Happy Anniversary!

Once upon a time, a long, long time ago, a boy asked a girl to be in his college English study group.  The girl accepted and gave him her phone number.  Somewhere over the course of the next few years they started dating, fell in love, got engaged, then married.


That was 14 years ago.

To celebrate this momentous occasion the boy had an amazing night . . .
sleeping on the couch in the basement to calm the freaked out dog as 5 million thunderstorms went past the house.  


The girl woke dark and early to a romantic . . .
scream for help down the hall and a bloody nose in bed, 


which resulted in a party . . .
since the baby awoke to the hoopla and frolickery, ready to celebrate. 


The grand finale to this amazing morning was the boy gracefully and gently caressing . . .
a pair of pliers as he broke a plastic ring off a swollen finger, as it started to bite into the skin.


What will the rest of the day hold?  


What will the next 14 years hold?


It is all conjecture but I think it's probably true that it will be just as eventful and exciting as this morning was.  Maybe even more so.

The Road Less Traveled

Sometimes in life you feel led to take the road less traveled. And as you are rolling along, enjoying the view, difficulty or hardship . . . or a deer . . . will hurl itself at you rendering you motionless for a time.

When this happens you have a choice to make: lay down and cry or dance in the road, since it is less traveled, and enjoy the sunset, the birds singing, the cows calling and the deer running off through the fields with her family, apparently completely uninjured.

And then go play.

Asher's Exciting Week

What a crazy week we have had!

On Monday night, Asher started grunting and straining constantly. When he ate it was voraciously, like he was trying to stop something from hurting. He slept two hours at a time, waking up groaning more. We checked his temp and everything was reading normal. At 2 am I got up with him. He seemed to be in more discomfort, his straining and grunting were more urgent. When I checked his temp it had gone up nearly to 101. I woke Adam up and told him one of us needed to take him to the ER. He offered to go so I could get a little rest.

Asher was admitted to the hospital with a possible diagnosis of pneumonia. He was put on a 48 hour antibiotic. As lab results started coming in, it seemd he also or instead had a UTI (urinary tract infection). Each shift change a new doctor would come in and give us differing information. It was difficult to put the pieces together. I missed Children's as I got more and more confused with the information the doctors were sharing.

Asher stayed one night in the hospital. He was still in some discomfort and the middle of the night was very difficult for both of us. At one point I had finally gotten him asleep after nearly an hour of crying (so unlike him!) and I was able to lay him peacefully in his crib and sneak off to the bathroom. I wasn't gone more than 2 minutes, the whole time thinking ecstaticly about falling into bed and sleeping. When I walked in the door the shift nurse was just finishing putting the thermometer away and beating a hasty retreat out the door while Asher was stirring and thrashing in his bed. I had several choice words for that nurse in my head as I exhaustedly picked my baby up again. I am so grateful the hospital did not have a police against cosleeping This was the only way either of us got any sleep that night!

In the morning, I was awakened to the news that Asher had an ultrasound scheduled and the orderly was ready to take us down, now, like right now. That was fun. Thankfully I had slept in my clothes so I was ready to set off through the entire hospital to the correct room. The doctor had the results almost immediately, one blessing of a small hospital. The news wasn't great. Asher's left kidney was severly enlarged. They would like to transport us to Children's ASAP but the doctor wanted to contact Asher's urologist at Children's first before ordering it.

I started packing our bags and letting everyone know to pray. I didn't think we even had an option that we wouldn't be going though I felt really at ease about the whole thing, like it would all be okay.

About 10 minutes later the doctor returned and said, 'Well, Dr. Ali says it doesn't look that serious. He's able to look at Asher's kidney from when you were at Children's before and though it has gotten bigger, he isn't that worried about it. He says his office will set up an appointment with you within the week and I should let you go home. Would you like to go home?'

HA! I couldn't believe it! This is one of the nicest things to have happened in all our hospital stays. I was absolutely sure we were being transported and positive Asher had to stay in at least 24 more hours because of the antibiotics. Instead, we were being offered a ticket out the door! I let the doctor know we were ready to go home. :-)

So, he is doing well. He's on a round of antibiotics here. He started to smile and laugh again, we hadn't seen those precious smiles for a few days. He will meet with his urologist early next week. He will have a procedure done to check for blockages and other information. With that we will be able to see if he needs a simple procedure done or something more serious, ie surgery.

