Last week I had a kidney stone. Let me rephrase that; last week Gibraltar lodged itself in my urator then decided to travel.

After a number of noteworthy (but not paper worthy) symptoms that all screamed shrapnel, I found myself sitting in a lonely exam room awaiting the arrival of Simon Cowell’s twin brother, who apparently practices urological medicine.

“Hello!” he said, entering the room and shaking my hand. “Well, it looks like you’ve got a pretty big kidney stone in there. How are you feeling?”

“Like I’ve got a pretty big kidney stone in there,” I responded.

“That’s not the only one,” he said, pulling up my CT scans on the computer. “Let’s see, two on the left side, another on the right…how’s your diet?”

I knew this question was coming. I am a kidney stone veteran, and the doctors always ask the same thing: why do you eat rocks?

“Sadly, my diet is awesome. I’m vain and this is the only way I can be skinny,” I responded.

“Well,” he said, “Let’s look at this list and see where you’re at.” He handed me a packet of What Not To Eat and started to review. “Do you eat a lot of salt?” he asked.

I thought back to the log of Summer Sausage in my fridge, the jar of BBQ almonds on my cupboard, and our suspiciously low peanut butter jar.

“A little,” I said.

“Yeah, that’s not going to help.”

“Well,” I said, “I do try to drink a lot of diet coke, and we all know that coke and asparagus are good for kidney stones.”

He looked at me with a bewildered expression, so I continued. “You know, when you start to get a kidney stone, all you have to do is drink a two liter bottle of real coke in one hour and chase it with a can of asparagus, including the juice. It usually works, I didn’t have time to try it yesterday.”

There was a long pause as he studied me, taking careful note of my glowing blond head.

“And what is this supposed to accomplish?” he finally asked.

“Well, you know, it…gets it.” I said. He just stared at me. “It disintegrates it, burns it to a crisp, whatever! All I know is that Coke and asparagus will fix kidney stones.”

He shook his head, thought about lecturing me and realized it was probably pointless. “Anyway,” he went on. “If you check out this list–”

“Oh! Lemonade!” I said looking at the list, “That’s right, I need to drink a glass of lemonade every day and that will keep the kidney stones away!”

“Um, where are you getting all your information?” he said.

“The…internet,” I added, although this isn’t actually true. I get most of my information from my older sisters, who know everything about everything and pass their worldly wisdom on to me as often as humanly possible. Somehow I think the internet might be more reliable.

“Yes, well, let’s talk about your surgery,” he continued. “We’ll go in and blast that kidney stone, but there’s a chance we might have to put a stint in so the larger pieces can filter out.”

“I’m going to be asleep for all this, right?” I asked.

“Of course, you won’t feel a thing. The stint will just have to come out a week or two after all the pieces have passed.”

“And you’ll put me out when you remove the stint?” I asked.

“Well,” he said slowly, “Not exactly. It’s not that big of a deal though, we just have to go in through your urethra to get it.”

“But I’ll be asleep when you go in to get it, right?”

“Well no,” he said.

“Right. Let me just say this plainly,” I said, “There’s absolutely no way you’re ‘going in through my urethrea’ while I’m awake.”

“Oh, it’s not that bad–”

“Not that bad? Excuse me,” I said, “Have you ever had anyone stick anything up your urethra while you were awake?”

He looked a little sheepish, “Well, no…but my wife–”

“Tell you what, as long as you put me out dead I don’t care what you do to my urethra, deal?”

What could he say? He might know more about kidney stones, but I’ve got some serious stock in the pain department. With four kids, sometimes I  need a spinal tap just to get through Monday. Thankfully he didn’t have to worry about the stint retrieval which is good because I’m pretty sure that experience would have scarred both of us.

The concert was epic. I actually felt emotional at one point because they are that good.

But the thing that I found colossally heartbreaking was the guy in front of me. He spent the entire concert taking “videos” with his i phone. He didn’t put that thing down once to see what was happening on the other side of his stupid screen. Bono in 2D is so much better.

Quite frankly, I saw 4000 of this dude’s friends doing the exact same thing. I felt like yelling, “Put your freaking phones away and open your eyes, for crying out loud this is U2!” Of course I didn’t because no one would have heard me over the awesomeness of the band. Plus I didn’t want to lose the beat or expend judging energy until after the concert.

Sometimes I think we get so tuned into how the world looks through our phone or our computer or our DVR that we completely lose the point.

