Princess Lily

Ethan in his bat boy costume

Darth Jack hates his helmet

Ethan is Tiggerific!

this is such a rarity- a shot of all three looking forward and sitting still. amazing. aren’t they getting big? and look how much hair lily has! she just started crawling which is HUGE! watch out world, she’s mobile!

last night, i fell hard on our ceramic tiled kitchen. usually when i fall, it seems like i’m dropping in slow motion but this time, it happened so fast that i didn’t have time to brace myself and landed right on my recently hacked foot followed by my right hip and hand. i yelled when i hit the floor and could barely breathe trough the pain shooting up my leg.

this seems like a good metaphor for the rest of my life right now. i still can’t put any weight on my foot and won’t be able to for at least 3 more weeks. i’m using a walker now because, as the second fall in a week proved, i am terrible on crutches. i have rug burns on my knees from crawling on our carpet when i’m not using the walker but my arms are getting stronger and more able to lift my body up from the floor. my foot is beginning to feel a little better and another x-ray today proved that i didn’t knock any of the bone graph or screws loose with my fall. my family is taking shifts helping me because i cannot lift or carry the babies on my own and going down the stairs is difficult.

emotionally, i’m pretty fragile. i know i’m strong and can get through this, i just wish i didn’t have to. i’m thankful for those that love me and are helping me through. i’m concentrating on my kids and focusing on “life as normal”. halloween is tommorrow and it is usually my favorite holiday but this year, my heart isn’t in it. but, i’ll put on a smile, dress up the kids and eat some pint sized snickers. trick or treat indeed.

inspired by blackbird and news for my peeps…

1. Flip to page 18, paragraph 4 – in the book closest to you right now, what does it say?
Grandma’s memory began to elude her near the end. Like many old people, she had a firmer grasp of her own childhood than she had the lives of her own children, or her grandchildren, or her great-grandchildren. The more recent the memory was, the more poorly it was remembered. “I remember you as a little boy,” she told me not long ago, “but when I look at you now, I don’t know who you are.” I told her I occasionally had the same feeling about myself. (A Prayer for Owen Meany by John Irving)

2. If you stretch out your left arm – as far as possible, what are you touching?
My sleeping, beautiful, seven year old son. His cheeks are red from dancing at my cousin’s wedding earlier this evening. Mike is, at least for the last two nights, not living here. I don’t know how it is all going to work out but the entire truth is tumbling out to both sides of our families so there is no turning back- things change or we quit. Let me tell you how fun it was going to a celebration of love and marriage today. Not much.

3. What’s the last program you watched on TV?
I watched my Tivo’ed ER from this week. I hadn’t been able to record it this season until now because I was nice enough to record Smallville for the nurse who I am no longer talking about. I can tape two things at once but I was also taping CSI so something had to go and that certainly wouldn’t be CSI because it is my favorite show. I was quite surprised when I watched ER again because I had no idea Abby and Luca got back together and she was pregnant. I had a very hard time watching the episode because it centered on pre-term labor and a baby who almost died.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is.
11:40 pm. (I was quite off- it is only 11:17. I’m not great at estimating time. Maybe that’s why I am always late)

5. Except the computer, what can you hear right now?
The television, the night nurse coughing and my son snoring.

6. When was the last time you were outside and what did you do?
2 hours ago when my Dad pushed me in the wheelchair to the van so we could leave the wedding reception. I am in my cast and since I suck with the crutches, I used the wheelchair. We brought all four kids and all the equipment. My whole family is a wreck right now about my current situation. It was hot, loud, crowded and the babies were up way past their bed time. It kinda sucked.

7. What are you wearing?
A red lace teddy with rainbow suspenders like a sexy Mork. Okay, not really. I’m wearing black velour track pants, stripey red underwear with a small winnie the pooh on the corner, a black bra and a dusty rose t-shirt. Plus my cast and glasses.

8. Did you dream last night? If you did, what about?
I dreamt that I wasn’t arguing with anyone and was having a great day where everyone complimented me. No, I’m not being sarcastic, I really dreamt that.

9. When was the last time you laughed?
When I was playing with the babies.

10. What’s on the walls, in the room you’re in right now?
A framed Frou-Frou poster that Tracey gave me a few years ago. A framed “Clinique Cheron” vintage type poster that I have because I like the cats and dogs depicted on it. It has french wording and I don’t know french. A framed photo of Tiger Tail Beach from Signals Catalog (it was a gift from Anna – I think.) A flowery, iron wall sconce with candle holders. A stained glass “Mother and Child” Klimt suncatcher (though it isn’t on the window to catch sun because I’m afraid it will get broken). It was a gift from Dawn and is one of my favorite things.

11. Have you seen anything strange lately?
The longest wedding I have ever been too that included readings in Aramaic. Maybe it wasn’t ‘t that strange but it was different.

