Some More Pictures

They were wiped out!

The baby's here!

Dad setting up the birth pool the night before. We were pretty sure it was going to happen that night--and it did. Jacob and Peter were helping.


Jacob and Peter had to try it out to make sure it was adequate for Mommy and the new baby!


Peter was very curious about what was going on. This was definitely outside the realm of his normal experience.


This is pretty much how it went. I labored while they watched. Jacob (Dad) was looking pretty intense. We have to remember it is the dad's birth experience too. This time he had to tend to Pete and Jacob too.


Very first shot--I thought it was amazing holding him like that instead of having him whisked away until he was all cleaned up and "pretty." There is nothing more beautiful than a brand new baby.

Yes, the baby is here. I was shocked when he was born to discover it was a boy, but as soon as I saw him I knew it was perfect. His name is Aelwulf Isaiah O'Neil. Don't worry, you'll get used to the name. I think it's awesome. It's pronounced pretty much like Ale-wolf and it translates roughly to Elf Wolf from Old English. His name was inspired by two Saxon kings from the 9th century, Aethelwulf (Noble Wolf) who converted to Christianity and became very devout, and his son Aelfred (Elf Counsel)--who united all of England, emphasized education for everyone, and who was the only English monarch ever to be granted the title The Great. You might think I came up with the name, since I'm the history geek and I even studied English history--but it was actually Jacob who decided on that name. Aelwulf was born at 9:13 a.m. on Monday, February 7th. He weighed 8 lbs. 6 oz. and they measured him at 20.5 inches long, but I'm pretty sure he was at least an inch longer than that. He looked really long when he was born and at 12 days he measured at 22.75 inches, and I'm pretty sure he didn't grow more than two inches in less than two weeks.

Sorry it took me so long to post, but things got kinda crazy. The birth was amazing. I will never have another baby in the hospital again. After having had one at home and having it be such an amazingly spiritual and empowering experience, I don't know why people ever switched to doing hospital births as a rule. I absolutely believe that in some high-risk cases it is necessary, but if there is nothing wrong then in my opinion home birth is the way to go.

It was only 7 hours of active labor, which was a big improvement for me on the first one. Of course, I was in labor for a total of probably 24 hours, but it wasn't that bad until the water broke at, of course, 2:30 in the morning. We had also, of course, been up rather late the night before because we knew I was going into labor and we were trying to decide whether to try to push it and get it going or whether to try and get some sleep at the risk of stalling labor. We opted for sleep, but it didn't really work all that well. The baby was born four days after his due date so I guess that's when I go into labor--in the wee hours of the morning four days after the due date, because that's when I went into labor with Jacob too. I bet I would have with Peter if they had just left him alone and not tried to induce him a week early.

It was the most amazing experience having him at home. Everyone left me alone. Nobody told me where to lie and in what position, and now it's time to strap on the monitor, and all you can have to eat or drink is ice chips (not that I actually wanted anything when the time came anyway), and best of all, nobody stuck their dang fingers up my vagina. Sorry to be crude, but it sure gets annoying being checked all the time when you're in the middle of labor, especially when you know that every time they check you after your water breaks your risk of infection increases by 15%. Nobody even touched me unless I wanted them to. Jacob massaged my shoulders a little, brought me cool washcloths to hold on my forehead, and kept the temperature of the water in the birth pool nice and warm. The midwives just watched the progress of labor and every once in a while used a water-proof Doppler to check the baby's heartbeat, which ticked on just like a clock through the whole thing. Everyone was really quiet and calm. Aelwulf handled labor better than either of my others did and I suspect it's because we weren't being harassed the whole time. The midwives didn't even do the final check to make sure I was a 10 because everything progressed so smoothly that by the time I felt like pushing he was already halfway down the birth canal. Pretty sure I was a 10 since he started descending all on his own without me even pushing. Next time I'm going to wait longer to push because it got a lot more painful once I started "helping" and I don't think it was really necessary until right at the very end anyway.

One thing that was different was having my kids there. They're pretty little at 3 and 1/2 and 1 and 1/2 so I wasn't really worried about modesty. Besides, when you're in labor you don't really care much about that anyway. Watching their reactions was quite an experience. I think it was actually very emotionally traumatic for them, but not necessarily in a bad way. It certainly expanded their life experience to see their mom go through something like that. Peter just watched quietly and every once in a while came up to the side of the pool and put his chubby little hand on me, I think just to make sure I was okay. A lot of the time he spent sitting on one of the midwives' laps. Jacob--poor Jacob. He was quiet and watchful. Then when it got toward the end when things get really intense(they were only awake for the last hour and a half or so anyway), it got to be too much for him to see me in that much pain without him understanding why or what was going on. Dad got him a cup of hot chocolate and Jacob stood there holding it, then suddenly he walked one way, turned and walked the other, then stood still again, not knowing what to do or where to go and his eyes filled up with tears. That was really hard on Dad. There he was trying to tend to me and make sure I was as comfortable as possible, but it was clear that our little boys needed that too so he was trying to take care of everybody all at once. Dad swooped him up in his arms and then held him on his lap after that and then Jacob was okay.

So, that was all amazing. Then two days later I, Jacob, and Peter got sick. For me it turned into pneumonia. Dad Jacob had already been sick, but he was pretty much over it by then. It got worse for him when we all got it. I was breastfeeding so I thought the baby would be safe, but five days later, when he was exactly a week old, he got sick. Five days after that his lips and fingernails were turning blue and he ended up in the hospital with oxygen sats in the 70s. He (and presumably the rest of us) had RSV, a respiratory virus I had never heard of growing up but that apparently they get a lot around here in the late winter. It's not that big a deal in older people--actually it was miserable--but in babies it can be deadly. February is the worst month for it.

I'm really glad we went to the hospital because we got oxygen for him and that was obviously what he needed. His color returned to normal and his breathing got a lot better. But that was all he really needed. They also did breathing treatments with an albuterol nebulizer and that seemed to help somewhat. But true to hospital form, they just couldn't leave him alone. They made him have an iv (which took six tries to get) even though with oxygen he could nurse just fine and was eating about every hour and a half so was obviously not dehydrated. They did blood draws and tested for everything under the sun. They tested to see if he was septic, of all things. He had a respiratory virus, not a blood infection for crying out loud. They did prophylactic antibiotics even though he had a virus. The worst thing was they did a spinal tap to see if he had spinal meningitis because his fever had one reading of 100.9, even though that was the only fever he registered the whole time. I asked the doctor to take the temperature again and he said it didn't matter because he had already reached that threshold and protocol is that on a baby that young with a fever over 100.4 you automatically do a spinal tap. As if the fever was going to drop back down to normal if he had had spinal meningitis. Duh. The doctor stuck him three times in the back and didn't get it. Then he called in a nurse anesthetist and she got it, but barely. They had to scrape up his back and collect some of the fluid that leaked out when she withdrew the needle. I wanted to throw up. Of course the sample was contaminated with his skin bacteria, which they expected, but some people were talking about trying to get another sample because of it. They didn't do it. I think I would have raised a royal ruckus if they had tried to stick a needle in his back for a fifth time, especially after sticking him six times to get the iv. We were at the hospital for two days, and while I'm grateful that he is doing well and for the oxygen and the nebulizer, I sure was glad to get out of there and go home at the end of those two days. We did a home birth to avoid all the unnecessary interference only to end up dealing with it two weeks later anyway. Oh, well. Nothing will take away the amazing birth experience.

