UGH!

So I got this whole new fancy look for my blog - And when I added it - Guess what??? I lost my whole Blog Roll - I am lost! I have no clue where to go to visit my old blogs. Lesson #1 Keep blog rolls somewhere other than on your blog!

Its been way to long and time for another update - I am working on it!! Gee life with 4 kids is busy! Especially with 3 of them 2 and under!

Short version in case you can't wait - :)

Ethan - doing GREAT in school - loving it! He can read most short words and can write a bit too! He is really excelling at Math - addition and subtraction are just coming really easy for him.

Aidan - Oh man! He is by far more vocal than Isaac - He is talking a bunch now. He loves to undress himself and does it every chance he gets! He also LOVES to take his shoes and socks off in the car - as soon as we get in. Makes these cold snowy days very hard and frustrating! (Ok - so it has only snowed once - well can you call flurries snow???)

Isaac - Well he was in the hospital for a few days at the end of October for pneumonia and while in the hospital they diagnosed him with Asthma. We are still trying to get his coughing under control. It is mainly quite during the day but it acts up at night or if he has been playing hard (running around) or crying. We are still operating under the "Orange zone" of his Asthma action plan. We will be going back to the Dr this will though cause he just started with a runny nose tonight - Something we were told to watch for and to get him in to the Dr ASAP if his cough wasn't controlled.

Mayah - Almost 7 months! Can't believe it! She is too cute. Loves to laugh and suck her toes. When I change her diaper - I have to PRY her toes out of her mouth when I am done. She will masterfully pull off her socks to get to her toes. She can even unsnap buttons if they stand in the way of her toes. At this point I do believe that she prefers he big toe to her thumb!

David - Still with Starbucks - Until Friday - We think. In December he will start with a new company called 4 Preservation. Awesome opportunity for us.

Me - Going Crazy! Well not really but I do believe that I will be starting my Masters in January.

Okay - Well I have a kitchen that desperately needs to be cleaned!

So if you were on my blog roll and what to stay on it - comment me. If you don't it might be a while till I get around to finding you again and put you back on. If you weren't on it but want to be - you can comment me too. Make me feel special! :)

Please forgive me.......

I am back. I have been gone for a while. I have had many health things that I have been dealing with in the past few months. I think that I am FINALLY on the up swing of that, although I am still waiting for a EEG and another MRI to be done. I have been switched from back and forth from so many medications in the past month and I think that we have finally found the right combo that is getting things under control, and the side effects are finally lessening to the point where I can deal with them. The really sad part in all of this is that I had to stop breastfeeding Mayah. It was heartbreaking for me but what was best for her.

Highlights from the past few months that I hope to update soon on - with pictures of course. Well I hope so. Our camera is broken (so if anyone would like to donate one to the Woolf family cause - okay totally joking...............) BUT our friend Tyler is in town before he ships off to boot camp in a few weeks and he takes FABULOUS pictures (remember May of 2007??) and is planning a family photo shoot sometime in the next few weeks......

I turned the BIG 31!!!!!!!

Ethan (our oldest) turned 5, August 2nd AND started kindergarten. He is already blending letters and can read 3 letter words - he can read most of the Dr Seuss books.

The brothers turned 2!!!!!!!!! I can not believe it. It seems like it was just yesterday when they were in the NICU so tiny eating through G tubes. Now they love to feed themselves and feed each other. Here is the conversation that I had with Aidan just the other day:

Aidan: "nummies?"

Me: "okay just a minute - I am making it"

Aidan: "oh what?"

Me: "Macaroni and Cheese"

Aidan: "Um Don't think so - not tonight"

Me: "Well that's what I am making and that's what you will eat"

Aidan: "Um drink juice eat orange"

Me: "no you will eat Macaroni and cheese"

Aidan: "I cry"

Me: "Then you will sit in the corner until you are done"

Aidan: "k" he then went to the corner - cried for about 2 minutes and then came back

Aidan: "Macaroni and Cheese"

OH BOY - do you think that I am in for it with that one or what???

Mayah is 5 months old today!!!!!!! I can not believe that one. I love her so much - I can not believe that I thought that I didn't want a girl or that I wouldn't bond with a girl easily.

David works for Starbucks and is at one of the stores that will be closing. His store will be closed by November 1. He will not find out if he has a job until the last day that the store is open. Nice huh?

Our rent is up at the end of the month. We had no idea what we were going to do. It looks like there is a house that if David likes the inside of it, a friend will buy it and then rent it out to us. We could do a long term lease with a option to buy. It has 4 bedrooms 2 stories 2 bathrooms and a den a 2 car detached garage and a full basement that we could eventually convert to a whole living area for the boys when they get bigger. It is within walking distance - like 3 minutes - from a HUGE park and a community pool and the high school - a good high school. Although I am teaching at a private Christian school that my kids will more that likely all go to.

I have a job. I am teaching and I LOVE it. Who knew that I would love it this much and that I would be as good at it as I actually am. I now think that I will be getting my Masters in School Administration.

