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By Alyssa, April 4, 2011 3:27 pm

I don’t know what it is about Costco and meaningful lunches, but, man, do I have them there.  Decided today I can’t walk into the place without waterproof mascara.

It started out just a regular post-shopping Costco snack with Haus and the boys.  I saw an older gentlemen a couple tables over eating lunch with his wife and noticed the almost brand-new “Vietnam Veteran” hat he was wearing.  Hmmm, I thought, as Haus savored a Costco polish sausage and the boys and I shared ice cream.  Halfway through our meal, the veteran used the trash can right next to us to throw away his lunch waste.  Without even really thinking about it, I turned to talk to him.

“Thank you so much for your service, Sir,” I said smiling.  Haus looked up and piped in, “Hey boys, do you see that man?  He’s a hero.”  Bubba glanced up from his ice cream and I repeated, “Yep bud, that man fought in a war for us in Vietnam and he is a hero.”  I noticed out of the corner of my eye that the veteran hadn’t moved since I thanked him.  Looking back at him with Bubba, I saw tears in his eyes.

“It took me forty years to buy this hat,” he said as his eyes glistened behind thick glasses.  ”I’ve never really been thanked before.  Thank you for that today.”  Just as I thought I was going to start bawling his wife came up behind us catching the last of the conversation.

“He served two years over there,” she said, “and I took our two little ones to Honolulu so he could see us on midtour.”  She gazed at our boys and continued, “I was in the library in Honlulu when someone asked me why I was there and I told them we were waiting for Daddy to come back from the war.  They responded, what war, and I tried to explain that he’d been fighting in Vietnam.  They told me that that wasn’t a real war and said, right in front of my boys, that if my husband was dumb enough to fight over in Vietnam than he deserved to die there.”  The humble Vietnam vet looked down and said, “Oh, you don’t have to tell that story, hon.”

I’d been trying to keep it together until that moment.  Right in the middle of those silly white and red plastic Costco tables, I cried for them.  Haus put an arm around me as they teared up too and I told them that we were so appreciative for their sacrifice.  We made small talk about their two boys, now in their thirties, and as the conversation wrapped up waved as they headed out to the parking lot.  I pulled myself together, turned to Haus, and said I couldn’t imagine if while I was deployed someone had told him that I deserved to die while serving our country.

It really was my first time thanking someone wearing one of those Vietnam Veteran caps, you know, the big black ones with gold writing.  I don’t know why it’s taken me so long, but I tell you what, I’ll NEVER let the opportunity pass again.  Thank God for their sacrifice and blessings to all the families that sacrificed for us during the Vietnam war.  Do me a favor, and, if you see one, thank them too.  Oh, don’t forget to have a kleenex handy!

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By Alyssa, March 31, 2011 3:51 pm

-Blogging a few times a week, every week

-Exercising on a regular schedule

-Saying no to great things

-Showered and dressed BEFORE the boys wake up

-Menu planning

-Once a week date nights

-A little alone time in the morning

-Less sugar, more veggies

-Check Facebook once in a while instead of unconsciously all the time

-More messy activities with the boys… sand, paint, mud and play dough

-Start and finish scrapbooks… Zeke needs a baby book too!

-Less Netflix, more books

-Enjoying today instead of rehashing yesterday and worrying about tomorrow

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By Alyssa, February 22, 2011 10:27 am

In honor of my FABULOUS students that I’m having a blast teaching on Wednesday nights, I’m posting Zeke’s birth story.  Just like with Bubba’s birth story, if you are squeamish, don’t like babies, or plain just don’t care about this birth junkie’s birth stories then turn away now.

Zeke’s due date was around 1 September and I think a key to his story is that I was praying he would come late.  About a month before his due date, we sold our house in Colorado Springs and bought a house in Denver.  Our closing date for both houses was 28 August and that wasn’t all we had scheduled.  We scheduled the Army movers to pack our belongings in boxes the 26th and load everything into their trucks on the 27th.  We thought this timing would be perfect.  Pack everything prior to our closings, unpack it all on the 31st prior to Labor Day weekend, then have a baby and relax.

What were we thinking??  With my dad in town to help with the move, we drove up to our new house in Denver on the 23rd for our final walk-thru.  That morning before the drive I told Haus, wow, check my stomach out.  Sure enough, my “torpedo belly” as Haus called it, looked at least six inches lower than it did the day before.  With all the extra lung space, I had fun showing my dad our new house, heading back to the Springs for a long family nap, then that night taking a trip to Home Depot for some stuff we needed prior to our final walk thru for the Colorado Springs house.

