'lil champ

little nash, despite the fact that he is into his terrible twos a tad early, made me one happy mommy today. he's now slept through the night for six straight nights-something we were starting to think might never happen again. as a baby he was a great sleeper right off the bat but after we moved into the ghetto and he started teething, followed by numerous bouts of illness, his sleeping habits were a hat in the wind. anyway, so after sleeping through the night last night he then played by himself in almost complete silence from seven to ten this morning while i was able to sleep in!!! then, to make things even better he took a two hour nap shortly after i got up. and now he's down for his afternoon nap without a complaint. i feel like i don't even have a kid today-which i don't wish-but i don't mind it for a day here and there! and i still have the little one inside me just beatin' on the belly-i tell ya, she wants out now! 8 weeks to go!

anderson suckfest

holwonder is sick of the pridefest blogosphere, so in order to keep it real she started '20 ways i suck,' now dubbed 'anderson suckfest.' please don't tell me you disagree with any of these things. the point is to be real, not to get pity comments from you telling me how amazing i really am!

1. i hate getting ready for bed. i also hate getting ready for the day. i let my legs get a little too hairy before deciding to shave again.
2. my dad told me that i lack conviction. which is probably true because i'm always concocting brilliant plans that i never follow through with.
3. i hate doing laundry and even though stevie (bless his heart) makes his attempts at it i criticize him for not doing it "the right way."
4. i spend most of the day in my jammies.
5. i vacuum way too much. stevie has stopped telling me when people are going to stop by because if he tells me in advance i have to clean the whole house, which includes vacuuming.
6. i forget to feed my dog. luckily, auntie em knows this and will usually feed lex when she comes to visit.
7. i am a really bad listener. i tune out most of what most people say. this probably has a lot to do with the fact that i think most people are stupid.
8. i can't remember most movies i watch.
9. if there is candy in the house or dessert leftover from the night before it's the first thing i eat in the morning. then i take vitamins to feel better about it. then i eat breakfast. maybe.
10. even though i'm a vegetarian i sometimes sample meat dishes (like adi's homemade cafe rio pork and stevies apollo burger the other day. but just a bite!)
11. i'm really bad at flossing regularly. the poor people dentist yelled at me for that too.
12. i have a hard time thinking of anything to do that doesn't involve spending money. especially when i'm prego and/or it's winter and i can't play outside. and unlike brr and hollie, i can justify paying full price for most anything. i'm too scared to risk the item being gone by the time a sale rolls around.
13. i am mostly a clean freak, but when it comes to my room i CANNOT keep it clean. i cannot make myself put clothes away. (especially after stevie does the laundry and puts the clothes from the dryer straight into a laundry basket and leaves them there to cool into a wrinkled mess).
14. i'm impatient and somewhat of a control freak. i curse stevie under my breath nearly twenty times a day for every little thing he does 'wrong'.
15. i am paler than i've ever been in my whole life, i have gray hair coming in, and i need to bleach my teeth (but i can't cause i'm pregnant). you could say i've let myself go.
16. i'm the least funny member of my family. when i actually do say something funny my siblings make a big hoot about it: "ooh, liz made a funny."
17. i use way too many paper towels and too much toilet paper and my garbage can is always much more full than my recycling bin.
18. i have a stupid disease that i use as an excuse for not doing things way too much.
19. i really don't like going to church and find myself being hypercritical when i'm there. especially in relief society.
20. i kissed 32 other guys before stevie.

i tag: lali, dianecan, laurla, lindsay, michelle, and laurie

take me back

oh to be in hawaii again. and not pregnant. and tan. and with a white smile. 

last year's easter card

wow. time flies-look how little and bald he is!

toddler for sale

accepting best offer
{this could be cheaper than in vitro and/or save your body!}

what you'll get:

• sleepless nights
• elevated blood pressure
• a habit of cursing in your head (or out-loud)
• messes and spills
• poop, boogers, and puke on your clothes
  
• public tantrums
  
• and a kiss if you're lucky
  

nash stuff

nash and i were sitting on the couch watching some happy monster band {have you seen this? i am in love with it! dirty, smelly monster chores is my favorite "episode"}. anyway, my shirt had come up and my pregnant belly was a bit exposed. so he poked it and giggled. three times.

other new things:

• he has learned to say "thank you" and says "hi" to everyone he sees.
  
