what's next?

I wish I could have an idea, follow through, and then be happy with the outcome.  Here I find myself a few short months away from graduating college, which I have worked really hard at and I'm already thinking about what's next?  I want to pursue midwifery but am I too old to commit to that much schooling?  I'm trying to tell myself to just get through graduation, get a job and see where it leads but I've always got to be thinking of what happens next.  Not sure why that is, I'm never content!

Things are at a boiling point with Hailey at school.  She and a girl she's been back and forth with all year got into a physical fight yesterday.  And again today the girl came into the bathroom and if someone hadn't stepped in would have probably escalated to violence again.  Combine that with the teacher who seems to enjoy humiliating 8th graders, the principal and administrator who don't do a whole lot about it, the police department that doesn't want to be bothered.......... well, I'm frustrated.  We are just counting down the days until school is out, next year she will move onto high school which will be MUCH better as the principal there is much better at what he does.  Tomorrow Hailey and I are going to talk to the guidance counselor and see if maybe a meeting with this girl to talk things down may be something we could do.  Let's hope so!

Anyway, not much to report I guess.  I'm on my off work stretch which means catching up on sleep and housework, not too exciting!

Inspiration

I know a lady who is everything I have always wished I could be.  She's proud, she's humble and she doesn't let anything stand in her way.  She gives with all of her heart to every person who needs it yet loves her family fiercely.  And she's given up so much for what she believes in.

I have sat back and watched her for many years.  The way she seemed to handle everything with ease, the way she seemed to have the midas touch.  And wished I could do the same.

Why can't I?

My gears are turning folks.  I think maybe the stars aligned to allow me the freedom to do what I need to do.  I think I have some thinking to do.  I may be onto a big adventure.

bullies

If you've read this blog for any length of time you know we've struggled with my daughter and school.  I will admit that my daughter is her mother's child.  She's hard headed, strong willed, opinionated and passionate.  I love that about her.  I raised her to think outside the box and to question authority and to challenge what you are told as fact.  Because of this, my daughter often gets herself into a bit of trouble.  She doesn't yet have enough control over her emotions, and at 14 years old definitely doesn't possess the maturity to always say what she needs to say in a productive way. She is very blunt and calls it as she sees it.  That filter that most people have, the one that allows us to roll our eyes AFTER we've turned away, the filter that keeps our mouth closed tight and makes us bite our tongue when what we would really like to do is tell someone just how idiotic they are.  That filter?  My daughter doesn't yet have one.

Now, she comes by this quite honestly.  I have been known to storm in, guns blazing, kicking ass and taking names and asking questions later.  Especially when it involves my children.  Ya just don't mess with mama bear's cubs.

Anyway, because of my daughters passion she gets herself in trouble.  She's often in the midst of whatever drama is going around and even I am frequently unsure and have to ask who we are hating on this week because it's surely different.  She has that one best friend of course, through thick and thin (although I sometimes think this friend makes things worse!).

I usually do my best to let the middle school drama play itself out.  Unless it starts getting out of hand these kids will usually figure things out on their own, and quite honestly, by the time you interfered they will most likely be the best of friends already when just a minute ago they wanted to kill each other.  It's part of growing up, it's part of learning skills we need in adulthood.

But I have a problem with adults who are bullies.  A big problem.

Hailey has a teacher this year who meets this criteria.  She makes frequent snide, off the cuff remarks and to listen to her talk, seems to be right on the same maturity level of the 14 year olds she teachers.  I've always thought this, but paid her no attention because I didn't really need to.  Hailey dealt with her fine on her own, although they butted heads from time to time it never really got too crazy.

Until now.

Hailey joined track again this year.  You might remember last year how I was beaming with pride as my daughter finished the 800 a half a lap ahead of any of her competitors.  Hailey really has a gift for running, and track gives her pride.  Every year her behavior improves, her grades improve, her self esteem improves.  It's great to have her so focused on something.

Well this year she has a new coach.  One who pretty strictly adheres to the athletic code.  You see, Hailey isn't a great student.  She just isn't.  She can bust her ass all day and pull a C if she's lucky.  She has an IEP but if you know anything about our school district you know they are a joke here.  She's hard to teach, I know, I've done it when we homeschooled.

Well her coach decided that he would allow the "passing or sit out" rule to be waived IF Hailey's teachers said she was showing improvement week to week.  We were thrilled about this and Hailey took it on wholeheartedly.  She even brought her English grade to an A!!!!

