Attention: Narcissistic Society

This weekend was a great weekend. I literally laid in bed most of the time relaxing, watching tv and taking naps. It was A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! There was a little laundry done and the kids were fed three meals a day, so there was some productivity, but we kept it at a minimum. After lounging Saturday away, my husband suggested we go out to dinner. I'm not sure if it was out of boredom or just to motivate me to actually get dressed and fix my hair and makeup, still not sure, but it worked nonetheless. 

We decide to take advantage of a Christmas given gift card to Outback which is a little less than an hour drive away, but my favorite restaurant. I credit the fact that it is still my favorite place to the distance, because it's not too close to go to all the time, the drive seems to build more anticipation and makes the trek more of a night out rather than a quick place to grab a bite. We arrived a few minutes after 6 pm on a Saturday night and as we walk through the throng of waiting people, I understand and knew there will be a wait. The hostess tells me the wait is running a little over an hour and I put my name down. Now, I'm not one that goes out to dinner a lot on a Friday or Saturday night because as a person with a few brain cells in the gray matter in my skull, I realize that there will be a wait at a restaurant, on their busiest nights of the week, at the most common dinner time of the evening, apparently this is a little known fact. It was not the wait that upset me as the people in the wait. The narcissistic, rude, entitled people are what upset me and made me want to "bless out" a few people during the wait on behalf of the restaurant staff which was beyond hospitable to completely undeserving patrons.

The waiting area: 
I found an open place near the hostess stand to sit down, my daughters leaning against my lap and my husband stood nearby. Next to me, sat a man and a kid halfway laying down taking more that a butt's width of the bench, with the Mom of that household standing nearby. Now, I used to be pretty feminist, and I don't really know their situation, maybe the Mr. has a condition where he needed to be sitting down or his wife likes to stand for long periods of time, but I was proud to be the woman who's chivalrous husband thought enough of her to let her sit down. I look around and there are people standing everywhere, yet most of the benches were filled with older children and young teens playing on their phones and handheld games. I was taught as a child that adults get seats first, but apparently this was not widely taught. Enters pregnant woman. Not just "showing," but very, very pregnant woman. As a previously pregnant in my lifetime woman, I'm guessing that she was probably due in two weeks or two weeks ago. I look around to praise the person who gets up or makes their kid get up to allow Painfully Pregnant Woman a seat, but no one does. Not one person. I wait a minute just to make sure that no one is going to use this as a parenting moment to teach their child about courtesy or respect, but still, no one moves. I get up, I go over to a very tired Painfully Pregnant Woman and tell her "I've got a seat over there in the corner just for you." She gladly accepts, her face rewards me in overwhelming appreciation and I use the teaching moment for my children. I told them that it's always respectful to let pregnant women or the elderly sit down and that I would always expect them to offer their seat to someone else. Of course the irritated at society part of me raised my voice a little as I taught them, just in case anyone else wanted to know. People continue to walk in past the throng of us waiting and act surprised and rudely complain when the hostesses tell them that there is a wait. They act surprised like they didn't just walk past no less than fifty people. Do they think we are a flash mob that just goes in and out of restaurants waiting or do they think they are so better elevated in our society that they don't have to wait too? 

We are seated: 
As soon as we get to our table the head hostess is at our table telling us that we will be getting a free appetizer due to the extended wait. That's great I think, because we were going to get a Bloomin' Onion anyway and the kids were whining for some Loaded Cheese Aussie Fries. So I order our FREE Bloomin' Onion and a small order of Loaded Cheese Aussie Fries for the girls which I more than expect to pay for from our amazingly nice waitress who also apologized for our wait. She takes our order and goes to the next table to check on her other guests when I hear Rude Woman ask in a high horse tone "So, just so I'm clear, you do serve food here, right?" I look over to see Rude Woman said this while eating her FREE appetizer. At this point, I'm hoping Rude Woman chokes on her rude sarcasm or the FREE appetizer while being mean to an overly nice waitress. A waitress who could not control the wait, someone just doing her job, possibly supporting her family, the waitress who is waiting, serving and humbly being nice to Rude Woman who is being nothing but Rude. I want to defend our waitress, I want to give Rude Woman, yes that is her name, an evil glare, but it's not my place and I'm already getting the calm "no" look from my husband who knows my every thought. So instead, I say loudly to my kids "isn't this a nice night out? Isn't our waitress sweet?" Yes, in the same raised tone from the waiting area, again, just in case anyone else wanted to hear. Funny how on the waitress' next run to our section was the platter of food for Rude Woman's table. Rude Woman then sent back her meal because her chicken was just "too dry," asked for to-go boxes and then went to the hostess station to ask for boxes again before our waitress could even get back to the kitchen again. Then Rude Woman complains to the manager, manager gives her gift cards for her inconvenience and Rude Woman finally leaves. In my defense, I'm not eavesdropping, Rude Woman is loud with all of her complaints due to her superiority to society. 

After Rude Woman leaves, we get our check, which is wrong. The Bloomin' Onion is FREE, but the Loaded Aussie Fries have been discounted to FREE too, we should have been charged for this. I tell the waitress, so she can correct the error, but she tells me there is no error, they're FREE too. They are FREE because of our wait, the wait we never complained about. Outback Rocks! I got a night out, waiting time to spend more moments with my family, parenting lessons to teach to my kids, two FREE appetizers and I'm using my Christmas gift card. I have nothing to complain about, well besides one thing...our society.

