Easter and Scary Back Problems

Easter Sunday is a highly anticipated Holiday in our household.

I always enjoy that we get dressed up a little more than usual for church that day, because wrestling the little guy into dress clothes ever is next to impossible. Dress clothing is apparently too constricting for someone of his energy level.

The kids always enjoy finding their Easter baskets (such as they were). Jeff really makes them work for it by hiding them somewhere in the house.

Then little man had to watch out for the puppy who kept snagging the colorful items in his basket and running off with them.

Here was Jericho's Easter gift to us

It was hilarious when the puppy went and got her head stuck in a box in the few minutes she was allowed inside for pictures.

Then, we went to church. My favorite part of the day.

Our church choir always puts on a Cantata that tells the Resurrection Story beautifully.

I will never tire of hearing about my Savior's love for me.

Then, there is the big family gathering at my sister-in-laws home afterward.

The kids love the Easter egg hunt and the telling of the Easter story.

It's always great catching up with everyone

and getting to hold the newest baby in the family (though I had to wait in line behind this little babies auntie K...who didn't want to give her up).

In fact, I think she's saying, "I got her first" in this picture.

That's how our Easter Sunday celebrations usually unfold.

And for everyone else...that is exactly what happened that day.

Unfortunately for me, in the wee hours of the morning, I'd returned to my bed after a trip to the restroom and found that my pillow corner of the bed seemed to be tipping oddly towards the floor.

I got down on my hands and knees and saw that the caster had fallen off the metal frame underneath.

Wedged down there between my nightstand and my bed, in my half-awake state, I somehow thought it would be a good idea to heft the bed up (with Jeff on his side, no less) and put the caster back on, lest our floors get gouged.

And I did it...but unknowingly wrenched my back pretty good in the process.

Satisfied all was well, I stood up and felt an odd twinge of pain, but figured it was nothing a heating pad wouldn't take care of, and promptly fell back to sleep.

When the alarm went off to get up and get going a couple of hours later...I found that I couldn't move without tremendous pain. Like "10" on a scale of 1-to-10, 10 being worst kind of pain.

I felt almost paralyzed.

It was a very frightening sensation, a combination of the utter helplessness and the absolute most excruciating pain I'd ever been in in my life...and that includes the back labor I had during my first child's birth and post-emergency c-section pain and recovery with the second one.

The muscles in my core seemed not to be working properly, and my body did not seem to be responding to the signals my brain was sending it to move.

In addition, I was just getting over a cold at that time, and I found that each cough caused pains to shoot up my spine, the muscles spazzing and tightening in a way I'd never experienced before, ever.

One place in my spine felt like it was breaking apart from another with each cough, and the very thought of getting a chiropractic adjustment sounded too painful and scary, as my spine was in almost too much pain to even touch it.

The worst part, however, was that it took a full half hour to get out of bed. Rolling, psyching myself up for the pain that would zing along my spine, moving to sitting position, then standing up while keeping my back rigid, using only my leg muscles to rise...it was awful.

Getting a shower and getting dressed on Easter morning took twice the usual amount of time, too, as I couldn't lift my left foot up more than a couple of inches without agonizing pain, and my back was so stiff that bending was out of the question so pulling on my clothes was tricky.

It felt so surreal. The day before I'd been 100% mobile and able to do anything I needed, and on that morning I woke up feeling almost completely helpless my back weaker than I ever remember it feeling.

But I was determined not to miss Easter, and soldiered on, even though I could not sit straight up. I ended up standing in the nursery the entire morning and viewing the service through the two way glass window in there.

Thankfully, with the assistance of pillows and a reclining seat in the truck, I was able to rest on the long drive to my sister-in-laws afterward.

Incredibly, they had just purchased one of those devices in which you strap in your ankles and then it flips you upside down to relieve back pain.

I tried it, and it was wonderful...for as long as my feet were above my head, but the slightest tilt back up to standing position was utter torture. Whatever I'd done to my back, it was bad.

