imagine....

today i spent imagining with my boy.

we started with our favorite, telling a story together. 

imagining pirates and captures, avalanches and last-minute rescues in a helicopter.

the story went on and on as i folded laundry and packed box after box after box.

then we felt our tiny apartment becoming tinier, as each box crowded into more of our space

and imagined that we were secret spies hiding behind brown rectangles, 

needing to  escape before we were discovered.

so we gathered up this little gal

and went out to brave the heat.

out there we imagined that we were professional soccer players, 

competing against an opposing team

to beat them out in the final seconds of the championship.

right after the game, as we stopped to hydrate ourselves

i tried to imagine

that my lovely daughter

had not just stuck her hand in dog poop.

but as much as i tried,

nothing could imagine that away, as i washed the disgusting stuff off of her fingers

and tried to fight off the dry heave.

back inside again, we imagined that we were lost at sea

our dinner table the remains of our raft

the salad and chicken being served to starving raft-mates

enjoying every bite because we weren't sure if it would be our last. 

then the pajamas were his space suit

helping him zoom!

to the moon.

luckily the moon tonight provided

a soft pillow and warm blanket

and also amazingly came equipped with special moon water

and tools that clean teeth so they shine as bright as the stars in the sky.

and finally, 

we imagined that i was a fairy in the woods,

who flew around kissing the cheeks of the good boys and girls

and softly touching their eyelids,

so they would have the best dreams tonight.

************

once caleb was asleep,

i sat down

and tried to imagine

that my boy wasn't going to school in a couple of weeks

and that he would be like this always.

i tried to imagine away the tears that came to my eyes,

but then realized 

that the world is just as it should be

moving, evolving, changing, spinning sometimes faster than we would like.

my tears of sadness turned to tears of gratitude

to feel the love of this little boy,

and to have been part of his beautiful imagination today.

anyone know how to stop others from downloading my pictures?

yes this is a random question.

yes i already googled it, and still couldn't figure it out.

so if anyone can answer this question, how to stop others from being able to download my pictures, i will give you a prize.  

the prize of knowing you have helped me out in my time of need.

now who wouldn't want that prize?

my thanks in advance....

ever get that feeling that something is stuck on your head and no one is telling you?

static.

the lies that bind us {part 3.}

i promised i would finish this and i need to do it before we move because i know it will take me a while to jump back onto the blogging train.

in case you have missed the beginning of this story, here are the links:

the lies that bind us. {part 1}

the lies that bind us. {part 2}

continuing on...

ben began his overnight weekend job, and i'm not over-dramatizing this.  it was difficult.  between school, work and sleeping in the broad daylight we literally had one day together as a family during the week.  and it wasn't a normal day that others had free, it was tuesday.  

a month after he started his job, i was called to serve in the primary presidency, and my weekly meetings were tuesday nights.  so we were left with only tuesday during the day to be together as a family.  that was it.

so not only did we not have time together as a family, but we didn't have time as a couple and i rarely got any time away from the kids.  i was on single mom duty almost 24/7, which made me grow such a deep respect and admiration for single moms who do it all on their own.

the time that i did take away from the kids was during those rare hours that ben was home with our one car, and was awake so i could go grocery shopping by myself. 

but looking back, i realize just how much more difficult i made this situation by filling my heart and mind with thoughts of resentment and entitlement.

entitlement:

"i deserve better than this."  

"i didn't sign up to be a single mom, and now look where i am." 

"i have HAD IT.  i am DONE.  i am SICK of this."

"other husbands who get their doctorate degree don't accept full-time jobs because they love their wives and want to actually spend time with them."

resentment:

"ben might be worn out, but he chose this job.  if he wants things to be easier on himself, he could just quit."

"at least he gets to sleep for 7 consecutive hours.  i'm the one who's up all night with a baby and then up all day long with both kids.  wouldn't it be nice if i could get 7 hours of uninterrupted sleep?"

the lies continued to seep through into any hard night where i was on my own with the kids, any moment of loneliness, any party or invitation to do something fun with other families that we had to miss.

during part 1, i referred to a blog called "the extraordinary ordinary" that i love to read, and a post that was written by heather that i unknowingly related to so much during this time.