He is doing much better now. He is still coughing a little bit, but he is very alert and his color is good. We followed up with our usual family doctor a few days after getting out of the hospital and his o2 sats were still in the 90s and his lungs were pretty clear. Thank goodness. Everyone else pretty much got over the illness in the last couple of days so we are just waiting for little Aelwulf to join us. We expected him to show signs of illness a little longer because he got it a little later than we did. He's fine, just a little bit of coughing and sneezing still.

We were going to go to church today, but they called Jacob into work at 6 this morning, and I did not feel up to trying to take all three boys back to church on my own after missing two weeks in a row, since I have no idea how any of them is going to take it. Especially Petey. He's been a trooper but he has been a little extra clingy since little Wulf was born. At 19 months, Petey is still pretty much a baby himself, so I don't blame him. I'm trying to make sure he gets all the love he needs. I'm also trying to keep my head afloat. I have a very high-maintenance household and with three kids under the age of 4 it's been a bit crazy. I can't help but ask myself, what on earth was I thinking? But then I look at them all and I love them so much that I know it's just perfect and everything will work out OK.

(P.S. I didn't post this on Sunday because I wanted to actually include some pictures this time, which took me a little bit of time to finagle.)

27 Below

Okay, okay, I guess it wasn't the last one. The baby's due date is today and it still hasn't come. I was SURE it was going to come the day before yesterday because I had good, hard contractions three minutes apart for several hours, but they never got very painful and when I went to bed they went away. I guess it was just very convincing false labor. So...since I still have a belly I will try to get my husband to take a good belly picture to post. :)

It turns out it was a good thing I didn't go into labor that night because we had a major cold front come through, the pipes froze, and the only running water was the kitchen sink. It would have been hard to have a water birth with practically no water. Then yesterday I hardly had any braxton hicks at all, which I found very discouraging because I'm ready for this to progress to the end. However, the temperature never rose above 10 degrees yesterday and when we woke up this morning it was 27 degrees below zero outside. Needless to say, the pipes froze again and we had a hard time keeping the temperature up in the house.

It has warmed up today, reaching a high of 36, so the pipes are all thawed and we are able to keep the house warm enough that I wouldn't be so worried about how a brand newborn baby would be able to deal with it. So, thank you Heavenly Father, for not sending us the baby when we weren't as ready for it as we thought we were, but...now we're ready. Pleeeeeeaaaassseee....

P.S. Dealing with the cold was unpleasant enough that it made us rethink how much we might like living in Alaska. I wasn't sure anyway, even though it's beautiful, but my husband has seriously considered it. We haven't enjoyed these super freezing temperatures (especially when it comes time to feed the animals and it is still 22 below--yuck!), but we're pretty sure 27 below is NUTHIN' in Alaska. I'm not quite sure we're tough enough for that yet.

Just a (Probably Final) Check-in...

I haven't written anything in ages, so I thought I should do a quick check-in. I'm 39 weeks and 3 days along and the baby is still on the inside, but probably not for long. This baby has dropped WAY down, which my first two never did, so the midwife and I think the baby is coming sooner rather than later.

We still don't know what it is and I'm not telling names yet. I don't know why, but I have this perverse need to keep it to myself until the baby's born. I think it is because I don't want to hear anyone's opinion about it and when the adorable little baby is actually there in my arms, people are a lot more loathe to say something negative about a name this real little person already has than they are when it is just a bump sticking out in front of my belly. Once the baby is actually there I could tell people his/her name was Mahonri Moriancumr or Bertha Joan, and they would pretend to think it was cute.

I tried to take a picture so that I could show how enormously huge I am, but it's dark right now and I couldn't get a good one. I have carried all three exactly the same--so far forward that from the back you can't even tell I'm pregnant, and then I turn to the side and people literally gasp at how huge my belly is. It looks like a watermelon. Sticking out the long way. Awesome, huh? I am totally proud of my belly.

Can't wait to meet this new little person. Jacob and I make awesome people. :)

Mama said there'll be days like this....

Has this ever happened to anyone else? Is this normal? I was trying to get out of the house to run some errands and it got to the point where we were ready to walk out the door and this is how it went:

1:00--finished lunch and put on everybody's shoes.
1:10--saw that I had mud on my pants from feeding horses and continually carting Petey away from the corral and had to go change before I went out.
1:15--brought Petey's carseat out to the car (it had been taken out the day before) to put it back in and saw the back was full of junk from a Daddy/son trip the day before and had to empty the back, then reattach the carseat and get Petey buckled in.
1:25--saw Jacob wasn't in his seat. Saw he was playing with his toy car 20 feet away from the car. Asked him what he was doing and was informed he was pooping. Checked. Sure enough. Thought, "This kid has been potty-trained almost a year! What's the deal?" Started to feel like Tyrannosaurus Rex.
1:35--after Jacob had finished pooping (on the toilet) had to rinse out his clothes and get him some new ones.
1:40--finally got everyone buckled in the car 40 minutes late, then realized I had forgotten my list, to lock the front door, and to put the trashcan up so the dogs didn't spread its contents all over the house while we were away, which they have taken to doing. Started to sound like Tyrannosaurus Rex. Went back inside to take care of stuff. One dog was waiting suspiciously near the trashcan. Ah, ha. Resisted kicking it. Barely.
1:45--FINALLY turned the key and got out of there. Realized later that after all I had done, I had forgotten to bring something that I had intended to return to the store.

So...is this normal? Who takes a full 45 minutes to turn the key in their car from the time they think they are ready to walk out the door and be on their way? And forgets stuff anyway? And I'm having another one? What on earth was I thinking?

Tag, I'm It!

