GoldenGrams

This time we visited the farm at Thanksgiving Point.

Last Monday was one of the craziest days we’ve had in a while.  Allow me to elaborate. 

(Whoa.  I just finished typing this and it’s kind of long.  This means by brother, Abe, likely won’t be reading.  The day involved toilet water, a rainstorm, and lots of blood.  Does that make you want to keep reading?)

As we were getting ready in the morning, I heard dripping.  I soon saw that water was dripping through the ceiling in our hall.  This has happened once before when we first moved in.  Our neighbor’s toilet overflowed in the middle of the night, flooded her bathroom, and dripped down to us.  We suspected the same thing had happened this time.

I called our neighbor who was 30 minutes away.  She hurried home and we inspected her bathroom.  There was some water in it, but not a large amount.  Then we noticed that she had water dripping through her ceiling.  So we trekked upstairs to our third floor neighbor.  We woke him up and he went to check his bathroom.   A few minutes later he came out and exclaimed that his bathroom was totally flooded.  At least we figured out the cause of that problem.  I’m not sure I want to know what kind of water damage we may have between our floors.

I went off to a meeting and when I got back, Dallas was loading the girls in the car for a picnic in the canyon.  He had a hankering to commune with nature.  We drove to Bridal Veil Falls, enjoyed a pleasant picnic, watched the girls play in the water, and started walking up the trail.  However, storm clouds rolled in and cut the walk short.  Dallas wanted to keep walking, but I didn’t want to get stuck further from our car in a rainstorm.

As we were heading back to the car, Brooke fell and scraped both knees.  Crying ensued, as did a mad scramble to find a band-aid.  Luckily, some fellow hikers had a band-aid they donated to our cause.

As we were driving home, Dallas insisted the storm was passing.  He stopped at a park so Brooke could play.  Between her scraped knees, the falling rain, and the blowing wind, not much playing happened.  Finally, Dallas came to terms with the fact that his perfect afternoon in the mountains just wasn’t meant to be.

We went home.  After naps and dinner, Dallas once again suggested a walk.  The bad weather had passed, so I agreed.  We decided to walk along the Provo River Trail until we got to one of the parks. Before we left, Dallas found the first-aid kit that is supposed to be in our car (but wasn’t) and he put it back in the car – just in case.

After a nice, 20-minute walk, Brooke spotted a playground and raced off.  We watched her and Caroline swing and slide and were just about to admit to each other that the day wasn’t a total loss – we were able to have a nice time outside after all – when Brooke fell off a little ladder and hit the back of her head on one of the metal rungs.

Dallas immediately scooped her up and started comforting her.  I packed Caroline up in the stroller and turned around to talk to Brooke.  It was then that I saw blood running down her hair and staining her shirt.  Some guy at the park offered us a piece of gauze to staunch the bleeding.  We took it and held it to her head.  We couldn’t really see the injury because her hair was in the way, and it was all matted with blood.  Of course, we had our first-aid kit waiting for us in the car – the car that was about 20 minutes away.  Curses!

We began walking back to the car.  By this time, the gauze was completely soaked and all of our clothes had blood splatters, but Brooke had calmed down a bit.  It was then that she looked at her hands and saw they had blood all over them.  Another explosion of tears and sobs erupted from her.

We rounded the bend and came upon a fire station.  Dallas said that we should go in and ask them for help.  I didn’t know if this kind of thing was allowed, just traipsing into a fire station asking for medical advice, but why not?  Fire fighters are in the business of helping citizens, and we sure needed help!

We rang the doorbell and they buzzed us in.  A fireman took one look at all of us soaking in blood and asked what had happened.  We explained the situation and asked if we could wash up a little bit.  He took us to a fire truck and called another fire fighter in to help us.  They washed off Brooke’s head (and hands!) and tried to see what was happening.  They said that it looked like the bleeding had stopped, so they didn’t think stitches were needed.  However, they recommended that we take Brooke to the ER to check for head injuries.  One fireman said his son did a similar thing  and they thought he was going to be okay, but it turned out he had fractured his skull.  That wasn’t exactly the kind of story I wanted to hear at the moment.

So, now we needed to get to the hospital and our car was still a mile away.  The firemen offered to drive us, but we didn’t really want the price tag that came along with a lift from them.  The hospital was actually only a block or two away, so we decided to just walk straight there.

As we were walking to the ER, Dallas saw an InstaCare.  He suggested going there, thinking that it would be less expensive to go to an InstaCare than the ER.  We decided to try it.  We entered the office and I’m sure we were a sight to behold.  Caroline was screaming in the stroller (by this time it was WAY past her bedtime), Brooke was sniffling, and there was a smattering of blood all over us, just for good measure.

We related our story, and they said they could help us there.  Luckily, there was only one other man ahead of us, so we were seen quickly.  Dallas took Caroline to go get the car while I took Brooke in to see the doctor.  After cleaning her up a little more, I was able to see what was happening in the back of her head.  She had a huge goose egg and a slit where the blood had been coming out.  He tugged a little on it and said that he didn’t think staples or stitches were necessary.  I was SO GLAD we avoided stitches.  I’m sure Brooke was too.  He checked her balance and her eyes and said that she didn’t seem to have a concussion, so he sent us on our way with instructions to wake her up once in the night.