However Science and History are a struggle.  Even kids who are honor roll students all their lives get tripped up with this science class, so it's no surprise she's failing.  She's also failing history, which she has with the above mentioned teacher.

Well, this past monday Hailey came home upset because this teacher told her she would not be allowing her to run in the track meet.  This was MONDAY.  Basically this teacher wasn't even interested in allowing Hailey to try, she had made her mind up and sure enough, despite Hailey turning in every assignment all week, she refused to sign off on Friday so Hailey did not get to run in the track meet.

Hailey's confidence is broken.  She decided not to attend track practice today and chose instead to work on some homework with her friend.  Although I'm thrilled, I"m sad. She's writing track off.  This teacher has continued to bully her with snide comments such as today when someone commented that Hailey's hair looked different this teacher said "maybe she finally washed it".  That kind of statement has no place coming from a teacher.

The mom in me wants to go and show her what it feels like to be bullied.  But certainly someone whose target is children has very little self esteem themself and because of that I should feel sorry for her. I did however email the principal and told him this will NOT be tolerated.  I'm not sure how far to go with it as Hailey is already afraid the teacher will retaliate against her because of anything I do.  Where is the fine line between teaching your child to respect others and allowing them to stand up for themselves?

Jobless

So, come July 1st I will be jobless.  After almost 2 years working in Registration at the hospital.  In January I went from 2 hrs per week float shifts to 30 hours per week overnights.  I can't say overnights has been especially pleasant.  In fact it has taken a toll on me, my family, my schoolwork.  But I still planned to continue until August when I hoped I could just move into another job with the same clinic that owns our hospital.

Until I realized that my Externship, which takes place from July 6-August 27th isn't one day a week as I thought.  This externship requires me to put in 180 hours in 7 weeks.

I immediately went into full blown panic mode.  I may work 10 hours less a week than most people who work full time, but give the fact that my shifts are 10 hour overnight shifts, given the fact that I have six kids, given the fact that my health both physically and emotionally aren't the best due to the stress of it..... well, this is not going to work!

So my husband and I decided the only option would be for me to leave my job (hopefully I'll be able to stay on pool status!) and concentrate on finishing school.  I have some PTO I will get when I leave, and we have some money we've been saving and Craig's child support is finished as of May 11th and my ex is now paying his again so....... we'll be ok.  We'll be better off than we were when I was a SAHM actually but when you get use to having extra money, well it's hard to give that up!

But I have to take care of me first.

And I hate nights.

I've lost my muchiness.

If you haven't seen the new Alice in Wonderland yet you MUST MUST MUST see it.

There are two quotes I absolutely love in that movie.

"You've lost your muchiness.  You used to be much muchier" -The Mad Hatter

And

"you're downright bonkers.  But all the best people are"- Alice's dad

None of us are perfect.  Nobody fits inside a neat little package and is stamped with a quality control sticker.  And that's completely ok.  Society puts so much pressure on us.  I remember when my daughter was in kindergarten and a little girl in her grade wasn't eating lunch because she was "fat".  I remember just recently my daughter telling me she wanted to lift weights because she was too skinny.  My response?  Says WHO?  Who gets to decide what is too much or too little of anything.  What makes YOU perfect might be something completely different than what makes the next person perfect.  All I really know is that I'm happiest, and as close to perfect as can be when I'm honest with who I am.  You know what?  I'm a tiny bit chubby.  I've got freckles and should have had braces on my teeth and I had 3 moles removed from my face that have left raised scars.  And I fight with depression and anxiety and you know, may just be downright bonkers.  But that's me.  And that makes me happy.

From now on, I'm going to be much muchier :)

Beltane

Today is Beltane. The Pagan holiday that celebrates fertility.
This holiday, at this time of the year speaks to me. You see, out of my 9 pregnancies? 6 of them were conceived in the spring, 3 of them passed on to the other side in the spring.
This Beltane is bittersweet due to recent events. Fate made it possible for my husband and I to both have it off work. We plan to construct a Maypole for the kids to dance around and to light our first backyard fire with some friends, kick back with some "smushmallows" and Corona's and reflect on the beauty that surrounds us, because with 18 pregnancies between the two families? Celebrating fertility only seems proper.
Happy Beltane to all my friends, no matter what your religious affiliation. Oh, and if any of you were wondering where the idea of the Easter bunny came from?........ you only have to think of Beltane and what bunnies do best my friend.

