New

There used to be a time when I wanted another baby. I would think of my life as a mother and refuse to believe that that chance to cuddle a baby was over for me. And I would hide the sadness by feigning relief at infertility. That was years ago. Evan was 3 or 4 years old: still young, but undeniably growing up on me. About 5 years ago. But it never happened, and I just assumed that God forgot.

I always said I wanted to be a doctor. I guess secretly I never believed it could happen. But then something crazy happened, and I made the first step that was more of a leap of faith. And then came progress. And before I knew what was happening, everything I have always wanted was right there within my reach.

I did that for myself. Suddenly the idea of Evan being an only child wasn't so bad. It meant I could have everything I wanted: a career in medicine, a husband I love, being a mother. I didn't have to sacrifice a thing other than sleep and some elbow grease. Perfect.

But God, if He or She exists, does have a sense of humor. Immersed in my world of school and work, I never noticed that my boobs hurt that badly until one day when I stopped to pay attention. So I took the test that had nothing to do with pre-med, and it was positive before I could even put it on the counter to wait the requisite three minutes. Of course it had to be wrong, so I took another. Same result. So I called a doctor and got orders sent to a lab, just to be sure. Yes. We are having another baby.

I was completely in shock. Not according to plan. Evan will be 9 about two months after this one is to be born. Then I thought about how I was almost done. About applying to med school with an infant in tow. About another mouth to feed. And I was upet.

But nature took care of that. Over the weeks, as my belly first turned softer, then started to firm with the swelling of new life. And I saw the flutter of a heart beat, strong and persistant, on a screen. Saw the smile light John's face and the excitement flicker in Evan's eyes. And suddely, my outlook changed.

I get to try it all again. I get a chance to amend the errors I made with Evan, as we parents do sometimes. I get the last chance to be the perfect mother. To smell thebuttermilk breath of a newborn and feel the flutter of batting eyelashes against my cheek. I get to sing lullabies again without anyone insisting they are too old for them. I get to witness first steps and first words again. To hear a baby's giggle. To buy those tiny clothes and smell baby lotion.

So considering names, I go for meaning and not trends. And my first inclination is the Emily I have always wanted. But then I see Amelia's meaning: work, strain, effort. And I know that this is the one. But what for a boy? John and I could not agree. Until, at the very end of the alphabet, I found one that brought tears to my eys.

The meaning of Zachary: God remembered.

Speaking of Babies, Did I Ever Tell You WHY Evan is a Miracle?

It was just a couple of weeks after we saw the two pink lines on the little stick when the beeding started. The OB referred to it as "threatened spontaneous abortion". Miscarriage. But maybe not, because there on the screen was a tiny beating heart. The shock of realization on John's face will never leave me. His baby, who he said looked like a bean, there in living color. So I started the visits to the oupatient lab every other day, where they would leave black bruises on my arms in order to siphon from me the blood that would tell them that our baby was thriving. And every other day, we would wait and cry and pray that he was. Or wait for the call that it was all over, that we would try again, that they needed to schedule a D&C. We just waited.

Then one day it was over. I was so happy on that day. I envisioned my body making the discovery that this angel was there to stay for 40 weeks. To stop trying to get rid of him, that he was no intruder, but rather a welcome passenger. The nausea and vomiting were signs of life within me, and they were welcome too. We picked names. Emily for a girl. But what for a boy? He should be named after his father, we decided. But we hated the idea of relatives in southern Kentucky calling him "Junior". So we perused the books for boy names. The control freak in me was beside heself. We needed a boy name. Brady? Tucker? No, too trendy. Then one day I saw it: Evan: Welsh version of John. Little Evan for a boy. Named after his father, but still his own person.

The happiness was short-lived. My body is stubborn. I felt the first contraction a few days later like a gentle tugging within me. But wait. Accoding to the calender, I still had 5 months to go. That gentle tugging turned to tearing, ripping, searing pain. Thoughts of all of the bleeding, John's excitement, Evan or Emily, pink or blue...they all swirled in my head as John rushed me to the hospital. And the first feeling I ever got of John-and Andrea-Against-the-World was when the young doctor told us that th medication did not work, that the contractions were continuing, that he was sorry, but I was having a miscarriage. I wonder what he thought of us, as we clung to each other, crying those big hot tears, grieving for the baby that wasn't to be. Married for about 6 months at the time, we were all each other had in that moment. I imagine it was pity he felt. Or determination. Whatever the reason, a second dose of mdication was given, and the contractions stopped. And we rejoiced. And I returned home a few days later. Only to return again. Same scenario, different day. Again and again we grieved for the loss of our baby, only to find out that it was another near-miss.

After 2 weeks of trips back and forth to the hospital, we met the doctor who would test our resolve. More pre-term labor. But this ime, the doctor and nurse came in to the room and pulled up chairs by my bed. They started speaking of babies with profound disabilities from prematurity. Of families wrecked with medical expenses. Of our youth. The doctor actually said the dreaded word next. Abortion. He told me to let God have our baby, that it wasn't in the cards, that we could have another. I didn't understand. Was the baby okay? Wasn't it just my body? Didn't they have medicine to stop the labor that had been working? Wasn't I at 20 weeks of pregnancy? The age of viability, as they had been telling me during previous visits? I didn't understand, but we knew we needed to find a docotr who wanted us to have our baby like we wanted to.

