Socially Awkward

Truth or Dare? How about a little of both? Truth, I feel socially awkward a lot! If you know me personally and well you would look at me right now and laugh in  my face. As much as I am a self admitted extrovert I feel so introverted sometimes. Shall I start at the beginning of what is my introverted self? Here we go...
Twinhood, if you are one, you might possibly get this. I lived with what turned out to be one of my best friends since birth, well even before. :) I joked at her wedding that we were wombmates, you know the womb, yeah cheesy I know. Anyway so moving on, think back to a time in your childhood when you wanted to run outside and play with your friends, you were sick of your siblings and bored and what not and you ran to your mom and asked if you could go out and play with your friends. Now picture this, your best friend lived in the room next to yours. You didn't feel that huge need to go out and play because your very best playmate was already there. Laura and I actually repeated preschool partly so we could socialize with other kids. Funny, right? If you know both of us even remotely you will know that for the most part we are polar opposites on so many levels but we mesh. Add in that my other still best friend, older sister Jacquie also was there and we honestly did not have an issue as we got older and got our own cars and what not, to sit at home on a Saturday night and watch a movie together. And later, maybe go out and do some things that might not have been the smartest. :) Jacquie and me, not Laura.
Another truth, I talk too much. I like to call it diarrhea of the mouth? There are many times that I talk because sometimes a silence seems to be too much. I need to seriously learn to work on my listening skills. I feel like this is part of the awkward part. I literally tell myself as I am talking, just shut up Amy. And sometimes I wonder if my talking is a gift and I just need to curb it a bit. Wow, even now I feel like I am just talking to talk...moving on.
And the last truth of the evening, I feel like my house is in a constant state of crazy. Like toys and dishes and laundry and more toys. I honestly did not grow up in a home like this, to be honest it was probably the complete opposite. In the past 2 years I have decided that as important as I think it is to teach our kids to take care of their crap, and trust me I do work on this as much as I hate it sometimes; I would rather play with my kids. Since Owen has been on the scene it has been especially important to me that I spend the time he is sleeping spending quality time with Paige and Blake. How long are they really at an age they still want to cuddle in the morning and play ball in the yard and want me to jump on the trampoline or sit in the kiddy pool? Not long! So yes, I am teaching them to take care of stuff and Mike is actually better at this than I am, but if you come to my house and it looks like a hot mess please take a breathe and hope it doesn't smell like a poppy diaper that might have been sitting there overnight.
I am reading the book Bittersweet by Shawna Niequist and it feels like a hug to my heart, here is a quote from her book about friends and a clean house. In fact the whole section of this book talks about your home team. Not spreading yourself too thin, keeping your time and energy at a good level to give to that home team around you. Highly recommend the book by the way.
"One way you can tell if someone's on your home team is if you'll let them walk right into your house without picking up dirty dishes and checking your hair before they get there."

Dare! I will stop talking, I will let God's spirit give me the right words even in the most mundane conversation. I will pray that I can accept the gift of gab from my Savior. Maybe someone else sees it as my spiritual gift as well, if not....oh well. I will stop worrying that if I don't make friends with every new neighbor, mom of a kid, wife of a coworker or random connection, that's ok. I am always open to these relationships but need to train myself not to spread myself so thin that I feel that I am not taking quality time with people who are already part of my life. If you are reading this please know that I am valuing all the new connections that I have made in the past 6 months though! Some are stronger than others and that's ok!

This life of ours....Camping

OK so recap! We went on vacation last week. We spent 5 days at Silver Lake with part of my Hollebeek side of the family. Very much look forward to this every year and this year was no different. We had a new trailer this year which made things wonderful, here is why:

-the older kids sleep awesome because they cannot hear all the commotion going on outside.
-we have air conditioning, and with it being on average 95 degrees and sunny everyday this is where Owen and I spent most of our time.
-I can literally spend half the time packing. We leave a lot of things in the trailer that we use every time we go camping.

So all in all we had a good time. Wednesday night Paige was acting like a flippin disrespectful 14 year old girl so I made the decision that she would not be going on the boat across the lake to swim at the sand dunes. Paige being Paige freaked out and Aunt Jacq wanted to help out so offered to take Blake and Paige on a bike ride while Mike and I finished unpacking. As we had told Paige many times, do not ride fast through the gravel. She was so excited and still a bit peaved at me so was starting to ride like a bat out of hell and fell. Seriously she didn't even fall that hard but lost it when she did. Here is a pic of Owen and Paige laying on our bed after "the fall."

Don't you love how Owen is smirking?

Anyway after we tried for a good half hour trying to calm the hot mess she was, we decided just to put her to bed. Slept great, got up the next morning and was fine. She did tell us her arm was sore but was moving it here and they and swam all day and seemed fine. Friday during the day her arm looked somewhat swollen but she was still moving it and seemed ok. Friday evening Mike came and showed me that her right arm, the one she fell on, looked shorter than the other. I ended up calling our Dr. (who by the way is awesome! It was a Friday night and he was not annoyed with me at all) and he told me to take her to Shelby to at least have it looked at. Off we went, and wouldn't you know, it was fractured.
Tuesday we went in and got a sweet hot pink waterproof cast that only has to be on until August 16 and doesn't seem to be holding her back, besides riding her bike. ;)

So here is to another exciting year of camping, already looking forward to next year, and maybe cooler weather!

Blake looks so annoyed here.

I LOVE this pic of 2 of my favorite boys. On a side note, it's not that we don't want to take Blake's picture, he really doesn't like getting it taken. Hopefully that will change.

Take a Step Back....

Sorry this post might be all over the place, my mind was reeling.
So here I sit thinking about a couple of different families that I "know" from FB who have babies with Down syndrome and what comes to mind is.....first that we are very Blessed that Owen has no major health complications as of yet and second am I setting myself up for a fall? I keep looking at Owen and thinking for the most part that he is just a baby. I sat while Early On came and evaluated him and chose not to do a PT referral as of now because Owen is so strong. I wanted to scream it from the rooftops how proud I was of him, my 6 week old showed him his stuff! And then the thought creeps into my mind, is this how things are going to stay? Am I preparing myself for the fact that it might and probably won't always go this way? Right now he is the baby boy that I love and cuddle and nurse, all the time it seems :) So when does the Down syndrome start? When do I start feeling like this might be a journey I don't know if I am prepared for? And does it? Does it ever start to feel that way or will I continue to see past what society has pinned as different and not as quickly developing and therefor not what it should be? That he will be referred to as developmentally delayed for how long? Life? Why can't we just call it what it is?! He is different than most kids and he might learn different and at a different pace but I don't want to ever feel like he is anything than him, than my boy who I loved from the minute I saw him and even before that. So world, he is Owen, he is going to knock your socks off! He will do it as his own pace and just like any kid he will understand and get things when he is capable. AMEN?! AMEN!

                                                                   Cute isn't he?!