually a “sex book.” After reading my thoughts on chapter 1 (Catholic womanhood), chapter 2 (style & modesty) and chapter 3 (prayer) I think I finally convinced them that just because “sex ” is in the title, that is not what the whole book is about. Although I may have to have them skip my blog next Wednesday since Chapter 4 is about sex. (So concerned family members, be forewarned! 😉

– 3 –

Mother’s Day Giveaway – Speaking of the scandal causing Hallie, she is having a Mother’s Day Contest and the prizes rock! They include:
–A copy of “Style, Sex, and Substance” signed by all 10 contributors.
–A Moleskin Journal in which a woman could-if she pleased-journal her answers to the questions provided at the end of each chapter.
–A Zebra Ballpoint Pen-which is the single best pen ever created by man (don’t even try to debate me on this one)-to use for said journaling.
–A Lavender Aromatherapy Candle to provide pretty lighting and a sweet scent.
–Lavender Bath Salts if she chooses to read her new book in the bath.
–A copy of Audrey Assad’s new CD, Heart, to play while she reads, journals, and/or soaks.
–A small collection of Sephora beauty samples that I’ve collected over the last few months.
–And some sort of sweet treat.
She will send the gift to the winner directly or you can request that it be sent to a relative or friend instead. Sorry, guys, but if this mama wins it, I’m keeping it. 😉

– 4 –

Dim the Lights, Please – Are you an American Idol fan? I have watched it for a few years then skipped the last two seasons. However, when my mom was here two weeks ago to help Brian with the kids while I was away with Bella, we recorded the show for her on our DVR. After I returned we sat up together and watched and I started getting sucked back into the show. Although towards the end I was falling asleep on the couch (still tired from all the camping) as my mom told me about each contestant and their background and what Jimmy had to say about them, etc. I just kept thinking to myself that I needed to go to bed…and who the heck is Jimmy? LOL! Well, this week I actually watched Wednesday’s episode. (Although I sort of cheated and fast- forwarded commercials, Ryan, the judges, and any song that didn’t grab me in the first 10 seconds. I easily fit the two hour show into my allotted ½ hour viewing time.) I did think that each contestant did an awesome job, at least with their first songs. I even found myself texting “vote” for Phil Philips, which is my mom’s favorite. Yesterday I was shocked that Skylar was voted off. I thought her country kick #$% attitude and talent would have put her in the top 3. Oh, well. We’ll see hat happens next week.

– 5 –

Flashback Friday Five – Since I am running out of quick takes to mention, here is an RoL Birthday flashback from the first year I started blogging. This Friday Five was posted on Aug 22, 2003.
1. When was the last time you laughed? Last night with Brian. It doesn’t take much to get me laughing.
2. Who was the last person you had an argument with? Myself. Sometimes I am just sooo exasperating.
3. Who was the last person you emailed? My sister BC.
4. When was the last time you bathed? About an hour ago. (I assume showers count. Actual sit-in-the-tub bathing?…who knows. A little thing called reality prevents that.
5. What was the last thing you ate? The last bite of Bella’s banana that she was about to throw on the floor. (No, I wouldn’t have eaten it if it actually hit the floor.)

– 6 –

Déjà vu – You know what is funny about that Friday Five? It is almost a decade later and if I answered those questions today it would be almost identical!
1. The same! He is my joy, 😉
2. The same! She is still exasperating.
3. Almost the same. Just change “email” to “text” and switch it from my sister “BC” to my other sister “JC.”
4. The same!
5. Almost the same. Just change “Bella’s banana” to “Matthew’s strawberry.”
Wow, I don’t know if that is really sweet…or really pathetic.

– 7 –

Only 7 Days Left – Don’t forget that you can still sign up for the RoL Birthday Contest. A winner will be picked on May 11. You can leave a comment on this post or just email me your name to join. Here are the 5 gifts you could win in your care package:
Gift 1 – Choose one of the following Catholic books below. (These are all books I’ve read and loved or I’ve heard great reviews and want to read soon.)

