Peaches!!

I cannot stand fresh peaches!! I don't know how it originated, but strong repulsion from the fuzz is one my personal idiosyncrasies. If they've been peeled, cooked, canned or otherwise prepared, I think they're great. It's just the fuzz. The mere thought of touching them with the peel on makes my skin crawl, my teeth itch and my body involuntarily contort. Micah finds this fact about me absolutely hilarious.

Of course, we occasionally get peaches in our basket from our produce co-op and I have to make Micah put them away safely out of my way. Heaven forbid I accidentally touch one of those suckers. Not wanting my children to inherit this illogical fear of peach fuzz, I encourage them to go into the fridge on their own to grab one and enjoy. This way I can kill two birds with one stone: I can get them out of my house without touching them and they can enjoy a fruit I would never buy by choice. Win-win for everyone!!

Injury Prone Girls

#3 broke her arm yesterday at her well check. That's right, AT the doctor's office. She fell off a chair while we were waiting. I could tell, almost immediately, that it was broken. Doc sent us to get an x-ray and then off to a pediatric orthopedic doctor. Fortunately and unfortunately, the break is in a location that cannot be casted - left upper humerus near her shoulder. It's good because casts are uncomfortable and inconvenient. It's bad because there's no real way to protect her. She gets to determine her activity level herself. She's not bearing weight on it and so long as it hurts, she will continue to not bear weight. BUT, if she falls, it HURTS. Not much we can do.

So, here's my question:

Who is the person that started this rumor that having girls is, somehow, physically easier than having boys. This idea that girls sit quietly in pretty dresses, play with dolls and host tea parties has NEVER been true in my house. My girls are busy, rambunctious, have shown little to no fear in most situations, leap from any object and are frankly downright crazy. Their dad and I are very busy people and I'm no stereotypical girl myself, so I'm sure it has been bred into them. But when people suggest that I must have it easier because I have a house full of girls, I have to laugh to myself.

I haven't photographed all of the major injuries around here, but here's a taste. Note their ages - we have a loooooong way to go.

You can see #1 has put holes in her lip and bruised her teeth. This particular injury has happened to this particular child on more than one occasion.

#2 needed stitches in her forehead, but we were in a somewhat primitive location - Bosnia - so they made due with a butterfly bandage. The scar is still there. She also broke her arm at the ripe old age of 12 months.

Then, of course, the fracture #3 just got at a whopping 18 months. If you can read an x-ray, you can see the bump on the outside edge of the bone which indicates a buckle fracture.

What do the next couple of years have in store for us? I can only imagine.

Ultrasounds

I completely forgot to say what made our recent ultrasound so wonderful....

Never mind all that boy/girl stuff. It was the first time in four children we had a completely clear ultrasound the first time with no need to come back. With all of the others, there were questions or concerns that required us to go back for more investigation. Leaving the office right away knowing that everything was fine was like walking on air. Made us enjoy our new little girl that much more.

#1 - She had an unidentified object in her stomach. This wasn't just some unidentifiable blip on the unclear screen somewhere in her belly. The tech was taking pictures of each of the organs and got to the stomach - the actual organ of the stomach - and there was a definite object there. She looked at it from different angles and it was still there. It was obvious enough that I, having never seen an ultrasound before, said "What is that?" and she didn't know. I joked that I had just eaten a bowl of Cheerios and she must have gotten hold of one. She took a few pictures from different vantage points for the doc. The doctor called me a day or two later saying we had to head to a perinatologist to figure out what was going on. I was so panic stricken that I called everyone to ask for prayers. The prayers worked because when we went in to the experts, it was gone and the stomach was empty and clear. I am convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that whatever was there was prayed away. I know what we saw and it was definitely there one moment and gone another. Born healthy at 8lbs!

#2 - This one had a two vessel cord. Another scary moment for those lacking experience with the matter. This tech got up mid-ultrasound to leave the room and come back with her supervisor. There was pointing at the screen and then "see, that's where it atrophied." NOT words you ever want to hear at any moment. I asked what was going on and they explained. Normal umbilical cords should have one vessel and two arteries...mine had one vessel and one artery. The other artery had atrophied (as I had just heard). This condition can cause it's own issues in pregnancy as well as be an indicator of other issues. This time my doctor was the head of OBGYN at that particular hospital and was the best they had to offer. He assured me that he had seen so many of these cords and that they were very rarely a problem. One of the most common issues with this condition is low birth weight (not enough blood flow to support growth), but that turned out not to be a concern for us as she was born at 8lb 3oz. :-)

#3 - This time I had placenta previa - where the placenta is very low and possibly covering the cervix. If the placenta does not move far enough away from the cervix, it's an automatic c-section. Not necessarily the end of the world, but having had all natural births so far, not what I wanted. They hoped that as my uterus grew, the placenta would move just far enough up to clear the cervix. At my follow up ultrasound, they found that it had. This lovely was a big 9lbs 7oz with no c-section necessary. (A couple problems at birth that cleared up relatively quickly, but this is about ultrasounds. :-)

#4 - Tech: "Everything looks good."

Us: "WHAT?!?!"

