Crawling to the finish line

Hello readers of my blog. Apologies if  I seem like the biggest whiner & complainer in the whole world sometimes, but sarcastic hyperbolic humor seems to be my coping mechanism for . . . everything. Rest assured that I am grateful to my bones for my children and husband and his educational opportunities, and that I am well aware that mine are largely first world problems.

With that said, we lost power this weekend for 48 hours and it kiiiiind of felt like the universe was playing a cruel joke on me. Like, “you thought those last couple weekends of Tanner’s constant study hours plus a tantruming toddler and miserable colds all around—you thought that was hard? Well you get to do it again this weekend, except without electricity!!!”

Being a stay at home mom sometimes feels a whole lot like solitary confinement. Throw in the med school wife aspect (i.e. mostly absent husband) and getting sick is just totally miserable. Almost all my coping mechanisms involve getting out of the house to interact with other adults, and/or getting babysitters to give me a little break from the kiddos to rejuvenate. All those options are off the table with a snotty coughing kid, so you just sit around the house going NUTS, until they finally get better just around the time that you start feeling like crap because you caught it from them. It’s FUN. Anyway, then right when I started feeling better–that’s when our power went out.

I’m an idiot and didn’t charge my phone the night before, so. . . no phone for me. And I know that for millions of years, women took care of small babies at home all day without the advantages of smart phones, but those women were probably all hot messes of unstable mental health, am I right?

I got to explain to Camryn about 8,000 times that no we can’t watch a show. Nope, not on the computer. or the t.v. or the ipad. or my phone. I can’t make you toast, or a smoothie, pancakes, or popcorn. And we cannot dance to music. I guess it’s a very confusing concept when you’re three that all of these things are related somehow.  ELECTRICITY!!!! oh my lands, I am grateful for electricity. Let me just take this moment to give a personal shout out to Lucy & Ethel (my washer/dryer), my dishwasher, fridge, freezer, blender, popcorn popper, griddle, stove, oven (even the disposal, geez), hairdryer/straightener (haha j/k I never use those anymore) white noise machine (that one is important), AIR CONDITIONER.  oh and lightbulbs.  All the lightbulbs. Holla, computer (Facebook, blogs, outside world connection) t.v. (hulu), and PHONE. Did I say phone? I love you Wi-Fi, forever and ever. We ate nothing but fruit and plain bread for every single meal (it is so apparent to me that I could never hack vegetarianism. I LOVE ME MY MEAT) while all of the food in my fridge slowly spoiled. Luckily, there wasn’t much there as the week before had sapped my will to live grocery shop and meal plan, and I did save all the meat in my freezer by taking it to a friends house (thanks Jana!) And I have to say thank heavens it was only 82 degrees both no power days, because a hot house may have just done me in. I was watching a friends 3 kids all day that day while they packed up to move, and it was slightly overwhelming, but actually really good to have someone for Camryn to play with. Hopefully their mom was fine with them eating a million peanut butter sandwhiches and being filthy from the back yard most of the day since I wouldn’t let them come in and wake up the baby! (no sound machine)

When I woke up on day two and it became apparent that the power outage was going to stick around, I decided to pull on my bootstraps or whatever and get myself out of the house for 10 hours and just hope and pray that by the time I came back, I’d have power. The grocery store, the gas station, the pet store, stopping by 2 friends houses, 6 hours spent at Loose Park, and a church activity later, we came home to POWER! Hallelujeah.

Loose park is a total gem and it was a gorgeous day. I make good choices sometimes. My friend Aimee came and met me at the splash pad which was a welcome dose of adult conversation!

 Camryn has started taking photos, it’s cute.  I have many many awkward photos of me, the walls, and Camyrn’s hands, but she’s getting better! Loose Park Rose Gardens

Here’s a couple more unrelated just cuz my kids are cute.

Now it’s less than 12 hours until Tanner has officially completed his first year of medical school and we are FREE for one entire month. Phew. WE MADE IT (sorry for all the caps in the post. they are, in fact, necessary.) I am excited out of my mind. Mostly for all of the sleep I’m going to get, let’s be honest. I am going to sleep so so so much.

Miss Camryn

Camryn Camryn Camryn. Oh my little three year old is just kind of killing me right now. You know I love this girl to pieces, but she’s making it as difficult as she can to like her lately. She’s just pushing all of my buttons–repeatedly and systematically. Here’s just a sampling of her recent behaviors.

Running around in the backyard naked. I let her play back there with Bear a lot and literally watch her through the window, or check on her every few minutes. Well, she was playing with water, got her clothes wet, and the next time I looked, she’d ditched them altogether. I hope the employees at the chiropractor’s office behind our house enjoyed the free show. It was slightly amused until I realized that not only was she free roaming her happy little self around the yard, she also had thought it would be fun to poop–like bear–in the grass.

Then when I left her alone with Drew for two minutes, noticed things had gotten a little quiet, and. . .

I had to duck into the bedroom to show Tanner/hide our laughter so she wouldn’t think we were happy about it. Drew hadn’t made a peep, just lay there and took it–he’s really going to have to learn to defend himself if things keep going the way they are.

The next morning I woke up to find her on the couch helping herself to a pack of oreos for breakfast. I had no idea how many she’d already eaten, but Tanner saw the pack later and estimated more than half a sleeve.

Same thing happened with the toothpaste.

Then during her quiet time, I discovered she’d coerced Bear into her room with her, and I found them both in Drew’s crib (sans Drew, don’t worry) with Camryn holding on tight to both of Bear’s back legs and dancing around with her. I don’t even want to think about how she even got the dog into the crib in the first place, and unfortunately this is only one example in a long list of bear torturing episodes.

