Terra Talking

Fill in the blank with your own favorite metaphor. My personal fave is “one-legged man in a butt-kickin’ contest”. But you know, to each their own.

That’s where I’ve been lately - in my own butt kickin’ contest.

Kidstown kickoff is this Sunday, MOPS kicks off next Friday. It would be neat if those were the only two main events in my life, but as of right now, they’re just the main two stressors. Topping and spawning the to-do lists that are now 15 pages long with sub-sets and cliffs notes to decipher what leads to what. This is crunch time baby!

In case you haven’t already heard my sob story - I also had a NASTY head-on collision with a speeding fire hydrant, who was unfortunately uninsured. And found not at fault. So, in spite of the fact that I tried to convince Ben it would cut down on air conditioning being that now fresh air could come right through the massive gash ripped into the passenger door, my next three paychecks will be devoted to paying off that little whoops. Darling. pictures will be forthcoming. Hopefully when I have an “after - all fixed and better” pic to accompany the horrifying mangled mass of fiberglass and metal and plastic that it was before.

And in one last teensy bit of added stress, tomorrow is Karissa’s “procedure”. Truthfully, I feel a great peace about it, even though when I think too hard on it it makes me just the tiniest bit nervous and scared for her. Ben’s work schedule/locations would just not allow him to be present for this test that apparently only gets performed on Tues and thurs. mornings at 10 am. So my daddy is coming. I think he’s probably the ONLY other person on the face of the earth who would keep Karissa calm in there. Due to the fact that I am pregnant and this is a nuclear radioactive dye they are injecting into my child, they aren’t real hip on me being in there with her, hence my dad being there. I am hoping that they will knock her out in a holding room of some kind where she can be with me until she goes out, and then my dad can take her in and be there in case she wakes up or anything. Ok I need to stop typing about it, its making my hands shake.

Please please pray for her though if you are reading this. I am asking my child to do something I myself would be scared TO DEATH to go through. 2 hours under sedation in a little MRI tube. Yeah no thanks. I’ll just deal with the UTI pain! The procedure starts at 10 am Central time, and will be done just before noon. I’ll update tomorrow nite how it went.  but your prayers would be very much appreciated. for her AND me. I am not sure who will need it more!

So that’s the depressing state of this blog tonite. Just worrying, waiting, stressing, planning, trying to just survive. Keep looking to that glorious date on the calendar, September 15th. on that date I will officially have only the birth of this unnamed child on the calendar as my last big “to-do” this year. I mean, sure, I’ll still have the usual meetings and activities and day-to-day stuff. But no more big PROJECTS or EVENTS that need my oversight or planning. It will be a glorious day indeed. Only thirteen more days.

Just breathe.

she made it home safe. Thank you Jesus.

Consider this your fair warning - this post is CHOCK FULL of pictures and is very long. Go refill your coffee or something.

she was up at 6:18 am this morning. Asking to watch cartoons. With her backpack on, fully dressed. That’s my Kealey! Just like her dad - has to be three and a half hours early to anything. (Vs. me, who is perfectly content to meander in whenever i darn well feel like it.)  We had a good (well not good healthy, but good tasting) breakfast of cinnamon rolls I started last nite, took lots of pictures, and went and waited for the bus with all the other kids and mommies. One of the neighborhood moms hosted a “Boo-Hoo Tea” for us, so that was a nice little break. Karissa and I managed to stay otherwise occupied with a few errands and i was actually able to be productive at work today also. So all in all, i can’t complain. And I hear a rumor that a certain Father of the Year has found THE SHOES in a Payless up in Minnesuckta so all is well in the Atkinson household. For a few hours at least. (no one move or breathe…)

(I am so proud of my domesticness today after being woken at the crackOdawn. Looky! I made lunch! And the sandwich was HEART SHAPED!!!! All together now… “awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!”)

I don’t know why my Bloggertool is randomly choosing dates to post, but it posted yesterday with today’s date so - to my darling 1st brother, joshua -

Happy

     Birthday!

I can’t ever find my normal font after I change it…that sucks.

Anyways - I hope that you have a great birthday, even if you don’t get Sakura till Monday. I don’t have a funny video of you dancing in the streets of San Diego to post like I did for Daniel, but I will always have our memories of driving across the country to go back to school. Of you getting my Weezer Blue Album and Green Day Dookie stolen in your bad string of luck with cars and aparments, of dressing you up and making you my playmate during those endless days of summer in Quincy. you’ve been a good friend and an awesome brother and now you have an amazing family of your own. Thanks for always being there for me - i miss having you around. Closer. But i hope you have a great birthday nonetheless. Pour out a Henry’s for your homies in the midwest. holla.

Ok - Vacation Review Time.

We had NO money and NO time set aside to actually take a real vacation this summer. For obvious reasons, Ben is doing his best to get all his terminal visits in this summer so that he can be close to home during the end of October through November, should the need arise. This plan actually makes me feel more at ease, so we have muscled through the long weeks of absences. however, it does sort of put a cramp in summer get-away plans. Having Kaylen in the middle of last summer, we obviously didn’t want to go anywhere, and the summer before that i was super busy with work out in Washington. So by about three weeks ago, I was starting to have serious cabin fever. i just needed to get AWAY - to somewhere, anywhere for anything. After hemming and hawing and researching online - we decided to take a quick 2 day getaway to a waterpark type place nearby, and we landed upon KeyLimeCove resort up in Gurnee. (PS - prepare to be blasted by fake caribbean steel drum music if you click on that link!!! Consider yourself warned!)

