All grown up!

It's been a week full of milestones in our house! AD is finally toilet-trained during the day. I can't express to you how exciting this is for me. If you've ever had a child who is headstrong and strong willed at almost everything, then you understand why this small biological feat is so important. It's the beginning of an independence that I have craved for her. I'll admit, I've been rather lazy about training her, giving her the opportunity to figure it out herself while minimizing the mess that comes along with the whole act. There isn't much of an opportunity in life to discuss these sorts of things unless you're a parent and I didn't want to become that mother who did nothing but talk about how amazing it was when the potty was filled without prompting. Yes, there were texts sent to my husband regarding bladder functions (hers, not mine) but I refused to fret or fuss about the whole experience. Since she's my last child in diapers, I was determined to just lay low and let her figure it out. And you know what? She pretty much did. So score one for lazy parenting!

Our other milestone, closely tied to toilet-training, is that AD is in a 'big-girl-bed' now. I have to say, she's done amazing. I won't deny that there was a lot of rule setting beforehand, but she doesn't get out of bed at all. It's glorious. For now. But I'm telling you, right now I need a few wins.

With all these milestones, one might be thinking that I'm feeling nostalgic about my sweet girl growing up. Nope. Not in the least. And here's why: I am tired of toddlers. There, I said it. I'm so looking forward to the days when diapers are a thing of the past. When I'm not required to get the 33rd cup of milk for that day and they can just get it themselves. When my husband and I can have a conversation that lasts more than three minutes without one of us being interrupted about the bird flying outside or the boogie they've discovered on their finger. The Mommy-shamers would call me cruel, heartless, cold. Go ahead, if it makes you feel better. But I'm tired. Not just physically tired, because yes, I am that. But every kind of tired: spiritually, emotionally, mentally. I find it hard to enjoy life these days because of the exhaustion. I would love to say that I'm working on fixing that, but that's another post for another time.

So, as the milestones come and go, I will celebrate them and move on without a glint of sadness in my eye. I will simply revel in the fact that I've helped them on the path to growing up and becoming a person. And that's good enough for me, for now.

This life, continued.

Oh, gracious, where can I start?

We've been Texans for over a year now. Wow! It's weird to know that something that I've dreamed about my entire life has come true. I have been talking about moving to Texas for so long that I think my NE friends looked at my intentions to move as one of those obsessions that was just part of me. Like traveling to Germany (which I am still determined to do), and own a cow (which I am not sure whether or not I will do). But yet, here we are, Texans at last. A friend, who also happens to be a Texas transplant, told me that you have to spend at least 10 years in the state before you can call yourself a true Texan. To that, I say BAH! My heart has been here for at least 20 years. I think I've earned the title.

So, what HAS been going on since we've uprooted life and settled so far from home? Oh, so much. We've found an amazing group of friends, a beautiful home and neighborhood, thrown myself headlong into homeschooling, and adopted a dog. And we're helping plant a church. Basically, we've been building a home again. Away from what we know, what we've grown up with, what we've surrounded ourselves with. We're setting down roots. And it's amazing.

And yet, it hasn't been all fun, all the time. It's been hard. For reasons that I can't explain. We discovered that G is most likely profoundly gifted. It sounds like such a blessing and yet, it's really not. It's amazing that God has blessed him with this incredible brain, but it's so hard, so hard to parent him and not lose my sanity in the meantime. It's been hard to leave E behind and know that he's growing up and I'm missing parts of his life that I will not get back. I can't tell you how many nights I've kept myself awake hoping, praying that I've done the right thing for him. But through all of this, through all the tears, self doubt, and misery, through all the happy celebrations, through all the joys, I have found a group of women that supports me and holds me up. I have found a tribe.

Now, I was never a clique person in high school. I had a group of friends that had shared... I don't even know any more. Classes? Friends? Who knows. But they got me through high school. And that was about it. Sadly, I never kept in close contact with any of them once that segment of life was over. And that was mostly my fault, I readily admit. Once I entered college and afterwards, I was able to find a few close, crazy, awesome friends who know me well enough to call me out on my crap and that are able to say to me "that is the stupidest thing I have ever heard you say" and mean it. And now, in addition to that, I have the beginnings of a tribe.

I have a group of women who text me daily, whom I laugh with and who laugh at me (I won't live down the Redeemer Sticker debacle anytime soon). Who call me to try to brainstorm to fix my latest issue with G, who don't mind my ramblings or my misery. Who just love because they can and they do. No reason. No rhyme. They just do.

Is it easy to find a tribe? No. And I'm fully aware of that. Maybe that's why I value them more than ever. If you can find one, man, hold onto it with all your might. Because I swear, it will save you.