In this case, Rude Woman was one person, but she represents our society as a whole. Our impatient, narcissistic, rude, condescending, completely disrespectful of everyone but themselves and entitled society. Why does our society think they can treat waitresses, waiters, hostesses or anyone else in the service industry so rude, because they work in service? That does not mean they are less than, it means that they choose to work for a living, just like you, but in a different capacity. It means that they choose to bite their tongue a lot as they serve less than deserving people like Rude Woman to support themselves and their families. No matter what a person does for a living, they deserve respect, but we can't even teach our children what respect is when we allow our kids to take up waiting benches when a pregnant woman or an elderly person enters a waiting area. Our society is what it is because somewhere along the way we quit teaching what respect means, what is looks like and how to show it. Pin it, post it, do what's necessary to remind yourself to use it and if you're a parent, aunt, uncle, grandparent or mentor is some way, love our children enough to TEACH it.

Mommy-Score: Dr.'s Office Activity

After having one of those nights of being up half to most of the night worried and catering to a sick child, we left the house Wednesday morning to take one child to school and the other to the doctor's office. As we are walking out the door McKenna says, "Wait, we're going to the doctor Mom. I have to get something to draw with, remember?" She re-enters the room with a fist full of crayons and a zip lock baggie in the other. I open the baggie and place the crayons inside thinking to myself "Mommy-Score!" It's one of those few second moments of the day where you just have to commend yourself as a mommy for creating a tradition, teaching your child, or winning in some way as a parent. We parents need these scores to help offset the many times where we lose a battle, fall short and wonder how we are ever going to make it through this thing called parenting when we are still growing up in so many ways ourselves. Maybe it's just me that needs the Mommy-Scores to suffice my competitive nature and build parenting self esteem, or maybe other parents out there do the same, but call it different names. I'm not sure, but it works for me and that's good enough.

So getting back to the crayons, let me encourage you to always have a stash of crayons when you go to the doctor's office. Of course crayons are great for coloring and activity books during the endless hours in the waiting room, but the real fun begins when you get to the exam room. If and when you ever do get called from the whining of the snot, cough and germ infested Purgatory of the waiting room, let your child decorate the paper liner of the exam room table. Suddenly, you become the cool mom (or dad) for letting you child color and draw on something other than a coloring page and it keeps them entertained for the second edition of the doctor's office waiting cycle. I'm not sure where I got this idea from, if I came up with it on my own or stole it long ago, but we've been using it for our girls for years and it works! I almost think the little people think they are getting to break the rules because they're sick, but we all know that the doctor's office has to throw the paper away anyway, so for us parents, it's a win, or for me a Mommy-Score.

Trust Me

Having received a phone call from the school principal to make an appointment to discuss testing for my daughter, I was reminded of a couple of blogs I had written a few years ago. Sometimes we have to just remind ourself to trust Him:


Monday, September 21, 2009

I used to think that premature babies were fine once they made it home from the hospital.  That is until I became a parent of a premature baby myself and have learned that this is a huge misconception.  After a complicated pregnancy and months of bed-rest, McKenzie was born at 33 weeks weighing just a mere pound and a half and measuring twelve and a half inches long.  She spent 67 days in the Newborn Intensive Care Unit before coming home at 3 pounds 13 ounces.  They were hard days in the NICU and I was on an emotional roller coaster.  When she came home I thought our worries were over and she would catch up like doctors said most premies would by the time they turned 2.  This however was not the case for us.   She has had physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy, daily growth hormone shots, various genetic tests and diagnosis, surgery for tongue tie, hearing loss, ear surgeries, and scoliosis.  She has been to orthopedic specialists, gastroenterologists, geneticists, endocrinologists, ear, nose and throat doctor, and we have even taken her cross country to see specialists.  After all this, school decisions seem a small thing, but are still a big deal when you are in the midst of them.

After a great year in preschool, McKenzie’s grades fell dramatically in Kindergarten, and it was not until the end of the school year that we realized she had lost her hearing.  She had surgery to put tubes in her ears, and her hearing was restored.  We realized she had missed a lot of her schooling due to the hearing loss and worked hard with her to catch her up.  She struggled through first grade and again lost her hearing and had to have surgery for tubes.  This year we changed schools from the private school that we were sending our girls, to public school because of our concerns for McKenzie needing extra help that the private school could not offer.  We started McKenzie in Second grade and worked hard with her again.  Every night we were spending two and three hours completing homework and doing extra work to help her to catch up and keep up with her class.  We had one parent teacher conference after two weeks of school and another during the fourth week.  We thought we were going in the second time to begin evaluations for McKenzie to start a special education program, but instead decided to do what had been my worst fear, my worst case scenario, hold her back into the first grade.  We had already started McKenzie to school a year late due to size and development, and now she would be two years older than others in her class.  It had been the decision we had run from and fought so long to avoid, and now we were making it and I yet in the midst of it, I had the peace about it being the right decision for her.  Breaking it to McKenzie was painful.  She did not want to leave her friends, and we both ended up crying and I had to tell her “McKenzie, you have to trust me, you have to trust me and your daddy that we are making the right decision for you.”  As I said these words, it was like God highlighted the “Trust Me” and echoed back to me that I had to Trust Him with the decisions he has made as well, this was not just our decision, but His, and I can trust Him that while we do not know what the future brings, He does.  We have trusted Him for years and he has never failed us.  His word says “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.” As parents, we try to make the best decisions for our children, though we may not always succeed in doing so.  As our Daddy God, He is making the best decisions for us and he never fails.  I am thankful that in my uncertainty and my unknowns, I can trust Him and his certainty and all knowing power.


