Thursday, December 12, 2013

Too Long Gone

I typically aim to do 10 blog posts a month, but as you can see, that hasn't happened.  Nearly four months later, I thought I'd update you on our recent events.

August came and went.  The triathlon was a lot of fun, and I'm looking forward to doing that again in the future.  Since August arrived, Zach and I have both been working full time.  Let's just say that life is in constant motion.  My blogging time was cut and replaced with packing lunches, which reminds me, I'm blogging now and should be making lunches for tomorrow.  Brooks also had his first trip to the emergency room that month.  This was our first experience with once of the kids having to go to the ER.  I guess with a combined total of 9 years and 4 months of parenting, that isn't too bad!  Late one evening Brooks came down with croup.  Within 15 minutes of the incident we had talked to the on-call doctor, and obviously he needed help.  The ER staff was very, very good, and they helped him quickly.  I wish it was me and not Brooks.  His main fear was getting a shot, and I'm glad the staff reassured him that isn't what they were going to do.  Within minutes, the croup was getting better, and an hour or so later we were back at home.

The kids started back to school and the transition did not go as smoothly as I had hoped.  They were used to spending so much time with Zach over the summer and I learned that Adlyn is a Daddy's girl.  I think she had the roughest time of all.  For two months, I struggled with her crying every time I took her to school.  At first it was just a cry of sadness.  I felt horrible for her.  It was also her first time being in her own classroom, apart from Brooks.  Brooks embraced that transition, and thrived.  Adlyn regressed and struggled.  Of course, I wondered if I had made the right choice, if maybe I should just put them in the same classroom.  But, she still cried when I took her to her other school where she is in the same classroom as Brooks.  After a few weeks, the cry changed.  It went from sadness to terror.  She was terrified to go to school, she didn't feel safe, and was freaked out by the intruder drills/lock down drills.  It was a real fear, perhaps her imagination was more wild this year.  I felt like I tried a lot of different solutions to help ease the situation, but it just took time.  One day, I finally sent a note to the school, asking if she could meet with a psychologist.  I was at my wits end.  Then, magically, the next day, she was fine.  (I should have sent the note a month before!)  Now, she is doing well!

The month of September I worked nearly every night to prepare a TEDx Talk for a conference at my work.  The best time to work on it was after 10 PM when everything was quiet.  After many revisions and edits, it finally came together.  It was an amazing process to work through, and I'm glad I did it.  It should be posted on YouTube soon.  Once it is up, I'll post it here.  The event was held in early October, and the theater had a huge crowd!  It was a well attended event, with about 400+ people.  Amazing!  The dress rehearsal went horrible for me, and I'm glad that I was able to pull it off that evening.  Zach and my co-workers were amazing supporters through this process!   

I really wish I could make some more time to blog, but my job started to consume my life and thoughts.  For awhile, I viewed blogging as work, and didn't see it as a stress reliever or a way to spend my free time.  I picked up Angry Birds, a mindless activity to occupy my sporadic moments of free time late at night!  Zach would say I'm an addict, and I think he is far from it.  But, after about two weeks of only working on one level, I finally did get three stars on Angry Birds Rio Beach Volley Level 11, with a score of 119,000+.  (I'm still not sure what I accomplished from achieving that, other than the fact that I can post it here!)  From what I can gather on the internet, it is the most difficult level of Angry Birds Rio.

In November, the kids were sick on and off, and the tree went up before Thanksgiving for the first time in our family.  I figured that if it didn't get done before, it wasn't going to happen.  We spent Thanksgiving in Nebraska and took the kids goose hunting for the first time.  The next weekend we spent three days working art shows, and now this weekend - the kids turn 5.  Ugh, where has time gone?  It was five years ago today that we were life-flighted to Denver before the kids were born.  Seems like yesterday, and the details of that day seem very vivid.  Now, I have two nearly five-year-olds who decorated the cupcakes on their own for the special day at preschool tomorrow.  They play wrestle-mania with their "Love".  We are nearly done with the first book of Harry Potter.  They want me to stay in the truck when I pick them up from school because they insist that they can come out all on their own.  I'm not sure where by 'babies' have gone, but they are certainly full of life, curiosity, and laughter.