You can't win 'em all.

Last Friday was my brother's birthday. He turned 42...nine years older than the queen herself. *curtsies* And like the rest of us, the Sunday following his birthday was declared the official day of family celebration and all splurging goodness at my parents' house; dinner, drinks, gifts, cake...the whole nine yards. My family's awesome like that.

So along comes the week before my brother's birthday, and I'm gently informed by my Mother that as it is indeed my brother's birthday and not mine...my brother has decided that he would like to invite my ex-husband to our family celebration of his birthday. Did you just do a double take? Yeah I expected that...but read on...it gets weirder. So my brother extends the invitation to my ex-husband, which was exceedingly convenient for my brother as they live in the same house, and the invitation was accepted...I cringed...but the world kept spinning and everyone went on with their day. Weirder, right? I know!

So Hubby and the girls and I arrived at my parents' house on Sunday bearing gifts and a card, looking forward to celebrating my brother's day with him and the rest of my family, and prepared to put on our best "this isn't awkward at all!" smiles for my brother's sake. Greetings were exchanged, a Mike's Hard Lemonade was placed in my hand, and we all proceeded into the living room to deliver verbal birthday wishes to my brother, as after all...it was his day. I knew, just from basic deduction that he wasn't anywhere else, that my ex-husband would be sitting in the living room when we entered, but you see...I still found myself slightly unprepared...to find my ex-husband's new girlfriend seated on my parents' couch beside him. I know...just when you though it couldn't get any weirder...there it is.

And I truly must say that I really actually like this girl quite a bit...she's been good for us all as she's kept him happy and occupied (and off of my back). From what I've heard, she's a teacher, and a kind, smart person. Big almost always puts in a request to her Dad that the girlfriend join them for the day on the mornings he picks her up, so I figure she can't be all bad because little miss fussy britches likes her (that's Big, FYI). On all accounts, she makes my little girl very happy and treats her nicely, which is really all I care about, so in general she goes down in my book as "acceptable". Excellent. But that doesn't detract from the fact that my ex-husband and his girlfriend are sitting on my parents' couch at a family function. Maybe it's just me...but I'm more of the opinion that it would just be better for all if they just took their party elsewhere and enjoyed each other's company over at her parents' house, mmmmkay? I mean, seriously.

But we made it work, the adaptable and accepting homosapiens that we are. She sat at his side silently and stayed in the living room almost the whole time, and I roamed the house loudly and drank more than I ever have at a family function to dull the awkwardness. But you know...same, same. Dinner was eaten, happy birthday was sung by the choir, cake was eaten, kids slip n' slided to their hearts greatest desire...and then Hubby drove us home so as to avoid that whole messy Mommy getting picked up for a DUI unpleasantness. The normal family stuff. What, you mean this doesn't happen to you?! Huh...

And so maybe I didn't pass the test this weekend. Maybe I did go ahead and give the girlfriend the impression that I'm more of a binge drinking lunatic than I am a responsible 33 year-old mother of 2...but in the end what do I care? Life is full of unexpected tests and roadblocks set up to give us pause on an otherwise fine and dandy summer Sunday afternoon. Sometimes you finish the marathon and come out the winner...sometimes they find you laying drunk in the gutter half way along the race path. You can't win 'em all.

At least we're all on the same page...

Ok, it's been a great weekend of birthday goodness and joy, but it appears that it's time to get back to reality. I resisted any and all housework for as long as I could, but the sink full of dishes and sippy cups was relentless with it's eyeballing me every time I walked through the kitchen this afternoon. Eventually I caved...which coincidentally coincided closely with the time that Hubby would be arriving home from work. Odd. Nothing like sweating over a pan of steaming hot dishwater, cleaning sippy top valves to knock a pseudo-queen down from her pedestal. Ah, well...it was nice while it lasted.

Speaking of reality, I suppose this is a good time to address my most recent doctor appointments and the impending lymph node elephant in the room. I did go to meet my sister's doctor last Thursday afternoon for a second opinion of sorts on everything that had been explained to me about my enlarged lymph nodes, my need for a biopsy, chances of lymphoma, and the possibility of getting lymphedema as my reward for having surgery. I can only imagine the horror she felt as I added more and more history to my story, but her poker face remained, and in the end I liked her. She was kind and funny and she listened thoughtfully while I recounted my entire ridiculous medical history, and took notes as I detailed the CAT scans from the past few months. She definitely seemed to be taking in each word rather thoughtfully, which made me feel like she was really in tune with the urgency I was feeling over making a decision about the
biopsy and my chances of having lymphoma. It probably took me a whole 30 minutes to bring her up to speed and explain to her why exactly I was sitting there in her office at 4 o'clock on a Thursday afternoon. It took her approximately 60 seconds to tell me what she thought; that I really need to just have the surgery and get the biopsy done and shut up about it already! Ok, she didn't say that, but it was implied, or maybe I was just saying it to myself. Either way, blerg...the end.

Fast forward to this morning when I went to see my rheumatologist for my long standing quarterly check-up. It's been 4 years since I started seeing him for my Sjogren's syndrome after Little's birth, but this was my first appointment with him since all of this lymph node business so rudely invaded my life. I had hope going in that he would be able to offer great insight on the situation, as enlarged lymph nodes and runaway immune systems are sort of his thing and, as expected, he didn't disappoint. He was able to tell me that my lymph nodes, while rather large, don't feel like lymphoma stricken ones, and that my chances of getting lymphedema are most likely much lower than the 30% that the surgeon estimated they would be, and that my lymphocyte count was normal in my last round of blood work that he had ordered 3 months ago...all very encouraging things. But he still recommended that I go forward and have the surgery. Blerg, blerg! But on the other hand, this was a positive thing as well.

For the first time since I got the news about my second failed CAT scan almost a month ago, all of my doctors are in agreement...no more conflicting stories and recommendations, and that's a huge relief, even if it wasn't what I had hoped to hear. I have the wisdom to acknowledge that upon having children, I gave up the ability to take chances with my life...the luxury to "wait and see" in situations like this...so I've decided to just suck it up, stop whining and have the damn biopsy done. My appointment with my second opinion surgeon is scheduled for July 18th, one week from today, in hopes that she will be of the opinion that a needle biopsy would be thorough enough, as side effects of that are far lower than actually removing an entire lymph node, but even I realize that the chances of that happening are low. (Triple. Blerg. To the max.) But lest yee feel sorry for me, I must say that whatever happens, I'm a tough cookie, and I have no doubt that I'll get through it. And to end on a positive note,, at least we're all finally on the same page about what's going on and what I need to do next. That has to be worth something.

Queen for a day...or weekend.

OK, so I'm 33...and so far it's the bomb diggity. It's true that it's only been 24 hours, and not everything has been perfect (duh) but with each year that I gain an age number (since I turned 30) I find that I celebrate cautiously, waiting for the inevitable terrifying realization of oldness to set in. So...24 hours into age 33...no terror. And that's my report.

I believe in my last post I mentioned the concept of Queen Jenny Day as a new representation of my birthday, which began jokingly because I love my birthday so much and sort of took flight once Big and Little caught wind and jumped on. Well, I'm proud to say that this year's inaugural Queen Jenny Day celebration has not only been the best thing everrrrrrr, but it's morphed into a weekend of celebration as well! On Friday night, after many an hour of anxious toe tapping on my part, Hubby arrived home from work with the most beautiful dozen roses ever! and declared that Queen Jenny Weekend was beginning. God, I love that man.

So Friday night we had pizza and movie night with the girls, and I pretty much got to sit on my big fat duff while he hummingbirded around getting drinks and serving pizza with truly amazing speed and dexterity. Awesome.

