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Didn’t your mother ever tell you that things would look better in the morning? 

It’s morning for us now, and we are so relieved that Nathaniel is out of the hospital and feeling good, that our lease is signed and secure, and that we are all okay.  What a week.  Thank you for all of your prayers and support and love and we are just sooo excited to get on with our happy life!

Okay, so now that the house is totally secure and officially ours (we can start moving in on Saturday), I’ll dish a little about the house:

3 bedrooms, 2 baths, and a good sized den/office.  Laundry/mudroom, gas stove in the kitchen, good sized dining room (which means that our table won’t be butt up against the wall rendering two chairs unusable), real live fireplace in the living room, coolest closet ever in the new girl’s room (it has a window in the closet!), master bedroom which leads out to the patio, great outdoor living space, giant front yard, giant backyard with pool, giant property behind the backyard which we have no idea what to use it for, great park right across the street, good location, less than a minute from the seminary, our new home. Once we’re moved in and it is presentable, I’ll post pictures, or better yet, you can just come over.   Sooo, I am furiously packing, sewing new things for the new house, because let’s face it, if I wait until we move it’ll never get done, and trying to keep up with the ever increasing mound of laundry in our home. 

Welp, here’s to a productive day!

get worse.  A lot worse.

These past few days I have spent most of my time in Escondido’s one and only hospital visiting my huband and trying to keep him from going crazy.  On Monday, Nathaniel went to the doctor to have his hand looked at again.  The large line running up his arm towards his lymphnodes was a concern for us all, and the doctor said that if it were him or his son, he’d tell Nathaniel to go to the ER.  So, we headed to the ER at 4:30pm, fully expecting to be home in time for a late dinner, or at least the kid’s bedtime.  At 9:00pm, Nathaniel was admitted, and at 10:30 the kids and I went home, alone.

It is good that he’s there, I mean, not for us, but for him to have this continuous antibiotic to get that poison out of his body.  He’s right where he needs to be if something bad happens, and he isn’t really in any pain except for being all stiff from being in bed so long.  So, there’s our week in a nutshell so far.  We are hoping they let him go home this afternoon, but if his hand still isn’t improving the way it should be, we may be looking at another night there.

People have been so kind to us through this whole ordeal; bringing food, watching the kids, and just calling or emailing to say they care.  So, thanks for all of your support and love, and we are so blessed to have so many people in our lives who care about us.

Annnd, we’ve pretty much abandoned the idea of moving on Saturday, and we’re hoping the lease can be signed before our landlord moves to Oregon on Saturday, and we still have most of the house to pack up.  But, the kids are going to be with us for a little longer, we found out yesterday, so S’s first day of Kindergarted is coming together well, and she’s actually in the same school that my friend teaches at!  Although things are scary and unknown and expensive and this is really hard for everyone, we can see how the Lord is blessing us in little ways and showing us that He is still there, He still loves us, and we’re going to be okay.

So, please pray for a speedy recovery from Nathaniel and that we ALL get to come home this afternoon!

Th Urgent Care nurse chuckled yesterday when we asked if they had some sort of punch card deal available, you know, 10 visits and the 11th is free? 

Here’s the thing, we weren’t joking.  And we’ve probably earned ourselves a free visit this weekend. 

Between silly careless mistakes in the kitchen, to reoccurring infections, to now the latest incidents, I feel like I am now on a first name basis with the staff at the Urgent Care clinic, and we’ve only lived here two years, and only three months of those two years have we had children. 

But now the latest epidemic spreading through our house is not the stomach bug, not some nasty cold, no, it is what Satan thought would inflict the greatest amount of pain on Job.  It is what God used to let his people go.  That’s right, we’ve got the boils.  Please don’t think we are gross or dirty.  If you came into our home any day but today, you would probably be able to eat off the floor.  Bailey does, at least.  And we do have several working showers in our home that get used daily.  And we try not to share food with others, and are vigilant about telling D to take his fingers out of his mouth, particularly if he has just touched a trash can.  But somehow we’ve gotten them.  The best we can figure is that D brought them to us from his old home, because he had several pop up shortly after he moved here.  They were painful, but went away with antibiotics.  Two weeks later, one showed up literally covering the entire back of my thigh (please don’t be too amazed at how big that must have been, I’m a little insecure about my thighs).  One Urgent Care/lancing visit later, and I was on the mend.  Until like 4 or 5 have popped around there since, and boy are they not fun, especially the one that was cultured yesterday. I can’t even get in and out of the car without wincing.  Now Nathaniel is the latest to get hit.  Whatever D went through was bad, whatever I went through was worse, but Nathaniel, his has been record breaking so far.  An entire swollen hand and thigh later, and we’ve spent the whole weekend at multiple visits to our friendly neighborhood Urgent Care.  For whatever reason, pain medication is only making Nathaniel nauseous, rather than taking away the pain, and he’s laid up in bed this morning rather than at church, which would have been impossible for us to go to anyways since we were at the doctor’s all morning.  Correction, we were at the doctor’s and the pharmacists’ all morning.  I would recount all that went down at Long’s Drugs, but it would take far too much energy to relive that in my mind.  Let’s just say we were there for almost an hour, the clerk was really stressed out with life, and in a last ditch effort to keep the kids calm, we all ate some grocery store croissants right there in that nasty waiting area, while Nathaniel had his head between his legs to keep from fainting from the pain, and keep his food down.  Shudder. 