While walking around the Home Depot, I had a sudden urge to go to the bathroom and realized I was slowly but surely wetting my pants.  My dad was off somewhere else in the store with Bubba so I pulled Haus aside and told him I had lost bladder control.  Being the logical guy that he is, he told me that really my bag of waters was probably leaking.  I told him no way and continued to shop and pay.  By the time we got back to the car, my black capris were damp to the inside of my knees.  I let my dad in on the situation as we loaded everything in the trunk and watched his eyes grow to the size of small saucers.  ”Hospital… now?” he questioned as Haus and I got in the car with him.  ”No worries, Dad,” I said, “I’m not having any contractions yet.”  We left Home Depot around 7:30p.m.

Fast forward to later that night, contractions were there but not painful, Dad and Bubba had gone to bed, and Haus and I were debating whether we should go to the hospital.  Our doula from Bubba’s birth volunteered to come over and check on me and, after she observed a few contractions, we decided to head to the nearby hospital.  Our only comparison was Bubba’s speedy birth and I was not doing the “hold-the-baby-in-on-the-way-to-the-hospital” thing again.  Imagine my surprise after checking in at 1:00a.m. and realizing I was only 3 centimeters dilated.  As I tell my students, however, I don’t believe that dilation gives you any firm estimation on when you’re baby will arrive.

From 1:00a.m. to about 3:45a.m., Haus coached, cajoled, encouraged, and made me move from tub to toilet to birth ball to back of the hospital bed, until I was ready to push.  Around 4:00a.m. I was more than ready to push, but the on-call doctor was refusing to come and catch.  We chose to check-in to a nearby hospital instead of trekking down to Fort Carson because we just weren’t sure how quickly this birth would go.  Haus listened as the nurses persuaded the doctor to come in while I was miserable trying not to push.  When this guy finally did arrive, disheveled with one sock tucked over his scrub pants, he told me I could not push from my current position, leaning my forearms on the back of the hospital bed almost on all fours.  Instead I was forced onto my back and within two extremely painful pushes (I’m convinced because of the supine, on my back position), Zeke was born.  The pushing was so fast in fact that after Zeke arrived, I told Haus there was no way I could do labor anymore, not realizing the little dude was out at around 4:10a.m.

Our little 8 pound 12 ounce baby boy had a full head of hair and a curious birth mark, we later realized was a salmon patch.  I asked the doctor if I could have a tiny bit of anesthesia during the stitching of my small tear at which point he patted me on the thigh and said, “Don’t worry, your epidural will cover that.”  Maybe it was my glare or the stuttering of the nurses that made him realize I had just completed an intervention-free birth.  Wide-eyed he burst out a second later, “What??  She didn’t have an epidural??”  Did I mention this doctor is lucky that I’ve never seen him again since Zeke’s birth?

So there you have it, labored from about 10:00p.m. to 4:00a.m. before birthing my little dude in two crazy pushes.  After this birth experience and some of my doula work, I told Haus that I would NEVER give birth without a midwife in attendance and really never wanted to set foot in a hospital for birth again.  Haus is in complete agreement as I didn’t mention how hard it was for him to coach me through the pain when the entire 3 hours he was told he couldn’t have me here or I had to be here needed to be checked again for this chart, etc.  Not very conducive to keeping someone relaxed through painful contractions.  Anyhoo, I’m happy that Zeke was born perfectly healthy despite all of the prodding and am also SOOOO glad that Denver has an amazing birth center that shares our birthing philosophy dare we ever try this labor thing again!

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By Alyssa, February 10, 2011 5:38 pm

So I thought it would be fitting since my last post was a pic of my sweet, angelic little dudes to tell you how my day was yesterday.  I realized Tuesday night that I had a crap-load (that’s a lot) of errands to run on Wednesday and no one to watch the boys.  They were coming with me.

First stop, the Apple store.  Wait… first stop, the “Don’t even think about bringing a two-year-old in here” store.  I set up an appointment through the Genius Bar thinking I would not have to wait for long, but I guess in this Apple store it’s more like the Average IQ Bar.  After trudging through the leftover snow with purse, laptop, and my two bundled dudes, I waited in line by the Average IQ Bar and set about getting the little dudes to play video games a few feet away.  Bubba was so stoked.  Seriously, you just want me to sit here at this chair my size with my own iMac and play Diego??  One kiddo taken care of.  Zeke wasn’t so pleased.

You see right when we walked in he saw 30 lined-up, plastic silver balloon ball looking things on the floor and wanted to go back to them… NOW.  WHY the Apple peeps thought that three rows of ten two-foot plastic-like balloons was a good thing to put on the floor as decoration, but so obviously not to touch is beyond me.  I spent the next couple minutes running up to the front of the store to grab Zeke away from the “Ba-wooonns!” as he was screaming and praying that someone would call me up next.

