Category Archive

It’s my experience that as we get closer to walking a path closer to God, it tends to mobilize the forces that get pissed off when someone moves closer to God. I’ve decided that I’m unafraid to label it as such even if it only serves to label me. 

My husband and I are on the cusp of some big and powerful and faith-filled changes, and our three year old son has been sent through the medical wringer for the last couple of weeks.

 This is a child who screams bloody murder at the mere mention of brushing his teeth, so protective of his personal space he is. (Now if I could get him to feel protective of the right to use the potty, we would be getting somewhere.) 

As you can imagine, he doesn’t open his mouth or ears or eyes for any doctor or nurse in the world, so when he came down with a fever two weeks ago and decided that he couldn’t walk anymore because his knee hurt, no one really expected him to be a model patient.  Our new favorite nurse practitioner did manage to take a peek in his throat and take x-rays and get a finger-prick, which showed suspicious gran and lymph readings, and we were immediately sent to an orthopedic specialist.  He brought in the whole orthopedic team to move our little guy’s legs around, and our J. was such a trooper.

The doctors talked about bacterial versus viral infections and mentioned rheumatoid arthritis. 

And they wanted to draw blood.  Two whole tubes of it.  While we talked, the toddler fell asleep on my lap.  His sister colored happily. 

I was worried about waking him up by sticking a needle into him.  My husband and I debated about how it was going to go, and then the nurses entered with a dose of condescension, suggesting that,”Oh, is Mom going to be okay?  Do you want to wait in the hallway?”

Does the bitch want to get slapped?

I was staying right there, to watch them do their job.  Or to see them mess up their job, which was actually the case.  For ten painfully long minutes, I watched my son fight harder than I’ve ever seen him fight.  “Kicking and screaming” doesn’t quite do it justice.  It was determined wailing and flailing.  He was on a mission.  The nurses struggled and jabbed and scraped the needle around in his little arm.  At one point, the timiest bit of blood started to flow.

Then the nurse let go. 

And the needle fell out of his arm. 

Finally they decided that he was traumatized enough and they said they’d try at the next day’s appointment.  So we took him home with orders to pump him with ibuprofen (translation: sit on toddler and get medicine spit into our faces every eight hours).  When the next day came, they decided that the toddler truly was a worthy opponent and they skipped the blood draw.

Days went by, still no walking.  And we gave up on the ibuprofen.  A few more phone calls, another office visit, theories about cartilage, then an MRI last Friday, at a clinic 40 miles away. My husband took him alone and this is where I get to sing the praises of a partner who truly helps to carry the load.  He is a loving caregiver to our children, and I’m absolutely blessed to be sharing a family with him. 

I just about changed my mind and took the day off work when I heard that they planned to administer the sedative through an IV. 

That meant starting an IV while he was awake.  And yes, S. reports that he flailed and fought, but the medicine was quick.

Since he was going to be sedated for the MRI, it seemed like the perfect opportunity to draw blood.  After the scan, they inserted the needle to take the sample.

And it woke him right up.  And so went the wailing and flailing. 

They did manage to draw the sample, and my husband drove a very tired and cranky toddler 40 miles home.  When a call came only a few hours later from the clinic, he was hopeful about hearing results.  The last thing we expected to hear was that the blood sample was drawn improperly.

You heard me right.

Today, along with the scan results (no fracture), we learned what happened to the blood sample.  Get ready for this. 

Seriously, you’re not going to believe this:

The nurse did not put a label on the tube of blood. 

She went to lunch and no one could find her and the 30 minute window they had according to protocol to get the label on passed.  My son’s blood has been tossed out in the biohazardous trash because no one bothered to put his name on it.

It could very well be that blood tests will not reveal to us exactly what is going on in J’s little legs, but it sure may help the doctors rule out a few things.  

In the meantime, J. is back to walking most of the time, but still complaining of his knees feeling “tired” and has even pointed out pain in his ankle as well.  His fever is gone. 

And we’ve had enough of small town doctors.  We  gladly accepted a referral to see a rheumatologist at Minneapolis Children’s Hospital next week.  Maybe someone there will know how to take a blood sample from a beligerent three year old. 

And put a label on it.

Me (driving in the car): Look at the moon guys–it’s big and orange tonight.

Kids: Oooooh!

Me: Oops, it’s so low that it’s hiding behind the trees, maybe when we go around the corner, we’ll see it again. 

Three year old: I can’t see the moon.  

Me: Just wait a minute, hon.

Three year old: Mom! I CAN’T SEE THE MOON.

Me: Yes I know, but it’s coming back.

Three year old: Mom!  I CAN’T SEE THE MOON!  I CAN’T SEE THE MOON!

Me: I CAN’T MAKE IT POP OUT OF THE FREAKIN TREES, YOU’LL JUST HAVE TO WAIT.

