So this week has been pretty typical at our house. It actually started last Friday (the 11th) when I got a call to interview for a position that I wasn't sure I wanted. I am a math and science teacher and I am finishing my Master's degree in Education Administration next month. I have no desire to be an administrator however. Seem crazy? Have you read the previous posts? Anyway, so there was a Math Coach position posted for our district and I really think I would like the position. It deals with curriculum and working with teachers to help them improve instruction (or anything else) in their classroom to increase student achievement. So I would be acting as a resource for teachers and would be able to help many more students than just those enrolled in my classes as a classroom teacher. I've been super excited about the position ever since I learned about it. But it's not at my current campus. Not really a big deal except that I love love love my principal! Did I mention I love my principal? She is so supportive and has great staff development sessions where we actually do something worthwhile and get ideas and even make lessons to take back to our classroom. It is amazing, I've never seen such a thing before. Well, being the INCREDIBLE teacher and candidate that I am, I got offered the job on Wednesday. (Actually I imagine it has more to do with the fact that it is the middle of the year and it's really crazy for someone to switch positions mid-year so I may have been one of a very few candidates...and because I'm so fabulous.) I talked with my principal about it and a lot of friends and family and I decided to take the job. Now I'm really excited about it and I can't wait to get started! I have no idea what to expect but I'll find out soon enough. Or maybe a little later. I really don't know when I'm supposed to start. So just like with everything else, my job situation is a little crazy right now. It's uncomfortable at my current school because I'm leaving and I haven't told hardly anyone yet and I don't want them to feel like I'm deserting them and my students, the main reason I took the job is the chance to affect MORE students and I think I may be able to make a bigger difference with the students at my new campus. It will be interesting to see how this works out. So oddly enough, it's not this job that I'm thinking of quitting!
The interview for this position was Monday afternoon and I had no idea how long it would be (or where, I couldn't really hear the message she left on my voicemail!) so I had to take a half day Monday and missed my afternoon classes. Then on Tuesday, I had to address a problem at Michaela's school. She had been acting out and Monday morning she threw a huge fit about going to school and so Jake fed the cat for her (her job in the mornings) and he packed her a lunch to help things go a little quicker. She was FURIOUS with him for "doing her jobs" and screamed at him and threatened him. A little over the top I believe. Ed finally got them to school 26 minutes late but she was still crying and upset. So I spent all day Tuesday talking with the teacher, the counselor, the nurse, and the assistant principal to see what I could do to help her and help manage her outbursts. I felt a little better after talking with everyone, they were really understanding. Wednesday, I actually got to go to work all day. I was hoping for a nice normal, routine day. And that was when I got the call offering me the new position. So much for routine. I had that decision to make and I still am torn about it but am focused on being excited for the opportunity. No point in debating it now!
Thursday morning, I got up and got ready to go to work, packed up the baby in his carrier, and was picking him up to head out the door and he projectile vomitted all over the carrier, his clothes, the floor...you get the idea. He had been coughing and congested for the last several days but mostly right after he ate. I think the formula thickened the drainage in his throat (yuck!) but he got a little worse on Wednesday. We were trying to hold out until Friday because he already had a doctor's appointment scheduled for a check up and there was no fever. As I was cleaning up the aftermath, the pediatrician called asking to move the appointment from 9:20 to 9:50. Tomorrow right? No, not tomorrow, today. Today when I was just walking out the door, when Ed had meetings and work scheduled specifically from 9:00 to 11:00. Today, when I had already missed 1 and 1/2 of the 3 days I should have been at work this week. So I called in. Nevermind the new job, I'll be lucky to keep the old job if I don't go! Fortunately, Joey was ok. No flu, no RSV, no ear infections or pneumonia. Just congestion. Oh, and now immunizations. So Thursday night he ran a fever. Great, AFTER we just went to the doctor. It wasn't high though so I told Ed he was going to have to stay home with Joey tomorrow. I had now missed 2 and 1/2 of the 4 days of work this week. Ed was supposed to meet with new people from a company merger that were concerned about keeping their jobs. I thought having the baby with him might soften the blow for them. I think he ended up rescheduling.
Finally, the weekend is here! Now I just have to take down the Christmas decorations, vacuum everything, get groceries, put gas in the truck, do the kids' laundry, and plan meals for next week. So what was I looking forward to the weekend for again? Oh well, got started. Made a meal plan for next week and then a grocery list and left for the store. Forgot to take the recycling so it has to wait another week now. Got home and Ed and Jake had played video games the whole time I was gone. I had to ask Ed to help with the Christmas stuff in phases. (I know better than to just ask him to start and finish a task all at once.) It goes something like this-- "Hey on the next commercial break, will you bring the Christmas boxes in so I can get started putting things away?" 15 or 20 minutes after the boxes get in, me: "When this show is over, will you take the ornaments off the tree while I work on putting the other decorations away?" Ed: "I don't know where anything goes." me: "That's why I asked you to do the ornaments. The ones that have boxes (with pictures on them) put in the boxes and the others can just go loose. They all go in this one box. The other stuff all goes in these other boxes." He reluctantly complies. After the ornaments get put in the big box, we watch another show. "After supper will you please put the boxes back out in storage since they are all packed up now?" Notice this has been an all day event that really only took up about 30 minutes. But I've learned and it's done. Not complaining yet. Then there was the tree. The fake tree that is three pieces whose branches are prelit and just fold up against the trunk. The tree that was left standing in front of the window. Empty. So Sunday after church and lunch and a little football, "Ed, since it's halftime, would you please put the tree away. It didn't get taken down yesterday?" Ed: "I'm not gonna do it right now." Me: "Please? I really need to vacuum and I don't want to before you take the tree out because we'll just get all those little needles all over again." Ed: "It will take two minutes. I'll do it later." It did only take about two minutes...when I did it this morning. So finally all the Christmas stuff is put away. And there was very little argument.
Saturday night after the Christmas tree frustration, Michaela started in. I made chicken enchiladas for supper. They are probably my favorite supper! I made refried beans because Michaela loves them. She ate all of her refried beans and then asked for more, without even touching her enchilada. I told her she had to eat some of the enchilada. With the screaming that ensued our neighbors probably thought I had forced her to eat nails, or dirty socks or the rocks she usually has saved up in her pockets. She wanted to know why I can't make the food that she likes. Oh excuse me queen Michaela, I'll get right on your order. Heaven forbid we eat something that I want to eat...I'm only the one who makes it! So I had spent 45 minutes in the kitchen fixing supper only to be greeted at the table with "Ew, I hate this! I'm not eating it! Can I just have cereal?" No, no you can't have cereal again. Or yogurt, or candy, or ice cream. Call me a bad mom but I think you should eat some variety of food including some meat. She screamed and cried until she lost her kindle for tomorrow. So eat 1/4 of an enchilada or go to bed. Not gonna argue. So she went to bed. After supper, Ed was putting the dishes in the dishwasher (those that wouldn't fit he just left in the sink because our "dish fairy" comes every night to clean the ones that nobody else wants to do) and I asked him to please wipe down the stove and counter afterwards. We have this deal that whoever cooks dinner (usually me because he has to ask how many minutes to put on the microwave to reheat stuff) the other person has to clean up. I do a pretty good job of rinsing and cleaning up as I go but it's hard to do the stove while it's on and the counter tops just get dirty again until the food is all put away. No, apparently that is too much to ask. The stove and counter can not be wiped down because...well I don't know why but he didn't do it. Then he got mad that I hadn't unloaded the clean dishes. Sorry, one more thing to add to my list. I got out the computer and started on my homework (which is code for I surfed the web, checked out facebook, the bank account and anything else I could think of first to avoid starting my homework). Stayed up until after midnight working on a paper for my class.
Got up Sunday morning hoping for a great day. No school tomorrow, MLK day! Sunday school starts at 9:45 but Michaela is adamant that we have to be there at 8:30 for "breakfast". I finally convinced her that we could get there for the fellowship time (where they have coffee and snacks) about 9:30. Then there was Jake. He was impossible. First he refused to take a shower. The boy was stinky. So I turned on the water for him, got it warmed up, and put him in the shower still in his underpants. He screamed and cried and climbed right out to get undressed. He got back in and cried because the water was getting cold. He had waited so long, he was the last one in the house and was out of hot water, so he didn't get his hair washed but at least he was rinsed off. Then he wouldn't get dressed. It took 20 minutes to get the boy into a shirt and pants! He cried because his new shirt was too small (it wasn't, he just couldn't get his head through because he didn't unbutton it), he cried because he couldn't find his black pants, he cried because he couldn't find his khaki pants, he cried because he couldn't find the shoes he had left down by the front door, he cried because he didn't want to wear the shoes he did find. He got his kindle priveleges revoked for the day too. It's a good thing we were going to church because I needed to pray about their behavior and my lack of patience! We finally got to church and two hours of quiet adult time! I may start going on Wednesdays too. In fact I could use some "church" every day! Seriously though, we hadn't gone much (at all) in 2012 and it is great to be back on a regular basis. After church we got to go out to Cheddar's. We had been trying the last two weeks but one or both kids had melt downs between church and the restaraunt so we had to get something we could eat quick or take home. We finally made it to Cheddar's without incident and had an uneventful lunch, with all three kids, and they all ate their meals! It really was a post-Christmas miracle!
And it's now Monday. The morning has been so productive! In fact, I sat down to eat lunch and realized I had been so focused on cleaning up I hadn't even brushed my teeth this morning! It's these "little things" I really miss. Michaela and I had a little "tiff" when I got her laundry out of the dryer. I called her out to the living room and started to sort her clothes. I told her she could find the clothes that needed to hang up and put them in a flat pile. She demanded to know why she had to help me! Oh HELL no, are you freaking kidding me?! So I put the clothes back in the basket and handed it to her. There's noway I'm going to work on her clothes if she thinks SHE's helping ME. I told her I was helping her but not anymore. She could put her own clothes away, by herself, and if she didn't put them away (she has a habit of leaving them on her floor) then I wasn't washing them anymore either! I told her she would have to wash them in the tub because she is too young to use the washing machine. I think I put up with a lot but that was too much. The clothes are now put away...I did not hang or fold a single piece!
So I ate lunch (and brushed my teeth!) and I was thinking how proud I was of myself for all I got done this morning...put away the Christmas tree; vacuumed, including the stairs; unloaded, reloaded, and unloaded the dishwasher again; WIPED DOWN THE COUNTER AND STOVE (yes, I was cursing my husband the entire time I did this); washed Jake's bedding, Michaela's clothes, and Jake's clothes; fixed the kids' breakfast; fed the baby; cleaned the bathroom; got both kids to pick up their toys and trash, and clean up their rooms; and in between even found time to drink my daily cup of coffee (that is really three cups but whose counting). I found myself thinking I deserved the "Mom of the Year" award! Then I realized this is just part of the job description. Being a mom I'm SUPPOSED to do all of this along with all the BS I had been through previously this week. In fact, I probably deserve the "Worst Mom of the Year" award for thinking I was so great for doing the things that should be routine. So much for being proud of my accomplishments for today. I'll just go back to ignoring the kids and watching TV now. Thanks for playing.