A couple of months went by, and we switched hospitals to one with a top-rated NICU in preparation for a birth of a very premature infant. We toured the NICU. The hospitalizations continued as we braced ourselves for heartbreak. I learned what the "Special OB Unit" was at Good Smamritan in Cincinnati. I spent over a month there, on magnesium sulfate drips. At such a high dose that I was not permitted to get up to go to the bathroom or even roll in bed by myself. I had chest x-rays every oher day because such high doses were associated with fluid on the lungs. They would cover my arms in hot packs to relieve some of the pain from the viscous fluid going into my veins. They said it was about the thickness of corn-syrup, and that is why it was so painful. Every third day, they would come in and stop the drip because it was not safe for me to be on it any longer than that. And every third day, the contractions would start back up. I got yet another course of steroid injections to prepare the baby for the early birth that could not be stopped. I met a maternal-fetal specialist who was the best in his field and began to get ultrasounds twice a week. We learned tht it was a boy in there. That there was no infection in the amniotic fluid, and no other reason for me to be having the preterm labor. "Sometims this just happens", they told me. But with each week, I got closer to the day that our baby could be born, that the rate of survival for him increased just a teensy bit.

I ws sent home. I was on a medication that would lower my blood pressure so much that when I would take a hot shower, I would pass out from the further dilation of my vessels. I was on another that caused such horrible acid reflux that I was essentially vomitting without wretching. Huge moutfuls of hot sour acid would wash up without any warning. But my baby was okay.

It got to the point where we thought Evan would survive, and we begged the doctors to deliver him. "You can help him", I woul plead. I just wanted them to make it stop.

A little past midnight, on September 1st, 2001, it finally did. I was havng hard contractions, and a nurse midwife who had never seen me before insisted that I was not dilating. And she said I wasn't due for anothr 5 weeks. We laughed at her like maniacs and begged for the on-call obstetrician. I blurted out words like fetal fibronectin,amniocentesis, ultrasounds, steroid courses in all 3 trimesters, hCg levels, magnesium sulfate, age of viability... She started telling me about "what is best for the baby", and a cried hot tears as I told her of the unspeakable hell I had endured for my body to continue to provide a home for this growing baby. I knew from my experiences that if you start labor at 36 weeks, they will let you go. I was 35 weeks. And I didn't care about a few more days. I couldn't do any more. My body was physically, emotionally, and mentally drained in every way imaginable.

The OB finally came in, and he ordered everyone to get off of me. He put his hands on my giant belly and felt as contraction after contraction ripped through me in waves. Contractions that felt like they were ripping me in two, but were not causing any results. And he told me to breathe through them. The monitors came off as he let me feel this last bit of pain unencumbered by the trappings of modern medicine. And he explained to me how they usully do c-sections after just a day of labor, citing failure to progress as the justification. And I had been in labor for literally 17 weeks. I had endured my hell, and he wanted to help it end for me with a c-section.

After that, I didn't feel another contraction. They never stopped, even as th doctor cut through the soft layers of my abdomen. And I was prepared for the silence that follows a cesarean birth. The birth canal doesn't squeeze the fluid from the baby, and often they need to be suctioned. Plus this was a baby who was early. The last to develop is the lungs. He may need help. But from the instant he was exposed to this world, my son let out the lustiest cry I have ever heard in a newborn. And tears choked my voice as I shouted out that his lungs were okay, long before I had ever laid eyes on his beauty.

There is not a day that goes by in my life wih Evan and John when I don't look at my little family and have waking nigtmares of what could have been. Where I do not thank God for the sloppy kisses and brown eyes that sparkle with laughter and amazement and wonder. Where I do not count my blessings. He truly is my Evan from Heaven. Our miracle. A tribute to God or Allah or the science of modern medicine. Or maybe a mother and father's determination.

Jordan Leon

Welcome to the world, Little Jordan. He is my sister-in-law's much-anticipated sequel to Joanna, who will be 2o years old in February. In other words: our new nephew. Over 9 pounds of bouncing baby boy makes her my new hero. 6-pound Evan was nuthin'!

We haven't seen him in person yet. I'm afraid. John and I toyed with he idea of another baby. We would have scares, where Mother Nature would be late. I would mention it to John, and he would sprint to the store to get a home test. And it woul be negative. And we would speak words of relief to each other that betrayed the hint of regret in both of our eyes. And we would remind ourselves of why we didn't need another. I worked hard to get to where I could earn a decent living and give Evan the life I always wanted to give him. I had these lofty ideas of higher-and-higher education. I had such a hard time having Evan, that he truly is a miracle, and one miracle is enough for any family.

It is sort of like the window of opportunity passed us by. I started school and my RT career, though not in that order. I traded visions of a new baby girl in pink for the vision of me in a white coat. And med school and a new baby is not a good combo. A baby that John would have to raise by himself. And by the time I am finished, I will be in my early 40's. And consiering the problems I had with Evan, each passng year makes me more of an obstetrical nightmare...

So we are finished. And it was a hard choice to make, and I can only hope it will be worth all of this in the end. But baby Jordan reminds me of what the other option was to be...

