Inevitably Keely

One of my children pushes themselves very hard. Sometimes to the point where we have to remind them how awesome they are doing and that it’s ok to relax. They stay up late doing homework and studying. They put extra effort in on projects. If you set a challenge in front of them, it will make them anxious because they want to be the best, but they will jump at the chance to participate anyway. They will get frustrated when things don’t come as easy for them. They are hard working and smart. They are emotional and sensitive. This child wants to belong. They thrive in groups and always stand out as being friendly and kind. Adults love this kids engagement and optimism.  This child actively seeks validation and recognition. They enjoy being a part of team. They love opportunities to be in the spotlight - whether it’s on stage or drawing attention to themselves by dressing up for theme days. This child came home yesterday with marker on their nose because they didn’t have time t...

On Saturday I woke up with awful allergies. Sneezing. Running nose. Coughing. Hell.  Later that night, I got the surprise that I’d started my period. At nearly 43, it’s still comes as surprise because I don’t expect it to be regular. Because for most of my adult life, it wasn’t. Now that I am done having children, my uterus is as dependable as my children are loud (very). I can also count on at least two days of the most excruciating pain - the kind that makes me walk hunched over and cry like a baby. Lately I’ve been told this isn’t actually normal so I’ll need to go to the doctor about it soon - except my pregnancy with the twins has made me never want to see a gynecologist again.  I woke up at 2am Sunday with 102 something temperature. We went to the urgent care where they threw Tamiflu and a ZPak at me for my second round of the flu and also because my immune system is such crap.  I’m iga deficient which means I am prone to infections anywhere with a mucosal ...

Last year, just because, Daniel ordered me a surprise. The moment I saw the shape of the box I had an idea what it was. I opened the box excited to see what new vinyl my husband thought I would enjoy.  KEB' MO' : "BLUESAMERICANA" Hmm. I do not know this Keb Mo. I wonder why Daniel sent me this. Let me just flip it over and read the song titles and see if he is trying to send me a message:  The Worst Is Yet To Come  Somebody Hurt You  Do It Right  I'm Gonna Be Your Man  Move  For Better Or Worse  That's Alright  The Old Me Better  More For Your Money  So Long Goodbye  Ummmmm. Sooooo? I.... So I sent him a text. I can't remember what It said, but I think I asked him if everything was alright and I think he said something that indicated it was and why, so I said I just got my Amazon package... If I remember correctly, he sent back a smiley face and asked me if I liked it. Ummm... yes... So I ...

Today wasn't an easy day. I mean, if we're being honest (and that's what this is) it hasn't been an easy TIME. Being back in California has its positives (I'm looking at you, friends) but it's also been a huge stress. We miss Texas - almost everything about it, actually - but especially the life we built there, our community, the great activities for our family and the cost of living. I feel like I'm supposed to stop there and it's not polite to talk about money, or politics, or religion, but UGH. It's expensive to live here. Really expensive. And if we're being really REALLY honest, we're struggling. Dogs getting cancer and roofs needing to be replaced and relocating is expensive. State income taxes are no joke. Having four kids isn't the cheapest choice. We're managing and we'll get by, but it's stressful. Personally, I'm struggling because I feel useless. Like I am not contributing to my family. And before you tell...

The Animal Hospital where we took Bailey called a couple weeks ago to let us know that her ashes were ready to pick up. I told them I'd be there the next day and I realized later that was a lie. My heart felt heavy when I heard their words. I didn't feel ready to bring her back home because I knew I wasn't really bringing her home. She's gone.  So I waited. And each day I drove by that place where I left a piece of my heart, I felt heavier and heavier. So I started taking a different route to and from Finnegan's school. If I took a different road, I could try to forget that place and what we did there. I could try to push away that sadness. But the thing is, I couldn't. I can't. I feel that sadness every day. When I see another Boston Terrier. When the girls call for their Bailey and are confused when we tell them she is gone and can't come back, not ever. When Finnegan tells me he thinks Maxie is lonely and needs a friend again. I forced my...

