10+

We made it 10 years! There have been many, many, MANY times I thought I'd kill Kit and I'm sure he has had quite a few incidents where he was positive if he didn't tuck his hands into folded arms he would simply reach out and strangle me. But- like a fine bottle of balsamic vinegar (seeing how we don't drink alcohol and diet caffeine free dr. pepper doesn't age well, I thought I'd choose an analogy that worked) things have definitely gotten stronger, deeper, much much better with time. I look at my eternal sweetheart and my heart thumps a little harder. I rub his smile lines around his eyes (and if you know Kit, you know they are smile lines...ok and squint lines if he isn't wearing his sunglasses) and adore how sexy he has gotten. I love watching him speed through yet another dirty diaper of Emmeline's and talking trash with my boys as they watch each other play video games. I love how he has started to finally understand how helping out around the house can help him out and how every now and then I come home to dishes done or the floor swept. I love how he knows what I mean with a particular look at church or at a party or across the dinner table. I love how he loves me and despite a body that has carried and birthed (that word brings to mind heaving labor...and yes, yes it was) 4 children, he still finds me irresistibly sexy. I love how he answers the phone "Hello, beautiful" when he knows it is me. I love how I have learned to ignore his "Sunday black socks" and he has learned to just listen when I cry and give advice later. I love how we are better together.

Here's to 10 years, Babe, and counting!!

Got Brains?

Ok, so this is Kit...you might be wondering why Liberty hasn't posted in a while. She might tell you that she is busy with life, or that she is so tired after cleaning the house and doing the laundry and wrestling with the children that she is to pooped, he he he I said "poop"(reference below blog) , at night to blog. She might even throw in, just as a diversion, that she is training for a 10 mile Tough Mudder, this last is true but would be a way to distract you from what the real reason is. She would be trying to pull the proverbial wool over your eyes. After almost ten years of marriage Liberty has found something she truly is in love with...no, not me but...

I'll have to admit the game is like Electronic Meth, instantly addicting and starts to take over your life. I don't know why, maybe it's the cute little expressions on the plants' faces or the way the zombies tirelessly trudge along in their short little lives as an occasional "brains!?" escapes their zombified lips. After a few games though, you start figuring out how to get out of work and soon you are on the street corner selling pirated tickets for Battlestar Galactica on Ice to school children so you can buy other electronic devices, portable ones, so you can play the game anywhere. And thus it has my beautiful wife clasped in its deadly grasp (no pun intended). Children have been ordered off the XBOX, interrupting their gamings of Plants VS Zombies (PVZ), so she can play. A PVZ tournament has been scheduled for the "Last Day of School" party we are have at our house. Nobody but our family is invited, if we did, it would mean we have to share precious PVZ time. Even as I type, you can see I am not playing PVZ...and I have proof...

There she is playing while I blog, will you help me help her realize her problem? We have even had discussions about buying another TV and XBOX so we play two games of PVZ at the same time (ok, so not really, but it would be fun...maybe that is something I can swing to make something worthwhile come out of her addiction...hmmm). It's like a car crash and I can't turn away, just watch helplessly on the side lines. Help me, my fellow blog friends, you are my only hope... help me get her back to blogging...

...then I can get some PVZ time.

Poop

Those of you who are determined to stay clean-minded, read no further.

I, too, had the desire. However, motherhood has wiped that wish right away. You see, life as a parent is full of poop. It comes in so many forms: little mustard seed poop from breast-fed babies, nasty "what in the world did he eat" diapers, little rose-bud mouths blurting out "Poop" in the middle of church, panicked shouts of "I have to go poopy, NOW!". I can't forget dirtied underwear from potty-training, jokes featuring bowel-movements and sounds, and tales of scraping out you-know-what from beneath a daughter's fingernails.

The thing is, I don't like poop. I don't even find it at all humorous. Bathroom jokes are lost on me; when my children blurt out inappropriate "potty" words just for the fun of it, they are sent to sit in the bathroom. I would like to forget that anyone even has a need for toilets. So, why a post on poop? Well, I am SICK of it! Maybe if I air out all of my grievances, they will be alleviated. It seems that poop has been one of my plagues in mother-ness!

