"Lets wash your head. Now behind your ears! Oh look at these feet! That is your penis. That is your scrotum. Inside of it are two little balls called testicles!" (A simple every day conversation in an every day situation- giving your kid a bath.)
Lets practice saying these words. Maybe if you practice enough you won't blush every time you give your child the appripriate label for his or her body parts:
buttock
anus
penis
scrotum
testicles
breasts
nipple
vulva (yes, lets not mislabel this and call it a vagina, its not the same thing.)
vagina
clitoris
What better way to get over your own awkwardness and fear of saying these words then in saying them to your young child, in every day life opportunities.
"Look- that lady is going to have a baby! Her baby is growing in a special place called her uterus. You would think its growing in her stomach, but its not!"
"Mom- what is that lady doing to that baby?" "She is breastfeeding. She is feeding milk from her breasts to her baby. You know how some moms feed milk in a bottle to their babies? That mom is feeding her milk to her baby."
There. Is that really so hard?
Practice that. Then take it a step forward when ready child is ready:
-explain that the testicles make things called sperm
-explain that the baby will have to go through something kind of like a door called a cervix to get out of the uterus and through the mom's vagina into the world.
-etc, etc,
Do you want to be able to educate your child when he\she is about to hit puberty about the changes that are coming? Do you want to educate your children about sex? Your daughter about her looming menstrual cycle and fertility? Or would you rather the public school teach him? Or her friends teach her? How will you be able to talk to your sons and your daughters about sex, pregnancies, periods, breasts, pubic hair, etc, if you can't even label and name body parts when he or she is a toddler or preschooler? When you can't even explain normal, human body functions when they are in kindergarten?
It really is not that hard to start. Start now, when your kids are young, instead of starting when the stakes are higher, and the questions more challenging.
(Now if anyone has a good way for me to explain the pornography store located right next to our local post office, please share because I know that question is coming soon.)
Sunday, July 25, 2010
Wednesday, July 14, 2010
The Great Smokey Mountains (craziness #3)
From that week into this....
A family trip to Tennessee. Brian's aunt and uncle invite a bunch of family members to a cabin in TN. We did this two years ago and it was great, crazy fun. It was the same this year. However, this time Brian stayed home. My sister-in-law and I traveled together:
10 hour drive split into 2 days
5 kids: ages 6, 5, 3, 1, and 8 mo.
1 I-pod touch with games to fight over.
1 broken DVD player (seriously!?!! We only got to play 1 dvd before it stopped working)
lots of audio books but our crowd just couldn't calm down long enough to pay any attention.
(so actually, the driving went really well. The kids were pretty good. Just a bit loud sometimes and just a few fights.)
Once we got there we now had:
12 children (oldest is soon to be 13.)
7 adults (2 years ago we had 9 adults.)
What did we do?
Caverns (on the way down):
Swimming, hotel fun, general traveling fun:
-Cherokee Indian Village: learning about the Indians from the Indians themselves (this is actually in North Carolina)
-Santa Land: (mot my favorite place but the kids love it.)
(Tristan did the classic scream when we got close to santa. But we had a technical error and didn't catch it on camera.)
-Swimming in the River. (We love, love, love this river! So fun!) Tristan loved it so much too. I don't have any pictures of him because I left my camera in the car and haven't gotten pictures from my mother-in-law yet.
-Hot tub fun, playing cards with cousins, and just playing at the cabin
-White Water Rafting (dang, don't have pictures at the moment.) Rafting was fun but not as fun as the other year. The river was lower this time plus we had to go on the low end because of all the kids we had. (You have to be 8 to go on the higher end which has a greater degree of intensity.) The rapids we went on only had about a level 2 (maybe 1 or 2 level 3) out of 5 level scoring scale.
10 hour drive split into 2 days
5 kids: ages 6, 5, 3, 1, and 8 mo.
1 I-pod touch with games to fight over.
1 broken DVD player (seriously!?!! We only got to play 1 dvd before it stopped working)
lots of audio books but our crowd just couldn't calm down long enough to pay any attention.
(so actually, the driving went really well. The kids were pretty good. Just a bit loud sometimes and just a few fights.)
Once we got there we now had:
12 children (oldest is soon to be 13.)
7 adults (2 years ago we had 9 adults.)
What did we do?
Caverns (on the way down):
Swimming, hotel fun, general traveling fun:
-Cherokee Indian Village: learning about the Indians from the Indians themselves (this is actually in North Carolina)
(Tristan did the classic scream when we got close to santa. But we had a technical error and didn't catch it on camera.)
-Swimming in the River. (We love, love, love this river! So fun!) Tristan loved it so much too. I don't have any pictures of him because I left my camera in the car and haven't gotten pictures from my mother-in-law yet.
-Cades Cove: (which will work out better when our kids are older. It was so dang hot too, we stayed in the car most of the time.) Its basically a mountain with a 1-way loop you drive one. you can get out at about 13 stops to see old cabins, churches, to learn about the first people who settled Cades Cove. There are a few hiking trails and I was told a great trail to some falls but we didn't go on it. We saw a deer up close and there was also a bear in a tree but we Heather and I vaguely saw the bear- we drove by it and thought it was an eagle's nest. I would like to do Cades Cover another year and get more out of it next time. It was very pretty though. Lots of mountains and lots of valleys.
