A Big Wish

Garth Lee and I (by the way, I am spelling his name Garth Lee now instead of Garth Le because everyone figures I just left off an E and we say it Garth Lee, so that is what he writes on all of his papers in school, so even though his middle name is not Lee, but LeBaron, which is pronounced nothing like Lee, that is now what I am going to "call" him...to avoid confusion of course) went to the mall last week when I was off and we did productive things like go play with puppies at the pet store, play at the mall "safari" playground and stock up on 'cheap' Bath and Body works $3 hand soap. As we were leaving, Garth Lee told me he wanted to do "one more thing", and this is how it went down...literally:

Garth Lee: "I really want to do something else at the mall before we leave."

Me: "There really isn't anything else here that you would like to do."

Garth Lee: "Oh, look, there's the fountains, I really want to throw a penny in it, do you have a penny."

Me: "Sure, that sounds fun" (and cheap).

So since I know you are picturing this episode just like an Oscar winning movie...pan out and cue the "du-du-duuuuuuh", you know, like when something REALLY bad is about to happen and the music warns you...man I wish movie music played in real life, like whenever I walked by Bath and Body Works, if the Jaws theme song would have played I never would have gone in...

I walk right up to the fountain, open my wallet, and my credit card leaps from my wallet into the stagnant, fishy smelling (there have never been fish in the water), bluish-brown, dead bug-infested mall fountain water.

Garth Lee: with a building tear "Mommy, why did you DO that, now we will never be able to buy ANYTHING."

Me: "I didn't do it on purpose, take off your shirt."

Garth Lee: frightened "Why?"

Me: "I'm going to hold you by your legs and lower you into the "water" and you are going to grab it."

Garth Lee: "You stay here and I will go tell someone to call the police to help us."

So he goes to the little nut (as in pecans and almonds) stand and tells the two 16-year-old girl workers that his mommy dropped her credit card in the fountain. In unison they look over at me at the fountain with puzzled looks on their faces and I nod to confirm that this 4 year old is not making this up. They, of course, thought this was HILARIOUS and had to laugh for at least 5 minutes before calling anyone to help. Garth Lee comes back to me, looks at me all ashamed, shakes his head and tells me I really shouldn't have dropped my credit card in the fountain.

At this point, I am noticing that the water is a little too deep to have Garth Lee by the legs and have him reach for it, so I have him take off his pants and I place him in the yummy mixture that is apparently 33 degrees and surprisingly deep, coming up to his waist, so he quickly decides that was not a good idea, so we wait 20 minutes for the "police" (mall security) to show up to help us.

The "police" show up and are maybe 17 years old and they think this is very hilarious as well, and I did too...30 minutes ago. They proceeded to use a wooden spoon from the nut shop to retrieve my credit card from the fishy water.

Then we ride off into the sunset with Garth Lee chastising me for "letting" my credit card fall in the water while he walks straight-legged across the mall to the car so he doesn't chafe from his wet (and fishy) undies.

P.S. I did buy some nuts from the girls that "helped" on the way out of the mall as a kind gesture, but they will be my last. I have made a mental note that they don't have the cleanest spoons...just for future reference.

Sixth Sense?

A conversation on our way home from church today:

Garth Le: "Mommy, I really have to go potty."

Me: "Honey, we are really close to home, why don't you just play your game to get your mind off of it and we will be there before you know it."

Garth Le: (hesitantly) "ohhhhhkaaaaaay."

about 30 seconds later...

Garth Le: "Mommy, I tried to keep my mind on the game but my pee sense won't let me."

Is that sort of like a Spidey sense?

Garth Le: "When we get home, can I pee in the yard?"

Me: "Whatever, as long as you don't pee in the car."





--I see wet people

The Countdown Is On!

Graduation is 3 months from Monday...but who's counting?

So Garth (and subsequently all of us) had a big week last week with Garth finishing his last week of rotation and his LAST grand rounds EVER (as long as he passes). He did very well, getting an A in his primary care rotation at the VA, and his next one is research at the school, which shouldn't be too terrible. Then he has the MOTHER of all rotations at the very end: Adult Med. It is a blessing and a curse that he ends with this, it will help him in studying for his board exams, but it is a booger to end on.

