June 2018

June 6th...  Emotionally wrecked.  Today, I received the worst news  (IN A TEXT)  from my daughter that she has decided to move to OREM.   I KNOW, that there are like a billion things that you could find out about your daughter in a text, that are like a trillion times worse than this, but my heart exploded.

I am not dealing with this emotionally. At. All.

I have come to learn a lot about myself over the last 10 years.   Bits and pieces that I am SO proud of myself for, some I am ashamed of, some things bother me about me,  some can't be changed.  I don't know where this little tidbit lies in that spectrum but....   the only emotion that I feel completely comfortable with is indifference.   

If I am scared, I change it to indifference.

If I am hurt, I change it to indifference.

If I am sad or mad or jealous or betrayed or embarrassed or wronged or pissed...  I change that emotion to indifference.  It's a product of my past life that I can't seem to shake.  I do it because it hurts less to feel indifferent than any other emotion and I can handle the thing that is happening to me.  Or rather, I don't have to handle it, if I am indifferent.  And maybe the issue will just go away.  

I have been working, with a lot of encouragement, on NOT doing this anymore.  I have been trying to deal with things even when they hurt.  I am most definitely getting better...

BUT....  sadness is an emotion I cannot handle.  I can't do sad.  My heart feels like it is shredding inside my chest if someone or something makes me sad.

"Emotions are meant to be discussed not displayed."

When you are indifferent, you don't display your emotions.  You just hold them in until you either move on from them or explode.   Here is what I do.... someone pisses me off or whatever.  I instantly go into indifferent Kaci, which naturally results in me not speaking to you or looking at you and for sure not discussing anything with you.  I am not behaving badly, I am just not behaving at all.  And I come off like I do not give a damn about you or the thing you are doing.  (when really the exact opposite is true)

It leaves the other person with the burden of either thinking that I completely hate them and talking to me is futile OR they have to try to draw the emotion out of me which is like pulling out all of my teeth.  And I fight it and fight it and when and ONLY WHEN I am ready ... I will allow all emotional hell to break loose and I finally let it all go....  and I deal with the thing by first sobbing for like 20 uncontrolled minutes followed by inaudible word vomit that no one can understand, while I try to explain myself and how I am feeling.  My sweet husband has figured me out, so he spends hours and hours working with me.  But someone who doesn't know this part of me, wouldn't know to do this.  

Well, I did this thing...  to my daughter.... upon receiving her text.

My poor daughter, who is just trying to find herself and her happiness.

And has made (in my opinion) the worst decision ever, by choosing to leave me.

I went indifferent on her.  And she took that to mean that I didn't care that she was moving and leaving me 300 miles in her dust.

When the exact opposite was true.  

The thing is...  I was ready for her to leave me after Parker got home.  I've been planning on that for 2 years.   I envisioned them in my driveway, both of their cars filled up with all of their stuff.  I pictured me hugging them and crying, but feeling so happy that they were finally together again and starting a new chapter.  I was ready for that.  

IN AUGUST
but NOT IN JUNE WITH NO PARKER.

It doesn't make sense.  Why go now?

Just wait until he gets home for crying the hell outloud.

Why do you have to go on your walk-a-bout now?
Why are you in such a gall dern hurry?

Now I will have to say good-bye twice.  Is anyone even thinking of ME?

Well, I didn't speak to her for days.  My mom would text me everyday... "UPDATE?"  And I'd say "nothing yet, I'm choosing my words and my timing."  But the real truth was I wasn't ready to deal with it and if I didn't deal with it maybe it wouldn't really happen.  

Finally, I got brave.  I made a list so that I could keep the conversation on track.

1. First I will seek to understand.

2. Then I MUST be understood

3.  I will tell her all the reasons this is a horrible idea and the hundreds of things that could go wrong.

4.  I will help her pack (if I have to) but I hope she doesn't ask me to because that will be really hard.

This is just the worst.

Unfortunately, after much talking, I was unable to convince her to MY way of thinking.  No matter which words I used, no matter how many different ways I tried to manipulate her and trick her, she stood strong.  And she filled up her BRAND NEW Toyota Corolla with nearly all of her possessions and a ton of my stuff too.  And left me.

And then I got sick.

I couldn't get off the couch for an entire day.  

I had a fever and I was freezing and shaking and Raleigh kept coming over and putting more blankets on me.  At one point, I had 6 different blankets on me and I still couldn't get warm.  

I immediately started myself on my Mexican Antibiotics that "a friend" smuggled into the country for me and 24 hours later, I was functional.
I think that my body finally said to me "you're done.  If you won't slow down, I'll slow you down."  It was nice to sleep all day on Sunday.

