Counting our blessings

On Friday, I went to lunch about the same time as one of my female co-workers ("Mary") and one of my male co-workers ("John"). We didn't go to eat together, we just left within a few minutes of each other and thus we were due back within a few minutes of each other, obviously.

I came back to work on Dunkirk Avenue, which runs on one side of a high railroad embankment (you can't see over it). I found out later that Mary and John came back on Academy Street, which runs on the other side of the same embankment. As I was nearing the driveway to work, I heard a bunch of sirens coming in my direction. Other than checking to see if there were any emergency vehicles behind me that I needed to pull over for, I didn't think anything of it.

I sat down at my desk and my phone rang about five minutes later. It was John, calling to say that Mary had had an accident. I literally gasped when he told me that Mary had been driving along and she'd hit a child on a motorbike. As we found out later, the boy (who's about 12 years old) was visiting a friend up the street who had a mini motorbike--it looked like a mini dirtbike. The friend said the boy could try the motorbike, as long as he didn't go too far from the house.

The boy drove down the street and down a hill, and whether because of inexperience or panic, he flew right through a stop sign and into Mary's car. He hit on the front driver side corner and then went under the car. Mary says she doesn't remember seeing him hit the car, she just heard the screeching of tires and then she was stopping her car after running over him with both wheels on the driver's side. She got out and called 911. The boy wasn't wearing a helmet, and he was breathing in big gasps but unconscious.

A police officer arrived and then John drove up, on his own way back to work, to see someone lying in the street and Mary's car in the middle of the street. As the volunteer EMTs from our community pulled up, he called me to tell what was going on. The medical evac helicopter arrived shortly afterwards, as I called Mary's emergency contact, her mom. Thank god she was home. I told her that Mary was OK but very shaken and where the accident was.

Then I drove there myself; it's only about three blocks away. When I pulled up, the boy's mom (or so it seemed) was standing on one corner crying, being comforted by some other people. The flight surgeon from the helicopter, the flight nurse, and a number of EMTs were all working on the boy in the middle of the street. Several firefighters were standing around, holding screening cloths from the spectators and shading the workers from the hot sun.

John was standing on another corner and Mary was in the front seat of a police car, writing out what happened. She seemed OK, in shock obviously. She got out and I told her I had called her mom. I asked if she wanted me to call her husband and she couldn't decide. It was not a good time for me to be asking anything of her. Fortunately, her mom arrived just then. The police officer said she could leave, to head to the police station, instead of watching and waiting until they loaded the boy on the helicopter. They probably worked on him for over 1/2 hour in the middle of the street until he was stable enough to be transported. I happen to know, by the way, that the going rate for these helicopter rides is $12,000 each. Incredible lifesaving flights.

After Mary left with her mom, I didn't want to stay and stare at the scene in the street. John had to talk to the police more, since he'd been among the first on the scene, so I went back to work. And tried to concentrate since I was worried about Mary, and of course the boy, and I couldn't stop thinking of how easily it could have been me.

Over the weekend, I watched the TV and the newspaper for any news; there was none. I tried to make myself feel better by thinking that if the boy had died, it certainly would have been in the news. This morning, Mary was back at work. She'd been contacted by the family of the boy, who told her they were OK with her checking to see how he was doing.

His injuries? Skull fracture, broken jaw, broken pelvis, broken femur, and messed up foot, as well as other lesser injuries. He finally woke up on Saturday morning, though I would think they'll keep him heavily sedated until his brain stops swelling and they can figure out if he's going to have any brain damage. I wonder if things would have been better if he'd had a helmet on. The car had to have gone over his lower body. It seems that he's eventually, one day, going to be OK. I think Mary's going to be OK too. She has a strong faith and I know that's helping her.

It happened in an instant. Count your blessings.

Julia's birth story

I wrote out the story of when Allie was born awhile ago, and since Julia will be four years old tomorrow, I thought I'd write hers.

You can't help but compare your first pregnancy to subsequent pregnancies. In my experience, being pregnant with Julia and delivering her was far superior to my situation with Allie (sorry, Allie!). First, I knew what to expect in being pregnant. I pretty much knew how my body would feel and I was lucky a second time, again I never threw up. I felt confident that I could take care of an infant (completely unlike with Allie). And I was just much more relaxed in general, somehow sustaining that wonderful feeling for the whole nine months that things were going to be just fine.