My Animals Hang With the Animals

Today I took some time away with the fam for a trip to Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens. We had fun, aside from Evan complaining about his feet hurting after he insisted on wearing flip-flops. I'm glad I got this time with him, though. I have to work tonight at 23:00, and work twelves for the next 7 nights. By the time I am finished with this stretch, I will be back in class. He is going with his grandma this weekend to King's Island, along with John and his cousin Joanna, then making the trip back to Madisonville with her to spend the week at his grandpa's house. Summer is flying by. At least I got a little bit of time with him first.


By far my favorite pic of the entire trip. The goat kept trying to eat Evan's shirt, so Evan would giggle and step away, then try to pet it again. Each time, it would get a mouth full. It didn't tear the shirt, but it did give me a great photo op.
Too cute for words.
This damned thing. I was leaning over the glass, trying to get a good shot of the sea lion that was underwater playing with a ball. All of the sudden, this #$%^& popped it's head up at me, scaring me to death. Note that the camera was not zoomed for this pic!
Lucy wouldn't wake up for me and I was very disappointed. (See below.)
Awwww. Lucy the Baby Bearcat. Sponsored by the University of Cincinnati. Go figure.
The seductive ape. I kindly left the other one out of the pic, who was showing its hand in its mouth repeatedly. I had just said "What is it, bulimic?" when it purged its food into its hand to feed its baby. Disgusting.
This is "Francois". Some type of monkey that had Francois in it's name. It had a faux-hawk and white muttonchops, and was the coolest monkey ever.
I don't know what in the hell this thing was, but when we went to walk away, it made some weird crying sound until we came back.
The polar bear insisted on showing me nothing more than his browneye as he ate his lunch.
I think John was making funny faces behind me.
So peaceful here. I didn't want to leave this spot.
The big one and the little one take a break to eat popcorn.
I have this horrendous phobia of snakes. Just walking into the reptile house was a huge step in conquering my fear. And it was packed too. As I looked at the snakes through the glass, I was sizing people up to see how much effort it would take to knock them out of my way if I needed to make a break for it. Then I saw this S.O.B.....
Evan kept calling this rhinoceros "Clyde". I have no idea where he got that name.
Evan poses with the likeness of his father.
Is that the Fergie family? Mom, Dad, and Evan.....
The gorillas were pensive.
The bearcat would not be still for her photo shoot. I swear I stood there for about 15 minutes trying to get a good shot. No wonder UC thinks this is a good mascot....stubborn as hell!
I think I interrupted the sexy time of the "Giant Bait", as my hillbilly husband called them.
These lizards were looking at me.
The lemurs. This is when Evan screamed "Look, Mommy, it's Zoboomafoo!"

Guilt and Sadness

Before I know it, Summer will be gone. Evan will be back in school. And starting tomorrow night, I am back to the grind. By the time I get off of work on Monday, it ill be time to head to another quarter of classes. And at the end of the Summer, this baby of mine will be 8 years old. I know I will not be getting a break until we are both off for Christmas.

I look at those brown eyes and I miss it all: the sloppy kisses and macaroni and cheese faces after dinner. The cuddling and giggling. Getting his bubble bath ready at night. Making sure he learns math. And I look at the stretch of time ahead of us and I realize that by the time I finish medical school, this little boy will be 13 years old. Is it worth it?

I had a talk with Evan just now, asking him if he wanted Mommy to go to school to be a doctor, even though it is going to take a long time. He looked at me with those big brown eyes and said yes, very emphatically. When I asked him if he would still think I was a good Mommy if I continued to be away, he said yes again. I asked him why he wanted Mommy to be a doctor, and he told me that he has the smartest mommy in the world, and he knows I can do it. So now I am sitting here at my desk typing this, amidst the crepe paper flowers and finger-painted rainbows he has given me from art class in school, and I have found out the truth.

I am so very blessed. For some reason, whatever higher power is out there has decided that I am deserving of this amazing little person in my life. How lucky could I be?

Refreshed

So how was the trip back to Madisonville? Short. I stopped on the way and splurged on something I have wanted for a while now: A Nikon Coolpix camera. I would never spend the money on one because I tend to lose and/or break digital cameras. I tend to stick with the cheap ones (under $100). But I have coveted this camera for a while, and now it is mine. I love it. The pics from this weekend were all taken with it. The blur of the shot above is because I was playing with different settings on it on the ride home from the boonies.
This was also the first trip we have taken in the new car. I must say it was much more comfortable. The 120 outlet in the console came in handy: I plugged in my laptop, stopped and bought Evan a few dvd's he has been wanting, gave the kid a set of headphones, and the rest is history. It was kind of like that infomercial with the rotisserie: Set it and forget it! He was entertained the whole way, and there were several points in the 4-hour trip where we thought he was asleep because the backseat was too quiet.
We managed to get time in with both John's mom and dad. The boys spent the day Saturday playing with water in the 85 degree weather. Grandma made a run to Walmart for a Slip-and-Slide and some Super Soakers, and I sat on a nice shaded country porch and studied while the boys had a blast. Saturday night was all about some good ol' country cookin'. John's mom made my fave: her fried chicken with homemade mashed potatoes and gravy, cornbread, fresh corn-on-the-cob. For dessert.....homemade banana pudding, baked with the meringue on top like I had never seen done until I maried into this family.

