First Day!

We just put our first baby bear on the big yellow school bus for the first time. It's a day that seemed so far off four years ago. A day I prayed we would see.

Some parents will tell you this day is bittersweet. Well, it wasn't at our house. It helps that John was beyond thrilled to be going to "the big school" and really did not appear one bit nervous until maybe the first step on the bus. And only then, maybe just a little; he didn't hesitate a bit.

he's complaining about being cold.

It wasn't bittersweet for Matt and me. It wasn't bittersweet because, let's be perfectly honest and tell it like it is: we're just glad he's not dead!

I counted maybe three tears that I cried as the bus drove off with my firstborn, while Matt smiled and we congratulated ourselves. They were happy, happy tears. 

Still cold, and now staring uncomfortably into the sun.
It's too bad mom isn't a better photographer!

The more time and distance John puts between him and Stage IV neuroblastoma, the happier we are. But I really don't think it's John's medical history alone that accounts for this feeling. I've never been a mom who has lamented the passage of time and the associated growing up of my babies. 

"They're only little for a little while," those older and wiser than me will say. And my reply? "Thank God!"

My career goal, as a mom, after all, is not to produce a gurgling infant, a potty-going toddler, or a chattering preschooler. My goal is to produce strong, faithful, confident, considerate, productive citizens of our community. Wishing they would stay babies does not advance this goal.

No, I'm not wishing their lives away, but I enjoyed parenthood more when John was a toddler than when he was an infant, and more as a preschooler than as a toddler. And, each day with PW is a little more tolerable than the one before. (sorry Patrick, I know you'll read this someday, but you are, my dear boy, a challenge of a whole different sort)

Related: for the first time in 5 years, diapers are not on our shopping list! At least not for a few more weeks. Thank you, P. Dub! (and thank you, daycare for helping me out with this project!)

Barely related: parents who are potty-training, I recommend Pampers Easy-Ups over Huggies pull-ups. They're much, much less expensive, and the sides don't velcro shut, which I prefer because after all, the idea is they're NOT diapers, so you don't want your kid to unfasten them like diapers. Better yet are reusable waterproof training pants. I've purchased several pair via Etsy.

And now...he has Mom & Dad all to himself...
at least for a few more weeks.

John will get off the bus at Kids R Us and eat lunch there before Matt picks him up at noon. I'm so jealous that his teachers there will get to hear all about his first day before I do.

PRAISE GOD!

Things you might not know about my Grandma

My grandmother, Elizabeth Bradley died Monday morning. You probably already know that by now. We miss her now, but the truth is, we've actually been missing her for years. Sometimes suddenly, and sometimes gradually over my grandmother's last several years, she has left us a little at a time. So profound is the difference between the "Grandma Elizabeth" of my childhood and the "Old Ma" of these last several years,  I offer the following in tribute to the sturdy, vibrant woman whose life of nearly 88 years we will celebrate tomorrow.


http://www.dossfuneralhome.com/obit2.html 

The following are some things I'd like to share about my grandma; things you may not know, or things you may have forgotten.

1.            My grandma did a lot of fun things with us when we were kids. She and my grandpa took us fishing. And she dressed the fish; I can remember plainly the thud of the hammer against the fish's head on the picnic table as she gave the fish a good sturdy whack before cutting into it behind the gills. She took Ben and Jonathan to the gun & dog auction, and she happily got up at the crack of dawn to go yard-saling with my mom, Aunt Myrna, Jessy and me.

2.            She read us stories when we stayed with her on sick days, and she made us jello and tapioca pudding. She also introduced me to that fabulous breakfast treat: peaches & cream Quaker instant oatmeal...with oreos crumbled on top. Yum! Cornbread, Tang drink mix, popcorn, homemade noodles cut with the noodle disker, and of course, there was the special RED birthday cake. These were her special treats for us.

3.            She was my grandpa's most faithful farmhand, even after they were "retired" and living in town. He still needed someone to open the gates.