Oh, and while we were in the waiting room at the Urgent Care, S looks at me and says, “I have this weird bump on my leg.”  I almost burst into tears right there. 

So, the adults are on a two week cycle of antibiotics.  We have some expensive soap we have to use.  I think we’ve spent close to $60 these last two days on prescriptions and ointments. I have to change the sheets daily (are you kidding me!), have fresh towels every day, never re-wear our clothes without first washing them in hot water, and I’m not really supposed to shave my legs (riiigght).   Oh, and pack up our apartment to move this Saturday, which may or may not happen if Nathaniel does not have a working hand. 

You may be thinking to yourselves, “and they’re still gonna go on vacation tomorrow?” and you would be justified in being concerned.   Thankfully, however, we had decided to cancel our trip earlier this week.  We didn’t want to, we really wanted to see all of those people who we love, but it was too much and a really bad time to leave, and now, I really don’t know if we could have gone anyways.   Nathaniel was given a note to take two days off of work, which came at a good time, because the main day he works each week is Sundays.  You almost have to laugh that a thing as small as a boil can be so disruptive and painful. 

Alright, well, it’s time to hobble myself over to the washing machine and get something washed.  Goodness knows we’re gonna have enough laundry to do these next ten days. 

Michael Scott: TMI? Too much information. Uh, it’s just easier to say TMI. I used to say don’t go there, but that’s lame.

Can anybody please tell me why life has to happen ALL at once??  Anybody? 

 Next week Nathaniel and I leave for vacation to see his sister’s family and some old college friends.  We will fly into Chicago (overnight), drive 6 hours to Lake Michigan, spend a few days, drive back, spend a few days there, than fly home to what we hope will still be our family of four.  The kids will be staying in respite care with another foster family, and the mom has a pretty important hearing while we are gone.  She has been told that they are going to request that the kids go home during this hearing.  I am not entirely convinced, but the possibility is there, which means I am going to be kind of nervous for a few days of our little trip. 

Not to mention, when we return, we need to figure out S’s kindergarten situation.  She’s enrollled in a school right now, but I think it starts while we are on vacation, and there are just so so many details to take care of when sending a little girl off to school for the first day, that we might have to miss.  And what in the world are we supposed to do while we wait and see if she is going to live with us next week or not?  It is a little overwhelming.  Wasn’t quite ready for this one.   

Oh, and did I forget to mention the fact that our lease is up 5 days after we come home??  Give me just a moment to have a mild panic attack, please.   So yesterday we began the unfortunate task of collecting boxes, tape, and wrapping paper.  That’s about as far as we’ve gotten.  I keep thinking that moving is always difficult but not that bad, and then I remember that we’ve added two small humans to our lives who require a ton of stuff, and consequently, a ton of boxes.  

And while this move is going to be happier for us all (we are pretty sure we scored an amazing 3 bedroom home to live in, more details to come after we sign the lease on Thursday!), it does require moving there, so that kind of stinks.  And I don’t care how frugal you are, there are always new things that you need to buy when you move into a new place that has new spaces, needs, and issues, or in this case, paint that I like, but doesn’t match our stuff.  So, we are probably going to deal with that.  And I really have no idea how I am going to furnish a 3 bedroom house, with a den, did I forget to mention that it has a den? It’s gonna be interesting to divvy up the furniture.  I’ll be like, “okay, living room, here is your one couch, and okay, you can have a chair too, but the other couch needs to go in the den.”  And, “alright, boy’s room, you really should have both of the beds in the bunk bed set, but right now, the girl’s room needs a bed too, so sorry ’bout that.”  But my mind is getting carried away, and I am already dreaming of hanging the stockings on the genuine stone fireplace at Christmas, and eating breakfast out on our patio in the morning, and having Bailey make full use of the mudroom, and doing laundry in machines that aren’t energy efficient, and cooking on the gas stove, and having big pool parties in our backyard.  Oops, I guess I let that one slip.  Yeah, it has a huge pool/spa in the giant backyard.  So you can see why we really want this house.  Pray with us!

