I know he loves me all the time. There is no doubt in my mind, but if he sends flowers it means he wants me to know it is to the utmost degree.

Cut flowers are beautiful, don’t get me wrong, I love them, but they die quickly and they cost a lot of money. Certainly not something to take lightly. The times Bill, or anyone else, has chosen to send me flowers have been perfect moments where it was completely unexpected and where it meant a lot.

Yesterday I received flowers from a dear friend. Not only did she send me flowers but she remembered that I had once posted my favorite flowers on my blog and searched the site to find out what they were. It was an amazing moment. I felt her love and deep concern for me. It is a gorgeous vase full of a rainbow of color of gebera daisies. It certainly made my day a little brighter.

So thankful for all the special moments in life. All the little things make all the difference.

I was told by Kimberly that that wasn’t safe and that they’d get in trouble if they did those things at school. Incredulous, I exclaimed that that couldn’t be true and Sandi assured me that it was. The kids then told me about classmates who had gotten sent to Step 2 for jumping from the swings. I was indignant, to put it mildly. Scandalized is more like it!

I have no misconceptions about my halcyon days. The equipment was quite unsafe: the huge metal slide in my elementary school’s playground was the cause of many injuries and I’ve personally been thrown from merry-go-rounds several times. Modern playgrounds are better in almost every way at enabling the fun and removing the pain. I think the differences between then and now primarily comes down to how kids are allowed to interact with the equipment.

After our family discussion, Sandi took The Girls to the backyard swingset and taught them the penny drop. They picked up the sequence quickly because of their training in gymnastics of late.

Later, I took them to a nearby park and dropped them off for a few hours. (Just kidding, I would never do such a thing—there’s some nice middle ground between standing at the base of the slide waiting to catch your seven-year-old and leaving him there while you go for a pedicure.) You can probably guess what I did at the park’s playground. In case you can’t, I showed them how to jump from the swings. They did a capable job and I was proud that they were willing to try something they considered unsafe.

I had recently found out that I had a stress fracture in my right foot. I was determined to still reach my goal and pretty much disregarded the doctors advice. I wore flip flops, flat shoes, crocs, and continued on with the high impact workouts.

Another month passed and I lost a couple more pounds putting me very close to my goal, but when my Father passed away I began making bad choices again. It was much harder to make a healthy dinner at night when I was not feeling up to doing anything, so I would have Bill bring home something or I would make something that you just stick in the oven. I started eating in the evenings and making poor food choices. It is just something that happened. So I ended up gaining 4 pounds. Not bad considering all I was going through.

My foot pain was increasing, (I am sure it was complicated by the fact that I was wearing sandals because it was in the 90′s and I love sandals). I needed to go back and find out why I was having even more pain on the balls of my feet. So today I went to the podiatrist.

I now have three stress fractures on my right foot and a stress reaction on my left foot. The stress reaction on my left foot is very close to being considered a stress fracture. Oh joy! (Sense my sarcasm there!) She put me in a walking boot and a surgical shoe. I was told that if I didn’t wear the boot all the time on my right foot then it would only get worse and if I came back in with one more stress fracture on that foot she would put me in a plaster cast.

How did all of this happen? From exercise, high impact exercise to be exact, the kind of exercise that actually helps me shed pounds. Herein lies the catch 22. If I had not exercised I would have remained fat but not had stress fractures in my feet. If I workout to get thinner I get stress fractures. Yeah, it is that annoying. Before doing high impact exercise I tried low impact stuff, like walking and I never had any results. It was only the high impact that brought my weight down.

It also happened because I have a short metatarsal on both feet. This is most likely a genetic issue, ie. I got it from one of my parents. This short metatarsal causes the other bones in my feet to absorb more impact than they should have to thereby causing the other bones to fracture. Hence the searing pain in both of the balls of my feet.

Unfortunately the bad new just didn’t stop coming. (By the way this is where I get very dramatic. ) Even after I finish 6 weeks in the boot, I can’t go back to working out in high impact ways. I can’t go back to wearing my flip flops. I can’t go back to wearing my cute and fun sandals. Nope! I can wear very supportive shoes. I only have one pair of shoes in my current closet full of shoes that falls into this category. I LOVE shoes!!!! I LOVE LOVE LOVE them. I think they are fun and spunky and I adore them. All my gorgeous Bandolino sandals, all my crocs, all my fun ballerina flat shoes all useless unless I want to live with pain from stress fractures all my life. Now I am expected to buy shoes from here. There are very few shoes there that I would consider wearing out in public. Though I guess I will have some practice wearing ridiculous footwear since I have this boot for the next 6 weeks.