4.            She did not add enough sugar to her iced tea or pies, and she only allowed a tiny sliver of cool whip with a slice of pumpkin pie (or any other dessert that required a garnish of cool whip). So, Dad and Uncle Duane would bring their own tea and cool whip to Christmas, Thanksgiving, etc. My parents had conflicting opinions as to why my grandma, who was certainly a good cook, used sugar/cool whip so sparingly. My mom's opinion was that grandma was convinced excessive sugar in one's diet brought on diabetes; my dad's take was that she was "too cheap" to buy sugar.

5.            My dad had only recently learned (when he took over her grocery shopping for her) of her daily addiction to the above-referenced "fruit and cream" variety pack of Quaker instant oatmeal (though she didn't add the oreos daily...or at any time except when entertaining grandchildren). My dad was shocked/awed/appalled/betrayed to learn that this woman whom he knew to be the most frugal of the frugal purchased this product. He would have been surprised to learn she even knew such a product existed and purchased it as an occasional luxury splurge. To learn that she consumed it as a DAILY INDULGENCE...wow...let's just say that's not how he claims she raised him.

6.            She never owned a TV with a remote control. She never bought a converter box, and she never bought a digital TV.

7.            She also never threw anything away.

8.            She loved clothes. And shoes. And purses. And costume jewelry. All secondhand, or homemade, of course. It's one personality trait that left years ago, as evidenced by the fact that she completely wore out her last purse. She used to switch purses multiple times per season. She gleefully dug through piles at yard sales and racks at secondhand stores, often remarking how hard it was to find good stuff "these days" at yard sales.

9.            She carried my grandpa's wallet in her purse from the time he died until she did. She told me she kept an "emergency $20 bill" in it, "just in case" so Grandpa could help her out if she ran short at Aldi's or KFC or wherever. I checked her purse recently. His wallet was still in there, but the $20 had long since been spent. I wondered at that point if she even remembered why she carried that wallet with her anymore. I also wondered why on earth she insisted on lugging that heavy purse around with her everywhere, when she could barely even lug herself around anymore.

10.       Her middle name was Adelaide, and she didn't particularly care for it.

11.    My grandma was a practical pessimist. And why wouldn't she be? The fifth of 8 children, she lost her dad when she was about 10 years old. She lost her firstborn in infancy. A daughter, Janet Faye. Nearly 20 years ago, she lost her husband, my Grandpa Pearl. Almost 12 years ago, she buried a son, Duane, and a little over a year ago, she lost her daugher-in-law, my mother, Diane. She survived all but one of her seven siblings.

She often made comments, such as, "I just don't see why I'm still here. Why hasn't He taken me home yet?" That was the sort of comment she would make regarding death. In response to one such comment she made at the visitation of one of her siblings, my dad replied, "You're not dead yet because He's waiting on your attitude to improve."

Toward the very end, she sometimes wouldn't even comment. We would ask her how she was doing, and she would often just turn her hands, palms up and shrug in a helpless, frustrated gesture that said it all.

When I was a child, she was often quoted saying, "Life's a bitch, and then you die." Now, please understand, my grandmother didn't swear. Except for when she would say "Life's a bitch, and then you die." So, yes, she had a generally pessimistic attitude. But it was because she was looking forward to going home; not because she was looking back and dwelling on all the heartache she had endured. So, maybe we could say she was very optimistic about her pessimism.

But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that lies within you. --I Peter 3:15

Happy St. Patrick's Day

The Prayer of St. Patrick

I arise today

Through the strength of heaven; 

Light of the sun,

Splendor of fire,

Speed of lightning,

Swiftness of the wind,

Depth of the sea,

Stability of the earth,

Firmness of the rock.

I arise today

Through God's strength to pilot me;

God's might to uphold me,

God's wisdom to guide me,

God's eye to look before me,

God's ear to hear me,

God's word to speak for me,

God's hand to guard me,

God's way to lie before me,

God's shield to protect me,

God's hosts to save me

Afar and anear,

Alone or in a multitude.

Christ shield me today

Against wonding

Christ with me,

Christ before me,

Christ behind me,

Christ in me,

Christ beneath me,

Christ above me,

Christ on my right,

Christ on my left,

Christ when I lie down,

Christ when I sit down,

Christ in the heart of everyone who thinks of me,

Christ in the mouth of everyone who speaks of me, 

Christ in the ear that hears me.