Monday, October 5, 2009

My last blog was entitled “Trust Me” and was about Trusting God.  My husband and I had struggled in the past and fought the decision to hold our daughter back in school which ultimately did hold her back.  We worked long hours after school on homework and extra studies to help her keep up in such a way that exhausted the whole family and was beginning to cause her to resent school as a whole.  It was a month ago that we finally made the decision to hold her back into the previous grade. We urged our heartbroken daughter to trust us in the decision as we trusted God in leading us to that decision.  Once again, He hasn’t failed us.  Since changing classes she is getting good grades and reading so well that she has moved up in reading groups.  She is now excelling and has a new found confidence in herself.  What happens when we trust and follow God?  I answer myself with the fact that life gets easier!  It’s one of those answers where I just want to smack myself and say “Duh”.  Why am I surprised?  Why did we fight this so long?  As emotional humans it can sometimes be scary, painful, humbling and just plain hard for us to give in and trust God.  Of course, we may not want to admit that with the fear of sounding unspiritual, but it is the truth.  However, no matter how scary it may be, we have to allow our faith to guide us rather than our emotions.  Do we honestly believe that God would lead us somewhere to hurt us or for us to fail?  Again, His word says “I know the plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you a hope and a future.”  So no, He isn’t going to lead us into harm.  Even when it’s scary, risky, and painful, we have to step out and sometimes jump out in full fledged faith that we know his plans are for us and not against us.  As a parent, I love my children and want the best for my children.  Part of my love is protecting my children and I would never lead them into danger.  As our Daddy God, He loves us even more and holds us in the palm of His hand.  He protects us even when we are unaware of the danger around us.  When we can’t trust in anything else around us, we can trust in Him.

To text or not to text?

Our pre-Christmas dinner conversation included my dad's obvious disgust of texting and the degrade of social skills that it will bring in our children's generation. I would say, we discussed it, but I just sat there and kept quiet in an effort to avoid the debate. I text, he knows that and we've had this conversation before. In it I feel as the burden of responsibility of the technological advance of our society falls on my shoulders and I am there as the single representative to back it up. My dad rambled on in his rant to explain how texting will eventually have our children socially dumb due to the fact that our current communication skills are lowering as fast as smart phones are rising in our society. He is convinced our children already have a hard time carrying on a conversation and texting, messaging and email will have our future generations completely unable to communicate socially, read body language or foster relationships.

I text, I like the ability to do so and appreciate that I have a record that I can look back to. If I need to have a conversation without anyone eavesdropping, I can text. If I need to ask someone a quick question, all I have to do is text the question and can expect a quick reply without having to rearrange my afternoon schedule to listen to someone talk endlessly about ailments, family drama and so on when I just can't commit to that conversation at the moment. When there is an event or something I need to know, I have it in a text and can easily find the conversation and remind myself without the need of post-it notes on my nightstand, fridge, car dashboard, and every crevice of my purse. I have all I need in one device at my fingertips and I find that quite convenient. I have even referred to a text record to defend myself when accused of saying something I didn't in a recent conversation.

Texting has it's advantages, however I do agree that it has disadvantages. Sometimes we prolong a conversation by waiting for a reply than just hitting the dial button and having an actual voice conversation that would take less time. Text messages void one's capability to pick up on tone, sarcasm and emotion which can lead to misunderstandings or a lack of attention when one desires or needs it. Though we "feel" more connected, texting, social networks and other technological advances can't replace the human's relational need of face time, create memories or foster meaningful relationships.

I let go of the conversation at hand, and gratefully welcomed a new one with the entrance of our daughter, her husband and children, and then sat to a full Christmas dinner spread across the table. After dinner we retired to the comfort of an overstuffed sofa and chairs and talked as family conversations go, interweaving between children, work, history and so on. As we talked, my daughter and her husband sat quietly on the couch playing on their phones. They were in complete oblivion from our conversation unless we specifically called on them to pay attention to something. Though they may have been texting too, they were in the most part playing games on their newly acquired phones. Still, the image of the afternoon plagued me later as I thought back to my irritation of my dad's ranting, yet the fact that his point was proven by my own children as they were unable to just sit and enjoy an Christmas afternoon in conversation with family. I don't fault them, I checked my phone a few times and even uploaded a picture of my daughter to facebook when she finally fell asleep beside me. Nor can we completely fault the phones as, for the most part, teenagers and young adults would rather play a game of pick up sticks than sit and have a conversation with older adults, phones are simply today's distraction. Still as smartphone users and parents of the next generation, we will have to use and teach moderation and the nearly extinct abilities to use reason and respect. Reasoning when is the time and when is not the time to text, play and update our status and respecting the people in front of us enough to put down the phone and be present.

It's Pajama Day...I think!

I love when my girls' school has pajama day and who wouldn't? Those few days a year they get to wear the most comfortable clothes on earth and spend all day in their pajamas. Frankly, I'm a little jealous and wish we could institute a few adult pajama days to be added to the national calendar so we could get away with the same attire at work. Of course, as adults, we are not nearly as cute as kids are in their pajamas and children's are much more modest than some of the adult versions...so maybe it's a good idea that we don't have adult pajama days. Nonetheless, as a parent of anti-morning girls, pajama days make my job easier. After their nightly bath they are officially dressed for school and one part of our morning routine is scratched off the to-do list as complete, thus helping life run a bit more smoothly.

