Changes

Last night was 5th grade orientation for Aaron. I can't believe he is going to be in middle school. It really doesn't even seem like it's been that long since I was in middle school. I'll never forget Mr. Germany's class when he would say, "WHAT ISSS" and we'd all grab our pen and paper and write down exactly what he said because we knew that what was about to come out of his mouth was important information. And I'll also never forget the first few lines of the poem, Casey at the Bat, and how Matt Thompson sounded when he read it. And the snack bar for lunch. Funyans with cheese, anyone? To this day I sometimes want to slice a bag of Funyans right down the side and pour a bunch of nacho cheese into it. Just give me a plastic spoon and I'll be good to go!

And the health guru's are just now worrying about healthy food at schools. This was 1988 people. It's been a problem for a while.

Anyway, at Aaron's meeting last night, there were several words and phrases used that I'm just not quite ready for at my house. Here are a few:

• puberty/changes
• boys start looking at girls differently
• girls can't show cleavage (seriously? They're 10!)
• explain bodily changes to your child (whew, Robbie's job!)
• name calling/bullying
• boyfriend and girlfriend in the morning, crying over breakup at lunch

I must stop. It's killing me to even go back over all of this in my head.

I need a moment to go cry a little bit right now.

Ok, I'm good. (sigh)

And I must add here, this is why God didn't give me girls. Oh, the hormones and drama.

I'm considering moving to a district where he can be in 5th grade, but still be in elementary school. That would keep him innocent one more year, right?

My only saving grace in all of this is that I know Aaron is a good kid with a kind heart. And it's the kind of good that I'm hoping can withstand even the slightest rise of testosterone. (Ugh, did I really just use the T word?) Aaron is also very close to Robbie, and I think that relationship is going to become even more important in the next few years to both of them. I think he will soon realize that not everyone out there has a dad that cares enough to sense something is wrong, and won't let it go until it's been talked out. Or a dad that will let you tag along on just about anything he is doing. Or a dad that will take you out to breakfast on the weekends just to have that special one and one time.

Ok, when did this post become about Robbie and his awesome daddy skills?!

So, even though I am not at all excited about our upcoming 'changes', I am not too worried about it. Aaron is very mature for his age and has a good head on his shoulders. He thinks things through and has always been cautious with his actions. He can do this.

It's me I'm worried about. I could really use a bag of Funyans with cheese right now.

Geocaching

My boys now have a new obsession: geocaching. I've had a lot of people ask me what this is, so instead of explaining it several different times I thought I would do it once on here, complete with pictures.

Geocaching is a treasure hunt, but you are not hunting for treasures that you get to keep. It's all about finding containers, called geocaches, that someone else has hidden and putting your name on it to let others know that you found it. Some geocaches are tiny, holding nothing but a little piece of paper that you can sign, and some are large tupperware containers that have lot of different things. There are geocaches hidden all over the world, so where ever you are right now, there is probably some around you. It is a great activity to do with your kids. The 'treasures' are located by using a GPS tracking system that tells you where to go, gives you hints on where to look, and it will tell you how many feet you are from it. Yes, there is an app for that. And that's what we use.

Robbie and I took the boys around Texarkana Saturday night, and we found 4 out of the 5 we were looking for. Here are some pictures I took from our hunt.

Who knew a treasure could be in an old jar?

This was Austin's favorite one because it had funny glasses he could try on.

This one had a paper explaining goecaching, and other things people left.

This is the smallest one we found. It was stuck down in a fence pole.

This was hidden in some bushes at a local park.

This one was in a cemetery.

If you decide to give this a try, make sure you have a pen with you, especially for the little ones that do not have room for a pen. You may also want to bring something else to leave in the bigger ones. We found things like small toys, ticket stubs, business cards, etc. I believe the rule is that if you want to take something from a box, you have to leave something of yours.

 I know a lot of you are looking for free, fun things to do with your kids this summer, and I think this is a good one.  It's neat to know that there are little hidden 'treasures' all over the place and if you're not looking, you don't have a clue that they are there!

Mother's Day

With tomorrow being Mother's Day, I've been thinking a lot today about how thankful I am to be a mom, how thankful I am to have my mom as one of my best friends, and how thankful I am to be able to be close to my birth mother. My mother is the one that taught me how to be a Christian wife and mother. And even though there were probably MANY times that she would have loved to have strangled me for whatever stupid thing I was doing at the time, she never did. She loved me through it all, and I'm so thankful that God chose her to be my mama. I also feel so blessed to be such good friends with my birth mother, and I know I've written about her before, but I don't take our relationship for granted at all. I spent so many years wondering who she was, and now I just know her as a great friend, and I am so very grateful for that.


And now my journey to motherhood begins.