Saturday morning brought out the true hero in Hubby as Saturday was the actual Queen Jenny Day. As usual, the girls awakened far too early and headed in to climb into bed with us for snuggle time, it's our daily routine. Hubby awakened and declared that snuggle time would be cut to 5 minutes for the day. Snuggling commenced. They evacuated. I passed out. I was awakened a few hours later by Hubby with a taptaptap "Hurry up and look in the kitchen!" that oozed such excitement that I was just the tiniest bit worried that I might find the curtains on fire (except that we don't have curtains, but I was still half asleep so logic escaped me). But I didn't find fire. Instead, I found 2 very excited girls, who serenaded me with Happy Birthday before I even made it through the doorway, and breakfast! Awwww. So we ate together, while Hubby did his hummingbird impression again. Big made sure that I tried some of the orange juice that Little had concocted and she had stirred (so they totally made it) and for those few minutes I reveled in the moment, because all general crappiness had ceased and life was perfect.

Post-breakfast time quickly became cards (which were homemade from the girls and OMG, practically brought me to tears they were so freaking awesome!) and present time, and then get-ready-for-the-beach-time, which I did help with lest you think I'm a birthday sloth. Little butts were wiped and swimsuit straps hoisted over oddly folded arms, sunscreen applied...and around 10 (an hour later than we had hoped) we headed out for our hour drive to the beach. At first we had a little mumbling discontent about the length of the drive from the back seat, but one wave of my magic hand over the DVD player in the van improved the situation greatly. Man, I love that thing.

Shortly after Rapunzel and Eugene escaped the tower, we arrived at our sandy destination. Excitement was abundant...and then waned as we made it to the sand and got our first look around. See, the unfortunate thing about the beach in Wisconsin is that it's lake beach, which in most cases is great because of the lack of annoying and nasty salt in the water, except in our case yesterday it just meant that there were 8 million tiny dead fish floating in the water and washed up on the beach. *barf* It looked to me like a mass poisoning scene in CSI:aquatics...hundreds of little silver fish, laying there in the sand just kind of just staring at us motionless..whispering "run, ruuuuuuun!!!" in their ghostly fish voices. We females of the family were...umm...skeeved. To say the least. But once Hubby convinced me that we weren't all going to catch some rare form of deadly fish disease (which honestly took more than a few minutes) we did eventually plant ourselves in a fishless spot and commenced Operation Introduce Offspring to the Beach. Overall, a great experience. Sand castles were erected poorly, small waves were jumped, shells collected (I totally didn't know that lakes had shells either! I know! Weird!). Hubby even made a sand sculpture of sorts to impress us women folk, and 4 hours later we were all beached out and headed home...making sure to bring a little bit of the beach home with us in the girls cracks for posterity. What's trip to the beach without some crack sand!? All in all, I'd say we effectively checked the block. Awesome.

Home arrival brought shower time, a few over-tired tears (no, not from me surprisingly) and a quick accidental nap from Hubby and I. (The girls are fine, I swear.) At some point Hubby and I discovered that we both had done a rather reckless job of applying our sunscreen and would be paying the price for a few days. (So...that aerosol spray sunscreen? Yeah, make sure you do rub it in...even if the bottle says you don't have to. Otherwise it may just blow off in the wind, make random contact with your body parts, and leave you with a swirly, checker board type, hot, painful sun burn. Just sayin'.) But even that didn't stop us from getting gussied up and hitting the town, or, er...my favorite restaurant for a night out.

Grandma arrived. We left the house at 7:30, and arrived home at 9. OMG, we're so ooooooold! But we had great time being out alone...and not putting the girls to bed for one night (thanks Grams!). I consumed birthday cookie dough ice cream to conclude the day's celebration of Queen Jenny Day, declared to Hubby that I was wayyyyy too full of birthday, and promptly passed out on the couch next to him around 10. Pure awesome.

So it's Sunday now. I was awakened by the sounds of screams and cries from Little that Grandma had gone home and it was now just us, you know her parents, who were inhabiting the house. Oh the humanity, I know. Big crawled in bed with me, and Hubby was nowhere to be found. (I did find him later laying sleeplessly on the couch. Nightmare...poor guy.)

Little did eventually crawl into bed with Big and I, but her unsoothable screaming sobs, chased us out all too early. So here I sit. Big has gone off with her Dad for breakfast, Hubby is presently sitting on the couch reading the newspaper, and Little has ceased crying for the time being, mostly because I promised that I would drop her off at Grandma's in a few minutes so Hubby and I can go to church in peace. (Sorry God, but that kid isn't stepping anywhere near your home today. You'll totally thank me later.) It's now time for me to step away from this computer and get my prayer-on for the day.

Today will bring the closing ceremonies of Queen Jenny weekend, which shall include dinner and cake at Grandma's house, followed closely by a parade with lots of throwing candy that was enthusiastically dreamed up by the girls. Lots of laughs will ensue, I'm sure...and a good time will be had by all. I'm pretty sure that when all is said and done, the inaugural Queen Jenny Weekend will go down in history as the best weekend everrrrrrrr, only to be topped by the possibilities of next year's festivities. Hubby set the bar high...I can only hope he knows the corner he's painted himself into for the years to come. God, I love that man.

Catching Up

Aaaaaaaand once again, I'm back from a long hiatus. One of these days I'll get into the whole sticking to something thing and not throw my hands up and walk away every few months...one of these days. In the meantime, I'm still 32 (for a few more days anyway), still married to the fabulous Hubby, still mommy to Big and Little...in that regard not a whole lot has changed...but in other ways I feel as if my entire world has transformed in the relatively short time that I've been away. For example...

Hubby...is great. OK, not entirely. His job sucks. And he's miserable. So that part is not so great. In fact, tomorrow we find out if he'll be graced with employment for another month at XYZ Up Yours Company, Inc. It's completely up in the air. And the funny thing about all of this (because it's totally not funny in any other way) is that Hubby is most likely the hardest working, most dedicated employee I've ever known...like seriously, I'm not just flattering him. He works HARRRD! But he's in a sales position at XYZ and let me just get it out there...God did not create him to be a salesman. Not that all salesmen are slimy bastards, but the ones that Hubby works with are, and that's literally the only friggin way they're making any sales right now in this horrible, terrible, no good, very bad economy. Hubby on the other hand is honest, genuine, thoughtful...and so many other characteristics that give him a serious disadvantage in the sales field. Hence...the impending doom of the end of his sales career. The only question really still hanging out there is whether he will find alternative employment before he finishes up at XYZ...stay tuned...I know we all are.

Big...is, well, big! She'll be 6 years-old next month and will be starting first grade on September 1st. Ohmygod, I just fainted a little. Part of me is sobbing and screaming "When did she get so biiiiiiiiiiiig? Why?! Whyyyyyyyyyyyy?!" while the rest of me is so very pleased that she's learning to read and learning to swim, and just so very excited for her. Clearly I'm conflicted. Otherwise she's pretty much the same kid. She's my sassy, independent child, that's for sure...but she's also my sweet, snuggly, little momma's girl as well. And so it goes.

Little...isn't that little anymore. She's 3-1/2...and so darn smart and silly! Her communication skills have jumped through the roof in the last few months and she now says and does the craziest things! The other day she was playing with her Thomas the Train engines when Hubby gave her a sweet little kiss on the cheek. Her reply? "I love ya Dad, but I'm busy working here!" That's my Little. She's also my squeeling, run around naked kid, my I want to help you do that kid, and my hitter. All in stride.

Little's heart is doing great. Her last appointment was in May and they did do an echo (during which she was amazingly still and well behaved, especially for a 3 year-old) and everyone at the HHC at Children's was just so thrilled with how healthy she is. To say that we're thrilled would be an understatement, truly. She really is our little miracle.