Words of faith

This speech was originally given at the Portsmouth United Methodist Church by me on June 25, 2011 as part of our church's Faith in Action series. I give a speech every month about practical ways you can share your faith with others. If you ever have a suggestion, please let me know in the comments!

As some of you may know, I have a fascination with words. I love to read, love to write and words are such a part of my being that it's difficult not to pay attention to a word when it jumps out at me. Earlier this year, I came across a website, MyOneWord.org. This website's goal is to encourage people to choose one word that the person will use to form their entire year around. The idea is that instead of a New Year's Resolution, you choose one word and use that word to change the world around you. Being a word-lover, this really appealed to me. And so I started searching for my own word. At first, I thought my word would be something fun like "Family" or something important like "Peace". Maybe even, being the mother of a newborn, "Sleep". But none of those words would stay with me. All this time, God kept pointing me toward another word: forgiveness. Now, I'll admit, I kept thinking "I really don't want that word! That's too hard. I want something fun, like KNIT! or PARTY!" So I sort of ignored Him and tried to find another word. A few weeks later, still word-less, I saw an announcement in the church bulletin for a Bible study group focused on, you guessed it, forgiveness and I said "All right, all right, I get it, that's my word!"

Now, I wasn't looking forward to owning this word. See, for me, and I'm sure many of you feel the same way, forgiveness isn't an easy word and it isn't a fun word, but I knew that it was the word He wanted me to have. So, for the past six months, I have been owning this word. You would be amazed how often a word comes up in your life once you pay attention to it. I find that it creeps into my world in little ways; in songs, in conversations, it's everywhere. Last week, my husband and I were having a tense night. The kids were tired and pushing buttons left and right and by the end of the night, I was grumbling at my husband and we close to not speaking. As I was walking upstairs to get ready for bed, my husband was sitting on the couch. As I passed by him, God said to me in this soft voice "How can you treat someone you love like this?" And there it was again, that word: forgiveness. I'll tell you I felt about two inches high for the rest of the night.

I can hear you thinking, what does this have to do with faith? To quote Matthew, 6:14, "For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses."

I learned quite a few things about forgiveness during that Bible Study. For me, the major theme was that it's very difficult to really extend forgiveness without having faith. When you're confronted with forgiveness, whether it's forgiveness you're extending or you're hoping someone will extend to you, faith allows you to understand the meaning of forgiveness. When we are the ones extending the forgiveness, our belief in the Lord gives us the capacity to understand how we have been forgiven and sometimes that understanding makes the forgiveness just a bit easier to extend. I won't say that forgiveness is easy; sometimes it's simpler to stay mad or in other cases to not ask for forgiveness. But in almost every case, if you are able to keep in mind what your faith has taught you, that you are already forgiven by a God who loves you and gave His only son for you, it is becomes possible to move toward forgiveness.

Where life resumes.

Wow. So, apparently it takes about two months for me to get my bearings. I've officially been at home for two months today and I'm just getting back to the point where I can function as a non-mother-person. It's been a roller coaster ride, but most days I'm glad I'm on it and am trying my hardest to stay sane. I feel like I have a million things pulling me in three million directions, but such is the life of every mother I guess.

There are a few things that I've realized in the past week or so and one of them is that I need to get my head cleared in a major way. So, I'm hoping now that the new computer is set up, blogging will begin again! I don't expect it will be pretty, but I think that's normal. Personally, I'm tired of the sheen that the internet seems to put over everyone else's life. I have been searching for authenticity and although the internet is certainly not the first place I should be looking, it's the most accessible place for me right now and that's caused so much heartache for me. To combat that, I'm going to try as hard as I can to be authentic, to be me here, there and everywhere. Yes, I admit that's sort of not really possible on a blog, but you'll have to deal if you're reading this. Unless you want to come over and just hang out to vet me and all. Please, feel free. Except on Fridays because I'm usually busy then.

Faith in a box

This speech was originally given at the Portsmouth United Methodist Church by me on March 26, 2011 as part of our church's Faith in Action series. I give a speech every month about practical ways you can share your faith with others. If you ever have a suggestion, please let me know in the comments!

A few weeks ago my older sister, who lives in California posted a link on her Facebook page. My sister has been a professional belly dancer for over 10 years now.  The link she posted wasn't her usual information about upcoming dance classes or hand-made costumes for sale.  It was a collection of photos of a burned-out apartment.  The photos were striking.  Most of them looked as though they'd been shot in black and white due to the amount of smoke and soot damage the apartment sustained.  One of the most memorable photos, for me, was of a child's bedroom. The only recognizable thing in the photo was a charred changing table standing alone in the middle of the room. 


