Recruit 5 makes a mile stone!

I have always loved watching my kids play sports, perform dance, play music, or whatever. I love watching them work hard and being privileged to witness those moments of triumph. I have been blessed beyond any doubt and I am grateful!

With frequent deployments, teams and coaches have always been important in my arsenal of weapons when it comes to kids, deployment, frequent moves and staying sane.

So now Recruit 5 is old enough to join "the older kids" in activities. This season marks a mile stone for my sweet tiny guy.

For me this means a 'hole nuther' schedule to keep track of and games to work into my calendar. Not to mention the sport of choice for the fall season is Football!

Now you have to understand I LOVE football. Not watching it on TV, or playing it myself, but watching my little boys face their fears, learn discipline, and work as a team. AND BREAKING THROUGH A LINE. Sorry. I can't help it. When Recruit 1 started playing I was pregnant with R5 and R6 back to back football seasons. It just kind of stayed with me. It was those little boys I was knitting!

But Recruit 5... He is soooo sweet and tender. He's not a "break through the line" kinda guy. He is the diplomat, the intell guy, the lover - not a fighter. He is the one who only needs to be quietly reprimanded. He is crushed if harsh or unkind words are used. He randomly yells "love ya mom!" and will run in for a quick hug. How could I throw him into this beastly barbaric adrenaline rushing sport????

I didn't have to, it is now part of recruit training. Two have gone before, it's tradition. It is out of my hands.

But he is so gentle and kind.

I just made myself miss him. Hold on I have to go hug him real quick....

Okay - I'm back.

His first day of practice came and it was hotter than blue blazes. I stayed at home in bed where all self respecting people should be early a.m. on a hotter than blue blazes Saturday and The Marine excitedly took his son to dehydrate.

Two hours later they returned home... Dehydrated.He loved it! It was great! And that is ALL sweat! I had him give me a mean football face, but he looked retarded in it so I didn't post that one.

Since The Marine had to go work somewhere doing Marine stuff, I've been pulling football duty, which normally I love but the blazes around here are still blue and I don't dig the sweat.

Lucky for me a giant lighting bolt struck straight down somewhere on the other side of town, but we all saw it so that put the kabash (is that a real word?) on practice tonight. Little R5 beat serious cheeks to the jeep and jumped in all in one swift motion.

He didn't even take his helmet off before he leapt into the jeep.

He was freaked out by the lighting. He graced me with this photo, but then insisted I jump in and we get the heck out of there.

Okay I have to go hug him again and see if he'll let me rock him.

What do I do when The Marine is Gone?

I MISS HIM!

and look for ways to not clean the house like now, looking for pictures of him and sighing alot.

So I was thinking all these kind thoughts about my Marine and he's not here to frown at me and ruin my kind thoughts about him so I opened the giant file cabinet filled with pictures and found this one. It was EIGHT years ago.

This was before he got his eyes fixed. He was in a wedding of a buddy of his and I was his accessory. It was a lot of fun. We left the then, only four recruits with my Mom and Sister and headed OUT OF STATE, hence the giant toothy grin on my face.

Sigh... If he were here I'd fix him a nice big dinner and have the house all shiny and clean... Oh who am I kidding! I'd be pretending to do laundry instead of flat out ignoring it...

The sad/wonderful part is he knows exactly what I'm doing even from where he is. He's creepy that way. I'll get an email any minute now telling me to get off the computer and go introduce myself to the recruits. I however choose to think he thinks my lack of homemaking skills is endearing... I'm sure he does. He told me just the other day I was special! Come to think of it though, he then laughed to himself right after he said it as he walked off... Hmmmm....

LOOK WHAT I MADE!!

Okay well I didn't do it all by myself, The Marine helped and it was almost 18 years ago... I've just been watering, nurturing, adding the HEAT as necessary. I think she has turned out pretty good. Very hearty and strong.
Recruit 1 hasn't had a post up in a while and I haven't told her how beautiful she is or how much I love her lately or enough apparently. She told me just the other day...

I must say though The Marine and I did great work on this one! When DNA mingles correctly it's truly a beautiful sight.

