well, e graduated! he's officially a bomb technician! whoa! we're all at the new house now, settling in and doing some home renovations (a fancy way of saying we're caulking and painting lots of stuff haha!). e's brother is in town to help out and spend some time with his favorite JP and i've been a bit preoccupied and haven't had a whole lot of blogging time!
thus far we've begun smoothing out the landscaping around the yard, which includes:
-moving around some really large rocks (as big as your head!) to form a sort of logical outline around part of the yard
-planting my plants! tomatoes, peppers, herbs, fig tree, blackberry bushes, watermelon, okra, corn, and a WHOLE bunch of perennials! we even laid out seeds today! egads!
-pruning, shaping and feeding a peach tree, plum tree, and lots of bushes
-filling a raised bed with wandering jew dug up from all over the yard and some lilies too
-transplanting 3 rose bushes (which may not survive haha!) and a handful of other randomly placed plants to spots that make more sense
-uprooting ten (yes, 10) of the same type of bush that died. we're talking a big heap of sticks stuck in the ground. whatever this plant was, it did NOT like the climate here. and the previous tenants planted 10 of them. what?!
INSIDE the house we have:
-painted the lower half of the kitchen and dining room
-caulked and touched up the baseboards, chair rails, and door frames in the same 2 rooms
-painted the back door
-put up shelves in the laundry room (thanks dad!) and spackled the holes from where the racks once hung at some other time
-sanded, primed and painted the bathroom cabinets in both bathrooms (it was sooooooo needed)
-stripped wallpaper, sanded, and primed the walls of one bathroom (also desperately needed! the wallpaper was scary haha!)
-caulked and repainted the baseboards, doors, and door frames in both bathrooms
our plans for the next few days include:
-planting 5 silver maple trees throughout the yard in various places (they're still baby trees)
-use the last of the rocks to finish the "outline" in the backyard, to separate the wandering jew from the lilies in the raised bed, and to mark off another small bed in the front yard
-finish painting the second bathroom and adding a fun (removable!) border
-possibly building a container for composting out of materials left by the previous tenants
-hopefully finding a color i like for the walls in the master bath
do you see why i haven't been online!? so much to do before baby calvin comes in 3 months and there's so much i'd like to do before e starts a normal work routine and while his brother is here to help! his bro leaves monday, so we have a busy schedule until then! pics will be up once i have before and afters all ready to go!
13 May, 2011
04 May, 2011
Move Number Seven
from may may 2008 to present, i have moved from texas to illinois, illinois to maryland, maryland to louisiana, louisiana to colorado, colorado to illinois, illinois to florida and florida to alabama.
we got here on april 29th. i will attempt to keep this blog post relatively short, considering that we moved into our first ever single family home on a giant, beautiful lot, just far enough from the city and just close enough at the same time!
day 1: jp and mommy drove a 26 foot moving truck all by ourselves to our brand new home in alabama. we made it in GREAT time, got the truck to the weigh station, and a friend helped unload the kitchen and immediate need items. i unpacked literally the entire kitchen before going to bed. i also found a scorpion in our house before going to bed. it was no bigger than one of my knuckles, but i could hear him whispering "i'm coming for yooooooooouuuuuuuuuu".
day 2: friends come and unload our entire truck in 3 hours flat. our house looks like it was vomited into. someone asked how we could have so much stuff. unpacking begins and one of the same friends who helped unload the truck came back with his wife to bring us homemade lasagna. it was delicious. commence food coma. friends helped us put together some major furniture and unpack a lot of the living room. not much else was accomplished haha!
day 3: e leaves to go back to florida to finish school :( my parents come into town. jp and mommy go to the giant petsmart adoption weekend to scope out dogs. mommy brings a dog home. let the games begin.
