Grandma's kitchen

4 Generations

I remember when I was about 10 visiting my Grandma and Grandpa on the farm in Kansas. It was a wonderful, memory filled time. One of the things I remember is how much Grandma cooked. She got up early and would cook a full breakfast for the men and the rest of us. Eggs, potatoes, bread, bacon in piles and piles. The men would head out to the fields and Grandma would clean up. Then she would start lunch. I think she called it supper though. Again, another full meal including cookies and cakes. I remember making crescent rolls for the first time, only hers were not from a can. She would drive baskets of food and cases of soda out to the fields, come back and finish cleaning up. And then there was always a full dinner with dessert. I remember one time she made home made noodles for chicken noodle soup. After they were cut, she had them hanging all around her big country kitchen. I remember her potatoes augratin with ham under it. I remember her fried chicken that she butchered and "let" us help clean. And as much as I remember her in the kitchen, I also remember her cleaning and sorting eggs, doing laundry and going to work occasionally at the hospital kitchens. I also remember her and Grandpa watching Lawerence Welk Show in the evenings.
Grandma is almost 90 now and I haven't been back to the farm in ages and ages. I almost don't want to so that I don't mix up those memories. I have seen my grandparents here in the northwest a few times since I have been married. My dear Grandmother has had a number of strokes and isn't able to do much any more. I love her dearly and always think about her when I start feeling like I am on a hamster wheel in the kitchen of my own home, serving cereal and pbjs. I'm not complaining, I love being home and being a mom. But sometimes, it does get a little monotonous. And then I think about how little I do in comparison to this dear lady and I am all better.

Bad Mom?

I know we shouldn't have laughed, but man did we laugh. We have the stomach bug here at our house and it is pretty amazing. It involves much moaning and groaning and pooping and crying and vomiting, lots and lots of vomiting. One started on Sunday. My little drama queen. She moaned and groaned for hours and then pooped. I think she had one vomit. I know, your asking me, why are you sharing all this. Well it is all a set up for why we were busting up last night.

Next day my big girl came down. She must be part vampire cuz she went white. There was a little moaning and she is sensitive to the sound of vomiting so I kept asking her if she needed to VVVOOMMMITT. It would make her smile and then moan some more. I then took my healthy girls to dance. When I got home, number three was down for the count. He doesn't do well with sickness of any sort. He did his one vomit and laid down and moaned and moaned and moaned. My last two healthy girls thought it was great to take care of them and to pick what they wanted for dinner since the others weren't eating. Cheesy egg omelets with salsa. Do you know what's coming next? About eight thirty my little one who we have to shove into bed every night with much screaming and hollering, tells me she is tired. Then it happened. All Over. She runs to bathroom and it was like that scene with Eddie Murphy in Daddy Daycare. This child spewed Everywhere. That is when we started laughing, The baby is crying and we are chuckling it up. What else can you really do when the whole house smells and there is "stuff" everywhere and there is lots of tears and you just know that you are next. Little man is getting mad at his stomach cuz he just wants to sleep. And yelling at it. Okay, that is funny. Ever seen a thirteen year old yelling at his stomach? Poor fellow was up til two thirty yelling at his stomach. I just laughed. At least I stayed up with him. That was a good mom thing. Even if I covered the sofa with a water proof sheet and told them all that no one was allowed to be sick on my new furniture. And I kicked off the one with the least vomiting and told her to go find another bed so I didn't have to share a sofa with a sick kid. But I emptied buckets and wiped heads and mouths. So I think I evened out.

The Day After

Must say I'm still kind of numb today after all the activity yesterday. The party is over, my family is gone and all the "stuff" is back at the house. I would have to say this whole experience was quite amazing. My first thought when I woke up was...it is done. My second thought was Dear God, how will I make it through three more?!

I learned that I am not a good estimator of food. We will be eating tacos for days, even months! I learned that I am not looking forward to weddings. I learned that making something memorable is a lot of hard work and to start early. I am glad we had prepared so much prior to the actual day.

