So Much

Pardon the lack of blogging. On top of John recovering (which took a little longer than anticipated), the boys both ended up with stomach bugs, I've been dealing with chronic back pain, and we spent time at OMSI, Oaks Park, friends houses, the library, and various parks and farmers markets. It's been busy to say the least. We were going to go to the Children's Museum as well, but we ran into some less than desirable behavior from our resident six year old and everything had to come to a screeching halt on Thursday. I canceled all of our plans through Saturday and told Aiden that we were not leaving the house until his attitude changed. That did seem to help and things have been better this weekend. We were able to have a successful, tantrum-free outing to church and the farmer's market to pick up our CSA box (yay for different veggies to try!).

We seem to be having an issue with him being bored now that school is out - although I can't see how with all of our activities. I guess it's not the right kind of activity he needs to keep his brain occupied. He begins Camp Invention tomorrow, a day camp through the US Patent Office. It will go from 9am to 3:30pm all this week, so hopefully that will give him enough mental stimulation to wear him out for the week. After some discussion, John and I are going to request that he complete testing for TAG either before or soon after 1st grade begins. Seeing as we spent part of the afternoon teaching him organic chemistry and his "Preparing for 1st Grade" handbook covered basic shapes and colors, I would like to avoid any potential boredom issues next school year.

So, the past week has been a tad stressful. And because John and I are terrible at planning regular dates for ourselves, we are going to spend the evening cooking together and eating a quiet, candlelit dinner now that the boys are in bed. It might not be "date night" worthy, but it definitely helps!

Snipped

When John and I started dating, we knew we wanted two children. When I was pregnant with Nathan, we decided that if we did not feel like we wanted a third child by the time John was about to turn 30, we were done. John turns 30 in August and we feel very done. I know this kind of decision isn't for everyone, but we made the choice to make it permanent. We feel like we've moved out of the "baby stage" and into the "raising stage". Another factor is that my body tries to bleed to death when I give birth (I can thank my Irish heritage for that). Another birth was really not in the cards for me. So, John was very brave this morning and had the procedure done.

Warning: If you're squeamish, you might not want to read this, although I will try to keep it pretty basic.

What is normally a one numbing shot, 20 minute procedure took nearly an hour and almost couldn't be completed. Apparently what gets cut is typically in the front and is easy to get to. For John, it was in the back and took some searching. Additionally, the main nerve was wrapped around things (this is unusual), which made the numbing shots not work. John was given 12 (two directly into the nerve itself) shots to attempt to numb the area. After 12 shots, John was still yelling out in pain and the doctor was considering giving him an epidural. Thankfully, he couldn't be heard out in the waiting room. The doctor said that it was the most difficult one he'd ever done on a willing patient. John looked a tad shell shocked after it was all said and done, but he was able to walk out of the hospital on his own. I still say natural childbirth is worse, but I do feel bad for him!

He seems to be doing fine and we plan to rest at home this weekend. When we scheduled the appointment, we didn't realize that it was Father's Day weekend. That made us laugh. He'll be taking things pretty slow for the next week (but does plan to go back to work on Monday) and then he has a follow-up to make sure that everything is healing correctly. So that's our fun Father's Day weekend here at the Minthorne house! I'm sure John would appreciate prayer for good healing, especially since things ended up being much more rough than we had anticipated.

The Start of Summer

We kicked off summer yesterday by sleeping in, eating a massive amount of chocolate chip scones, playing Mario Kart on the Wii, getting teeth cleaned at the dentist, and a trip to the farmer's market. We ended up with a deliciously filling dinner thanks purely to things we picked up at the farmer's market - along with some yummy feta from Whole Foods. We had a gigantic salad, plus fresh hummus and pita. It may not sound particularly filling, but we were stuffed!

We had plans to spend all day at OMSI today, but Nathan ended up with an upset stomach this morning (he may have swallowed some of the fluoride treatment yesterday) and we didn't feel like risking it happening again at OMSI. So instead, we made jam with the flat of raspberries we bought at the farmer's market, made more chocolate chip scones, have drawn funny faces on the glass in some picture frames with a dry erase marker, and will head out to a park in a bit.

There are so many plans for this summer, I just hope we find time to do it all!

The Last Day

We officially have a 1st grader in the house. I was able to continue the tradition of getting a picture of Aiden with his teacher on the last day of school. He looks so old! And much happier compared to the first day of kindergarten! If you remember, his first two days were filled with tears and screaming when I would leave him at school.

The first day of kindergarten....

The last day of kindergarten....

What a big boy we have. I'm going to have to wrap my head around the fact that he'll be gone for most of the day next school year. That just makes taking full advantage of our time this summer even more important!

Done!

Oh, I am done with the term! Finally! When I hit the "what was I thinking?" wall around the time midterms came around, I never really got out of that mindset and spent the last half of the term feeling quite overwhelmed and stressed. I am going to enjoy having the next two weeks off from any homework.

I thoroughly enjoyed my library course and can't wait to take more education courses in the fall. I ended the term with 100% on every single project, except for a 90% on one quiz. It was fun and I get to keep every project to include in my certification portfolio for future employment.

This wasn't my best term for math, but at least I passed the class. Picture someone climbing up the side of a cliff using just their fingernails. That was me during the final yesterday. All I can say is thank God for the calculator portion! My professor handed my final back to me with a look that said, "Well, you passed but I'm not quite sure how". I get to attempt to barely scrape by for my last term of math over the summer. It will definitely be nice to be done with general requirements and just focus on my certification in the fall.

Oh what a term this was. I'm glad to be done to focus on my first baby becoming a 1st grader on Tuesday!

This is not a complaint.

Let me begin by saying that I am not complaining. I am simply acknowledging what is fact today.

-I have cleaned poop off the floor.
-I have cleaned pee off the floor.
-I have cleaned pee soaked sheets.
-I have found both children eating from the sugar container.
-I have cursed in front of my children, but not at them. Yes, I do think one is worse than the other.
-I have had tomato sauce splattered down the front of my shirt for hours and have yet to take of myself enough to change my clothes.
-I have hair sticking straight out in various places on my head.
-I have mascara smeared under one eye, but it's yesterday's mascara.
-I had a double fudge brownie for breakfast.
-I had to put out a small fire on the stove while making popcorn (my fault).
-I have found myself constantly squinting and frowning throughout the day, which I'm sure isn't helping future wrinkles.

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is finals week for a stay-at-home mom.

Finals

Pardon the lack of posts for the past week and probably for at least another week. I've been preparing for finals and to put it lightly, this term is kicking my butt. I am rocking the socks off of one of my classes and praying to God that I actually pass the other one (and it's not for lack of trying!). So yes, I am still alive and things are very much happening around here, but blogging will need to wait. I am looking forward to two weeks without classes before summer term begins!