SchlegelRock

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?

Have you ever played a trivia game with a 4 year old.  It’s extremely difficult and you have to use all your wits because they play dirty.  Not on purpose of course but they sure don’t follow the rules.

I picked Oli up from preschool today and he had his hoodie zipped all the way up and wanted me to guess what shirt he was wearing.  You can see it in the picture.  (Don’t ask why his mouth is open.  He’s 4.) 

Here are the clues he gave me:

It’s mostly red and gold.

The guy has horns.

People, how on earth was I supposed to guess a blue Optimus Prime shirt from those clues.  To his credit, Optimus Prime is mostly red and does kind of have horns but I don’t see a lick of gold on that shirt.

I didn’t end up guessing right.  I cheated.  I turned around at a light and snuck a peak at the collar.  He saw me and told me I was cheating.  I admitted it but honestly I had no idea what shirt he was wearing that was mostly red and gold with a guy with horns.  He had me stumped.

Scott was watching TV while getting ready for work a couple months ago and happened to stop on the Today show when they introduced Carrie Fisher (Princess Leah from Star Wars).  Among other things she spoke about being bipolar.  I loved hearing her speak about bipolar because we share a lot of the same views.

She talked about the stigma of bipolar and said she didn’t understand it because to live with bipolar “takes balls”.  Amen to that sister.  Why should I be ashamed of people knowing I’m bipolar when I’m living a functioning, adult life?  Sure I have my hiccups and my bad days but I’m taking care of my husband and raising three healthy, happy children.  What more could you ask for?

Matt asked Carrie about bipolar being a daily struggle and I feel like my last episode is still so fresh and raw that I do deal with it every day.  Every little change in my body sets off alarms that make me hyper vigilant to what’s going on in my body.  So I’m not changing from manic to depressed on a daily basis but I do deal with bipolar daily.

How beautiful is it that she describes bipolar as the weather.  As moods that happen independent of the person feeling them.  They just come on and you have to deal with them even though they are not who you are or necessarily how you are feeling.

It took me weeks to get this video off of my Tivo and formatted right so YouTube would play it correctly.  I really wanted to share this with you because it spoke to me.  Mostly because I saw someone else who wasn’t ashamed of being bipolar.  My gosh, we didn’t ask for this but we sure as heck are doing the best we can.  What is there to ashamed of?

Scott’s favorite restaurant is Benihana’s so Monday night we got together with his parents and headed over to Vallco to eat.  For those of you who don’t know, Benihana’s is a Japanese restaurant where the food is cooked at your table by special chefs who put on a show for you with their cutlery and cooking utensils.  We had such a great time.  The kids usually do well at restaurants but on Monday we didn’t hear a peep from them.  We did order too much food for them but that just made dinner Tuesday night so no problems there.

Benihana’s is pricey so we only go there every once in a while but when we do we absolutely love it.  Truman is asking if we can go back for his birthday in March.  I’m totally OK with that.  Beats Chuck E Cheese’s any day of the week!

Click here for photos.

You guys probably already know this but the aquarium is one of my favorite places to go.  We had a season pass a few years back before Max started school and I would take the kids every two weeks or so and I absolutely loved it.  Scott’s cousin and his family were down after Christmas so we headed down to the aquarium for the day.  It was so much fun but it was pretty crowded so our family was totally wiped out by the time we got home.  Thanks Gary and Elaine for dinner.  Scott also bought me fudge at one of the shops on Cannery Row.  Just one more reason to love him.

Have you guys been to the aquarium?  Do you love it?

Click here for photos.

We had a really great Christmas this year.  All three of the kids were old enough to know what’s going on and experience some anticipation and excitement.  We split Christmas up between my mom and the Schlegels and it really worked out nicely.  Brandon and Maria were down from Sac and it was fun to have all the cousins together again.  The biggest hit of the season are the Nerf guns the Walker’s gave us.  So much fun  We had the kids up in the hallway and the adults behind the couch and madness ensued.  It was wild and crazy fun.  It only got crazier when Scott took apart all six guns and modified them so that they shoot further and harder.  I’m telling you we have never had this much fun with at Christmas before.

Grandma Sandy and the grandkids

Grandma and Grandpa Schegel with our kids

Max, Tru, Emma and Reuben with the new Nerf guns