Heavy Expectations

Ugh. Did pretty well today. Didn't go to bed too late last night, got a lot of housework done, took only a brief nap and didn't keep the TV on non-stop. However, I feel like crap. My head hurts and I feel large and bloated.

I'm trying to focus on that for which I am grateful. I have a lovely friend from college who helped provide gifts for my kids for Christmas. Then, I was pleasantly surprised to find a stoop full of gifts this morning. So now we have no money that needs to be spent for the kids' Christmas. I got an awesome haircut that makes me feel lighter and younger. I taught my kids a prayer to say at night when they're scared. These are the things on which I am choosing to focus. I will get nowhere if the obsession of my mind is my food decisions. The more I can change my focus to others, to my worth that's inherent in who I am, the easier it will be to make healthful food choices that honor my body, God's temple.

A Piece of Peace

Starbucks by myself is just lovely. I usually get out for "coffee" at least once a week, but recently it's not been as often. I use coffee loosely because I've never been a big fan. I have been opting for water and a yogurt/granola treat.

Jeremy had a rough day at preschool today. He is prone to emotional outbursts-always has been. I have been working with him for a while to try to temper his emotions. Part of it, I've learned, has been about me tempering my emotions. I've noticed that he has started to scream at Bekah to leave him alone. Unfortunately, my temper doesn't look attractive on others. When I see him start to lose it, I physically hold him. He tends to want to push/hit/kick whoever is upsetting him. I hold him to get him to stop, to help him find an out. Then, very quietly (that's been my recent effort-trying to be more quiet) I tell him to take a couple of deep breaths. After he's done that, we say a simple prayer together "God, please help me calm down." I can't say that the emotional outbursts have stopped, but it's definitely raised my awareness about keeping my own emotions in check.

I try not to take credit when my kids do well because then I have to take the self-criticism if they do poorly. Both Bekah and Jeremy have a lot of really wonderful gifts, but the humility for me is stepping aside and letting God have that credit. I don't blame God for their shortcomings, though. That's also humility-recognizing that my kids are human beings with free will. I have been trying to show them more grace lately, which helps both them and me. If I can acknowledge that we all have bad moments/days, then it's okay if they are emotionally obtrusive. It's part and parcel with being that age. Heck, it's part and parcel with being my age.

The other thing on my mind has been my weight. I lost a good amount of weight after Doug was born, but lately the needle on the scale has been moving the other way. I had done Weight Watchers in the past but stopped going for different reasons. I have hesitated to rejoin, but now I'm realizing that I need help. I just need boundaries set for me in black and white. I need a guideline to fill out. I would love to be on the smaller side of 250 by Easter (that would be about 40ish pounds). The one obstacle is, of course, money. I am hoping Santa will bring me enough money to cover registration and a few months of service. I am going to do it online; meetings of another kind already chew up most of my free time. We'll see how this goes; my strong desire is to be able to wear my engagement/wedding band again. I've not been able to physically wear it for almost 4 years. Other than that, I'd love to buy cute nursing tops and jeans that don't have spandex in them.

Oh, my. I am grateful for so much, but it makes me crazy that there are people starving in the world and I am 100+ pounds overweight. That's craziness.

Christmas, Toddler-Style

Well, it's official. Today, we "built" the Christmas tree at our house. Jeremy watched 'A Bug's Life' on the iPad as I decorated the tree. He was fascinated by some of the ornaments, as was Bekah. They took off as many ornaments as they could. It came out looking pretty, even with the top containing most of the breakable (more beautiful) ornaments. My star has crapped out, so I'm going to be on the hunt for one.

After naps we went to my parents' house to "build" a tree. On the way, Jeremy asked me what tree we were going to "build" after d-da and bubba's tree. He then informed me that he'd like to do 100 trees. It was fun to have them so excited about decorating. My mom got the nativity set out. She and I made it when I was like 8 or 9. It's very cute; three wise men, a shepherd, Mary, Joseph, baby Jesus, Gabriel and a sheep.

I can't remember when, but the next Christmas or so, my brother turned it into the Ninja nativity set. Mary and Joseph and the others fought each other in no-holds-barred competitions. It got to be that they started to show a tremendous amount of wear from all of the fights.

This year, as soon as my mom got it out, the tradition continued. I can't say there were ninja fights, but at one point, Gabriel was perched precariously, his hand caught in the wrought-iron decoration of my parents coffee table. Baby Jesus was batted around and even the sheep saw battle action.

It's these kind of little traditions that make the holiday for me. As I'm typing this, we're hearing Jeremy fighting sleep. I don't understand how he's still awake. He just told Brian that he's hungry. Gotta love preschoolers.

Blogging on the go!

This is new for me, but maybe now I can keep my blog updated. Took the big kids shopping tonight. I am just spent, but ha fun at the retreat this morning. I am grateful for my DH and his loving support.

The house is a pit and I need to wash the floors, but it isn't going to happen tonight.

Been praying about my treadmill. I have been wanting one for a while. I didn't tell anyone because my family has so many other needs. This last week at Bible study, though, a random lady came in saying she wanted to get rid of one. I would have never known about it except that I had gone to the nursery to nurse Doug (which I usually don't do). I am not sure if this treadmill is supposed to be mine or if it was just God's way of telling me He hears my prayers. She wants to sell it for $100-150, so of course the skeptic in me is worried that it's a piece of garbage. I am praying that God will provide a path forward for it.

Ugh. I should be headed to bed, but Sims 2 is calling my name. I started playing a few weeks ago. I tend to throw myself into the computer when I'm trying to insulate myself from hurt. My friend Leslie is going to be moving soon. I am heartsick about that. I have gotten close to both her and her family over the past couple of years. She is funny and lovely and I don't want to have to say goodbye. I also don't want to grieve the loss right now. It's inconvenient and cloying like a shirt that shrunk in the dryer. I keep pulling at the fabric, trying to stretch it, trying not to feel the discomfort. I don't want to have to explain to my kids why we can't go to "Miss Weswie's" house anymore. I would just like to set this aside until it fits me better, but I can't say that even then I'll want to deal with it. I hate that this is a part of life.

Anger, Inc.

It's been a rough couple of days and my spirits are really sagging. Bekah has really started showing her 2-year-old attitude. I am frustrated with her because I know that she's jealous of Doug, but there's nothing I can do to staunch the rolling tide of her anger. It's disheartening. She is tough to motivate and very articulate. I have been struggling with my emotions in dealing with her. I am grateful to have good support in place so that I don't do anything to her that I would regret. I know it's just a phase, but it's a tough one.

Job Creators: The New Oxymoron

This year has been a rough one financially for my family. There have been a number of factors that have been working at odds with our attempts to get out from under the rubble. First, we started off the year being covered by BCBS IL through my husband's employer. We had a deductible to meet and coinsurance. As of March first, the plan changed. My husband's company merged with a bigger company and we started being covered by Aetna. We had to start over with a brand new deductible. The plan had been sold to Brian's company as having a low deductible ($3000), so he was not allowed to continue to set money aside in a healthcare spending account. Upon closer inspection, however, we discovered that it's actually a $6000 family deductible. Each family member has to meet a deductible of $1000 before any medical costs would start to be applied to the family's deductible. Meanwhile, the coinsurance is higher with the new plan and the premiums are more. So we were no longer able to set aside money on a pre-tax basis and all of a sudden we had to come up with extra money out of our pockets.

Then, our computer went on the fritz. It is very difficult to function in a technological world without a computer. It's almost impossible to pay bills and do banking without one. It's also impossible to seek new employment without one. So there went more money.

Then, Jeremy was hospitalized for 4 days. The bills started pouring in pretty steady after that. I will say that Advocate Good Shepherd was fabulous. We were able to get some relief for some of the bills through their charity program. Unfortunately, other facilities have not been as understanding. Brian and I sat down and figured out that we had 13 (at the time) providers asking for money. I wrote them all a letter explaining that we had just gone bankrupt and were broke. We could send them $10 a month to show a good faith promise that we would pay. Unfortunately, as the months have gone by, the list of creditors has increased rather than decreased (due mostly to Doug's birth but also because of tests Brian has to have done to make sure the cancer has not come back).

So here we are. We are trying to be creative with our finances. I used some gift cards I received earlier in the year to buy groceries one week. I received a Kohl's gift card for Doug's birth that I will use to buy new sneakers for Jeremy. The one albatross around our neck continues to be our cell phones. I got an iPhone 3 years ago, back when we had just moved into our house, before Brian had been diagnosed with cancer and before the bottom fell out of the market. Brian got his iPhone almost 2 years ago. Last year, we were going to get a new phone for me (not an iPhone). The problem is, we only really pay $10 a month for me to be added onto the family plan through AT&T. It would have cost close to $200 to get out of the plan with AT&T last year, on top of the cost of buying new phones and accessories and paying the first month's (inflated) bill with a new carrier. We had cash flow issues that disallowed us from doing that.

So now, we are looking line by line to see what we can trim and we are stuck in this awful catch-22 with AT&T. I am no longer under contract--mine expired a year and half ago. But Brian's contract is not up with them until November 20th. In order to have the money to start anew with a different carrier, we need to save up cash, but we can't save up cash because we're paying so much for our cell phones. If I got a new phone with AT&T, then I would be in a new 2-year contract and we'd have to come up with the cash to buy a new phone and new accessories. We went last night to see if there's anything more we can trim from our bill, but we had already done that. So we have three more months of a bill that we can't afford that's making it impossible for us to get a plan that we can afford.

I wish I could say I'm handling all of these situations gracefully, but I'm not. I cried today in front of my kids, which I hate to do. I am frustrated that every single financial decision we make has to be agonized over. Brian and I talked three different times today at length about what to do with this cell phone mess. Bernie Madoff (and others like him) perpetrated this financial nightmare on millions of Americans like me. Yet we are calling his ilk "job creators." From where I'm sitting, that couldn't be further from the truth. I was watching a Law and Order: Criminal Intent today. The criminal was a Wall Street type who had set up a ponzi-esque scheme and then used his money and influence to try to cover it up (with a murder). I have seen this episode before, but today Vincent D'Onofrio's words hit home. It was the end of the episode and this man, who had perpetrated the murder (dressed in cuff links and a nice suit) was desperate to wriggle out of the charges. He was offering to name names of higher-ups. Vincent D'Onofrio said, "what they [the terrorists] did with weapons and ammunition, you did with money."