Zoe asked me yesterday what I've written recently for my blog. "Nothing, baby. I haven't written since I wrote about saying goodbye to Bailey." "Oh. You should write something. I think it's cool you have a blog." So I pulled up my blog and realized, I didn't write about saying goodbye. Not really. I wrote about how she joined our family and how much we loved her, but I couldn't tell the story of how we knew we had to let her go. It was a Saturday. After more than a week of her cuddling with us more and making us think maybe she was going to be with us a little bit longer after all, I looked at her and knew she wasn't herself. I held her on my bed and ran my hand over the stripe on the top of her head and around her neck the way she always liked. I kneaded her neck and told her what a sweet girl she was. Her right eye was swollen. Blind for almost four years already, her pretty chocolate eyes had been covered in white clouds, but th...

We saw an ad in the paper for Boston a Terrier puppies for sale. We'd been together for just over a year and I'd wanted us to get a dog for oh, about a year. We researched what the right breed for us would be. Not a pug, he said, "their eyes fall out and you have to put them back in with a spoon." What?! No! (That has never happened to Maxie, by the way.) So we decided on a Boston Terrier. Good companion dogs - protective, great travelers. Wonderful with children (not that we were going to have any but you know, in case friends ever did).  So we drove up a mountain to where the puppies were and when we got there, I remember feeling like this place was not what I thought it would be. I expected someone's home but this was a large property with multiple buildings and a trailer. I expected to see a litter with their mama. There were tons of cages and Bostons of all sizes. To my horror, we were in a puppy mill. We walked up to an area filled with about six pups, ...

When we started the school year, we were a Reagan Elementary family. But things got complicated last Tuesday. Here's our story*: Our family relocated back to Bakersfield on June 9, 2016. The house we purchased was perfect - close to my husband’s work and just doors down from the front doors of Reagan Elementary. The price of the home was more than we planned on spending, but it was worth it to be so close to a highly regarded elementary school that our kids could walk to. We knew the school was highly populated, so I rushed to the school the morning the office opened back up for the year so that I could turn in our registration paperwork. Both kids were anxious about the uncertainty of where they would end up. My husband and I did not (and still don't) understand why they would let these kids start at one school and then uproot them 2 or 3 weeks later, after they've made friends and adjusted. That seemed extremely unfair to the students and th...

Last night I was up all night because our floor was the party floor, duh. I  found out  there's only so many times you can shout "Bakersfield PD!" and get a heart racing/fear reaction from me. So thanks for that drunkards in room 804. Thanks for that. We were up at 4:30am. On our first flight at 6:30am. We took three flights. Slept a bit. Made "To Do" lists and "Must Sell" lists and reviewed our calendar for the month of May. We stressed a little and then we took deep breaths. I felt sad flying into Houston and seeing all the green. I've loved it here - far more than I ever expected to.  We got home and hugged our kids - Mol tried giving me the silent treatment for a bit, but after a while she nonchalantly said, "Hi, Mom." Just like that, as she walked by and barely made eye contact. Apparently, Molly turned 13 while we were away.  We showed the Biggies pictures of the new house and wiped away Zoe's tears. Her room is smal...

So the thing about getting a new roof is, it is REALLY noisy. I knew this in theory, of course. But as the pulled the old roof apart and hammered the new roof in place, we all kind of went along with it.  I was super amazed that the girls managed to sleep in and at first they seemed kind of amused by all the banging. It was like music and they danced around and turned in abrupt circles in a sort of jerking motion and laughed. Fun. Getting a new roof is fun. And then they napped like champs and we were all thinking, "Wow! These girls! Amazing!"  And then five rolls around. And then six. And then Charlotte had enough of all this business and she was NOT happy and she made sure we knew. She'd reached her breaking point with all that noise. Almost 11 hours of that constant racket had us ALL on edge by the time the roofers finally left.  And then we got the kids ready for bed and I hugged them all extra tight and maybe I got a little emotional smelling the girls clean...

