ain’t no mountain high enough

oh claire. she continues to be a climbing machine and has perfected her moves to get into charlie’s chair. she can now get up in about 5 seconds, which adds more excitement to my day. this is a clip from this morning when she has literally been in the living room for 10 seconds.

 

then later this afternoon, we were all playing downstairs and when I glanced around I didn’t see claire. so I went to find her and found this.

then she instantly started doing this because she knew she was in trouble. don’t you just love how the chair is a bit away from the table and she is still dropping off like it is no big deal.

here are claire’s steps for getting up and in.

a swing up.

proud girl. both ellie and claire will be enrolled in gymnastics this fall!

maybe I should have said tsunami

so when I said I was bracing for the storm – I probably should have said tsunami. bill started call on friday and I left around 1 in the afternoon to head to hudson so me and the kids could attend my nephew paul’s first birthday party. we had a great time in hudson and had a blast celebrating paul (although because of the craziness of chasing kids at the party I didn’t get any pictures!).

we arrived home around 8pm on saturday night and bill had been at the hospital all but 4 hours of that time. he was able to meet us at home and give the kids a kiss and then he crashed. sunday he was back up and at work early. I went to church and the grocery store with the kids and spent the rest of the day hoping bill would maybe make it home to see us for dinner. around 3pm I got a text saying that things were looking horrible and that he was probably going to be there for a long, long time. that’s when bill’s storm turned into a tsunami. he ended up operating throughout the night – like the ENTIRE night and morning. he said they started working on getting this patient on the table around 11:30pm, but things didn’t really get going until 4am! he called me at 10am (monday) and said they had just finished that case and he then had a few other patients to see and another case to do this afternoon. SERIOUSLY??? so now I am writing this, monday night at 10:30pm and yep – you guessed it – another case has to go to the OR. so he was just finishing up his “afternoon” case (well it was scheduled to go during the afternoon, but was more like evening) and he still had another patient to do a case on and then another patient to follow up on (something about swallowing glass and having air between her lungs – I try to be sympathetic, but I get tired).  when I talked to him he was hopeful that he would be able to be done around 1am and be home for a bit to sleep. I bet it will be more like 3-4am just because that is what usually happens to time in the hospital – it sucks it away. he did say he was able to lay down in a call room for about 1.5 hrs today, which means he got a few winks. I’m off to bed for another night and he hasn’t really slept in 2 days. I just ache for him (and for me and the kids too). so I will pray that he can get home tonight and catch up a bit. another brutal bit is that this could continue on until friday when he hands off the pager. ahhh!!!!

edited wednesday: so bill did arrive home monday night around 3am and was back in by 6am. i was hopeful that maybe tuesday he would get some rest, but instead he had more patients that had to go to the OR and wasn't home until 4am (wed am). back up and at work at 7am. he did get to kiss each of the kids this morning, which was a wonderful thing. he said he has to take this one patient back to the OR this afternoon and hopefully will be able to leave at a decent hour. hmmm. we will see.

edited at the end of the week: bill's week didn't get much better. he arrived home around 8pm on wednesday and was able to see the kids for a bit before he crashed. but he still answered a lot of pages and then went in from 1-3am to see a patient. we left thursday for hudson and it worked out because bill was able to get his first full night of sleep in over 7 days on thursday night. he worked a long long day on friday and came to hudson early saturday morning. 

bracing for the storm

bill takes the chief pager tomorrow to start his first week of chief call (fyi – a “chief” is a 5th year ENT resident. their last year is called a chief year because it is structured differently that the previous years). he is taking it a week early so that the chiefs leaving don’t have to carry the pager while they are packing up or are on terminal vacation. how kind of him right? not exactly how I first answered it, but next year I will be grateful that we are not on call the last week. hopefully, we will actually be on “vacation” the last week so we can head to NZ early.

I am taking some deep breathes as we start this year. I will need a lot of extra patience and strength to endure the long, long, long weeks we have ahead. there are usually 4 ENTs in each “class”, but bill’s class only has 3. so that means Q3 weekly call (friday – friday) when everyone is in town. the first quarter, july-sept, each chief will spend a month at HCMC (hennepin county medical center) in Minneapolis to get more facial trama experience (think gun shot wounds). bill will do his time there in July so me and the kids will be going back and forth from hudson and rochester a lot. for the months when someone is in MSP the call will be Q2, which just gets exhausting. because when he is on call at any point he could get a page and have to go into the hospital. that means that even when bill is home I am not really that free to go run errands, workout, meet friends, etc. being even more realistic it probably means that most nights he will work late and then get pages and just stay at the hospital and work, come home around midnight sleep for a few hours and be back up again early to start the cycle again. I am gathering this vision from the current chief residents and their wives -maybe, just maybe-there is hope for seeing him. I can tell you this – I am not getting my hopes up. what I think will be the hardest will be the kids. there are probably going to be long stretches that he won’t see them and it really effects their attitudes (especially charlie, but the girls are getting there too). when he is on call we only get 1 day with him every 14 days and that day always goes way too fast.

