The Thatcher Life: May

Sawyer

Sawyer's fully embraced this teenager stage that seems to be common at this age (though no one seems to mention the argumentative sass that is 4 yr olds.. terrible twos then threenager... someone give a name to this baloney that is a 4 yr old's attitude). One day when we were visiting my parents, he wanted something but I wouldn't let him have it (I can't even remember what now) so he stormed into their kitchen to be away from me and screamed, "You're a bad person, Mom!" (Yeah, okay ya goob). Then he spent the rest of the week trying to pull that insult back out when I had displeased him in some way (which is not hard to do) until I finally had had enough and let him know that he was not being very nice. He seems to have moved on from that particular phrase but still finds ways to argue and insult just about every other second during the day.

He wrapped up a few things this month including gymnastics and his first year of preschool. He made so much progress with school and his anxiety, it's really been a miracle. He was excited to be done for the summer. I really thought he would miss going but he doesn't even seem to be bothered by it at all. (And, of course, when I try to get him to do stuff like write his name so he can keep up his skills, he tries for two seconds and then basically refuses sooo hopefully he doesn't slide back too much with his academic stuff). I think we're all glad gymnastics is over. He was always excited to go but then refused to do most of the stuff that involved being off the ground (rings, bar, etc.) It was a good experience for him, but I don't think it's his hobby for life.

He's started t-ball and I can tell already that he's enjoying it so much more than gymnastics. He is definitely there to just have a good time but I'm glad he's having fun. I missed his second game because I was up at camp but Dillon told me that Sawyer hit the ball and then merrily skipped his way to first with a big grin on his face instead of running. So funny.

We decided to watch "The Sandlot" with the boys thinking nothing more than they both might like it since it involved baseball but, for the record, I don't think we'll revisit it until they're older. PG back then is not the same thing as PG now ha. When the part of the movie played that has Wendy Peffercorn walking down the street all done up in her dress and sunglasses, Sawyer promptly told us, "She's SO beautiful!" Funny kid. Where do they learn things like that? Another "where do you get this stuff?" moment was when "Take My Breath Away" by Berlin started playing on the radio and he told Dillon and I that that sounded like a good heist song.

Dawson

Dawson is loving some outside time (though it's definitely been hit and miss most of the month, still cold!). He's definitely more pleasant if he's had some fresh air. He finds too much joy in bugging the heck out of Sawyer when Sawyer's sitting nicely during a movie or show. Dawson will sweetly say he wants to sit by Sawyer on the couch, then he'll climb up and sit for half a second before finding ways to annoy poor Sawyer (though Sawyer will find moments to dish it back out, but Dawson tends to be the instigator when things are actually calm for a minute). I transferred most of Dawson's stuff into the room he'll eventually share with Sawyer so really all he does is sleep in the crib in the other room. As we were moving stuff, I was explaining that eventually he and Sawyer would get to share a room and baby sister would sleep in the other room. I don't think Dawson really got it because all of the sudden he started to cry giant tears and told me that he was afraid of baby sister. I think it was just too much change talk or something while I was in the process of moving his stuff because he's back to asking me daily when baby sister is going to be done growing and come out because he wants to see her.

For about two or three weeks, Dawson asked for an orange and a chocolate milk to leave out for the monster and another orange and chocolate milk to leave out for the robot. He placed them in our entry way like little offerings and then told me that the robot and monster were coming soon to play with him. At the end of the day, I cleaned them up and prepared to repeat the process the next day. I'm not sure the robot or monster ever showed up for Dawson. Sometimes he'd ask me when they were coming and sometimes he'd let me know that they were just in the bathroom ha.

Dawson was convinced that he would be playing t-ball right along with Sawyer and it was pretty sad the first couple of games when he realized that was not the case. We let him practice with the kids at the couple of practices we did, which probably didn't help. And, seriously, he could one hundred percent keep up with the kids on Sawyer's team but poor dude has not just one, but two years before he is old enough to play. He had his bat and ball ready and cried big, sad tears hanging out on the sidelines at the first game. Although, we did let him bat after the game was over and that at least seemed to help. He was happy to have a turn.

He likes to watch the first Harry Potter movie when it's his turn to pick and he pays way more attention to it than I originally realized. The latest that had me laughing was him riding around on his toy golf club while swinging his small toy bat in the air and then informing me, "I playing quidditch!" Apparently he's especially drawn to the position of beater. Man, I love that kid and the little things like that.