It is so crazy to me that this 'drugged up' journey that we started some 6 years ago (not counting undergrad) is about to come to an end. To be honest, it really went slow when we were in the midst of it, but looking back I cannot believe that we are less than 100 days from graduation. It has been anything but a smooth ride getting here, but the bumps helped us in the end.

When I graduated, it was such a great feeling, but it didn't feel over since we still had a long row to hoe with regards to Garth getting out of school. I seriously am going to be the crazy person in the stands with an air horn at graduaiton.

Everyone keep Garth in your prayers that he will get through the next couple of months without any hitches and we will be having a graduation party to end all graduation parties sometime soon.

Valentines

Last night Garth Le and I needed to give Daddy some space since he had a really big day today with his grand rounds presentation and his primary care final, so we got lots of fun stuff to make valentines. We got the normal paper valentines for his classmates (Scooby-Doo), and we made some really fancy ones for our family. He did really well and I will try and remember to take some pictures of them and post them to show how great a job he did. When we were working on them, he said "Mommy, this is the best night ever, don't you wish every night was like this night?" I sure do.

Fish Post

Garth Le goes to the best little preschool, St. Lukes. It is a religious school, as Garth Le says, it has a church "stuck right to it". I love the teachers and the lessons. The kids have learned a lot of, I will say, interesting songs as well, complete with motions and everything. Over the last couple of days, a particular one has gotten stuck in his head and he has been singing it non-stop. He has been walking everywhere humming the tune and repeating "Singing to the Lord, a new sardine..." over and over. I asked him the other night "Are you sure it is 'a new sardine'"? He looked at me like I was insane and told me "yeah mom, it's a fish". I was like "I know it's a fish, but are you sure those are the words"? He, again, looked at me like I should be in a padded cell and said "yes, I am SURE". The next day after school, after having, no doubt, sung the song, he was running around repeating "Singing to the Lord, the new born king". I stifled a giggle and asked him if those were the actual words to the song, if maybe he forgot, but he quickly let me know that was the second verse. Addendum: I'm still going to leave this story up because I think it is still funny, but I was just informed by a nurse I work with that those really are the words to a church song (the new sardine), so...that is what I get for second guessing a 4 year-old's "Lord as a fish" song. I promise to apologize to him tonight.

In a sort of related story, about 2 years ago, in a momentary lapse of judgement, I bought Garth Le a beta fish at Wal-mart. He named him Roger and we got a bowl and some food and some rocks. Roger lived about a week. At the time Garth Le seemed pretty ok with it, telling everyone that Roger "bit the dust". In a similar lapse of judgement, my mom got a beta fish for Garth Le at Wal-mart to replace Roger and we "let" her keep it at her house, his name is Nemo. Last night we were at my parents' house and as Garth Le fed Nemo, I commented on how great my parents are at keeping fish that have a normal life span of months rather than years alive for a long time. I had a beta in high school that I figured would be a short term commitment that my parents ended up taking care of as I went to college. It lived more than 4 years, which is about 167 in beta years I am pretty sure. Nemo has been going strong for close to 2 years now. I told my mom how great it was that Nemo is doing so well as opposed to Roger with Garth Le out of earshot...or so I thought. He came over and started bawling, put his head in his hands sobbing with only the occasional "Oh Roger" or "I miss you Roger" escaping from his quivering lips. He asked me where Roger went and I told him he went to live with Heavenly Father and Jesus and that they are taking good care of him. He asked me if they were "making him alive again", I told him no that he would want to stay there, then he put his head back in his hands and cried a lot more. While all of this is going on, we are trying really hard not to laugh because Garth Le is being VERY dramatic about this, my dad finally clues into what is going on and he asks me if Roger is the fish we "F-L-U-S-Hed", and I said, "actually, he went in the D-U-M-P-S-T-E-R", Garth Le looked up at me teary-eyed and cried, "Mommy, what did that spell", and as everyone snapped their heads at me in anticipation of how I was going to get out of this, I replied "Heaven".

A Day in The Life

Inspired by a friend of mine's post about her daily activities (her blog is private, so I won't bother with the link), I thought I would throw mine into the mix because it was pretty fun to read hers. Although I don't have a 3 year old and twin one year olds like she does and it's not that I think my life is so interesting, it might be fun to look back at down the road.

