Smiling Mom

My chil­dren LOVE the beach.  San Diego has warm waters, and sunny skies.  We couldn’t miss an oppor­tu­nity to play in the sand.

Exfo­lia­ting…

Han­ging with Daddy

Jum­ping waves

Boo­gie Boar­ding (OK, only Daddy and Uncle Jonny who joi­ned us)

And Making Memories

Good Times, happy days.

So, no BlogHer for me this year.  Maybe next.

Ins­tead I had the plea­sure of seeing all my exten­ded family, remi­nis­cing about my grandma, and catching up on old times.

I have a big family. A big Mor­mon exten­ded family.  We are not.  But I often feel that even though I was not rai­sed in the Mor­mon faith, I was rai­sed somewhat Mor­mon.  Mor­mo­nism is more than a reli­gion, it’s a cul­ture.  I was rai­sed with the Mor­mon cul­ture.  And I think I am a bet­ter per­son for it.

My hus­band and I don’t often take pic­tu­res together any­more.  So I am attemp­ting to remidy that.

Notice the earrings… thanks Fussy.  I LOVE them!!

And the shoes.  Well, let’s just say that a girl who, a day before BlogHer, learns she can’t go to BlogHer, MUST do some retail the­rapy.  Mine was in the form of a trip to Ross Dress For Less…  The shoes?  Ya.  they cost less than $18 AFTER tax.  BOO YA!

Recap:

Hubby hurt his shoul­der at work, Sep­tem­ber 01, 2007.

Hubby went on disability.

Novem­ber 15^th-ish he got surgery.

Hubby’s been out of work for a very long time.

Six months.

And you know what??

After the ini­tial adjust­ment of having him home all.the.time. I’ve actually enjo­yed spen­ding our days together.

The kids are flou­rishing and we’ve found a way to work with, and around, each other without get­ting on the other’s nerves.

I actually like having him home.

Gasp.

It’s true.

But if you see him, would you kindly keep that infor­ma­tion to yourself??

We don’t want to unne­ces­sa­rily inflate his ego, you know.

So any­way I’ve been expec­ting that Hubby would return to work some­time around May.

Late May.

I could handle that. It gave us a bit more time together. I’d be almost done with school for the year, and child­care would not be an issue.

Then he went to the doctor’s office today.

Ver­dict:

Return to work in two weeks.

Two Weeks.

TWO WEEKS.

Frack.

The news hit me pretty hard.

We had plans in April. Plans to visit San Diego.

We spend time together in the evenings.

The kids see him all day, every day.

We have a gym rou­tine each mor­ning. As in, we actually go to the gym.

Together!

I know, crazy, huh!?

But now my time with Hubby is dra­wing to an end, and I’m sad.

I’m not sure if I can remem­ber how to parent alone. He’s been such an asset to have around the house.

And frankly, I’ve also really enjo­yed this time to recon­nect and remem­ber why we were actually married in the first place.

Two weeks.

Sigh.

Two weeks.

And the count­down begins.

I knew I had to wake up from this dream at some point.… I just didn’t know how soon it would be.

In case you mis­sed the first part of this story, click on over to here and read up.  I’ll wait!

Ready?  OK.  So where should I begin?

I’ll start with the night before the drea­ded sur­gery.  Hubby deci­ded that he would go through with his pro­ce­dure the follo­wing mor­ning. (yeay!) As much as I tried to con­vince him that he really should wait a bit lon­ger to make sure he was cer­tain, he dec­li­ned.  The pro­ce­dure would hap­pen. (yeay!)

Jokingly I said to Hubby that the nur­ses in the uro­logy cli­nic must have an ongoing wager on how many men will chic­ken out and not follow through with their vasec­tomy.…  I bet they really do, hmm, I’ll have to ask the nur­ses next time!

The next mor­ning we work up with an air of anti­ci­pa­tion.  Our friend, Amber, came over to our house with her chil­dren to watch BC and eClaire.  Bless her heart!

So off we went.

On the drive over to Kai­ser, Hubby tur­ned to me and said, “I took 800 mg of ibu­pro­fen before we left, you know, to ‘get ahead of the pain’.”

800 mg is a lot of ibu­pro­fen.  Like presc­rip­tion strength. It was presc­ri­bed to Hubby after his shoul­der sur­gery back in November.

During his shoul­der sur­gery ever­yone kept telling Hubby to ‘get ahead of the pain!’ ‘get ahead of the pain.’

Hubby didn’t.

His shoul­der hurt, a lot.

So this time he deci­ded he’d had enough with pain.

After con­si­de­ring where he was get­ting cut open, cut apart, and sin­ged, (ahhh!)  he’d do everything in his power to ‘get ahead of the pain!’.

I was impres­sed.  My hus­band?  Take medi­cine without being told to?  This was huge!

Smi­ling Mom: “NICE!  Good for you!”

After six months in the making, Hubby and I finally wal­ked into the uro­logy clinic.

Ready for the vasectomy.

Hubby was called back and his blood pres­sure was taken.

Then the nurse asked him a few questions.

Nurse: “So, did you take any aspi­rin in the last 10 days?” (thins your blood, bad juju when having surgery)

Hubby: “Oh no!!  not me.  I know about aspi­rin!  I didn’t take any.  I took ibu­pro­fen instead.”

Nurse: (stop­ping, loo­king up with shock on her face) “WHAT? Ibu­pro­fen?  You can’t take ibu­pro­fen before a sur­gery!!  It thins your blood too!  How much did you take?”

Hubby: “Um, 800 mg”

Nurse: “haha, well..ahem.. I’ll let the doc­tor know… ya, you pro­bably won’t be able to get the sur­gery now.”

Hubby:  “Oh sh*t.”

Once Dr. Cuts-A-Lot called us back to the room to talk, me inc­lu­ded, we knew the sur­gery was a no go.

Hubby heard phra­ses like, “Strongly sug­gest we post­pone the sur­gery” “Scro­tal sack is like a sponge”  “Might soak up blood and swell to twice the size” “Not in your best inte­rest” He decide, whole-heartedly, to post­pone the surgery.

And we laughed.

We couldn’t believe the comedy of our errors!  How could we be so dumb?

We knew about ibu­pro­fen, and forgot.

As Hubby and I wal­ked out of uro­logy, with sper­mies still swim­ming, I loo­ked at Hubby and said, “So, is this sign that God wants us to have another kid?  Let’s go home and work on #3?”

And I laughed.

Hubby infor­med me that I’m so fer­tile that I would most cer­tainly end up preg­nant with tri­plets if we shot for one more.

I have to agree with this.  God help me!

I just can’t see myself a parent to five kids.

Oy.

I’d go crazy, for reals!

Ulti­ma­tely we deci­ded to resche­dule the appoint­ment for early April, and attempt to actually see it through to completion.

I’m not sure why, but this vasec­tomy just wasn’t meant to be.  Hope­fully the next one will be!