That's what makes me angry. We have spent billions of dollars fighting a war against the terrorists who attacked our country. Why are we continuing to allow people in our own country terrorize us? Why are we allowing them to continue in their lives as if nothing has happened? I can assure you, when Bernie Madoff gets out of jail (if he ever does), he will not have to agonize over what cell phone plan he can choose. The bankers who received bonuses even after we (the American taxpayers) bailed them out don't have to worry about how they're going to afford to throw their children birthday parties! There are 400 families in the US who hold 99% of the wealth. We outnumber them, and yet we cower because of this title we ascribe them. I, for one, am sick of it. I would love to know what kind of jobs they are truly creating because it seems like the major corporations are employing mostly Chinese workers and they're doing it for far below minimum wage. Meanwhile, we are begging and pleading with them to stay here, so we offer them subsidies on top of tax breaks. So their company is here in name, but it's not generating any revenue for our country.

I am sick to death of seeing the salaries of government workers in people's status updates on Facebook. I can assure you this country is not going broke because of what we pay our civil servants. And I don't enjoy how we call President Obama an elitist--he is actually much less wealthy than our previous president, has taken substantially less vacation time that President Bush and did not come into office with a surplus in the nation's budget. Is President Obama perfect? No, far from it. But this country is broken in a way that only bold initiatives can fix, and unfortunately we are so afraid of the "job creators" that no one is willing to be the one to take the first step in that direction.

This is by far my most rambling and disjointed blog entry and for that I apologize. I just feel like I need to shine a light on the things the press is glossing over. We are not in a recession; we are in a depression. It will most likely get worse before it gets better and getting better will never mean what it used to.

Milestones

Previously, on Mommyhood....

In our last episode, I was becoming impatient with my son, who was refusing to poop in the potty. I felt my fellow mothers were judging me and that my son would enter MIT still wearing diapers.

Today, we had major success!! After Jeremy had eaten breakfast, he told me he had to poop. He had already taken off his pajamas to pee, but he informed me that he needed some books to take with him. (Grandma has been working with him for a bit and was reading to him in the bathroom to convince him to sit on the potty.) I said, great. He wanted me to come with him, but I let him know I needed to finish my breakfast. Before I knew it, I heard him reading out loud to himself and then, "mommy, I did it! I made poopy in the potty!" I couldn't believe it, but it was true!!

I called Brian to relay the good news, but Jeremy was too embarrassed to talk to him about it. He also didn't want to share the news with his new preschool friend, Austin (or his mom). We went to the park after naps, though, to pass the time. The park we regularly visit has baseball fields there; today, there was softball practice. One of the girls was early and she was playing in the playground. Jeremy went right up to her and asked her what her name was. He followed her around the playground and then proudly informed her, while she was in the swings, that he went poopy in the potty. I am not even sure that she heard him, but I told Brian that it seemed like Jeremy was trying to convince this young lady of his maturity because of his new skill.

She left after a while to start practice; Jeremy ended up in the dugout at one point (with some of the other girls). I had to practically pull him out of there!! Then he proceeded to tell me that when he gets bigger, he's going to play baseball and people will stand up when he goes on the field. That was officially the first time he had ever talked about getting bigger or having any kind of dreams.

Quite a monumental day for my man! I am so proud of him because he is so friendly and outgoing with everyone! I am excited for him to start school and continue to develop his already amazing interpersonal skills. He's a great guy!!

Pre-sa-chool

Jeremy, Bekah, Doug and I went to see Jeremy's new preschool class today. Brian and I went last night to meet the teachers and be oriented. I am afraid I was initially more excited than my son, but today he made up for it. I am grateful for small miracles, too. We are still struggling with potty training. He has mastered the art of peeing in the toilet. He can take himself to the bathroom when he needs to and happily announces it to me all the time. However, he has not been able to poop in the potty. I have been agonizing over this inability for weeks. I have tried to coax him into it, I've tried to bribe him, I've tried yelling but nothing seems to convince him.

In talking about his potty-training progress with other people, I feel like I've fallen short. One of the aspects of motherhood that no one talks about is the constant, constant comparison game. I feel like every day is a performance review. When I meet new moms I am asking them questions and secretly grading myself--"okay, her son doesn't know what letter his name starts with, but Jeremy does," or "sheesh, her daughter can dress herself and Jeremy can't." It's exhausting mentally and emotionally and I have a sense it's only going to get worse. Potty-training is tougher for boys, that's the consensus, but in my own head it seems like Jeremy is struggling more than most.

In any case, I am taking Jeremy's inability to poop in the potty very personally. I am afraid to tell people that he can't do it and I feel ashamed. The logical part of my brain tells me to get over myself, that every child is different and goes at their own pace. There was a time I was afraid Jeremy's speech was delayed; now, I wish I had a mute button and have had to ask him for time-outs from questions (Jeremy, I'm begging you, please stop asking mommy questions for a few minutes).

So when we toured his preschool, we looked at one of the classrooms and it happened to have fish in it. Jeremy loves fish and I'm not sure why. He has always been fascinated with them. I used to take him to Meijer just so he could look at the fish. He was so excited when he saw the fish in his classroom. Then, last night, when I met the director, she told me that he would be in the young 3's classroom because he was still wearing a pull-up. I didn't realize that this would cause a problem until this morning.

We went to meet Mrs. Irwin, his teacher. I walked into the classroom we had toured a few weeks ago, but unfortunately that was not to be his classroom. Histrionics ensued in the hallway. We got into his classroom and he threw a fit again. Aha, I thought, this is the perfect chance to motivate him. I told him he couldn't be in that classroom because he didn't go poopy in the potty. I told him that when he was able to go poopy in the potty, he could go in that classroom.

Then, because I know God loves my son, I saw something out of the corner of my eye. When I turned my head, I saw it; a fish tank. I showed it to Jeremy, who immediately raced over to it. I know it seems inconsequential but it felt like I was being reassured that my son was in the right place. It felt God was telling me to stop obsessing about this particular milestone. Now I just wonder how long it will take him to be able to hold a pencil correctly....

Somalia

The following is a preview of an article I'm writing. I have become a (non-paid) contributor to the online magazine "Forum," the publication for the national organization Mothers and More. I was asked to write 250-500 words about any number of topics. This is what shook out from something that's been stuck in my craw over the past few weeks. I know I've been absent from blogging for a while, but now that I'm able to put Doug down a bit, I'm back. Please read and let me know what your thoughts are!

I am the mother of three children—Jeremy, 3, Rebekah, 2 and Douglas, 7 weeks. I have become accustomed to hearing loud noises outside my field of vision; most of them make me cringe. I hold my breath and wait because usually Jeremy will cry out, “I’m otay, Mommy.” He’s become accustomed to me asking “are you okay, Jeremy,” after hearing the loud noises. Three small children also isolate me from the world outside of Nick Jr. I was unaware of the tsunami in Japan because, as I informed my husband, they don’t interrupt Olivia for a special news break.

I have, however, been watching the news pretty carefully over the past few weeks. My dad sent me the link to an article about a mother in Somalia. At 29 years of age, she had to make what the Associated Press calls a “tortured choice.” She walked for two weeks from Somalia to Kenya with her 1-year-old on her back and her 4-year-old at her side. She was trying to escape her war-torn and famine-ravaged country, trying to take her children to a place where they could have food and water. Near the end of her journey, the article goes on to say, her 4-year-old son collapsed. She had very little water left and poured a little on his head, but he was unconscious. Those around her did not stop because they were also fighting to live. Seeing that he was not waking up, she left him on the side of the road so that she could carry her 1-year-old to safety.

I have been scanning the news stations on TV and the internet to see if there has been any other coverage. I have waited with bated breath, the same way I wait to hear my son say, “I’m otay.” I have waited to hear someone saying troops will be heading to Somalia to aid these poor women. I have heard nothing. I am 33 years old. Jeremy will be 4 years old in a few weeks. In my wildest dreams, I cannot fathom having to make a choice like that.

I read the article and my shoulders slumped; my family is strapped financially. We can’t pledge money to any causes helping those people. I am not in a position of influence per se. I visit a food pantry most months to help put food on my own table. I felt like there was nothing I could do, but see, I’m a mommy. I have the power to make wounds instantly heal. I can make myself disappear under blankets and reappear at will. Why can’t I see myself as my kids see me? I can contact my senator and congressmen. I can demand that they use our vast national resources to help my fellow mothers. If they don’t help, I can organize campaigns for candidates who will help. I can be the superhero my kids know I am.

I still cringe every night I don’t see any coverage of this story on the local or national news. I hope you will, too.

To My Unborn Child(ren): A (Brief) Manifesto

You have yet to meet me. I have known of you for almost 9 months. I have felt your kicks, your hiccups and your movements inside my body. I stare at Jeremy and Bekah's bellybuttons and realize that I am forever connected to them by what seems like an inconsequential thing. I will also be connected to you this way. By the time you enter my hospital room, I will have already been anxious about you, already worried about how you'll fit into the family, already thinking about how those first few months home will go.

I am your mom and I am a broken person. I tend to watch the same shows over and over again. I like to listen to contemplative music when the house is quiet. I prefer the cold to the heat. I have eaten eggs almost every morning for the past few years. I like being up late at night because the house is quiet and I have a chance to be alone with my thoughts. I was fortunate enough to marry my best friend, your father. I cry about things that other people don't find too sad.

I have spent a long time wondering what you will look like. I don't care if you are a boy or a girl; you are already imprinted in my mind and on my heart. I will be your mother until you draw your last breath. There is nothing that you could do to make me stop loving you. Sometimes I may do things that may anger you, but I will do them to protect you. I will discipline you because I want you to feel safe in the boundaries of our home and my love. I am going to make mistakes raising you, of this I am sure. I will be impatient and grumpy sometimes. I may drag my feet to come and feed you in the middle of the night. The mood on my face may not reflect it, but there is a deep and abiding love in my heart for you. I don't want you to ever have to doubt that about me.

I want you to know that you are going to be beautiful no matter how you look. I will gaze upon your face often and reflect on that fact. I will know every contour of your face, of the shape of your ears, where you're ticklish and where you might have gotten a booboo. I will do my best to feed you well, give you baths and smother you with as many kisses as I can manage.

