Mammogram survival 101

It has been 4 years minus one day since my last mammogram. I celebrated the anniversary by having to get another one. And let me tell you, I enjoyed this one just as much as the first. In case you're a virgin to the process, here's my recap: I was taken to a dressing room and given a gown, "tag goes in the back," and told to wait with the dressing room door open until they came back for me. Good thing I did! I kept thinking "this thing doesn't even come together in the front!" Then the door across from me opened, and the woman who emerged had a much more modest gown than mine!  Seems there were three arm holes to maneuver, and I had missed one. Glad I didn't parade down the hall bare-chested before the rest of the procedure even began.  That would have been awkward. Here's a selfie of my successful gown attempt.

Next, a stranger finagled my girls onto a butcher block one at a time and lowered a big plastic thing onto each one. A pasta maker would have been an equally fun way to go with the squishing process. The digital display on the boob smasher informed me that 16.8 pounds of pressure were holding me (or at least a very small part of me) to the block. I've been doing bicep curls with 15 pound weights for a while. It would seem I should have been conditioning my B cups instead. Now I'm cracking myself up in the naked waiting room because I'm picturing a dumbbell taped over my breast as I press 15 pounds :D What's the naked waiting room? It's the holding area where you sit in your gown that opens to the front while you wait to find out if you can get dressed or if they need to redo the fun part you just experienced. Well I got called back. Had to get an ultrasound. You know, where they dump axle grease on you and show you your baby. Except further north and no baby. I did get a chuckle though when I asked the tech if my lump was a boy or a girl. My awesome husband pulled strings to have my results read immediately by the radiologist. What a blessing. I highly recommend having a spouse with influence at a medical facility! I walked into the room with computer screens and gave my own recommendation for the place: "y'all need to get really short mammogram machines that smash testicles!" I was given a clean bill of health and asked to never return. 

In all seriousness, as opposite of fun as this was, breast cancer is immeasurably worse. Take care of your girls and get them smashed!!! It really could save your life. 

Weird Stuff My Kids Say

    I am very thankful my children all have voices and words. Some parents would give anything to have conversation with their children, and I try not to take it for granted that I get to...even when we have exchanges like we did today:
kid #3: "Mom, you just hate me!"
me: "Really? Then why did I buy you a new soccer ball today?"
#3: "So you could throw it at me!" (never happened. Don't call CPS)
me: "Then why wouldn't I have just thrown the old ball at you instead and saved the money?"
    Sometimes his dramatics are much sweeter. Like last week when we were reviewing his word list from school. Everything rhymed with cat. He read them without trouble until he got to F-a-t. He paused and said, "that's a bad word. I'm just gonna say 'chubby' instead."
    See friends? Reasons to count my blesssings. (insert maniacal laugh emoticon, which I haven't seen but would come in handy, along with an eye rolling one)
    Even more absurd than the things my children say to me at times are the things I overhear them saying to one another. Here are a few:
"Don't pull my eyelids. I mean it! Don't pull my eyelids!"

"I've caught a dead one before."
Sibling response: "oh yeah. Dead ones are easy to catch."

"I'm sorry you're not nice to me anymore."

"Close your eyes. I'm going to lead you somewhere. It's a surprise. Close them... Now duck your head a little. A little more. There! See? I told you the dog's crate smelled nasty!"
I know my world would be less messy, contain fewer trips to the ER, be quieter, and all around more peaceful, especially on road trips, if I had fewer children, but I seriously cannot imagine life without this beautiful chaos. They are absolute blessings from God, and I cannot WAIT to blackmail each and every one of them with all the embarrassing info I am archiving for when they start dating!!!

Things You'll Never Hear a Mother Say...Ever!

1.  "I think it's adorable that the boys miss the toilet. That pee smell is a sweet reminder that I have a family!"
2. "By all means go chase that bunny and trap it in a fishing net! You want to shoot it with your Air Soft gun too? Sure!"
3. "Hon, the kid just puked in his bed. You just go back to sleep and let me take care of it." actually, this might get said, but I guarantee you it is purely sarcastically, and you should get up and help immediately
4. "I would prefer you leave your dirty clothes all over the floor instead of tossing them into the hamper. I like the extra exercise I get picking them up."
5. "5 year olds with pacifiers are sweet."

