glue

Pre-blog, side-note:

How'd you guys like my new staff writer?

I've gotten nothing but positive comments, so I'm assuming you guys like him as much as I do.

Ok, not that much. ;)

But enough that I think I'll keep him around here at MLAM headquarters.

Sunday morning was typical.

I got up early enough to get myself showered and ready, and to get the girls lookin' pretty for church.  I was actually on target to be early to church and that never happens.  We're usually pulling in to the parking lot about five minutes after service starts.  I am trying my hardest to be more punctual.  It's an uphill battle, but we're getting there.  

Back to Sunday...  

We were seconds from heading downstairs to get into the car.  I decided at the last minute to throw a scarf on that I had in my closet.  I grabbed one from my recently hung scarf rack, and threw it on.  I put the scarf rack up myself.  I have been meaning to put it up for years.  Literally, years.  It was sitting in the closet at our townhouse waiting to be hung the entire 3.5 years we lived there.  Now that we have a much bigger closet I have a nice space for it and I hung it up.  I didn't have the right size screws or a drill to use so I just got the biggest nails I could find and hammered it into the wall until I could get the right screws.  So when Haven saw me grab a scarf she went over and grabbed one too...and yanked.  And my haphazardly hammered in scarf rack came flying out of the wall and hit my poor little girl in the eyebrow.  My first reaction was to be mad at her, but I almost immediately realized that she was hurt by the way she was crying.*  I picked her up from under the mess of scarves and sure enough there was blood on her eyebrow.  I made sure to keep her parallel with the ground to minimize the bleeding and so the blood wouldn't get on the carpet.  I laid her out on our bathroom counter and asked Luke for a towel.  I applied pressure like any wannabe-nurse would, and then took a look at what we were dealing with.  Sure enough, the cut was open and looked like it needed stitches.  It wasn't very big - probably slightly less than half an inch long, but I could tell it needed some medical attention.  And also she had a fat lip and the inside of her mouth was a little bloody.  So it turned out we got all dressed up just to go to the ER.  We dropped baby Parker off at my mom's house and headed to the new hospital that is nearby.  Luckily for us, when we got there the ER was empty.  I imagined it would be on a Sunday morning, but I figured people get hurt regardless of what day or time it is, so I wasn't sure how it would be.  Anyway, we got right in.  The doctors and nurses were very sweet to Haven.  She was a very good girl and just sat on her hospital bed, snuggled her teddy bear, and let everybody do what they needed to.  She was actually more scared of the bandaid being pulled off than for the impending stitches.  When the doctor came in he took a look and said that he wasn't going to give her stitches, because it can be pretty traumatic for little kids.  They ended up opting for glue.  The doctor held her wound together and applied a thin layer of glue, waited a few seconds for it to dry and then added one more layer.  That was that, good as new.  She really was quite the trooper.  I was proud of my little sweetie.

It's only been a couple days and you would think that she just scraped her forehead.  It is amazing how tiny it looks.  Most people probably wouldn't even ask if there was a story that came with it.  

In the ER waiting room, with her bear, Helen.

You've always got to dress like a princess, even on a gurney.

The wound after gluing.  And her tulip earrings.

Just a really cute picture in her new dance outfit for good measure.

*If you're not a parent yet you might not know about different cries, but oh yes, there are many.  Some examples are:  The fake cry, the in-pain cry, the tired cry, the bratty cry, and the whine cry.  This particular cry was her in-pain cry.

New Staff Writer!

(Thats right.  Not Courtney)

   






     


        Here at the ever-popular MLAM site, our Chief editor was kind enough to let yours truly come aboard and post the occasional blog as an additional staff writer.  So expect an incredible blog from me 3.. maybe even 4 times a year. 