day 4: dog is more active today, but i don't know much about that because jp and i go to the hospital on post to register and get all signed in to the area. now, if you'll recall, jp has a cast on. we have notes in his medical records from florida stating that he needs to get the cast off to check on some blisters that were on his feet--they wanted to make sure the blisters healed and didn't get infected under the cast. it took nearly 3 hours to get registered, plead for a walk in appointment for a referral to orthopedics, go get x-rays, then to the ortho, and then to the room to get the cast off. the cast came off. bad news: he has a pressure blister literally just over the size of a quarter on his heel. his cast had been applied incorrectly for a little boy who would eventually walk on it. it looked horrifying. they cleaned it up, applied antibiotic bandages, cleaned up his other blisters and recasted him with a walking cast. we were gone over 4 hours. he screamed off and on the whole time. i was exhausted. henson, the dog, is in love with me and sleeps next to me on the floor. he also loves jp and jp loves to feed him. i give doggie a rawhide bone. he attacks. he throws it up. awesome.
day 5: parents have done an insane amount of work. dog woke me up at 7:30. that's 6:30 central time. i am sleepy. 5 hours of errand running and utility set up today. back home. dog has separation anxiety. ok, we can deal with that. i call the listed vet to get the info on the dogs heartworm status and find out that dog is actually only 7 months old, not nearly a year like they told us. this explains a lot. dog is getting more and more excitable and forgetting that he is in fact nearly 60 pounds. he wants to be a lap dog. he keeps knocking jp over. this results in a black eye, fat lip, scraped nose and forehead. on my child. many, many, many tears are shed and i come to the decision that e and i are definitely capable of keeping a dog like this and working with him-- he is a great dog who just needs to not be a puppy-- but our son cannot suffer from a dog's puppy-dom. he must go back.
day 6: mom and i take dog back to humane society. i feel like a failure and i feel terrible for the dog. but my son's face looks horrible and my guilt begins to switch gears and i remember who is most important here. we get home and my jp (and my dad!) helps me do an insane amount of gardening. sooooo cathartic. the house is looking like a home finally and my parents have done so much work that it really feels like a home. all we need is an e.
which brings us to day 7, tomorrow. we will be heading back down to see daddy graduate from school and to celebrate with him :) we're VERY excited!!! and then we'll all come back on sunday and be happy campers :)
so that's the recap. crazy, huh!?
we got here on april 29th. i will attempt to keep this blog post relatively short, considering that we moved into our first ever single family home on a giant, beautiful lot, just far enough from the city and just close enough at the same time!
day 1: jp and mommy drove a 26 foot moving truck all by ourselves to our brand new home in alabama. we made it in GREAT time, got the truck to the weigh station, and a friend helped unload the kitchen and immediate need items. i unpacked literally the entire kitchen before going to bed. i also found a scorpion in our house before going to bed. it was no bigger than one of my knuckles, but i could hear him whispering "i'm coming for yooooooooouuuuuuuuuu".
day 2: friends come and unload our entire truck in 3 hours flat. our house looks like it was vomited into. someone asked how we could have so much stuff. unpacking begins and one of the same friends who helped unload the truck came back with his wife to bring us homemade lasagna. it was delicious. commence food coma. friends helped us put together some major furniture and unpack a lot of the living room. not much else was accomplished haha!
day 3: e leaves to go back to florida to finish school :( my parents come into town. jp and mommy go to the giant petsmart adoption weekend to scope out dogs. mommy brings a dog home. let the games begin.
day 4: dog is more active today, but i don't know much about that because jp and i go to the hospital on post to register and get all signed in to the area. now, if you'll recall, jp has a cast on. we have notes in his medical records from florida stating that he needs to get the cast off to check on some blisters that were on his feet--they wanted to make sure the blisters healed and didn't get infected under the cast. it took nearly 3 hours to get registered, plead for a walk in appointment for a referral to orthopedics, go get x-rays, then to the ortho, and then to the room to get the cast off. the cast came off. bad news: he has a pressure blister literally just over the size of a quarter on his heel. his cast had been applied incorrectly for a little boy who would eventually walk on it. it looked horrifying. they cleaned it up, applied antibiotic bandages, cleaned up his other blisters and recasted him with a walking cast. we were gone over 4 hours. he screamed off and on the whole time. i was exhausted. henson, the dog, is in love with me and sleeps next to me on the floor. he also loves jp and jp loves to feed him. i give doggie a rawhide bone. he attacks. he throws it up. awesome.
