Tales from the Week 10/24-10/30

This week has been kind of eventful. I spent the beginning of it starting the ninja turtles costumes for the boys. Devin is pictured modeling part of one of the costumes on Tuesday. I was pretty pleased with how well they turned out and will post completed pictures for next week's blog. Devin loved putting the costume on, unlike his brother :).

 Justin spent another week doing drill team training and actually managed to injure himself one of those nights. Below is his mangled arm. He worked 1pm-2-3am this week again and what more can I say about drill team training? It is what it is. Justin also got his Crossfit lvl 1 certification this weekend.

Friday morning was the date for Devin's surgery. I was called on Thursday by the OR nurses with directions for Devin's fasting. He went from 6:30pm the night before to after his surgery around 9:30am without eating or drinking anything.
Devin's surgery was scheduled for 7:30 Friday morning and they asked that we arrive at the hospital at 5:45am, so we woke the boys up at 5, dropped Luke off to a friend's house, and left for the hospital. Devin was amazingly pleasant and happy go-lucky the entire time. We checked in, waited, and were brought to a room where we changed Devin into a gown and had his vitals taken. We were then escorted to a little play room where Devin enjoyed the toys and things started picking up. Devin's ortho doctor came in and talked to us (it was weird seeing him in scrubs instead of the normal dress shirt) about what would happen and we were then seen by two anesthesia doctors that asked us if it was ok to use a caudal block for anesthesia - we said ok, though in retrospect I should have asked what the hell that was since I had no idea. Turns out it is kind of like an epidural. Everyone loved Devin. As they were carrying him away to the operating room, he went smiling and his nurse just exclaimed how incredible Devin's temperament is. I must say after all this, I agree.


Around 9am Devin's ortho doctor came out to say he was done and brought us to a little room where he talked to us about what happened. He said that they preformed the procedure, and while it normally releases the ankle to move easily, this was not what happened with Devin. The doctor said that he had to push hard and stop at Devin's foot flexed back only ten degrees, because he was afraid that using more pressure would have broken bones. For a normal person, their range of motion should be 20 degrees flexed back and a surgery like this would have provided even more than that. The doctor looked us in the eyes and said that this was not the fix we all hoped for and that the probability of Devin's problem coming back is high; that we can expect surgery that is a little more complicated next time and that the huge problem Devin has is the gigantic chunk of scar tissue in his calf muscle that is acting like a big wad of gum and preventing his muscles from growing properly. The fact that our conservative doctor who doesn't mention anything unless he thinks it is going to be a problem said this right after surgery hit me hard. I cried a little in the waiting room and all those feelings of frustration that my little boy had this happen to him came back. It was worse when I saw him in the recovery room still under from the anesthesia.

I say all this with complete thankfulness that he is alive and with us because of the life-saving procedure that accidentally produced this injury. And I try not to let the fact that I feel bad for him show to Devin. He knows no different unless I show him. To Devin, this cast, the horrid stretching, uncomfortable e-stim therapy and scar massage are a normal part of his life. All the poking and prodding are par for the course and in spite of it all he smiles, so I should too. This is one of the most beautiful things for me to see and if I look for the positives, the lesson of perseverance and happiness in all circumstances is one of them.

Devin woke up about ten minutes after week go to the recovery room and has since been ok with the cast. He won't put weight on the foot yet, so he either crawls or demands to be carried around. He asked me a few times to take the cast off, but those requests are slowly disappearing. We made a few changes like cutting up the bottom of one of this pants and wrapping his cast to keep it clean when we go outside. He'll have it removed on December 1st. Since my anniversary and Christmas are going to be that month and Justin will be done with drill team training, I think this is going to be one of my happiest Christmas's ever.

I love this boy.

Tales from the week 10/16-10/23

It started with Luke wandering around the living room in circles saying "I'm sick." It was afternoon on Saturday and since Luke often tells me he is sick and it was naptime, I paid no attention - until he barfed about 3 inches from me on the couch. What followed was some kind of hellish nightmare of vomit and diarrhea over the next 6 days. That day Luke threw up 4 more times. Devin started his puking episodes on Monday and until Thursday threw up anywhere from 3-6 times a day. Every time I tried to put the children to bed, they would throw up and the sheets would have to be replaced. Nap time was almost renamed puke time.  

