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A few weekends ago Mark and I got to go see “Hitch” at the theatres. It was a great movie and very funny. Anyway, there was a song by Billy Joel in the movie that I really liked called “Vienna.” If you get a chance to listen to it or download it –it’s a great song. But, here’s the lyrics.

Slow down you crazy child
You’re so ambitious for a juvenile
But then if you’re so smart tell me why you are still so afraid?
Where’s the fire, what’s the hurry about?
You better cool it off before you burn it out
You got so much to do and only so many hours in a day
But you know that when the truth is told
That you can get what you want or you can just get old
You’re gonna kick off before you even get halfway through
When will you realize Vienna waits for you
Slow down you’re doing fine
You can’t be everything you want before your time
Although it’s so romantic on the borderline tonight
Too bad but it’s the life you lead
You’re so ahead of yourself that you forfeit what you need
Though you can see when you’re wrong
You know you can’t always see when you’re right
You got your passion, You got your pride
But don’t you know, only fools are satisfied?
Dream on but don’t imagine they’ll all come true
When will you realize Vienna waits for you?
Slow down you crazy child
Take the phone off the hook and disappear for a while.
It’s alright you can afford to lose a day or two
When will you realize Vienna waits for you.

Anyway, with another baby on the way I’ve been freaking out a little at the thought of trying to keep up or rather, not being able to keep up with the daily grind of things. I was just beginning to feel on top of things when we found out we’re expecting and it has thrown me for a bigger loop than having Denver (almost.) When I heard the song it just reminded me that it’s okay to slow down a little every once in awhile. And no one will ever really be the perfect, polished self they want to be all in one moment. But it takes time to get where we want to be and we’re all a work in progress and will be until the day we die. And it’s okay if we haven’t reached that one perfect moment yet and there’s no point in rushing it. It will all come in it’s own time and what’s most important is taking in the moment, one day at a time, good or bad, and pressing forward. . . always forward, finding joy in all the little things we have been blessed with and being gentle with ourselves for all the little things that aren’t quite perfect yet.

And so this week I’m looking at the eggs in the incubator, and the grass growing on our kitchen table with the homemade pinwheels stuck in the dirt, and the half read book on the end table, listening to Denver sing his little tunes, pushing his trucks all over the house and watching Hunter and Noah build mega machines with the lego, feeling little baby butterfly kicks in my belly, and snuggling in close to Mark at night with a roof over our heads as the rain pours down and the laundry piles up and the toilets still need scrubbed and the bills need paid and I think. . . everything is just the way it should be and it is all okay.

We did an ultrasound on the eggs. Sorry we didn’t get any pictures. Between balancing the filmstrip projector, the toilet paper roll and the eggs we didn’t have any free hands to snap a photo. We’ll try and get a few pictures this week when there’s a little more to see. Anyway, the good news is we have twenty-four eggs and so far it looks like we have twenty-four chicks. We were unsure about three of them but didn’t have the heart to toss them quite yet. We’ll eliminate them this weekend if we can’t tell for sure. One egg was particularly amazing because when we held it over the light we could actually see the embryo moving away from the light and dancing all around. Less than two weeks to go–very exciting! Too bad real babies don’t grow that fast. . . .

For those of you who haven’t heard, we’re expecting more than 24 baby chicks this year. We’re also expecting a real baby. . . on or around September 30th. I’ve sort of been in denial, since it was yet another surprise, but the doctor says it’s really a baby and not a tumor and he even gave us a snapshot to prove it. We’re not finding out the sex but we’re hoping for a girl, expecting a boy and will be thrilled with either, of course. Hunter’s thrilled. Noah’s not sure this is really a good idea. And Denver is anxious to have someone smaller than him in the house so he can rid himself of the nickname “little tiny diaper baby.” Anyway. . . here he or she is!

Today we were visited by the Stork (via the FedEx Truck) who dropped off a cardboard box marked, “Fragile, Hatching Eggs: Handle with Care.” When we opened the box we discovered 24 beautiful eggs–blue ones, brown ones, white ones, big ones and little ones–wrapped up tight in two egg cartons. Yes, it’s true! We’re expecting 24 fluffy baby chicks due Friday, April 8th. I’ve never been a Mama Hen before so we’re not sure how our first hatch will go, but if all goes well we should have a nice assortment of baby chicks peeping and pecking their way into our hearts in about three weeks. I’ll be updating y’all frequently, the next post being next Friday, when we candle our eggs for the first time and check for babies (and the humidity.) Until then they’ll be nestled in tight in their little nest (incubator) being rocked back and forth in the cradle (egg turner.) Wish us luck!

P.S. Did you know–a mommy Hen turns her eggs up to 96 times a day. Whoa!