anyways - we had told the girls we were going to take them to a NASCAR RACE for a special get-away before school started. The girls groan and moan EVERY SINGLE SUNDAY afternoon when we get home from church and Ben cranks up the surround sound for the infamous “Gentlemen! Start Your Engines!!!” and the whole house rumbles and sounds essentially like 32 stock racing cars are driving through the middle of it. We expected that they would be equally as upset about having to go to a real race in the heat - but unfortunately that kind of backfired on us. They all of a sudden became UBER excited about the prospect of going to a real race…leaving us to wonder if our real plan would actually be as fun…But anyways, after church on sunday we packed up while they were at a birthday party, and then we headed up. They blessedly slept the whole drive up, and on a Sunday afternoon, it was quite a nice little drive. We got there and checked in and the girls still had no idea what was going on - till we walked past the check in desk and they saw the huge floor to ceiling windows looking out on the waterpark. Their eyes got very big and they began jumping up and down excitedly - “Can we go SWIMMING TOO!!!?!?!?!?” We get back to our rooms and they kept asking when the race started and when we got to go swimming. i swear i was STILL explaining to Karissa yesterday that there WAS NO NASCAR RACE. The surprise was coming to swim and play instead.

As to the resort itself, i was very impressed with the size of the rooms, and the price, which includes your waterpark admission for two days, really was very reasonable, compared to Six Flags or other local waterpark options.  The staff/lifeguards/restaurant workers - everyone was VERY friendly and knowledgeable and helped make it a great stay. Your room key is your waterpark wristband - which is just one of the many small ways they really have thought through making it EASY to stay there. No fumbling with key cards in a wet swimsuit with no pockets - you just swipe your wristband. You can pay for food at the pool, get arcade tokens, open your room door - all with the ADULT wristbands.

The waterpark itself had a good variety of waterslides, activity pools for older kids ANd babies, and a wave pool/lazy river combo where Kaylen and I spent most of our time. I don’t think that if we had older kids (say junior high age) that it would have been as entertaining for them, but it was PERFECT for the ages our kids are right now. It wasn’t too crowded, there was good control by the lifeguards so the young punks didn’t get out of hand, and they weren’t all anal retentive about the waterslide height requirement thing IF you went down with your child as the parent. It worked out great. The girls had a blast, everyone slept good that nite, and we were able to get up the next morning, have breakfast, and head back to the pool. My parents met us Sunday nite for a good dinner at the resort restaurant, so the girls enjoyed that. And we splurged on the ridiculously overpriced ice cream as a special treat. We ended up leaving around 11 (which was check out time) but really only because Kaylen had hit the wall and we really had no place to lay her down for a nap at that point. The girls were pretty waterlogged too and didn’t put up too much of a fight to leave.

So not a LONG get away - but enough to feel refreshed and just get a recharge. i hope they enjoyed it and remember it. I hope we get to go back sometime in the dead of winter and enjoy it again!

and I think that’s all I have for tonite. I am wiped again and we have a long very busy day ahead of us tomorrow again.

Thanks for all the support and well wishes from my overly emotional posts the last few days. i’ll get back to my usual sarcastic biting wit soon - stay tuned!

peace out.

terra

When I actually DO question my own sanity. My own ability to survive myself.

Tonite was one of them.

this is HARD. Getting Kealey ready for school. Running everywhere in search of the elusive school supply list. Realizing that I should have just sucked it up and gotten the Hannah Montana coveted shoes LAST week when there actually WERE stacks of boxes of them at the store since today there was a dearth of them. ( If anyone happens to be in a Payless Shoe Source store and spots these in a size 12.5 and picks them up for me, I will repay you by naming my fourth child after you.)  Realizing that in a very few short months I will not be able to go ANYWHERE without a double stroller. I will be a prisoner to the lugging of the 53 lb. behemoth stroller in order to do most daily tasks like getting groceries or running in to Target for a few last minute items.

i am tired tonite. Worn out and worn down. Doing all the running around today to get the last minute things, go to the last minute school open house to meet the teacher we found out about last minute, getting naps in, wardrobes planned, lunches made, dinner prepared, kids fed/bathed/pajama-ed, some nice mommy time, kitchen cleaned up and finally all three in bed - This has sucked every last ounce of my energy. and in 10 short hours I will be up to start it all over again. Just me. And my tenuous grasp on sanity and strength. This is what scares me.

this is what makes me question myself.

All around me the neighbors are coming home from their “Last Night of Summer Celebrations”: family dinners at special places, trips to Chuck E. Cheese, one last run to Dairy Queen. And my children have none of that. Instead of a fun family celebration they got me. Tired, cranky, worn-out me. I made a pan of pre-made brownies. We did a Dora foam craft. That was about as much as i could muster. I feel like a bad mom for numerous reasons - mostly just that I feel so inadequate doing it alone all the time. dont get me wrong, when Ben is home he is Father of the Year no doubt. he does what he can from the road on the phone. But at the end of the day, it would be so nice to have someone ELSE carry the little one up the stairs again. Someone ELSE brush Karissa’s teeth/pick up the bathroom/put the clothes in the hamper/listen to the kajillion questions designed to further delay bedtime.

I am just in a whiney mood so I’ll stop.

But at least it keeps my mind off of the inevitable.

The fact that tomorrow, Kealey will be a big girl. no longer will I have my baby home to talk to, be my helper, be my constant companion and friend as she has been for the past 6 and a half years. Every single bible study, MOPS meeting, playgroup and doctor appointment i have ever had - she has gone with me. Grocery shopping, errand running, crazy work-related tasks at the Kinko’s for hours on end - she has been there. Last year seems like such a “baby-ish” thing compared to the dauntingness of ALL DAY SCHOOL. From here on out, she will be with her teachers for more hours in a day than me. Her friends will begin to have more influence on her life than me. When she learns new things, they won’t be from me. I hope she doesn’t forget me and all the fun times we’ve had together. Everything I have learned about being a mommy, Kealey taught me. So many nights rocking and patting and rocking and singing and rocking and crying. So many days of tears and tantrums (both of us) and breakthroughs and joys and new skills. so many times of her making me laugh, making me mad, bringing me to the edge of sanity and back again.