• he saw the chorister in church leading the music a few weeks ago and began waving his arm. this week, without even being able to see her, he immediately started "leading the music" as soon as the first hymn began.
  
• after seeing uncle andybob throw his head back while laughing, nash has picked up the same habit. he uses it for his fake/courtesy laugh most.

the clock's 'a tickin' fast

i just had a minor heart attack when i noticed that my pregnancy widget says i have 9 weeks and 6 days to go!!!!! i should get ready, huh?

this world is for the takers

this morning after dropping lexi off for grooming, nash and i headed to wal-mart to pick up some much-needed grocery stock. nash has been having a rough week from his sickness and apparent possession by some evil spirit. yesterday he literally cried (if you know his cries i'll specify: his squawking cry {the most annoying one that gets under your skin}) all day. he took a twenty minute break to sip his jamba juice and it was the only smile i saw all day. never have i been so excited to go to work! anyway, it was a rough few nights and days with little sleep. back to wal-mart. so we fill our cart and head to the check-out. have you seen that new wal-mart commercial about their new initiative to have more open lanes so you can spend time with your family (it's super cheesy)? well, it's not true. at least not at the 1300 S walmart in slc. there was one-ONE!-regular lane open and three speedy check-out lanes. when you have a grocery cart full to the brim the speedy check-out just doesn't cut it. so i got in the regular line behind a lady with three-THREE!-full shopping carts. a few people in the same situation as i was got in line behind me, grumbling. i smiled and told them the checker was going surprisingly fast (i.e. i was nice and tried to diffuse the situation since the wal-mart employees were making no such effort).

finally, the three CSM's standing in the back gossiping took note of the situation and opened another lane. now, i'm the kind of person that actually waits 8 feet back from the customer in front of me at the pharmacy (like the sign about HIPPA privacy laws says to do). i'm the kind of person that waits at the bank until asked to approach the counter. i'm the kind of person that waits for the cashier opening her lane to turn on her light or othewise announce her readiness to take the next shopper. but the ladies behind me? ooooh, no. as i tried to maneuver my cart around the lady in front of me (remember she had three carts?), the lady behind me shoved-and i mean SHOVED/RACED/JOLTED-to the register. the lady behind her did the same. i gasped and told nash "there are a lot of rude people in the world, nashy-boy. we're not like them." and began to cry as i watched the lady who blazed past me hurrying to shove all her groceries on the conveyor belt as if in a panic. so there i was standing in line at wal-mart crying my eyes out. the worst part was that i really don't think those ladies had any notion of how rude and hurtful they were.

sometimes i wish i was naive and ignorant and could just breeze through life without a care for anyone. fortunately my parents raised to me think of others and i think i do a pretty good job of that. i have my volatile moments where i am so blown away by people's actions that i lash out (which usually involves low blows about an overweight body or lack of teeth), but most of the time i keep my cool and move on, each time vowing to be more considerate so that i never make another person feel the way i just had to feel. this world is for the takers, but i'm proud to say that i'm not one of them. i'm much more of a giver.

nash anderson, m.a.c. artist

***i'm hesistant to post a new post because i want to make sure you all see my previous post about national ms awareness week. so if you haven't read that, please make sure you do and spread the word!

a few nights ago while i was at work, stevie was watching the boy and after an extended period of freedom and silence went to check on him. this is what he found:



future m.a.c. artist in training? probably not, since i am the least capable of training him in the field. i barely wore make-up until i met laurla and probably only purchased so much of it because she hooked me up! anyway, each day (stevie will scoff here because he thinks i never "get ready". and it's getting harder for me to argue that point...) when i put on my make-up (which is really just tinted moisturizer, a little blush, mascara, and lip gloss. and eye shadow if i'm feeling dressy!) nash sits beside me and watches intently. he knows exactly where each product goes (relatively) and he looks at himself in the mirror when i'm "not watching" as if he's checking himself out. i'm not sure i'll ever be able to capture that on video, but i did manage to capture some of his stellar "blush" application technique the other day (he confused the lip conditioner with the blush, and who wouldn't? they're both pink with black lids...):