Raleigh and his work friends decided to go on a team bonding adventure.  I was so happy that he took a picture.  He usually doesn't do that.  He really loves his job and most of the people he works with.  That is such a blessing.  He always has funny stories about his co-workers who are mostly tech nerds.  He also has one of those jobs where they are free to do whatever they want as long as the work gets done, so while I am slaving away...  he and his buddies are doing things like this.  Or playing frisbee golf.  Or having catered lunches like every other day.  It's really annoying.

Parker thinks he is so sneaky...  

He got his release date.  August 10th.  And he secretly told Nana in an email and told her not to tell Morgan or me.  And then he told US that he was coming home on the 18th.   This is so he can just ring our doorbell and have us be TOTALLY surprised when we open the door and he is just standing there.  But, everyone knows Nana would NEVER keep a secret like this from us.  Everyone but him apparently.  So, now we have to act all shocked.  And hopefully he won't catch onto the fact that....

1.  Morgan will "just happen" to be home for THAT particular weekend?
2.  Morgan's hair, nails and outfit will be done to perfection?
3.  Our house will be perfectly clean?
4.  The kids will be bathed and perfectly dressed?
5.  We will all have our cameras out?
6.  Papa and Nana and friends and co-workers will "just happen" to be at our house?
7.  We will have refreshments sitting out?

He's a bright kid...  he'll probably know something's up the second he arrives at our house.
We. Are. So. Excited
It has felt the same to me as it would if he was my own son.  Without the financial burden of course.  I will have written 94 emails.  I have endured hours and hours of tears, sorrow and heartache with his girlfriend.  I have worried, stressed and rejoiced in his victories.  I am as proud as a "mama" can be.  But it is truly time for him to come home now.  We can hardly contain ourselves.  I cannot believe we are 5 weeks away from seeing him.
Right now where he is, it is very cold.  And where we are it's 115 degrees.
He's going to be such a mess.

I am including this video so that I will always have this in my memories.

I could watch it a thousand times.

Parker

Morgan came home 6 days after she left to move because she had forgotten that she had made an appointment to have her wisdom teeth pulled.  She got a super sweet deal because Dr. Davis is one of her patients and he offered to pull them out for her for free.  And she didn't want to pass that opportunity up.  I took her to her appointment.  She is mature and independent and so I wasn't worried.  I hadn't planned on needing Raleigh's help, but at the last minute, I asked him if he would just come over once she was out of surgery and drive us home, so I could video tape her just in case she said something funny......  I was NOT ready for what was about to happen.

She went from this..............

To this.........  in 30 minutes.

I walked into the recovery room and I seriously thought she was dead.  She was completely hyperventilating.  Her eyes were rolling around in her head and she sort of looked like a blind person.  She was moaning and crying.  And then all of the sudden she would jerk and go into a complete terror.   And I would have to tell her to calm down and breathe.  She kept grabbing my face and telling me she couldn't see.  I started having an anxiety attack.  I don't do well with infirmed people.   But she was more than just infirmed, she was a freak and I wanted to run away.

Raleigh, as usual, was a blessing from above.  First off, he is so calm.  Nothing rattles him and so his mere presence was a constant re-assurance to me that in the midst of chaos, everything was really okay.  Second, he had to legit carry her dead weight, lifeless body to the car because she tried to stand up and she looked like a new born giraffe.  And she starting bawling and blubbering about how "she just couldn't do it"  and so he swooped her up like she weighed 20 pounds and carried her to the car.  And she did NOTHING to help him.  Her arms were flopping around and all she could do was moan.  If he hadn't been there, we'd probably still be there.   He not only had to calm her down 25 times, but me as well....on the 15 minute car ride that seemed like 2 hours.  And then when we got home, he opened up her car door and she turned toward him and threw up all over him.  He tried so hard to hold her hair back and then when she was finished,  he wiped her mouth off and pulled bloody, slobbery gauze out of her mouth.  This child... that isn't his child, but you couldn't even tell.  He is something else.  I can't believe that I almost tried to do this without him.  What a complete nightmare that would have been.

Once he was able to get her into the house, she perked up and starting saying the funniest things.  The doctor told me that what ever was foremost on her mind, she would talk about.  So she mentioned Parker no less than 20 times.  She could not figure out why he was in South Africa and she kept asking me when he would be home.  And she also asked me 10 times if I thought she was fat.  She would go from sad to angry to sweet to sad over and over again.  It was the greatest 25 minutes of my life.

I have provided 12 minutes of straight entertainment for your viewing pleasure.  If you want to laugh a lot for 12 minutes click....    Here

She had a pretty easy recovery.  But her cheeks were SO swollen.  I felt badly for her.  And the worst part was after having such a fun weekend with her, I had to say good-bye to her all over again.  And my heart is bursting every time I think of her.  I really hate this.