day 5: parents have done an insane amount of work. dog woke me up at 7:30. that's 6:30 central time. i am sleepy. 5 hours of errand running and utility set up today. back home. dog has separation anxiety. ok, we can deal with that. i call the listed vet to get the info on the dogs heartworm status and find out that dog is actually only 7 months old, not nearly a year like they told us. this explains a lot. dog is getting more and more excitable and forgetting that he is in fact nearly 60 pounds. he wants to be a lap dog. he keeps knocking jp over. this results in a black eye, fat lip, scraped nose and forehead. on my child. many, many, many tears are shed and i come to the decision that e and i are definitely capable of keeping a dog like this and working with him-- he is a great dog who just needs to not be a puppy-- but our son cannot suffer from a dog's puppy-dom. he must go back.
day 6: mom and i take dog back to humane society. i feel like a failure and i feel terrible for the dog. but my son's face looks horrible and my guilt begins to switch gears and i remember who is most important here. we get home and my jp (and my dad!) helps me do an insane amount of gardening. sooooo cathartic. the house is looking like a home finally and my parents have done so much work that it really feels like a home. all we need is an e.
which brings us to day 7, tomorrow. we will be heading back down to see daddy graduate from school and to celebrate with him :) we're VERY excited!!! and then we'll all come back on sunday and be happy campers :)
so that's the recap. crazy, huh!?
25 April, 2011
Mama Said, Mama Said!
i am sooooooooooo ready to hit the road to our new house!!! our house is ready to hit the road to the new house too!!
with the house being packed, my next step has been to focus on getting as much of our security deposit back as possible (which will be all of it! i'm determined!). we cleared the yard to make room for the ground covering to grow back in, we've replaced outlet covers and blinds, e spot cleaned some of the walls yesterday, etc.
the floors have been my nemesis in this process. aside from the 3 bedrooms and the bathrooms, this house is entirely fake hardwood. and whoever resided here before either lived in cleats or broke the lease agreement and kept a dog here. there are scratches everywhere and whatever lacquer may have at one point been sloshed over the floor to make it shine and give it some dirt protection is long since gone. thus dirt very easily works its way into the grooves created by all those scratches and gets itself quite stuck in there.
it has been a constant, losing battle trying to make the floors clean.
i've been a big fan of the water-vinegar cleaning solution for years. but recently, to clean out our sinks, some other metal things and a few plastic items, i started spraying those things down with the water-vinegar and then sprinkling a little baking soda over it.
simple science fair logic: vinegar+baking soda makes fizzies. fizzies are all the rage in cleaning stuff these days. baking soda is a tad abrasive and vinegar cleans well. watering down the vinegar means my fizzies don't take over my house and i get double cleaning action.
it worked like a charm.
so on a whim today, i sprayed down the problem areas on my hardwood floor with a very generous amount of my favorite cleaning mix. then i sprinkled some baking soda over it. then i filled up a bucket with a water-vinegar mix and dipped my mop in.
immediately, and i mean immediately, the dirt scrubbed up. it was almost effortless. it left me wet clumps of gray baking soda, but the dirt was GONE. it was like magic.
i almost started swearing. i've been trying for 8 months to clean these floors and i figure it out 3 days before we leave?!!? to a house with no hardwood!?! is this a joke!?!!!?
i ended up sprinkling baking soda over the dry wood where there weren't any major spots and mopping over it with the same bucket vinegar-water throughout the house. the floors look amazing. i have to let them dry after the first mopping, sweep up the remaining baking soda, and then mop once more with plain old water to get rid of the baking soda residue (some places required 2 rounds of sweep and re-mopping).
but it worked.
the problem areas also got a rag taken to them by hand while they were still a bit wet. it helped me get the baking soda clumps out and offered just a bit more scrubbing power. total magic.
moms are always telling their kids to leave a place better than they found it.
well, mom, you'd be proud. today i did just that. these floors weren't even this clean when we moved in.
do you know what that means?
i get ice cream for being a good girl. $1k security deposit worth of ice cream, to be precise.