Sunday morning, we met John's dad and his girlfriend Annie for breakfast, then followed him to his house. This is when the redneck came out of my husband and he spent hours fishing for catfish in his dad's pond. Evan got to drive the 1969 model Harley Davidson golf cart with his grandpa helping him, then the guys all loaded onto quads and the cart and chased each other at high speeds around the property. I got the brilliant idea of perching in the sun and studying while they had fun. Bad idea. See the pics in the post entitled "A Weekend in Pictures" to get a glimpse of the sunburn from Hell. To break of the monotony of studying plant diversity and evolution of land plants, John would get me onto the quad and take me zooming around the property. I screamed in his ear everytime he turned to sharply or went up or down steep hills, making me feel as if I were going to fall off of the back. It was just simple fun, but for that brief amount of time, we were just John and Andrea again. The country boy showing the city girl how to unwind, throw caution to the wind, and have fun. At that point, there was no such thing as bills or parenthood, pre-med or code blue, MCAT or 80-hour workweeks. I needed that, and more importantly, without my saying a single word, John knew I needed that.
The ride home Sunday night seemed to go on forever. We stopped at about the midway point, and I picked up some cd's I have been wanting for a little while, and we jammed the entire second half of the trip. I finally realized just how red I had gotten in the sun (it got worse as the night went on) when we stopped at Walmart to get me some aloe gel for my first official sunburn of the year, and other shoppers were stopping and staring at me with mouths agape.

Now I am back home. The plan is to get my finals done. I finished Bio this morning, have another exam this afternoon, and a paper to write. I have three more days off of work, which I am going to spend giving the house a nice and thorough cleaning, and studying ahead a bit for my summer physics course, which is sure to be a nightmare if the textbook is any indication.

A Weekend in Pictures

Knee-Deep

It is brutal around my parts today.

Every community, every town, every county is under a Snow Emergency of some level. We have a Level 2, which translates to only being on the roads if you absolutely have to be. I am sitting here in my office and can here the ice hitting the roof as it falls from the sky. Everything, from cars to trees to sidewalks, is encased in ice.

Evan hasn't had school for 2 days now. UC closed yesterday evening. My chemistry course was still on, but I couldn't make it. I had a biology exam scheduled for this evening, and it is no longer now. I have a chemistry exam at 11 AM tomorrow, and I am starting to wonder if that will be cancelled as well.

Yesterday was sort of nice. We were all snowed in, and we just hung out at the house together. I woke up and took a shower only to put on clean sweats a veg around the house. Actually, I'm not sure I would call it vegging. I got some heavy-duty biology work done. Today? Well, after I tinker around a bit, today shall be all about chemistry. I have a 3-hour online lab to complete, and then there is the exam that is supposed to be tomorrow. I am wondering if it will be cancelled, but must plan for it still going on.

Evan is driving me a little crazy at this point. He is tormenting Pixie and making a general mess all over the house. I really feel like I should do some cleaning. John is a complete crab. He and Evan are in the living right now, arguing about the whereabouts of the cable remote. But in my office, it is peaceful and quiet. Maybe I should just hibernate in here all day and forget the world.

A Happier New Year. Really.

I don't know what it is about New Year's. It always does something to me. It could be that it is my birthday, that I am turning older as everyone else celebrates the start of the new year. It could be memories of my mother, and us celebrating my birth together, just the two of us each year as the rest of the world slept. It could be some of the horrendous things I have lived through, remembering and learning from them, and hoping that the next year brings me peace. Whatever the reason, I always cry when the clock strikes midnight. Always, without fail. Despite the fact that I will be working as 2009 and my 32nd birthday strikes, I expect tonight to be no different. Now, I just want to relive 2008.

This was the year I was sure I was going to have to send my husband off to war...

...The year we became tougher as a couple.

..The year we said Goodbye to Holly, John's grandpa. The one who reminded me of a Norman Rockwell portrait with the suspenders and wire-rimmed specs and round rosy cheeks. As the years took his memory away, he never forgot John or Evan and showed me what a Grandparent is, having never known my own.

...The year that "brain" and "tumor" were put together in a sentence to wreck my world.

... The year I was faced with my own mortality and learned that my life is not a given.

...The year I had to worry about what would become of Evan and John if something were to happen to me.

...The year the rug was pulled from under us, the walls came crashing down and we had to pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and build anew.

...The year I learned that we could pull ourselves up by the bootstraps and build anew.

...The year we learned that our son truly is extraordinary, not just in our eyes, but to the rest of the world as well.

...The year a tragic event pushed me out of my comfort zone and forced me to do what I had always said I wanted to do.

...The year I came home.

...The year I finally bit the bullet and decided to go back to school in my hometown. I have never failed at anything I truly wanted. After this past year, I have learned that I am tough enough to take the risk. I am throwing caution to the wind and doing what I came here to do.

...The year I became a little bit stronger, a little bit wiser.

Would I relive 2009? No. I would not. Through all of the events of my life, I have never said I would not go back and do something. Even the most tragic event has taught me at least a little something. I get through them by chalking them up to lessons learned about myself and the world around me. This past year has been no exception, but I will never say I want to relive that hell. This past year has done something to me. I am changed, whether it be for better or worse, and I cannot go back and erase any of it. Never again will I take my life for granted. Never again will I assume that tomorrow is a given. Ever since March 12th, I have hugged my son a little bit tighter, kissed John for a little bit longer. I stopped leaving the house without a hug and kiss for them both, with a hearty "I Love You".

