The Moment I Was Dreading

I knew this day would come, but I didn't know how well I would handle it. I did pretty well, I think, but you can judge for yourself.

I've been learning how to infuse Jaxon peripherally (through his hand and arm veins) over the last few weeks. It's pretty tricky, but Jaxon has been amazing, not complaining and even being exciting about practicing on fake plastic veins. (He wants to practice on me, too. I haven't let him yet, but maybe I should)

So today, Jaxon looks down at his arm in the tourniquet and is probably just beginning to understand that he has to do this three times a week for the rest of his life.

He looks up at me and says, "Mom, I wish I didn't have hemophilia."

In my heart, I cried. I know, Honey, so do I. In this moment, Jaxon articulated what I have been feeling for seven and a half years. Up until now, he's hardly been aware of his bleeding disorder or it's impact on his life. He's a very healthy boy and hemophilia only affects his life 5% of the time. But, here we are in the 5% and it's still something that holds him back, that makes him feel different, that could potentially kill him. I knew there would be a time when he said this to me, but it still broke my heart.

So in my most cheerful voice I said, "Yep. But you have it. That's how things are. I wish I didn't have these dark circles under my eyes. That's why I wear make-up. You have hemophilia and you get this medicine to fix it."

Okay, so it sounds pretty lame now that I've written it out. But, I don't want him to think it's okay to feel sorry for himself.

I can do that well enough for the both of us.

At church yesterday . . .

I found Asher like this when church ended at 4 PM. His teacher said he slept through the entire class.



Want to know the best part? I ate his cookie. :)

Why do I have a sudden craving for chocolate covered gummy bears?

Accidental Time Capsule

As I was cleaning out the garage from our failed garage sale, I came upon this bag. It was from my time as a BYU Freshman Academy Peer Advisor. That was my first job at BYU and I loved it. I had about 120 freshman that I was in charge of: I called them, helped them figure out student life, had lunch with them (courtesy of BYU). It was awesome.

So I guess I never cleaned out this bag and here's what I found a bunch of stuff from my life almost 10 years ago.
Here's what was in my accidental time capsule:

1. Newspaper clipping with Mark holding some kind of Valentine's gift from an article in the Daily Universe. He doesn't remember anything about the clipping. It appears to be from February of 2001.

2. 3 tampons (unsurprising)

3. A pair of socks with kittens on them (I used to love socks with patterns. No solid colors for me)

4. Avon chapstick

5. AA battery (probably for my discman)

6. $0.77, a tissue, and a pair of earrings (so that's what happened to these!)

7. A letter from my cousin, Michelle, who was on a mission.

8. A few cards, including my meal card from Freshman Academy (I wonder if there was any money left?)


All in all, it was pretty amusing to see what I was carting around campus when I was barely 21, married, and a "leader" of college freshmen.

Good times :)