You may have noticed the grimace on my face in the above picture.

At the doctor late the following afternoon, I was diagnosed with a bulging disc and sciatica and given a couple of prescriptions and sent home to suffer rest.

Walking around was super-painful those first couple of days afterward, so I spent a lot of time lying flat on my back on a heating pad, trying to relax those muscles. Although Judah was a great little helper during the day and Jeff and Jericho were in the afternoons, and though I had plenty of books and movies to keep me occupied, I felt so...trapped. Low. Stuck. Depressed. Not a feeling I wish to revisit. Ever.

After many prayers, very slowly over the next few days my back began to improve. I knew I had to take it easy and not do anything that could aggravate the injury.

I made myself get up and walk. When Jeff could drive me, we went to the mall, to Costco, Lowes...wherever I could walk on level ground.

It helped. My back slowly began to loosen up.

Within a couple of weeks I was feeling much better. Still in pain, but able to walk and get out of a reclining or sitting position much easier.

My prayers were answered!

Which was great, because my college roomies and I had been planning a get-together weekend for months, and I sure didn't want to miss that!

Lessons learned from this experience? Take good care of my back...it's got to last me the rest of my life, after all!

Oh, and never trust my foggy, middle of the night reasoning with regard to casters on my bed.

Sleeping on the sofa for the rest of the night would have been soooo much easier!

Tales of an Almost-Freshman

We recently had a whole slew of end-of-the-school year functions to attend.

First, there were the final Track Meets of the year.

His personal best in the high jump in track this year was 5 feet 4 inches, and he also did pretty well in high jump. He usually came home with medals for both events from each meet.

This year was also his best Cross Country season yet and at the Sports Banquet his Athletic Director gave him the award for most improved.

Here were a couple of pictures of his wrestling team.

Jericho will no doubt go on to participate in some of the same sports in high school, and for that reason didn't seem too sad to see the athletic season come to an end.

Jeff, however, might be feeling a tad melancholy.

Not only have he and Jericho spent the last 3 years riding to and from school together and getting in some good male bonding time, but Jeff has always been one of the coaches on Jericho's various teams.

He was one proud dad these past couple of years, getting to watch his son learn and excel in various sports.

But now...well, the boy is moving upward and onward. Striking out in a new arena, having recently gone out for the football team.

It's probably a good thing, then, that he's been the longtime announcer for the football games at our son's high school.

Getting to announce his own son's football games should help ease him into this new phase of our son's life. =)

:: :: :: ::

Jericho had been in student government at his school for the past two years, and they had their big awards ceremony a few weeks ago, just after the new officers were elected and their terms came to an end.

These were a couple of pictures I took just before the ceremony.

His teacher in ASB did such a great job with them both years. He really learned a lot under her, and she had a really great rapport with all the kids.

Jericho was feeling really melancholy about that chapter of his life coming to a close, because he'd made a lot of friends in that group over the past two years, and now things were changing.

Mrs. R also did a beautiful job with the Awards ceremony itself, having taken time to gather photos of each student from over the past two years worth of ASB events, and put together a collage of each student, which was displayed on the big screen behind them as she gave out their individual awards.

Mrs. R had some very nice things to say about Jericho. Among other things, she said that he was one of the politest young men she'd ever met, had great leadership skills, and also kept everyone laughing.

Now we know our son can be hilarious. At times throughout his childhood, there have been occasions in which we knew we should correct a certain behavior, but we'd look at him just as we were about to mete out the diciplinary action and there would be this impish grin on his face or, worse, barely contained laughter, and I found it absolutely impossible to discipline him when I was trying to keep from laughing myself.

As a mom, though, it was especially meaningful to me to see that others have recognized the leadership potential in him, and that they know him to be polite and well mannered kid.

I'm glad to know our son comports himself in such a way in public, because, although we've worked hard at training him and know him to be fully capable of both, mom doesn't often get to see much beyond the sibling rivalry and the petty disputes it seems I'm always handling here at home, haha.