And as for me, I'm ai'ight. My 33rd birthday is this coming Saturday, and I'm just the teensiest bit excited for the extravaganza that we have planned. Big asked me yesterday morning what a beach was...seriously...which threw me into a relatively small bad parenting spiral. In order to resolve said spiral, we're packing them up on Saturday morning and driving up to a beach about an hour from here to let them roll around in all it's sandy, lakey, picnicy goodness...then taking them home and showering them for an hour each. This will all take place after some birthday Starbucks, of course. (Of course, you say.) And the festivities will culminate with a night out to dinner with Hubby...at the restaurant of my choice...alooooooone. Squee! Oooh! And I dare not forget to mention the planned parade-like festivities that Big and Little have planned in my honor, during which they will throw candy (at me? possibly.) in grand 4th of July fashion. Should be awesome. Is it any wonder we've been referring to Saturday as Queen Jenny Day?? I think not.

As for the not so fab updates, I've had some rather negative doctor appointments lately of the freak the crap out of me nature. Cliffs notes version...CAT scans in April and June reflect that I have some enlarged lymph nodes in my (I like to say underarms but the doctors officially and eloquently refer to them as) armpits. They're not getting any bigger (yay!) but they're not getting any smaller (boo.) so I'm sort of in the middle of a big ole crap storm of advice right now. I do have an autoimmune disease (Sjogren's remember?) which could totally be causing the lymph node enlargement and would be no big deal because we already know about that. My rheumatologist has said that I could totally wait a few months and have another CAT scan to just make sure they're not getting bigger, which would reflect the nothing more than the autoimmune crap theory. On the other hand, I met with a surgeon last week who told me that it "was time" for me to have a lymph node biopsy...which turned out to be just a tad more involved that I had anticipated. Can you say a 20-30% risk of me ending up with life long lymphedema!? So, I panicked...then I cried...and then I made an appointment with a new doctor. Heh. My PCP (that's primary care physician for those of you who don't have to go to the doctor 15 times a year) was just seriously a big fat loon, which I suppose is just another way to say that I don't trust her to make life and death decisions on my behalf. So when we started talking about me having Lymphoma...I felt the need to umm...run as fast as I could in the other direction and try out someone else...namely my sister's doctor who she loves. Said appointment with new loved by sister doctor is this afternoon...stay tuned on this as well. And cross your fingers for me if you can. Thanks.

Finding Happiness

For countless years previous to 2010, my New Year's resolution had monotonously remained the same: This year, I will find happiness. And yet for every one of those countless years (and we're talking closer to 10 than 5), I was just as unhappy on December 31st as I had been on the preceding January 1st. Every single year, I failed. Miserably. I tried on profession after profession (massage therapist, financial assistant, personal trainer, day care teacher, etc), one identity after the next (responsible student, careless party girl, strong independent woman, etc.), bending myself into origami-like postures just waiting for one that felt "right". Until all of a sudden on December 31st of 2009 I had an out of the blue epiphany that my seemingly never-ending quest for the unattainable had ended, all while I was busy not worrying about finding myself at all. Funny how that happens.

It's hard to say what exactly brought about the change for me, as the preceding few years had all been full of life changes and revolution...but if I had to guess, I would say that the powerful combination of divorce and self-confidence, Big and sweet motherhood, Hubby and finally knowing true unconditional love, and Little and gaining true appreciation for life and family all culminated to become my personal prescription for dissatisfaction, and brought to me that final piece of myself that I had been missing for what felt like my entire life. On December 31st of 2009, I finally found my place in this world, amongst these 3 silly, sassy, amazing people that I have the privilege of calling my family each and every day. My place in this world is with them, just as I am, and now that I'm here...life has never been so good.

5 is the new 2

Big is 5 now. She's been a toughie since...well, some might say since she first entered this world, but I'd say since she turned 18 months and the terrible two's began to settle in. By age two, she was great at independence and tantrums, and by the end of age two, I was grasping at hope for an improvement in behavior and better toddler/mommy compliance. Sadly, three years later I still find myself grasping! And with each passing birthday I'm continuously reassured by fellow parents that the behavior does get better this next year, whatever age Big happens to be turning at the time, and I believe, people. With all my might I believe, but it just. doesn't. happen.

The three's were supposed to be better than the two's because between ages two and three children learn to communicate better and are able to follow directions better and listen more. And I will agree, Big definitely learned to communicate better! At three, she was much more able to tell me WHY she wasn't going to do what I had asked of her, rather than just yelling "Noooooooo!" and writhing on the floor, as she had the previous year. An improvement? Maybe. But not exactly what I was hoping for.

And the four's? OMG, I was told the four's were glorious! Such cute stuff! Really sweet. Behavior is so much better! And not all of four was bad. Big was really cute. Starting school was a big deal and that was a really great part of her life at the time. She made little friends and held their hands walking in to class in the morning. What's cuter than that?! But still? When she wasn't happy, which coincidentally was a lot of the time, she spewed revolutionary, independent phrases like a Midwestern union president! And trust me, if she had known what a strike was, she would have been on one at least 3 times a week. More sophisticated warfare? Definitely. Better? Not-so-much.

And now she's five. Well five is great, I was told! Kids say the funniest things at five! It's just all school days and pure joy! And all I can say at this point is REALLY?! Because while my child is quite hysterical (hysterical I tell you!) and the number of things that she's learned in the last year is awe-inspiring, I'm not really feeling the joy. In fact, in the last week I've pretty much determined that my 5 year-old is actually an (undersized) undercover international spy who has been sent to kill me with her carefully trained weapon of selective listening and pure, unabated hell raising. This small, warm, soft, beautiful being, who I have raised since breath first filled her lungs when she came into this world, might just be the death of me.

Please, God...Buddah...Pocahontas and your colors of the wind, give me strength to get through age five. Because I've heard six is awesome.

It's Ladies Night Out!

And by ladies night out I mean that I'm meeting my BFF at Panera Bread for salads and paper-cupped sodas after work tonight. Very extravagant. But to me, it's as if I'm jetting off to a tropical island for 2 hours, just my friend and I...alone. Ahhhh... 2 full hours of girl talk, kid talk, husband talk (*insert evil laugh here*) and an uninterrupted meal. Heaven.

Hubby isn't quite as enthusiastic about my mini-vacation as I, but he tries really hard to pretend that he is...for my sake. He came to the horrific realization this morning that tonight...while I'm gone...the girls will need to have baths before they go to bed. (*cue psycho music*) He's bathed Little by himself before, but never both of them together, so it's safe to say that he's completely terrified, but he tried to hold it together outwardly in front of me. I made sure to reassure him that I have the utmost confidence in his ability to clean our children without maiming them, though I am just the tiniest bit concerned...more for everyone's mental well-being than anything else. Our girls are tough. And he has a *teensy* bit less patience than I do...so I've promised that I will make it home before anyone is tucked into bed...more for my own peace of mind than anything else. (Everyone in one piece? Anyone need comforting, or band aids? Or a beer? Check. Check. Check. Nighty-night.)

Isn't it crazy how much worry accompanies you as a mother (or parent, let's be Equal Opportunity, here) when you leave the house for any amount of time alone? Are they crying? Are they eating? Do they miss me? Have they gotten into poison in the garage? Has anyone accidentally lopped their arm off with a kitchen knife? Are they bleeding in the corner somewhere?? (but really, Hubby...I totally trust you *ahem*) And how about the hours of prep work that must be put in just to have 2 itty-bitty hours of me time once a month? Insanity. But the craziest part of all? That those warm, soft, smart, silly, sweet little beings are worth every single second. Every tiny piece of me is so completely theirs...just not for 2 hours tonight.

Are You a Breather or a Panter?

Well, I finally did it. I dusted off my Jillian Michael's Shred video and brought my hand weights out of the closet...and I worked out last night. It's been 4 months since I suddenly dropped the workout routine that I had grown so accustomed to in the previous 6 months, and yesterday I cursed myself every single second of that 25 minute video for ever having done that. Technically, it was a forced break that I took back in June, since I was physically unable to workout the week that we took the girls to Disney World (it was 104 degrees, yo)...but afterward? That was pure laziness. And very, very stupid. I have no excuse for that.