So why do I stay at this job? I can't tell you how many times I have fantasized about leaving for work one morning and getting on the highway and just keep driving... But before I even get to the highway I wonder, "Did Michaela do her homework last night? Is Jake going to have a good day at school or will he get in trouble? I wonder if Joey will roll over today" and I can't wait to get home and see those three sweet little faces (and yes, I suppose Ed's too!) and give them kisses and ask about their days. The hugs and the little angels that sleep in the kids' beds keep me coming back and totally make it worth it. It's definitely the pay.
Monday, January 21, 2013
Sunday, January 13, 2013
2012--Baby Joey's Year
Baby Joey's story is really the story of 2012. I have thought about how to describe the last year and the only thing I can come up with is the most difficult, "good" year of my life. The year even started off mixed. Ed and I decided that our Christmas present to each other would be a trip to the Cotton Bowl when we found out that K-State was playing and Ed could get tickets through his FOX station. They were playing Arkansas and our great friends Dom and Amanda are huge Arkansas fans and we were hoping they would be able to come to Texas for the game since we hadn't seen them in WAY too long. They weren't able to come but we did get to go to the game with great friends (miss you Morgan!) and we had a blast! K-State lost but played well and we were excited that Arkansas fans seemed really great and we agreed that we may have to look into being Razorback fans in the future (foreshadowing!). About a month later, we found out we were going to have our third baby. We should have known then that the year would be crazy, but I'm getting ahead of myself... I couldn't wait to tell my friends and almost all of them responded the same way...(laughing) "Have you lost your minds?!" :) Why yes, yes we have. They were really happy for us--and really excited to have another source for all these crazy stories! There is a very good possibility, I would even say PROBability, that this child would grow up to be just like the other two. Absolutely insane. But three is the magic number!
We had always wanted three babies. We had talked about three kids even before we got engaged. But we had purposely put off the third child for several years because we couldn't afford it and it was looking like we were going to have to give up on the idea of three kids. Ed had just turned 40 and I was going to be 35 in March and we just didn't see it happening anytime soon. As Michaela and Jake were getting older, we also wondered if it was really a good idea to have another one of these little creatures. As with Michaela, God made the decision for us. We were super excited and scared out of our minds at the same time. Ed had never gotten the promotion we had been hoping for and our financial situation was not looking to change anytime soon...and that's when we boarded the roller coaster.
We had a nice little routine in Texas...all week was crazy, crazy, crazy, and busy, busy, busy, but on Wednesday evenings we would drop Michaela and Jake off at church for AWANA and Ed and I would go sit down and have dinner together. It was May 2nd and we had just found out that morning that our new baby was going to be a boy. We had already decided that his name would be Joseph Thomas after Ed's grandfathers and we were really glad to find out it was a boy because we didn't thing a girl would appreciate the name as she got older. (We had nothin' for girl names!) Anyway, we were eating dinner sans children, and Ed's corporate boss called. He reluctantly answered--he had been waiting for a call to find out when and where his next business trip would be and he did not want to go this time. He told his boss we were eating and could he call him back in 20 minutes. So we finished eating in a bad mood and left to pick up the kids at church. He called his boss back while he went in to pick them up and I called my good friend Stacey to talk about summer swimming lessons for the kids. Ed came back out and told me to hang up because we needed to talk. Now he knows when I'm talking to Stacey or Becky it is about IMPORTANT stuff. So for him to insist on interrupting like that I knew something was up. I was scared to ask. But I hung up and he looked at me and asked, "How do you feel about Little Rock?" It was the call we had been waiting for for two years. Ed had been going on "trips" fixing other stations and working hard for the company and he wanted to move up. His boss had called to let him know that the next day the General Manager from the Little Rock station would be calling him to talk about a job. It was unbelieveable. This was basically why we had been waiting to get pregnant. So it happened in the wrong order but he got his promotion that would put us in a better position to have another baby! He got the phone call on Thursday and the next Tuesday they offered him the job. He had to be in Little Rock to start work on June 4th. I wouldn't even be out of school until the 1st.
Now I said earlier that we should have known the year would be crazy... I am a math and science person and I like to find patterns in things. First of all, we moved both times I was pregnant before. In fact we moved twice while I was pregnant with Michaela! And second, all of us had been born in different states. Ed is from New York, I am from Kansas, Michaela is from North Carolina, and Jake is from Texas. We thought that both boys were going to be born in Texas...same town, same hospital, same doctor...no it was too simple for us, we have to make things more difficult than that. So we should have known, or at least suspected that we would be moving and that it would most likely be out of state. I have to admit I had thought about it but just laughed it off because it seemed like we were destined to stay in Beaumont. But here we were, I was five months pregnant and we would be moving to Arkansas over the summer. Remember when Ed and I had decided we may start following the Razorbacks...yeah. So I went to work on Wednesday and started telling my boss, coworkers, and AMAZING friends that I would be leaving at the end of the school year four weeks away. Jake was scheduled for swimming lessons the first two weeks of June so we decided that Ed would go ahead of us and stay in a hotel while I would keep the kids in Beaumont until the 15th when Jake's swimming was over. We put the house on the market and started packing.
In January I had made plans to take a trip over the summer. One of my best friends was getting married in Las Vegas at the end of June and I was going to be there. They were already teasing me because my first trip to Vegas and I was going to be six months pregnant. Of course the flight was booked out of Houston...and now I would be living in Arkansas. So two weeks after I took the kids to Little Rock, my mom drove down from Kansas and rode with me and the kids BACK to Beaumont so I could go to Vegas with the girls. In the two weeks we were in Little Rock, Ed and I had found an apartment and put down a deposit to move in on July 6th. So it worked like this...me, my mom, and the kids would go back to Beaumont on Wednesday. She would keep them there with all of their toys and familiar surroundings while I spent the weekend in Vegas. My step dad would drive to Little Rock from Kansas when he got off work on Friday and he and Ed would drive to Beaumont on Saturday. I would get home on Monday and we would all load the truck on Tuesday and Wednesday and drive our stuff back to Little Rock on Thursday and unload on Friday. Nice plan right? Well it worked out ok but Holy Cow! There was no food in the house when we got back to Beaumont so at 10:30 at night I went to the grocery store to get milk, cereal, and a few things to last the weekend. Michaela got sick Wednesday night and I was up with her coughing every hour all night. I got up to leave at 6am and left instructions and money with my mom to take her to the doctor as soon as the clinic opened Thursday morning and I went to pick up my friends and head to the airport. I had a GREAT time in Las Vegas...aside from a couple minor meltdowns because I felt guilty that my daughter was sick, we had no buyer for the house, I didn't have a job in Arkansas, and I was having fun and spending money. I think it was mostly hormones. Friday afternoon Stacey, Tiffany, and I walked all the way from Harrah's to the M&M store on the strip. (For those of you who are not familiar with Vegas imagine hiking from a hotel in Vegas to Arizona.) And it was 112 degrees that day. In the shade. Since Joey was with me in Vegas, I had to get him a souvenir so he got an M&M baby blanket. I got back to the hotel and I was exhausted! The stress and guilt of the aforementioned situation started to get to me and I called Ed and just started bawling. I couldn't even get out a full sentence. I cried on the phone to Ed for about 15 minutes but I had to hang up and splash some water on my face because I had to be at the bachlorette party downstairs in 10 minutes. (Don't worry Becky, I pulled it together and had a great time! Sometimes it's handy to have crazy hormones.) We had so much fun that weekend, I even got to see Celine Dion at Ceasar's Palace with my good friend Lois, it was AWESOME! The wedding was great and I got home Monday tired but glad for the weekend away. Then Ed mentioned the truck. He had reserved a 24ft truck for a three bedroom house. "Sweetie, you realize we have a LOT of crap packed into a FOUR bedroom house with a garage, right?" So he had to scramble around Tuesday morning trying to find a larger truck and Wednesday was July 4th and everything was closed. We were finally able to get one at 4pm. We had hired two guys to help us load the truck on Wednesday because I had thoughtfully planned it so I could not lift anything for these moves :) and my parents helped us get everything on the truck. Except that even though we got the biggest truck available, all of our stuff didn't fit. So as we got down to the last of the rooms and realized that we were going to have to leave some stuff, we had to decide what was really necessary and what we could live without...possibly for months. We left Thursday with a few boxes left in one room and a full garage. These things didn't make it to Arkansas until the end of October. Thank goodness we packed all of the baby stuff the first trip!
Once we got the majority of our stuff to Arkansas, I had the task of finding a new doctor, hospital, and pediatrician; getting the kids enrolled in school; finding a job for August; unpacking the boxes; and trying to get the kids involved in soccer, gymnastics, karate, Brownies, or some combination of these. Oh yeah, and remember I'm seven months pregnant, don't know anyone, and my husband has just been sent on another out-of-town business trip over the next weekend. Ed was leaving on Friday morning and Jake woke up with a 105 degree fever. Thank goodness I had asked a lady at the pool the day before for the number of a pediatrician. I called and they said to bring him in. Ed had to leave and I called him a couple of hours later to tell him Jake had pneumonia (again, he had it once when he was two...another story!). They gave him antibiotics and I sat with him all weekend. He started to get a little better Saturday morning but by Sunday afternoon he was laying listless on the couch. He wouldn't even sit up to eat. I was so worried about him! I felt like I was watching my baby slowly drowned and I couldn't do anything for him. I held him and cried Sunday evening and Monday I called the doctor back to find out what to do. His fever wouldn't stay down and he had been on the antibiotics all weekend. The doctor wanted to see him again. I took him back in Monday morning and his pulse oxygen level was only 90. They put him on any oxygen tank and called an ambulance to take him to the Children's Hospital downtown. He was admitted and I called Ed who was on his way home to tell him to come straight to the hospital. They were finally able to get him to respond to medicine and he got to go home on Wednesday. He told me "Mommy, I really like the nurse! I got to play video games and they brought me toys. I want to go back to the nurse!" He meant the hospital. I have tried to tell him he stayed at the "hospital" and the "nurse" took care of him. He still wants to stay at the nurse. I'm just glad we got to bring him home with us. Welcome to Arkansas!
Over the next month we enrolled them in school (where they were too full in Kindergarten and said we wouldn't know if Jake would get to stay there until after school started!), signed up for soccer, I got a job teaching Physical Science and Chemistry, and I found an OB doctor. The baby was doing great and was due in mid-September. Now we just had to wait for him to arrive. I expected him a little early since Jake had been but Joey had other ideas.