Later, on the way home, Jericho mentioned that two of the girls in his ASB group (who are going on to a different high school) had come up to him afterwards and said that they always really appreciated that he was such a gentleman towards them.

That totally blew me away. Made me feel enormously proud of the young man he's becoming. The training that has been poured into him his entire life is finally beginning to bear fruit in his life...the boy is growing up!

Ahhhh....makes me hopeful that by the time he graduates, he will in fact be ready to be on his own!

:: :: :: ::

Perhaps the single most exciting thing for Jericho at the end of the school year was when he came home one afternoon saying that he'd been nominated for 8th Grade Court.

The court was to be announced at the dance that evening.

Obnoxious parents that we are, we took pictures of him going into the dance.

It was to be held in the outdoor commons area of the school due to the ASB having selected the theme as "Under the Stars".

I decided that this distance shot simply wasn't going to cut it for scrapbooking and blog purposes, so I asked Jeff if he could go inside and get a close up.

This was the best we got.

Jericho apparently didn't want his dad following him around. I'm pretty sure the kid on the right is saying, "Hey...no parents or teachers allowed!" haha.

Jericho DID make court, too, but to his dismay it wasn't for King.

He did, however, get an overwhelming number of votes for Court Jester.

Perhaps he should have capitalized more on being a gentleman and less on being class clown, haha.

Tales Of A Rambunctious Almost-Kindergartener

I bought a little doll house hutch at Michaels several months ago with a particular wall-hanging idea in mind for my craft room.

However, like many of my 'projects', there are usually a few stages to the process, and this one needs a coat of primer as it's first step.

While I was working on my entries for the fair this year earlier this Spring, Judah would keep me company in my craft room which was where he first discovered that little hutch, and for weeks afterward I would find it in various places throughout the house, Judah having incorporated it into his play.

After rearranging my hutch for Easter, for instance, I turned around and found this, and upon closer inspection, I learned why

Apparently hutches make really great manly cases for guns and ammo.

:: :: :: ::

Judah has observed things around here for long enough to know that if I need to remember something really important, I stick a post-it note reminder somewhere I know I'll see it first thing in the morning.

Bright pink and green post-its can be found around my house at any given time with reminders or notes from Jeff, usually on my fridge, my bathroom mirror or my desk.

And recently, after asking me what they all said, I found this attached to my desk.

Awww... a love note from Judah.

Not sure what it says, exactly...as he's only just gotten a handle on writing his name and all the letters of the alphabet, but it was the thought that counts.

I sure do love that boy.

:: :: :: ::

Jeff's oldest brother-in-law has been living in a Veteran's home for the past couple of years. He has had kidney failure for many years, and requires routine dialysis and other careful monitoring of his health.

Recently, he was moved to the hospital due to a serious blood infection that nearly did him in. Being on dialysis puts a person in a high risk category for these things, and there have been several occasions in which we've nearly lost him, but by God's grace he's pulled through.

Last month, I had just returned from a weekend getaway with my college roomies when we learned from Jeff's sister that he was in a coma.

She was sick and dealing with some serious health issues of her own, and unable to get any clear answers to her many questions from the overworked staff there, so we offered to go to the hospital on her behalf to get a better picture of what was going on and to pray over him while we were there.

We arrived at the hospital in a rather somber state, thinking it might be the very last time we saw him. To our absolute astonishment, he could be heard talking to one of the nurses as we walked down the hallway towards his room, having just come out of the coma. He was still very ill, but once again the Lord had spared his life.

After our visit, we walked through the beautifully landscaped grounds around the hospital to where we'd parked our truck.

Our desert-dwelling sons were enthralled by the bunnies as well as the ducks and geese which could be seen meandering the green lawns.

We saw several mama geese with their little rows of goslings swimming in the various ponds we passed, as well as a duck with her fuzzy little ducklings in tow. So cute.