I must admit, I restarted my workout with my BFF Jillian and her all-too-joyful heathens Natalie and Anita at Level 1, and used my trusty 2 pound hand weights rather than my more challenging 3 pounders, but I still felt like I might die the entire time. I was miserably out of breath by 15 minutes in, and my whole entire body was shaking by the time my DVD player said I had 5 minutes left...which, considering I was practically one-handing Level 3 a mere few months ago was just a bit terrorizing...but, whatever, I finished dammit. (So there Anita, with your smile never faltering during the lunges and squats.) And now I need to find a way to fit exercise into my schedule on a regular basis.

My buddy Jillian swears that everyone can find 30 minutes to workout 4 times a week (while pointing at me threateningly)...but in all honesty, Jilly, if we include the 10 minutes of post-workout doubled-over wheezing, and the shower that...really, I must take so as to not offend anyone within a mile of me...it's technically more like an hour commitment I'm making here. Still? Not a huge amount of time for someone who doesn't have tiny human beings imitating mountain climbers and stealing their hand weights mid-workout...but me? I'm not that person. I have both of those! So my question is...with all of these balls in the air, how does a parent find time to breathe three times a week, much less pant along to a video alone?? And here's where I think I'm onto something. I think the answer is...they don't. I think as parents of small children, we have to choose whether we will breathe OR pant during our scant amount of free time, because right now, there isn't time for both. While Little is napping, on Mondays and Fridays, and after work on Wednesdays I will need to make the choice whether I will sit and breathe for an hour (AKA: fold laundry or make dinner), or I will pop Jillian and her evil bitches into my DVD player and get my sweat on. I have this nagging fear that God just didn't create me to be a career panter, but I'm trying Jillian! I'm trying.

A Day of Celebration and Thanks

This past Saturday was the 33rd Annual Brigg's and Al's Run Walk for Children's Hospital here in Milwaukee. It was also the third annual gathering of Team Maddie Boombaladdie for the event, and it was wonderful.

A few years ago, while Little was in the Pediatric ICU following one of her surgeries, Hubby and I were walking back from the cafeteria to Little's room, where we were planning to stay the night (which is a whole blog post of its own...Hubby slept sitting upright in a wooden rocking chair...seriously) when something on the wall grabbed my attention. Hanging in a frame outside the PICU was a newspaper clipping from 1977 of the very first Al's Run for Children's Hospital, a fundraiser that was started by the, then, basketball coach from Marquette University, Al McGuire. I don't know what, but something about that article, that picture of 10 thousand people running through the streets of downtown Milwaukee called to me, and it was at that moment that Team Maddie Boombaladdie first formed...in my head anyway. It wouldn't be until about a month later, when Little was out of the hospital and thriving, and I was bursting at the seams with appreciation, that I would actually sign us up for the event and begin sending out my emails of plea for everyone on the planet to join us in giving thanks. The first year we had 10 wonderful, brave, giving souls on our team. The second we had 30! And this year we had 25 supportive, eager, wonderful, generous souls walking the 3 miles at our side, honoring our very special, strong, amazing Little and her awe inspiring team of doctors and nurses (can't forget the nurses!).

To say that the event makes me emotional is an understatement. There's the tear inducing appreciation I have for our team members who give from their pockets and piggy banks and sacrifice a Saturday morning to come and walk with us, some from hours away. There's my drop-to-my-knees-and-thank-Jesus appreciation to Children's Hospital and it's staff for saving my precious, wonderful Little girl, and giving us every single minute of these last 2-1/2 years to watch her grow and change. There's the sorrow and heart wrenching bit of reality that slaps you in the face when you walk amongst tens of thousands of people, all there to support a place that dedicates itself to sick and injured children...some in memory of..and the deep, overwhelming sense of gratitude that we aren't one of those teams. The whole experience is a bit of an emotional rollercoaster, but one that leaves you changed for the better.

So this year, the veterans that we are, we stormed those streets together...talking and laughing and appreciating (and sweating *ahem*)...and when it was over, we did something new. We all headed to Grandma's for a first annual Team Maddie Boombaladdie after-party of appreciation. Children played and danced and giggled, and ate macaroni and cheese and candy. Adults ate Grandma's awesome chili and drank various amounts of alcohol, and we all feasted upon a sinful array of dessert bars provided by my friend Kara, who works for the best local bakery. And when it was time to go home, smiles were abundant, jokes had been told, children had been oooh'd and ahhhh'd over, and our mission had been accomplished. There will not be another year without an after party.

After our guests had departed, Hubby and I bathed the girls at Grandmas, and put them in Grandpa's t-shirts for pajamas (which happen to make the best, silliest little girl nightgowns by the way) and plopped them half asleep in the car after the sun had already kissed the sky goodnight. They were both asleep by the time we arrived home (10 minutes later) so we gingerly scooped them up in our arms and took them inside, tucking them in a little tighter and kissing them goodnight with a little more appreciation than ever before, and as we walked out of their room and closed the door behind us, we closed the book on this year's Team Maddie Boombaladdie walk for Children's Hospital.

The countdown to next year has already begun.

The Tummy Ache Saga

Can anyone explain to me this crazy phenomenon where children wake up with the sunrise on days that they don't have to be anywhere...and yet we have to wake their little sleepy heads 15 minutes before the bell rings on school mornings? I hate that phenomenon...and I've fallen victim to it this morning. So, like any good mother, while the little ones are occupied with Hubby in the bathroom, the first thing I did was get up and make coffee, and then jump on the computer to blog. Don't worry, I turned the TV to the Disney channel first, I'm not completely crazy.

So, anyway, we didn't have to get up early this morning because I'm keeping Big home from school. She has her first appointment with a GI doctor today at 10:05 (they book in 5 minute increments??) and while I could send her to class after the appointment, I've made the executive decision that we ALL deserve to just take the day together enjoy it. Except poor Hubby, who will still be making valiant attempts to sell corporations the Cadillac of security systems...because that's what he does now. And, dude, it sucks, but that's a whole other blog post. Back to the tummy saga...

About eight months ago Big started telling me that her tummy was doing strange things at night, around bed time. She would describe it as her tummy "going around and around" and then a few weeks later she added the words "and up and down" and honestly, internet people who won't tell a soul this, we thought she was lying. It was bedtime, yo...and what kid doesn't try to get out of going to bed, am I right? So we told her she was fiiiiiiiiine and that lying isn't nice and she should get some rest because she had school the next day. But it continued. So a few weeks later (*cringe* yes, weeks) I finally called her pediatrician and they told me that her complaints did indeed sound credible and that I should bring her in pronto...which of course made me the Mother of the Year. So I took her in that morning and they examined her and told me that it was most likely reflux and put on on Prevacid tabs (Oooh! They melt in your mouth! And taste like strawberry!) and we went on our merry way.

Flash forward about 6 months, about 2 months previous to today, when the rest of her strange tummy complaints began. Again, the complaints were suspicious...tummy aches at meal times this time. But after being scorched by the flame of disbelief last time, I was not about to just dismiss these new complaints. None the less, I did find myself earning my Private Investigator's license with each episode. I mean, what's more convenient to avoid eating than a good old tummy ache? It's classic childhood fare, right? I was conflicted. Until the heartburn began, and then the sudden gut wrenching gassy tummy aches...so I called the Pediatrician again. This time he didn't offer to see us, he instead offered me this: "Since she's already on Prevacid and still having trouble, this is beyond my scope of practice. I suggest you take her to a GI specialist." Awesome. Add a GI specialist to our team of cardiologists, ENTs, and orthopedic doctors (Seriously...what is with my children???) and a few weeks later...away we go.

Neither of us has any idea what to expect, really, and we are both nervous about what might go down in there. Big has asked me nearly a thousand times if the tummy doctor gives shots. I keep telling her they don't. What I haven't mentioned is that they may put the needle in and do something crazy, like...I don't know...pull some of her blood OUT...but we'll just leave that up to silent possibility for the time being.