Baseball season begins again!

I love late spring.  One of our favorite things to do this time of year is park our butts on cold hard bleachers twice a week and watch Christian's little league games.  We bring snacks, we buy snacks, we take our turn selling snacks in the concession booth but mostly we get loud and rowdy cheering for our boys.  This will be Christian's 3rd year playing and Jacksen is looking forward to being able to join in a couple years.

Go Bulldogs!

Auschwitz

So for some reason last night I spent too much time on the internet looking at photos and reading stories of survivors of the death camps.

http://www.ankerjorgensen.dk/auschwitz/

And as I was looking at the pictures I paid extra attention to the faces of the parents of the many children in the photos. The children looked as children do, a bit afraid but confident. Children have this sense that their parents will protect them, will take care of them. In looking at the photos of these children I feel a sense of peace, these children had no idea what was happening to them until it was far too late. By the time they realized something bad was going on the gas was in their lungs and they were losing consciousness. But the parents, although for the most part they didn't exactly know their fate, they had a good idea that either way, it wouldn't be good.

As they stepped, fell, or were shoved off the train cars at the unloading docks and sorted into a group that would either be the workers (mostly the men and young women) and those who would instantly die (older women and children) they had to know that whatever their fate, it would be difficult. There was no peace. Many of these people had come from "ghetto's", places where people lived sometimes hundreds to a building the size of an outhouse or an underground hole. They weren't, for the most part, taken from the lovely upper-middle class houses they once knew, their lives had been painful and hard for quite some time.

Looking at pictures of the "sorted" as they stood in lines, or huddled in groups I had the same response as most people. Those poor people.

What would it have been like as a mother to have your child ripped from your arms, knowing in your heart of hearts you would never see him again?

What would it be like for a father to tell his children to jump from a moving train in hopes of a chance, to see them shot to death as they fell to the ground?

What would it have been like watching your child starve to death, or sweat from typhoid in front of your eyes?

What would it have been like to walk carrying your cooing infant into the gas chamber?

I thought of my children, all of them. And I couldn't fathom it. And then looking through the pictures on various sites I caught the eye of a mother as she looked at the camera with her child in her frail arms and I realized.....

I HAVE done it. I have handed my child over to strangers unknowing if they would be able to help, or ultimately hurt him because doing so was they only chance he had.

I have set my newborn down on a bed and watched them cart him off to the operating room where they would stop his heart.

I have watched my child waste away because he was so fluid overloaded his tissues couldn't even take a tiny bit of parenteral nutrition.

I have wiped the sweat from my son's brow as he struggled desperately to live, smoothed the creases in his forehead from the pain that stayed long after he fell into a drug induced sleep, rubbed the dents out of his edematous back where the soft lambs fur blanket he slept on pushed into him.

And I have walked away from my son, knowing it would be the last time I would ever see him.

I'm not any different than those mothers in those photos that my heart bleeds for, the difference is? I had to live to feel the pain it caused. And although I have no trouble acknowledging and validating their pain I haven't allowed myself to validate my own.

What's my name again?

So my teenage daughter thinks it's hilarious that my ring tone is tik-tok by k$sha (yeah, I even put the dollar sign, I'm THAT cool) and that my most comfy outfit consists of some kick ass looking jeans, a tank and an Aeropostale tiny tee with my blue Aero hoodie, with flip flops. I'm just very fortunate that I'm not a size zero like she is or she'd probably steal my clothes.

This blog post has nothing to do with that.

This post comes from the realization that I am SO glad I'm blogging again. I feel so good getting my thoughts into print and so liberated that I can just open this page, put my fingers to the keyboard and type whatever it is flies out of them. I finally have a place where I can be me, uncensored. ME, the girl who even at 33 loves Aeropostale and Vanity, who even when she's crying her eyes out can dig deep and find the humor in absolutely anything, and I do mean anything. ME, the chick who had some bad shit happen to her and is finally standing up and saying "NO, I'm not ok". JUST ME. That girl that I use to know so long ago, whoever she is.

I like her. And I like it here.

Silliness

So, some things do make me immensely happy. Like my family, my kids, photography, and my Mac. If you ever have the opportunity to spend an afternoon playing with photo booth on a mac computer with your kids you'll never laugh so much in your life, I promise. Here's a few from some of mine and Nate's photo shoots!

