SchlegelRock

Can you tell he’s thrilled I made him take this picture?  Sorry I didn’t post this Monday but things have been pretty crazy here.  Here’s the haps.  Scott broke the wrist bone that sits directly behind the thumb.  There’s a chip taken out of it and what looks like a prior injury in the exact same spot as well.  The deal with this bone is that while most bones have blood flowing into them, this bone has blood flowing out of it so it takes longer to heal.  Of course it does.

Scott has his current cast on for four weeks and then they x-ray it again and if a miracle happens he’ll be done, but he’ll probably have to have another cast put on for an unknown period of time up to 12 weeks.  That’s right, I said twelve weeks.  Apparently that blood thing is a really big deal.  We are praying people so we’re going to pray for four weeks and hope for the best.

Scott was back at work Monday for a half day and back yesterday for a full day.  He’s supposed to be taking half a day off for the next week or so but you know Scott.  He’s go, go, go.  The pain is gone though and with the half cast it makes life so much easier.  He just has to get used to typing with his left arm bent at an awkward angle.

Thanks for all your concern and well wishes for both of our broken boys hopefully this will be the last broken bone this Summer.  Or ever, maybe.  But what are the chances of that happening?

Apparently Scott couldn’t handle Truman getting all the attention so he went and broke his wrist Friday night.  He was mountain biking at Saratoga Gap and took a nasty tumble.  The whole left side of his body is pretty badly scraped, cut and bruised.

Right now he is just in a splint until later today when he goes to the Orthopedic department today to see what they want to do with him.  I guess that’s what the ER does.  Splint it up and make an appointment with Orthopedics during the week.  Makes me feel really fortunate that Truman got seen so quickly.

So the funniest thing (and tragic) happened when the nurse in the ER asked Scott if he wanted some pain meds.  Being Scott he made some kind of joke about it which put her on high alert that he was a druggie just there to get pills.  So they gave him one pill while he was there but wouldn’t send him home with any.  That’s the funny part, the tragic part is that he has been in quite a bit of pain and regular old Tylenol is not cutting it.  So I don’t care how funny you are don’t joke around about addictive substances in the hospital.  No pretend bomb threats at the airport, no joking around about pain killers at the ER.

I’ll let you know what the doc says when we get more information.  The ER doc said it could be minor and he’ll be left in a splint or they could do surgery and put pins in.  She didn’t know.  Our modest opinion is that he’ll just need a cast.  But what do we know?

Scott’s coworkers all signed a card and gave Truman a huge bag of Bionicles and Legos.  Scott said he had something to bring home but I wasn’t expecting such a generous gift.  And they all signed the card!  What do you say to a kid that you don’t know who broke his arm?  They were all really cute and clever and sweet and it really made me feel like Scott was being taken care of at work if his coworkers would take the time to do this for Truman.

My favorites for the card was when Jamie said “Drink lots of milk!” and right next to her Bryan wrote, “Forget the milk.  Go straight for the ice cream.”  Truman lit up when I read that to him.  ”Yeah mom!!  Let’s have some ice cream!”

I cannot tell you how well the Bionicles are going over.  All four kids (Jessica our neighbor is with us Mon – Thr) are all in the boy’s room totally engulfed in them.  The other great thing about the gifts is that they were really, really well thought out.  The gift came with three balloons (two of which are already popped thanks to our textured ceiling) and there were three sets of Bionicles.  One for each boy!  Whoever picked everything out knew what they were doing.  One smart cookie!

Needless to say Truman is totally thrilled that for no other reason than he has a cast on he got some presents.  I’m thrilled because we’ve been spending A LOT of time indoors so that Truman doesn’t re-injure his arm (we met a girl at the pool yesterday who had pins in her elbow that she somehow bent so the Dr.s had to re-break her arm to get the pins out and then reset it again.  Not something I want to go through or have Truman go through.)  It’s always great to have a new activity that the kids are excited about.  Quietly playing with.  So all in all this was an incredible surprise.

Has your work ever surprised you like this?