Style, Sex, and Substance: 10 Catholic Women Consider the Things that Really Matter by Hallie Lord

The Catholics Next Door: Adventures in Imperfect Living by Greg and Jennifer Willits

A Book of Saints for Catholic Moms: 52 Companions for Your Heart, Mind, Body, and Soul by Lisa M. Hendey

The Catholic Girl’s Survival Guide for the Single Years: The Nuts and Bolts of Staying Sane and Happy While Waiting for Mr. Right by Emily Stimpson

Gift 2 – Choose one of Carmen Marcoux’s books.

Arms of Love

Surrender

The Parish Picnic (A Children’s Book)

Gift 3 – A Small (4×6) Divine Mercy Icon

Gift 4 – Mystic Monk Coffee or Tea (Your Choice)

Gift 5 – Chocolate (What’s A Care Package without Chocolate?!)
Good luck and have a great weekend!

WAIT! THERE IS A P.S. – After I posted this and added my link to Jen’s site, I just remembered two other quick takes I was supposed to mention! So I’m added on some bonus quick takes.

– 8 –

Once Upon A Time – The first is trivial but have you been watching Once Upon A Time? I never got to post my Monday’s TV Talk and I barely caught up with the last episode. We were right. August was Pinocchio! But is Emma ever going to believe? Would you have denied a baby the care of her mother in order to save your own child? There are only two shows left. What do you think the cliffhanger will be??

– 9 –

Chen – The second is more serious. Have you been keeping up with the story of Chen Guangcheng, the forced abortion opponent? I have been following his story for awhile and I heard about his escape a few days ago. My mind immediately thought of the apostle Paul when he escaped prison. (Acts 16:26) Keep him in your prayers, as well as his family who are being punished because of his escape. He has done incredible work in promoting the value of all life as well as condemning the horrors of abortion and infanticide. (LifeNew.com has been a great job at keeping us up to date on the situation.)
Okay, this time I am really going. 😉

7 Quick Takes (4/13/12): Accidents, Musicals, & Flashback Music Weekend

By bobbi
April 13, 2012
No Comments

Hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary.

– 1 –

Rain, Rain Go Away… – This month we are definitely getting the April showers that bring May flowers but I don’t remember every having such a wet April before. Having lived in Southern California for the first three decade of my life, I am used to one kind of weather pattern – sunny. Now that I am living on the central coast of California, I am used to two kinds of weather – sunny or cool and foggy. So having four days in a row of rain and a thunder and lightning storm last night, well, that worthy of its own Quick Take! I just hope that the rain stops by next week because Bella is going on a two day trip with her class to Sacramento and the Gold Country to learn about California history. I’ll be one of the chaperones and although we won’t be sleeping in tents (I think it’s more of a primitive cabin) I’d rather do it in sunny weather!

– 2 –

The Family Tree Grows – It may be grey and dreary but we received joyous news this week – my sister EL gave birth to her fourth child, a little girl named Harriet Rose. Congratulations, sis! And I am an aunt for the fifth time. Yay! Just call me Auntie B. 😉 Look at her…how sweet is she?!

– 3 & 4 –

(This Quick Take is long so it counts as two.)
Accidents, Threats & Videotapes – Unfortunately that bit of news was hampered a couple days later when I got into a car accident. Remember what I said about the rain? On Tuesday, I dropped the boys off at pre school. Bella was on Easter break so she, Matthew and I were driving home. Just as we turned around a bend in the highway there was a pile up from a previous accident. I hit the brakes and the car seemed to slide all over the road but I was able to stop in time. I breathed a sigh of relief and just as I was thinking, “I hope the guy in back of me stops in time…bam! We get slammed from behind. I move to the side of the road and the woman (60ish?) was very apologetic. We see that no one is hurt and the damage doesn’t look too bad etc. As we exchange info some guy comes up and starts videotaping us. She walks over to him and tells him to turn off his video camera (it was a larger one), that the accident is over, this is a private matter etc. They sort of get into it and I hear the guy yell, “I know my rights… don’t touch me… I’m suing… assault… ” and the like. I’m thinking what kind of crazy guy is this and why is she talking to him and not ignoring him so we can get out of here?
I finish writing my info down (I already had hers) and I see the lady talking and gesturing to the guy as he is walking backwards videotaping her, sort of egging her on. Soon they have walked so far down the road I can’t see them anymore. I look around. Am I being punked? Should I leave? I left my info in her car and got back into my van and out of the rain. I am sitting there wondering if I should make a u-turn and go find the lady. I don’t want her to get hurt. Thankfully, just then some cops stopped to make sure I am okay. I explain to them what happened and they said I could leave and they’d go and check on the guy and the lady. To make a long story short (oops, too late!) the lady came back safely. (And she has been more than generous in making sure we are okay.) She told me later that the guy likes to videotape people and threatens to sue but he has no case here. Meanwhile, my Sienna is in the shop to see what kind of damage has been done. However, if you are browsing the internet and you find a YouTube video of an older woman arguing with some random guy on the road and you see a short, chubby Hispanic mom with a WTH? look on her face in the background, you’ll know that’s me. 😉