This, despite the fact that since I was almost 38 when she was born, we had a special test at 12 weeks to check for Down Syndrome. And despite the fact that because of a borderline test for diabetes at about 6 months, my doctor put me on a diet as though I had gestational diabetes (I didn't). As a result, until my last week or so, I'd only gained 5 pounds while pregnant. Eh, less weight to lose later.

So things progressed very smoothly, until about 30 weeks or so. Then my doctor said we needed to settle on a method of delivery. Did I want to try VBAC (vaginal birth after cesarean) or would I want to schedule another c-section. After Allie was born, I attended Mother-Baby classes at the hospital for the whole 12 weeks I was on maternity leave. In my class of other first-time moms, there were an extraordinary number who had also had c-sections, including two who had developed nasty infections afterwards. I read the literature and decided that I still wanted to schedule another c-section. So we settled on Julia's birthdate. And that situation, the fact that we knew upfront that I'd probably have another c-section and so we'd be picking our child's birthdate, is one of the big reasons that we didn't find out the baby's sex ahead of time. When you know the birthdate and the approximate time of delivery, finding out the sex is about the only fun thing left.

I picked July 30, 3 1/2 years to the day from Allie's birthdate. So when Julia turns four, Allie turns 7 1/2. When Allie turns 8, Julia turns 4 1/2. And so on.

On the day of Allie's birth, there was a snowstorm. On the day of Julia's birth, it was hot! When Greg drove to the hospital on Allie's birth day, he missed our exit because he was so distracted and we had to backtrack to the hospital. When Greg drove to the hospital on Julia's birth day, he turned too short on a divided multi-lane street right by the hospital and we drove a block directly towards oncoming traffic before we could turn off. I was calm; Greg, not so much.

We got to the hospital, were assigned a room, and I changed into my lovely hospital attire. Then I got in bed and we waited, and waited. Finally, a nurse came in and we filled out a bunch of paperwork with her. All very calm. Then, another nurse came in (a student, as it happened) and she tried to start an I.V. Two unsuccessful pokes later, the nurse accompanying her tried in a third place. Nope. I was dehydrated since I hadn't eaten or drunk anything since midnight.

OK, fine. Another "more experienced" nurse came in and gave it a whirl, in two more places. Uh uh. My surgery was scheduled to start at 8 and I still didn't have an I.V. Finally, they said the anesthesiologist would put in the I.V. when we got to the operating room. The appointed time came and Greg and I headed downstairs with a nurse in an elevator. I walked, in bare feet. It was summer, I didn't know I'd need socks and I didn't want Greg to have to remember to bring my slippers back up. He was already kind of freaked out.

Greg and I said goodbye so they could prep me and he could get his doctor duds on. In the O.R., the anesthesiologist sniffed when told no one could get an I.V. in. He took out a steel bar, pounded it on the back of my hand (it hurt like hell!) and in a minute flat, I had an I.V. It pays to call in a pro. My doctor and lots of other people were bustling around. Dr. Stoffel herself helped to hold me in the right position for my spinal, then suddenly my feet felt very warm and I was starting to feel numb. The weirdest sensation was from my numb butt.

After a few more preliminaries, Greg was allowed in (we've got this on video). The doctors checked that I was OK and off we went. I felt a lot of tugging and a lot of pressure on my stomach and lower chest, but not any pain. After some slurping noises, the doctor pulled out her head, with lots of dark hair. She didn't look too happy (I've seen the videotape). One more tug and she slid out--it's a girl!

We were a family of four.

Afterwards, I felt much better in the recovery room than I had for Allie's birth. That was kind of a nightmare, but this was kind of special. I was able to hold Julia and because I already knew I wasn't going to try to nurse, we got to feed her instead of having her starve while I tried to get things started. We were back to my room by about 10, after I demonstrated that I could almost wiggle my toes again.

At about 10:30, my in-laws brought Allie to meet her sister for the first time. I was feeling really good, so Allie climbed in bed with me and Julia, and I got to hold both of my girls for the first time together. It was cool. I had such a good feeling overall that I actually stopped using the push-button medication administrator. I didn't need it as long as I didn't wiggle around too much. Julia was born on a Wednesday and we went home on Saturday, after they took out my staples. She didn't develop jaundice, like Allie had, and she was a very good baby, just like Allie.

