Well, we finally got the winter cold/flu/whatever bug! Luckily it's not too bad. First Bradley came down with a cough which is so normal ..for Bradley to come home with something first. He missed a couple days of school and had to refrain from riding dirt bikes at his dads during visitation weekend. Now Ryan and Oliver have the same cough, add buckets of mucous, eye goup, and drool for the littlest and you have my life in a nutshell the last weekish. Wiping, blowing, washing, rocking, medicating, napping, rinse and repeat!
And yet...Ollie has managed to discover he can pull him self to a stand on anything 12 inches high give or take. He has not managed to keep his balance. Add some bruises and scrapes to the list.
I knock on wood as I proclaim I have not yet gotten ill. Thank you GOD! And Will has slowly but surely managed to drum up work for himself, under his own business license, and it is a huge blessing to be out from under...let's just say his old boss. He needs more work, but we are not biting our nails nervous and walking around so anxious we are having to work hard to avoid arguments. Come on, I know most of you can relate to that!
Other than all that...same ol same ol...kids in school, me and Ollie hanging out doing baby things, waiting for the next birthday or holiday to arrive. oh yeah, I'm next in our house, and am saying goodbye to my twenties forever. I don't feel as bad as 26 felt. For some reason 26 to me was like, goodbye soft skin and silken hair and cute figure, you're old now. 30 feels...well, kinda good really. Like I'm finally all-the-way a grown up. Do you ever really grow all the way up though? I hope not all the way. That's another post.
I have started a garden. Okay, I put 36 little seeds in little white dixie cups and the kids and I are getting a kick out of watching tomatoes, radishes, peppers, carrots and other plants emerge and grow. Will (while in between searching for jobs) tilled and smoothed a 10 x 15 give or take section of our back yard. He built a little fence to remind the dogs to stay out which works 80 percent of the time. He still has to borrow the tiller again and mix in a few bags of mulch/fluff so we have better drainage when it's time to transplant my little seedlings. But, see, I get the credit for the garden, cause I put the little seeds in the little cups. I add the water. They grow. My garden. See how that works? :P I hope those of you who are local like fresh veggies, cause...me and the kids kinda went overboard...and my garden will soon be your garden too! It's much fun though, and the kids really are getting a kick out of it.
Little does Will know I also bought seeds for watermelon, cantaloupe, strawberries, pumpkin, and a few kinds of squash which also grow on vines...yes, vines...insert evil grin here. If he reads this he'll be praying for work, anything will be better than the extra gardens I need him to make so the vines don't take over.
So, yeah, nothing much going on around here. Getting over colds. Watching little plants and little babies grow big. My husband seems real busy now days though. :) Pictures soon...I must find my usb cord to empty the camera. (Will tried to help me by cleaning the office while he was home. argh!)
Love to all
Randi
Monday, February 23, 2009
Wednesday, February 11, 2009
Doing better. One day at a time.
Once again, I lag. I've been busy. Really busy. Ok not really busy. Honestly, I've been sitting on my tush on the couch. Sometimes folding laundry. Mostly just hanging out. I've had some massive dental work done, well massive in comparison to what's ever been done to my teeth before. And they are only half done with it all. I've been on antibiotics, which I really really tried to avoid, but ended up having no choice. This is not fun considering we finally went three weeks with no thrush symptoms. *sigh* The white on his tongue is slowly growing again instead of fading as it was. And we once again begin the evil fungus battle. But, luckily it's not so horrid yet, my antibiotics are almost done, and I have some leftover thrush treatment. yay! Hopefully this won't set us back to far.
He's been eating one more bite each day of solid food. He still thinks the whole high chair, spoon feed me while wearing a bib idea is stupid. I can't blame him. It feels stupid. I let the little monkey sit on my lap while I eat instead and suddenly he has interest in food. Whodda thunk it? He grabs my spoon and beats the table with it, pulls food off it on the way to my mouth, or just helps himself to my plate. It's really cute how excited he gets. When he's done he stands up on my lap and chews on the wood on the back of my chair. It's got little Ollie teeth marks from his bottom teeth. I'll never fix it...I love it!