Today I’m getting together with my SIL for a playdate with our kids. With this move riding up on me like a tight pair of jeans, I want to take advantage of this time to love being here in America. The parks, the hikes, the McDonald playlands…life in the USA kind of rocks.

And hey, I can take the internet with me.

(PS – For future reference, never wear stilettos to a concert when you might or might not have to walk 11 eternal blocks to the car because trains are dumb. And yeah, the last four blocks I went barefoot.)

Oops, I think I misspelled that. I meant to spell it like this, U2. Cause that’s where we’re going tonight.

In case you don’t know my husband, he’s super super cheap. We’ve been to one concert together in the past decade, Neil Diamond, and that was practically at gunpoint. He loves music and hates paying people for entertainment (unless there’s a ball involved).

But last week for his birthday he surprised me. “Honey,” he said, “I think I know what I want for my birthday. Let’s go to the U2 concert.”

He got on Cougarboard, his go to site for any and all information regarding man-related issues, and asked if anyone had tickets to sell. Luckily, some guy emailed him back and offered to sell us two tickets in row 22 at cost.

Apparently, this guy feels very strongly that U2 is a religious experience, and that profiting from the sale of these tickets would be like selling tickets to see the prophet. Bless his religious heart.

Due to Jason’s work schedule and our move, we had to give up taking a trip to Mexico this past week to see a dear life long friend of mine get hitched. I’ve been super depressed about it, so he took me to St. George and Vegas for two days so I could cry in the sun. We decided to leave the kids and the baby behind.

I repeat, we left the baby (in good hands with her sweet Aunt Hayley and Uncle Jake who looks like a Pedro with his rocking mustache).

This is the first time in her life I’ve been away from her for more than a few hours (most of which she spends sleeping) and it wasn’t easy. I was sad for at least seventeen minutes. Then we stopped for gas and both got to go inside because THERE WERE NO KIDS IN THE CAR.

During our time in Vegas, I wasn’t myself. Literally. My dear old friend (and Jason’s favorite playmate) Natasha took over for the day and acted in her usual slutty manner–outfit included.

I didn’t think this would be a problem since I wasn’t going to see anyone I know (DeNae, stop yelling at me, you know I love you), but it turns out Jason had made arrangements to meet the dude and buy the tickets.

The dude from Cougar board. The nice, religious, Mormon, family dude who would never ever think of stepping out on his wife with a trampy broad like Natasha. The same guy we’ll be sitting by tonight at the concert.

And me in my stupid stilettos.

He texted Jason to tell him he was waiting in the parking lot of the restaurant, so J handed me the keys. “Don’t worry,” he said, “He won’t even see you. Just head to the car and I’ll get the tickets from him.”

I turned and started trouncing along in my uber short shorts and deathly high heels, happy to be out of range. Happy, that is, until I saw that parked one car away from our vehicle was a suburban full of kids. And a dad. It looked like they were waiting for some…

Do I really need to tell you more?

The moral of this story is simple. Never buy U2 tickets from a nice Mormon guy if your wife is dressed like a slut because she’ll feel the need to explain herself at the concert. And if her name is Annie, she’s going to tell him and his wife way more about your life than you ever wanted anyone to know.

Happy birthday, darling!

Well, it’s Monday and according the the internet the world did not end last week. I’m sure this is highly disappointing for some believers; I would hate to be one of those people who had put my entire wad of faith in that basket.

The whole world ending bit has me thinking of the Mayan calendar and how it ends in 2012. Has anyone stopped to think that maybe it ends because they ran out of space? Or maybe the crazy Mayan who was working on it finally up and died and no one was interested in finishing what appeared to be a pointless project?

And speaking of pointless projects, let’s talk about my house. I will be living in my house for 13 more days before we head out to spend June up in Washington. The day we get back the packers start boxing it up.

Someone, quick, give me a reason to clean because I can’t seem to find one.

Housework is like wood stacking. You stack an entire pile of wood, go to bed, and while you’re sleeping the wicked little trolls throw the wood all back into a pile so when you wake up you can stack it again. Every. Stupid. Day. Now throw on top of that the fact that you know in 13 days you’re going to have a bon fire and torch the pile, so why waste time stacking it?

The baby is screaming and while I would like to take time to discuss other important topics like bleach stains and homemade baby food, I must attend. Later gator.