But, for now, we are packing, signing leases, enrolling children into school, meeting the people who will be caring for our children for the next two weeks, preparing ourselves emotionally that they may be with their mom when we get home, and running around like the sky is falling.   But I feel kind of calm, and I haven’t the slightest clue why. 

Speaking of running around, I ran some errands today with the kids.  First we went to the mall because Sears was having a great sale on glasses.  The last time I thought about purchasing glasses, the total bill came to close to $700 dollars!  Woops.  Sorry eye lady, please don’t be mad that I didn’t buy from you, but, well, my husband is a student.   But if I want to make the most of my glasses, I need to also be able to wear sunglasses too because let’s face it people, we live in the land of eternal sunshine.  Sooo, I thought I’d try again, this time with their fancy promo, and the total bill was over $500 less.  How’s that for savings.  Unfortunately, I had to deal with a sales associate.  I do appreciate their candidness when I am shopping alone and don’t have a second opinion, but sometimes I feel like I end up just going with what they say looks good just so I don’t hurt their feelings.  I know, I know.  You don’t need to tell me how unhealthy that is. 

But this girl sort of crossed the line between giving her honest feedback, and trying to find her new bff (best friend forever). 

In between her answering the phone, and me telling D to please stop banging his toy trains against his stroller, somehow we managed to have this conversation:

EL (Eye Lady): “Wow, your kids are so polite and cute.” 

Me: “Thank you.” 

EL: “So, are they yours?”

Me (after a million thoughts racing through my mind): “yes.” 

EL: “Wow”

After a few minutes:

EL: “So, just two?”

Me: “Yep”

EL:oh, I have one at home too.”

Me: “aw, how nice, how old?”

EL: “nine months.”

Me: “aw” (but really thinking, “do these frames really look good on me, or is she just trying to make a sale?)

EL: “do you want more?”

Me: “oh yes, we want a big family.” 

EL: “Wow, I don’t know if I want any more than just one.”

Me: “mm, mhm”

EL: “So, are you guys trying right now?”

Me: (again with a million thoughts racing through my mind - should I say that this is none of her business right as she is calculating how much I owe for glasses, or should I not answer, should I explain the whole story and tell her that we are trying to adopt, or should I tell her no?): “err, yeeaahh.” 

Maybe if I didn’t have the kids with me I would have been more interested in having a heart-to-heart, but like I said, I was trying to keep D from disturbing the whole mall with his train noises, and S was kind of butting in the conversation too, so let’s just save that chat for later. 

 And while we’re at it, next time, sweet, dear college aged checker at Target, you see a frazzled mom with two kids, and a cart full of diapers, and her cell phone is ringing, please don’t try to recruit her into your line, even if it seems like a good idea, because by the time she wrangles her cart around the oblivious people in front of her, to move up to your line, someone else will already be there at your check stand, and she’ll have to just wiggle right back to where she was.  Take it from me, a mom chooses her lines carefully, and no amount of persuading or empty check stands can convince her that her spot in line is worth leaving.  It’s a little like a piece of real estate. 

Sooo, that was my day.  I now have a little chef (not Ratatouille) begging me to make good on my promise that the two of us will bake chocolate chip cookies together.  Better get to that since her bedtime is in, oh, 10 minutes!

Well, today was my last day of work.  I returned my computer, I handed over my company phone, keys, and credit card, and I showed my boss where I had organized all of my files.  Part of me is thrilled, like I could do a little dance.  What a relief to no longer have this guilty feeling all of the time, which I was starting to believe was a  permanent fixture in my life.  I was either not devoting enough time to my work (which was out of my home), or not enough time to my family, which made me feel crummy.  Most of my days were about surviving and trying to get at least some work done, but between distractions and every day life, I just couldn’t keep up.  I ended up being weighed down to my computer, but couldn’t really work, so it was like I tried to work all day but got nothing done.  It was not a functional system.