Tears and fears

So today I am sitting at home on a rainy afternoon watching Harry Potter movies. For some reason since the miscarriage I have been very dizzy and thanks to some wonderful co-workers was able to take last night and tonight off work, good thing since I probably shouldn't be driving with the world spinning at random times.

Anyway. Someone asked me if I've ever thought of medication for the depression. I have used medication before actually. I was on Prozac for a while which did really well for me until one day I realized something both amusing and startling, an intended effect of the drug I'm sure but one that made me realize it's limitations.

I was unable to cry.

In a situation where a normal person would have shed tears I was unable to do so. I was unable to feel anything with a deep enough feeling to actually show emotion. While this allowed me to take some control back when I felt like I had lost it, it was not a good long term solution to my depression and so I went off the medication and regained my ability to feel and to cry and process.

I need to feel. Even though it was 4 years ago that my son died I still do need to feel that loss. Because it's not going anywhere. Even if I were able to stuff it deep down in a place where I didn't have to see it, it would still be there waiting for me to deal with it. Ignoring it isn't going to make it go away and it's not going to help me get through it. So I choose not to medicate.

I do have an appointment set up with a Psychologist in June to discuss some of these things and discuss my options. Mostly my anxiety is what is difficult to get a handle on and what I think I need the most help with. I think that when I'm feeling the most depressed it is actually a side effect sometimes of the anxiety, the anxiety makes me unable to sleep, eat, or focus and that makes everything else in my life slide until it gets overwhelming.

At this point I think I would be willing to medicate for anxiety if the doctor presented that as an option. If only for a break until I can regroup maybe.

Let me out of the box!

A friend messaged me on Facebook after reading the last couple blog posts. I can always count on her to be right there and honest and she asked me if I was afraid of people in the community judging me, you know looking at me with the sad clown face. Being the poor depressed mom with all those kids.

The truth is. Yes. I am. I remember when Alex died and shortly after attending one of the kids' concerts and feeling like every eye in the entire gym was on me saying "Oh there's the woman whose baby died". Of course none of those people would do the right thing, which would have been to walk up to me and say something, they simply stared like I had somehow grown an extra head and was now something of a novelty.

Now maybe that will happen again. And you know I guess it's ok. It's ok because I need people to know the real me. I need to know the real me. I'm not perfect, and neither are you. We all have skeletons in our closet, I'm letting mine out and it's LIBERATING!

As you might have noticed I took a bit of a haitus from the bloggy world.  I wasn't sure this blog was serving it's purpose anymore, it's purpose being letting me be honest with myself.  In fact, I know it wasn't.  So I took a break, took some time to think about what my writing does for me and what my live might show someone else.  And in re-inventing this blog I did some looking around on the internet. I read about depression, I read about motherhood. I read about lose and love and I read about failure and I read about honesty.

I found a quote that said "The definition of honesty is being what it seems". How simple is that? Being what it seems. It seems so simplistic and real and innocent.

It's hard to be honest with yourself. It's even harder to make yourself accountable for the truth to other people. To put your vulnerable self out there to be scrutinized but everyone you know, and some you don't. It's a scary prospect.

The truth is that as long as I can remember I have struggled with depression. If I had to make an unofficial guess I'd say my mother and my sister also deal with it. And I see it taking my daughter too. And that's why I realized it's time to be honest. For me. For them. For her. It's time to be what I seem. To stop pretending.

The fear takes over. You see, it doesn't matter if you are depressed because someone just died or if you are full on hearing voices and think you are Allah. Mental illness is mental illness. People see mental illness as weakness. Weakness is failure. Failure is bad.

You see. I'm afraid. I'm afraid that someone who knows my children will read my words and tease them, I'm afraid that some people will finally see the real me and not like what they see.

But you know what? Living with depression and fear and anxiety and loss doesn't define me. It does play a large part in who I am and sometimes it has a front in center voice in the things I do. But it doesn't make me a bad mother. It doesn't make me incapable. It doesn't make me ungrateful. And it doesn't make me unfixable. It is something that will always be with me, like it or not. But it's time to start being honest with it, being honest with myself and strip the fear and the facade away so I can be the one in control.

