Aunt Grace

Just trying to process the day...We found a kitty on Thursday evening. She was hanging out in our backyard. We have a privacy fence so I was pretty impressed that she was back there. Anyway we befriended her. Actually we thought it was a boy and were going to name him Kevin. Well I told Wes I think this is a girl kitty and so he proudly stated her name was Aunt Grace. (for those of you who don't know my little sister's name is Grace.) She has been in Hong Kong for the year and I think Wesley misses her. He kept asking the Kitty how she got from Hong Kong...anyway. Super sweet kitty. I wanted to keep her Aaron wasn't so sure and well I did have some concern how we could fit adjusting to a new kitty into the kinda crazy time we are in. But I figured she found us... We went out of town for the weekend. Aaron said if the kitty "aunt Grace" was still living under our shed in the backyard we would talk about keeping her. Well we got home late Sunday night (like 10:00) I went in the back yard with my flash light... walking around in the dark shining a light under the shed calling "aunt Grace" "aunt Grace." She didn't come out...(it was also raining). Well she was out bright and early this morning. So we put her in a crate and took her to the vet. WE thought before we even try and see if this kitty gets along with Romeo (our beast of a cat). We should have her tested and checked out. Well I was the one at the appointment it turns out Aunt Grace has feline Leukemia. This is a deadly illness for Kitties and super contagious to other cats. Usually cats with it don't live over 1 year old. I had no other options, I actually asked if not begged the vet to tell me another way to handle the situation and she basically said if it were me this is what I would do. So with tears streaming down my face I paid the bill(which sucked) and left. Please pray there was one possibility they were going to check into. There is a lady who has a cat who tested positive with Leukemia. She said they would see if Aunt Grace could live there. I am sad she is a super good little kitty. My heart was broken. When I came home I simply told Wesley Aunt Grace got to go somewhere else. He was sad but I felt it was best not to go into details seeing as how I couldn't articulate it with out crying. All in all it was a sad answer to prayer on whether or not we should keep her. One huge blessing is that Wes was supposed to go with me but as I was walking out the door he disobeyed his daddy and had to stay home. I have never been so thankful for disobedience. God really works all things for our good.

So blessed

Although I am sitting here feeling particularly discouraged, I am amazed by how much God has blessed me. I have two amazing and healthy little boys who always can make me smile. Up until this point Aaron and I have always been very healty. God has blessed Aaron's career. To top things off God has provided an oppurtunity to go back to school. I really take this last one for granted and just assume that a further education is everyone's right. I am so thankful to everyone in my family who is working hard to make this possible. Number one Aaron. So as I feel discouraged and am pretty sure I am just incapable of studying for tests, and although there is some anxiety over what is going on whith my health I sit here amazed at just how blessed I am.

Mother of the year Award

Soo today I won an award! Yep it has seriously been years since recieving my last award. I think it may have been 6-7 years ago. Yep I remember winning a trophy for a horse shoe competition in which there was only one other team. Yes I won first place...I never really thought that trophy counted. This trophy, my friends, this trophy counts. Well wait there is no trophy per say. No it was actually a verbal award. The MC was a stranger from HyVee. Appearantly she and her husband were eating at the same time as the boys and I. Little did I know they had been judging us during lunch. Cool thing was the verdict came back and they picked me for mother of the year. I specifically remember there not being a single other child in the eating area at the time, and I am pretty sure they didn't see us in the frozen food section when I threatened the children that "if I heard one more word..." I recieved the award in the parking lot. The people had parked next to me and as the boys and I went flying by (literally I had ran behind the cart, and then jumped on the back; and then we hit a pot hole and they said something like "Oh their all going to fall.") Still even after putting my childrens life in parking lot race cart danger. Yep still won. She came over to me and told me "you win mother of the year." You would have though I had just won an Oscar. I yelled "I did." She did give me kind of a sympathetic look like, "it's just a figure of speach sweetheart." She said the boys were so well behaved and when they did get in trouble she said "you calmly explained to them what they had done wrong and what you expected." So this was not to brag at all. It was merely to say Thanks God for the awesome little pick me up. The cool thing was the award really has made my day. Every time I have had to discipline the boys I just think "well your lucky it's me because I am mother of the year...":)

new blog

www.secretthoughtsofb.blogspot.com It is totally random and has nothing to do with anything but it's fun:)

I've started a new blog. I will still post here. I will try to keep it about the boys on this one and about family stuff. My other one is my own mental notes and my journey as a stay at home mom and going back to school. Well and more stuff. It's just my thoughts in general. Here it is!!! www.secretthoughtsofb.blogspot.com Check it out if your brave enough to read what I might really be thinking. Sometimes my thoughts scare me...:)