6. "We should get a dog that will grow tall enough to lick dirty dishes in the sink and sample everything I'm cooking! Oh, and if it can turn on the faucet to get a drink, that would make the absolute best house pet!!!"

7. "Of course you can keep a makeshift bug house full of insects in your room. In fact, I insist on it. Need help catching some more?"

8. "Please sit in the car and honk at me until I finish getting ready to drive you to the store."

9. "Honey, it's fine with me if you let the 5 year old watch scary movies. If he gets scared at night, I'll stay up with him."

10. "You want to have one friend sleep over? Hmmm. I really think you should invite at least 8 of your friends. It doesn't even count as a sleepover unless there are nine 9 year olds in the basement."

11. "Whatever you do, please do not ever outgrow picking on your sister. It's too precious when you make her scream like a banshee."

Everyone Looks Like Someone

A friend of mine used to get told how much her step-daughter looked like her. She would say God only created so many faces, so everybody looks like somebody else. I think people see what they want to see because depending on which side of the family we are with, people tell us my daughter looks just like me or just like her father. (For the record, I have dark hair and eyes while she is blonde with blue eyes. Identical!) 

This morning my youngest asked me how to make his hair grow faster. He got it cut (at his own request yesterday) and hates it. He told me "I look like Frank Johnson like this!" Who is Frank Johnson you ask? Beats me. He says random stuff sometimes, so I googled images of this Johnson fellow, and I think the kid may be onto something. There's a definite resemblance! My son and his haircut twin. 

Courage for the Cowardly Mom

I used to be brave. Not fearless, on the contrary. I have always been afraid of just about everything, but I could push myself to face and do scary things. I have spelunked (there's your SAT word for today) through treacherous caves, held a rattlesnake, sky dived (sky dove?), and jumped off a cliff into a lake. Mostly I did those things because I had a fearless little brother, and I wasn't about to let him one up me. It's amazing how much courage we can muster just to save face.
Since becoming a mom, I have developed some irrational fears, and it's a daily battle to hand them over to God and trust that He will care for my family. For example, every time my doorbell rings I have a fleeting fear that it will be armed gunmen, and even though we live in a very quiet cul-de-sac, I am afraid of stray bullets from drive-by shootings coming into our house. I am frequently terrified of one of my children being harmed or making fatal mistakes even though we have successfully navigated 5 rounds of stitches, a broken leg, 4 trips to the ER, and a couple of calls to poison control. Well come to think of it, maybe my kids' choices thus far are the reason I am scared of bad things happening to them. Either way, God has to remind me over and over again that He has given me a spirit of power and not timidity (2 Tim 1:7).

It's 12:04 a.m and my hubs is on a business trip. 4 minutes ago an alarm began blaring in the house. No dog or child was startled in the least, but this mama nearly peed herself when it blasted through the midnight silence. No, I recant my opening statement. I still AM brave. I no longer jump out of airplanes or squeeze through crevasses in the earth because I don't want to risk the possibility of not being able to care for my children, but have overcome other fears that once crippled me. I speak confidently to strangers whereas I used to be extremely shy and terrified to talk to anyone. I have trekked through the jungles of Central America to share Jesus with people who had never heard His name. I had enough courage to get out of my bed and check on the children when the middle of the night alarm went off, and tomorrow I will have the courage to send my babies off to school without the assurance that evil will not touch them there.
God reminded Joshua repeatedly to "be strong and courageous." (Joshua 1) With each day that I conquer a new fear, I am learning to be strong and courageous as well. God tells me He "will never leave [me] or forsake [me]" and to "not be terrified," for He is "with [me] wherever [I] go." (Josh 1:5, 1:9) This is reassuring news! It gives me hope that one day I might actually come face-to-face with a mouse and not have a panic attack. But I still hope I never find out!!!