with the house being packed, my next step has been to focus on getting as much of our security deposit back as possible (which will be all of it! i'm determined!). we cleared the yard to make room for the ground covering to grow back in, we've replaced outlet covers and blinds, e spot cleaned some of the walls yesterday, etc.
the floors have been my nemesis in this process. aside from the 3 bedrooms and the bathrooms, this house is entirely fake hardwood. and whoever resided here before either lived in cleats or broke the lease agreement and kept a dog here. there are scratches everywhere and whatever lacquer may have at one point been sloshed over the floor to make it shine and give it some dirt protection is long since gone. thus dirt very easily works its way into the grooves created by all those scratches and gets itself quite stuck in there.
it has been a constant, losing battle trying to make the floors clean.
i've been a big fan of the water-vinegar cleaning solution for years. but recently, to clean out our sinks, some other metal things and a few plastic items, i started spraying those things down with the water-vinegar and then sprinkling a little baking soda over it.
simple science fair logic: vinegar+baking soda makes fizzies. fizzies are all the rage in cleaning stuff these days. baking soda is a tad abrasive and vinegar cleans well. watering down the vinegar means my fizzies don't take over my house and i get double cleaning action.
it worked like a charm.
so on a whim today, i sprayed down the problem areas on my hardwood floor with a very generous amount of my favorite cleaning mix. then i sprinkled some baking soda over it. then i filled up a bucket with a water-vinegar mix and dipped my mop in.
immediately, and i mean immediately, the dirt scrubbed up. it was almost effortless. it left me wet clumps of gray baking soda, but the dirt was GONE. it was like magic.
i almost started swearing. i've been trying for 8 months to clean these floors and i figure it out 3 days before we leave?!!? to a house with no hardwood!?! is this a joke!?!!!?
i ended up sprinkling baking soda over the dry wood where there weren't any major spots and mopping over it with the same bucket vinegar-water throughout the house. the floors look amazing. i have to let them dry after the first mopping, sweep up the remaining baking soda, and then mop once more with plain old water to get rid of the baking soda residue (some places required 2 rounds of sweep and re-mopping).
but it worked.
the problem areas also got a rag taken to them by hand while they were still a bit wet. it helped me get the baking soda clumps out and offered just a bit more scrubbing power. total magic.
moms are always telling their kids to leave a place better than they found it.
well, mom, you'd be proud. today i did just that. these floors weren't even this clean when we moved in.
do you know what that means?
i get ice cream for being a good girl. $1k security deposit worth of ice cream, to be precise.
23 April, 2011
New Life
yesterday was earth day. tomorrow is easter. i see a theme going on here :)
there were lots of freebies yesterday--from coffee to body wash--but my favorite freebie came today. a freebie i'd been waiting for since my husband informed me of it about a week ago.
the recommendation for this lil guy (and thank heaven's there WAS a recommendation, because i have no idea how to care for a pine tree!!) was to put him in a small-ish pot for a year and then plant him in the spring or fall.
so next year, on earth day, my 2.5 year old (who, let me point out, will ACTUALLY be able to help me!! whoa!) and my hopefully-8-months-old-and-no-younger baby boy will help mommy plant peeta in the ground. perhaps we'll have a fun tree dedication! daddy, we hope, will be on hand to snap pictures.
so, in keeping with our theme, for easter we got jp his own tiny wheelbarrow and some fun outside/beach toys :) we're going to hide his eggs in the potted plants that have essentially taken over our porch until we move next friday.
oh yeah, we're moving on friday. as in, 6 days from now. HOLY SMOKES!!!!!!!!!
there were lots of freebies yesterday--from coffee to body wash--but my favorite freebie came today. a freebie i'd been waiting for since my husband informed me of it about a week ago.
lowes, the home improvement store, is giving away a million trees today! all across the nation!!! FREE!!! tiny baby trees that are meant to grow specifically in your usda climate zone! WHAAAA?!?!! go to lowes!!!
jp was clearly excited. he helped me plant our aleppo pine while e took pictures. we named the tree "peeta"
what a fun lesson for him!! he threw the sapling shortly after this picture was taken... whoops??