"I do not think you will ever have it this good, ever again."   He said it with an approving smile and in complete sincerity as he looked around the new home he was helping us move into. The home was beautiful: open floor plan, high ceilings, three bedrooms, two bathrooms. The backyard was huge: plenty of room for our almost crawling Zoe to eventually run around, a pool, gorgeous roses and citrus trees. The front yard had huge hydrangeas and roses and other flowers and the front of the home was covered in vines - there was a fountain. It was beautiful. It was perfect for our family of three and just as perfect a little over a year later for our family of four. We held many parties and hosted dinners and hat parades. We danced it out. That house was filled with love and friends and good memories and we were grateful our friends rented it to us and grateful that we had the opportunity to purchase it (escrow went through on April Fools Day, 2010). It was the first home ...

I was driving home yesterday - thinking about the last ten months, this weekend, next week, the next few months, etc. I was mentally writing my "Things to Do" list and calculating what my strategy would be to stay sane through it all (no luck there, btw) when "Plate Spinners" popped into my head. You know plate spinners, right? Those amazing people who spin all these plates on sticks. It's a circus act - dozens of plates up in the air. Audiences watch with anticipation - breath held, waiting for a plate to fall.  Some of us spin more plates than others. Some of us support the weight of other plate spinners - holding them on our shoulders, in the palms of our hands, on top of our heads - as they try to balance their own plates. We work together (or in spite of each other) spinning and balancing and sometimes a plate falls. Sometimes it feels like all the plates are going to come crashing down, but you slowly pick up the plates and you rebuild. I have friends with...

These girls are two days shy of being ten months old and I absolutely cannot believe it. Two more months of them being babies and then... oh, who am I kidding? They will always be our babies. Our last babies. The two who showed us that everything we thought we totally knew about babies was good and all, but they were different. Different from Zoe and Finn - and yes, different even from each other. These last ten months have gone by so fast, and I have this feeling that the next two will go by even faster. I'm not ready, but at the same time, with every milestone and every day of growth, we are further from that scary time when I was pregnant with them and when everything seemed so out of our hands during Charlotte's time in NICU and CVICU. Every day moving forward feels like a little victory celebration. Their being here -  healthy and happy - is a testament to how strong our girls are and to how capable and tough and loved the entire Emery family is. It's been quite the jo...

I had an ultrasound a week ago, and for the 2nd time the girls didn't cooperate for us so that we could get good images of their hearts. My doctor came in and looked and said she wanted me to have an echocardiogram. She patted my leg and I didn't see the same look of confidence I usually get from her. I gave her an opportunity to put me at ease - "But we're not really concerned, right? We just need better pictures." She said we need to have me come back in. I left the office afraid.  I did not have a good feeling at all. The echocardiogram was  Wednesday  morning. More than two hours of watching the girls move - both transverse, then one breech and one head down, and then both transverse again. It was amazing to see our strong girls move. "Can you feel all that?!" I could feel every single movement - in my belly all the way back to my spine. At the end of it all, the cardiologist smiled and said she saw no problems. Molly and Charlotte's hearts l...

When you've been away from blogging for nearly a year, it's difficult to just pick it right up where you started. In fact, it's impossible. A lot has happened since last March. My parents moved into our house with their dog and parrot.  Zoe graduated from Kindergarten and started 1st grade. Finn is in his last year of preschool. We made new friends and reconnected with old. At the end of October, Daniel and I took a trip to Calgary for work and the morning after we got back, I found out we were expecting baby #3. Baby #3! Due July 7, 2014!* We'd been trying for more than a year, so it wasn't a big surprise. Well, I suppose that isn't right. In Calgary we were discussing how we we might be done trying. We were beginning to adjust our idea of what our family would be (again) and accepting that we were a family of four and what that meant. Part of me was sad that I was done and there wasn't another baby joining our family, but I was feeling sort of at pea...