Monkey

Keep praying

I haven't posted an update on my cousin's baby yet because things haven't really gotten much better, but they haven't gotten worse. It seems that everytime the clouds start to clear, there's another little setback. The docs were talking about releasing him the end of this week, but then the doctor noticed he was using his tummy muscles to breath. And she won't let him go home until he quits doing that. But the great news is that he's now breathing air room with no help and his mama and daddy have gotten to hold him, feed him and change his diaper. So there's some bonding going on. Yay!

So keep praying for Alex to get healthy and come home soon. We all can't wait to get our hands on him! :)

Homeschool fun

A friend sent this to me yesterday (thanks, Kim! And hi!). I've seen it before and I'm sure you have to, but it just gets funnier the older the kids get, so I thought I'd share it. She found it here, but it's been around a while, so I'm not sure who to credit it to. Just know that I didn't come up with it.

You Know You're A Homeschool Mom When...

• You get to change more than diapers, you get to change their minds.
• When a child busts a lip, and after seeing she's okay, you round up some scotch tape to capture some blood and look at it under the microscope!
• You find dead animals and actually consider saving them to dissect later.
• Your children never ever leave the "why?" stage.
• When your teenager decides to take one community college course, and comes home and asks you why the teacher wrote "At" on his paper. (A+)
• You ask for, and get, a copier instead of a diamond tennis bracelet for your wedding anniversary.
• Your kids think reading history is best accomplished while lying on the floor with their head resting on the side of their patient dog.
• Your husband can walk in at the end of a long day and tell how the science experiment went just by looking at the house.
• You never have to drive your child's forgotten lunch to school.
• Your child will never suffer the embarrassment of group showers after PE.
• The only debate about the school lunch program is whose turn it is to cook.
• You never have to face the dilemma of whether to take your child's side or the teacher's side in a dispute at school.
• If your child gets drugs at school, it's probably Tylenol.
• Your neighbors think you are insane.
• Your kids learn new vocabulary from their extensive collection of "Calvin & Hobbes" books.
• Your formal dining room now has a computer, copy machine, and many book shelves and there are educational posters and maps all over the walls.
• You have meal worms growing in a container....on purpose.
• If you get caught talking to yourself, you can claim you're having a PTA meeting.
• Talking out loud to yourself is a parent/teacher conference.
• You take off for a teacher in-service day because the principal needs clean underwear.
• You can't make it through a movie without pointing out the historical inaccuracies.
• You step on math manipulative on your pre-dawn stumble to the bathroom.
• The teacher gets to kiss the principal in the faculty lounge and no one gossips.
• Your honor student can actually read the bumper sticker that you have put on your car.
• If your child claims that the dog ate his homework, you can ask the dog.
• Some day your children will consider you to be a miracle-working expert and will turn to you for advice.
• Your kids refer to the neighbor kids as "government school inmates."
• You can't make it through the grocery produce department without asking your preschooler the name and color of every vegetable.
• You can't put your produce in your cart without asking your older student to estimate it's weight and verify accuracy.
• You live in a one-house schoolroom.

• Your favorite Christmas gift was a gift certificate to a book store.

• The principal can give the teacher a pat on the behind and it's not harassment.

• Your kids will actually talk to grown ups at a family gathering and are actually patient with kids half their age.

• You can take the time to look at a tiny spider on a log.

• You can listen to your child's favorite hilarious passage from Hank the Cowdog 47 times.

• Your daughter, who is practically a vegetarian, is begging her dad to shoot some starlings so she can pluck them and clean them up to make a "blackbird" pie just like the Ingalls family.

• You're almost afraid to put your hand in your purse because you not sure if your 6yo has put something that's alive (or possibly not alive, but once was) to take home to view under the microscope.

• You have a line item in your budget for overdue book fines.

• You have to add the words: "homeschool, homeschooler, and homeschooling" to your computer's spell checker so it will stop marking them as wrong.