I thought my low point was at about 4:30 on Wednesday morning. Devin woke up screaming, but vomit-free! I tried over the next hour to comfort him and nothing worked until I gave him milk cup and laid him down in his room. About ten minutes later the screaming began again. I opened the door to find Devin covered from head to toe with puke, put him in the bathtub, and sat on the floor of his bedroom and cried. For a long time. It seemed to be overwhelming - between dealing with Justin's schedule and thus lack of help, the mountains of laundry, the smell, feeling sick myself and dealing with other things I can't mention.. I got myself together and took Devin downstairs to sleep on the couch with me.

And woke up to Lukas telling me he had puked. I was puzzled because Lukas looked and smelled totally clean. I marched upstairs figuring I had some cleanup to do in the bedrooms and that the sooner the stink was gone the better. Imagine my horror when I opened the bathroom door to find that Luke had been struck with diarrhea, but had been unable to make it completely to the toilet in time. And it was all over. Happily, because I had already gathered my thoughts and gotten in the right place mentally at 5 or so that morning, I didn't cry. I even laughed a little. I'm chuckling now as I write this. Thankfully Thursday was the last day of vomitting for the kids even though I felt nauseous myself. Justin ended up throwing up at work that night, but toughed it out and stayed. I never threw up yay! I actually learned something through this week of hell: pedialyte stains on carpet suck. Oh, and that I'm tough as nails even if I do need to take a break and cry a little. 

Saturday and Sunday were amazing days. Everyone was feeling good, we were together, and the sun seemed to shine brighter. The kids were so happy that Justin was home and climbed all over him. Lukas obstinantly dressed himself, but doesn't do such a great job matching. Below is one of his creations.. dino pj pants and a collared shirt on backwards. We didn't get a pic of my favorite outfit: Yellow Steelers windbreaker on top and size 7 year-old ninja turtles swim trunks over fleece pants. Yea, he rocked that all the way to the gas station.

Yes, he is grabbing his stuff.

More sad news is that my pumpkins look like this after only a week and a half carved :(. It is supposed to be colder in October! Alas, DC is warm and my pumpkins rotted. I doubt I will get more carved before Halloween.

On Sunday I picked up fabric for the boys' Halloween costumes. Stay tuned to see if I was successful in turning $60 worth of fabric and sewing accessories into awesome Ninja Turtles costumes........

Tales from the week 10/10-10/16

As you know, last weekend our family visited Summer's Farm in Frederick, MD. Well, Monday of this week we carved two of the four pumpkins we picked up and even toasted some yummy pumpkin seeds in the oven. This is seriously one of my favorite holiday traditions.. next to picking out an actual living Christmas tree - which Justin won't do, so I have to wait until the boys are old enough for me to force them to help.

 I chose a witch design and Lukas chose dracula. I ended up carving both, but ended up messing up Luke's pumpkin :). Luke was very good at helping me sort through the pumpkin guts for acceptable seeds. By Friday they had all disappeared :D


Lighting the pumpkins when darkness falls has now become our fun thing to do before Lukas goes to bed. Justin isn't here much, so I try to have special things Luke and I do together.

 Justin is doing well in drill team training. They are still working 2pm-2am, but it is more like 1pm-3am as Justin has stuff to do before and after. He gets home and sleeps until around 11am. His hands were very swollen on Saturday and Sunday and he is having some shoulder/hand pain, but he says that he is far better off than alot of the guys. Their class that started at 13 people is now down to 9 and I see Justin getting all the way through training..

I am seriously looking forward to Thanksgiving, December and Christmas because Justin will be done with training and working a super light schedule until the Spring when drill team starts travelling. To me, it is one thing when Justin is out of town and I can do my own thing with the boys and not expect help from Justin, but quite another when Justin physically here, but too tired or hurting to help and yet I still have cook, clean and care for the kids and another adult. Frustrating. He has been doing as much as he can though, and that makes me feel better, as does listening to my pastor and reading this awesome book my awesome sister-in-law Becky sent about controlling emotions.