Dawson's biggest happening of the month was his trip to the ER to get stitches. We were getting everything together to go to Sawyer's first t-ball practice when Dawson literally was just walking (granted a quick and hoppy little toddler walk) to pick up his ball when his toe caught on the carpet making him trip and bang his head right on the edge of our marble ledge/bench by our fireplace. It seriously happened in a split second, lightening fast and he immediately stood up clutching his head and screamed, "It's broken! It's broken!" (that part replayed in my head over and over for days, it was seriously so heartbreaking). I rushed over to scoop him up and assess the damage (after expressing my panic in an expletive if we're being honest) and just about freaked because his forehead was split wide open and I could see his skull. His freaking skull! So I put on my best poker face, grabbed a rag because it was bleeding pretty good, and told Dawson that it would be okay, the doctor would fix it. All of that lasted maybe sixty seconds when Dillon ran in from the other room and asked what happened so I showed him Dawson's head and quickly learned that Dillon is not the calmest in crisis. He started freaking out enough that I had to basically tell him to stop it because he was freaking Dawson out.

We got a fresh towel, mostly to keep it covered. It weirdly only bled for about thirty seconds, then was just a gaping wound. Dawson also only cried for about the first thirty seconds, then he just whimpered while sitting on my lap but there were no hysterics. That kid is tough, I'm telling you. T-ball practice was supposed to start in ten minutes and Dillon needed to be there as the coach. We thought about canceling but I didn't want to deal with everyone's calls and texts while I was dealing with Dawson. And I didn't know if everyone would get the message in time. So I told Dillon to call my mom and see if she could drive me and Dawson to the hospital and he could go to practice with Sawyer.

My mom came and got us after Dillon told her Dawson no question needed stitches. We got to the emergency room and checked in and then my adrenaline subsided and I started feeling nauseous. Dawson cuddled with my mom for a minute while we waited and my body calmed down. Then they pulled us back and at first thought that Dawson would probably need to be strapped down just because of the severity of the wound and the likelihood of him freaking out. But I told the doctor I would prefer to hold him and he was totally fine with that, it was the nurses that took convincing. They decided to see how he handled the numbing and go from there. He cried and sobbed, "Owie!" over and over but beyond wiggling his feet a little bit, didn't move while I held him. The staff were really quite shocked and agreed he wouldn't need to be strapped down (which, hallelujah. how traumatizing would that be?). He did really good with the stitches and I think really only got panicked because the paper sheet they used to isolate/focus the wound had to go over his face. He definitely didn't like not being able to see me. So I tried to duck my face under and had him hold my hands while he laid across my lap. And my mom pulled out her phone to play "Handclap", one of Dawson's favorite songs currently (which he now requests any time he gets hurt. stubs his toe, "Wanna play me hands clap?" It's pretty stinking cute).

He ended up with six stitches total which was significantly less than I thought he would need and then they butterfly stripped it for good measure. By this time, Dillon was able to come out so my mom took Sawyer back to her house and Dillon waited with me and Daws. Dawson chippered right up after everything was done and we were waiting to be discharged. He crawled onto Dillon's lap and requested to watch baseball videos (MLB highlights new and old). They gave us instructions for an antibiotic Dawson would need and then told us that once everything healed, we would need to keep the scar protected from the sun for months. Sunscreen, bandaids, and hats would be his best friends.

After leaving the hospital, when we were picking up Dawson's antibiotics we decided to grab ice cream for the boys. While waiting for the medicine, Dawson spotted some jelly beans and wanted to know if he could have them. I told him we were going to get ice cream instead. Well this cute, extremely elderly, man behind us tapped on Dawson's shoulder and told him, "If your parents say it's okay, I'd like to buy those for you because it looks like you got a pretty good bump on your head and could use a treat." Then he reached in his wallet and gave Dawson a five dollar bill saying, "If you're lucky, you'll even have some dollars to take home with you." How sweet is that? Kind people are my favorite kind of people. And Dawson definitely loved it.

His head was nice and tender for a few days but there was no slowing him down. I had to remind him constantly to be careful so he didn't bump his head while it was sore. The only time he complained was the morning after. I walked into his room and he simply said, "Mommy, my head hurts." So we kept up the Tylenol doses for 24 hrs but then he seemed fine. And now stitches are out and we're in Mederma and bandaid mode every day for awhile.