Our elementary school will sometimes have pajama day for the whole school or each grade on a different day. So, when the girls told me last night that today was pajama day, I had to be sure. You see I love pajama day, my girls love pajama day and there's nothing bad about pajama day except for when it isn't really pajama day. Did that make sense? Let me explain. When my girls were in kindergarten and first grade they came home with notes as to each of their grades having pajama day, with one on one day and the other the next. The first pajama day came and I dressed my first grader in her pajamas. She left for school happy and comfortable, while my kindergartner was upset with jealousy that she didn't get to wear her own. Any parent of siblings know we have to constantly teach our children that they are not always going to get the same thing, be invited to the same birthday parties and have the same friends. This lesson is part of them learning that the world is not fair and though they are sisters, they are also individuals. I was finally able to diffuse her mood with the explanation that she would get to wear her pajamas the next day, as her grade wasn't participating the same day as her sister's. I dropped them off at school and headed to work thankful for a semi-smooth morning and with pajama day off my mind and out of my thoughts. 

Later that evening, I returned home to two unhappy children. My first grader was irritated that she was the only child in her class wearing pajamas and my kindergartner was angry that she was the only one in her class who wasn't wearing pajamas. This is what you call and epic fail for the mom team, as I apparently mixed up the notes. Not that either note had a grade specified on it, but still, I'm the mom, thus the fault is mine. As if I did not feel bad enough about the mix up, I later found out from my first grader's teacher that my daughter kept her jacket on all day in class so as not to allow any other children to notice what she was wearing. The unfortunate thing is that if either teacher or the school had called me about their attire, my girls, who wear the same size, could have met in the bathroom and switched clothes in an instant and the world as we know it would have been at peace. However, I did not know until it was too late and my "mommy of the year" nomination was withdrawn completely from the running.

So as I mentioned before, when my girls told me today was pajama day, I had to be sure, completely, positively and undeniably sure. It's not that I do not trust my children, but after the epic fail of my past, I don't trust myself. I instantly requested a verification of pajama day from other parents on facebook and was assured that it was, in fact, today. So today I sent my kids to school in their pajamas and though I was given all the reassurance it's the right day, there's still this quiet fear in the back of my mind that I failed once again as will be there every pajama day.

Our Family Addition

Last week I posted a blog entitled "We're Expecting," a title I thought would generate some interest which the blog stats confirmed as it is my highest viewed post thus far. While it does thrill me to see the stats and know that I have readers, if you are just joining me, please continue reading as I believe there are much better posts. Yes, the title was a little deceiving, but does prove the power of how important a good title is to generate interest. No, we are not expecting a baby as I'm sure this is the conclusion many a readers would jump to, but if you read, we were expecting an Elf On The Shelf to come stay with us until Christmas. When I posted last week, I had an Elf waiting for me on hold at a local gift shop until I could make it in and was in a desperate search for an Elf Skirt which turns this elf into a girl with the simple cling of Velcro. In a score for the mommy team, I found the skirt four and a half hours away at the Christmas Tree Shop in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. No, I did not drive all the way there for an elf skirt, nor would I, no matter how many mommy points that would generate. No, we were there for the weekend and as my determination was quickly turning into desperation, a Google search of Elf On The Shelf retailers led the way and the skirt was purchased by my husband in a covert undercover mission while I diverted the girls attention to other areas of the store. While I toyed with the idea of letting our before named Ashley Elf appear and join us on our weekend away, I decided to wait until we returned home to as not lose her or have her to distract the girls from other weekend events.

Day 1. Monday
The girls woke up bright and early Monday morning with an Elf on our shelf. She was sitting on the tupperware container we had stored our Gatlinburg fudge in only the night before and had obviously ate a little bit. She also left a note in agreement to what Santa had told her of Gatlinburg fudge being better than any other fudge there is. The girls were ecstatic that their new friend had finally arrived and begged to take her to school with them, but of course I would not allow that.

Day 2. Tuesday
In an effort to make school mornings as easy as possible with two procrastinating girls, we have a nightly routine of selecting and laying out school clothes for the following morning. When we woke on Tuesday, the girls' clothes were thrown all over our living room along with books that had been knocked off a chair side table and scattered on the floor beneath.

Day 3. Wednesday
Ashley must have wanted to share a little of her home with McKenzie and McKenna because she created a winter scene in our living room. She took all the cotton balls from my decorative bathroom apothecary jar and had them covering the coffee table with Snowman Peeps scattered amongst her cottony snow. Ashley sat in the snow next to a peppermint candy themed Christmas tree ornament she brought back from the North Pole. Next to her was her written response on the same note the girls left the night before asking what she liked to eat in the morning. It turns out Ashley is very tired in the morning and doesn't eat during the day, but really likes the snacks the girls have been leaving for her at night. Again, the girls begged to take her to school, but again I would not allow it instead reaching a compromise to let Ashley ride to school with us. She staying in the back seat held up to the window so she could see our morning route, car line and the girls' school and was given to me to ride up front when the girls exited the car for school. She sat in the same place of my console all day with her eyes fixated in my direction, watching my every move.

Day 4. Thursday
Panties, panties...everywhere, well not everywhere, but in a trail between the girls rooms that would have Hansel and Gretel finding their way home with no problem. I woke the girls in a hurried rush as I had woke a little late myself and continued with our morning routine listening to the girls giggle at Ashley's nightly mischief.