Private

The title to the following, when it was saved on my computer was "Private". It was actually typing in that name that made me realize the problem with it. I knew enough to know I needed to write. Writing has always been an outlet for me. But I've always kept the REAL stuff I write private. My blog sometimes brushed the edges of my true feelings but it was mostly a mask, and when it wasn't a mask it was simply a manifestation of my problem in a different way. I would stand up on my soapbox and take a stance and be proactive and loud about issues because it was easy to do that. Not that I didn't believe in those issues, I still do, but really I was ranting and raving because I was unable to say hey, I'm mad, I'm hurting, and right now I need to yell.

Anyway, the following is something I wrote and because I never intended to share it with anyone I realize how honest it is. This post is the one I always plan to look back on with this blog when I feel like I am covering, when I feel like I am censoring. Because I NEED to be real here. This blog won't be all sadness and pain, because my life most definitely isn't all sadness and pain. But it does need to be real, and this post is going to keep me real. I hope.

~~I need an outlet. I don’t really feel like there’s anyone in my life I can be 100% honest with. I have to keep it together for one reason or another in front of every person I know. I have friends that judge me even when they don’t think they do, Craig hurts as badly as I do and I fear if I started to tumble I’d just take him right along with me. So I have to wake up every morning and pretend nothing is wrong day after day and carry the weight of my burden. Cry tears in private and put ice on my face trying to hide the evidence. The truth is, if anyone had any idea on a daily basis just how close I am to a mental break they would shit. There are days I have to fight with everything I have not to let my head go there because I’m afraid that one time when I actually let it happen, let the pain and the fear and the sadness come out uninhibited……. It won’t stop.

I feel like I’ve had so much taken from me and I don’t know why. Then I look at it from the other light like I know I’m suppose to and know that I am blessed. But does being blessed and grateful for what I have mean that I can’t mourn what I don’t? Is that why I feel like I’m failing if I acknowledge the pain? Because if I am honest with my losses and my pain and my fears I think somehow that means I don’t appreciate the wonderful things I do have? I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I fear that someone else will be taken away from me and I will regret allowing myself a minute away from being grateful for them.

I feel so trapped by my pain and my fears and my feelings of failure. Even as I type this and the tears I’m trying desperately to quash stream down my face I’m afraid Craig will wake up and see me crying. I hate it when he sees me cry. I know he wants to help but I can’t open up to him.

It’s just not fair! I wanted this baby, and the one before, and Alex. And I know we don’t always get what we want but my god for most people they want to win the lottery and don’t. me? My children die. WTF? I don’t think I ask for too much. I’m content living paycheck to paycheck. I’m happy with my older cars and my old house that needs constant TLC. I’m not asking for a million dollars or a house on a mountain or wishing impossible things. All I want is for the people I love to be alive and healthy and to be given the wisdom to be able to figure out how to do what’s right for them. Is that too much to ask?

I’m afraid to admit this, really, openly because people assume everytime someone is depressed they are suicidal. I’m not suicidal, the last thing I want is to be away from my family, they are the only thing that brings happiness to my life. I’m the opposite of suicidal. But sometimes it does seem like a nice reprieve to just be able to sleep through the sadness. Sometimes I wish I could somehow be so far under the pain that it couldn’t touch me. When I passed out the day I started bleeding, for a split second I had that feeling as I went down seemingly in slow motion. The feeling that I was unable to care for those few seconds. I was unable to feel fear or pain or anything. And I liked it.

I wanted that baby god damnit. And I don’t care if it was my 8th or my 1st or my 15th it was just as wanted as any of my other children. Knowing he or she was in there made me happy. Made me feel hopeful and joy and excitement. To me having kids isn’t about some status quo, it’s not that it’s what a couple does when they are married. It’s not some 2.2 standard that society imposes. Everyone of my children brings me more joy than I have ever been able to get anywhere else in my life and doubt I ever would be able to. But at the same time every one of them have the ability to destroy me. I give a piece of myself to each baby unconditionally, and sometimes they leave and take it with them. Some might think that it would be wise to stop giving those pieces away, because it’s destroying me little by little. But for me, that immense joy of a new person in my life , a perfect little person created by me and my husband, the moments with your children that literally suck your breath from your chest and you wonder how you would have ever been able to survive without this person in your world, those moments are so important to me that I am willing to put that piece of myself on the ledge that is the question of life and see if it will stay with me or teeter off the edge, gone. And maybe that’s how I’m slowly destroying myself.

Maybe someday I will succeed. Maybe someday I will give all of my pieces away and all of them will be gone and I will find the numbness I felt in the moments before losing consciousness. Maybe then loving them so won’t hurt anymore.

