vacantuterus

One year

From this:

to this:

Everything I want to say seems so cliched so I'll simply say that tonight my tears are infinitely sweeter than they were a year and a day ago.

Aaarrggghhhh

I want to write you a really graceful blog post but that's just not going to happen tonight. Will you be okay with bullet points? You will? Oh, thank you.

• Sarge is away for eight days. He left on Friday. I miss that dude.
• Know who else misses him? SAM. SO MUCH.
• Guess who is cutting teeth, possibly molars?
• We decided to flee to stay with my mom and dad from last Friday until this Weds. to make my temporary single parenthood easier.
• Sam screamed nonstop (and I do mean NONSTOP) from the time we dropped off Sarge Friday noon until I gave up and came home Monday afternoon.
• I called my tinfoil hat friend Emily in the middle of the ride home, thus breaking NJ law, because it was either that or drive into a tree to stop the screaming.
• I am convinced it is only her prayers that got me home and kept Sam alive.
• I will not be winning Mother of the Year any time soon.
• Sam, I am sorry for the way I yelled at you. I wish you had a better Mommy.
• Lord, I am sorry for the way I used Your name. All those times.
• Emily, thank you for not being shocked by ANYTHING I say to you. And for letting me call you out of the blue, a total teary nervous wreck.
• Sam was a different kid when we got home. Wriggled his legs in a happy dance as we pulled in the driveway.
• I can still tell he's teething but hot DOG, he's been positively angelic compared to our horrible trip.
• Oh! On that horrible trip we also made a visit to see Sarge's family.
• While there, during the five minutes I put Sam in their pack-n-play to CIO and hopefully, possibly go to sleep, he tried to climb out using their bed post as a lever.
• He wasn't successful.
• He fell instead and bashed open the inside of his upper lip.
• I walked in to find him covered in blood and screaming. Took me a while to figure out the source and then we both cried.
• No one could understand why I wanted to take him home at that point.
• They were absolutely lovely about it all but dear goodness, he was so screamy and bloody and overtired. There was no way he could possibly have stayed without causing some sort of public health hazard. Like mass deafness.
• So now we're home and he's much better.
• But I'm still parenting solo until Friday.
• I am TIRED.
• Single parents are my new heroes.
• Beth, I think you are AMAZING for all those deployments you've flown solo. Mercy.
• I've figured out what to do with my blog but I need Sarge to help me do it. I'm moving it. Will let you know details when I have them.
• Remembering a slew of things from The Early Years of Sarge's sickness. Trying to figure out how to blog them or whether I should just freewrite a word document and spare all of you.
• I'm going to bed now.

One year ago today

...this happened.

And life was never the same again.

 

 

 

 

Thank God.

I love you, Samster Hamster.

Much belated Mother's Day report

As Bianca and Char reminded me, I said I'd be back to talk about my first Mother's Day and then I disappeared. Sorry about that! These days I find myself unplugging more and more. Sam is walking now (well, walking interspersed with falling) and I'm finding myself all caught up in life outside the internet. I didn't even know such a thing was possible!

I was assigned to church nursery on Mother's Day which seemed kind of fitting, actually. A few people offered to switch with me so that I could sit in the service but I opted to stay. Sam and his equally rambunctious little friend Kelsey were the only babies there for the beginning of the service and I had a plethora of teen help. Side note: I've been spending more and more time with the teens of our youth group and it has been totally blessing my socks off. I'm not a person who is naturally graceful with teens (that's Sarge) and I kind of avoid them. This has just been happening organically until suddenly I've found myself hosting movie nights for the girls and talking about all the problems and joys of boyfriends. Watching one of the goth teen boys cuddle five month old Lorelai and coo at her just made me laugh. This kid was so caught up in her. He couldn't get enough of holding her, cooing at her, fussing over her. It was awesome.

Anyway, on the way to church Sarge joked that we should make a spur-of-the-moment road trip to NJ and surprise our moms. "Actually," I said, "that's not a bad idea." We made a plan to leave Sam with Aunty JoJo in Sunday School, ran home to pack everything up in fifteen minutes, raced back to get him and hit the road for the two and a half hour drive north. The weather was gorgeous and traffic was nonexistent; we made excellent time.