The woman who lived in the apartment was a friend of my sisters.  Actually, to say she was a friend is probably an understatement. I've never met the woman, but I know that she has had a profound impact on my sister's life.  She was a driving force behind my sister becoming a professional belly dancer and instructor and throughout the years, my sister has mentioned this dance teacher many times, always with reverence and awe.  She had influence in my sister's life far greater than I can imagine.  So seeing those photos and knowing that they had impacted my sister gave me pause.  But it was seeing that photo of that baby's changing table that brought tears to my eyes.

God was watching that family on the night of their fire.  I never heard the full details, but I know that everyone involved escaped physical harm.  From what I understand, the family was getting ready for a blessing, reading the Koran and smelled smoke or heard a fire alarm.  They got out in time, but subsequently lost practically everything.  Like me, she has a little boy and I couldn't imagine how difficult it must have been to see all her baby's belongings destroyed.  I thought about what it must be like to have to care for that baby while trying to rebuild a life around him.

So, I did the only thing I could think of to help: I sent a box of clothes to her.  
Now, just as an aside, I have to thank my lucky stars that I have the smart husband I do because otherwise I would have sent the boy a shirt with a fire truck on it.  That's probably not what the mother was in the mood to see.  Along with the clothing, I sent a short hand-written note telling her that my prayers would be with her and her family. 

When Pastor asked me to start a monthly series about ways to share your faith and speak to the congregation, I was nervous about accepting.  Pastor had no way of knowing, but a few days earlier I had been having one of those conversations with God where you ask Him what He wants you to do with your faith.  I always dread asking those sorts of questions because most of the time, He answers pretty quickly and sometimes it isn't what I want to hear.  But I knew that Pastor approaching me was part of the answer I'd been asking for and so I accepted whole-heartedly. Sharing your faith isn't always easy and it isn't always obvious.  It can be something as small as sending a box of clothes (without a fire-truck shirt) to a stranger who's lost everything.  Or it can be something bigger.  My hope is that over the next few months, I help you explore ways to share your own faith so that you can grow in God and perhaps help others to do the same.

Goodbye stent, hello swollen kidney.

I do remember that G was in a fantastic mood and other than being overly tired. In fact, he was feeling so decent that we stopped at IKEA on the way home and bought him a new big-boy bed. After a quick, albeit late, lunch of chicken nuggets, fries and apple slices, we were on our way home. I felt so overjoyed that yet another hospital visit and surgery was behind us and that this is what it felt like to have a successful, non-complicated surgery. It was such a difference from open-heart surgery, which sounds obvious but until you've lived it, you don't really get it.

We got home around 3:00pm, I think, and decided that it was probably a good idea for everyone to take a nap. And this is when things got messy.

We awoke to the sound of G crying. Given the fact that he'd just had major surgery, we didn't think anything of it. I brought him downstairs and after a while, it became obvious that he was more than just uncomfortable, so I gave him some Advil and we soothed him on the couch and tried our best to distract him. Sure enough, he calmed down about 45 minutes later. I didn't want him to take the Advil on an empty stomach, so I made him eat some yogurt before the Advil. He refused it at first, but I was able to coax him into it. At around 7:00pm, he stood up to walk to the kitchen where I was standing and I saw the look on his face. I'm never sure if it's mother's intuition or a look of pure panic in the eyes or what, but I knew what was coming: puke. And it did. He threw up and didn't stop. We thought it was just the yogurt, so we cleaned him up, chalked it up to silly parenting and tucked him in for the night. An hour later, I could hear him whimpering "Mommy... Momma..." and I ran upstairs to find him and his bed covered in vomit. We reasoned that he probably was still reacting to the anesthesia, so we cleaned him up and tucked him in again. An hour later, we replayed the previous scene. This time, though, he made it to the bathroom and then began to be sick with real gusto. The poor kid had nothing left in his stomach and when the dry heaving started, I called the hospital. 

After talking to a few different doctors on call, we were told to bring him back to BCH immediately. And, almost on cue, G started vomiting blood. It was 10:30pm at night and we rushed around, packing him up into the car with a bowl, some towels and I drove the 45 minutes back to Boston. Alone. Pulling over every 10 minutes to help my three-year-old vomit blood. You want to feel alone? Try this some time. Or rather don't. It's not fun, trust me.

G and I finally made it to BCH at around 11:55pm and rushed into the ER. He was so lethargic at this point, he could barely open his eyes. There were a few nurses standing around when we walked in, but as soon as they saw me, they ran over, ushered G and me onto a chair and began working on him. After the initial intake paperwork, they found a room for us and the ER waiting game began. G alternated between vomiting more blood and sleeping. The doctor would come in, test the vomit, check him out, ask me some questions, and then leave to go order more tests. This went on for six hours. Six long, long hours...