This morning I got up around 5:15am and hid shamrocks around the house and a pot of chocolate coins and colored our milk and juice and yogurt green. I would have done it all last night but lately I’m out cold around 8:00pm and the thought of doing anything more than laying on the couch and watching TV exhausts me. I had to do it early though because our kids seem to wake up with the sun and the birds (around 5:50am) and I didn’t want to be caught red-handed. Being a sneaky parent is so stressful. Anyway. . . when the boys woke up they went on their little treasure hunt and found the pot of gold hidden in the oven. Noah was especially thrilled. Mark asked him to say prayer, before we dug into our green breakfast, and this is what Noah asked for: “And please bless us that we will be lucky and see a. . . (whispering) what are they called Mommy?. . . a leprechaun. Amen.” The excitement level was at a peak this morning and it almost made me feel like a kid again. Of course, Hunter was onto me like wildfire, but nevermind. Noah’s day was made and that’s all that matters. I need to do better at these sort of things. It’s kind of the icing on the cake of childhood–they get so excited over the littlest things. Anyway, hope your St. Patty’s day is just as thrilling as ours, if not more.

Today was a ho-hum kind of day to say the least. Tuesday I was full of energy and got so much done. Today I feel so barfy and tired–it’s almost made worse but the fact that yesterday was such a good day. But then again, they can’t all be great days, right? We started the day off by going to Yale once again for Hunter’s Neurology clinic. Sometimes I feel like I live at Yale and whenever we think about moving I worry about what we would do without them. They have done so much for Hunter there. Anyway, we were expecting to take Hunter off his medication this summer and see if by some miracle he had outgrown the seizures. To my relief, they’ve decided to keep him on the medicine a little bit longer. Apparently his EEG came back with evidence of Benign Childhood Epilepsy and that is enough for the doctor to keep him on medicine awhile longer. BCE (that’s not necessarily the correct abbreviation but you all know what it stands for) supposedly strikes boys more often than girls, is somewhat genetic (we’re not aware of any on either side of our families), has an onset anywhere between ages 2-6 and 98% of children who have it outgrow it by the time they reach puberty. Go figure. Noah and Denver do have a risk of the same thing but in most cases they don’t even treat with medication because the seizures are so few and far between. Unfortunatley for Hunter, his were getting more frequent and he has the double whammy of low and high blood sugar which may or may not trigger more seizures. Anyway, at least we have an answer and we have high hopes that it won’t last forever. For once a condition that he CAN outgrow!

Devanie and Sierra came to play for the afternoon and after about 45 minutes of all four kids playing quietly all three of my boys had melt down and things got a little wild after that. They all seem to fight, whine and bully all at the same time. They are either all three wonderful or all three terrible and they never go one at a time. So, Devanie and Sierra ran for dear life and I curled up on the couch and tried to block it all out with cartoons and sleep. It worked and when I awoke Denver was curled in beside me sound asleep and Hunter and Noah were playing together like “a wink and a smile.” I dragged myself off the couch and ran to the grocery store for green jello (for Hunter’s class tomorrow), made some french toast, cut the boys’ hair and tucked them in for bed. And am now hopeful that tomorrow won’t be so barfy and sleepy.

Today is Noah’s birthday. We celebrated with family on Sunday and made a bunch of homemade pizza and of course, had cake. Noah was thrilled to have Me-me’s memory card for her gamecube (so he could play all the advanced levels on Monkey Ball) and to have all of his Aunts and Uncles come and adore him. Today he came running into our room and asked us if he could open his castle now. That simple statement was enough to tell us he’d peeked in the back of the car and had seen his present there. So, I told him I had had to take it back because he peeked and that we didn’t have any presents for him. (I know, I’m a meanie. But afterall, he was the one who peeked.) Of course Noah burst into tears until we convinced him that he should run downstairs and see if we were telling the truth or lying. He happily returned to accuse us of lying and asked once again if he could open his presents. This time we said “yes.”

He opened his “castle” (Dragamont’s Castle by Imaginenext) and checked out his new bike complete with water bottle holder and brakes on the handlebars. Then we had breakfast cake and after 2 catastrophes with the candles–managed to sing “Happy Birthday” and blow out three candles and a match. The rest of the morning I cleaned the kitchen (a much needed project) and did preschool with the boys. This week we are talking about the letter “W” and focusing on Wind. So we made pinwheels and played with a fan and some bubbles. A big hit with both boys. Then we had Waffles for lunch and took Noah’s bike for a test drive and picked Hunter up at school. An Irish Band was playing up at the school later that afternoon so we re-joined Hunter’s class and enjoyed an hour of irish music and dancing. Then I managed to fold some laundry (that I think has been in that basket for over a week now) and even got Denver to take a nap. Kak came over to play and Daddy got home early. A good day. I like good days.