-Hot tub fun, playing cards with cousins, and just playing at the cabin
-White Water Rafting (dang, don't have pictures at the moment.) Rafting was fun but not as fun as the other year. The river was lower this time plus we had to go on the low end because of all the kids we had. (You have to be 8 to go on the higher end which has a greater degree of intensity.) The rapids we went on only had about a level 2 (maybe 1 or 2 level 3) out of 5 level scoring scale.
Moving and leaks (craziness #2)
I got home from camp and immediately had to jump into another crazy week: Getting my dad moved into a new apartment. Since my dad has limited resources and limited good health, he needs a lot of help with things like this. We also had to move him during the week during business hours (sheesh.) And while I was at camp his car broke down so he was depended on me to drive him and\or do his last minute moving errands. So it was a lot on me. Luckily, Brian was able to take some time off from work. I was able to hire some young people to help on moving day, my mom helped, and it all worked out in the end. And it reminds me that I have no desire to ever, ever move again. (hah, yeah right.)
I think this move is really good for my dad. He moved into senior housing. Its basically a regular, normal apartment but for people 63+. There is a community room, activities, a community patio, community wash room, bus trips, exercise room, etc. He will be around people. He wont' be so isolated, which will really help him. The location is also very nice and convenient. The grounds have a pretty garden and he got a nice end unit with extra windows and a nice view. (His car is still broken so he has been grounded for a long time and needs my help a lot more then normal.)
At the same time we were getting my dad moved, I walked into our utility room to do some laundry and the floor was soaking wet! It had just rained. Was it from the rain? Humm...this is a lot of water. Is it from the freezer? It was late. We decided the freezer defrosted for some reason. Went to bed. Next day was the big moving day so I didn't get to deal with our leak problem until that night. I was not convinced the water was from the freezer. It was really wet! Our utility room was a mess because we have been moving some stuff around and we got a whole bunch of stuff from my dad. So things were out of place and the house has just been a disaster. So I end up moving all this stuff and trying to clean up the wetness and finally found the cause of the leak- our water heater. Its just leaking. Weeping. At least its not gushing. Could be worse. But what bad timing. It was stressful. I sucked up at least 9 gallons of water out of the carpet. It kept leaking until it was replaced. One day my mom came over to help. I had to clean up the utility room and throw some stuff away that got wet. We had to move a bunch of stuff into our bathroom too (I'm telling you, our house has been a mess for a few weeks. It just gets worse and worse!) Now, 3 appointments later we are done with the water heater drama- for now. Its been replaced, inspected, and we had our home owners insurance co out. I'm still not sure if part of the wall will need to be replaced. We have wood paneling down there and I'm pretty convinced the installation got wet. The man from insurance said we should rip up the carpet as well (no padding under) but Brian didn't do it. We got it pretty cleaned up and it dried out but I'm still concerned that we should have taken the carpet up. If we get sick from mold, you all will know why.
(Our fish tank also leaked on our again at the same time. It keeps leaking from the filter because it gets dirty I guess. And I discovered a wet spot in the ceiling of our office- right under the bathrub.)
I think this move is really good for my dad. He moved into senior housing. Its basically a regular, normal apartment but for people 63+. There is a community room, activities, a community patio, community wash room, bus trips, exercise room, etc. He will be around people. He wont' be so isolated, which will really help him. The location is also very nice and convenient. The grounds have a pretty garden and he got a nice end unit with extra windows and a nice view. (His car is still broken so he has been grounded for a long time and needs my help a lot more then normal.)
At the same time we were getting my dad moved, I walked into our utility room to do some laundry and the floor was soaking wet! It had just rained. Was it from the rain? Humm...this is a lot of water. Is it from the freezer? It was late. We decided the freezer defrosted for some reason. Went to bed. Next day was the big moving day so I didn't get to deal with our leak problem until that night. I was not convinced the water was from the freezer. It was really wet! Our utility room was a mess because we have been moving some stuff around and we got a whole bunch of stuff from my dad. So things were out of place and the house has just been a disaster. So I end up moving all this stuff and trying to clean up the wetness and finally found the cause of the leak- our water heater. Its just leaking. Weeping. At least its not gushing. Could be worse. But what bad timing. It was stressful. I sucked up at least 9 gallons of water out of the carpet. It kept leaking until it was replaced. One day my mom came over to help. I had to clean up the utility room and throw some stuff away that got wet. We had to move a bunch of stuff into our bathroom too (I'm telling you, our house has been a mess for a few weeks. It just gets worse and worse!) Now, 3 appointments later we are done with the water heater drama- for now. Its been replaced, inspected, and we had our home owners insurance co out. I'm still not sure if part of the wall will need to be replaced. We have wood paneling down there and I'm pretty convinced the installation got wet. The man from insurance said we should rip up the carpet as well (no padding under) but Brian didn't do it. We got it pretty cleaned up and it dried out but I'm still concerned that we should have taken the carpet up. If we get sick from mold, you all will know why.
(Our fish tank also leaked on our again at the same time. It keeps leaking from the filter because it gets dirty I guess. And I discovered a wet spot in the ceiling of our office- right under the bathrub.)
