Post Tenebras Lux

My Job is Simple

2012-01-30T12:46:00.000-08:00

Angela of Little Bird wrote a guest post today over at Birthing Beautiful Ideas. Here are the last two paragraphs:

At least I can feed and rock and soothe B. . . .

I can’t go to his sister. I can’t pick her up, rock her, stare in wonder at her darling face, marvel at her growth. B will be one month on the ninth. She would have been seventeen months on the fifteenth. I miss her. I miss all of the nights I didn’t get to sit up for hours, nodding off in the darkened nursery with her sweet baby weight snugged in my arms. I couldn’t comprehend the precise nature of what I was missing until I had B, and the knowing makes the missing more acute, sharper, so painful, the sorrow like lead weights that have settled on my chest.

I am my own worst critic, yes I am. There is pressure – internal pressure, not external – to be thankful for every breath, every cry, every moment of joy, but that is impossible. I am trying to give myself permission to feel tired, overwhelmed, emotional, elated, drained … like a normal mama. There is no rule about this babe being perfect simply because the one before died. He will cry, he will frustrate, he will have bad nights. I need to stop fretting about whether or not I am doing things correctly and remember my job is simple: to love and nurture him as he grows and becomes the person he is meant to be.

Yes, that. I'm trying to remember.

2012-01-20T18:20:00.000-08:00

Two of the reports from Elijah's slew of appointments arrived in the mail today. I'd like to write a longer post about the nutritionist's report when I have more time. The highlight of the audiologists report:

"Elijah will benefit from preferential seating in the classroom setting to help maximize access to instruction."

One big point on the homeschooling side of the tally-sheet--I am so glad I don't have to try to arrange for his seat in the classroom to be moved to accommodate his hearing loss.

***

In other parenting news, today's occupational therapy involved using a mouse to play a computer game. Not sure if the points I earn for an OT appropriate activity outweigh letting him play on the computer for an hour or not. But it got the job done for today.

Almost Forgot to Mention

2012-01-20T18:00:00.000-08:00

I originally wrote this update (on 9 January) to share with family and friends. Then I was writing a post here and wanted to link to my post about these appointments, only to realize I'd never actually written that post. So here it is:

We moved at the end of September, and have been working through the process of getting established with a new insurance provider and a whole new care team for Elijah. This month saw the beginning of what looks like it's going to be a whole string of appointments for him. We saw cardiology Wednesday of last week, and spent eight hours today (Monday) with the craniofacial team.

The cardiology appointment last week was inconclusive. Elijah's previous medical records hadn't arrived by this appointment, so all the doctor was able to do was confirm that the aortic root is still dilated, and it's still not enough to be of immediate concern in and of itself. We'll probably know how it looks in comparison to past images after our records arrive. He also said that the left chamber of Elijah's heart is enlarged, which is new. Again, we're hoping to know more after the cardiologist reviews past images, but for the time being he wanted to plan for another echo and check-up in 6 months.

Today's appointment was exhausting, but overall I think it was really positive. We saw seven different providers and Elijah had an x-ray of his neck. A few of the highlights:

*Dan had the day off work, so we were both able to be present at the appointments, hear and ask questions first hand, and juggle the kids.

*Elijah finally had a hearing test where he was cooperative enough to gather the necessary information to tell whether or not he can hear. He has (low-end-of) normal hearing in one ear and some hearing loss in the other ear--but the hearing loss is due to fluid behind the ear drum *not* a degenerative condition. Three cheers!! (Long-term/permanent hearing loss is often associated with PRS.)

*We have some good leads for various options for speech and feeding therapy--speech through the school district and/or a private provider, feeding through a private provider and/or the hospital's feeding clinic. The dietician here seems much more familiar with blenderized diets than the one we worked with before, and it looks like she'll have some good suggestions for helping Elijah gain some much-needed weight. She has recommended that he be evaluated for enrollment in the hospital's intensive two-week feeding clinic, which is something I'm ambivalent about.

*The ENT is ordering a sleep study as a first step in dealing with Elijah's sleep-breathing issues, and a swallow study to see if we can learn anything pertinent to his eating.

*This new team has a craniofacial pediatrician whose job it is to oversee the big picture of Elijah's care--something we haven't had before. She spent a long time with him and us today, asking lots of questions and thinking aloud with us. She wants to pursue a more definite diagnosis again, and sounds very positive after her exam that we can make more progress in that direction. She is referring us to two more doctors, one who is both a craniofacial specialist and a geneticist, and one who is both a craniofacial specialist and a cardiologist. She is running interference with the cardiologist we saw last week for us, without my even having to ask. She is thinking about his care over the long haul as well as the next year. In short, she is wonderful! And I am excited to have some help in managing his care from someone with a career's worth of expertise in this stuff.

Permission: Granted

2012-01-19T21:14:00.000-08:00

This, this is what I needed to hear today. Permission to be human.

Imagine

2012-01-18T20:58:00.000-08:00

So this is an old editorial, but I just wandered across it today.

Go ahead and read it. Then come back.

And read this. And then look at this. It's mostly pictures, so it won't take long.

Just to give you an idea.

When I was pregnant with Elijah, in the third trimester I had an ultrasound because he wasn't growing, and they diagnosed a single umbilical artery. When I got home and googled that phrase, I found scary statistics like 13 to 56 percent of babies with an SUA have an anomaly of some kind. I also found discussion threads from parents whose babies also had an SUA, who were considering abortion. Because their babies might be--I'm not sure what to say--less than physically perfect?

Elijah, May, 2011

We drew the short straw, so to speak. Elijah turned out to be one of the babies with an anomaly.

I can't imagine choosing--I can't imagine anyone choosing--to make his life go away.

Afternoon Nap

2012-01-05T14:43:00.000-08:00

The winter light comes pale and hesitant through the blinds, the quilt my grandmother made is smooth across the bed under the window, and I am holding this warm, solid little bundle of strength and determination and beauty and happiness as she wrestles around in my arms, smelling her soft, thick brown hair when she rests her head on my cheek, singing snatches of an old song I learned from tiny, old Mrs. L--swinging her feet in her wheelchair, with a twinkle in her eye--and the old chair in the corner creak-creak-creaks and we are rocking, rocking, rocking, and it is good.

Perspective, Again

2012-01-04T19:25:00.000-08:00

We went to the hospital today for Elijah's echo and cardiology check-up. The nurse called as I was about to get in the shower this morning to ask if we could show up an hour early in order to have the echocardiogram before the appointment with the doctor. (I told the scheduler when we made the appointment that the appointment was to discuss the results of the echo with the doctor and it seemed a little odd to me to have it before the echo--but she didn't listen to me. After all, we've only been doing this for six years.) So I threw on clothes and we rushed out the door and were half an hour late but they got us in anyway. I'm very thankful that we didn't have to see the doctor, do the echo, and then see the doctor again!

As I sat perched on the edge of the exam table during the echo, holding Elijah's hand, wearing Narah in the Ergo, answering his questions about the movie he was watching, and trying to keep Narah from watching the same, I thought about how things have changed. Elijah asked to hold my hand, but didn't really need it. He lay back nonchalantly, chatting with the tech and watching Cars--a far cry from his early echos when I had my hands and attention free for only him, but needed all of both to help him stay fear-free and still. I thought about those changes again as I nursed Narah in the exam room while the nurse was struggling to get Elijah's blood pressure (it's always been almost impossible to take with a machine) and doing his EKG, then talked with the doctor while bouncing Narah and trying to keep Elijah from hacking the computer, then gave Elijah his tube feeding while we waited for our paperwork (and kept all the gear I needed for both kids in one bag!) Once upon a time, it took me and another adult and a duffel bag of stuff to go to Elijah's doctor's appointments.

Anyway, we came home and Elijah covered the kitchen table with matchbox cars and I ate too many cookies and laid on the floor with Narah and escaped into a novel with happy endings for awhile. Then I got up and hustled Elijah out the door to soccer practice and went to get a few things done. And I looked at our living room, cluttered and chaotic, and felt profoundly grateful for several of the things that I'd been feeling stressed out and frustrated over just this morning.

I'm thankful for this day--for the hustle and bustle and the chance to just laze around for awhile in the late afternoon--for a husband who juggles it all with me, for two (when it really comes down to it) healthy kids and all the work and mess and chaos that's a sign of their presence in our home. The work and mess and chaos and sleep deprivation are hard for me, but it's not hospitals and clinic visits and med schedules and life-or-death.

For that, and for the ability to recognize it not only mentally but emotionally, I thank God.

2012-01-03T21:54:00.000-08:00

This is one of the places I've been doing a lot of reading. Her Practices of Mothering have been particularly helpful. And comforting.

Close to the Ideal

2012-01-03T15:08:00.000-08:00

Yeah, that's about right:

"See, conversation is always impromtu, and I am clumsy. I trip over and fumble words, jumble my thoughts together, stop short for fear of saying the wrong thing, or blurt too harsh or completely thoughtless. Then I lay, staring into the dark, wincing again at how boorish or furtive I was that day.

