How a 3rd grade chorus made me cry...

Before I get to that teaser, there's a few other happenings at our house that are "share-worthy." Max got invited to a birthday party by one of his old classmates at daycare. The party was at the fire station, which I didn't even know was possible! The party started with a tour of the station, then the fireman showed all the kids his gear and how to put in on, then ended with rides in the fire truck. They loaded up the truck with 5 parents/kids at a time and took them for a spin...how fun is that?!!! We weren't sure if Max was going to go-he was pretty intimidated by the size-but when everyone else had a turn, including Mykah, there was enough room for Mama & Daddy, too, so he reluctantly agreed. I have to admit, I was pretty excited (even at my age) to ride on the truck!


I had my hand on his leg in the beginning...I knew he had finally relaxed a little when he pushed my hand away and said, "No touch Maxie leg!"

Mykah got to ride in the front seat, right next to the driver!!

And, yes, Joe lived out a childhood fantasy, as well!!!
In addition to crying at the concert, I spent most of Mother's Day morning crying-SHOCKER!!! Joe was in Texas recruiting, so I was expecting a pretty low-key day. My daughter had other plans...
On Wednesday, she took her own money to school and bought a carnation to give to me on Sunday. How she managed to keep the secret, I'll never know! After conspiring with Joe, she laid out a plan. On Mother's Day morning, she was going to bring me breakfast in bed. She knew she wouldn't be able to cook anything, so Joe helped her settle on cold cereal and juice and she spent the next couple of days asking me subtle questions like, "If you could have any cereal in this house, what would it be?" When I woke up after a very long night with Josh, he was not in my room. Luckily, Mykah came in shortly after I opened my eyes and told me not to move and she had taken Josh downstairs so I could sleep a little longer. When she came back, she had a cookie sheet with cereal, juice, flowers that she had been collecting and home made presents! The tears started flowing as I stared at my beautiful and sweet daughter, marveling at her heart. She told me that she knew I would be a little sad because Daddy was not here and she wanted to make up for it...I think she nailed it, don't you?!!!


Yes, the picture had to be taken after I ate, because I couldn't see anything for awhile through the tears...
So, here's how a 3rd grade chorus made me cry (If you want to listen to the music, you have to scroll all the way down the blog and push pause on the music player)
Most of you who read this know that Mykah & I were on our own for the 5 years between when she was born and when I married the love of my life. While those 5 years were far from easy, they helped shape the mom & wife I am today, and for that, I will always be grateful. There were many unanswered prayers that I didn't understand, and many gray skies, regardless of the weather. So as most moms do, I sang to Mykah-every chance I got. The song of choice, You Are My Sunshine. It's how I felt about her...my sunshine when skies were gray. When Mykah was old enough to sing on her own, she sang to me-the same song-but in her 3 year old version the skies were "grape".
Fast forward- the end of the chorus concert, the kids all sat down and the director turned to the audience and said it was time for a sing a-long...I'm sure you can guess by now the song was You Are My Sunshine. And I bawled like a baby...remembering the hard times when she still had eyes full of trust even though I had NO idea what I was doing and cherishing the present time-picturing her pride as she walked into my room with that cookie sheet full of memories. Enjoy the music, I know I did...





Mykah, you are (1/3 of) my pride and joy...I love you forever,
Mama

2 month check-up

So, our little Josh is already just over 2 months old. These first 2 pix are from the day he went to his check-up (4 days ago), which went well! He has grown to 23 1/2 inches (which puts him in the 60th percentile for height-a fact Daddy is very proud of) and at the beginning of the appointment, weighed in at 10 lbs, 14 ozs (30th percentile). I specify "at the beginning" because we elected to see the Nurse Practitioner, who is also a lactation specialist. I took Josh in a little hungry so I could nurse him immediately following his vaccinations, but she took a little too long and I was feeding him enough to take the edge off when she came in to look at him. She & I were curious as to how much he just ate, since he'd only nursed for about 3 minutes. She weighed him again, and he tipped the scales at a full 11 lbs! I obviously know he's an aggressive eater, but 2 ozs in 3 minutes impressed the nurse and explains the double chin, hefty legs and increase in weight from 7lbs 5ozs to 11 in just 2 months! Those of you who know me well know that I LOVE fat babies, so I'm doing my part to get Joshie there!

Good thing I took these before the appointment, because afterwards was not a pretty site. He was so mad that nursing didn't even help and at one point, spit milk out through his nose because he was crying so hard, poor little guy!

Just to show us there were no hard feelings on his part, here's Josh the next evening. He started smiling at us about 2 weeks ago, but has since perfected the art and absolutely melts those who he smiles at. He has little dimples in each cheek, but you can't see them here (Sorry, I'll work on that!) I'm not sure if they are part of him or a result from the fat cheeks-I guess we'll see!