And all that changes tomorrow morning at 8:35 when my baby girl climbs up those steps on the big yellow bus, and waves at me out the window with that huge gap-toothed grin on her face - SO EXCITED to be starting school, “but a little bit nervous and shy too mommy”. She told me today that she thought maybe she was being bad to Karissa cause she really was going to miss us all so very much tomorrow, but didn’t know how to handle it. I do’nt know how I am going to handle it either babycakes. I know Karissa will probably be hit the hardest. She asked me tonite why you had to go all day and leave her. I told her we would try to stay so busy that we hardly had time to even think about it and then she would be getting off the bus. I hope that’s true. I hope I can make that happen.

so baby, I wanted to write this all in a letter for you and stick it in your lunchbox, but I know you wo’nt understand a word of it. And that’s ok. someday when you’re a momma you will. But I hope that day is a long long way off. For now, I’ll write a shorter one. Something about having a GREAT first day of first grade, hoping I packed enough food for you for lunch, hoping your pb&j isn’t too soggy by lunch time. I hope you have SUCH a great time learning all the amazing things you are going to learn in first grade. I hope that having so many friends already in your class doesn’t get you into TOO much trouble! I hope you make lots of new friends and that everyone is nice to you and that you never have horrible no good very bad days. And i hope you stay safe. It is hard, so very hard, to let you go. I want to curl you up and hold you in that rocking chair just a little longer - but that would be cruel. I want you to experience how wonderful this life can be - and all the awesome things about this world we live in. So tomorrow, you’ll take that first step in the journey of the rest of your life.

but know this - I will miss you SO MUCH. My life will not ever be the same without you there by my side every minute of every day. I am not quite sure how I am going to function without my mommy’s little helper there to keep track of my phone, the keys, sissy’s bubba or any of the other million little things I lose and you find in any given day. Who will carry my debit card when we go in the store because I have no pockets and you always do? Lord knows your sister would lose it quicker than I could even hand it to her…

You’re such a good baby girl. I hope the world recognizes that when they see it.

i love you Kealey Grace-Elisabeth, my beautiful gift from God. Wear your name well. Learn all you can. Be the best YOU you can be.

And come home safe on the bus ok?

Love,

Mommy

Ps - if, in the morning, I do seem to have lost my mind, then I’ll know. This really is the end of my rope. And then you’ll all know, why I am questioning my sanity tonite.

Really - i’ll be ok. I know that my current state of mind is nothing that a good night’s sleep can’t fix. That and maybe one of those fishbowl margarita’s from On The Border. Only 15 more weeks. But who’s counting?!?!?

ok really. I am really going to bed now.

That word looks a lot weirder when its typed out than when I say it in my head.

But that sums up how I feel today, where I’m at. i can’t believe its actually been over 2 weeks since I last wrote, but apparently it has. Today we are recuperating from the summer, recuperating from yet another illness (Karissa), recuperating from a quick 2-day family get-away vacation, recuperating from this humidity and the ensuing bone-weary tiredness I feel at the chaos of the last two weeks.

We (my sister and I) shot a wedding last Saturday, and I think that was really when my downward spiral started to happen. It was 12 hours of being on my feet, being up, being on, climbing on things and getting on the ground to get THE SHOT. It’s part of being a photographer, I get that, but MAN I was not ready for how very sore I would be by the end of the day! I could hardly crawl out of my car at the end of the day to make it back into the house! So then I spent that next week (which was last week) being up till midnight almost every nite trying to get all those images edited and posted for the website. 650 images we ended up with out of almost 1600 taken. Craziness! I think my wedding proof book has maybe one fourth of that! But hopefully they are a true representation of all that the day was for the happy couple. I still have to blog it for the 2sis blog. Our small group was in Kidstown AGAIN that Sunday, so again it was having to be up and on in front of the kids. And AGAIN it was a 2 hour long service. So that meant crying kids who were sure their parents had left them at church who were starving and all had to go to the bathroom NOW. We had a birthday party cookout that afternoon, which quickly ended up with a medical diagnosis that led to us being back in Edwards ER for Karissa. She came home from church crying that she hadn’t made it to the bathroom in time, and then it comes out that it hurts to go pee-pee. This continued at the party where in talking with a mom friend of mine, it was determined that she at the very least had a UTI and we needed to call her ped. During one trip to the bathroom there at the party there was a lot of blood in the urine and in wiping so then I started to get worried. We called all the area urgent cares and they were all closed (because it was Sunday and apparently you cannot have medical emergencies after 5 pm on a Sunday). Emily’s mom, who thank the good Lord above is a pediatric nurse, asked karissa some questions, thumped on her back and said she thought a trip to the ER was definitely in order as it would seem that it was progressing to her kidneys, which typically means a night in the hospital getting IV fluids and antibiotics.

awesome.

So off we go for that. Wait a half hour for Karissa to have to pee again, and another three hours for a culture determination. Get sent home with the word that “yeah she has quite the infection, but we aren’t sure what it is, so try this antibiotic and re-check with her ped in a few days”. My poor kiddo. such a trooper. We drove home watching a fireworks show somewhere in Joliet or Crest Hill. It made her happy. She thought it was all just for her being such a good girl at the hospital.