And now it's been four years and that little baby is long gone. Lately, I've been having baby yearnings again. I don't really want to go down that road again (for one thing, I'm too old!), but I sometimes miss having a little one around. As Greg and I (especially me) said over and over again after Julia's birth, we're so lucky with how our lives have turned out so far, and that we got to do the whole baby thing another time. It's gone so fast.

I know I'm going to blink and Julia's going to be starting second grade (instead of Allie, this year). Then they're going to be in high school together. But I'll always remember when they were born, and they'll always be my babies.

Happy birthday, Julia!

Complete intoxication

In my little garden, in our back yard, are my little plants. They're growing well, actually, but I started so late that they have a long, long way to catch up. When we bought the vegetation, Greg decided to pick out a catnip plant. I've never tried to grow catnip before, but it seemed like it might be fun for our cats.

Of the 20 or so things in the garden, this one catnip plant is doing by far the best. It's really big and flowering and growing like one of the many weeds that my little plot sported until I spent 1 1/2 hours clearing it out last week. By the way, did I mention that it was 1 1/2 hours for a plot that's roughly 5 x 10 feet? But I digress.

Since we haven't had any rain for, oh I don't know, maybe six weeks or so, Greg and I went about our routine of watering last night. I was doing the garden and Greg was in the front of the house. I pointed out how well the catnip was doing and Greg pulled off three or so leaves, to bring inside for the cats.

They. Loved. It. Oh my god. Greg crushed the leaves a little bit to get them interested, which proved to be completely unnecessary. In very short order, they were both rolling, rubbing, stretching, pouncing, rolling, etc. etc. They bit on the leaves, rubbed ecstatically, chewed a little and rolled and rolled. It is a huge understatement to say that they were incredibly happy with these three or four leaves. If we brought the entire plant inside right now, I think we'd kill them both.

They would die happy.

So it's been four whole years

Four years ago, I started writing this blog, after my husband semi-forced me/appealed to my vanity. At first, I wrote only a few times a month, mostly about Julia--her birth, her progress, how Allie was interacting with her. Now, I write about all of us and what we're up to, and usually considerably more frequently than a few times a month. I'm certainly not funny like my husband, but I enjoy having the opportunity to let people (mostly family) know what we're up to. And if I hadn't started writing this blog, I'm not sure we'd have become friends with Dan and Kerry. They're wonderful people, and frankly I love being able to drop into conversation, "our friends in England." You didn't know I was that kind of a snob? Please. Who wouldn't think that was neat.

So for my latest update--what did we do this weekend? Well, it was the release of the last Harry Potter book, which my wonderful husband purchased for me (he took pains to tell me how long he had to wait in line to check out, of course). So I spent all of yesterday afternoon reading, plus yesterday evening and into the night. I finished at 1 a.m., which is as late as I can remember being awake in quite awhile. My opinion? I was happy.

I did get some laundry done and I cleaned all of our upstairs, which necessitated vacuuming vast volumes of very fluffy cat hair. Ick. Our kittens (who are almost a year old now) certainly shed less than our old cats, but their regular wrestling matches have definitely had an impact on dust/hair accumulation. Now that stuff is in the Dyson (vacuum).

The girls went swimming in the neighbors' kiddie pool today, Greg got immense amounts of groceries, I washed a bunch of dishes, and the three of them took a bike ride. A pretty typical summer weekend, really. Very nice, and something that I doubt I'd much remember if it weren't for this blog. So here's to four more years, plus.

Rats!

I missed it! The fourth anniversary of this blog was on July 17th.

That first entry, by the way, was just a segment of an e-mail that I sent my husband, proclaiming the joys of diabetic chocolate. I was pregnant with Julia (very pregnant) and though I didn't develop gestational diabetes, my doctor put me on almost the same diet anyway.

I'll write more tonight, reminiscing. Four years! That's a long time, doncha know.

Extreme dessert

The Food Network has a show called Foot Network Challenge, where chefs compete in making bizarre food items. I've seen pastry chefs do challenges involving blown sugar where some part had to be at least 5 feet tall, the whole thing had to be edible, and they had to move it (after it was finished) over an obstacle course. I've also seen them build wedding cakes unlike any you've ever seen in Wisconsin. A couple of weeks ago, it was a challenge for tappan chefs (like they have at Benihana's) and the competition included judging how funny they were with their "patter." The prize for each competition is $10,000. Not bad for one or two days TV work.