I don’t know about you but there are some things I buy that I buy just for me.  Not to share with Scott even.  Just for me.  Pudding is one of those things and certain cereals are another.  My kids have tons of cereals that they like so I buy a big selection and put it in our cereal cupboard for them to get at when it’s breakfast.  The Lucky Charms on the other hand is stashed in the highest cupboard in our kitchen where supposedly only I know where to find it.  Never happens that way though.  I will go out to the kitchen to get a bowl and open the top cupboard and the Lucky Charms is gone.  So I check the kids cupboard and sure enough, there it is.  And not only is it in there, it’s half gone.  Half gone!!!?  How do they eat half a box of cereal in one morning?  There are only three of them.

Well, I’m sorry to say the other morning I lost it and starting ranting to no one in particular about how I don’t like that many cereals and how I buy this cereal just for myself because everyone else likes all the different cereals and I don’t and how I put the cereal way up in the cupboard so everyone should know it was mine and how could they eat half a box of cereal in one sitting.

The all wise and knowing Scott finally said, “Alisa, they’re going to eat your cereal because they like it too.   Maybe you should buy two boxes next time.”  Oh my gosh!  Why didn’t I think of that?  Here I’ve been trying to hide the cereal from them when I could have just gotten them their own box.  I mean who doesn’t like Lucky Charms, right?  The only problem I see is when they finish their box in 2 days and come searching for mine.  Man, I need to find a better hiding place.

Do you have something you buy only for yourself and guard with your life?  Why do they always find our hiding spots?

I’ve got pictures of the x-rays they took yesterday of Tru’s elbow.  I put them at the bottom of the post so you don’t have to see them if you don’t want to.  You can see if you look very carefully at the first one where the break goes clean through the bone.  The pins are the only thing besides the tendon holding in in place.  You’re lucky because I tried to take a picture of the pins sticking out of his arm when they took the splint off but for legal reasons you’re not allowed to take pictures in there.  It was weird looking.

I don’t know what is going on but we had another almost flawless experience at Kaiser yesterday.  I didn’t have Truman’s card but the receptionist very happily looked up his name and got us on our way.  I had brought my DS Lite to play Super Mario Bros while Truman watched and we waited but we didn’t wait more than 5 minutes the whole day.  From the cast room to the x-ray room to the Dr’s office.  Seriously, we practically walked in each time.

I was cracking up and getting frustrated though because the x-ray tech had such a thick accent that Tru couldn’t understand a word he said.  It was so funny to watch Tru’s face as the man told him to hold his arm up straight but Tru just didn’t get it so the man would repeat it over and over again.  Hilarious.  Of course I didn’t step in and help that would have been too nice of me and the job got done in the end.

I don’t know if I should even mention this but you know when you see pedophiles and sexual offenders on TV they all kind of have the same look?  Well our poor cast tech had that look and I feel so bad even saying it but it creeped me out a little bit.  I didn’t treat him poorly or insist he not touch or talk to my son but I felt bad for him that he had that face and look about him but was probably the nicest guy.  He was really great with Truman.

I can’t give enough praises to our Dr.  She practically bent over backwards when Truman needed to go to the bathroom.  I kept telling her he could wait until after the appointment but she just stopped at one point and led us to the bathroom because she didn’t want to keep him waiting.  It was incredible.  He wasn’t even dancing.

So Truman got a glow in the dark cast again and he’ll have in on for three weeks until they take the pins out then another two weeks after that.  I remember trying to take a picture of the cast glowing last time and it did not work out so I’m not going to try again this time.  Same camera, same results, I’m sure.

Truman had one rough night where his arm hurt so bad he couldn’t sleep but he’s been really great since then.  It’s hard for me not to just let him play with the other kids like normal but this break was so bad and he’s got pins in there so we’re going to make him take some time off of the playground.  I know, it breaks my heart too but as the doctor told us a couple of times if this doesn’t heal correctly he could completely loose the use of his arm.  That’s too scary for me to even think about.

OK, enough with the long post already.  Tru is doing great and we’ll keep you posted on his progress.

Tru was gliding across a small “zip line” at the park and fell off and landed on his left arm in the sand and broke his arm.  Hmm, you’re saying.  Didn’t Truman break his left arm at the elbow last Fall?  Yes he did.  Same arm but the break is a little further up and it’s clean through this time.  From what I understand the bone is currently being held on by the tendon that runs down it.