This was a photo I took on my cell phone, trying to capture this scene, where the mother goose had just gotten up off her nest (by the pipe works on the left) for a bite to eat.

As Jeff and I stood marveling at our brother-in-law's recovery, the kids were gazing at all the wildlife in this serene environment, and Judah suddenly darted off across the lawn in pursuit of the goose. Usually they just run from him, and he enjoys the thrill of the chase.

But this time, just as I was about to warn him, "Careful, they'll bite!" he gained on the unsuspecting creature and managed to grab it from behind!

Funniest thing ever!

I tell you, I just never know what that kid is going to do.

I think he was just as surprised as the goose, who suddenly arched it's neck around trying to defend itself, and Judah dropped it and quickly retreated.

It skedaddled off in the opposite direction, incensed.

I only wish I could have captured a picture of what happened next, and the expression that crossed Judah's face when the male goose began to chase him, head bent low, hissing and flapping it's wings at him.

We've never seen Judah's little legs move so fast...nor the look that passed over his face as he glanced over shoulder while running to see if it was gaining on him.

Jericho, too, was forced to run, though he was laughing his head off the entire way.

Boy did we get a good laugh out of that!

:: :: :: ::

Recently, we had to take our boy in for his pre-K physical, after which we had to get the rest of his paperwork into the school for registration.

My husband, who is a Middle School teacher, has a long-running tradition in which he cuts his hair into some crazy style for the last day of school. This is always shaved off before Church the following Sunday.

When Judah learned Jeff's haircut was to be a mohawk, he begged to get one, too.

I agreed, only if he would get it shaved off before Sunday as well.

However, we were invited to a birthday party at the home of one of Jeff's best high school buddies, and Jeff wanted Judah to keep his mohawk just until then so his friend could see it.

Which meant two weeks of church services in which Judah sported that hideous haircut. **cringes**

As a mom, I've always tried to stress with my boys from an early age that they will be taken more seriously, look more respectable and, when older, be much more employable if they are clean-cut.

Mohawks totally go against my grain.

Anyway, he was also sporting this same haircut on the day we went to the doctor, along with a host of scratches from our puppy and scabbed over knees and elbows because of his newish bike.

I felt like his newly assigned doctor, who we'd never seen before, would get a rather inaccurate first impression of him as some little thug-ruffian, and stressed on the way there that he needed to be very polite and answer all the doctor's questions.

Unfortunately, he'd not been anticipating having to undress and put on the hospital gown, and that immediately got his nose out of joint (figuratively speaking, anyway).

He was particularly mad that I had to tie a bow in the back.

"I look like a GIRL with that dumb bow!" Clearly not a happy camper.

I knew then it would probably be a good idea if I just kept to myself the fact that his Star Wars underwear were peeking out the back of the gown.

The hairstyle was already a strike against him as far as first impressions go. We didn't need a meltdown to go along with it.

Later, as we turned in all his registration paperwork, he could barely contain his excitement when the lady in the office said, "Well, Judah, you are now officially a Kindergartener!"

Once again, however, his disposition changed when he learned it would be weeks before school started.

**sigh**

At least he's excited about starting school.

He's just sure it's going to be all fun and games, because big brother 'gets' to go, and he's just sure he's been missing out all this time.

And for now, I think we're just gonna roll with that.

:: :: :: ::

I know it's probably hard to believe (after some of the stories I've recounted about Judah here) that Judah is usually a polite, obedient and well-behaved kid. Not perfect by any stretch of the imagination, but he makes friends everywhere he goes, gets along well with others, and I often get compliments for his good behavior and his manners in public.

It's taken a lot of training to get him to this point, and of course there are still the occasional times in which he throws caution to the wind and does crazy stuff out of the blue, but for the most part he's a well-behaved, if rambunctious, little boy.

Nevertheless, to keep things real, I'm recounting for posterity the following tale:

We've been having a little problem around here lately with Judah taking things that don't belong to him.

