Human Moment

First off, welcome to the new blog!  All of the old blog posts from the fivedreamweavers site are still here, we just thought it was time to use our new family name and address for the blog.  Plus, I know I was tired of looking at a picture of my family's feet!  LOL!  Please take a moment to look around and check out all the features.  I tried to migrate all the things from the old site, as well as add some new things, so if something doesn't seem quite right or a link doesn't work, please feel free to let me know!  This is still a work in progress.  I'd like to thank The Cutest Blog on the Block for the cute templates and artwork, and @JakeWeaverSays for making the final decision on the background!  I think he liked it because of all the orange, but it made the final choices list for not only the orange, but the blue, and the chevron pattern as well - all some of my favorite things these days!  I think it's a perfect way to decorate this new chapter in our lives!

Yesterday, I got to experience a "Human Moment" that really made my heart sing.  My human moments may not be the same as Bella Swan-Cullen's, but when your existence consists of the 4 walls of a small, dark house in (an albeit mild) winter, getting out of the house is quite a feat - something that used to be so typical and NORMAL 6 months ago!  Because of the biannual Adorable Affordables consignment sale I participate in, my dining room table has been taken over with piles and piles of clothes, gear, and STUFF, with high intentions of getting it sorted and tagged.  But, yesterday Finn was a HIGH NEEDS baby, plus it was a school (but not work for Britt) holiday, so I had Emma, Lara and Jake to entertain, too.  Another true Mother of 4 Day!  The big kids were great all day - did lots of chores with minimal whining, played nicely with each other, even spent the majority of an hour outside making up games to play - but when they ran out of something to do, they had to have my intervention, making progress on the sale items very slow.  By 11:30am I was DESPERATE for a Diet Coke and a BREAK!  Of course when Daddy got home for lunch a mere hour later, everyone was being good, but he brought me the Diet Coke and things immediately seemed much better! ;) Needless to say, come dinner time, the table still looked like a closet bomb had gone off, so it was time for a new plan.  This is where my human moment comes in.  We actually loaded all 4 kids up in the car, and went to Chick-fil-a!  Now, don't get too excited, Finn and Britt stayed in the car, while I took the big kids in.  I forgot Monday nights are so busy there, so we had to stalk out a table, but I ran into some folks I have known for 30 years, enjoyed a meal with my excitable kiddos, and got to be out in public without worrying about hurrying home to relieve a babysitter and check on my fragile baby!  I felt human - for the first time in a long while.  Thank you, Britt Weaver, for making that possible and for being SUCH a great dad and husband! And for making parenting my favorite job of all!

As for sweet, chubby cheeked Mr. Finn, he is doing well.  Last week was a little intense as he had a stomach bug, and we had no idea what to do for him or how to help him, plus we were scared to death it would turn into something respiratory, which is super bad for him.  It lasted about 4 (long, agonizing, sleepless, GROSS) days, and we did go to the pediatrician to make sure we were doing the right things - which for a newborn is really nothing but to let it runs its course and stay hydrated.  He got his first taste of something other than breast milk or formula in the form of pedialite.  He drank it like a champ!  The doctor said we would know he was staying hydrated as long as he was having wet diapers, and crying real tears.  Well, up until the time of the appointment, he had not cried real tears yet.  I know infants don't do that right away.  But, lo and behold, a few hours after the visit to the clinic, he was hurting and mad, and REAL TEARS came running down his cheeks! Such a bittersweet moment for Mommy!  Finn weighed in at 9 pounds 10 ounces last Wednesday - in the middle of his sickness.  So, he hadn't lost any weight, but he was definitely not gaining like he was before he got sick.  He is now feeling MUCH better, and seems to be eating better, so I am sure he is making up for the few days he lost while sick.   It's been a pretty quite few days for him since then.  He has started smiling occasionally - almost on accident - but still cute.He is also cooing up a STORM.  He has to speak up to get a word in edgewise in this crazy house!  It's so fun to watch him work his mouth and tongue then to hear a sound come out!  He is also finally grasping at toys (or his oxygen tube) or his bottle and starting to play a little bit.  He has become a professional at removing his cannula and adhesive dots on his face that hold it in place, so we got the go ahead to turn the oxygen down to 1/4 liter on Sunday at church when we saw our pediatrician there.  So, maybe only a couple of more weeks with that!  Keep praying!

I also want to send up a shout out and ask for prayers for my cousin who lives in New York.  She is pregnant with her 2nd child and has been on hospital bed rest since the week before Christmas due to preterm premature rupture of membranes (PPROM - same thing I had, but her has been a slow, replenishing leak, while mine was accompanied by unexplained bleeding, which led to placental aburption, and spontaneous rupturing of the membranes at 26 weeks 5 days).  She will be 34 weeks at the end of this week, and it looks like she will have her baby girl before the end of the week!  We are praying for a safe and easy delivery, a well baby and healthy mommy, and a very short NICU stay!