While my husband keeps accusing me of having more fun with Ashley than the girls are, they are enjoying her much more. I will admit that it is fun tapping into the childlike creativity of being an elf. I never know what she is going to do until the girls fall asleep and I am forced to figure it out quickly before I go to bed each night. It is both entertaining and helpful to see what other's elves are doing in several of my friends' morning facebook updates. I find their posts give me quick and easy ideas where I may be over thinking and trying too hard to be creative thus making the elfing stressful. This morning I couldn't help but think that Ashley's notes could be very helpful in motivating the girls to get some chores completed without me having to nag them. Is that manipulative? Yes, maybe a little, but I'm not above a little manipulation if the girls will take direction better from their foot tall friend rather than they will me and avoid a argument or two in the meantime. If Ashley's going to live in our house, eat our snacks and make messes, I figure she could do something productive too and help the girls score some extra points with Santa by cleaning their room, fighting with each other less and taking some initiative in other areas where they are relying on us to baby them. Yes, Ashley is definitely going to explore this method and maybe December will be our month for some better habits to be born to usher us into the new year ahead. I'll update you on the progress or lack thereof.

Happy Elfing!

9 Hours, 2 Pottie Breaks and 17 Road Kills

Anyone that has children and taken a road trip knows that you can quickly run out of activities to keep the little ones occupied and distracted from the endless questioning of "are we there yet?" This weekend we took a road trip with our girls to Gatlinburg for an annual cheer leading competition that my daughter is a part of about four and a half hours away. Upon leaving our little yappers with my parents to dog sit for four days, they suggested we let the girls play the Road Kill Game. I know there are plenty of road trip games out there, but I doubt you will find this game in any activity books as it is one of my dad's originals and errs on the side of a little morbid and demented of a game to share with children. In the Road Kill Game, you simply keep a running tally of all the dead animals you find along the way of your trip. The first time I ever heard of the game was when my nieces road from Iowa with my dad and then drove back with my sister resulting in an approximate 28 hour round trip. They took their list, compiled the results and sent it to my dad in a nice tallying of all the dead exhibits they found. My dad was so impressed with it and the girls' follow through, that it became a framed and displayed souvenir of the summer trip. I have to admit I was rather impressed by the variety of specimens of their road side observations. So being that I failed to pack any other car activities, the Road Kill Game it was for our journey. I'll also admit that it does feel a little bad when you get excited to see a dead animal so you can tally it down on your notepad, but it did keep the girls entertained. Our list would have been much longer, but McKenna and I took very long naps on the return trip and probably missed a lot of victims. So here is our compiling of our 9 hour round trip Road Kill Game:

Gatilinburg Road Trip December 2011
Flower Pots: 2 (Yes, we realize that flower pots were not alive in the first place, but thought as ran over as they were they had been officially killed!)
Unidentified: 4
Dogs: 3 (This made us the saddest being the dog lovers we are)
Rabbit: 1
Chickens: 4 (We are guessing a cage door didn't get quite closed on a chicken truck.)
Deer: 2 (These make the messiest of Road Kill.)
Cat: 1
Total: 17 with the "Unidentifieds" winning. Yes, there are "winners," I said it was morbid. As McKenna would keep the tally, she would periodically update us on who was in the lead and who was trailing. Again, a little morbid, a little demented of a game, but the road kill is there so you might as well get the kids looking out the windows and using what's there in front, or rather on the side of you, to keep them occupied, using their animal, spelling and math skills. Happy traveling!

Sunday Bike Outing

I didn't set my alarm clock Saturday evening and because I am the mom and wife of the family, it's my fault we overslept for church Sunday morning. I admit it, it's all my fault...that and a few other things. But don't worry, this week is definitely making me pay for it and justice is being served to me on a not so silver platter. But, we won't go there. So back to my alarm clock, oh yeah, I didn't set it, and didn't wake up until 10:30 am on Sunday morning which was much too late to try to get ready and make it to service which started thirty minutes before. So instead, I made some Sister Shubert's Sausage Wrapped Rolls for breakfast, which was a hit among the little people. When I say made them, I mean I thawed them out, unwrapped them from the plastic bag and put them in the oven....yes, I'm very domesticated, I know. After working on the computer for a few hours, and yes, I do mean work, as I have a second job in marketing that I do from home, my husband offered the suggestion of loading up our bikes and taking the girls for a bike ride. This is something we haven't done before and sounded like a great idea for a family outing. This summer we spent most of our free weekend time on the river and now that summer is over, my girls and I are having river withdrawals to the point that when they asked to wear their swimsuits at bath time a few nights ago, I let them in complete understanding. For us, it's going to be a very long winter and we are going to have to figure out somethings to do to keep us entertained until spring.

So the bikes are loaded up, tires aired up and we head to the wildlife preserve trail behind our local mall which lies at the Coosa River edge. While I spent countless hours of my childhood riding a bike on the Sac and Fox trails of Indian Creek, the off road trick bike trails and through the my Bertram Road neighborhood in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, I have to admit I was a little nervous to take a seat behind the handle bars.  It has been many, many years since I have rode a bike. I know my old red Gitaine 10 speed was packed on the moving truck when we moved here when I was 14, but I don't remember riding it much when we planted our new home in Rainbow City. I asked my dad what happened to my bike a few years ago and learned that it had been bartered away in a yard sale being that I never used it and had forgotten about it myself. Hearing its fate gave me a complete understanding to John Mayer's lyrics where he asks "whatever happened to my lunchbox,when came the day that it got thrown away and don't you think I should have had some say in that decision?" But being a parent myself, I completely understand the need to purge away forgotten items so as not to completely drown in all the toys a child goes through over the years; this is what happened to John's lunchbox and my 10 speed. In irony, I take a seat on what was once our older daughter's bike who has long ago moved out, but forgot about it, and so it's now become mine until she ever remembers to reclaim it.