it is at times like these that I am so thankful for bill’s hard work and his ability to be so present with us when he is home – even if he is tired and exhausted. I am also thankful for the RAC where I can go and  get a workout, shower and some me time to endure the long days with my beautiful, healthy, incredibly active children – even though it costs me $10.50 per time ($3.50/kid/2.5hrs) it is worth my sanity. I am going to embrace going there a lot this year if it means being a more loving, patient, encouraging wife and mom. in fact, I have been getting to the RAC at 8:30 (when childcare opens) lately and checking the girls in to childcare and then bringing charlie swimming for 30 minutes then checking him in and going to workout for awhile. it really helps charlie’s attitude – the only hard part is getting everyone packed up and out the door by 8:30. I am also thankful for my wonderful friends who are always up for a dinner playdate, park playdate or just an encouraging text or phone call. laura and tom and my parents are such saints when it comes to helping out. laura coming to hang with the crew during the week so there is one night a week I know someone will be around to help during dinner/bedtime. tom and laura are always willing to have me and the crew in hudson for a break. and my parents come for 3 days frequently to help over long weekends and help me get to green bay for mini vacas too.

so while this year may be long at times I will continue to pray that I will gain wisdom and knowledge and grow in my faith throughout this year. I am also excited to know that each week that passes is a week over. we will not repeat any of these weeks or months in rochester – instead we will be in NEW ZEALAND at this time next year. what an adventure we have to look forward to!

bring it on chief year!

running buddy and more

my friend rachel and I have been meeting 1-2 times a week throughout the spring and summer to run together early in the morning. it has been so much fun to be able to talk without kids around and get a great workout in at the same time. we also would meet 2 or so mornings a week at the RAC and do some stairmaster time in too. can you tell we both love to workout? rachel and her family are moving to boston on monday for her husband, hans, to complete a 1 year OB Anesthesia fellowship. today we met early for our last run (in this stretch at least). I had to snap a pic on my iphone.

thankfully I was too tired to cry, but I will honestly miss rach so much. she has become such a dear friend. the exciting part is that I will go visit her in boston sans kids in fall and I can’t wait! thanks for all of the wonderful miles rachel.

this picture is from our farewell dessert night at prescott’s. what a great group of friends I have!

hudson playdate

on monday, I stayed in hudson with the kids and my friends kacie and erin drove there to visit. kacie drove from eau claire with her 3 kids – sam (almost 4), lena (2) and jacob (12 weeks). erin lives in minneapolis with her husband troy. it was fantastic to meet jacob and to hang out with kacie and erin. we have been friends since high school. it is always refreshing to be around people you have known for so long and who know you so well. things always just fall right back in place. the kids add a lot of craziness to it. however, watching our kids play together is worth it. we weren’t able to take tons of pictures, but we had fun playing on the beach, in the lower level and out on the deck.

the girls.

so we tried to take a group shot right before my girls went down for naps. as you will see in the next few pictures it was a bit challenging to get everyone looking at the camera. this is what 6 kids 3 and under looks like.

everyone but charlie – who had to have mad guy as his face probably because he was mad.

just the 3 of us. me, kacie and erin.

Rock the Garden

Fathers Day weekend we headed up to hudson. bill really wanted to go to Rock the Garden – a concert at the Walker Art Center (while behind it really). It had 4 different bands playing (not main stream bands). bill really cared about seeing tune yards and trampled by turtles. we caught most of tune yards set and all of trampled by turtles and they were both awesome. it was a great time to just hang out and then we ended the night with nachos and tres leche at san pedro. can’t beat that.

we look kind of funny here because we used the reverse image thing.

bill and pete hanging out with the chitlins. paul is so cute in this picture!

on fathers day morning we busted out the splash pool.

claire was loving it.

I need to buy at least one more of these $5 pools because every child wants their own! ellie was thankfully content cruising around.

since it was fathers day – tom enjoyed an early martini.

I can’t believe I didn’t even snap a pictures of the fathers during our dinner. things are often a bit too crazy I guess. it was a lovely day celebrating our amazing fathers. bill thank you for being such an incredible dad to charlie, ellie and claire! we love you!

almost

I am working with charlie on getting dressed by himself – quickly. quickly is the key word. he can get himself dressed, but he dawdles, gets distracted by cars or makes up any excuse to actually get dressed. and when we want to be out the door doing something by a reasonable time it becomes an unneeded battle of the wills between c and me. so now when I go down to get him up for the day I show him which clothes I want him to put on before he can come upstairs. it has seemed to help. it was so precious the other morning when he came up stairs excited that did it. check him out!

can you see what is wrong with this picture? I just love this.

the entire outfit is on backwards. now I praised him up and down and didn’t even mention that it was on backwards, until a while later when I helped him change it back around. hopefully by the time preschool starts we will be good to go.