6:30-Alarm goes off (for the first time)
7:30-I get up (no, that's not a typo)
7:30-7:45-I brush my teeth, get dressed brush my hair and kiss my sleeping boys goodbye

8:00-Get to work (where I should have been at 7:30, but hey, it is Saturday and I am the boss)

8:00-7pm: Work, blog, work some more
7:15-Meet my parents and husband at the country club for "birthday night"
8:00-cook hot wings for Super Bowl party tomorrow (that will happen while I am at work, shocker)
9:00-Shower and fix my hair for a quick exit in the morning (hence the getting up and being out the door in 10-15 minutes flat)
9:45-Pray with my boys and read scriptures before laying down with Garth Le and most likely falling asleep in his bed until I wake up in the middle of the night and come to my bed with Garth Le following shortly after (sometimes I don't even know why we start out in his bed)

That is pretty much how everyday I work goes minus the country club dinner, and usually I am cooking food for lunches at work instead of hot wings for the game, but that is pretty much it.

I would like to add that we have been having some really cold mornings lately with frozen roads and a bit of snow. We park the cars outside (we haven't completely unpacked from our move almost a year ago) so they always have frost on the windshield. Garth has been getting up at least an hour before he has to and starts my car and scrapes my windshield for me. I think that is very sweet, and also a huge motivator for getting remote start in any of our next cars!

The Meanest Daddy

Warning: This is a REALLY long post with not much in it...consider yourself warned, or bored, whatever.

I know it is not good to glorify bad behavior by laughing or saying it is funny on a blog the next day, but sometimes it is really funny, and Garth Le can't read, so he won't know that I blogged about it until he is much older and hopefully out of pull-ups.

A little background: Garth Le potty trained when he was barely 2 with #1, and a few months later with #2, pee-pee and poo-poo for those not versed in potty numerology. He was pretty easy because he hated to be wet. We left him in a pull-up at night because he sleeps really hard and it was usually wet when he woke up the first few months. Then for a long time they were dry, so we didn't have him wear them and then of course after months of dryness, I get to do sheets everyday. Long story even longer, he still wears pull-ups to bed...and he still wakes up with them wet.

Anyways, last night he was soooooo tired and cranky and when he is like that he decides that Mommy is the greatest and Daddy is the devil (which to be honest, I sort of enjoy). Every single thing that I said was gospel and everything that Daddy said last night made Garth Le cry. We had a late night the night before and he was a bear to get up in the morning so we were going to get to bed at a decent time last night. Around 9:30 pm (1.5 hours past bedtime), Garth asks Garth Le to go get a pull up. You would have thought he just shot the dog right in front of us, Garth Le fell to pieces, but with Daddy's prodding he ran upstairs and got a pull-up and pouted for a bit before coming downstairs, standing right in front of us, stone-faced and held the pull-up in the air and then threw it in the corner, turned around and stomped off.

I am reasonable (and I didn't want this to turn into WWIII), so I told Daddy that Garth Le did exactly what he told him to do and nothing more. Then Daddy told him to put it on and he fell apart again, but he did retrieve the pull-up and disappear for a while. When he reemerged, he was REALLY upset. As moms, we can tell the difference between a put-on and the real McCoy. This was FOR REAL. I didn't know if he fell, or sliced a finger off or what. He finally came over to me and I cuddled him so he could calm down and I asked him what in the world would make him so upset, he managed to get out between sobs "Daddy made me do something that was so hard, the hardest thing I've ever had to do". I knew he was talking about having to put his pull-up on, but I like to egg on stories (I got that one from my mom's playbook), so I asked him what Daddy asked him to do, and he matter-of-factly told me that he asked him to put his pull-up on and it was really hard. I of course gave him sympathy and gave Daddy a 'shame on you' look, as any good parent who rewards bad behavior would do.

The rest of the night went similarly, I was the hero, Daddy was the villain. I can't believe how mean he is to our son. There's no telling what tonight might bring, he may even ask him to brush his teeth...the nerve.