I went back to work August 9th with our first meetings. I had found a daycare that would take the big kids for an afterschool program if needed and we put Joey on the waiting list. Ed's mom was coming to stay with us from mid-August til after Christmas to help us get started with the new baby. She arrived and school started and we were getting ready for the new addition. Jake got to stay at the school where they enrolled and they were settling in great! I had a doctor's appointment every week after school started and we finally made it to my last day of work before baby time. I got off Friday and we were going to induce Monday morning, the 17th. So Monday came and mom and I went to the hospital while Ed took the big kids to school. Ed got to the hospital and we got all checked in and they started the prep work. It was about 8:30 when they started trying to put in the IV. Now I have mentioned before that I HATE needles. At that point I had already had two kids without epidurals because of my feelings about needles. The nurse is trying to put in the IV and she is digging around in my hand and can't get the needle in right. Apparently she hit a valve in the vein. Meanwhile I am starting to sweat and turn white, my stomach is rolling and I seriously think I am about to either get sick or pass out right there. I can have natural childbirth but I almost pass out when they try to put in an IV...go figure. So they get me some ice and she moves to the other hand. Great. Finally, the IV is in and they start the pitocin drip at 8:45. I asked for stadol at 9:30 and they gave me a half dose so I could get more later if needed but when I asked for more at 10:00 they said it was too late, it was time to get the doctor in there because the baby was coming. Nobody had expected it to go so fast! The doctor came in and checked on me then he left. I was a little alarmed because I was in intense pain, this baby needed the doctor here now! Me: "Where is the doctor?!" Ed: "He stepped out for a minute." Me: "Well he better get back here quick cuz I'm ready to get this over with!" Fortunately, he came back in about that time and Joey was born at 10:15. He was so sweet and the big kids were so excited to meet and hold him that afternoon!
The next day, the doctor asked me how I was feeling. "A little tired." He asked if I was ready to go home or if I wanted to spend another night in the hospital. Hmmm. Go home to my own bed where I have THREE crying kids, my husband, my mother-in-law, and have to help make decisions and take care of all of them...or stay in the hospital where they take the baby all night except when it's feeding time and they bring me good hot meals on a tray that I get to eat in bed while mom and Ed take care of the big kids without me. "I really don't feel so good doctor." He smiled and I stayed another night. Don't get me wrong though, mom and Ed were a HUGE help after we got home. He gets the big kids ready and off to school every morning and helps make sure they have all of their stuff the night before. And mom took care of the baby all day and even while I was home for eight weeks, she did all the cleaning and laundry and cooking. It was so amazing. I really got spoiled having her here. I really dreaded going back to work. I had a great time spending my days with mom and Joey. But I reminded myself that I go to work so we can keep the kids in soccer, and take them to special events, and so I don't start drawing crayon pictures directly on the walls depicting adults having conversations with other adults. It makes it easier.
Then we had a great holiday season. Thanksgiving was nice and most of our family was here for Christmas! My mom and step dad drove down on Christmas eve and we had a GREAT Christmas day. We opened presents and had lasagna...that's our tradition that started with Ed, Dom and I back in North Carolina...and then it snowed! It was the first time since 1926 that it snowed on Christmas in Little Rock. That was my grandpa saying hello from Heaven. When Ed and I had moved to North Carolina my grandpa was concerned about us being 2 hours apart and how we would deal with snowy weather when we had to travel. Ed assured him that it doesn't snow in North Carolina that much. Grandpa thought it was hilarious when two months later Raleigh had two inches of snow and the entire city shut down. Even Walmart was closed!! He bought us a snow shovel as a wedding gift. He wrapped it but then grandma had to give it to us at our wedding in August because grandpa passed away in May. We still have the shovel. Still wrapped in our bedroom. We are having a battle of wills with grandpa. We refuse to open the shovel because "we don't need it" and he keeps making sure it snows everywhere we go that it "doesn't snow". In Beamont it snowed two years in a row while we were there. They were the only two times my high school students ever saw snow. My teacher friends were calling and texting me in the middle of the night to show me the pictures of them and their miniature snowmen. Ok grandpa, I get it. It snows here. But so far we are winning, we still haven't HAD to open it! (Love you grandpa but keep trying!) Anyway, mom's flight got cancelled and she stayed two extra days during which Ed's dad, step mom, and one of his sisters came to visit also. They all left on the same day, my parents left five days later, and we were left to start our REAL lives with three kids.
2012 was a GREAT year, I will never regret any of it. We had amazing friends and family support, job changes/promotions, and a precious new family member all of which has forever changed (and improved!) our lives. We have strengthened bonds with friends and family that were completely unexpected and I think we realized how very, very important our friends and family are to us. We moved away from what was comfortable but in the process we learned how really special all of our relationships are. Even though we are far away, I want to make sure that we keep all of these special people in our lives, including the ones that were already miles from our home but close in our heart. So I want to take this opportunity to say to ALL of our friends and family, I love you. Kansas, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Idaho, California, Arkansas and anywhere else you or we may travel...you are truly a blessing in our lives and the miles will not keep you from our hearts and our lives. It has been a hard year with challenges and triumphs but ultimately, here we are in 2013--all FIVE of us!--going strong and ready for more. And it's because of our faith in God, the support of our friends and family, and the love that we share for each other. So Joey, welcome to the family and family, welcome to next year!
We had always wanted three babies. We had talked about three kids even before we got engaged. But we had purposely put off the third child for several years because we couldn't afford it and it was looking like we were going to have to give up on the idea of three kids. Ed had just turned 40 and I was going to be 35 in March and we just didn't see it happening anytime soon. As Michaela and Jake were getting older, we also wondered if it was really a good idea to have another one of these little creatures. As with Michaela, God made the decision for us. We were super excited and scared out of our minds at the same time. Ed had never gotten the promotion we had been hoping for and our financial situation was not looking to change anytime soon...and that's when we boarded the roller coaster.
We had a nice little routine in Texas...all week was crazy, crazy, crazy, and busy, busy, busy, but on Wednesday evenings we would drop Michaela and Jake off at church for AWANA and Ed and I would go sit down and have dinner together. It was May 2nd and we had just found out that morning that our new baby was going to be a boy. We had already decided that his name would be Joseph Thomas after Ed's grandfathers and we were really glad to find out it was a boy because we didn't thing a girl would appreciate the name as she got older. (We had nothin' for girl names!) Anyway, we were eating dinner sans children, and Ed's corporate boss called. He reluctantly answered--he had been waiting for a call to find out when and where his next business trip would be and he did not want to go this time. He told his boss we were eating and could he call him back in 20 minutes. So we finished eating in a bad mood and left to pick up the kids at church. He called his boss back while he went in to pick them up and I called my good friend Stacey to talk about summer swimming lessons for the kids. Ed came back out and told me to hang up because we needed to talk. Now he knows when I'm talking to Stacey or Becky it is about IMPORTANT stuff. So for him to insist on interrupting like that I knew something was up. I was scared to ask. But I hung up and he looked at me and asked, "How do you feel about Little Rock?" It was the call we had been waiting for for two years. Ed had been going on "trips" fixing other stations and working hard for the company and he wanted to move up. His boss had called to let him know that the next day the General Manager from the Little Rock station would be calling him to talk about a job. It was unbelieveable. This was basically why we had been waiting to get pregnant. So it happened in the wrong order but he got his promotion that would put us in a better position to have another baby! He got the phone call on Thursday and the next Tuesday they offered him the job. He had to be in Little Rock to start work on June 4th. I wouldn't even be out of school until the 1st.
Now I said earlier that we should have known the year would be crazy... I am a math and science person and I like to find patterns in things. First of all, we moved both times I was pregnant before. In fact we moved twice while I was pregnant with Michaela! And second, all of us had been born in different states. Ed is from New York, I am from Kansas, Michaela is from North Carolina, and Jake is from Texas. We thought that both boys were going to be born in Texas...same town, same hospital, same doctor...no it was too simple for us, we have to make things more difficult than that. So we should have known, or at least suspected that we would be moving and that it would most likely be out of state. I have to admit I had thought about it but just laughed it off because it seemed like we were destined to stay in Beaumont. But here we were, I was five months pregnant and we would be moving to Arkansas over the summer. Remember when Ed and I had decided we may start following the Razorbacks...yeah. So I went to work on Wednesday and started telling my boss, coworkers, and AMAZING friends that I would be leaving at the end of the school year four weeks away. Jake was scheduled for swimming lessons the first two weeks of June so we decided that Ed would go ahead of us and stay in a hotel while I would keep the kids in Beaumont until the 15th when Jake's swimming was over. We put the house on the market and started packing.
In January I had made plans to take a trip over the summer. One of my best friends was getting married in Las Vegas at the end of June and I was going to be there. They were already teasing me because my first trip to Vegas and I was going to be six months pregnant. Of course the flight was booked out of Houston...and now I would be living in Arkansas. So two weeks after I took the kids to Little Rock, my mom drove down from Kansas and rode with me and the kids BACK to Beaumont so I could go to Vegas with the girls. In the two weeks we were in Little Rock, Ed and I had found an apartment and put down a deposit to move in on July 6th. So it worked like this...me, my mom, and the kids would go back to Beaumont on Wednesday. She would keep them there with all of their toys and familiar surroundings while I spent the weekend in Vegas. My step dad would drive to Little Rock from Kansas when he got off work on Friday and he and Ed would drive to Beaumont on Saturday. I would get home on Monday and we would all load the truck on Tuesday and Wednesday and drive our stuff back to Little Rock on Thursday and unload on Friday. Nice plan right? Well it worked out ok but Holy Cow! There was no food in the house when we got back to Beaumont so at 10:30 at night I went to the grocery store to get milk, cereal, and a few things to last the weekend. Michaela got sick Wednesday night and I was up with her coughing every hour all night. I got up to leave at 6am and left instructions and money with my mom to take her to the doctor as soon as the clinic opened Thursday morning and I went to pick up my friends and head to the airport. I had a GREAT time in Las Vegas...aside from a couple minor meltdowns because I felt guilty that my daughter was sick, we had no buyer for the house, I didn't have a job in Arkansas, and I was having fun and spending money. I think it was mostly hormones. Friday afternoon Stacey, Tiffany, and I walked all the way from Harrah's to the M&M store on the strip. (For those of you who are not familiar with Vegas imagine hiking from a hotel in Vegas to Arizona.) And it was 112 degrees that day. In the shade. Since Joey was with me in Vegas, I had to get him a souvenir so he got an M&M baby blanket. I got back to the hotel and I was exhausted! The stress and guilt of the aforementioned situation started to get to me and I called Ed and just started bawling. I couldn't even get out a full sentence. I cried on the phone to Ed for about 15 minutes but I had to hang up and splash some water on my face because I had to be at the bachlorette party downstairs in 10 minutes. (Don't worry Becky, I pulled it together and had a great time! Sometimes it's handy to have crazy hormones.) We had so much fun that weekend, I even got to see Celine Dion at Ceasar's Palace with my good friend Lois, it was AWESOME! The wedding was great and I got home Monday tired but glad for the weekend away. Then Ed mentioned the truck. He had reserved a 24ft truck for a three bedroom house. "Sweetie, you realize we have a LOT of crap packed into a FOUR bedroom house with a garage, right?" So he had to scramble around Tuesday morning trying to find a larger truck and Wednesday was July 4th and everything was closed. We were finally able to get one at 4pm. We had hired two guys to help us load the truck on Wednesday because I had thoughtfully planned it so I could not lift anything for these moves :) and my parents helped us get everything on the truck. Except that even though we got the biggest truck available, all of our stuff didn't fit. So as we got down to the last of the rooms and realized that we were going to have to leave some stuff, we had to decide what was really necessary and what we could live without...possibly for months. We left Thursday with a few boxes left in one room and a full garage. These things didn't make it to Arkansas until the end of October. Thank goodness we packed all of the baby stuff the first trip!