• Your house in on the Parade of Homes List - for educational merchandisers.

• When visiting a strange town you see a parking lot full of mini-vans and station wagons and wonder if it's a homeschooling conference.

• Your friends don't want to help you move because you have so many books.

• Your school clothes have more holes in the knees than your play clothes.

I love the ones about pointing out the historical inaccuracies in movies and referring to the neighbor kids as "government school inmates". I literally laughed out loud at those. Although, neither my kids or I have actually called other kids inmates (but it has crossed my mind a few times). And I hate that the spell check thinks homeschool (and homeschooler, and homeschooling) aren't words.

And I have to share a couple of things that I've done in the last few weeks that made me realize that I really am a homeschool mom:

A couple weeks ago, Marc-Adam found a dead cricket in our laundry room. He went and got Stephen to pick it up (obviously I wasn't taking care of it fast enough, but I was right in the middle of switching a couple loads). Stephen picked it up, and instead of throwing it in the trash or flushing it, studied it for a while, carried it around for a while, and then asked for a jar. So I gave him one. And he carried around the dead cricket in a jar. And I let him. After my mom threw it away, I realized how strange it was. But I still wouldn't have thrown it away.

Then we went to a wedding where one of the favors was actually a little toy (you've seen them, it's like a paddle with two balls or beads attached to string on each side and when you spin it, the beads hit the paddle so that it makes a noise). I kept mine, and asked other people for theirs, so that I could take them home and show the kids the power of centrifugal force.

*And I'm sure you noticed that the font has gone all weird on this post and I spent 30 minutes trying to fix it, but now I'm mad at it and I'm done. Sorry. Hopefully things will be back to normal next post.*

Believe it or not, this actually IS worth blogging about

For a while now, Sweet Hubby has been encouraging me to try my hand at cooking fish. If you know me at any level, you should know that my dislike--no, hatred--of anything that at one point lived in the water runs deep. Fish hate runs through my blood and is much a part of me as my brown hair and brown eyes. But to humor him, I've tried twice in the last 7.5 years of our marriage to cook--and eat--fish. Neither time turned out well. In fact, the last time I made it, not only did I want to run screaming from the dinner table, no one else would touch it.

But he's been working on me for a while now to try again. He pulled out the big guns last week when he reminded me how healthful and "good for you" fish is. Well that did it. I know how healthy fish is, but to know that he knows how good it is and still wants to eat it means I should take advantage of that opportunity.

So. Today was our big grocery run. I actually put fish on the menu for tonight's dinner. I actually went to the grocery store with fish in mind, and actually walked up to seafood counter (trying my hardest not to gag as I rang the bell) and placed my order. Then, I actually drove home with *shudder* fish in my car. And then. I cooked it. And y'all...I ate it.

*Pausing to let my parents and dear friends pick themselves up off the floor.*

I made tilapia. I baked it in lemon butter and Mrs. Dash. It turned out well and I ate all of it (although, very reluctantly). The kids even ate it and at one point Stephen proclaimed that I was the best fish maker in the world. It wasn't terribly "fishy" and that helped tremendously. It's that yucky fishy smell and flavor that makes me shudder and gag at just the thought (I literally had to stop typing that last sentence so I could shudder and gag at the thought of the fishy smell).

I ate fish.

And now my melodrama is over.

Watching the bus go by

So it's official. We're homeschoolers. As the school bus went by this morning for the first day of school, Stephen wasn't on it. On what should be his first day of kindergarten, I'm thinking we're going to go rent a movie, make some cookies, read a few books and just hang out. In fact, for the first few months of his kindergarten year, we're going to be doing a lot of "just hanging out". We're taking a trip the 3rd week in September and I don't want to start before then, so our target start date is Oct. 6. That's when things are going to have to start having a little more structure. We'll be starting Accountable Kids back up again, too (we quit because M-A kept tearing the cards down) and they won't be able to call the shots all day long on what they do.