I don't feel quite old enough to have an almost grown up for a daughter.

RECRUIT 1 I said ALMOST GROWN UP. I now forbid you to complete the process! I think I'm too late. Anyone else feel old?

The Things You Hear in My House

Recruit 1: Oh, R6, sing me your song... (she just oozed love for him in that sentence)

Recruit 6: (sings some mangled version of Twinkle Twinkle Little Star)

Recruit 1: Oh, that was so good. (again love oozes and you can hear her thinking what a cute little guy)

Recruit 6: Smiles and swiftly pokes her in the forehead and runs away....

Recruit 1: Grabs head and laughs hysterically through the pain as the "cute little guy" runs off.

Fast forward ten minutes when R1 is tasked with getting R6 ready for football practice. (for R5)

Recruit 1: Why did you poke me in the forehead?

Recruit 6: (with angelic sweetness in his voice) "oooohhh I thought I poked you in the eye?!

Mom: rolling on floor in office

The Hotel and Traveling Home with Wounded Recruit 2

After a long shower and a good nights sleep in the hotel, (for Recruit 2 anyway, I was in a double with thing one and thing two) he is ready to head back to our home town. The tye-died shirt was the calmest one the gas station had. Only the sleeves are funky. I should have picked out the purple and yellow one, but he would have just been naked then.


He laid back and watched as I attempted to get Recruit 6 bathed and dressed. R6 was a little high maintenance this morning. Here is the evidence. He is LEAPING from spot to spot.

Here he is in the giant picture window facing the pool right after his bath in his underwear. I am sternly speaking to him at this moment.
See the fear and terror on his face? He was so afraid he immediatley did this.
Again I speak very sternly. It probably doesn't help since I have the camera snapping at the same time. I told him it was evidence to show Daddy.
He bounced off in a hurry. See Recruit 5 simply waiting his turn to get dressed?
Finally we get out of there and make our way to the camp to pick up Recruit 2's gear. This is the counselor that stayed with him the whole time. A good group of kids! Next was breakfast!

The mountain was truly beautiful, because Recruit 2 was in hospital bottoms and a tye-died shirt we ate breakfast in the parking lot, looked at this hill, and snapped pictures!

Recruit 2 says I agreed he didn't have to get a haircut until the end of summer. I think he dreamed that.
He did agree to shave, which he has.
Recruit 6 is locked in his car seat so he missed the moment. It was not by accident he was locked down. Recruit 5 was a little confused why he and Recruit 6 had matching shirts. Then I realized all three boys were dressed in blue shirts. It must have been subconscious. I used to do this all the time when I picked out everyone's clothes. My mood was their mood!

How would you feel locked out of the Temple?

The two little boys and I visited the Temple and the book store when we were in Raleigh. This was before Panera Bread and before THE CALL about my crazy boy and his even crazier injury.

When we arrived, the Temple was closed and the gate to the grounds was locked. It's a small Temple and I knew it might be. I thought it was worth the trip over there with the boys anyway. We could look at Moroni and the book store is down around the corner.

As we drove up Recruit 5 Said: "Oh this is the Temple I'm going to get married in!" I was a little taken aback by that but said "Oh that's great, after you serve a mission!"

In sharp contrast you see Recruit 6 here turning to me a little miffed the gates were locked. In fact I just missed him shaking the gate. He was actually upset.

Recruit 6: "I can't get in! Use your keys mom, you have keys! Why is it locked? We can't get in. I want to get in the Temple!"

I decided we should walk around front to the sign and take some pictures. We talked about Moroni on top of the temple, or at least Recruit 5 and I tried. I continued to deflect Recruit 6's ideas.

Some of which were, "let's just climb the fence" and "my legs can fit through those thingies we can just squeeze through" and the best one " How can we get on top of Moroni?" Hence the pointing finger below.

I tried again to explain, but I don't think he could get past the locked gates. I mean he sings about I love to see the Temple every Sunday in primary! How could he possibly be locked out??