Once we got the majority of our stuff to Arkansas, I had the task of finding a new doctor, hospital, and pediatrician; getting the kids enrolled in school; finding a job for August; unpacking the boxes; and trying to get the kids involved in soccer, gymnastics, karate, Brownies, or some combination of these. Oh yeah, and remember I'm seven months pregnant, don't know anyone, and my husband has just been sent on another out-of-town business trip over the next weekend. Ed was leaving on Friday morning and Jake woke up with a 105 degree fever. Thank goodness I had asked a lady at the pool the day before for the number of a pediatrician. I called and they said to bring him in. Ed had to leave and I called him a couple of hours later to tell him Jake had pneumonia (again, he had it once when he was two...another story!). They gave him antibiotics and I sat with him all weekend. He started to get a little better Saturday morning but by Sunday afternoon he was laying listless on the couch. He wouldn't even sit up to eat. I was so worried about him! I felt like I was watching my baby slowly drowned and I couldn't do anything for him. I held him and cried Sunday evening and Monday I called the doctor back to find out what to do. His fever wouldn't stay down and he had been on the antibiotics all weekend. The doctor wanted to see him again. I took him back in Monday morning and his pulse oxygen level was only 90. They put him on any oxygen tank and called an ambulance to take him to the Children's Hospital downtown. He was admitted and I called Ed who was on his way home to tell him to come straight to the hospital. They were finally able to get him to respond to medicine and he got to go home on Wednesday. He told me "Mommy, I really like the nurse! I got to play video games and they brought me toys. I want to go back to the nurse!" He meant the hospital. I have tried to tell him he stayed at the "hospital" and the "nurse" took care of him. He still wants to stay at the nurse. I'm just glad we got to bring him home with us. Welcome to Arkansas!
Over the next month we enrolled them in school (where they were too full in Kindergarten and said we wouldn't know if Jake would get to stay there until after school started!), signed up for soccer, I got a job teaching Physical Science and Chemistry, and I found an OB doctor. The baby was doing great and was due in mid-September. Now we just had to wait for him to arrive. I expected him a little early since Jake had been but Joey had other ideas.
I went back to work August 9th with our first meetings. I had found a daycare that would take the big kids for an afterschool program if needed and we put Joey on the waiting list. Ed's mom was coming to stay with us from mid-August til after Christmas to help us get started with the new baby. She arrived and school started and we were getting ready for the new addition. Jake got to stay at the school where they enrolled and they were settling in great! I had a doctor's appointment every week after school started and we finally made it to my last day of work before baby time. I got off Friday and we were going to induce Monday morning, the 17th. So Monday came and mom and I went to the hospital while Ed took the big kids to school. Ed got to the hospital and we got all checked in and they started the prep work. It was about 8:30 when they started trying to put in the IV. Now I have mentioned before that I HATE needles. At that point I had already had two kids without epidurals because of my feelings about needles. The nurse is trying to put in the IV and she is digging around in my hand and can't get the needle in right. Apparently she hit a valve in the vein. Meanwhile I am starting to sweat and turn white, my stomach is rolling and I seriously think I am about to either get sick or pass out right there. I can have natural childbirth but I almost pass out when they try to put in an IV...go figure. So they get me some ice and she moves to the other hand. Great. Finally, the IV is in and they start the pitocin drip at 8:45. I asked for stadol at 9:30 and they gave me a half dose so I could get more later if needed but when I asked for more at 10:00 they said it was too late, it was time to get the doctor in there because the baby was coming. Nobody had expected it to go so fast! The doctor came in and checked on me then he left. I was a little alarmed because I was in intense pain, this baby needed the doctor here now! Me: "Where is the doctor?!" Ed: "He stepped out for a minute." Me: "Well he better get back here quick cuz I'm ready to get this over with!" Fortunately, he came back in about that time and Joey was born at 10:15. He was so sweet and the big kids were so excited to meet and hold him that afternoon!
The next day, the doctor asked me how I was feeling. "A little tired." He asked if I was ready to go home or if I wanted to spend another night in the hospital. Hmmm. Go home to my own bed where I have THREE crying kids, my husband, my mother-in-law, and have to help make decisions and take care of all of them...or stay in the hospital where they take the baby all night except when it's feeding time and they bring me good hot meals on a tray that I get to eat in bed while mom and Ed take care of the big kids without me. "I really don't feel so good doctor." He smiled and I stayed another night. Don't get me wrong though, mom and Ed were a HUGE help after we got home. He gets the big kids ready and off to school every morning and helps make sure they have all of their stuff the night before. And mom took care of the baby all day and even while I was home for eight weeks, she did all the cleaning and laundry and cooking. It was so amazing. I really got spoiled having her here. I really dreaded going back to work. I had a great time spending my days with mom and Joey. But I reminded myself that I go to work so we can keep the kids in soccer, and take them to special events, and so I don't start drawing crayon pictures directly on the walls depicting adults having conversations with other adults. It makes it easier.
Then we had a great holiday season. Thanksgiving was nice and most of our family was here for Christmas! My mom and step dad drove down on Christmas eve and we had a GREAT Christmas day. We opened presents and had lasagna...that's our tradition that started with Ed, Dom and I back in North Carolina...and then it snowed! It was the first time since 1926 that it snowed on Christmas in Little Rock. That was my grandpa saying hello from Heaven. When Ed and I had moved to North Carolina my grandpa was concerned about us being 2 hours apart and how we would deal with snowy weather when we had to travel. Ed assured him that it doesn't snow in North Carolina that much. Grandpa thought it was hilarious when two months later Raleigh had two inches of snow and the entire city shut down. Even Walmart was closed!! He bought us a snow shovel as a wedding gift. He wrapped it but then grandma had to give it to us at our wedding in August because grandpa passed away in May. We still have the shovel. Still wrapped in our bedroom. We are having a battle of wills with grandpa. We refuse to open the shovel because "we don't need it" and he keeps making sure it snows everywhere we go that it "doesn't snow". In Beamont it snowed two years in a row while we were there. They were the only two times my high school students ever saw snow. My teacher friends were calling and texting me in the middle of the night to show me the pictures of them and their miniature snowmen. Ok grandpa, I get it. It snows here. But so far we are winning, we still haven't HAD to open it! (Love you grandpa but keep trying!) Anyway, mom's flight got cancelled and she stayed two extra days during which Ed's dad, step mom, and one of his sisters came to visit also. They all left on the same day, my parents left five days later, and we were left to start our REAL lives with three kids.
2012 was a GREAT year, I will never regret any of it. We had amazing friends and family support, job changes/promotions, and a precious new family member all of which has forever changed (and improved!) our lives. We have strengthened bonds with friends and family that were completely unexpected and I think we realized how very, very important our friends and family are to us. We moved away from what was comfortable but in the process we learned how really special all of our relationships are. Even though we are far away, I want to make sure that we keep all of these special people in our lives, including the ones that were already miles from our home but close in our heart. So I want to take this opportunity to say to ALL of our friends and family, I love you. Kansas, New York, Virginia, North Carolina, Texas, Idaho, California, Arkansas and anywhere else you or we may travel...you are truly a blessing in our lives and the miles will not keep you from our hearts and our lives. It has been a hard year with challenges and triumphs but ultimately, here we are in 2013--all FIVE of us!--going strong and ready for more. And it's because of our faith in God, the support of our friends and family, and the love that we share for each other. So Joey, welcome to the family and family, welcome to next year!
Saturday, January 12, 2013
My Little Jakey
Jake was born without much fuss. Michaela was almost three and "Baby Jake" was due in the beginning of January. We didn't have any trouble with the pregnancy (I remembered the ordeal with Michaela and the triple screen blood test so I REFUSED to take it this time!) and there wasn't any debate over the name. We decided to name him Edward James after Ed and my grandpa. I wanted a nickname for him that wasn't so grown up sounding and when I was looking through baby name books, I discovered that James and Jacob are from the same origin and have the same meaning so I suggested "Jake". Michaela immediately started running around calling him "Baby Jake" and of course it stuck. We do get funny looks when we talk about Jake to someone who has his official name in front of them. They always want to know where it came from. So I'm a little crazy, none of us are perfect.
I was teaching and we were going into Christmas break on December 15th. Since the baby was due the first week of January, I wasn't going back to work after the break until February and I had not gotten anything ready for the hospital or being home with a newborn. We got out of school Friday and I spent Saturday and Sunday cleaning the house. Michaela and I were staying home the next week to get ready for Christmas and baby Jake and Ed would be on vacation, but he had to direct the morning show on Monday (he works at a television station for anyone who doesn't know) so he went in to work about 5am. The show was from 5:30 to 7:00 and Ed was the only one that could direct because someone had to take the day off. Right after he left, my water broke at 5:15. I was home alone with a 2-year-old who was asleep, no family in town, and my husband was inaccessible for the next two hours. Even if I could get him to answer his phone during the show, there wasn't anything he could do, so I went back to bed for a while. I got up about 6:30 and packed a bag for me, packed a bag for the new baby, and a bag for Michaela. I didn't know where she was going but she would have to go somewhere so I figured it was best to have a bag. We had a couple that were good friends of ours who were going to keep Michaela for a couple of days when we had to go to the hospital but since Jake was so early, they were on a cruise. She had an ear doctor's appointment anyway that morning and the ear doctor was right next to the hospital so I figured that Ed could take her while we waited for Jake's arrival. Finally, about 7:15 I decided to go ahead and call him. He freaked out! He hurried everyone and got the last things done that he had to do and left. That night in the hospital we watched the evening newscast and they congratulated us on the new baby and the anchor even mentioned that I had waited two hours in labor before I called and bothered Ed at work! Anyway, Ed picked us up and we all went to the Emergency Room. We got settled in a room and Ed took Michaela to her appointment and I called the daycare to ask if we could bring her out for the day. They were so exicited they didn't charge us for the day and even asked if we needed someone to come and get her! We were very lucky to have GREAT daycares when we were in Texas :) Ed got back to the hospital at 10:30am and Jake was born at 10:45. We had our baby Jake!
There were several friends that came to visit at the hospital and one of the teachers that I worked with picked up Michaela and kept her for a couple of days so I could rest. (Thanks again Rita and Raymond! We love you guys!) They called her "No, Michaela". If I keep writing and you keep reading you'll understand why if you don't already! Once we got home and settled in, it was clear that Jake was an entirely different baby than Michaela. He was calm and relaxed. He didn't need much and was usually content no matter what was going on. Michaela was in love with her baby brother. She liked to play with him so much and she couldn't wait until he got big enough to play with her too. She liked to climb INSIDE his carrier...with him in it. You know, the carseat carriers that have the handle on them, when Jake was sitting in it on the floor she would squeeze in between him and the handle. She grabbed the edges of the carrier near the top by his head and put her knees on the edges down by his feet and she would make faces and talk to him as she rocked the entire carrier back and forth! And not gently. Jake would just lay there and look up at her adoringly. We were frequently saying things we never thought anyone would say... "Michaela, don't drag your baby brother by his head!", "Don't put your fingers in his mouth...I know he sucks HIS thumb, but that doesn't mean he wants YOURS", "Stop trying to buckle yourself in the baby carrier, you're going to get stuck", and eventually "How did you BREAK the side of the crib?!?!" Life has never been dull with these two.
