Changes! Lots of Them...

Little Missy here is doing well at figuring out how to eat. Nice change. She's a whopping 11 pounds even. Ok, so "whopping" might not be the best adjective. But, she is solidly in the average range for weight. Two pumpings a day combined with the real nursing is doing the trick. She's begun smiling! This is the best we've been able to catch with a camera. They're still VERY fleeting. As soon as her wheezing goes away she can get her shots. There are so many anti-vaccination people out there I'm always scared to death my babies will catch something before they're old enough to get the shot and die or be permanently maimed. That would destroy me. She should also be cooing...but we're stilling waiting on that one. We're all in love with her.

Lynneah has changed her mind (most of the time) about the little intrusion to her 'Queen of the House' position. She sat down and smiled for this without any prompting.

She's also very cool as you can see here, AND grew enough hair to do ponytails. She's officially in nursery now. Happy change for Momma...not so much for her. She's scary in public because she'll let anyone pick her up and carry her. She'd be very easy to kidnap, we have to watch her like a hawk. I figured nursery would be easy because of this, but no. She has cried for the entire 2 hours both times she went. The girls working in nursery earn a "straight to Heaven" ticket.

One of the best changes EVER! Lincoln came to terms with the fact that using the potty daily was a much needed part of life. We told him he couldn't go to pre-school unless he used the potty. Later that day he ran in and used it, then came out and declared, "Now I can go to pre-school!" The next day he was right back to using his pants. I told him he wasn't going to be able to go to pre-school if he went in his pants. He looked so confused and explained that he had used the potty. The part about using it daily forever had escaped him. Finally he figured out the whole every day, every time you gotta go thing. I love not having to line 3 of them up every morning for diaper changes! The pre-school teacher let us sign him up for the last two months of the year. He LOVES going to school and now informs anyone that will listen that he's 5 years old.

Garrett's smile has changed a bit too. He lost his first tooth on his birthday after "running into someone's hand on the playground". He was quite devastated about it being actually lost...as in nowhere to be found. The nurse gave him a treasure chest tooth holder thing anyway and that seemed to solve all his woes. We wrote a note to the Tooth Fairy and explained what happened and that she'd need to retrieve it from the school. Just a few days later the second tooth came out. He feels very grown up now that he's losing teeth. He recently told me he wants to have an aquarium (the big kind you visit) when he grows up because he LOVES fish. I actually think he just might do it. His love of slimy fish has hung on for a long time. He frequently asks to go back to the Sea Life Aquarium we took them to a couple years ago. Kenzie is his favorite family member by far.

Gabriel asked to change his hair style so we let him...for about 5 minutes...then we shaved the rest off. He loves to tell the other kids about how he gets to be in charge when he turns 12 and mom and dad leave. I corrected him to 14 today. He said, "No because the Petersons were allowed to babysit when they turned 12." That is true but babysitting siblings is different than a sitter from outside the family. We'll see...

I'm kinda scared to ever leave either of the older boys in charge, I think we'll just skip to having Lynneah be in charge. ;-)

THIS,

is the biggest change of all. Meet our new house. We've been cramped for a while now. The 1400 square feet we're living in was never intended for 7 people. Really, it's very suffocating. We'd done some pretty good purging a while back and were doing alright at making the house work. I have a neighborhood I really really want to move to, and was ok with staying here till we could get the mula for the new neighborhood. 

That little plan would have worked fine except Stephen's mom has had some health changes too. She has a brain tumor that's been there for many years. They did surgery and chemo/radiation while Stephen was on his mission and it's been fine till now. She has all the pressure back just like the first time, so it's growing again. She will require surgery that will more than likely cause paralysis. We've known for many years that the care of his parents would fall on us. After a few conversations with her a few weeks ago we knew the time had come. There was no way our family and marriage would survive her living in our current house so we embarked on a frenzied house hunt. 

We were SHOCKED we were approved to buy considering the last few years financially. We worked unbelievably hard to preserve our credit during our "dark years" and it paid off. I had doubts that it was worth it sometimes...it was worth it. 

With the stipulations of what we were willing to pay, separate guest quarters that could be closed off, and staying in our current ward set we embarked on the house hunt. There were 3 to choose from. Two of the houses were in our current ward; we started with those because I WAS NOT GOING TO SWITCH WARDS. We put in an offer on one that was not accepted. We looked at the second one that met our really long term wants, but would have stretched us just a little too thin in the short term. My father-in-law would have been in heaven living in this one. I/we were too nervous about pulling that one off financially. So, we were down to the last house. I drove past it, turned around and stopped, looked in the windows and knew that was the house. I called Stephen and told him. We met with our Realtor and checked it out. As we looked around the inside I knew this was the one we should aggressively pursue. 