But my heart is so happy that Stephen's not going to public school. All of his friends are in school now. He asked me a few days ago what kids do in "real school". I immediately told him that we can call it "public school" or "conventional school", but our home school will be "real school". We also talked about how when public school kids are learning about animals, they'll have to read about them in books....and when we learn about animals, we'll go to the zoo. And when they learn about stars, they'll read about them in books or do projects in their classrooms....we'll get a telescope and head out to our backyard. And when they learn about rocks, they'll see them in books...while we're at the museum or at a nature park to collect and compare rocks. He thought that was the neatest thing. I think he's getting really excited. (This post is not to diminish the choice of any parent that has sent their kids to conventional school. This is just our view and experience--I don't expect everyone else to feel the same way.)

I'm trying not to be too ambitious about our first year. Especially with Marc-Adam being in the phase he's in. He wants to be in the middle of everything, which has made it a little difficult lately when we've tried to do some book work. I have a lot of things lined up that I want to do, but I'm really trying not to set us up for failure. Some of what we're doing this year is what we started and didn't finish before or planned to do, but never got to last year. Some of it is different, though. Here's what I've got lined up--

For math, of course we're sticking with Math-U-See. We started, but didn't finish, the Primer some time last year, so we'll be finishing that up this year. My plan is to finish it up before we start up again in the spring (after our Christmas break), so we can start Alpha then. But it'll be okay if we only make it through Primer for kindergarten.

For reading/language arts we'll be kind of doing a mish-mash of sorts. I've gotten him two Explode the Code books to work out of. The plan is to work out of those and just read, read, read as many books as we can to really give him lots of practice and give him a good foundation before we start real language arts (grammar, spelling, etc) next year. We'll also be using KONOS, which has some language arts in it...I'm not sure yet if we'll use it for LA this year, though. And for his handwriting (which is partly why we're only focusing on reading this year instead of a total LA curriculum) we have Handwriting Without Tears. I really wanted A Reason for Handwriting, but it's more expensive and the store I was at when I had handwriting on the brain only had HWT (and on sale!). I like the way it teaches to write the letters, because it's exactly the way I was teaching it before we had a real curriculum for it. Stephen's handwriting is just really not good. I've been trying to work with him on it without stressing us both out, but that's a really fine line. I'm going to try not to push it too hard. But I can't tell if I'm teaching it wrong, he's just not ready or if he's just being lazy. If I'm teaching it wrong, or if he's just lazy, I can fix that. But if he's not ready, then I'll be doing more harm than good by forcing him and making us both cry.

And for everything else (science, history, bible, music, etc.) the thing I'm really excited about is KONOS. We'll be doing the Orderliness study first. I don't know how long it will take us, but if we finish before I consider our school year over, I'm not sure if I'll start another unit. They say that each unit takes 9-14 weeks, but that you can stretch it out. Since I plan on just covering the subjects on surface level and taking it slow, I might be able to stretch it out to cover most of our school year. Through the Orderliness unit, we'll be learning about days of the week, months of the year, seasons, planets, animals, trees, rocks and classifying those last three things. There's also a study of the book The Secret Garden, but I'm not sure if I'm willing to do that yet. And we'll be studying about the character trait of Orderliness through what the bible has to say about it. There are lots of really fun activities laid out for the whole unit. I'm really very excited about it.

So maybe I'm being too ambitious. But I'd rather set our goals high and have to adjust later than to set them low and not be prepared or not do as much as we could have.

Even though we're not starting quite yet, the fact that Stephen's not sitting in a classroom right now means we're homeschoolers!! I feel like I can finally say that for real now...every other time up to this point, it's just been "We're planning on homeschooling." I'm also getting more brave about telling people. For a long time, I didn't tell anyone unless they knew me and I knew them pretty well. But yesterday morning, as all the kids "upgraded" their Sunday school classes and everyone was getting ready for school and talking about it, I started telling more and more people. I'm proud of our decision now, instead of worried about what people will say or think. I'm feeling so many more emotions than I thought I would on this day. But I'm really feeling excited and FREE!