Tuesday, July 13, 2010
Girl's Camp. (Craziness #1)
(Warning: several posts all in a row about the craziness that has been life lately.)
It was my joy and privilege to be the assistant camp director for Girl's Camp, for my 2nd year in a row. It was lots of fun. Lots of work! Camp preparations felt like a whirl wind this year- we got a late start this year and had camp a whole month earlier- plus I had a baby in the house! But it all came together in the end.
I really love these young women- they are great girls! And I love camp. This year, since I have Tristan, I couldn't sleep over. I was a bit sad about that- I hate missing anything! But, I did enjoy getting showers and A\C at night but don't think I got any more sleep then I would have if I slept over. My mom came up a few times to help with Tristan. I put a lot of long hours in and Tristan was a champ putting up with it all (and got lots of attention from the girls.)
It was really neat to see how much the girls have grown and matured in one year. They are all such great ladies and I know the Lord has a lot of good stuff planned for them in this life. I too, got to grow and mature and had to do a few things that were outside of my typical comfort zone.
Some highlights from camp:
(with pictures randomly thrown in. These pictures aren't the best because I"m purposely picking pictures that are kind of vague as to who is in them because I don't know if its OK to post pictures of people with out permission.)
A great FHE with our bishop and a great dinner (taco salad) provided by our Relief Society. We were all stuffed in our cabin for FHE because of a big rain storm that came at the perfect time, but I think the coziness was a good thing.
A truely fabulous value walk. It was great! So spiritual.
Awesome ward shirts that fell apart before our eyes (grrr. cheap iron on transfer paper). Being surprised with some lovely bandannas and ice cream pops by a wonderful sister in our ward.
Some really awesome\spiritual mini-classes. I missed 2 of them though. But I got a narrative of them and they sounded great. The one I did make it to was a really inspired one about focusing on the positives in life.
A great testimony meeting outside. Being read to at ward devotional.
Scripture scavenger hunt and fun bed treats and goodies hidden in\on people's beds.
Pine-wood derby cars and racing
Archery, Swimming, Kayaking (which I could not do.)
(not bad, huh? Two of our girls got bulls eyes!)
Hikes and learning camping skills (certification). I really enjoyed participating in dutch oven cooking- it was so yummy! And I got to make a cupcake in an orange. Cool!
Working with a great co-leader (Katri!) and having great support from the other YW leaders before and during camp (especially having volunteers to sleep over night since I couldn't do it.)
It was my joy and privilege to be the assistant camp director for Girl's Camp, for my 2nd year in a row. It was lots of fun. Lots of work! Camp preparations felt like a whirl wind this year- we got a late start this year and had camp a whole month earlier- plus I had a baby in the house! But it all came together in the end.
I really love these young women- they are great girls! And I love camp. This year, since I have Tristan, I couldn't sleep over. I was a bit sad about that- I hate missing anything! But, I did enjoy getting showers and A\C at night but don't think I got any more sleep then I would have if I slept over. My mom came up a few times to help with Tristan. I put a lot of long hours in and Tristan was a champ putting up with it all (and got lots of attention from the girls.)
It was really neat to see how much the girls have grown and matured in one year. They are all such great ladies and I know the Lord has a lot of good stuff planned for them in this life. I too, got to grow and mature and had to do a few things that were outside of my typical comfort zone.
Some highlights from camp:
(with pictures randomly thrown in. These pictures aren't the best because I"m purposely picking pictures that are kind of vague as to who is in them because I don't know if its OK to post pictures of people with out permission.)
A great FHE with our bishop and a great dinner (taco salad) provided by our Relief Society. We were all stuffed in our cabin for FHE because of a big rain storm that came at the perfect time, but I think the coziness was a good thing.
A truely fabulous value walk. It was great! So spiritual.
Awesome ward shirts that fell apart before our eyes (grrr. cheap iron on transfer paper). Being surprised with some lovely bandannas and ice cream pops by a wonderful sister in our ward.
Some really awesome\spiritual mini-classes. I missed 2 of them though. But I got a narrative of them and they sounded great. The one I did make it to was a really inspired one about focusing on the positives in life.
A great testimony meeting outside. Being read to at ward devotional.
Scripture scavenger hunt and fun bed treats and goodies hidden in\on people's beds.
Pine-wood derby cars and racing
Archery, Swimming, Kayaking (which I could not do.)
Hikes and learning camping skills (certification). I really enjoyed participating in dutch oven cooking- it was so yummy! And I got to make a cupcake in an orange. Cool!
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
A Little Known Anxiety of Mine...
Well, I am knee deep in Girl's Camp preparations. Only 1 week (exactly) to go. Its all coming together but there are still things that need to be done and completed. It never fails that when I am under pressure or stress that things always happen to add to my stress. I guess it is refinement by fire.