It is bank owned...those can be tricky. We put in an offer and decided if it was right, like we felt it was, it would work out. The bank came back with a counter offer. We tweaked the counter offer ever so slightly and sent it back. IT WAS ACCEPTED!  We're both really surprised it worked out that quickly. From the first offer to the accepted offer was the length of one weekend. We got a really great deal on it and will pretty much be able to just move in and live in it...also unheard of with bank owned properties. Of course I have a list of things I'd like to do to make it "mine" but none are critical for occupancy. It's literally double the square footage we're currently in. 

It's not finalized yet and things can still go wrong, but we're hopeful that it will all work out. They ask for so much more now than they did back when we bought the one we're in now. It makes me very nervous about it all. 

Stephen was concerned that we don't have enough furniture to fill the rooms. I said it's not a problem. He asked, "Then what are you going to do with them?" I plan on rolling from one side of the room to the other basking in the emptiness! We have a family of 7 I'm pretty sure the emptiness will take care of itself. I'm currently planning on how to punch a hole in the wall and gain access to the lost storage under the stairs. ;-) 

SCARY CHANGE: It's in a different ward. I'm really not into that kind of change...at all. I feel so accepted and loved by our current ward. They've scooped us up and carried us through some horrendous times. I truly believe they would love me even after I've got a crazy Mother-in-law in tow. It's not entirely her fault that she's crazy, she does have a brain tumor after all, but the fact still remains, things like a crazy Mother-in-law is the kiss of death to a social life and inclusion in a new ward. I've requested 6 months to a year in the new ward to get to know the girls my age with kids. Hopefully I'll be able to find some friends and establish who I am as a person before I have to introduce someone else into the mix. I have real fears about that. Stephen questioned if it would really be an issue. Um, yeah my husband that has never navigated a Relief Society before, something like that could definitely KILL any chance of making friends. He's sweet but can be totally clueless to the inner dynamics of large groups of women. 

I'm pushing for extenuating circumstances permission to stay. He could continue in his calling, I'll take whatever crappy calling they have trouble filling. I could remain with my friends and support network. On top of it a couple from my in-laws ward JUST moved into our ward. The husband is just about the only friend my father-in-law has. He might actually come to church if  he knew he'd get to visit with "Johnson". The wife knows the history (where to even begin on that one!) of my in-laws and could be a valuable resource for me as I navigate caring for the old and the young at the same time. That's not really a change I feel ready for, but what do you do? I think it's a pretty good case for extenuating circumstances, but Stephen says it's not worth bothering them about. BOYS! He doesn't have to sit with her for the entire 3 hour block of church. 

Once she's begins living with us I think I'll approach it like a step-parent stepping into a new family. In the beginning only the biological parent does any correcting or "parenting", the step only shows love and encouragement. In the beginning Stephen (Mr. NON-confrontational himself) will have to address everything that needs to change. With LOTS of time hopefully I'll be able to eventually address things as they come up rather than waiting for Stephen to get home later. There are some very real issues we've been able to gloss over and brush off during brief visits with the kids, but must stop once the kids are in daily contact with them. 

 We're looking at some terrifying changes. The kinds of changes that wreck a really good marriage. I love my good husband, and I love my marriage, and we love those bunch of yahoos we're trying to raise. We've fought through some really hard years that could have destroyed our marriage, but we're both fiercely committed to the eternal covenants we've made and fought like crazy to preserve ourselves. We're coming out on the other end still happy, a little frayed around the edges and wiser, but still very happy. 

I'm exiting my "lazy" (I've always been offended by the assumption that I'm lazy) Generation X and entering into the "Sandwich Generation". I pray we'll be able to do right by our kids, they only get one shot at a childhood and I don't want to be the reason theirs gets messed up. They most definitely should not be the ones to pay the price of our decisions. I pray I'll be able to recognize their needs and be able to address/provide what they need. I pray I'll come out on the other end and recognize myself...or at least be able to locate and restore myself. I pray that the day Stephen and I can be just us again we'll want to be just us. I treasure the days when it was just us. Serious, happy times. I pray that when my kids grow up and look back that they will be able to see we did the best we could for all those involved and that we loved them with every fiber of our beings. 

I NEVER seek out change. I'm one of those people that wants to settle into my  little niche in the world and work there. I have no need to seek out adventure and turn life up-side-down just to see what happens. This will turn life up-side-down. It scares me. I'm so grateful I'll have my Stephen with me. He's steady, firmly rooted in the gospel, and has unwavering faith. I'll need some of that. 

On a different note in the months before she moves in I'm going to absolutely LOVE all the new space. I'm so excited to have enough bedrooms, and a garage, and a huge patio, and a backyard big enough to still play in, and a balcony off the master bedroom that faces the untouched desert and mountains, and a place big enough for me to run and hide when I feel overwhelmed. It's a good house and I love it.