I also learned that a good friend is always there when you need them. I could never in a MILLION years thank all the people who helped pull this thing off. Thank you to everyone who helped me figure out what I was doing and helped by bring pies. Thank you to Josh M. for standing by my son and husband as they prepared Joshua's portion. Thank you so super duper much to the Jediot and their families who kept me on task and organized and took the reigns for me and kept everything moving. For all the young people who directed traffic and served food, I will be forever grateful. To my congregation that shared in the joy of the day and made all our guests feel so welcome and were so generous to my son, I thank you with all my heart. To all the guests and family who came either in person or on dimdim I would like to thank you for joining us on such and important day.

Last night Josh hugged me and said "This was the best day ever!"

His dad asked him this morning what was the most important thing he had learned. "That if I stick with something long enough, I can do anything."

He also asked what was the most memorable part. "Standing over the Torah and reading my portion."

I think we did good.

Too Early

Seriously, it was six in the morning when I got up today. Does my Mind not know that it does NOT function this early! All I can do is sit around and goof on the computer. I could be sleeping here Mind. But no, my Mind has a mind of its own. Thank goodness my Body isn't listening to it and is still just resting with a warm seven year old being my heat source. There is nothing for the Mind to do, it has everything under control, it's the Body that needs to get up and do some work. And it knows just what to do at six in the morning....nothing, absolutely nothing. Besides, I don't want to wake the kids too early. That would make them grumps and that will make me cranky and I'm already tired.

Part Four

The day he was scheduled for surgery, they couldn't find the hole, God had healed him. See, I told you there was a God who loved me. It was a very long 3 months plus days in the hospital. He had hernias, e-coli, wouldn't get off of the oxygen, x-rays, ultrasounds, and so many little things that my brain has forgotten. He still has scars on his hands and feet and ankles from all the IV's he had. There is a big scar on his side from where the nurse accidentally pulled his skin off taking off tape. But thank God there were no more middle of the night phone calls. I still had to juggle the rest of life too. I still had two kids at home, who were homeschooling. My power was shut off twice because I plain forgot to pay bills. I pumped milk. A lot of milk. I had milk for two and finally had to start dumping it because there was no where to store it and Josh was still getting enough. I got skinnyish. I had no time to eat. Not sure what my family ate. There are a lot of things I don't remember about that time. I do remember weighing every diaper. I remember holding him as long as they would let me. I remember fluffing his ears til the cartilage started to hold their shape. I remember Em singing to him and Ty being so gentle with him. I remember the staff being amazing and never wanting their job. I remember every ounce gained, bringing us one step closer to home. I remember other mommies making "that sound" that only a grieving parent makes.

We saw a lot of families come through during our 99 day stay. We saw a lot of babies come and go. There were babies with serious medical conditions, things I never even thought could happen. I saw a lot of marriages fall apart because of the stress of having a baby in a very expensive medical situation. How do you pick between leaving your baby for a week and keeping a job to pay for that babies needs? It is hard to take care of anyone when you are dealing with the pain of walking out without your little one. During this time, my husband was my rock. He held us together and let me spend as much time as I needed with my baby. He also reminded me when I needed to take care of other things as well as myself. He did all the hard stuff so I didn't have to. We were able to mourn together and celebrate together. He didn't spend as much time in the hospital. Being in the medical field, he knew too much and couldn't just enjoy being with the baby, he was always reading charts and watching monitors and looking at Josh clinically.

When we finally did get to bring him home, the tension didn't really end. He had survived. He weighed five pounds and was the cutest little bug you ever did see. Trying to get that little body safe in a carseat was pretty difficult. Once I got him in the house, I didn't want to ever take him back out. And I watched him, like a hawk. I was afraid he would stop breathing, or that he would catch something or not grow enough or develop the way he was supposed to or go blind or deaf.....But none of that happened. He is perfect in every way. For a long time he was way below the growing curve, but he is starting to catch up. He is no longer the smallest thing in any of the classes he takes or in his group of friends. He does have the tell tale smashed head that a lot of micro-premies have. We went to one hospital "reunion" and boy could you tell who was a premie. They all had long narrow heads from always lying on their sides, not being able to develop the roundness in womb.

Praise God we are a family.

So that is the tale of his beginnings. He was born in a toilet and can only go up from there.

Part Three

All the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.

Psalm 139:16

One of the two hardest things I have ever done, is to walk out of the hospital without my babies. The hospital let me stay til Friday, a couple of days were in the room and then another day in the NICU parent lounge. Then they made me go home. My husband and I walked out, I cried all the way to the car and all the way home. The next day started my 99 trips to the hospital. It was actually quite a bit more. I would get up, find someplace for my older to kids to go or bring them with, and go to the hospital. I would stay a few hours and then go home, take care of the family and go back once my husband got home to watch the kids. I learned to parallel park. Sorta of.