Yesterday I finally stopped by the bank to get my dad his money. I pay all his bills and manage his money so I often have to go to the bank and pull cash out of him. It is something that takes so little effort but yet it always hangs over my head and I don't particularly like this role in my life. So I ran by his house literally just to drop off the money and to run because we were on our way to Garrett's first occupational therapy appointment. My dad had been sick with the same type of illness we all seemed to have the other week but because of his health it hit him harder. When I stopped by he wasn't doing well and he told me his doctor diagnosed him with pneumonia and wanted him to go to the hospital. But he refused. He insisted he would not go to our local hospital and the same with the VA hospital. He decided that he would wait until Wednesday and if he was not better by then, then he would go to the hospital. Whey Wednesday? Its just a date he picked, that in his mind makes sense, because his doctor keeps giving him shots of medication and gave him several prescriptions, so he feels he needs to give those medications a chance to work. It was obvious that he needed some food in the house as well and I should have gone shopping for him but I was on our way to the appointment. So he said he would try to get his friend to go and if she wouldn't he would let me know. (And that friend better do it, in my mind, because she is always taking, taking and hardly ever giving!)
Then he gave me a copy of some blood work to take a look at. He told me his doctor says his kidneys are failing and his liver is in bad shape again, and that he should get on the transplant lists for both organs. None of this stuff is very new. Its all stuff that we know is out there. Its simple that we don't know when all this stuff will come true. We know, all too well, the path his health will eventually take, but we don't know when or at what rate. And I also don't know how much to believe my dad. Not that he would out and out lie about his health- its more of an anxiety thing. He gets anxious about it and sometimes blows things out of proportion or reads things in between the lines that aren't actually there. When he gets like this I often feel like I need to go to the doctor with him so I can hear it all for myself straight from the doctor's mouth.
The reality is his health will eventually slowly decline. I just don't know when. I try not to think about it or to have anxiety over it. But I don't always know if that is the best thing for me to do. How do you prepare for something that you know will happen but you don't know when? How do I prepare for something when his resources (like money) is so tight? How do I find a balance between helping him, spending time with him, all the while having such a young, busy family?
(picture taken when we had gotten to the hospital for his transplant. Its funny because you hurry up, just to wait.)
Seven years ago, the day Sierra was stillborn, he had a surgery that gave him some bad news. He was in Delaware at the time and was not able to be there for me when I had Sierra. A few months later, on what should have been the week of Sierra's birth, I got a phone call from Hospice that I needed to move in with him (in Del, we were in MD) so that I could help take care of him. At that time he was not willing to get a transplant for his liver and thought "just let me die in peace." So for 5 weeks I lived with him in his little apartment in Del. I remember I watched a lot of TV and scrapbooked a lot. Brian would take the long trip over to visit on the weekends when he could. It came to the point where we needed a long (short) term solution and the summer was coming which meant I had my nanny job to do (I used to nanny for twins with disabilities every summer.) So he moved into a nursing home. That was hard for everyone but especially for him. He had to say goodbye to his cat and most of his stuff. He was going in there knowing he would die there. We had to clear out his little apartment and try sell a boat (that was in the water and had no trailer! good grief.) We made so many long trips from MD to DE. He got a lot worse. The thing about having a liver problem is that it is not a smooth and easy death. When the liver stops cleaning the blood certain chemicals accumulate in the system. It caused hallucinations and an altered state of mind. My dad even became violent (not like him) and the nursing home sent him to the ER and would not take him back. So the social workers had their hands full trying to find a new nursing home to take him. This all was not pretty and not easy. I remember literally talking with Brian in the car and saying something like "at this rate he is going to die pretty soon." But somehow he didn't. He got a bit better and he begged to go out of the nursing home. He hated it and still has nightmares about it. Somehow we had him move in with us and had hospice to help us (at this time we had just moved to Bel Air.) While I was taking care of him I couldn't work (its a hospice rule that there is a full time caregiver.) At this point my dad finally starting thinking "maybe a liver transplant wouldn't be so bad after all." So we started seeking help in that direction. Hospice dropped us because once you aren't considered dying in the short term or you are seeking life sustaining help- you don't qualify for their services. That was a bit hard. Johns Hopkins wasn't much help. If we stuck with them I'm pretty sure he would have died a long time ago. Somehow we found Georgetown University's transplant team, near D.C. They were great. He got on the list ASAP and one day we got the call that there was a liver for him (it helped him that he has one of the rare type of blood- the line is not as long, plus his scores were that bad he was bumped way to the top of the list.) At this point my mom moved to Maryland from Nebraska. She had been wanting to come back east to be close to use kids but didn't have a lot of money and I needed help. My dad couldn't really live with us much longer because by this time I was pregnant with Garrett. So the plan was they would share an apartment for a while. So Dad got his transplant and it was a long, long, long ordeal. The transplant itself went OK but beyond that it didn't go all too well. He spent a lot of time with the tube down his throat, he got an infection, etc. He was in the hospital for about 3 months. It was terrible. And more long, long drives all the way to D.C. this time. But he eventually made it out of the hospital. Him and my mom (who have been divorced since I was like 5 but have always been on pretty good terms) shared a rental town home for a while so she could help take care of him until he was up to par. He was able to make it to Garrett's birth. And I remember he didn't see our first house for a long time after we bought it.
(picture: my dad in the back, this was when garrett was born. He was so skinny! My father-in-law, David, is also in this picture.)