the recommendation for this lil guy (and thank heaven's there WAS a recommendation, because i have no idea how to care for a pine tree!!) was to put him in a small-ish pot for a year and then plant him in the spring or fall.
so next year, on earth day, my 2.5 year old (who, let me point out, will ACTUALLY be able to help me!! whoa!) and my hopefully-8-months-old-and-no-younger baby boy will help mommy plant peeta in the ground. perhaps we'll have a fun tree dedication! daddy, we hope, will be on hand to snap pictures.
so, in keeping with our theme, for easter we got jp his own tiny wheelbarrow and some fun outside/beach toys :) we're going to hide his eggs in the potted plants that have essentially taken over our porch until we move next friday.
oh yeah, we're moving on friday. as in, 6 days from now. HOLY SMOKES!!!!!!!!!
21 April, 2011
And the Tides Hath Turned
it all started with one little craigslist ad.
you think you know where this is going.
the bulger family has never had a real yard. the new house has not only a real yard, but a real large yard. the owners of the house have done a good job setting up a pleasant landscaping base. but this house has so much potential and i really want to make it shine.
that costs money, something we rarely seem to have lying around.
and then i'm reminded of "the community garden". people share plants with each other. spring comes around, the perennials of last year have doubled in quantity. in the interest of curb appeal, homeowners dig up plants that don't quite fit into the grand-scaping they've created over the years.
and instead of throwing away precious living things, they share them. they offer them to neighbors with sparse foliage, to the young new couple who just bought a home for the first time, to the empty nesters who suddenly have time to fill, to the avid gardener a few houses down who is always looking for a new addition. they trade roots for muffins and bulbs for a younger back to mow their lawn once or twice.
suddenly a neighborhood becomes a beautiful, harmonious collaboration between people who were once just neighbors, but are now friends.
you think you know where this is going.
the bulger family has never had a real yard. the new house has not only a real yard, but a real large yard. the owners of the house have done a good job setting up a pleasant landscaping base. but this house has so much potential and i really want to make it shine.
that costs money, something we rarely seem to have lying around.
and then i'm reminded of "the community garden". people share plants with each other. spring comes around, the perennials of last year have doubled in quantity. in the interest of curb appeal, homeowners dig up plants that don't quite fit into the grand-scaping they've created over the years.
and instead of throwing away precious living things, they share them. they offer them to neighbors with sparse foliage, to the young new couple who just bought a home for the first time, to the empty nesters who suddenly have time to fill, to the avid gardener a few houses down who is always looking for a new addition. they trade roots for muffins and bulbs for a younger back to mow their lawn once or twice.
suddenly a neighborhood becomes a beautiful, harmonious collaboration between people who were once just neighbors, but are now friends.
about 2 weeks ago i posted an ad on craigslist asking people to generously donate their overgrown perennials to my humble collection of non-food plants.
by humble, i mean non-existent.
our neighborhood has never really struck me as friendly. most of this area is rented, not owned, so i'm not even sure the current tenants have any authority to offer me clippings of their plants. there also seem to be a lot of ground coverings and flora that require next to no care, and are thus not very attractive.
i got one response. 1. from the hundreds of people on craigslist, only one person was willing to exchange homemade bread for plants.
if you know me, you know this was a mistake made by the craigslisters. i make stellar bread.
the email that was sent listed a pretty vast variety of growth. the emailer also told me about growing up in kentucky and having "friendship gardens", that she didn't understand why people thought they had to buy gardens at lowes.
it was meant to be.
i made a fresh loaf of rosemary garlic parmesan bread, braided and covered in an egg wash, cooked to a perfect golden brown.
i showed up, pots in hand, extra bag of soil, ready to work.
her husband dug everything up for me. they handed me extra pots of plants. "take them! what else would you like?"
i left their home in serious debt to them. white and purple irises, wandering jew, perennial begonia, october daisies (swamp sunflowers), amaryllis, white and yellow mums, ferns, an aloe plant, shamrock plant, violets, jasmine, a grape vine, five (count them, FIVE, 5, V) maple tree saplings ranging from 2-5' tall, hydrangeas, elephant ear, some plant that we haven't yet identified (no blossoms yet, but we'll get there), seeds for hostas, tiger lilies, rose of sharon, zinnias and pepper plants. i'm sure there are a handful of other things i have forgotten.