I arise today

Through the mighty strength 

Of the Lord of creation.

I try to pray this prayer each morning while I'm brushing my teeth. Now that you've been inspired...ARISE TODAY!

The Lost is Found

"Think back to the last place you saw it..."

My mother's words of wisdom were running through my head.

Except I was so tired of hearing them, that they were running through my head in a nasal, high-pitched mocking tone. I had been searching for the last hour (actually, re-searching where I've been searching for a week). I had finished rifling every toy box and crap stack upstairs and had moved on to the basement. I'd been at it for the better part of an hour. 

I'd just finished (re)searching the basement cave. It's a room full of green beans (thank you, Nesting Season '09) and stuff for my next yard sale.  That's when I heard this voice in my head. A week ago, my mother's patient, logical voice in my head had been encouraging, even soothing. By now though, it was grating.

Frustrated, I continued the (re)search in the sewing room. Less than 30 seconds in to that phase of the search, I found it.

The missing cordless phone.

Right next to my mom's sewing machine.

Laying there, right in front of a gold picture frame.

A gold picture frame that holds a smiling, patient picture of my mom.

"See? I told you it would be in the last place you look," she said.

Maybe it's a smiling, patient, but oh-so-subtly mocking picture now.

Losers

A rambling stream of consciousness on lost items and the losers who lose them:

If we're friends on Facebook, you're aware that one of our cordless phones has gone missing. We have two interchangeable handsets: one upstairs and one downstairs in my office. The batteries are so worn out on each of them that I frequently swap them; one phone usually won't last me the whole day in my office. Leave it off the charger? Well, that's bad news.

The beauty of the cordless phone is, of course, also its weakness. You've never lost an old-fashioned, wall-tethered phone, have you? It's not possible.

At some point in cordless phone history, manufacturers became aware of the tendency of the handset to go AWOL, and added the "find the phone" button to the base unit. It's pretty simple: just push the button, and the missing handset starts to beep like crazy, thereby saving, minutes, hours, or in our case, theoretically even DAYS of searching. A wonderful innovation...as long as the battery is not dead in said phone.

The problem is, I couldn't remember that I needed to press the "find the phone" button when I was in proximity to the base. You see, the one handset that isn't missing, has been in my office because a tax accountant does have some need of a phone this time of year. Since one phone was right there on my desk, it didn't really register (at such a convenient moment) that I should push the button. I would remember when I was upstairs, with a need to use the phone, but, I guess that's when my cell phone would come in handy (assuming it wasn't lost at that moment).

I finally got around to pushing the handset locater button yesterday. Guess what. My phone that won't keep a battery charge for 5 hours...won't keep one for 5 days either. There was no beeping. The phone is still missing.

No, PW, I don't think it's in the barn.

I hear my mom's calm, logical voice inside my head, just as clearly as if she were standing next to me, "Think back to the last place you saw it..."

Oh, wait, that's not her voice; that's mine.

A dozen times a day, John and I have the following conversation:

John: "Mom, can I have some apple juice?"

Me: "Yes, where is your cup."

John: "I don't know."

Me: (patiently) "Think back to the last place you saw it..."

John: "I don't know!"

Me: (less patiently) "Go find it. We're not starting a new sippy cup every time you want a drink. Only one cup per day; that's the rule."

John: whine, whine, whine, whine

Me: "Go look for it if you want a drink."

John: more whining

Me: I start looking for it, while he goes off to do something totally unrelated, largely unproductive, and entirely unlikely to result in location of above-referenced sippy cup. I finally give up, with the realization that the 20 minutes I've spent looking for the damn cup will not result in 20 minutes of time-savings from not having to wash an extra sippy cup that will serve as proxy to the cup that theoretically still exists somewhere in the house and will at some point, with enough searching, be located, albeit full of chunky, foul-smelling milk, or fermented juice .

When something is lost, I think of Uncle GAR. (not my uncle, the boys' uncle) Uncle GAR is good at losing things. Keys, hat, sunglasses, wallet, cell phone...nearly every time he and his long-suffering wife are home for a visit, it seems the weekend ends with the same scene: Auntie MAR making repeated trips to load the car, while GAR frantically searches for this, that, or the other (sometimes it's this, that, AND the other).

