projects and plugging along

We are plugging along.  Trying to get settled.  Our problem is that we are project people.  Seems like we are starting projects right and left.  And what is left is me feeling unsettled until the projects are done.  Our problem is only worsened by the fact that we are not finish people.  You know because starting projects, or better yet, coming up with the projects, is so much fun.  

But we are working on making our home our oasis.  I just redid my studio/craft room/hobby lobby and it is almost done.  When it is totally done, I imagine I will want it another way.  And so it is with the rest of the house.  Is there a name for this disorder?

Maximus is into projects, too.  He likes to start them and then move on to the next one, too.  He gets it.  He gets it from us.  Or we are just on his level.  He has started to stack things and line things up.  I walk around the house and find random things like my spools of thread lined up in the middle of the floor.  

He is getting more verbal.  Still wouldn't call him a talker.  But he is putting forth more of an effort.  Sometimes I don't like it.  Like when I am stretching his hands and he yells, "Stop!"  Or the saddest so far was tonight when Karl was stretching his hands and I heard Maximus yell, "Please! Please!"  He was begging Karl to stop.  And that's about the saddest thing I have ever heard.  

They said it would look worse before it looked better.  This may be the worse stage.  The scarring and the discoloring and the blisters on his legs are not a pretty sight.  These aren't colors and textures you usually associate with a little toddler.  The gloves and bandages hide so much.  

His smile and his happy attitude hide so much, too.  He continually cracks us up.  

 He makes other people smile, too.  He also had this look about him that says, "feed me."  At church, three different people gave him food.  Something about the way he is, you just want to feed him.  I totally get it.  

I want to hurry and get him healed before he get more aware.  I feel like it is a race against time.  I feel like we are losing.  He will be smarter next time.  I never thought smart would be a bad thing.  I guess he needs to get another surgery within the next year to release his thumb that is being pulled in by the contractual scars.  That makes me feel like we are losing the race against the scars.  

I imagined a more simple life when we packed up and moved to a small island.  But maybe it's time to come to terms with the fact that the word simple may never be a part of our family.  Projects will find us, adventure will find us, stuff will find us.

And maybe one day, just maybe, when I am sitting on my rocker sipping some ice cold lemonade, I will look back on these crazy days with fondness.   But the reality is that I will then start to wonder if maybe, just maybe, the rocker that I'm sitting on wouldn't look better with a new coat of paint, and that maybe my lemonade would taste better with a few mint leaves and fresh raspberries, and then...

absence makes the heart...

... relax a little and get to do lots of things that you can't do when you have a toddler at home. And yes, grow fonder.  

So, Maximus and Karl went to the mainland.  Karl had some work stuff and while Maximus still flies free it's a good chance for him to visit the burn center for some follow up stuff.  They say his hands look great but his leg is scarring pretty bad.  It itches so bad that he scratches so much it blisters and bleeds.  Poor guy.  They ordered him some special shorts that hopefully will help with that.  But overall, things are going the way they should.  That's always a good thing.  

It was a vacation in so many ways.  The kids didn't have school for the first half so every day we had some sort of learning "extravaganza."  It wasn't really huge.  But it was all in the marketing.  By calling it Math Extravaganza, you wouldn't believe how excited they were to play some math games.  Karl's mom retired from teaching this last year and I asked her for some of her math manipulatives that she hadn't already passed on to fellow teachers.  I know that they make better toys than anything you can buy at a big box store.  We pulled a few of them out and worked with them and the kids loved it.  And every day they were asking if we were going to do "Extraveganza."  So funny.  I feel like I tricked them into being excited to do educational activities.  

Um.  So I use a lot of words to say that we played fun math games.  So, here I am going to try  to use less words.

In the week that my sweet toddler was gone we...

Had a treasure hunt. 

Got library cards for the kids.

Climbed palm trees.  Well, just Samuel did.

Took a tour of our local chocolate shop where they were insanely kind and now I swear their chocolates taste even better because I know how sweet they are. Doh!  Too many words!

Made yummy food like frozen hot chocolate and garden tomato and watermelon salad with feta (both kids LOVED it and I was kind of bummed because that meant less for me :))

Had a picnic at the beach and then played cards until I noticed that the nearby angry dudes was turning in to angry violent dudes and a cop had to come and wrestle them and by the time I whisked my kids to the car another cop arrived and then the paramedics and then the fire truck.  And my heart was beating fast for a long long time because we were right there and I made the kids hold my hands and we had to take a detour over a short rock wall because the fight was blocking the exit of the park.  Oh man, even more words.

Met a cute new friend for Eva and swam at the pool where the kids did silly things like arm wrestle and pretend like they were seals and Samuel fed them chips.  

Had a lunch date, just Eva and I.  Where she ate shrimp spring rolls for lunch and loved that she got the whole order to herself because we usually share the whole order.  And I loved that is a mini foodie. 

Went to Costco where the kids think the 3-D tv is amazing and I think it's hilarious the way the go straight for the tvs when we walk in and are totally not embarrassed about sitting down and making themselves comfortable.

The second half of the time that Karl and Maximus were gone, the kids were in school.  And on one of those days I did my best to stay off my feet the whole time they were gone.  Just because I could.  I don't think I even ate lunch.  Because that would have meant I had to go down and fix something.  I relaxed to my heart's content.  It felt amazing.  

I ran errands by myself and got  ton of organizing and cleaning done.  

I couldn't believe how clean the house was.  I would clean a room.  I would turn around 5 minutes later and it was still clean!  It was like I was running on pavement instead of a treadmill.  It was awesome.