There will be several years during your life that you will feel wonky. You will want me to hug you, but won't ask for a hug because you're too cool. I will respect the space between us, but know that I am always going to want to give you some affection. You will not know how to talk to me about difficult subjects. I confess I may not want to discuss difficult subjects. But I will pray for wisdom; I will do my best to listen without prejudice and give you advice or information or just be quiet. I hope that you are able to bring things to me. I hope that you are able to feel my love for you, even when the emotional chasm between us is great.

I want you to know that the world is full of broken people. You are going to meet a lot of them, like most of them and love a few of them. All people have infinite worth. I have found that those whom I can't stand the most are most like me. Pray over difficult people. Ask God to help them. Ask God for good things to happen to them. Give them the benefit of the doubt and a polite smile, even if just the sight of them makes you want to travel to the other side of the room.

Try as hard as you can to start the day smiling, even if you don't feel like it (and there are many mornings that you won't). When you are at the end of your emotional rope, go to sleep. Things always look better in the morning. Nothing good happens after 10 PM, so make sure you're where you're going to be for the night at that point (and then stay there). Pray for humility so that if you have had to much to drink, you can hand over the keys or take a taxi. Peace breeds peace, so avoid people who speak angrily or seem ready to fight at any moment. Try to be kind to everyone you meet; even a small act of kindness for a stranger can have a profound effect.

Jeremy and Bekah are excited to meet you, too. They are little, though, so you should know that their moods are capricious and they are not yet able to express everything well. They might not always have kind things to say about you. Just you being with me will make them jealous. They will not now how to handle such a little person, so you may be poked and prodded. You may have too many toys dumped on top of you. You may get a lot of kisses one moment and a scowl the next. They are broken people too, but they will also be connected to you because I'm their Mommy. You will have a long time to figure out how to best relate to them. Watch them as much as you can, because they're funny. They like to run around and chase each other. They like to give lots of kisses and hugs to me (for the moment). They get jealous of each other. They like silly shows and Jeremy especially enjoys watching the same shows over and over again. They're quirky, but I'm sure they will be good at being big brother and big sister.

You have two dogs, Scout and Rascal. Scout is very needy and she's not going to be sure what to do with herself when you get home. When I am nursing you, she will be sitting very close to me. She likes to have her belly scratched. She wanders around the neighborhood when she feels like we aren't paying enough attention to her. She eats food and loves to give sloppy kisses to everyone. Rascal, on the other hand, is afraid of his shadow. He will probably be terrified of you for at least the first 2 years of your life. He likes to have the black spot on his back (near his tail) scratched. He also likes to scavenge for food, but he is less likely to cover you with sloppy kisses.

Little one, I can't wait for you to come and meet me. I can feel you wedged under my ribcage right now. It's not the most comfortable thing in the world, but at least I know you're there. I've probably left a lot of things out here, but I feel like this is a good start. Until then.....

My Bexa Bex

I have not spent my whole life dreaming about being married and having kids. In fact, it was quite the opposite. I really dreamed about becoming a lifetime student, getting my Ph.D. and writing a book of poetry that was not a best-seller but was well-respected. I eschewed most things about being a girl; I didn't particularly care for dolls, makeup or dress-up. I had long hair for many years, but when I was in 4th grade, my mom got tired of fighting me to maintain it and had it all chopped off. To compound matters, I decided to wear a baseball cap almost every day that year. I became so used to wearing my baseball cap that I sometimes forgot that I had it on. I remember being on the soccer field and having people waving at me from the sidelines, telling me to take it off. For these reasons, my mom allowed me to get my ears pierced, but this really didn't stop most people from calling me "son" or "buddy" or some other derivative.

Fast forward to being a grown-up and I still wasn't one dreaming about having kids. I did obsess about being married for a few years, but to be fair I went to a small, private university where everyone was getting married, talking about getting married or getting ready to get married. I was fighting a rising tide of it and I got sucked in. Later, after I transferred, those thoughts drained from my head. I still didn't like to wear makeup (I've probably worn it on a total of 3 months' worth of days in my life), dressed in mainly t-shirts and jeans and was one of those scarily competitive people when it came to sports. This didn't mean I didn't like boys; I did, very much. I just didn't really excel at being a girl.

When I got married, I still wasn't sure I wanted to have kids. In fact, I swore up and down that I wouldn't have any. I was happy living in my two bedroom condo with my two dogs and my husband. I had time to do whatever I wanted when I wanted. I came and went as I pleased. Brian and I had a plan; we were going to be married a few years and then start trying to conceive. This would give us an opportunity to be married, go on vacations, etc. Then one Friday night in October of 2006, he came home with a dreamy look on his face. He had been hanging out with some of his male friends and their young children. He sat down on the bed in our guest room and talked to me while I played on the computer. He asked me if I wanted to have a baby. I said, no, we have a plan, let's stick to the plan. The truth was, the idea had started to occur to me more frequently, but I thought it was a trick question so I just kept saying no. After like the fifth time he asked me, I sheepishly admitted that I had been thinking about it. "Aha," he said, "I knew it. You want to divert from the plan." (It should be noted that Brian likes to have plans and that these plans customarily are set in stone. This is why I had not said anything to his accusations about me wanting to have kids two years before we were planning to start trying.)

At this point, I threw up my hands. I told him that he was the one who had been pressing the issue and I finally agreed just to get him off my back. From that point on, though, he smugly declared that it was my idea to have kids, not his. We decided within the next few minutes a boy's name and a girl's name. Jeremy Ryan and Rebekah Ann were the first and only names we picked out for the two children we now have. Our plan was to start trying in December of that year. I thought, good, this will give me some additional time to lose weight and get in shape. Everyone told me it took a few months or so before conceiving. I figured I had time to ease into the idea. Wrong. We conceived the first time we tried.

I will jump ahead in the narrative so I can make my point before Friday. Having Jeremy convinced me that I would be a really good boy mom. I knew little to nothing about dolls, makeup, dress-up, really anything girly or prissy. I fantasized about having all boys and how muss-free that would be. When we got pregnant again, though, I started to see the color pink more--and think it was really pretty. I began noticing dolls in the toy stores. I realized that boy clothes aren't really as much fun as girl clothes. There's more selection for girls and there are frilly dresses and tights and black patent Mary Janes. So when I found out that Bekah was going to be our second child, I was not sad. I was excited to meet her.

As much as Jeremy was punctual and gradual in his arrival, Bekah arrived like a roaring freight train. The Wednesday before she was born, our dog Scout ran away from home. She has a tendency to feel sorry for herself if she's not getting enough attention and takes it out on us by running away. It was a cold night in January, but I grabbed my coat and walked around the block twice, yelling out for her, knocking on people's doors and generally losing my mind that something had happened to her. I even enlisted our neighbor's help in trying to find her. Finally, I gave up. I called the police department to get animal control's number and they told me they had found her.

Three days later, I spent an obscene amount of money at Babies R Us. For both of my pregnancies, I have had irrational concerns about things the baby might not have. For Jeremy, it was blankets. I was convinced he wouldn't have enough. For Bekah, it was hats. And I didn't think she should have to sleep on "boy" sheets. So I went to Babies R Us, came home, dumped the stuff in her bedroom and went to bed. The next morning, while I was talking to a friend at church, I felt something inside my body snap. I can't describe it, but at that moment I knew I was in labor. It manifested itself as a nasty stomach flu, so I spent most of my day (Super Bowl Sunday) running back and forth to the bathroom. I got Brian to take me to the hospital, but they sent me home saying all I had was the stomach flu. I slept fitfully on the couch while the game was on. I couldn't get comfortable and it felt like I was having contractions, but they were different than the ones I had with Jeremy.

Finally, I couldn't take it anymore. I called my parents and told them we were headed back to the hospital. My mom called us en route to tell us that Bekah wasn't supposed to come until Tuesday, which was much more convenient for her to take off from school. Brian, in the calmest voice I've ever heard him use, basically told my mom that he would take that under advisement but that there wasn't a whole lot he could do.

I had planned to have an epidural, as I did with Jeremy. By the time I got to the hospital, though, I was very dehydrated and 5 cm dilated. The nurse hung the first bag of fluids and said I had to have two bags before I could get the epidural. I watched the slow drip into my IV and knew that wasn't going to happen. A couple of hours later, the doctor literally walked in, had the nurse help him put his gown on, slipped on his gloves and caught Bekah as she was coming out. A few seconds later and Brian would have had to deliver her himself.

I have commented on how I feel children's birth stories mimic their eventual personality. Bekah is as wild as Jeremy is reserved. She prefers to be naked most of the time; he hardly likes to be naked for baths. She likes to get dirty, eats any kind of food you put in front of her and is stubborn as a mule. She is a daredevil (and I think she's taught some of that to her brother). She has been very opinionated since I met her. She also loves to shop (something that just escapes me). We were walking through a JC Penney once and she stopped in the jewelry department and was touching everything. She was just amazed by how many sparkly things there were (it even drew comments from the ladies working in that department).

She is a tomboy--she likes to be outside, she likes any form, size or shape of water, doesn't mind digging in the mud and likes to collect rocks and sticks. She is also a girly girl--she received a sparkly pair of shoes for her birthday and dropped everything to run over and put them on. I can usually coax her into getting dressed by showing her the pretty outfit I have picked out for her. Jeremy had to be convinced to dig into his cake on his first birthday; there was so much icing in the tub after Bekah had at her cake that I had to wash the bathtub twice. She loves animals in all shapes and sizes, but she will also run over to my mom if she sees her putting on Chapstick and demand some as well. She is very athletic and agile. It can sometimes take us a while to catch her in the house because she stops on a dime and turns in a way that's just amazing. I had people commenting to me a few weeks ago that she should be in soccer already because of how she was handling a soccer ball. She loves to flip and jump and find out different ways she can manipulate her body.