His grandma's old cell phone which had been recently replaced with an upgrade (which I didn't recognize and thought he'd stolen from one of the youth group kids recently at our home for a party) was recently found stashed under his bed, along with a bunch of coveted Lego sets and Star Wars figurines which Judah had gone pillaging through his brother's bedroom for while big brother was gone to football practice.

He'd been disciplined repeatedly for this behavior and we thought we had a handle on it up until this latest incident.

Yesterday he came up to me and asked, "So when do I have to apologize to grandma for stealing the cell phone from her?" This was one of the terms of his discipline, along with grandma's enlistment to read him the riot act when he does.

I replied gravely, "Probably tonight. You do know, she's going to be veeeeerrry disappointed that you stole from her. Daddy and I are very disappointed that you stole from her... and from your brother. Stealing is a SIN, Judah. Sins are what put Jesus on the cross. It makes us very sad that you continue to steal and sin when you know that it's wrong."

Of course I said all these things with a grave tone to my voice, and he was squirming and avoiding eye contact, switching from foot to foot as he stood in the kitchen where the conversation took place.

This may sound overly harsh to some, but I was doing my best to use the opportunity to put things at his level of understanding, and incorporating in some other things he'd been learning recently from the Bible and Character training stories we read to him at night.

Instead of being repentant, however, he tried to use the feeble defense, "People do it."

To which I replied very soberly, "Stealing is a very bad thing to do. And just because other people do it doesn't mean it's okay for you to. Any which way you try and look at it, stealing is a sin!"

Then, I dug out the old tried and true reasoning of generations of parents in my family, "If everybody ran and jumped off a really high bridge would YOU do it?"

I mistakenly assumed this would bring to mind the big bridge we'd seen from the freeway a couple of days before and marveled at how high it was and that it had to have a high fence along both sides because if a person fell off, they'd die.

However, my question had the opposite effect. It stopped him dead in his tracks and his eyes jerked back to mine, "Wait...is jumping off a bridge a sin?"

Epic parenting fail.

I suppose I should have used "cliff" or the "Empire State building" instead, especially so close on the heels of yet another exchange Judah recently had with Jeff:

"What is it called when you tie the rope around your feet and jump off a bridge?"

In an effort to avert catastrophe, Jeff replied, "It's not a rope they use...it's a special kind of stretchy cord...and it's called Bungee jumping."

**Spoken in breathless excitement** "I wanna go bungee jumping...and grab the soda out of the river."

You may recognize this gem of an idea from a soda commercial on TV in recent months.

Marketing agencies and companies, in their bid to incorporate 'extreme' stuff into their commercials to make them extra appealing and 'cool' to the younger generation have no idea what mothers of impressionable 5 year old boys like mine suffer as a result!

I believe Judah files all these ideas away as things he's going to try the moment his mom turns her back. (In fact, I'm thinking that I should probably go gather up all the accessible bungee cords I've seen in the garage and the one used to hold the BBQ cover in place just as a precaution...)

Trying to head off at the pass any of Judah's harebrained ideas, Jeff replied, "No-noo-noo...that's not a good idea."

"Why? It's too dangerous for kids my size?"

Jeff nodded. "It's even too dangerous for me."

With a gleam in his eyes he said, "I can't WAIT to do it when I get big!"

This kind of thing strikes fear into my heart, especially when my sweet, adorable little 5 year old, who it seems was just a baby in my arms last week, informs us with that same gleam in his eyes after the Osama capture, "I wanna be a Navy Seal."

I knew it! I knew his fearlessness and all his daredevil antics were leading up to something like this.

Pray for me.

Puppy Love

So a couple of weeks before Easter, we took Judah out to our friends little hobby farm in a neighboring rural community to 'see their animals'. Their kids are in 4H and they have pigs, goats, horses, chickens, dogs and cats.

Such a thing is always a treat for little Judah, as mama isn't ready we aren't yet set up for our own goats and chickens.