By virtue of being prone to losing things, Uncle GAR is very good at finding things. I think his secret is persistence. He doesn't give up; he looks until he finds it.

The night before John's big surgery...his exploratory laparotomy with excision of retroperitoneal mass...I was panic-stricken. John's Marian medal had gone missing. It had been given to him, along with one for me and one for Matt, when he was first diagnosed. It said "O Mary, conceived without sin, pray for us who have recourse to thee." I pinned it to his onesie every day using the safety pin that held the ends of his broviac (central line) in place. And at night, or in the hospital, while his central line was accessed (negating the need for the safety pin), I pinned the medal to his silky green blanket.

Because we had to be at the hospital very, very early for surgery, we were staying in Columbia at Uncle GAR and Auntie MAR's house. That evening, when we discovered it was missing, we all looked and looked for it, to no avail. All four of us, but especially Uncle GAR. We finally gave up and went to bed without having located it.

So we left for the hospital the next morning without it.

In the PICU, following above-referenced exploratory laparotomy.

I don't remember exactly when, but sometime that day (I think that morning before he went to work), Uncle GAR found it. It had mistakenly been thrown away with the medical supplies we had used to flush his broviac the night before. Yes, Uncle GAR had dug through the trash to find it. You know...it's always in the last place you look...

Thank you, Uncle GAR and St. Anthony.

John with Uncle GAR and Auntie MAR

Playing at the grain bin job site

I still haven't found the phone, but when I was looking for it this evening under the couch, I did find something else that had been missing...PW's gum boots. So, maybe we'll call it a wash.

Sleep

Supposedly, it's right up there on the list of human needs along with food and water. But I'm here to tell you today that sleep is overrated. I don't think I've blogged this topic before.  Warning: some deep, dark secrets and personal character flaws are about to be revealed.

Why?

I think because in my mind, I've worked this out to be our own personal cross to bear, refusing to believe anyone else has experienced/is experiencing what we are.

So, I don't like to hear:

"Oh, I know that's just awful. You must be exhausted. Billy never slept well until he was in the 5th grade"

Seriously, you think this is helpful...5th grade is 10 years away!

or (worse),

"Oh, I've been through that. It'll get better. They grow up so fast!"

Whatever. Clearly you have no idea. If you did, you wouldn't say something this stupid to me.

or (worse-er),

"Well, that must be awful. I can't even imagine what that's like. I was so lucky that my kids always slept through the night."

Why are you telling me this!!!!! Is this supposed to make me feel better?

or, the one that causes the most rage:

”Wow, we've always been so lucky with Sally's sleeping; I know I couldn't get up and go to work if I didn't have a good night's sleep the night before."

WHAT!!!! HELLLLLOOOOOOO?????? I WORK TOO! I cook clean-up after at least 3 meals a day AND run an increasingly busy accounting practice. ***have to admit here though, this has gotten better because I finally put the boys in daycare mornings 4 days a week.***

Keep in mind the person forming all these mental responses (me) is not playing with a full deck. Sleep deprivation makes a person cranky and irrational. All of the above statements were likely intended to be sympathetic, rather than rage-inducing. And, I realize that I too have found myself guilty more than once of saying a variations of these stupid things to desperate moms.

Ok, so back to my thesis: "sleep is overrated."

John taught us that a body can function on less than the recommended 7-8 hours of nightly sleep. A lot less. The first night John was at home, he screamed the.entire.night. All of it. I'm not exaggerating. His sleeping was terrible. The irresistible question from friends and strangers alike seemed to be, "Does he sleep well?" And when I would answer honestly, I would get one of the aforementioned responses. Well, that got old, so I kept it to myself and put on a happy, perky face.

So, nine months later, we found out that he had a big, giant tumor. And another little tumor. And diseased bone marrow. Hmm. Maybe that's why he couldn't sleep. (wouldn't eat and couldn't poop)

By this time, we were already accustomed to sleeping with him. It was the only way any of us could get any sleep. The time he spent sleeping in his bassinet was literally a few hours. Not a few hours at a time. A few hours. TOTAL.