Pure Fear

Something happened in our house last night that will be hard to forget for a while. It is slightly embarrassing (for me) to tell this story, but it is so incredible, I feel like I have to share. I need to give you a little bit of background and some set-up so you can see why the events unfolded the way they did.

BACKGROUND:

We have a 2 year old miniature schnauzer named Einstein. He is outside in our fenced back yard most of the time during the day, but we usually let him inside the house sometime during the evening, then he sleeps in a crate in our dining room. He enjoys Emma, likes Lara and Jake, tolerates Britt, and LOVES me. Especially now that I am pregnant; he is always sitting at my feet or following me through the house.

Women have vivid dreams during pregnancy. I was reading about it the other day, and 2 things happen during pregnancies that cause this. Hormones are CrAzy, and experts think that’s what causes the dream to be so real, and so strange sometimes. Plus, pregnant women seem to remember their dreams more because they either don’t at all or don’t as often go into that deep sleep phase that humans have, that comes after the dream REM sleep phase. I’ve had some super real to me, and some super strange ones, too…

I am a Twi-hard. I have read the Stephanie Meyer Twilight series books through twice, almost done with the 3^rd time around. And I have seen the movies dozens of times. I was with a group of about 10 women age 35+ for a midnight showing when Eclipse came out, and I will be at one for Breaking Dawn part 1 as well. (My boss can tell you how many days/hours/minutes away this is, I just know it is in November…) BTW, I am Team Jacob. Real men don’t sparkle, and I like my men tall, HOT and feisty!

SCENARIO

I had gone to bed about 9:30. It was a LONG day yesterday (9 hours with sorority girls during recruitment spirit week – working hard to perfect everything for recruitment next week, and then swimming lessons with Jake, then out for a quick dinner, then birthday shopping for Dad with the 3 littles. OH! And growing a human inside me.). I ate too much for dinner, (which means I ate about 1/3 of what I used to), and I was feeling pretty miserable about it. The kids had all been in bed about half an hour, there was nothing on TV, and no reason to resist, so I went to bed, trusty Kindle in my hand, settled in to read a few pages of my current guilty pleasure: Breaking Dawn. (For those in the know, Bella had just woken up from being turned, had hunted, and was meeting Renesmee for the first time. She had just realized what was going on with Jacob when I put it down…) I was worn out from my day, and I feel asleep very quickly. One of the things I usually do before I go to bed, is crate the dog. If he is already inside, I just tell him to “go to bed” and he saunters over there and gets in the crate, and I close the door and hook the latches. If he is outside, Britt usually lets him in, Einstein finds me, I pet him a bit, then I tell him to “go to bed.” When I went to bed, the dog was still in the backyard.

WHAT HAPPENED

It was about 10:30pm. I had only been asleep 20-30 minutes, but I was fast asleep and dreaming. It was hot (as usual) in our room, and I was sweaty. (I know at 9:30 Britt had said it was still 104 outside.) These days, I like to sleep in a T-shirt and underwear, no sheets on top of me, curled up with my body pillow. All I know is, something fairly heavy and furry, with sharp claws, landed on top of me, and began prodding my bare legs with something wet, squishy, and cold. I sat straight up and let out a blood curdling scream (3 times, to be exact according to my husband), and the offensive thing jumped or fell from my bed. During the 3^rd (?) scream, I hear my husband’s soothing voice coming down the hallway saying “Hey! Hey!”

Um, yeah… so, pretty funny, right? It is now, but right then, it was TERRIFYING! Once Einstein left and Britt got his arms around me, I realized tears were streaming down my face, my throat was sore (that’s how loud I screamed), I tasted vomit in my mouth, and I had dug my fingernails into the palms of my hands. Jake came out of his room (right next to ours) and was standing bleary-eyed in the hall staring at me (my screams scared the crap out of him, and he ended up sleeping with us for a bit – who can blame him!). The dog was at the other end of our 17 foot hallway, sitting (and laying at times) on the tile entryway looking down the hall at us, but he came nowhere near me, until Britt put him in his crate for the night and came to bed. I am not sure what exactly I was dreaming about, but I am pretty sure it had to do with a forest (I remember trees), and due to the content of my late night reading, I am sure it was supernatural…) Took me over an hour to get comfortable and get back to sleep. NOT something I want to repeat anytime soon.

Someday, I’ll tell you about the only other time I remember screaming like that (I need to ask my mom what happened in my childhood to make me scream like that?!?). It involves a late night drive from Dallas to Stillwater, the I-35 bridge over the Red River, and a pedestrian. That time I again scared my husband out of his wits, but I truly believe the Holy Spirit spoke to me that night…. Sigh…. Some other time, then…

Anyway! It is TAX FREE weekend! We are soon off to buy dance shoes for the girls, attend mock recruitment at the sorority house, head to the outlet mall that just opened in Oklahoma City (maybe) to back to school shop for the girls, then dinner out for Dad’s birthday! And hopefully, have dreamless sleep tonight.