In short, I think she is the perfect girl. She is the perfect combination of girl and tomboy. I love her fiercely and for every time I tell her I think she's pretty, I tell her she's also smart and funny and lovely in general. I want her to grow up knowing that she's not just a pretty face. I want her to know that you can be a girl and still like sports and getting dirty and being opinionated. I am baffled by how much I enjoy looking at girl's clothes and I agonize over how to put her outfits together. I can't find an outfit for her that she doesn't look cute in, but I want to make sure I enhance how cute she is with her clothes. I try, as much as possible, to equal out my affection with her and Jeremy. I give her lots of kisses and tickle her and flip her and read to her. She is already a chatterbox (although she goes mute when we leave the house) and I enjoy having conversations with her.

In my wildest dreams, I never imagined wanting to have kids, let alone a daughter. Now, I can't imagine my life any other way!!

M-A-T-T

To be fair, any embarrassing stories I share about my brother could be countered by as many about me. I mention that because I'm sure he'll read this and cry foul. Please reference "Baby, You Should Drive My Car" for a primer on embarrassing Sue moments.

My brother will be 30 in August. We are three and a half years apart, almost to the day. I will swear up and down until I'm carried home that I wanted a baby sister, but now I know there's really very little control over what happens in that department. I vaguely remember my mom being pregnant, mostly from pictures and anecdotes. I know she craved vanilla ice cream with him (something that she still loves). She had preeclampsia while she was pregnant with Matt and had to be on bed rest. This I don't really recall, but I know it because she's mentioned it many times.

In the beginning, I am told that I loved my brother so much my mom had to put him in protective custody (the playpen). My mom tells me he cried for six months; I think it was colic but I'm not sure. As a small child, my brother was incredibly outgoing and mischievous. I stayed in my crib until I was too big for it; I would wait in the morning until my mom came and got me, or I would get out and immediately crawl into bed with my mom and dad. My brother, however, was well known for getting out of his crib and sneaking around like a ninja. For years, my dad would go to Weber's Bakery to buy birthday cakes for us. One year, when my brother must have been almost 2, we enjoyed some cake for my mom's birthday and went to bed. My parents knew about Matt's ninja skills, so they placed the rest of the cake on top of the refrigerator. We all went to bed. In the morning, I went to get my mom and dad and we all walked into the kitchen. There was a chair pulled up to the counter and on the ground was my brother, up to his elbows in the upturned cake.

There are pictures of me under my Snoopy umbrella, trying to protect myself from Matt's slobbering. He once flushed an entire roll of toilet paper down the toilet. He broke his arm at 18 months of age, we suspect from a botched escape from his crib. He liked to sleep with his butt up in the air, rocking on his head--he would wake up every morning looking like a rooster. I loved my brother back then, but mostly I was annoyed by him. He was born around the time Adam Walsh disappeared, and so whenever we travelled anywhere my mom used a plastic telephone cord (with wrist wraps on both ends) to keep track of him. He liked to walk up to anyone, stranger or not, and say hello. I was much more likely to stay hidden behind my mom, too petrified to talk to even relatives. He liked to watch TV while riding on a bouncy horse and would do it incessantly.

Later, he became known in our household for being a bit obsessive. The first Christmas we had a camcorder, my dad set it up in the corner and literally taped 4 hours of Christmas. My brother must have watched that tape 200 times, and I am not exaggerating. We would find him watching it over and over and over. He watched Alice in Wonderland that way and Lucky Luke and, over one summer, The Weather Channel. (This was before the Weather Channel had shows--he was just watching the weather forecast, over and over again.) Whenever we checked into a hotel, he would obsessively watch the hotel information channel. He found something he liked and for the next several months afterwards, that's all he would do. This happened with Dinosaurs, Garfield, Legos and eventually video games.

As we grew older, his cuteness wore off. When we moved from Belvidere to Streamwood, we attended a small church. We would usually sit in the front couple of rows during the sermon. The pastor would ask rhetorical questions, like "who among us hasn't struggled with such-and-such." My brother would sometimes raise his hand (and sometimes not) to answer the pastor's question. Out loud. While the sermon was still going on. I would turn a distinct shade of red and fantasize about the gymnasium floor opening up and swallowing me whole. He wore glasses for a while but would always forget them. My mom once picked him up from the library and noticed that he had forgotten his glasses. She sent him right back into the library to find them. He came back with a very odd-looking pair of glasses. Apparently, he had found the Lions bin of donated glasses and picked one out for himself.

And then I turned to torturing my little brother. My favorite happened in department stores. We would go shopping with my mom and he would see the Ladies' Underwear department (as he called it) from afar. He would get grossed out, especially if we had to go shopping for my mom in that department. I would tell him to close his eyes and I would tell him when we were either past the department or to a point where it was "safe" to open his eyes. Most of the time, I would wait until we were in the middle of the department and make him open his eyes. He would groan and yell at me, and then shut his eyes again. The funny thing is, this happened multiple, multiple times. He would ask me to protect him and then I would betray him.

Even funnier was playing Super Mario Bros. with him. We would play together for hours. For those in the know, when Mario touched a star, he became invincible for a brief time. On multiple occasions, I convinced him that Mario was still invincible even after the star wore off. It never failed-he would believe me and try to run into an enemy and immediately lose a life. He would get so angry at me as I sat there laughing at him.

We were also well known for our fights. They would start off benign but after a while we would get mad and be out for blood. My mom would eventually have to step in to make sure we didn't do serious harm. I think he took this fighting to heart, though, because he is now a second-degree black belt. At the age of 33, I don't usually try to mess with him anyway but knowing this gives me pause even for the most casual blow to the shoulder.

My brother was also famous for his homemade jokes. I can't remember any of them because they were quite lame, but I can tell you he thought they were hilarious. There wasn't a Scholastic book with the title "101 Best Jokes" that he didn't own. We uncovered some of them recently while cleaning out his room and had a giggle. Our family's sense of humor is slightly twisted and we discovered The Far Side when I was younger. Matt would "read" us Far Side comics from the back of the car on long road trips. I suggest you try that if you can't see why it would be so funny.

I watch Bekah and Jeremy now and I see how much they love each other and look out for each other. I don't know if I was like that with Matt ever. I feel like I spent a lot of time caught up with me, which is probably true but then I could have been very affectionate with him and forgotten about it. My mom said he was always lovey-dovey with her, but aside from him slobbering on me, we have never been much for hugs and kisses. It's just been within the past few years that we hug each other often, say we love each other and (gasp) give each other a peck on the cheek.

He is now the introvert of the family. My mom, dad and I will carry conversations for hours with minimal interaction from my brother. If you ask me a question, I will answer you in half-hour segments; if you ask my brother a question, you may get a few mumbled sentences. Most of the time you can be talking right to him and he will have no idea; he will have been nodding along with you but not really listening. He isn't known for sharing openly and my mom, dad and I have to conference with each other to get the full picture of what's going on with him. Usually, he'll tell me one part and my parents another. Once we have had a chance to talk to each other, we can finally make heads or tails out of what's going on with him. I finally had to sit him down and order him to call our mother once a week. He didn't understand why this was such a big deal; in his mind, he had nothing new to say so why should he call? I tried to explain (as patiently as I could) that our mom simply wanted to hear his voice and hear that he's okay. I think he finally took that advice to heart. He has a kind and tender heart, but he struggles with how to articulate all of those feelings. His favorite medium for conversation is e-mails or online chat because he can edit himself and take the time to construct cogent sentences. We often comment that he really is the "engineer" type.

A few years ago, he got tired of all of us bossing him around and decided to join the Navy. Yes, there is some irony in that sentence. Since I've been together with Brian, Matt was given the nickname "The Saint." It still seems at times like my brother can do no wrong and I can do nothing right. It seems like he's my parents' favorite, although he will swear that I'm the one receiving the favor. He is still brilliant but mostly clueless. Ask him about a nuclear reactor on a sub (that's where he serves) and he will talk circles around you. Ask him what he thinks about your home decor choices and expect to hear crickets. He has struggled to find a mate and for a while I thought it didn't bother him. Lately, though, he has started dating someone and I am hopeful that he won't be a confirmed bachelor.

Our relationship has changed from being contentious to one of mentor/mentee. There was a lot of healing when I made amends to him several years ago. I had to confess that I had taken money from him on several occasions (to which he replied, 'oh, I wondered where that money had gone'). Since that point, we have slowly grown closer. He calls me more often than he ever has before. He is in love with both of my kids and flew us all out to California last summer for a vacation. He and Jeremy especially are thick as thieves; he is in  town now for a week and when Jeremy heard about this he said, "Uncle Matt comes to our house to play blocks." He is a good uncle to my babies, spoiling them and also looking out for their future. He has helped us out of a few financial scrapes and has always been willing to watch the kids whenever he's in town.

There are parts of his story I won't tell because that's for him to share. He is an amazing man now, someone I respect immensely. He has always been better at managing money than I. I would barely have a few nickels to my name and he would have a healthy balance in his bank account. He is driving a car now that he bought a year or two before he joined the Navy. He drives with the windows down because running the A/C costs too much money. He has simple tastes and I'm hoping his new girl will eventually take him to task over his wardrobe, which leans toward 3 Stooges t-shirts and blue jeans. He has participated in triathlons and running races. He still plays video games (I think), but has recently cut way back on that as well. As a navigator, he's clueless. He could get lost going from one side of town to another. Our conversations continue to be a bit one-sided, although we had a lovely conversation the other night.

I only have one sibling. I have no perspective on siblings aside from my own. I know that sibling relationships change over time. My mom and uncle have never been that close; my dad barely speaks to his three surviving brothers. My grandma, on the other hand, is still close with her two sisters. I know that it's tough to share DNA with someone but seem to have nothing else in common. I have watched my brother over the years grow from awkward boy into an awkward (but slightly more confident) man. He is ever changing, just like our relationship. I had to share some advice with him today and I don't know how he took it. I felt it's gotten to the point where I need to be the protective older sister rather than the one who tricks him into opening his eyes in the middle of Ladies' Underwear. I hope he can understand that the advice came from a place of love.  I'm not perfect; I still get jealous of him. I still feel like he gets preferential treatment. But the twinges of jealousy are fewer and far between; they have been replaced by far greater twinges of pride.

I wonder what I'll write about next.....