YAY!

And for a small funny, there's this: A couple days ago, I was flipping through our Konos book to get reacquainted. I was looking at the part about memorizing the days of the week. I was pretty sure Stephen had the days of the week memorized. He always knows what day it is and if I say "the day after tomorrow", he immediately knows which day of the week I'm talking about. So I asked him if he could name all the days in order. He wanted to start with Monday, but I corrected him and said, "Start with Sunday." And he named them all, in this order: Sunday Saturday Friday Thursday Wednesday Tuesday Monday. LOL! So, just to see what he would do, I told him to start with Monday, and he got them all right (except he stumbled and almost switched Sunday and Saturday). That was just strange to me. I bet once he can see it visually on a calendar, it'll click and he won't get it backwards anymore.

Happy school year to everyone!! :)

When you give a kid a camera, part II

More pictures from my little amateur photogs. I really love doing these kinds of posts. You can see the first set again here.

Finding my place to be happy

For the last few years I've been struggling with the question, "Am I doing enough?" in regards to serving our church and serving God, more specifically. I've felt restless and useless and incapable of doing more than I was already doing. At church, I joined things and volunteered for things and none of it felt right or the opportunities fell through or I just couldn't make it work, no matter how badly I wanted to do it. I prayed and prayed about where I was supposed to be serving God. I sing in the choir and that's working great for right now, but it has just not felt like it was enough. I wanted to be more involved in church....I've been getting so much out of it and I was feeling the need to give back. I wanted to get more involved in community outreach projects. I was asking God where he needed me and what I should be doing, but nothing ever happened. Like I said, as I tried to find more places to plug in and get involved, things just didn't work out.

And then one morning, I woke up and it occurred to me: As Christians, we don't just serve God through our church or community. We can also serve God by serving those that he places in our lives. Duh. I have this man whom I love for my husband and these children I adore as my sons and what blessings they are! I can see how they are exactly the right people for me to be surrounded by. It's taken me longer than I'd like to admit to see it, but I finally realize that for this season in my life I can serve God simply by loving and blessing and serving within my own four walls. God has blessed me with this beautiful family and I can give back to him by loving and supporting my husband and by nurturing, guiding and teaching my children. He loves them just as much as he loves the people in my church that I wanted to serve and just as much as the people in the community that I wanted to reach out to. And I can be a blessing by letting most of my focus go to my family. I can finally tell myself, IT'S OKAY. And I can finally be happy with that.

Think he hears this often?

I sat down on the couch for a few minutes and Zachary came up and snuggled in my lap. We start chatting and laughing about something funny that he does (I'd explain it, but I'm afraid it would just sound strange). He said something really funny and I pulled him close to me, gave him a big hug, kissed the top of his head and said, "I LOVE you!" To which he added: "I'm so cute!" Which is how I usually finish that thought. :)

Prayer request

I mentioned in a post last week that my cousin (who goes by BJ when she comments on my blog) was having her baby this week. Well, she did. Sweet Baby Alex was born yesterday morning. But he's had a bit of a rocky start and now I'm asking you to pray for him. I don't have too many details of it all, but I'm fairly certain his condition is not critical, however he and his mama (and daddy and brother and sister, too) could certainly use some extra prayers. He took his first breath before he was all the way out, and ended up inhaling some fluid and now he's having a little bit of a rough time. Pray for him if you're the praying sort and I'll update you when the situation changes. Thanks!

You should see this

Saturday night, Fox News aired a political forum hosted by Rick Warren at his megachurch, Saddleback Church. He hosted both presidential candidates, separately. He asked them both the same questions and while Obama went first, John McCain was not listening. It was an amazing thing to watch and I hope this format will be repeated in the future. There was no bashing of either candidate. I think it truly showed what each candidate was about, and if there was someone watching that hadn't yet decided who they were voting for, I don't know what else they'd need to make the decision.