We went for a long time without many "Baby Jake" stories because we thought he was a sweet little angel. Ed and I neither one had much experience with kids and so for the longest time we thought Michaela was normal too. Our first real clue that we were in trouble was when her daycare director pulled me aside one day to "talk". Michaela had just turned two and I was still pregnant with Jakey. The director said she needed to talk to me one day when I went to pick her up. She asked, "Does Michaela EVER listen to either of you?" I was shocked and really didn't know what to say. "Well, sometimes. She is a little wild but she will do what we tell her eventually." She went on to explain that Michaela didn't do anything that a normal 2-year-old doesn't do (which is bad enough, I'm told) but she does it all 10 times faster than all the others. The minute they took her down off the bookcase, they would turn around and she was on top of the table. So when Jake was little, compared to Michaela, he WAS an angel! They would play together and Michaela took whatever she wanted. If Jake was playing with a toy and she wanted it, she snatched it away from him. He would look at her a minute, put his thumb in his mouth, and find another toy. She dragged him around, took his toys, demanded he watch or play what she wanted, and he thought that's how life was supposed to be so he just accepted it.
Now he did have his moments here and there. The whole first year of his life he had almost constant ear infections. He never showed any symptoms...again, very laid back kid!...we would take him to the doctor for what was supposed to be a "Well Baby" check and he would have an ear infection, or two! No fever, no fussing, no pulling at his ears. But when he turned one and still wasn't walking or saying words like he should have been, the doctor sent him to a specialist for his ears. He had to have tubes put in at 14 months. One month later, he was walking and two weeks after that he was kicking a soccer ball up and down the field at his sister's games. Unfortunately, due to the constant fluid in his ears, he was behind in his speech so he started seeing a speech therapist at about 17 months. Laura Beth was really great with him and he quickly picked up sounds and words that he had not been hearing before. Now because of the developmental delay, they did evaluate him just in case there were other issues. Laura Beth would try to see how he reacted when he was angry to make sure he showed anger in appropriate way,s so to make him mad she would fuss with him when he was playing or take his toys out of his hand. She got so frustrated because she couldn't get any kind of reaction from him, he would just ignore her or play with something else. We told her she needed to meet Michaela. After a year of therapy, he had come so far along he was actually ahead of his age level and he tested out of the program. Honestly, I was sad to see her go. I really liked Laura Beth and Jake liked playing with her!
There was the time when he was about two that he was in the playroom watching TV and he managed to pull the TV over on his foot. We had it sitting on the floor so that it wouldn't fall on the kids and hurt them but obviously, they were too smart for us. He figured out how to hurt himself with it anyway. He cried and cried and the foot was bruised so I took him to the ER to see if it was broken. Fortunately, it was just bruised. A couple months later though he was playing in the living room with Ed and he was running back and forth between the couch and the TV. He was laughing really hard (he loves playing with daddy!) and I told them both they needed to settle down. But they kept playing crazy in the house and a couple minutes later SMACK! Jake was running toward the big TV while he was laughing and he tripped and slammed face-first into the TV stand. Ed took him straight into the bathroom and yelled for me. When I looked at Jake, he had blood all over his mouth and chin. I couldn't even tell what was bleeding! Ed wiped his face and I looked at his mouth and his front tooth was bent all the way back to the roof of his mouth! It was so gross! I'm usually not very squeamish, I can handle all kinds of blood and guts and gore but I can't stand needles and teeth. I thought I was going to throw up. But I couldn't leave his tooth like that, I was afraid it would heal that way and mess up his whole mouth. So I reached in and grabbed the tooth and tried to put it back in the right position. The stupid tooth popped right out. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to take him to the ER if they couldn't do anything anyway but I didn't want to ruin the tooth if it could be fixed. So I called one of my studnets. It was 7pm and I knew her dad was a dentist. I had her cell phone number because she had babysat for us before. He was super nice and I felt like an idiot for bothering him at home at night...but it was my baby's tooth! There wasn't anything they would do so Jake is still missing that front tooth. There is a picture of him and his big sister both with big goofy gap-toothed smiles. We are hoping he will start getting his permanent teeth soon but I don't know what he will do with a full set! He got another trip to the ER the next summer when he was three. He had been playing with Michaela and came out of the playroom coughing. I asked him what was wrong and he said he had a penny in his throat. Are you kidding me?!! "You swallowed a penny?!" "No, I didn't swallow it all the way, it's stuck." Oh, of course, silly me. So he was three and maybe he didn't really put a penny in his mouth. But after a few minutes of talking to him, it was pretty clear that he had TRIED to swallow the penny but he didn't think it made it all the way down. I knew it wasn't blocking his airway because he was talking and coughing but I wasn't sure that it had really gone all the way down either. A penny is kinda big, it could get struck somewhere in a 3-year-old's esophagus right? So we went to get an X-ray and we could see the penny sitting right in the middle of his tummy. The nurses were trying not to laugh about it when they told me that the entrance was the smallest part and the penny would "come out" on its own. As long as they were sure it was going to come out, I wasn't going to look for it.
After these kinds of "incidents" with Jake, I worried more about his intelligence than his behavior. This child was somewhat accident prone and I wasn't entirely convinced that Michaela wasn't behind many of these little disasters befalling the boy. There's no telling what she talked him into before he learned to question her instructions. ("I don't care if Michaela told you to draw a picture on your tummy with the permanent markers!") How smart could he really be if he kept listening to her and getting hurt or in trouble? We've tried to tell her how important it is that she look out for her little brother, and she's great when she wants to be, nobody ELSE had better bother him! But he has started to question her and he is doing very well (academically) in school. So I guess we don't have to worry too much about his intelligence...he obviously just adores his big sister! They really do love each other so much and we are so blessed to have such a great pair of babies. And now we have a third baby that they both love so much. Joey is only 3 months old but he looks up at his big brother Jake and his big sister Michaela and he smiles so big and he laughs. We will have to keep an eye out for markers and pennies but hopefully they are enough older than him that they will be more mindful of his safety. But then again they ARE Jake and Michaela!
I was teaching and we were going into Christmas break on December 15th. Since the baby was due the first week of January, I wasn't going back to work after the break until February and I had not gotten anything ready for the hospital or being home with a newborn. We got out of school Friday and I spent Saturday and Sunday cleaning the house. Michaela and I were staying home the next week to get ready for Christmas and baby Jake and Ed would be on vacation, but he had to direct the morning show on Monday (he works at a television station for anyone who doesn't know) so he went in to work about 5am. The show was from 5:30 to 7:00 and Ed was the only one that could direct because someone had to take the day off. Right after he left, my water broke at 5:15. I was home alone with a 2-year-old who was asleep, no family in town, and my husband was inaccessible for the next two hours. Even if I could get him to answer his phone during the show, there wasn't anything he could do, so I went back to bed for a while. I got up about 6:30 and packed a bag for me, packed a bag for the new baby, and a bag for Michaela. I didn't know where she was going but she would have to go somewhere so I figured it was best to have a bag. We had a couple that were good friends of ours who were going to keep Michaela for a couple of days when we had to go to the hospital but since Jake was so early, they were on a cruise. She had an ear doctor's appointment anyway that morning and the ear doctor was right next to the hospital so I figured that Ed could take her while we waited for Jake's arrival. Finally, about 7:15 I decided to go ahead and call him. He freaked out! He hurried everyone and got the last things done that he had to do and left. That night in the hospital we watched the evening newscast and they congratulated us on the new baby and the anchor even mentioned that I had waited two hours in labor before I called and bothered Ed at work! Anyway, Ed picked us up and we all went to the Emergency Room. We got settled in a room and Ed took Michaela to her appointment and I called the daycare to ask if we could bring her out for the day. They were so exicited they didn't charge us for the day and even asked if we needed someone to come and get her! We were very lucky to have GREAT daycares when we were in Texas :) Ed got back to the hospital at 10:30am and Jake was born at 10:45. We had our baby Jake!
There were several friends that came to visit at the hospital and one of the teachers that I worked with picked up Michaela and kept her for a couple of days so I could rest. (Thanks again Rita and Raymond! We love you guys!) They called her "No, Michaela". If I keep writing and you keep reading you'll understand why if you don't already! Once we got home and settled in, it was clear that Jake was an entirely different baby than Michaela. He was calm and relaxed. He didn't need much and was usually content no matter what was going on. Michaela was in love with her baby brother. She liked to play with him so much and she couldn't wait until he got big enough to play with her too. She liked to climb INSIDE his carrier...with him in it. You know, the carseat carriers that have the handle on them, when Jake was sitting in it on the floor she would squeeze in between him and the handle. She grabbed the edges of the carrier near the top by his head and put her knees on the edges down by his feet and she would make faces and talk to him as she rocked the entire carrier back and forth! And not gently. Jake would just lay there and look up at her adoringly. We were frequently saying things we never thought anyone would say... "Michaela, don't drag your baby brother by his head!", "Don't put your fingers in his mouth...I know he sucks HIS thumb, but that doesn't mean he wants YOURS", "Stop trying to buckle yourself in the baby carrier, you're going to get stuck", and eventually "How did you BREAK the side of the crib?!?!" Life has never been dull with these two.
We went for a long time without many "Baby Jake" stories because we thought he was a sweet little angel. Ed and I neither one had much experience with kids and so for the longest time we thought Michaela was normal too. Our first real clue that we were in trouble was when her daycare director pulled me aside one day to "talk". Michaela had just turned two and I was still pregnant with Jakey. The director said she needed to talk to me one day when I went to pick her up. She asked, "Does Michaela EVER listen to either of you?" I was shocked and really didn't know what to say. "Well, sometimes. She is a little wild but she will do what we tell her eventually." She went on to explain that Michaela didn't do anything that a normal 2-year-old doesn't do (which is bad enough, I'm told) but she does it all 10 times faster than all the others. The minute they took her down off the bookcase, they would turn around and she was on top of the table. So when Jake was little, compared to Michaela, he WAS an angel! They would play together and Michaela took whatever she wanted. If Jake was playing with a toy and she wanted it, she snatched it away from him. He would look at her a minute, put his thumb in his mouth, and find another toy. She dragged him around, took his toys, demanded he watch or play what she wanted, and he thought that's how life was supposed to be so he just accepted it.
Now he did have his moments here and there. The whole first year of his life he had almost constant ear infections. He never showed any symptoms...again, very laid back kid!...we would take him to the doctor for what was supposed to be a "Well Baby" check and he would have an ear infection, or two! No fever, no fussing, no pulling at his ears. But when he turned one and still wasn't walking or saying words like he should have been, the doctor sent him to a specialist for his ears. He had to have tubes put in at 14 months. One month later, he was walking and two weeks after that he was kicking a soccer ball up and down the field at his sister's games. Unfortunately, due to the constant fluid in his ears, he was behind in his speech so he started seeing a speech therapist at about 17 months. Laura Beth was really great with him and he quickly picked up sounds and words that he had not been hearing before. Now because of the developmental delay, they did evaluate him just in case there were other issues. Laura Beth would try to see how he reacted when he was angry to make sure he showed anger in appropriate way,s so to make him mad she would fuss with him when he was playing or take his toys out of his hand. She got so frustrated because she couldn't get any kind of reaction from him, he would just ignore her or play with something else. We told her she needed to meet Michaela. After a year of therapy, he had come so far along he was actually ahead of his age level and he tested out of the program. Honestly, I was sad to see her go. I really liked Laura Beth and Jake liked playing with her!