Well, this is interesting. I intersected with Andrea from Harvest Academy Homeschool on Latter-day Homeschooling Blog a little while back and left a comment on a very insightful post that she made that made an impression with me. I guess my comment made an impression with her because weeks later, I find she commented on my blog and said, basically, "Tag, I'm it!" It's a blog tag game where I answer questions and then tag other bloggers with questions of my own. Here are the questions she asks:

• What are your top 5 favorite books?
This is the world's hardest question for someone who has always been a voracious reader. Okay, for the sake of the game I'm going to leave scriptures out. And keep in mind, if this question were asked me tomorrow, the answers would probably be different. So, here they are:

1. The Castle in the Attic, by Elizabeth Winthrop. I will always treasure this book because it is the one that finally opened up the magical world of love of reading to me when I was nine years old.
2. The Virginian, by Owen Wister. If you want to know what it really means to me to be an American, read this book.
3. Flowers for Algernon, by Daniel Keyes. It was the first book that made me cry and I felt like it made me grow up a little.
4. Of Mice and Men, by John Steinbeck. The simple, sad story broke my 14-year-old heart so thoroughly I will never forget it.

Hmm...those four rolled off the fingertips pretty easily. Now for one more...

5. The Scarlet Pimpernel, by Baroness Emmuska Orczy. I wanted to include a happy book, and this one was so incredibly, beautifully--cleanly--romantic that I read it at least five times in high school, whenever I needed that innocent little love rush that all teenage girls crave. In fact, I need to find this book and read it again. Sigh.

(P.S. A close second to The Scarlet Pimpernel is Pride and Prejudice, by Jane Austen, for the same reason. In fact, if I had thought of it first, I would have put that instead.)

• What is one of your favorite scriptures?


Proverbs 3:5-6 "Trust in the Lord with all thy heart, and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all they ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths."

• What is your favorite homeschool curriculum that you have used?


Well...since my oldest is only three this doesn't really apply yet. I'm currently using some simple pre-k workbooks I got at the Dollar Tree (I plan to make a post about it actually) about letters, numbers, shapes and colors, basic phonics, etc. Right now we've just started so we're doing shapes and colors. He knows most of them already, and I wanted to start with something easy so it would be encouraging to him. I'm also planning to implement some of the learning games and exercises from Slow and Steady, Get Me Ready, by June Oberlander. That's all I feel he needs at this point. I'm interested in Sonlight curriculum, maybe in the future.

• What led you to homeschool your children?


One of my best friends was homeschooled, and I loved the way she had so much time, and yet was so far ahead academically than where I was in high school, even though I was chomping at the bit and took every single honors and AP class that was offered. I got a degree in history and kind of wavered between law school and teaching until I realized that if I went to law school I would have to, um, be a lawyer, so I decided to pursue teaching. About three months of subbing, and especially the semester I did long-term for a seventh-grade social studies class, convinced me finally and completely that I could never, ever in a million years unless I became a quadriplegic widow or something, send my kids into the horror that is modern-day public school. Not that I have strong feelings about this or anything.

• If you could go anywhere in the world where would it be?


Wow. Maybe...Spain? This answer would probably be different if I were asked tomorrow, as well.

• If you had one day all to yourself, what would you do?


Well, since I fantasize about someone dropping in to voluntarily take my kids off my hands for a day so I can finally get my house under control, the honest truth is I would probably clean. If, hypothetically, my house were already spic and span, I would...gee, I dunno. I can't imagine being by myself without kids, a husband, dogs, cats, horses, chickens, a garden, blah, blah, blah to care for. Maybe, since we're only dreaming here, I would finally realize my dream of running a marathon. Since I have this magical day to myself, I would also magically have already trained for it and my bum knee (which I injured running years ago) would magically have healed.

• What is your favorite food group?

No question. Dairy. I can easily drink two gallons of milk a week all by myself. I don't anymore because we've got kids and it's too expensive, but I did all through college.

• What is something that your child(ren) did recently that made you laugh out loud?

OK, to tell this story, I kind of have to tell on myself, but since it all ended OK, I guess I will. My three-year-old loves baths. We have a kind of hinky septic tank so I can't give him baths every day, but he would love it if he could have three baths a day. Anyway, every once in a great while, when he thinks I have waited too long to give him a bath, he will poop in his underwear trying to angle for a bath. He is totally potty-trained. He only does it to manipulate me into giving him a bath, because while he was potty-training, that is how I would usually deal with the mess rather than trying the whole wipies thing when he's got poo oozing out his underwear legs. The first time he did it I just calmly cleaned him up, no bath. Not gonna reward that behavior, no way. The second time he did it, I told him I was going to spank him. He looked at me in the most honest-to-goodness wide-eyed horror I have ever seen on his little face, and said desperately, "No, Mommy! Don't spank me! There's poop down there!" I gave a great big, open-mouthed belly laugh. And didn't spank him. After all, he had a point.

Okay, so those were the answers to Andrea's questions. This seems to have been primarily directed at homeschoolers, from what I can tell, but since I don't know all that many homeschoolers who blog--only one, actually--I'm going to have to modify the thrust of my questions a little bit. Now here are my questions:

1. Have you ever locked your keys in your car? If so, what was your solution?

2. Name a book that has been very significant in your life. Why was it significant?

3. What is your biggest weakness as a mother and/or wife?

4. What is your biggest strength?

5. What are your views on homeschooling, and would you ever consider doing it? Why or why not?

6. What is the last dessert that you baked and what was the occasion?

7. What is a talent that you've always wanted to have but have been too busy or too scared to develop?

8. What do you consider your most and least attractive physical features?


Here are the people I'm tagging. If you choose to play, make sure to let me know in the comments so I can check out your blog and see the answers--which I'm dying to!

Analei at www.shadowsnatcher.blogspot.com

Gabby at www.bluebirdacademy.blogspot.com

Shawntae at www.theberrybuzz.blogspot.com


Everyone else I know has private blogs, so I will leave my list at that. Thanks for playing guys! I hope you all do, since I only listed three of you!

Managers of Our Homes

Some of you know that one of my biggest underlying problems recently is how to get organized, especially since I am beginning homeschooling my preschooler and expecting my third child. A friend of mine who is probably, if anything, a couple of years younger than I am and just had her eighth child, also homeschools and has a remarkably tidy house. Not perfect, but if I had eight kids under the age of 12 at home all. Day. Long. And I was responsible for their schooling (and they're bright, respectful, well-behaved children) I would expect to be given a daily cash prize for keeping my house as organized as hers is.

So, of course, I asked her her secret. She handed me two books, Managers of Their Homes and Homeschooling with a Meek and Quiet Spirit, both written by a woman named Teri Maxwell who writes from a Christian perspective. I like them both, but I am totally buying Managers for myself. I haven't gotten around to it yet, but I recommend it to everyone who does not have that natural organizational bug that leaves her with a showroom-quality house all the time. I suppose they exist but I am NOOOOT one of them.

