Our Journey

This house

2012-02-01T22:12:00.000-08:00

I shake my fist at the heritage artifice that is my home, often times cursing it's poor construction and my naivety at being a first time home buyer. I like to fantasize about leaving it and finding some land with a farm house nestled in it's center. Already, I live there most days, on this fantasy farm, picking fresh fruit and calling to my giggling children...

but something unexpected happened...

I choked up.

I fought back tears when Scott suggested we might have to go sooner than I was prepared for. Leave? I chastised myself of course. Home is where the heart is - My heart is with them, with my sweet, beautiful, loving kids, and him, the husband.

But a part of me revolted against the reality. Leave my home? But what about the measurements on the wall, and the hardwood floor that has seen so many firsts, and we can't leave the bath I laboured in, or the yard they play in...

This house - It's only three years old, and I have lived here it's entire life. A lifetime that has been spent standing tall and proud during some of our family's most awe inspiring milestones, while also sheltering us during some of the worst trials we have ever endured.

It's a stubborn little house. A house with personality. And somewhere along the line this heritage artifice etched a place into my stone heart, cracked my hard facade and safely encased a million memories.

These walls, they whisper to me, they tell our story and if we leave it...will I somehow forget it all? So many events, so many beautiful, gut wrenching moments, so much Life. How can I step away from that so easily?

It would seem I can't...

And so I have come to the only conclusion I can draw...I love this place. I love it despite it's problems. I love it because it's more than a poorly constructed house... somewhere along the line it became a part of the family - and I find...somehow...my heart is here too, between these walls, drumming a percussive beat that flashes through memories and moments in a blink of an eye...a beat that simply says...

love them, love them, love them.

My Calloused Feet

2012-01-17T19:21:00.000-08:00

The air is thick and humid and I'm sticky from my own salty sweat. The blackened asphalt beneath my feet seems - at first - to be a brilliant idea. The dirt and rocks have been replaced by a smooth and dustless road and the journey should be easier. Instead my steps are short and quick - my calloused feet - scorched from the summer sun's relentless assault on that blackened, heat absorbing asphalt; and I wonder whose idea it was - the insinuation that it's ever so easy.

There are times I find a cool patch of grass, to cool my blistered feet, to ease my weary body. I scrunch up my toes, digging them deep within the soft earth, trying my best to plant myself within the rich, forgiving soil. The respite is soothing. I enjoy the view from my little piece of greenery for I know - inevitably - that the march of life will continue on. I squint and place a hand over my eyes, a bystander now, watching those few that pass my resting place - looking at me enviously.

I want to raise a hand, summon them over, and share with them this place I have, but I know it's not truly mine to divvy up, nor theirs to accept. We all have our own roads to follow, our own aching feet to rest when it is time to do so. And I refuse to feel guilty about feeling rested, and ready for the road ahead. I deserve this little piece of Eden. I am still stung from the blisters that were raised and wept from the road I walked last year. And this grass it is my salve; and I am healing.

I place a hand over my heart and drum my fingers against my breast. The ache is gone. The fear has left. My son is safe.

Beneath my drumming fingers; however, a lump is felt. But please - I whisper - I want just a little longer upon this grass. Just a moment more to live without the journey, to walk without the scorching heat. I close my eyes and wonder if it is time to step upon the blackened asphalt once more.

Time to journey on these calloused feet, to walk the road whose appearances are deceiving - for the journey is never that easy...

Potty Persuasion

2012-01-15T12:48:00.000-08:00

What she would prefer to do in the bathroom - get into my makeup.

How hard is it to potty train a toddler? It's a piece of cake, simple really. When I potty trained my first baby (who is now 3 months shy of his fourth birthday) I put the potty in front of him, told him to pee and poop in it, and reminded him that diapers are for baby's not big boys. He got it. He hasn't used a diaper since. Accidents are rare for him, and he enjoyed the freedom and all the praise he received for doing his jobbies in a potty. Potty training should be called potty direction. Give the kid some directions and watch how easy it all is. Let them take the reins. Let them lead the way.

So I put the potty in front of Edie. Told her to pee and poop in it, and reminded her that diapers are for baby's not big girls. She didn't get it. I had to remind her every hour on the hour to use the potty. I had to bribe, cajole, threaten, beg, and perform goofy songs and acts to get her to even sit on the potty.

Potty training is HARD. Who the hell thinks this is easy - a piece of cake? Potty training should be called potty torture. I can't let her take the reins, or lead the way, because then I get panties full of poop, puddles of pee her brothers slip in, laughter as she runs from the accident she just left on my couch! She loves the praise I give her when she goes on the potty, but on the other hand she laughs maniacally when she pees all over herself and I have to chase her to clean her up. She's evil.

After a month of potty training - I ran to the Internet.( I needed reassurance that I wouldn't be cleaning poop off her prom dress!) I found so many tips that I wasn't sure what to do first. So I decided to cater my training towards my daughter directly. Edie loves Dora, and candy. So Scott picked her up a toilet insert (so she can pee and poop on a TOILET like her hero - me - while sitting on her favourite cartoon character - Dora!) and then I began bribing her with candy. At first I wasn't sure if this would be such a great idea, candy bribing I mean. What kind of mother would that make me? I'll tell you the kind of mother - apparently I am the mother who will resort to obesity causing tricks to get my children to do what I want them to.

But here's the kicker! She hasn't had an accident in almost a week! I haven't had to clean up pee or poop of my hardwood floors, or off her brothers who were unfortunate enough to come upon her accident. I don't have to count to ten quietly while I change her pants, again. And I don't have to dread the morning when I pull off her nighttime diaper while preparing for the inevitable destruction of her clothes and all the fabrics in my house.

She has finally decided that going to the toilet (although more time consuming then finding a nice corner to crap in) is worth it...because she gets candy. Now I just have to find a way to slowly wean her off the reward system...

Potty training and all it implies is a lie. Toddlers will use the toilet when they feel like it. It's the one thing they have power over. You can't "train" a kid. You can only try to persuade them with whatever tools you have at your disposal! In fact that's what Potty training should be renamed.

Potty Persuasion!

You're my Favourite

2012-01-14T13:53:00.000-08:00

Dear Scott - My very favourite husband.

I want to say thank-you for doing the dishes TWICE on your days off. I know it takes a lot of motivation to perform such a monotonous task but I trust you were rewarded satisfactorily (even if my performance was less than stellar) ;)

I want to say REALLY! for the amount of time you have spent with your nose touching your new Itouch. If I have to watch you play anymore Facebook games while the kids desperately vie for your attention - I think I may break that thing. (Oh and please no more complaining about your aching wrist - this problem would be solved by putting down the Itouch (Carpal Tunnel!) and doing some dishes ;)

I want to say thank-you for cleaning out the car and rearranging the new car seats. I'm sure our children and their now safer lives also appreciate this. Plus I enjoy not having to play the game, "What's that smell?"

I want to say REALLY! for the toy donations that were supposed to be in a bin before Christmas. Your constant promise of "I'll do it tomorrow" is no longer sufficiently convincing.

I want to say thank-you for buying curtain rods, curtains, and installing these window dressings so that our peeping neighbours will no longer see our family in various states of undress! (You my dear husband who loves to wander around in his boxers, me who loves to strip naked to weigh herself - what woman doesn't do this? Gabe who is ALWAYS naked, Edie whose potty training and forgets to put her pants back on after a potty, and Preston whose a baby and gets his diaper changed.. frequently - does this kid ever stop pooping?!) And although I'm positive our family has already been seen naked by the neighbours (innumerable times), at least now they no longer have to avert their eyes from our humble dwelling.

I want to say REALLY! for the one blind I wish you would put up - the one for the shower room! I no longer wish to crawl to the shower...my knees are now more bruised than my ego.

I want to say thank-you for constantly reassuring me with our new secret code talk that you have not been replaced by an intruder from a separate dimension. That dark shadow I've seen in our house clearly has nefarious intentions, which may or may not be the plot to kidnap my husband and take his place (I probably shouldn't watch shows like "Weird or What"). I suppose I should also thank you for believing me when I say I have seen a dark shadow haunting the house - by now most would assume I was crazy - I myself am beginning to doubt my own eyes...

I want to say REALLY! when you do stuff to your paranoid wife - like pretending to be a ghost. I also want to apologize for punching you in the face - but I've seen dark shadows in our house, who want to replace you...so really...what did you expect?

Finally I want to say I love you and thank-you for being my very favourite husband; no REALLY, you are!

Death becomes her

2012-01-08T12:27:00.000-08:00

As I sit here waiting ~~patiently~~ for the phone call that will arrange an appointment for a biopsy on Ouch (annoying and painful breast tumour), I can't help but think that if it's cancer...all this waiting around can't be very productive. And being a person who can't help but imagine the worst, my brain has conjured up a lot of death related images to torture me during this time of ~~patient~~ waiting. To bide my time I went in search of blogs, and the women who have faced breast cancer at my age. I ran across one fantastic blog called "The Big C and Me" written by Renn. She wrote a post that commented on a online friend's statement to her, "Just because I have cancer doesn't mean I'm going to die, and just because you don't doesn't mean you're going to live". This got me thinking about life and death and how its inextricably linked. We all have expiry dates. We are all going to die. And we all do a damn good job of forgetting this fact.

A lot of people tell you to live everyday as if it is your last. Man have I tried, and boy have I failed. It's exhausting! Who lives like that? I don't want to sit there watching America's Next Top Model and think, "Is this the best way to spend an hour of my life I may never get back", especially when the answer is obvious... No one wants live like their dying every damn day - least of which are the people dying every damn day. It's a cute thought but it's not very practical. So I got to thinking about my life and asked the question I think we should all be asking. If my life ended abruptly tomorrow what is it about my life that would have been worth the whole trip, bad times, good times, abrupt end and all?

The answer for me was immediate. My kids of course. And it's not because my DNA will live through them (although that is a pretty nifty bonus). The answer is 'my kids' because of things I could never adequately explain unless you are a parent yourself. Imagine your whole life being lived in 2d, and then one day, inexplicably everything is 3d. There is a depth to my life now that there wasn't before, a true love, an unwavering constant, and the one thing we all look for, some sort of assurance, some sort of guarantee ... Here's mine, here's the one thing that will never change, that will always be the same. I won't ever stop loving them. Even if they leave me. Even if they hate me. Even if they become vile, pathetic, humans that are murdering psychopaths, and Even if they die. I will never stop loving them; for as long as I live (and perhaps beyond).