There was the time when he was about two that he was in the playroom watching TV and he managed to pull the TV over on his foot. We had it sitting on the floor so that it wouldn't fall on the kids and hurt them but obviously, they were too smart for us. He figured out how to hurt himself with it anyway. He cried and cried and the foot was bruised so I took him to the ER to see if it was broken. Fortunately, it was just bruised. A couple months later though he was playing in the living room with Ed and he was running back and forth between the couch and the TV. He was laughing really hard (he loves playing with daddy!) and I told them both they needed to settle down. But they kept playing crazy in the house and a couple minutes later SMACK! Jake was running toward the big TV while he was laughing and he tripped and slammed face-first into the TV stand. Ed took him straight into the bathroom and yelled for me. When I looked at Jake, he had blood all over his mouth and chin. I couldn't even tell what was bleeding! Ed wiped his face and I looked at his mouth and his front tooth was bent all the way back to the roof of his mouth! It was so gross! I'm usually not very squeamish, I can handle all kinds of blood and guts and gore but I can't stand needles and teeth. I thought I was going to throw up. But I couldn't leave his tooth like that, I was afraid it would heal that way and mess up his whole mouth. So I reached in and grabbed the tooth and tried to put it back in the right position. The stupid tooth popped right out. I didn't know what to do. I didn't want to take him to the ER if they couldn't do anything anyway but I didn't want to ruin the tooth if it could be fixed. So I called one of my studnets. It was 7pm and I knew her dad was a dentist. I had her cell phone number because she had babysat for us before. He was super nice and I felt like an idiot for bothering him at home at night...but it was my baby's tooth! There wasn't anything they would do so Jake is still missing that front tooth. There is a picture of him and his big sister both with big goofy gap-toothed smiles. We are hoping he will start getting his permanent teeth soon but I don't know what he will do with a full set! He got another trip to the ER the next summer when he was three. He had been playing with Michaela and came out of the playroom coughing. I asked him what was wrong and he said he had a penny in his throat. Are you kidding me?!! "You swallowed a penny?!" "No, I didn't swallow it all the way, it's stuck." Oh, of course, silly me. So he was three and maybe he didn't really put a penny in his mouth. But after a few minutes of talking to him, it was pretty clear that he had TRIED to swallow the penny but he didn't think it made it all the way down. I knew it wasn't blocking his airway because he was talking and coughing but I wasn't sure that it had really gone all the way down either. A penny is kinda big, it could get struck somewhere in a 3-year-old's esophagus right? So we went to get an X-ray and we could see the penny sitting right in the middle of his tummy. The nurses were trying not to laugh about it when they told me that the entrance was the smallest part and the penny would "come out" on its own. As long as they were sure it was going to come out, I wasn't going to look for it.
After these kinds of "incidents" with Jake, I worried more about his intelligence than his behavior. This child was somewhat accident prone and I wasn't entirely convinced that Michaela wasn't behind many of these little disasters befalling the boy. There's no telling what she talked him into before he learned to question her instructions. ("I don't care if Michaela told you to draw a picture on your tummy with the permanent markers!") How smart could he really be if he kept listening to her and getting hurt or in trouble? We've tried to tell her how important it is that she look out for her little brother, and she's great when she wants to be, nobody ELSE had better bother him! But he has started to question her and he is doing very well (academically) in school. So I guess we don't have to worry too much about his intelligence...he obviously just adores his big sister! They really do love each other so much and we are so blessed to have such a great pair of babies. And now we have a third baby that they both love so much. Joey is only 3 months old but he looks up at his big brother Jake and his big sister Michaela and he smiles so big and he laughs. We will have to keep an eye out for markers and pennies but hopefully they are enough older than him that they will be more mindful of his safety. But then again they ARE Jake and Michaela!
Friday, January 4, 2013
Meet Michaela
Now that I have introduced my husband and shared some of his dirty laundry, you may be able to understand our daughter a little bit. As with most blessings in our lives she was not our plan but God's plan for us. I tell everyone that I prayed for patience and God gave me Michaela. Truly, be careful what you ask for. Michaela was born a perfectly healthy, normal baby but we had quite a ride with her. She started causing us hearache from about 12 weeks into the pregnancy. We went for a routine prenatal check and were offered the "Triple Screen", a blood test that helps detect abnormalities such as indicators for Downs Syndrome. I HATE needles and this screen is not required, nor did we have any risk factors that would indicate a need for the test. But Ed thought that having the screening done would put our minds at ease when it came back normal and he really wanted me to do it so I agreed. (I did learn a lesson from this experience!) Unfortunately, it did not come back normal. It showed an increased risk for Downs Syndrome and we were terrified. The doctors had to do a level 2 sonogram where they could better see the baby. This was done and they couldn't see anything that would indicate a problem but they recommended an amniocentesis in order to completely rule out problems. This is a procedure where a three foot long needle that is as big around as your little finger is jabbed directly through your belly button and they dig around in your uterus until they get enough amniotic fluid that they can test and get the baby's DNA. (I have exaggerated very little here. That needle was freaking huge!) Remember that I hate needles? I laid on the table a cried while they did the test but Ed held my hand the whole time and it turned out to be worth it when we got the results a couple of weeks later that our baby girl was fine! I guess you can imagine the relief we felt. As with Ed, I should have realized at this point that life would never be easy with this child.
Then we had to choose a name. We now knew we were having a girl and I started thinking of all the beautiful names for little girls. Every time I would suggest a name, Ed would ask, "Why that name?" I would tell him that I liked the way it sounded or that it was pretty but unusual, or that I liked the meaning of the name. He would answer, "No, I don't like that one." After several conversations like this I was exasperated and I finally asked him, "What in the world do you want me to say? How do you want to choose her name?" He said he wanted to use a family name that had meaning to us. Are you kidding?! All these beautiful names I had dreamed of naming my little girl and you limit me to family names! But I'm a smart girl (sometimes). My brother's name is Michael. I like my brother. And I like the name Michaela...you can guess the rest. Since we took her first name from my family, her middle name is after Ed's mom, Marie. As if Ed's craziness isn't enough, my family is a little unstable itself. My mom had a fit when we announced that the baby would be named Michaela Marie. Not that my mom has anything against either name or either person she is named after. In fact, my mom really likes Ed's mom. And of course she's crazy about my brother (but that's another story!) but her middle name is Jo and my middle name is Jo and she intended for me to give my daughter the middle name Jo also. But I didn't. She told Ed that we named the baby wrong. In those words. Unbelieveable. To this day she still calls Michaela "Mickey Jo". Ed cringes every time he hears it. I think it would have been fine as a nickname if she hadn't told him we had named the child WRONG. In our private conversations we refer to this as "The Name Incident". Nothing is easy in this family.
We finally settled on the name and family members accepted it (some easier than others) and the rest of the pregancy was somewhat uneventful. I had false labor during the Oscar's and we thought she was going to be born on February 29th. Maybe her threatened Oscar appearance was an indication that she would reign in our home as the Drama Queen. But she waited. And waited. And waited. It seemed like forever, but she was only 5 days past due when she was born in March. Ed was working evenings so he called in to work and took me to the hospital instead about 3pm. I had just been to the doctor that morning and had progressed about 1cm since then so they admitted me around 5pm but figured it would still be awhile. I was scared of the pain so I let them draw blood to prepare for an epidural but I didn't want one--remember, I'm scared of needles, there was no way I wanted one in my BACK if it could be avoided! It was a good thing because when they came back at 6:30pm to say the blood work was done and I could have the epidural, it was already time to push. Ed was talking to me and holding my hand, at which point I yelled at him, "shut up! I hold your hand, you don't hold my hand!" He was quick to comply. They had to call the doctor back from supper and the nurse told me not to push yet. She said, "I can deliver this baby but I don't want to!" Thankfully the doctor arrived quickly and Michaela was born at 7:27pm.
We finally had our beautiful baby girl! She did all the silly baby things that all babies do. She spit up. A LOT. She went through tons of diapers. Ed's mom also gave her a nickname that lasted a while, "Volcano pants" and yes, it was because of the way the poop erupted from the top of her pants. More than once. But something was different about Michaela. From the very beginning she was very aware of her surroundings. She "watched" everything. I know they say babies can't see more than three feet away but if Michaela was limited, you couldn't tell. She would actually stare people down in stores until they would come and talk to her. When we held her on our shoulder, she would push away from us and look around. This was at DAYS old. I have never heard of a baby this aware or this strong. It was amazing. And she did not like to be held. She would wiggle and cry until we put her down. She liked attention and being talked to but this kid was independent from the start. Ed would sit with her in the crook of his arm while he played video games and she would watch. Daddy's little girl! I would dance around the house with her to the song "Yeah!" by Usher. It is still one of her favorite songs. She was an amazing baby!
Her first post-natal incident came at about two months old. Michaela was notorious already for throwing herself around while you were holding her. It was bound to happen and one day pur good friend was bringing her inside and as she reached for the door Michaela chose that exact second to throw herself backwards. Despite our friend's best efforts to stop it, Michaela fell and hit her head on concrete. They thankfully acted quickly and put her in her carrier and put ice on the bump. There was no blood, no crying, no fuss but they and Ed decided to take her to the emergency room anyway. I was at work and Ed had the brilliant idea that since I couldn't do anything anyway they shouldn't tell me until I got home. I could have killed him when I finally found out but luckily for him I was too worried about Michaela to bother. It turned out she had fractured her skull. Neither of the soft spots had hardened yet and they were able to expand to adjust for any swelling and she had no problems. She spent the weekend in the hospital and I think it had to be one of the longest weekends of my life, but it didn't phase her in the least. Michaela is both figuratively and literally hard-headed, it is just a medical fact. Bones heal stronger than before they were broken. Again, probably should have realized what I was in for at this point but it was just an accident, right? If only... Hellllloooo, Michaela.
Then we had to choose a name. We now knew we were having a girl and I started thinking of all the beautiful names for little girls. Every time I would suggest a name, Ed would ask, "Why that name?" I would tell him that I liked the way it sounded or that it was pretty but unusual, or that I liked the meaning of the name. He would answer, "No, I don't like that one." After several conversations like this I was exasperated and I finally asked him, "What in the world do you want me to say? How do you want to choose her name?" He said he wanted to use a family name that had meaning to us. Are you kidding?! All these beautiful names I had dreamed of naming my little girl and you limit me to family names! But I'm a smart girl (sometimes). My brother's name is Michael. I like my brother. And I like the name Michaela...you can guess the rest. Since we took her first name from my family, her middle name is after Ed's mom, Marie. As if Ed's craziness isn't enough, my family is a little unstable itself. My mom had a fit when we announced that the baby would be named Michaela Marie. Not that my mom has anything against either name or either person she is named after. In fact, my mom really likes Ed's mom. And of course she's crazy about my brother (but that's another story!) but her middle name is Jo and my middle name is Jo and she intended for me to give my daughter the middle name Jo also. But I didn't. She told Ed that we named the baby wrong. In those words. Unbelieveable. To this day she still calls Michaela "Mickey Jo". Ed cringes every time he hears it. I think it would have been fine as a nickname if she hadn't told him we had named the child WRONG. In our private conversations we refer to this as "The Name Incident". Nothing is easy in this family.