So that is that story in a nutshell. There have been many ups and downs. Things I can't take the time to write right now and perhaps don't care to write about. It was a trying time back then. This all happened after I lost my first baby. I was about 22 yrs old. Sierra was suppose to be a newborn when my dad got sick. Sometimes I wonder, what would I have done if she had not died? I have no idea. Those are things I probably should not think about.
(And I realize that I neglected to write why my dad was so sick. He has Hepatitis C which is not curable once it become chronic. Hep C affects the liver and makes it fail eventually. So his "new" liver is being destroyed by the Hep C and his kidneys have been damaged from the transplant\anti-rejection medications.)
So back to the present: I called today and he is feeling better and feels like he is over the hump of pneumonia. His new medication seems to be helping. So that is good. I am hoping he will be a lot better by the end of this week so he doesn't end up in the hospital and so I won't have to worry about him while I'm at camp. Also, the week after camp he is moving. We were told he could get his keys on that Monday. He needs to be completely out of his old apartment by that Wednesday. He found out today he might not get his keys until Wednesday or Thursday now. There is a good chance we will be under pressure to get him moved out on time and to make matters worse- we have to hire some strong able men to help move all the big stuff, and we can only move him into the new apartment during weekday business hours. Brian is taking off from work to help.
So, all this is why I couldn't sleep very well last night. I'm feeling better about it all today. Its life. What ever happens, when ever it happens, we will survive. There is not much choice.
Yesterday I finally stopped by the bank to get my dad his money. I pay all his bills and manage his money so I often have to go to the bank and pull cash out of him. It is something that takes so little effort but yet it always hangs over my head and I don't particularly like this role in my life. So I ran by his house literally just to drop off the money and to run because we were on our way to Garrett's first occupational therapy appointment. My dad had been sick with the same type of illness we all seemed to have the other week but because of his health it hit him harder. When I stopped by he wasn't doing well and he told me his doctor diagnosed him with pneumonia and wanted him to go to the hospital. But he refused. He insisted he would not go to our local hospital and the same with the VA hospital. He decided that he would wait until Wednesday and if he was not better by then, then he would go to the hospital. Whey Wednesday? Its just a date he picked, that in his mind makes sense, because his doctor keeps giving him shots of medication and gave him several prescriptions, so he feels he needs to give those medications a chance to work. It was obvious that he needed some food in the house as well and I should have gone shopping for him but I was on our way to the appointment. So he said he would try to get his friend to go and if she wouldn't he would let me know. (And that friend better do it, in my mind, because she is always taking, taking and hardly ever giving!)
Then he gave me a copy of some blood work to take a look at. He told me his doctor says his kidneys are failing and his liver is in bad shape again, and that he should get on the transplant lists for both organs. None of this stuff is very new. Its all stuff that we know is out there. Its simple that we don't know when all this stuff will come true. We know, all too well, the path his health will eventually take, but we don't know when or at what rate. And I also don't know how much to believe my dad. Not that he would out and out lie about his health- its more of an anxiety thing. He gets anxious about it and sometimes blows things out of proportion or reads things in between the lines that aren't actually there. When he gets like this I often feel like I need to go to the doctor with him so I can hear it all for myself straight from the doctor's mouth.
The reality is his health will eventually slowly decline. I just don't know when. I try not to think about it or to have anxiety over it. But I don't always know if that is the best thing for me to do. How do you prepare for something that you know will happen but you don't know when? How do I prepare for something when his resources (like money) is so tight? How do I find a balance between helping him, spending time with him, all the while having such a young, busy family?
Seven years ago, the day Sierra was stillborn, he had a surgery that gave him some bad news. He was in Delaware at the time and was not able to be there for me when I had Sierra. A few months later, on what should have been the week of Sierra's birth, I got a phone call from Hospice that I needed to move in with him (in Del, we were in MD) so that I could help take care of him. At that time he was not willing to get a transplant for his liver and thought "just let me die in peace." So for 5 weeks I lived with him in his little apartment in Del. I remember I watched a lot of TV and scrapbooked a lot. Brian would take the long trip over to visit on the weekends when he could. It came to the point where we needed a long (short) term solution and the summer was coming which meant I had my nanny job to do (I used to nanny for twins with disabilities every summer.) So he moved into a nursing home. That was hard for everyone but especially for him. He had to say goodbye to his cat and most of his stuff. He was going in there knowing he would die there. We had to clear out his little apartment and try sell a boat (that was in the water and had no trailer! good grief.) We made so many long trips from MD to DE. He got a lot worse. The thing about having a liver problem is that it is not a smooth and easy death. When the liver stops cleaning the blood certain chemicals accumulate in the system. It caused hallucinations and an altered state of mind. My dad even became violent (not like him) and the nursing home sent him to the ER and would not take him back. So the social workers had their hands full trying to find a new nursing home to take him. This all was not pretty and not easy. I remember literally talking with Brian in the car and saying something like "at this rate he is going to die pretty soon." But somehow he didn't. He got a bit better and he begged to go out of the nursing home. He hated it and still has nightmares about it. Somehow we had him move in with us and had hospice to help us (at this time we had just moved to Bel Air.) While I was taking care of him I couldn't work (its a hospice rule that there is a full time caregiver.) At this point my dad finally starting thinking "maybe a liver transplant wouldn't be so bad after all." So we started seeking help in that direction. Hospice dropped us because once you aren't considered dying in the short term or you are seeking life sustaining help- you don't qualify for their services. That was a bit hard. Johns Hopkins wasn't much help. If we stuck with them I'm pretty sure he would have died a long time ago. Somehow we found Georgetown University's transplant team, near D.C. They were great. He got on the list ASAP and one day we got the call that there was a liver for him (it helped him that he has one of the rare type of blood- the line is not as long, plus his scores were that bad he was bumped way to the top of the list.) At this point my mom moved to Maryland from Nebraska. She had been wanting to come back east to be close to use kids but didn't have a lot of money and I needed help. My dad couldn't really live with us much longer because by this time I was pregnant with Garrett. So the plan was they would share an apartment for a while. So Dad got his transplant and it was a long, long, long ordeal. The transplant itself went OK but beyond that it didn't go all too well. He spent a lot of time with the tube down his throat, he got an infection, etc. He was in the hospital for about 3 months. It was terrible. And more long, long drives all the way to D.C. this time. But he eventually made it out of the hospital. Him and my mom (who have been divorced since I was like 5 but have always been on pretty good terms) shared a rental town home for a while so she could help take care of him until he was up to par. He was able to make it to Garrett's birth. And I remember he didn't see our first house for a long time after we bought it.