Death is inevitable, and it's scary, and everyone would like to avoid it, but it's just another event in a normal life. To find love though, a love that cannot be rendered obsolete, that's what makes it all worth it.

Renn's cited blog http://thebigcandme.blogspot.com/2011/06/death-support.html

Barbie

2012-01-05T12:39:00.000-08:00

I'm starting to question whether I should be the one influencing my children during playtime. No matter how hard I try I always seem to say something questionable that then gets repeated a million times over. Today for example, my normally tom boyish, little girl, Edie, insisted on playing Barbie's with me. I admit I was THRILLED! I started brushing their hair, and talking about the wonderful Ball we could attend, but before Rapunzel's horse could come and pick us up... Edie pulled off all their clothes and was casually conversing about "being naked" and "having a gina (vagina) too". Well this kind of conversation is not really my cup of tea, so I hung quietly in the background brushing Rapunzel's horses hair. Despite her conversation about "Gina's" I remained happy she decided to play with a doll instead of her brother's batman cave.

Now yes, I admit to teaching my kids the names for their body parts - and the proper names at that...as well as all the nicknames...but I digress. Soon Gabe was fascinated by the barbies and their lack of clothing, and he loudly announced that they all had "Barbie Boobies". Well anyone who doesn't find it hilarious -a three year old making an awesome alliteration like that - is just prudish. So I chuckled to myself and agreed with Gabe, they do indeed have Barbie Boobies. Our weird and slightly awkward Barbie play continued a little while longer, but soon it was time to clean up and I started to put all the Barbie's clothes back on - Edie was long gone, coloring somewhere in the corner by then, and Gabe picked up one of the dresses and asked which Barbie it went to. Well now out of my mouth pops an expression I should have probably kept to myself because the next thing I know he has named...NAMED...the Barbie this.

I told him the dress belonged to "Skanky" the Barbie. I think I'm all clever and hilarious until he takes the doll to his batman and says, "Hi, my name is Skanky - what's your name?" (Inner groan commences). And I mean...come on! This Barbie has black, four inch (Scaled to size of course) high heels, a short dress that has only one strap, and eye makeup any proud corner owner would do justice with! Now was it smart to tell my son that she was Skanky the Barbie...in retrospect...not so much. But I think the bigger offence here is the fact the Barbie could be named Skanky and no one would think twice about it...and people would probably still buy the doll for their daughters!

....FYI...I was not the purchaser of this particular doll...that unfortunate choice lays at the feet of my oblivious husband!

Oh Barbie...what have they done to you....

And sorry Gabriel...for your new and unfortunate word - or name - as you now know it to be.

2012

2011-12-31T21:35:00.000-08:00

It's that time again, New Years Resolutions will be half heartedly made, people will sing Auld Lang Syne, and most will get drunk enough not to remember the night at all - truth be told I'm a little envious. But it seems fitting that I'm ending 2011 - and all that it brought - here in the comfort of my home, writing a blog, and drinking the one beer I have left in my house. Most people I know are hoping for a better year then the one they just had, or bravely exclaiming how they'll miss this year and how it was the best one yet.

I'm neither of these people. I have fallen into a weird category. I truly suffered this year - I now have an intimate relationship with fear itself - an understanding what it means to love someone even while questioning whether it was prudent to do so. There were moments where I believed my youngest son might be lost, moments where I questioned how my life had fallen so far down the rabbit hole, moments where I begged God - sobbing on my knees - to save him, save us. Without an answer given, or perhaps one not readily heard, I vowed that I would never give less then I had given to Gabriel and Eden, and I loved in a way I had not known was possible...I truly loved without condition. This little boy gave me such a gift even while dragging me through hell and back.

2011 brought me to the brink of despair, shoved me to my knees, forced me to enjoy precious little moments I had once over looked. I couldn't see it then, my vision was still clouded with the intense fear I fought on a near daily basis, but I was changed. 2011 is the first year I have not felt regret, the one year whose resolutions where merely about love, the year that was the worst and the very best.

2011 is not a year I would like to repeat, but it is a year I will never forget. And so on towards 2012, and all the moments it will bring!

Hoping for B9

2011-12-23T19:51:00.000-08:00

I received my test results (the ultrasounds) from my lovely little lumps. The left lump looks like a fibroadenoma (Benign mass) and hasn't changed size or shape over the two years I've had it! Yay, Left boob! Way to be healthy. My right breast is an asshole. The lump recently discovered due to tenderness has "an Irregular shape" and "needs to be biopsied" to rule out cancer. That was not the news I was hoping for over the holidays!

I admit I'm now stressed out about this new development. I've been googling like mad, mainly looking for other people's stories, reading through blogs, testing out this new landscape I now find myself standing on. Some people's stories are inspirational and full of hope and they claim cancer gave them a second chance to really live their life full of appreciation and blah, blah, blah. This is something I understand. But I've taken that journey. I walked it with Preston. Was his heart defect a blessing in disguise? No it was a fucking pain in the ass, but it did force me to walk a line I hadn't considered before. It forced me to start living in the moment. I can't claim that was easy in the beginning, or something easily sustainable, life is life after all and you can't live like mother Teresa all the god damned, live long day; but I refused to walk away from that hell unchanged. I needed it to have meaning.

So would cancer be a blessing in disguise? No it would be a fucking pain in the ass. But I hope that I would find something in it, something good, that I could walk away with. So if this lump is cancer I'll deal with it, I'll fight it, and I'll turn it into something it's not, something worth it.

But for now, I just hope that this lump is benign because dragging something beautiful from the dark, annals of cancer, is not a quest I'm looking to take.

I'm just a stay at home mom...

2011-12-19T00:07:00.000-08:00

I hate meeting new people. I admit I'm a bit of a homebody to begin with; but in general I just hate the idea of small talk, and the awkward feigned interest in other's peoples lives. A few drinks down the hatch usually eases the uncomfortable silences but the worst part of every new conversation, at least for me, comes when they ask the inevitable question "what do you do?"

Whenever anyone asks this particular question I smile broadly, talk about my beautiful kids, and murmur under my breath that I'm a "stay at home mom". Unless you are speaking with another "non working" mother, the general consensus is that being a stay at home mom is not really something you do. It's at this point people usually smile uncomfortably and then ask me what I did before I had children; as though whatever I did before I gave birth and decided to raise my own kidlets was somehow more worthy of their interest, and of greater societal value. Of course when I answer "chambermaid" they look as though they want to run away from me, as though they have found the bottom rung of society and must detach themselves from my side, lest they be led down the road of mediocrity too. But I digress...

Why do people act as though I must be someone who is lazy, or stupid, or unwilling to have a "real job" when I say I raise my own kids? And let me just be clear that it's not something that is easy, or comes naturally - child rearing. The learning curve is huge. You aren't just wiping butts, feeding, cleaning, and putting them to bed; which by the way, isn't a piece of cake, but people seem to think motherhood amounts to chambermaiding, and nannying. It's does not. I stay at home with my kids and teach them things like cooperation, dispute resolution, manners, morals and values, ethics, and in case it's not something that is inherent at birth in all human beings, I also make sure that I establish in them a conscience, a sense of sympathy, and when applicable feelings of empathy.

My "job" may not be a paying one. I may not have an established career that brings in a measurable incremental amount of income. But I contribute more to the sustainability of our society than even my lovely cop of a husband does. For I am an active member in my children's lives. I am the mediator, the general, the boss and caretaker of the next generation.

But no, it's not a job, and if you really want to put a label on it, than I suppose it's more of an art form. I am creating beautiful little pieces of art. And I alone have the creative license to do that in a way I see fit. I can change palette's when things aren't working properly. I can brush in broader strokes when life is moving a little too fast. I can meticulously add a bit of shading, or infuse some light to the lessons in life, whenever I need too and whenever I want.

What do I do? Hell. What don't I do? I'm a Stay At Home Mom.

My lovely little lumps

2011-12-09T22:44:00.001-08:00

Her fingers probe my breasts with expert hands and I am surprised and relieved to discover that her hands are warm. She then asks me to lay on my back, arm over my head and I oblige and she talks nonchalantly about my life, my kids, their ages, and that my tummy is nearly stretch mark free; how nice for me. She goes on to check the lymph nodes under my arm and apologizes for any discomfort I may feel from the ever increasing pressure of her fingertips. After we are finished she asks me to get dressed and to join her in the room across the hall.

Her office is cozy, and the chairs are comfortable. She starts off by saying that the lumps are not cysts, and from the ultrasound on my left breast's lump, she believes them to be fibroadenomas - benign tumours. The odds are - she tells me - a 99% probability that the lumps are not cancer. Immediately she knows her mistake, we had just finished talking about my youngest son, the 100 to 1 statistic - the Congenital heart defect baby.

"That is to say - I feel really good that you have nothing to worry about", she corrects herself. "But I would still like to have them biopsied, as much as for my own charts as for your peace of mind".

I agree to the procedure because if there is a small possibility that it's cancer, then it's still a possibility that needs to be investigated, no matter the likelihood. That being said, I'm not too worried. No matter the outcome, I can't predict the future, nor can I prevent it from happening. I used to be a person so hung up on the "what ifs" of life, so worried about what tomorrow would bring, that I never enjoyed 'today'. So now I try not to waste the "todays" I have, on the things I can't control.

These bothersome lumps are probably not cancer, I won't know for sure until the biopsy results are in, but either way it goes, one day at a time still seems like the best mantra to have.

My journey through the dark

2011-11-16T15:43:00.001-08:00

This time last year the doctor's were telling me that my little Preston had holes in his heart. It's a funny feeling walking a line between joy and sorrow, courage and fear, hope and despair. I remember thinking that I was just so fucking inadequate to the challenges being set before me. I looked into my little guy's eyes and I didn't have anything I could promise him. There was no guarantees, no whispered assurances that were good enough; it was all so big, and I was just so ill prepared for the seemingly insurmountable trek in front of us. I remember begging God to show me the future. I wanted so much to know there would be an end to the nightmare. If only I could catch a glimpse of Preston in front of his first birthday cake, happy, and healthy - alive...then maybe I could face another day in the dark.

But there would be no easy answers, no promises made to me by doctors or God. I faced everyday as though it were his last for the first six months of his life, and the sadness faded. I hadn't expected that. But every new moment, every new day I was granted with him became...enough. And I know how cliche it all sounds...But the world is like crystal now. Clear, and beautiful, and easily shattered.

Charles Dickens once wrote, "It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us..." And this was the context of my life for an endless brief period of time. Never before have I understood the ironic contradiction that is life so fully and completely.

Did you know...that the dark can illuminate your path?