"A person can think a certain way until that thinking is real and true, even if it didn't start out that way. We can tell ourselves lies until we believe them with nearly our whole hearts. That's what I did, anyway. I thought and thought defeating thoughts until I didn't even know I was thinking them, and then they took root in my head and heart and that's a very dangerous thing to do. A person can waste their entire life trapped like that, thinking they aren't good enough or their marriage isn't good enough or their mothering isn't good enough...and then doing things to stay in the rubble of thoughts. "

4 months after i was climbing my way out of my own entrapping negative thoughts, i read those words and knew that it was exactly what i had done to myself.

i lied to myself, believed the lies, and those lies took me down.

so what happened to me?  

well.  i became depressed, not caring what i looked like every day.  why should i?  the only people i saw 95% of the time were my two kids, and they didn't care.  i didn't care much about prioritizing housework.  why should i?  no one was coming over, and i knew i had all day the next day to do it.  it didn't get out of control but i just no longer took pride in what i was doing, or what i looked like. 

i became lonely.  partly due to the situation i was in, without a car and without any family close by.  but partly due to my choices.  if i was extended an invitation to go somewhere that i had the possibility of going, most of the time i wouldn't.  

i detached myself from others, including ben.  

believing the lie that he chose to accept the job because he didn't care about what i needed caused a chasm between us.  i stopped investing my feelings because the resentment in my heart had taken over too much of it and i couldn't stand being hurt over and over when he would leave me again to go to work.  so we co-existed, like good friends who were roommates.  but not like it had been for the first 7 years of our marriage.  there was no fighting or anything, but the connection was gone, or barely hanging by a thread.

most importantly, i detached my connection with my heavenly father.  i was lazy about praying and reading scriptures, didn't pay much attention in church and only did the bare minimum when it came to my calling.  those small, daily things that keep me connected to my spiritual side were gone.  so i left myself open and vulnerable to anything else that wanted to influence me.

i was lost, but didn't even realize it because i was caught up in the fake-reality that i had created.  i felt like i was just so hard done by, that i deserved better, that i didn't sign up for this sucky situation.  i was stuck in my stubbornness and selfishness and was barely treading water in my life, and treated my loved ones in ways that i'm not proud of.

6 months went by living like this.

there were times in these 6 months that i tried to talk to ben.  there were several conversations that we had about how i was overwhelmed and asked if he could cut back on his hours.  we talked about applying for grad plus loans to make up the difference in salary. i knew that he was stretched even thinner than i was and we would talk about how we could feel ourselves slipping away from ourselves and each other.  and he would try to change his hours, but his job didn't ever address his complaints until he would threaten to quit.  and since he wasn't ready to quit, he didn't push too hard, so his schedule stayed the same.

so.

how did i wake up out of this non-reality and come back to real-reality?

well, this is hard to write about.  i cry every time i think of it, and i have thought long and hard about whether i want to share something that for me, is very personal.  but i feel that the most important thing about my story, is that someone might be able to relate it to their story.  and it might bring them out of where they are, and see things differently.

{i received ben's permission to share it, just so you know.}

it was around thanksgiving time, and it was one of the rare times we had invited friends over for dinner.  after they had left, i was cleaning up and had thought that ben had gone into the bedroom to get ready for bed.  i finished doing the dishes and walked past our family room where the lights had been turned out.  as i reached up to turn off the hall light, i realized that ben had been sitting on our couch the whole time in the dark, not saying anything.

"woah!  you scared me, i didn't know you were there!"  i said to him.

he was silent.

"hey, you okay?"  i asked.  this wasn't like ben at all.

"i don't think you love me anymore," he said quietly.

"what?  what are you talking about?"  i was shocked.

"well, i know that you love me, but i think that maybe your feelings for me have changed.  you love me differently now.  i can feel it,"  he said sadly.  i realized in that moment that i had broken his heart.

and that was it for me.

those walls that i had put up, building thicker and taller as i believed one false thought after another, began crashing down when he spoke these words to me.

now writing about it i realize how small and insignificant it might sound to an outsider.

but for me, it was everything.

because in my head i was thinking, 

"of course i love you!  i never stopped loving you, it is you who doesn't love me!"

and it was at that moment, for the first time in a long time, that i realized the truth.

if he can believe that you don't love him when that's not true, maybe what you have been believing all of this time hasn't been true either.

and i knew.

i began to cry.  