We finally settled on the name and family members accepted it (some easier than others) and the rest of the pregancy was somewhat uneventful. I had false labor during the Oscar's and we thought she was going to be born on February 29th. Maybe her threatened Oscar appearance was an indication that she would reign in our home as the Drama Queen. But she waited. And waited. And waited. It seemed like forever, but she was only 5 days past due when she was born in March. Ed was working evenings so he called in to work and took me to the hospital instead about 3pm. I had just been to the doctor that morning and had progressed about 1cm since then so they admitted me around 5pm but figured it would still be awhile. I was scared of the pain so I let them draw blood to prepare for an epidural but I didn't want one--remember, I'm scared of needles, there was no way I wanted one in my BACK if it could be avoided! It was a good thing because when they came back at 6:30pm to say the blood work was done and I could have the epidural, it was already time to push. Ed was talking to me and holding my hand, at which point I yelled at him, "shut up! I hold your hand, you don't hold my hand!" He was quick to comply. They had to call the doctor back from supper and the nurse told me not to push yet. She said, "I can deliver this baby but I don't want to!" Thankfully the doctor arrived quickly and Michaela was born at 7:27pm.
We finally had our beautiful baby girl! She did all the silly baby things that all babies do. She spit up. A LOT. She went through tons of diapers. Ed's mom also gave her a nickname that lasted a while, "Volcano pants" and yes, it was because of the way the poop erupted from the top of her pants. More than once. But something was different about Michaela. From the very beginning she was very aware of her surroundings. She "watched" everything. I know they say babies can't see more than three feet away but if Michaela was limited, you couldn't tell. She would actually stare people down in stores until they would come and talk to her. When we held her on our shoulder, she would push away from us and look around. This was at DAYS old. I have never heard of a baby this aware or this strong. It was amazing. And she did not like to be held. She would wiggle and cry until we put her down. She liked attention and being talked to but this kid was independent from the start. Ed would sit with her in the crook of his arm while he played video games and she would watch. Daddy's little girl! I would dance around the house with her to the song "Yeah!" by Usher. It is still one of her favorite songs. She was an amazing baby!
Her first post-natal incident came at about two months old. Michaela was notorious already for throwing herself around while you were holding her. It was bound to happen and one day pur good friend was bringing her inside and as she reached for the door Michaela chose that exact second to throw herself backwards. Despite our friend's best efforts to stop it, Michaela fell and hit her head on concrete. They thankfully acted quickly and put her in her carrier and put ice on the bump. There was no blood, no crying, no fuss but they and Ed decided to take her to the emergency room anyway. I was at work and Ed had the brilliant idea that since I couldn't do anything anyway they shouldn't tell me until I got home. I could have killed him when I finally found out but luckily for him I was too worried about Michaela to bother. It turned out she had fractured her skull. Neither of the soft spots had hardened yet and they were able to expand to adjust for any swelling and she had no problems. She spent the weekend in the hospital and I think it had to be one of the longest weekends of my life, but it didn't phase her in the least. Michaela is both figuratively and literally hard-headed, it is just a medical fact. Bones heal stronger than before they were broken. Again, probably should have realized what I was in for at this point but it was just an accident, right? If only... Hellllloooo, Michaela.
And So It Begins...Somewhere in the Middle
When people ask me how many children I have, I always answer the same way, "Four. I have a three-month-old son, a six-year-old son, an eight-year-old daughter, and a 41-year-old husband." Sometimes I think the 41-year-old competes with the others for the title of Least Mature. So the very first thing I have to say as I begin this blog is that I absolutely ADORE my family. I am so in love with my husband and kids and I would not trade one minute (or one of these stories I'm about to tell) for anything. These four people have caused me no small amount of frustration, difficulty, exhaustion, and pain...but it is all competely worth it! That being said, let me tell you why I am writing this today.
For many years, I have been calling friends and family when I have reached the end of my rope with one these four precious people and I have told them the horror story of the day that has most recently pushed me to the edge of sanity. I am almost always met with "LOL". Or "Too cute". Or "They crack me up!" So at some point in my relationship with others, many of them have said to me, "you should write a book about your family." Well, I'm not ambitious enough to start that book but I was on Facebook last night and I followed a friend's link that led me to a blog and I got the idea to start a blog about these stories. This may not be interesting to others who don't know my family but it may be a way for you to get to know them and share in a little of my "pain". There may be other moms out there that have some of the same problems with their kids that might feel better knowing they are not the only ones raising these adorable little monsters that make you want to pull someone's hair out. Or maybe nobody wants to read it at all, but it might be therapeutic for me to write it down.
So let me back up and tell you about the beginning. I should have realized from the start that my husband was going to be trouble. There were warning signs, as there usually are. So for any women who are dating, if you see any of these signs, it might be time to run. And run fast.
I met my husband in a bar. I know, the number one thing mothers everywhere tell their daughters is that you are not going to meet a nice man in a bar. We are also told not to judge and wouldn't judging him for being in a bar be stereotyping? Anyway, we started dating. We lived in separate towns so it was a couple of months before I visited his apartment. Wow. The main thing that I noticed (and should have paid more attention to) were the piles. Piles of stuff everywhere. To this day I am haunted by the man wanting to make piles instead of actually putting things AWAY. PTSD is a very real thing. I have horrible flashbacks to his apartment whenever he starts to stack things together in a corner instead of putting them in thier homes. There were piles of books, piles of clothes, piles of empty pizza boxes and two liter bottles. At least there was no beer can pyramid. Now everybody knows not to expect too much from a single man living by himself but I think I should have realized at that point that there was an issue. Love really must be blind, or stupid. Later in our relationship (much too late) I would remind myself of these piles as I snuck into the bathroom while he was in the shower to replace the dirty socks on the floor with clean ones so he wouldn't wear them yet another day. I think before we moved in together he must have lived solely on Dominoes and Burger King. The delivery people knew him by name. But I still ignored what was right in front of me.
Then there was the trip to New York. Ed is from New York and we had been living in Kansas. One of his three childhood best friends, Bill, was getting married and Ed wanted me to come with him to meet his friends and family. I was very excited to get to go to New York and meet them so of course I went. We drove there. Not as in we drove all day and got a hotel room overnight, we drove straight through from Topeka to New York City all in one trip. We stopped at a couple of rest stops or McDonald's to sleep an hour or two at a time. This is craziness. These kinds of 24-hour road trips should be reserved for college kids who don't know any better. But we got there eventually, exhausted and stinky. We stayed with the wedding party in the hotel the first night and more friends were coming the next day. This is how I met Chris. Chris is one of Ed's best friends and he is a SUPER person. I did not expect him first thing in the morning. He too had driven overnight but from Virginia. Again, this driving pattern was something I should have noted as evidence of the insanity of life with Ed but, bygones... Ed had left the hotel room and used the latch to prop the door open. I had just gotten out of the shower and was wrapped in a towel with the bathroom door cracked so the steam could get out. I think you see where this is going. Fourtunately, I still had the towel on while I brushed my teeth when Chris threw open the door and greeted me with "HELLLLOOOO!". I'm still not sure who was more surprised. Not the way you expect to meet your boyfriend's friends. Again, warning signs.
The wedding went well and in fact I caught the bouquet and Ed caught the garter. It was a match made by his friends! I think Bill, Chris, and Doreen were all plotting to get Ed married off. I should pay them back for that some day. That night most of us (excluding the bride and groom of course!) were in hotel playing the game "Categories". It's a drinking game where everyone has to give an answer that fits in a certain category. The current category was "Birth Control" and we had been around the room a couple of times already. It was back to me and I was out of ideas so to be cute I said, "knowing Ed as a kid." Being in a room full of his close friends, this was the best answer of the night. And Ed being gracious (and also out of ideas) just drank. I had gained the "friend approval" that is so important to long term relationships but what I didn't realize was that Earnest Hemmingway could not have foreshadowed better. If I had known then what I was in for when I did have children with Ed... Many people still wonder if either of us would have found someone else that would put up with us. To this day, I am so thankful to be able to add Chris, Doreen, Bill and their families to my list of friends. They are amazing people! And they all still call me because they know Ed doesn't answer his phone...
We returned to Kansas after 10 days in New York with little to mention. Although he did threaten to leave me in Ohio after a disagreement at Applebees. We had been joking about him leaving me in Ohio the whole trip and that if we made it through Ohio, all would be good. Then we stopped at Applebees to eat on the trip back home and he swears I picked a fight. I have no idea what we argued about but I do remember we were about 2 miles away from the border. We almost made it out of Ohio. Warning signs. Later that year he got a job in North Carolina and asked me to go with him. So I did. And then there was North Carolina.
It was the first time I had ever been away from my family and because I was in graduate school I had to transfer to NC State in Raleigh and his job was 2 hours away in New Bern so I really didn't live with him either. It was a difficult time in our relationship but it was also when we got engaged. He had talked about getting married but he wanted to ask me in the perfect way. He wanted to have the ring that his grandmother had left him, he wanted to plan it out and he wanted me to be surprised and cry when I said yes. It didn't quite work out that way, not at all. We tell everyone that we got engaged on Valentine's Day after he took me to an ethnic restaraunt and we watched a foreign film and a musical. It WAS Valentine's Day but it wasn't as sweet as it sounds. The ethnic restaraunt was Taco Bell. We were sitting there after buying a couple of movies at Best Buy and we had a great conversation when we finished lunch. He looked at me and said, "Will you marry me?" I had been hoping for this kind of spontaneous inquiry because all that planning usually goes wrong and I'm one of those impulsive people who prefers spur of the moment, emotional decisions. But I knew he wanted "the Plan". I thought he was teasing so I said, "Not right now." He had been serious but wanted to save face so he played along and laughed it off. So now both of us were crushed, and extemely mad!, but didn't want the other to know. So we went back to my apartment to watch our two new movies. They really were a foreign film (complete with subtitles) and a musical--Jackie Chan's "Drunken Master" and "Moulin Rouge". We watched in silence the rest of the evening until finally breaking into a huge fight which ended after midnight with him saying "But I really meant, Will you marry me!" and then me, "of course I will, stupid!" through lots of tears and the all snot that comes with them. So we actually got engaged on February 15th. Details.