I think it was maybe 5 days in when we got a call that we needed to get back to the hospital right away, Kevin was in trouble. We left our big guy in charge until mom-in-law could get there and drove as fast as we could to the hospital. Kevin had a massive brain hemorrhage. One of the blood vessels had burst and all his blood went into his head. They were able to stop it but there had been a lot of damage. For the next week, I was there. I don't know who took care of my kids. I don't know when I got there or left of how. I remember my feet being super swollen and sleeping with my head on his incubator. I remember a few key friends running my life and running interference. No one got near me with a woeful or negative attitude. We were having faith that God was going to heal our little guy. We prayed only in the positive. Only spoke positive about the future. I remember feeling like I was neglecting Josh because Kevin was so fragile. I remember the look on the surgeons face when he came out from putting in a stint to keep the fluids off of his brain. I claimed victory anyway.

We had to make a choice. We decided to take him off of life support. The night before, they finally let me hold him. Our pastor came and anointed him with oil and I held him til he died. There is a pain that sits in the middle of my chest. It is deep and solid and aches. It has never gone away. Most of the time, it is quiet and I live around it. The second half of May, even without me consciously thinking about it, it grows. Big birthdays, 2, 5, 10 and now 13 are hard. They are momentous and I always wonder what would it be like if...Some years are better than others. This one has been pretty bad.

Kevin was buried on a sunny day, don't know what day of the week. He had a little bitty coffin, not much bigger than a shoe box. There were only friends and relatives there, that was all I could handle. He is buried on top of where my mom-in-law will be buried. My father-in-law and sister-in-law are buried right next to him. I used to go out and visit all the time. Now, I go every other year.

At schul this past week, we read this psalm. I was already on the edge, having cried all night the night before after hearing a song. The water works began again. It is embarrassing when you can't control your emotions. I didn't want to explain. I'm grateful no one asked why I ran out of service.

I don't know why God let my baby die. I see other twins and wonder, why not me God. I know all the stuff about God and His infinite wisdom and all the other platitudes that are given to grieving parents.....blah blah blah.....but it never answers the question, why me. But life goes on. I know there is a God who loves me. I have to much in my life not to believe that. The experience of Kevin's life and death set me down a path that has lead me to where we are now. God I never doubt, His plans and reasoning are a mystery.

And as if that wasn't enough, the doctors now said that Josh needed heart surgery. Very common in little premies, some part of their little hearts haven't closed. Talk about panic!

Part two

Wait a minute, that isn't where I'm supposed to be feeling something coming out! I start to scream. I'm yanking on that little string that hangs on the bathroom wall. I'm delivering my son Joshua in a toilet. I'm yelling at him "don't you die!!!" There are nurses and doctors and poles and tubing and wires all in a bathroom no bigger than a closet. As they take my son to the NICU, they pull me across the room to the bed and my water comes gushing out all over the floor and then I'm up on the bed. Little Kevin comes out and I don't even get to see him. Off he goes to the NICU. I'm all alone, my friends have all left, my husband is on the road. No cell phones for the common people then. There is more rushing and yelling and people in and out of the room. They are alive and breathing on ventilators. That is all I know. My husband rushes in. GO FIND MY BABIES!!!! He finds them and comes back and says they are doing well but they are so small. It seemed like forever before they let me come and see them. I had to go in a wheel chair, I would have crawled! It was probably four hours. I had to be cleaned up, the room had to be cleaned up and they had to be settled. When I did see them, I couldn't touch them. They were in warmer beds with plastic wrap covering them. You see there little bodies and skin are still so sensitive, some one walking by would feel like a tornado to them. It would be three days before I saw pictures of their faces with out tape and tubes. It would be two days before I got to touch them. It would be weeks before I held Joshua. It was 2 weeks til I held Kevin.

Part One

And so the drama begins. Mother's day is a mixed blessing for me. I have 6 beautiful children. They bring me more joy than pain, laughter than tears, happiness than grief. I have an awesome husband who loves and adores me and treats me like his girlfriend. For this I am blessed and happy.