        Fortunately, my profile is already done somewhere over...     -----here------->

So this introduction should be easy.  Depending on the family member, I go by Luke, Daddy or Dada.  I also go by Lukey, Lukey-Baby and Little-Miss-Luke, but I might explain that in another post and doesn't make me sound very manly at all.*  I have two awesome little girls, a sweet gig that counts as a job, a best friend that counts as a wife and a perfect God who gave me it all.                                                                               *I'm really manly

         I met Courtney when she was just a puneball* back near the turn of the century when she was in middle school.  We have now known each other for about 12 years.  She's a great great mom as you may have seen for yourself and does most of the heavy lifting while I go to 'work' every day.  And thank goodness too, because a mommy I am not.  Mommies have this special ability to change a baby's diaper with one hand, balance a screaming toddler with the other all while texting daddy and reminding him to pick up bread on the way home because she knows he already forgot.  A couple days ago she sent me to the store to get milk and some dinner rolls; I forgot the milk and got the wrong dinner rolls.  Another really cool ability of moms; you can ask them where any of your stuff is that you can't find in the house and they will know without hesitation where it is.  You can even test this.  Move something when they leave the room.  Hide something when they're not even home.  They are impossible to stump.  My mom always had this uncanny ability and now through the power of childbirth, Courtney can do the same.  All this to say, however, that mom's are incredible.  And if you have one in your life you should be extremely thankful.

*[pyoon-bawl] noun:  1. Small adolescents that should be pitied and avoided, since they are experiencing the most terrible and awkward period of their pre-pubescent lives. AKA twirp; squirt  2. Anyone shorter than me I want to threaten.

Puneball Luke & Courtney

=====
This is dad, and I have a life too.

a needed break

Today I got stressed.

It happened so fast I didn't know I was stressed until I was at a breaking point.

It was one of those hard days as a mother where your kids don't listen and don't fall asleep for their naps, 
and then don't listen some more because they missed said nap.

I was sitting in the kitchen trying to make some phone calls and Haven was being loud, and all the sudden I couldn't deal with it anymore and just ran upstairs so I could sit by myself for a second.

Luke, being the awesome hubby that he is, told me he was going to take the girls for two hours, and in that two hours I was going to work out on the elliptical, take a shower, and just calm the heck down.  At first I was resistant.  Why?  I don't know, I was stressed.

But I got my workout clothes and running shoes on, turned on a movie, and hopped on the elliptical.  After my workout was over I watched a little bit more of the movie on the couch, and then headed upstairs and took a nice long shower.

After my shower I called my hubby and he said to walk* over and have some dinner.  I ate a nice bowl of soup, some sweet potato fries, and ended with some dark chocolate reese's peanut butter cups.

The moral of my story is this, 
get yourself a spouse that recognizes when you need a break.

I wasn't being nice.  I was being a bad mommy and wife at the time.

But instead of getting mad at me, my hubs knew what I needed.  
Just a little bit of time to myself after catering to the needs of two little girls all day and night.  

Love my hubby.  Happy 4 years!!

*We live across the street from my in-laws, so I walked over there for dinner. 

whirlwind

Oh my word,

has this been a crazy couple of weeks.

I'm not exactly sure what I expected since we decided to move four days before Christmas,

and then host a Christmas eve party,

and then get sick, twice,

and then attend a cousin's wedding,

and then hang with visiting cousins for a week.

We haven't been able to watch any tv,

and our internet has been spotty,

and I have barely even missed it because I have barely had a chance to catch my breath.

Our house is wonderful.

I'm finally getting somewhere in the whole "getting settled" department.

I've had multiple people ask me if i feel settled in the new house yet,

and I keep thinking, "you've got to be kidding me.  not at all!"

I really thought packing was going to be the hard part, and I mean it was hard,

but unpacking isn't much easier.

houses are just different and so i have to find a new spot for each and every thing.

some things are easy - dish-washing detergent goes under the sink,

but what about the old vase filled with blue rocks that our dead fish Red used to live in.  Huh?  Any ideas?  yeah, exactly.  

I have a whole bunch of decor sitting around that needs to be put somewhere,

but as of right now i don't have a lot of the furniture I need (which is why I'm sitting on the living room floor typing this), and putting up decor without furniture just seems out of order.  

As for living in a small town, I think I am getting a little more used to it.

At first I had a small moment of panic.  "Oh no, what did I get myself into?  I've always lived in the "big" city."  But I still work in the "big" city, so I've been getting my city fix and then I get to come home to quiet, small town living.  It's a nice mix.

More updates later, I'm sooo sleepy.  I need to catch up I think.