Anyway, she talks about living by a schedule every day. Maybe not in summers if you don't want, and maybe not the weekend if you don't want, but at least most of the time. My first impression was, "a schedule? For every day of my life? Blah." But then I would turn away from the book, look at my house, look at my list of things to be done that day, and turn back to the book mumbling, "Now where was I again?" And really, I am homeschooling. I wouldn't expect my kids to go to school without a schedule. Am I any less a manager of my home than a teacher is a classroom manager or a business manager is a manager of his business? How would a work or school day go if your teacher/boss showed up whenever he wanted to work, maybe in his slippers and bathrobe with his teeth not brushed, puttered around "doing" things that had to get done without any rhyme or reason, but just running from one brushfire to the next putting out the most urgent ones first? Yeah. Teacher would get fired and manager would promptly go out of business. Well. Whose job is more important? Theirs? Or mine as the lifelong mother and nurturer of these children, entrusted by Heavenly Father to see to their proper care and upbringing and readiness to face the world and the eternities?

So today I wrote down the things I need to get done every day. I tried this a few months ago and got so overwhelmed I just threw my hands up in the air and gave up--thereby making absolutely no progress. This time when I made my list and put how long I thought each task would take, I came up with a 19-hour day. Oh. So no WONDER I have been feeling like a chicken with its head cut off, CONSTANTLY doing chores and never getting it all done. In the business world you would have to be earning a hefty six-figure salary at least in order to justify to yourself working that many hours. Is anyone paying me $500,000 a year? Nope. I looked at those 19 hours, thought about getting overwhelmed, and decided not to this time. I decided to look at it as, you know what? That's how much I am worth as a mother, whether anyone is paying me the money or not. The eventual dividends of figuring out how to do what has to be done will ultimately be worth far more to me than that.

I have to get more than five hours of sleep a night. I am no longer a 19-year-old college student running on youth and vitality, adrenaline, and the knowledge that I had to keep my scholarship or else... So. Obviously I had to cut some things out. It was actually nice to give myself official permission to not do some things and to not feel guilty about it. It really is worth it to write all this down, if only to know what you're up against.

So this is my new list (and it doesn't necessarily get done in this order):


DAILY
feed animals/gather eggs (30 mins)
clean kitchen/dishes (45 mins)
dishes (second time) (15 mins)
laundry (30 mins)
make beds (15 mins)
get dressed/ready (30 mins)
get boys dressed (10 mins)
pick up floors (30 mins)
extra project (there is always something) (60 mins)
exercise (30 mins)
preschool (30 mins)
breakfast (30 mins)
lunch (30 mins)
dinner prep (60 mins)
family dinner (30 mins)
personal scripture study (30 mins)
daily family devotional (scriptures, hymn, prayer, pledge allegiance, story) (30 mins)
evening family scriptures (15 mins)
chore training (15 mins)
brush teeth/bedtime boys (30 mins)
brush teeth/bedtime Mom and Dad (30 mins)

All this adds up to 10 1/2 hours. That's a lot of hours, but I have to be doing something all day long, right?

Anyway, there was more--this is just my every-single-day list--but this is probably getting really long and boring for you all, so I'll just say that I had another list of 2 to 4 times a week things (4 hours), and weekly things (6 hours). So when I factor that stuff in, it adds up to 13 1/2 hours a day. Of course, I need just a little bit of time every day to do things for myself, like computer time, hobbies, and reading, and that all added up to about two hours, so that gives me a 15 1/2-hour day...which gives me 8 1/2 hours to sleep. Just about perfect. I know it isn't going to work exactly like this every day--probably not any day--and I would really like more time to veg out with the hubby in the evenings (I may just make do with 7 hours of sleep or so), but at least this is a start at bringing the chaos under control.

I know it sounds crazy to schedule your whole day out, but I really think that is what I am going to have to do. I was at my wits' end. But now I know exactly how much time I have to waste puttering around doing not much. None. And that I think is really going to help me get everything back on track. I want to raise these boys right, and I just have to remind myself that I work long, hard hours, and I am worth a six-figure salary and I'm doing it for free. Now, how awesome is that for us, fellow moms? Now if I ever get that dreaded question of what did I do all day, I will just point to my schedule and expect to be properly admired and adored. Of course, if I manage to pull this off, I doubt I will get that question anymore, because I think it will be patently obvious in my happy children and tidy home where the Spirit can find a place.

P.S. If you're interested, or even just curious, you can find that book and others at the Maxwell family website www.titus2.com. If you think about buying any of them, get them from the website. I looked the book up on amazon and it was going for anywhere from $30 for a used copy missing pieces to $270 for a new copy--but you can buy it brand new on the website for $25! Go figure!

I'm baaaa-aack--for now

I have had a lot of things to say, but I have not had a lot of computer time lately. In fact, I'm not sure I want to maintain this blog. I've been having mixed feelings about it for a while...and I guess they're still mixed, so here I am. My first concern is time. I am so busy I'm just not sure I have the time to maintain it, and would maybe prefer good old-fashioned email. My second concern is that sticking information up on a virtual board for everyone to peruse is not a natural way of communicating. It seems sort of like a science fair--you stick your information up on a board and people wander around and look at it. They can ask questions or make comments if they want, and then they move on. Not very personal.

I have been concerned by the decline of communication with some of my oldest friends as people's "socializing" becomes more and more internet-based. I think facebook is a much bigger culprit than blogger, and I absolutely, positively will not ever open a facebook page, but I wonder if blogger isn't maybe a little bit of the same thing. Of course, everyone reading this also has a blog, so I'm sure you will all disagree...but I can't help but wonder a little bit.

Facebook really worries me. Here is a personal example of what I see happening. A good friend of mine and former roommate took the time to get together the email addresses of everyone who lived in our last apartment at BYU, and then sent them in an email to each one of us. I was really excited to receive it and immediately wrote an email to each one of them. These were some really good friends, and those of you who have been in a college roommate situation know that you form really strong bonds with your roomies. The only one who responded to me, and with whom I have been periodically communicating since, was the only other one who doesn't have a facebook page. I imagine the rest of them "hooked up" on facebook. They wander around the exhibition, look at each other's pages, make comments, ask questions, and move on. I don't mean to be disparaging. I know that EVERYONE does it and it must seem a quick, convenient way to keep up with people with whom one would otherwise lose contact. But haven't you really lost contact already, if that is the only contact you have? If you don't even have time to RESPOND to emails sent to you by old friends that you haven't heard from in a long time, isn't something missing?

I'm a little worried that blogger is a bit of the same thing--to a much lesser extent. It doesn't seem to disrupt people's lives and be as addictive as facebook is, for some reason. Why facebook? Why not myspace, or my yearbook, or any of the other "social" networking sites that have been created? What is it about facebook? So...the jury is out on whether I will maintain this blog.