Scott took him to the Emergency Room yesterday around 2pm and called me with word that Tru needed surgery around 4pm.  My mom came over and watched the kids so I could go over and sit with Tru and Scott while we waited for the surgery.  Truman was asleep when I got to the hospital so Scott and I got a chance to talk about what was happening.

I can not tell you how wonderful our experience at Kaiser was.  Everyone, and I mean everyone, was incredibly nice.  Sure the process took a long time but no one was curt or grumpy or at all annoyed with us even though Truman’s surgery was the last of the day and after hours.  That means people had to stay late to fix up our little boy.  I love Kaiser and have never had a bad experience with them but this one tops them all.

Truman went into surgery around 7pm and came out close to 9pm.  The Schlegel’s were there to sit with us. They put 3 pins in his arm to keep the bone in place.  The only scary part of the day was when he woke up from the surgery.  He was thrashing around in the bed , writhing in pain, crying that his arm hurt.  It was so hard not being able to help him.  I asked the nurse later if that was common for kids to wake up that harshly and she said yes.  Once he calmed down he didn’t complain about his arm at all.  No pain meds.  Though they did give him some during the surgery, I guess they just took a while to set in.

He came home last night close to 10pm.  Apparently they don’t keep anyone anymore.  Who knew.   It was so nice to have him home.  It made it feel like I could finally take care of him.  I mean, we’ve had broken bones before.  We know what to do.  Now we’re on familiar ground.  It feels great.

You can see a teddy bear in the pictures and a cut up gown that he wore in the hospital.  They give all the kids teddy bears and when they come out of surgery the bear has a dressing on his wound just like the kid has.  What a great idea!!  I’m telling you, the best experience.  It was magical how smoothly everything went.

Truman doesn’t want to take the Tylenol with Codein because he doesn’t want to feel sleepy so we’ve just been giving him Children’s Tylenol.  It seems to be working.  Truman is in a really good mood and besides favoring his arm is totally healthy and hanging out with the kids.

Whew.  We got our first surgery under our belts.  I’m not saying I want to do it again but it was such a great experience I’m not scared for it to happen again.  We are very fortunate to have such good doctors and nurses to take care of our kids.

Truman goes back on Friday for more x-rays and to get a hard cast put on.  I’ll post more pictures and an update then.

The last picture is my visitors sticker.  In case you can’t read it they spelled our last name:  STHLEGER.  Hilarious.  Even that made it a great experience.

The boys and Jessica (our neighbor) and I go to Great America every Thursday and we pretty much have a routine.  Meet the other families in the kids area, go to Boomerang Bay and play in the water, then split from the group and do some of the bigger rides.  Today Tru needed a bathroom break so we ended up going by the ride Delirium.  He asked if he could ride it so we asked the other kids if they wanted to go on and they all said no so Tru decided to ride it by himself.

The ride spins in a circle and swings back and forth so at some point, more than once, you end up staring straight down at the ground lying on the harness.  The line wasn’t too long so I told Tru he could go on it.  While he was at the end of the line where I could still stand near him a group of teenage girls came up and asked if I was in line.  I told them I wasn’t but that Tru was (I’m always scared that older kids will walk all over my little kids in line so I was asserting his position).  One of the girl’s squealed and asked if he was riding by himself.  I told them he was and all of a sudden he became their little pet.  ”Look how beautiful his eyes are.”  Petting his hair.  It was hilarious.  At least I knew he would be in good hands while he was in line.  He ended up sitting in between the girls on the ride and at one point during the spinning I looked up and he was holding one of their hands.  It was the cutest thing I have ever seen.

When the ride was over Tru didn’t even look back at them.  He ran off yelling, “That was AWESOME!!!”  Max and Jessica say they’ll try it next time we go.  Oli is a few years off from being tall enough to try.  I can’t wait until they’re all tall enough so we can all ride the rides together.