This story shows how opposite Garth and I are with parenting than anyone would have pegged us before we had kids. Anyone, including us, would have told you that Garth would be the softy and I would be the strict one, but noooooo, it is the total opposite. BUT I am pretty sure that if we ever have a little girl, Daddy will be wrapped around her finger just as tightly as I am wrapped around Garth Le's.

TGIF

Well, it is my Friday anyways. Plus, I am so very excited because I think I will only have to come to work 1 or 2 days on my days "off" instead of everyday like I have been, of course I am on-call, but still, it is a step in the right direction. Today is a good day. Garth Le had the stomach bug yesterday, but he seems to be doing a lot better today. He had 4 pieces of toast last night for dinner and he has had 2 today for breakfast and he tried some chocolate milk and according to GiGi, it has stayed down thus far. He was pretty pathetic, so I am so glad that he is feeling better. We, of course, kept him home from school today and we will have to play tomorrow by ear, as I would hope all parents of sick kids would do. One really cute thing that happened last night was that after the prayer where we prayed for Garth Le to feel better, he looked up and said, "It worked! I feel better, Heavenly Father made me better!" I wish I had that kind of faith. Although...I would like to believe that we must have lots of faith in this flat area of the world because we moved our mountains to placed of lesser faith ;) I'm pretty sure you can actually get on a step ladder and see all the way around the world to your backside around these parts. It's flat, but it's home and we do have the best sunsets.

Blogger Etiquette

Is there a book (or a blog) on blogger etiquette? Here is my situation-I have recently been able to find a lot of old friends' blogs through other freinds' blogs and I love to see what everyone is up to. My question is this: Is it ok to put the links to people's blogs on your blog without asking? I love to come to my blog and just click on my blog list and get caught up on everyone. No matter what the answer to this pressing question, I did put them all on my blog list and I would just like to let anyone who finds themselves there who would like to be removed that they should please let me know. I will probably cry, but I promise to take it off too.

I'm Tired of Looking at My Prom Picture

As the title so eloquently states, I am really tired of coming to my blog to go to other blogs and seeing that picture of what seems like a lifetime ago. The solution, of course, was to get out of my blogging rut and put up a new post. There is nothing particularly interesting going on in our lives, but my BFF Liza's mom made a comment on her daughter's blog that really struck a cord with me and I don't want to forget it:

"Perfection shouldn't be a stick to beat yourself with but a carrot to dangle in front of your nose."

I think that quote could be something very valuable for a lot of people, especially women that I know who try so very hard to be the best possible everything and never feel like they are worth the time or effort. You know who you are. These are inspired words to remember and I know I will try very hard to remind myself of these words often.

Garth has started working at CVS. I think he is a little overwhelmed right now, the store is the busiest in town, which says a lot when you are talking about CVS. He is worried about the responsibility, but I know that he will do great. He has also been stressed about the upcoming annual assessment and his licensure exams this summer. I just think it is really exciting that he is so close and I have confidence in his abilities.

Garth Le is having a ball at school. Today was pajama day and he wore his new Kung Fu Panda digs. He truly is the sweetest, but sometimes the stinkiest boy. I got some sugar free Red Vines for a movie date to see "The Tale of Despereaux" with my hubby and son and Garth Le really loved them, but the problem is that they can make you a little gaseous. That night when we were going to bed, he was tooting respectably even for an adult and I couldn't help but giggle at him. He got mad at me, told me it wasn't nice to laugh when someone toots. I apologized and thought to myself that it won't be too long and he will be mighty proud of those. It was just cute. I told you I didn't really have anything to blog about.

Our vacuum cleaner died, so we had to get a new one. Our cleaning lady was mad because it weighs 29 pounds and she has to lug it to 3 floors. She thinks we need to get 2 more. I think she needs to start lifting weights.

I know that our lives are kind of boring but I am grateful for that, because it means that there is nothing "bad" interesting to report, even if there is nothing "good" interesting either.

Is This Sad?

I have not been tagged, but I am at a loss for interesting blogging, so I am going to take one of the blog tags for YOU from someones blog and say that YOU is me today. Here goes.

High School Tag:

1. Did you date someone from your school? Yes, I dated the same guy from the very beginning of my sophomore year through my Freshman year of college, see picture above. My parents were THRILLED!