And, yes...we're taking the rest of the day off.

Different Kid, Same Hoops

Wow, it's been so long since I've blogged that I find myself writing things about my second child that I previously blogged about in reference to my first child, and they are 2-1/2 years apart. That is quite a break, my friends. But here I am again, thanks to my friend Tiffany who encouraged me to get back at it. I enjoy writing, but struggle with choosing what exactly to write about. My life is very ordinary in the I'm a mother of two kids, married to a member of the opposite sex, live in suburbia, work part time kind of way. But we do have quite a few quirks in our life that not many people have, I suppose, that might be fun to write about. Or maybe it's that total "normalness" that will make things I write interesting to others in that "I totally identify with that kind of way". Or maybe no one will find anything I write about even remotely interesting. Who knows...but all I can do is write. Record my present, as it will all too quickly become my past and I've love to have some record of it.

In kid news...which I'm sure I'll have a lot of here...we celebrated an event of monumental importance in our household this morning. Little had her first bit of pee pee in the potty success. As Hubby would put it, the Eagle landed sometime between Big eating her typical banana bread breakfast and me getting my shoes on to head out the door. I overheard some hullabaloo in the living room between Grandma and Big, celebrating the urinary success of the smallest member of our family...but I wasn't buying into it that easily. Not until Hubby confirmed it did I begin to scream and cheer and gush pee pee potty success to Little, who beamed proudly at all of us in all her half naked glory. Priceless. So what did I do? What every mother does when potty training; I rewarded her with sugar flavored crack (candy corn) and promptly purchased a Sam's Club portion pack of Disney Princess underpants...which she won't actually be able to use for another 6 months or so, when she has a light bulb moment and realizes that she has control of this whole pee pee in the potty thing...but it's good motivation, right? A little bribery never hurt anyone.

It all started out rather lovely.

"They have a butterfly garden," she said, "The girls would like that, wouldn't they?" We agreed that they would, and made the plan; Hubby and I would make the hour drive on Saturday to meet my in-laws at a local botanical garden for an afternoon visit. We hadn't seen them in over a month, and it was time. Kids grow too fast.

A few days later we arrived at the gardens at about 3 PM, hours later than we had planned of course, and quickly unloaded our gear and our girls and headed on our way...first to meet up with the in-laws, then on to the butterfly portion of the gardens. Excitement was abundant.

The butterflies were graceful and beautiful...and mostly various shades of orange...dancing over our heads and landing once on Little...which she didn't much appreciate. Big spent the remaining amount of our time there chasing after the rest of them, trying to convince them that she, also, was a sufficient landing zone. Sadly, they didn't care. The rest of us watched and pointed and oooh'd and aaahhhhh'd with the masses as we walked around the swampy, humid indoor area, discovering that, really, humid does nothing for odors in a room full of people. Lovely. At one point we wandered upon a glass enclosed chest that was filled with various species of butterfly chrysalises, and even a few newly hatched butterflies waiting quite patiently to be released, and hit the jackpot. A volunteer approached at just that moment, allowing us to be there while she unlocked the glass doors and let the hatchlings fly out into the world for the very first time. It was beautiful, and the girls adored it...but 30 minutes of flying bugs was enough for them, and I concurred, so we moved on.

The outdoor area was lovely, and large. I couldn't even tell you how many varieties or even colors of plants there were to gaze upon. Big galloped a few yards in front of us, ever the independent one, while the rest of us hung back and mosied along in a more relaxed kind of way. Little, the luckiest of all, hung out in her stroller and allowed herself to be pushed along the path. No screaming, lots of smiles, pretty flowers...it all started out rather lovely. At one point, about fifteen minutes into our stroll, we came upon an Asian themed area with a large golden temple-like building. There were stairs leading up to the building, and stairs on the other three sides leading down into various zen-like displays, some with still pools of water, some with flowers and benches, all very much right up Big's alley. So she ran and the rest of us sat and watched and just generally occupied ourselves while she burned off a little energy, you know, the usual. At some point, a few minutes into her routine, I joined her up on the building platform and sat on the steps while she showed me her very impressive physical abilities. I smiled, and then I noticed her pulling at the crotch area of her pants. "Potty," I thought, because I had seen this all before, and I figured that it was time to head back to the entrance, where the bathrooms were located. It was a fifteen minute walk from where we were, remember, and there was nary a port-a-potty to be seen amidst the dahlias and daisies. It was time to go. In what seems now more of a formality than an actual gesture of inquiry, I walked over to Big and, as I ushered her toward the steps of the building to head back to the path, I asked her "Do you need to go potty?" And of course she said no. She always says no, especially if, at the moment, she is entertained. I ushered her anyway...a mere three steps down...when all of a sudden she had a change of heart. "Yes, Mommy! Yes! I need to go potty!" she said, but it was already too late. "I'm going!" she said, as I cringed and quickly grabbed her under the arms and moved her off of the steps onto the grass, waiting for the streams to trickle down the insides of her legs and the puddle to appear beneath her...but there were no streams, and no puddle was forming. I was confused at first, thinking that maybe it was a false alarm and she could, indeed, hold it until we made it to the building, "Don't go!" I gasped, "Hold it! We'll go to the bathroom really quick!" I told her, but again she told me it was too late, she was already going...and suddenly the wind turned and blew in my direction, and it all made sense. Horrible, horrible sense. Dear Lord, it was a number two.

So there we were, at the far end of a public garden, a fifteen minute walk from any bathroom, more than an hour from home and Big had an obviously large, stinky poo hanging out in her underpants. "Hubby!" I yelled in a hushed tone, "Hubby, come here!!" and I think that by the look on my face he knew there was no time to mess around. He quickly ended the conversation with his parents and headed right over to my side, where I let him in on the secret. He cringed, and we began discussing our options. The best option, of course, was to make the trek back to the building, where I could take Big into the bathroom and clean her up...but as we stood there, commiserating, she got tired of watching us whisper and decided she was going to walk away from us, and that put an end to option number one. I wouldn't even call what she was doing "walking", it was more of an open-legged waddle at .01 miles per hour. Obviously uncomfortable, and gross, it was both horrible and hilarious at the same time. Clearly, we weren't going to make it more than ten feet from where we stood, so Hubby grabbed the diaper bag and the three of us headed up a little secluded path, which Hubby would later tell me was called a "serenity path"...oh the irony, to get down to business. A few minutes later it was anything but serene back there.

My portion of the clean-up was to take care of Big...Hubby's was to take care of the rest. At one point I looked up from my cleaning duties to find Hubby standing a few feet away from us, holding as little fabric between his thumb and forefinger as possible, staring at the dangling pair of soiled Littlest Pet Shop underpants with disgust and wonder. "It looks like a sling shot!" he declared, and at that point all composure flew out the window. It did. It looked like a puppy decorated, sparkly, white cotton poo sling shot, just dangling there between his fingers, as we stood out in the middle of a public garden...our little girl's dimpled bare buns exposed for the world to see...with the tour tram's speaker noise growing ever closer, threatening to expose our horrific, secret mission to the unsuspecting elderly who had climbed aboard expecting a G-rated botanical tour...and damn it, it was funny. So we laughed, gut busting laughter, for a good two minutes...and then we went back to work.