Seriously this sucks. There are no two ways around it. Knowing there is no cure for it, meaning I can’t just fix this and go back to my old self, is very upsetting. I am sick of growing old and it is only just beginning. I need to be happier about the 35 years I lived relatively pain free with these feet. I need to celebrate all those gorgeous shoes I wore and how happy they made me, but right now all I can see is the shoes I can no longer wear and the restrictions I will have to live with.

Oh yeah, that’s me now. Sporting my super sexy, cute and fun shoes. (Sarcasm theme still going strong!)

Yep, those love birds are my parents. That photo was taken in 1973 when their love story began. So many wonderful moments in those 37 years, I am so happy to be part of their story.

The Girls will be continuing on with their gymnastics this summer. They really enjoy this and they are all good at it. Paul will be waiting until fall to enroll again. (He was in before but had to take a break because of his circumcision and healing and then I thought it best to not expect the 3 Girls to sit patiently in the waiting room while Paul and I were in the Mommy and Me class.) I have consolidated all 3 girls into the same class so that will be good.

We have our tickets for the summer movie program. We love these things. While the movies are all older movies there are usually a couple we haven’t seen and seeing the others on the big screen is always fun. Can’t beat the deal of 10 movies for $7.

I have the kids enrolled in the City of Phoenix swim lessons. We really enjoy doing this and the kids learn so much from the lessons. I can’t wait to see how much they progress this summer.

I plan to do more crafts with them this summer. Kimberly and Mimi really want to learn to sew and I think that is a great idea. During the school year we are often so busy that making time to do involved crafts is not something we always do. I know how much they love these kinds of projects so I am going to figure out at least 2 a week for them to do.

We will be taking a week long vacation to a beach house this summer. I am SO excited about this. I love the ocean. I am so happy that Bill finally agreed to a beach house vacation. (Bill hates sand and last time we went to the beach he wore tennis shoes the entire trip.) We want to have campfires and fly kites and build sand castles. The Girls and I are going to have the time of our lives! It will be Paul’s first time on a road trip and first time to the beach, it certainly should be interesting. We will also be getting our pictures done by my amazingly talented friend, Cindy.

I love to play games and I really want to begin playing more card games with the Girls. Over spring break I taught them Crazy 8′s and Go Fish using regular playing cards. They began getting used to the suits and colors. I also began teaching Annie how to play Solitaire. I want us to be able to play more interesting games this summer. I need to get a set of dominoes and maybe even some new board games. If you have any suggestions I am always open to new game ideas, I really can’t stand games like Chutes and Ladders and Candyland where it is really hard for someone to win and really easy for the pieces to get tipped over.

I am sure there are many other things we will fill our day with. The main focus of the summer will be family and fun. I am sure we can accomplish two things.

Mom and I with the kids in the big hole.

After the hiking we headed over to the Phoenix Zoo. They now have splash pads at the zoo. This is a great addition. It was in the low 90′s today and while we brought a spray bottle to mist ourselves with it was warm walking around. Allowing the kids to play in the splash pad really helped them to not get crabby.

We came home and had lunch with Grammy. It was a wonderful day to spend with her, as I have said before she is amazing and I am so fortunate to have her as my Mother.

The rest of the afternoon we hung out and I even had time for a bath, which is something I rarely have time for. To finish off the day we had a nice picnic dinner in the backyard. It was a wonderful day. I am thankful for the four children I have the honor of parenting.

I have four kids and they can be rowdy. Not any one of them are being naughty or out of control and yet the volume of all 4 of their voices talking and singing is sometimes overwhelming.

Is it because car manufacturers are afraid of the stigma it would carry? Do they think that would somehow imply that my children are criminals? Or is there no market for it because most Mother’s would think that it would make them a bad Mother?

I am a good Mother. I love my children. I give them healthy boundaries in life. I feed them healthy foods and give them opportunities to explore their talents in life. I play games, read books, color with them and do countless other things. I think I deserve a little plexiglass, don’t you?

My Father had a massive heart attack. He then suffered from strokes rendering him unable to come back to us. Never were there words so hard to hear.