And here she is with swollen cheeks on the first day of her new job in Orem at Dr. Thompson's office.  She was happy that she wears a mask at work on this day.

In keeping in line with the theme of the month, Peyton had to one up Morgan and have FIVE teeth pulled.  Peyton's teeth don't fall out like normal kids teeth do.  Her grown up teeth just grow in and not where they are supposed to, so the roots of her baby teeth don't break down.  We have to take her in to have them pulled or else she would have rows of teeth like a shark.  She was so brave as you can see by the way that she is calmly holding her hands on her lap.  Our dentist is always so impressed with how calm our kids are during really stressful procedures. 

Every year,  for the last 3 years, Raleigh has been on a High Adventure Campout with the Priests on his birthday.  What a huge bummer.  This year, they left the day after his birthday.  Which put the pressure on me to do a little celebration.  I'm not used to it.  I took doughnuts to him at work to share with his friends and after he and Peyton returned from the dentist, he opened his presents.  Which were sort of cool this year.

Then....  off he went to Lake Powell for the rest of the week.  As he was leaving,  I said  "take some pictures and send them to me when you have service.....  even though I know you won't."

Imagine my surprise when the pictures started rolling in.  And imagine my even bigger surprise, when I learned that he had three bars of service where they were camping.  That made me feel so much better.

 Oh my gosh, he is a cute Young Men Leader...

While Dad was laying around Lake Powell,  the rest of us were able to go to the temple with Grant, our soon to be Argentine Missionary.  It was a stressful night for me.  It was 9:30 when I got home and that was the first time I had seen my little kids all day.  But, I was happy that I was able to go and share his special day with him.

.

Allison Kate Koenig FINALLY turned 16.

I don't know how to describe the hell I have been in for the last year.

Allie has this thing about her.  She has always had it.  She will always have it, I am sure.

If she gets an idea in her head, she will obsess about it until she either gets the thing she is obsessing about OR until something else replaces the obsession.  

For example:  One day she called me and told me that she wanted a pink pointy eraser to go on the end of her pencil.  She reminded me every 4 minutes for 3 days that she wanted this eraser.  She obsessed over it and obsessed over it...  until she got it.  But in the meantime, I nearly had to be committed to a funny farm.   You are asking yourself....  why didn't you just run out and get the child the eraser and spare yourself the pains and sufferings..... WELL... because she ISN'T AN ONLY CHILD even though she thinks she is sometimes.  There are 6 more of them that also put daily demands on me.  And I can assure you that at this particular time of my life, a pencil topper was like #94 on my list of "must dos."  I was in complete misery however, until I moved the pink eraser to priority #1.  And then 6 minutes later, she came to me with the next obsession.  And thus has been my life.

Commit me.... PLEASE

Well, exactly a year ago, she got her permit and her obsession with driving has been a daily, dare I say hourly thorn in my side.  She thinks she needs to be driving every time we walk by a car.  And she literally asked me 400 or more times if she could drive herself,  by herself, without a parent to things like....(young womens, Lins to get a snack, Durangos, friend's homes, school activities, work, Swig, a late night movie......etc etc).  She has even gone so far as to sneak out at night in my car because I wouldn't let her just take it and also because she thinks she is so cool AND invincible.

No amount of parenting or tough love or threats or punishments or straight screaming in her face ever stopped her from having the nerve to ask me over and over again for the thing that I was never going to say yes to...  like she was a person with no shame.   And I have done a pretty good job, I must say, at staying strong and not giving in to her constant whining and frustrating, never ending obsessing.

To make matters worse, she has a car just waiting for her.  It's just sitting there....  waiting.

We have had to hide the key of course...  but waiting it has been.

She is a crazy person.

 Anyway, the day finally arrived.

She was given a drivers license. 

And I am terrified that it has unleashed a sleeping GIANT.

I truly am worried that she is going to have a mishap on the very first day.

Nevertheless,  she sure is pretty and she is REALLY funny. 

I do enjoy her.  I hope she will be home from time to time this summer.

Here was Papa's Happy Birthday Text to her...

Papa and Nana drove her up to her dad's to pick up her car.  So now....all FOUR of my children drive nicer cars than me.

Well.....  June ended better than it began for sure.
I think I grew a lot this month and learned some things for sure.
I think that I will probably be able to get through a little time without Morgan.
I have a new driver to run all of my errands for me.
Another High Adventure Excursion has come and gone without incident and my Lover is back home with me where he belongs.

I am excited that July is here.
I am excited for our upcoming trip.
And I have to get busy getting our house ready for our missionary to start coming over to our house again.
FIVE. MORE. WEEKS
Yayyyyyy!!