The Aftermath

We have been home from the hospital for two days; this is our third night of everyone sleeping in their own beds. I would like to say Jeremy's head is better, but looking at it all I see is a mass; I have no medical degree and therefore no way to evaluate if it's better or worse. I don't know if it hurts him because he won't say. He doesn't like to take any medication orally, so that's been a twice-daily fight. The combination of these things has been chipping away at the happiness of being home. I feel like I know no more than I did when we drove away from Good Shepherd on Saturday. I continue to feel guilty about having neglected Bekah so much last week. I am sleep-deprived and despondent. I can't remember anyone's names and am still impatient with my children.

I feel like I am in the middle of a vast ocean, wearing expectations like a bulky sweater. I am trying desperately to tread water, but the weight of my expectations keeps me from being able to catch my breath. It is exhausting both mentally and physically, trying to continue with my daily household and family duties and also make sure my head is above water. I feel bad that I can't be at rest; that the Sisyphus-ian task of doing laundry and cleaning and straightening keeps peacefulness and serenity just out of my reach. I have been at a loss as to how to deal with my son. We all sleep in our own beds in our house, but I have heard him cry out over the past few nights. I can't decide if I should get him and suffer through a bad night's sleep or leave him, wrap myself up in the heavy blanket of guilt I keep at the foot of my bed and try to get rest myself.

I am overheated more and I think that's hormones, but it's uncomfortable and cloying. I am craving something sweet but don't know what that is. I feel disconnected from humanity because we continue to be on isolation. I am not sure when Jeremy's wound will heal and that's frustrating. He wants to go play with his friends, to go to "Burger Plain" (Burger King), to be outside. I keep trying to tell him we can't because he doesn't feel well, but I've said it so much lately it is starting to sound like I'm just giving him the brush-off. I know I should go out, meet someone for coffee and just cry or ask them or how doing. These are things that would help me shake this icky feeling, but the more I stay inside, the more I don't want to leave. I am writing because I don't want to and that feels like a small step in the right direction.

Brian is coping by throwing himself into the sea of information about Japan. He tells me it keeps him distracted from our own troubles. My dad told me today about a clients' family and it reminded me to be grateful. The truth is, though, that even though I know things could be worse, I only am living in my experience. I only know the quiet desperation of not even being able to go to the bathroom by myself. These small things seem trivial and I know that, but they are the things that exasperate me more than any others. I am tired of people telling me that someday I will miss not having my kids around. I am sure that's the case, but it doesn't mean it's not okay for me to hate having to travel around the house with an entourage.

It's 8 PM and all I want to do is go to bed and sleep until morning, but that won't happen. I will be up around 2 AM, hungry and disoriented and overheated. I just want the opportunity to be away from these feelings for a while, but the swirl in my brain seeps into my dreams. Sleep isn't a respite when I dream about the things that keep me awake. I have watched only a little of the coverage of Japan's disaster. I feel sad when I know that there are so many loved ones that will simply never be found. I can relate to the survivors, walking through the wreckage of their former towns. The look in their eyes is familiar to me; it is shock, fear and disorientation. I know the look because that's what I see when I am brushing my teeth. I know the look because that's how I have wandered around my house; lost and confused, unsure of where to start to clean up and unable to complete tasks from start to finish. Sometimes, the aftermath is even more devastating than the disaster.

I wonder what I'll write about next....

Emptiness

I don't feel like I have any words that can illuminate the human condition today. It was a very draining day. I had to give Jeremy another "special" bath today. It involves sitting him in the tub, no toys, with warm water. I have to pour hydrogen peroxide over his head wound, let it sit and then rinse with warm water. This is under the direction of a physician, but I can assure you I feel like Dr. Mengele. In addition, because he has thick, long hair and freaks out at the mention of a haircut, I did my best to peel some of the hair off the wound and cut it. I wish I could have taped him because it would be enough to make even the toughest man cry. I ended up in a heap in my upstairs hallway, sobbing and holding him and apologizing profusely. Then I had to chase him around downstairs to give him his antibiotics (which are giving him diarrhea) and some ibuprofen for the pain. To top it off, I had to apply an ointment to his head wound. He is slightly bald-looking in that area, but I'm sure it will grow back in.

I broke down and asked Brian to help me take him to the doctor tomorrow. I hate to ask him to take time off because his boss always gives him a hard time. It makes no sense, as Brian is straight salary and it shouldn't matter when he takes off, but such is the way of life. I just couldn't see myself holding Jeremy down so his doctor can examine him. I am emotionally a wreck about the whole thing and that was my other concern; that I would just start sobbing uncontrollably in the doctor's office and have no one to drive the kids home. I can't guarantee that Brian won't cry, but I will at least have him there for moral support. I am dreading taking Jeremy in. My emotional health is so fragile right now. I am sore still from having to restrain him on Saturday; in addition, Bekah has decided she's a paraplegic and needs to be carried everywhere. I need to be firmer with her about it but just can't right now.

I saw someone at Corner Bakery sitting by themselves and reading a book. I was so, so jealous. I feel like lately I am unable to be away from my kids. I am at the point where I just can't handle any more illness in our house. I feel like I'm deep in the pit right now; not only do I feel like people aren't up at the top waiting to pull me out, I feel like I can't be pulled out because I'm so weighed down in caring for these two little people.

Additionally, we have to be in court on Thursday morning for the bankruptcy. I am anxious because I'm not sure how the logistics will work out. I want to leave Jeremy at daycare with his sister. My fear is that the doctor will say he shouldn't be around other kids until his head wound clears up. If that's the case, we will be dragging my 3 1/2-year-old to Rockford to wait for an indeterminate amount of time in a place that's not kid-friendly. I know that being anxious won't solve my problems, but that's emotionally where I'm at.

Hmm, I'm just a ray of sunshine today, huh?

I wonder what I'll write about next....

Little Lion Man

Jeremy was born on time. He arrived at 6:42 PM on a Thursday night, an hour before kick-off for the first game of the NFL season that year. He was due that Saturday and I had an appointment scheduled with my OB/GYN the following Monday in case he hadn't come yet. Everything about his birth was completely normal; as a parent, that's absolutely the best thing you can hear. He started nursing almost immediately after being born and we did well together with that. Emotionally, it was rough for me. I ran a fever that night in the hospital and after it broke, I sweated profusely for what seemed like forever. I couldn't sleep and was anxious that if I did fall asleep, I would miss him coming back to be nursed. I had to share a room with a complete stranger. Essentially, I was in a bed with a curtain pulled around me. Brian wasn't able to stay with me because there was no room. I was a wreck and couldn't get out of the hospital soon enough.

At about 5 weeks old, I started noticing that Jeremy was sleeping a lot. It would have caused me concern except I was just so grateful to be catching up on my rest. One Friday night he slept from 5 PM until the following morning, without getting up to nurse. I did call my pediatrician that next morning and express concern. He told me that sometimes newborns sleep a lot. We also started noticing that Jeremy would fuss when we picked him up rather than when we put him down. He started looking pale but mainly, he was sleeping a lot.

Wednesday morning, October 10th, I woke up with Brian. I hadn't heard Jeremy wake up in the middle of the night and figured I would get up to check on him. He was not interested in nursing and again, was very pale. I was sitting on my loveseat and I caught a glimpse of him as Brian walked back to take a shower. I asked Brian to turn on the light and I looked at my son. He didn't look right. He felt cold and was lethargic. We did what we thought we should; we called the pediatrician's office to have him paged and took Jeremy's temperature. It was 93. I figured it had to be a malfunction with the thermometer, so I tried again. Nope, 93. At that moment, I called 911.

I wish I could say the rest of the morning was a blur, but it's still clear as day. By God's grace we literally lived around the corner from the fire station. They were at our condo in minutes. They transported Jeremy to Northwest Community Hospital. When they got him to the hospital, it was a frenzy of activity. I still remember him lying on an adult-sized bed in the ER. He was under a warming lamp. He had little gauze pads with little bits of blood on them laying all around him. He had monitors on his chest and they eventually intubated him. I learned later from my uncle (who is a doctor) that intubating a child of that age is a very grave thing. The chaplain came to talk to us and offer words of comfort. My parents got to the hospital, but I was the only one who could manage to stand next to the hospital bed. I kept telling Jeremy I loved him, that everything was going to be okay. It was surreal, but at the same time I was very present for all of the bustle that was going on around him.

To put things in perspective, I will share some of his stats from that day. His heart rate was over 290 beats per minute. Normal heart rate for an infant of his age was 130-140. An adult human's blood pH is 7.4. When it reaches 7.1, that person is typically in a coma. Jeremy's was 6.8. When we later met his cardiologist, he said that if I had not called 911 when I did, Jeremy would have been dead within 2 hours. Sitting here at the computer, I am very aware that 2 hours is nothing. My son was 2 hours away from death. I had just welcomed him into the world and was 120 minutes away from having to say goodbye to him.

Jeremy's heart has two problems. There is structural damage; the left tricuspid valve is leaky. That condition is called Ebstein's Anomaly. He has a very mild case of that. There is also faulty circuitry in his heart. That condition is called Wolff-Parkinson White. Think of a house with all the electrical wiring in it. Everything seems fine, but there's one outlet that shorts every time you plug something into it. Basically, this circuitry caused Jeremy's heart to start beating extra fast. His body was working hard to counteract this effect and that's why he was so tired (and also why he fussed when being picked up-his chest hurt because his heart was going like a machine gun). Because of his poor condition, they estimate that his heart had been beating fast for several days. I had the opportunity to listen to his heart (later) when he was in SVT (supraventricular tachycardia). There is no way to discern individual heartbeats--it really does sound like machine gun fire or perhaps a drumroll. It's very hard to describe, but I can assure you that I love nothing better now than to feel the slow, steady beat of Jeremy's heart when he's cuddling with me.

The resolution to these two conditions varies depending on the severity of the symptoms. The Ebstein's Anomaly was so minor that they didn't feel like he needed surgical intervention. The WPW was a bit more severe; we were initially given a prescription and sent home. Less than a week later, we were treated to another ER visit and a week-long hospital stay. Our electrophysiologist, a lovely man who wears his lab coat like a cape, told us he didn't want to do an RFA (radiofrequency ablation) on someone so tiny if it could be avoided. From that discharge on and for the next year, we gave Jeremy two different medicines three times a day (we had to sneak into his room at night to give him a dose--luckily, Brian was a ninja in a former life).