So we started planning our wedding for August 23rd. We had both graduated from Kansas State University and are huge football fans (our first real date was to watch the Super Bowl together) so we wanted to get married at the chapel on campus. There was a preseason game in Kansas City that day so we arranged to have the game projected on the wall at our reception. Since we only had six months to plan, we started right away getting everything in order. Then in April we were having lunch together one day and made a crazy impulsive decision. (Now, some of our friends and family who may decide to read this PLEASE don't be offended if you have not heard this before. There are only a VERY few people who have been told.) We wanted to have something special to share with each other so we went to the courthouse in Raleigh and got married. And didn't tell anyone. The only people who knew were the two of my friends that went with us to sign as witnesses. In fact, we didn't even remember what day it was. Later I had to look it up on the marriage license to find out what day we actually got married on! And we continued to plan the wedding in August. Of course we had to tell the minister so he knew why there was no marriage license to sign but that was pretty much it. Until July.
Being two reasonably intelligent adults you would think we would know how this happens but we were surprised to find out I was pregnant at the beginning of July. We were packing getting ready to move and I had taken the home pregnancy test without telling Ed. After I read the results I handed him the stick to which he replied, "Where do you want me to pack this?" I told him it wasn't to be packed and to LOOK at it! I think it's the only time I've ever seen Eddie speechless. He was so excited and couldn't wait to tell our family. At first we had decided not to tell anyone until the second trimester but we couldn't even wait until the end of the week! So we started making phone calls. The only reason anybody else knows about April is because he wanted them to know that we were already married before we got pregnant. Once he saw they were so excited about the baby that they didn't care about when we got married, we quit telling people that we got married in April. The wedding was great in August! All of our friends were there, the reception was a hit, and apparently they knew about us all over Manhattan, KS because we would go into shops looking for K-State souveniers for gifts or decorations and people would ask, "Oh, are you the couple who's getting married on campus this weekend?" It was great! I told Ed if he made me mad I was keeping money in my pocket to pay the limo driver to take me to the game instead and one of Ed's friends offered to take me to the Bahamas if I wanted to back out at the last minute...but I didn't. We got married and had a BLAST! The hotel staff who were working the party next door to our reception kept sneaking over to ours because we had the game on and were having so much fun. We had K-State jerseys made with our last name and the date (he had the number 8 for August and I had the number 23) that we wore over my dress and his tux shirt. So much fun.
I could continue writing all day but I will have to save some for later because the 8-year-old is screaming for cookies, the six-year-old wants hot chocolate, and the baby needs a poopie diaper changed. Did I mention that they drive me crazy? I'm sure I will at some point.
For many years, I have been calling friends and family when I have reached the end of my rope with one these four precious people and I have told them the horror story of the day that has most recently pushed me to the edge of sanity. I am almost always met with "LOL". Or "Too cute". Or "They crack me up!" So at some point in my relationship with others, many of them have said to me, "you should write a book about your family." Well, I'm not ambitious enough to start that book but I was on Facebook last night and I followed a friend's link that led me to a blog and I got the idea to start a blog about these stories. This may not be interesting to others who don't know my family but it may be a way for you to get to know them and share in a little of my "pain". There may be other moms out there that have some of the same problems with their kids that might feel better knowing they are not the only ones raising these adorable little monsters that make you want to pull someone's hair out. Or maybe nobody wants to read it at all, but it might be therapeutic for me to write it down.
So let me back up and tell you about the beginning. I should have realized from the start that my husband was going to be trouble. There were warning signs, as there usually are. So for any women who are dating, if you see any of these signs, it might be time to run. And run fast.
I met my husband in a bar. I know, the number one thing mothers everywhere tell their daughters is that you are not going to meet a nice man in a bar. We are also told not to judge and wouldn't judging him for being in a bar be stereotyping? Anyway, we started dating. We lived in separate towns so it was a couple of months before I visited his apartment. Wow. The main thing that I noticed (and should have paid more attention to) were the piles. Piles of stuff everywhere. To this day I am haunted by the man wanting to make piles instead of actually putting things AWAY. PTSD is a very real thing. I have horrible flashbacks to his apartment whenever he starts to stack things together in a corner instead of putting them in thier homes. There were piles of books, piles of clothes, piles of empty pizza boxes and two liter bottles. At least there was no beer can pyramid. Now everybody knows not to expect too much from a single man living by himself but I think I should have realized at that point that there was an issue. Love really must be blind, or stupid. Later in our relationship (much too late) I would remind myself of these piles as I snuck into the bathroom while he was in the shower to replace the dirty socks on the floor with clean ones so he wouldn't wear them yet another day. I think before we moved in together he must have lived solely on Dominoes and Burger King. The delivery people knew him by name. But I still ignored what was right in front of me.
Then there was the trip to New York. Ed is from New York and we had been living in Kansas. One of his three childhood best friends, Bill, was getting married and Ed wanted me to come with him to meet his friends and family. I was very excited to get to go to New York and meet them so of course I went. We drove there. Not as in we drove all day and got a hotel room overnight, we drove straight through from Topeka to New York City all in one trip. We stopped at a couple of rest stops or McDonald's to sleep an hour or two at a time. This is craziness. These kinds of 24-hour road trips should be reserved for college kids who don't know any better. But we got there eventually, exhausted and stinky. We stayed with the wedding party in the hotel the first night and more friends were coming the next day. This is how I met Chris. Chris is one of Ed's best friends and he is a SUPER person. I did not expect him first thing in the morning. He too had driven overnight but from Virginia. Again, this driving pattern was something I should have noted as evidence of the insanity of life with Ed but, bygones... Ed had left the hotel room and used the latch to prop the door open. I had just gotten out of the shower and was wrapped in a towel with the bathroom door cracked so the steam could get out. I think you see where this is going. Fourtunately, I still had the towel on while I brushed my teeth when Chris threw open the door and greeted me with "HELLLLOOOO!". I'm still not sure who was more surprised. Not the way you expect to meet your boyfriend's friends. Again, warning signs.
The wedding went well and in fact I caught the bouquet and Ed caught the garter. It was a match made by his friends! I think Bill, Chris, and Doreen were all plotting to get Ed married off. I should pay them back for that some day. That night most of us (excluding the bride and groom of course!) were in hotel playing the game "Categories". It's a drinking game where everyone has to give an answer that fits in a certain category. The current category was "Birth Control" and we had been around the room a couple of times already. It was back to me and I was out of ideas so to be cute I said, "knowing Ed as a kid." Being in a room full of his close friends, this was the best answer of the night. And Ed being gracious (and also out of ideas) just drank. I had gained the "friend approval" that is so important to long term relationships but what I didn't realize was that Earnest Hemmingway could not have foreshadowed better. If I had known then what I was in for when I did have children with Ed... Many people still wonder if either of us would have found someone else that would put up with us. To this day, I am so thankful to be able to add Chris, Doreen, Bill and their families to my list of friends. They are amazing people! And they all still call me because they know Ed doesn't answer his phone...
We returned to Kansas after 10 days in New York with little to mention. Although he did threaten to leave me in Ohio after a disagreement at Applebees. We had been joking about him leaving me in Ohio the whole trip and that if we made it through Ohio, all would be good. Then we stopped at Applebees to eat on the trip back home and he swears I picked a fight. I have no idea what we argued about but I do remember we were about 2 miles away from the border. We almost made it out of Ohio. Warning signs. Later that year he got a job in North Carolina and asked me to go with him. So I did. And then there was North Carolina.
It was the first time I had ever been away from my family and because I was in graduate school I had to transfer to NC State in Raleigh and his job was 2 hours away in New Bern so I really didn't live with him either. It was a difficult time in our relationship but it was also when we got engaged. He had talked about getting married but he wanted to ask me in the perfect way. He wanted to have the ring that his grandmother had left him, he wanted to plan it out and he wanted me to be surprised and cry when I said yes. It didn't quite work out that way, not at all. We tell everyone that we got engaged on Valentine's Day after he took me to an ethnic restaraunt and we watched a foreign film and a musical. It WAS Valentine's Day but it wasn't as sweet as it sounds. The ethnic restaraunt was Taco Bell. We were sitting there after buying a couple of movies at Best Buy and we had a great conversation when we finished lunch. He looked at me and said, "Will you marry me?" I had been hoping for this kind of spontaneous inquiry because all that planning usually goes wrong and I'm one of those impulsive people who prefers spur of the moment, emotional decisions. But I knew he wanted "the Plan". I thought he was teasing so I said, "Not right now." He had been serious but wanted to save face so he played along and laughed it off. So now both of us were crushed, and extemely mad!, but didn't want the other to know. So we went back to my apartment to watch our two new movies. They really were a foreign film (complete with subtitles) and a musical--Jackie Chan's "Drunken Master" and "Moulin Rouge". We watched in silence the rest of the evening until finally breaking into a huge fight which ended after midnight with him saying "But I really meant, Will you marry me!" and then me, "of course I will, stupid!" through lots of tears and the all snot that comes with them. So we actually got engaged on February 15th. Details.
So we started planning our wedding for August 23rd. We had both graduated from Kansas State University and are huge football fans (our first real date was to watch the Super Bowl together) so we wanted to get married at the chapel on campus. There was a preseason game in Kansas City that day so we arranged to have the game projected on the wall at our reception. Since we only had six months to plan, we started right away getting everything in order. Then in April we were having lunch together one day and made a crazy impulsive decision. (Now, some of our friends and family who may decide to read this PLEASE don't be offended if you have not heard this before. There are only a VERY few people who have been told.) We wanted to have something special to share with each other so we went to the courthouse in Raleigh and got married. And didn't tell anyone. The only people who knew were the two of my friends that went with us to sign as witnesses. In fact, we didn't even remember what day it was. Later I had to look it up on the marriage license to find out what day we actually got married on! And we continued to plan the wedding in August. Of course we had to tell the minister so he knew why there was no marriage license to sign but that was pretty much it. Until July.
Being two reasonably intelligent adults you would think we would know how this happens but we were surprised to find out I was pregnant at the beginning of July. We were packing getting ready to move and I had taken the home pregnancy test without telling Ed. After I read the results I handed him the stick to which he replied, "Where do you want me to pack this?" I told him it wasn't to be packed and to LOOK at it! I think it's the only time I've ever seen Eddie speechless. He was so excited and couldn't wait to tell our family. At first we had decided not to tell anyone until the second trimester but we couldn't even wait until the end of the week! So we started making phone calls. The only reason anybody else knows about April is because he wanted them to know that we were already married before we got pregnant. Once he saw they were so excited about the baby that they didn't care about when we got married, we quit telling people that we got married in April. The wedding was great in August! All of our friends were there, the reception was a hit, and apparently they knew about us all over Manhattan, KS because we would go into shops looking for K-State souveniers for gifts or decorations and people would ask, "Oh, are you the couple who's getting married on campus this weekend?" It was great! I told Ed if he made me mad I was keeping money in my pocket to pay the limo driver to take me to the game instead and one of Ed's friends offered to take me to the Bahamas if I wanted to back out at the last minute...but I didn't. We got married and had a BLAST! The hotel staff who were working the party next door to our reception kept sneaking over to ours because we had the game on and were having so much fun. We had K-State jerseys made with our last name and the date (he had the number 8 for August and I had the number 23) that we wore over my dress and his tux shirt. So much fun.
I could continue writing all day but I will have to save some for later because the 8-year-old is screaming for cookies, the six-year-old wants hot chocolate, and the baby needs a poopie diaper changed. Did I mention that they drive me crazy? I'm sure I will at some point.
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