I've taken the church for granted.

Or at least some of the services we provide our members. I've never put too much thought into our visiting teaching or home teaching systems, other than when I was in charge of visiting teaching, but I've since come to realize how wonderful and unique those programs make us.
I have a friend that called me early this morning asking me to come check on her because she thought she was in labor. Normally I'm used to that call, but not when it's 32 wk twins. By the time I got to her place 45 minutes later (yes, it was far longer than I wanted but I had to feed 9 kids, bathe two girls, and take home a puking child that had spent the night) she was waiting at the front door with her bag. I spent the next several hours with her at the hospital, again not unusual, and then came home and started making phone calls and sending out emails trying to find people to help with child care so her husband can continue to work while she is hospitalized trying to keep those babies in.
What is unusual is that I am having an extremely difficult time finding help. I don't know much about her congregation, and what programs they might have in place for these type circumstances, but so far I have received no offers of help from her fellow church members. The two that would like to help are unable to, which leaves me (who has a sick husband and am on call for when this mom goes into full labor, plus on call for another birth) and one other friend that has helped out a considerable amount over the last 2 wks.
Never before have I been so grateful for the church and the help it provides it's members! I know that if I was in this situation all I would have to do is pick up the phone and make one phone call and people would be knocking at our door offering meals or asking to take our kids home for play dates. What a blessing the visiting and home teaching programs are!

Why I can't talk to hospital moms anymore.

I have a friend that just delivered a beautiful, long-awaited (10 years in the making!) little boy this week. I'm of course beyond thrilled for her, but I got a look at her birth photos today and spent the next hour steaming mad! Here she is, with this so desperately desired little boy, and her first sight of him is her husband holding the baby near her face while the docs sew her stomach up. She's not home yet, and it's been awhile since we were super close, so I'll leave it alone and just try to avoid learning anything about her birth and doing anything but congratulating her on her sweet baby because she doesn't need to hear me rant about the huge c-section rates at the local hospital and how hers was most likely unnecessary, etc. I'm not what you would call a feminist, but I can't understand how a woman (generally speaking now, not aiming this at this particular person) can turn something as important as their reproductive rights and future over to someone else without taking any hand in the decision making process! Too many women nowadays seem to revert to childhood (unquestioningly allowing someone else to make their decisions) when it comes to having a baby..well, the doctor says this and the hospitals brochures agree so it must be right. How can a 32% c-section rate be right, when according to the World Health Organization it should be less than 10%? I could go on forever on this particular subject, but I won't. It will just get me all riled up again, and John shouldn't have to deal with that:)

Remodeling

Is it just me, or is remodeling a job that could last forever? We are on our, supposedly, last run through the house. You know, doing the last bit of paint touch up and in some cases completely repainting the rooms (even added some accent walls in our bedroom), replacing carpet, etc. On a good note, I have now added "Can change electrical outlets" to my list of skills. Who knew I would eventually be able to do minor (very minor) electrical work? That can be added to another list, my "What I never imagined I would be doing as an adult" list. Have to say, it ranks much higher than shaving the dog's butt.

Baby news

Not mine, so don't get excited. My clients baby arrived this morning by c-section. 9lb 1 oz girl, both are doing fine. And that's all I want to say about that.

The joys of midwifery

This truly has been the worst year I have ever had since I started working in the midwifery world and today just capped it. I have one client left, ONE, before we move to Idaho and have been really looking forward to this birth. It's a young couple with their first baby, and there's just nothing like being a part of that joy and excitement. Well, the excitement is now gone. The baby has been consistently breech for quite some time and has resisted all efforts to move him. We've gone ahead and prepared for a vaginal breech birth, but I got a call from the parents today announcing that during their doctors visit they had scheduled a c-section for tomorrow morning. As a midwife, I'm heartbroken. I just don't know if I can take one more not so great ending. As their caregiver, I disagree with the decision, but as a fellow member of the church (we're both LDS) I have to accept it for what it is and in this case it's a father with the right and privilege to receive inspiration on his families behalf. This father feels that they have been instructed to accept the offer of a c-section and that it is, against their hopes and wishes, the right thing to do for his wife and baby. And who can, or should, argue with that? They aren't going into it blindly, I've made sure that it is an informed decision, and they are insisting on an ultrasound before the c-section to see if the baby has turned. If, miracles of miracles, it has turned they will say, "No thank you, we'll wait" and come home. It's now out of my hands; all I can do now is hope and pray the baby has turned (and not just from the mothers left side to her right, which is the only reaction we got from the Webster!).