on your mark, get set…

GO! soldiers field park in rochester holds kid races the first 6 weeks of the summer. on tuesday night, laura and I took the kids for their first race.  we met rachel, kaia and thor there. how adorable is this picture??? we want to arrange a marriage right now.

this was a bit of our scene while we were waiting for the races to start.

rach and i. I can’t believe this is one of our only pictures together!

charlie and kaia did a lot of this.

and this.

ellie cruising around and warming up for her race.

they run the 2 and under girls 50 meter dash first. so I “ran” with the girls each holding one of my fingers. getting a picture was impossible, but here is a short video clip.

then it was c’s turn. 3 and under boys 50 meter dash. charlie was so excited prior to the race. he wore his lightning mcqueen shirt to be extra fast and his “fast” shoes.

and they’re off!

he’s in the middle of the pack. bubba is cheering him on.

a friend i know from the RAC snapped this picture. look at the collision in the back!

my plan was to snap a few pics and then run ahead. well rachel captured this picture right before I caught up to him. he all of a sudden couldn’t figure out where I was. you can see his face getting sad.

then he lost it. I actually was comforting him and trying to snap a few photos. all for memories right?

I helped him regroup and finish and then he pulled it together.

he got his smiley face on his hand and a ribbon.

showing bubba his ribbon and talking about how super fast he was.

we waited while they ran the rest of the kids age group races and charlie and kaia played some more.

claire was happy to always be watching these two.

rachel and kaia running the 100 meter dash.

charlie and I then ran the 100 meter dash together. I think it is so great to put your kids in different and new situations. from the way charlie was acting prior to the races I would never have thought he would have had a meltdown in the middle of the first race. so my hope for the second race was for him to gain confidence as we ran so he could finish without holding my hand. he did and I was so proud of him. bubba captured some pictures from the race.

charlie’s biggest fans.

charlie’s newest pet

yes – that is a dead fly. charlie saw the fly on the window (while it was still alive) and told me to get it out of the house. so I swatted it and I killed it. then he asked me if he could look at it. so I put it on a towel and told charlie he could NOT touch it. I told him the fly was dead, but then realized that he probably didn’t really know what that meant. because he kept asking me why the fly wouldn’t roll over. then I heard him saying “wake up. fly!”.

it was a little weird, but I was happy that he was entertained and pretty focused for 20 minutes. he would shake the paper and make it roll over and then say “mom! the fly rolled over!”. so weird.

I decided to just not explain the whole death thing and just have charlie “let the fly go” outside. so that is what we did. thankfully that was the end of that. guess I learned that he doesn’t really understand what dead and kill mean.

weekend o’ fun

nana and g. pops came to visit for the weekend. bill was on call and it was a perfect time for them to hang out and see the kids. friday, after charlie’s swim lesson we headed to the outdoor pool with the crew and met some of my friends for lunch. it was crazy busy so I didn’t get to snap any pictures. we also went back to the pool on saturday morning. again too busy for pictures. one of these days I will get some pictures. I do have pictures from when we were hanging out though. thanks mom and dad for coming to hang out, help me out and watch the kids so we could get out a few times!

here is g. pops with the girls. reading books is what they do 24/7 now.

after the kids got up from naps. I was encouraging them to say hi and give each other a kiss. it was pretty adorable. charlie is giving claire a kiss here.

what a lucky brother to have 2 loving sisters!

charlie puts up with a lot of poking and prodding by e&c. they currently love pointing out his nose.

 

eye gouge by ellie.

then the sisters were acting like they were going to give each other a sweet kiss…

but then they decided to smack each other on the head.

it was a hot, hot, hot weekend and there was lots of fun on the deck.

claire was determined to sit with charlie in lightning mcqueen.

after some coaxing charlie agreed to let claire ride with him. these two were so cute.

claire loves her brother!

ellie was happy just playing with the water table.

both girls make this smile. but g pops was able to get claire to do it a ton. they were having a blast playing and reading here. love this picture!

eleanore is OBSESSED with this little book – moms and babies. nana was delighting her by reading it over and over. she wouldn’t even let claire get near it without throwing a tantrum.

ellie and g pops.

this captures how much fun we were having.

g pops was practicing claire’s balancing act.

ellie’s turn.

nana perfected the balancing act of reading to both girls at the same time without them getting pushy with each other.

claire was running around doing her “oh yeah – that’s fast move”. it cracks me up!

so I say to claire when she is cruising around…”oh yeah claire…that’s fast!”. and she throws her arms back, smiles and takes off.

cracks me up!

bill was working basically all weekend, but was home for a bit sunday evening so he could see the kids (and me – since it was our 6th wedding anniversary!).  while hanging out, ellie and claire were giving us their best tantrums. they were fighting over charlie’s camera (he was sleeping still).

claire be ree sad.

ellie’s more frazzled.

oh – poor claire. I think these faces are only going to get worse.