2009 can be nothing but better for us. I hope it is for you as well.

Now, here is my favorite song for this time of year. Happy New Year!

The Christmas Con

So we know I have this kid. He is beautiful and bright and amazing. He is also very, very spoiled and has caused quite a bit of Drama this Christmas. (Capitalizations intentional!)
Let me just say, without faltering, that even when I had no job, when I was a full-time student, when we needed public assistance to buy groceries, I still managed to provide the child with everything he wanted.
My in-laws came in this past weekend because I have the work schedule from Hell and we were sure this was the only way they would be able to see him for Christmas. I had already had a conversation with Evan, explaining to him that people do not stop being sick just because it is Christmas time, and that Mommy has to work. In fact, Mommy does not have a day off of work until January 2nd. Together, we decided that it was acceptable for Santa to come late for Christmas so we could all enjoy the time together as a family. Secretly, I was delighted because this agreement meant that around the time I would have a day off of work to shop, there would be the enormous after-holiday sales. I had it all planned in my head: this obscene display of lavishness where John would get Evan out of the house so Santa could come. Evan would return to find this spread of everything he wanted. Everything! Keep this background information in your mind.

So this past weekend, they come into town. They are armed with cash to spend on Christmas gifts for Evan. We visit Toys'R'Us, where Evan is to pick out what he wants within his budget. Evan rattles off the list, and we start to fight the most insane crowd you could imagine in a toy store the weekend before Christmas. One of the items on his list, like every other kid in America, is a Wii. I had planned on buying one for him. But despite the crowd and the demand for the game system, they actually had them in. His grandma explained that if he chose the Wii, that would be it. Instead of getting a large quatity of cheaper presents, he would just get the one big one. He was fine with that. I was as well, thinking that it would be better for him to get it now while they had one in. I just planned on spending the same amount of money on accessories for it, which can be pricey.

John's sister comes up with the idea of taking Evan down with her for a visit this week. Yes, it is Christmas, but I will be working anyhow. We all agree that it is fine. It sucks that my son is not going to be here on Christmas, but neither will I. It is better for him to have some sort of celebration with family. We pack his stuff and when they make the return trip to Southern Kentucky, Evan goes along.

Now here we are. Evan is with them until Saturday. After a heated discussion with John's mother, it is revealed to me that I apparently spend no money on my son, that he is deprived. I cannot believe this is being said about the child who wears nothing but designer clothes. The child who has a room that looks like a toy store, whose mother works 60-70 hours per week to provide him with a private education because public school was not offering enough of a challenge. I am completely dumbfouded and have to step back from the situation for a minute to even think of a response to this. After a minute, I call his mom back and ask where she could possibly get an idea like that.

Where did she get it? From Evan. From my poor underpriviledged, malnourished, neglected little angel. You see, one day Evan had asked me if Santa could fit through the little fireplace at the new house. It didn't seem like too illogical of a question. The fireplace in the living room is small, and Santa is fat, right? My response?

"Well, Evan, Santa has magic on his side. Even when our house didn't have a chimney, Santa still found you, didn't he??? So Santa will find you."

Apparently this got twisted just a bit. My angel went and told John's family that he was told that Santa couldn't fit through our chimney, therfore no Santa this year. As a result, John's mother and father have gone and bought a whole new batch of presents for Evan to open down there on Christmas to make up for his alleged non-Christmas here at home.

Originally, I felt shocked and sad that my baby actually believed I was not going to get him anything for Christmas. But then I stopped and thought back through all of the conversations we have had about Christmas. I made it clear that Santa was going to come. I even made sure Evan understood why he would come late so as not to upset him. If he didn't understand, I would've found a way to celebrate on Christmas and not late. If this were some other child, I would feel like I had failed. This isn't any other child!

This is my gifted son. This is the child who knows exactly how to manipulate others to get what he wants. He has a memory like you would not believe and he knows what was said. This is not miscommunication or confusion. This was a lie. I know my son better than John's family, apparently. They got played. He knew what he was doing all along, and it worked. They got upset and felt badly. Despite the fact that he already got wonderful presents from them this past weekend, they went back and bought him more out of sadness for the poor little boy without Christmas gifts.

I do not know whether to be mad at my son for the conniving way he played them, or angry at my in-laws for not seeing through it. I think it should be a combination. One look at Evan shows anyone he is not deprived. They have seen his bedroom. They have seen the clothes I buy for him. They know he is in private school.

I have not decided what I am going to do about this. I am tempted to not buy him anything for Christmas. I don't know if that is a good enough lesson. I think he needs to learn about true deprivation. I cannot decide if this should mean that he will need to personally box up all of the extra Christmas gifts and physically hand them over to charity, or if I am going to take him to a soup kitchen and make him do some age-appropriate task for them so he can see what it is like. That while he is throwing around these statements and ideas, there are others without food or shelter. There are children living on the streets, with no warm clothes or hot meals. Heaven forbid the Wii was his only Christmas gift fro his grandparents.