I tried to find a video or transcript, on the Fox News websited, but this is all I could find. Basically a synopsis of what was said. But as much as it pains me to link to CNN, they have the whole forum on their website. It's lengthy, but I hope you take the time to watch it. I haven't watched it on the CNN website, so I don't know what they've added at the end as far as spin (if they did), so keep that in mind.

Why the third child doesn't have as many pictures

I lost my camera. That's why. Thankfully, I found it again, charged it up and have been taking pictures like crazy trying to make up for lost time! Hoping that Marc-Adam won't notice when he's older that there seems to be months missing from his second year. Looking through the pictures that were already on the camera from before I lost it, I lost it a short time after this post, I guess. Marc-Adam has also taken up the hobby of photography, as well. We've gotten some interesting shots from that. And I can't bring myself to delete them. I'm going to post them, I think. But not now, I have to make breakfast. And maybe not this weekend, and maybe not the beginning of next week....my cousin, BJ, is having a baby #3!! But now I'm rambling...

Oh, and we finally have someone coming to look at our house on Monday. At this point, I'm not sure if I want them to buy it or not. Part of me wants them to love it and buy it, the other part doesn't want to think about moving now. I'm out of the mood.

Crazy

I recently realized that when Stephen was Marc-Adam's age, I had Zachary. And when Stephen was Zachary's age, I had Marc-Adam. C.R.A.Z.Y. I love all my boys dearly and don't even want to imagine life without them, but sometimes I wonder what the heck we were thinking! When I hear about someone getting pregnant while their youngest (or only) is 1 year old, I think, "Wow, their kids are going to be really close together!" Then I realize, WAIT, I did that! TWICE. Even now, Marc-Adam seems so young to be a big brother. He's my baby. But I do love that my boys are so close in age. And that not even Stephen will be able to remember a day when he wasn't a brother.

At least I wasn't wearing white

We went to a wedding this past weekend for a cousin of Sweet Hubby. Normally, I love weddings, but not this time. And it wasn't because of anything about the wedding.

I agonized over what I was going to wear. I didn't want to be overdressed, but I also wanted to dress up a bit. This couple is only getting married once, and it's not very often that Sweet Hubby and I get to dress up and go somewhere just the two of us. I had decided to wear this cute cute outfit of a top and skirt. Then at the last minute, I changed my mind to wear a cotton dress. It's a pretty dress and it looks really cute with a certain pair of shoes.

So we get to the wedding, say hi to a few of the people that we know, and right in the middle of a conversation it suddenly hits me like a mack truck that I wore that same dress to the wedding shower six weeks before. Now, I know that may not sound like a big deal to some of you, but it was a huge deal to me. I rarely see most of the people that were at the wedding. The last time I saw them was at the wedding shower. I probably won't see them again until the next wedding in that side of the family. They probably wouldn't have remembered what I wore to the shower if I had worn something different to the wedding, but I'm convinced that they knew that I wore that dress the last time they saw me. And I was so self-conscious about it the rest of the night. Drrrr. And as much as I love that dress, I'll forever have to think about when I wore it last every time I take it out of the closet.

New friends

I updated my blogroll to more accurately reflect where I'm spending my online time. Most of the old favorites are still there (aside from my cousins who went private), but there are some new favorites there as well. I think a few of them I started reading around the time that I last updated the list, but didn't want to commit yet to adding them to my sidebar. But I've spent some time getting to know and love them. I think you might, too.

You might remember my friend Chewymama. Well now Chewymama has a personal blog where she blogs about her family happenings (including the recent birth of baby Abram!! YAY!).

Jana blogs at Dress-Up and Diaper Changes about life with 3 young kids (I can relate!). We seem to have a lot in common and I love reading her perspective about being a mom and what goes on in her life.

I think a lot of you read Mommy Daisy already. I was late to board that train for some reason. She's a fun read and blogs about her life and happenings with her too cute son!