Tech: "I don't really see anything here that would make the doctor call you back."

Us: "Um, okay. So, do we just leave now?"

Definitely a new experience for us, but what a relief!

Casey Anothony Trial

The Casey Anthony verdict came in a couple of hours ago as Not Guilty on all of the important counts regarding the death of her daughter. My Facebook immediately lit up with comments from people in disbelief. I've been pondering this myself since the verdict came in and with few platforms from which to voice my opinion, I resort to my blog.

I am not surprised by the verdict. Do I believe Casey Anthony murdered her daughter? At this point in time, with the information I have, I do. However, the prosecution had no PROOF of this and therefore lost the case. There were no witnesses, no DNA evidence and no cause of death could be determined. The evidence that was presented either did not link Casey directly or had alternate possible explanations. On what then, should she have been convicted? Gut feelings? Emotions are running high, but you cannot convict on emotion. I have heard a loud and general outcry that justice has not been served and that may be true in this particular case, but I would argue that this illustrates the superiority of our judicial system. I, for one, am grateful that I live in a country where my guilt would actually have to be proven to be thrown into prison for life or put on death row. Second and third world countries have judicial systems where there is no need for evidence, trials or jurys to hold a person hostage in a brutal prison system and thank God, that is not America. Heaven forbid that any of my friends who are so upset at this outcome would ever be incorrectly convicted of a crime of which they were innocent because a jury of their peers thought they probably did it, but had no direct proof of guilt.

In this case, someone definitely failed that poor little girl either in inability or incompetence. I don't know if the police botched the investigation or if the prosecutors failed to connect the dots. I wasn't there. But I know the jury is not to blame for concluding that no one was able to provide hard, undeniable proof of her mother's guilt. It may never be clear what happened to her.

The one solace I have is that the murderer of a two year old baby will, one day, face the Ultimate Judge and receive eternal justice. He has all of the facts and proof necessary to redeem and condemn and human error will never play a role in that judgement.

Budding Artist

Our eldest loves art. I enrolled her in a summer art workshop through Young Rembrants. The theme was "South of the Border" and they used pastels to create Mexican images. They also studied a bit about the artist Diego Rivera. She had a really good time and learned a lot.

I think two of the pictures are pretty obvious. The other is a dragon and was copied from this Diego Rivera mural. In my unbiased opinion, I'd say these are all pretty good considering they were all done freehand.

My task now is to figure out a way to display them. Their odd sizes mean there are no inexpensive framing options. Time for mom to get creative.

It's a GIRL!!!

We had the ultrasound and confirmed our fourth child is another girl.

While we have been receiving "condolences" of sorts, we are sincerely thrilled to be having another girl. Once upon a time, we wanted a boy, but that has long passed as we have spent a great deal of time reflecting on God's plan for our family and have greatly enjoyed the three girls we have. The decision to have a fourth child was not about "trying for a boy" as many put it, rather it was just a decision to grow our brood and simply have a fourth child. There is something about raising girls that agrees with us (God must think so too) and we accept the tremendous blessings they bring to our life. So much fun!!

I have to say, the technician got a good picture of the baby crossing her arms in an "x". The girls saw it and decided it was their super hero sign and she was sending them a very important message from the womb - GIRL POWER!! It has since become the mantra in the house.

Now, we have a lot of bedroom rearranging and redecorating to do! We're fortunate to have enough room in our house for four children, but we have a lot of reorganization to do before November.

The most difficult challenge ahead.....a name for this little sweet pea.

Summer Vacation!!

We recently returned from our 10 day vacation of the summer. This was a bittersweet trip for us since we have just decided to put a hold on vacations for the next couple of years in order to concentrate all of our efforts toward making some serious headway in our 5 year financial plan. This was a hard pill for us to swallow as we LOVE travel and LOVE teaching our children how to travel. However, with a little delayed gratification now, we hope to have mountain-loads of fun later. Over the next couple years, exploration will be limited to areas close to home for shorter periods of time. *sigh* Anyway, enough of that......

This trip started in Atlanta where we were invited to celebrate Micah's paternal grandmother's 90th birthday. What an amazing thing to celebrate!! She has lived a long and full life (as an avid traveler, she's probably a contributing source of Micah's travel gene) and was happy to spend the weekend surrounded by her children, grandchildren and great-grandchildren.

We decided to continue on from there on our own to visit parts of the great South we have never seen before.....Savannah, GA and Charleston, SC. We enjoyed exploring the beautiful towns and beaches and mostly spending some much needed time together.

Personally, I love the South for it's rich culture and history. In Charleston we stayed in an old wherehouse that survived the Civil War and was later converted into a hotel. You just don't see very many buildings that old out here in the West. And in Savannah, we rented the floor apartment of an old Victorian house with a gorgeous garden - Awesome!

Our days at the beach were probably the most fun. In AZ, we have all beach with no ocean, so it was especially fun for the girls. All of them dove right in with no fear whatsoever and getting them out was nearly impossible. When they weren't jumping waves, they were gathering seashells and digging holes. Hours and hours of fun were had.

Sadly, it all came to an end too quickly and we had to come home to temperatures above 110 degrees and much to do.