BUT...on a happier note, I wanted to share some news with those of you who do read this blog. Jacob and I are expecting number 3 in early February. We don't know what it is and we don't plan to find out. In fact, I would rather not have any ultrasounds at all, except perhaps one near the end to discover the location of the placenta so I know if I have placenta previa or not. I want to go natural, but if I had to deal with something like placenta previa, I wouldn't hesitate to schedule a c-section. I'm not that crazy, and I certainly wouldn't ever risk my child's life for the sake of some ideal of the perfect birth experience.

The jury is still out as well on how and where I will have the baby. It is my dream to have a home water birth, and a friend of mine who just had her eighth (and I'm pretty sure she is at least a year or two younger than I am--wowzers!) has had them all at home with a midwife and had absolutely no problems with any of them. She gave me the names and numbers of a couple of midwives that she knows and says they even take some insurance plans. Family insurance kicks in next month through my husband's work. But therein lies the dilemma; as most of you know, he works at the local hospital as a nurse. They all know I'm pregnant, and they can't wait to see the new baby born there. Our family doctor assured Jacob that they would take good care of me. It's a very small hospital, and it is probably not often that they see the staff have babies, so it is pretty exciting for them. I suspect that my birth experience this time, as the wife of one of the nurses who works in the unit (the hospital is so small that med-surg and ob are together in the same wing), would be entirely different from what it has been in the past--to an extent. I would still have to have an IV the whole time and have to have a fetal monitor strapped on at least ten minutes out of every hour because that is hospital policy. I think that is plain stupid. In fact, it was during all the getting in and out of bed to have the monitor strapped on when I was in labor with Peter that his cord prolapsed.

I'm considering talking to the doctor and telling him how I want the birth experience to go, and if we can make that work at this hospital then I will have it there. Otherwise I will have it at home. He would probably be shocked and think that was weird, and tell me all about the statistics that say an otherwise healthy baby is three times more likely to die in a home birth than a hospital birth, blah, blah, blah. But those statistics are skewed. What they don't tell you is that they include all home births--including unassisted births, people who had no prenatal care all, and things like teenagers who hid their pregnancies then had their babies secretly in the bathroom and threw them in the trash. Well, duh, healthy babies are going to die under those circumstances, and I think it is very irresponsible to not be completely honest about the statistics. The truth is that if you only include midwife-assisted homebirths where the mother received adequate prenatal care and the homebirth is planned, the statistics for the mother and the baby are much better than at a hospital.

Sorry I don't have any pictures to post. I know that is much more interesting, but our old computer crashed with our pictures on it and we have to see if we can somehow get all our info off the hard drive.

Uh, oh...lactose intolerance!

For about the last three weeks Peter has been having a lot of diaper problems. He was having six or seven bowel movements a day, and they were always caustic diarrhea. He would wake up poopy every morning, and one night I jumped out of bed when I heard him suddenly scream at the top of his lungs and then continue crying really loudly and frantically. I guessed what the problem was so I grabbed a diaper and some cream and wipes and went into the other room to change him and sure enough, he was poopy and had an angry red rash all over his poor little bum.

By this time I had guessed that it was something he was eating, but I didn't think it was milk because he had been drinking milk and eating cheese and yogurt in ever-increasing quantities since he was about six months old and had never had these problems before. I thought it was raisins, but after a week of no raisins he was still having problems. TYhen we ran out of milk and I didn't get to the store for three days--and sure enough, the problem suddenly stopped.

That is not a problem that I wanted to deal with. Last night my husband brought home a gallon of Lactaid, lactose-free milk, and he positively guzzled the cup I gave him last night and had some this morning, so far without any problems. I know it's a little early to know for sure but I have high hopes. The problem is that Lactaid is really expensive--about $7 a gallon as opposed to regular milk which I can often get for well under $2 a gallon here. It's been $1.70 at Smith's for the last month. I had asked Jacob to get soymilk because I thought it might be cheaper, but this is really the better option. Soymilk lacks a lot of the other vitamins that milk has, and it's usually made palatable by adding a lot of sugar. I'd rather give Peter what he really needs, and as Jacob said last night when he brought home the milk after work, "he' worth it."

I looked up lactose intolerance, and apparently it is really rare for this kind of infant/toddler lactose intolerance to last very long. A friend of mine has a son who had the exact same problem, and she said he grew out of it by the time he was three. I'm really praying for that, because a lifetime of intolerance to dairy products would be, well, intolerable.

I can't believe I haven't talked about this yet...

On June 8th my husband passed the NCLEX (that's the nursing licensure exam) and he is now officially not only a BSN, but an RN. He is just finishing his third week working in the med/surg (that's medical/surgical--the unit where you probably go if you are admitted to the hospital). He likes it, but he can't see himself staying there forever. He'll probably end up in the ER eventually.

I don't know why I can't think of more to say...probably because both my boys are poopy and I need to give them a bath.

Yeah. So...I'll catch you all later.

Daily Do's

So...in a bid to get organized, the other day I sat down and made a list of everything I would like to get done daily, 2-4 times a week, weekly, and monthly. Then I made a calendar of when I thought each thing would best be done (except for the everday things). When I had done that, I copied it all down into a daily list to make it easier for me to see exactly what I had to do. My idea was that if I just wrote it all down, it wouldn't seem so overwhelming. Wrong. Now I know exactly why I can never seem to get it all done no matter how hard I try. Here is today's list of daily do's:

feed animals
make beds
get kids dressed
breakfast
brush teeth
laundry
dishes
kitchen
work out (yeah, right!)
living room
lunch
grocery shopping
fill water jugs
water garden
gather eggs
letters/numbers with Jacob
dust
dinner
dishes
feed horses
take out trash
pajamas
brush teeth
read with kids
say prayers

And every single day is just that busy, except for Sunday. But because we have a garden and animals, even Sunday isn't chore-free. So there you have it. I will never get it all done, and now I know why. I guess you can never stop trying, though.

The Harshness of Life

The title doesn't really seem to match the pictures, does it? These kittens were born last Monday to our cat Mathilda. This is when they were about one or two days old. Jacob was so pleased with them and all he wanted to do for the first couple of days was to go out and see the kitties--pet them, coo at them, like kids do. She actually had nine, and they were all born alive and healthy. Jacob and I had the really neat experience of watching the last one being born. It didn't gross him out at all; he was fascinated even when I explained to him about the mom eating the placenta.

About the third day one of the kittens was accidentally smothered by its mother when she was nursing the other eight. I was a little sad, but with so many you have to kind of expect some bad things to happen. Then on Sunday something happened that has had me a little down ever since, though I'm trying to accept that's just the way life is.