A certain little Monkey boy is now crawling full speed (although still not hands and knees, more like hands and inchworm-still normal though) and has decided that crawling on hands and knees is not such a great idea as pulling up to a STAND on the living room couch and squealing in delight at it! He also makes his way all the way down the hallway now and gets into his big brothers rooms...oooo what a delight! And on occasion the owners of said rooms are actually present and thrilled that Ollie chose their room to go visit. Homework gets cast aside, cell phones get put down and the little star of the house gets tons of attention!
He's also been reaching out for daddy a lot. Will takes him outside and they walk around exploring things. I can see Oliver is done with life in the living room. He's ready for bigger and better things. He's taking his next step in growing up. He's reaching out a little bit to other people, and other places in his world. It's beautiful.
I know his "infanthood" wouldn't last forever, and it's changed us all in so many ways. If we have more children (the verdict is still out) even that whole experience will be changed because of Oliver's birth story. I guess that's what "life changing" means. Funny how you hear cliches like that all the time and they never sink in until, well, until they do.
One of my biggest lessons in all of this, is to find meaning and find happiness and find love in the moment you are in. I know it's not where you want to be, or it's not what you expected of your life. We all have that life storybook in our head. But life and storybook do not belong in the same sentence sometimes. What makes it a story, what makes it a life is the struggles, the journey, the experiences. I've learned to stop trying to change it, stop trying to make it fit in, stop trying to control it, and simply embrace it and find what I love about it every day for what it already is. When I live like this, I know I can look back one day and say yeah I had a great life. I didn't waste is always seeking something else. I loved every minute of it no matter what it was. And today, I honestly do. I wouldn't change a thing. The lessons that have been brought to me from all of this, I could have learned in no other way.
I cannot promise you that I won't post tomorrow about my hurt again, or my anger to be honest. But right now, the window is open in my office. It's raining outside...how badly does our area need rain. The grass is green. There's actually a little bird sitting in the tree in my back yard making bird noises. He seems happy for the water. A gentle rain is streaking down my window. Oliver is snoozing in his (our) bed taking a long afternoon nap. Ryan is making sure Darth Vader doesn't morph from Lego form and take over the planet (he's playing xbox 360). My older boys will shortly be home from school, and Will is away at work. It's normal. It's sweet. I remember the words I whispered into my baby's sleeping ear at 3 days old in ICU...I remember telling him that it would all be right as rain. Today, it is.
He's been eating one more bite each day of solid food. He still thinks the whole high chair, spoon feed me while wearing a bib idea is stupid. I can't blame him. It feels stupid. I let the little monkey sit on my lap while I eat instead and suddenly he has interest in food. Whodda thunk it? He grabs my spoon and beats the table with it, pulls food off it on the way to my mouth, or just helps himself to my plate. It's really cute how excited he gets. When he's done he stands up on my lap and chews on the wood on the back of my chair. It's got little Ollie teeth marks from his bottom teeth. I'll never fix it...I love it!
A certain little Monkey boy is now crawling full speed (although still not hands and knees, more like hands and inchworm-still normal though) and has decided that crawling on hands and knees is not such a great idea as pulling up to a STAND on the living room couch and squealing in delight at it! He also makes his way all the way down the hallway now and gets into his big brothers rooms...oooo what a delight! And on occasion the owners of said rooms are actually present and thrilled that Ollie chose their room to go visit. Homework gets cast aside, cell phones get put down and the little star of the house gets tons of attention!
He's also been reaching out for daddy a lot. Will takes him outside and they walk around exploring things. I can see Oliver is done with life in the living room. He's ready for bigger and better things. He's taking his next step in growing up. He's reaching out a little bit to other people, and other places in his world. It's beautiful.
I know his "infanthood" wouldn't last forever, and it's changed us all in so many ways. If we have more children (the verdict is still out) even that whole experience will be changed because of Oliver's birth story. I guess that's what "life changing" means. Funny how you hear cliches like that all the time and they never sink in until, well, until they do.