i walked across the room to my husband who was sitting there alone in the dark.  i sat down on his lap, wrapped my arms around his neck, and through my tears i said,

"ben, i love you.  i have never stopped loving you.  and i'm so so sorry that i made you ever doubt my love for you and that i hurt you."

we sat there for several minutes just holding each other while i cried over the realization that i had hurt the one i love most walking around on this earth.  then we talked for a long time.  about how we were both feeling, and how we had gotten there, and most importantly....how we were going to get out.

and that will be the final part of this story.  the part about facing reality even though it's hard, and understanding how to not allow guilt to swallow you up, and how to forgive yourself and others.  

and most importantly, how to overcome a difficult situation.

and how to do better, and how to make sure that you never allow yourself to be in that situation ever again, no matter what the circumstances may be.

to be continued:

the lies that bind us, part 4.

a night to remember, and not in a good way.

when it came to the drive home from our trip to utah, ben and i had different ideas of how things should go down.  

he wanted to power it out, driving the12 hours {at least} straight through.  i wanted to split up the time, driving 5 or 6 one day and the rest of the time the next day.  a 12 to 14 hour car ride is pretty miserable when you have to get out about every 2 hours so that the beast inside of leah isn't woken up.

so, we compromised.

we decided to drive the majority of our trip the first day, then find a place to sleep and then just have about 4 hours left the second day. 

we were looking at hotel costs in page, arizona and not only were the prices out of CONTROL {even through the discount websites we usually used} but they were all completely booked up.  we asked one motel owner if he knew of any recommendations for other places to stay since his was full, and he had one.  he mentioned a "great little bed & breakfast" that might have a room, and gave us their number.

we called and success!  they had one open room left, at a better rate than any room we had found in that city and luckily it had one double bed, a twin, and a pack & play for a baby.  perfecto!

or so we thought.

we drove past the house several times because i was a little thrown off.  probably because in my mind, i had a dream.

a dream of what a bed & breakfast should look like.  you see, staying at a b&b was a longtime desire i have had.  a quaint, cozy house.  a four poster, fluffy bed with warm colors and soft sheets.  feasting on croissants and cheeses and fresh fruit in the morning.  talking with the owners as we sat by a crackling fire,  who would tell us tales of travelers that had come and gone

of course, that's because i had pictured our b&b to look something like this:

or this:

{okay, so sometimes i live in a land that is the love child of anne of green gables and pride & prejudice.}

so you can imagine my disappointment when we drove up to this:

not awful, but still.  not quite what my vivid imagination had conjured up.

on the corner of the house was a sign to let us know we had arrived at the right place.

on the garage was a taped sign that read "guest parking" which i wish i had taken a picture of, but missed the opportunity.

when we pulled up, ben immediately looked at me and said in a low tone, 

"we should just keep driving."

but i had already given them my credit card number...and we were already there.....

i was full of excuses, but let's just be honest.  i should have listened to him.  for the third time in our marriage,  i was wrong.  he was right.  {isn't he lucky that i admit it?}

but in the back of my mind, i was hoping that the inside was better than the outside.

we pulled our cranky kids out of the car and knocked on the front door.  we were greeted by a nice enough looking lady, who welcomed us in and upstairs.  there we met two families who each had two kids that were running around the house creating a lot of noise.

we introduced ourselves, were told that the other guests who were staying were all out to dinner and were led downstairs.

immediately we noticed that something was "off" when our room was the only one that wasn't numbered.  the other doors had #1, #2 and #3 on them.  ours was blank.  hmmm.

as our host opened the door, my hopes of our bedrooms looking anything like these:

were dashed.

unfortunately, our bedroom was actually extremely tiny and came with lovely bed accessories:

 did you catch that corner bedknob?  here's a close-up, just in case you missed it:

that's right, 3 of the bedknobs were tennis balls.  

the room was stiflingly hot, though we were provided with some air conditioning:

and when i looked underneath our beds, we found some childrens' toys.  

after realizing that neither mr. darcy nor gilbert blythe were anywhere to be found and i was more likely to run into a fellow who has just been released from prison, i was a little disappointed.

here is my i've-been-in-a-car-for-8-hours-and-now-have-to-stay-in-these-cramped-quarters-with-my-screeching-toddler face:

 

half of my face is already fed up, the other is still trying to think positively.  sort of.