Some friends came over with their remote control cars. Two of them were just boys--about 11 and 12--so I took them out to see the kittens, and of course they loved them. Who doesn't love a litter of tiny kittens? Then we all went out for about ten minutes and watched the cars tear around the driveway. When we came back in, one of the boys wanted to see the kittens again and I told him he could. "One of them is dead," he said. "Wait, I think two of them are." Concerned, I went to look, and not one--or two--but six were dead. Ten minutes previously they had all been fine. I looked at them more closely and I could tell they had been mauled. They were still warm with the life that had just left them. It turns out one of our dogs--and we know which one--did it in the ten minutes that we were outside. This was on Sunday. Of the two that survived, I found one of them dead today. So out of nine kittens, only one survived the week. She looks really strong and we think she'll be fine, and now we wouldn't give her away for anything because we feel really attached to her after what happened to her litter.

It was really horrifying at first. I know they're just kittens, and when we realized Mathilda was pregnant we were more irritated than anything because we didn't want to have to deal with them, but once they came that all changed, of course. I can sort of shrug my shoulders now and say to myself, oh well, at least we don't have nine kittens to find homes for, but it still leaves me feeling a little sick inside. I can't tell you how horrible it is to discover a litter of tiny kittens whose eyes hadn't even opened yet that have been mauled to death just minutes--maybe seconds--after it happened. The sense of "if only" is really, really strong. It took a few hours for that to wear off.

I guess we live out in the country and that is just the way things are here. I've been reflecting on this today. This morning when I went out to feed the animals and gather eggs, I had confirmation of a suspicion that we've had for several weeks now--that the three chickens in the garden are eating their own eggs. They never did seem to be very good layers, and then the last week and a half or so we haven't had a single egg out of the three of them, but none of them are trying to sit on the eggs either (they stop laying when they sit), so we suspected cannibalism--but this morning I found a sticky, empty, half-eaten eggshell in their box so we know for sure. They're not good for anything but to be eaten themselves now. They have always had plenty of food, but once they get a taste for their own eggs they prefer them to anything else. The cannibalism kind of makes me shudder. Chickens are actually quite barbaric little creatures.

The little egg incident kind of put it all into perspective for me. Life really is harsh when left to its own devices without human intervention to tame things, direct them to good, make them grow. It makes me think of Hobbes' famous quote about unchecked life being "nasty, brutish, and short." That's what nature is like. It takes the care and concern--and in the case of kittens, plenty of watchfulness--of humans to make life a beautiful thing. Without our understanding of the world and God and why we're all here, nothing would have any meaning. Everything would be nasty, brutish, and short.

Another diaper bag!

I made this one for a friend having a baby next month. Her last baby was a boy (this one's a girl) and he is already five years old, so she has to kind of start all over. I'm actually kind of jealous, because I think this one turned out way better than mine. I really like the colors, but of course they aren't really appropriate for a boy. Sigh. Anyway, here it is:









I made a changing mat (I know the red doesn't match, but they only had two colors: fire engine red and Navy blue), because the built-in mat is one feature of store-bought diaper bags that I actually really like:

Difficult Milestones

Both my boys are having trouble with their next milestones. First Peter and crawling. He is nine months old and he isn't crawling. I know some babies never do, and I suppose that will be him. I'm not too worried because he does everything else just fine and it isn't even really a milestone, but I just wish he would get up and crawl. He does the commando extremely well. He even does this inchworm thing where he pushes right up on his toes and folds himself into an angle with his butt in the air and pushes forward like that. He can push himself right up into a man-style push up, straight as a board from heels to head, elbows locked. He can get on his hands and knees and rock, and then lunge toward whatever it is that he wants. But he can't--or won't--crawl. I would say that life gets harder once they do crawl, but he is pretty mobile as it is so I don't think it will make a lot of difference. It would just look more normal, if you know what I mean. But Peter is Peter and he can do his own thing. If he just wants to wiggle and contort around in weird positions until he can get up and walk, then so be it.

Now, Jacob and potty training. I know a lot of kids, boys in particular, are not ready for potty training until around their third birthday, but he will be three in three months. Anyway, about a month or six weeks ago, I thought he was just plain ready to do potty training. He knows when he needs to use the potty and he can hold it, so I know he is physically ready. He can also talk to me about the potty and peeing and pooing quite fluently, so I think he is emotionally and mentally ready. But he sure is being difficult.

At first we had more accidents than successes, but then it started getting better so after about two weeks he would only have one or two accidents a day, and occasionally none. Then something happened and he started to regress. Now he absolutely refuses to use the potty. He will go away and hide and pee and poop in his pants. When he pees he just takes them off and leaves them in whatever corner he did it in, but if he poops he walks around with his legs spread really wide like a gun-fighting cowboy and then acts like nothing is wrong. As if I am not going to notice the poop-smelling cowboy parading around the house.

He will pee off the porch into the dirt, or pee on trees, or on the cat, or the rocks he set up to look like an airplane on the ground--but he will NOT pee in a potty. The really funny thing is this is only a problem at home. When we are out, he never has accidents. He will hold it and use the potty just like normal.

It's frustrating because I know so many parents who just told their kids what they wanted them to do, had a few accidents, and then within a few weeks it was all done. Here we are six weeks into it, and I have a kid who can hold it all through nursery or even on the hour and a half drive to Albuquerque, but won't walk from his bedroom to the bathroom to take a whiz. Unlike Peter and crawling, I can't just let Jacob wander around half-naked or with poop in his pants until further notice. This is something that has to get better sooner or later--sooner rather than later. He can't walk around as a poopy cowboy when he is fifteen years old. So what do I do?

Happy Easter

Some pictures of my boys on Saturday morning:



Peter had just eaten, hence the mucky face:



Jacob is an airplane/helicopter fiend. He was doing the "noise":



And this is earlier today. My dogs look buff and a lot of people are afraid of them, but here you can see they are gentle as lambs. Yes, that is a cat spooning between them. Obviously a lot of trust there. They are all buds:



I don't know why the picture is rotating like that. Sorry if it looks upside down. Anyway, it is Samson on the far left (top, in this picture), then Zorro, then Delilah. Jacob thought they looked so comfortable he would have to join them. He really is sleeping.

Look What I Made!

It's a diaper bag!



Here's the story. About two weeks ago I lost my keys at the MVD (that's New Mexican for DMV). I mean, thoroughly lost them. They were so lost that I was convinced I had been pick-pocketed and whoever took them was going to wait until night and come back and drive away with my truck.

What does this have to do with a diaper bag, you ask? Just wait...