(picture: my dad in the back, this was when garrett was born. He was so skinny! My father-in-law, David, is also in this picture.)
So that is that story in a nutshell. There have been many ups and downs. Things I can't take the time to write right now and perhaps don't care to write about. It was a trying time back then. This all happened after I lost my first baby. I was about 22 yrs old. Sierra was suppose to be a newborn when my dad got sick. Sometimes I wonder, what would I have done if she had not died? I have no idea. Those are things I probably should not think about.
(And I realize that I neglected to write why my dad was so sick. He has Hepatitis C which is not curable once it become chronic. Hep C affects the liver and makes it fail eventually. So his "new" liver is being destroyed by the Hep C and his kidneys have been damaged from the transplant\anti-rejection medications.)
So back to the present: I called today and he is feeling better and feels like he is over the hump of pneumonia. His new medication seems to be helping. So that is good. I am hoping he will be a lot better by the end of this week so he doesn't end up in the hospital and so I won't have to worry about him while I'm at camp. Also, the week after camp he is moving. We were told he could get his keys on that Monday. He needs to be completely out of his old apartment by that Wednesday. He found out today he might not get his keys until Wednesday or Thursday now. There is a good chance we will be under pressure to get him moved out on time and to make matters worse- we have to hire some strong able men to help move all the big stuff, and we can only move him into the new apartment during weekday business hours. Brian is taking off from work to help.
So, all this is why I couldn't sleep very well last night. I'm feeling better about it all today. Its life. What ever happens, when ever it happens, we will survive. There is not much choice.
Friday, June 11, 2010
My day: Some Reasons Why I love Summer
Late morning: Baby went down for a nap. Garrett and I worked on cleaning up his room.
Grandma came over. When Tristan woke up from his nap she took both kids for about 3 hours. They went to a little game fair for the developmentally disabled (where she works.) Garrett had fun and won several beach balls and got cotton candy. I took the time to get do some paperwork done and continue to work on my latest project- managing clothes. I finally have the kid's clothes up to date.Now just a bit more work on the adult clothes. (I think the house is slowly getting more together now, finally.)
Once the kids came home we drove to the Bel Air library. I hit the book sale and got a ton of books for only $10. My mission was to find books I can use for home-school and I did pretty well. I'm most excited by the art books I got! (Their fate will be with an x-acto knife.) Next, we headed to the park behind the library for a surprise birthday party for one pretty little 7 yr old. My friend, who lives between 1/2 the years in India and 1/2 the time in Maryland surprised me yesterday with a phone call announcing she was in the area- surprise!! Yeah! She was able to arrange a prompt-to playdate\birthday party with our group. It was fun! We mothers sat in the grass, catching up and having fun, while the kids played happily. It was a good time (and super nice the kids did so well playing together.) I love this group of friends- they have been my "mommy" friends since Garrett was about 6 months old.
After a few hours, most of us made our way to a mime concert at Mt. Zion church. I've been trying to see this a mime show for 5+ years (one of the "mommy" friends is the founder or main leader of this mime troupe.) It was really neat. The troupe is called Silent Witness Mime Ministry. They have kids as young as 11 up to adults. Their concerts focus on biblical\gospel principles. One of Garrett's favorite skits was called The Machine. It was about two kids who got a present- a machine they had to assemble. They set about to build the machine but the 1 child did not want to use the instruction manual- so she threw the instruction manual away and tried to do it all by herself! They went about making this machine (the other mime's were the machine parts). They eventually got it together and it worked briefly but then broke and fell apart. So they finally picked up the instruction manual and followed the directions. This was then related to how the Bible is our instruction manual. How often do we disregard it, thinking we can do it all on our own? Only to finally pick it up when we realize we can't do it all on our own. One of my favorite skits was called the Mirror. It was about how our true value- that we are so much more then what we see in the mirror. It was neat and nice to finally see a performance. Local friends, I highly suggest going to one of their concerts if you ever have the chance!