I’ve been dreading this for so long and putting it off for even longer. Hunter’s sleep deprived EEG. They told us last summer that they want to take Hunter off his seizure medicine and that before they do they need another EEG. The last EEG was bad enough but this time they said it had to be “sleep deprived.” That means keeping Hunter up until 12:00am and then waking him up again at 3:00am. And, once he’s up he can’t go back to sleep until the scheduled EEG at 8:15am. Hmmmm. And I wonder why I’ve been putting it off. Anyway Kathy from Yale called last week and said she needed the work done before our appointment on the 16th. So, I couldn’t procrastinate any longer.

Luckily for us, Mark is a night person and I am a morning person. So last night Mark kept Hunter up until midnight and then tucked him in. I got up around 3:00am and tried to wake Hunter up but to no avail. So I tried again at 4:00am with the help of “Roller Coaster Tycoon” and we sat together watching TV and playing RCT until it was time to get dressed and head out. We stopped at MCDonald’s on the way for breakfast and gobbled up a bunch of hot cakes before his appointment.

Well, I must say it was a much better experience than I had expected and everything went very smoothly. The technician was really great and a pleasure to talk to. She had a great bedside manner. She told us that Yale has started a new program for families making less than $45,000.00 a year–if they have “Yale eligible children” who want to attend Yale, the school will let them go for FREE! Pretty awesome offer if you ask me. Later I could hear her knitting and when I asked her what she was making she said she was making scarfs. She said she just sits there, EEG after EEG, knitting scarfs. Then she takes them to the Yale green and passes them out to the homeless people there. Totally cool. She was a really neat lady and such an inspiration to me. It was great to be in her company, even if it was under not so great conditions. We won’t know about the EEG for another week or so, but thank goodness that’s all done with. It must have been our lucky day because we also had a great lab tech at the pediatric office that managed to draw Hunter’s blood in one go and without any pain. Hallelujah!

I just uploaded a bunch of photos from our trip to Kansas, onto Imagestation. You’ll have to have a username and password to view them but since it’s free to sign up–if you’re not a member you might as well become one.

We spent about five days on the road, six days in Kansas and a day in Ohio visiting Grandmas and Grandpas and Uncles. We ate out almost every night (except for the Peanut Butter and Jelly while we were on the road) and gained 5 pounds each. We went bowling and putt putt golfing and the boys all played Laser Tag with Grandpa and Dad. We spent the night at Great Wolf Lodge in Kansas and had a blast, playing in the fabulous indoor water park they have there for two days in a row. We visited the Science museum at Union Station and dug for dinos and golfed and watched baby doves. We got lost in a giant maze and picked up some Rocky Mountain Chocolates. We visited the Crown Center and had a train deliver our lunch and bought the coolest gold silly putty any of us have ever played with. Denver got silly putty in his hair and everywhere. We hooked up with Uncle Pushups and ate at Joe’s Crabshack and chinwagged for awhile. We played games all day with Grandma and Grandpa Henrichsen and got addicted to “Blockus.” We even came home with an almost brand new TV. It seems we were busy every day, none of which were long enough. But, we all had a blast and the kids are already asking when we get to go again. Let’s all hope it’s sometime really soon.

P.S. Great Wolf Lodge was especially fun and we would highly reccommend it for a great place to have a family reunion–in case any of you are looking for a place. They have several locations

Yesterday I was supermom. Today I wish I wasn’t a mom. And I bet for all you supermoms out there, that thought is appalling. But like it or not, there are some mothers out there that love their children immensly but the whole motherhood thing just doesn’t complete them and unfortunatley, I’m one of them. And today I wish my children’s belly buttons were pause buttons and that I could pretend for the day, that I’m not a mother and read a book and write a letter and go to the gym and workout and enjoy some peace and quiet in a clean house with only one bowl and fork in the sink and only one basket of laundry to wash and sleep as long as I want and spend as much time as I want fixing myself up and go on a date with my husband and make out like crazy and not worry about the kids walking in on us or Hunter’s blood sugar dropping too low or if the stupid gutter on the side of the house is about to blow off or how I’m going to manage the next mortgage payment. And I know that is all silly wishing but I wish it all the same. And the sad thing is, even if it happened and I had a day off, I’m not sure it would be enough. But instead, only leave me wishing for another day off. And even more pathetic than the wish itself, is that we just got home from vacation and I’m dragging more than ever.

The house is a mess, the laundry needs folded, the dishes need done, preschool needs planned, singing time needs planned, Hunter wants a snack, Noah needs a nap, Denver wants to play, the bills need paid, I’m hosting playgroup tomorrow, the bathrooms need scrubbed and all I want to do is cuddle up under my covers and make it all go away. I think I wore myself out with all that supermom stuff yesterday. And maybe that’s why it hardly ever happens around here. Anyway, I think I’ll go get Hunter’s snack and have a “good cry” and I’m sure I’ll feel better tomorrow. . . .