all well established plants. i came home, repotted, pruned and watered. all of my plants have to live on our back porch right now because we're trying to give the ground covering on our rental home's lawn a chance to grow back in.
this was my view the next morning
there are more plants in the greenhouse as well, mind you.
after all of the stress and worry the last few days have brought us, this gracious gift from total strangers caused an abrupt shift in the emotional climate of my life.
and do you know what happened the next morning?
e's orders came in. the very thing we've been waiting on that would make the majority of the stress disappear. something we'd been told might not come before the move. something that we desperately needed.
and jp started walking in his cast. and giggling at himself with excitement.
sometimes the current is too strong for you to change direction on your own. sometimes it takes intervention when you don't have the strength to right your own path.
thank you jon and sharon for being my intervention this weekend. and for the reminder i will have when i look out at my beautiful friendship garden in all the years to come.
18 April, 2011
Confinement
i over-think nearly everything. attribute it to a minor in english if you want to, but the reality is that it's just a part of who i am. i spend most of my days with internal conversations playing through my head. i talk to myself constantly. i'm kind of all over the place and i think a lot of that is because i can never really seem to focus my mind for longer than a few minutes or hours.
these last few days have taken my usual routine of inner rambling and decimated it. so much has spun out of control so very quickly and major plans had enormous wrenches thrown into them. had my good friend lydia not been here, i honestly think i may have ended up either laying in a heap in my bathroom or in the hospital with dehydration and chest pains from constant sobbing and no self care. timing can work in your favor and against you all at once it seems.
this morning briefly snapped me back into my inner dialogue and those thoughts have sort of immaturely, and intermittently, formed in my mind to create this blog post.
at 8 am sharp (i'm not kidding, it was 8:00am) the orthopedic office called me. "we received the ER report on your son and were wondering if you could bring him in today" "sure, what time?" "how soon can you be here?"
lydia was and her crew were packed up to go back home and fortunately for us leaving very shortly after i got off the phone. so they dropped us off at the hospital before 9am.
funny side note, because i had no car of my own and she dropped me off and left for louisiana, i was forced to haul a splinted child, a car seat, a diaper bag with 2 hours worth of entertainment+ food and my pregnant stomach into the hospital. i asked for a wheelchair, and this is what i got (forgive the poor quality, the picture was taken on my phone)
x rays were immediately (no joke, within 5 minutes of entering the hospital we were wheeling our way to radiology) redone and we were also immediately taken back to see the doctor. his fracture was confirmed and the treatment would be 3-5 weeks in a hard cast that covered his entire right leg, toes to upper thigh.
i knew that this would be the solution if the fracture was confirmed and honestly, i wanted it to be the solution if it was a fracture. his splint had already slid down his foot so much that his toes ended up in the heel section. that wasn't doing anybody any good.
but sitting on that table, holding him, and taking in the facts: no true baths (one of his favorite things in the world), no more beach trips in our short 2 weeks left here, severely impaired mobility when we'll be moving to a new house that he'll want to explore, no swimming in the blistering heat, the limitations a cast brings with it, how much he cannot possibly understand what's happening, the fact that e isn't with us right now and i'm doing this alone.... it was overwhelming.
i remembered to ask the doctor about pain management--we've been having a hard time with it since the fracture happened. our only medicinal options are tylenol, motrin, or tylenol with codeine. i am not giving my 16 month old son codeine. i would rather hold him every second of every day and comfort him that way than give him narcotics.
but the doctor did say we might notice an improvement in his comfort level with the cast.
alright, let's see how it goes.
he couldn't have been more right. jp stood up in that cast today and tried to dance. granted, he fell down, but he felt ok enough to try. once he understood the difference of weight in that leg, he was slinging it all around him and crawling and climbing (yes, climbing!) again. he likes to rub things up and down the cast because of the cool grinding noise it makes and he figured out that banging things on it makes a fun drumming sound.
he also kicked e in the groin with it. whoops? i got hit in the face also, if that makes anyone feel better about the whole thing.