Through all of this, Jeremy was absolutely a champ. He charmed all the nurses, smiled at everyone who came into his room and generally was just his cute self. My favorite granddad/grandson moment happened during this period also. During the first hospitalization, they didn't allow him to eat for 2 days. For a breastfeeding mother, this might as well have been 2 years. I was beside myself and didn't feel like I could comfort him well because I knew he'd want to nurse. My dad took time off of work and spent the entire day standing with Jeremy next to his bed, singing "Jesus Loves Me." I'm not exaggerating. The entire day. It was an amazing sight.

A year later, I was set to go on vacation with my parents to Pennsylvania. My dad, who is always antsy to get on the road, came over the morning we were supposed to leave. I told him that Jeremy was still sleeping. He went in to check on him and immediately, we knew something was wrong. Jeremy was just lying in his crib, looking up at us with those beautiful brown eyes of his, sucking his thumb. He was cold and clammy. We called 911, he got treated to another ambulance ride and another ER. This time though, for a special treat, he was sent on a Flight for Life helicopter from NIMC in McHenry to Lutheran General in Park Ridge.

It turned out that one of the side effects of his medications was an occasional dangerous drop in blood sugar. We were hoping he wouldn't have to have the RFA until just before his third birthday, but this sped up our timetable. At 13 months old, we drove him early one morning down to Lutheran General. He hadn't eaten, but was mostly peaceful for the ride. When we got to the hospital, he was put into a hospital gown, an IV was started and we all loved on him. Dr. Ovadia (his cape-wearing electrophysiologist) came to tell us that the anesthesiologist was going to give Jeremy a mild sedative before they took him away. This would cause him to go to sleep so that he wouldn't be crying as they led him away.

As an aside, I have seen them administer this particular drug to both my husband and my mother. In both instances, it rendered them unconscious almost immediately. Jeremy, on the other hand, was given a second dose. The anesthesiologist then told us he just had the normal dose for an adult. His head lolled, but he fought through it. They carried him away and he was crying. It was heartbreaking. It was not the first time I realized my son was really a lion in a boy's body.

Today was the second time. Last week, he was at his tumbling class (for toddlers, nothing like Olympic-preparedness training). Like a good 3 1/2-year-old, he was upset about some perceived injustice and decided he didn't want to listen to his instructors. I didn't realize because Brian hadn't mentioned it, but at some point he hit his head on the parallel bars. He cried, but Brian saw nothing that would point to a serious head injury. Please understand, Jeremy spends a lot of time on the ground. We lovingly call him the "absent-minded professor" because he gets so involved in what he's doing that he doesn't pay attention to his surroundings. Hitting his head on the parallel bars was not something unusual, so Brian didn't get too alarmed.

This past Wednesday, Jeremy was sitting on my lap and I realized there was a hug bump on his head. What's more, it was a scabbed-over bump. I was horrified and immediately called Brian, who then relayed the parallel bars incident. I typically know what to do in these situations but when I am pregnant, my radar gets jammed. I talked it over with Brian and we decided that we would just watch and see. Over the next few days, it didn't improve but it didn't get worse either. Today, we decided we would take him in to immediate care just to have it evaluated. First, they determined that he has a double ear infection. Second, they had to wash off the wound. They initially just used saline, but then switched to hydrogen peroxide. My dad held him to his chest and I had to stand behind my dad and hold each of Jeremy's arms and pull so that he wouldn't interfere with the nurse or the doctor. It was excruciating to watch his little face as they cleaned him off and to participate. I felt like the worst mom ever. 

A couple of hours later, though, and you would have never known it had happened. My little lion man was joking with his sister and acting like nothing had happened. Unfortunately, I had to give him a special bath with more peroxide tonight. Hated every minute of it. He wasn't fond of it, but afterwards, during the real bath, he pleaded with Bekah to stay in the tub with him just a bit longer. He let us know how he thought the rest of the evening should go, then got out and ran around naked with his sister. 

There is nothing worse than having to see your child in pain except for having to inflict pain to hasten healing. I have been in the position to do both. I didn't like either. Through all of this Jeremy has proven to me that it's not the size of the man that determines bravery; it's the size of the heart in the man. Luckily, God saw fit to give him a lion-sized heart.

I wonder what I'll write about next....

Baby, You Should Drive My Car

My dad woke me up early one Saturday morning in September. I was 16 1/2, back when I was still measuring halves, so early meant before 2 P.M. He informed me that we would be going to the DMV so I could get my license. I pulled my hair into a ponytail and looked for a clean shirt. My first drivers' license picture is testament to the fact that I had probably stayed up late the night before. I had been delayed in getting my license because I carried a full load of classes and orchestra, which meant I had no time during the school year to take drivers' ed. I took it during the summer; a fairly painful experience with Mike Rogowski (who was also the athletic director) and, as fate would have it, with an ex-boyfriend. Mr. Rogowski was a very austere man. He would bark out orders at us like "make a lane change when traffic allows," then grip the steering wheel so that we wouldn't drift into the other lane when we checked over our shoulder. He was very intimidating. Way back then, there was no log that had to be kept. I was not required to drive in different weather conditions. I didn't have to drive a certain amount of hours. I was not mandated to drive at night. (This information will become important later in the story.)

The driving test was more simple than I thought it would be. The tester took me around Elgin's finer sights. I had to make left-hand turns, right-hand turns, back up for about 20 feet and make lane changes. All in all, a fairly easy endeavour. I was ecstatic when I received my license on the first try and drove home with my dad riding shotgun. I was now free (or so I thought). I am happy to report that in the years since, what is to follow must have become a cautionary tale for stricter licensing procedures.

My first car was my dad's blue Honda Civic. I loved it. It was a beater car but it ran well and didn't cost an arm and a leg to gas up. I was proud to be able to drive to school and drive myself home from swim practice and to all sorts of other places. I should mention that this car was a manual transmission. My dad insisted that I should learn how to drive one. He took me into a corporate campus near our house and we practiced--clutch, shift, gas...I did take a few turns into parking lots in fourth gear but all in all, I did pretty well. I started being the one who could help people avoid the humiliation of a bus ride home. It didn't make me hugely popular, but it did increase my friend base a bit.

I totalled my dad's Civic on a rainy day. I was headed to see my doctor and the road was slick. I was coming down a hill and the overpass blocked my view of a Cadillac sitting at the stop light. I slammed on the brakes and all that did was make a sickening sound and have me slide with a large crash into the back of the Cadillac. Owing to the Civic's body style, I basically ended up underneath the Cadillac. The damage to that car was minimal. Mine, on the other hand, looked like an accordion. In that moment, I was not worried about the other driver or anything else; I was worried about the wrath of my father. Even though the entire front end of the car was smashed, I was hysterically crying and trying to fix the back seat. I remember there being a policeman there but I think owing to my state of mind, he never issued me a ticket.

I am a little hazy on the sequence of next cars. I am pretty sure after that I drove a little Honda hatchback. My biggest problem with that car was that I was constantly locking myself out of it (while running). I finally acquiesced to my dad's suggestion to hide a key under the car; he was tired of having to drive all over to deliver the spare key from home. It was structurally a very sound car and it lasted me for a while.

I also drove my dad's red Escort for a while. My parents were in Mexico and had asked a family friend to babysit me. My brother was gone somewhere, too, I think to Pennsylvania to see my grandparents. I was in charge of his paper route. I pulled into my neighbor's driveway to deliver his paper and, of course, locked the keys in the car (while running). He helped me slim jim it open, but from that point on, you had to roll the window down in order to open the car door from the outside. The most significant event in this car happened in downtown Carpentersville. I had been feeling the car shimmy for a couple of days. I kept meaning to mention it to my dad, but for one reason or another kept missing him or crossing paths or something. That particular day I had gone to Spring Hill Mall for something. When I was walking to my car, the thought crossed my mind to check the lugnuts on the wheels. At my dad's insistence, I had learned to change a flat tire and the oil, so I knew what to do. I dismissed the thought, got in the car and drove off toward home.

I was passing a large church when the oddest thing happened. I felt the front end of my car fall and bring me to a screeching halt. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the tire from the front of the car careen off into the park across the street. No exaggeration. There I am, on 72, missing a wheel and blocking traffic. I was dumbfounded. A policeman came by to help me block traffic and a man who was in the park brought my tire back. I thought him very kind, but then he informed me that the tire had almost hit his child.  He was actually peeved with me; I guess he thought that I had aimed the tire at his child. To this day, I can't believe that he was so upset with me. I wish I could see him now and assure him that it was never my intention to almost hit his child with the tire from my car.

While standing there, waiting for the tow truck, the policeman pointed out that my license plate sticker had expired. Luckily, he showed me some grace and didn't write me a ticket. When the tow truck arrived, I hoped it would be an easy fix--he could get a couple of lugnuts off of the other tires, put the errant (and apparently, almost murderous) tire back on and have me on my way. Unfortunately, he had to tow me around the corner, which ended up costing me $200 I really didn't have. Thanks very much, Pete's "A" Towing.

Yes, but the coup de gras is even more amazing. I had moved to the south side of Chicago to live with my dad. I was attending Chicago State University and had a final for my basic computing class. For reasons I can't fully remember, I was driving my dad's (newer model) Dodge. I think my hatchback finally gave out, I can't really remember. I had spent the night before at my mom's house in Elgin. That morning, I left for my final, having borrowed money from my brother for gas. I decided I would stop at the ATM before going to my final so I would be able to pay him back that night. I was driving on 59 and turned left onto Bartlett road. I noticed they were doing construction on the shoulder and needed to turn right to go into Dominick's. There were sawhorses out because they had just poured cement. There were two entrances into the parking lot; in front of the one entrance was a space between the sawhorses big enough for a car. I figured that was where I should turn in. I couldn't have been more wrong.

Let me explain what happens when you drive into wet cement. You immediately sink to the bottom. Panicked, I got out of the car and ran across the street to the gas station (this was the same gas station where I had previously-and accidentally- let all of the air of the tires of a rented minivan--I was only trying to help). I asked them to call a tow truck. The poor tow truck operator was up to his elbows in cement trying to get it out. I don't know first-hand, but I was told that when wet cement gets onto your arms and dries it's pretty painful.