Putting pen to paper, or keys to screen, allows me to pour out my soul one word at a time. Then, I edit until the words waltz and harmonize (at least, I get closer to that ideal). Writing gives me confidence to lay down my “Everything is Fine” false front and be genuine: depressed, sad, silly, confused, angry, sarcastic, hopeful, tired, crazy, thoughtful, hurt. This woman is all of those things every day."

The rest of Joy's post is here.

2012-01-02T21:42:00.000-08:00

The last of the Christmas company left today, two weeks almost to the day after our festivities began. I spent yesterday down with a bout of mastitis, which I'm thankful seems to have been short lived. Today I spent trying to get my bearings without going overboard, since I jump full-bore back into the routine after that, with the exciting addition of a cardiologists appointment and echocardiogram Wednesday, and most of a day of back to back appointments with our new craniofacial team the following Monday.

I feel cloudy, muddled. Part of that--probably a large part of it--is just the tired talking. Narah has been sleeping progressively less and less for a good month and a half now, so I'm sleeping in two-hour stretches, if I'm lucky. Another part is that I was blindsided by November, this year, and still feel like I'm gasping for air. I think it's likely that I've been too busy to pay much attention to my grief ~~since we moved,~~ ~~since we got word of this new job,~~ since Narah was born. And I guess I forgot what they say about the second year.

I've been reading a lot the past few days, and thinking a lot. I miss this space; I miss writing regularly. But I feel like I've lost my voice. It feels like I can't put together anything coherent out of what's whirling in my head in the time I have to write.

Tonight (thanks to Molly Piper) I'm listening to this:

2011-12-18T20:53:00.000-08:00

Elijah is in bed. Narah is blessedly asleep, after what seems like weeks of never sleeping (but which has really only been three days of abnormal fussiness and wakefulness). Dan is nursing a back ache and building airplanes out of LEGOS to surprise E when he wakes up in the morning. And I've decided that "O Little Town of Bethlehem" is a complete crock.

Well, maybe not the whole thing. But the third verse?

"How silently, how silently, the wondrous gift is given / So God imparts to human hearts the blessings of his heaven."

I was half-humming, half-singing that song under my breath as I microwaved my cup of tea for the third time today and I got to thinking about the words. And I thought that at the births which I've been privileged to attend, I've not noticed a lot of silence. I realize that there are women who labor and deliver their children quietly, even silently. But I'm willing to bet that between laboring mothers and just born babies and (at many births) hospital staff, most births are noisy. Noisy, and painful, and sweaty from hard work, and exhausting.

And I think . . . I think that's what God "imparting to human hearts the blessings of his heaven" looks like a lot of the time, too. Noisy and painful and exhausting. Blood, sweat, and tears. Hope and fear.

The first verse seems a better fit.

"Yet in thy dark streets shineth, the everlasting light / The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight."

2011-12-15T20:35:00.000-08:00

"The life I'm living now, my adult life,

is shaping their childhood life. . . .

I am the mother now that they will remember. . .

I'm madly stacking stones,

building an altar to the truth that

love wins."

--Sarah at Emerging Mummy

Two Years

2011-11-20T09:00:00.000-08:00

Deployment Number Three (Sort Of)

2011-11-05T23:12:00.000-07:00

So here we go again. Only this time, he isn't*.

*Isn't going, that is. The caveat here is that the Army changes its mind enough that there's always a miniscule chance of the whole thing falling through and Dan deploying anyway. But we'll cross that bridge, if we have to, when we come to it.

Dan's unit is gearing up for another deployment, the third since 9/11. They've asked him to be the rear detachment NCO. Job-wise, he'd much rather be deploying as a combat medic--but we have a five-year-old and a five-month-old and it seemed like a no-brainer for him to take the job once we looked at it from that perspective. So we've moved (we were three hours from his home duty station) and Dan's trying to adjust to life on sort-of-active-duty (he's technically ADOS--active duty operations support).

It's odd to watch all the pre-deployment buildup from this seat on the bench.

LOVE this:

2011-10-13T19:58:00.000-07:00

Thanks to Spouse Buzz for sharing.

2011-09-22T22:30:00.000-07:00

So when I hastily closed what was supposed to be a draft of my last post and ran off to do whatever the next pressing thing was, turns out it posted instead of saving. And when I discovered what had happened, I didn't have time to do anything about it for weeks because of all the other pressing things. Thank goodness for backdating. What I wanted to say about that song (which I found here) was this:

I don't usually like love songs, because there's always part of them that just doesn't ring true. You're perfect to me? I mean, I love you, but I don't think you're perfect. I'll never do anything to hurt you? Hmmm. . . pretty sure I've broken that one.

Poison and Wine tells the truth about marriage--at least marriage as I've experienced it so far. It's not perfect. There are things we say and do that we shouldn't. There are things we don't say or do that we really should. We hurt each other. Sometimes we hurt each other really badly. There are a lot of times when I don't act like I love my husband. There are times when I don't even feel like I love him, and it takes a fierce act of my stubborn will to tell him I do. But that's what I have that stubborn will for.

[Sometimes] I don't love you, but I always will.

That's the promise. God helping me, I will keep it.

9 Years

2011-09-21T14:04:00.000-07:00

Nine is a funny number. Ten is a Big Deal--a decade, a milestone, the first of double digits. Nine is . . . almost there.

And today is a funny anniversary. We started the day apart, running errands, getting things done. We're going out to dinner tonight in jeans and t-shirts, because all of our nice clothes are in boxes.

But we've fought hard for today. We've made it through some very hard times, and a lot of little irritations. And sometimes the little irritations can build and build until they seem like a bigger deal than the hard times.

And now here we are. Marriage has been harder than I expected, in some ways--and I thought it through for a long time before I said "I do," and expected it to be hard. But it's also been better than I expected it to be. In all my thinking-it-through, I failed to take into account the sweetness that is interwoven with the salt tears, and the grace of God that's enabled us to make it thus far.

I know the years ahead will hold more hard days--even, maybe, more nights when I want to quit. But today I choose, again. I do. I will.

10 Weeks, 2 Days

2011-08-11T15:23:00.000-07:00

I thought about waiting until she was three months old, but I know in a few more weeks I'll have forgotten what I don't write down.

The first two weeks were the hardest. After the first week, she started to lose her newborn look, and smell. And I knew she was changing and growing fast and I wanted to enjoy every minute--but I was miserable. And I hated not being able to enjoy every minute, which made me more miserable. I was afraid of being left alone, and cried when my mother went home in the evenings. At ten days, she talked me into going to the doctor. I'm glad she did; the combination of herbal and homeopathic support and encouragement were a big help.

When Elijah was born, I dove right into life again. It was what I needed to do to be with him in the hospital. I think I expected to be able to do that again this time, only more so, since Narah was healthy and we were home. I don't know what made the difference this time, except that I may not have adequately accounted for the effect of the emotional freight that this birth carried.

Getting breastfeeding figured out was much harder than I expected. Much more painful. I dreaded every feeding for days. It wasn't until Narah was six weeks old that I started to think we might be getting the hang of it. Life started feeling a lot better when I didn't have to be in just the right chair, with just the right arrangement of pillows and footstool, to be able to feed her. Everybody said nursing would be much easier than pumping--and it is, now that we've got most of the wrinkles ironed out. But it sure wasn't in the beginning.

Now Narah is a big girl. Just in the last week or two she has changed noticeably. She makes spit bubbles. She has started talking--oooh and aaaah sounds of many different pitches, mixed with a few random "g" and "l" and "m" sounds--when she can find an audience. She has a wide range of facial expressions and communicates pretty well through them. She is working on learning to roll, experimenting with getting her hips off the ground. She has found her hands with her eyes.

Her personality is showing more and more. She is content most of the time, and shares a smile readily. When she smiles first and gets a smile in return, she shows her delight by scrunching up her eyes and doing a whole-body wriggle. When I stop in the middle of a feeding to burp her, she lets me know she isn't done by stiffening her back (so I can't sit her down to pat her) and squawking. When we head to the changing table when what she really wanted was to eat, her lower lip comes and she stamps one foot repeatedly. I find these glimpses of who she is delightful. (Somebody please remind me of this when she's two!)

Today I came into the living room to check on Narah and Elijah. Narah, who had been fussing a little, was laying quietly on her back on the floor, and Elijah was sitting next to her--with one hand playing with his knight and dragon, and the other giving his sister a finger to suck on. He had actually put her to sleep. I love both of these kids so much it hurts.

2011-08-10T15:53:00.001-07:00

I'm home alone today--well, except for the baby sleeping peacefully in the kitchen. E went to the fair with his grandma today, and I enjoyed the opportunity to get some extra sleep this morning, tidy up my desk, and check my email and Facebook without either guilt (on my part) or whining (on Elijah's). Then I thought, what do I do with all this glorious time that I've been handed? It turns out the answer is cry.

It's been awhile since I had a chance to be alone and process life. And it turns out that what's behind the locked door in my mind is tears.