I'm sick of sawdust.

Someone or other (I blame John) came up with this crazy idea of sanding down all the wood work on the upper stairs (the house is a bilevel), instead of recarpeting it, and varnishing it to match the wood paneling in our basement and to go with the laminate flooring. We will hopefully finish today. It's going to look amazing, but I have to say that I am heartily sick of sawdust.

New house?

I just got a new listing from my realtor that looks promising, so she's going to take pictures of it and one other house in Hidden Springs for us tomorrow. It's the size we need, and has the stucco John likes and the room count we need as well. We'll see how it goes!

Free at last! (Almost.)

I just paid off the last bit of our equity loan and a year and a half early at that. Man, it feels good to be free of that debt. We still have the credit card to go, but it's manageable and will be gone as soon as the house sells. It's been a long time coming, but there's finally light at the end of the tunnel. Now all we have to do is sell the house! We'll be replacing more carpet soon and the linoleum in the entry way is going to be replaced with laminate to match the kitchen, lv room, and hallway so hopefully the house will sell quickly after that (or before, either works for me).

Better days.

As mentioned, we are doing a lot better now. We've had several showings since we got home, which is always a good thing, and Jared has completely recovered. Jasmine has her yearly runny nose, but otherwise everyones healthy. Fargo/Moorhead is gearing up for the flood fight. They're doing it a bit early, but after getting caught off guard by how bad the flood was no one wants to take any chances. We don't have anything to worry about, since we don't live near the river, but John's parents get flooded in some way every year so we'll be keeping an eye out for that. Here's hoping we don't have the disaster we had last year!

Back to the drawing board, but at least the outline is still there

So, we lost the house in Idaho. Someone else made an offer that got in right before ours, and the bank kept us dangling for weeks and finally accepted his. Turned out great though because he did an inspection and found mildew problems in the crawl space under the house. He withdrew his offer, and the house went back on the market with another $25,000 off the price. It's now a cash only purchase because no bank will make a loan for it. We are just grateful that it wasn't our inspection money getting wasted this time. We ended up driving to Idaho and staying for a week and looking at a bunch of houses and areas to see what we liked, try to find a house to buy, etc. It was quite an adventure.
We didn't leave until 1:00 A.M. Sat morning (we planned on driving at night so the kids would sleep, but that was ridiculously late) because we were trying to tear the carpet out so my BIL could replace it with laminate flooring while we were gone and clean everything else for an open house that would occur while we were gone; ran out of gas in Montana on the way out (the gas sign came on and 3 miles later the car died, wasn't what I would call a good warning); we managed to cruise a few miles closer to the next gas station only for John to realize it was the wrong direction and we were then 5 miles away from a gas station (a nice guy picked him up after a mile or two and gave him a ride there and back); we arrived Sun evening and by 10:00 P.M. Mon evening I was in the emergency room with Jared; by midnight Jared was in surgery for appendicitis and he didn't get released until 8:45 P.M. on Tue leaving me to take 5 kids to look at houses while John stayed with him at the hospital; by Wed Jared was climbing mountains (literally); and Fri right before we headed out of town, we finally agreed to look at one more subdivision (we had been avoiding it because the properties had very little land attached) and John absolutely loved it.
We put several hundred miles on the van while we were there and didn't manage to find the place John wanted to live until the last day as we headed out of town. At least we did find the place; otherwise I would be seriously annoyed and feeling like we wasted all that money and time. On the way home we made such good time that we didn't bother to stop for the night and made it as far as Bismarck by the time for a noon showing of Avatar (we promised the kids they could see it 3D in the theater if they did a good job on the drive back). Got to the theater only to realize that it was cash only and the ATM didn't work. Tried the ATM again and that time it worked, got up to the cashier and she refused to sell me tickets because Jasmine was with us. I just about killed someone. So, we packed back up, grabbed some lunch (which was pretty sparse for me since the drive through at Arby's only gave me my fries and drink and forgot my sandwich; I ordered mozzarella sticks too, so it wouldn't have been so bad but I shared them with the kids since I thought I had a sandwich waiting).
Made it back to Fargo in time for the 4:50 showing of Avatar (just drove straight to the theater) even though we ran out of gas again (same as before; I was watching the gas gauge and it went from 1/4 tank to empty in 5 min flat; at least this time we had a full can with us and could fill up enough to get to the next gas station) and finally made it home at 10:00. That was a GREAT homecoming; a kitchen pipe had burst before we left and apparently the contractor didn't finish all the repairs and cleanup (turns out he had a heart attack scare that weekend of the open house, but everything should have been done by Mon and the open house was planned for several days later on Sun and his episode wasn't until Fri; long story short, it should have been done well before anything happened), and my sister didn't finish cleaning up either. So Sun we had to clean, John had to finish the repairs and put things back together, and we were still cleaning when the first and only couple showed up (Sun was US vs Canada for hockey in the Olympics; no realtor had good open houses that day).
On a positive note, the new laminate floorings look great. On a not so positive note, they look so good that they emphasize how bad some of the carpet looks and we now will probably end up replacing more carpet. At least Habitat for Humanity's store has some that is acceptable and is cheaper than I can get it in the store. Plus, no labor fees because my BIL can lay it for us.
I think I'm good for now; no more family vacations for a LONG time.