I started to explain to him he couldn't go in the building even if we could go through the gate. However I figured it would just be a one sided conversation and at this point I was concerned that might actually cause damage to his psyche since I was a little surprised at his current frustration. We made it around to the front and Recruit 6 continued to trouble shoot the locked gate situation.
Notice Recruit 5, patiently standing for the pictures? He just waits while Recruit 6 continues to plot and try to convince me trespassing is a good idea.

I finally distracted him long enough to get a semi decent picture of them both looking in my general direction.
However it didn't last long and he was right back in the land of frustration. In reality it was only about 2 or 3 minutes in front and a total of 6 minutes at the Temple. Recruit 5 suggested we have a prayer at the Temple before we left and he led us to the shade of one of the Trees. I noticed during the prayer Recruit 6 slowly moved back into position to eyeball the fence and see if maybe he could try one more time to get me to let him squeeze through the rot iron fence.

I know my sweet boys were sent to be brothers here. They are a balance to one another and both will be wonderful missionaries one day. Recruit 5 will teach patiently and with love. Recruit 6 will try, get frustrated, and then put someone in a headlock. My work is cut out for me here don't you think?

Recruit 2 Visits a mountain ER but all is Well. (I sang that on my drive there BTW)

*The following talks about some boy-man parts and may not be appropriate for everyone.
**I have permission from Recruit 2 to share the following.
***If you're a guy you may want to hold some one's hand.

Well you know what they say about good intentions. I had really really good intentions of hanging out with the two little recruits, visiting a friend I had not seen in way too many years and leisurely making my way to the mountains to pick Recruit 2 up from his ten days of fun.

I also intended to capture fun photos and think up clever little comments. Well, comments anyway. I have a few photos, but I don't want to go get the camera right now.

My leisurely trip was not to be. I have lots of stories, none which will be shared in order because the big news around here is Recruit 2's latest injury. Those who have followed the chronicles of this Marine Family know Recruit 2 not only sustains injuries on a regular basis, but rarely are they normal!

Just was the case this Thursday. There I was getting ready to head into a small town to find something to wear the two little fellas out when my phone rang. When I saw it was the number of the counselor at Recruit 2's camp I answered already knowing there was a problem.

A small part of me thought maybe they're letting him call me to say bring more clean underwear.

A very small, minuscule, squeaky part.

Kelli: "Hello"

Counselor: "Hi this is a counselor and I wanted to call and let you know Recruit 2 has received an injury on the trail and they've taken him to the hospital. His counselor is with him and he's okay, but they need to get him checked."

Kelli: "Okay..."

Counselor continues as I pull over into a store parking lot.

Counselor: "Apparently he fell and cut his scrotum"

Kelli: "Okay"

I asked several questions. I don't remember them. I just remember thinking WHAT? Where were his pants? What was he doing with his scrotum that it got cut? OH MY GOSH! MY GRANDCHILDREN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I told you this was not a normal injury and not to read this alone if you were a guy didn't I?

Counselor: "They are on their way now and they should be calling you very soon. I just wanted to let you know what was happening before you got a call from the hospital. I'm so sorry I don't have any other details."

The counselor was really sweet and oddly enough I wasn't panicking. Probably for several reasons. In some ways a phone call that this particular child has been injured is a.) not uncommon, and b.) that it's an odd injury is not uncommon. Plus if you read the post on dropping Recruit 2 off, you'll remember a blessing he and I both received from The Marine. It came to mind as I headed back to my friend's home to pack up my gear.

Fortunately we hadn't been there long, so not a lot to gather. I received a call from the hospital and spoke with Recruit 2. He had been assessed but they were waiting on a surgeon to come in and evaluate the situation to see if it needed surgery or just suturing because of the location of the injury.

Recruit 2: "MOM"

Kelli: "Recruit! What the heck! What happened?

So he told me enough for me to get the picture.

Kelli: "Okay, listen. Do you want me there? I'm only four hours from you."

R2 without hesitation said yes.

We left 6.4 minutes later.

Here is what happened from all the details I've gathered.

