News-n-Stuff

The News:

Happy birthday to my newest niece! She was born this morning at 10:45, the same time that Baby A was born. Weighing in at 7 lb 14 oz and 21 3/4" long, her daddy says that she's all fingers and toes. She's been blessed with the Floyd digits... long and slender. Or, as my sister-in-law calls them, "finger-toes." Happy birthday, little one!

The Stuff:

I was planning on dedicating this post to Luke, as he says that Washingtonians talk funny. Case in point (and these are all real words, folks...):

1. Geoduck. Pronounced "gooey-duck." No joke here. It's a clam that has a three-foot long neck that sticks out of the clam shell. Actually, it looks pretty gross. Anyway, it's one example of our funny talking here.

2. Issaquah. Pronounced "ISS-ih-Quah." A town just east of Seattle.

3. Touchet. Pronounced "TOO-shee." As opposed to the French pronunciation, "too-SHAY." Another town, this one just north and slightly east of Walla Walla.

4. Buena. Pronounced "byoo-ANN-ah." I'm not kidding. It looks like it should be pronounced the regular Spanish way, but no. And it's yet another town, a little east of Yakima.

5. Gonzaga. Pronounced "gon-ZAG-ah." Now that they've been in the Sweet 16 several times, most of the country knows how to say the name. Under no circumstances is it ever correct to pronounce it "gon-ZAH-gah." Sports announcers, get a clue.

6. Sequim. Pronounced "skwim." I seem to be focusing on town names here... but maybe that's because when we're in the car is when Luke gives his "appropriate" pronunciation guide to me.

7. Puyallup. Pronounced "pyoo-AL-up." Their theme song for the Washington State Fair is actually, "Do the Puyallup." It's a catchy jingle that keeps you in tune bondage long after you've heard it. I apologize to all the Washingtonians who have been trying to forget that jingle and now are firmly in the clutches of tune bondage once again.

So, I guess we do talk funny in Washington. But we don't regularly say things like "fixin' to" unless we're married to Texans. :)

Midnight Musings

I can't sleep. This is so unusual! Here I am, a mommy of twins and functioning in a sleep-deprived state most days, with a tired body and I can't sleep. My body feels tired, but every time I close my eyes to try to sleep, all I can do is open them again and stare out the window fuzzily, since of course I don't wear my glasses or contacts to bed. So... what do I think about at midnight when I can't sleep?

1. Thank you, Mrs. Tomlin, for ingraining in my mind in the 11th grade that "to lay is to place and to lie is to lie down." Even though I struggled through most of the essays and wept bitter tears over the 40-something page Sonnet Explication, I did come through that year with that one lasting impression. (The musings on the conjugation of the verb to lie, by the way, came as I was in bed trying to think out a blog before I made my way downstairs.)

2. The name for my blog is "I'm here because Wendy's here." I think I need to change it. Initially that was accurate, but now I enjoy getting my thoughts out about once a week. Ironic that throughout all of my English classes and Ed. classes in which I was forced to keep a journal that I would be frantically trying to make up entries the night before they were due because I didn't think that I had anything to write in them... to now be essentially journaling as an adult about the mundane things I didn't think journal-worthy during my formal education. Huh.

3. I took some great pics of the boys at dinner tonight. Pasta with red sauce. Yum! Unfortunately, after our computer crashed about 2 months ago, it left us sans photo editing software. This means I cannot compress them enough to post them here. The picture in the next post was sent to us by our neighbor. That's probably going to be the only picture here until I can figure out a way to make our pictures small enough to fit the requirements of the blog.

4. Ironic, again, that I go back to high school years and remember how in keyboarding class my freshman year that I could never get the hang of typing numbers on the top row without looking at them. Now, almost 15 years later, I'm finally beginning to master the skill. (As I sit in the dark typing a numerated list...)

5. I was reading A Second Helping of Chicken Soup for the Woman's Soul before Luke came to bed and I turned out the light to discover that there was no sleep for me at this time. In it, I read a quote from Mother Theresa. It said, "Our primary duty is to spread love... first of all in our homes." Paraphrasing now, we are obligated to ensure that those who come into our homes leave better people and more nurtured than before they entered it. I like that.

6. I just found Luke's cell phone under the couch. I'm pretty positive that it's because I'm sitting in a dark room and the only reason I knew it was there was because I saw the green light flashing. Maybe I was supposed to find it and help him out by having it ready next to the coffee maker tomorrow morning.

7. I also wonder if the reason I can't sleep is because at this moment my sister is going into labor. (Purely speculative at this point... I don't know if she actually is or not.) She sounds tired and oh so exhausted... very ready to have this baby. She was hoping tonight that she could wait until after the weekend, though, as her doctor is in Seattle for his son's graduation from some higher learning institution. On her visit on Wednesday, though, he told her that he thought she'd be in the hospital within the week.