My darkness did...and for a moment I could see through the eclipse, and it was so terribly wonderful.

The Eff Word

2011-11-09T12:43:00.000-08:00

"Fuck me" I mumble under my breath as I pull the charred remnants of our dinner from the oven. Everything had been timed perfectly; dinner would have been delicious. But there are moments in life that can't be planned for. When my daughter's unfortunate fall caused her recent bowel movement to explode from her diaper all over my carpet and walls....priorities changed. I had no choice but to leave dinner and clean up her mess. Now twenty minutes later and with the smell of poo still lingering in the air I concede that dinner is ruined. Cereal is served and I eat toast for supper.

After cleaning up the kitchen I ask Gabe if he would like to work on his words. Recently we've seen his speech therapist and the doctor noticed he was having trouble with his S blend words. Gabe jumps at the chance to be my center of attention and we begin the hard work of pronunciation. While we are working on "Snowmobile" Eden grabs for the pile of paper word pictures and snatches "Snake" from the table top. Gabe grabs her wrist, viper quick and with a boa's strength, squeezes her tiny arm and shouts, "Don't fucking do that Edie". My mouth drops open as I pry them apart and take the picture from her hand.

"Gabriel, you are not allowed to say the Eff word in my house!" I state while feeling all the bit of the hypocrite I am. Confusion is written all over his face and I realize he can't spell and so I can't stop him from saying the word without repeating the word myself. An ironic hypocrite I have become when I explain once more that the word "fucking" is a bad word and should not be said...by anyone.

"Any person who says the bad word will have to go for a time out!" Gabe's eyes nearly bulge from their sockets as he asks, "You too?" I hang my head while I consider the implications of handing such power over to a three year old...but if I want him to change...then so must I. "Yes, me too" I mumble. I can only hope I'm not creating a monster and instead, I'll be instilling in him that even adults have to pay for their mistakes.

It's almost time for bed and so I pack up Gabe's words while thinking ruefully...S blend words are troublesome for him....

Mother shitter...

Nah, It just doesn't have the same ring to it.

Fuck.

Birthday baby.

2011-11-05T13:07:00.000-07:00

Dear Preston,

In a baby's first twelve months of life he will learn a lot of new skills. You have learned to sit up, to eat solid foods, to crawl, and you even took your first steps. I cheered you on through all of it and I was over joyed with each new success. But you are more than your milestones, Preston. You are Truth; a pure and simple, but intricate truth.

It seems that every one of us is searching for the next best thing. We want a bigger house, a faster car, an upgrade for our cell phone; what we have is never good enough and what we need is always more, more, more. My goals, and needs, and wants weren't much different than most; although I liked to believe they were. I was a person that thought she appreciated what she had - who believed she understood what was most important in life...

But our minds play tricks on us, and we are fooled into believing that time isn't real and that tomorrow will always come. Somewhere along the line we begin to believe there's time enough for anything, what a fallacy; such a deception.Your one year here has taught me how much knowledge I had, but how very little understanding I possessed. The truth is - there are no second chances. We don't get a do over. What can be done today should be done today. If you have an apology to make, make it. If you have an emotion to express, express it. If you have a life to lead, for god sake's lead it and stop following those few who claim to have all the answers.

People live in a world of excuses, and half truths. They rarely live in the moment and instead prefer to live in a future that is never guaranteed. They devote themselves to a God they claim to know, or to money they revere, or to kings they want to be like and I no longer understand why. You blew my world apart kid, in one year you shattered it to pieces, and now I find the puzzle larger than it was when I started. Perhaps this is what they mean when people implore you to see the "big picture". My bigger picture is now made up of smaller, simpler snapshots.

These snapshots include taking my kids to the park and watching them play. I want to tell a silly joke and hear their laughter. I want to kiss their tired heads and tuck them in at night, and I want tomorrow to come so I can do it all again.

It's true that I still wish for tomorrow Preston, but you have taught me to live for today.

I love you,

Happy birthday my sweet, simple truth.

Mom.

To become someone

2011-10-27T01:38:00.000-07:00

The fall winds whip around the house and catch the back gate, hurling it mercilessly against the hardi board siding. The persistent thumping is like a drum and the creature inside shuffles slowly forward, marching to it's percussive beat. Her slack jawed faced and hungry eyes eagerly search for the thing she craves most. With a stiff arm, and twitching fingers she claws at the Folgers container. The Creature From The King Sized Bed clumsily removes it's lid and breathes in the fresh aroma of coffee...

Only after the brew has hit her lips will she respond to the incessant demands of the children. Soon breakfast is served and the only sound which remains is the hungry slurping of their greedy little mouths and the bang, bang, bang of the gate.

As the coffee works it's magic and life begins to return to her face, the question of who she should become on all Hallows Eve has her drumming her fingers against the mugs porcelain surface. Every day she is the same person, has the same routine, lives the same life. Deviation from the norm is too unsettling for the offspring and so the death of spontaneity occurred the minute they were born.

But for one night every year she can be whoever she wants. Whether that be a sexy doctor, or a scantily dressed nurse, a vampire, or a witch with untold power. There is so much possibility, so much she can choose from and she will revel in this opportunity to become an individual once more.

Then at the end of the night, she'll hang up her costume and don the mask of motherhood - morphing before their very eyes, changing back into the woman they've always known - and becoming their someone.

A mother's light - For Chance.

2011-10-15T14:52:00.000-07:00

A mother's Light - For Chance.

it's been four years
and she still grieves
a mother's loss
can not be eased

A twist of fate
that stole your light
four years gone
Since that black night

She smiles and laughs
the tears look dry
But don't be fooled
For she still cries

So in support
we gather now
a life made brief
and she'll allow

The memory which
she holds so tight
a mother's love
her daily fight

A glimpse into
a shattered soul
which she rebuilt
and though not whole

she smiles and laughs
and turns the page
the tears look dry
because of Gage

your little brother
loves you too
her family now
to see her through

so don't be sad
she won't forget
all you were
and all you meant

a hope, a dream, a wish on high
a star against the darkened sky
a boy, an angel, a gorgeous glance
upon your face
her one true Chance.

Murmurs

2011-10-14T00:00:00.000-07:00

His bed is a black, 4-in-1 stages crib from Sears. It was originally purchased for his big brother Gabriel and has been passed down from brother, to sister, and now to him. It's full of character...which is a nice way of saying it's seen better days. It's been spat up on, scratched, dropped, chewed and rebuilt numerous times in numerous houses, three times in this home alone. I doubt if it could live through another incarnation, but for now, it serves it's purpose...or at least it would if Preston would cooperate.

He hates it. He hates sitting in it, he hates looking at it, and he loathes sleeping in it.

I know a part of his hatred towards the crib is my lack of commitment in forcing him to sleep in it. I let him co-sleep because it was easier to have him next to me when I was terrified he would die in the middle of the night, just arrest, stop breathing, cease to exist without my knowledge or motherly intuition to guide me to his side. So I kept him in our bed; and I've done it much longer than I did with my other two children.

Gabriel never co slept, Edie co slept until she was 9 months old and we started the arduous process of integrating her towards cribdom; and it was so arduous I promised myself never again would I keep a baby in my bed so long they understood, and preferred to stay there. But Preston, he's different for obvious reasons. He's my last child, one we could have lost no less, and he's my baby...even at almost 12 months old....

He's my baby, and the doctor says his heart still murmurs, some holes are still there, his appointments are still compulsory. So when I lay him down, in that black, 4-in-1 stages crib, I don't see a toddler, I see this tiny frame on this huge mattress...I see my baby. And when he cries for me, I get up, I reach out, and I hold him until we are both fast asleep...because some days I need that assurance more than he does.

And the ugly truth is - there are more nights than I can count where I wake up startled and confused, calling out his name in the dark of night, crying out my unconscious fears that he's disappeared...that the dark has stolen him. And while I'm struggling to find reality -wrestling with the spider threads of sleep - I shoot out my arm reaching for what I'm sure is lost...only to find him nestled next to me, safe and sound, and his crib empty...for one more night.

Coping with womanhood

2011-10-11T11:20:00.000-07:00

For seventeen lovely months I've had a reprieve from the fluctuating hormones which punctuate the lives of many women. Periods are necessary to reproduction and the survival of the human species but they are also the complete embodiment of - for lack of a better word - Ugh.

What is Ugh you may ask. It's simple really.

Ugh is the blood you find has leaked into your new pair of La Senza underwear despite the fact you were wearing a "Super" absorbent tampon and long night shield pad.

Ugh is the yawn you can't seem to stifle during the week you are plagued by this hormonal beast of blood.

Ugh is the dishes your husband never put away and you contemplate tossing at his head during a fit of hormone induced insanity.

My Ugh can reach extreme levels where you can almost see the annoyance flow from my body like the blood that marks this most special time. Men are often caught in the crossfire because of their innate nature to leave their socks lying in the middle of your living room, or to forget the toilet seat lowering requirements of living with a woman, or who can't help but say things like "Jesus, are you on your rag or something".

Yes Scott I'm on my rag and just so you know...I did notice that you took the garbage out but didn't replace the bag, and the chewing of your bagel this morning was unnecessarily loud and irritating, and maybe tonight when you fall asleep, you could avoid laying on your back so I can have a chance of falling asleep too; instead of laying awake listening to the lawn mower beside me...

Ugh.

Resuscitation

2011-10-09T14:05:00.000-07:00

I needed a doctor, that much was clear. My eyes swam out of focus and finally closed, and I could hear my children feverishly trying to revive me.

    "One, two, free" they said while compressing various parts of my torso - from chest to naval.

I could smell the grilled cheese they ate for lunch as they leaned over my motionless frame. Their spittle flew and landed directly on my eye lashes as they blew hot air onto my face. This is their understanding of CPR, and I'm content in the knowledge that I would not be saved by them if I ever truly needed this life saving act.

    I restrain a smile as Gabe proclaims quietly, "She sick".

     "Yes Bro", Edie answers, "I sad".

Suddenly I take in a shaky breath and my eye lids flutter open, "She awake!" Gabe cries and both of them drag me upright while I feign catastrophic injury - weaving back and forth - and finally collapsing onto the couch.

The two of them work quickly, jabbing me with hot wheels "needles" and fixing my hearts apparent arrhythmia with their Tupperware lids. Gabe wraps my arm with a dishtowel and Edie checks my throat with a flashlight. Soon they declare I am healed and I thank them for their vigilant attendance to my wounds.

At dinner that night we speak about our day and suddenly Edie's voice falls silent. I glance over and am immediately panicked. Her face is beat red, her chest no longer rises and falls, her fingers eagerly search for the food obstructing her windpipe and her eyes...her eyes are filled with the chilling knowledge that she cannot save herself.

