Just stoppin' by

To say hi and catch you up on my week...



I've been a little MIA lately and I apologize for not keeping in touch better. My parents have been visiting from Washington state since last Saturday, they are leaving on Monday. It's been really nice. The girls are getting totally spoiled by grandma, who is giving them oodles of attention and playing with them all the time. I don't know what I'll do when she leaves, Fiona especially is going to be devastated to lose her playmate. She'll probably expect ME to pay attention to her, can you imagine?! J/K... kindof...



My dad has been working around the house, he's the ultimate handyman. Him and DH spent a few days removing black mold (eeewww) from one of the basement rooms that we hadn't been using. They re-cemented the floor, put in new wall paneling and carpet and DH has now set it up as an office for himself. It look great and DH is thrilled! Then my dad worked on my yard for me for a couple of days, he pulled out several huge flowerbeds (someone who lived in our house a long time ago was obviously a gardening fanatic, but I don't have the time to maintain their work and everything was horribly overgrown). So now I have big patches of empty earth that will eventually be sewn with new grass, as soon as I make sure all the weed roots are dead.



My parents are great and we get along pretty well. There have been some minor tensions, which usually manifest themselves by everyone being really sarcastic and snarky with each other for a little while before settling down. It's honestly not that bad, which I'm very thankful for.



Dad has also bought us lots of presents, I think he sees how much we struggle to get by and he feels the need to help us out, which I'm cool with. He bought DH a lawnmower and weed-eater (we didn't have a lawnmower!) and I got a water-cooler (woo-hoo, no more plastic bottles giving me a guilty conscious) an some work on my car done. The kids got new shoes and some clothes.



I'll be driving them over to Canada on Monday and I'll be really sad to see them go. We don't get together nearly as often as I'd like and we'll miss each other a lot.



In other news, Fiona's surgery has healed really well and she is doing great. She is totally obsessed with doctor stuff right now and played surgeon for 6 hours straight yesterday, she set up a hospital in her playroom and had several patients to take care of. For some reason she insists that we call her Dr. Melody, don't ask me why...



Saskia is doing great at school and gymnastics, her teacher pulled me aside Thursday night to say that she is the most diligent student he has, that she keeps trying until she gets it right and refuses to give up. That's so wonderful, because those of you who know Saskia may recall that she is normally a quitter, she usually isn't interested in doing something if she can't get it perfect the first time. So I'm really proud of her for devoting herself to this, even if it is the most expensive sport she could have picked.... :)



I'm at the end of my week off from school, classes start again Tuesday. I'll be going full time this summer so you probably won't see as much of me as usual, I'll be juggling a very full load. By the time August rolls around and I get a month off I'll probably be in a vegetative state... oh well.

Fiona's surgery

Many of you have already read bits and pieces regarding Fiona's surgery, feel free to skip this journal if you like. I'm mostly writing it for myself, as I do not keep a diary or blog my MM journals are the best way for me to remember key events.

We had to be at the hospital on Wed. morning at 10:30. We checked in, then were herded (believe me, this verb is the BEST description of what happened) along with apx. 20 other people to the children's surgery waiting area. This room was horrible. Super loud and overcrowded, with nothing for the kids to do and soap operas blaring on the TV. The receptionist was absolutely apathetic. She refused to get off her butt for any reason. She had no PA, so every time she would call a patient only those people sitting next to her desk could hear her. Things like that are particularly annoying to me, like nails on a chalkboard. As if I wasn't antsy enough!

We had to sit in this horrible room with a hungry, thirsty and bored 3 year old for nearly 2 hours. Then we were called back to the actual hospital bit. The nurses there were very nice and helped me lose a little bit of the anger I was feeling towards the place. We had to wait again for about 45 minutes for the anesthesiologist to come check Fiona out. She had a slight cough so the first one called in a second, who called in a third.... I guess any kind of respiratory problem can be a complication with anesthesiology so they wanted to make sure she was okay. They gave her a clean bill of health and prepped her for the surgery. I got to put on the full gear (mask, head cover, gown) and carry her into the OR. I laid her down and held her hands while she breathed in the stuff to put her to sleep... It was awful, I was glad to be there for her but seeing the fear and panic in her eyes was terrible. Still she was very brave, didn't cry or move. When she was out I gave her a kiss and a nurse rushed me out.

The next hour was very nerve wracking. I broke down and cried when I walked out, it was so awful to see her lying on the table unconscious. She was supposed to be in for about 45 minutes, once that hit I started to panic, "Why haven't they called us yet?!"

After about an hour the doctor called, she did fine. She was taken to a recovery room until she woke up, then moved to a waking room, at which point Paul and I were able to join her. She was sleeping when we came in, looked like a little angel. I felt so happy to see her okay, and also so bad that I had put her through this experience.