Someone did finally help me.  I bought a cable adapter to hook my laptop up to the TV… an adapter that ONLY Apple sells so I had to go to their stinking, not kid friendly store to buy it.  About the time I pulled out money to pay, I realized Zeke wasn’t next to his brother playing video games anymore and, oh-by-the-way, the little black ball chair wasn’t there either.  It only took a second to search the crowded store to see that he had rolled that chair all the way to the front of the store and was determined to take it home with him.  Oh boy.  Shoving a bit of money in the dude’s hand, I dashed over, grabbed Zeke, and the cumbersome 3-foot foam ball chair thingy.  Returning the chair, I straddled Zeke on my hip and tried to take my change and the adapter as Zeke proceeded to kick off his boots.  Thanking the clerk for the item I grabbed boots, purse, wiggling two-year-old, mesmerized 5-year-old, and rushed out to the car.

I think it was about the time we made it to the car that I realized I left my laptop by the kid computers. REVERSE, held Bubba’s hand, Zeke’s squirming body, purse, boots, rushed through store, grabbed laptop, REVERSE with all items back to car.  Got to the car with everything and THEN couldn’t find Bubba.  Almost panicked before he popped out from behind another car he thought was our car.  It took a full three minutes sitting sweating in the front seat of the Camry with the boys buckled in to regain my sanity.

After that madness and a few uneventful errands, we stopped at Chick-Fil-A to celebrate being done.  The boys played in the play land, and I plastered myself in a booth thinking calm thoughts.  You may be asking yourself, what could go wrong in Chick-Fil-A?  Nothing did go wrong the first few minutes.  In fact, I even had a few minutes to myself among the chaos of Chick-Fil-A at noon to read a few pages of the Outlander series I’m addicted to and take a bite of chicken.  Then Bubba ran up.  Mom, he’s stuck.  Zeke is stuck, Mom!

Upon inspection in the play land , I found that Zeke was not stuck, but had been rather brave .  Instead of staying in the one story portion of the play land, he had ventured for the first time ALL the way up to the three story part.  I sent Bubba back up to retrieve him and almost started to admire the little dude’s spunk. Those thoughts vanished after cajoling, begging, then calmly instructing him to come down. I surveyed my options.  Squeeze myself through the maze of staired-tunnels or the slide.  I chose the slide.

I have to pause here and laugh… oh man, what was I thinking?  I had tights on under my jeans thus no traction, and figured that out around the second of three corkscrew turns.  About five minutes in and drenched with sweat, the claustrophobia hit as the only way I could maintain my ground in the bright yellow, monstrous slide was to press my back against the top of it and cling with my finger tips to the tiny grooves at the end of each section.  I yelled up that if one more kid tried to slide under me they would be sorry, muscled my way around the final curve with my arm, grabbed Zeke by one arm (thank goodness he was curious and had positioned himself at the top of the slide) and FINALLY made my way back down…Zeke headfirst and me scraping the last of the studded embellishments off my back pockets.

I thought about calling Haus after I had everyone back home tucked in for quiet time, but would he really believe me?  Sigh… that, my friends, was an absolutely true telling of yesterday’s errand day.

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By Alyssa, January 31, 2011 9:56 pm

As Haus and I were laughing tonight hunched next to our computer watching the latest Office episode, I realized we never watch T.V. on the T.V. anymore.  Last year we switched to the $18 basic cable package and I don’t think we’ve missed any of the other channels… ever.  Besides a little bit of PBS kids, Sports, and JCTV (a Christian music video channel we discovered when we got basic cable), the tube isn’t really on.  It’s hard to even watch that much with the awful commercials.

Have you noticed how horrible commercials are lately?  I can’t watch a football game without telling Bubba to “TURN, BUB!” as he’s trained to do when a demonic face, gory violent scene, or inappropriately clad female pops up during football commercials.  I LOVE Super Bowl commercials but anymore I can’t have my little dudes in the room while they’re on (especially difficult during our annual Super Bowl party).

Oh, and don’t get me started about the language.  Since when is it O.K. for public television characters to say “b#tch” or “a##”?  You’ll never guess what we saw on a commercial tonight watching The Office.  It was some ad for a phone that had this text on it’s screen in big old letters: “LMFAO”.  Yes, I had to look up what that meant, and, no, I am not pleased.   I have a five year old that is starting to read.  Hey mom, what does that mean??

All this to say, I don’t miss our full channeled T.V.  I can see why my grandfather used to call it “stupid vision” and that was in the eighties.  Can’t imagine what he would call it now.  I’m curious what your thoughts are about T.V.  Am I just getting old and cranky or does it seem like T.V. watching makes us a little more stupid the more we see it?