You were real

Seven days ago I found out I was pregnant. After two years of maybe we're trying maybe we're not I was pregnant. I sent Craig a picture of the positive test in a text message while he was at work, with the words DO NOT TELL ANYONE attached to the message. You see, 2 years ago, almost to the day I also found out I was pregnant. We lost that baby at 10 weeks.

For someone like me, miscarriage is a direct failure. I try so hard to be capable, to be ABLE. And when my body blatently defies me in the worst way possible I see it as a fault. To tell everyone that I had lost the baby to me was as embarassing and disturbing as if I were telling people I had forgotten my child at the mall.

I immediately called my midwife's office and asked for the 7-8 week ultrasound I was promised if there would happen to be a next time. I kept trying to tell myself it couldn't possibly happen again. Who has a problem with miscarriage after 7 uneventful pregnancies? I ignored the logic that it might be the same person who after 7 pregnancies suddenly finds herself not pregnant after "kind of" trying for 2 years. I tried to ignore the line on the 2nd test I took a day later which was 2 shades lighter than the first.

2 days ago my fears were confirmed again. I went to the bathroom and saw the slightest tinge of blood. And I promptly passed out cold in the pile of dirty laundry in the bathroom. My kids found out I was pregnant because an ambulance had to come for their mother.

And I have sat here, pretty much alone with this aside from a couple of people I have felt safe talking about it with. Because I felt like I failed again. I failed at the one thing I was ever good at, babies. And if I am not good at the one thing I was ever good at, what does that mean?

And you know, I now feel guilt for keeping it a secret. That baby was alive. And it deserved to be acknowledged. And I loved it and I wish it could have stayed and I wish the one before it could have too, and I wish Alex was still here. And I wish I could be a mom of 9 like I should be right now. And to wish that ISN'T being ungrateful for what I have even though my mind tries to tell me it is. To wish that is to acknowledge that I did nothing to deserve this. This isn't failure and it's not my fault.

What it is

We have all heard of depression. We picture people (usually women) sitting in bed with a box of tissues sobbing. But what we don't think of is the woman laughing in line at the grocery store. She's depressed too. We also don't look at the mom lovingly pushing her son on the playground swing. She's depressed too. And the guy in the next cubicle at work with the pictures of his happy family on his desk? Yep, he may be depressed too.

Are these people masking? Are they in denial? Maybe.

For me, it's complicated as I'm sure it is for so many. Most people think depression and suicidal thoughts/tendencies go hand in hand. I can honestly say that through my entire life battling depression I have not once been suicidal. Not even when the good doctor looked at my True/False answers on some confusing questionairre and demanded I be committed to suicide watch in high school. Not even when I was seeing hallucinations in the throes of post partum depression and threatened to take a bottle of pills if my husband left me alone. Not even when my son died. Not even then.

There have been many times I prayed to be comfortably numb. I prayed for the ability to just not care for once, to not feel the pain or the fear or the sadness for once. But I've never been suicidal. Quite the contrary, I have such extreme anxiety I sometimes can't stand it. My old therapist called it PTSD, from what only a hypnotic regression session would say. I never did have that session. The anxiety is overwhelming most of the time. As I type this I am seeing my husband and youngest son out the picture window cleaning out the car out of the corner of my eye, and it's all I can do to push the visual of him getting hit by a car out of my mind. Realistically I KNOW he's within arms reach of his father, who would give his life to protect him. But that gives me little relief from the fear.

My battle with depression is a mixture of tears and joy, of smiles and sobs. It isn't just the times when I cry or fear or avoid or mask or stand on my soap box, it's also the times when I love and laugh and play and feel the warmth of things that make me happy. It is a journey to finding me, one that I am going to force myself now to walk honestly.

A splash of color

So I love painting, but I've always been really cautious of colors because, well.... who wants their house looking like this.

Or this

Or this

Ok you get the picture.  I was scared man.  You don't mess around with walls.  Paint isn't as cheap as they say.


So anyway, when we moved into this house we had this great glass topped table with an aluminum frame (which I sadly can't find a picture of).  It was gray and black and gold.  So when it came time to do away with the wretched eggshell white walls of new sheetrock we decide to go with a contemporary look.  A medium gray color with black accents.  You can see a bit of it in this pic, right behind the kids drooling over cake. 

So our dining room and living room are connected by a large entry.  Over the years the living room evolved into a very cozy place to hang out.  As it should be.