The saying about never forgetting to ride a bike  

proved itself to be true and there were no falls for me, however this was not the case for our McKenna who fell numerously as she adjusts to riding without training wheels. It gives me no pleasure in admitting that we as parents failed in the training wheel department and only took them off her bike this past summer. This was her first venture away from the familiarity of our driveway and the crushed stone and boardwalk decking gave her some intimidation and frequent falls.    

I had always thought the wildlife trail was named so because of the obvious duck and bird visibility, but apparently we have an ever present beaver population that was completely unknown to me. We spotted various beaver dams along the way and tracks crisscrossing the mud bottom of the lowered riverbed. This gave me a chance to use our outing as an educational experience for the girls while I told them about beaver dams, nests, habitats and everything else I could recall from a middle school research report from 20+ years ago. We decided this would make a good family google subject for us later when we returned home. Three days later we have yet to look it up, but it hasn't escaped my memory, so beaver googling will definitely be in the near future.

While I have walked the boardwalk that makes up this walking trail, I have never went completely over it to the little island it leads to. I think the length of the boardwalk was a little overwhelming to the girls as they saw it curve around the river edge and head to the unknown. Pushing them forward, I told them to imagine that we were on the wooden go cart track that we like to visit on Gatlinburg vacations and we are on a journey to explore the secret island ahead. They liked this and the fact that I had never been to the "secret island" either so this was a first for all of us. That seemed to suffice and we peddled ahead.

The secret island had less traveled trails, cut through by foot rather than bike, with many fallen limbs along the root entangled paths. After passing by the last resting bench, the trail narrowed even more and I finally gave the lead to my husband out of pure selfishness of not wanting me to be the first to encounter a snake, beaver or anything else we might come upon. Luckily there were no first hand wildlife encounters, not even a mom-feared brush of poison ivy. We made the full trek which circled the island and then headed back over the boardwalk in time to witness a baby duck swimming alone. Just as I was pointing it out to the girls, it disappeared under the water's cloak only to re-emerge a few yards from where it had been. We watched in suspense each time it would disappear to see where it would reappear again until it was finally out of sight and then we headed back to the truck and reloaded the bikes.

It was good time for all of us, out in nature, disconnected from the world around us, creating what I hope will be a family memory my girls will keep locked in a file of their mind for years to come. While we had missed church that morning, we had our own service with bicycle seats instead of pews, fresh air instead of electronic heating and cooling, in a sanctuary created by God more beautiful than any decorated church walls. He spoke to me in subtle whispers all along the way through the beauty of nature and the inquisitive children He blessed me with.

This is the age I am going to miss the most...

You know those mother's who get all teary eyed with every birthday their little one has? You've seen them, the ones that often reminisce about holding their child in their arms as a baby and how they miss those moments. Well I am not one of those mothers. While I like babies with their wonderful baby powder smell, softest skin they will ever have and their precious little baby faces and sounds, they just aren't that interesting beyond cuddling, looking at, feeding and continually changing diapers. I have always been more the fan of watching my girls age and grow into themselves as they develop their individual personality. They are most interesting to me at this stage where they have their own thoughts, questions, creativity, humor and wonderment of the world. I like seeing through their eyes and hearing their childlike thoughts which break down the complexity of the world into it's simplest of forms.

That said, I believe this it the age I am going to miss the most in my girls. Now at ages seven and ten, they come out with the most exquisite questions, thoughts and phrases which make me laugh, ponder on and occasionally wonder "where in the world did that come from". Not only that, I selfishly love that my girls are so in love with me as their mom. At this age, they call me "Mommy" and still want to be around me, they hold my hand in public, they don't care that I'm not perfect, they listen to me when I try to teach them and they think I can fix and do anything. I am constantly getting notes and colored pictures which have "I love you mom" plastered on them in the brightest of colors, the messiest handwriting and a misspelled word or two, yet they are my masterpieces. In addition, my girls can't get enough snuggle time with me piled up under a quilt watching TV or reading a book. At this age, I believe they think I am hiding a cape under my clothes which allows me unfathomable abilities as their mom.

As I have three older step children that I have survived the teenage years with already (can I get an "Amen"), I know there will come a time sooner, rather than later, where none of this will be the case. I know the girls who hold my hand now will someday not want to be seen out in public with their mom. What was once a sweet sounding "Mommy" will become a "Mom" in a sarcastically short tone that screams discontent and disapproval. The listening ears will become filled with the voices of their friends and peer pressure that I as a parent will have to battle against to keep my voice heard above. The girls that always want the "mommy time" of snuggling and reading books will become those that will want to spend less and less time with me unless it benefits them as selfish teenagers can be. Those love notes and pictures to me will be replaced with love notes and graffiti on their school notebooks in devotion to first loves and heartbreaks. And the cape they think I wear now will be long forgotten as they see that I was never perfect and will use every opportunity they can to rub my faults in my face in the same way we rub a dog's nose in his mess during house training. They will find that the mom that could do anything and fix anything is just winging it and spends most of her time trying to do the best she can while second guessing each decision and often falling short and disappointing not only them, but herself.

Until then, I will enjoy the moment of being the caped Mommy I am today.

Today is Children's Growth Awareness Day!