There went another $200 in tow truck fees. He towed me someplace where they could fix the tire (wet cement does nothing for car tires). The people there did as much as they could to knock the cement off the bottom of the car, but of course, wet cement is not designed to stay wet. I took it to a car wash where I also tried to have them clean it off. I never told my dad any of this. He did tell me, though, years later, that when he had sold it he did come to find out that there was cement on the underside of the car. Meanwhile, I missed my final and had the distinctly humiliating benefit of having to explain to my professor why I had missed the final.

My next car was a Ford Probe. It was red and had a lot of buttons; my dad joked that when we pulled into the parking lot of the used car dealership there was a spotlight on it. I drove that car until it died. It was very fun to drive, but it had all electronic controls. This is fine when they work. However, for reasons I don't quite understand (it wasn't a simple fuse issue) they all went out. Hence, for the last few months I drove the car I never knew how fast I was going, how many miles I had travelled or how much gas I had in the car. I ran out of gas in the middle of Lake Cook Road and had to ride in a patrol car to get gas for it. One positive about the car was that just about anything would unlock it; I needn't worry about locking my keys in. A quarter, a coat hanger, really any foreign object in the lock would work.

I also owned a Hyundai Accent for a while. It was a great car. It was a manual transmission and had no power windows or other similar upgrades. I left a can of Diet Coke in the cupholder one cold night, though, so for the 4 1/2 more years I owned it, I only had one (of two possible) cupholder spaces. Apparently, I had missed the lesson in science class about what happens to liquid when it freezes. I also got into an accident in that car, but it was only partially my fault. I was able to have it fixed and it ran great for two or three years after that.

Now I own a Honda Odyssey and I have done pretty well with the two we've owned. Well, that was until last December when I totalled the garage door. I guess I should have made sure it was up before I put the van in reverse.

I can guarantee that everything I just wrote about is absolutely true. I wish I had pictures of the car sitting in wet cement. Now I could have put those online and probably made some money. Other than that, the state of Illinois has yet to take away my license. I'm not saying they shouldn't have, I'm just saying they haven't yet.

I wonder what I'll write about next....

Sanity 0, 3-Year-Old 1

I intended to write something about my mom, but today has been exhausting and I never even got out of my pajamas. I will start by saying I've had two significant jobs post-college. First, I worked in a call center at a large benefits management company. I had never worked in a corporate environment before. I had several bosses, varying in attitude and amiability. I was the voice on the other end of the phone. Mostly, I hated it. The job, though, afforded me the ability to get out of a significant amount of irresponsible debt. It allowed me to learn how to act in an office. I gained a lot of experience from working there. I will, however, not ever work in a call center again.

My second significant job was at a retail store. I worked in the scrapbooking department stocking shelves and also manned the registers. I moved up from being a simple worker to the assistant manager. I only had a couple of bosses. The one who hired me was a smooth-talker, and, as it turned out, completely corrupt. He was fired shortly after I was hired. The next manager was quiet and kind and I enjoyed working with him. The people I worked with were slightly off. The customers were always right. I could write an entire blog about the crazy people we dealt with every day. I had one woman come in and return a candleholder. I asked her what was wrong with it. Very placidly she replied that it had broken. I looked up at her and asked her, "I'm sorry, you bought the candle, took it home and it broke, and so now you're coming in to return it?" "Yes," she replied, without even batting an eye. I told her I had to check with my manager before I could accept it for a return. I did, and he told me to allow it because he was afraid she would go home and write an angry letter to corporate about how we had mistreated her. My jaw dropped, but I very calmly went back to the front of the store and, as sweetly as I could muster, process her refund. That is an actual happening; there is no hyperbole in the retelling.

My current boss(es), though, do not hold a candle to the insanity of any of those. Consider that, for the first 15 months of his life Jeremy basically screamed, cried and grunted at me. It sometimes took me a half an hour to discern what it was that was bothering him. He had all sorts of crazy rules for things. All doors had to be closed, even if he was throwing a tantrum. He would literally stop throwing a tantrum, close the door and return to his tantrum. He didn't like anything touching his hands; for a while he carried around two blue Legos (the big ones) that he used to touch everything. I'm not exaggerating. He wasn't even keen on putting his hands in his birthday cake at his first birthday; it bothers him when they are dirty with anything.

In addition to screaming at me for what could last for hours, he pooped his pants (still does). Even when he did start talking, "on" could mean "off," all animals quacked and my dad wasn't allowed to put on his reading glasses. He had to be carried everywhere. His quirkiness has continued into toddlerhood. He asks the same question no less than 10 times; this could be asking me for pretzels for dinner or that I put him in his "bumbo" (his word for booster seat). He likes to watch the same episodes of shows over and over. Last week it was Sesame Street's "Veggies Revolt." This week, it's Sid the Science Kid's "Rainy Day Play Date." We have watched both no less than 30 times. If I use the olive oil and don't put it back in the same spot, he reminds me (repeatedly) until I put it back. He doesn't like any of his food to touch, so he has everything in bowls. We have these little plastic bowls and he can have up to 6 of them in front of him for any meal. He will still only really eat finger food so usually the bowls are filled with pretzels, apple slices, orange slices, grapes, bunny crackers and strawberries. I have to fight to get him to eat any kind of meat product, so normally it's a few torn-up pieces of Oscar Meyer turkey lunch meat. He has started to ask for a fork when he has waffles in the morning.

He must always eat breakfast (really, all meals are breakfast) on his "lion plate." It's a kids' plate with a lion on it. He dictates that his sister gets the ballerina plate. He will frequently ask for me to make him waffles, put on Sid, get him some milk, push him in and get him a fork all at the same time. If I have given him milk but still haven't fulfilled his other requests, he will nag me until they are all complete (all the while, his sister has started making demands of her own and the dogs are antsy to be let outside). He doesn't have an inside voice, so he will shush himself when I tell him he needs to be quiet and then talk again in a normal voice. He is bossy and domineering of me, Brian and Bekah.

The worst part is, I can't escape. There were many times at the retail establishment I would escape to the stockroom (employees only, the door said) to vent about the crazy customers. I had a guy once ask me if we sold kites. I told him we didn't. He didn't believe me, so I called my bosses--they assured me we didn't sell kites. I relayed this information to him only to have him say, "well, if you did carry kites, where would they be?" Nowadays, if I am at my limit at the number of times I've heard "mommy" in any given hour, there is nowhere to go. I have not gone to the bathroom by myself for several years (before Jeremy, Scout and Rascal were my bathroom companions). I can't go upstairs by myself; Jeremy will stand at the bottom of the stairs and ask when I am coming down and Bekah will just fling herself down and cry. This goes on for a quick trip upstairs to retrieve a sock or if I need to brush my teeth and get dressed.

I am not allowed to make phone calls during business hours. Bekah tends to hear me talking on the phone from two rooms away. She will walk over to me, pull herself up on my lap and either pull the phone away from my ear or chatter away, making conversation impossible. Jeremy, on the other hand, stands in front of me and starts making demands for milk or a meal or something infinitely more trivial. No amount of "mommy will be off the phone in a minute" grants me a reprieve. I am not even allowed to fire off an e-mail. If it appears as if I am spending too much time on my iPhone, Bekah will pull herself up on my lap and ask to see the baby (pictures of herself and Jeremy). Jeremy, on the other hand, hijacks it to take random pictures of household items and to play "noises" on Sleep Machine.

Today was no different from any other day. There were several times I would have liked to sent both of them outside, if it weren't for the cold and our poop-laden backyard. Bekah is not feeling well and has developed a set of toddler rules that is strikingly similar to Jeremy's. This puts them at constant odds because if they both lay eyes on a toy at the same time, they both feel they have the right to play with it. Even more, if Jeremy is playing with a toy and Bekah wants it, she throws herself on the ground and protests the injustice of a system whereby a person can't telepathically reserve a toy moments before her brother has grabbed it.

But today was very grey. There was no sunshine, no Bible study to break up the morning and unleash them on other adults for a couple of hours. I had no adult interaction. I had to save Bekah from her brother, who decided he would try to put her Dora toddler bed on top of her during naptime. It was a very lonely day and I felt frustrated that the impetus to motivate Jeremy still eludes me. He looks at me with red-rimmed eyes (replete with dark circles) and tells me he's not tired, even if he's crying over everything and grumpy with his sister. So I put them to bed tonight, stole away to the office and cried for a few minutes. It's maddening to work somewhere as a captive, with nowhere to go and no AFL/CIO help me argue against unfair labor practices. To top it off, I ran to the grocery store, pulled into my spot, turned of the van and realized my wallet was on the counter at home.

The redemption? Jeremy is also the sweetest boss for which I have worked. He will frequently yell out "mommy, mommy, mommy" and when I answer him (with a slightly exasperated tone), he will yell back "I love you." He enters preschool and says hello to everyone he sees. He walked into my in-law's house and said, "I'm Jeremy and this is Betta." (He doesn't do the hard k or c sound yet.) I caught him yesterday trying to zip his sister's coat up all the way. When she is upset, his voice goes into comforting mode and he tells her, "it's otay, Betta." I caught them holding hands in the backseat (both seated in their carseats). He and I play a game where I smother him with kisses and then he wipes them off, only to have me smother him again. He loves all animals and tries to remind Bekah when we go to the petting zoo that she shouldn't put her fingers in the chicken pen (she does it every time and they peck her every time).

Tomorrow is another day. Jeremy will go to preschool (hallelujah) and so Bekah and I will have some time to ourselves, to snuggle or watch something other than Sid. I get to go out tomorrow night, even if I'll be going someplace I don't want to be. I have food in the house, now, so I won't eat almost an entire medium-sized pizza by myself. I don't have to stress about caffeine; my fridge is stocked with Diet Coke. I am grateful the kids are asleep, the house is cleaner than it was at dinnertime and the laundry is not sitting in the washer getting moldy. Working here has taught me to lower my expectations and be adaptable; how can I argue when Bekah demands I lie down in the bed with her and snuggle under a blanket? I figure the laundry is at least clean, so even if it takes a few days for it to reach its intended destination it's not a big deal. Dinner is eggs again? Eh, at least there's protein in eggs and it won't require a lot of clean-up. Sid again? Okay, maybe then I can wipe down the counters while they're occupied.