But a really big part of me had a very sad time handing everything over to my boss.  As I typed up the manual for the job, I started to get sad realizing that so much of what I did, I really did enjoy — well, when I had the time to actually do the work.  I thought about the day I was hired 2 years ago, how interesting and new it all was, how much I had prayed for a job, and how even though it wasn’t what I had hoped to be doing down here, it quickly became something I enjoyed.  I guess with all things that you leave behind, even if you know something better lies ahead, there is a sadness when you say goodbye.     

And finally, there is a sort of fear that I have now put myself into a category that I’m not sure I am ready to be in: a full-time mom.  For years, people have been able to ask me where I work, and I have been able to give them a name of a corporation, or store, or ministry, or whatever, but now, what do I say?  Something cutesy, like, “well, I work for my family,” or “yeah, my bosses are 5 and 2,” or do I say, “yeah, I don’t work,” or do I stand up a little straighter and declare, “I am a stay at home mom.”  I know what a wonderful privilege it is to be able to stay home with the kids - with no work distractions - believe me, I wouldn’t have quit my job if I hadn’t have been so aware of the advantages.  But I guess I am also a little fearful of what this all means.  We dove into parenthood, and while our life was turned upside down, we were still able to hold on to so many things that made us who we were pre-kids.  We still have the same apartment, albeit a little more kid-friendly and colorful, we still have much of the same weekly routines, the same interests, the same friends, and up until today, the same jobs.  It was almost as if there was something about this that seemed kind of temporary.  Like we could still get out if we needed to.  And the reality is that this particular situation is most likely temporary, but our commitment to fostering and adopting is not.  Quitting my job was almost like a declaration of what we have chosen for our new life to be, permanently.  I am now going to be a full-time mom, probably for a very long time.  It may be that we don’t always have the same children during this season of life, but eventually we will have permanent ones, and we are committing our lives to them.  I am committing myself to being a stay at home mom.  

But wow, how fun will that be?!  I am now going to be able to sit on the floor and have tea parties with my girl.  I will be able to wrestle with my boy.  I can spend more time reading to them, taking them to the park, and preparing healthy lunches. I can keep a clean, organized home without feeling like I should be working on something else.  I can devote more time to writing and reading books, without pictures in them.  I can continue on my sewing projects and other hobbies.  I can take the kids to the zoo more often, or to the pool, or to the beach.  I can take my family on a vacation without having to let anyone know.  I can make plans to meet with friends in the middle of the day, and have family visit us, and do so many things without having my mind be pulled, like a magnet, back to the work I know is waiting for me when I get home.  It really is such a relief.  My priority has always been my family — even when that was just one other person — but now I have the freedom to be able to fully act on that priority.  And that feeling completely outweighs any feelings of sadness, failure, or fear.  And while I may not be breaking out the sweat pants and baggy t-shirts just yet, I do feel such a sense of peace to be able to call myself a housewife, and have my sole job be something that I have always wanted and loved to do. 

When you think of movies that capture a 2 year old boy’s heart, typically Cars, Finding Nemo, or Monster’s Inc. (ironically all Pixar) comes to mind.  But for our little guy, he has been won over by the singing, dancing penguin, Mumble of Happy Feet.  I am not kidding when I say that D is obsessed.  And I really can’t figure out why.  It isn’t Pixar, it is about a penguin, and there is very little action in this movie.  And what boy likes all that singing?  I know people have some issues with this movie, you know that it’s got this big enviromental agenda and stuff, but hey, if it teaches my kid not to throw a six pack plastic ring into the ocean because it could get stuck around a penguin’s neck, then that’s alright with me. So D has the whole movie down.  I mean, he can’t say a lot, although he tries, but he can lipsink along with the words, and he’ll even move his head to immitate the actions in the movie.  It is really cute, kind of strange, but cute.  Anyways, he’ll watch it at any chance he gets, even if it is back to back to back (not that he’s ever done that).   And when he is really happy and excited, he’ll break out into “appy peet” and just start moving his feet rapidly and moving back and forth, kind of like he’s dancing.  Just picture someone who really has to go to the bathroom, but is kind of intoxicated.  Or, picture Mumble, and you’ll get the idea.  Anyways, it’s almost like a twitch, I guess it is kind of like his version of laughing or squeeling with delight.  His feet just get happy.

So, we loaded the movie onto our ipod when we went to WA a few months ago so that D would have something to do on the plane.  I realized a few weeks ago how easy it is to plug the ipod into the stereo and let D watch his little movie when he is potty training, or all last week when S was off to VBS and D needed a little company while she was gone.  I think I spoiled him, however, because he is starting to think that “appy peet” can be a part of the daily routine.
The other morning before S woke up, I was feeding D breakfast, and he said, “appy peet?”
“No, just eat your breakfast.”
“Pease, Mommy?”
“No, just eat.  Go ahead and pray.”