Please disregard the mess.  And ya know, the slew of bodies lounging around.  But hey, it's a comfy room, we like it there.  The walls are covered with pictures of moose and deer and bears and lots and lots of oak things.  
So you can see my problem.  Comfy woodsey living room segues into...... black and gray kitchen?  What?


I never could figure out what color to paint the dining room to help it blend more until one day while driving I happened to see into someone's window (really, I was in my car and not peering in people's windows nose to the glass stalking paint choices).  And saw a house with this marvelousely dangerous deep red color.  It got my little gears turning.  Could I pull it off?


So yesterday I drug Craig to Menards for paint.  Craig hates to paint.  And by hates it I mean he'd rather see the house fall down in shambles than paint it. He hates painting and because he's a guy he couldn't care less if there's color on the walls and couldn't tell you the difference between eggplant and...... well, I don't know what color eggplant is either, but that's beside the point.


So Today I got up early and decided it was painting day.  Of course that meant that Craig would help me, because he feels guilty if he doesn't.  I was all set to do it myself though.


Halfway through I realized the black chair rail was scuffed up and sent Craig out for some black paint.  while he was gone I had to run to the bathroom and just knew Nate was going to destroy the place.  I came up to find him, hands dripping in paint, fingerpainting the walls.  I really should have taken pictures but I was so mad I could spit.  At least he painted the RIGHT walls. So after cleaning my child, the floor, and the legs of the table off we finished without a hitch and ended up with this.

I'm happy with it.  It still kind of has a little bit of a contemporary feel but definitely warms up the granite in the table.  I decided to keep the black accents and am absolutely thrilled with the outcome.  Go color!

ugly paintjobs courtesy of www.uglyhousephotos.com

February is CHD awareness month

Did you know that a simple Pulse Oximeter could save your babies life?  You know, the little thing with the red light they put on your finger at the clinic.  It only takes seconds and if done with routine vital signs in the first days of life at the hospital can detect the most serious heart defects.  


This test likely would have alerted us to Alex's problems hours before he became a critical mess. Without the stress of that first struggle for life he may have been strong enough to withstand the weeks to come.  We will never know, but what we do know is that if we can help ONE parent ask for this test and possibly save her child, we should.  Because Alex would want us to.


Share this on your blog, website, whatever.  I appreciate the link back to us if you do.


Some people are born with special hearts, the rest of us have to work at it. 

My very own pirate

So.  You may remember that my little dude Nathan was diagnosed with a Congenital Cataract at 4 months old which you can see in some pictures where the camera flash bounces off of it. 

And that we had been seeing a Pediatric Ophthamologist, Dr A.  Who prescribed glasses for our little dude at 13 months old because of some nearsightedness in that eye.

Ok not THOSE glasses.  These

Well, every few months we went back to Dr A who always said we would see what happened at the next visit, and the next, and the next.  And this kept on until while we watched this:

Nate's eye turned more and more inward.  At his visit with his Pediatrician this fall she took one look at his eye and said "Oh my, what is Dr A saying about that".  So we filled her in that he was, essentially saying and doing nothing.  We all agreed that it was time for a second opinion.  So, after fighting with our insurance for a while we finally got to see this guy. 

Dr B works at the University of Minnesota Fairview.  We are quite familiar with that place.  

So Dr B had his students examine the little dude(after all, this is a University) for pretty much an eternity.  Our little dude was amazingly Patient as they repetitively asked him what was on this picture or that, shined bright lights in his eyes, and even when they dilated his pupils. As they were doing their tests Craig and I realized it didn't look good.  We were no doctors, but it was obvious little dude couldn't see out of his right eye. As one student would leave and go get another to confirm her findings Craig and I exchanged worried glances.  Finally, just as it seemed little dude was no longer going to be distracted by Curious George or be the cooperative 2 year old we had been so impressed with, they told us they were finished, and now we could see the doctor.  Who would essentially do it all over again.

Dr B was thorough but quick and little dude fell asleep on daddy dude's lap as we discussed the situation.  And what a situation it was.  

Little dude, Dr B explained, is "legally blind and then some" in his right eye.  The bomb dropped on the table and you could have heard a pin drop behind it.  What? When did this happen?  How did we miss this?  How the heck does a child go blind while under the care of a "skilled" Ophthamologist?  What now?