We parked around the corner from my parents' house and snuck across the lawn to ring the bell. Sammy held a carnation in his hand for my mom. He had just awoken so he was a little bewildered as to what was going on but he was a good sport about it all. My dad came to the door and as soon as he opened it we could hear the smoke alarm going off. "Happy Mother's Day!" we exclaimed. "Good timing" he said. "Oh Debbie!" he called my mom. Mom bustled to the doorway just as the alarm shut off (the air venting through the door must have helped) and her expression was priceless. She just stared at us with her mouth open; I really thought her jaw would hit the floor. "What...?" she asked. "Happy Mother's Day!" we said again as she held out her arms for Sam. There was a lot of hugging after that and Sam tried to eat the carnation at one point but was so weirded out by the texture that he stopped immediately. And then we all sat down to eat the potato pancakes that were the source of the smoke alarm's distress.

Needless to say, my parents were thrilled at our surprise visit. My mom left for work as late as she could the next morning so she could play with Sam. He did FANTASTIC with the new environment; much better than I anticipated. He slept all night in the pack-n-play without waking up which was the opposite of what I expected. Definitely a change from his first six months of life!

After Mom and Dad left for work, we showered and packed up to drive north another 45 minutes to surprise Sarge's parents. We got the same reaction, only a little toned down because his parents are not prone to showing emotion. They babysit S & K's daughter Charlotte, who was born two weeks before Sam, so Sam got to play all day with his cousin. They did very well together although Charlotte was extremely jealous of this new baby who came in to steal her grandma and grandpa away. She yelled at Sam any time he touched her toys or was held by Aunt Fashionista or the grandparents. She seemed to like me though, so we had a good time playing together.

We came home in the afternoon, totally exhausted but happy. It was a great trip and well worth it to see the surprise on everyone's faces. And Sarge let me sleep in the next day as a belated Mother's Day present so I was pampered too. Perfect all around!

Parents/hacks

Today was an interesting day.

At lunch we saw our neighbor from down the street wandering past on her daily walk with her four very small grandchildren in tow, a giant pickaxe firmly gripped in her right hand.  I have no idea what that was all about as she doesn't speak a lick of English but she was headed toward the park.  A few minutes later two teenagers staggered by, one of them limping with a cane.  Sarge I speculated that the two events might be related.  Message recieved: don't cross Awuh.

Then we put Sam down for his nap.  As usual, a cacophony of bangs accompanied his incarceration.  Normally that stops in about five minutes and he's sound asleep, out like a light.  In the mean time it always sounds like an elephant is coming through the ceiling but we generally ignore it.  Our crib is one with a changing table attached the side which means that it's basically the perfect drum set for little feet.

Sarge found the banging unusual and asked me what I thought.  "Oh, it's just our son, communicating to you in Morse Code." I replied.  "'Dear Dad, How are you?  I am fine.  The weather is nice.  Please get me out of here.  Love, Sam.'"  Sarge, ignoring me, was sprinting up the steps to check on our son while I sat on the couch thinking to myself that he was fine and how cute it was that my husband still overreacts even though Sam is no longer a tiny baby.  (It's true, he really does overreact a lot.)

Suddenly from upstairs I heard Sarge's voice boom a loud "NO!  SAM, NO!"  My turn to sprint up the stairs, no longer convinced of anyone's overreaction, wondering what on earth....  Sam, our moneky, our pirate monkey, climbed out of his crib and was sitting on top of his changing table, back the room, banging merrily away on the wood between his legs, an inch of space separating his bum and a three foot fall.  I'll let you take that in for a minute.

MY NINE MONTH OLD CHILD CLIMBED OUT OF HIS CRIB ON HIS OWN AND ALMOST FELL TO HIS MERRLY LITTLE DEATH.

He wasn't sorry about it all either, the little snot.  Every single follicle of my hair is currently gray.  We cancelled the afternoon wagon ride and went on a fruitless many-hour pursuit of a crib tent that was rumored by store associates to be at that big store with the backwards "R" but which was in fact NOT there and would never be there again.  My mother ordered us one but it won't be here for a week.

In an attempt to keep Sam alive until the crib tent could come, we removed his bumpers, rightly assuming he was using them as stepladders.  And he most certainly was; without them he can't get out.  He also lost his tiny little mind at all the open space and had a crying hyperventilating panic attack.  He would. not. sleep. without. the bumpers.  This is a kid who's max cry time is 20 minutes.  He was still going strong at 45 minutes after no nap at all and a trip to the store so we took pity on him and brought him down to be with us before dinner.  We'd thought maybe a nap in the bumperless crib would help him adjust for the evening but ummmm....not so much.

That is when genius struck me.  Using several yards of grey flannel recently given to me by Real Live Infertile and some old scraps of quilt binding I made curtains to tie around the outside of Sam's bed.  They're eye-achingly uncoordinated color-wise but they make for the illusion of a cozy cocoon.  He went to sleep tonight with minimal fuss (I think being tired helped too) and I ate my dinner feeling like a superhero.  Hah son, I've foiled you again!