What Judah didn't pick up on right away was that this was really a covert mission for him to select his very own puppy from their almost-ready litter. He has been yearning for his very own puppy for ages.

I regret to say I have no pictures of that day, as my trusty, seven year old camera was on the fritz.

The mama dog is a papered, purebred Golden retriever whose owners had high hopes of breeding her next year and selling the puppies.

Unfortunately, the gate was left open one night, and half of the puppies in her littler bear a striking resemblance to a neighbors black lab.

It mattered not to us. They were all roly-poly, cuddly and adorable, and in the end, one of the pups chose Judah.

Here is our adorable little puppy Ticker.

Judah named her all by himself, saying, "Don't 'ticker' off or she'll bite ya!"

Just his kind of pup, apparently.

She can take it just as well as she can dish it out. Judah has got scratches all over his arms and legs to prove it (though he is known for using every possible excuse to get to wear a band-aid).

Ticker is an adorable but wily little thing, sneaking indoors at every opportunity.

Her cuteness is in her favor, because after my bulb bed was decimated, the tops strewn about the back patio like discarded green onions...well, Ticker really ticked ME off.

She has since buried and unburied the remaining few bulbs a half-dozen times, each time coming to the back porch looking very dusty and oh-so-guilty.

It's really hard to discipline and train such a cute little thing.

The day after the decimation of my bulb bed and her subsequent trampling to death of all the bean sprouts and young squash plants in another of my garden beds, I was seriously reconsidering the whole idea of puppy ownership.

Wouldn't you know that was the very morning that Judah's Sunday School teacher told Jeff she was glad to hear Judah had finally gotten a puppy of his own. Apparently that had been our boy's heartfelt prayer request each week for months.

The choice was clear...we simply HAD to keep her.

She continues to dig up the backyard, has chewed the basketwork off the leg of one of my wicker chairs out back, gives Raisin a real run for her money and consistently attempts to play tug-of-war with any loose article of clothing on anyone entering the backyard. I had forgotten all about the damage that a puppy's milk teeth will do to kids clothing.

But then, I see my boy holding his beloved puppy and my heart melts into a puddle.

And I find myself crooning, "Oh, my little Ticker-Wicker-Woo" (a name that stuck long before she began teething on my wicker chairs) to her all over again, all her past offenses forgiven.

It probably helps that when the boy 'sneaks' her inside, she always finds her way to me.

Isn't that how it always is? The one member of the family that wasn't keen on the whole idea of a new puppy to begin with, and she makes it her mission to win me over?

Napping under my desk

or on my foot

or in my hands

She's pretty much wriggled her way into all our hearts.

Well, except for our older dog Raisin.

"You have usurped my throne...you will pay!"

It's not all sunshine and roses around here.

In fact, the advent of a new puppy has resulted in some rather strange behavior from Raisin.

In an apparent bid to be as endearing as possible, the old girl has suddenly reverted back to puppy-like antics, gnawing on every puppy toy or bone she finds, frolicking in the yard, and racing for the glass sliding door every time it's opened lest she miss out on some offered treat.

When she thinks we're not looking or listening, she also growls possessively when the back door opens, as though to say, "Get away, Ticker...they were my people first!"

It's shameful, really, to see such overtly jealous behavior in a dog of her years and supposed maturity.

Being 49 (in dog years), we had recently begun giving her a Glucosamine Chondroiton supplement to help with the stiffness she seemed to have after sleeping curled up all night in her dog house. We even went so far as to bring her indoors on nights when the desert temperatures dipped into the teens over the winter.

Judging by all the exercise Raisin has been getting since the puppy joined our family, I'm beginning to suspect that either the supplements have worked a miracle or the 'arthritis' was all a big ploy from day one.

I am such a sucker!

Little Ticker, sensing Raisin's disdain of her, has turned her cute puppy charm on the old girl and I believe has finally begun to wear her down.

Begrudgingly, but they're sharing nonetheless.

It's a start, I suppose.