In one quick movement I jump from my chair, knocking it backwards, startling my sons whom are oblivious to the drama unfolding around them. I pick up her 31 lb frame as though it weighs nothing, thrusting her diaphragm across my forearm while applying one quick pound between her shoulder blades with the heal of my hand.

Instinct rules my actions while my brain works overtime trying to determine what the best course of action is. Thankfully the situation doesn't need further analysis as her cries indicate the food has been dislodged and I scoop the offending piece of meat from her mouth.

I begin to shake as the adrenaline ebbs and I realize how bad it could have been. I think back to our doctor play that day and am reminded of their ineffectual attempts at CPR. I mistakenly believed I would never survive if I ever needed life saving intervention from them; but the truth is, they have already saved me. It is their lives which beats my heart, and without them...life would be breathless and resuscitation useless.

Written

2011-10-05T23:44:00.001-07:00

Check out my new blog friend's! No it's not replacing this one. "Written" is a short story fiction blog. Just an outlet for my ever busy and creative mind.

http://writtencrave.blogspot.com/

A rose by any other name...

2011-10-01T20:22:00.000-07:00

I've been married for a year and some and still haven't bothered to change my name. At first I assumed my reluctance towards moving from my maiden name to my married name was the hassle it entailed. To drag three kids to the DMV, wait god knows how long in line, and then pay to replace all my ID is a pain in the ass I just didn't want. But the more I contemplate the name change the more I wonder if I'll ever get there.

Now don't get me wrong. I'm not a feminist, or a person who rejects traditions. I don't hate my husbands last name or any of his relatives. I just find it hard to reconcile the idea that marriage automatically equates to an identity change. Or maybe it's that my identity has already changed so much I just wish to hold onto this one last thing.

There are moments where I feel like I'm not Carrie Middleton anymore, probable relative -okay not really- to Kate Middleton; instead I'm mom and wife, maid extraordinaire, chef and referee... I'm everything but the girl I used to be. Don't get me wrong. I love what I am now, but there are moments where I miss that carefree kid who thought she knew everything - confidence, arrogance, and ignorance all wrapped up to make one silly girl from the wrong side of the tracks.

So is it too much to ask that I retain the last name i've lived my whole life with?

I understand my husband's point of view, I know he wants us all to be a cohesive family in name as well as practise. I know it irks him a little that I still haven't changed my name to his - but after everything we've been through as a couple, and a family - I just want something that doesn't have to change. Something stable and familiar... something uniquely mine.

Maybe I'm being selfish, I'm sure many people see it this way. And maybe one day I'll relent and spend eight hours in line waiting to change the name I've always known, to the one I now respect.

But I'm just not there, yet.

Ancient

2011-09-22T15:45:00.000-07:00

I stood upon my tiptoes, stretching to reach the mirror. It's toothpaste splattered surface was quickly wiped clean - my practised hands completed the task in less than a minute. As I lowered my arm I happened to catch my reflection in the glass. My hazel eyes studied the red hair and brown roots, and slid from forehead to chin. My eyes are the same, despite the the faint hint of crowsfeet, and the lips are still full - one of my best features; and yet i'm different, changed somehow. I see a person who is more cautious and guarded, a woman whose ventured the outskirts of Hell face on and lived to tell the tale. I suddenly let it sink in, all of it, the lessons I've learned. The realization that life is finite, not just for me, but for those I love, was one lesson I won't soon forget. This year has taken a toll on me and has forced me to grow into a person that I no longer recognize.

I used to think aging happened according to the years we accumlated, the number of candles we snuffed out on our birthday cake; I realize now that it's the experiences of life which ages us. Just one year ago I held a life within me, a hope for their future, a fantasy of their adulthood. I would love him, raise him right, and then watch in wonder as he became independent and absolutely remarkable. It never crossed my mind that his life is already his own, and so thus, is the timing of his death.

Babies die. Children die. Adults die. Some people find comfort in this - a comraderie that no one is immune. But I was appalled by this thought; and so I realed backwards from it's infectious reality, as though it's poisonous whisper could only find me if I stood in the open, mocking it's authority, and daring it to come for us. But no matter how deep I hid within my own despair and stubborn hope, I couldn't help but hear his mortality echo against every wall of my being.

I cried more tears this year, than any other time in my life. I stood frozen this year, in indecision and fear, more than any other time in my life. I felt a hurt that cannot be described, a gnawing ache within my soul during the moments where I wondered if he would leave me. This year battered and brutalized every fiber of my being, and left me so horribly vulnerable. But this new found vulnerability would force me to appreciate everything I had.

It will take me a while to reconcile the woman in the mirror with the girl I always knew. I like to think I'm ancient now because I refuse to live my life in years; instead I live in the moment, because there is more of those in a lifetime than candles on your cake.

Romance

2011-09-18T23:43:00.000-07:00

I'm independent, strong, and often stubborn. I know what I want, and I know how to get it. But I'm also a pro at self deception. That handsome man over there, the one who saved my life from the rugged half acre I got lost on during my excursion into Vancouver, intrigues me, but I won't fall in love with him. I refuse to become anything less by allowing emotions to rule my aching loins. But the smell of his aftershave, and the way he has started a life saving fire from dry wood, and bits of his tightly kinked pubic hair makes me swoon with admiration. As he steps towards me and mutters a statement that's gruff and inherently sexist I can't help but reach up and caress his six pack abs. I want him, but I can't. I need him, but I won't. He'll take me because I can't make up my mind despite the fact I made up my mind the minute I set my eyes upon him. Throbbing member, velvet enclosure, moan, groan, and happy day.

Recognize it? Yes women, it's your typical romance novel formula and not a thing like real romance...well at least not marriage romance.

Pubic hair fire aside this formula is apparently what women want. We want to be strong, but weak enough to be taken. We need romance, but also a man tough enough to kill a grizzly with his bare hands while opening a bottle of wine for us with his calloused feet. We long for the moments in our relationship where the men in our lives thrust us onto bathroom counters, and we're so swept away with the intensity of our love that we don't worry about the toothpaste tube that has just leaked all over our only pair of good granny panties, soiling the underwear and the counter we just finished cleaning.

I'm not completely throwing the formula out the window mind you. There is a reason why romance novels gross some of the highest book sales in North America. Do I want a tough man in my life? Of course, I mean if my husband sobbed during Grey's anatomy right along with me it would probably kill the mood. Do I want a romantic guy in my life? Of course, but do I need a guy to stand outside my door with a thousand flowers, while reading me a love sonnet and handing me a dazzling piece of expensive jewellery...well...no. I mean yes. Well it's not necessary...but... It's the thought that counts...so some idiot once said. Anyway. What I'm trying to say is that to have a successful romance all you really need to have - with your tough, handsome prince - is some open communication. Men are timid creatures, sex with us women doesn't come easy. No means no, after all and we aren't the sort of creature who can ever be persuaded to give up our goods through batting eyes, or sexy lingerie. So if your sex life is boring ladies, spice it up, tell the person you are with what you want and go experiment.

As an example to you all, tomorrow I plan on having me a tough and slightly corrupt sheriff. Rawr. And I'm not referring to the romance novel I'm currently engrossed in ;) and if this corrupt sheriff ever feels the need to buy me a thousand flowers, or jewelery or both...I wouldn't object...Not like those oh so confused heroines of my smutty little paper backs.

Take me Scott, woo me, but try and do it before Preston wakes up, and after my shows are over.

Three

2011-09-11T00:41:00.000-07:00

I didn't know what it meant, the honour it held. I was unaware, as so many are in the beginning, during conception and the days of endless growth. I held my belly once, convinced I understood, I thought I was prepared. I made plans, I bought necessities, I waited. He came into my world and I gave him a name. I spent months pouring through books, browsing different websites, looking over countless meanings. It's so important to pick the right one. It should define who he'll become, or so I believed. I see now it defines what I imagine he should become. Bold, and brilliant, angelic, and awesome. A mother's future lies intertwined, unwavering, forever with her children's and as such a million day dreams, an infinite number of hopes lies within her. It's hard to see the person they are when their future shines so bright and is filled with endless possibility. And then somehow, they become separate from you...somehow they break free.

My oldest child, my first born son, took his first step before his first word. His smile is more than memorized, it's embedded within my soul. The sound of his laughter, the gait of his walk, the way he flaps his hands when he's excited. I know it all. I live and breathe him.

He's small, and young, but a big boy. He has his pride, he's potty trained. He takes care of his siblings, and can stand on his head. He winks with both eyes, and loves to make people laugh. He can "do it himself" and isn't "A baby, mom" but he still sleeps with a blanket at night and needs a night light to extinguish the monsters in the dark. He cries for me when he's hurt, and believes a kiss can make him better. When no ones looking he asks me to sing "Baby Mine", and so I do...just as I did the day he was born, when he looked at me and I knew...

that I didn't know a thing about love before him.

A mother's love is so intense that it dwarfs everything she is, while simultaneously becoming everything she is. It's beautiful, so sacred. But it's terrifying. Because the world is a cruel place, and sometimes nightmares occur. Nightmares so wicked that only a mother knows that the love we surrender too, will surely destroy us, change us, warp us into shells of the person we were, if ever that nightmare becomes a reality. If ever we lose the one person we cannot live without.

She's waiting and hurting, and loving you more than ever. Her perfectly beautiful, three year old boy. I know how she loves him, I love my own just the same, and so I ache for her.

Come home safe Kienan Hebert. Come home to her -your forever safe place - come home to a love that can never be measured, to a woman who would die for you, and right now - most certainly - is.

UPDATE: He was returned by the suspect early this morning. Kienan is Safe!

Family Vacation.

2011-09-09T09:28:00.000-07:00

I've just come back from a beautiful, fun filled, two week vacation. Things went a lot smoother than anticipated. Anyone who has ever travelled with family members knows that things often can and do go awry. So as we started off a couple of Mondays ago, heading for the ferry that would take us to the sunshine coast and a long awaited visit at Scott's mother's - finally finished - dream home, I imagined all that could befall us. From projectile motion sickness to explosive diapers to overly excited, non-listening children who climbed the railings of the ferry and fell off the boat. Yes I prepared for all possibilities. With three children ranging in age from cranky toddler to cranky baby, I didn't hold much hope for fun during the actual travel time to get to our first destination. Turns out I should have had a little more faith in my kids, myself, and my ever steadfast husband.