And then to top off a week of shopping for back to school and staying up too late, Ben had to make a last minute trip out of town, which wouldn’t normally have thrown me off schedule so bad, but I was just kind of already in the groove of not being the single parent, and I had to pick up my game mid-stride. I think it just wore me out more than I realized.

So by the time Friday morning rolled around, i was just in NO mental state to deal with what happened. It was already going to be a crazy day with picking up the babysitter, going to work for an hour, going back home to get Kealey and drop her off at a birthday party, go back to work, go back home to get babysitter and take her home, pick up kealey and drive back home. That morning though, in a conversation with a friend, i realized that Karissa was really feeling no relief from her painful UTI symptoms. Then I panicked when i realized that the call i had deleted from the ER nurse was NOT just a friendly courtesy follow up call (which, in my defense, they have done after every single hospital visit there we have had), but it was her probably calling with Karissa’s follow up culture report so that I could go to her pediatrican with updated info. I could’nt find the papers anywhere, and when I finally DID find the papers with her info, I got shuffled to three different people before finally getting someone who  knows what I am talking about. “Oh yes, Mrs. Atkinson, we’ve been trying to get a hold of you for a few days. It looks like Karissa’s infection is completely resistant to the antibiotic she’s on. She actually has a really high level e. coli infection.” a WHAT?!?!?!?!

At this very moment, Kealey comes in through the backdoor carrying a screaming karissa, who had somehow stepped on a bumblebee and was stung on the bottom of her foot which was quickly swelling to about twice its normal size. So I am trying to remain calm while the dr. dude discusses antibiotics and resistancy and horrible words like e.coli, all while trying to calm karissa down, look for a stinger and hold an ice pack on her poor little foot and make sure her airways aren’t swelling. In my mind I just kept repeating - “I will not lose my mind right now, I will not lose my mind right now”. The hospital calls in a scrip for Omnicef to our pharmacy, Karissa calms down from the bee sting, and off we go to get the babysitter and start the craziness of our real day! In my mind and heart I am trying not to panic at the thought of e.coli taking over our house, because I am logical. I know that e.coli is naturally found in your system and that it is a leading cause of UTI’s and that there are a million and one reasons why its plausible that Karissa has an e.coli UTI: she just OFF of antibiotics so her stomach is weaker, the pool filter was clogged for a few days and there were horrible things growing in the pool they swim in every day, she is four and has some, umm, questionable hygiene habits not fully formed yet, etc. etc etc. None of this really makes me feel better though in my internal conversation I am having with myself and I am able to hold it all together for the ride home with the babysitter, get in the car and make it around the corner before the tears flow. Many many tears come fast and hard and out of nowhere and I decide to just go in and get a cup of coffee to try to relax a little first before attempting to get my ever growing to-do list accomplished at work.  The coffee helps, a little. The crying helps, a lot. I guess sometimes you just need to let the tears flow, to clear everything out. I hate crying. I truly do. But it was cathartic on that day, in that time. So I let the tears flow. and then realized that in the big scheme of life, a UTI was really not worth sobbing over.

So I got kealey to her party, made it back to the office, cleared a LOT of stuff off the list (thanks erin for being so willing to jump in and assure me that its ok to not have everything PERFECT and that sometimes just being DONE is good enough!), and made an appointment with her pediatrician for that afternoon just to reassure myself that ANOTHER round of omnicef in less than 30 days was going to be an appropriate course of treatment. You may remember from a previous post that Karissa just got over a horrible infection in her ears from her tubes coming out, and was on omnicef at that time as well. In the 7-10 days that she was off this super-strong antibiotic, she managed to contract this e.coli UTI. I think this was where my panic was coming from. I am not normallly an antibiotic pusher. i think the body is usually equipped to do what it needs to do to fight off infections. So two courses of this stuff in one month just really seems off and exorbitant to me. However, you can take one look at Karissa and realize she needs SOMETHING. She is in TERRIBLE pain most of the day, in spite of round the clock tylenol and ibuprofen. So after another whirlwind tour around town (thank GOD that Ben was able to come home early and alleviate some of the run around), we made it to her appointment with a doctor we have never seen before. I was nervous. I hate having to pull out the whole momma bear act, but I hate even worse when I am dismissed by medical personnel as not knowing a THING about the child who I have borne and nursed through every illness of their short little lives without THEIR help thankyouverymuch. So I was prepared to do serious battle if this dude decided that Friday afternoon was just NOT the time he was going to do work. But God’s hand was with us and we had a VERY sympathetic and awesome nurse, and dr. Brinkman ended up being above and beyond my expectations of a listening,  sensitive, take-charge kind of doctor. He listened to my theory about Karissa’s spina bifida/ear infection/UTI symptom connection, agreed with me and said we definitely needed to look into things further before serious damage gets done. He had the actual report faxed over from the hospital and went through it line by line with me. It was heartbreaking to see this long list of things they used in the lab to try to kill her infection and have it listed RES (for resistant) next to just about every single one. So in the end, the omnicef is our last resort. If this doesn’t kick it, she is in the hospital on IV antibiotics till it goes away. There are only 3 IV meds that look like they might kill it. They have no idea why her e.coli count is so very high, they only know it needs to be killed. So pray pray pray that this omnicef round works. Thank God that insurance covered another round of this expensive antibiotic. I was worried that they wouldn’t, considering we just got off a hefty dose of it. But they did. 