Homeschooling, for reals

As my kids would say. John and I decided several weeks ago that we wanted to pull the last two kids out of school and start home schooling all of them after our move. I thought it would be a huge decision, like it was with the older boys, but it actually was fairly easy for us.
Tonight ended up being the big decision, which is to pull the boys out now. As in, tomorrow. We've come to dislike our dual schedules (one public school schedule and one home school schedule) more and more as the days have gone by and finally decided that enough was enough.
All the kids have been home all week due to sickness, and I have loved it. I have been in the best mood today. The house is clean, my kids are happy and the sick ones are better to the point they were set to go back to school tomorrow, Jasmine took herself to the bathroom to poop in the toilet... I thought life couldn't be any better until I sat down with John tonight and started discussing the boys going back to school tomorrow and realized that I really don't want them to.
I have thought about it before, of course I have, but haven't wanted to pull them out during the school year. I was worried about them missing out on stuff and having no idea where their teachers left off, different things along those lines. Ok, I wasn't worried about that with James. I mean come on, it's kindergarten. I did worry about that with Joseph, however John (as usual) managed to reassure me and calm my fears.
So, tomorrow is it. My sons will not be going back to public school tomorrow; instead I will print off the forms tonight to pull them out of school and I will not be looking back. Though I WILL be handing the phone to my husband to talk to his mother every time she calls for the next few weeks, since I know how much she disapproves. She's old school, literally, and has only been retired from teaching for 2 yrs or so. John believes that he would have been a much happier kid if he had been home schooled and she refutes it every time and tells him he would have been miserable. She's his mom, we both love her to death, but sometimes she doesn't know her son very well and it's not unusual for her to disagree with the choices we make in parenting. But, she IS the kind to (overall) mind her own business even if she does disagree. See why we love her so much?

Why Idaho, you ask?

Several reasons, actually. It's warmer than here but still allows us to have snow occasionally, it has three temples and we can live within 30 minutes of one, it has a nice sized LDS population without overwhelming us with members (I'd like to have an occasional missionary opportunity!), it has mountains and rivers which is a must for John, the home school laws are great, the midwifery laws are great, it has a medical school.... The reason are endless. The house we found is another fixer-upper; built in 2005, but the extras were never completely finished because it is a high-end home in an expensive neighborhood and the bottom fell out of the market and the builder couldn't sell it. So we figured, why not? We can finish the house, landscape the yard, and if we don't want to stay sell it for a substantial return with very little comparable output beyond man hours. No matter what, we will move to Idaho within the next few months because of the above reasons. The only question is when and if we will be buying. If this falls through we'll just rent while we save up to buy land and build.

Soooo tired.

Yes tired, but not necessarily physically. You ever get those days where nothing matters and you just do what you have to do to get by without making any forward progress? Or even attempting to make forward progress? That's pretty much the way my week has been. We made an offer on a house in Idaho and now have this one going on the market again on Monday and I'm so not ready. I should have been cleaning today and I did somewhat, and John did a lot, but I didn't do anywhere near the amount I should have and could have. If we had a showing on Monday I would worry about it, but for now I'm just going to go to bed and deal with it later.

Nosy neighbors.