To travel successfully with any family you must have a perfected formula. Every person in your vehicle of choice - from car to train - must be assigned a certain role or expectation. If you set your expectation too high or even too low you will inevitably have a family vacation that's as memorable as any of the Griswold's.

The first designation handed out for any familial travel endeavour is Navigator. This individual must get every person alive and intact from point A to point B. In my family's case the Navigator is my husband as he is the only licensed driver in our brood (I have a phobia, okay?) Conversation from the Navigator is often scarce, quick and to the point; and eventually you learn to decipher any information you might want or need from the under the breath mutterings and sighs of indignation or frustration from said individual. Every eye twitch or quiet hum issued forth from this person can reveal things as diverse as a wrong turn to the happy and timely arrival at the midway point of your trip (Mickey D's in our case). The Navigator is an essential part of any family vacation, but they are only a means to an end, in order to have a Happy and Relaxed environment for your trip you must have a great Second in Command.

The Second in Command, or the Lieutenant if you will, keeps all secondary players cooperative and in line; while juggling the affairs of the Navigator. Everything from cell phone calls, to food handouts, to any necessary disciplinary action is meted out by this integral part of any travelling unit. The lieutenant's success or failure will directly impact the morale of the group. If this role is not handled with the utmost of care, and the perfect balance of strict discipline and goofy fun is not struck then dissension in the ranks will occur. The screams, cries, and violent outburst from the secondary players will be so disruptive that the travel time of your vacation may become torturous and unforgiving. The Navigator and Second in Command must work together and communicate effectively in order to arrive at Point B without a single casualty.

Finally we come to the grunts or travelling trainees. These are the individuals who are slowly learning how to remain patient during the seemingly endless change of scenery and ironically continuous movement during long periods of restraint. Only practice will create perfect travelling companions and so the grunts must learn how to enjoy confinement while looking forward to a new found freedom of early mornings, late nights, extinguished naps, and days filled with endless activities. You can recognize any grunt by one innocuous and annoying enquiry, "Are we there yet?". Upon hearing this question once every twenty minutes the Navigator will sigh, and a good Lieutenant will answer, "Not yet, but soon. How about a game of Eye Spy?" Until at last freedom is gained and the vacation begins.

And so I am happy to report that we didn't lose one single person through motion sickness, violent backseat outbursts or swan dives off the ferry deck. In a family vacation, my friends, that is the definition of Success!

Siblings

2011-08-22T00:31:00.000-07:00

He came to me one morning, his puffed up chest swollen with pride and confidence. He told me that he was a big boy and as much as it pains me to admit this reality, I agreed with him. He was no longer my baby. His four pound frame has grown into a three year old body and with this metamorphosis comes a new understanding of himself and of all the things he can do.

Tripping and stuttering over his speech he tried to find his way through the tongue twisting minefields of the English language and I waited patiently for him to continue on with his story. In so many words he told me that the night before when he and Edie were asleep, her crying had roused him from his own peaceful dreams and so he'd taken care of her. My own chest swelled as I listened to his heroic account of rescue, and I couldn't help but picture his tale as his broken words weaved a tapestry before me...

The bitter taste of fear, the deafening thud of her heart, her eyes wide with terror - Edie would have cried out, whimpering in the pitch black of night. Then suddenly from the shadows, a voice would have broken through. His voice, the one which berates her all day, and tells her what to do, the one that yells at her and calls her names - reached her in that deepest dark, and soothed her quaking presence. His whispered assurances weren't enough to quell the tempest which had begun so he invited her to sleep next to him. She stumbled towards him, and crawled haphazardly under his covers. The offer to share his space, bed, and blanket, no doubt caught her off guard, but she didn't hesitate... Then his arms hugged her tight, her tears dried upon his chest, and both of them tumbled back into a soundless sleep.

"I'm a big brother Mom, I take care of her"

With one bold statement I realize, they aren't just bickering siblings, they are loving ones as well...and maybe just maybe, I'm doing something right.

Predictability

2011-08-19T01:36:00.000-07:00

I like predictability. It's comfortable and warm, like a blanket you've had a little too long... Perhaps the edges are fraying just a bit, the wire stitching has come loose and the stuffing gathers all wrong, but it's the first one you reach for on a cold winter's morning. You wrap yourself in it, smelling it's familiarity, reveling in it's relaxing presence. The soft, smooth feel of the predictable is something I don't have to search very hard for, not yet anyway...

Every morning I wake up with my sleeping baby beside me. Without fail my own world comes into focus a few minutes before consciousness descends upon his. I stare at his sleeping frame, the quiet rise and fall of his chest - this beautiful rhythmic breathing I once watched with dread - now has the capacity to lull me back into the land of dreams. Despite my hope for just five more minutes of sleep those big beautiful peepers look over at me and a beaming smile urges me to remain alert, I have attention to lavish, after all. After a few minutes of gentle rough housing and tickle torture the giggles from my youngest has poured down the stairs and awoken the Toddlers; a tsunami of smiles awaits me.

With my son on my hip I reach their door. They already know I'm there, they stand side by side, shoulder to shoulder, waiting for the knob to turn and for freedom to be gained.
          "Hi Mom", Gabe shouts and Edie echoes him word for word.
          "Hi Guys" , I reply with a smile. I'm quickly thrown off balance, their little bodies collapsing into mine during a fierce bear hug.
          "I missed you, Mom" Gabe states matter of fact. There is no sappy, tearful emotion behind it. It's just that simple. He missed me. Edie once more echoes his sentiment and I bend down and kiss them both while assuring them that I missed them too. After greeting me, they move onto Preston, kissing him and hugging him, and making him laugh with delight. Then it's downstairs for breakfast and the last blissful moments of peace before the days begins.

Light eventually turns to dark and sleep takes my children from me once more. I crawl into bed myself, and wrap myself in a blanket that's a little too worn. I know one day I will have to replace it, and learn to love something new; but for now, I'll enjoy it's familiarity while waiting for the morning to come and with it... the prediction that I was missed.

Caught off Guard

2011-08-10T20:54:00.000-07:00

I can't believe you are nine months old - no really - some days I literally can't believe it. We have come so far in this journey, that sometimes I forget how terrifying it all was, how destructive. I can honestly say the worst day of my life occurred three days after the holes in your heart were discovered.

The doctors hadn't told me much, preferring the wait and see approach to the open and honest, rip the mother's world in half approach.

"If he's a failure to thrive - in other words if he hasn't gained weight - then his heart is the problem" Dr. W had said somberly, "But it could just be he has a chest cold, we won't know until his weigh in". (They had placed you on diuretics in order to drain off any fluid that was accumulating around your organs, especially that of your lungs. I remember thinking that you couldn't have put on a pound of fluid...it all seemed so impossible).

I took all this in alone because your father was at work. Getting that news by myself was tough and a part of me wanted to shake the denial right out of your dad; but a wiser part of me understood that it wasn't over... that there was still news we had to shoulder together. So when the anger began to slowly bubble up inside me, I swallowed it down.

The doctor's optimism, however, had left me ill prepared for the weigh in - three short days later.

The resident doctor picks you up, her long brown hair sways as she lays you upon the scale."Six pounds eight ounces" She says while jotting it down on your chart. You weighed two ounces less then the day you were born, three weeks ago.

"His heart is the problem, his heart is the problem" the phrase reverberates around the confines of my skull. I vaguely think about collapsing into the chair behind me. My vision begins to blur and I'm alarmed about the prospect of fainting onto linoleum. I realize then, it's tears which obscure my vision, and I gasp for breath while quickly blinking them away.

I fight so hard to remain calm, to hold onto what little I have left. I know if I start to cry I won't be able to stop. I step forward instead of back, unconsciously choosing to always be there for you, to never falter. I promise then and there to never stumble.

Your father and I leave the doctor's office together, but also quite alone, and I'm suddenly, painfully aware why couples aren't molded, and cast together in times like these...It's not possible to truly grieve together, the pain, it swallows everything you are, and you lose yourself.

"You're so STUPID" I lash out at him. I hurl the words at him so sharply he jerks as though they've physically harmed him.

"Did you just say I was stupid?" he asks me incredulous. I have never spoken to your father in anger, I have never called him a name. I glance down at my hands which are scored with half moons from my embedded fingernails.

"He could die..." I whisper this time, my voice failing me, "He could die, and you should be home". I glance at him and watch as the muscle in his jaw twitches. Am I getting through?

"Do you want to regret this time you spent away from him, a time you could be holding him, and kissing him, and knowing him. Do you want to trade this time for a job where you protect everyone else? Protect him. PROTECT YOURSELF" I say in between sobs, and gasps and moans.

We rode the rest of the way home in silence. Both of us embattled in our own grief and shock. But you should know, he chose us Preston. He risked losing the new position he was applying for so that he could know you, so that he could live in the moment.

Nine months old kid. I never thought we'd make it, but I'm beyond relieved that we did.

I love you.

Mom

They sleep together

2011-08-04T09:57:00.000-07:00

They sleep together now; Dora and Lightening McQueen somehow existing in the same space. At first I believed the results would turn out to be an unmitigated disaster. They are so different. Like two galaxies caught together in a dangerous dance, eventually they would collide, their gravitational pull making it impossible to waltz without stepping on the others toes. I braced myself for the screams and tears as I stood with my ear pressed against the door. Silence. After a few minutes I stepped back, alarmed. Had one killed the other before I had finished exiting their room?

I slowly and quietly slipped away, tip toeing down the stairs to my waiting husband who was absorbed in a television show. With furrowed brow I strained to hear the beginning of the end. But it never came. What once was merely daytime play has morphed and from the ashes a new understanding was created: Two against the night is better than one.

When blackness descends and shadows grow long; they no longer call for me. The monster under the bed, the creature in the closet, the moonlight which gives their setting an eerie glow is no longer as threatening as it once was. They sleep together now. Dora and Lightening McQueen whispering platitudes in the pitch black of night, until their heavy eye lids close and daylight comes and once more their galaxies collide.

Dear Husband

2011-07-24T09:32:00.000-07:00

Scott,

It's been a whole year since we got married. It was probably the hardest of our lives together, and I sincerely hope it's the one year we can look back on and say, "It was then...I knew we'd make it".

One year ago my biggest worry was whether the hall of my reception would be decorated properly. Four short months later I was wondering what was wrong with my newborn son. One year ago I was fussing over my hair and makeup, and being angry that my nails weren't booked properly. Four short months later I was fussing over our baby during his weigh ins and echo cardiograms and being angry that it was my child. One year ago I was standing in front of you promising a million little things that I thought mattered...Four short months later the things that truly did matter were revealed in the harshest manner.