I think this little break made me realize why things have felt so heavy.  Taking care of burns is a heavy job.  Taking care of a toddler is a busy job.  I am glad I identified that.  I know that might seem like an obvious thing but as humans, we adapt to our situation and get used to it.  But we don't always recognize the toll it takes.  The first day back, I started his stretches and blood started seeping through his gloves.  He heals in one spot and then his skin gets irritated in another spot and the healing process gets that much longer.  I take his glove off and he looks at his own hand and says, "Ew" and my heart sinks.  So, of course, after I cause pain on my baby and he's grossed out by his own hands, I dread the next session of stretches scheduled for four hours later.  Then I dread the next.  That is a lot of hours of dreading.  

I am grateful that I got to spend some special time with Eva and Samuel.  And some time all by myself.  I am grateful that we are all healthy.  This summer when we were in the height of the chaos my shoulder and neck were feeling the stress big time and I started getting all dramatic and imagining myself never being able to move my neck again.  But it's all better now.  No drama necessary :).  

I am also grateful that Maximus got to spend some time with my family and Karl's family.  He is a loved kid and he loves his family.  On their way back, Karl texted me and said that one of our friends was on their flight and she bought Maximus a Happy Meal.  Then later he told me that Maximus made friends with another lady and before he knew it she was feeding him Swedish fish.  He is just that kind of kid.  I want that trait.  Where I have this look that I don't even have to say anything, I just look at people and they want to feed me yummy food.  Wouldn't that be awesome? 

So much for not using as many words...

better

Things are feeling better.  Not like crazy up down up down yesterday was horrible but today is all the sudden better kind of better.  But better because after last week, better was about the only way I could feel.  

I remember listening to that song where she says, "What doesn't kill you makes you stronger" and I thought, "Whatever.  What doesn't kill you makes you closer to dead."  I told my friend and we laughed and laughed.  I am right.  We were both having crappy weeks.  

But things are feeling better.

Trying to pin point the reason.  But it turns out there are probably lot's of reasons.  The first one was that I got plenty of chat with friend time.  After telling Karl that I was about ready to run away from all my woes he made a point of making sure I had some guilt free friend time.   I went to lunch.  I went shopping.  I didn't buy a single thing.  But I really like shopping and just the act in itself made me feel better.  Whatever the case.  I was grateful for the extra endorphins.  I needed that.  

We shuffled the kids around so Samuel and Eva weren't sharing anymore.  It seemed about time.  They acted like they were sick of each other and couldn't stand sharing rooms anymore.  But the first morning we got up, this is what Karl found.  

(Had to take the picture down.  Eva was embarrassed.  Guess she is old enough that her peers are blog readers now :).

It makes my heart all gooey.  Just knowing that deep down under all that tattling and teasing, they truly like to be with each other.

How about this kid?  Karl had a meeting in UT and took Maximus along so he could go see the therapists and dr. there. 

Someone asked where Max was.  I didn't even know her.  I didn't know she knew Max.  She was sad he wasn't here.  She said there is just something about him.  I had to agree.  She said I had a biased opinion but hers was unbiased.  She said all she needed to do is rub his cute little head and she felt better.  She said he was magic.  I had never heard that one.  But I had to agree.  Magic Max.  

We've also had some milestones.  Good ones.  Those are finger puppets on his left hand.  I had a hard time believing it as it was happening.  He was wiggling his fingers.  I remember the day when he wouldn't let anything near them.  That was just a few weeks ago.  Now he plays with them.  

I also cut those fingernails.  All five of them.  That means he has five fingernails on his left hand.  We weren't sure that was going to happen.  I thought a couple of them were goners.  But they are come backers!  Hooray!

I also got to squeeze his thigh and he laughed.  I remember mourning that I wouldn't be able to do this anymore.  But now I can again.   His left one is healing up so nicely.  He is still itching his right one to death.  We will work on that one.  Because it is so much better to squeeze two healthy baby thighs.

Here he is chilling at the beach enjoying a spam musubi.  That's right, the beach.  We stayed mostly on the grass away from the sand and water but we did get lots of vitamin D and fresh air.  Just what we needed.  With the help of lots of SPF, we spend the day outside while Eva and Samuel rode in a bike-a-thon for their new school.  

Maybe things are looking up because of all the great garden produce we have been eating lately.  Our ward has an awesome garden going and having garden tomatoes makes me feel like a rich woman.  

We did a lot of sugar therapy, too.  We went to our favorite shave ice place, Uncle's Shave Ice down in Poipu.  And for whatever reason the girl kept packing the ice on.  Until it was a giant snow ball.  A giant delicious one on top of mac nut ice cream with sweet cream on top.  It really was bigger than Baby Maximus' giant head.  Sugar, lots and lots of sugar, always makes things feel better.

We were at our neighborhood farmers market and we bought a bunch of star fruit from this lady.  Samuel loves star fruit.  I love that we can buy these sweet, juicy, tangy fruit for 25 cents here.  We moved on to the next stall and this lady came up and put this lei on me.  The gesture was so sweet.  How did she know she was supporting my better-ness?

We found our pool key and we got some more sunshine time.  I took the older kids while napping Maximus and working Karl stayed home.  I got sunburned and for some silly  reason that kind of makes me feel better.  Samuel showed up with two sets of fins with every intention to use all of them.  He was pretty amazing with them.  That kid.  Sun, funny kids... better.  

Yes.  Lot's of reasons to feel better.  We are also getting more settled in.  The fridge issue is not resolved but the insurance people are working on it and even though it is enough decisions to put me in a coma, I still feel a little better that someone is working on it.  

I have a little vacation from stretches and sippy cups and diapers and high chairs and car seats since Karl and Maximus are on the mainland taking care of things.  That means that the house is pretty clean right now.  So clean that we even cleaned the baseboards.  That's a big deal for us.  I will relax and rejuvenate.  

Friends, kids that like each other, Magic Maximus, good food, sunshine, sugar, nice people...I feel a little better.  So glad.