2. What kind of car did you drive? I wasn't 16 until my junior year, so that kind of sucked, but I got lucky and was able to drive my mom's convertible while she started full time Suburban drivership. It was a pretty sweet ride, as you can clearly see, a 1993 Chrysler Lebaron!


3. Were you a party animal? No, I was always the mother hen of my group of friends. My parents, especially my mom, thought I was horrible and they probably still think that I did a lot of bad things, but I never did. I was a bit attitudinal, but definitely no party animal. Plus I hung out with a lot of Mormons. Woo Hoo, PARTYTIME!!!

4. Were you considered a flirt? Um, probably, but I did have a boyfriend so I tried hard to keep my flirting to him.

5. Were you in band, orchestra, or choir? Nope.

6. What was your most embarrassing moment of high school? I probably embarrassed myself daily, nothing really sticks out though.

7. Were you a nerd? No, I was an athlete, not exactly a "cool kid", but not a nerd either, I don't think.

8. Were you on any varsity teams? Volleyball all 3 years and I played soccer my senior year and there was no JV, so I guess I was on varsity although I was no good.

9. Did you get suspended/expelled? No, I was pretty much all of my teachers' pets. I still talk to some of them.

10. Can you still sing the fight song? Of course.

11. Who were your favorite teachers? I had a love/hate relationship with my volleyball coach, Coach Langdon, but when I was looking for the picture I posted above, I read a note she wrote to me as I graduated and I guess I appreciate it a lot more now that I am a little older. I also really liked Mr. Fortenberry and Mrs. Rowe. I had lots of teachers I loved, see #9.

12. What was your school's full name? Monterey High School

13. School mascot? The Plainsmen (intimidating, I know)

14. Did you go to homecoming, and with who? Of course, see #1, we went to a lot of the school functions and we always went together. I think people that I knew in high school would be shocked that we didn't get married.

15. If you could go back and do it again, would you? Nope. Although I really did love high school, I am extremely satisfied where life has taken me and there are plenty of things that I have gotten through that I would hate to have to do again.

16. What do you remember most about graduation? I remember taking pictures outside of the auditorium and that my boyfriend's mom took 10x the pictures that my mom did (which was still a lot). I also remember sitting and listening to the talks and thinking that I hope that this is not the highest point of my life like they were making it sound like it was.

17. Where did you go senior skip day? Did we have that? I am not sure, but I never would have skipped, see #3 and #9 for clarification.

18. Were you in a club? Just sports, I think. I did do academic decathlon one year.

19. Have you gained some weight since then? Wow, I have honestly been well over 100 pounds heavier than I was in high school. Now I am much closer to my high school weight.

20. Who was your prom date? Guess.

21. Are you planning on going to your 10 year reunion? Probably, I guess it is this summer, I don't know how I will know what is planned, if there is anything, hopefully someone will mail me something.

22. Looking back, what advice would you give yourself? Relax and enjoy the moments. I really wished my life away, I wish I would have just slowed down.

I now tag Sarah and Kate. Thanks for playing!!

Resolutions...

I would have to say that 2008 was a monumental year for our little branch of the Thomas family, for me in particular. My single resolution for this year is to not make any resolutions. I hate letting myself down, which I always feel like I do. I have spent the latter half of 2008 becoming a (much) healthier me, and I am very excited to continue this into the new year and hopefully drag my family along with me. This is the first new year in a longer time than I care to count back that I am healthy and not wishing I was thinner, or made more money, or that I was thinner (oh wait, did I already say that one?) I am already well on my way and I am looking forward to what is in store for us in 2009. Happy New Year!

Picture Update

Sometimes it takes me a while to update, but I try and make up for it by cramming as much as I possibly can into one post. Thank goodness Liza and the kids came down over the holidays so I was forced to upload my pictures from the camera, so thanks to them, here is the last month or so of our lives in pictures:

My little angel (no, seriously)! He was a little angel for his school Christmas program that told us the story of Jesus' birth. It was great, except when he started yawning and picking his nose. Too bad I didn't get a picture of that.

Here are me and my little buddy, just posing for Daddy. I would have to say that he is pretty dang cute!

More of my little angel...

We were very fortunate to have the Polar Express come to Lubbock this year and all of the cousins went in their jammies and we went on a real train to "The North Pole" where we picked up Santa and his elves, we had a good time, especially the kiddos.