His life has impacted mine in amazing ways. There isn’t a way to write everything he means to me except to say that he will ALWAYS be a part of me. I am who I am because of things I learned from him. I carry him in my heart always. Many things I say or do have a bit of him in them.

I am so glad I witnessed his love for my Mother. While they had differences they are soul mates. His love was so strong for her that with his last conscious efforts on this Earth he held her and told her he loved her, pulling her in as close to him as she could. Nothing was more important to him than ensuring she knew he loved her.

My heart aches and aches for my Mother. While Bill is my husband and I love him dearly nothing compares to the love of parent and child. Just like my Father—she is part of me. I am who I am because of pieces of her I carry with me. I want him to get up and be by her side once more. I don’t want her living with this pain.

Over the past days I have had some alone time with him. While they were so hard emotionally they are moments I will treasure. He is my Dad, I love him more than I can say.

I don’t know when he will pass but I pray that it will be peaceful.

My life will never be the same. . .

As I was reviewing a diary of my weight I was amazed that in April 2008 I weighed 30 more pounds than I do now. 30 pounds is a lot. 2 years time is a long time. It has taken some serious amount of time to get back to where I was. I currently am the weight I was before I had gotten pregnant with Annie. The next goal is to be the weight I was before infertility treatment and pregnancies.

I started the 30 day shred in the midst of the Weight Watchers program. This is one hard program. It really kicked my buns. Who am I kidding? It still kicks my buns each and every time I do it! I have had some set backs. I most likely had a stress fracture in my foot back 3 or 4 months ago. I don’t really know because I didn’t go to the doctor when I hurt it, I only went when the pain wasn’t going away. Thankfully I didn’t go back then because I would have hated wearing a walking boot. It is healing and while the doctor has suggested that I do only low impact for 6-8 weeks that isn’t going to happen. Currently I have a stress reaction and while it is painful if I press on the outer edge of my foot it doesn’t hurt at all to walk or run on it. I also have some issues with my kneecaps due to the high impact. I have some new shoes and some braces for my knees now so I should be good to go. So far I have done 11 days and if my knees and foot will hold out I plan to continue it.

There were several things I wanted when I started my weight loss journey 2 years ago.
* I wanted to lose weight gradually so that it would stay off.
* I wanted to avoid being a exercise junkie. I have seen far too many women my age get obsessed with exercise and I just wouldn’t be happy if that were me.
* I wanted to be able to enjoy each day of my life while achieving my goals. So often you see people allowing themselves no treats and not really enjoying their life. I could not do it. Everyday is a day of my life and I want each day to be a good one.

One thing I have realized during this is that I was too often giving myself treats. Telling myself that I deserved things because I worked hard. I know this is a common belief around America but it isn’t something I value. Things that should be special treats, like eating out or having a special dessert, had become normal day to day activities for me. I want myself and my children to get back to having those things sometimes. I don’t want to be gluttonous and I don’t want to passively teach my children to do this either.

Madeline has decided that she wants a sock monkey for her birthday. Not only does she want a sock monkey for her gift but she would like a sock monkey themed home party.

As I am planning for the party I am finding myself more fond of the sock monkey I used to dislike. It is growing on me and I am beginning to see the cuteness that my girls saw all along.

There are big things about me that my children change and then there are these little bits of me that they affect.

As I was listening to them the other week I began thinking. What were the dreams I held when I was just 6? Would my 6 year old self be satisfied with who I have become? I am not sure what the answer is to either of those questions, in fact if I had to make a guess I would say no. We are so ideal as children and we don’t know the possibilities the future holds. My life now is wonderful and it is perfect for me, but I have more experience than I did when I was young. I care about different things than I did when I was 6.

I want the Girls to begin journaling. Not only to record their own history but hone their writing skills. I think it would be neat to have some of the stories I wrote as a child to look back on now. I think it would be very entertaining.

It looks as though I am driving right for the end of the rainbow. Never saw anything so neat and never felt so much like a leprechaun.

There was a time when I could just pick up and go. With four kids I can barely go to Walmart spontaneously. I have plenty of demands on me, and then working the kids schedules into the equation makes it even more difficult.

This Spring Break I am going to give being spontaneous a go. (Laughing so hard I might fall off the couch here!!!!) I am going to plan to be spontaneous, how ridiculous is that, but is the best I can do. We will leave our house one day during the break and not return for several days. I am thinking about traveling around AZ some, but maybe we will go nuts and end up in another state.