Robbie and I decided we wanted to start a family in 1999. We had been married for 2 years and all I had ever wanted to be was a mom. I say the only reason I even went to college was to meet and marry a Christian man that would allow me to stay home and raise our babies. When you want a baby so badly, it's all you can think about, and that's where we were in 1999. We had just moved to Texarkana from Searcy and it was just the right time. My first pregnancy was in May '99, and was very short-lived. If I hadn't taken a pregnancy test, I would've never even known I was pregnant. It was a very early miscarriage, and while it was very sad for us, it was early and I didn't even have time to get used to the idea of being pregnant. My second pregnancy was November '99. I carried that baby for 11 weeks before I lost it. It was the darkest time in my life. I was convinced I would never be a mother and I lost all hope that it would ever happen. No one could tell me a reason this was happening, and I was so sad and frustrated. Seeing a pregnant woman would make me hurt so much. I was jealous of women that were able to carry babies, and I was mad because there were girls getting pregnant that didn't even WANT a baby.

I had a D & C done on December 13, 1999, just before Christmas.  A month later, I went to my family doctor because I thought I had the flu. He told me was going to go ahead and do a pregnancy test while I was there, and I was like, umm no, that just can't be my problem. It had only been a month since my second miscarriage, and I was not ready to be told I was pregnant. I knew that I absolutely could not go through another miscarriage at that point. When he came back in and told me my test was positive, I actually argued with him. I just knew that my hormones were probably just still there from my last pregnancy that was making my test positive. He assured me that that was not possible and that I was definitely pregnant again. I just cried and cried. I so badly wanted a baby, but I could not bare to lose another one at that point.

Well, this baby ended up making me throw up almost every day for 9 full months, but I made a deal with him the entire time he was in my belly that if he would stick with me, I would stick with him. If he could just keep his heart beating, I would keep throwing up for him. He took the deal, and 9 months later, our dream of being parents became a reality. Aaron Neil Barwick was born on October 12, 2000, and he was perfect. I quit my job and stayed home with him just like I had always wanted to do, and I've been home ever since.

When Aaron was 3, we decided that he needed a brother or sister. And again, I got pregnant. And again, I miscarried and was devastated. I always felt like the only reason I was able to carry Aaron to term was because of the pregnancy I lost just before him, but I couldn't explain why. When I told my doctor that, she stopped me mid-sentence and told me that she thinks it was that my progesterone was too low to sustain the pregnancy. And the reason I was able to carry Aaron was that my progesterone was still raised from the previous pregnancy. She said that next time I got pregnant, all I needed to do was take progesterone and the baby should be fine.This was a HUGE revelation for me, and we were ready to try again.

In February 2005, I got a positive pregnancy test, and immediately called to get the progesterone. I took it the first 3 months of a much easier pregnancy, and on November 23, 2005, Austin Lane was born, beautiful and healthy. And here we are 2011 with a 10 year old and a 5 year old boy, and I don't know what I would do without them.

My handsome boys

I want to wish a very HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY to my mom and to my birth mom. I love you both so very much!

A not-so-normal day

This morning started out like every other regular school morning. My alarm went off at 6:55, I got up, woke Austin up, then woke Aaron up. We all ate breakfast and got ready for school. Aaron and I went over spelling words (which he did great at), and we got everything put in his backpack. Very typical morning so far.

We were just about to walk out the door and I realized his hair was sticking up in the back so I told him to come in the kitchen to let me put some water on it to lay it down. When he came to the kitchen sink, he grabbed onto the counter, started shaking, and collapsed onto the floor. He kept shaking for a few more seconds and then I helped him stand back up. He was scared and crying and did not even remember falling down. I was more scared than him because I knew what had just happened, but I knew I had to be strong for him, so I held my tears back. I calmly explained to him that he had probably had a seizure (which has never happened before) and we were going to go to the hospital just to make sure everything checked out ok.

Aaron had several tests run while he was in the ER. They checked his blood, urine, did a EKG and a CT scan. Everything checked out normal, and the doctor said that there is a 35% chance this will never happen again. He has an EEG scheduled for next week, but the doctor said that we will probably never know why it happened.

All we can do at this point is pray that this never happens again, and take it as a lesson learned for not taking our health for granted. I know that I have a lot of praying people that read my blog, and I'm asking you to please pray that this is the only time we have to deal with this. When the doctor told us today that his EEG results would have to be sent to Children's in Little Rock to be read, I immediately thought of and prayed for all of the children that have to go there on a regular basis because they have cancer or other life-threatening diseases. I just can't imagine being a parent put in the position of having to watch my child continually suffer from something like that and I am so sad that there are so many kids that have to go through it.

So after we left the ER, we made it Aaron's day. My mother-in-law had Austin at the mall playing, so Robbie, Aaron and I went to Shoguns for lunch (Aaron's choice). Then we picked Austin up and let them both pick out a Redbox and we all came back home. Aaron has been wanting Robbie to put his wench on his 4-wheeler, so after Robbie got that on, Aaron went and intentionally got stuck so he could pull himself out! Such a boy! And he got to use it again later when Robbie got the lawn mower stuck. We also spent quite a bit of time this evening riding the golf cart and throwing rocks in the pond.

Aaron pulling Robbie out of the muddy ditch he got stuck in

It ended up being a nice day with all three of my guys home with me.  Robbie, Aaron, and Austin are absolutely my world and I just don't know what I would do without them.