The time he spent in his crib was similarly limited. The only way any to get any sleep was to become co-sleepers. So we did.

By the time we got to June and his diagnosis, we were well accustomed to sleeping with him, so sharing a hospital bed wasn't that much of an adjustment, though it took some convincing (and a power struggle between me and one of the nurses) to get approval to have a regular hospital bed and not a baby crib for our room. (that's probably a whole blog in itself)

We continued to sleep with John all though chemotherapy and beyond. It wasn't a big deal He was a quiet sleeper, even if a light one. He would lay there in his bed, perfectly still, literally for hours, just staring up at the ceiling, as Don Williams's Greatest Hits played over and over and over, until Matt or I would give up and fall asleep ourselves. We'd wake up and sneak out, then repeat a few hours later. Nothing but sheer willpower kept him awake.

You're probably wondering, "Why didn't you just Ferberize him?" (that means let him cry until he learns to go to sleep on his own.) Well, we did try that a few times between 6 and 9 months. Turns out, HE HAD CANCER! That's some guilt I don't want any other parent to know. And why didn't we Ferberize him later? Like after he was perfectly healthy? Well...it's not really an option when your child's bedroom doesn't have a functional door. And it wouldn't have worked anyway.

Finally, a few months shy of his third birthday, John's sleeping problems disappeared, and he's slept wonderfully since. We said, "Listen here, kid. This stops now. Go to sleep, and you will earn a special treat in the morning." Praise God, it worked. (the special treat was a new book)

Wait. 

Don't think for a minute we've enjoyed great sleep since May 2010. Nope, nope, nopey, no, no. Don't forget about PW.

This child (as they usually are, I hear) is a whole 'nother story.

As an infant, he had to sleep upright because he seems to have been born permanently congested. So he'd sleep propped up or I'd hold him all night long. He at least slept some in the bassinet, but went on strike against the crib at about 13 months. That damn crib has been the most useless piece of baby paraphernalia in our house. Leave him in the crib to cry, and puke would ensue. Plus he had the, "I can't breathe. My nose is so stuffy" excuse. "Just hold me and rock meeeeeee!!!!!!!"

He goes to sleep fairly easily around 8:00/9:00. One of us lays down with him for about 10 minutes until he falls asleep, but invariably, he's trotting into our bedroom about midnight. It seems he prefers memory foam. And at least one parent. And it also seems that he doesn't actually really need much sleep.

"Put him back in his own bed!" you (and his pediatrician) shout. Ok...fine...I'll do that. At midnight. And 1:00. And 2:00. And 3:00. I think you get the idea. You think we haven't tried this? And for more than one night? We can get by on minimal sleep, but we can't get by on ZERO sleep.

John taught us to be ok with co-sleeping. Or so we thought. It really wasn't a big deal. Not a problem. We adapted, and we honestly weren't sure why people made such a big deal about kids sleeping with their parents, especially since he learned to sleep just fine on his own once he was old enough to be reasonable.

Now we know. Patrick will not hold still. And, he has to have his fingers entwined in my hair all night long. A hundred times a night, I scream at him, "LET GO OF MY HAIR!!!!!!!!" I imagine Matt gets really tired of hearing that.

We've tried benadryl. It makes him spastic. 

This morning about 5 am, we realized we had lost track of him.

"Where's P. Dub?" Matt asked.

"Uh, I don't know," I replied.

We were imagining that he had gotten up to watch TV. (he can start the wii all by himself...we're so proud of him) Or getting himself a refreshing glass of iced tea. Or fixing a delicious breakfast of bread smeared with honey and peanut butter.

Thankfully, this time he wasn't. Somehow, he had managed to woller to the foot of the bed and was laying perpendicular, just beyond my feet. That's a first. Maybe he was needing some space. Fine with me.

Again, "why don't you Ferberize him?" Uh, well, now we have a functional door for his bedroom...but...he has this other problem. When we last attempted to implement Dr. Ferber's plan, he screamed for about 2 hours nightly without falling asleep. Somewhere in this time frame, he would throw up from screaming. After a couple nights of this, he started turning grey and green, as the wave of anticipatory nausea hit him during the bedtime routine. And the puke happened before he even uttered a single cry. 

