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.