One of my biggest lessons in all of this, is to find meaning and find happiness and find love in the moment you are in. I know it's not where you want to be, or it's not what you expected of your life. We all have that life storybook in our head. But life and storybook do not belong in the same sentence sometimes. What makes it a story, what makes it a life is the struggles, the journey, the experiences. I've learned to stop trying to change it, stop trying to make it fit in, stop trying to control it, and simply embrace it and find what I love about it every day for what it already is. When I live like this, I know I can look back one day and say yeah I had a great life. I didn't waste is always seeking something else. I loved every minute of it no matter what it was. And today, I honestly do. I wouldn't change a thing. The lessons that have been brought to me from all of this, I could have learned in no other way.
I cannot promise you that I won't post tomorrow about my hurt again, or my anger to be honest. But right now, the window is open in my office. It's raining outside...how badly does our area need rain. The grass is green. There's actually a little bird sitting in the tree in my back yard making bird noises. He seems happy for the water. A gentle rain is streaking down my window. Oliver is snoozing in his (our) bed taking a long afternoon nap. Ryan is making sure Darth Vader doesn't morph from Lego form and take over the planet (he's playing xbox 360). My older boys will shortly be home from school, and Will is away at work. It's normal. It's sweet. I remember the words I whispered into my baby's sleeping ear at 3 days old in ICU...I remember telling him that it would all be right as rain. Today, it is.
Sunday, February 1, 2009
A little emotional aftermath blogging.
It amazes me how 8 months later, there is still so much emotion. Well I guess amazes isn't the right word cause if I think of anyone else who walked through what we walked through I would expect them to still be ...raw. In the last two weeks, there have been several occasions where I actually went "woah" and felt like my head came up out of the water for just a second. I wasn't scratching my nails along the corridor of time begging for it to just stop. one. darn. second. so I could breathe. so I could process.
My little monkey is crawling, and babbling and follows his brothers down the hall way. I don't know if it is his increased mobility (and the chance to use the restroom alone), my arms being a little more empty lately, perhaps the passage of time...but somehow things have felt not necessarily healed but not so raw and wide open. I can't speak for Will but I can say I know I have and am struggling with the whole "post trauma" syndrome. It's not like you come home, and you have a baby that did this amazing recovery and he is so normal and every things normal and you go back to that ignorant bliss of life in normal oblivion.
It's still there. Every day. You teeter on the line of being a neurotic clingy parent and pushing your kid too hard to be normal. Not that I really push Ollie. But the lines blur. You see things in a different way. And sometimes those different perceptions are not necessarily asked for or welcomed, but they are there and you have to address them. I watched a documentary recently and there was a comment about how there is post traumatic stress and then there can be post traumatic growth. Now that's something to write about...
There reaches a point where you don't want to be the mom of a baby that was in ICU anymore. Or the mom of a kid that might be (fill in the blank). You don't care anymore about what could be and what if, and how is he, and what do the doctors say because you live in it and with it every day. It's not about how we were in ICU and he was sick. It follows you home, and you live with all that aftermath, every, single day. And I go back to my mantra during that hospital stay. "It is what it is." We didn't care then what it was.
You have to just set it to the side and move on. Because right now, we need to change a diaper, or feed someone, or drive someone somewhere. We have to be able to move on and function. And then you start to think about how you can soften the blow for the poor guy behind you that is just now checking into the same ICU room, their baby in the same ICU bed. What could someone have said to me? What helped me through that? What about after they go home? What can I give back?
I guess I am at a place where, maybe I am not miraculously stepping back into normalcy. But for just a little bit I can lift my head and look at the world in the eyes again. I can take my baby to the park for a moment like we did today, and no one knows, and I don't think "if they only knew his story" every time someone says "he's cute." I am learning that it's okay to be normal again. We went through hell. It sucked real bad. It still sucks. I often feel guilt that it still sucks. I am also learning that it's ok to not have transformed into this gracious, thankful, beautiful model of well and wonderful. And I am sharing it with you because it might help someone else. It might help you understand so you can help someone else who 8 months later still hurts sometimes even though everything seems like it should be okay and well and wonderful. Parts of me still are saying "wow." Parts of me are still saying "wait a second." Part of me is frozen in that first moment of watching my midwifes assistant dial 9-1-1 and thinking "oh my God, this is big." And I have to leave that part of me behind so that I can move forward. That part of me that didn't know what something like this was like.