I searched and searched, under the seats, under the truck, under every car in the parking lot, under all the chairs in the MVD, had the ladies make an announcement, cast suspiciously piercing gazes at all the faces to see if my x-ray vision could espy the guilty one, searched through trash cans, dumped out my diaper bag and examined every single pocket three times...and they were just gone. About three hours after I lost them, after my husband had come the twenty-five-minute drive from home and unsuccessfully tried to jumpstart the truck or just do something, I reached into my bag for a pen...and felt them in the next pocket. Then I reached into that pocket and...felt them in the pocket I had just been in. Huh? It turns out that a hole had opened up in that cheap plastic lining in the pocket and the keys had fallen into the lining of the bag in between pockets. They'd been floating around in the lining for three hours. I was just lucky that they had happened to migrate to where I was reaching, or I don't know how long we would have been searching. Anyway, we were pretty frustrated by this point, so suffice it to say that the bag got, um, destroyed, as we tried to get to the keys. And that was my second diaper bag. The first one's cheap plastic lining had also disintegrated a while back.

So, I decided enough was enough. I was going to get a good diaper bag this time, and promptly went to Amazon. Where I discovered a good diaper bag would cost me in excess of $100. So. Plan B...I looked up patterns and found this really cute one.

Here are some more pictures, just because it makes me happy to finally have it:

The back view:



You can't see the cool velcro-close pocket I added to the pattern so...

Cool velcro-close pocket:



Inside view:



There is even a zipper pocket in the lining:



Those other things you can see inside the bag I made too. One is a wet bag with a vinyl lining for dirty diapers, poopy pants, pool clothes, etc.:



The other one is a wipes case that holds a travel wipes case, a folded up changing mat, and two diapers. That way if I'm in a restaurant or something and I have to change a diaper, I don't have to lug the whole bag with me. Or if Jacob is changing the diaper, he can just take the little case instead of the whole girly bag. Though, that being said, I don't think the bag is really all that girly. Anyway, here is the wipes case:



The thing is, I have been without a diaper bag for two weeks, which is an eternity of stuffing all the diaper stuff into a huge purse in a disorganized jumble, but I just haven't had the time to sit down and get this done. Jacob just started his nursing preceptorship (internship--don't know why they have to have a fancy name) doing night shift and he is gone all night at the hospital. So I decided to just bite the bullet and do it, and I ended up staying awake all night. I know I used to do that all the time when I was in college, but I just hate not getting enough sleep now. So, now it is 6:20 a.m. and I just heard Peter cry a little. I guess I will get literally no sleep. But at least I have a diaper bag. I'll get back to you on whether it was worth it.

While the cat's away (or cooking dinner)...

This is what my son was up to while I was cooking dinner yesterday--all of about 45 minutes:


And this:


And this:


This didn't even count the $30 worth of spices that he dumped out onto his bedroom floor the day before (including a $15, 1.75 oz. bottle of cardamom), or the foot powder he also dumped all over my bedroom (which I didn't find until later), or the poop on the porch (of which I simply could not bring myself to take a picture), which the dog ate so he had to be confined to the back room for the night. Our dogs are just too lick-y to get away with eating poop and then staying in the general vicinity of humans. Especially when they eat human poop. Especially when we have to watch them eat human poop. I think I will have flashbacks about that for years to come.

And here is the culprit, in all his red-haired, underweared glory:


Yeah, I know. They're just too cute to stay mad at them for long. To be honest, I wasn't really mad. I was going to be, until pink-markered Samson walked into the room while I was surveying the powder mess. You can't even pretend to be mad when you're cracking up.

A Sleeping Giant

"I fear all we have done is to awaken a sleeping giant and fill him with a terrible resolve."

--General Isoroku Yamamoto after Pearl Harbor

--A liberal Congress after ramming Obamacare through unconstitutionally and against the will of the people

The Flu Strikes!

Yep, we got it. The flu struck the O'Neil household. I haven't been to the doctor so I don't know if it is the swine flu or regular old flu, but I have had the flu before and I'm pretty sure this is flu. Even my eyeballs hurt. Really.

The worst thing is, yesterday my boys started showing symptoms, and that worries me more than anything. Jacob's fever went up to 103.6, which was just high enough to raise my eyebrows. And poor big Jacob has had his hands full.

It's hard being sick when you're the mom. All I want to do is lie down and sleep, but I have to care for my babies, as well as still bring in wood for the fire, keep up on laundry, keep the house at least moderately liveable, etc. Big Jacob has been good about dinner. If we have to live on frozen pizza, chicken wings, and tater tots for a week, I'm still so grateful that it is something he has decided to take on so I don't have to worry about it for a while. Not that Jacob isn't a great cook, because he is, but he is also still a full-time student and doesn't have time to be a gourmet cook too.

At least he doesn't have to worry about getting sick because he had to have the shots to get his clinical clearance last semester. We could have had the shots, but I didn't think it was necessary. It's not like polio, where if you get it you may well die or at least be crippled for the rest of your life. I know how to treat the flu, and we'll get through this and be the stronger for it in the end.

Home Schooling

I'm planning on home schooling my kids and it's time to start thinking about it. Jacob is only two and a half, but if I were a working mother sending him to preschool, he would be going this year. He already knows most of his primary colors, as well as black, brown and pink (he sometimes mixes up green with blue and yellow with orange, but hey, he's only two). He knows he's two years old and he'll tell you so if you ask him. He can count to five. When he feels like it. He is a bit reserved and secretive with his abilities; he almost never performs on demand, but that's okay for now, as long as I know he's capable. He recognizes his name when he sees it, but when you ask him what it says, he says, "Name!" He recognizes some letters, but once again he will only say them when he wants to. Except B. He will always say B when asked. Don't ask me why.

So, I've started getting nervous about it. I knew some states have some pretty stiff requirements and I hadn't gotten around to looking up New Mexico's yet. It turns out it's pretty easy. You only have to have a high school diploma or GED, write a letter to the state saying that you are homeschooling your kids within 30 days of starting, and write a new letter before April 1st each spring expressing your intent to continue homeschooling for the following year. You also have to keep a calendar in your own personal records logging the days of home school so that you can prove that you have at least 180 days of instruction each calendar year. No required curriculum, no annual testing, no additional oversight. After that, you're on your own, which is just the way I like it.

Of course, that means without accountability I can't get lazy and sloppy. I figure I'm going to have to set up my own goals and accountability. What I'd really like to do is set up a co-op with other families so that we have some measure of healthy competition (I know from my own experience that friendly, healthy competition inspires kids to work harder), socialization, mutual accountability for kids and parents, and a support group for not only the kids, but us parents. We can have writing contests, awards banquets, science and history fairs, the whole bit. I think it will be a lot of fun. Besides, I'm getting pretty bored of just plain old mommy-duty butt wiping and house cleaning and I'm ready to actually use my degree a little bit. Most of the other parents I know who are interested in home schooling don't have a college degree, so I would be willing to offer a lot of support for those who feel they need it. The honest truth, though, is that I think any loving parent who is willing to make the time commitment that home schooling takes will do a better job than the best public schools. It's not because all public school teachers are bad; quite the contrary. Many mean well and teach their hearts out; however, from my own experience in public schools, I believe the institution is working against them from the very beginning. And there are plenty of clunker teachers in there too. A parent can do in three hours at home what a school may not be able to do in a week for one individual child.