There are a hundred reasons, big and small. Broken bodies, broken relationships, broken hearts; people I know and people I don't. My own bumps and scrapes and bruises, which look pretty small in comparison. There is so much pain in this world and right now I am struggling not to sink under the waves of knowing and hurting and helplessness. I'm And I know, I know that God loves the people that I love--and the ones I don't even know--more and better than I do. But that doesn't make my heart stop aching.

Announcing

2011-06-19T14:22:00.000-07:00

Narah Felicity

Born 31 May, 2011

"Narah" means "oak"

"Felicity" means "happiness"

"They will be called oaks of righteousness,
a planting of the LORD
for the display of his splendor."

--Isaiah 61:3

Something Beautiful and Full of Light

2011-04-15T22:09:00.000-07:00

Ran across this.

Just the Way It Is

2011-04-01T22:18:00.000-07:00

I had a prenatal appointment yesterday morning. Our midwife comes to our house, visits with us over a cup of tea, plays with Elijah, and here and there we manage to get the Official Appointment stuff taken care of, too. While we were chatting, yesterday, the midwife asked Elijah what he thought about having a baby sister. He looked up from the toy he was playing with and said, "My brother died."

Bless her heart, she didn't skip a beat. She said that that was very sad, and he agreed that it was, then gave her a big smile and went back to what he had been doing. A few minutes later, as she was measuring and listening for heart tones and so on, he wandered up, watched for a minute, and said, "Is Narah ever going to be born when she's alive?"

Dan and I were talking about it last night as we went to sleep, and we decided that although at first glance, Elijah's answer wasn't "appropriate"--it didn't "match" the question--in reality, it fit perfectly. In his sample group (our family) 100% of siblings we've introduced him to have died before birth. So really, what else would he think about having a baby sister?

Often, it's actually what I think about having a new baby, too. It's not that I'm wallowing in the depths of grief, or that I live in a constant state of dread and fear. I am very glad that another person has joined our family. I realize the preciousness and tenuousness of that gift more than ever and I am glad to have it. It's just that I know in my gut, now, not just in my head, that things go wrong, unpredictably and uncontrollably. And sometimes when someone says, "So are you guys getting excited?!" I think, My last baby died. And then I have to decide whether to just smile and nod, or whether to try to gently give a more nuanced, honest answer. It's not a great, crushing abyss of grief, it's just the way it is.

Add a Rock to the Pile

2011-03-29T23:54:00.000-07:00

Lying in the dark, the not-dark-enough-to-sleep dark of a hospital room, wedged against the guard-rail, watching the blue numbers rise and fall on the black screen, ears full of the white noise of a giant building that never sleeps, smelling the soap which is forever burned into my memory and the unmistakable smell of a child just out of oral surgery; listening to the painful, labored, raspy, chest-sucking struggle for a breath, and the next, and the next; overwhelmed with thankfulness that

they

keep

coming.

Yeah, Balance

2011-03-25T22:15:00.000-07:00

We're home from the hospital. We went outside today for the first time in who knows how long. E picked a fistful of dandelions which are now proudly on display in an antique china vase in the middle of the kitchen table. We looked at the swarm of bees that covers the blossoms of our plum tree. We planted sticks in mole-hills and swept leaves into piles with fir branches.

After Elijah's pre-op appointment last week, I was looking over the end-of-visit print-out that they give you, and I noted with amusement that they had attached a copy of the portion of the records that's not usually included. It includes a list of Elijah's chronic conditions--congenital heart, medically fragile, dev delay. Wait, they've got developmental delay on there? I wonder when they added that. Funny that it doesn't say anything about PRS. It does have a big, bold OVERDUE and a PARENT DECLINES/REFUSES next to "well-child exam". At least they've also noticed in the small print that he's had five specialist visits in the last twelve months. I declined to schedule a well-child exam for Elijah when he turned five because he was, well . . . well. And he's being followed at least annually by cardiology, nutrition, ophthalmology, speech, OT, PT, and the cleft team. I kind of figured the pediatrician wasn't going to be able to tell us anything new. And it was the middle of flu season. So I figured there was at least some chance of him leaving the appointment less well than he had come. It was quite a challenge to decline to schedule the appointment, though, and I got guilt-laden phone messages for several weeks.

And then I got a lecture from the anesthesiologist the morning (well, really afternoon by that time) of Elijah's surgery about making sure I stayed on top of his appointments. It turns out Elijah was due for his annual echo and cardiology follow-up sometime in February, and for the first time in his life, it slipped off my radar screen somehow. I'm going to say it was because he was supposed to have had surgery, and then he didn't, and all my attention was on keeping him well and getting successfully to the next surgery date. I understand his concern, and that he doesn't know me from Adam--but it still remember thinking distinctly at the time, "Really? You're lecturing me about this?!"

I still think I made the right decision about not scheduling the well-child exam. And I still struggle with the feeling that "I'm a bad mom." I still struggle with the feeling that I'm really not doing enough scheduling and therapy and work for him, and at the same time the feeling that we never do anything but work on therapy and go to doctor's appointments. This post at Uncommon Sense says a lot of what I'm thinking.

2011-03-23T14:54:00.000-07:00

For Christians it [vocation] can't just be a self-discovery process of "What are my deepest desires and how do I fulfill those?" Not instead of that, but in addition to that, we should ask, "Does this vocation take me to a place where the world is in pain?" Christian vocation takes us to a place where our work intersects with the brokenness of the world. That contrasts with the Kantian idea that your vocation is what you least like to do because God secretly hates you and is going to send you to do the thing you most dislike. I don't think that's right. God does call us to place our delights in the context of the cross and to delight in living where the world hurts.

                                                                                               --Andy Crouch,
                                                                                               in an interview in
                                                                                               WORLD Magazine

As Amy Said . . .

2011-03-10T20:16:00.000-08:00

We'll believe it when we see it. But four years of dwell time for the Guard and Reserves sure has a nice ring to it!

A Good Read

2011-03-07T09:03:00.000-08:00

We were Daddy-less this weekend for drill. So to take some of the sting away from missing a few installments of the Adventures of Ned & Fred (two aliens currently involved in turning their planet into a giant space-ship) and ~~Daddy-squashings~~ tuck-ins, and time to talk in the evenings after Elijah is in bed, E and I added a stop at the library in to our list of errands Friday afternoon.

We got a few books for for me--bedtime may have been a leeetle early Friday night--and a few books for him. In the honorable mention category was The Sheep Fairy, a cute tale about a sheep's deepest desires and unexpected adventures, which had Elijah running through the house with a pair of butcher-paper wings scotch-taped to his back after the second reading.

Even better, though, was Mother to Tigers, the story of Helen Frances Theresa Delaney Martini, who pioneered the field of animal nurseries in zoos. Before Ms. Martini, the Bronx Zoo had never had a tiger cub born at their zoo survive. In the sixteen years she worked there, she successfully raised twenty-seven of them, along with a host of other animals. The illustrations are beautiful, and the story both fascinating and well-told. We highly recommend it!

Maybe I'm Missing Something

2011-03-03T14:20:00.000-08:00

But if this really works, it sounds like nothing but good news to me. General Casey's comment is another one of those things where I'm kind of surprised they needed a study to figure it out.

2011-02-16T15:21:00.000-08:00

Via Megan, by Melissa Seligman: What a Military Spouse Knows.

Ebenezer*

2011-01-12T22:38:00.000-08:00

I've been quiet here. There's a lot to say, and not enough. Nothing that's felt like blog fodder.

We did have family pictures taken at the turn of the year.

* "Then Samuel took a stone and set it up. . . . He named it Ebenezer [or "stone of help"] saying, 'This far the Lord has helped us.'"
--from the book of 1 Samuel

Flat Daddies (and Mamas)

2010-11-28T20:33:00.000-08:00

We needed something like this for Dan's sister's wedding while he was deployed last time. I'm glad someone is making them. Check out the website--you can order one for your own family, give one to someone you know, or donate one to a stranger's family.

It's Time for Me to Retire

2010-11-13T18:00:00.000-08:00

Alternately Titled: Clearly I'm Not Needed Here Anymore

Because of Elijah's challenging beginning, Dan and I have made the decision to let him start slowly in school. He's a curious fellow and we want him to learn--but we don't want to push him and have him get frustrated with school right out of the gate. We'd like learning to be a life-long and enjoyable process for him. So we're on our second year of the same pre-school program. We did half of it last year, a few days a week. And we're planning to finish it in the same leisurely manner this week. We do a little bit of work with a crayon in a workbook (simple mazes, circling things that rhyme, coloring the ones that belong, and so on) and we look at pictures of alphabet letters and talk about them. But we're nowhere near being ready to work on reading and writing yet.

At least, I thought we weren't.

Clearly ELi(backwards)JAH has a different opinion.

He was working quietly on a project in the living room (which turned out to be a letter for a friend) and when he came in to show it to me part way through, he said that he had written his name and now he wanted to know how to write his friend's name.

I glanced at it, prepared to be pleased by the scribbles that were meant to be his name. But he was right. He actually wrote his name.

Clearly I can stop worrying about teaching him, and just spend my time from now on watching soap operas and eating bon-bons.

2010-11-12T19:01:00.000-08:00

Lily Burana, "The Quiet Side of Being a Soldier's Other Half" (Thanks to Tucker for passing it along.)