I would have to claim my oldest set the course, with splattering yellow substance all over my white shirt minutes prior to our leaving for church, and it has been downhill from there. You see, it seems Josiah has some kind of bowel issue. We have been seeing a GI specialist for awhile now, in the attempt to figure out what is going on. Poor boy, I am truly sorry for him. It isn't easy to have to freeze, clench your bottom, wait a second to get control, then run straight for the bathroom. We probably should have recognized there was an issue when as a 3 year old we were visiting OSU campus feeding ducks at Theta Pond, Jos told us he needed to go to the bathroom. Immediately handing the bread over to Auntie Steph, he and I hightailed it across the park to the nearest building...too far away. As we walked/ran, I became aware of little plops occurring in time with wails from Jos (being so scrawny, things simply fell out of his not-so-tightie-whities and shorts). Yep, my son's poop was spotting the sidewalk.

Since then, mother-hood has hurled all kinds of poop at me. I. Am. Tired. Of. It. This past month has given me waaaay too much interaction with the substance. Gavin had weeks of upset stomach and digestive tract. The doctor ordered a stool sample. Yep, the collector was me. Unfortunately, I had to sacrifice a small Tupperware for the collection. There was NO way I was holding that little cup under my son's rear. The nurse neglected to give me a collection hat. Lovely.

A few days later I took the kiddies with me to Chik-Filet for family night with some friends. Emme decided to dirty her diaper. I had decided to be a neglectful mother and not pack diapers. I carried her out to the car on my hip...hmmm, after buckling her in I realized I still smelled poop. Huh, two lovely sh-mears of brown substance gleamed against my white shirt. Obviously a visit to Target was out. No getting out of a run to Wal-mart, though. I needed to pick up a laxative and intensive bowel cleanser for Josiah per doc's orders (am I seeing a pattern here?). I slipped my brown sling on (anyone noticing brown with think they just caught a glimpse of a piece of the sling, right?) and squished stinky bum into it. I would like to claim that was the end of the embarrassments due me, but it wasn't. Emme went on to pee down my leg into my shoe (did you know full diapers simply can't hold ANY more?) and left a lovely puddle on the floor. A little old lady was tottering around and I had images of her slipping in my daughter's pee puddle, falling and breaking a hip. As serenely as I could around teeth clenched in mortification (Josiah in the background bellowing "Stand back everyone, this is my little sister's pee!"), I begged paper towels from the pharmacist and swiped it up. I think I set the record on self-checkout that evening.

The following Monday I set off to pick up flowers to plant. We tackled Home Depot and just as we are checking out in the outside garden center, Gunnison tells me he needs to go to the bathroom. Since he has been potty-trained, I have realized Gunner can wait a bit before the needs become accidents. So, I ask if he can wait until we get across the street to Lowes. He agrees and we set off. We enter in the front garden center and start looking at the clearance racks of flowers. Gunner and Gavin start playing spies and dart in and out of the surrounding shelves. I ask Gun if he was still ok. "Yep!" Keeping one eye on them and the other on the fabulous finds for 75% off!!, I fill up my cart and call for the boys to head with me inside. From across the aisle comes the wail, "Oh! I've got to go poopy, now!!" Oh no, I should have seen this coming. Spy wars only distract until the need becomes incessant. At a near run, we take off for the restrooms-that are far across the store and in the back. Of course. As we rush, I notice a wafting smell reaching my nose. Poor little Gunner starts to cry. Those underwear went right into the garbage, wrapped up in a bazillion paper towels. Thank heavens I remembered wet-wipes.

Poop is so un-kosher. Who likes to show up at playgroup and start a conversation with, "You should have seen the bm my son made today. Doc is having us keep track of when, how much and description!" Uh, no. Poop is the lurking monster under the bed. We can laugh about it every now and then, but how many fearful mommies out there have just thrown the underwear away to be rid of it? Who else is tired of doing laundry with a faint aroma of a not-so-pleasant truck stop?

Poop. I'm tired of it.