Man, I can't stand nosy neighbors. I was sitting on the couch today, studying, when the door bell rang. I could see through the window beside the door that it was an adult, not one of the kids friends, so I answered it rather than send one of the kids and it turned out to be a cop! He asked me if I owned a sheltie (a type of dog) and I told him no. He then asked if I owned a dog, and I turned to the side and little and said, "Yes, she's right here trying to say hello and she's a collie." He then proceeded to tell me that a neighbor called and reported a dog at my address that is left outside in our terrible weather (I'm in MN) all day long with no shelter except what little can be gotten from under the porch. I gestured to my dog again, and told him that clearly it wasn't MY dog since she was inside and spent most of her time inside the house and they must have the wrong address. He said it was definitely ours that was reported and I told him that there was another house with the same address right down the street, but apparently he was quite sure it was ours. The man was pretty much laughing the entire time we were speaking, obviously found it very amusing that the dog was inside and greeted him at the door when he came to investigate, but I couldn't find a reason to laugh. John and I checked on line and the sheltie breed does look a good bit like our Jessie, though it is a much shorter dog, so whoever called definitely meant to report our house. I couldn't believe it! One neighbor chains one of her dogs out on the front porch all the time regardless of weather, but were the cops called on her? No, they weren't. And don't think I don't know exactly who called the cops. It's the same horrible woman who has called the cops on us at least two other times and threatened to have James arrested when he was three or four because he got away from the house and went to her place and rode on her grandchilds bike (whom she provides daycare for, poor kids). The same woman that claims that her grandkids are NEVER out of her sight (she says she even takes them into the bathroom with her if no one else is home) and yet I've sent them home several times this past summer because she didn't know where they were. Same as I do with all the kids in the neighborhood, "Does your mom know where you are? If not, go tell her and then you can come back to play." I will admit straight out that New Year's day wasn't a good one for us with Jessie. We went to a friends, stayed longer than expected, and were worried about her being outside for so long (it was in the negative 20's). I hate sticking her in the kennel when we are gone but she can't be allowed to roam free in the house. BUT, when we realized how long she had been outside we sent Kimberly (my sister) to the house to pick her up and take her home with her and warm her up until we got back to town. Jessie goes outside first thing every morning to use the bathroom and stays outside until she asks to come in or starts barking at the school kids. She then goes outside several times throughout the day, whenever she asks to go out, and is brought in whenever she comes to the door and waits to be let in. If she's cold, she asks to come inside. If she's not cold, she stays outside and runs around and plays. I don't see what the problem would be with that. If my kids are playing outside, they do the exact same thing. Play until they are cold, and then they come in. Anyway, I have half a mind to go to that terrible womans house tomorrow and make it clear that I know that she is the one that called the cops and put the fear of ME into her. Like, calling the cops every time she goes zooming past the house scattering kids left and right, not waiting for them to get out of the way and almost hitting them, and honking at them even if they aren't near the street. Maybe I should call the cops every time one of her grand kids wander over to our place and she doesn't know where they are. I've never been the kind to let cops solve my problems, especially since my hubby used to be one, but I am very tempted to start a war. One which I know I will win. The only thing stopping me is the fact that we are trying to buy a bigger house and move out of state and it wouldn't be worth it to make a point in those circumstances. Otherwise, it would so be on.

My baby boy...

Isn't a baby anymore. Jordan received the priesthood on Sunday and yes, John's mother and I cried a little. I was so proud of him and a little sad to see him so big. This next Sunday he will serve the Sacrament for the first time and next month Joseph will be getting baptized. Half of my children will have been baptized by then. How is this happening? Where has the time gone? Speaking of time, I say it's about time we find out something. I have a birth in April, turned down a birth for January because we thought we wouldn't be here, have a request for a birth in August which is on hold because I don't know if we will be here, and have another woman that is trying to conceive and wants to interview me for that birth. Things are really picking up and I can't do a thing about it until I know what we are doing. The in limbo thing has gotten really old.

Getting back to normal.

Now that things have fizzled out with our planned move, we are trying to get our home back to normal. I've decided that this is a prime opportunity to get organized and clean out kids clothes, toys, and everything else that isn't being used. Everything is going to go by way of Craig's List, Once Upon a Child, and Freecycle. If all that fails, it will go to Boys Ranch or in the trash. We actually got the bunk beds up again this week and the kids dressers back in their rooms. I even have clothes in them! Granted, it isn't much, but all the clothes are now out of my garage and I'm almost done sorting them. I got rid of my first bag of clothes today and boy did it feel good. In other news, we found out on the 24th that the current bishop and his family are moving to Ga. Curiously enough, they made their decision right about the time that our move to Montana started falling apart. Coincidence? We're hoping so because if not, and John gets called as the new bishop, it would mean we should probably just suck it up and settle in for good here in the great white north.