What's in a name and parenting is not like riding a bike

So as we have tried to help Liam with screaming we try and give him replacement words. If he wants his brother to give him a toy to say toy please instead of screaming at him or bashing him over the head. So here are some funny examples of how well this works with Liam. Say for example it is time to go downstairs. I may say Liam go downstairs to which he responds with a scream. I respond to him with a "liam we don't scream please say yes Momma." To which Ironically Liam responds with a "yes Momma," and proceeds (ironically) to go down the stairs. It is so funny he does a total 180. One moment he protests with screaming the next moment he repeats you and then does quite happily your request. It's almost as if he feels it is now his idea and therefore safe for him to do. So sometimes we have food issues. I know I know this used to be my human garbage disposal. Once he figured out he is more in control of what and how much he ate sometimes meal times has become a battle of the wills. Well anyway for some reason he had picked cheese for this particular meal to be especially whiny about. By whining I mean screaming and hiding his face. Well we have a rule you have to at least take one bite then you can be done. Well this meal in particular Liam decided this was not going to fly. We spent about 20 minutes telling him to calm down and take one bite and he can get down etc. At this point his one bite of cheese had turned into two. I went over to him picked up one of the bites and accidentally said "Liam eat your hot dog." He then picked it up out of my hand and not only ate the one bite in my hand but the other bite on his tray. So I feel that parenting is not like riding a bike because when you have been away from it for even a few days you can find yourself forgetting very basic things. For me this happened after I got back from Mexico. I was giving the boys a bath. Everything had gone well and it was time to get Liam out. I got him out dried him off put on his lotion and set him aside. I then moved over to the bath and proceeded to get Wesley out. As I was pulling him out of the tub, I heard the sound of an elephant peeing on a flat rock. I turned around to discover there was not an elephant in the bathroom and there was no flat rock. It was in fact my little brown bear who had taken this of all opportunities to release what seemed like an unending amount of urine all over the tile floor. I panicked. I ran towards him with a loud exclamation of "liam no wait we pee pee on the potty..." By the time I reached him he had stopped (I think I scared the pee back in him:) So I turned back around to get paper towels out of the cabinet. At this point the peeing started back up again but this time he had turned his little pee-er onto the little bathroom rug. I ran to him this time determined to get some of that pee in the potty. I picked him up and set him on the toilet. I then turned around grabbing the paper towels and headed towards what appeared to be now two large pee pee spots to clean. It was at this moment Wesley exclaimed loudly and very dramatically. "mommy why did you throw my brother in the toilet." It was also at this time that I realized Liam was crying(now harder then before) I turned to discover that I had in fact forgotten that my 21month old could not sit on the toilet like his almost 5 year old brother. So when I thought I had set him on the toilet he had in fact lost his balance and fell into the toilet. All that was sticking out now was his sweet but sad face his arms and his legs. At the time I felt bad. How could I forget that Liam in no way knows how to sit on the big potty by himself. It didn't help that my oldest was accusing me of putting his brother into the toilet. Later I had to laugh at the whole situation and was bummed I didn't have my camera.

Hello

Yeah I know I titled my post hello. But I literally didn't know what else to put and sometimes the effort I put into titling the post is all for naught anyway because it doesn't really fit. So hello...goodmorning...salutations. I realized I only seem to write when I am needing blog therapy. So although I don't have anything to say I thought I would post anyway. I was looking back at what I put in my previous posts and realized it's a lot of venting. It kinda makes it sound like we aren't doing well and such. Truth is we are doing well. The kids are doing great. School is stressful but fun for me. Aaron loves his job. So really we couldn't ask for more. I just know that in those moments of struggle and ultimately growth it's hard. I want others to feel validated that at the Rye house it's not always smiles and ease. I did realize though that I should balance a little better between the two. Let's see highlight of my 2010 thus far. Hmmm...my trip to Mexico. I really had a lot of me time. Super selfish I know. Mom's aren't supposed to want to run to another country just so they can have peace and quiet. Well I did and I got it and it was awesome. Aaron is such a blessing as a husband. He is such a trooper and watched the boys. Course I don't consider it the same as when he is out of town and I stay home. When I stay home life continues. When Aaron stays home I try to work out breaks for him. Organize meals. And well I can't get the saying out of my head "when the cats away the mice will play." I am so happy they had fun though and I love coming home to three happy boys rather than what Aaron has to come home to. The kids are happy but I am usually a crotchety mess. I have been keeping up with my Devo which is good. I had a really good peaceful time with God while I was away which was such a blessing. I will leave you with a wise four year old's perspective on relationships. "mom from the time girls are little they always stare at the boys." He is in for a rude awakening:)