Blissfully Domestic and Marriage Hacks are new, too. Definitely interesting reads and both give you things to think about regarding your roles as homemaker and wife (assuming you are on one or both of those).

I also updated the link for Total Mom Haircut. I had no idea how terribly outdated it was. Sorry Beth!

I hope you enjoy reading these new additions!

Lessons learned

Lately, Stephen and I have had several talks about what it means to be in control of our words and "taming our tongues". He has a habit of just talk-talk-talking all.day.long, especially when he's mad or upset. He talks so much that he frequently says things he shouldn't. When he gets to that point, he "loses the privilege to talk" for a while and must keep all thoughts and comments to himself. It's been fairly effective in making him think about what he wants to say instead of just saying anything that comes to mind. But it's definitely a work in progress and I realize that it's a lesson learned over time and with a dash of maturity.

So. Last week, I had a huge blister on the inside of my lip. It hurt to talk. And now that it's all healed up, I have some kind of sore on my tongue on the opposite side of where the blister was. Now it really hurts to talk. So much so, that I try my hardest not to. And when I do, I talk funny and everyone's been asking me to repeat myself. They don't get a second chance, because I'm not opening my mouth again. I only say things that are truly important and need to be heard. It's been a nice little lesson, because I think I might be figuring out where Stephen gets his diarrhea of the mouth verbosity.

A few days ago, Sweet Hubby and I saw a friend from church in the grocery store. We stopped and chatted for a while. As we were walking away, I slapped my forehead and asked Hubby if I talk too much. He said no, but I'm thinking he was probably wisely avoiding the landmine I had just laid out for him. The thing is, I often walk away from conversations slapping my forehead and wanting to kick my own behind because I felt like I talked too much. There have more times than I can count that I have yelled at my self internally, "Just SHUT UP already!!"

So, because of this monster on my tongue, I've lost the privilege to talk. Interesting, huh? I talk to the kids all day long, and most of it is important. We talk about all sorts of things and Stephen has been asking lots of questions lately, especially questions about God. So we have to talk. But outside of those conversations, I'm seeing how much I say that is unimportant. I'm filling their ears with nothing but words, and they are reflecting that. I had no idea that I had a need to tame my own tongue. I get it now. It's definitely something that I need to work on.

Let's just hope that the kids don't catch on too quickly and start to take advantage of this.

I may not be around much this week

Starting tonight, Sweet Hubby's off for a whole week! He got the little impromptu vacation because he volunteered to take another manager's shift because she was going to be out for a wedding. So he worked 8 nights out of 9 and now he doesn't have to go back to work until next Tuesday night! I'm so looking forward to having him around this week. It's been well over a year since he's had this kind of time off. Once our friend Edouard moves on, then we might be able to do some fun things. Which means I may or may not be around blogging. Unless something really funny happens.

And speaking of something really funny happening, here's a little scenario from yesterday:

I was on the phone and Stephen asked if they could give their superheros a bath (which means they want to play with their action figures in the sink). This usually makes for a colossal mess, which I'm normally willing to deal with, but not yesterday, so I said no. A few minutes later, Stephen came out of the bathroom yelling, "MOM!" and I knew something was up without him even saying anything more. I went into the bathroom where Zachary was standing on the stool at the sink with a "Bambi caught in the headlights" look. I couldn't tell that he was doing anything more than washing his hands, but he gave himself away. His face melted and he said:

"I told Stephen not to tell!!"

See y'all around!

Still in disbelief

It was a heavy morning in church today. No one really knew what to say or do. It was agonizing dropping off Marc-Adam in his class knowing his little friend wouldn't be there anymore. People were gathering in the halls outside the nursery, crying. Parents and nursery workers were extra sweet with the kids, all of whom were too young to even know what happened, much less understand it.