Thank you to all our friends and famiy who have been praying for us indefinitely and especially during this time. It's never easy to have a child in the hospital and when they are so little and so dependent it makes it a little harder still.

God is so good! We'll keep plugging along and enjoying the journey!

Current Family Stuff

It's Easter!  We are celebrating Jesus sacrifice and resurrection.  We are celebrating Asher gaining 2.6 pounds in 2 weeks.  We are celebrating family.  Here are some snapshots of our last few weeks.

Asher is so much more interactive and alert.

We were visited by the amazing superhero, Lightning Zack . . .

and his sidekick, Thunder Bolt.

Caedmon, all dressed up for Easter.  Who wouldn't love this guy?

Damek in his new hat.  He insists he must wear it backwards.

Our little rocker!

Damek loves to make up songs and  he is such a great singer, at least we think so. :-)

Two Months And A Miracle Of Sorts

Happy two month birthday, Asher!  We visited with our lactation consultant to celebrate. (Insert laughing face here)

A bit of background information so you can be appropriately ecstatic with me: Asher takes 45-120 minutes to eat every time he eats. Just stop for a moment and imagine that with me.  Eight times a day, I sit on the couch with him and he sucks and sucks and sucks for an hour or two, depending on how tired he is.  It takes up a lot of day and all the food he's eating is already used up because it takes so long to get it into his little body.  End of background info.

The bad news is, Asher has not gained at all in the last week and a half.  Hmph!  The LC gave us a different bottle to try and we tried, hard, for five days.  Asher hated it.  He only ate half as much with it and mostly pushed it around with his tongue.  So, I stuck him back on the bottle he's been using since he was in Children's and he started to eat voraciously.  There you go, he likes his bottle and that's it.

The good news is, the LC said why don't you use a bit faster flow of nipple on the bottle. (Insert light bulb here)  I felt a little foolish never having even thought of trying that, considering that's why she gave me the different bottle in the first place.  Chalk that up to sleep deprivation.

So, Asher and I went shopping today.  Lo and behold, when I fed him tonight he drank his bottle within 25 minutes, including stopping to burp and getting more milk to put in!  Of course, he spit up a good portion right after.  Note to self: stop to burp more often.  But still, that is pretty good improvement!  He immediately fell into a very deep and peaceful sleep.  I'm sure his little body is so happy to have all that milk in his belly without having to fight hard to get it in there!

I feel like this is a miracle for him and for me!

We haven't given up on nursing but we have to take first things first.  So, happy birthday to my little hardworker and here's hoping he'll soon have a beautiful buddha belly.

Part of the celebration, some brother love.  Enjoy!

Choices

When it's a balmy 55 degree spring day, what do you do with yourselves?  Stay at home and wait for the snow to melt?  Of course not!

Some people would be really interested in the Coon Rapids Dam and the mighty Mississippi.  I prefer a Jedi Knight on a tree stump.

For some reason, known only to himself, Caedmon chooses Darth Vader and the Lightning Guy (the Emperor) as his favorite characters in Star Wars.  I find this hilarious.

This morning I had the option to sweep the kitchen floor or adore a smiling baby.

I chose the smiles.

Dance Lightly With Life

There's a counseling clinic between my house and my chiropracter's clinic. On their sign out front they have this sentence: Dance lightly with life. The first time I saw it I was worrying about the logistics of giving birth, adding a third child to the family, finances, pretty much anything I could find.

Then I read the sign.

Dance lightly with life.

I pondered it all the way through my appointment and all the way home again. It had calmed me immediately but I didn't really understand why it had such an affect on me. It continued to rattle around in my brain.

Of course, a lot happened after that and it was shoved to the back, hiding somewhere under the dust with some old colloquialisms, but on Sunday I remembered. We were going exploring to a new park that happened to be on the same route, taking us right past the sign. And there it was again.

Dance lightly with life.

And there was the happy feeling I always get when I hear something really important to my well-being and to life in general.

And I think I finally caught on to why this was so essential for me right now.

In the grand scheme of this short little time I have on earth what is it that really matters? Not spina bifida, not Down syndrome, certainly not little things like money or a grocery list! Why would I spend my limited time and energy with them?

But when I have a strangle hold on these little things I miss the beauty of the present. My dance becomes a drudgery, more of a heavy plodding. As I let go of each worry, fear, concern, I can learn to enjoy even the difficult steps.

And become the little girl, in the spring dress, barefoot in the grass, twirling in the sunlight.