After the concert we drove home and "oh look, its the first movie night on the lawn!" The little church down the road from my house was just starting the movie and Garrett begged to go. This is one of Garrett's and mine favorite summer activities. We have been going to this little church to enjoy their movies on the lawn for years. Its so close to our house we always walk. So we grabbed the stroller and blanket and walked to the movie. (It was already 9:10 by this time.) We got our free snowballs and pop corn, watched about 25 min of the movie and then left because the baby was tired and wasn't falling asleep nursing.
So that was my day. Tomorrow I'm off to NJ for my niece's 1 yr old birthday party.
Grandma came over. When Tristan woke up from his nap she took both kids for about 3 hours. They went to a little game fair for the developmentally disabled (where she works.) Garrett had fun and won several beach balls and got cotton candy. I took the time to get do some paperwork done and continue to work on my latest project- managing clothes. I finally have the kid's clothes up to date.Now just a bit more work on the adult clothes. (I think the house is slowly getting more together now, finally.)
Once the kids came home we drove to the Bel Air library. I hit the book sale and got a ton of books for only $10. My mission was to find books I can use for home-school and I did pretty well. I'm most excited by the art books I got! (Their fate will be with an x-acto knife.) Next, we headed to the park behind the library for a surprise birthday party for one pretty little 7 yr old. My friend, who lives between 1/2 the years in India and 1/2 the time in Maryland surprised me yesterday with a phone call announcing she was in the area- surprise!! Yeah! She was able to arrange a prompt-to playdate\birthday party with our group. It was fun! We mothers sat in the grass, catching up and having fun, while the kids played happily. It was a good time (and super nice the kids did so well playing together.) I love this group of friends- they have been my "mommy" friends since Garrett was about 6 months old.
After a few hours, most of us made our way to a mime concert at Mt. Zion church. I've been trying to see this a mime show for 5+ years (one of the "mommy" friends is the founder or main leader of this mime troupe.) It was really neat. The troupe is called Silent Witness Mime Ministry. They have kids as young as 11 up to adults. Their concerts focus on biblical\gospel principles. One of Garrett's favorite skits was called The Machine. It was about two kids who got a present- a machine they had to assemble. They set about to build the machine but the 1 child did not want to use the instruction manual- so she threw the instruction manual away and tried to do it all by herself! They went about making this machine (the other mime's were the machine parts). They eventually got it together and it worked briefly but then broke and fell apart. So they finally picked up the instruction manual and followed the directions. This was then related to how the Bible is our instruction manual. How often do we disregard it, thinking we can do it all on our own? Only to finally pick it up when we realize we can't do it all on our own. One of my favorite skits was called the Mirror. It was about how our true value- that we are so much more then what we see in the mirror. It was neat and nice to finally see a performance. Local friends, I highly suggest going to one of their concerts if you ever have the chance!
After the concert we drove home and "oh look, its the first movie night on the lawn!" The little church down the road from my house was just starting the movie and Garrett begged to go. This is one of Garrett's and mine favorite summer activities. We have been going to this little church to enjoy their movies on the lawn for years. Its so close to our house we always walk. So we grabbed the stroller and blanket and walked to the movie. (It was already 9:10 by this time.) We got our free snowballs and pop corn, watched about 25 min of the movie and then left because the baby was tired and wasn't falling asleep nursing.
So that was my day. Tomorrow I'm off to NJ for my niece's 1 yr old birthday party.
Wednesday, June 9, 2010
Birthday Week Re-Cap
The week before Garrett's birthday (June 1st) Brian had off from work. We enjoyed just being home and trying to get a lot of stuff around the house done.
(In this picture Garrett is thinking: 'Finally, only 1 link left on my birthday chain- the day we leave to go to the hotel and then the next day is my birthday!')
Then on Memorial Day we headed to Lancaster, Pa on a family vacation\ birthday celebration. We had the honor of "borrowing" our 5 yr old nephew (and Garrett's best bud), Chris Jr for the trip. On Monday we checked into a hotel in down town Lancaster which was way too fancy for our crowd of 2 bouncing-off- the walls-youngsters and 1 baby who likes to scream for a good hour every night we are traveling (but the hotel was the cheapest rate we were able to get!) We were on the 17th floor (and yes, one of the kids pushed the emergency call button in the elevator and the operator was asking "is there an emergency?") That evening it stormed badly, which was interesting to watch being so high up. But the rain didn't stop our fun- it was swimming time in the fancy swimming pool. (It was also Tristan's first time ever swimming, but I don't have pictures because Brian is anxious around swimming pools and never joins the fun-so I had no one to take pictures for me.)
On Tuesday we woke up and Garrett opened presents.
Then breakfast at Friendly's and off to Dutch Wonderland
We were very blessed in that the weather was nice. Thunderstorms were being called for but they never came. And because of the supposed weather the park was rather empty and the lines really short. We never really had to wait in line and by the evening the lines were so none existent we went on the large roller coaster several times with out stopping (and much to my dismay, the same with the small roller-coaster. The lady kept saying "one more time?" and the kids were so excited to go again with out hardly stopped. I groaned each time but I faked enthusiasm. I don't like those small roller-coasters because they are so jerky!) It was a good day at the park. The only thing that I was sad about is that for some reason I wasn't feeling too great for most of the day and didn't have my normal amusement park energy.