When despair overtook me, when my fear no longer allowed even tears to fall, you did what you always do; you put on a brave face, told me things would be fine, and you made me a million little promises that really did matter.

You took my hand in yours and promised to never let go.

We went to all his appointments together and you promised we would never stop fighting.

During the bleakest nights and the harshest mornings you promised me the world, allowed me the highest hope... and then perhaps foolishly, but lovingly, you promised me his life.

There has never been a man greater than you. This year together has proved it.

I love you husband.

Carrie.

I see dead people...

2011-07-20T14:35:00.000-07:00

I have always wished to be one of those people that could see and speak with dead. I mean how cool would that be? If I could pick a super power that would totally be it. To walk in this world with one foot always in theirs...radical! I got really into "ghosting" for a while. Doing EVP's, visiting graveyards, catching orbs on camera etc. I caught a few unusual things but nothing that ensured that this interest would become a passion. So I moved on, had kids, became a wife, moved into a new house on an old military base...and started to see dead people.

I soon decided that seeing and speaking with the dead...not really as fun as I anticipated. Actually it's really more terrifying than anything else. So I stopped watching "Paranormal State, Ghost Hunters, etc" and started to ignore the flickering lights, the tv and computer turning on and off, the radio randomly blasting, and anything anomalous I caught in photos of my kids.

With no attention paid to the ghostly visitors I stopped having ghostly visitors...for the most part. And I know what you are thinking...that the things I have just described can be easily explained away...it's true...but I haven't told you everything.

There was the shadow of a large man, so dark it seemed to eat the light, staring at me on my back porch who then walked through four solid objects. Or the apparition who pretended to be Scott, who I thought WAS Scott until a conversation later that night revealed the truth - twas NOT Scott.

and now the most recent events...

Some one whispered "chicken" in my ear...I suppose because I am too chicken to commune with them and on a separate occasion also whispered "Chris" at me; naturally I assume this is the person's name. And I'm certain he lives in our guestroom. Our guest room, previously our daughter's, is often 10-20 degrees colder even with the heat at full blast. It smells like cigarettes and I can't get into the room, the door won't open! unless I knock and ask to be allowed in. I poop you not!

So I guess I see dead people - occasionally; and hear them too - occasionally...

but I'm really wishing I didn't.

He's not Heavy

2011-07-15T15:24:00.000-07:00

"Take him and get him weighed, Please", I command my husband. He seems too little. I refuse to panic. Preston has always been smaller than the average child. He went three weeks without gaining any weight at all, and then months where a diuretic ensured that he never carried any water weight. I naturally assumed he would bulk up the longer he was off the Lasics. He hasn't. When he started to eat solids, I told myself, surely now he'll gain weight, he'll start to put on baby fat. He hasn't.

"Take him and get him weighed, Please", I demand again as Scott heads to the walk in clinic. The antibiotics Preston was put on has caused a rash. Is it an allergy? Perhaps. In any case, I reiterate once more, please, get him weighed.

Scott returns home, Preston settled on his hip. I smile at my baby and look at him expectantly.

"Well?"
"Do you want the good news or the bad news?" he asks and I get the sudden urge to disable him with a quick, sharp kick to his shin. I play along anyway.
"Good".
"His ear infection has cleared up!"
"And the bad"? I inquire.
"He's allergic to amoxicillin."
"Crap...And how much does he weigh?"
"17lbs 11 oz"

I do the math in my head and I know it's off. I hand the baby over to him and rush upstairs to his baby book. The last time he was weighed and I had recorded it was two months ago at his last cardiology appointment. He weighed 15lbs 10 oz. Hes only gained two pounds in two months.

"Shit, shit, shit" I think to myself. The doctors told me he was in the 25th percentile for weight that day; that fateful day we got the news no surgery would ever be needed, that he was doing great!

My nimble fingers type 'baby percentiles' into google. I pull up a growth chart and discover his weight is at the 9th percentile now. I choke. I bite back the bile I hadn't tasted in months and that disgusting, slimy feeling of panic begins to settle in once more. My heart pounds in my ears, my mouth goes dry, I stumble down the stairs to Scott where I find him relaxed and smiling at little Puck. The minute his eyes meet mine I can see he's already determined that the news I have to share isn't good. He reaches for Preston and subconsciously clings to the baby who just yesterday had given us so much joy.

"It's not good. He's dropped to the 9th percentile for weight"
"Shit" Scott states, his words eerily matching my own.

In desperation I turn to the women who know this path intimately. "Heart moms". It's a club I haven't been fully adopted into, or so my own guilt tells me. Preston's miraculous gift; the news that he would never need surgery ousts me from the support group I had once leaned so heavily upon. How can I request help and ask for advice from the mother's who have walked that insidious path of open heart surgery? They rejoiced with me when my news was happy. They no doubt had hoped the same for their kids once upon a time. But I'm that mother now. The one who gets to step outside the confines of the diagnosis.

I'm a mom whose escaped the heavy fear that surgery brings with it and consequently, it's not as easy to step back into that club when his heart never needed a surgeons scalpo. Still, I know my own feelings don't matter; Preston's health does. So I request Michelle's advice once more and she happily gives it. And as much as I feel like an impostor in their world, they embrace me none the less, and I am grateful.

I admit that being Puck's mom is sometimes a struggle. And so I do my best not to buckle under the weight of it all; because despite his dimunitive size...sometimes he feels so heavy.

And then miracle of miracles, yet again, I discover he has not tumbled outside of his percentile after all, and in fact that the doctor misinformed, or I misunderstood, the "25th percentile" information. Preston has remained steady in the 10th percentile for his age for as long as his weight has been recorded.

And it's moments like these I find myself ever stronger. And I realize that as a heavy as he can seem, he's still my son, and I will carry him as long as I need to.

Reach for the stars

2011-07-11T11:21:00.000-07:00

So here I am, age 28...and I am a mother. A pretty good mother if I have to say so myself. But I'm not the greatest role model. I swear, and occasionally lose my temper, I eat too much sugar and burp at the dinner table. My kids adore me of course, because they don't know any better, and I adore them because they are new, and beautiful, and so impressionable, and of course because they are my kids. But I want to leave more of a mark on them then just a few bad habits and a wealth of advice I myself never followed before having kids of my own. I want more than good health, and happiness for them, I want them to always reach for the stars. Right now they are of the age where the belief in Santa Claus, and Transformers, Boogie Monsters, and Princesses define their world and assure them that anything is possible. One day though, they will reach a point in their life where they will have to define reality for themselves, and decide what is possible and what isn't.

Ten years ago I decided as I graduated high school that writing was a dream that would never come to fruition. I was full of self doubt and terror when contemplating the world as a broke novelist. So I shelved that dream as just that - a dream and never attempted to really put pen to paper - until now.

I'm writing a novel, actually two. I'm writing them for myself, and I'm writing them for my kids. Whether I'm published through an agent or whether I publish them myself is still a question I'm not really worried about. I just want to be able to say to my kids, don't give up on your dreams or your highest hopes, without sounding like the biggest hypocrite to my own burning ears. I want them to see me, I want them to emulate me, I want them to say I can do it - because she did.

So I type with one hand, while reaching for the stars with the other and I dust off that dream I shelved so very long ago...

and I write.

Two

2011-06-29T19:30:00.000-07:00

Dear Edie,

You are two years old tomorrow. It seems as though I should be exclaiming how fast it all has gone, how shocked I am that another year has passed so quickly; but in truth, experience has ripped from me the ignorance that time is ours to wield and that if we ignore it, and turn our backs to it that somehow it won't trickle through our fingers. With this new found knowledge that life is lived in moments not milestones, I have found a new appreciation for time. Two years my little one is not so long, but it holds an infinite amount of memories and wealth of loving acts.

In this second year of life you were no less a challenge than in your first year. I'm sure you know that you have never been the "easy" child. You do not readily accept change and yet fight tooth and nail for the freedoms which ensures you can induce some if you so choose. Some would call you stubborn but your single mindedness is mere determination, nothing more, nothing less. And your confidence, it grows with each new day. Yesterday you did not dare to jump off the deck, today it was the first thing you did. I imagine that given enough time you will evolve and become a child more beautiful in all your intricacies than I could ever describe in a single letter.

Two years has passed, a time that was filled with smiles, steps and first words. I held your hand, caressed your head, and slept with you on top of me. I kissed your hurts, and winced in anticipation of them. I have danced a million steps with you, and sung you countless lullabies. Two years of time that you'll never remember but that has created a bond that can never be forgotten.

Happy Birthday sweet sweet girl.

I love you every second of every minute of every precious moment.

Daddy Dearest

2011-06-20T14:39:00.000-07:00

You are bigger than Lightening McQueen, or Dora the Explorer, you reach levels of fame and adoration Oprah Winfrey can't even claim. Their worship of you is all encompassing. They can't help this obsession, they are of the age where expression of emotions is neither controlled nor carefully guarded. When you walk through the door after being gone for a period of time their shouts of "Daddy", could be replaced with "Superman", "Hercules", or "Ghostbuster".

If they want to reach the sky, pull down a cloud or feel the gentle edges of a rainbow - they call for you, Superman.

If they want a helicopter ride or a horse to call their own, if they want to hang by their ankles or flip like a seasoned gymnast - they call for you, Hercules.

If they need a hero to rescue them from the ghosts in the trees, ninjas in their closets, or monsters on their ceilings - they reach for their fisher price phone and call for you, Egon.

If they could articulate their feelings; speak the words to express what you mean to them, it would never match the depth of all that you are. But if it could be summed up... if the emotion of it could be expressed in a word... its the one spoken when you arrive home from the mystery of "work", from a day where you disappeared and the calls for you were left unanswered, when your heavy boots echo on the porch steps, and your key sets the tumblers free in the lock...

Daddy!! they will scream and you will know. They love you. They missed you. Their hero. Is Home.

Happy Father's Day Scott

We love you.

Armageddon

2011-06-12T14:09:00.000-07:00

Six months ago I saw my world crumble around me. Everything I had built, all the hard work I had put into "belonging" was ripped from me as easily as paper. It's an illusion. What you have, what you think is yours to keep. I am no longer able to convince myself that treading water is the same as swimming. When your world collapses at your feet, movies and the media will fool you into believing it will be from one large catastrophe that will strike the rest of the world, just as surely as it has struck yours. It's supposed to come from the sky and burn the cities to the ground, or from the sea and wash those cities away, or perhaps the earth will just swallow you and your good neighbours up. Any which way the end comes, you're rest assured in the knowledge that from the ashes a unity will carry on. The catastrophe will make us stronger as we take each other's hands, cry on each other's shoulders and eventually rebuild. You never acknowledge the possibility that the world ending event could be yours and yours alone.