It’s  May, school is out in three weeks, and my child is getting an “A” in “How to be sick and stay home from school.”

It all started two weeks ago when he got the spring flu. It was one of those colds where he was too sick to go to school and hack all over everyone, but too healthy to stay home and not pester me (also too healthy to warrant any real sympathy).

“Harrison,” I said, “You’ve missed two days this week and today you are going to school!” It was a Thursday which meant I had the honor of volunteering in his classroom.

“Achoo! Cough cough hack hack Oops-there-goes-a-lung!” he said.

“No, you can stay home for an hour until your cough medicine kicks in, but then it’s back to school with you.” He had been well enough sit around and play video games, run errands, ask me to buy him a toy at McDonald’s, and back talk.

“Fine,” he said, coughing his way  back to the bathroom to brush his teeth.

We made it to his classroom and I started in on the day’s activity. Harry quickly forgot about his cold and proceeded to joke and play with his buddies.

He also coughed, sneezed, and wiped his nose all over his sleevesThere were three other mothers volunteering with me and I could practically feel their germ radars zeroing in on my walking petri dish.

At the end of the hour I couldn’t deny it; he had to come home.

“Harry,” I said, “Grab your sweat shirt, you’re coming home with me.”

“YES!” he did a fist pump jump and skipped to his cubby. Poor little invalid.

We made it through the weekend and his cold finally trickled down to a casual runny nose and the occasional sneeze. On Monday morning I was all business.

“Harry! You’re going to school today, so hurry it up!”

“What?” he asked, coming from his room. “My stomach hurts so bad! I think I’m going to throw up, you should NOT send me to school.”

“Really?” I said, “Well by all means, feel free to throw up any time you want. For the record, that is the only way you’re staying home this morning.” I watched him walk away, shoulders slumped and hand on his poor little tummy.

He had been at school just long enough to finish first recess when my phone rang. “Mom?” came the weakened voice on the other end of the line, “I’m so sick, I think I’m going to throw up!”

“Harrison–”

“Just come and get me! I’m really sick, I’m not faking it!”

I hung up the phone and slowly loaded my three little kids into the car.

As I walked toward his classroom I decided to give it one last shot.

“Hi Mom,” he said with a pitiful moan.

“Hello son,” I said, “Before you sign out, I  need to tell you something. If you choose to come home right now, you will go straight to your bed. You will have nothing but water and plain bread for the rest of the day and you will not leave your room. In the event of a sudden recovery, you will spend the rest of the day cleaning the bathrooms, all three of them, and then the garage. There will be no television, no video games, and no computer.”

His mouth flew open. “What?!” he said.

“Are you sure you’re sick?” I asked. He looked back over his shoulder at the friends sitting quietly, listening to his teacher read a book aloud.

“You know,” he said with absolutely no shame whatsoever, “I think I’m actually feeling much better. See you after school!” With a little wave, he was off.

The Summer flu sure has a quick recovery period.

Last night I had lithotrypsy. In case you are wondering, this is a surgical procedure where they blast the “&%* out of your  kidney stone in an attempt to obliterate it. Mine was big, but they think they got her good.

Today I wanted to die.

Even without any cutting, I feel like I’ve been through major surgery. I spent all day long flat on my back, begging for help just use the potty. And of course, using the potty made me nauseous so I would then need help barfing. So sexy.

My husband doesn’t do sick, by the way.

Around three, he came in with that,”Time to get over it!” look on his face we recovering surgical victims hate.

“Honey,” he said in his best all knowing I-spent-one-summer-as-an-emt voice, “Let’s get you up and walking. That’s just what you need to feel better. Come on now, out to the television!”

I moaned and groaned and draped my nauseated self over his shoulders as he slowly plodded us out to the kitchen.

“I’m feeling better,” I said fakingly, “This is just what I needed.” I then proceeded to eat ten saltine crackers, because we all know saltines settle your stomach.

Fifteen minutes later, much to his total dismay, I was once again on my bed regurgitating the ten previously mentioned saltines with more zest than I’d like to remember.

And for the record, you  know a girl is sick when she can’t even lift her Kindle to read. Yeah, it was one of those days.

The good news is that tonight I’m walking and writing and making really lame kidney related jokes (that no one gets or laughs at). I’m sure tomorrow I’ll be back to my chipper, less vomity self.

We can only hope.

Yesterday my boy waded into the waters of salvation and came out sparkling clean.

It lasted 37 minutes.