But this day inevitably also brings grief. Thirteen years ago the drama of my life started. We went out for dinner for mothers day. I was 23 and a 1/2 weeks pregnant with our twin sons. Already they had been our miracle babies. When I first went to the first OB appointment the doctor told us that it was an unviable birth and that if I didn't get a DNC that I was going to bleed like hell when my body started self aborting. That felt so wrong to me, I went for a second opinion. The next doctor found a heartbeat. But at 20 weeks, he said that some of my blood test numbers were off and that I needed to get in for an ultra sound right away. The tech said "Oh I see the problem right here...Here is baby A and here is baby B!!" We had twin boys whom we found out later were identical.

At the restaurant, I had a hard time getting comfortable on the seats. I kept feeling pressure down there. The next day, I had the same pressure and some mild contractions. Dummy me, I was working on a project and had to finish it before I would go to the doctors. I was only 24 weeks, what could be wrong. Well, after my mom-in-law drove me to the doctors, I found out I was in labor. They rushed me to the hospital and filled me up with the most awfulest drugs to stop the labor. I remember being sssooo hot and yucky. They gave me shots and did more ultrasounds and got everything back under control. Or so they thought.

They finally put me in my own room and kept me over night. The next day I really started to regret all the baby carrots I had been eating. They were my craving that pregnancy. They also gave me the runs. I thought I had really bad gas. What I had was back labor. Never mentioned the gas to the nurses or the doctors. They thought everything was fine. My hunny was going home to see the other kids and grab dinner. I said bye and headed to the bathroom.

Not a morning person

I sometimes (usually in the late afternoon) envy morning people. You know the ones, who jump up out of bed and don't need caffeine to make them move and are chipper and productive. I have one in my household, the rest of us kind of stifle her by groaning at her when she wakes us up with her chipperness. I hear of people who get up and have time with the Lord and have the house clean and finished weeding the garden all before I have even decided whether or not to get out of my bed yet. I'm not one of those.

Now I can get up if I have to. On rare occasion when I schedule an appointment or have to be someplace, I can get up and shower and be dressed. But that doesn't mean I am awake. In fact I have been known to have my eyes open and moving around and talking for hours and not been fully awake. That takes talent my friend! But I'm not usually very nice. Or motivated. Or coherent.

For me, I become really alive about ten in the morning. Then the old mind starts a moving and the day gets a truckin'. The house gets clean, the homeschooling gets interesting and the caffeine kicks in. Then we have some fun. Errands get run, bills get paid, children get motivated. We usually get a good dinner, unless we are out and about and end up with spaghetti, and then quality time with daddy. All evening we can be happy and chipper and play nicely. Then about 9:30ish the kido's head to bed and my sweetheart and I have adult time til we decide to go to bed. Since he is gone all day at work, (praying we can get out of that situation soon) this is a good set up for us.

I wonder what time morning people go to bed. Are they as useless in the evenings as I am in the mornings? Do we get the same amount done just in different times? I don't know, but I'm not willing to find out myself. I'll have to wait til tomorrow morning when they are up checking their blog lists and responding while I roll over. I'll read about it around 10:30ish. ^.^

odds and ends

I'm sitting in the quiet front room of our schul while my daughters are taking ballet from one of the talented young ladies of the congregation. I am very grateful for her. My girls can take dance and I don't have to worry about them learning steps or "movements" that I don't approve of. To much of what I've seen in the schools looks like it could be done on a pole. Not what I want my little girls doing. And don't get me started on the costumes and make-up. And since she is from the congregation, I don't have to worry about Saturday recitals. I am very grateful indeed.

I guess quiet is a relative term. If the guy across the street would turn off his blower it would be quiet. What makes that so funny is that the wind is blowing like crazy right now. It is blowing so hard that the windows are shaking and fans in the heater are spinning. Sometimes the howling is so loud, it makes me cringe. Oh well, I guess he needs to earn his paycheck somehow.

I'm feeling pretty blessed right now. All my kido's are healthy and growing stronger everyday. The Bar Mitzvah plans are coming along right on time. No major catastrophes happening in my world right now. There are those in the community who are in need of prayer, but I think it will always be that way, until Yeshua comes back anyhow. But now that the kido's are much more self sufficient, I have time to pray more, so that is good.

I wonder if the guy with the blower is praying right now?