and this is where my over-analytical brain kicked in.
the only thing that could truly fix my child's pain was total confinement of the injured portion of his body. it needed perfect, constant, and uniform stability. it had to be wrapped, squeezed, and held in place until the shell around it became hard and impenetrable. it didn't feel good while it was unwrapped, or during the wrapping process. but the closer the cast came to being fully hardened, the better he started to feel. and once the process was over, he was more free than he had been before the confinement.
and that is more or less what's happening to us in our lives right now. we are being forced into a position that isn't allowing us much, if any, wiggle room. the circumstances closing in around us are hard and there doesn't seem to be a way out. but i am a believer that all things happen for a reason. something in our lives isn't as good as it can be. we haven't been stretched or pushed to our limits in some area and that's what it happening to us right now.
at this moment, we are just like jp when he was in the splint. we have some of what we need, but not enough. and we're so overcome by the pain and confusion that we're spending most of our time screaming and performing our usual activities, waiting for it to all click back into place.
and it probably won't do that.
we need to go through this period of total confinement, this squeezing, wrenching, hardening process and we'll end up relearning our lives, the same way jp will relearn how to walk when this is over.
and just like a healed bone, we'll be stronger in the end.
but i still i wish i could have learned this lesson in some other way that didn't involve my precious son being thrown into a cast.
these last few days have taken my usual routine of inner rambling and decimated it. so much has spun out of control so very quickly and major plans had enormous wrenches thrown into them. had my good friend lydia not been here, i honestly think i may have ended up either laying in a heap in my bathroom or in the hospital with dehydration and chest pains from constant sobbing and no self care. timing can work in your favor and against you all at once it seems.
this morning briefly snapped me back into my inner dialogue and those thoughts have sort of immaturely, and intermittently, formed in my mind to create this blog post.
at 8 am sharp (i'm not kidding, it was 8:00am) the orthopedic office called me. "we received the ER report on your son and were wondering if you could bring him in today" "sure, what time?" "how soon can you be here?"
lydia was and her crew were packed up to go back home and fortunately for us leaving very shortly after i got off the phone. so they dropped us off at the hospital before 9am.
funny side note, because i had no car of my own and she dropped me off and left for louisiana, i was forced to haul a splinted child, a car seat, a diaper bag with 2 hours worth of entertainment+ food and my pregnant stomach into the hospital. i asked for a wheelchair, and this is what i got (forgive the poor quality, the picture was taken on my phone)
x rays were immediately (no joke, within 5 minutes of entering the hospital we were wheeling our way to radiology) redone and we were also immediately taken back to see the doctor. his fracture was confirmed and the treatment would be 3-5 weeks in a hard cast that covered his entire right leg, toes to upper thigh.
i knew that this would be the solution if the fracture was confirmed and honestly, i wanted it to be the solution if it was a fracture. his splint had already slid down his foot so much that his toes ended up in the heel section. that wasn't doing anybody any good.
but sitting on that table, holding him, and taking in the facts: no true baths (one of his favorite things in the world), no more beach trips in our short 2 weeks left here, severely impaired mobility when we'll be moving to a new house that he'll want to explore, no swimming in the blistering heat, the limitations a cast brings with it, how much he cannot possibly understand what's happening, the fact that e isn't with us right now and i'm doing this alone.... it was overwhelming.
i remembered to ask the doctor about pain management--we've been having a hard time with it since the fracture happened. our only medicinal options are tylenol, motrin, or tylenol with codeine. i am not giving my 16 month old son codeine. i would rather hold him every second of every day and comfort him that way than give him narcotics.
but the doctor did say we might notice an improvement in his comfort level with the cast.
alright, let's see how it goes.
he couldn't have been more right. jp stood up in that cast today and tried to dance. granted, he fell down, but he felt ok enough to try. once he understood the difference of weight in that leg, he was slinging it all around him and crawling and climbing (yes, climbing!) again. he likes to rub things up and down the cast because of the cool grinding noise it makes and he figured out that banging things on it makes a fun drumming sound.