So that’s the plan. Going to try to be spontaneous sometime over spring break and see where it leads me/us.

The book is The Body Scoop for Girls.

I could definitely see placing this book in my Girl’s hands at some point. It is chock full of information that teens are generally apprehensive about asking about. The Doctor is straight forward and the jargon used is easy to understand. It covers how your body changes and what is or is not normal. It talks about sex and gives practical advice.

I will definitely add this to my family library and use it once we hit puberty, which God help us, is going to happen sooner than we can imagine!

This past week I had a drag through the mud kind of week. Bill has put in millions of hours at work this week (maybe not millions but certainly more than 60) and that means that a lot more things fall on my shoulders.

I tend to be a very strong woman but, I too, can be beat down. I hate to feel this way. I HATE weakness. I really do. I cannot stand it in others and loathe when I see it in myself. I want to stand strong all the time, but the bottom line is that I am human and, like everyone else, I have a threshold.

There are so many wonderful experiences that a stay at home Mom gets to have with her children. You are there the first time they take a step, or the day they learn to ride their bike. You can soothe their first injuries and care for them in the way that only a mother can. However, nobody talks about the other side of that coin. You are the one that HAS TO do all those things. Some weeks it is hard to see the beauty of the flip side of that coin. You get so overwhelmed that you can’t see anything but the mess that lies in front of your own two feet.

Any stay at home parent who doesn’t claim to have those moments is not being 100% truthful. It is inevitable in the job. Stay at home Mom’s get a bad enough rap as it is and most won’t admit the hard days for fear that someone will seize upon those moments and say “I told you so.”

While I have those days or weeks where I am overwhelmed, exhausted and worn thin I still wouldn’t trade it for anything. Don’t think I haven’t pondered this point a million times over. When I started out being a Mother I doubted I could make it 6 months at home let alone 6.5 years!!!! Every single day for the past 6.5 years has been the same: feed the kids, play with the kids, and clean up messes. Yet, everyday I get up and do it willingly, that speaks volumes.

Every Wednesday I:
* get the kids dressed and ready for school
* comb and style 3 fussy girl’s hair
* pack lunches, including a snack pack for Paul
* drive Annie and Kimberly to school and drop them off
* most Wednesdays I pick up Abi from school to carpool to preschool
* drive to preschool, often with a stop through Starbucks to get my fuel for my busy day.
* drop off Mimi and Abi (if she is with us)
* run back to the van with Paul (yes, he loves to run back to the van)
* drive Paul to my Parent’s shop and drop him off
* drive back to Annie and Kimberly’s school to volunteer
* volunteer in a kindergarten classroom, fully remembering why I will never teach kindergarten
* drive to pick up Paul
* drive to preschool to get Mimi and Abi
* drive Abi home
* come home fix lunch for Mimi and Paul
* get ready for Daisy Scout meeting
* go back to school to lead the Daisy Troop
* bring Annie and Kimberly home
* take babysitter home
* kids play and I collapse on the couch
* make dinner
* eat dinner, coaxing Paul the entire time
* bathe kids
* give them dessert
* tuck them into bed
* collapse on couch and be thankful Wednesday only comes once a week

I really do love all the things on that list. It is just that all together they make for one very long day. Factor in the fact that Bill has been working major hours and isn’t home for most/if any of that and you have one exhausted Momma.

I was talking with a friend tonight and he and I were wondering what it would one day be like to look back on these days. I wanted to document what my Wednesday was like so that I could look back on it later. I can’t currently imagine a day when these 4 are teens sitting in their rooms, ignoring me, but it will come.

Each phase in parenting has been so different and unique (and I have only been in this for 6.5 years). It is amazing to me. I truly enjoy each one, but am thankful that everyday isn’t Wednesday.

Today was one of those times. For some reason they listen so much more to the doctor and heed the advice. It is totally worth the twenty dollar co-pay.

There are stages that pass and you miss them. I can’t say I will miss diapers, even for a moment. A huge grin comes to my face when thinking about how close we are.

Paul has been accident free for several days now. He is proficient at taking his underwear down and climbs up on the potty like a pro. My boy is growing up and I couldn’t be more happy!

I couldn’t believe it on the first game when the first 3 numbers set me up to win. I told Steph I would probably not hear that number this entire game. I was stunned when the next number out was was the number I needed. It was bound to happen sometime. It was only $100 jackpot but it was fun to win.