She was groggy for a while and complaining of pain, but they sent us home anyway. Once home, she would have flair ups of pain which got worse as the day wore on. By 9pm she was screaming in pain... she also had a fever so I called the hospital. The doctor I talked to was very relaxed and kept insisting once she peed (which she hadn't yet) she'd be fine. The problem was she was refusing to go. Finally around 9:30pm I got her to more or less fall asleep on the loo and she relaxed enough to let go. After that she was much better.

Before we move on to Thursday, let me say something about how we were feeling. Before the surgery all I had told her was that she was going to go to the hospital, go to sleep, wake up and come home. Because of that she did really well in the hospital and very brave. But afterward she was traumatized. When she saw her scar for the first time she freaked. I told her it was where the doctor fixed her boo-boo and she screamed, "What boo-boo?!" Duh, she didn't even know there was anything wrong. Now all of a sudden she goes to sleep and wakes up with a scar? How horrible.

There were other signs that the experience was traumatic. She would have these flashes of panic and bursts of crying for no reason. She freaked out about getting her first dose of medicine and screamed "Not the mask!" Since then I have to keep reassuring her that "the mask" is only at the hospital.

She's been very clingy, very demanding and very frayed. It didn't help that Thursday she got slammed with a bad sinus infection which made her fever shoot up to 102 degrees and left her with a headache that wouldn't go away. She cried for 3 hours straight until I switched her from the Tylenol with codeine that the hospital had given us to plain Motrin. 30 minutes later her fever and headache were gone and she got out of bed for the first time since she came home. Friday we took her to the pediatrician and he prescribed antibiotics to get her over that hurdle.

Now she is on the road to recovery. She is still emotionally tender, in fact she had a panic attack/melt-down this morning at 6:30am because I had to go to work. She NEVER cries because I'm going to work.

Her physical recovery will also take longer than the doctor led us to believe, in fact everything has been worse than anyone made it out to be, which pisses me off. I understand not wanting parents to worry but they should be allowed to know the truth about what to expect.

I've written a lot here, I'd be surprised if anyone is still with me. Just a few last words on the emotional impact of this minor surgery:

*It wasn't minor to us. It was nerve-wracking, and it was traumatic. Not the same trauma as if, say, your child had a major accident but traumatic all the same.

*It was traumatic for Fiona. Even though she can't remember the surgery, she KNOWS that something happened to her and her psyche is affected. She's nervous and scared and I hate that.

Pffft. I'm sure there is more I wanted to note down about this, I should've journaled two days ago while it was fresh but now my brain is jelly. If anyone has read this all, thanks for listening!

Pajama Rama

Saturday night was our big Girl Scout event, The Pajama Rama Skate and Slumber party. My troop has been looking forward to the event for months, it's what we raised funds for while selling cookies and the girls ask about it at every meeting. My daughter was on pins and needles all of last week, she couldn't focus on anything, she was so excited.



We met at the roller rink at 10:00pm. On the way S and I stopped at Target, to buy her a pair of her very own rollerblades. After the other leaders and I got the troop settled in, I went off to rent some skates. I probably haven't skated since I was 13 or so, I was nervous but it came back to me really quickly. From then on it was just fun! All of the girl's moms came with them, so I didn't have to worry about anyone except my daughter. We skated, played air hockey, and goofed around. At 1am they had a make-over, and at 2am was the pajama fashion show, followed by dancing until 3. At 3 lights went out and we were supposed to sleep on the rink, but it was way too loud and the girls were way too hyped to sleep!

S was actually tired and getting mad that she couldn't sleep, so I bribed her with donuts and we took off at 4am. The event was over at 5am anyway, so we didn't miss much. We came home and crashed until 11. When we got up she clearly didn't want our time to be over, as she asked me to read to her in bed for nearly an hour.

It was fabulous, we had so much fun! At one point the DJ played "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" and I nearly cried, it felt like I was the 6 year old!

Normally S and I butt heads a lot, we are way too much alike personality wise! But this night was special, no fights, just lots of love to go around. I'll remember it forever.

She's the best friend ever

Homeslice, I love you! YOu are an awesome friend, a wonderful supporter and a lovely human being. I have always known this, and now thanks to your generosity my children do too!

You see, yesterday a package arrived in the mail for the girls. We opened it to find this gorgeous bag:



Saskia read the card to us,


which says "Happy Spring, Fiona and Saskia! I hope I get to meet you someday- your mamma rocks! Love Homeslice" Awww, you rock too Homey!

Then they dug into the package



The shirts are so beautiful! The girls absolutely loved them and put them on right away. Of course, Fiona spilled something on hers within five minutes and had to take it off again, but no worries, the stains washed right out. :) Needless to say everyone here is thrilled with their gifts.



I don't know if you can tell, but the patch has their names on it! So cute!

THANK YOU
HOMESLICE!

Resurrection and personal transcendance

Today our minister blew me away with an alternate theory of the resurrection. I plan to share the audio file as soon as he gets it up on his website, however until then I wanted to journal a brief synopsis, as well as I can remember, and talk a little bit about what it means to me.