12. What do you think about this meme?
It asked interesting, intelligent, questions and seemed worth my time.

13. What’s the last film you saw?
Jackass 2. Hell to the yeah.

14. If you became a multi-millionaire, what would you do with the money?
Invest as much as possible into the kids’ college fund, invest in a retirement account, take my closest friends and family on an extended tropical vacation, buy a house big enough to better accomodate my family- one with a walk in closet and deep bathtub for my soaking needs. Maybe adopt another kid or two (older, special needs or hard to place kids) but hire a crew of household help to do all the chores so I could handle raising way too many children.

15. Tell us something about yourself that most people don’t know.
I’m smarter than you think.

16. If you could change ONE THING in this world, without regarding politics or bad guilt – what would it be?
I would make everyone be nice to each other. The Golden Rule would actually be followed and enforced.

17. Do you like dancing?
I like dancing in private with my son. We get quite silly and like to shake our booties while singing the peanut butter jelly time song.

18. George Bush?
No, nyet, não, ???, ????, nein, non, ?

19. What do you want your children’s names to be, girl/boy?
I’m done having babies but the other names on our list were Rose, Alexandra, and Sophie for girls and Sam or John for a boy.

20. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Definitely

21. What do you want God to tell you, when you come to heaven?
You were a nice person who screwed up sometimes but did pretty damn well.

22. Who should do this meme?
YOU and the horse you road in on.

See, I told you. I was 7 the last time they won, C. is 7 this year so they won again. Hopefully, they will win again before the triplets turn 7.

I know these Professional Athletes aren’t even from St. Louis, are millionaires and have no personal connection to me but I am so excited that The Cardinals won. I don’t care about most professional sports but I am a tried and true Cardinals Fan. I may not know all the stats and technical parts of the game but I still love it. I don’t watch every game and this year it was hard to watch at all. I grew up watching their games and listening to Jack Buck narrate the games on KMOX. I went to 24 games the season I was pregnant with C. I used to get free tickets from my old job and sat in some of the best seats in the stadium. I took my late friend Jimbo to many of those games and I cherish the memories. I adore sitting in the stadium under a blue sky on a perfect 78 degree summer day. I mourned the destruction of the old Busch Stadium but kinda like the new one. I still love former Cardinals Ozzie Smith (even though I’ve heard many stories that in real life he is a total dick) and Willie McGee. I will always remember watching them play when I was a kid and their 1982 World Series win. I usually hate hot dogs and Budweiser but at the ballpark, they taste like heaven. I laughed my ass off when Fred Bird snuck up and ate Dawn’s head while we were taking a group photo and scared the shit out of her- that was just one of many times I’ve gone to games and shared memories with my friends. I watch the games with my family and it brings us closer together. I can talk about baseball with my 83 year old Grandma and my 7 year old son. I can sit next to my Mom as she gets so nervous during the ninth inning that she hides her face and says “I can’t take it, I can’t take it” until they win. Tonight, it feels like we’ve all won and that makes me appreciative and happy. Thank you Cardinals.

Here’s that drawing i mentioned a few posts ago. C. drew it for a homework assignment and I love it. I can’t decide what’s best- the hat or the cat in a hockey mask. Or maybe the flag growing out of the cat’s back.

It is little things like this that are getting me through this rough patch. Without going into detail, I’ll tell you that things are not well in my marriage and I don’t know if we’re going to make it. I have never felt so close to giving it all up. I wish I could tell you more but I can’t. Have you been in a situation where you got into a fight with someone and then told your friend and he/she was all “oooh that person sucks blah blah blah” but then you make up and your friend that went off on the one you bitching about feels stupid because of what was said? That’s what I’m trying to avoid. I don’t even know if we will make up so maybe that reasoning is invalid. But I’m not going to use this site to bash my husband. This may be confusing to you because I only write about the good parts of our lives together so it seems like nothing is ever wrong. I’ll just say that things have to change because today was one of the worst days of my life. I cried off and on for 9 hours. I’m caught up in projecting every bad possibility that may happen but I don’t know if I could feel worse than I do right now so how bad could it get? I will say that couples with special needs children have high divorce rates. So do parents of multiples. It isn’t the kid’s fault, it is the enormous amount of pressure and stress. I thought it would get better after we got past the infancy stage but it has gotten worse. I feel lost in my home and in my head. Send some good karma this way- we need it.

I was surprised to see there were only 11 people in the U.S. with my name. However, there were 76 with my maiden name. I also discovered there are 308,968 people in the U.S. with the first name Kim. Statistically, it is the 199th most popular first name. (tied with 3 other first names). How about you?

HowManyOfMe.com

There are: 11 people with my name in the U.S.A. How many have your name?