The pay sucks, there's no benefits package, no vacation time, no yearly raises and I have to deal with an emotionally unstable boss everyday. Still, of the three jobs I've had, this one easily rates number one.

I wonder what I'll write about next....

Some Days, Not so Much

I am struggling with where to begin in telling this portion of my story. Starting at the beginning would require a lot of history and that's boring even to me. There is never a point that I don't remember feeling different. I know I was always very emotional, even as a young child. I see Jeremy this way sometimes; a running over of emotion and a lack of ability to even express why. That's how I felt for a long time. I wrote a detailed suicide note in sixth grade and that was probably when the journey really kicked off. I was hospitalized a month for depression (unheard of today, I know). I tried to learn more about my disease, but struggled even more because my body had decided to develop before I was ready. The boys with whom I was hospitalized were acutely aware that I had developed and so I got a lot of attention (even if it was the wrong kind).

Since that point, I have had a name for the vague darkness that settles over me: depression. I started on medication at that point (around age 11-12) and have been on it off and on (mostly on) since then. For those who have never suffered, I will give you some imagery to help you understand. It's akin to being stuck in a pit that's just deep enough to ensure you can't climb out by yourself. Your friends are at the top of the pit and have thrown down ropes to try to help you out, but from the inside, all you can see is darkness. You can't see the rope or hear your friends shouting for you to climb out. All you hear is the thousands of negative moments being replayed over the PA system, over and over. Underneath that is the constant stream of "you're not good enough, you're not good enough.." over and over and over. It causes you to cry for reasons that aren't always clear to you (or others). It causes you to forget to eat (or, in my case eat to try to drown out the voices). It manifests itself in a million different ways. The worst part of this ailment is that it tries to convince you that you're well. The times I've been off my medications, I've convinced myself I was fine and didn't need them. Invariably, I fell into a deeper pit.

I have unsuccessfully tried to take my life on several occasions. At the time, there wasn't a cosmic question not being answered. I hate when people dismiss failed suicide attempts as "cries for help." If I feel like that's the cry that's loud enough, then can't you see that there's something not being processed correctly? I have a keen ear and empathetic heart for those around me who are suffering. Like most other people suffering with depression, though, I have a difficult time turning that caring around on myself. I put myself last on the list repeatedly, now under the guise of being a mom and not having time. I was in therapy at the end of last year, but owing to our financial struggles, I had to stop going. Part of me was relieved because it was exhausting to try to coordinate childcare with my appointments. The other part wishes I could still be going.

I am an extrovert; outspoken, jovial and quick to smile. However, when I am in the pit, I find reasons to isolate, to stay home and keep to myself. I tell everyone that things are going well. I throw myself into my FB games and watch old TV shows obsessively on Netflix. I don't eat foods that honor my body. I don't make time to exercise. Last week, for example, things were going well. I got out of the house a few times on my own, I was able to see friends and fellowship. This week, however, Bekah has started with another cold. That has put us back on house arrest and necessarily means I won't be seeing any of my friends (and their kids) this week. It's the damndest thing; when I am ready to be out with other people, to try to shake off the cloying robe of failure that sticks to me, I can't. And so the robe tightens.

I watch my children everyday, trying to see if I can discern any of this in their behavior. I worry on days like today, when Jeremy was crying after his nap and it took me a while to settle him down. He is 3 and articulate but can't differentiate emotions very well. I try to draw him out when he is upset, asking him if he is angry or sad or upset and he can't tell me. He was born into a family that is predisposed to depression, heart disease, alcoholism and obesity. I work as hard as I can to make sure he is not swallowed up by any of these diseases. I try to help him eat right, make sure (as much as is possible) that he gets exercise every day, doesn't have a lot of sugary products, etc. I asked his pediatrician if there was any way to know whether he would be afflicted by depression. He told me no. So I try to teach him that feelings are okay, whatever they are; it's in the expressing of them that we need to be careful. I understand that you're pissed about going to bed, I tell him, but it's not okay to hit your sister and throw your toys. I try to remind him to take deep breaths. I hold him close when he's crying and just say over and over that I love him very much. I don't make fun of him crying, ever. I praise him when I see him caring for his little sister or other kids.

There is a lot of joy and laughter in my home. My husband has me almost constantly in stitches. He has watched me suffer through this awful disease for as long as we've been together. He never dismisses my emotions and he is also very sensitive to Jeremy's mood swings. We never hesitated, though, to get pregnant. I know that some might say, "well, with that history, why would you even try to get pregnant?" I don't have a concrete answer. I love my children fiercely every day, even if I am not always able to show it the way I would like to. Someone told me I would love them from the moment they entered this world. I'm not sure about that, but I do love them now in a visceral way. In spite of my anxieties about my son's emotional health, I am so proud of him because of all the things he does well. I know he is going to have a positive impact on the world around him and so I'm just trying to do everything I can to stay out of the way of that. God has a plan for him and I know the best way I can help God is not to be underfoot.

I hope Jeremy and Bekah can either step around the pit or at least recognize the pit for what it is. I hope that I can be open enough with them that they feel safe to ask me for help. I hope that on my bad days, when I can't hold back the tears even in front of them, that they understand that my love for them is not capricious. I work hard at keeping my mental health so that I can show them that they can be well enough to let other people pull them out of the pit, if they ever do fall in.

Most days I'm really okay. Some days, not so much. But I will go to bed and (hopefully) wake up tomorrow and try again to let people pull me out.

I wonder what I'll write about tomorrow....

Jesus Rhymes with Prius

Disclaimer: I am a Christian, so I feel like I can poke a bit of fun at my own religion. I am tolerant and loving of all people, regardless their creed. Please, if you're going to be offended, keep your comments to yourself!

Several months ago, I had a discussion in my small group at church about the fish sign on the back of people's cars. It became an interesting discussion. I will note that we live in a country that, so far, still has a first amendment. If you want to slap a fish sign on the back of your car, so be it.

Here's my hang-up. My pastor just finished a series about evangelism. I will clarify that we are a very contemporary, non-denominational church. I love my pastors and almost always chuckle and learn something. It was (I believe) a 4-part series. The last part of the series was on actually sharing (talking) with non-believers about the Gospel. The first 3 parts were about laying the foundation, about relational evangelism--caring, listening, being near, that kind of thing. Pastor Jeff pointed out that while most of us just think of witnessing with our words, there is actually a lot more that goes into it.

One of my favorite authors is Brennan Manning. His book, Ragamuffin Gospel, had a huge impact on my faith. He is quoted in the intro to a song on DC Talks album Jesus Freak. I will paraphrase, but he basically says that the single biggest stumbling block for non-believers is Christians who acknowledge Christ by their words but deny Him with their actions. This is something I have found to be severely impactful on the unbelieving world.

Hence the fish-on-the-car argument. I am not a huge fan of bumper stickers. I don't think they serve much of a purpose in getting people to stop and think about their lives. In that vein, I would like a law passed that would prohibit anyone from hanging metallic testicles from the back of their truck, but that's fodder for another day. In a world where Christians' actions are scrutinized from every angle, the last thing I want is a fish on the back of my car. First and foremost, I see them as people-repellent. The easiest way to kill a conversation is to mention Jesus Christ. Don't believe me? Try it. (Oh, and listen to Jim Gaffigan's stand-up. He mentions this and it's really funny.) The fish on the back of the car is synonymous with Jesus. So really, it's the best way to sniff out with whom you do not want to talk.

Second, I am not the best driver. I am not saying all Christians need to be perfect; rather, we are quite the opposite. We are only human. Regardless, I am sometimes a space cadet when I drive, and distracted. I have been known (pre-child) to flash a hand gesture at a driver I felt was in the wrong. I have called them names and in other ways not been a responsible driver. I don't want someone's reason to not be open to hearing the Gospel to be that they saw a crazy lady driving a blue Honda Odyssey with a fish on the back, and thank-you-very-much, but if she's a representative sample, I will pass. I want to help people keep an open mind; a fish on the back of my van, or a bumper sticker reading, "In case of the Rapture, this car will be unmanned," doesn't facilitate that goodwill.

And then there's the obvious argument. If Jesus were around today, he would (of course) drive a Prius. I believe Him to love our planet and the people in it. I believe he would do everything he could to conserve energy and lower greenhouse gasses. I don't see him driving a pimped out Escalade or similar gas-guzzler, even if it *is* his right to do so. (I'm trying not to digress.) This of course presupposes that he would drive a car. I postulate that in this post-modern society, he would want to reach as many people as possible. Owing to the fact that our society is industrial and not rural, like Israel was, he would need a safer way to reach the masses. (Sermon on the mount broadcasted from the top of his Prius.)

Now that that's settled, the question remains....would Jesus have a fish (or similar ornament) on the back of his eco-friendly car? Here's a guy who, after He rose from the dead, was walking down the road with two men and never revealed his identity. He sat down at a well and talked with a Samaritan woman. He loved people like Mary Magdalene and Zaccheus and other outcasts. He did not, I don't believe, wear a necklace with "Jesus" on it. I don't think He had business cards that He and His disciples passed out. He took many pains to hide his identity. I am not a biblical scholar, so I can't really fully explain why. My layman's explanation is that He knew it would put people off. If I'm having a conversation with someone and I find out they're an English teacher (for example), I tend to tailor my speech more. I talk in complete sentences, try to avoid hyperbole and even try to use correct punctuation. If I were talking to someone and He let it slip, "oh, by the way, I'm the Lord and Savior," I would immediately stop telling him all the interesting (but slightly blue) stories about my past. Blushing, I would clam up and then stammer on about how much I've done to further the kingdom. I would not feel worthy enough to sit in His presence (and I'm not even a prostitute or tax collector).

I say all of this because I believe the best service I can perform to further the kingdom is largely to keep my mouth shut. I am usually disinclined to share my faith with anyone, unless said person asks me and we are alone and chatting. I think the Billy Graham type of evangelism has it's place, but for me, I think I have the biggest impact one person at a time. The less I say, the more people feel comfortable around me. I would rather keep my mouth shut during a heated debate about how Christians have this whole thing wrong. In that environment, my words will just be another dimension of noise. I think evangelism has to be done quietly, over a period time and, above all, by demonstrating actions rather than spouting platitudes and cliches on the back of your car.

I wonder what I'll write about tomorrow....