Ah. The harmony of daily life.

(Written in November) 

 This post has been painfully slow in coming.  I think I’ve been waiting to get some perspective.  Maybe I just don’t know where to begin.  Especially since my most recent posts (months ago!)  are so full of hope about making money using my artistic talent.

I live my life with absolute certainty that I will have very colorful chapters in my memoirs. 

Photo business plans are officially relegated to the back burner because I need an actual regular paycheck to keep us afloat.  (As if we were floating. We’ve been sinking slowly for a long long time.)  So, I started a full time job on October 22. 

At an egg farm.

When we moved from St. Paul’s notorious East Side to rural Minnesota five years ago, I went from full time working mom in the ’hood to stay at home mom in the country. Needless to say I experienced a bit of culture shock.  (Okay, I guess we still hear gunshots, but at least they’re not directed at people.)  Within the first five minutes of conversation you have with anyone you’re meeting for the first time out here, the subject of which church you attend comes up.  Our kids see cows every day on the bus ride to school.    It always takes the same amount of time to drive anywhere, no matter what time of day.  The only thing that will slow you down is a giant tractor, usually towing a trailer full of enormous round bales of something.

These aren’t judgments one way or another.  It’s just a very different lifestyle.  I knew that eventually I would go back to working, and I even guessed that it might be hard to find a job close to home.  I never guessed that I would be working as an administrative assistant at an egg farm.

My great grandparents and grandparents owned a hatchery.  I’m  suddenlyaware of the “come full circle”ness of the chicken/egg industry in my family’s history.  

And it’s actually a very good job.  I start work at 6 AM, which means that I get up and get ready to go before anyone else is awake and demanding anything.  The commute takes about 15 minutes.  I work in a newly remodeled office with windows, there’s a fridge stocked with pop and water, and my hours put me at home before my kids get off the bus.  The pay is decent and the benefits are great.   

I’ve resisted getting a full time job for all sorts of reasons, the biggest of which is that I’ve spent about thirteen years reconciling my role as a mother and I’ve finally gotten to a place where I actually really enjoyed my life.  Well, that and I’m scared that I’m not actually skilled enough to be useful out in the workforce.  Why do you think I chose to work part time as a lunch lady?  Maybe because it was such a ’safe’ and ‘easy’ job.

I’ve been making a huge, conscious effort in my spiritual life that is too big to describe using words.  And here I am, listing this as ‘number three’ as if it’s something separate from our financial crisis and my journey back into full-time employment.  It’s all hopelessly connected.

I’m not sure what possessed me to start altering this picture, adding a sepia tone and fiddling with the gamma and contrast.  I like this sort of pop art version of it, too:

I love that her eyelashes are such a prominent feature of her profile.

For the first time in twelve years of marriage, Sean is working normal hours:  Monday through Friday, 8 AM to 4 PM.  What a blessing for our family to have him home for supper every night!  He will be able to attend school meetings and programs!  People in the community might actually believe that I have a husband!  We will be like a normal family!

Okay, maybe that’s pushing it.

Besides, it throws a major wrench in our employment configuration.  Working opposite hours has been great for avoiding childcare costs.  I did some calling to price out part time daycare for our toddler and preschooler, and it turns out I’d basically be working to pay for daycare. 

So I’m hanging up the plastic apron. 

I had a hard time with it the first couple of days after I made the decision.  I’ll miss seeing the kids and drawing silly pictures on the menu board and telling cheesy food jokes.  I also liked being the staff guitar player and bringing home leftovers.  But I won’t miss the sweaty dishwashing or the repetitive complaining from my supervisor.

And I’m looking forward to being at home full time with my little ones again.  Yes, the hours are grueling and it’s not all rainbows and butterflies, but it is definitely my comfort zone.  I’ve spent a bunch of years making peace with the job description.  It will also allow me to be home for the occasional business call for Cady Home Inspection and to perhaps pursue some portrait photography.

Hard to say what lies ahead.  Lots of shifting, that’s for sure. 

June 11, 2007

My parents’ dog, Elly, stayed with us for about six weeks this spring. 

I need to make this one the wallpaper on my computer, to remind myself how sweet he can be. 

May 12, 2007

May 11, 2007

May 10, 2007

J: This is the part where we blow up!

Me: Not today!

J: (sound effects of exploding and soaring through the air) Buzz, you’re flying!

Me: This isn’t flying; it’s falling with style.

J: Ha ha! To infinity and beyond!  Uh, Buzz, we missed the truck.

Me: We’re not aiming for the truck…

As I stood on the hill, broken dog harness hanging from my hand, the futility of it all began to sink in. 