MS Awareness Week

It's National MS Awareness Week. Since my diagnosis in December 2005, I've tried my best to be a positive advocate for the fight against MS. It's a pretty devastating diagnosis for most people, but there's always two ways to view the world, and I've tried to my best to think positively and share that positivity with others. That doesn't mean I don't have days/weeks/months where I cry my eyes out and wish I was a normal, healthy person. When I'm in the middle of an exacerbation it's pretty hard to think positively-I can't see normally, I'm fatigued, I'm moody, and I panic about not being able to raise my kids. Luckily, exacerbations are few and far between and during the good times I almost forget that I have the disease. It's during these times that I try to make changes that will help me long-term. Things like turning to a vegetarian diet, consistent exercise, yoga, keeping up-to-date on research, and being a positive advocate by participating in fundraising for research and sharing my experience with others. There are lots of ways you can be an advocate too (exciting, right?!). This June, Team Iron Myelin will be again be participating in the MS Bike Tour-Logan event. You can join our team (I'll be doing 30 miles since I'll be 4-5 weeks postpartum, while the rest of the team will probably do 75 {now might be a good time to remind you guys to register as well!}). The team password for registering is: anderson. You can also help by sponsoring our team financially (it's tax deductible!). Even a donation of $5 helps.

There are also several MS walks around the state:

St. George - March 29

Salt Lake City - April 12

Ogden, Provo, Vernal, Cedar City - April 26

Register for WALK MS at www.nmss.org!

Lastly, my door is always open and I love to share my experience to help others. So if you or someone you know has questions or would like to hear about my experience, just let me know!

more rock throwing

nash has been throwing rocks everyday since he discovered its joys. i can't help but take lots of pictures.

the "joys" of motherhood

the past two months have been filled with sickness, travelling, and travelling with sickness. after a few weeks of that, nash's sleeping habits were out the window. sleeping through the night was out of the question and sleeping with mommy was his method of choice (not cool). well, last week after all the random bugs and viruses seemed to have cleared his system, we decided we were going to get back to our sleeping ways. it took about two nights of letting nash "cry it out" and then we were in clear. so we thought...

last night (might i mention that last night i had decided to finally go to bed early and get some good sleep) my sister em, called and said she'd been in a car accident. no more sleep. so we waited up for her to return from the excitement. she did, and after sharing her story we all went to bed, em sleeping in nash's room on his extra bed. just as sleep hit me, nash began to cry intermittently. after about an hour of it i flew out of bed to yell at him and when i opened his bedroom door was hit with a cloud of stench. how emilie was sleeping through all of this i'll never know: puke everywhere, diaper filled with poo, nash screaming. i quickly stripped off the bedding and pj's, changed the diaper, rinsed the binki, and sent nash back off to a clean, but mostly vinyl bed (what was the point of putting on clean sheets?).

again, just as i fell asleep i heard a little cough and then the sound of vomitting. back in i went, changed the pj's, checked the diaper, rinsed the binki and got a new blanket. an hour later, it struck again. at this point emilie and i were laughing pretty hard at nash's poor pathetic face as he dry-heaved until he got something out, face bright red. luckily the volume of puke was decreasing with each episode, so i figured it might be safe to hold him. we took our bed together in the recliner and i draped myself in a thick flannel blanket as my shield and armed myself with a roll of paper towels and package of baby wipes. anyway, we managed to get a little sleep between the rest of the apporximately six puking episodes and by morning we were pretty wasted.

and that's when the diarrhea set it. so after a diaper change, more new jammies, and an attempt at breakfast nash managed to lay down for a good nap. so did i. here's where it gets good. nash was screaming when he woke up. no doubt starving and thirsty from the long night of spewing. i threw some easy mac in the microwave and gave him a small bottle of milk. then i heard a loud squirt in his pants. and then another. while i let the easy mac cool, i ran into his room to change his diaper. i laid him down and felt a little wetness on my hand, so leaned him forward to see if it was indead diarrhea on my hand. as i did this, the diarrhea poured (AND I MEAN POURED) out of the top of the back of his diaper. all over the carpet. why i didn't use a changing pad is beyond me; the past few diarrheas had been very small and still a little...thicker. i said a few curses and hauled him to the bathroom trying not to touch him more than necessary. i stripped him down over an old towel and threw him in the tub. as i was doing this, i caught a little wiff and my stomach began to turn. i tried to hold it down, but as i was placing him in the clean, bubbly water i puked. right into the tub beside my poor little boy covered from his neck down in poo. a picture would have been too much, but you can imagine it (we have a pink tub to make it all the more ugly). a poo-covered nash, blistered cheeks from all the puke-wiping, and pickles and peaches floating beside him.