Let me just say, Harrison was way more ready for baptism than I ever was. He actually prayed on Friday night that he would have joy and happiness when he received the Holy Ghost. I’m pretty sure that if I prayed at all, it was something like, “Please don’t let me drown or get water in my nose.”

So after the baptism Harry’s primary teacher gave him this awesome mini poster board. She’d written a little paragraph and taped a few candy bars onto it for key word emphasis (Symphony, Extra gum, Starburst, etc.). This is because children will read anything Hershey puts on the outside of a chocolate bar. If I ever run for office I will first invent some chocolate peanut butter madness and call it the Votannie Dream. And yes, I’m available for all your wedding planning and campaign needs.

“Harrison,” I said as we left, “We’re going to Chuck-A-Rama and you are NOT allowed to touch that candy until after, understand?” He looked up at me with those beautiful sinless green eyes and nodded. Then he climbed into the back of the Sequoia without a single complaint. Such a little saint.

With 14 people and two cars, we played a quick game of “Shove Your Granny in the Trunk.” Rexy was last to be placed, and I opened the back hatch to toss him in by Harrison.

And there sat my little sinner, covered in chocolate and surrounded by 13 Starburst wrappers.

Today he is taking the sacrament. Apparently he needs it.

“Honey?” My husband said the other night, “There’s a cat in the house.”

This probably wouldn’t have come as such a shock if we actually owned a cat. I looked around the corner and sure enough, there sat a pretty little gray and white kitty, perched quietly by the front door.

Holy feline, where did that thing come from?

Before I could blink, our five-year-old (who had been in bed for two solid hours) rushed out of his room, took one look at the kitty and exclaimed, “Rucifer! What are you doing here?”

(In case you haven’t seen Disney’s version of Cinderella lately, “Rucifer” is what the mice call “Lucifer,” the evil cat. Nice, I know.)

The little kitty was so starved it could hardly manage a meow. I cracked open a can of something, fed and watered it, and in no time he was purring and loving on us like one of our own children.

We’ve never owned a cat before. At one point we had a beautiful black half Standard Poodle, half Golden Retriever (affectionately called a Goldendoodle), but when our wonderful dog was barely a year he was hit by a car and killed. It was devastating. We cried like babies and vowed to never, ever love an animal again (until the kids were older and we lived on a different street).

By midnight the cat thought he was a permanent resident. We almost kept him inside, but what if he belonged to someone? Besides, we don’t need a pet right now. We’re moving half way around the world, an animal will only complicate things. We decided if he was still there in the morning, we’d reevaluate.

He wasn’t.

Thanks to my loud little five-year-old, my children sat by the window off and on the next day, talking about Our Cat. They discussed names, fought over his sleeping arrangements, and waited. And waited and waited and waited.

It was a school night and I finally had to put them to bed. I made one more pass by the front window, just in case, and what do you think I saw sitting in the courtyard? Oh yeah, the cat came back.

For two days I fed him at night, and turned him out in the morning. I checked the ads, asked the neighbors, but no one was missing a little gray and white kitty. Finally I did the only thing I could think of: I called the Animal Master of the Universe, my friend, Caroline Clark.

“Caroline,” I said, “this cat keeps coming around and I have no idea what to do with him.” I ran through the details and waited for instructions.

“Oh, the sweet little kitty, take him into the vet for tests, make sure he doesn’t have an owner’s chip, and if he looks okay, bring him out here and I’ll fix up his coat.”

A pet? Now? All I could think of was the plane ride overseas–four kids and a cat. Circus material.

The next morning I drove to the Heartsong clinic in Clearfield (they handle basic vaccinations and “fixings” for a great price). The receptionist took one look at our little kitty and yelled for their cat expert.

“Hey,” she said, “Look at his ears!” The tech took a look and asked, “Where did you get him?”

I told her the story and she smiled. “Looks like you won the cat lottery, this little guy is worth at least $600, you could probably get $800.” She left me, mouth ajar, and took him back for testing.

When they emerged again, she asked, “Are you sure you want him? He’s a sweetheart, if his test come out clean our vet would really like to keep him.”

“I really don’t know,” I said. I took the kitty from her and sat down to wait for his test results. Maybe giving him to someone more stable would be best. I couldn’t bear the thought of our family getting attached and then losing him.

As I sat there thinking about handing him off, the door bell rang and in walked a dog. Not just any dog, my dog. The dog we had loved and lost. A big black goldendoodle.