The last week has been freakishly busy for me.  Lots of music duties for church (five nights of VBS and a Sunday service, and a paid wedding gig), I started a new job as a para for summer school and hosted five houseguests all week (feeding a total of eleven people 3+ times a day). 

Oh, yeah, and we adopted a dog.  

Maddie came to us from Sean’s family in Kansas, who were under the impression that she was a chocolate lab mix when they acquired her for free on December 23 in the Wal-Mart parking lot.  We did see her as a puppy and can understand how they came to that conclusion at that time.  However, when she arrived on Saturday, we began to doubt our skills in puppy breed analysis.

She has responded moderately well to our brief but frequent attempts at training.  She seems eager to please. But I’ve never met such a hyper dog.  She digs, she jumps on people, she escapes the yard, she scares the shit out of my toddler and preschooler, and I’ve seriously never heard a more terrifying bark. 

Her hair is very short, and her face is wide, although she does have floppy lab ears.  Today I went searching the internet and there’s no doubt about it: she is some sort of mix involving an American Pit Bull Terrier. 

There are plenty of people who can argue for the good qualities of a pit bull.  Right?

Because she had found at least two ways to get out of the fenced yard, I decided to use the tie out in the front yard where there are fewer obstacles around which to get caught.  Wrestling her out into place, I finally had the harness fastened around her and the tie-out wrapped around the ash tree. 

As I let go of her, a rabbit bounded into the neighbor’s yard.

She took off running, and I have to admit that I wasn’t exactly dreading the jerk and yelp I anticipated when she reached the end of the tie-out.  Instead, however, the green harness simply popped free with a clink and landed gently in the grass, metal rings twisted and bent with authority.  I was reduced to calling out for her and stomping around the neighborhood half in tears but mostly just feeling pissed off.  

I returned to stand on the hill, watching Maddie jump and run and play all through the neighborhood.  Joy unleashed. 

She’s more than I can handle.  My good intention to provide a loving home won’t change that.  That pretty much sums up my life: lots of good intentions, slow on gripping reality.  I usually get there, it just takes some time and it usually takes getting a little pissed off. 

This is an excerpt from an email I wrote to my good friend Gail on May 10 (minus the kids’ names). I meant to turn it into an essay for Mother’s Day, but this as far as I’m getting with it for now.  Consider it a (very) rough first draft. Or a couple of related vignettes that are tied together by something big that I need to think about more.

—–

I was just folding laundry and sitting here thinking about writing about living my life in service to my kids.  Not that today was all that unique, it just occurred to me that I seriously did nothing but meet the demands of my children all
afternoon and evening today.  I did nothing else.  Many times, the tasks even overlapped so that I was holding off meeting one demand while finishing meeting another.

I went from getting juice to setting up the sprinkler, to digging up swimsuits to putting on sunscreen (and trying to convince toddler to put on sunscreen) to putting clothes back on toddler and preparing a snack to taking the clothes back off and then putting the suit back on toddler to getting towels out to putting clothes back on toddler to bringing toddler out to the car to go pick up teenager from school to putting the swimsuit back on to pushing the kids in the swings to making dinner to changing a diaper while my food got cold to throwing the kids back outside.  Then I had a few moments of peace (folding laundry) before being the mean mom who made them clean up outsuide and come in and have an ice cream cone while they all competed to get my attention and got all mad and huffy if they didn’t get to tell their unintelligible joke that no one gets and isn’t funny because it was made up on the spot by a four year old.

I was having digestive issues and got toddler ready for bed while I sat on the can.  Of course, then preteen walked away from preschooler to get something and preschooler had a fit because she was ALONE. I still managed to read stories, getting interrupted on every page to discuss which characters were people from our family in the book and to watch preschooler enact her favorite part.  We sang songs and they poked each other and I told preschooler to go lie down in her bed and then toddler and I snuggled and he petted my face and my ear and my hair and fell asleep holding my hand and looking like such an angel and not like a monster that can make you change its clothes seven times a day.

—–(end of email)

I spent Mother’s Day at my Mom and Dad’s house.  My mom was at the hospital, to be with my dad, who is recovering from major surgery that happened May 1. I mowed the grass and picked up some extra dog food (their dog is staying with us while my dad recovers) and decided to pick up some purple petunias and plant them in some of my mom’s pots.  House and garden projects are at a standstill for my folks.  Life is at a standstill.  They are in an alternate universe, otherwise known as “fighting cancer.” I was excited to see a week’s worth of dirty dishes in the sink, because I knew I could help out by washing them. 

I thought about how my mom has been in the trenches of caregiving with toddlers and teenagers, and how she’s in the trenches now with my dad. 

I’m not so twisted that I would purposely set up a shot like this.  I’m just twisted enough to capture it when it happens on accident. 

What a great time in Las Vegas (and at the Hoover Dam!). 

I took almost 200 photos in three days.