In the best case scenario, her culture we take in at the end of this week comes back clear or clearer, meaning its working. If that’s the case, we get to move forward with a VCUG procedure to see how much damage is being done to karissa’s urinary tract, given the fact that its highly plausible that due to her spina bifida she truly doesn’t feel the urge or the pain associated with a normally functioning UT system. In this procedure she will be sedated and fluids will be flushed backwards up the tract and then flushed back out in a normal emptying manner. I cannot imagine the pain this procedure will cause, which is why I am glad for the sedation, and yet scared a little also. Its always a scary thing. In this test we are looking for the stage of damage. Stage 1-3 means she will be starting preventive antibiotics (weekly courses to keep her system clear of anything that may start to grow). Stage 4 or 5 - she will need a surgery to re-implant her ureters from her kidneys to her bladder. This will be happening sometime at the end of this month - IF this current infection is actually clearing from the omnicef.

Add to this the fact that it is hard to deny that she is becoming more and more unintelligible in her speech and is responding less and less to hearing us call her name, and you have a recipe for surefire surgery at some point in the next two months. We go in for her hearing re-check on the 28th (the day before her planned VCUG procedure), and I honestly am not optimistic that she will pass. In which case her ENT will want to re-implant her tubes AND take out her adenoids. Resulting in again a longer sedation, and more tricky surgery.

I do’nt know why its always Karissa. Kealey will go the whole year and have one nasty cold or strep virus at some point in the winter, and it seems like Karissa is always battling something or other. And she’s SUCH a little trooper through it all. I wish I could describe her strength for you. She has such an amazing heart and spirit - she teaches me so much.

I cannot believe how long this post is - but its good to have this out. It helps process it more in my own mind to get it all written down. so if you’ve endured this far, thank you. Thank you for your prayers, for your concern. I will keep you all updated as I find out more info.

I havne’t even gotten to our fun family get away this weekend! i will have to blog that tomorrow. It was a lot of fun, and I definitely recommend it for any family who just needs a quick break from reality. It really helped me “reset” in a mental way, feel more ready to take on this week, and the start of school, the start of losing my baby all day every day to the school system. Ok i am going to start crying all over again and three breakdowns in one week isPLENTY for me.

Hope you enjoy more of the random pictures.

May this be a blessed relaxing week for all of you.

Go hug your kids and tell them you love them.

love,

me

Welcome to my random tirades for today.

We’ll start with this lovely weather, shall we? Walking outside to feed the dog at 7:30 this morning, I knew it was going to be bad. Just checked - we’re at 94% humidity. And they felt the need to re-iterate this with the written forecast:

“Partly cloudy with isolated thunderstorms possible. Humid. high 87F, Low 63F.”

Really? It’s going to be humid??? I am terrified to go outside again. It feels like my lungs stick together on the inside. It’s getting harder to breathe inside, in the air con; I truly fear what its like outside. I could NOT get my breath last nite at Ben’s softball game and i hate that panicky feeling. Perhaps this would be a good time to evaluate the efficacy of actually staying on my asthma meds as preventive measures vs. overdosing on them in emergency breathing situations. But you know, why change now after 32 years with it?

Ben injured himself pretty bad last night in the softball game. His calf muscle has been bothering him for  a few weeks (so he tells me last nite after t he injury), but running down to 1st he heard it pop and was almost instantly down (of course he made himself safe first so he got the hit not the out). I ran over and could see is spazzing around and could just tell he had done some serious damage. From what I can feel he tore it in two places, pretty wide, long tears of the fibers. He is limping around and I do feel sorry for him. I give him HUGE props though for actually admitting that he realizes that compared to the aches and pains of pregnancy and childbirth that he has nothing to complain about. What a good guy, hey? So pray that his leg heals up fast, because his patience to actually LET it heal is about nil. I was so excited that he made it home a day early though - those are always the best surprises.

and OH. MY. LORD.

The Junior is coming to town! I may just turn into a Sox fans yet. I am going to be very very torn at the game on the 18th. I will have something to cheer about almost every inning though! Ok weird confession time - when I can’t fall asleep at nite, instead of counting sheep, I create my Mariners dream team lineup in my head. I have to rotate my outfielders just because there are so many good ones to choose from. i went through a long period where Junior and A-fraud were off the list because I was so mad at them for selling out. But then I realized that my team wasn’t the same without them. They bring a certain panache to the team that just enhances their fielding and hitting abilities. Clearly I need more stuff to fill up my free time since THIS is what my mind wanders to in moments of insomnia. It’s a good line up though. I may have to create a separate blog page to spell it out complete with the diamond to show positions. but this i can promise you. I-Chee-Rooooooooooooooooohhhhhhwill also be right. He is untouchable in the position. And he still doesn’t speak a lick of English but God Bless him anyways.

(don’t say I didn’t warn you that it would be random today…)

just a few more things:

to the policeman i argued with yesterday in Oak Park, my apologies. it was probably wrong of me to sit and argue with you, but let’s face it, i was right. there was not a no parking sign there, meaning, even more so since i wasn’t technically PARKING, that I did have a right to leave my running car there while I ran in to get something. Let this be a lesson to you to not argue with a pregnant woman with three kids in the car on a hot humid day in July. Thank you and good day.

I cannot believe I am almost up to 5000 visitors to my little site! I mean, i am sure I am past that since I just installed the stat counter in March after the whole hacking fiasco. But still. Its a fun thing to watch that little number go up and up. i will have to do something for the 5000th visitor celebration. I can’t tell who it is from my stats, but we’ll do some kind of fun prize/game thing. I have no idea why i am so giddily excited over the fact of hitting 5000 visitors.

And lastly - the picture project for Leslie - for those who have asked. it will basically be an album of all the images I took at their session this spring, plus the CD of all the images, and a dvd slideshow of them set to music. It was the album/matting that was causing the expense, but I believe I have found a slightly less expensive alternative, while still providing beautiful archival quality for them. So thanks to everyone who volunteered to help out. If you still feel like donating a few dollars towards the project, paypal me at terrarist101@gmail.com and just make a note that its for the A family project.