we were also informed that we were sharing a bathroom with 4 other people.  ugh.  that night i learned the hard way about sharing bathrooms.  the trick is to get in there with the first announcement from your bladder that it needs relief.  i made the mistake of waiting until i was good and ready, but unfortunately was met with a locked door.  someone else was in there.

after waiting for almost 45 minutes for one of our bath-roomies to finish doing whatever it was he was doing, i walked upstairs to ask if there was another bathroom.

as i got to the top of the stairs, i noticed something strange.

there were about 6 people sleeping on the floor of the living room including the children who had been running around earlier, packed in tightly like sardines.  

the husband of the hostess who had showed us our room was awake, and greeted me.  i tried not to stare at the crowd on the floor as i asked where the other restroom was.  he pointed down the hallway, and i walked away, trying to figure out why there was a group slumberparty going on.

when it hit me.

we were sleeping in their room!  that's why there was no number on our door... and why there were toys under the bed...

it made sense now.  i just couldn't believe that they had rented out their actual bedroom.  

i tried to use the upstairs bathroom, but the sliding door wouldn't lock and i wasn't about to let whatever scary larry could be creeping around the corner to get a peek at me, so i let out a big sigh and went back downstairs.

after telling ben my discovery, it just reaffirmed to him that i should have listened to him in the first place.  whatever, it was too late now.

to top it off, leah was having a rough time. we were so worried that she was going to bother our neighbors that we kept her up for a little while, hoping she would wear herself out.

 

but clearly she had other plans.

luckily, caleb was fast asleep.

 

however i was getting fed up.

see how both sides of my face are matching now?  yep, any hope of a first magical bed & breakfast experience had been dashed.

ben tried to relax in the tiny corner, or what my vivid imagination would title "the sitting area."

 

here he is stretching, feet propped up on the pack & play.  looks comfy, yes?

no.

ben tried again to convince me to pack everything back up and get in the car, but this was now a matter of pride.

we.  will.  stick.  this.  out.  if. it. kills. us, dang it!

after a lot of begging, bribing and finally ignoring, leah finally fell asleep.

an exhausted mr. strader and i lay down on the bed and closed our eyes. 

but it was so.  darn.  HOT.

we had our tiny fan on "high" and pointed to blow directly on our faces, but over and over again i woke up with sweat dripping down my neck.

there are few things in this world that i dislike more than having to sleep when i am hot.  i won't bother to name them right now, but will instead let you know how i felt continually waking up feeling like i was on fire with a picture:

not pretty.

it was a miserable night that seemed to go on and on and on.

and we were even dumb enough to ask for breakfast {which was going to be pancakes, not croissants} at 8:00, assuming that our kids would sleep in.

but oh no, leah was up bright and early at 6 a.m.  yelling, throwing things, and within arm's reach of my hair.  so that ended any sleep i was hoping to get.

that was it.

i was mad, and sweaty, and finished with our first {and last} bed & breakfast experience.

we packed up, left without breakfast, and got in the car.

but before we drove off, i took one last picture.

here i am, at 6:30 in the morning.  ticked off.

rough.

but i looked up in the sky, saw the sunshine and left with the realization that i would be home in just a few short hours, in my own bed.  without the tennis balls.  with the air conditioning.  

i swallowed my pride, apologized to ben for my complete error in judgement,

and we drove away.

sweet.

the caleb syndrome, part #967

an update on the fantastic 5 year old...

caleb's physical therapy has been going well, but both the physical therapist and i have noticed that it isn't that caleb is just lacking physical strength & needs exercises to build up that strength, but that there is something strange going on with his legs.

something strange.

huh.  we've never heard that one before when it comes to caleb.  {sarcasm.}

he was nick-named "the caleb syndrome" at about 2 years old when all of his symptoms couldn't add up to one clear diagnosis.  we accepted that this was just the way it was going to be, and focused our energies in just getting him to the best physical condition we could instead of worrying about what we couldn't control.

however, ben & i felt like there was something off, which was why we pushed to get a physical therapy evaluation in the first place.  

and after working for a couple of months, she and i both felt like something was off again.  while doing stretching and exercising, we both saw that he was unable to point his toes....even just a little bit.  and it wasn't like he wasn't strong enough.  he just wasn't able to.  when we would hold his toes down and gently stretch them forward, his knees would come up.