Tonight, they were doing extreme cakes. Most of the chefs came up with something that included fireworks. One made a "Revenge of the Sock Monkey" cake that was literally a five foot sock monkey made of cake with a removable brain made of dry ice and glowing red eyes. That won the $10,000 prize.

Does anyone want to eat these things afterwards? They show people in the audience, watching (for six or eight hours) with bated breath, ready to gasp if one of the sugar sculptures falls over and shatters. Dreams are crushed on this show. But for the winners--ah, the glory.

Anyone want a bite of sock monkey?

It can't be

Tonight, while watching TV after putting the girls to bed, I saw my first ad for Back to School clothes. It was for Sears, which I have to admit would not be my first choice as a place to buy school clothes for Allie. I read something this past week about Sears, that malls no longer want them as an anchor store because they can't get other tenants to want locations in their wing. That's a big change from when I was a kid.

Regardless, I was saddened to see the ad because it seems that Allie has just started her summer break and it's half over, or almost half over. Earlier today, I sat down with her to read a book aloud. That's something we haven't done in probably three weeks. I told her I wanted to make sure she could still read.

She did great, of course. But since second grade is coming ever closer, I think I'd better start working on probability and statistics with her tomorrow night. After all, she's gotta get into a good college in a couple of years.

Trapped!

Last night, I went upstairs to read shortly after the girls went to bed. Greg was watching some show about ComicCon and I didn't need to see that. It was very pleasant in our room with the windows all open and a nice breeze.

I heard Greg close the sliding glass door next to the living room and expected him to come upstairs. Instead, he went downstairs to play video games for awhile.

About 1/2 hour later, he came upstairs and we both got into bed. We were talking and I was dropping off to sleep when we heard a cat meow, seemingly from outside. Greg said, is that one of ours? I thought for a moment and said, no, I fed them before I came upstairs and they both came to eat.

We heard the cat meow again and there was a rattling noise. I said, now that I think about it, I heard a cat meow a few times while I was reading, but I didn't think anything of it. I said, maybe you'd better check.

Greg headed downstairs, and I heard the slider open and close. When he returned, I said, my god, tell me one of the cats wasn't outside! He said, No. Dumbass was stuck between the door and the screen door.

For at least 1/2 hour. He could have been out there all night, trapped in a four-inch wide space, if we hadn't had the windows open upstairs.

Stupid cat.

The cats will play

4:10. That's what time it was this morning when my daughter called me. Why can't my children ever call for Daddy? No, there's something instinctual that upon waking makes them yell my name, not Daddy's.

I stumble down the hall and figure out it's Allie this time. I go into her room and she says, Rabies is chewing on something by my bookcase. Rabies is long gone, of course, so I ask her what she wants me to do. Allie says, make him stop. I say, he already stopped, as I feel around the floor trying to see if there's anything there that a cat would find chewable. Of course, I don't have my glasses on and it's not really light out yet, so this is a useless endeavor.

Allie hops out of bed and joins me in checking the floor. She doesn't need to wear glasses, so I guess she can see a little better than me. I tell her, Allie, I don't know what he's doing but if he starts doing it again, throw something at him. She determines that she can throw one of her dolls and I leave.

Of course, the chances that I'd be able to get back to sleep until my alarm at 5:30 are pretty minimal, especially since both cats then come into our room and start chewing on something near the door. I put a hand on Greg's arm (he's slept through all of this, of course) and he awakens with a roar of WHAT? I tell him to throw one of his three pillows at the cat and he does so. The cats go tearing down the hall. There's a pile of books stacked near the door that fall over, then there's quiet in the house at last.

I didn't go back to sleep, of course. Damn cats.

Want that

When I was a kid, my sisters and I played with some neighbor girls who were almost the same age as us. They had a pool table in their basement.

We were very envious of that pool table, mostly because we could almost never talk them into playing a game with us. It seemed indecent that kids who so obviously didn't care that they had a pool table, had a pool table available any time they wanted it.

This same family were also the first people we knew of who got Pong. Remember Pong? It came out, according to Wikipedia, in 1975. We would all gather around the TV, desperately wanting to be the ones with the controllers in our hands, actually playing games of Pong, instead of watching the other kids play Pong. We had to try to be good friends. Good friends didn't complain when their friends wanted to play first (or more) and good friends were OK when their friends wanted to move on and play something else. We wanted our own Pong machine.

It was almost a physical yearning and it seemed so unfair. Remember that kind of envy?