– 5 –

Do Re Mi Fa So La Ti – After that harrowing accident, Bella and I decided to go home and make a cup of hot chocolate, warm up some cinnamon rolls for breakfast and watch an old movie. We’ve been on a musical kick and it all started when she said they were singing songs from the Sound of Music in her music class. I told her we should watch the movie together since every night when the boys are going to sleep and Brian is showering or getting things ready for work the next day, Bella and I have a half hour window where we cuddle up on the couch and watch a movie (well, a portion of it) together. Sometimes it will be a Disney tween movie or an episode of Good Luck, Charlie (which I, ahem, actually enjoy) but last week I put on The Sound of Music instead. She loved it! We watched a little each night, completing it twice. This week we finished watching Meet Me in St. Louis with Judy Garland. Tonight we are going to start the 1949 version of Little Women with June Allyson. It’s not actually a musical but it is such a sweet movie, I think she’ll like it. Any other suggestions of what we should watch? (She prefers color and is not really into black and white, which is a bummer since ¾ of my movie collection is in B&W.)

– 6 –

Birthday Contest – I also wanted to mention, if you haven’t been reading the blog regularly (What? Am I the only one with 500 posts in my Google reader waiting to be read??) that we are celebrating the blogs 9th birthday with a contest. You can win an RoL care package that will include your choice of books (selections include Style, Sex and Substance, The Catholics Next Door, The Book of Saints for Catholic Moms and The Catholic Girl’s Survival Guide for the Single Years) as well as a Divine Mercy icon, Mystic Monk coffee or tea and, of course, chocolate. Get the details here.

– 7 –

Flashback Friday Five – Back in 2003, bloggers looked forward to filling out “The Friday Five” at the end of the week. I’ll close with a flashback of what I posted nine years ago, almost to the day.

Friday Five: Music Edition

1. What was the first band you saw in concert? Let’s see, years back it was a big Rock for Life concert in Orange County, CA. I think that first really got me into Christian alternative/hardcore music. But one of the first concerts I most vividly remember was when I drove to Santa Barbara, CA with my sister BC to see the hardcore band Focused. Oh, those guys were so awesome and so in love with God. They were the first band I ever interviewed (for the underground music zine I used to do.) Ah, such memories!

2. Who is your favorite artist/band now? Okay, you can tell I am a mommy now because at the moment I am listening to “Wags the Dog” by the Wiggles. (It is Bella’s Wiggle’s hour; that is the only time I am guaranteed some uninterrupted computer time!) But as far as I’m concerned, I have been listening to a lot of Jeremy Camp, Kutless, and Sixpense None the Richer. But I must say that I also loooove 80’s alternative music – The Cure, The Smiths, Morrissey, New Order, Psychedelic Furs, etc. Plus, good old classics like Dean Martin (reminds me of our honeymoon. Sigh.)

3. What’s your favorite song? This is a tough one. The song that always reminds me of Brian is The Cure’s “Lovesong.” I never tire of it.

4. If you could play any instrument, what would it be? Um, I always wished I could play the guitar, write my own music and sing my own songs. I may be able to get away with writing lyrics but the only instrument I can play is the Fisher-Price toddler drum set and my voice it not fit for anyplace other than the car while driving or perhaps in church if the choir sings real loud and drowns me out.

5. If you could meet any musical icon (past or present), who would it be and why? Back in my teen days I may have said someone like Morrissey from the Smiths but now I just see musical “icons” as regular joes and can’t think of one in particular that I’d single out. So I’ll have to think about that one.