There are some holidays which we Unitarian Universalists have a tough time with. Most UUs are not Christian, some are atheists, some are pagans, Jews, humanists or agnostics. So the two Christian traditions of Easter and Christmas are hard for some people to really sink their teeth into, in a spiritual way. Especially Easter, with it's central theme of the resurrection from the dead. However, Rev. Alex likes to push his congregation out of our zones of comfort, so today he chose to tackle that theme head on.

He started by explaining where the story of the resurrection came from. Taken in it's context, it makes a lot of sense. The Judeo world was immersed in Hellenic thought and philosophy at the time of Jesus' life. Rev. Alex explained to us that there was an important Greek philosophical model of the world which corresponds to the Christian concept of Heaven. Basically the Greeks believed (a full 600 years BEFORE Jesus came around) that this world is not the real one, rather it is one of pain, suffering and impermanence. The REAL world is one we must "transcend" into. The real world is everlasting, beatific, and absolutely perfect in it's radiant goodness. Rev. Alex explained it better...

Anyway he explained this is the philosophy that the resurrection is based on. This is where the principle Christian belief of God OUTSIDE of the world, and the transcendence into Heaven at the end of our life came from. But what if, like some historians believe, the resurrection from the dead didn't happen?

I'm going to skip ahead as there was lots of history and philosophy involved here and I don't remember the details well enough to do them justice. Basically here is where Rev. Alex argues his alternate interpretation of the resurrection, that is the daily, living resurrection of ourselves from ourselves.

We bury ourselves in anger, hatred, greed, stress, woe. Our own ego kills our spirit. But we can transcend that. We can resurrect ourselves.

When Jesus said, "the Kingdom of God is at hand" he wasn't talking about a distant heaven coming closer. He really meant, it's at hand! It's here, in every atom, in every tree, in every child. Rev. Alex said "turn your head and you see the Divine." Heaven is here, all around us. The divine spirit, what some people call God or Yahweh or Allah is HERE ALL AROUND US. We just have to let go of our ego, transcend the things we have chosen to bury ourselves in, and we can set our spirits free. And we can do it at any given moment.

~~So, that about sums up the key notes of the sermon.

On a personal note, I want to say this had a tremendous effect on me today. I want to transcend my anger, stress and all those things that have been holding my spirit back from peace and love. I can't do it yet, as I'm buried far too deep. But I can start on the right path. So I'll be working on letting go. I'll be working on loving more and hating less. I'll be working on not allowing this life I chose to stress me out. And maybe one of these days I'll be able to resurrect myself.

For Toni

I promised a while ago that I'd write a journal on love Thursday about my step-daughter, so here goes...

T is 16 now. Yes, that's right, just 15 years younger than me. Her dad and I got together when she was 9, and her first sister was born just after her tenth birthday.

T is a beautiful, smart and loving girl. She lives in Germany with her mom. When we lived in Germany, she spent every other weekend and most school holidays with us.

T was totally enamored with her first sister from the start. She would play and play and play with S! I remember once, before F (#3) was born, DH and I went out to dinner and his sister babysat T and S. S was maybe 18 months old and T was 11 1/2 or so. T decided that Auntie wasn't putting S to bed right and took the job on herself. She sat in the dark, rocking my baby for nearly an hour, singing to her so she could go to sleep. Now THAT is LOVE.

Unfortunately T took it REALLY hard when we moved to America. She broke off all contact with her dad for over a year. She and I were okay, and we emailed all the time. We had sort of a big-sister / little-sister realtionship going for a while. I hoped that she could learn from my experiences and not make the same mistakes I did...

Now T and her dad are back in touch, but she still has not wanted to come visit us in America. S misses her a lot, and talks about her all the time. F never really had a chance to get to know her... I hope that can change one day.

My dream? That T would choose to do a year of high school over here, or even go to college. I'd like to have her be a bigger part of our lives. She's such a cool kid, smart as a whip and so kind. I hope that one day, we can all be closer. We ARE family already, but I wish that one day we could have more....

PS- Sorry my pictures are all old, she is a typical teenager and refuses to share any current pictures of herself with us :( The first and last are from 2006.

Baby Love

A post I saw tonight about babywearing got me feeling very nostalgic for when my girls were little, so I thought I'd share a few baby pictures with you.



T My first baby in the hospital right after she was born

Baby wearing

Big sister (my step-daughter) and baby #1

Mama and baby #1

Baby #2 fresh home from the hospital

More sister love

And all three sisters together

Mama with baby #2

That's just a taste of our baby pics. For some reason I can't find a lot of my favorite ones, that's the problem with digital pictures isn't it? Change computers, reorganize files and suddenly you can't find stuff... Next week I plan to journal about my step-daughter and give you some more sisterly love pictures. Until then, I hope you enjoy my little photographic trip down memory lane!