I'm sorry...

It's been a long time and now I have so many things to write about that I don't know where to start.  Allie is getting baptized later on this month, so whenever I feel like I might have free time to write on the blog, I feel guilty for not looking up pictures of her to put in the slide show.  Ugh.
I don't really want to do that now though (it puts me in a funk to watch her grow up in pictures), so I'm just going to start trying to catch up here and see how long I have till my friend Jason wakes up.
Speaking of Jason, he is a new kid.  The tonsillectomy was the best thing we ever did for him (minus the whole near death experience).  He has been so happy.  He still throws the usual fits right before meal times, and when he wants to do something that I won't let him do, but he doesn't follow me around crying all day anymore.  I can't tell you how much that has changed our lives.  I find joy in that kid almost every minute of every day.  I even took a picture of him crying yesterday because even his cry face was cute to me.

I love how he does a squinty eye cry.  He also has a squinty eyed smile, but he's crying in this one.  Taking pictures side tracked him from his fit, so that was an added benefit.  :)

 He has exploded in language and he has the funniest sense of humor.  He likes to tease and will follow Nate around trying to "poke" him, or "ssss" slither a snake finger down his back.  Today, he kept coming to the hose for drinks and then I saw why.  He was holding the water in his mouth to go spit it on Nate.
When he gets the hose, he sprays people and laughs about it.  I swear he never did cute things before.  Maybe he did, but now everything is just amplified because he's happy.
We went to a family reunion last week where we needed to stay in a hotel room.  I didn't even have the usual pre-trip anxiety about Jason sleeping because he's been sleeping all night at home, I figured he'd be okay in the hotel.  He was!  He slept all night both nights and even though he had a hard time falling asleep, and ended up waking up early, there were never any uncontrollable fits.  It's just been heaven.
I am so grateful.  Yesterday, I found myself cleaning out the corner table next to the fridge and I found things from the school year in that pile....that's how old it is.  Anyway, I was cleaning out the corner because I could.  Suddenly my mind can tackle messes that I haven't wanted to face in a long time because I was too busy just surviving.  I know it all sounds weird, and a bit dramatic, but it is how it is.  I was talking to my neighborhood book club the other day after reading Stephanie Nielson's Heaven is Here, and we talked about depression.  I talked about how I've been in a sort of fog ever since Jason was about 6 months old.  There were days where I would just sit and get nothing done.  It was so unlike myself and I wondered if I needed to go get on a pill or something.  I wasn't getting things done because, when he was sleeping, I had no motivation to do anything but sit.  It had been going on for so long, and day after day, I was just spinning my wheels thinking that it was just the way life was for me now.  Jason was just so grumpy and he didn't sleep.  It was affecting our whole family.  Now that Jason has been sleeping at night, and he is happy in the day, I can see how much it had changed me.  It helps that Nate has been amazing too.  It's like all those months of crazy chaos are starting to lesson a bit.  I have been able to leave the house a few times without kids, and each time, I find a little more of me.  I remember these years being really hard when Allie and Jake were little.  They are the same ages apart as Jason and Nate and I remember being really sad that I couldn't imagine having another baby.  I wanted more kids, but I was too overwhelmed.  Then, things just started getting easier.  I had all this before, so I knew that it would get better with Jason and Nate too.  It just seemed so far away.  Now Nate listens to me and he understands consequences.  I don't have to fear for his life every second of every day.  He stays close and he tells me when he wants to go somewhere.  Combine that with a happy Jason and now it's possible to go places without bringing anxiety as my other friend.  Jake and Allie are huge helps around the house and with the boys.  I even went to the temple last week and left them in charge.  I did initiatories and was home in an hour and all was well when I got back.  I will miss them when school starts.  Allie is always so good to let Nate tag along when she plays with her friends.  He will miss her too.
So, this ended up being a long post and I didn't mean to complain about things in life right now.  I just wanted to say that I am so happy that things are getting easier.  I have always been so grateful for my kids and I would never trade my life or my chaos for anything else.  I just see that things are getting easier and I am grateful for that too.
We have had some really fun adventures this summer and since Jason is still sleeping (yay!) I am going to get started on another post.  To my handful of readers (Alana, Mom, and Heidi), I'll try and be better. :)