LOL! Have a great weekend!

7 Quick Takes (3/30/12) – A Contest, The Hunger Games Movie & The Flu Edition

By bobbi
March 30, 2012
1 Comment

Hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary.

– 1 –

TTIF Already? – How can it possibly be Friday already? The days we were absent from school has thrown me off so in my mind it feels like it’s only Wednesday. On the one hand, that’s great news since it is the weekend already. On the other hand, I’m two days short with the things I had to get done this week. Oh, well. That means I better quickly get this done and get back to work.

– 2 –

BaSP Blog Contest – First things first, I have to tell you that you must go over to my sister’s blog Barefoot and Sometimes Pregnant and enter her Year 3 Blog Birthday contest. She is simply fabulous! Whereas I share with you my struggles to keep a clean house or get more crafty or not kill my garden within the first few weeks, EL is a Martha Stewart-like chica. She is the sister most likely to be in labor with her fourth child and in between contractions she’ll manage to bake a loaf of bread, can a jar of preserves, gather vegetable in her garden for a homemade stew, milk the cow, sew a new outfit for the baby and whittle a baby crib. I kid you not. She amazes me. Anyway… she says:

Since barefoot and sometime pregnant is all about homemaking, I am giving away the perfect gift for any homemaker or future homemaker. Enter to win a copy of Style, Sex and Substance by Hallie Lord (if you already have a copy, you can give this one away to a friend), an All-in-one Organizer from the company thirty-one, and a custom apron. Yes, I will sew you an apron of your choice! (I will give you some pattern types to choice from and fabric options.) The giveaway will close on Sunday and I will post the winner on Monday.

Click on over and tell her that I sent you! 😉

– 3 –

Call Me Aunt B. – Oh, and also keep my sister in your prayers because she is now 39 weeks pregnant and any day she could have baby #4 (although she tends to go late.) We are all excited to meet our new family member! I can’t wait to see if I’m an auntie to a little niece or nephew.

– 4 –

RoL – Speaking of Blog Birthdays, this year our original website Revolution of Love.com will be ten years old in November! Can you believe it?! We started it when we were newly married and only had Bella. I had a lot more time to write back then! Since I was still new to mommyhood I wrote more for newly married couples and Catholic singles. There are a few articles about dating/courtship and chastity that still get a lot of hits. That’s why we haven’t pulled the site off the web. Over the next few months I’ll be reposting some of those articles here since the blog gets a lot for traffic that the website does.

– 5 –

Man, I’m Old – As for this blog, next month I’ll have been blogging for nine years! My first post was back in 2003. That’s just crazy. Although I’ve been around awhile, some years I only posted a handful of times. In 2003 I have only 22 posts. (Although, I did delete a few that had dead links or outdated info.) I think 2011 is the first year that I posted consistently with over 100 posts. Okay, okay. Useless facts. I’ll celebrate next month and, inspired by my sis, I’ll put together a little contest too. 🙂