And part of me wants to turn something like this into hope for someone else. Because it'll help me. It'll help them. And it's part of who I am now. This different person. Still the same, but somehow different. If you've ever gone through something big like this, that will make sense I'm sure. And if you haven't, it's okay, I love you even though you're still the same. (yes that was my sick sense of humor) I don't know how yet. I don't have some amazing plan or humanitarian website I can link you to, or even some great speech about how we all need to give.
I just have this little tugging at my heart. And when and where it takes me I don't know. But I just feel like it has to be more. I just think there must be something bigger. We grow and we heal and time passes, but there will come a day when it's time to give it all back...to do something. I want to be able to say "yes, I will."
Today my baby picked up a handful of grass at the park right out of the lawn. He squealed in delight. The couple on the bench said he was cute. He was. And I said Thank You.
My little monkey is crawling, and babbling and follows his brothers down the hall way. I don't know if it is his increased mobility (and the chance to use the restroom alone), my arms being a little more empty lately, perhaps the passage of time...but somehow things have felt not necessarily healed but not so raw and wide open. I can't speak for Will but I can say I know I have and am struggling with the whole "post trauma" syndrome. It's not like you come home, and you have a baby that did this amazing recovery and he is so normal and every things normal and you go back to that ignorant bliss of life in normal oblivion.
It's still there. Every day. You teeter on the line of being a neurotic clingy parent and pushing your kid too hard to be normal. Not that I really push Ollie. But the lines blur. You see things in a different way. And sometimes those different perceptions are not necessarily asked for or welcomed, but they are there and you have to address them. I watched a documentary recently and there was a comment about how there is post traumatic stress and then there can be post traumatic growth. Now that's something to write about...
There reaches a point where you don't want to be the mom of a baby that was in ICU anymore. Or the mom of a kid that might be (fill in the blank). You don't care anymore about what could be and what if, and how is he, and what do the doctors say because you live in it and with it every day. It's not about how we were in ICU and he was sick. It follows you home, and you live with all that aftermath, every, single day. And I go back to my mantra during that hospital stay. "It is what it is." We didn't care then what it was.
You have to just set it to the side and move on. Because right now, we need to change a diaper, or feed someone, or drive someone somewhere. We have to be able to move on and function. And then you start to think about how you can soften the blow for the poor guy behind you that is just now checking into the same ICU room, their baby in the same ICU bed. What could someone have said to me? What helped me through that? What about after they go home? What can I give back?
I guess I am at a place where, maybe I am not miraculously stepping back into normalcy. But for just a little bit I can lift my head and look at the world in the eyes again. I can take my baby to the park for a moment like we did today, and no one knows, and I don't think "if they only knew his story" every time someone says "he's cute." I am learning that it's okay to be normal again. We went through hell. It sucked real bad. It still sucks. I often feel guilt that it still sucks. I am also learning that it's ok to not have transformed into this gracious, thankful, beautiful model of well and wonderful. And I am sharing it with you because it might help someone else. It might help you understand so you can help someone else who 8 months later still hurts sometimes even though everything seems like it should be okay and well and wonderful. Parts of me still are saying "wow." Parts of me are still saying "wait a second." Part of me is frozen in that first moment of watching my midwifes assistant dial 9-1-1 and thinking "oh my God, this is big." And I have to leave that part of me behind so that I can move forward. That part of me that didn't know what something like this was like.
And part of me wants to turn something like this into hope for someone else. Because it'll help me. It'll help them. And it's part of who I am now. This different person. Still the same, but somehow different. If you've ever gone through something big like this, that will make sense I'm sure. And if you haven't, it's okay, I love you even though you're still the same. (yes that was my sick sense of humor) I don't know how yet. I don't have some amazing plan or humanitarian website I can link you to, or even some great speech about how we all need to give.
I just have this little tugging at my heart. And when and where it takes me I don't know. But I just feel like it has to be more. I just think there must be something bigger. We grow and we heal and time passes, but there will come a day when it's time to give it all back...to do something. I want to be able to say "yes, I will."
Today my baby picked up a handful of grass at the park right out of the lawn. He squealed in delight. The couple on the bench said he was cute. He was. And I said Thank You.
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