After baths, putting the girls to bed, and doing a load of laundry, Dallas and I were more than ready to fall into bed ourselves and put an end to our unlucky day.

Yesterday we took advantage of Thanksgiving Point’s Two-Buck Tuesday and went to the Dinosaur Museum.  A good time was had by all.

We started off waiting in line for about thirty minutes.  That was a bit of a drag, but Brooke made this face -

and both girls climbed on these rocks -

so the fun had already begun.

Then we went inside and took pictures next to dinosaur bones, played with the hands-on activities, and ended the morning with ice cream!

We had such a fun day together as a family.  I loved every second of it.  I can hardly wait for next Tuesday to come!

Today’s pictures are from my phone’s camera that have probably been on there forever.

Dallas has a grandmother who lives in Las Vegas.  We’ve been wanting to visit her for some time, and a couple of weekends ago, we finally made the trip.

I feel like this road trip was our first taste of truly traveling with children.  We heard countless refrains of “Caroline, stop!”  and “Caroline, no!  I don’t want your paci!” and, of course, “I need to go potty!”

Dallas and I are obviously very inexperienced with this whole traveling-with-a-newly-potty-trained*-toddler business because on they way we stopped at a gas station that had a Dairy Queen in it.  I let Brooke get an icee.  An icee…which consists of flavored ice…which is water…which meant we had to stop for bathroom breaks every 20 minutes after that for the next two hours.  (*I’m using the phrase “potty trained” fairly loosely here.  We’re mostly there…)

Highlights from the trip included playing with Grandma’s moving, oinking pig-

Walking the Strip-

Seeing some friends who live in Vegas, and visiting with Grandma Golden, of course!

Brooke loves temples.  She talks about how she wants to go to the temple.  Dallas and I have told her that she can go when she gets bigger.  (We have found we have to be careful when we tell her she’s such a big girl because then she says, “I’m bigger!  I go to temple now?”)

Since she is now bigger and one year older, we decided to take her to the temple and have a picnic on the grass.  It was perfect weather, and we had a great time.

After our picnic, we ran home, put the girls down for naps, and prepared for Brooke’s birthday party.  Stay tuned…

I think I have a tendency to be a little bit of a hypochondriac.  I don’t mean to be, but sometimes I hear symptoms of illnesses and they just seem to exactly match something that happened to me at one time or another.

I’ve diagnosed myself with PMLE or polymorphous light eruption, and I don’t think it’s the hypochondriac in me talking here.  PMLE is basically an allergy to the sun.

I blame it on spring.  When the weather is nice, the girls and I love to go outside and play.  When we would come inside, I noticed that my skin would get itchy.  I didn’t think much of it until the itch kept persisting.  I wasn’t using any new soaps or detergents and I couldn’t think of anything that would be causing the itch.  Then I noticed I was only itching on my arms and my neck — areas where the sun hit me.

I tested my hypothesis and found that every time I went outside, I would itch the rest of the day.  Finally, I googled my condition.

Turns out 10-15% of the population experiences this fun phenomenon.

Turns out it affects women more than men.

Turns out it often appears out of the blue in young adults.

Turns out there really is no cure except to expose your skin to the sun and wait for your skin to get used to the sun.

Turns out this may happen to me every spring.

Do you know how uncomfortable it is to have your skin constantly itch?  I find myself alternating between trying not to itch and itching so violently that I draw blood.

It seems I have a knack of coming down with crazy medical conditions.  I am not amused.

Whew.  The last few weeks I have been busy.  Too busy to blog.  I’ve been…

–administering end-of-the-year reading tests to two kindergarten classes

–organizing a community garden

–taking care of Caroline who got sick…and got sick again…and became crabby so I thought she was sick again though it turned out she wasn’t…and then she really did get sick again.  (I’ll end the ellipses there.  No more getting sick, Caroline!)

–working to reorganize an organization that is not working properly

–planning a visiting teaching conference

–seeing a TMJ specialist for my jaw

This is a fun story.  A few months ago my jaw started popping.  (That’s not the fun part of the story.)  I went to the dentist.  He was horrified with the noise.  He sent me to a specialist.  The specialist put a stethoscope thing on my jaw and had me open and close so he could measure the noise and range of movement.  As he was showing me the results, he said that all of the numbers should be below 20.  My numbers were all over 400.  Apparently he has only seen one other patient in his life that has even come close to sounding as bad as my jaw sounds.  At my last appointment I got a lovely mouth guard to wear at night.  As I was paying, the secretary gave me a sideways look, leaned forward and whispered, “Are you the one with the really loud pop?”  I said yes.  She said, “Wow.  You’re kind of like a star around here.”

Anyone want my autograph?

Just kidding.  It was too early to tell the gender.

Kidding, kidding, kidding. I’m not pregnant–though everything else in my last post was true.

I have been nauseous for days.  It’s been horrible.  I have felt like I’m on the verge of throwing up all the time.