– 6 –

The Hunger Games vs The Flu – My mom called while I was typing and she asked me how the movie was last week. I forgot I was going to mention that. (Thanks for the reminder, mom.) As I mentioned last week, I had just finished reading The Hunger Games and planned to go see the movie on Saturday. That is a story in itself. Friday night my stomach was a little queasy but I didn’t think much of it. Matthew woke up at 6:30 AM but I was really feeling awful. Brian took the baby, I got sick and then went back to bed and slept until 10 AM. I woke up feeling a bit out of it but not too bad. I figured I must have gotten food poisoning. Brian said if I was up to it I could go ahead and go to the movies since I already bought my ticket and who knows when I’d get another afternoon off. True. I got ready and went. The movie was packed but luckily I found a secluded seat where I wouldn’t be touching anyone, in case I really was sick.
The movie started and from the get go it was amazing. I thought they did a great job making the book come alive on the screen, editing what they needed to but still keeping the tone of the book. I certainly think you’d get more out of the movie if you read it first because there are a lot of subtle things that you won’t pick up on unless you’ve read the book first. And although it was not gory-graphic it was still incredibly disturbing to see little kids get murdered like that. More disturbing was the fact that it was also viewed as reality tv/entertainment. With the current obsession with reality TV and the growing lack of disrespect for life, it does not seem too far fetched to think that we could one day return to the days of the martyrs in the Roman Coliseum.
As the movie continued we got to the part where Katniss was looking for the hurt Peeta and we lost our picture. We could hear it but not see it. We sat there as they tried to fix it. The manager came in and told us they were working on it but they couldn’t rewind what we missed because it would throw off the show times for the people behind us. The theater nearly had a District 11 riot (that was one of the last scenes we just saw) when he told us that. Finally they got the movie back on and they rewound it to the part where Rue and Katniss were together. We yelled, “NO!!!” We were not going to sit there and watch Rue’s death all over again. It was hard enough the first time when we could hear people in the theater quietly sobbing. Fifteen minutes later, they found the right spot and continued the movie. The end seemed a little rushed but I still loved the movie. Did you see it? What did you think?
After we were leaving the theater, the manager gave us all free passes so at least I got a free movie out of it! Plus, I got over my phobia of going to the movies alone, so I am ready to go! On a side note, however, I got home and by the end of the day I was much worse. I realized I had the flu and not food poisoning. As I lay on my bed dead to the world I kept praying I didn’t get anyone sick in the theater…from touching the seat or the handrail or the door handle. I kept picturing the movie Contagion. Sorry, my fellow movie goers!

– 7 –

Tiny Bubbles – That’s it for now. I better get back to my boys. While I type I’ll often put the bubble machine on the bookshelf and they play happily trying to pop bubbles or catch them on their tongue. (Ew.) Here is a photo of them right now still in their pj’s. Although Matthew looks like he’s ignoring the bubbles and looking for a good book. Maybe he’ll have a little more Brian than Bobbi in him. 😉

Have a wonderful weekend!!

7 Quick Takes (3/29/12) – Motherhood, Fundraising, & The Hunger Games

By bobbi
March 23, 2012
1 Comment

Hosted by Jen at Conversion Diary.

– 1 –

I am sorry to say that I am only half awake this morning. I was up at 3:30 AM with Matthew, who was either teething or feeling sick. Whatever it was, he was not happy and not sleeping. I can’t say that I felt much different at the time. After two hours I was finally able to get him back to sleep so I could catch another 30 minutes before I had to get up with the rest of the kids. It’s times like these I think I should start drinking coffee.

– 2 –

The other day I met an acquaintance I haven’t seen in awhile. She remembered me when I was pregnant with Andrew. When I told her I had four kids now she actually gasped. She stared at me for a minute and said I don’t look like I have four kids, which got me to thinking… What is a mom with four kids supposed to look like?? I don’t know but if she saw me right now she’d be saying, “You look like this and you only have four kids?” Grr. (Okay, let’s think of something more upbeat…)

– 3 –

I am in the last month of our school fundraising and Brian and I were actually able to solicit some nice gifts to be auctioned off. It is surprising that I am on the committee because I am terrible at sales. I like helping people but when it comes to talking them into buying something (or giving me something for free) I can’t bring myself to push it. There is another mom on the committee that has the ability to walk into a business cold turkey and she walks out with a complimentary deluxe package worth $500. I walk into a business and say, “You don’t want to donate something, right? No, I didn’t think so. Okay, thanks anyway.” Every once in awhile I do get a positive response to which I say, “Oh, you do? Are you sure? I’ll understand if you don’t. I know money is tight so don’t worry if you can’t…” Yeah, I’m not a salesman. The other mom said I had a pleasant demeanor so they would donate. “Pleasant”? I don’t know. That sounds an awful lot like the blind date with the “great personality.” Oh, well. I’ll take what I can get.

– 4 –

At least the soliciting of donations has put my “mommy cards” to good use. What’s a mommy card? It’s like a business card but geared towards my business – mommyhood. It’s great for when I need to give people my contact info quickly. Above is the one I use, although my personal info like my last name and phone numbers are edited out. They have a lot of cute ones at Vista Print.com. They have an offer for 250 free cards but the selection is limited. You can also choose the $10 special (with the $5 off savings) and have a large selection. Just search “mommy card.”