Book

2010-11-12T18:41:00.000-08:00

The book is available for pre-sale, and I have officially met my deadline. In the odd world that publishing seems to be, I still need to go through a final set of proofs in the next week or so. But to all intents and purposes, I'm done.

You may now throw confetti.

2010-11-08T10:37:00.000-08:00

This definitely needs to be recorded:

Yesterday Elijah ate 115 calories worth of whole wheat crackers with additional calories from cheese. That's more than thirty percent of his calorie needs for one meal.

Forget the light at the end of the tunnel; I think I'm starting to feel the breeze!

Basking

2010-11-03T15:38:00.000-07:00

A few pictures from when we lighted the first fire of the season in the wood stove.

The Big S

2010-11-01T15:35:00.000-07:00

In August of 2009, I posted about Elijah's cleft-team evaluation, and mentioned that they had indicated a possible need for a scope (nasoendoscopic evaluation*) around the time he turned five. Since before he turned three, we've noticed hypernasality and audible nasal air emission when he speaks, both of which are indicators that his soft palate (which is what was essentially missing at birth and has since been reconstructed) is not closing all the way against his adenoids like it should. After his cleft-team visit earlier this fall, the team recommended going ahead with the scope.

I've been dreading trying to scope him since forever--not every moment or anything, but when I thought about it. Elijah's reaction to doctors near his face with tools in their hand has historically been sheer terror, with silent crying, gagging (he can't vomit or even burp because of his fundoplication, or he would) and the works. Even though his last two visits have been really good in that department, they've also been pretty non-invasive: just a quick look with a tongue depressor and that's it. So the idea of first spraying stuff into his nose, and then putting the camera well up into his nose, and then expecting him to have it together enough to talk? And since I was really concerned about it being a traumatic experience, I was also concerned about what effect that trauma might have on our very hard-won progress with oral feeding.

But we took him in to see the machine ahead of time and let him talk to a couple of people (including one of his grandmothers!) who have been scoped and play with the ridiculously expensive camera. We talked about what would happen, how it would feel, and why we needed to do it. One of his biggest obstacles was the sentences he had to say while the tube was in his nose: "Pet the pretty puppy," "five friendly fish," "buy baby a bib," and so on. He's embarrassed to have to say such ridiculous things with a bunch of strangers looking at him. So we explained that the sentences were silly because they needed to hear the repetitive sounds, and that even grownups had to say silly things like that, and that no one thought he was silly if he said them. It also made a big difference to our science-nut to explain that if he could sit still enough for them to get good pictures, he would get to see a movie of the inside of his body.

Anyway, today was the big day, and it went really well. The nasal spray tasted awful, but he endured. He started to panic and fight as they were putting the camera in his nose, but he listened to me when I told him they were almost done moving it. Once it was done moving, it didn't bother him as much and settled down and said his silly sentences like a champ. The surgeon and the speech pathologist were able to get a good look at what's going on.

So the upshot is that when Elijah is talking softly his soft palate is not closing against the back of his throat. When he is talking more normally and enunciating clearly, his soft palate closes almost completely but there is a "persistent small leak." At this point they don't feel that more speech therapy would be helpful, so the surgeon is recommending a sphincter pharyngoplasty to stop the leak. Rather than doing anything to the palate itself, this procedure takes from the sides of the throat to make the area that the palate goes up to meet a little longer, so that the soft palate doesn't have to get up as high to close.

There are two huge positives for this procedure (over the pharyngeal flap, which was mentioned as a fix at one point). First, because the affected area is so high up in the throat, he could start on liquids and soft foods almost right away and normal food in about a week and a half without compromising the repair. The less time off from eating he has, the better, I'm guessing. Second, the pharyngoplasty has a much lower incidence of causing sleep apnea and obstruction, which is always something I'm aware of with Elijah because of his history.

Downside number one is, of course, anesthesia. This would be his seventh round of general anesthesia. There are also the risks of an inadequate repair (which our surgeon has never had happen) and over-repair, causing hyponasality, or always sounding like he has a cold (which has happened to our surgeon once, and he was able to repair it with a second procedure). And of course, there is always the risk that making Elijah's mouth and throat hurt again is going to make him stop eating.

I am thankful that the scope went well this morning. I am ridiculously proud of Elijah for his self-control today. I am praying for wisdom as we approach decision making again. And now I need to go read the brand-new Richard Scarry book that Elijah picked out on the way home to celebrate his bravery at the doctor's office!

*Here's a video of a self-conducted nasoendoscopy, narrated by the doctor who is both giving and receiving the exam.

Correcting Proofs

2010-10-28T20:39:00.000-07:00

I'm surrounded!

Gratuitous Elijah

2010-10-26T20:38:00.000-07:00

When I got home from getting my hair cut today, I walked into the living room and said, "Hi!" to Elijah.

He responded very sweetly, "My, you look beautiful!"

I said, "That's very sweet of you to say."

He said, "Daddy told me to say it."

***

He is convinced that the cat needs a blanket, and a pillow, when he sleeps:

***

While we were eating breakfast the other day, Elijah took about four bites of his waffle and said he was full. I told him he hadn't eaten enough to be full and he needed to have a few more bites. He dutifully ate another bite or two, then looked at me and said, "I think the waffle is satisfied."

***

We're making some minor modifications around the house, and Elijah is fascinated by the discarded hardware. He found this hook-and-eye lock, and with the help of some army-issue duct tape, went into action:

***

After a brief period where he hated being at our house ("It's boring! It's too small!") and was only happy at Grandma's house, he has informed me that he likes our house too; it's just that Grandma's is his favorite.

***

Last but not least, we had an Elijah-food explosion this week. Oh, the joys of tube feedings!


east wall of the kitchen

hallway floor

kitchen floor

floor, wall, bag. . .

south side of the kitchen

north side of the kitchen

2010-10-18T10:41:00.000-07:00

From AirForceWife, via SpouseBuzz: The People Behind the War.

This is N100AA to Tower; Do You Read Me Tower?

2010-10-13T17:18:00.000-07:00

So I'm pretty sure we now qualify as having the best yard ever for kids to play in.

There's a rockin' swing-set with an airport-control-tower/watch tower/fort/whatever-you-want-to-imagine-it-as, a slide, and two rock walls (and it was free, courtesy of my in-laws' wonderful friends!). "Control tower" is what Elijah called it as soon as he saw it upright. The planes taxi and land or take off on the grassy strip in front. . . .

There's a tree that, with a few additions, will make the perfect climbing tree/tree-house platform,

There are lots of rocks for climbing and jumping off of. And a whole lot of dirt for digging in. And a whole lot of room for running around in like a herd of something that does a lot of running. What's not to love? We've had some small friends over in the last few weeks to try it out, and I'm looking forward to many more visits!

Improvement

2010-10-12T12:24:00.000-07:00

Elijah had another ophthalmology appointment today, and has shown improvement, again. His right eye (the weaker one) can see 20/20 with his glasses on now! Dr. L says we can even try going without the patch in another six or nine months. She may be Elijah's favorite doctor; she's certainly the only one he rushes up and hugs when she walks in the door.

The Tie is Good

2010-10-05T13:57:00.000-07:00

All the bits and pieces are finished, and everything is in to the publisher. I'm just waiting to correct proofs. Whoop!

2010-09-28T23:35:00.001-07:00

Still chugging. . . .

The Little Engine That Could

2010-09-24T19:57:00.001-07:00

The end of the book *may* actually be in sight. I think I can, I think I can, I think I can. . . .

Eight Years

2010-09-21T19:00:00.000-07:00

Milestone

2010-09-16T09:51:00.000-07:00

Dan is on vacation this week--from both school and work, at the same time! We were going to take a trip out of town for two or three, but the weather report from where we wanted to go was lousy. So we bagged it. Instead we're attempting fun day trips (which still allow me to write in the morning, sort of). Yesterday it was a cave (which Elijah loved, although he probably only walked a half mile of it). We took a book and some snacks in the car, and when one of us wasn't reading aloud, Dan and I got some talking done that's been desperately needed.

Before we left town, we stopped for breakfast at a restaurant. For what I think was the first time, Elijah looked over the kids menu very carefully, and asked for something off of it to eat. He had had breakfast already, before we left the house, so he only ate two bites of his smiley-face pancake. But I'm pretty sure this was the first time we've ordered a separate meal for him in a restaurant. It felt so . . . normal.

My Favorite Place

2010-09-15T09:00:00.001-07:00

Project

2010-09-15T09:00:00.000-07:00

I just finished this (in the nick of time) for a friend's baby shower. I'm proud of it, because I had an image in my head of what I wanted the finished product to look like, and since it didn't match any of the patterns I had, I designed a pattern myself. It turned out pretty darn close to my vision.