he also kicked e in the groin with it. whoops? i got hit in the face also, if that makes anyone feel better about the whole thing.
and this is where my over-analytical brain kicked in.
the only thing that could truly fix my child's pain was total confinement of the injured portion of his body. it needed perfect, constant, and uniform stability. it had to be wrapped, squeezed, and held in place until the shell around it became hard and impenetrable. it didn't feel good while it was unwrapped, or during the wrapping process. but the closer the cast came to being fully hardened, the better he started to feel. and once the process was over, he was more free than he had been before the confinement.
and that is more or less what's happening to us in our lives right now. we are being forced into a position that isn't allowing us much, if any, wiggle room. the circumstances closing in around us are hard and there doesn't seem to be a way out. but i am a believer that all things happen for a reason. something in our lives isn't as good as it can be. we haven't been stretched or pushed to our limits in some area and that's what it happening to us right now.
at this moment, we are just like jp when he was in the splint. we have some of what we need, but not enough. and we're so overcome by the pain and confusion that we're spending most of our time screaming and performing our usual activities, waiting for it to all click back into place.
and it probably won't do that.
we need to go through this period of total confinement, this squeezing, wrenching, hardening process and we'll end up relearning our lives, the same way jp will relearn how to walk when this is over.
and just like a healed bone, we'll be stronger in the end.
but i still i wish i could have learned this lesson in some other way that didn't involve my precious son being thrown into a cast.
17 April, 2011
The Return of Murphy's Law
let me preface this by saying that i do not actually believe that murphy's law rules my life. amazing things have happened this weekend. an innumerable amount of them, in fact.
my friend came to town with her daughter (my god daughter!) who is the same age as jp.
she also brought a friend with her who turned out to be an incredible, interesting, easy going, and kind person.
my god daughter won a prize at gymnastics.
i had my first real girl's night out since.... ummm... well, let's just say it's been over a year.
we had a great day at the beach on sunday
we held a moderately successful garage sale over the weekend that resulted in more space being cleared up in the house.
i made yummy beer bread.
the list goes on and on.
but this also happened at gymnastics:
my friend came to town with her daughter (my god daughter!) who is the same age as jp.
she also brought a friend with her who turned out to be an incredible, interesting, easy going, and kind person.
my god daughter won a prize at gymnastics.
i had my first real girl's night out since.... ummm... well, let's just say it's been over a year.
we had a great day at the beach on sunday
we held a moderately successful garage sale over the weekend that resulted in more space being cleared up in the house.
i made yummy beer bread.
the list goes on and on.
but this also happened at gymnastics:
this is one of those times that i am grateful that i'm not cool enough to have a wildly successful and well known blog, because i am in no mood to listen to the cynics and judges telling me that these are the consequences of irresponsible parenting and that gymnastics aren't safe.
it happened on a trampoline, i'm fairly positive it's my fault, and he has a buckle fracture beneath his knee. of all of the injuries he could receive at such an exploratory age, we're lucky it was this one-- assuming that the ER x-ray read was correct, this type of fracture heals in 3-4 weeks in a splint or cast. that's not horrible.
what IS horrible is that the same evening of this incidence, cam, my god daughter, vomited EVERYWHERE in the crib and room she was staying in. i mean EVERYWHERE. and it was vile. one child is broken outside, the other is broken inside.
it was a messy evening.
jp is also teething, which certainly isn't helping! he's having a very rough time sleeping and my mind became momentarily overwhelmed with the thought of having an immobilized 16 month old (i know that sounds like a good thing, but it in fact is not when said child is a very determined mover!) while trying to pack a house and embark on a move in 2 weeks. when you add orthopedic appointments to an already overloaded schedule, it certainly feels like your world is beginning to cave in around you.
listening to your poor boy screaming and crying for hours and hours on end also seems to have that effect.
but we decided to put on a brave face and take the rest of the weekend head on. i'm glad we did.
i think jp was pretty happy about it too. :)
murphy, you may continue your attempts to ruin our weekends and our lives, but you will not succeed. with a name like murphy, my guess is that you're a drunk. and that means that eventually, you'll get lazy and drop your guard.
and i will maul your face.
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