Well, now comes the hard part.  Dr B explained.  What happened was this.  Little dude was born nearsighted.  In the beginning of our lives the eyes don't see together.  They battle for attention from the brain to develop.  Since little dude was born so nearsighted in the one eye, it couldn't compete for attention and was left in the dust when the brain decided to kick it to the curb and favor the left eye.  So little dude became essentially blind in his right eye while his brain chose to only recognize things seen with the left. This is called Amblyopia or "lazy eye" (which contrary to popular belief is not an eye that wanders).  Once the brain turned the right eye off, it began to slowly turn in, having no purpose.  This is called Estropia.   So Little dude started off with nearsightedness and a Cataract (which we are told is never going to be an issue for him) which turned into more problems.

The hard part is that in the first 4 years of life there is this window to turn that eye back on.  After age 4 there is some hope, but not much.  Since little Dude was about to turn 3 we decided that we must be very aggressive to try to get whatever vision he was going to have back.  An insurance policy Dr B said.  In case something were to ever happen to the eye with good vision. How would we do that?  Eye patching.  Agressive eye patching.  Every waking hour ideally.  Many kids are patched for a couple or a few hours a day, we need little Dude patched "maximally".   "It's going to be hell" Dr B told us.  And that was the understatement of our year.

Equipped with our box of patches we go home and make a plan to start patching after Christmas, which was in 2 days.  I ordered some neat patches online and we made the committment to do this, completely underestimating how hard it would be on us all.

For the first 2-3 weeks patching went like this:

Put the patch on and the screaming ensues:

After about 10 minutes the pleading begins, while he peeks the eye open, does the Stevie wonder and the alternates between screaming and pleading.  

Then, due to the lack of visual stimulation he sleeps:

When he wakes he sneaks off and throws that patch on the floor

Lather. Rinse.  Repeat.  All day long.  Every day. 

But slowly but surely, if we could catch him before he peeled it off we got more time.  5 minutes here. 30 minutes there. With the increase in time we also noticed something even more miraculous.  He was getting off the couch, walking around.  Eventually navigating the stairs and playing with his siblings. And then trying to play with some toys... and then even trying to look at a book!  Mind you most of these attempts ended with "I can't seeeeeee" and my heart smashing into tiny peices, but he was trying.  And my god, could it be?  The vision was improving to slowly allow him to do more and more.

We saw Dr B again a few days ago and he was very excited by the progress.  He said if all we ever get is the "walking vision" we have achieved that is a valuable gift we've given him. He also said that the patching was trying to turn the brain back on, we discussed Lasik surgery for the nearsightedness (although will probably just continue with glasses, for the added benefit of protecting that good eye) and surgery in the next year or so to fix the Estropia, we can help little dude to live a great productive life.  He will drive, he will do all the things little dude's do.  

And I leave you with a picture of my favorite pirate:

I'm baaack

So I needed a bloggy break I think.  I moved servers first and then wasn't happy and kind of just quit for a while.  Which is ok because maybe I can find my inspiration again in my writing, it was lacking for a while.


So many things have changed in the past couple of months.  I'm still plugging away at school, now in clinicals which I will finish in April and then start my externship with graduation in August.  I can't wait to be done!  I'm getting a little burned out!


I also made a change at work.  I am still teaching prenatal/breastfeeding classes and have now changed my registration schedule to overnights.  It has been way more of an adjustment than I was anticipating and has been quite a difficult transition for all of us.  Always the insomniac I thought it would be easy.  There I go thinking again.


Another big thing, well decision anyway.  We are moving to Texas after I graduate this summer! I know, crazy right?  TEXAS?  What are we thinking? If you never questioned my sanity before you might now.  Why Texas? No clue.  We need to get away from the town we live in and all of the small town drama that goes with it.  The school is ok at the elementary level and the High school level is alright but at the Middle school level it completely drops the ball, I'm not willing to put the rest of the kids through what Austin and Hailey have had to deal with there.  The issues with drugs and small town kids with nothing better to do than cause trouble for others has gotten to a breaking point for us and it's time to go.  


But why Texas?


Well, we hate the cold so why not?  If we are going to move and find new jobs, a new home, new schools why not just go? Start new somewhere?  


Can we say scared shitless?  


But crazy excited too.  It will be worth it.  


So, welcoming myself back to the blogosphere.  I've missed you my faithful followers (all 13 of you).  Over the next few days I'll update you on the craziness of the last few months in the life of this mom of many.  And I promise I'll never leave you again.