And because text only posts are boring, I’ve just added a few recent favorite pics to this post to keep with the random theme.

And one last thing (i think), for those of you who have been wondering how i am feeling (since i have notedly avoided going in depth on that topic in a few days), I am doing good. My emotional upheaval is at this point more for those who WERE close to her, for the closure for the church body, the healing that will come there. Physically, the contractions stopped and I am dealing only with the usual braxton-hicks and other aches and pains of being pregnant. Thank you so much for those of you who were concerned and your prayers - they meant a lot and helped even more.

I think that is all for the randomness for the moment. But you never know. i may just decide to come back and bore you all more later.

have a GREAT weekend! Stay cool…

terra

I think its good to laugh out loud sometimes.

A friend just sent me this. It’s semi-ridiculous in some parts, but if you don’t at least smirk at some parts of this, your funny bone is definitely broken, yo.

I think I personally lost it at the “if you’re catholic, there’s even more” part about halfway through.

I am still processing a lot, and yet, life marches forward. Meetings and agendas and emails and planning - it doesn’t slow down just cause I don’t feel like dealing with it right now.

the girls are having a lemonade stand right now - I finally relented to the daily onslaught of requests for this privilege. They have made a dollar. Thank God for kind-hearted FedEx Home Delivery drivers who stop on a hot day to make two little girls’ day. It warmed my heart. Maybe I am overly emotional/hormonal. It was touching.

Otherwise - life really truly is good. i wish summer would last forever. I can’t stand to think of July being over.

Thanks for everyone who has contacted me about the Leslie picture project. i think i may have found an acceptable, yet less expensive alternative. i’ll post more details about it as I get them. Because of course i have about 982 other things on my to-do list that all have to be done yesterday. why do i do this to myself???

Anyways - i need to go rustle up some grub for the yung-ins.

hopefully i have more serious blog-fodder by tomorrow.

t-shizzle

In the last few days mine has hit me like a cold wet towel snapping across my face.

Some of you may remember the story of Leslie that I posted here a few months back. On Saturday night, in the words of her husband Tyson, she defeated her battle with cancer and went to be in the presence of her King and Savior. And I guess some part of me knew that the end would come for her. But i had a really hard time accepting it. No, we were not best friends, not even close friends. And my grieving for the situation comes more in the form of mom to mom - grieving what she had to leave behind (her almost 3 year old little boy TJ), and her adoring husband. And just processing, what would it be like to say goodbye? I think my refusal to accept her diagnosis came when I found out we were the exact same age. People die who are older than me, and people die who are younger than me. But people my age DO NOT DIE. It just does not happen. Not in my happy little world. So while friends around me would be saddened by news posted on the blog, i blithely accepted and believed that she would make it. that she would beat all the odds. that a year from now they would all be happily sitting back in church like this was just a horrible blip on the radar.

Receiving the news Sunday morning hit me hard. We had to be “on” in Kidstown that Sunday too, which was both a blessing and one of the hardest things i have had to do in a while. Be “up” and “happy” in front of a crowd of children whose parents were all too happy to leave them there in order to go to service. We all just felt - devastated, upset, more like crying than singing loud obnoxious songs. But bravely we put the game faces on and endured it. I really didn’t think I would make it. ESPECIALLY when service went over a half hour. ESPECIALLY when the air-con would not work in the preschool rooms and we had almost 40 kids running around creating more heat with their little bodies! ESPECIALLY when you could see everyone else getting to process through their grief together as a church body and we were left still cleaning up cheerios and scattered legos. It was extremely emotionally draining to say the least.

which is probably why I then came home and started contracting, hard. painfully. for over 5 hours. Nothing was stopping them and they just kept getting more painful. it was just the icing on the cake of an already crazy and chaotic day. I don’t think I slept at all Sunday nite. And I slept even less last nite.

It just makes you think about where you’re at with your own life. What have I done in 32 years here on earth that would be any kind of legacy? Whose lives have I impacted? What difference have I made?

And then I get a call from the Bone Marrow Registry. I signed up to be a bone marrow donor about 10 years ago when another good friend of ours was figthing leukemia. I have been called 2 or 3 times before, but it was more as an initial step for both of those patients and they ended up not getting transplants at that time. This time its a 30 year old man, locally. and for me to give up part of that which gives me life would save his. And yet my body is growing another life. So I am unable to donate at this time. There’s so much emotionally packed up in this that I am having a hard time getting it out. So much I don’t understand - may never understand, but have to come to terms with. Fit it into my mold of that which I know, and that which I believe.

How is this for an upper of a post?

Anyways - to end on a semi-positive note…

The pictures i took of the A family, we want to have printed and preserved in some way. In order to do it in any kind of professional, archival way, its going to be an expensive route, but one I am willing to explore because I so firmly believe in the power of pictures as a means of memory preservation. I want for TJ to remember his beautiful mommy playing with him in their living room, hugging him, just enjoying life the best they could while dealing with the cards they had just been dealt. If there are any of you out there who feel somewhat at a loss of how to reach out, how to help and would like to contribute to this project, email me (terra@2sisphotos.com) and let me know. I am open to ideas and can give you more details in an email.

anyways - at the very least, please pray for Tyson and TJ. They are “taking a break” for a couple weeks before coming home to prepare for the memorial service of Leslie’s life.

May you cherish and love those around you today. Give them all an extra hug or two or twenty. Take a few minutes to just SIT, and enjoy each precious minute of life you have been given.