We tried this for at least a week with the same disgusting , foul, putrid result every night. And this was not him making himself throw up. This was genuine. He would get quiet as a worried look came over his face. Then his skin would turn cold and clammy, and the parent-in-charge would rush him to a hard-surface (easier to clean up) floor. We usually weren't quick enough.

I've managed to get the smell out of his carpet, but not the stains. I covered it with an area rug. Clever on my part, huh?

Well, anyway, that's where we are now. I get only a few hours' sleep nightly, and then I'm up early, early, long before dawn because my office is gently calling to me.

I console myself with thoughts of how I'll torture him during his teen years by waking him up at dawn's earliest crack. But I know in all honesty, I'll still be catching up on the sleep of which he has deprived me.

"So, why should anyone trust you to do their taxes?" you may be wondering. Well, it's like I said to start with:

Sleep is overrated. 

A Reason to Get Out of Bed

I'm not a morning person. I've never been one of those people that can sleep in until 10:00, but I enjoy snuggling in my nice warm bed as long as my boys will let me (which, truthfully, isn't very long).

I used to be a night owl to compensate, but motherhood changed that. I generally turn into a pumpkin if I'm not in bed by 10 pm.

But this time of year, my internal clock seems to reset. I find myself, lying in bed, long before dawn, waiting for the coffeepot to kick on. Often, I find myself just getting up and turning it on manually. We're talking early here. Somewhere between 5 and 6 am.

I normally try not to get out of bed before 7:30.

I just can't stay in bed knowing accounting awaits me downstairs in my office. I love accounting. To you non-accountants, this may seem odd, but I do.  Running my own tax & accounting practice is the realization of a dream I've had for years.

So, I disentangle PW's fingers from my hair, ease out of bed, put on my bathrobe and slippers, and get a cup of coffee for me and a sippy cup of milk for PW, in hopes of keeping him off my trail for a little while. If I'm lucky, he'll stay in bed with Matt for a while, drink his milk, and maybe go back to sleep. Generally not, but maybe.

Side note: this kid really doesn't require sleep. He went to sleep about 10:30 last night (2.5 hours after bedtime), awoke in the middle of the night, maybe 2 am, I'm not really sure; then, per his usual habit, found his way into our bed and dozed restlessly with his fingers entwined in my hair until I got up about 6:00. He typically wants to get up when I do, unless I can get him to stay in bed with the milk strategy.

Some days, it goes better than others. I get to my desk, start with my e-mail, as I watch the dawn break out my office window. (the picture below was taken as I was standing under our dusk-to-dawn light, hence the funny foreground glow...Sunday's sunrise was better, but I didn't get a pic)

This morning, as I was working, I heard a chair dragging across the kitchen floor; not entirely unexpected or uncommon. Fortunately, there is another adult in the house, in the very next room, so I didn't worry too much.

 Then my firstborn comes downstairs to eagerly report he has gotten dressed all by himself with no whining. (he gets a sticker for his sticker chart if he does this in the morning). So, I tell him he can go get a sticker. He runs back upstairs, and immediately, the most mournful my-dog-was-hit-by-the-school-bus-while-I-watched-type-of-wailing starts.

 It turns out, PW had dumped tea all over John's sticker chart, and one of the pictures he had so proudly glued on it had been torn off. This is a big deal when you're 4. PW, meanwhile, is just sitting at the table eating a cupcake.

We assured him it would dry, soothed his ruffled feathers as much as I could, and went back to typing this post. Now, PW is crying, and as near as I can tell, it's because his dad won't let him have a second breakfast cupcake.

I should go upstairs, but, strange as it may seem, accounting seems more attractive than dealing with two mad boys and, understandably by now, a not-so-chipper daddy.

So, now, I'm questioning my motives. Do I get out of bed early because I love accounting? Or to escape the morning?

Yes. My initial thesis is correct. I'm eager to count those beans; escaping the morning is just a happy side benefit.

More crying. Gotta go. Have a great Monday!