A Lot Less Wisdom

This past March our family had routine dental appointments. The dentist told me that my 15 year old daughter's wisdom teeth were coming in and that we should talk to an oral surgeon about whether or not they needed to be taken out. She has perfectly straight teeth (no braces ever needed) and her incoming wisdom teeth were a concern. They also told me that my 17 year old might as well go along for a consult. He did not have any wisdom teeth in yet, but his x-ray showed that at least some were lying down at a weird angle threatening to wreak havoc on the rest of his mouth.

Well, we consulted in April and then last Wednesday, we took the plunge. We farmed out the two younger kids and then my husband and I each drove to the oral surgeon's office. My daughter went in first. Then our son was called back. A few minutes later they called us back to the recovery room for our daughter who was finished and starting to wake up. Everything went fine, but she was really out of it. After a little bit, she was awake enough to go home, though still very loopy. She went home with her daddy and I waited for our son to get done.

I stayed in the recovery room and waited about 15 minutes until they brought my son in. He also had no complications and arrived very groggy. His cloudy mind and the gauze stuffed in his mouth did not stop him from laughing and announcing to everyone, "I'm so funny!" After a while, he became more aware. When he asked me to text his girlfriend, we knew that he was fine to go home.

We parked two recliners in front of the television, and the four of us sat all day watching mindless sitcoms. The other two kids arrived home in the late afternoon and we had a quiet evening. The patients had some pain pills so they were pretty sleepy for the first day.

They both bounced back very quickly. My daughter had more swelling than my son, but the next day they were up and about without too much pain. A few days of soft foods and Advil have gone by, and here they are as of this afternoon. Less wisdom but totally recovered.  Now summer begins.

Eighth Grade Class of 2012

I had an eighth grader graduate this year! In our Catholic schools this milestone is a big deal. This is my third child experiencing all this fun this year. The eighth graders got out of school a week before the rest of the students in the school. This was part of the celebration on the last day.

My daughter's falling apart, held together by safety pins, we can make it till the end of the year uniform skirt is now in the garbage, where it should have been months ago. Everyone decorates their cars for the graduation celebration. And we are so excited to now have three "saints" going off to high school in the fall.

Our girl looked so grown up in her graduation dress. 

And so sophisticated in her graduation gown. 

And Dad's always a barrel of laughs on graduation day.

This is our family at the after graduation celebration at the school.

Next year begins an even bigger milestone...we will start high school graduations. But until then we will enjoy how far we've come so far. Congratulations to our eighth grade graduate in 2012!

The End of an Era

Today is the last day of school.

I now have three kids in high school and only one in grade school. And my youngest will be going to a different school for a variety of reasons. While we are more than convinced that we have made the right decision regarding his move, I am still sad that we are leaving our current school. I have been a regular in that parking lot since 2001, when my oldest was a little first grader. Even though it is the best thing to do for us, it is not an easy move. I have no doubts that we will be happy in our new school community, but saying good bye to what we have known for many years is not easy.

We have had the same carpool for many years. We started it with six kids crammed in the minivan.

A few years ago my oldest went to high school and freed up a little room. Then my daughter went to high school and the van became quite roomy. Today is the last day for our carpool as well. One of the boys graduated from eighth grade and is moving on to high school. The other one is going into seventh grade in the fall. I am going to miss the company of those boys on the drive home in the afternoons. Their mom drove in the mornings and I picked up in the afternoons. Two nice boys that are polite, funny and adorable. Luckily, they only live two streets over, and their parents and my husband and I are good friends so we will keep in touch. It will just be different.

New adventures await all of us as we step away from all that is familiar and into the next leg of the journey.

21

Today is my 21st wedding anniversary. We are not very different than we we were last year on our 20th. And we are in a different location now, but not so different than we were two years ago either. Each year brings changes, some life changing (we had a few babies through the years) and sometimes just another year older (and hopefully a bit wiser). And while many years have passed since April 27, 1991, we know that our decision that we made as very young people continues to stand the test of time.

Here we are 21 years ago with no clue where life would take us.

And here we are earlier this evening before we went out for a very nice anniversary dinner at Room 39 Restaurant in Kansas City. It was a lovely evening and another wonderful year.

Summer is Booked Already

My husband and I just sat down and put all of our summer plans down on the calendar. And is this summer ever going to be busy! From a family road trip in a big Midwestern circle (St. Louis, Milwaukee, Chicago, Des Moines and Omaha) to visit five college possibilities for our oldest, to a trip to Boston for just my husband and I later in the summer (a work conference), to multiple summer camps for the kids (journalism camp for the big boy, soccer camp for the big girl, Totus Tuus for the little guy, high school camp in the wilderness for both the girls), to summer classes for my high school almost senior son and almost freshman daughter, to two sets of teen aged wisdom teen being yanked.

And all of that is what I know about today. I am still trying see if I can work in a trip to CA for just me for my sister's awesome Bunko tournament. We'll have to see about that one. School is in session for about three more weeks and I am already tired out from summer!

And Mother of the Year Goes To...

...My sister in law. Poor thing. She was sick as a dog all night Friday into Saturday and all day Saturday, Saturday night and Sunday. She was throwing up, feeling like a truck had hit her. She does not have any kind of life threatening illness, she just caught some bug.

The bad timing in all of this was that her second grader was making his First Communion on Sunday. She did not think she would be able to go because she was so sick. When we arrived at the church there she was, dressed and parked in a pew in the warm church holding it together. Her eyes looked tired and her face was pale, but her little boy had no clue about that.

As we walked out of the church together, she was very weak since she had not eaten anything for two days. But tears welled in her eyes as she told me that she did not think there was any way she was going to be able to make it through the First Communion, and the fact that she did was pure Divine Intervention.

She is feeling much better now, nearly back to normal. But she won't soon forget the heavenly power that allowed her to be present at one very important day.

Two Week Vacation

My laptop was "in the shop" for two weeks because of a broken hinge. When my husband took it in they discussed that if it was going to take more than a few days or if a part had to be ordered or whatever, we would come back and pick it up so I would not be computerless. Well, that sounded all well and good until we started calling the computer store after three or four days asking when it would be ready. The guy told my husband that a part had been ordered and that it would take at least another week. And we could not come pick it up because it had been taken apart.

So I managed. We have a couple other computers in the household so it was not the end of the world. And since it was not the end of the month, I was not pressed for time on any articles. This week is crunch time for that.

After quite a few phone calls, the computer fixers finally get my laptop all put back together and good as new. But a few days later when I go to get on my blog, the format has changed during my computer vacation. That kind of thing always makes me paranoid. Why would they wait until I don't log in for two weeks to change it? Pretty sneaky. I always have four or five blog topics that I have started and saved in drafts. I periodically look at those and either delete them due to dumbness or irrelevance, or I go ahead and finish them. But with this new format, I could not find them. And it nearly sent me into a panic. I had no idea what I had there in queue, but I knew I wanted to review them.

I finally found what I was looking for on the rearranged site. Turns out there was nothing there of value at all.