Cerebrate Good Times

Okay, there are two ways to go about this. The first is to read whatever it is that I'm about to write. The second is to just watch this video. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L5W6JyF7br8&t=2s If that link is dead, or you just want to read instead of watch a video for some reason, I recently went to the emergency room. I had only been once before as an adult, although my parents claim I went all the time as a kid. I had been feeling sick in the gut for a few days, and one day my body decided that it would try to wring everything out of me. I was trying to keep hydrated, but my mouth was completely dry and I was starting to get a dehydration headache. This had happened in just a matter of hours, so between that and writhing in agony I decided to go to the emergency room. Katie drove me, and when we arrived I thought about the part where Brian Regan talked about how valet parking would be ideal at a hospital. I got checked in after a few minutes. I did get my own room, un...

Today this young man turns 12. When Samuel joined our family, Katie and I were living in Provo in an apartment. I was in my final year of college, working two part-time jobs. It was a busy time, and as with many (all?) we felt like we had no idea what we were doing. I also came down with crohn's disease a few months after he was born, and that first year or so was kind of a blur. Now it seems so quaint to look back and remember having just one child to give all our attention to. I think I'm coming around somewhat to the idea of birth order heavily influencing personality, because he seems to fit in there in the best way. Samuel is our helper, which shouldn't be a surprise. He has a good sense of responsibility and is often asking us how he can help. He can watch the other kids for us somewhat (we haven't left him with the other 3 kids for an extended period). James really loves Sam and often asks where he is. They play well together. I remember one day whe...

One of these things is not like the others... I honestly expected that we would have another boy. Over three generations of my family, the men had produced boys at about a 3:1 ratio. But I was excited when we learned we were going to have a girl. I don't remember much about Katie's pregnancy with Allison. But when she started to go into labor we figured we would have a few hours, as we did with Sam. And one thing they drill into you during birthing classes is that deliveries always take FOREVER. So her contractions were 20 minutes apart when I hopped in the shower early in the morning, and when I got out a few minutes later they were two minutes apart. We were renting a house from a friend who lived in the connected apartment, so he came over to hang out with Sam while my parents drove over, and we rushed to the hospital. Because of insurance stupidity, we had to cross town and miss several closer facilities. Meanwhile, Katie notes that Allison was trying to join our f...

And then there were three. As we prepared for our third child, we learned something interesting from the other women we knew who had had three. The third pregnancy was apparently much more difficult than previous experiences. And so it was with Katie. She deal with some painful (but not dangerous) medical issues and just had a very uncomfortable pregnancy (relatively speaking, I mean, since they are all beyond anything I could comprehend—CYS accomplished). But then it was time. The children in Katie's family all have K-sounding names, and I've always liked names like Clara, Kara, Kira, and whatnot. And at the time the current Doctor Who companion was a Clara, so I liked it even more. So we had her name picked out in advance, as opposed to Allison, who will be up next. Clara and Clara Clara was born around 11:00 at night, if I recall correctly. Our friends around the corner helped watch Sam and Allison while my parents drove down from Salt Lake (we were living in Lehi)...