My heart breaks for what my friend must be going through right now. I can't even wrap my mind around that kind of pain. It's so unnatural. I guess I'm feeling a little bit of survivor's guilt, wondering what separates me and this baby's mother that she's been dealt this overwhelming hand. Her heart will never recover. And I get to kiss all of my babies tonight.

I've also been feeling a little bit frantic when the kids are out of my sight. Last night, as I went to bed, I panicked a bit because I felt like I couldn't be watchful if I fell asleep, that I wouldn't know it if something horrible happened. I felt the same way when dropping the kids off at nursery and Sunday School because as much as they're well-cared for there, strange weird things happen all the time. All these awful "what-ifs" kept streaming through my head. It's like I realize that I have a whole lot less control over what happens to my kids. I've been praying more than ever today for the health and safety of my children. I pray for that every night with them, but now I find myself almost begging God to spare me from that nightmare.

Experiencing the death of a child has got to be the worst kind of suffering there is. It affects everyone who has ever had contact with that child, or any child, for that matter. It makes every moment shorter and finite. And all the things that we think about and do and obsess about seem trivial. Nothing else really matters except that I made sure when my kids went to bed tonight that they knew that they are wonderful creations of God and that they are safe and loved and special. Everything else just fades away. I guess that's the blessing that comes out of an unimaginable tragedy like this. People are more real. They re-prioritize. Life is lived better. Too bad we can't all figure that out before something like this happens.

So sad

I just found out that a baby from our church passed away earlier today. I just can't believe it. He was 15 months old. Just last Sunday I was marveling at how he was in the "big boy room" in the nursery with Marc-Adam now. I've played with that baby and held him and let him drool on me. I can't imagine what his parents, especially his mother, must be going through. It was a tragic accident, but I think given the circumstances, his mama might blame herself.

Please pray for the family. I don't want to give their names for the sake of privacy, but when you bring it to God, I trust that he knows exactly who you are praying for. And hug your children close tonight.

Darn those female parts

I'm finally feeling better after two days of nasty pain. At first I didn't know what was going on, but after a late-night ER visit, we deduced that it was probably an ovarian cyst that burst. I've had cysts before. Large ones, too. When I was newly pregnant with Marc-Adam, I had this large lump on my left side way down near my c-section incision. My doctor initially thought it was a hernia. Turns out it was a cyst. On my right ovary. It was so large that it had caused my right ovary and fallopian tube to fall over to the left side. The doctor was seriously concerned about an ovarian torsion (which is the fancy schmancy way of saying "twisted tubes" (on a completely random note, wouldn't that be a cool name for a punk rock band? The Twisted Tubes)). It never happened, praise God, but instead the cyst just kinda deflated. I also had cysts when I got pregnant with Stephen and Zachary (and as an aside, I'm in no way implying that I might be pregnant, I'm just saying that I know I had them then because I had the ultrasounds to see them...I've most likely had them at other times because of the pain I get at ovulation, but my pregnancies are the only chances I actually get to see the cysts).

So anyway, I'm feeling much better. I never did find out exactly what was wrong because I never got an ultrasound. We waited for hours at the ER, and I got tired of waiting. Then when I called my doctor to try to get in to see her the next morning, the nurse wanted to get snotty with my because I didn't stay at the ER for the ultrasound. But by the time we had finally left the ER, I had been up for 20 hours and I was getting NO REST thanks for the plastic IV thingy shoved up my arm and the pain that I came in with (which was diminished by the pain of the IV thingy being shoved up my arm). The ER people were annoying me because no one really knew what was going on. So I left. Against medical advice. I never thought I would be one to do that. They made me sign a paper that said that I could die if I left. Like they were going to convince me with their scare tactics. Besides, I would have bet the offending ovary that it was indeed a ruptured cyst. The pain was like none other. I didn't have much of a sense of humor Wednesday night, but on the way to the ER I joked with Sweet Hubby that wouldn't it be funny if I were actually in labor and didn't know it?

He didn't think it was that funny.