Other random news: I won a contest on the Paleo Comfort Foods website and received alot of free, funny stationary, wrapping paper and a reusable shopping bag. I was really hoping to win the Le Creuset enameled cast iron dutch oven, but this was a pleasant surprise. The couple that runs the blog are so friendly and their book is full of delicious things. Nom nom nom. I  have been catching up on Season 2 of the Vampire Diaries and was surprised to find after receiving the third disk that they added it to instant streaming. YAYYYY!! No more waiting for the mail. Luke threw up Friday morning and deceived me into thinking he was fine until Saturday afternoon when he vomited about 5 times in the course of a few hours. It was really sad, because we had just taken him to Cold Stone for some ice cream.. since I can no longer have it in the house (..my addiction..). He kept saying sad things to me like "Mommy, I just want to get better." and "I'm so sick mommy." He did not throw up all day Sunday, so good news. :) That's all for now!                 

Tales from the Week 10/3-10/9

This week started out pretty lazy (how I like it), with the boys perusing the local Toys 'R Us ad for potential Christmas list items. October is probably my favorite month out of the year - there's apple cider, pumpkins, pumpkin-tasting baked goods, doughnuts.. and the list goes on and on.

Lukas drinking apple cider through a cinnamon stick

 One of the highlights of this week was finishing the 1,000 piece puzzle that Justin bought. This happened Monday or Tuesday evening and it was cause for great celebration - at least by me :) Justin was sad that our puzzle-couple-bonding time was over, but this just means we'll have to find some new and different things to do together. It is a pretty fall scene, so I will probably frame this and hang it in my master bedroom or something.

Justin began drill team training on Wednesday of this week. It is usually an 8-week course, with the first 2 weeks or so being hellish physical training having absolutely nothing to do with twirling the rifle around. However, for whatever reason (maybe because there are so many old-fart NCO's like Justin in this class), the course will only be about 7 weeks long, with evaluations being right before Thanksgiving. This is lucky for them because the hellish two weeks is (I think) being cut down to only about a week.

Justin's typical day is 12-hours long. The first week they worked from 9am-9pm and starting this week they will go in from 4pm-4am. I'm not sure of all the details, but they should be doing some PT, working with the weapon, and a bunch of other super-secret initiation activities. Hooray. All to join the AF's cheerleading squad. Drill team has a rep around here for thinking highly of themselves, and I'll be right here to make sure that never happens to Justin ;) . Justin also attended an Airmen Leadership School graduation for one of his troops.. hard to believe it was almost three years ago that Justin was going through ALS. Time is flying!

This week I spent a ton of time walking every day and running errands. I picked up a present for Justin for Christmas and returned a flashlight Luke stole from my brother a long long time ago. Devin's new night and day braces arrived at Bethesda, so I picked those up on Thursday. Luke has had fun in school, though he did get an accident report after falling off of a bike and needing a band-aid. I was told the same day he threw his first tantrum in class. This makes me feel bad, because these two sweet ladies have like 20 toddlers in this class - which is super-hard to begin with - and mine was making their day harder.

 The highlight of the week was by far our trip to Summer's Farm on Saturday. We went to a different farm last year, but decided to check this one out because it had a 'military appreciation weekend.' All active duty members get in free and families are half price. 3 and older are supposed to pay, but the nice girl there didn't charge me for him :) Admission that would normally be $30 cost us only $5 that weekend. SWEET!

Obligatory head-in-farm-animal-body photo

 The kids loved the hay, jumping on the trampoline, playing in the mini-mazes, checking out the farm animals, eating apple cider doughnuts, and going down the giant slide. Devin was pretty independent and went down the slide many times himself. I was impressed - and content to watch - as he climbed to the top by himself over and over.

Had to leave when Luke started throwing sand at me. PUNK!

 We took a hayride to the pumpkin patch and picked out four pumpkins. Justin was really helpful and surprisingly into it this year :) Luke wandered around for a REALLY LONG TIME looking for the perfect pumpkin.

Chasing the children through the mini-maze

This isn't Paleo. SHHHHhh!! :)

X-Treme slide fun

Luke found a worm - SHOCK!

Devin enjoyed hiding in the corn.