A Boy, His Dog, and His Shop Vac

Last night the 10 yr old wanted the great dane puppy to sleep in his bed. She's 9 months and 120+ pounds. My hubs warned me it was a bad idea, but they were so cute snuggled together, and I was so tired that I just let it happen. Well of course, this morning there was a war zone in his room where the dog had gotten up in the night and  chewed up whatever she could find. The majority of the mess was from a destroyed roll of toilet paper. The kid used the shop vac to clean it up. The following is his account of how it went down:
"I shoved the tp in the hose of the vacuum, and it got stuck. So then I thought 'wet tp is slippery,' so I put water in the hose. It didn't help. Then I hooked the hose up to the other hole in the vacuum. Turned it on, and toilet paper started flying out all over the place. I couldn't control the hose and was hanging on for dear life. It was stuck to all the walls. And then I cleaned it all up." 
Events like this explain why my hair is turning gray. I am terrified to go in there and check his work. Something (experience) tells me he and I have very different views of what CLEAN is. But if reading this makes you thankful for your own life, then you are welcome!

Is Reptile Fornication in the Old or New Testament?

In church this morning our pastor's sermon topic was sex. Check out 1 Corinthians 7 if you would like a little light reading of your own around the breakfast table with your kiddos. He warned us at the beginning that if we were squeamish about openly discussing sex in front of our children that we should suck it up and get over ourselves because it's important. (that's totally my paraphrase right there, but I specifically remember the word 'squeamish') To that I say, if you are indeed faint of heart about this subject, just send your kids to our house, and we can explain everything!

You see, Pastor Bobby's sermon just happened to collide with another momentous event in the King-dom. Kid #1 found a box turtle in our alley last week and brought it home to be buddies with our turtle in resident, Sparky.  He excitedly told me all about his find (#1 did, not a talking reptile) and said, "it's another male just like Sparky! Go look!" As I proceeded to the courtyard to investigate the new critter, who incidentally brought our non-human eating and pooping population to an even ratio with the humans (wahhhh!!!), my hubs tried to convince the kids to name the thing Curtis. 

The instant I walked into our courtyard, I could see that Sparky and the new guy had already become acquainted (somewhat against "Curtis's" will) and were uh...working on building their little family. I returned to the house and reported that Curtis was a girl. Everyone wanted to know what made me the expert on turtle gender, and all I could say was that they were mating, and Sparky had the upper hand. Don't use the word "mating" as a euphemism unless you are hoping the extra 1.4 seconds it takes for you to say it and the kids to ask what it means will buy you enough time to change the subject. The three Kings ran out the door to witness this mating business for themselves, and the conversation went something like this:

#2: She's trying to flip Sparky over! Help him!

me: no no. He's fine. Let's just leave them alone and go inside.

#3: is he ok?

me: yup. He's having the time of his life. Can we go in now?

#1: so are they....

#3: are they what?

me: they're trying to make baby turtles. 

#2: are you SURE that's really a girl because it's eyes look just like Sparky's?

me: yup. pretty sure

#3: why are their tails stuck together like that?

You can only sweat so many bullets before they just start exploding is all I can say to you who are still reading at this point.

me: um....well...because to make a baby, the boy's penis goes inside the girl's vagina or whatever a girl turtle has, and that's currently what's going on here (all of this spewed off my tongue at the speed of light, by the way)

#2: so they're married? 

Thank you, Pastor Bobby. My children have been paying attention in church :)

#3: but what if it is a boy and those are two penises?

me: then we are about to have more issues to deal with than baby turtles. Who wants ice cream?!

In the end, Curtis was christened Shelly, and my 8 year old daughter informed me that telling her all that information was not age-appropriate. Daily now the children inspect the yard for eggs and tell everyone they can that we have married turtles who are about to have babies. Those things dang well better reproduce because if not, then I will have to explain how more often than not sex is recreational rather than procreational. Before we have that talk, I may have start drinking heavily, and then we may as well find another church altogether that condones alcoholism in mothers. Bobby, I think I have next week's sermon topic picked out for you!