Dillon

Dillon signed up as a volunteer coach (I told him that I would do the logistics of organizing and texting if he would do the actually coaching) which meant that he became the coach of Sawyer's little team. I could tell he was nervous about it because he kept YouTubing videos of methods for t-ball coaching. I had to remind him a few times that it was a lot more chill than he expected, like the biggest goals are not letting them get hit by the bat and teaching them to run to first ha. He's done a great job and he's super good with the kids. We lucked out with a pretty well behaved group.

We decided to finally re-stain our deck and Dillon took on 98% of that project which is really just wonderful of him because there's no way my body could hack it right now. There was a tiny window of decent weather at the end of May that looked like it would be a good time to do it but with the process of stripping, treating, and painting it took so much longer for poor Dillon than he thought it would and he had some late nights to get it done before the rainy weather returned.

Dillon was called back into the Elder's Quorom presidency in our ward. The timing actually worked out well because we were planning on being released when the baby came but I've been having a hard time sitting for that long on the hard chairs with my super fun pelvic pain and was thinking about nicely asking to be released a little bit earlier. So Dillon started his new calling immediately and then I told the primary president that I would cover a couple more weeks while they found someone to replace us.

DaNae

I had a pretty dramatic change from, "My pregnancy discomfort really isn't too bad," to "OOwwww and now I'm gonna waddle over this way." It legitimately felt like I hit about thirty weeks and then baby girl/my body went through a major growth spurt and now there's just a lot of pain and discomfort. A lot of round ligament pain and Braxton Hicks were taking place. Like, A.LOT. Enough that I even brought it up with my doctor but we decided that, though unfortunate, it wasn't anything to be worried about. And I have pretty constant pelvic pain which I'm familiar with from my pregnancies with the boys and am just grateful that it took longer to really kick in this time.

Mother's Day was a good one. Dillon and the boys got me some clothes and an iTunes card. And they spent the night outside in our tent to give me some down time. They all told me Happy Mother's Day the next day and the boys were seriously so excited and happy about it that it was contagious. We had my parents over for dinner and it was just a good day/weekend.

I managed to pull off being camp director for our ward Girl's Camp (with a lot of help from the other wonderful leaders and our bishop). I had been pretty optimistic about doing it when my body was still feeling pretty good but got nervous when that all changed. My body did get pretty sore by the end of each day, and I had some pretty significant ankle swelling that I think was related to the elevation change, but I thankfully had a room and bed to myself and slept in a nest of about 8 pillows so I was able to get decent rest each night and that was probably the biggest factor of everything working out fine for me at 32 weeks pregnant. Plus, I would like to believe that the girls enjoyed all the stuff that my assistant Lauren and I planned for them. Girls camp is definitely a lot of work but I always enjoy it and glean something good from the experience of working with the girls that age.

Painting birdhouses from their Home Depot workshop. This picture is going on my list of faves. That face.

Getting in some hitting practice with dad.

Preschool picture. This table must have been one of Sawyer's favorites because he told me about it quite often.

Lunch outside!

28 week belly.. laying down because my energy is basically gone these days.

Sawyer had his end of year gymnastics showcase and showed off some skills..

Crabwalk

Beam

Needle scale roll

Checking out his medal.

Posing for me to take a picture. Clearly too much work.

Him and the other kids getting their certificates.

With his coaches.

Playing in the ditch.

Sawyer's survey about me from school. Definitely giving good impressions with my couch laying and breadstick making/eating haha. At least we also do yoga!

Ready to party it up with dad in the tent.

This tent is sweet and we have Aunt Andee to thank for it.

Preschool pictures. Insect week. Being butterflies.

We decided to do one of the inside activities from our summer bucket list since the weather wasn't quite cooperating for outside stuff yet.

Mother's Day picture with my boys (and baby girl who seems to be making all parts of me expand in the most flattering ways, insert eye roll/cry face).

Hanging out with Daws. "You want to take a smile? I eat my orange." Can't turn down that picture opportunity.

His head wound. I think this picture is pretty gruesome and still just does not do justice to what it looked like in person. So terrible.

All stitched up and waiting to be discharged.

Watching baseball videos with his dad.

And now that marble is covered with a pool noodle cushion. Too bad it's after the fact but there's already been some close calls by it again so at least we're protecting from future incidents involving that particular area of our house for awhile.