– 5 –

Last Friday I was going to tell you about a book I read – Stealing Jenny by Ellen Gable – but I was so preoccupied with the my vomit shower and Matthew’s near death experience (how’s that for an upbeat topic?) that I never got to it. Here’s the summary, “After three heartbreaking miscarriages, Tom and Jenny Callahan are happily anticipating the birth of their sixth child. Their neighbor, however, is secretly hatching a sinister plot which will find Jenny and her unborn baby fighting for their lives.” The story is well written and although the kidnapping is a harrowing tale, the book is also touching as it explores the topics of love, courage, forgiveness and trust in God, both in the main plotline and the flashbacks of Jenny and Tom’s beginning friendship. I may not recommend this book if you are a pregnant woman prone to worry (especially if like me, you recently saw a documentary about real life women who were in similar situations. Scary!) However, to the others, I wholeheartedly recommend the book. You can get it in paperback or download it to your kindle for only $2.99.

– 6 –

After the suspense of that story I was looking for something else that would keep my interest. A number of people I know have been taking about The Hunger Games and there has been so much hype about the movie that I downloaded a free sample chapter onto my kindle. Let’s just say that I read the first chapter and was drawn in immediately and downloaded the rest of the book. That whole day I was sneaking my iPhone out and trying to read pages in between whatever I was doing. Finally after everyone was in bed I read well into the night and breathlessly finished the last page. There is a great Book Review and Parents’ Guide of The Hunger Games Trilogy from a Catholic perspective over at Catholic Lane.com. It begins:

“The Hunger Games is a futuristic, sci-fi series that draws heavily on themes of violence, war and power. It is set in the dystopia created by the Capitol, the ruling class that satiates its own pleasures at the expense and oppression of the 12 Districts. The Districts, which are made up of the working class, provide the Capitol population with everything it needs to continue its own survival and remain in power.
The story commences with Panem, the country that emerged from the civil war ruins of what was once North America, preparing for the annual Hunger Games. The Games are televised live and are mandatory viewing for every citizen in the nation. They were instituted as a punishment for the Districts’ attempted rebellion against the Capitol years ago. Every year each of the 12 Districts must provide one boy and one girl between the ages of twelve and eighteen who will fight to the death on live television until only one child is still alive. The Games exist to remind the people in the Districts that not even children are beyond the reach of the Capitol’s power…” (Continue reading.)

The guide reviews all three books so Spoiler Alert if you haven’t read them already. There is also a list of topics and discussion starters for those parents with older children who will want to read these books.

– 7 –

To show you how much I loved reading The Hunger Games, Brian suggested that he watch the kids and I take an afternoon off since I’ve been so busy with household stuff and the school fundraiser ect. I told him I’d like to see the Hunger Games movie this weekend. He was surprised since I’ve never gone to the movies alone but he was more that happy to give me some time off. So I’ve bought my ticket and have my handkerchief and a bag of peanut M&M’s in my purse. Tomorrow afternoon this mama will be ready for 2 1/2 hours of action and drama. After that I’ll be ready to come home and kiss my husband and kids and hold them close!
In the meantime, have a great weekend and may the odds ever be in your favor.

7 Quick Takes (3/16/12): The “I Thought He Was Going to Die” Version

By bobbi
March 16, 2012
1 Comment

Hosted by Jen.

– 1 –

Yesterday was an insane day and, as usual, my way to cope is to write about it. It started out normal enough but then it went crazy…

Rain Clouds Gather – I got the kids off to school them went to take my morning walk. When I was done and as I was getting Matthew back in the car, I got a phone call from the preschool. My usually playful JP was listless and not himself. I wasn’t sure if he has just tired (I loathe you, daylight savings time) or coming down with something. So I picked him up from school and headed home. The poor guy slept for an hour or two and then seemed much better. I gave him his lunch then went to send off some fundraising emails while Matthew played with his toys.