I just couldn't resist this profile of Garth Le's cousin.

This picture is actually kind of funny because it shows how high the kids have to look up at the TV at my brother and sister-in-law's house now that they mounted the TV over the fireplace. I'm afraid if we go there too much we will get "tv neck".

Two little cuties that are anxiously awaiting our trip to the North Pole.

The boys had fun with our punched out tickets on the Polar Express. Not quite as magical as the book or Movie, but entertaining nonetheless.

This is an adorable picture of Garth Le holding his cousins hands as they were waiting for Santa to come, I just couldn't resist the great sepia tone photo op.

Daddy got a little sleepy waiting on the train for Santa.

BFF's

Garth Le got a little bummed at how long it was taking for us to get to the North Pole.

Liza came to visit us and she took the plunge and cut off over 10 inches of hair to donate to Locks of Love. Read about it here.

More gorgeous hair pics

(Wow, as you can see, these pictures are really out of order and I am too afraid to lose formatting to switch it around, so sorry about the wacky flow) Garth Le really loved his Leapster, even though he did drop it in the toilet the next day. We were very relieved when it decided to come back to life after drying out for a day.

More hair pics, at Target, as usual. We had a blast and now we sort of have the same hair even though I am pretty sure Liza pulls it off far better than I.

For the grand finale...(not intentional, just turned out that way)...this is what Kelton looked like after the Polar Express. You are most likely asking yourself a few things: Does Kelton have an incontinence issue? Was the ride really that exciting? Did Kelton have a little too much hot cocoa on the trip? Did Santa spill holiday cheer all over Kelton's lap? Well, none of the above are true. As it happens, his 3 year old son had a little too much hot cocoa to drink and happened to fall asleep on the way back from the North Pole and just as we are all getting off of the train, Kelton starts to get a warm and tingly sensation, and although he may have been feeling the Christmas spirit, he was also getting a good soaking from his son as well. Merry Christmas! Happy New Year! Happy birthday to my Mom and Liza, both New Year's babies. Hope you all are well.

Update

Ok, so I hate it when my friends don't update their blogs in forever and here I am, the offender. I haven't blogged since we haven't had much going on, but the more I think about it, we have had some things happen the last few weeks. On Sunday, the wind was blowing 60 mph and it pushed our gate open and Spike got out. We looked all afternoon for him to no avail and that night it dropped to the mid teens, so I was wrecked with worry that he would be a Spikecicle by morning. The next day we made signs and I went to the pound just so I had covered all the bases and lo and behold, there he was scared to death in a cage. He was picked up 10 blocks from our house across a major street. The person who brought him in was very worried that something was very wrong with him because of his hair (or lack thereof), then when we checked him out, the guy who worked there asked if the vet had diagnosed his "condition". I told him it was his breed and he just laughed. He must look pretty bad, I guess we are just used to his hairlessness. Needless to say we are so happy to have him home and he seems quite happy to be home as well.

I also cut all my hair off, I think it is pretty cute, thanks mom! Garth Le got a cute haircut too, mom left it kind of long on the top so as not to upset GiGi who LOVES his hair long and HATES it buzzed, which I love, so it was a compromise, but is also pretty dang cute.

I am pretty much finished Christmas shopping and I actually sent our Christmas cards this year, but I am pretty sure I forgot a lot of people. I suck at cards.

Garth got his Christmas present early because the country club sent a letter in the mail welcoming us as new members. He was really excited, but he hasn't had a chance to play because the weather has been so bad. I am excited too even though golf is not my favorite thing, I think it will be great for us as a family and Garth Le and I can swim in the summer too. I think it will be awesome.

Garth started training at CVS, he is really excited about what is in store for him and I am really excited for his paycheck.

I guess that is all for now, I hope everyone has a great Holiday season. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Christmas Cards

Liza so generously volunteered to take some family pictures for us even though she was a lot under the weather. We went to Hobby Lobby and got some decorations and diddied up the fireplace, so here are the results. Hopefully I will actually send the cards this year.

Garth really has issues with smiling for pictures, I think it is a man thing, even Garth Le has a little bit of a painful expression in this one.

Oh so cute and cozy by the fire.

Aren't we the happy couple.