Summer Sunday

2010-09-13T11:19:00.000-07:00

Today it's cold and overcast. It's not raining, but the air is damp. The leaves on the trees are suddenly browning. Yesterday was a perfect end-of-summer day, warm and sunny. A beautiful day to be outside with friends.

apples and flowers from our garden

the fire pit with marshmallow sticks waiting

E and C watching the world go by

a very dirty little boy watching the fire

making smores

9-11

2010-09-11T07:00:00.000-07:00

We've got a busy day planned today. Helping friends move, attending a baby shower, celebrating Dan's grandparents' 60th wedding anniversary. Life just keeps marching on. But I don't want the day to pass unmarked.

There's still a hole in the skyline. Cranes where there used to be buildings. There's still a hole in the hearts of everyone who lost someone they loved nine years ago today.

Any Tips?

2010-09-08T15:48:00.000-07:00

Dan is home from AT, and not in school right now. So he is hanging out with Elijah in the mornings, and I am writing, writing, writing. It has been really good. I have one chapter and a few odds and ends left to finish up. The end is so close I can almost taste it. But it's been a few years since I sat at a desk for this many hours a day, and let me tell you: My back is not a happy camper! I get to the point where I have to quit writing because my back and neck will not let me concentrate. Anyone have any brilliant ideas for solving this problem?

Preschool, Round 2

2010-09-06T12:00:00.000-07:00

Last year, with great hesitation, I purchased a home school preschool curriculum. (Is he too young? Will we be able to use it effectively? Or will it just add an item to my to-do list and stress to my life? Etc.) By adapting the lesson plans to a pace that was comfortable for us, we finished exactly half of it last year, and things went really well. So this year I plan to finish the second half.

We started last week, when the public-school kids he knows went back to school. There were exciting moments (Let's read more, Mom!) and not-exciting moments (Memorization? Workbooks? But I don't wanna!) but on the whole the first week went well. He's clamoring for a gymnastics class and cello lessons, so the next step is to see if I can fit them into the picture somehow.

A Good Read

2010-09-04T12:00:00.000-07:00

Our annual summer reading program exploded into millions, if not billions of pieces this summer, what with traveling for a month and my impending deadline, and it never got put back together. The closest we got was reading through "the Laura books," as we called them when I was growing up: the Little House series (the real ones, with the illustrations by Garth Williams). We read all but the last two, since their subject matter was a little over Elijah's head, and we both loved them. Even if you don't have a little person to read them to, I highly recommend (re)reading them as an adult. There's a good deal there that you miss as a child, and they're a fascinating look into pioneer and frontier life.

Now that we've exhausted the Laura books, our new before-bedtime book is E. Nesbit's The Railway Children. It's almost too old for my little railway child, but he will still sit through a chapter (and often ask for a second) before he gets tired of sitting still. And I am enjoying it, too. I very much like having gotten to the stage where Elijah is old enough to enjoy books that we can keep on reading without having to read them over, and over, and over, thanks to the invention of chapters. I'm already looking forward to the day when we can read The Hobbit aloud as a family.

And the Light Comes On

2010-09-02T12:00:00.000-07:00

I have observed in the past that Elijah seems to make progress in one area at a time. If he's making strides in the gross motor skills department, he's not gaining vocabulary. If he's doing really well with fine motor skills, he's not eating by mouth. The last month or so has seen a big jump in his oral feeding. He has eaten enough to replace part of a tube feeding several times; he's even done it twice in one day. He has worked past his gag reflex to swallow bites that have been a little too big for his comfort level. He has cleaned his plate at at least one meal a day, and frequently more. I have discovered the joys of fixing a meal or a snack and not having to throw it out half an hour later. It has been wonderful.

It just dawned on me that it may explain some of the incredible frustration we've been experiencing in the discipline department lately*. I'm so glad I made the connection, because I think it's going to lead to a much less frazzled Mama tomorrow.

*It has also just occurred to me that having Dad gone for two weeks can't have helped either. Don't know why I didn't think of it sooner. . . .

Annual Training

2010-08-31T22:21:00.001-07:00

I miss my Sweetie.

Seems a little ridiculous after two deployments.

But there you have it.

Always in the Back of my Mind

2010-08-24T21:19:00.000-07:00

We marked a year since the end of the last deployment earlier this month. The time has gone with a swiftness that surprises me. People ask me if Dan is home "for good" now, or if he'll have to go again, and for a year I have been explaining that his unit is already scheduled for the next deployment but that it's insert-vague-time-frame away, and we're sort of hoping he'll be in his next school by then, anyway. I knew it was coming, but it didn't seem real. But sometime in July, I counted up on my fingers and realized: it's not in the distant future anymore.

All the usual caveats apply. We still don't know about the school, we don't have any hard and fast information from his unit, the time-frame we do have isn't that close, and the ops tempo is much faster for so many other families.

But the next deployment has jumped categories in my mind. It's not omnipresent in my thoughts, by any means, but sometimes I hold him a little tighter, not just because I'm glad he's home, but because I don't want him to go.

Marking the Day

2010-08-22T21:12:00.000-07:00

I'm a few days late in posting this. And I realize that it doesn't change much in the day-to-day in Iraq. But I remember the day we went in in living color--the solemnity, the weight. I want to remember this day, too.

More on Wikileaks

2010-08-10T21:03:00.001-07:00

From Armed and Curious.

Time to Write Your Senator & Representatives (Again)

2010-08-10T00:05:00.000-07:00

So the Defense Business Board is making noises about cutting military retirement benefits in order to tighten the DOD's budget (Stars and Stripes, via AirForceWife). My first reaction is, take the skin off someone else's back.

In the National Guard and Reserve, you can retire at twenty years, but the benefits don't kick in until you reach retirement age. When my dad retired from the Air Force after twenty-six years--many of them as a more-than-full-time Reservist--he got another job. When Dan retires in nine years or so, he'll have to keep working. That was part of the deal, and we knew it going in. We're just hoping the benefits are still there when he turns sixty-five.

But AirForceWife nicely sums up some of the problems for active duty folks with deferring, for example, health-care benefits, and with raising the years of service needed to quality for retirement. Another problem--for all of us--is what happens to recruitment and retention with a change in benefits. Less than two percent of Americans are carrying the weight of our national defense. The fewer people in the military, the heavier the burden on those who remain.

Budget cuts are badly needed, and they have to come from somewhere. But it seems to me that the military carries enough on behalf of the rest of the country already. Let the government tighten its belt somewhere else.

St. Paul's

2010-08-05T10:09:00.000-07:00

The most important part of our trip to New York City, for me, was St. Paul's Chapel. It's the oldest church building in NYC. It's where George Washington worshiped during the two years that New York was the US capitol. And its graveyard butts up against Ground Zero.

St. Paul's Graveyard

Ground Zero itself is a huge construction zone, hidden by a big blue fence. They're re-erecting the World Trade Center buildings, except for the Twin Towers. So even though we drove down the street beside it, in many ways St. Paul's was the closest I got to Ground Zero.

Ground Zero

On September 11th, the windows were blown out of the buildings on either side of the chapel, but it was protected by a huge tree on the church grounds, and undamaged. In the days and weeks after 9-11, the fence around the church was literally covered in flags, messages, pictures, flowers, and the like. Volunteers turned the building into a resting place for rescue workers, lining the walls with cots, and making sure there were clean sheets and a stuffed animal to greet the tired workers when they came off shift from the pit.

One of those cots was still there. Sections of fence, covered with memorials, were there. There was a cross welded out of rubble, and a mountain of unit patches from rescue workers around the world. There was a fireman's coat and boots, draped on a scarred wooden pew--scarred by the heavy coats and tool belts of the firemen when they would sit down to rest between shifts.

It was incredibly moving to be there.

Bittersweet

2010-08-04T00:07:00.000-07:00

Tonight I had my high-school best friends and their families over for dinner. We lit a fire in the fire pit out back and cooked hot dogs over it. We ate potato salad and fresh fruit, and our kids chased each other and climbed trees and dug a big hole in the yard. Some of us hadn't seen each other in four years. Three families have babies that the rest of us hadn't met. We talked and laughed, caught up on the present and gave each other a hard time about the past.

It was a perfect evening.

And now they've gone home, and I'm sitting here with a lump in my throat because I know it's going to be a long time before we're all together again.

And because my baby wasn't there.

Keep on Walking Anyway

2010-07-30T12:58:00.000-07:00

When we were children, we used to think that when we were grown-up we would no longer be vulnerable. But to grow up is to accept vulnerability. . . . To be alive is to be vulnerable.

--Madeleine L'Engle

So Angry I Can't Type Straight

2010-07-28T11:35:00.000-07:00

Megan has solicited opinions on the Wikileaks fiasco. I'm so angry I'm not sure I have anything coherent to say. It has always seemed to me that the goal of whistle-blowing was to end corruption and possibly save lives, not assist in murder. I'd say Wikileaks blew it, big time.

Another Window

2010-07-26T12:38:00.000-07:00

From Army Blogger Wife (via Megan) a look into their family's preparation for deployment number four.

Jiggety-Jig

2010-07-26T12:27:00.000-07:00

We're home again! I had a good trip, and I'm very glad to be home. There have been a lot of thoughts rolling around in my head over the last month and a half--and I have a lot of pictures to share! So I hope to be posting more often in the days ahead.