Until next time.

Buwahahahaha!

Too tired to make it flow

Sam had a virus last week that climaxed in a hellish night when I was awakened by Sarge standing over me, asking me what is the number where a fever becomes dangerous? Because Sam's fever is currently 104.8.  We gave more Motrin, put him a cool bath and the lightest onesie we had and watched gratefully as his cherry-red skin gradually lightened.  I rocked him back to sleep and laid awake in my own bed, thankful we had a doctor's appointment in the morning.

His fever never came back but his body instead has done what it always does when he gets the littlest bit sick, it's given him bronchiolitis.  Again.  Dr. C. told me today that he seems to be a kid given to pulmonary vulnerability. Given the slightest chance, a cold will settle into his lungs and there he'll be, wheezing and coughing until he vomits, red in the face, trying to cry but unable to make a sound because his voice is so hoarse.  It's amazing how quickly it all goes down.  And so I walked out of the office with a prescription for more Albuterol, more antibiotics.

And Pulmicort.

Pulmicort isn't a huge deal.  I know it's not.  But it made me think of Alexa and Simone, which is the only context I have for that drug, and then it made me think of Maddie.  I held Sam a little closer as I carried him out to the car, thankful for the fact that he is a realtively healthy kid, born at a good gestational age (36 weeks).  Even though it makes me feel shaky that he needs it, I at least have the realtive certainty that Sam will make it through the rest of the spring with functioning lungs.

I don't know what my point is here.  Maybe it's that I'm sad for Mike and Heather and I can't imagine what life must be like for them right now.  Please go over to their place and lend your support to them now.  No one should ever have to bury their child.

This time, tears of joy.

745 days

14 hrs

38 minutes

18 seconds

The judge signed the finalization papers today, on Sarge's birthday.  Forever and always we belong to this little boy!

(Ignore how terrible my hair looks in this picture.)

 

Notes from a sabbatical

Well, it appears I am back.  I feel slightly guilty telling you all this but I had a fabulous time away from this blog.  I felt like I'd gone on vacation without actually going anywhere, if that makes any sense at all.  By and large, my computer went unused (which is why I am so. behind. on blog reading) and it felt gooood.  Did you know there is an entire world outside my basement?  And that I like sewing ten times more than I thought I did, which is saying kind of a lot?  And my son? Is CUTE.

Here's what I did, bullet-point style.

• We sent the final paperwork for Sam's adoption in to the lawyer on Friday!!!  WAHOOO!!!  Now we wait for it all to make its way through the courts.  We are really hoping this goes quickly because I cannot wait to let out this breath I have been holding and know that forever and for always I will belong to this little boy.

• Inspired by JCasa, I sewed covers for the arms of my computer chair.  Sarge and I have identical chairs and his is looking distinctly raggedy.  While mine is still pristine, I wanted it to stay that way.  And I wanted it to look cool.  Vintage fabric + vintage buttons = LOVE. (The pics didn't come out so great but trust me, they rock in person.)

 

• I decided to stop fooling around set goals for myself project-wise.  The outings planned for me and my sewing machine are designed to increase my skills in specific areas.  The armchair covers helped me with designing (I made up the pattern), sewing over elastic (harder than you'd think) and free motion quilting, which I'm betting doesn't show up in the pictures.  My next project will work on design again and embroidery.  This is really getting my creative juice flowing!

• I met Beagle, her hubby C. and her sweet son N.!  N. and Sam were born just one day apart which I think is just so cool.  Beagle and I share similar stories as adoptive moms.  I have to say, we thought we had it rough with only 20 days notice for Sam...Beagle and C. only had 1 day!  It was incredibly cool to have the boys together in the same room, two little dreams come true.  Maybe one day they will be blogging about us!  (Group picture up for a limited time only!)

• I found deep peace.  I did a lot of praying...was finally ABLE to pray.  I met with Robin, I read my Bible and some other books and was finally able to let go of some of the anger I've been carting around this last 5 years.  I think this was the point and purpose of the whole sabbatical.  That led me to think about this blog and why I blog and I came to several conclusions that deserve their own post.  I'll get to that in the next few days.

• I made the most awesome oatmeal raisin cookies EVER.  Twice.

• And I missed all of you.

xoxo

Flicka

I don't think I even need to caption this one.

Self-portraits on Valentine's Day

 

 

 

 

Hope yours was as happy as ours!

PS~ I liked this one too.