8. Why is it that whenever I try to type the word "within" I always try to add a g, making it "withing?"

9. I still can't decide if I'm tired enough to try to go back to bed. My typing is getting more erroneous, but I can still think of words like "erroneous," and spell them correctly. It is taking me quite a bit longer to try to gather my thoughts into cohesive units, though.

10. Good luck to Lisa as she prepares to travel to Vermont for her week of studies at the university from which she's earning her MBA. She's graduating on next Friday or Saturday, at the top of her class of course.

I hope all of you are sleeping at this midnight hour... I think I'll read for a while and then try to go back to bed. If that doesn't work, I can always attempt Luke's tried-and-true method of sleep inducement: eat a bowl of cold cereal. Have a blessed night, everyone!

The Sand Lot... I Mean, Sand Box

The boys had a chance this weekend to play in a sand box for the first time. They loved it! They immediately knew just what to do... dig and get dirty. There was so much sand in the bathtub that night that we actually found sand embedded into the bar of soap. What fun! I see a sand box in our future... it's a good thing that we have a back yard that's big enough to accommodate somewhere around 10 sand boxes. As our friend Connie says, just don't get a cat at the same time. I'm sure we'll have to rig up some kind of a screen over the top of it so that it doesn't turn into the neighborhood litter box. And yes, that is me, wearing a sweatshirt in June. Even Luke is in long sleeves... that should tell you that it's not just my crazy thermostat that always runs cold... it's still chilly here.

Another Week, Another Post

After coming home from Canada, we had a few days of "normal" life here, then packed up again and spent the weekend traveling to the Yakima Valley, Gig Harbor and back home. But not before Baby B had surgery on his clogged tear duct on Thursday.

We were so impressed by the quality of care given at our hospital; it was nowhere near the feeling we had when I was in the hospital the week before and after I had the boys. Our nurses were wonderful, competent and knew exactly how to deal not only with kids, but their frightened parents as well. We showed up at the surgery center at 6:00 a.m. after I had told Luke that yes, we really did have to be there that early and yes, it was very important that we were on time. We filled out necessary paperwork while Baby B was sitting on my lap and then we were led into a pre-op room filled with toys and stuff for kids to play with. On the way there, we passed a table filled with stuffed animals and Baby B was allowed to pick one out; he picked a soft blue whale about half his size. The room we were led to had cool magnetic sand boxes and a word wall that was also magnetic. The letters were behind a Plexiglas sheet and could be moved around by the magnets on the side of the wall.

The nice receptionist who led us there told us that shortly a nurse would come in to check over Baby B and tell us what would happen next. Sure enough, within minutes of her closing the door, it was opened and a nurse came in to do exactly what we had been told. After she left, the anesthesiologist came in to talk with us and let us ask questions, then the doctor performing the surgery, and then finally the head of the nursing staff who took Baby B to the operating room. I almost lost it at that point; I hadn't thought about the fact that we wouldn't be able to walk with him to the operating room.

We were led into the main waiting room and while Luke went to find us some coffee, I watched the local news on the tv. Luke came back and we began talking to try to dispel some of our nerves, but it didn't really work. Before we knew it, the surgeon found us and told us that everything had gone according to plan and in a few minutes we would be allowed into the recovery room to hold our son. We immediately said a prayer of thanksgiving for the doctors and nurses who had attended to Baby B. Not five minutes later, we were escorted back into the recovery room. We could hear Baby B crying before we even got into the hallway, but we had been told that toddlers are often cranky when coming out of anesthesia because it disorients them. I was so grateful for the advanced notice!

We spent some time there helping Baby B come out of the anesthesia, giving him apple juice and Cheerios. Thankfully I had some in the diaper bag! After he had calmed down, the nurses looked at us and said we could change him back into his own clothes and take him home, about an hour earlier than we expected. We were home by 8:20 a.m. and activating the information pipeline. The surgery seems to have worked and there has been little in the way of complications. A family from church brought us dinner that night and visited with us throughout the evening. How wonderful it is to be involved in a place where the members watch out for each other, feeding bodies and souls at the same time.

Since there were no complications, we packed everyone up on Friday and hotfooted it out of town before the traffic got bad making it to Outlook by about 6:30 p.m. We attended a family BBQ at Jaimie's and Rob's, and the boys absolutely loved the cows! (They're named T-Bone and Steak, by the way.) They also loved the barbed wire... Luke and I had a time keeping them away from the dangers of the big, bad world. However, we had a great time with the family and the wedding was a wonderful event. The whole family was thrilled to see Jaimie so happy.

We left on Sunday afternoon and made our way to Gig Harbor to visit with our friends Bryan and Stephanie, and Marti and Khris had just come up from Pepperdine. They're staying with Bryan and Steph this week and will come up to our house next week as they're waiting for their apartment to be available. Marti is taking bar review classes in Seattle and Khris is job hunting.

So... that's our week in review. Oh... and we had beer can chicken for dinner tonight. It's really quite good; if you haven't tried it I highly recommend it. May God bless you this week!