Happy Independence Day

2010-07-04T17:23:00.000-07:00

Elijah is finally old enough this year to be really excited about fireworks. We lit off a few sparklers and some Turtles, and now he is resting in his bedroom with the shades drawn, so that he can stay up after dark tonight for the bigger stuff. As I tucked him in to bed, I could clearly see myself, lying in bed under the gable with the big fir towering outside my window, trying to rest so that I could stay up and watch the fireworks.

As it has been every year since Dan's first deployment, the Fourth of July is a poignant holiday for me. I am thankful, grateful, that he is here with us this year.

Call Me Crazy

2010-06-12T09:40:00.000-07:00

I probably am! Last summer Elijah and I camped halfway across the country and back for my sister's college graduation. This summer's adventure? Flying to a dear friend's birthday party (a week's trip, total) followed a week later by a three week cross-country train-and-camping-trip. (Dan will be stuck at home going to school full time, squeezing in three weeks of training with the Army, and feeding the cat.) I am looking forward to both parts of the whole extravaganza, and at the same time wondering what on earth I'm thinking to do this with a tube-fed four-year-old.

An Important Anniversary

2010-05-28T19:03:00.000-07:00

Scene: A little boy is playing in the bathroom sink with a boat made out of Legos.

(Moves the boat to the right-hand side of the sink) "England . . ."

(Moves the boat to the left-hand side of the sink) "France . . ."

(Moves the boat to the right-hand side of the sink) "England . . ."

(Moves the boat to the left-hand side of the sink) "France . . ."

(Can you tell Elijah learned about the Dunkirk evacuation today? )

Just Popped In

2010-05-25T22:02:00.000-07:00

***Updated to add: the link is fixed! (Thanks, Sis B!)***

I've been a terrible blogger lately. I'm reading, but I'm not commenting much, and I'm sure not writing here. Any time that I'm coherent enough to write, I'm working on my book. My print deadline is looming terrifyingly near. I hope y'all understand!

I'm just sticking my head in to share this post from Andrea--My husband's blood is worth it--a quick peak into active duty military life.

Aaaaaand . . .

2010-05-08T23:08:00.001-07:00

Chapter Two is done. Yay me!

Friday Night

2010-04-30T20:36:00.000-07:00

It's a long story and I don't know most of it so I'll spare you the (limited) details, but Dan isn't going to drill this weekend after all. I've spent all afternoon wrestling with a rough draft. He's spent the afternoon driving all over the state and wrestling with his homework and a lingering stomach ache. Now we're going to go watch a DVD and eat home-popped popcorn.

Date Nights, Sort Of

2010-04-28T20:26:00.000-07:00

Since Dan's time these days is divided between class, homework, work, and the Army, time to stare deeply into each others eyes is a bit limited. When he has a class with some interesting (to me) reading, I'll frequently read the assigned pages aloud to him. It gives him a little bit of a break, and gives us the added benefit of built-in discussion topics, something you have to pay good money for at marriage seminars. (Come to think of it, we're paying good money for this, too, but that's neither here nor there.)

This quarter, he's taking a bioethics class. So far it's resulting in late-night conversations with lots of ranting and raving--the theorists' arguments! the attitudes and actions of the people involved! the state of the world today! the horrible abuse of the English language in what's supposed to be academic writing! I'm sorry, but when did informed consent become a topic of debate in the medical community!? At least while Dan and I are arguing with people who aren't really there and cannot hear us, it gives us a good opportunity to discuss what we really think, and why, about a variety of controversial topics. Oh, and late at night, listening to Big Money pharmaceutical companies talk about how they're just in it to inform the public about their health conditions? That's hilarious.

In Which, I Think Back Over Our Day

2010-04-27T20:03:00.000-07:00

Today we had friends over to play and talk. We ran races in the grass and rolled down hills. We read Farmer Boy. We painted and played with (child-safe) scissors. It was brilliantly sunny, then it poured down rain. Then we saw two rainbows. I made dinner, which often leaves me with a great feeling of accomplishment. The boy is wearing Curious George the Fireman pajamas, and eating his second slice of hardboiled egg, prior to getting a tube feeding and going to bed. It has been a good day.

2010-04-27T19:30:00.000-07:00

Is it a sign of something bad that I can only think in Facebook updates?

Yet Again

2010-04-26T16:07:00.000-07:00

I am still alive. But my hard drive crashed, and my computer was in the shop for a week and a half, and then other things kept getting in the way of posting. But the computer is back, so perhaps I will be too.

Why Write

2010-04-23T16:30:00.000-07:00

But aren't my own experiences so personal that they might just as well remain hidden? Or could it be that what is most personal for me, what rings true in the depths of my own being, also has meaning for others? Ultimately, I believe that what is most personal is most universal.

--Henri Nouwen

(Fun) Fact Friday

2010-04-16T11:31:00.000-07:00

Reprised

1) My affection for crossword puzzles was "inherited" from my grandparents during my last two years of college. I passed it on (I believe) to my sister, who now keeps me supplied with books of puzzles.

2) I love steak-and-kidney pie.

3) My mom was right: I no longer remember either my SAT score or my high-school GPA.I wish I'd been able to stress less about them at the time. . . .

4) I ran track in high school. For two weeks. That's how long it took me to discover that two sports in the same season was a bit much for me. (Horse show season started at about the same time as track.)

5) Even though I was a military brat, I only lived in four different places while I was growing up.

Anyone else want to share?

You Know You're an Army Family. . .

2010-04-14T20:10:00.000-07:00

. . . when your husband is gone for a three day "business trip" that involves being outside all day, in winter weather, and the only dirty laundry he brings home is two pairs of socks.

Oh, and when the first thing he says as he walks in the door is, "I would like to take a shower."

Lest We Forget

2010-04-11T11:52:00.000-07:00

When I was in eleventh grade, my parents took me to Washington D. C. for spring break. We saw all the major historical landmarks and monuments--among others, the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, the capitol buildings, the Vietnam Wall. And the Holocaust Museum.

I've been thinking about that trip today. Sunday. April 11th. National Holocaust Remembrance Day. I've been thinking of how awe-inspiring it was to be in our nation's capitol, to walk where so much history has happened. And how, somehow, the place that I remember best is the Holocaust Museum.

***

Tower of Faces. Photo courtesy of the United States Holocaust Museum.

This is the Tower of Faces, a three-story tower filled floor to ceiling with photographs. A press release from the museum describes the exhibit this way: "Taken between 1890 and 1941 in Eishishok, a small town in what is now Lithuania, [the photographs] describe a vibrant Jewish community that existed for 900 years. In 1941, an SS mobile killing squad entered the village and within two days massacred the Jewish population."

Take a minute. Look at that picture. Think about that.

***

The huge mound of shoes in another room really brought home the enormity of the Holocaust, for me. It was such a big pile, and taken from from such a tiny portion of the men and women and children who had gone into the gas chambers at one camp on one day.

***

I've been thinking, today, about why a day of remembrance is so important. I've been thinking about why a place of remembrance, like the Holocaust Museum, is important. I've been thinking about how the Museum helps make clear the overwhelming sadness, the horror, the absolute evil of what was done in the Holocaust.

I've been thinking about the Trail of Tears and the Mei Lei Massacre. And how nothing in our national history says that we're incapable of doing such unspeakable things.

***

It wouldn't have to be about Aryan Superiority and Lebensraum. It could really easily be about quality of life for the disabled and saving the planet for the rest of us. Already, Americans are performing prenatal diagnostic testing that endangers fetuses, so that we have the information to make decisions about whether or not a fetus with defects gets to live. Already in England, courts are refusing patients with disabilities their right to basics like food and water--even when they're conscious and fighting legal battles to get it.

***

I've been thinking about how easy it is to look at the Germans under Nazism and say, "How horrible! How evil! Never again will we allow this to happen!" We won't put up with anti-semitism, we won't put up with persecution of homosexual people, we won't put up with calling black people racially inferior. And rightly so!

But what lies at the heart of the Holocaust is the idea that, for whatever reason, one group of people gets to decide about the right to live of another group of people.

The horrors of the Holocaust were perpetrated largely by people like me: educated people, who loved their families, who were concerned about their children's futures and the state of their country. It's just that they thought they got to decide what was most important, that they got to decide who was worth keeping alive and who should die. And millions died.

***

Today is a day of remembrance. We remember the people who died. Babies. Children. Sisters. Brothers. Mothers. Fathers. Daughters. Sons. Husbands. Wives. Lovers. Friends. We remember the people who lived, who live with the memory and the nightmares.

Let us do more than remember what happened. Let us bear witness with the memory--to what it says about the human capacity for evil and for good, a capacity that we, as humans, share.

Let us fight tooth and nail against the idea that we, any of us, know enough to decide who should live and who should die.

***

"For the dead and the living, we must bear witness."

Before It's Saturday

2010-04-10T00:32:00.000-07:00

Elijah finally went to sleep, and Dan is in the field (it's a drill weekend) and as I was doing the dishes at 11:00, I could almost feel some weight lift. This house is quiet. There’s no one talking to me.

