The Saturday 7

1. We got serious about the van search this week. It was an incredibly frustrating process. It was such a pain to find time when Justin and I could both drive down to the dealership. I do not understand why dealerships close at 6 pm during the week and are open for just a few hours on Saturday. Don't people who buy cars have jobs? Ugh. It was also a major pain to haul all 3 kids down there, transfer their carseats for every test drive, and keep them fed and entertained. I hate the whole car-buying process. After getting burned with our last car we're a little gun-shy. My extremely scientific facebook poll unanimously suggested getting either a Honda Odyssey or Toyota Sienna. So that's where I started my search. But it became quickly apparent that the only Odyssey or Sienna in our price range is at least 15 years old and most have 200,000 miles or more on them. Ugh. So then it was a toss-up between old but reportedly reliable or newer and less recommended. We ended up going with the latter and buying a 2006 Town and Country. It's still not very new, and it still has plenty of miles on it, but it has some nice features that I'm going to enjoy. We debated financing something nice and new(ish) and hoping it'll last us for the next 10 years while our kids are little. But we've worked so hard to get out of debt in the past few years that it seems like going backwards to take out a new loan now. The new van is nothing special, but it's good enough. Oh! And we got a great deal on it! I almost forgot the most exciting part! We had a price in mind that we really didn't want to go over. And this van was listed at $995 over that - which didn't even include tax or title fees. I was on the fence after test driving it and had no emotional attachment to it. So when the salesman hemmed and hawed, I literally stood up, put my purse on my shoulder and said, "That's ok. We'll keep looking." He quickly went to find his manager. The manager tried to get me to go up on the price a little bit too, but I didn't budge, and I won! We got it for the number we wanted including the tax and title fees. Woohoo! I've never negotiated over a price in my life! I was so proud!

2. The other exciting news this week is my 16 year old nephew's brain surgery! The poor kid had a headache for 16 days straight, punctuated by random high fevers and one bout of vomiting. My sister brought him to the doctor and she sent them to the ER for a CAT scan. The ER doctors didn't think a CAT scan was necessary, diagnosed him with strep, gave him a strong antibiotic and told him he'd feel better in a few days. When he still had the headache and random fevers a few days later, Niki took him back to the doctor. This time she ordered the CAT scan herself. Niki and Tayton went down to the CAT scan Thursday at 6 pm. It was a quick process. They were told they might not get the results til next week, so went home thinking nothing of it. As they were pulling into their driveway, Niki got a call saying they needed to turn around immediately and go back to the hospital. She called me at this point and we were all feeling a little nervous, but hoping it was just a problem with the machine or something unimportant. She texted me a little while later saying they were brought to a private room waiting to have a conference with the doctor and they already had a room number where Tayton was going to be admitted. At this point, we knew it was serious. Of course, I was immediately thinking brain cancer or inoperable tumor or an aneurysm that could burst at any time. It was an agonizing wait. My mom and I eventually drove down to the hospital to be with Niki and Tayton since Mike (Niki's husband) was in Orlando for a work conference! When we got there, Niki told us it was a brain infection. It's amazing how relieved we were to hear it was just a little brain infection. Haha. Tayton had surgery Friday morning at 7:30. The doctor literally drilled a dime-sized hole in Tater's head and drained out tons of infection-filled pus. He was shocked by how much came out. Tayton is doing great. He's up and around, acting totally normal, just in a little pain from the surgery. He'll be on strong antibiotics for the next six weeks, but is going to completely recover! Praise the Lord!

3. Ok, how about a couple shorter points?! Lena loves to talk about what Levi might be when he grows up. I don't know why she doesn't think about what she wants to be. She just loves to come up with ideas for Levi. Here are a few of her suggestions from this week: a soccer ball player, lion, pizza cooker, desk maker, paper maker, trumpet player, cleaner, or firefighter. Haha.

4. Levi has finally started to smile a little bit! They're still very few and far between, but he's definitely starting to figure it out. It is adorable. The first time he gave me a full, big smile my immediate thought was of this picture of Lucy:

I don't think they really look much alike, but the smile reminded me so much of her. Levi's also been trying so hard to talk and coo. He mostly just opens his mouth really wide and studies my face really hard. Haha.

5. I read a couple great articles from the same blogger this week. This one has been floating around facebook a lot this week: This Stage of Life? It's Hard. This was my favorite line:

You don’t know the answers to ANYTHING, but you feel constant pressure to figure out EVERYTHING.

I strongly identified with the hard things she shared about mothering young kids. But I loved the ending, when she shared some of the beautiful things:

It’s the stage where your kids love you more than they are EVER going to love you again, for the whole rest of your life. It’s the stage where they can fit their entire selves into your lap to snuggle…and they want to.

 It’s the stage where you get to see Christmas, Halloween and the Fourth of July through your kids eyes, and it’s so much more fun and magical than it would be just through your own eyes.

It’s the stage of life filled with field trips, class parties, costumes, swim lessons, bubble baths, dance parties, loose teeth, and first steps. And those things are so fun. 

Such a good reminder. I also loved this blogger's related article called Things I Don't Do. She talks about how it's ok to give yourself permission not to do certain things as a mom - even if other moms are doing it. Like being a room mom or eating all organic or throwing Pinterest-worthy birthday parties. I don't do any of those things. I also don't fight with the girls over what they wear (to a degree):

6. I forgot to mention in my Saturday 7 last week that last Friday Justin and I went to a seminar at our church on sex-trafficking. I hate thinking about that kind of thing and like to live in ignorant bliss, but I know that's stupid. I need to be aware of the warning signs and have some tools to protect my children (and myself). Of course it largely just made me paranoid, but that's to be expected. I've also been thinking a lot about sexual abuse in general and how we really need to start talking to Lucy about "safe touches" and other cringe-worthy topics like that. Ugh. I hate that we have to have conversations about it, but my eyes have been opened lately to how prevalent it is. Until recently, she was never really away from me. But now she's going to school and AWANA and she's old enough to play with her friends without constant supervision, so I feel like I need to be a little more vigilant. I came across this book on Pinterest, and think I'll probably get it for her to start some conversations. Do you think she's old enough for this kind of discussion? She's anxious like me and I hate the idea of giving her more to worry about. :-( 

7. Speaking of things for her to worry about, yesterday after school she said, "I was scared all morning today." When I asked why, she said, "We had to talk about Code Red today." Sigh. Code Red is for a dangerous intruder in the school. We definitely did not have those kind of drills when I was a kid. Lucy said they didn't actually have to practice anything. They just discussed a plan of action. It was sadly sweet when she told me they have to run in a zig-zag pattern away from the school so if the bad guy tries to throw a rock at them, he won't know which way to throw it. Doesn't that just make you sick to your stomach? Maybe I'll reconsider homeschooling after all . . .

That's a terrible way to end, so here are some cute pictures from the week:

Lena insisted on having her picture taken with the globe. Lol.

Watching "George" together

Lucy wore this outfit to bed, kept it on all night, and came down in the morning with it on. Haha.

Reading time

I don't even know . . . lol