 

Today is Children's Growth Awareness Day. It's not the most popular day, not on any calendar you buy, there's no specific colors to wear, promotional sale at your favorite store or traditional family gathering to celebrate the day. Children grow, right? It's not something you wonder about or worry about when you are trying to conceive or carrying a child to term. "We're hoping for a boy. We want a girl. As long as the baby is healthy we don't care if it's a girl or a boy." These are the things you hear from pregnant couples. But what about when the baby is not healthy, what about when the fetus isn't growing right? No, children's growth is not something you think about, unless that is, you have the child that doesn't grow or grows too much and too early.

In our case, we have the child that doesn't grow. Well she grows, but not like that of what is normal for a child. This isn't something that we are just realizing, we learned there were problems early in our pregnancy. Like all the unexpected, you are hit when you least expect it... thus the term "unexpected"...I always seem to forget that part. Our unexpected came during an early ultrasound when the ultrasound technician calls my doctor into the room. That, by the way, is never a good sign. Well, I have never considered myself "normal" or that of a person who fits into a mold, but apparently my pregnancy wasn't normal either. My placenta was much too big and the baby much too small....so much for Goldilocks finding what is just right. So after second opinions and doctors' visits back and forth in town and with specialists in Birmingham, I had what you call a "high risk pregnancy" complete with bedrest and biweekly doctor's appointments to closely monitor the growth and development of the child within me.

My placenta was way too big, you would think that would be a good thing...more to give the baby nourishment, right? But no, only a small portion of it was working to nourish and feed my baby girl. The rest of my placenta was nothing but dead tissue which threatens our pregnancy with the question of if and when it might quit working completely. On top of a clearly defective placenta, the umbilical cord delivering the all too important life to my child is missing a vessel. That would be a "double whammy" in the game show world which gave us 50/50 odds through our entire pregnancy of "if" my child would survive to birth or after and what kinds of problems she would have if she even "made it" at all.   

Well she made it to 33 weeks when the she was delivered by cecarean section. No, I never went into labor, she was delivered after she had quit growing for over a month within me. The c-section was to save her from the womb that was supposed to protect her. A decision was made that modern medicine could nourish her better in a nursery than in my body...Thank you Modern Medicine!

August 13, 2001 my McKenzie was born at 33 weeks, yet was the size of a 24 week baby, at 1 pound 8 ounces and 12 1/4 inches. Unlike most moms' deliveries, mine was a scary one in an operating room with a doctor and a few attendants for me and a team, yes a team, of doctors and attendants waiting to assist my child with whatever complications she may have upon birth. My small, breech baby was pulled from my medicinally paralyzed body and wisked away to a room beside us while we waited and prayed to hear a newborn cry. Finally, it was heard and simutaneously, tears escaped our eyes. My baby was brought to my side for a quick glimpse of a beyond small body wrapped up in a blanket with big bulging eyes. I didn't get to hold her, I didn't get to touch her...I got a quick glimpse before she was rushed to the Newborn Intensive Care Unit (NICU). 

McKenzie was not just a premie, but a micro-premie and would spend 67 days in the NICU. Growing in a plastic bubble of a isolette with air quality and tempurature control, bilirubin lights and wires monitoring every vital function. The NICU came with daily weigh-ins, oxygen, feeding tubes and a glossary of new terms that only doctors, nurses and parents of NICU children know. My daughter spent 67 days there of which I spent 6 nights at home and the other 60 nights at the Ronald McDonald House and then at a nearby aunt's home whle each day sitting next to her isolette and having to ask permission to briefly hold my daughter.

We brought her home that 67th day in premie-sized blue dress that was much to big for her 3 pound 13 ounce body. She weighed 13 pounds on her first birthday, and while most premies "catch up" by the time they are two, our McKenzie didn't. McKenzie is now ten and I am asked countless times if her and her seven year old sister are twins because she is still so small for her age. In the past ten years, there has been early intervention with occupational therapy, physical therapy and speech therapy. There have been countless x-rays for bone age and skeletal surveys and visits to her pediatrician, geneticist, endocrinologist, gastroenterologist, ENT, cardiologists and opthomologists to monitor, assess and treat her growth and development. She has had 5 years of growth hormone injections six days a week, 3 ear surgeries and an oral surgery. She has had her records sent to doctors in New York, France and England with a few growth disorder diagnoses given, researched and taken away. We have even traveled to Chicago to see a specialist of one diagnosis, only to tell us that wasn't it either.

So we still do not have a diagnosis, but we continue to monitor, research and follow up. It's not that we have to have a "diagnosis", a name to call her growth disorder, but when you know what you are dealing with, you know what to expect. You know to expect scoliosis at 5 years old, or that the growth hormone shots will not increase her growth any more than her not having them, or what may be around the corner for her as she matures. Many children with growth disorders have problems in puberty and medical problems that don't show up until they are adults. It would be nice to know what we may be looking forward to, but at this point we will just get the unexpected when we least expect it. 

We know that we are blessed beyond measure. There are many parents that don't hear the first cry in the delivery room, there are many that never bring their baby home from the NICU and there are far more worse problems that not growing well. There is nothing wrong with being "small", "petite" or "little" and in no way with mine and my husband's heights would we expect our child to be six feet tall. At her growth rate now, we are looking at McKenzie reaching somewhere in the four foot range, which is fine with us, but does come with it's own challenges which she will continue to overcome as she ages.