Embrace the simplicity of a good life, the life you are living right now.

And thanks, to all of you, for being my friends.

May you rest in peace, Leslie.

terra

It has been a good pretty unstressful week. We played with a lot of friends this week, and in spite of that i was able to get most of my MUST-DO work done. Always fun. The inimitable miss clc came over for a cooking lesson/recipe help - good friends who will help you make a meal that wows your husband including homemade cheesecake are PRICELESS. I hope everyone has at least one.

I think we even have a relatively uneventful weekend ahead of us.

All in all - life is good.

I hope your weekends are all filled with fun, relaxation, and all the good things you are hoping for.

I can’t get the video to embed, but going to this link should take you to the latest from Karissa. It never fails to put a smile on my face, and in fact, you will hear me laughing in the background near the end of this little video. For some reason it uploaded very small so you can’t read the captions very well - they are mostly just question marks with the occasional actual translation of Karissa-ese thrown in.

http://gallery.me.com/ctc_kidstown#100000

Enjoy!

My poor Karissa has waited SO long to have her very own birthday party! She usually just gets the family barbecue for the 4th, a cake with candles and basically no input into her party. Not that a 1, 2 or 3 year old can or should have much input - but compared to some of Kealey’s shindigs, she was feeling a little left out. So we decided to make it a GREAT birthday party for her this year. I have no idea where most of the ideas started coming from - certainly not from my own great imagination which has taken a long vacation. But anyways - here are some of the party highlights.

We started out with some face painting as the princesses and pirates arrived. Oh I should back up - and state that ben and I were running around ALL MORNING with poor kaylen trying to tie up last minute details, like getting the sand for the treasure hunt, making up clues,cleaning up the basement in case the storms didn’t let up we woke up to that morning, getting the pirate costume, etc etc etc. Who, me? Procrastinate???……………………

Anyways. So we’re already exhausted by the time the party starts. We blew up balloons and hung plastic tablecloths in the doorway to make it seem “castle-ish” - even the neighbors got involved in helping with the decorating. I guess something about a 5 month pregnant woman on the top of a ladder precariously hanging over the edge of the porch does something to spur on  chivalry. That and me trying to nail something into the mdf soffit board which was NOT going to accept a nail…I dunno. It was interesting. Anyways, it got hung up, and the look on karissa’s face when my parents brought her and Kealey home from the fishing derby was PRICELESS. She was SO excited to have her own party, and all this decorating was just for HER.

She was of course also enthralled with getting to wear her sister’s fancy Easter dress as her princess ball gown. So all the little princesses and pirates arrive, we paint faces and then its time to come inside for the princess and pirate story. i had originally intended to have this all written out, with the plot line actually matching the clues i had to make up for Pirate Ben to “drop” when he stole the treasure. I only had time for the clues. For which I had to take pictures of everything and print them and then number them so Ben didn’t get confused. I  still have NO IDEA how I got everything done that morning. Anyways, the kids all sit down for the “story”. Which i made up TOTALLY as i was talking. I am not even sure it made sense. It basically was something about Karissa getting to be crowned the Princess that day and making sure that no pirates ever stole the family treasure and some little rhyme about keeping pirates away. The point being that when we talked about seeing pirates, out Ben was supposed to jump, come steal the “treasure” Karissa was entrusted to guard, and go hide it (coming back every new activity we moved on to to give us a new clue/activity). this was a great plan in theory - until we got to the part where at least half of the kids were scared CRAPLESS by ben dressed up in pirate garb. He did sound pretty scary, and the all black menacing face complete with lots of black eyeliner (grrrr baby!) - all in all, I am sure it made for a more scary birthday figure than your typical clown. Great. So now I am responsible for warping the dreams of half the preschool group at church. Sorry!

So at the end, here is what the kids had done: facepainting, story, craft time of making their treasure boxes with foamy letters and stick on jewels to “treasure chest” boxes. They then took the treasure chest boxes outside for the pinata (and i mean the old skool whack it with a stick kind, none of this sissified pull on a ribbon and open a trap door stuff!) They stuffed their little boxes full of candy and then were directed (via a note found by Uncle Nate, who “beat up the pirate for us” so we could stop creating large therapy bills for the childrens’ parents), to come inside for cake and ice cream. After the sugar rush, they played freeze dance for about  minutes while the final “treasure” was prepared. And would you believe it, of ALL the planning I did, when I asked Karissa what her favorite part of the party was, she says “FREEZE DANCE!!!” (the five minute interval of quick-entertain-the-kids-randomly-to-fill-the-time-gap….) Awesome.

and then it was time to find the real treasure.

We had borrowed a neighbors wading pool, filled it with all the “treasure” (trinkets from Oriental Trading like necklaces, rings, bubbles, crayon boxes, bouncy balls, nail polishes, etc.), and poured sand over the whole thing. Each child got a bucket and shovel and was told to go at it. Some got the concept of actually just taking the treasure out of the sand and putting it into the bucket, others just filled their buckets with sand. It was in the garage and luckily remained pretty contained. I think for the most part the kids had a lot of fun doing this…apparently not as much fun as they had doing freeze dance, but hey, you live and learn.

After this we opened gifts and then parents started showing up to collect their kids. We had scheduled it for right at two hours, because I think four year olds are in that total in between time of “do the parents stay? do they leave?” - there is no real etiquette for it, but I wanted the moms and dads to be able to feel like two hours wasn’t TOO long to leave them, or to have to endure the craziness of a four year old’s birthday party. i do’nt know, what did you think those of you who were there? Too long? Stay or don’t stay? I never understand the rules for myself at other people’s parties. I digress.