One intersting thing to note which will be fun to remember in a few years because it perfectly depicts Garrett at this point in his life. When we were leaving D.W for the day Brian told the boys they could buy something from the gift shop- anything that was $10 or less. Chris Jr picked out a toy gun. What did Garrett pick out? A big bag of Twizzlers. All he wanted was candy.
That night, more eating out and then night swimming (I didn't get in this time and the baby fell asleep pool side.)
Next morning, we checked out of the hotel, ate at Olive Garden (yummy food but the kids were a bit too rowdy- I had to take them outside to run around quit a bit. We should have known better!) Then the boys played miniature golf. This was Chris Jr's first time ever playing!!
Then we hoped into the van. A few Amish horse and buggies later, we were home. (And boy were we adults tired! And Brian was ready to have some alone time!) Aunt Heather came and stayed for a while and then took Chris Jr home (he lives in southern NJ.)
A few short days later, on Friday the 4th, we had a Backyard Birthday Bash. Except it rained for the first 20 minutes. So we ended up starting inside my house (which I was totally bummed about because my whole plan was to have no one in the house except for the bathroom and stuff like that. My house just gets too small so fast and my downstairs was not clean! It also threw some of my pre-planning off) But oh well. The storm was nasty everywhere else but here and we were just lucky it stopped so quickly.
We eventually made it outside and did some fun things.
All this followed by this very awesome and yummy cake made by our very own Megan B.
(The cutting and serving the cake and ice cream was the most stressful for me and Brian because we were all crammed into my dinning room because of the dripping trees and general wetness outside.)
After cake and ice cream there was presents. And eventually everyone left. And Garrett was happy and I was *tired* and thinking "I'm not doing this next year!" (but as Brian pointed out- you know I will.)
Then on Memorial Day we headed to Lancaster, Pa on a family vacation\ birthday celebration. We had the honor of "borrowing" our 5 yr old nephew (and Garrett's best bud), Chris Jr for the trip. On Monday we checked into a hotel in down town Lancaster which was way too fancy for our crowd of 2 bouncing-off- the walls-youngsters and 1 baby who likes to scream for a good hour every night we are traveling (but the hotel was the cheapest rate we were able to get!) We were on the 17th floor (and yes, one of the kids pushed the emergency call button in the elevator and the operator was asking "is there an emergency?") That evening it stormed badly, which was interesting to watch being so high up. But the rain didn't stop our fun- it was swimming time in the fancy swimming pool. (It was also Tristan's first time ever swimming, but I don't have pictures because Brian is anxious around swimming pools and never joins the fun-so I had no one to take pictures for me.)
On Tuesday we woke up and Garrett opened presents.
Then breakfast at Friendly's and off to Dutch Wonderland
One intersting thing to note which will be fun to remember in a few years because it perfectly depicts Garrett at this point in his life. When we were leaving D.W for the day Brian told the boys they could buy something from the gift shop- anything that was $10 or less. Chris Jr picked out a toy gun. What did Garrett pick out? A big bag of Twizzlers. All he wanted was candy.
That night, more eating out and then night swimming (I didn't get in this time and the baby fell asleep pool side.)
Next morning, we checked out of the hotel, ate at Olive Garden (yummy food but the kids were a bit too rowdy- I had to take them outside to run around quit a bit. We should have known better!) Then the boys played miniature golf. This was Chris Jr's first time ever playing!!
(bonus points for hitting the ducks!)
Then we hoped into the van. A few Amish horse and buggies later, we were home. (And boy were we adults tired! And Brian was ready to have some alone time!) Aunt Heather came and stayed for a while and then took Chris Jr home (he lives in southern NJ.)
A few short days later, on Friday the 4th, we had a Backyard Birthday Bash. Except it rained for the first 20 minutes. So we ended up starting inside my house (which I was totally bummed about because my whole plan was to have no one in the house except for the bathroom and stuff like that. My house just gets too small so fast and my downstairs was not clean! It also threw some of my pre-planning off) But oh well. The storm was nasty everywhere else but here and we were just lucky it stopped so quickly.
We eventually made it outside and did some fun things.
Painting on the fence:
Horse shoes and Frisbee horse shoes:
(if you happened to see a big, nasty bruise on my arm lately, its from the Frisbee hore shoes!)
Generally outside silliness:
(some boys were climbing up on this rope and getting pretty far! My neighbor has a better picture.)
Followed by some silly outside races: A sack race and "ice and spoon" race. (I don't have many great pictures because I was using the video camera most of the time)
All this followed by this very awesome and yummy cake made by our very own Megan B.
In this picture Garrett was asking me to help him blow out his candles. He was being a bit shy and was a bit upset that we sang him happy birthday but I'm not sure the other guests picked up on it.
(The cutting and serving the cake and ice cream was the most stressful for me and Brian because we were all crammed into my dinning room because of the dripping trees and general wetness outside.)
After cake and ice cream there was presents. And eventually everyone left. And Garrett was happy and I was *tired* and thinking "I'm not doing this next year!" (but as Brian pointed out- you know I will.)
The End
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