Max turned the big 8 yesterday and things went really well for the birthday boy.  The festivities started Saturday night when we gave Max an early birthday present.  It was a Betta fish that Max named Colorful.  Even though we can’t touch Colorful we’ve tried to make sure the kids notice Colorful and talk to him and feed him and make sure he’s a part of our family.

I’ve got a picture here of Colorful and you’ll have to excuse the glare I tried several different settings on the camera and the use of a flashlight for lighting and these are the best photos I got.  He comes out much more vibrant on film than he looks in our drab living room.

Then on Sunday he chose Top Ramen for dinner and then the Schlegel’s and Grandma Sandy came over for cake and ice cream and presents.  He had a great time hanging out with family and loved all the attention on his special day.

It has been a while since the last post, so here is a breif recap in pictures.

1. Truman has been learning to skateboard. He is really getting good. (Last week he had his first bail+rasberry)

2. I helped Gary build a potting bench. I took the day off work and together we built it from scratch.

3. We took some pics of the kids dressed up and ready for church.

In the above Truman reminds me of the guy from green day.

I guess it would have been smart in my last post to mention the actual perfume that I went to buy.  So here’s more information than you could possibly want.  It’s Ed Hardy by Christian Audigier.  Ed Hardy is a clothing designer that I love.  He was the designer that the 17 year old dad was wearing on his first day back to school in 17 Again.  I admit the kid looked ridiculous but I love the tattoo inspired art of Ed Hardy.  Tatto art is some of my favorite.

And since it’s such a stretch to think of me wearing perfume I thought I’d put the list of fragrance notes:   apple, mango, strawberry, red grapefruit, freesia, watery muget, linden blossom, warm amber, musk, tonka bean, and vanilla puddin.

Ed Hardy is listed as a casual perfume though I plan on wearing it wherever the heck I want to.  I’ve had a tester of it for almost a week now and I am totally in love.

On a side note, if you go to Nordstroms they will fill a tester vial with any perfume you like so you can take it home and try it out.  I did not know this before a week ago though I’m sure you’ve all been going there for years.  I’m a little slow with the girly stuff.  I think I’m going to go back and find the most expensive perfume I can and try it out.

What’s your favorite perfume?

I decided this year that I wanted perfume for Mother’s Day.  I’m not a big perfume wearer but I happened upon some I loved the other day and I just had to have it.  So I went home and asked Scott if he would get it for me for Mother’s day.  I’m not quite sure but I think he actually told me that the laptop we just bought was for Mother’s Day.  What?  That was not in the negotiations although I’ve been meaning to blog about Laila (my laptop) and how wonderful she is.  I’m on her right now and she is my new love.  How did I ever live without her?

Anyway, I pouted and whined and eventually Scott said I could get some perfume for Mother’s Day.  Yippee.  So I haven’t been able to get to Nordstroms all week and I knew I’d never make it on Saturday so I piled the three kids in the car and had a long talk about how they were to behave in the store.

As we’re walking to the perfume section a lady from Chanel stops us and asks if I want her to do my eyes.  I stared at her for a second because nobody ever approaches me at Nordstroms.  Usually in the shoe department (I love Nordstroms’ shoes) the sales people literally walk away from me when I walk near them.  If I actually have shoes in my hands they’ll stop and help me but no “Hello, how are you today.” or “Are you finding everything OK?”  Nothing.  I feel like such a leper when I’m in there.

But this lady actually stopped me with my three kids and asked if I wanted my eyes done.  After the shock wore off I looked at my kids and she said, “Oh, they’ll be fine.  I’ll go fast.”  I stayed silent for a moment longer and then realized I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.  I pulled my iPhone out of my purse sat the kids on the ground and hopped in the chair.

Oh my gosh.  It was exquisite.  When I was a massage therapist my favorite part to massage was the face.  I always believed that even if all you got was a face and scalp massage everything else would fall into place.  So I sat there as her soft brushes slid across my face and just let my body melt into the chair.  At one point she asked me to open my eyes and look up and I thought, “Why?  Why would I do that?  I’m in heaven right now.”  But I did anyway.