In these pix, Josh is smiling at Joe, whom he ADORES! I wonder if when Josh looks into his Daddy's eyes he can see what a great future he has with a dad like Joe?! I like to believe he can feel it from the love that pours out of Joe and these smiles are Josh saying "I'm so lucky to have you for my Daddy!" Even better, Josh wakes up like this- all smiles, giggles and coos! Nothing like a baby to remind you what's truly important in life...

Speaking of adoration, the other kiddos love Josh to pieces, too. Max has never gotten jealous of Josh (yet) and is always very concerned if we put him in the car first. He looks over at Josh's car seat and says, "Where's baby Josh?-go get baby Josh!"


Mykah is still a "little mama" and hauls Josh around every time we'll let her! Her first softball game is tonight-do you feel a future blog coming?!


All of us who blog know that part of the fun is "blog-hopping"-going in through friends and family's friends and family to see what other bloggers are doing, whether it be for ideas or to read some amazing stories about life outside your own home. In one blog I recently visited, a girl named Molly describes herself and her husband in a way that fits how I feel about my Joe. She says that although neither of them are perfect, they make the perfect team. Finally, a way to put my feelings for my husband into words- He's not perfect (sorry, honey), I'm not perfect (WHAT?!), but together, we make the perfect team. Baby Love, I'll miss you while you're away recruiting. Hurry home to me so our team will be whole-I'm dreading having to run Zone coverage for 10 days straight alone. It's much easier when we can take turns between Zone & Man to Man! Have I been a coach's wife too long?! (and please don't bring home the Swine Flu from Texas! We don't need a souvenir!)

Easter with the Borich Family

Here's a summary of Easter 2009 from the Borich home! Because Joe had spring ball practice yesterday & today (My first BOOOOOO to Cornell Football), our day has been jam-packed with Easter fun! The morning started with the Easter Bunny, of course, with only a minor mix-up with the baskets...I'm pretty sure the Easter Bunny didn't mean to leave the basket with the flowers on it for Josh, but Mama fell asleep prior to his arrival and wasn't able to correct the situation! Mykah put a great spin on it, though! She said he probably left the one with the flowers for Josh because he knew that Mom would eat all of Josh's candy anyway, so he must've been thinking of Mom, too! (Yes, I have some serious issues with sweets right now!) Wasn't that thoughtful of the Easter Bunny?!
Here's our little egg-heads...


While we were trying to round up Max for that picture, Joe got this cute one of "Little Mama" & Josh waiting for him...

Mykah got new LPS animals- for those of you without little girls, that's Littlest Pet Shop, and Mykah LIVES for them!

Max got new dinosaurs, but as you can tell from both of their pix, neither one cared initially about their gift, only their candy! Maxie threw the dinosaurs out of the way once he noticed the candy!

Josh got a bumbo chair and NO, I wasn't ready for him to actually be able to sit in it yet! Time goes so quickly...sort of like the development of his second chin! Wish you could all see it in these pix...I'm quite proud of it!!! But, I'm sure you can get some idea of the chin by the size of the cheeks!

On to coloring the eggs, which we normally would have done before today. I already mentioned my displeasure with Cornell Football this week, so we'll just continue... Mykah is an old pro by now and proceeded to use her extreme creativity to make beautiful eggs!

Max, on the other hand, has an egg fetish these days. Joe usually makes breakfast on the weekends, and Max always wants to hold the eggs. So today was no different, and it took a while to convince him to put his eggs in the dye. He was content to just hold it and say, "MMMMM, eggs!"

He finally gave in, though, and was then having so much fun...

Which led to this, as I'm sure all the moms reading this could've predicted! Nothing a little bleach couldn't take care of, but I have to admit, I was a little nervous! Thank goodness for white counters!

So, on to the Easter egg hunt at 3 Pebble Drive! (I told you we've had a jam-packed day!) Joe stumped Mykah a few times, which of course was his ultimate goal for her half of the hunt. BTW, we're having our 2nd really cold Easter here-not quite 30 degrees-where, oh where, is spring?

The mailbox isn't one of the stumpers- She remembered it from last year. Ha-Ha, Daddy!

To fully appreciate this story, I'll tell you that the Dryden Easter egg hunt was yesterday. Max had no idea what was going on at the park, but we helped him gather some plastic eggs,anyway. Well, when he saw that there was a piece of candy in each egg, he went nuts! So today, he happened to look out the window while Joe was hiding the eggs in our yard (obviously, his were in plain sight) and he started screaming "candy" out the window! We put shoes & socks on and told him it was time to go find more Easter eggs and he said, "No, Maxie go eat candy!"


So, what Max is doing here is handing the eggs to us to open, then he dumps the candy in his baggie and throws the egg on the ground, saying "Maxie find MORE candy." When he couldn't see any more eggs, he waved to us and said, "Bye, guys! Maxie go in", and went inside the house!