Now, at this point, I will admit I think I started to crack. I had been awake for almost 26 hours straight, except for a 30 minute cat-nap at home. I was running on fumes and wanted nothing more than sleep. The doctors finally decided to leave it up to me on whether or not we should be admitted back into the hospital, but given that G was still vomiting blood and it had taken two doses of IV meds to get him to stop and they still had no real clear idea of what was causing all this, I gladly elected to call BCH our home for the night. Around six in the morning, they got a room ready and G and I passed out for a few hours. 

In the end, the drama seems to have been caused by the stent being removed and causing the kidney to swell, cutting off the kidneys function temporarily.  He was hospitalized for two days and after ensuring that his kidneys were functioning normally and getting the vomiting under control, we were released and sent on our merry way. 

Who says kidneys aren't exciting?

In rock, paper, scissors, kidneys win.

There are some times when you would rather not remember what happened the day or even the week before.  Most of those times, they involved lots of tequila, and don't tell me I'm the only one, but last week... No tequila, just a kidney. I have a bit to recap, since it's been a while since I've posted and I honestly was thinking that I would not want to post about our 'adventures' last week, but I'm hoping getting it out of my head may purge it from memory.  So, here goes.

After all the tests were said and done, it was found that G had a utero pelvic junction obstruction, or in those fancy medical letters, a UPJ obstruction. The only fix for this obstruction was, you guessed it, more surgery. AD, on the other hand, got off easy with a diagnosis of Grade 3 bilateral kidney reflux. Her likelihood of surgery is about 50/50 right now, so we'll wait to see what happens. We met with the surgeon at the local children's hospital, but since he only did the surgery in the 'traditional' method, we opted to go to Boston Children's Hospital instead and have it done robotically. Here's your biology lesson for the day! A UPJ obstruction is caused when a piece of the tube leading from the kidney to the bladder stops growing and becomes narrow. This causes the fluid in the kidney to drain slowly and in turn, causes the kidney to swell. After more tests, we discovered that his right kidney drained in about 9 minutes, while his left kidney was taking over 136 minutes to drain. The surgeon later told me that it probably takes longer than that, but they gave up after 136 minutes. Poor kidney even disappoints the doctors.

When we went for the initial consult in Boston, we met with a great doctor and G was this close to having the procedure as an outpatient operation, but the surgeon suddenly recalled that our G is a past-cardiac patient which meant that he'd be treated to an overnight stay, just in case. Aw, shucks, as G would say. So, we scheduled G for surgery for early March. We had the pre-op testing on March 6, and other than just getting over a cold that day, he passed with flying colors. Fast forward to just 36 hours before surgery and the hospital calls to tell us that the surgeon that was supposed to perform the pyeloplasty on G has left the hospital and all surgeries are being rescheduled. You know, I'm a silver lining type of gal, but I'll admit I was annoyed that we were pushed off, again! G's open-heart surgery was delayed because of pneumonia and fifth disease and now the surgeon leaves BCH? The nurse assured me that they had another surgeon lined up that specialized in robotic surgery and we went ahead and rescheduled the date for March 30.

The surgery lasted only an hour or so, if I remember correctly. Seems strange now to forget the exact details, but there you have it. Probably because everything else paled in comparison to his awful recovery. The surgeon came in to tell us that G did great, they didn't find anything out of the ordinary and were able to place a stent in his ureter to keep the tubes open while they healed. The nurse led us to the recovery area and we were able to sit with him while he woke up. At first, he was groggy, but the more he woke up, the more miserable he became. He complained of pain non-stop and cried for me to hold him and carry him. After about 30 minutes of trying to calm him, I climbed into the hospital bed with him and we managed, with all his tubes and wires, to have him lay on me in his bed for a few hours. The nurse had to call for additional morphine and Valium to help with his pain, but it finally did subside and they were able to get him out of recovery and into a room.

Sky Burger, again?!

G is one of those kids that has a rather large personal space bubble around him, so the fact that he wanted me to hold him for hours was unusual but post-op boy can have whatever post-op boy wants. When we made it to our room, we set-up camp for the day and got as comfortable as you can in a hospital. This time around, we booked a hotel room down the street, so I made myself a little bed on the window seat and TDH Man went and got some food. Ironically, we were in the same room location as G's CICU room at BCH, just a few floors away. We set up his personal TV and let him loose on the remote and PBS. He fought sleep for a long time, but what else is there to do in the hospital?

Puffy, tired boy demands PBS. 

Looking back now, G's stay was fairly unremarkable. I only say this because I'm writing it a few months later and I honestly can't remember much of it. Blame Mommy-brain, blame all the hospital trips blurring into one, blame whatever, but we were pretty much dismissed the next day, given instructions on how to care for our boy and sent on our merry way. During the surgery, the doctor had placed a stent in the kidney to assist in keeping the repaired tube open. We were told that the stent would need to be removed in about three to four weeks, but that it was a simple procedure and not to worry about it. 

Ha. That should have sent all those red flags a-flyin', but that's another story for another post.