20 years ago: I was 9 and eagerly welcomed a baby sister! I had been very stressed out, because our brother had insisted it was another boy and I really wanted a sister. (This was before you could find out through ultrasound the sex of the fetus) Our brother, being only 7 at the time, cried with bitter disappointment until he actually saw the baby and then he said she was "a peach". Love you Caite!
10 years ago: I was 19 and convinced that I would never find true love. In fact I believe it was my cousin Tiffany (who was 10 at the time) who began to cry one day and told me she was worried I would be an old maid. I moved back after one semester of school down at Snow College because I wasn't ready to be out on my own. I had my first job in corporate America, for a title company, and quickly discovered that I wasn't meant to be a corporate drone. And I worked part time at our local community theater so I could spend time with my family.
5 years ago: I was 7 months pregnant with my first child, Jacob. It was a long, hard process getting pregnant so we were thrilled and excited to be embarking on the journey that is parenthood. I was reading all the books and thinking how my child would be the most perfect child ever born. He would never disobey, never backtalk, never argue. Hmmm, we are never really prepared are we...
3 years ago: This was the beginning of some hard times, we sold our first home and moved into one bedroom in my parents for what was supposed to be a few months while we paid off some bills and decided where to go next. That was the end of October, the first part of January my mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer. She had major abdominal surgery, followed by 6 months of chemo. We were there for a little over a year to help out while her health improved. (She had 18 months of remission before it came back.)
1 year ago: This time last year really sucked. No other word for it. Brian had been having some health problems, his legs were getting weak and he would stumble and fall a lot. Our second child, Genevieve, was about 6 months old and one night he fell while carrying her into her room. That scared him bad enough that he finally agreed to go see the doctor, who sent us to a specialist, who did a bunch of tests and then sent us to another specialist, who ran more tests and then told us that Brian probably had ALS (Lou Gehrig's disease) and the only way we could know for sure was to come back in 6 months and see how much his nerves had deteriorated. It was a very hard time for me because my mom's cancer had come back for the third time and the doctors gave her about 6 months and if Brian did have ALS, which is a degenerative disorder for which there is currently no treatment, he would have about 14 months. Fortunately, after the 6 months was up we went back to the specialist who gave us the glorious news that whatever is wrong with Brian it isn't ALS because it isn't moving above the waist. We still don't know what it is, but we are moving forward with hope. And mom is still here and kicking, she is going through another course of chemo, so she is tired a lot but here with us.
So far this year: My baby sister got married! Brian and I bought our new house and spent all of January fixing it up (see earlier posts for pics of the kitchen, before and after). My brother and his wife are expecting their first baby, so my kids will have a cousin on my side of the family! We moved the last weekend of January, then went on vacation with Brian's family to Disneyland! Came home to a sick baby, who then passed the bug around our family one at a time for most of February. We also ended up with both kids in the hospital dehydrated with gastroenteritis. Yuck.
Yesterday: Got our schedules all screwed up because of daylight savings time and a 1:00 church block, so spend most of the day having a nap with my babies to get our bodies straightened out. (It sort of worked, Evie still woke up at 3am for the 3 night in a row. Arghhh!) Then we went to my folks for a yummy dinner for Caite's birthday, she is no longer a teenager! Went to bed at a halfway decent hour for once, then stayed up for another hour talking about everything and nothing.
Today: Woke up perched on the last 6 inches of my mattress while my children sprawled comfortably across the rest of my queen size bed. Took Jake to preschool, came home to find water on the floor of the laundry room again (this time from the water heater). Got online to check my email and spent the last half hour writing this post, while watching Law and Order in the background. I have to go get ready to pick Jake up from preschool, and then we are going to have a picnic in the park for lunch. Hooray for spring!
Okay, now I am tagging Mom, Emilie, Josh, Bianca, Annie, and anyone else who reads this and has an hour to spare....