I'm a different kind of parent because of McKenzie and the medical history she has had. I have her growth chart in my wallet for whenever a doctor would like to see it, meals have always been accompanied with pleading and bribery to get her to eat more, I never stop my child from indulging in fatty foods and treats, I can take in any pair of pants with just a few stiches of thread or a couple of safety pins. I get irritated when other people treat my ten year old like a baby, when other children her age pick her up like a baby and I get tired of having to justify that my child is in-fact ten years old. I use the internet to research terms like wormian bones, blue scelera, idiopathic short stature, small for gestational age, inter-uterine growth retardation, double vessel cord, abnormal placenta, tongue tie, dwarfism and all the disorders that are related to them. I can see "syndromic features" on other children and wonder if their parent has a doctor that has recognized and educated them and I can relate, sympathize and empathize with the mother who has found out she doesn't have the "normal" pregnancy. I am the parent who will ask countless questions at doctors appointments and has learned that we as parents are our child's only advocate. I am the parent who will repost the Magic Foundation's Children's Growth Awareness Day poster on my facebook wall and my blog because I know that growth has less to do with a measurement and more to do with a child's health.

 

A Stick, Some Thread and a Dead Bug

A Stick.
My 7 year old, always full of drama and creativity, brought a stick into the house. Bringing a stick indoors in nothing new, as I am used to finding rocks, leaves and sticks because there's always a collection being made for some unknown reason to me. After emptying countless rocks from both of my girls' pockets collected from their previous school's playground, I assessed that I really did owe the school a couple of bags of rocks...though I never did follow through with delivering any. Unlike the smaller sticks I am used to finding though, this new addition was about 4 foot long and I thought nothing about throwing it out the door back outside. Later, the stick mysteriously returned inside the house. I picked it up and as I began to repeat my actions from earlier in the day, I was stopped with the "Mom" whose tone draws into two syllables to let me know that what I'm doing is not appreciated. "I'm gonna make a fishing pole out of that" she says. Great, a fishing pole, that's exactly what I want to trip over, or have the dogs get a hold of in the house and chew into a mess of splintered pieces on the floor. I hand her the "fishing pole" and hope this little craft project is forgotten soon so I can throw away the stick once more.


Some Thread.
Later, my daughter is in the trunk which doubles as a coffee table and houses my sewing notions. It's not uncommon for her, or anyone in my house to be rifling through here as it's the one place you can usually find scissors when the household ones are missing from their supposed home. Which explains why I believe at this point I have no sewing scissors left either. I ask her what she is doing and she respond that she needs thread for her fishing pole. A piece is cut and I realize that the craft project is still underway and not forgotten. Later the stick emerges with tread tied to one end and my daughter curiously wondering what she will use for a hook.


A Dead Bug.
Well, I haven't seen or tripped over a stick in a few days and I had seemed to forget about the stick and the fishing pole until it re-emerged from it's hiding place to go on the river with us on Nana and Papa's boat this past Sunday. But now, along side the fishing pole which is propped up against the kitchen counter is a ziplock baggy with a large dead bug in it. What is this for? Well, bait, of course!


We head down to Nana and Papa's with our bathing suits and of course a fishing pole in my daughter's hand which in fear of Papa, she leaves outside of their house. We pack up for a day on the river and head out of the house to the boat, but the fishing pole has vanished from where she had propped it up. Well, unfortunately Papa did not realize it was a fishing pole, he thought it was only a stick, and had carried it down to the garage to later take to the brush pile. Once again, my daughter retrieves her fishing pole and heads to the boat with it and the baggy with a dead bug.


By now the thread is tangled, but it has a "hook" made with a toothpick broken into shape and taped on with clear scotch tape. I can't get the thread untangled, despite her most desperate plea. Nor can I figure out how we are gonna put the dead bug on a toothpick covered in scotch tape. I open the baggy to release the dead bug, whose time in the bag is unknown to me, but is obviously a long time due to the stench of it. Holding my breath I give up and tell her I have no idea how to get the bug on the hook. My only advice to her is to throw the bug in the water and let the fish come to it where she can use the fishing pole to hook the fish. Everyone agreed as no one wants to deal with the nasty smelling bug or the fictitious fishing pole any more.  She throws the bug in the water and stands at the side of the boat holding a stick with a piece of thread tied to it and a scotch taped toothpick dangling in the water.


She's not serious, right? She does know this won't work, right? Right, she knows...she's pretending. I sit there watching her and smile at the creative imagination of my child. She knows it won't work, but when reality fails her, imagination triumphs. I am suddenly ashamed. I tried to throw away my child's imagination, I wanted her to forget about her imagination and my dad tried to move her imagination...all without realizing we were doing it. And I wondered, if that was what happened to my own childhood imagination. The imagination that had an imaginary friend named "Yellow" who lived in the woodpile behind my house growing up. The imagination that spent summer days perfectly content sitting in the branches of a pear tree for countless hours. The imagination that would color the side of a box with blue waves, sit in my boat in the living room floor watching tv and staying out of the shark infested waters of the carpet beneath. What happened to that imagination? Did it get forgotten, hidden, moved, or thrown away like we tried to do my own daughter's fishing pole? Was it time, disappointments, growing up or the seriousness of adulthood that squashed the imagination? It's probably a culmination of all those things, and lets face it, we can't play pretend all the time. Talking to an imaginary friend now would probably get me some serious anti-psychotic medication and a padded room, climbing a tree would give me bruises and maybe a broken bone or two and sitting in a colored box in the living room won't pay the bills. But I am thankful that through my child's creativity, I can remember my own and maybe it will help me to not quash her creative imagination with every stick, rock or leaf I find laying around the house. It's funny how while we raise our children they can remind us who we once were and had forgotten. It's funny just how much you can learn from a stick, some thread and a dead bug.