Never was this more apparent than the morning after discovering my son was ill. That night I went to sleep, exhausted and hurting. The terror of it was indescribable - it still is. So when I blinked my weary eyes and listened to the early morning sounds of the day, I was genuinely shocked to hear the birds, and the happy voices of neighbours, and the shouts of my children calling for me. Where were the screams that would match my own, the sobbing that could drown out the ones that wracked my own battered body? Where was the suffering that the world should have been in? Why didn't anyone else see it and feel it? Was I the only one privy to the knowledge that we are all fragile? That this wool blanket we have wrapped ourselves in and called society is only as strong as the people in it - and no one is as strong as they need to be.

I can no longer see the world through those special glasses we are all conditioned to wear - you know the ones - the rose colored ones that paint our world with the bliss of ignorance. I am shackled by this experience as much as I have been set free from it - and it's confusing to me. Armageddon doesn't come the way the movies claim it will - it will stalk your neighbour, pick off your sibling, destroy your boss - for "this is the way the world ends, not with a bang, but a whimper".- T. S. Eliot

I am now a shadow of my former self, tethered to my own experience with the distinct ability to grow darker in the brightest light. I have grown acclimated to this pitch black, to the darkness I see around every corner, even as I carry the bright lamp labelled 'hope' and march forever onwards into it's abyss. Don't get me wrong, it is not a worse world, just a changed one - one where possibilities of all forms can seek me out - the good with the bad, the real of reality...

Procrastination

2011-06-09T13:43:00.000-07:00

Procrastinate: to put off till another day or time; defer; delay.

Is it still procrastination if the task is never completed?

After having gone through three pregnancies in three years my body is starting to feel it's age. I learned the hard way that I'm not the spry little gymnast I used to be while attempting a front walkover for my children. After collapsing out of the handstand onto my head I was sore for days - both physically and emotionally. The day you realize you're body is starting to suffer the wear and tear of forgotten years is a devastating moment. Everyday now there's some new ache, from my neck to the soles of my feet. A lot of these pulled muscles and pinched nerves come from hauling around kids all day and breastfeeding at awkward angles. It doesn't help that the big 3 0 is on the horizon. This devastating reality is enough to make me want to start an expedition to find the fountain of youth.

Perhaps though, I could go into the land of middle age with my head held high, if only Scott would understand my precarious self-esteem. It's been two long years since we moved into our house. Two long years where my body has endured numerous months of pregnancy and 16 months of breastfeeding. Two long years where I have had to crawl, sprint, or tuck and roll under the windows in my bedroom. All I wish for is the neighbours to wonder what I look like naked to have some mystery left to that quiet mother of three in the house next door. At this point though I'm positive they have seen every tattoo, stretch mark, and saggy bit of skin I have. It's probably why they avoid talking to us...or why some of them have come to the door and offered us their recycled blinds ( I wish I was exaggerating ).

Scott is always so offended when I mock statements like "I wish we had our own property so that I could level the yard myself", or "If only we didn't have to get strata to approve everything, then I could stain our deck", or "I could clean the gutters myself, why do we have to pay someone to do it". Because Scott, for the third week in a row you have missed the garbage truck, we have three full baskets of clothes to put away in the bedroom, and the peeping Tom across the street won't even spy on me anymore because he's seen it all before.

Procrastination is too kind of a word to describe some of Scott's techniques of avoidance. I love you Scott, but the neighbours and I have created a petition.

All in favour of blinds for the naked woman in number 29.

Sign below

1. Tenant #11
2. Tenant #3
3. Creepy peeping Tom

and the list goes on, and on, and on.

...........................

Naked!

2011-06-02T15:35:00.000-07:00

The water pools around their feet and slowly begins to ripple and rise over their naked bodies. This part of the day is always quiet as they wait patiently for the bath to be filled up. After I turn off the water they inquire about their toys. I pass them some from the drawer beside me and they play nicely together for a record breaking time of five minutes before the screaming and shouts of 'mine' echo off the walls of the tiny room someone had the audacity to call a full bath.

It's 7 pm and a headache creeps up on me - familiar, dull - the ache of motherhood. I pinch the bridge of my nose where my glasses usually sit, but thanks to the constant splashing are now resting on the bathroom sink, and I ready myself for the inevitable high, pitch wails of toddlers fighting the hair washing routine. I start with Gabe because although he can articulate his hatred towards getting water in his eyes he doesn't sob uncontrollably like his sister does. As careful as I am about keeping the water off of his face it's inevitable that some foreign drop of H2O finds it's way under his closed eyelid and the accusations of water torture spurns his sister into hyperventilating and performing any number of useless attempts to escape the enclosure of the tub.

By the time I turn to Edie she has accepted her fate and doesn't start her head splitting screams until I begin to rinse the soap out of her hair. By the time I'm finished I'm ready for this whole bath time scenario to be over with. But instead of getting calm, complacent children eager to leave the confines of the torture room, I receive excited and happy children who have managed to stir up a second wind for playing with their toys and fighting each other over the ones they don't possess.

By the time I manage to drag them from their bath they are wrinkled and cold and begging me to wrap them in a nice, fluffy towel. Of course they demand a certain color and they like it to be wrapped around their shoulders and tucked in at their necks. If you don't comply with these wishes then they wont leave the bathroom without full on tantrum meltdowns. Two seconds after being wrapped in color coordinated, properly arranged towels, they throw them off and run streaking throughout my house usually screaming 'naked!' as they careen from room to room. I manage to pin them down somewhere between the tub and Eden's bedroom to put diapers and pajamas on the crazy, little, flailing bodies when Gabriel says in passing "Edie has two bums!"...

I chuckle and think that it wont be long before they are demanding to bathe by themselves - so I guess I should just try and enjoy this while it lasts, but maybe for the preservation of my own sanity... I'll take a few blackmail photos here or there - can anyone say "grad congratulation photo"...

An airman and his wife.

2011-05-30T15:50:00.000-07:00

After reading one of my blogs to him he shyly looks up and states that he too has many stories to tell - a thousand histories to write. I glance over at this man, and I have to admit I'm intrigued. He reminds me so much of my late grandfather, a man I wish I had taken more time to know. I was too naive to realize how awesome my own grandfather's life had been, how much he could have told me, the stories he had himself. So I am compelled to listen when Scott's Papa mentions this to me. He has recently received a friends autobiography and he is motivated to write one himself. This man I see once a month -a retired airman, a pilot from World War 2 - needs to tell someone about the life he has led and the things he has seen; the people he has met, and the love he has cultivated and known for decades - so I do what anyone would - I offer to help.

My kids love them dearly - this couple they call Grandma and Papa - two unique personalities that move so fluidly together - in the ways that they speak, the laughter they create - that it's apparent the many years they have spent with one another. They are eachother's history - without one the other would be lost - they are that entwined together. My children enjoy their company and are always eager for the next visit. But I want more than that. I want my kids to know them. I want them to understand that they aren't just a black and white photograph saved for historical relevance, or a name on a family tree. They are a history so invaluable that without them my children's lives would not exist now. Fate has thrown these people into my life, but love has kept them there. If not for the choices they made half a century ago - my life would be drastically different now.

His wife - Agnes - has been listening in. She has a thousand things to say - a million anecdotes to imbue on anyone who will listen. But she keeps herself silent. She doesn't mention writing her own autobiography other than to chastise herself for the lack of schooling she has received - for the written word that will never be set to paper. But of course her history will be told, at least a great portion of it; afterall, Lyle's life was lived alongside hers for so long - it's inevitable. And when it comes to those hundred stories he can tell, I have no doubt she will be standing right behind him, dancing that dance only they can waltz together, while informing him that he's remembering it wrong and not to forget all that happened next - their story to tell - my honor to listen...and now...to write.

Jigsaw

2011-05-23T11:45:00.000-07:00

I look at them and see the jagged parts. They come together like a 1000 piece jigsaw puzzle. For a while you think it's your job to put them together, to bring the edge of one jagged color to another, but just when you think you have it figured out they pluck the pieces from your hands and reorganize all your hard work. The independence comes in bursts at first. So quick and sharp you don't always recognize it for what it is. But before long you realize this tiny person - an extension of yourself - has taken on a mind of it's own...

He was born so small that when I touched him I shuddered at his vulnerability. How do I handle him without breaking him? I used to wonder. And then I blinked and suddenly he transformed into this boy who resembles pieces of the man he'll become. Bones and muscles and brains locked together in one beautiful form so spell binding that sometimes I have to remind myself he grew inside me once. A hundred good natured relatives and friends tell me he looks like me. They are right. He has my face - my chipmunk cheeks, my full lips, my chin - but there are subtle differences. His eyes are more almond shaped - like his fathers - and they are green. He has one dimple that breaks the continuity of that gorgeous face, drawing your attention to his stunning smile, a smile which will win over the hearts of a thousand girls. But as much as he resembles me physically that is where the similarities end. I imagine he is more his father's creation than mine. His quiet observations mostly go unnoticed by me. But then he unfolds himself and forces my eye contact, and states something so perfectly true that I am reminded that he is his father's son. I always do a double take when he catches me off guard like this. This gift is an off shoot of his empathetic nature. But as in any gift there can be a dark side. His pure and perfect empathy allows too many hurts to be felt. He has a tendency to take things too personally. Tears often stain his face just as often from the hurts he himself endures as from the hurts others feel. His greatest challenge will be to learn that he can't save everyone nor should he try. Right now though, he is unmarred and untouched by the true cruelties that this world can create. It won't always remain this way, but for now it is beautiful to witness.

She was always a challenge. She has fought me every step of the way since the minute she was born. Already - at barely two - she fights for the freedoms she has not yet earned. In this respect she and I are the same. She has yet to learn that she can't forever stand at the edge of a precipice reaching for a goal that is still out of reach. She will tire and fall before it's ever in her grasp; but true to form - her stubborn streak inherited from me; her dare devil ways unique onto itself -will only see her climb that cliff again and again and again until she's grasped what she's aiming for. And only after failing more times then she succeeds will she learn that not everything is worth breaking yourself over. Not everything is worth the blood you spilled in reaching it. She will have to temper her need to acquire everything she wants, lest she be left with nothing she needs. But this being said she has one asset I didn't. She has a big, boisterous personality that will ensure someones hands will reach down and pull her up time and time again. She has a smile that would crack even the hardest facade and big, beautiful, blue eyes that will draw anyone in. She will not need to demand trust, you will just give it to her, and she will not let you down - not on purpose. Taken in pieces she seems scattered, but when seen as a whole she creates such a perfect, little girl that there are moments when she literally takes my breath away. She will be a dynamic woman - she will believe she can have it all- and if there is one person who could attain perfect balance it would be her.