OH and here is the biggest thing, I am not sure if I mentioned that I am a official college graduate!!! I received my diploma in the mail and here is what it says:

SHANNON WOOLF
THE DEGREE OF
BACHELOR OF ARTS
PSYCHOLOGY
SUMMA CUM LAUDE

Those 3 little words under Psychology - Summa Cum Laude - means with the greatest honor. Each college has a different way of awarding this honor. Some colleges give this for a GPA higher than a 3.85, some for a certain number of AP classes, well my college gives it only to the top 1% of the graduating class. Here is the kicker. My school is a small private Christian school. My graduating class was 300. That means that only 3 of us got this honor. By the way - my GPA was a 4.13. Now I stared my college education when I was pregnant with Ethan and I ended it 2 weeks after Mayah was born - just 4 months before Ethan turned 5. So I attended college had 4 kids and still managed to get a 4.13 GPA. I am kinda proud of myself. Oh in that time frame I was also diagnosed with Epilepsy.

Okay well the brothers just woke up from their nap so I got to go get them before they jump out of their cribs - and I am not joking about that one.

PS - I had a dream last night that my parents and brother came out to visit us. It was awesome. I miss them. Maybe it could come true........................... (lets see if they read this :)

Say a Prayer

Can we all please say a prayer for a friend and her daughter.

Last night we got word that her daughter was just diagnoised with Stage 4 neuroblastoma. Her and her family can use all of the prayers that she can get right now. We serve a BIG God who holds us all in the palm of His hands.

If anyone would like to donate to gas cards or meal cards I am collecting donations through PayPal. Please contact me at my e-mail address. shannonwoolf (at) gmail (dot) com.

Missing Them!!

Yesterday we said Goodbye to 1/2 of our family! David, Ethan, and Aidan headed to Utah to spend some time with his family. Isaac, Mayah and I stayed behind. Here are some pictures of them at the airport and then a picture of Isaac and Mayah missing their brothers and Daddy!

Today I laugh

I am laughing again. I am no longer crying every time I turn around. I am no longer feeling guilty for feeling like I don’t love my children enough. Since Mayah’s birth I have been dealing with emotions and feelings that I am not used to. The stark contradiction between what my heart and inner most being knows and what my mind and body feels. At first I just thought that that I was dealing with normal “baby blues”, the adaptation of the change of hormones in my body. There were days when tears seemed to flow for hours just to start up again minutes later. Getting out of bed in the morning seemed like a feat that was too great to handle. I didn’t know what was wrong with me. I always bounced back after the birth of my other kids. Ethan was my first and even though Charmin commercials brought me to tears more than once, I bounced back. After the brothers were born I think that I stayed strong just because I HAD to, they were so small and needed their mother to fight for them. Once they were home I was just so happy to have my whole family together. After this birth, after this pregnancy, it was like things didn’t just fall into place like before. Getting into a routine seemed like an impossible feat. I was told that it could take more time this time because of the 19 weeks spent on bedrest. I tried. I tried to do the normal things, wash the dishes, do the laundry, pick up the toys – but even that seemed impossible. It was everything that I could do just to maintain the kids while David was at work. There were many times when the boys would have massive breakdowns and I would join them in tears on the floor. I didn’t know what I could do to calm them down, to calm me down. I would get angry with myself for feeling this way. I am sure that Mayah felt my frustrations as well. There were times when I couldn’t calm her down but would just have to lay her down and let her scream because I was scared of what I would do. What I pictured myself doing. I was scared at the mother I thought that I was. It is not supposed to be this way. This is supposed to be one of the happiest times for parents. After the pregnancy that I had, I was so excited to just hold her in my arms, so excited to have a perfect baby girl. And then the emotions set in and I didn’t know why I was feeling the way that I was. It wasn’t supposed to be like this.

At my six week check up, I talked with my Dr about the emotions that I was dealing with. As hard as it was to admit the feelings of inadequacy, the feelings of guilt, of hopelessness, I did. Post Partum Depression. When the normal baby blues last longer than a few weeks. I was given a prescription for Zoloft. I struggled with the thought of taking a pill to “normalize” my emotions. I have studied depression, I know what causes it. As hard as it was, I knew that I needed to do something. I was scared of what I would do, what I could do. I started taking the Zoloft.

About two weeks later I had some blood work done just to get a base line and check all of my levels. A few days later my Dr called and said that it looked like my B12 level was low. It was at 75 and the low end of normal is 250. He said that I would need more blood work to see if it was a true B12 deficiency or not. That blood work would take about a week or so to come back. One of the symptoms of a B12 deficiency is depression. I was hopeful that the depression that I was feeling was because of the B12 and not Post Partum. With this new information, I stopped taking the Zoloft (I had been taking it for about 3 weeks at that point). I felt good and okay for a few days, but then the tears started back. My patience level was at an all time low. I hated the fact that I couldn’t look at Mayah without bursting out in tears. There was a day that I was totally thankful that I had a bottle of breast milk in the fridge and Jessica to take over. It was at that point that I decided along with David that the Zoloft was necessary, at least for the time being. It was not 2 days later that we got the phone call from my Dr that I did not have a true B12 deficiency. I just had a low reading on the first test.

I start working in the Fall. I will be out of the house more; I will interact with adults on a daily basis. I won’t feel trapped in my house with 4 kids. We are hoping and praying that I will get over this PPD at that time. Time will tell. But for now, I am enjoying life. I am enjoying my children. The tears have stopped. I laugh again.