Working on a Decade

Yes, I know this is a terrible pic of me, but when we are working at being parents, one of us is always behind the camera, and thus this is a rare shot of us together.

8 Years Together. For the couple who married exactly 3 months after they met. For the ones who were completely insane. For the couple who was "not going to make it".

So this is John. He is my best friend. The love of my life. The one who can make me laugh in spite of myself and everything else that has gone on in my life. The one who supports my dreams and my goals and ambitions like no other. The one who understands me at times when it seems like no one else in the world is able to. He is the one who made me believe in marriage in a world full of couples who just cannot make it. My partner in this fine mess we call life. He is my angel, my hero, by biggest weakness. He is the only one in my life with the power to get under my skin and infuriate me within seconds, then turn around and make me feel so loved and supported and enamored at the snap of a finger. To date, he has been the only one who could take the tough-talking, no-nonsense city girl and turn her into the one who wants to abandon everything and get married, have a child, be a family. Later, he was the one to show me that despite what others say, I actually can have everything I want in life: the child, the marriage, the career, the education. He is still the only one.

This morning, he met me after work in the hospital cafeteria in an effort to have breakfast together before I went to bed for the day. He was sitting in the cafeteria, alone at a table, watching for me to come through the door. I came through the entrance on the other side, and could not see him. I turned the corner, and saw him sitting there quietly, waiting for me. In that instant that I saw him there, my heart skipped a beat. In the instant that followed, I was in awe that the sight of him can still have that effect on me after all of these years. And in that small moment, after a stressful night working the ICUs, I was home. I was safe, and nothing could touch me.

Now, as I pause at the keyboard, I am having trouble coming up with the words to express what I want to say. For the first time in my life, I am speechless. As the yaers have passed, we have changed. Both of us. But when I look at him, I still see the cute guy with the nice butt walking through the Party Source while our friend Dawn said "That's him. That's my friend John I want you to meet." He is still the sweet guy who made the trip home after meeting me, in the rain on a motorcycle. The one who stopped under a bridge to call me halfway through the trip to let me know that it would take him longer to get home than planned and to not worry when he didn't call. He is still the one who made me laugh with his cute southern accent (the years have caused it to fade for my ears because I am so used to it.) He is the only one who could get me on a ATV, riding on the back, laughing madly and completely trusting him to keep me safe. He is still the lovable dork who, when dressing to go into the OR when I had Evan, actually wore orange and blue polka dotted boxers beneath the pale blue scrubs. I can still hear the nurses' giggles. Can still hear him shouting "That's my BOY!" when we found out Evan's gender, despite the fact that he had told me he wanted a girl because I did. Or him shouting "That's my wife!" when I graduated from college and walked across the stage.

It's really strange. I cannot define the past eight years with a concise list of events. Our time together is more a tapestry of little moments. Happy, sad, beautiful, messy moments.

Pixie, Rain/Snow, and Santa's Lack of Punctuality?

A nurse from the ER is talking about a pup she must rid herself up, simply because the other dogs in her home do not get along with the puppy. Me and my big mouth! "What type of puppy?", I ask. Well, part dachsund and part Yorkie. In this age of designer dogs, according to my internet search, this is a Dorkie. (Hahaha! How appropriate that my dog should be a Dorkie!) This one has been named Pixie, is almost a year old, and is house-broken. Sweet! Yes, I will take her.
So Pixie came to live with us. She is so little and cute and taking to us like a duck to water. Her previous owner told us that she loved blankets. Boy does she ever! John and I were lounging around the living room watching tv last night and she went to whoever was the snuggliest. But she doesn't just run to the blanket. She buurows down into it to find the warmest place. She kept me legs warm last night while I slept. And as for the house-breaking: I was scared. We were told a dog was house-broken before, only to find that he had been trained to pee somewhere with hard floors. The result was disgusting, with a male dog peeing all over the kitchen. Gross! But it would appear that she really is. She stood in the living room, looking at us while we were dressing Evan for school, as if to say "Hey, I need some help here!". She did her business outside like a champ, and I was singing her praises until I stepped into my office and found the tiniest dog turd I have ever seen in my life. There it was, in a sea of carpeting. John cleaned it away and scolded her, and thus the adventure begins.
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In the meantime, it has been raining like crazy here. Thank God it is not cold enough to freeze or we would be in a perpetual ice rink. It did snow quite a bit the other day, though it is all melted away now. But it snowed long and hard enough for me to learn something about myself. When we were in Southern Kentucky, which was not so long ago, I used to complain about the drivers there. A little bit of flurries and everyone would reach a standstill on the roads, and I would cuss and complain about how they just did not know how to drive in the stuff and were going to get people killed by the accidents they caused.
So it snows one night while I am in the safe coccoon of the hospital, working away. I come outside in the morning and the ground and all of our cars are covered. I get in my car, and try to maneuver it around the lot stalkers (more about them later, as they deserve their own post!). And it finally dawns on me! I have become one of them. I am almost in a panic as I start to head home. I am worried as I maneuver through the residential area of the city, where parked cars line both sides of the street. I can just picture my new car sliding into one of them. It took me until about the halfway point of the trip to realize that, hey, I live back home now! They actually treat the roads days in advance. And my fellow navigators on the road actually know how to drive in the stuff. I will get my chops back eventually.
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This leads me to the last thing I need to discuss, other than the lot stalkers, for the day. I am seriously contemplating having "Santa" visit my house late this year. There are two reasons for this. The first reason is that I literally work or have worked everyday in December, other than 6 days. In plainer terms, I have only 6 days off this month. Whoopty-Doo, right? Well think about this: The average American works five eight-hour days per week. This would leave an average of eight days off a month for them. But my standard work week is 3 12-hour days. My standard workday is 12 hours. Before you go thinking that I get 4 dyas off a week and that would be such a treat, I would like to remind you that it generally takes that long to recover from what they have done to me while at work. So then add to the mix that I picked up all of this overtime to make up for the fact that my husband is still not employed. Most of the days I picked up are 12's. That makes for a lot of hours! A lot of aching feet! A lot of fatigue! Two of those days are Christmas Eve and Christmas Day!
If you add to this equation that I am completely broke from the move, and that I am getting thousands of dollars back in the form of a financial aid refund at the beginning of the year, you could probably understand my idea of postponing Christmas in the Ferguson household. If I wait just a week, I could not only afford to grant every Christmas wish my boys have, but can also actually be present to spend the time with them. After all, Evan wants a Wii for his bedroom, and John wants a new PS3 for the living room. That alone is about $800 without the games and accessories! So financially, it makes sense. With regard to my schedule, it makes sense. But I am scared to death that this is going to push me over the edge and I will become a part of the Bad Mommy Club. Any thoughts?