as ben and i worked with him in the swimming pool, we would watch him kick.  he would constantly be kicking in the flexed foot position, and no matter what we did, he could not straighten his leg and foot together.  completely unflexible.

on the other side, when we would flex his foot and then push up, his foot would flex so much that as his toes would be pushed up toward the front of his leg, his toes would almost be able to touch his shin bone.  completely too flexible.

also, whenever caleb would push on the balls of his feet, like try to balance or put any weight on the balls of his feet, his legs would tremble.  this is called clonus and usually points to a neurological problem.  caleb had this for a while when he was younger, but it was not severe, and the repeated MRI's could not find the source.

but in physical therapy, we saw that whenever caleb rides a bike, his legs trembled.  whenever he balances on anything, his legs trembled.  when he walks on his tiptoes, his legs trembled.

so, we were referred to an orthopedic specialist and a neurologist.

luckily, it was just in the nick of time that we found this out.  we were heading to utah the next week and had worked with shriner's hospital for about 2 years, and already had a relationship with both the orthopedic specialist and neurologist.  we were able to get a last-minute appointment and evaluation with them.

while we were there, we heard the fantastic words,

"you have no idea how rare this is."

wow, that's awesome! {repeated sarcasm}

we have heard that too many times and would always inwardly groan at the phrase.  it's not like you get a cash prize when you are told your son is "rare."  believe me, if oprah were behind the dr's curtains and as soon as the word was uttered she emerged yelling, "YOU GET A CAR!  YOU GET A CAR!  EVERYBODY WHO'S RARE GETS A CARRRR!" we wouldn't mind being told this so often.

but what it usually means is that the doctors have absolutely no idea what's going on with him, but they know that something is wrong.

basically they concluded that yes caleb has something going on.  yes it is pointing to something neurological and more than likely connected to issues with his spine. and yes they may have missed it during those first 2 years because it is so rare, and because he was so young that they were hoping that the small things they were seeing would normalize as he developed.  they are now pointing to a diagnosis that had been brought up 5 years ago, but was dismissed.

so.

caleb, leah and i will be heading back to utah in the beginning of september.  he will have a full brain and spine MRI done.  even though he has had 4 MRI's already, this one will be a little more intense.  unfortunately ben can't take the time off of school & work, which is totally understandable. i'm grateful that we will have family to help me with leah while i am there with caleb.

then i will meet with the ortho. specialist and neurologist two days after the MRI to discuss the conclusions.

there are good and hard things about each outcome:

if he does have something going on that the MRI catches, it may result in spine surgery.  but that could lead to the possibility of him getting better, and not struggling for his entire life with these physical delays.

but still.

spine surgery.

if he doesn't have something going on, then we will go back to where we have been.  and just accept that he is where he is, and he will stay this way and we will help him be his best with physical therapy and working from home.

with either outcome, i know things are going to be alright.  and i have to say that i'm so grateful for the amazing medical staff at shriner's.  honestly, we have considered working with them a privilege.  

and no matter what, 

we are so grateful for mr. caleb and for the blessing it has been to be a part of his life.

a trip to shriner's is always such a wake-up call to us.  

things could be so. much. more. difficult. than what we are facing.  

we have a happy, healthy fella who loves life and has overcome so much already.

and we know that no matter what the outcome is, 

he will be able to overcome that too.

turning firty.

caleb used to say the "th" sound as the "f" sound.  

 

all last year he would tell ben that he was so happy that his dad was "firty" and i was a little sad that this year he was all grown up enough to say an exaggerated "mom, you're THirty!"  as soon as he saw me on the morning of the big day.

which speaking of...turned out to be a fabulous day.

it started with ben surprising me by not scheduling work in the morning and i was able to SLEEP IN.  {my favorite thing ever!}  when i came out of the room there were decorations everywhere and ben made me a lovely breakfast.  

i sat down for a few minutes to eat, and then we were immediately thrown into a whirlwind of a real estate race.  

ben had looked at several houses the day before, and had found one that he loved.  as i was filling out an application for it late that same night, i found another one that had just been listed that was in a fantastic area, with a school that had a rating of a 9 out of 10 for elementary schools, and was twice the size of what we're living in now...with 4 bedrooms....for the same price as the others we'd been looking at, which were only 3 bedrooms.  