- contrary to some thought, my “because i’m perfect” post really was about some of the therapists and nurses in our home. i’m pissed b/c the nurse who i will no longer talk about because i’m tired of wasting my energy and i fired her already so get over it kim- walk away. calm down, have some dip- has been talking shit to some of our other nurses. i gave her more credit than she deserved by saying she is intoxicating- she’s more like the train wreck you can’t look away from. this coincided with some other problems we’ve been having with another educator that comes into our home and i was probably be overdramatic (who me? overdramatic? never). i won’t mention her name anymore but no- she doesn’t get the voldemort designation because she’s not even cool enough to be a voldemort or a certain person i know that we refer to as the one who wishes he was voldemort.

- anna pointed out that it is too late in MO to register to vote. if you live in our fair state and haven’t registered already shame on you. and don’t even try to tell me your vote doesn’t mattter and dubya got elected even though popular vote wasn’t with him so why should you vote. just vote already.

- i have GOT to scan some of the kiddo’s 1st grade drawings. they are priceless. my favorite so far is the one where he drew a sad man in a mexican hat who has a cat wearing a mask with an american flag sticking straight out his back. nice. did you know when i was in kindergarten i drew my mom one of those “bake your kids drawing into a plate” plates with a drawing of gene simmons and my initials? yes, i did.

- my sister is moving this weekend. goodbye vero beach, i hardly knew ya. but hello melbourne! i like your beach!

- this year, i have developed a not-sweet tooth for halloween. i ate a reese’s peanut butter cup and it tasted like pure sugar which was awful. what happened to my taste buds? speaking of sugar, mike actually gave C. a spoonful of sugar the other night to get him to take his nasty cough syrup. hello mary poppins! i pretty much taught him how to do a shot with a chaser – slam the cough syrup and gulp some milk to get rid of the taste. works with grand mariner too!

i have a new addiction. jpg magazine (where my innernet friend kristy k has been published twice already. i’m not jealous at all. bitch!) publishes digital photos in a traditional, magazine format. users can vote on member submitted photos and judge if they are they are appropriate and good enough for chosen themes. i cannot stop voting! i sit here mumbling “what?! why the heck did she think that had anything to do with the theme???” and “oooh, nice picture but doesn’t match the theme” or every once in a while “aww nice. that’s perfect. thumbs up.” it is like hot or not for art.

i submitted a pic for the “embrace the blur” theme. go vote for me and i’ll be your best friend. (i only have pics from last year on my laptop so i found a few that i could submit but they aren’t recent)

*btw- i can’t get downstairs to my main computer which houses the high res versions of my photos so i can’t submit any or else i would totally be winning in every category (in my dreams). my camera is also downstairs and i may have to hobble my ass down there just to get it. the photos may not be very exciting since i’m limited to a four room radius but expect more cast photos. wanna virtually sign my cast? lemme know and i’ll do it for you. for my real life, live in the same city friends, i’m callin you out. only DAVE has signed my cast. that’s right dawn, your hubby signed me and brought get well greetings. my family has signed it and big c did draw the promised red house, sort of. half way through he stopped and said “i’m making this a hotel. hotels are easier to draw than houses.” he also drew a rocket on both casts (i had to have the first one sawn off – a fact that amazed the kid- because it was too tight).

as election day approaches, my mailbox has been stuffed with glossy, multi-colored, tri-folded, graphic intensive jim talent campaign pamphlets and fliers. somehow, somewhere, i got on the missouri republican party’s mailing list (anna- if you did this to me? you are an evil genius and i will get revenge much worse than the afro catalog or gym membership pitches!). i have been getting an average of four pieces of political propoganda every single day. i want to stuff it into an envelope and mail it back postage due to the campaign headquarters. think it will work?

missouri’s upcoming election is getting national attention and rush limbaugh stoops to a new low in accusing michael j. fox of faking his parkinson’s symptoms in a commerical he filmed supporting amendment two and stem cell research. amendment 2 would provide constitutional protections for embryonic stem cell research in Missouri but has turned into a giant pro-life debate with threats that scientists are going to lure young woman into selling their eggs and create monsters. you can believe what you want about the issue but i know i am sick of the bullshit being passed off as truth and think politicians are simply using the issue to win elections (the gubanatorial canidates are on opposing sides of the argument). they don’t care about when life begins or if stem cell research uses adult or embryonic cells- they just want to win an election. thank you rush limbaugh for bringing more attention to the matter and perhaps convince people to research the issue before they jump on either band wagon. come on, this is supposed to be the show me state! show me the truth and let me make up my mind- disregard the rhetoric and grand standing. i challenge all missourians to do the same thing. and of course register to vote if you haven’t already. do it! make sure they have your new address! find out where your polling center is! get a neato flag sticker that says “i voted!”

* chris at rude cactus just posted about this as well and this wonderful joke was posted by kate in the comments:

“What’s the difference between Rush Limbaugh and the Hindenberg? One’s a flaming Nazi gasbag… the other’s just a dirigible!”