A few minutes later JP came to my chair and I scooted forward so he could take his usual position of comfort – standing behind me on the chair, leaning his head on my shoulder, and rubbing his finger on my lips. I don’t know how this soothes him but it does. As he hugged me I was thinking to myself that he seems fine now and maybe we should go ahead and go to speech therapy when he made this strange noise. Now the excitement begins…

– 2 –

TMI Alert – I turned my head to look back at him and saw chunks fly out of his mouth. I was covered in it, the desk chair was dripping and the desk was splattered. Immediately Matthew saw puddles of liquid to be splashed in and ran over. Luckily I was wearing a jacket over a tank top so I threw off the jacket, which had most of his lunch, and in one arm I held JP and my desk trash can, in case more was to come, and in my other arm I grabbed Matthew and ran down the long hallway to my bathroom. (See all that walking is paying off.)

I looked in the mirror and saw vomit dripping from my cheek onto my neck. Nice. There’s nothing like the glamour of motherhood. I quickly wiped my face off then bathed JP while Matthew emptied out the contents of the bathroom drawers on the floor.

– 3 –

The Famous Last Words “I Only Turned for A Second” – I finished cleaning JP and then smelled Matthew’s stinky diaper. No problem, after JP’s fiasco this will be cake. Now this is where things get scary – seriously. I grabbed the phone to call the speech therapist and leave her a message that we won’t be there. I placed Matthew on the bed to be changed. As I’m leaving my message, phone cradled in my neck, I had one hand on Matthew and with the other hand I tried to grab a diaper wipe that was just… out… of… my… reach… and my wiggle worm tried to escape but headed in the wrong direction – right off the bed. He fell down and started screaming. I hang up the phone. (What a message that will be.)

– 4 –

Snap Out of It – I picked up Matty to comfort him and you know how a baby cries really hard then sucks in a breathe and cries even louder? Well, Mathew sucked in the air but never let it out. He just stood there then looked almost like he was going to faint. I freaked out. I thought perhaps he hit his head so hard he had brain damage. My mind traveled at warp speed – it a matter of seconds I pictured the whole scenario – me in the hospital, the doctor telling me they did everything they could, my breakdown, the funeral… I slapped myself out of it and rubbed his chest and called his name. He finally took a breath and whimpered but seemed tired out. As I debated going to the emergency room or calling 911, I quickly changed his dirty diaper. There was no time for me to change out of my vomit clothes. I’d have to bring JP with me and hope he doesn’t get sick again. In the meantime Matthew had quieted down and seemed better.

– 5 –

Dr. H to the Rescue – I called my pediatrician’s emergency line and told him what happened. He asked me detailed questions about what happened. How far did he fall (off the bed), is the floor carpeted (yes), did his eyes roll back (no), are his pupils unequal (no), is he vomiting (no, just his brother), etc. He said it sounded like he was okay but I had to keep an eye on him for any warning signs. It seems he didn’t so much hurt his head but rather he was crying so hard that he lost his breathe.

– 6 –

Perspective – I sat on the couch with the boys grateful that Matthew finished his milk and was now hitting me on the face with his “love taps” as he laughed and babbled away, “Mamamamamama…” Who cares if my desk area was still covered in vomit or that I had yet to shower after getting drenched in it. Who cares about all the things I “should” be doing today. I was just relieved that I had my babies snuggled in my arms and God has spared me a scary, scary cross (at least so far.) There’s nothing like a little shake up to help you put back perspective in your life!

– 7 –

Lesson Learned – Today is a new day and the kids are home from school. I hear yelling, screaming, laughter and the sound of JP and Matty giggling as they play with the bubble machine by my desk. The chaotic noise never sounded so beautiful.

So if today happens to drive you mad and you are feeling like you are going to lose it, stop and take a breath. Remember what matters most and count your blessings. God will get you through the rough spots. Don’t wait for a near tragedy to remind you.

Thanks for listening and have a wonderful weekend!!

Revolution of Love

Do small things with great love.

Category Archives: 7 quick takes

7 Quick Takes (5/4/12): American Idol, Sex, & Contests (& Bonus Takes) Edition

7 Quick Takes (4/13/12): Accidents, Musicals, & Flashback Music Weekend

7 Quick Takes (3/30/12) – A Contest, The Hunger Games Movie & The Flu Edition

7 Quick Takes (3/29/12) – Motherhood, Fundraising, & The Hunger Games

7 Quick Takes (3/16/12): The “I Thought He Was Going to Die” Version