Gunny, Come Home!

I swear this shall be my dog. Our family needs a dog. Well, not really, I suppose. But I want an English Bulldog. But these pups are very expensive, and so ugly that they are actually cute. John insists that, should we get one, it shall be a He-dog and his name shall be Gunny. That is the Leatherneck in him speaking. He shall have a camouflage bed with his name embroidered on it, with an Eagle, Globe and Anchor. I mentioned we wnated one to the new landlord, and he smiled and said that he has an English Bulldog named Baxter. But we want our Gunny.

My Pumpkin at the Pumpkin Patch

I got the lovely experience of being UberMom with Evan this week as we made the pilgrimage to Vogt Farm in Batesville, Indiana this past week with his Cub Scout Pack. We knew well in advance that we were going, but being that I have a career, I tend to forget the details unless they are staring me in the face. So after Evan left for school that day, I pulled out the event flyer to take a look. " Bring One Dozen Cookies, Please." D'Oh! These people apparently did not get the memo that I do not bake. I can cook, but I do not bake. It has been my Achilles' heel as a mother, one that brought tears as an expectant mother. I had made a chocolate cake, and I wanted to ice it. But I made it way too large, and the cake saver doodad would not fit over the top of the thing. The top layer tried to slide off and had to be rescued, and each time someone took a piece, the sides of the cake scraped against the sides of the container. It was not pretty and John referred to it as "Chocolate Ugly Cake". It tasted good, though. But I, in all of my pregnant glory, shed tears over this. I could just see my soon-to-be-born child taking cupcakes to school which noone would dare eat.

So here I am now. I still cannot bake, but they want cookies. John says, "Andrea, just go buy a bag of Oreos or something." No way. I am now playing the role of CubScout Mother. Oreos do not fit the bill. So I head to the grocery store to get the needed ingredients. (I guess I am a bad mother in that I do not keep the ingredients for chocolate chip cookies in my cabinets at any given moment where I am struck into a baking frenzy.) So I decide on frosted sugar cookies, and I get the goods, including those little pumpkins that taste like candy corn.

So I stand here in my kitchen, and I individually decorate not the requisite one dozen, but two. And they are cute and pumpkin patch-ish with little sprinkels and pumpkins. And when we get there, all of the other Moms tell me they are adorable. As they are hauling out their bags of Oreos and Chips-Ahoy!

Then we get to the festivities at hand, and Evan has a ball getting messy and into things. He pets animals, rides a pony, and he and his Pack Leader completely lose me, City Girl Supreme, in a corn maze. That picture up there is them running away from me. I kept hearing that eery Children of the Corn music in my head as I wandered through it. But at least Evan knows his Mom is a good sport. Then I discovered that one of the leaders just happens to be a guy I dated in high school. Lovely.

"We Weren't Crazy"

When John and I got married, everyone said we were crazy, that it would not last. Well I love this song, and wanted to play with Windows Movie Maker, and here are the results.

I Love My Husband No. 2

Never, not once, has he left or entered the house without giving me a kiss and telling me he loves me. Never! This is so much of a habit that it has rubbed off on Evan and Evan does the same thing. There is nothing like starting your day like that.

Yada Yada Yada

Okay, so why the cupcakes? Because I am hungry, slightly intoxicated, and have food on the brain. I am also very tired, as it is 2 AM and I am sitting here on the computer for the first time in about a week. So.... I felt like I should blog something, even when I have nothing to say. It would seem that my son and husband, through their downloading without abandon, managed to destroy a laptop. I went to bed last Thursday, and woke up the next morning to a fried hard drive. Kaput! But thanks to the help of some good friends, I am back on line.

Hey Diddlehopper, Are You Watching This?

Sorry, here is yet another Ohio State post. After today, I will get back to my normal life. But on this day, more than any other role I occupy in my daily life, I am a Buckeye.