About a thousand wipies and a few minutes later, Big was all cleaned up, dressed in new clothes and happy as a clam, as she skipped, tra la la, back down the path to where my in-laws had seated themselves on a bench, with Little, while we went on our alternative adventure. Hubby and I, on the other hand, hung back behind the bushes for a few additional minutes, bathing our digits in copious amounts of anti-bacterial liquids, staring off into the distance in a sort of shell shock over what had just taken place. Only us, we thought, as we gathered our soiled belongings and made our way behind Big back down the path to rejoin our group...and it was then that it occurred to me. Something was missing. "What did you do with the poo?" I quietly asked Hubby, expecting that he would have placed it in the ziploc bag with the undies for us to discard in the nearest trash bin...but alas, I was holding the ziploc bag...and in it there were pants and terribly funky undies...but no poo. "Well," he began, "I needed a place to put the pants...and I didn't really think that we needed to pack up the turd and take it home with us, so..." I cringed, and prepared myself for the rest. "I tried to shake it out, but it wouldn't budge, so I grabbed a stick and impaled it, and it kind of made like, a poopcicle? So I took it and I tossed the whole thing over the rocks as far behind the bushes as I could get it." And I died a little bit inside.

"You left it there?!" I gasped...and he simply nodded. I mean I guess I could see his point...we did only have one ziploc bag...and the thought of packing an actual poo in with our daughter's clothes and taking it home with us was kind of horrible...and we were sort of out in nature, where many species had littered the ground with poo long before us...or so I told myself in order to alleviate some of the guilt I was feeling over the incident. If only we had packed some sort of orange flag, or warning sign in our bag as well, for the unsuspecting gardener who would soon be wondering how on Earth someone had smuggled a dog into the gardens. My sincerest apologies to that gardener...and to everyone who happens to travel that previously serene path in the next few days in general. Leave it to us to take a trip to a beautiful botanical garden and totally shit upon it...umm...literally. That's us...destroying the ecosystem one poopcicle at a time. Heaven help us.

The story of us.

I was married once before, when I was 25, and divorced three years later. It was a really ugly, unhappy period of time for me, nothing I enjoy looking back on. If it weren't for Big, I would say things like "I wish I had never...blah blah." but getting Big out of that relationship makes the fact that I went through all that I did OK, as long as in the end I got her. In fact, it was having her that finally gave me the courage to set out on my own, knowing that she deserved a better life than the one I could give her when I was married to her father. So in a sense, having her saved me too. My little blessing in baby's clothing, I am thankful for her each and every day.

So, on our way we went...Big and I. She was about nine months old and I was a first time mom...green as could be. If it weren't for the support of my friends and family I'm pretty certain we wouldn't have made it out on our own. But we did. In the nine months that we were on our own, we managed to grow together...happy and healthy and strong. She was a joy. And at the end of that nine months, I met Hubby.

I had dated before him, after my divorce, but meeting him was different than anything I had ever experienced before. For me, HE was different...good different...and though I didn't know it then, he was my one.

Totally gun-shy from a previous marriage that ended in divorce, he wasn't quite as sure about me as I was about him. I knew he was nervous, distant even, because of what he'd been through...not looking for any kind of anything solid, he put it out there for me from the beginning, and I was unsure...but he continued to pursue seeing me, and I allowed it to go on because I enjoyed my time with him and I figured that, if nothing else, I was having a good time dating. So we dated. For about two months. And then it happened (or I should say, and then she happened). Already falling for him and his brilliant blue eyes and witty wisecracks, I did that thing that mother's tell you never to do as a young woman, you know...that thing I knew better than to do. I gave myself to him. Once. And though I went into it with my eyes wide open, and it seemed as if nothing had really changed in the morning light, from that night on everything changed. A mere two weeks later we discovered that there were now four of us where there had previously been only three, and two lines where I had prayed so hard there would only be one. And I cried. And he panicked. And for a few minutes the world stopped spinning for us, while our heads began spinning with the realization of what we'd done, what we'd created so accidentally one night, and the fear over how our lives, still so separate, were going to change as that "thing we'd made together" grew between us for the next nine months. And then, as if nothing had changed, the world began spinning again and life went on. That was in May. By July we had fallen in love. It was truly the most preposterous thing, but it was the truth. Amid the pressure of an unplanned pregnancy, and the baggage we were each carrying from our previous failed marriages, and the social pressure surrounding us to make a "go" of something we weren't even sure existed...we fell head over heels, ass over tea kettle in love with one another. And that was it for us. From the very first time that he told me he loved me, I was his, and he was mine in an unwavering, absolutely no doubt kind of way. We were married the following New Year's Eve.

As my belly grew over the months, so did Hubby's relationship with Big. From the very minute that he met her, I knew he loved her. Following her around my house with a Dora doll as big as she was, trying everything he could think of to get her to speak to him...it was almost painfully obvious to me that he was instantly smitten. Much to my relief, in no time at all, it was clear that she was equally taken with him, referring to him more often as "her prince" than by his name. She was soon informing me that she was making plans to marry him when she grew up, and I knew that she meant it. It was love in that "you're the best daddy-figure ever" kind of way, and just as it was with me, from that day forward she was his, and he hers in that same unwavering kind of way. As if by magic, there suddenly stood before me a family of three where, until recently, two very separate, broken families had stood. It was a miracle...undeniably God's plan for us..and we were thankful and happy. My heart was full for what seemed like the very first time in my whole life. Things went on that way for a few more months; snoring on the sofa on Sunday afternoons and sausage biscuit hugs on weekday mornings...life was simple, and simply wonderful. And then along came Little.

Little was born on a very cold, dark January morning. A planned c-section, we arrived at the hospital very early on a Tuesday morning for our "appointment" and in no time at all, with fear in our hearts and tears in our eyes, Hubby and I together embraced our newest little girl. Prepared for surgery and a complicated hospital stay, but having no idea of the terrifying, twisted and yet wonderful path that lay ahead of us in the next year, we held and caressed our soft, beautiful baby girl. Ten perfect fingers and ten perfect toes...and one tiny broken heart, Little fought her way into this world with a spirit previously unknown to me...strong and so fragile at the same time. So perfect and so vulnerable, Hubby and I loved her from the very moment we gazed upon her beautiful little face. That cold morning, before anyone else had a chance to lay eyes on our newest tiny member*, so very suddenly, we became a family of four.

And that's how we came to be us; Hubby and Big and Little and I. Aimlessly adrift in the sea of life, we found our way to one another and unexpectedly became one, the four of us together. Our family, my dream come true. That is the story of us.

*Excluding medical personnel, of course.

The Definition of Amazing

18 months ago today my Little entered this world. Right from the get-go she came in kicking and screaming, letting everyone know that nothing was going to keep her down and no one was going to hold her back. Isn't that the truth. It's impossible to describe just how much I've learned from this little person who grew inside my body...coming into this world imperfect, fighting for her life from her very first breath, she's never wavered in her strength and determination. She is the definition of amazing.

Happy 18 Months to my strong, silly, smart, amazing Little girl. Mommy loves you and thanks you for just being you.

I Love Being Wrong...

I had a minor electronic gadget emergency the other day. I define this as an electronic gadget emergency because the emergency was that my cellphone kept turning itself off randomly and refusing to reignite in any way shape or form until it was damn well ready. Really? Not an emergency, but in this day and age being without your cellphone feels like an emergency, especially when you've given up the good ol' landline in favor of the portable variety, and no one can get a hold of you without it. So after a week of being ready to run to the AT&T store and then having the damn thing magically heal itself, I had had enough. The phone was only a little over a year old and hadn't suffered any trauma...to my knowledge anyway, I suppose with phone loving little ones running around you never truly know...so into the store I flew, on my lunch break, and by the time I got there, I was not. happy. FEAR ME.

Cellphone salespeople have taken on a certain type in my mind, pretty much the same type as the used car salesman. Anyone who shouts at me and tries to sell me something as I'm walking through the mall with my two children, juggling goldfish, a sippy cup, and a leaky lemonade immediately goes on my shit list. (Also on my shit list? The nail file and hand lotion toting salespeople at the mall...but that's a different post on a different day.) I just knew, before I even entered the building, that I was going to be told that my phone was worthless, no longer under warranty, and that I was going to have to buy a new one. Knowing that I was not yet eligible for a "free" phone, as my contract isn't up yet, I was preemptively internally seething. Scam artists!! I thought, and I reluctantly walked up to the service counter and waited.