Best. Invention. Ever.

Air conditioning.

The air conditioning at work went out today. It was 84 degrees for most of the day in my office. No fan, no air movement, just warm, warm air and warm office machinery.

I was so glad to get out of there, I can't begin to tell you.

It was a truck fire

Greg's blog indicated that we went to Anika's birthday party yesterday, and that was one of the fun parts of the day. One of the completely not fun parts of the day was when it took us 4 hours and 15 minutes to drive a distance that should have taken us about 2 hours and 15 minutes. The other not fun part was when we walked back to the hotel from the restaurant (with the girls, of course) at 9:30 p.m. or so and we saw a scary crazy person. I know, I shouldn't label people as crazy, but this guy was wearing hospital scrubs and still had identification bracelets around both of his wrists. His behavior was abnormal, and he was standing on the sidewalk, right in the direction we needed to go. Fortunately, his attention was drawn by a man parking a car on the street and we passed behind him, then booked down the block. He followed us for a minute or so and then disappeared.

As for that other not fun thing, the trip down, oh my. We got about 35 minutes into our journey when the traffic on the interstate came to a complete halt. I hate when that happens. We did the stop-and-go thing for awhile and then got to Beloit, where the state troopers forced everyone off the road. They closed the interstate. We've been through this before, unfortunately, so we knew what would happen next. The traffic was forced east (which is actually the direction we needed to go), but it was northeast, which wasn't that great. The police blocked the turnarounds and they blocked several exits on the detoured route, so we had to keep going northeast. And the state highway that we were detoured to the last time this happened was, itself, detoured for road construction.

Are you starting to get a feel for how hopeless this situation felt?

We ended up heading south and east eventually, on a two-lane highway through small towns that were completely unprepared to deal with all the traffic (both directions) from a very busy section of interstate. After an unfortunate map reading error, we eventually got back onto the interstate heading towards Chicago. It just took us two extra hours. The actual interstate closure was caused by a truck that had a tire shred and start on fire. The truck was carrying ethyl alcohol, and though it didn't explode, it did burn. The driver wasn't hurt.

The girls were very good, we got there eventually and had a great time at the party, and the rest of our weekend was pretty darn pleasant. We're just glad to be home. Next weekend, we're planning on staying in our own bed. Our new-decorative-bedcover-compliments-of-(Don't-you-love)-IKEA bed, thank you very much.

Late agua

I don't know what it is. I drink some water during the day at work. I often drink water with dinner. But I don't drink enough water each day--not as much as the health police tell me I should.

So I guess that's why, in the evening about the time we tell the girls to get into their pajamas but before they actually have to go to bed, I get thirsty. I get a large glass out of water with lots of ice and I start drinking. It's not just me, either. Greg does the same thing, so we'll share the same glass. Then we go back and forth, debating over whose turn it is to get up and refill the glass from the refrigerator.

Greg drinks more than I do, and then he chews the ice cubes. If I get thirsty more after he starts that, I get another glass. Now if I could stop snacking when I'm drinking my water, I'd be doing something good for myself.

I delude myself that at least I'm doing it halfway right!

Tomato envy

I took a look at my Dad's tomato bushes this weekend. Then I surveyed by sister Pam's tomatoes, and lastly I took a gander at my sister Claudette's tomatoes.

I would like to have any one of theirs. I think my largest tomato plant is about nine or ten inches high. The plants that my family have were probably that height about six to seven weeks ago.

I don't even like tomatoes, unless they're in sauce, and yet I have severe tomato envy. If any of them find a neat hole dug where a tomato bush used to be, I'll try to look innocent.

Weekend spent

My family went to visit my family this weekend. We left on Friday after work and arrived about 8:45 p.m., to be greeted by almost my whole family (poor Mike). The next morning, the group of us went to Bay Beach Amusement Park in Green Bay. After hours of carnival rides, arm painting, picnicking, and more rides, we headed to an amazing fireworks store where my husband selected a large amount of blatantly illegal rockets-red-glare.

It's not illegal to sell these babies, by the way, just illegal to set them off. Yet set them off we did, or started to, at a bonfire at my sister's house later last night. The festivities will continue this evening, and tomorrow, and the next night, until we actually reach the holiday.

Well, it's only supposed to be about a $110 fine for lighting these things. That's about how much my husband, the firestarter, spent on the actual products, so that seems fair.