I was up all of Tuesday night groaning in pain.  That prompted me to call the doctor.

The doctor did suspect a pregnancy (though I did not).  She sent me for blood work to check for that and for a stomach virus.

The blood work came back normal, so the doctor ordered an ultrasound to check for internal problems.  I had the ultrasound today and it came back normal.  I am an unsolved mystery.  Luckily, the nausea is subsiding and the past couple of days I’ve started to feel like a normal human being again.

Let’s hope I’m better.  I’m sick of writing blog posts about us being sick!

I’ve been feeling nauseous for over a week.  The past couple of days it’s been so bad that pretty much all I do is moan on the couch.  I finally went to the doctor yesterday.

After explaining my symptoms, the first thing the doctor said was, “Are you pregnant?”

I tried to explain that I was sure I wasn’t pregnant and that both times I was pregnant, I was never nauseous.

“Let’s just do a pregnancy test anyway.”

She sent me on my way to get some blood work done.

Today a nurse called from the office.  She said the blood reports came back and the doctor would like me to go in tomorrow for an ultrasound.

Should I start taking votes?  Boy or girl?

My mother commented on my last post and said, “I think we can only blame the gumball if you fall ill really soon…”

Guess what? I’ve been throwing up all afternoon.

Will the good times never end?

A couple of nights ago Dallas and I took the girls to a pet store to waste time before bed.  Brooke happily wandered the store squealing in delight at the puppies and the fish and shrieking in disgust at the snakes and the lizards.

After her third lap around the store, she noticed the bubble gum dispenser near the check-out desk.  Quickly, she got on all fours and started playing with the trap door opening and closing it in the hopes that this time a gumball would magically appear.  When that didn’t work she said, “Mom!  I want gumball.  You have money?”

I thought back to everything Brooke had just touched:  fish tanks, fish water, bird cages, pet food, dog toys, pet carriers, the floor, and finally, the bubble gum trap door.  How many other kids had done just the same thing with their grimy hands?

The answer was easy; I said, “No Brooke.  We don’t have any money for gumballs today,” but what I was really thinking was, “There is absolutely no way any child of mine will EVER eat a gumball that we’ve purchased from a pet store.”  Involuntary shuddering occurred next.

Just as we were turning away, I heard a woman say, “Here.  Here’s a quarter for her.”

“Oh, no, that’s okay…”  I stammered.

“No really.  Take it.”

I prompted Brooke to thank the woman, and I gave her a very sincere, “You shouldn’t have.”  Brooke deposited the quarter in the machine and watched the gumball spiral down to the door.  I swooped down to get the gumball before it had a chance to fall on the floor (did I mention there were mealworms in a box on the floor nearby?).  As I held the gumball, I realized it was  somewhat of a large choking device for my two-year old.  With the stranger watching on, I swallowed, heaved a sigh, and bit into the gumball.  I gave Brooke half of it and forced myself to chew the rest.

Brooke hummed her delight at the taste of the gum.  The woman stood nearby beaming at her.  And I tried not to think about all of the germs we were being exposed to at that very moment.

You can’t get rabies from a gumball, right?

Last night Dallas and I put the girls to bed.  Then we found ourselves lounging around playing various versions of Sudoku late into the night.  You know the feeling of being dead tired but not wanting to go to bed?  That’s what was happening.  As we were finally getting ready for bed I said something like, “I wish we were on vacation without the girls and could just sleep in tomorrow as late as we wanted.”

Then we slept.  And slept.  And slept.  I vaguely recall Caroline squawking, but she quickly put herself back to sleep.  And so did I.

The girls both slept in until 9:30 a.m.  NINE-THIRTY A.M.!  That is unheard of.  I don’t know if it was your fervent prayers on my behalf that were answered or if the girls sensed that my sanity depended on them staying quiet for a couple of extra hours this morning.

In any case, it was a wonderful morning.  Let’s hope for a repeat tomorrow.

I feel guilty that we didn’t post anything about Christmas.  We had a fun Christmas.  We just didn’t take many pictures.  And I usually use pictures to inspire my posts.  Thus, I’m feeling very uninspired.

Hmm.

I guess I’ll just upload what we have and you can peruse at your leisure.

Happy New Year!

Visiting Temple Square

Caroline with Grandma Golden

First taste of solid food

Just waking up

Caroline and Grandma Allen

I loved watching Brooke play with the nativity.  There was something profound about the way she would arrange the figures–everyone focused on the baby Jesus.  Everyone including a rubber ducky.

And what’s this?  A lone sheep gone astray.  Find your way back to the fold!

We went to Dallas’s Mom’s house for a visit.  Brooke found these Mr. Potato Head glasses and wore them the whole time we were there.

She even kept them on while she watched a movie.  She’s such a silly kid.

Not to be left out, here’s Caroline…and as an added bonus, I’m in the picture, too!

A few days ago we got a ton of snow, so we bundled up the babies and had some fun!

Note the carrot in my hand.

We told Brooke we were going to play in the snow.  She asked if we could make a snowman.  We agreed.  She immediately went to the fridge for a carrot and then ran off in search of a snowman hat.

She makes me smile.