No, really, I've just been unmotivated to write anything. I've been keeping mentally busy for the last few weeks doing a lot of Ebaying and looking around other places for good used curricula, as we get ready for the start of a new school year. After months of deliberation, I settled on Sonlight for most subjects, and Math-U-See for, well, math. Natalie will be doing K-level science, history, geography, Bible, and miscellaneous stuff like art and music. Language arts, which includes reading, spelling and handwriting, is a mix of some K and some first grade level. Math will also be grade 1 level. We're collecting a huge pile of books, so Natalie is anxious to get started. We'll probably be starting in about a week. At this point I'm just waiting on the math workbooks and her Sonlight readers to show up in the mail, and we'll be ready to go! 

Ella has accomplished some amazing things lately, so it's been a shame that I haven't gotten on here to write about it - I know I will forget something. She's now crawling with great skill and speed, and she's even pulling herself to a stand already. (She just started that a couple days ago.) She pulls up on the couch very easily, and she is pretty good at pulling to a stand from flat on the floor, too. She has strong litle legs! Since she's so mobile now, I have had to gate off the other two kids' rooms (since they are most definitely NOT baby safe!) and keep the door to the basement shut. That's been a fun one - Natalie and Ethan have trouble remembering to shut the door when they go down to the basement -- and since at least during the days, they go down there by themselves, I feel like a broken record -- "come back here and shut the basement door!"  Ella also has been working hard at getting her center top teeth for the past couple weeks, and they have finally started breaking through. Her center left tooth is fully though, and the one next to it is pushing on the gum. She's had a rough road with these teeth - worse, I think, than any other teeth so far, but they are the biggest ones she's gotten so far. I'm just glad that she won't look like she has fangs anymore! 

She's such a laid back and happy baby. Though she has reached that oh-so-lovely stage of screeching when she's unhappy about something!  She's usually happy just to hang out and play, but she WILL let you hear about it when she's not pleased. And she's never pleased when it's time for me to put her down and get in the shower. One of her favorite things to do right now is to give me kisses. When I hold her and ask, "mommy kisses?" she leans in and plants a sloppy wet kiss on my lips. Sometimes she suddenly grabs my upper lip and sucks it. The girl also has a big fascination with teeth. She's always trying to poke her fingers through my lips to play with my teeth. Especially when she's nursing. She latches on, and two seconds later her fingers fly up and start trying to pry open my mouth. She will fuss and fuss until she gets access to my teeth. Which I don't mind, most of the time. (Maybe she's going to be a dentist.) When I DO begin to really mind is when she needs to have her nails trimmed. 

So the latest on my foot: I'm now on my third apparatus. The last time I wrote, I still had the leg half-cast wrapped in ace bandages. Then, after two weeks, I was upgraded to a cast, which was a nice improvement because it only came up to mid-calf, and it was half as heavy. It was also bright purple -- the color I chose just for Natalie's approval.  The biggest drawback to the cast was that I now could see a good part of my leg, which hadn't been shaved, or well washed, since the surgery. Not a pleasant thing to sit and look at all day!  Then, last week on Thursday, I got the cast sawed off (the kids got to watch) and I got a "walking" boot, which I still can't walk in, but it does allow me to put a little weight on it. (Which is a good thing, since it is INCREDIBLY heavy, it's very hard to keep it up of the ground.) I can also take it off for bedtime, and the best part - for a full shower!!! Oh yes, showering is such a wonderful thing. 

It still hurts pretty bad, but it doesn't throb all the time anymore, as long as I mostly keep it up. I will be starting physical therapy on Thursday, which I've been warned can really be painful. 

July 9, 2007
I had my ankle surgery a week and a half ago, and until a few days ago I haven't been able to get around much at all, but since about Saturday, I've been able to get on the floor and change a diaper or play with the kids a little bit. It seems like that's been helping a little. The surgery lasted about two hours, though I was put completely under so all I remember is waking from a good nap. I had a really good experience at the hospital, OSU East, though. The nurse who did my IV didn't even give me a bruise. The only bruises I got (other than all over my foot where the incisions are, of course) are where numbing medicine was injected into my leg, and where they put a tourniquet on my calf, which they said made for a a virtually bloodless operation. (I thought that sounded pretty cool, though it seems strange to think that I had a tourniquet  on my leg.) The kids stayed home with my mom and Phil took Ella with us, so that I could get her good and tanked up right before my surgery. (He tried to give her a bottle while I was in surgery, but she wanted nothing to do with it, of course.)  We got home around 11 am and I spent the next several days laying in bed. I was amazed that I had to keep my leg up so much, because even just crutching from the bed to the bathroom, keeping my foot down for less than five minutes, it would start to throb painfully. Beginning around about last Friday I've started to be able to get around a little more, with thanks to my grandparents who borrowed a wheelchair for me from their church!  I still have to keep my leg elevated most of the time, but at least with the wheelchair I can get around the first level without using my crutches. (I can also hold Ella on my lap and wheel around a little, so that helps quite a lot with normalizing things around here.) My mom stayed with me during the days for my first two days (there's nothing like your mom being around when things feel really bad) and my sisters have been swapping off Debby-sitting every week day since then. I'm still needing help through this week, but I'm hoping that by next week I'll be able to get through my days without assistance. I'll still be off my feet for at least the next six weeks. I had my first post-op appointment last Thursday, when my doctor changed all my wrappings and I got to see my leg for the first time. I have another appointment this Thursday. If the swelling has gone down sufficiently, then hopefully I'll be able to get my stitches out and get a real cast put on, instead of the splints and wrappings I have now. Not that it will make that much difference, since I still won't be able to put any weight on my foot for at least 6 more weeks. It still hurts pretty badly. I'm on darvocet and 800 mg of advil, but that's not doing all that much -- it just takes the edge off the pain. The pain feels like knives cutting into and all around my ankle, and it throbs like there's an electrical current running through my foot. 

It's about bedtime and Ella is starting to cry for me (she says "Mmmmm-Mmmmm" now when she wants mama) but I just wanted to note a couple milestones for Ella, and then I'll elaborate on them later. She's now officially mobile, in some manner of crawling. She can also sit up from laying, all by herself,  and she also started clapping her hands last week, which of course is one of my favorite baby stages because it is SO cute!!!!