And my cat sat there happily, relaxed as a blanket and purring like a vacuum.

Holy kitty litter, it was a sign.

In that moment I knew it was time to love a pet again. Yes, sometimes it’s a gamble, and sometimes they leave us too soon, but that kitty on my lap needed us.

My mother always says that the right pet will find you when you need it most. Rucifer, I hope you know what you’re in for because you’ve got us now.

It’s true, I have vanity issues. We all know I am happy to obsessed about my weight and my shoe collection, but there are other things that I don’t care about. Take cars for instance.

I found this photo on the internet and IT'S MY OLD CAR! How crazy is that?

In college I drove the World’s Ugliest Car, a cat poop brown 1987 Celebrity Chevy. We called it the couch because it was so comfortable. Sure I would have liked a Jetta, but my car was free and got decent gas mileage. Also it had no miles (the old lady who bought it let it rot in her garage for ten years before it fell into my desperate little hands).

We drove that car the first four years of our marriage. Then when Rexy came along it was time to get something that had working blinkers and doors that locked (I didn’t say the car was perfect, just ugly).

And that’s when we bought our Taurus station wagon. Coolest. Car. Ever.

Honestly, in hind sight I realize we had reverse pride. We weren’t prideful about our beautiful trendy car, we were prideful about the fact that we didn’t own a beautiful trendy car. Humble, right?

But then. Then June and Utah winters came along, and what do you think we landed with? Our Sequoia. Silver, posh, addicted to gasoline…what a car. We’ve driven that baby for over three years and I’ve mostly loved it. I do not love having to get out and walk around China to buckle June into the backseat when she’s naughty. I do not love hoisting the baby carrier into the back. But for the most part, it drives like a dream.

Drove. Past tense. That’s right, it’s gone.

The last ride. We didn't let the kids inside because it cost a cool $100 to have it detailed.

And today I’m sitting by the phone, waiting with baited breath for news of our newest family member. That’s right, we’re getting a Mazda 5.

Yes, it really is this much smaller than the Sequoia.

It’s not a minivan, it’s a microvan. Seating for six with a super simple inside.

We went with the Mazda for a number of reasons. First, I’m pretty sure Sequoia’s are illegal in Europe since they can’t fit in most of the parking spaces. Second, this baby gets nearly 30 mpg which is amazing. I used to cost us a cool $80 to fill up the Sequoia so I could drive car pool twice a week.

Consumer reports gives it a hefty 95% which is about as high as you can get, and just when I thought it couldn’t get any better than that, they featured it on The Biggest Loser this week. That’s right, skinny people drive this car.

In the end I’m going to  love this affordable little guy, but I’d be a lying turkey if I didn’t admit that I’ll miss my ritzy toyota. Man she was a beaut.

No, this post is not about fowl.

Also I should warn you that my breasts might explode at any given moment, so don’t get too close. (I’ve told my husband this repeatedly, he still doesn’t quite get it).

So the whole weaning Georgia bit sounded way better before I went 24 hours without nursing her. At first, it was mild discomfort. This was closely followed by cold sweats and milk glands so ripe for the nursing you could bounce a quarter off them.

I made it through the second night with the help of two painful showers, one drowning nightmare, and a baby who slept peacefully until dawn.

Georgia, on the other hand, is doing swell. The first day she cried the first three times I went to give her a bottle, but took them anyway. Since that time she couldn’t care less where her nourishment comes from; I might as well be hired help demoted to diaper duty and bib removal.

Finally, after letting numerous girlfriends feel me up (seriously, they were so hard I felt like a walking carton of liquid laundry detergent), I took an ace bandage to them in an effort to contain the madness.

Yesterday was day three, and by five in the evening I was one milk gland and 26 seconds away from mastitis. We were having an early birthday party for Harrison at the park, and seeing that I’ve never done the whole bottle thing, it won’t surprise you to hear that I completely spaced bringing the formula.

The baby was crying, I was sweating, the party was swinging, and just when I thought I might go bananas, it dawned on me: I could solve both our problems by simply nursing the baby.

So I did.

In ten minutes flat she emptied me out on both sides. I cinched those girls back into their bindings, recommitted myself to the bottle, and this morning I woke up for the first time in two days and didn’t bump my chin on my engorged shelving.

Saints be praised, I think we’re gonna make it.

And Happy Mother’s Day!!