needless to say today will be filled with cleaning and laundry. the whole house smells like poop and puke. i love being a mom.

p.s. i'm adding these details now (as in later) because i've realized that they paint a more complete (and funny) picture for those of you who have tried to imagine my experience: my right boob has already started leaking and so nash's cries triggered a leak the size of a silver dollar through my clothes. imagine that coupled with the sounds of "baby macdonald" and it was pretty much a circus over here this morning. that's not "TMI" is it? i mean, all the dudes have abandoned the blogosphere anyway and the rest of us are all moms or will be soon, right?

poor poor people

i went to the dentist yesterday for the first time in years (aside from visits for emergency wisdom tooth extractions on three different occasions). but i didn't see just any dentist yesterday, i saw a "clinic" dentist. you know, the kind that works on poor people. because i'm a poor person right now. i thought i better get in while still pregnant, since medicaid covers me until sixty days after i deliver haven. (don't feel bad for me-medicaid is a sweet deal-i'm not complaining about my "free" baby one bit!). anyway, so my visit to the poor people dentist was pretty enlightening and all i have to say is: poor poor people. the office staff was totally rude. the dentist was on my case about not having been to the dentist in so long. rightly so, but i think the fact that i was more preoccupied with testing and treatment for my ms and then pregnancy and then having a new baby and now pregnancy again is pretty legit. i'm not trying to make excuses, but i felt pretty appalled at his audacity to scold me like a two-year old when he clearly had no idea what my life is about. how is that going to convince me to come back? 

speaking of coming back, he refuses to fill my cavities and pull my fourth and final wisdom tooth until after the baby is born. i'm only one week into my third trimester and i'm pretty confident that i can sit still for the amount of time required to complete the work. i also have a high tolerance for pain and the ability to lay around doing very little right now while i recover from an extraction. but he seems to think it would be a better idea for me to come back after haven is born. better for me to come back when i'm nursing, recovering from a c-section, and have to find a babysitter for two kids. riiiiiight. 

most people dread going to the dentist. i've actually never minded it, but this guy just changed my whole outlook on it. never (i'm being dramatic) have i felt so worthless and inadequate. he's perpetuating the problem-now i don't want to go back to have my work done. i was finally and totally ready to check "fillings and extraction" off my to-do list. i found the time and the means to do it. but he was rude and condescending and almost made me cry. how do poor people deal with treatment like this? i have to imagine that this is the "clinic" mentality. you've probably seen how rude House is when he gets assigned to clinic duty, right? i never thought that could happen in real life, but i'm here to tell you IT DOES! it's no wonder poor people don't take care of themselves even when help is available. i have a lot more sympathy for the poor poor people of the world.

two down, one to go

i've finally entered the third trimester and it's hit me like a brick wall. there's no doubt i'm pregnant-i've really popped out and strangers have started touching my belly. but it's not all fun & games. i'll spare you some of the nasty details, but mostly i'm soooooo tired. it's all i can do to get out of bed in the morning or not fall asleep when watching tv. heartburn has started-i think a little earlier than it did with nash-and i'm downing the tums every night before bed. haven is kicking like crazy-way more than nash ever did. and i still have 11 weeks, 4 days to go. my book says she's about 15 inches long and 2 lbs now. i'm in for it...when i sit on the couch she kicks so hard on both sides that my belly just rocks back and forth. i can't imagine how it's going to look when she packs on another 5-6 pounds (hopefully not more!). overall-this pregnancy has been way easier than with nash and i'm really excited to see my baby girl-but i think i'm still entitled to do a little complaining and i'm ready to be un-pregnant. and hopefully this time around i'll be un-pregnant a little longer than 9 months!