A few minutes later a not-really-noteworthy looking guy walked out of the back storage room and asked if he could help me. I hoped that he could. I told him the symptoms of my emergency and, taking note of his immediate frown, dreadfully followed him to his desk. A couple fiddles and faddles with my phone later, my worst case scenario was confirmed. Upon investigation, it appeared that the "moisture sensor" inside the battery compartment shined a brilliant shade of hot pink, which immediately told us two things: 1. somehow my phone had gotten wet inside and was dying a slow death (drool anyone?) and 2. the warranty on the phone doesn't cover this problem, and I was SOL. Lovely. So I swore. I really didn't mean to do it, but when the guy told me that I wasn't eligible for a free phone and that the warranty on my current phone was done-for, I let one slip. Yeah, the guy said to me in agreement, and for a second I questioned my automatic tagging of all cell salesmen as bad. Maybe this guy was decent...and then he talked some more...

Guy: Hey Girl, (I can't remember her name, but she was a salesperson sitting at the desk behind him) can you look this account up on your computer and tell me when her husband is eligible for a free phone?

Girl: Sure, it's October.

Me: Ughhhh. So I'm January and he's October. (knowing in the back of my mind that a new phone just really isn't in our budget at the moment. Crap.)

Guy: Umm, yeah. Hmmm...

Girl: Hey, you know, an older gentleman brought in a phone yesterday because he was having trouble hearing on it, it should still be on your desk. Works fine...doesn't have a battery cover though, so it's in a case.

Guy: Oh yeah. (finds the phone and picks it up.) If you want to use this one until October you can do that.

Me: *warily* What do you mean it doesn't have a battery cover? Cuz...uhhhh...I have small kids... (visions of my cellphone battery being tossed around the room filling my head...walking into the living room to find Little chewing on it...hmmmm)

Guy: *Laughs*Yeah that wouldn't work. I bet I could find a cover in the back...

And with that he got up and walked back into the rear store room, emerging a few minutes later with the phone...with a cover on the back. For me. FREE.

Guy: It doesn't have a camera, but you could have it until you can get a new one for free in October.

Me: *feeling guilty about only minutes earlier pegging him as a swindler* That would be great!! Thank you!!

Guy: OK, the I'll transfer your contacts over...just take a second...

And that was it. I walked out of there without them trying to sell me a single thing, with a phone that works fine, and a big smile on my face...and it didn't cost me a dime. Sometimes I LOVE being wrong.

Let Us Define Emergency...Shall We?

Well, the girls sleeping in the same room experiment has proven to be deceptively successful. Hubby and I had braced ourselves for a disaster of epic proportions when we moved Little's crib into Big's room a few days ago, but after 17 months of having her in our room, we knew it was time to bite the bullet and justdoitalready! Little is seriously the worst sleeper in the whole wide world, and we were just sure that she was going to wake up a dozen times a night and take Big's sweet, dream-filled slumber to hell with the rest of us, but that's not at all how it's happened. Contrary to our hypothesis, Little actually sleeps better in the same room as Big than she did when she was in our room, essentially going to sleep on her own. Color me shocked...and *delighted*! The first 2 nights of the experiment, they both fell asleep without making a peep and...wait for it...slept all.night.long. We're the people who only get to sleep through the night 3 times a week, remember?? I'm seriously still in shock. Warm, fuzzy, well rested shock. Sweeeeeeet.

The third night wasn't quite as good as the first 2. Little woke up around 10:30 in hysterics and refused to settle down on her own. Hubby (because he loves me and I was already in bed) got her out of bed and rocked her for 15 minutes. It was our first attempt at rocking Little to settle her down. Yes, ever. We braced ourselves...expecting the worst...and were overwhelmed with delight when it seemed to do the trick. She went back to bed without complaint and slept the rest of the night without a peep. Wonderful. Really, could we ask for more?? Didn't think so.

Gleefully, we allowed ourselves to cross our fingers and hope that we were headed into some sort of new and improved bedtime routine with the girls, in which everyone gets to sleep through the night and Hubby and I get to have our room back to ourselves. Three nights in a row without major incident, it was going so well...but it's what happened on the fourth night that really took me by surprise...it went like this...

Everyone went to bed on schedule. Teeth were brushed, stories read, and two little girls went into their beds without complaint. All was quiet. Hubby and I joined them in slumber a few hours later, and passed out in our usual exhausted way. Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.

At approximately 3am I heard cries over the baby monitor that I keep next to my side of the bed. It was Big, and she was frantically calling for me. My stomach turned. When Big wakes at night, it's usually something pretty serious, and for her to be calling for me, knowing that Little was asleep in the bed next to her, I knew it had to be bad. In a fury of worry and fear, I leapt out of bed and ran to their room across the hall. Filled with dread of what I would find when I opened the door, I took a deep breath and turned the knob. I looked to my immediate right and saw that Little was, indeed, awake in her bed, but as of yet still laying down quite sleepily. All seemed OK with her, so I moved on to Big.

First things first...a quick survey of her and the bed proved to show that she hadn't had any kind of bodily fluid spill (as all parents know are the most frequent and most dreaded cause of middle of the night awakenings). I breathed a sigh of relief, and then knelt down by her bed and began the interview.

Me: What's the matter sweetheart? Why are you awake? (stroking her head)

Big: *sleepy whimpers* Mama, my feeeet! (points to her feet)

(And by this time Little is standing up in her bed waiting for her turn to converse with Mommy. Jumping. Cooing. The whole 9 yards. Great.)

Me: But what's the matter, honey? What's wrong with your feet?

Big: They're uncovered, Mommy! Look! (more pointing)

And sure enough...they were. Peeking out from under the covers were Big's ten little painted toenails, staring at me. So I covered them back up. And that was it. She woke us all up and called me into her room at 3am, because her feet came out from under the blanket. Seriously.

So, the emergency was averted, toes were once again covered and, aside from some crying from Little as I left the room, everyone was alive and fine. A few minutes later, the world went back into happy, sleep mode, and I once again joined Hubby back in our bed. Awake and worried, he asked me what had been wrong with Big...and when I told him, we both laughed until we were gasping for air. Ah, yes...life and death I tell you, those cold feet. Quite the emergency.

So Hubby and I have been in talks, and I think we're going to put out some sort of memo defining what constitutes an emergency in the middle of the night...maybe follow it up with some TPS reports on the subject. I'm just sayin'.

Oink!

Well, I suppose it was inevitable the we would eventually run into someone who would have come down with the H1N1 (aka swine) flu. My poor niece Mari came down with a high fever and cough on Monday after school, and has felt completely miserable ever since. A quick nasal swab at the pediatrician's office this morning confirmed it...she has the dreaded swine flu...or at least that's what we've been told. My pediatrician's office was quick to point out that it takes 2 days and a visit to a lab for a diagnosis of the swine flu to be confirmed. Technicalities, the other pediatrician says. I'll be safe and go with her.

So aside from feeling horrible about my niece's misery, this diagnosis also sparked something else within me...fear....anxiety...and all out panic. The diagnosing pediatrician recommended that my sister call me immediately and tell me to get my girls into our pediatrician for the Tamiflu vaccine, like STAT. I don't do well with STAT. Due to the fact that we had been with my niece on Saturday at the infamous birthday party (that I was so cool at, ha!) we've now been exposed. Oyyyyy. Given my girls ages and Little's cardiac history, they very easily find themselves in that danger zone for flu complications...which is why I always get them a flu shot...except when it's a completely new strain of flu and there IS no freakin vaccine. Then we're just SOL. Supposedly this Tamiflu stuff is supposed to help lessen the effects of the swine flu, should you be exposed and come down with it and be on the list of people with possible complications, like children under 5, and those with chronic cardio issues...see me hyperventilating??? Now...to get my hands on some...