I’m tired. I’ve been tired, all week. I’m up at 11:30 blogging anyway, because I am so hungry for the time. I don’t know if this is purely a personality thing, or partially a function of having had a lot of alone time and space to myself as a child. I'm the oldest, with five years between me and my closest sibling in age. By luck of the draw, I always had my own room growing up. I'm the daughter of a mother who was an only child, and who also loves her alone time. And did I mention that we lived in a rural area and I was homeschooled? I had plenty of friends, but I also had a fair amount of time and space to myself, most days.

I think (though my memory of past emotional states is not always accurate) that this lack of down time, though I was aware of it before, didn't become quite so overwhelming until John died. On a fairly frequent basis, these days, I start to feel not just tired, but under pressure to the point of explosion. When I get a chunk of several hours to myself to just be at the end of a string of those hard days, I notice that I come back feeling refreshed, and (more) ready to be present and available again. It helps the most if I have enough time to be in a few different ways: rot my brain for awhile by reading an “easy” book or blog hunting, and also pray, and also think, and also write. I think part of the hard is just not enough time to decompress.

And part of life is learning to live with hard, to balance to balance your needs and your desires and your responsibilities.

Therapeutic

2010-04-07T20:04:00.000-07:00

Dan and I had a long discussion last night (which involved me crying, and him offering sensible, practical advice) about Elijah's therapy. With his encouragement, I sat down and did formal speech therapy with Elijah today, for the first time since sometime during the most recent deployment. It went well, and I was surprised to find that the thirty minutes I'd been shooting for flew by.

We started with a rousing game of "soccer": He held a long, wide flexible straw, and blew through it to shoot a ping-pong ball at a post-card with a picture of a rabbit on it. I held the post-card, and used it to "kick" the ball back to him. It went much better than just trying to make him blow the ball across the table like we did at the speech therapist's office. Eventually, his mouth got tired, and he said it was my turn. But, since by that point the straw was well coated in saliva, we moved instead to a game of "Alien Says."

This functions something like "Memory" and something like "Simon Says." We laid out several rows of alien cards on the table, face down. Then we took turns flipping them over. Only instead of looking for matches, we had to do what the alien on our card said:

"Stick out your tongue without touching your lips." This was impossible for Elijah. If his tongue comes out, it's pressing on his lower lip. That's it.

"Put your teeth together and put your top lip over your bottom lip." It's harder than it sounds.

"Open your mouth wide while keeping the tip of your tongue behind your top teeth." This one was hard for me, too. A residual effect of having had tongue-tie as a baby?

And I still haven't figured out how to "move my top lip up and down while keeping my jaw still."

By the time we'd finished three rounds of "Alien Says," Elijah was ready to play "soccer" again, and before I knew it, we were actually a few minutes over our thirty, and I had to stop and make dinner. Now for the real challenge: doing it again tomorrow.

Bookish

2010-04-06T20:11:00.000-07:00

I do love a good stack of thick books, and the time I'm able to carve out to sit down with them spread out all around me, pen and notebook at hand. This particular stack yielded some important information on somewhat difficult manuscripts from the 1600s.

This week, I was able to speak with the agent of one of the authors I'm including in my book, and things are looking good for my publisher to get reprint rights for an out-of-print novel by this author. Three cheers!

Now if I could just my brain in gear and start writing again. . . .

Spring is in the Air

2010-04-01T19:00:00.001-07:00

What with one thing and another, there's been a dearth of blogging time around here, lately. But today, there's bread rising in the bread machine, Dan is at work, and Elijah is "reading" one of his school books to himself on the couch, while the cat takes a bath on the next cushion. I think I'll summarize the last week or so before getting back to regularly scheduled programming (whatever that is).

Dan is on spring break. Last week, he got some vacation at work as well, so we left town for three days, just the three of us. We visited some museums, had good conversations, spent a lot of time outside, and the general consensus was that it was a great vacation. Unfortunately, I forgot our camera, so no pictures to share.

Monday, Dan found out he gets to keep his shift at work after all.

Elijah had an eye appointment Tuesday, and his patch seems to be doing the trick; his vision in the right eye was measurably better than it was at January's appointment.

Yesterday, we picked up John's headstone.

This morning, we bought a ladder and half a flat of Irish moss for the retaining wall Dan built during his block leave, and some red geraniums and strawberry plants for the pots on the back porch. This afternoon I used the new ladder to get up in the apple tree and prune it; I was going to wait and let Dan do it tomorrow, but the weather forecast is for fifty-mile-and-hour-winds and heavy rainfall.

Done Fighting

2010-04-01T18:56:00.000-07:00

M died over the weekend, a few days after his second birthday.

2010-03-23T08:55:00.000-07:00

I'm still here! Just sleepy. . . . The paperwork they sent me home from the hospital with said not to go back to work for three to seven days, which I figured meant not to go back to work for three days and if I wanted to be a lazy bum I could milk it for another four. As it turns out, for me it don't go back to work for seven days, and then only go back if you work on an assembly line, pulling the same lever up and down, over and over, all day. I am feeling almost back to normal physically, but mentally am still foggy. I am assured that it takes awhile to get the meds out of your system, so am waiting.

And now I am going to go eat homemade waffles, courtesy of my sweet husband.

Back Home

2010-03-16T15:42:00.000-07:00

I'm home, and all went well with the surgery.

This post brought to you by a procrastinator

2010-03-12T15:01:00.000-08:00

When I was in college, the minute I got close to a deadline for a big paper, I was seized by the urge to do laundry, vacuum my room, exercise--all the things I usually had to dredge up motivation for. Now, when I sit down to work on my book, I'm seized by the urge to write a blog post. So here I am!

Besides, I've been needing to let you know I'm having surgery Monday. (After weeks where it looked like our insurance was only going to cover fifty percent of the cost, they've just cheerfully agreed to cover it all--and without making me put forth the energy to lodge a formal appeal. I am so pleased.) I'm a bit nervous, but this has occupied a goodly portion of my thoughts for five months, now, and I'll be glad to get past it.

Now I'd better go write an abominable rough draft on Madeleine L'Engle and essay writing.

Me Want Cookie!

2010-03-10T08:56:00.000-08:00

I'm guest-posting today over at Graceful Table: my new chocolate chip cookie recipe, which we've been eating a lot of around here lately.

In which we demonstrate just how heartless we really are. . . .

2010-03-07T20:23:00.000-08:00

So Dan and I were lingering at the table after dinner tonight, and directing operation getting-ready-for-bed from a distance, so to speak. I had gotten Elijah squared away with a wipe, and he was supposed to be (quickly) finishing the process from there on out. After plenty of time had elapsed for him to have wiped, pulled up his pants, put away his potty seat, and washed his hands, I went in to check on him to find him 1) not having done any of that and 2) playing with the toilet seat, which is against the rules in our house. Needless to say, he got in trouble.

Having reprimanded him for 1) dawdling and 2) breaking a cardinal rule of bathroom behavior, I went back to the table, leaving him crying in the bathroom. After a few moments, the sound of actual crying was replaced by an angry cry--that sort of prolonged yelling that means "I'm done crying, but I'm going to keep making noise to let you know I'm upset!" A few moments more and this was replaced by the experimental cry. In this form of crying, actual sobs are interspersed with growls, squeaks, moans, wails, and the like. It's still geared toward revealing his displeasure, but bears little resemblance to actual crying.

By this time, Dan and I were sitting at the table laughing as each new sound emerged. But what really put the icing on the cake was when, realizing that the water still wasn't running, I sneaked up to the bathroom and peered through the crack between door and doorjamb, to see Elijah standing on his step-stool at the sink, experimenting with different facial expressions in the mirror as he hooted and howled.

Pretty sure we laughed until we were about to cry. . . .

This is so Good

2010-03-04T21:03:00.000-08:00

Remember M? After weeks of expecting every moment to be his last, he appears to be rallying. B & C still don't know how long they have left with him (or perhaps I should say, they're more aware than the rest of us usually are of how little we really know of what the future holds). But the doctors are talking about miracles, and a plan to get M home.

I Love the Light in Winter

2010-03-03T11:35:00.000-08:00

What's Been Happening Behind the Scenes

2010-03-01T09:00:00.000-08:00

While I was pregnant with John, an ultrasound tech at the ER said, "Has anyone ever told you . . . ?" No one had, and with a husband who's an x-ray tech, I know better than to ask questions of the technicians performing an exam.

I don't remember, anymore, if I went straight home and looked it up, or if it took me a while to remember it and start digging. But when I did, I found abstract after abstract after abstract which said essentially the same thing:

"higher rates of reproductive loss, pre-term delivery. . . and complications that increase obstetric intervention and perinatal mortality," "bleeding significantly more frequent," "predispose women to . . . first- and second-trimester pregnancy losses, higher rates of preterm labor and birth, and abnormal fetal presentation," "offspring . . . had a risk for congenital defects four times higher," "deformations such as micrognathia . . . were more frequent in infants of these mothers. . . ."

Check, check, check, check, aaaaand, check.