The group was on their two night three day adventure up on the mountain. On the second day it began raining so they stopped to prepare a shelter. Recruit 2 shimmied up a tree to tie a tarp. It was already wet and he slipped and slid/fell down the tree approximately 2 feet. There must have been something protruding from the tree that his little friends caught on and while the shorts didn't rip, his personals did, causing a 4 inch gash down there. There was one layer of skin holding the left fellow inside.

(I'm not sure how to appropriately write this by the way. I usually use anatomically correct words, but that just somehow doesn't work here.)

He said there was no pain, but he had this "feeling" something wasn't right so he looked in there and said "Hey guys, I have a problem". (he was speaking to the others in his group, not into his pants)

They created a makeshift litter with their walking sticks and a tarp. Two of them ran two different directions to get a signal on their cell phones to call the camp and EMS.

EMS met them and transferred Recruit 2 onto the basket for the rest of the way to the ambulance. It was about 2.5 miles off the mountain according to R2.

So some details I'll leave out, like all the man part jokes, many of which I think my son was cracking.

The surgeon decided he didn't need surgery and using a local stitched up the muscular layer and then about 40 stitches according to R2 put the outside layer back in place. However I found out the stitch count was according to R2's count as he watched his anatomy being quilted back into place. I have no idea the actual number.

Other factoids:

• He had morphine in the ambulance but nothing else until the hotel when he took a vicodin.
• He had the presence of mind to make fun of a guy with a bee sting in the curtain next to him which I told him was NOT NICE.
• 20 cc of lidacain (I know that's not spelled right, but it's four a.m.) shot directly into his scrotum. (If you're a man we'll all pause for you to stop gasping for air. Okay stand back up it's really not happening to you right now!)
• He really wanted to stay to see his group come off the trail so he could say goodbye.
• He wanted his MOM! (okay he was on morphine and will probably deny this part)
• He was never scared. I actually believe that. Every time I spoke with him I never heard fear.
• He plans to frame the shorts he was wearing and hang them in his room. My family is weird.

I arrived at 2330 and he had just been released from the ER. I picked him up and we went to a hotel where he took a much needed shower.

I would be remiss in not stating here how great the staff was at the camp. One of his counselors stayed with him the whole time at the hospital and they were very accomadating when I called and kept me informed, so I'm very pleased with the care and concern R2 received from the staff.

okay on with the tale.

I was followed to the hotel by a police man. Apparently I failed to dim my lights at him but when I told him my son was injured and we were arriving at our THIRD hotel because all night clerks in the area must have been having a meeting he was very nice, and I profusely apologized as well for blinding him. I had in fact just been complaining myself about some inconsiderate drivers who did the same thing to me, so I felt really stupid.

R2 was fairly ripe from being out on the trail. I stopped at a local gas station/food mart and lucky for him they had cool tie-died t-shirts since he had none of his gear. They had cut off his UNSCATHED shorts and he had cool hospital pants on.

Now the two little recruits were with me the whole time, so you know, YOU KNOW, there are many details I'm not sharing. Just thought I would blog those separate and get this story concluded.

We got up the next morning (Friday) and picked up the rest of his gear from camp and headed home. I took him straight to the urgent care clinic here at our base (WE DON'T HAVE AN ER) to get a wound check and see if they would do an ultrasound which was not done at the ER on the mountain and should have been.

They were all impressed here at home with the fact Recruit 2 had 0 pain and 0 swelling. It was a little odd seeing three men all looking at his business (and saying how great the injury looked)while I sat looking the other way.

The pain part is because he is a carbon copy of his Dad who is a freakish man when it comes to injury and pain and the 0 swelling probably can be attributed to the ice R2 sat on for seven hours while we drove home.

Currently he sleeps in the room next to me as I type this out. We will go see an urologists this week to follow up.

I must say he is an amazing young man. Brave and tough with a wonderful sense of humor. I am so thankful for the blessings he and I received when he left for camp, and I am even more grateful for a Loving Father in Heaven who watches over my handsome son... ALOT

As far as his posterity? The ER nurse on the mountain said he will still be able to have many beautiful three eyed children just as expected!