So, that's how I spent my first day back at work after our little vacation...endless hours on the phone, 2 calls to the pediatrician, 3 calls to my sister to get details and facts that were requested by our pediatrician, and 3 calls between myself and one of our cardiology nurse later...we're not getting the Tamiflu. After all that, whyyyyy???? you ask? Well, because our cardiologist says that since Little's heart is working so efficiently and she is so healthy now, she feels completely confident that if we did come down with the oinky flu at our house, that Little would have no problem getting rid of it just like any other healthy kid. ::insert triumphant smile here:: You hear that world??? No special circumstances!!! No pre-existing conditions!!! I really don't think I've ever been so happy to be shot down!

As for the rest of us, both doctors that I spoke with today assured me that this flu is really nothing more severe than a normal viral flu strain...nothing that our bodies couldn't handle getting rid of on their own...especially Big, whose body has always been strong like bull. Excellent news...stupid media circus. In addition to that, we're currently more than 96 hours post exposure and *knock on wood* so far we're still healthy. This is very good for our anti-flu odds. I'm hoping that if we just keep knocking of wood, and crossing our fingers, and most of all praying like crazy, we'll all come through unscathed.

As for my niece, she's feeling much better already...now if only the rest of her siblings can go without... Ack. Siblings.

Go away oinky flu!!!

Still Around

Yes, I'm still around. I know I haven't blogged since writing about my craft project plans and, well, I didn't want anyone to think that it had killed me. The hair pins actually turned out really cute and were the hit of the 10 year-old partay! (if I may say so myself *ahem*) And it actually only took me 2 hours (9pm-11pm) to make 25 of them! Who's shabby? Not me apparently! All fingers are still accounted for and only one of them suffered any burns, which is absolutely a new world record for me. So, aside from the fact that I discovered that 2 hours of non-stop hot glue fumes make me wanna barf, all was well. As for pictures, I was too lazy, er ahh, busy to take any before we got to the party. I've been promised a few to be emailed to me by my sister, but we'll see if that actually happens. (she has 4 kids, yo...some things don't happen, who can blame her?!)

So what have I been doing that's kept me away, you ask? Well Hubby and I just got back today from taking the girls to an indoor water park hotel for 3 days and 2 nights. It! was! AWESOME!!! for Big! She literally ran around the place and stuck her head/face into every stream of water available. She was my idol. Little was like, "eh...the water gets in my eyes and that's kinda uncool, man...meh." and Hubby and I were like, so in love with our children that we braved the nights of interrupted sleep, the flying elbows in the face from Little at 4am (when God sent us a thunder storm??? REALLY God????) and chasing Big and Little in different directions all over that freakin frackin place for what felt like an eternity...but it was all worth it to see their beautiful smiles. Of course leaving didn't come without drama, but we expected nothing else. It was very likely the best 3 days of Big's life to date...them's the hard parts. Right now Hubby stinks like chlorine, and my hair is supremo greasy from the pool water and all the extra washing...but that too shall pass...

So what do crazy people do when they get home (exhausted) from taking their 3 and 1 year-old's to a water park for 3 days??? Move the baby into the older sib's room, of course! Dear God, why?????? you ask? Because we like pain...and crying...lots and lots of crying... OK, we don't...but yes, we're really moving Little into Big's room today!!! We figure that they shared a room for the last 2 nights, so this is a window of opportunity to keep it going rather than having it be something totally new and weird. So, here we go...just shoot me now...

I'm SOOO not crafty.

I'm just not. Never have been actually. The realization that my sister got the crafty gene and I didn't came early to me in elementary school art class. My sister's projects? Made it to the shelves and walls in my parents' house. Mine? Didn't...except a few that had mercy display written all over them. It's just not who I am. I am not artistic, I've embraced it. But sometimes, in a moment of insanity, I forget the details of my 30 years of past artistic failures and attempt to take on a craft project...like today.

Tomorrow is my niece's 10th birthday party. She's at that awkward age when kids get difficult to shop for...too old for a toy, too young for make-up...I believe the popular word for it these days is the tweens. Well I'm apparently not good at shopping for a tween, because I have no idea what to get her for her gift. Until now, I've always been the cool aunt, who loaded the little ones up with nail polish and stylish clothes at an age when nail polish and brand name frocks weren't something my sister would consider buying for her own kids...but now, it's not so easy! I try to win them over with a mini-mani and my nieces look at me all oh nail polish? That's so, like, last year auntie Jen...and all of a sudden I find myself dangerously close to no longer being the cool aunt, but more the aunt who thinks she's cool...you know that one? EEK! But I'm only 30 dammit, I'm still way cool...and to prove this to everyone, I've decided to take on a bit of a project (aka potential craft disaster) as part of the ultra cool birthday present I'm giving my niece tomorrow: hand made embellished bobby pins. Random you say? Ah, yes...it would seem that way, but this morning when I discussed potential girl gifts with my sister, I was informed that my niece had only recently taken on the habit of putting such decorative items in her hair as a new hair style (see what I mean about the whole tween thing?) and it's such a recent style development that she really has none. SWEET! I thought...perfect! gift!...so, off to Target's hair accessory aisle I went, to search the rows and rows of hair thing-a-majigs, and when I got to the end of the aisle...no embellished bobby pins...wtf? Wasn't it only, like, 2 years ago that everyone was wearing those in their hair?? Well, apparently Target thinks it's a trend that's passed (and been replaced by the weird beady double comb up-do thingy? Whatever, Target!) which brings me to my grande scheme to win back the love and admiration of my niece...I'm going to make some!

So, crafty I am not...but I can totally hot glue with the best of them. (Can I do it without burning the crap out of my fingers? No, but who can really?) So what I decided to do was to buy a 90 pack (!!) of plain bobby pins and then take my sorry butt to the local craft store, where I would purchase a variety of glimmering, fancy, girly embellishments to hot glue onto said bobby pins, and voila! I'm back in the inner circle. So that's what I did...this morning. Embellishments purchased...extra hot glue sticks secured...and a 90 pack of bobby pins just waiting for me to burn the crap out of my fingers while I pathetically attempt to decorate them. Did I mention that the party is tomorrow? And that I have 90 bobby pins? And did I also mention that I have a history of getting grande ideas and biting off more than I can chew? Something tells me it's going to be a long and painful night...

...next blog post to include pictures of the finished product...and a detailed description of my niece's reaction. Pray for me.

Sometimes I Just Don't Understand

I'm going to a funeral tomorrow...for a baby. 24 hours from this moment I'll be there. I'm sick to my stomach already. I've never seen a small coffin, and really, I wish that I could go my entire life without ever seeing one. I wish that this could be a world where all babies are born whole, full term, and healthy...like they're supposed to. I wish that no one ever had to learn that, in real life, not everyone gets the happy ending that they should, and that sometimes even the youngest, most innocent of us all is taken too soon. And it's in these cold, hard moments of reality that I wonder why life has to be so terribly cruel. Parents should be allowed to look into the eyes of their child with joy and exuberance, not fear and anguish. They should be able to write chronicles of their child's life in a baby book, not an obituary. As a mother, my heart aches for any parent who has been through this and, more-so...in all honesty, my heart begs to never be one of them.

Since Little spent her time at Children's, I've become so painfully aware that no matter how much you love your child, no matter how hard you pray, no matter how completely you devote yourself to your family, regardless of what kind of person you are, regardless of economics and everything else, sometimes you lose. And that's just a really difficult thing for my heart to swallow. I know that all of life is uncertain, but this, more than all other things in life, keeps me up at night. Why does this have to be part of the plan; the loss of children. And despite my hours of contemplation on the subject, I've yet to come up with a single reason.

How dear my babies are to me. How closely I hold them to my heart each and every day. How tightly I wrap them in my arms and kiss their soft heads. Today I will do it a thousand times more.