Going, going, gone...

Today, I took Miana to school, stopped to pay tuition on the way out, made it home by 9:15. The speech therapist was coming to see Tayla at 9:30 so I quickly cleared the family room floor, sprinkled carpet powder on it, put in a load of laundry (I forgot to start it, but we'll get to that later), and started to sweep the kitchen floor when the doorbell rang, she was early! I quickly swept my pile of dirt into a corner and put the garbage can on top of it. I then went and answered the door, went upstairs to get Tayla and then apologized that I hadn't been able to finish cleaning before she got there. She was kind enough to wait in the hallway talking to Tayla while I vacuumed the powder off the floor. Therapy was okay today, but Tayla refused to talk. I think she said 10 words the whole time. Normally, that would mean a shorter session, but today was her 6 month review of goals, so I had to do some paperwork. The therapist left at 10:30. I sighed, time to get back in the car. Back to get Miana from school and head off to her 4 year old visit and Tayla's 2 year old visit.

At the doctor's office, the girls were loud, active, and BORED - not a good combination. Usually, the exam rooms have books in them, but ours only had a few pamphlets. I tried singing with them, Tayla was interested for 10 seconds, Miana made it through 2 songs. Miana kept trying to jump from the exam table to the spinning chair (how to explain to a 4 year old that in NO WAY is that going to end well. I kept blocking her jumps, knocking her back to the table. Meanwhile, Tayla kept sliding off the table and running to the door, opening it and trying to run down the hallway. I was exhausted, then the doctor came in. Everyone looked good, time for shots. Miana needed 4 of them, Tayla 1. Miana went first and was very shaken by the whole ordeal - to the point that she was even crying because she didn't want them to hurt Tayla the way that they had hurt her. We went down the hall to check out, she was still very upset. We got our stickers and Miana laid down on the floor, crying because she couldn't get her stickers off of their backings. She will often refuse to move as show of protest, I assumed this was one of those times. I got her up and we moved to the waiting room. I sat her down in a chair, got her stickers off, and we headed to the door. At the door she said, "Mom, I can't stand up." I said, "The shots shouldn't bother you that much" and I marched her out to the elevator. She immediately laid down on the floor of the elevator, I was both annoyed with her and starting to get worried that something was really wrong. I stood her up, we left the building. I took her hand to cross the parking lot-she was cold and clammy, I looked down at her face and saw that the color was gone. I now knew she was in shock and needed to lay down. If I tried to take her back into the office and up the elevator, it would take too long. If I laid her down there on the grass, I would have no way to contain the baby in that parking lot. I then walked her briskly to the van and I laid her down, elevated her feet, and then strapped Tayla into her car seat. I ran back around to the other side, said a prayer with Miana and did a quick look up of treating for shock on my phone. I looked down at her just in time to see Miana go ghost white and start to close her eyes. I told her it was okay to rest. She was out immediately and I wasn't sure what happened. I called the triage nurse at the office to tell them what happened, she and 2 other nurses came down and then a doctor came down a minute later. They monitored her oxygen levels and her blood pressure until she was okay and that was it. They said to get her food and that sometimes, kids react that way to getting shots. She was back to normal for a while, then for the rest of the afternoon she was very sore and very cranky.

I was so shaken from the experience that all way home I felt like I was going to pass out myself! I'm exhausted and ready for a good night's sleep... too bad we had 2 soccer practices first and a house to clean!

So proud of my angels!

You may be wondering what this is...

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We have to back up to one Monday night in January. We were gathered around the kitchen table, each person with a paper cup and this bottle of root beer. We were having Family Home Evening. For those not familiar with it, it's where we gather the whole family once a week and spend some time together. Among other things, it usually has a lesson. We tend to lean towards things our kids need to work on, I think for the last 8 years the lessons are primarily "How to be reverent in church" and "Praying 101." This particular night the lesson fell on Dave. He opened the root beer (a family favorite) and made sure everyone had a cup. He began asking us questions and every time you answered a questioned correctly, he'd pour root beer into your cup - more or less it was drinking game, only we opted for the non-alcoholic version! He asked several different types of questions, but mostly he focussed on ways that we could serve others. We continued to play the game until the root beer was gone. He then asked the kids if they liked getting presents at Christmas. They all nodded and he told them that there were many children whose parents could not buy them gifts. He then challenge the kids to fill the root beer bottle during the year with spare change so that we could use the money at the end of the year to help a family in need. The kids excitedly agreed to help any way they could.

This brings us to yesterday. The weather was beautiful and boys decided to have a lemonade stand. I agreed to supply the lemonade and cups (although they had to agree to pay me 75¢ for the lemonade and 10¢ for the cups after they had earned some money). With all their supplies they walked up to the corner. About 30 minutes later, they came home with lemonade gone and money in their pockets. By this point there were now 2 other boys that had helped out so we they needed a little help figuring out how much each got. I first took out the money that was mine and then helped them divide up the rest. When all was said and done each had earned 51¢ for 30 min. worth of work. I reminded them to pay their tithing and walked out of the room. Within 5 minutes, Carter had given all of his money to his sister. "Why did you do that?" I asked. "Mom, she doesn't ever get a chance to earn her own money." I was very proud. A couple minutes after that, Spencer came into the kitchen and started dropping money into the root beer bottle. I smiled and said, "that's nice of you." He said, "I just want to help poor people have what they need." I was VERY, VERY proud. I am a lucky mom!