So, if there is anyone out there considering home school, go for it. I promise, as long as you know reading, writing, and math, you can do a better job than school. If you're nervous about what to do, there are many ready-made curricula out there that you can buy whole-cloth and teach from beginning to end at your children's pace, and even get a regular high school diploma at the end so your kids don't have to take the GED. I plan to make up my own curriculum from things experience has told me I like and don't like.

I'm getting really excited about this. I think this is something that I will really enjoy and will be a great experience for my family.

Our new horse!

Here is a picture of Toby, our new horse. We have actually had him for a few weeks, but for some reason it always takes me forever to get around to posting anything.

He wasn't thriving where he was with some other horses that rejected him, so we took him in since we have plenty of space.

He was getting pretty difficult for a while, but the other day Jacob and I tag-teamed him with some hay and a lariat and we managed to get a halter on him. He has pretty much been gentle as a lamb ever since. We think it was ha-ha-can't-get-me game to him--until we actually got him. Now we make him let us hold his halter, put a lead rope on him and walk him around before he gets his hay. He has a problem with one leg that we need to get fixed, but after that we should be able to start riding him. You can see from the picture we have some gorgeous horse country around here. Now we can't wait to get another horse so we can all go riding together!

A Sad Week

My husband's best friend died last week in a motorcycle accident. He was riding through a Navajo reservation with his girlfriend on the back of his motorcycle on his way to a job when he came to a two-way stop. His was the through street, but an old lady driving on the side street blew the stop sign and ran right into them. He had just enough notice to push his girlfriend off the back and save her life, but he didn't get a chance to jump and he was killed almost instantly.

It has been a really hard week for us. He has helped us immeasurably in the time that we have been here. There are half-finished projects he helped us with around the property that are hard to look at and we almost don't have the heart to finish. I wish I could write something really eloquent and pretty, but I don't have the heart for that either. Not yet.

We met him about three years ago when we saw his enormous black dog trotting happily behind our property carrying one of our chickens in its mouth. Jacob ran in to get his gun, but by the time he got out there he decided not to shoot it. He knew whose dog it was, so he decided to just go and tell the guy that his dog killed one of our chickens instead. He was so grateful to Jacob for not killing his dog that he shook hands and asked to be friends and brought us two laying hens a little while afterward to make up for it. That's how we met Garnett.

They saw each other almost every single day after that. Jacob would more often than not stop by his place on the way home from school. Whenever he went anywhere he asked Jacob to check up on his place and feed his animals. His mother and his brother and his family live on the same property and they offered to take care of things for him, but he would tell them, "No, that's okay. I've got the Marine on it." He took Jacob out working with him in his family's well business. I think Jacob was probably a real asset to him because he was the only one of his buddies who could be relied upon to show up for work consistently sober. And on time, but punctuality was certainly not one of Garnett's strong points. Eh, who's counting?

Garnett knew just about everyone in the entire county, and that is not an exaggeration. If there was something that needed to be done, Garnett knew just the guy to do it. He introduced Jacob into his inner circle and provided a real network for us, which was a blessing for us trying to make it here with no one around that we knew. We feel like we've been here for thirty years instead of three, thanks to Garnett. Garnett was an Army veteran of one of Clinton's forgotten wars--Somalia. No one really thinks about it anymore, but it was an ugly one, and it gave him and Jacob a tie that not all that many share. That, and Jacob was, by Garnett's own admission, the only guy he ever knew who could out-shoot him.

Garnett smoked and drank too much and had done some things to land himself on the wrong side of the law a time or two, but I can't really blame him for that. Garnett had his own sense of morality, and it was a strong one, just not always a legal one. When we first met him I was afraid he would be a bad influence on my husband, but I underestimated them both. Garnett turned out to be the best friend Jacob ever had.

His funeral was yesterday. I have never seen a funeral attended by so many--including about a dozen of Garnett's ex-girlfriends, two of whom he had while we have known him. His current girlfriend, whose life he saved at the cost of his own, was wheeled in for a while, two broken legs and all, until she just couldn't handle it anymore and had to be wheeled back out again. The really sad thing about that is that out of all of his girlfriends, I think she was the one he could finally have settled down with. There were two hundred chairs set up on the gym floor. Every chair was full, plus the bleachers along the sides, and all the standing room in between was packed. There were hundreds and hundreds of people there. There were people dressed in suits, bikers in motorcycle leathers, cowboys in black shirts and white hats, Indians, Mexicans, old ladies, small children, you name it. There was even a guy about five feet tall in a long-tailed tuxedo. It was probably the only suit he had. I've never known anyone who was loved by so many.

Jacob was a pall bearer at the funeral and even helped fill in the grave with a shovel. It was a really hard day for him. It was hard for me to watch him, with the pain on his face that was only obvious if you know him well enough.

Garnett's brother had a son born the day before Garnett died, and Garnett got to see his one-day-old nephew briefly before he left on his last bike ride. If it weren't for Garnett, we never would have met Weston (his brother) and Heidi, and their kids, and their little son. He's the only kid on the street even remotely close to the age of our sons, and I know they'll grow up together probably making a huge ruckus most of the time. The O'Neil and Bohannan boys.

I don't know what I'm trying to say. Nothing really, not in particular. Just that no death that I have ever experienced has hit me this hard before. When my grandparents died they were old, and for the most part we saw it coming. They weren't a daily part of our lives. I'll miss Garnett calling every day asking for Jacob (forgetting that he is at school late most nights), and then asking me how the "units" are doing. "Unit" was what he called any cute little thing. He meant my sons, of course. He named all his puppies "Unit," but I wasn't insulted by the comparison. He didn't really mean it that way. Once when little Jacob was a baby I was wearing him in a Snugli belly pouch and went out to tell Jacob something as he and Garnett were working on a job. Garnett said that I "looked so cute with that baby between my boobies that it made him want a unit too." I took it as a compliment. Even Jacob just smiled. You had to know Garnett.

Some More Pictures...

Pictures of the Boys

These range from a few weeks to a couple of months old, but I thought I would post some of the pictures I have of Peter Jack, and some of his proud big brother, Jacob! Notice what Jacob is holding in his right hand as he has his face buried in the dog food. There's just no accounting for taste.