Once inside, Max dumped his loot. Daddy made him pick it up, but did offer a little help by reducing the amount of candy Max had to pick up. Thank goodness Max didn't see this,right?!


We ended our Easter celebration with a wonderful family dinner. My favorite part of the day was listening to my husband pray before we ate...thanking God for His incomparable sacrifice for us, praising Him for our many, many blessings and expressing our family's love & gratitude for Him. During the prayer, I got to listen to the sweet newborn gurgling coming out of Josh, the "I don't quite get prayer quiet time yet" innocent ramblings of Max, the strong, heartfelt communication of our beliefs out of my husband's mouth to our God and the admiration of such a beautiful prayer in Mykah's eyes when she looked up at Joe and said "Amen." I am truly blessed. Happy Easter...He is risen, He is risen, indeed!

Borich Fam in Philly...

OK, so now that we will periodically be taking Mykah to an airport that she can fly non-stop to Salt Lake City to see her dad, we figured we should turn each place into an adventure. This particular adventure involves Philadelphia and we had a great time! Joe & I are both history-loving dorks on the inside, and it's trickling down to Mykah, because she digs history, too! Philly is very historical and we're blessed to be able to experience it firsthand.


Independence Hall.


The Liberty Bell, which we found out symbolizes religious freedom, not freedom in general. Until the famous crack couldn't be repaired, it hung in the tower below.

Coolest story behind this architecture...The British taxed individual walls of homes, so that's why all the homes are right next to each other. They use the same walls to avoid being taxed too heavily...Love thy neighbor takes on a whole new meaning with homes this close!

Home of James & Dolley Madison pre-presidency

To feed our need for an accurate history lesson, we employed Camilla & Woody (horse-drawn carriage) for a ride around the area. Mykah loved the stories by Camilla and Woody, see below, and Max loved riding around-not walking! Corny, but very fun and very educational!

Woody...

Benjamin Franklin's gravesite...


Home of Betsy Ross, where she sewed the first flag...

Since Josh took over the pack & play, Max got to experience big boy hotel life! Looks pretty comfy, doesn't he?!

Little Miss World Traveler, who fortunately, is only gone for a week this trip!

So, are you noticing the time frame for this post? Yes, I'm posting after Mykah is already home because the week she was gone was very interesting at the Borich abode...I haven't been feeling well lately and the doctors haven't been able to find anything wrong. Early Friday morning that changed when intense pain sent me to the ER. Turns out I have 2 kidney stones. One is still in my kidney, but the other one was about an inch from my bladder, and at 6mm in diameter, was mostly blocking the tube from my bladder to my kidney. Apparently, this causes the kidney to swell, creating the pain previously mentioned. Side note: this pain is worse than labor! So, I had to see a urologist the same day, who told me I was not likely to pass it on my own and would need surgery. During surgery later that day (this is all on Friday) the doctor discovered that the stone was actually embedded in my ureter, not good! The surgery was done with a scope, they used laser to break the stone apart, then left a stent from my kidney to my bladder so it can heal from the damage done by all the inflammation. I go back in a week to have the stent removed (ewwwwww) and hopefully, this drama will all be over!
Also, poor Mykah's flight was unable to land in Philadelphia when it was supposed to on her return trip. They re-routed to Dulles Airport to refuel, so instead of getting to the airport at 4:25, she got there at 9:30-then there was still 4 hours to drive home. There was a wonderful woman who was traveling next to Mykah who had an 8 year old herself and she let Mykah borrow her cell phone when they landed "at the wrong airport". (according to Mykah) So I was able to calm Mykah down, but it sure felt yucky to be that far away from her when she was scared. Please thank God for the woman with such kindness in her heart. I thanked her profusely, but really, are there enough words as a mother to express that kind of gratitude?
I'm tired! Thanks for listening...

Change...

Nothing proves how fast life changes more quickly than a newborn. As I've stared at Josh this past 2-1/2 weeks, I've been forced to acknowledge the changes in our lives. In 2 short years, we've had many... and time has shown me the incredible blessings and trials that come with change. I love reading friends & family's blogs because, just as our lives change, so do the lives of the ones we love. Unlike P.B. (pre-blogging), we get to give each other a small taste of the laughter and tears that propel us through time, as we weave in and out of each other's lives.
Enjoy the newest pix of Josh- his 2 week check up was fantastic...he's grown 1/4 of an inch and has gained one ounce for each day he's been home. When we left the hospital, his weight was 7 lbs even, he now weighs 7 lbs 12 ozs! He'll be ready to play football any day now, but since I'm not going to give up nursing just yet (it's obviously working!), football will have to wait!!!





I think the last photo is pretty symbolic-unintentionally. Joe is going to support our family single-handedly and I know he's up for the challenge. He's always up for a challenge, right?! Honey, do you see the total trust on Joshie's face? Turn to the rest of us and you'll see the same trust. Love you 2 pieces...