i immediately emailed our real estate agent, even though it was midnight, asking if there was any way that she could meet me the next day at 2pm to walk through it.  she emailed right back {thank heavens she's a night owl too!} and we set it up.

but the next morning, on my birthday, we contacted the agency the house was listed through to ask if there were any applications already turned in for the house.  unfortunately there was one already....which didn't make sense because it had just been listed.  so apparently the other couple had put in an application without even seeing the house first!  {INSANE} we also found out that they had put in another application on the same home that ben had seen that we were also applying for.  

what are the odds, i ask you?  

so i'll admit it, we panicked a little.  okay, a lot.

we've both been stressed out about finding a home before we get the boot out of our apartment and couldn't believe that people are applying for homes before even seeing them!  

so.

we decided to play their same game, and put in an application for both homes also and see what happened.  i kept the appointment to go and see the second, bigger house but getting all of our paperwork in and making about 20 phone calls to the management company, then to our real estate agent and back again took a while.  and ben & i were both a little on edge.  {him more than me, which doesn't happen often.  just sayin'.}

 ben and i calmed ourselves down, talking to each other about how we knew that we would do our best and then have faith knowing that if it was supposed to be, it would happen for us.  ben went and picked up some birthday lunch while i hung out with the kids and got ready for the appointment.

when i arrived at the house, there was immediately a bad omen.  a stray cat was lounging on the front porch, giving me the stink eye.  i'm sorry to all you cat lovers, but i struggle with them.  it's not like i don't have any experience with them, either.  remember this post?  well those feelings haven't changed.

but.

aside from the stray feline who would not be getting any freebies from me if we moved in there, i loved the house.  

loved.  it.

it wasn't perfect, and as far as its accessories go they are pretty basic, but we don't need fancy-pants.  and we're renting here, so it's not like it was going to be our dream home.  but it was HUGE compared to what we're used to.  {that isn't saying much, i know. but it's even bigger than i had hoped for.}

there was another couple there with a different agent looking at the house when we pulled up, so i was nervous.  but our application was already in, and luckily our credit score was better than the others who had applied, so....

WE GOT THE HOUSE!!

the best birthday present i could ask for!

we are so excited and also stressed out.  we have to move in just a couple of weeks, so i'm going a little nuts here.  i have nothing ready for caleb's school, and he's probably going to have to start a week late, but still.

we're extremely grateful and can't wait for:

a backyard.

a neighborhood.

walls that don't connect to anyone else's walls.

a garage.

a bedroom for caleb.  {no more sleeping in our closet, buddy!}

3 bathrooms.

a laundry room.

an office for ben.

the ability to find a place that we can stay in for several years, with room to grow.

hooray!

okay, back to the big day.  after looking at the house i went to my group therapy, then home again to spend time with my kids.  ben came home after his practicum and we packed for the next day's trip to utah.  there were texts, phone calls and messages from friends and family.  and i appreciated it so much.  some people love the big parties, but i am not that girl.  i like just having a fun time and hearing from the people i love, and looking at my life to realize i have a lot to be thankful for.

 so all in all, it was a fantastic day.

and i'm now THirty!

backing up to the birthday weekend...

so my amazing friend andrea took me away for a weekend before my 30th birthday and let me tell you...

i had a seriously.  great.  time.

we started off at the melting pot, where we dipped until our hearts were content and our bellies were bursting.

then we went to our amazing resort and settled in for a movie...which turned out to be the only disappointing thing for the weekend.

the next day was sitting by the pool and let me tell you, i haven't done that in years.  after back-to-back swimming lessons with the kids where i barely can get my flip-flops on without having to chase leah before she nose-dives in the blue water, being able to just sit on a chair & read a magazine was bliss.

our friend amanda had met us at the pool & then the 3 of us went to lunch at our favorite ladies' night restaurant.  that place never disappoints!  amanda left after that, so andrea & i loaded up with a treat for later at sprinkles cupcakes & then went shopping & to a movie.  

i always have the best time with andrea no matter what we're doing.  we always laugh so hard together, but then also have really deep & meaningful conversations.  i know i've said it before, but i'll say it again.  i'm so grateful she's my friend! 

thanks again drizzle for the weekend.  i'll turn 30 every day if we can celebrate like this!