This times 10

And, I kid you not, all of that happened within a 48 hour window.

I feel like she’s reverted back to the early toddler stage of being into everything. Every time I turn around she’s pouring out her milk onto the dog, dumping out her container of 500 tiny elastics, dropping the UNO cards down the crack between our bed and the wall, stabbing our hardwood with a fork, rubbing her 5 minute old pigtails with a couch cushion, deliberately flooding the bathroom floor during her bath, refusing to let me unbuckle her carseat. I’ve about had it.

This girl needs a long vacation with plenty of cousins to play with!!

Terrorism can be tiring.

To end on a good note, she’s also the most adorable kiddo, with the best curls on the planet that love this humidity, and tells anyone who will listen all about her “fancy” shoes.

And she always smiles and tells me she’s sorry and that I’m the best mom. It’s cute/borderline manipulative. 

Camryn, you are officially under the mothers curse. I hope that you have children just. like. you. 

Mr. Drew

Oh heavens, this little baby is the sweetest most perfect thing in my life right now. I remember a few years ago, probably when Camryn was a baby, asking my older sister, mother of 4 (now 5), do they get easier or harder as they get older? She emphatically and immediately said “EASIER! They get so so so much easier, like every single day is easier than the one before. Nothing is harder than the newborn stage.” Well, you know what, Jessica was wrong! I know I’ve said it before, but I love love love love love babies. (Not to mention I also have loved pregnancy and labor and Jess totally hated that part too, so I guess everyone is different) Babies are the best! Which is kind of ironic, because if you’d asked me before having kids, I think I was really worried about sleep deprivation taking a heavy toll on me. I do need my sleep, but I’d still rather be up all night that disciplining all day. But that is for my next post–starring Camryn–who I am on significantly worse terms with currently, stay tuned. But Drew?? Oh my heart, Drew sleeps well and he eats well, never cries, requires minimal attention, loves to cuddle (but will just lay on the ground forever when I’m too busy to hold him), and is just the. most. delightful. human. The highlight of my day is kissing the heck out of his squishy baby tummy during diaper changes and listening to him squeal with laughter. I love this kid. He sleeps all the time and doesn’t talk back to me and did I mention his squishy skin? It’s so squishy!

If I could, I’d maybe just live the first year over and over and skip toddlerdom altogether.

  

well well well. . .

6 month shots

oh hey stud

Camryn asked me why he puts everything in his mouth and I explained that he was growing teeth. I elaborated by saying, “Did you know that someday, all of your little teeth are going to fall out and you’re growing to grow new bigger teeth?” She thought about that and said, “Ya. And then my eyes are going to fall out too and I’m going to get new eyes that are bigger and bigger!!”

He started sticking out and curling his tongue all the time and it’s so freaking cute. 

Just look at his squishy baby rolls and pretend I look presentable

This is the part where we all break down

Ooooooooo k. Year one needs to be over now. Can I get an a-men from any fellow 1st years?? I mean, no one is dying, or bleeding, or having legitimate mental breakdowns or anything but. . . we might maybe be teetering on the edge of those things and no one wants to see anyone fall of that cliff. I think this is what they call burnout. And I’m also pretty sure that our near-the-end-of-2nd year (and 4th year, and all of residency) selves will look back on this one day and laugh at how cute it was to think that we knew anything about burnout. But that’s ok. Baby steps. I keep thinking back to college (uh, I just barely, just now realized that I have been done with college just as long as I was in college and that just felt weird) and how finals week in the 3rd week of April always felt like it was really pushing the limits on my sanity and how by the end of it I felt like if I had to so much as read the back of a cereal box before September it would be just too much. So ten points to Tanner for trekking on through all these endless months of studying. His school year is 11 MONTHS long, so we have 3 more weeks to go! We’re all feeling it. Camryn keeps sighing and saying “I’m falling apart”, and she didn’t come up with that one on her own folks!

The unit right after spring break was pathology and it was anything but an “ease back into things slowly” unit. It basically involved countless slides of, well, diseased body parts, and I kind of felt like I was married to someone with some sort of sick and twisted pornography problem. Many times, I walked my unsuspecting self into a room to find some disturbing and graphic image on the screen. And many more times, Tanner would hurry and close a window saying “you definitely don’t want to see that!” 
Guys, I’m talking gross stuff here–there’s your average run of the mill tumors, organ abnormalities, etc, but there’s also eyeballs growing hair, infected fingernails, rotting penises. One night, the first thing Tanner said when he sat down to eat dinner with us was, “I might die if I have to look at one more butt fistula.” I don’t even know what that means but I am feeling pretty great about my English major right now.

So ya, I definitely have multiple videos on my phone right now of Tanner asleep on the couch mid study session, open mouthed and snoring, with about 20 times more hair on his face and head than his average day at BYU. I’ve learned to speak slowly and clearly as we near the end of the day and to use only simple words and short sentences. One night I was reading an article and laughed out loud at a funny part. He asked me what I was laughing at, so I read him a few sentences from the article. It went totally over his head the first time, after the second time he said “wait what, so you mean. . . <insert confused gaze>”, and the third time I read it so slowly and explained it so thoroughly that the joke was dead. Dead as a doornail.

Don’t worry though. We’re fine. We have plane tickets in hand for our trip home to Utah in July and we are sooooo so so excited for a break and family, swimming, camping and free babysitters as far as the eye can see. And I hear second year is a breeze. Oh wait, no, actually I hear 2nd year is the worst thing ever and that boards suck your soul. But I’m just going to stick my head in the sand and pretend that they’re saying it’s a breeze.