And then John died, and I checked off another one. My OB was still telling me a variation of what she said to me at my first appointment ("Your last pregnancy was just one in a million. I'm sure everything will be just fine this time!") and the geneticist was telling me that, although she knew it must be hard to hear, they just didn't get interested in miscarriages until you'd had at least three. So I printed up my pile of abstracts, highlighted all the relevant parts, and started carrying them with me to every doctor's appointment. I handed them out when I could get someone to take them. I was bewildered because everything I was reading was telling me that this was a serious problem, and all the medical professionals I was seeing were patting my head and telling me they were sure everything would be fine, so to speak. I was actually starting to feel like I might be schizophrenic. Even the specialist I finally badgered my OB into sending me to, though he agreed to do some testing, just didn't seem that interested.

I found another specialist who came highly recommended by other women with my (possible) diagnosis, and went for a second opinion. I'm not sure it's possible to convey the relief I felt when I heard him say, "Well, it's impossible to tell exactly what your diagnosis is without more imaging, but it's clear from your history that whatever it is, it's causing a big problem. Of the x-number of indicators for this type of diagnosis, you have, ummm, all of them. So this would be my game plan. . . ."

I'm not crazy. I'm not overreacting. I was so relieved.

So we've been working on getting the game plan into play. Have an appointment, wait a few weeks. Get some results that give us a slightly better idea of what's going on, but still don't tell us anything for sure. Wait a few weeks. Have an appointment that confirms the semi-ambiguous results as being just that, wait a few weeks. And, since Elijah's rough beginning, and John's death, and this diagnosis are all inextricably tangled up together in my mind and heart, each new development (or discovery that there is no new development after all) sends up a great wave of sorrow. I'm still paddling around in the wake of last Tuesday's appointment, trying to keep my head above water while making some difficult decisions about ~~the rest of my life~~ an upcoming surgery.

In the midst of that, my mother has spent hours on the phone with me. A friend emailed to see how I was, giving me the gift of specific questions. My mother-in-law remembered: four flowers (for the four of us) in a flower arrangement she left us. Another friend has shared meals with us. My sister-in-law is still patient and gentle as I struggle with being around her beautiful baby. My grandmother noticed that I'm wearing the charm with John's name and birthdate on a necklace instead of a bracelet, now. Dan has made himself available to me in the midst of job uncertainty and car failure and a host of other stresses in his own life. I got a letter in the mail from my sister. There has been a host of other kindnesses, large and small.

It's not just that in the end, light beats out the darkness. In the midst of darkness, I find light.

2010-02-27T11:53:00.000-08:00

I was at the dentist this week for a cleaning. The hygienist saw the note in my chart and asked about Dan's deployment: "Is he back yet?" "Was this his first time?"

Yes, I said, he got back at the end of the summer; no, this was his second deployment.

She clucked and fussed about how many people have to go back for a second tour, etc., etc. and I told her "That's the way it goes these days." I was too tired to try to do any educating, though there's a world of information behind the statement.

That's just the way military life is these days.

Tucker offers another reminder of the way military life is these days that I thought was worth sharing.

What do you mean, I have to move?

2010-02-26T09:00:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I drove thirty minutes into town to pick up a prescription. I got there, took a number--and discovered I left my wallet at home. But the checkbook was in my purse, so I hoped they wouldn't ask for ID, and settled in to watch the fish tank with Elijah, and discuss, yet again, whether that could possibly be a baby tuna fish.

We got up to the window, I pulled out my checkbook to pay the woman behind the counter--and it was empty. Fortunately, I was too tired to really get upset about it. We just went back to the car, drove home, got my wallet and filled the checkbook (while I was still thinking about it), got gas, and drove back to the pharmacy.

Right now this and this apparently describe me pretty well.

We Know Today What Wounds Are

2010-02-25T10:40:00.000-08:00

If we have never sought, we seek Thee now;
Thine eyes burn through the dark, our only stars;
We must have sight of thorn-pricks on Thy brow;
We must have Thee, O Jesus of the Scars.

The heavens frighten us; they are too calm;
In all the universe we have no place.
Our wounds are hurting us; where is the balm?
Lord Jesus, by Thy Scars we claim Thy grace.

If when the doors are shut, Thou drawest near,
Only reveal those hands, that side of Thine;
We know today what wounds are; have no fear;
Show us Thy scars; we know the countersign.

The other gods were strong, but Thou wast weak;
They rode, but Thou didst stumble to a throne;
But to our wounds only God's wounds can speak,
And not a god has wounds, but Thou alone.

--Edward Shillito (1872-1948)
Jesus of the Scars
(courtesy of Ann Voskamp)

One of Those Things

2010-02-23T19:15:00.000-08:00

I love the light in winter.

2010-02-17T21:56:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I washed thirty-four panes of glass and three screens--all the windows in our kitchen and laundry room, with their attendant storm windows and screens. It hasn't been done in at least five years, and it is so nice to see clearly through them again. No, I'm not making any money from this, but I love my Norwex microfiber cloths. Cleaning has never been so easy.

We had a physical therapy appointment for Elijah; the first appointment in more than a year. I came away with a whole list of exercises to work into our days, stuff to get, sports to try.

Dan lost his shift at work. The replacement shifts he has to choose from overlap with his classes. I am frustrated. I feel like we can't catch a break.

It's so easy for me to see the worst case scenario.

I say again, remembering: God is love. In him there is no darkness. Whatever happens, he'll bring me good in it. It's a promise.

Just Another Lazy Sunday

2010-02-17T13:52:00.000-08:00

I've been trying to pinpoint when it started.

I used to love holidays, festivity, celebration, and putting time and thought and energy into all of those things.

Now, not so much.

I'm pretty sure, looking back, that the start of that feeling (or do I mean the end of that feeling?) coincides almost exactly with Elijah's birth. Coming home with a medication schedule and a feeding schedule and the endless pumping, with other people doing my laundry and my cooking and my cleaning--I didn't have the time or energy to take a shower, let alone put up decorations.

Life is much fuller now than it was then, in a good way. I have time for a lot more. But I still wrestle with holidays. Easter and Christmas, birthdays and anniversaries are important to me, and I want to make much of them. But I struggle with feeling overloaded by the extras that come with a festive occasion. My days are already so full. (Other occasions for festivity? Don't tell anyone, but I just don't care enough to do anything about them.)

So our Valentine's Day was very low-key. No cards, no candy--except that sent by grandparents and a godmother. Dan sat on the couch all day, studying, with a few breaks to stretch his brain and build a new ramp to our back porch. Elijah and I stayed in our pajamas all day and read, alone and together, and played with trains and cars, and made paper dolls. (At his request, the cast included a Daddy, a Mama, a daughter, a friend, a dog . . . and a box.)

I feel a little guilty about cutting back on this stuff. My parents put forth the effort to do Halloween and Valentine's Day for me when I was a kid. But I console myself by thinking that I'll have more energy to put into Christmas and Easter and Elijah's birthday if I don't burn myself out on Halloween, St. Patrick's Day, and Cinco de Mayo. Or whatever. And I hope little moments like making paper dolls together, even though they're just on notebook paper, will add up to a happy childhood, even though it looks nothing like Better Homes & Gardens.

Same Ol', Same Ol'

2010-02-16T16:18:00.000-08:00

I think I forgot to mention: Elijah had his annual echo and cardiology check-up. Everything's the same. His aortic dilation hasn't gotten better, but it hasn't gotten worse.

Post Tenebras Lux

My Job is Simple

Almost Forgot to Mention

Permission: Granted

Imagine

Afternoon Nap

Perspective, Again

Close to the Ideal

Two Years

Deployment Number Three (Sort Of)

LOVE this:

9 Years

10 Weeks, 2 Days

Announcing

Something Beautiful and Full of Light

Just the Way It Is

Add a Rock to the Pile

Yeah, Balance

As Amy Said . . .

A Good Read

Maybe I'm Missing Something

Ebenezer*

Flat Daddies (and Mamas)

It's Time for Me to Retire

Book

Basking

The Big S

Correcting Proofs

Gratuitous Elijah

This is N100AA to Tower; Do You Read Me Tower?

Improvement

The Tie is Good

The Little Engine That Could

Eight Years

Milestone

My Favorite Place

Project

Summer Sunday

9-11

Any Tips?

Preschool, Round 2

A Good Read

And the Light Comes On

Annual Training

Always in the Back of my Mind

Marking the Day

More on Wikileaks

Time to Write Your Senator & Representatives (Again)

St. Paul's

Bittersweet

Keep on Walking Anyway

So Angry I Can't Type Straight

Another Window

Jiggety-Jig

Happy Independence Day

Call Me Crazy

An Important Anniversary

Just Popped In

Aaaaaand . . .

Friday Night

Date Nights, Sort Of

In Which, I Think Back Over Our Day

Yet Again

Why Write

(Fun) Fact Friday

You Know You're an Army Family. . .

Lest We Forget

Before It's Saturday

Therapeutic

Bookish

Spring is in the Air

Done Fighting

Back Home

This post brought to you by a procrastinator

Me Want Cookie!

In which we demonstrate just how heartless we really are. . . .

This is so *Good*

I Love the Light in Winter

What's Been Happening Behind the Scenes

What do you mean, I have to move?

This is so Good