More pictures:

All in all, I’d say she had a blast! Big sister Kealey did a GREAT job of just letting this be Karissa’s party, I was very proud of her. Although maybe having a couple of her own friends there helped with that…

Either way - it was a great day, a fun party - perfect for a princess.

Ben - you made a GREAT pirate. It was a birthday she will surely remember for the rest of her life. i couldn’t have pulled it all off without you!

Hope you all survived that horrible revisit to the pirate day.

puffy heart,

moi

move along move along like i know ya do.  Man, those all-american rejects are deep. And yet the words of that song have been so true for me in more than one circumstance over the past couple years. On a completely random side note, when Ben and I went to the AAR concert in Dec. 06, everyone had started to clear out and leave when they came back onstage for their second encore. You guessed it, it was this song. Ben pushed me to the very front of the upper level to stand there and hear it and let me tell you - its an amazing live performance. I’ll never forget it. I realize there are probably millions more spiritual songs that could have the same significance to me, and  yet this is the one i have latched onto for now. welcome to my world.[/end tangent].

So anyways - that is today for me, moving along. Moving past last week, moving forward to a very busy fall season ahead. Planning for MOPS starting and Kidstown kickoff, and changes to schedules and new babies. Lots to plan for. Lots of meetings to schedule. but if i think about too much of it at once it starts to get overwhelming. So I am trying to break it up into bite-size chunks, plan a little at a time, and have the plan fully in place, so that none of it is too stressful all at once. Seriously, if I could just clone myself or get four more hours into a day, life would be good. I do not know what i would be doing without the thyroid meds; at least now i have the wherewithal to get out of bed in the morning, and have the energy to last past the girls’ bedtimes. I feel like this is one of those battles I have been fighting my whole life (cramming 28 hours worth of activities into 24 hours, 7/365), but I feel, i dunno, somehow better equipped at this time to actually tackle it in the way it needs to be tackled. which makes no sense. I mean, my life could not be any crazier than it currently is, and yet i have the most sense of calm about what is to come. And it’s not even 4:20 yet!!!! (you gotta holla in the comments if you get that. i know at least one of you will!!!)

And now we come to the portion of this blog post where I stop whining and talking about meaningless stuff and get to the cute kid pictures. there are a lot of them. i have a lot of catching up to do on activities! we missed 4th of July/my birthday/kaylen’s 1st birthday, and then karissa’s big not-to-be-missed social soiree of the year birthday party. It may not all fit in one post. And if it does your eyes will be at least a hundred diopters worse for all the reading. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. But maybe I will have mercy and save some cute stuff for tomorrow. since, you know, tuesdays are just so….tuesdayish.

first up, let’s see what pics I have edited from the 4th…

oh this was fun. I woke up to this birthday morning surprise from a good friend. It was a good fattening breakfast, my favorite creamers which I drink with just a little coffee flavoring, my favorite flowers, and just in general, a great big smile all wrapped up in a big bow on my front porch. this was the first birthday I could remember in YEARS that i actually had more than just my family remember it was my birthday. I was SO BLESSED by all the e-cards, emails, calls, and cards i received from all my friends for my birthday. Truly, I felt very special the whole day!

and, as any good birthday would have, Ben and I spent a few hours blowing up BALLOONS - lots of them- for Kaylen’s party. She loved them. and thank the party gods for helium tank rentals. I had tried to go with the cupcake theme for Kaylen’s birthday, but there was surprisingly no cupcake themey stuff at Party City. Go figure. i don’t think she’ll notice though. she was, however, pretty enthralled with the actual cupcake she got to consume as her birthday cake. i thought i’d be wiping up pink frosting for all of eternity after this. Luckily, she managed to actually consume most of it.  Her reaction to getting handed a whole cupcake was PRICELESS. She instantly picked it up and devoured it, of course, face-smashing frosting first.

She was NOT, however , a huge fan of the precious little “1st Birthday Princess” crown headband I had bought special for the party. At one point she tried to pull it off her head and ended up succeeding in only snapping it back into her eye. I had to laugh. Isn’t that so typical of our lives even as adults? the more we whine about something and try to get out of it, the more it just comes back to bite us in the tookus.  Overall, she did great throughout the day, even taking a quick nap before the big fireworks show so that we could all enjoy going down to the park and watching the “show to rival downtown Chicago’s”. Hey, we’ll let the man dream. And the airshow before the fireworks was pretty cool, I’ll give the city that much credit. 

And then there was the pyromaniac “I like to play with fire” Atkinson display at good ol’ 1587. Someone went a little nuts in Indiana during a business trip with the BOGO deals on illegals. at least he kept all of his limbs and digits. And in a house full of soon to be 5 women, the man deserves a little “let’s blow crap up” downtime. it was a good pre-cursor to the big show for some of the little kids i think. plus its always fun to play with new settings on the old DSLR-aroo.

And now in the interest of trying to get this post to actually post to the web, I will leave you with a few pics, with many many more to come tomorrow.

Happy 4th of July from the Atkinsons!!!

The cupcake cake for Kaylen. Thank God for the meijer bakery.

Blue frosting - even worse than reddish/pink. it’s the birthday gift that keeps on givin’

Three words for you:

Portillo’s.

Chocolate.

Cake.

i swear the stuff could cure cancer if they would conduct such research. you absolutely cannot be unhappy while eating the stuff. Ben bought me two. Cause, you know, i totally need the extra fluff. But you just can’t get enough.

i still have some if anyone wants a slice. Come on over.

ok - much more to come tomorrow. including Ben’s escapade as the SCARY Captain Jack Sparrow. (Max, you may not want to read tomorrow…)

Have a great rest of your monday!

me.