At the very end we went into the giant corn maze, which I was really unprepared for. Thinking this was going to be your normal hokey maze, I didn't bring any juice or hiking backpack. By the end, the kids were begging for 'attle'- juice/water/'molk.' After what I think was a couple of hours, we found our way out, hopped in the car and drove home with a gigantic bag of kettle corn. After picking up some pizza and carving a pumpkin, we watched Role Models on T.V. and called it a night! Perfect end to an awesome day :)



Justin, Katelyn & Will collecting clues to the puzzle sheet we got

Tales from the Week.. 9/25-10/2

I got back from my trip to NY last Saturday and we have been getting into the swing of things. Justin has been picking some activities for us to do together and his latest and greatest idea was a 1000 piece puzzle. Yea. It's still not done and we've been working on it for four days. It is oddly addicting, but I don't think we'll be making the choice to do one of these again :)

Pondering where the puzzle piece should go



Looking cute while doing a puzzle takes skill - skill that I've got.

Devin trying to put on the dog collar. He is obsessed with buckles.

More puzzle fun.





He's here to save the day, Fireman Luke!

As for the boys, Luke was happy to get back to school. His latest thing has been to rocket around the house pretending he is rescuing people like Fireman Sam. He has to use the ladder to help him climb up the stairs in our house too. It can get kind of aggravating!!! Especially when he runs into the bone in my ankle - you know the one I am talking about. OW. Luke is starting to talk back alot more now too. While he was throwing one of Justin's lacross balls around the house, I said to him "Stop Luke! Are you ready for a time out!? Because I'm ready to give you one." He looked at me, smiled and said "Well I'm ready to do it again." I almost bust up laughing, but he did take a time-out.
Devin has been a little ill the last few days, but he's taking it like a champ. He is obsessed with buckles and having his shoes on. Dev has started to try to express his ideas in sentences and he immitates random things that Luke or I do throughout the day and it's really charming. Melt my heart, I love him to pieces. OH! Except when he climbs out of his crib, opens his door and walks down the stairs at nap and bed time. That has been a new occurence this week and we are working on the transition to an actual bed now.. and locking the door.



I have tried now THREE times to get to the farmer's market. My first was the Sunday after I got home. The metro was going through unscheduled maintanence, so we decided to turn around and drive. At that time of day there was no parking to be had and we just went back home. Big waste of two hours. The second time I went alone, spent a good hour waiting on connections and finally finally got to the place and.......... no farmer's market! I went on Saturday and it is a Sunday only market.. Very sad, I hopped the metro home. The one good thing about this wasted trip was the entertainment on the way home. Six black men (all around 21 or so) hopped onto the metro and started swearing, talking about their gay friend and using language that was really offensive. The nice white lady sitting next to me buried her face in her Ikea catalog while we all tried to pretend that we couldn't hear these idiots. Finally an older black woman stepped up and lectured all these guys about how they are the future and on and on - they of course didn't listen to a word she said, but bravo lady for saying something. I kept my mouth shut because I didn't have the boys with me to protect or anything and I was enjoying the show. Thank you DC for making me smile.

Third times the charm, I finally made it to the farmer's market with my lovely husband finding a spot and parking for me :) However, the warm, fuzzy, I'm-finally-here-oh-my-gosh feelings wouldn't last long.. My jaw dropped as soon as I saw the prices. HOLY HIGHWAY ROBBERY. To give you an example of just how insane the prices were, kale (which is normally $.99 for a bunch at a grocery store) was priced at around $4.00 a bunch. IT WASN'T EVEN ORGANIC. Sorry people, but I will take my veggies with a side of pesticide from the grocery store in order to keep paying my bills. I did pick up some peaches, beets, and apples. The beets were an ok price, but everything else at that farmer's market was mega overpriced. It was like a black hole for money.

Dev enjoyed the peaches from the market. I did too!!

My farmer's market haul



Wow, this puzzle is finally coming together!

Today I spent a good 2 hours cooking up food for the week which included "dirty cauliflower rice," the beets from the farmer's market, 2 chickens and turkish slider meatball things. Hopefully this will cut down on work for the week :)


Justin starts drill team training this week and from what I've heard he'll be working nights, 12-hour shifts, and will be very sore from the gun hitting his hands and arms. I've been told that your hands and the rest of your body just aches. I wonder how many times Justin will ask me where the motrin is. :) More on that to come!