So, D went ahead and did his prayer routine, “Mommy, poo, wawi, tias, nigh…” (translation: Mommy, Food, Sorry, Jesus,  Good Night, sometimes he throws in a “happy birthday” in there because S’s birthday was two weeks ago, and we really don’y know why he says sorry in his prayers, but he probably knows what bad things he did, so okay)
…Then, in the middle of the routine, with his hands still folded,  he opens one eye and cocks his head to look at me and says, “appy peet, Amen.”

I burst out laughing, and well, let’s just say his prayer was answered.  (hey, you would have done it too if you had been there.)

Just like Dora and her friends sing at the end of every episode, “We did it, We did it, Lo hicimos!,” so am I walking around the house feeling very proud of myself for surviving the Gutierrez Gang’s very first camping trip!  Yay!  I had my moments of cringing when the kid’s faces got increasingly crustier, and when our tent  and shoes and children were instantly dusty, but for the most part, I think I handled this weekend with great aplomb (thank you, Andy Bernard for the new vocab word)
 
We got to our campsite on Friday afternoon, an hour after we had said everyone should meet.  We were the second people there.  No one else showed up until our campsite was completely set up, and I think the last people to arrive rolled in about 5 hours after that.  I really do think we belong to the right church.  No matter how late we are, someone else is always waaay later than us.  We felt a little slighted because the campground was about 10 minutes from our house, and our site overlooked the city.  It was beautiful at night, but did take away from that whole living simply without any sign of life feeling that makes people love camping.  On the other side of our site was a man-made lake.  It was pretty, but again, not quite natural.  I was commenting to Nathaniel that the fishing there was a little like one of those little kids’ games where you throw the fishing pole over the sheet and someone sticks a piece of candy to your pole because all of the fish in there were planted by the rangers.  Maybe it’s just me, but it kinda’ takes the fun out of it knowing that those fish didn’t have to swim upstream to get there.  Anyways, you can’t have it all, right. 
 
Oh, and we really had nothing to worry about with our tent being too big.  There were way bigger ones there, which we didn’t mind, we were thankful for.  I was a little concerned that I might come off as a princess if I brought too much stuff, you know, because I had made comments earlier that instead of camping as a church, we should all go stay in a hotel as a church.  Everyone laughed, so I pretended like it was a joke.  So I just packed a few little things, leaving even my makeup at home (I realize that if I was still in high school that would be impressive, but it still felt like a small victory even though I am now a confident adult woman).  But let me tell you, we were the only ones there without air mattresses, and my face was the least made-up in the morning.  I was proud to sleep on the ground, especially since everyone else thought we were crazy for it.  But hey, if you’re gonna pretend you are homeless, you kind of need to go all out.  It was actually one of the best night’s sleep I have gotten in a while, well, once I was confident that there were no snakes coiled up in the bottom of my sleeping bag.  I guess the biggest princess moment I had was once it got dark, I subconsciously thought to myself, “ugh, why doesn’t someone turn on a light in here.”  Good thing thoughts stay on the inside.  Usually. 
 
We were also a little embarassed about the food we had brought.  I’ll give you a hint.  It was in a can, it was red, and it had a little Italian chef on the front.  But to be fair, this was our first time camping, and all we had was that small little stove.  But, worried that the family next to us who were like professional campers and had just survived a week-long camping trip was going to pull out some kind of fancy carne asada or something, we ate our food in secret while everyone else was on a hike.  It wasn’t until that same family showed up at the devotional time with their cup of noodles in hand that we realized we had nothing to be worried about and that we hadn’t damaged our children by having them eat that for dinner (ha, who am I kidding, like we only eat that kind of stuff when camping!)  Maybe the professional campers are the ones who have the most simple meals. 
 
We even survived public restrooms with toilets that had no seat or lights in the bathroom.  I brought just the right amount of clothes for each person.  We had enough liquid to hydrate everyone properly.  We set up our tent with no problems.  This kids stayed safe the whole time.  We didn’t get a single mosquito bite.  No snakes slithered into our tent (that we know of). We were all very ready to go home when it was all over. Annnnd, everything is put away and there is very little sign (other than laundry) that we just spent the weekend in the woods.   All in all, it was a very sucessful camping trip, and we are starting to think about talking about when our next one will be.

Lo hicimos!

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