During our visit two other Chanel ladies came over and asked about the boys.  Are they mine?  ”Oh my gosh, they’re being so good.”  One of the ladies said she saw me walk up and thought there was no way I was going to stop.  Fooled them, didn’t I.  I saw the opportunity to be pampered and I took it.  Kids and all.

Then we finished up and I bought the lip gloss because I had actually been looking for the exact thing she put on my lips.  How’s that for amazing?  We headed off to the perfume aisle and I found what I wanted and as I was checking out EVERYONE wanted to talk to me.  ”Three boys?” “Are the oldest ones twins?” “You’re so brave for going for the third one.”  ”Aren’t boys just wonderful?”  And so on and so on.  I honestly felt like I must have been videotaped or something because those ladies were so doggone nice to me I almost couldn’t stand it.  They actually treated me like I belonged there.

So I’ve been thinking since then about the outfit I wore and I just had on a v-neck t-shirt, some jeans and my new flip flops.  What could it have been that made everybody treat me so nicely?  I know Mother’s Day is coming up so they probably got a stern talking to about being nice but I honest to goodness actually felt like I fit in there today.  It was incredible.

So I took a picture for posterity of me with all of my make up on since no one will ever see me like this again.  Mascara and lip gloss has become my staple.  The Chanel lady did more than my eyes.  She did full coverage.  I don’t care.  I’ll wear it for the day, it doesn’t bother me.

So all in all with Oliver’s special Mother’s Day presentation at school and a huge card complete with stick figures that Truman made me this is turning out to be a pretty spectacular Mother’s Day.  And it’s not over yet.  How’s yours going?

We’ve lived here for 2 1/2 years and it wasn’t until a couple of months ago that I finally hung a clock over the TV.  I’m really glad we waited though because we just got this fabulous print from and artist online, Cameron Moll.  Apparently he’s a really good web developer who decided to try out some fine art.  We bought his Salt Lake Temple letterpress.  He takes different letters and different fonts and composed the Salt Lake Temple.  It is really stunning.

The two pictures on either side are watercolors that Scott did when he was in school  The one on the left is a rose the one on the right is a banana and a peach.  

I also hung the oil painting of the Oakland Temple that my brother gave us for a wedding present upon

his return from his mission in Brazil.  I love the colors in that painting.  The bright pink is my

favorite.  In case you’re wondering what it’s hanging next to it’s our wall of kids artwork.  All he stuff they bring home from school goes up on our big wall behind our computer.  It’s the best wall in the whole house.

It’s about time this condo got spruced up.  Do you have some favorite artwork in your house?

Can you believe it? I know. It was just yesterday that I welcomed that boy into the Subaru. He is such a special kid. Always ready with hugs or karate chops depending on the occasion.

Oliver really looks up to Truman and looks forward to him coming home from school. Tru is doing great in school. He read Go Dogs Go! to me the other day.

As you can see from my last post he loves jokes and no matter how ridiculous they are he commits and delivers them flawlessly.

We had a birthday play date with three of his friends and they had a great time.  Then we had a family party with some cake and ice cream that evening.  Tru loved the attention.

Happy Birthday Truman!!

In case you didn’t get it:

Two muffins were in the oven.  One muffin said, “It’s hot in here.”  The other muffin said, “Holy cow!!!  It’s a talking muffin!”

It’s all in the delivery.

Every day when Max and Truman get home from school I am in my room.  I have it set up so I can do everything from there so that’s where I spend most of my time.  My room is not very far away from the front door.  I can hear it open and I can hear little voices when they run in and I know they can hear me when I yell, “Hi boys!”

That’s why it’s a little surprising to me when my phone rings a minute later and I invariably hear, “Mom, where are you?”  It’s a ridiculous little game that Max likes to play with me.  He’ll walk up and down the hallway chatting to me on the phone, not looking in my room because that would be acknowledging my existence in the house.  Then the phone gets passed around so that everyone has a chance to talk to me, including Oliver who has been with me all day.

The first couple of times they did this it annoyed me because it made me feel like they felt neglected because I wasn’t waiting at the door for them with a plate of cookies but now I know that it’s just fun.  I don’t know about your kids but my kids don’t get to use the phone very often so this is a big deal for them.

Anyone else get silly phone calls from their kids?