Just like I cannot help but think of my Mom on New Year's Eve, I cannot watch tonight's big game without thinking of my late brother, Dave. Yes I have brothers. We are far-flung around this half of the country, and so I do not see them a lot. But there are 4 big brothers. They were all pretty much hell-raisers. David, Mike, Spud, and Rick. (Spud is Charles, Jr. officially). In 2000, the year I met my husband, I got a call in the middle of the night. It was the type of call that seems almost dreamlike, simply because you do not believe what you hear.

My youngest brother, Dave, had collapsed. Of all of my brothers, he would have been the one least likely to have this happen. Not only because he was the youngest, but because he was always active in athletics. The healthiest of the family. Didn't smoke. Only socially drank.

It turned out that Dave had high blood pressure. He had been having headaches, and had made an appointment with the doctor to have the headaches checked out. On the morning of the appointment, he felt better, so he cancelled. Later that night is when he collapsed. His blood pressure had reached a high-enough point that it caused a massive hemmorrhage in his brainstem. The brainstem is the portion of the brain that controls our most primal functions: our reflexes, and breathing for example. Dave was not breathing on his own. When I arrived in the intensive care unit in Cincinnati, it looked as if he was merely sleeping. But as time progressed, his reflexes gradually faded. They would come in every so often and check his gag reflex, which was the one that lingered the longest. Eventually, his state became less sleep-like and it became more like he was an extension of the machines keeping him alive. With each whirr of the ventilator, his chest would rise, and then a popping sound would be heard and his chest would fall. Years later as an RT, I know what those sounds were. Valves in the machine opening and closing, etc. He was brain dead. And he was an organ donor.

Our entire family hung in the unit of that hospital, taking turns being by Dave's side. We went through the process necessary to donate his organs, which was cruel at best. The initial ruling of brain death had to be confirmed no earlier than 6 hours later to allow for the harvest of organs. I was 21. I did not have the education I have since had. I could not wrap my mind around the fact that my brother was dead, yet was still warm from the heart that was still pumping blood through his body.

At the end of the very long night, I said my goodbyes to my youngest big brother. The one who always made us laugh, who tortured the dates of his little sisters. He would drool into ashtrays to act like he was mentally retarded. As a teen managing a fast food restauraunt, he would set people up for practical jokes, like making kids mop a walk-in freezer. David could not be gone.

David, the fierce Buckeye. My whole family is about Ohio State, but Dave was the ringleader. Woody and Archie were his heroes. But he loved all of the home teams, including the Reds and the Bengals.

As I left the hospital, whizzing by the Reds' stadium at the end of a game, after saying goodbye to my brother, the fireworks exploded over Riverfront Stadium (Now the Great American Ballpark) to signal a Reds victory. It would have been about the same time David would have been in the OR, about the same time his heart had been taken to put in the chest of another, so that they may live from our loss. I couldn't help but smile. That was Dave.

So here I am on the day of the big game. And I know my big bro is watching. The consumate Buckeye.

The Lament of the New Year's Baby

I honestly do not know what it is about New Year's that gets me in this mood every year. I get weepy and emotional. At the stroke of midnight with each new year, I cry. When I hear Auld Lang Syne, I cry. I have theories as to why this happens, but no definite answers.
I can think of only one person who may read this who actually remembers my mother. All of the others have no idea what they are missing out on. And I don't know how many realize that I am a New Year's Baby,but I am. So on New Year's Eve, each and every year, I miss Mom. Every year, I would get birthday gifts held over from Christmas, and they would come wrapped in Christmas paper. Not a big deal as an adult, but as a kid, this took my big day and lumped it with Christmas, as if my birthday, aside from being a national holiday, were not special at all. I could never have a birthday party, as all of my little friends were at sitters' houses while their parents got drunk. And on New Year's Day, which is actually my birthday, everyone was hung over. But there was one who never forgot. Who would wrap my gifts in the brightest birthday paper she could find, complete with big pink bows. And my sisters never knew, but I got two cakes each year. At the strike of midnight, as we were sitting in pajamas watching Dick Clark, as everyone on Times Square was kissing and singing Auld Lang Syne, Mom would be belting out "Happy Birthday" as the flames on the candles flickered. And we would eat the cake and ice cream while I opened the heap of gifts from my parents. The next day, I would sleep in from my late night, and wake up to a get-together with all of my grown-up siblings, complete with the second cake.
I haven't celebrated my birthday in God-Knows-when. It is just another day, which happens to fall on a holiday that everyone celebrates. This doesn't bother me in the slightest bit, because the biggest, most lavish fete could not hold a candle to the late-night private parties between mother and daughter, as we celebrated the time she brought me into the world. As a mother, I see the appropriateness of that. It truly was our moment.
So this year, like always, I will stay home and watch Dick Clark in my pajamas. As they count down, I will start to get misty-eyed. I will remember all of the events of the past year like a kaleidoscope of images, some of them completely life-altering, and I will secretly make a little birthday wish that all will be better for us in the next year. And as the Ball touches down, and John says "Happy Birthday" instead of the normal "Happy New Year", the tears will be flowing and I will be thinking of the woman who brought me into this world, and the vast and unfillable void she left in my life the day she died.