I can't wait to see who Preston will become, what kind of personality he will have. It's hard as a parent to be patient, to settle back on your heals and let them do the work of self discovery, but it's worth the wait - as any good thing is. All of us are a work in progress - a thousand piece jigsaw puzzle that will never truly be finished. But there are pieces of yourself that will always fit just right - pieces that will never need to be shifted or changed in any way - the foundation of who you are - pieces of soul that can never be lost or diminished. No one can tell you what those pieces are and sometimes you won't recognize them yourself, but that's the fun in doing the puzzle - the mystery of what lies within- the picture that is hidden in the pieces.

Columbo

2011-05-08T13:27:00.000-07:00

His eyes were the first thing I noticed. They were a color I hadn't seen before. I wouldn't describe them as ocean blue because they aren't that dark, but they aren't so light they could pass for grey either. If I had to pick one thing to compare them to I would have to say they are more like a shallow pond whose bottom is covered in algae; depending on the time of day - from the first light that peaks over the horizon, to the last burning rays at sunset and every artificial creation in between - they could pass for a blue or a green. In the right light, when the sun is lower in the sky and shadows are elongating they are the color of a blue spruce - cool and chameleon in their ability to shimmer blue or green or a combination of the two merely depending on the angle you are at. They have captured my attention from the beginning and even now - five years later - I find myself occasionally stealing glances at them, curious to know what color they will be today.

I like that I cannot label him. He's not typical. He's not a man who fits into any one stereotype. Even those eyes are not easily catalogued. He's simple but weirdly complex. Sometimes I call him Columbo because he has the uncanny ability to reveal parts of himself so well hidden that even I - a person who has seen more of him than anyone else - can sometimes be caught off balance. Perhaps this ability makes him good at his job. He can get the most hardened criminal to shake his hand while cuffing the free one. I admire this ability to keep parts of himself secret. I am his polar opposite. I keep nothing under my surface, I do not hide even the darkest parts of me. Perhaps he loves this most about me, this ability to reveal who I am in one large swoop. There is no mystery to me, and there seems to be none with him, until there is. Columbo incarnate.

I always want to wake up beside this man after a night of whispered conversations that last until the first morning light. I always want to collapse into him when the world seems to much, when the only solid thing is the knowledge that his embrace will never waiver. I always want to steal a glance from across the room, while kids hang from our limbs and laughter shakes our house - and wonder what color his eyes are today.

Baby Puck

2011-05-04T18:12:00.000-07:00

Dear Preston,

Ive started this letter a thousands times, in a thousand different ways and no matter what I write it doesn't feel genuine. I want to express to you what today was about, what it meant to your father and I, but for the life of me I can't seem to get it right. Maybe it's the exhaustion. After six long months we finally got the news we have been so desperate to receive, but too scared to really hope for. Your heart has healed itself. There won't be need for a surgical team, or a hospital stay, or for a neat vertical scar down your sweet little chest - a scar we would all carry in one way or another. All that anxiety, and worry, and nerves- all the tears and prayers and anger came to a head today and was finally expelled.

When the good news was revealed to us I thought I would be screaming in delight, laughing hysterically, or crying tears of joy - maybe a combination of all of the above; but instead I just feel...tired. I didn't expect my relief to manifest in such a physical way - to feel it in my bones and muscles. Maybe this is what true relief feels like. A release so immense that you are left battered and barely able to move. Finally, I don't have to be wound so tight, and I don't have to be that overprotective mother anymore. I can put you down, I can let you explore, I can take you out and show you off, and what's more I can enjoy all those little moments I stopped taking for granted a while ago, while simultaneously looking forward to tomorrow.

You are six months old today. You are doing what every typical six month old is doing. You are rolling over, laughing, smiling, and starting solid foods. You drool like a son of a gun and will put anything into your mouth without exception. You are six months old - and you are healthy.

I love you Preston. Thank you for such a beautiful Mother's day gift, I couldn't have asked for anything better.

Mom.

To be honest.

2011-05-03T14:52:00.000-07:00

The odds are good that Preston will leave tomorrow's appointment with a clean bill of health. The odds are good that he will never need open heart surgery. So why am I ~~fretting~~ agonizing over it? There is something I haven't told anyone. Not Scott. Not my mom. Something I have barely admitted to even myself.

It was easy to brush aside - this disgusting, dark twisted thing which begun to grow so many months back. From it's roots sprung sharp thorns that cut, and pricked and made me bleed. A premonition, a whisper that started before Preston was ever born. I have ignored it, explained it, buried it under a mountain of mundane, motherly tasks and still it springs to the forefront of my minds eye every now and then. He not yours to keep. It has spoken to me from the moment I laid eyes on his screaming, flailing frame. Hormones, I excused it. Stress, I explained it. Pessimism, I revealed it. But nothing could quell the premonition that took up residence in the back of my head. Pounding it's stake into the soft membranes of my cerebellum.

Scott and my mother can attest to my unusual anxiety after he was born. I obsessed over his umbilical cord which fell off too early. I was convinced it would become infected. "I can take him into the walk-in clinic if you want" Scott suggested. I shook my head and was repelled by the idea. Not there. Those places are full of germs and disease and danger - too much danger for a newborn. Then my sister-in-law came over with my cute, sick nephew in tow. I tried my best to beat back the panic. But after they left I melted down. I sobbed hysterically while spraying every toy and surface with Fantastik. Scott looked at me as though I'd lost my mind but every cell in my body was screaming to protect Preston. Protect him. It was unusual, I can't stress this enough - I have never felt this way with either of my other children. Even when Gabriel was born prematurely... I never had any doubt he was supposed to be mine. So this gnawing, clawing, panic inducing feeling grew, and knotted itself inside me like a hangman's noose.

When his breathing became laboured and his diagnosis threatened to crush me under it's weight - the voice, the doubt, this thing that I had never been able to shake - reared up and grinned like the Cheshire cat. This was the answer to the riddle. This was how it would happen. Even now I curse myself for thinking it. But here it is - this premonition, this fear - now written in black and white. No longer a monster in the myst, but a true foe that I need to defeat. I need to expel it from my mind, I have to exorcise it somehow - and maybe writing it will destroy it's power over me. But this is why I blanch about tomorrow's appointment. This is why the platitudes and reassurances do nothing to ease my anxiety. Because I saw it coming even before I saw it's form.

It's more than pessimism - it's a feeling that has dogged me from the second he was born. This heartbreakingly beautiful, little human does not belong... Why I feel this way I don't know. I can't explain it. He's so full of light, and hope, and happiness.

and To be honest I don't deserve him, but I so desperately want to.

Children's Hospital

2011-04-28T11:33:00.000-07:00

I acknowledge that my family desperately needs Children's Hospital right now, but that does nothing to calm my seething hatred for all things sterile. I've hated hospitals since I was a teenager. I got to witness first hand my grandmother's pathetic, skinny body covered in tubes after her suicide attempt - the one that took her life. It has created such a distaste in my mouth that I have never recovered from it. As the days draw nearer to Preston's next appointment the butterflies -which always flutter in my stomach since his diagnosis- slowly cocoon themselves and become heavy boulders. This feeling - its a kin to stage fright. Every minute that draws closer to your appearance in front of the audience feels like eternal torture. Your heart races, your mouth is dry, and it's hard to eat because those boulders in your stomach leave no room for anything. You just want to step into those bright lights and get it over with. That's the best way I can describe this feeling to those who have never experienced it. And at the end of all this tension and anxiety - when the play draws to a close - my players don't just get a good or bad review...we get a good review or open heart surgery for our infant.

I can't prepare for this drama. There are two separate endings to this play and I have no clue which ending I will be enacting. I'm out on stage, going through the motions, projecting an eerie confidence that I don't feel and I just want to flip to the end and see the outcome. Scott tries to remind me that the cardiologist believed Preston would never need surgery and I want so badly to feel what he feels. He has this quiet optimism about him, a complete confidence that our news will be good, our review a heralded success. Such good odds...but what the hell is that suppose to mean to me anymore? The odds are Preston should never have been born with a congenital heart defect to begin with. The odds are that the Ventricular Septal Defect should have been one or two holes at best, not an infinite number - not so many that the doctors couldn't f*cking count them. I'm sorry. It's still raw. It still bleeds. This anger that it was my baby. Percentages, odds, in all likelihoods - I can't translate them into hope anymore. They lost that ability the day Preston was struggling to breath. The day I sat in that hospital room praying he was fixable - begging whoever was out there to have a little bit of mercy on me - on us.

Exhale.

I hate hospitals but I begrudgingly admit we need them - maybe after the 4th I can even learn to appreciate them - one way or the other...I guess I'll have to.

A Mother's Kiss

2011-04-25T13:50:00.000-07:00

Today he threw himself into my arms- full of tears and snot, and owies- and knocked me off my feet. "I hurt, Mom!" he wailed while bringing his foot to my face so I could bear witness to the blister rising on his ankle from the brand new shoes, which are already to small. This boy, so petite in comparison to his father, has already grown large enough to knock me off balance. His strong, wiry frame, full of muscle and sinew only resembles the baby he once was by the little bit of pudge, which still frames his innocent face.

Recently his tears reach epic proportions. He can't seem to live in a world where blisters and hurt feelings can wrench from him emotions he can't contain. The realization that the world is unfair comes at him all at once. Not every act perpetrated by his sister is punishable, and not every injury can be healed with a kiss. His understanding of the world is expanding and growing day by day, and he doesn't always enjoy this new found knowledge. Who can blame him?

Even in my own - well planned and practised - life there come moments where I wish I could throw myself into one all mighty tantrum. Life is the greatest contradiction. It is full of moments which hold awesome serenity, while simultaneously bringing moments which can be wickedly brutal, and infinitely cruel. Life is a god damned oxymoron and anyone who has lived here for longer than five minutes knows this.

So shout out your perceived injustices to the world Gabe. Because there will come a day when it's no longer acceptable - the cruel, twisting knife of civility. It's just that others don't want their serenity ruined by the horror next door, bud. Don't judge these happy few. Who knows what hurt they endured last week and perhaps today they just want to laugh even if their tears have not yet fully dried.

Growing up is hard to do - but at three years old there are still moments where tears and snot and owies are my job, and I hope that serenity can still be found in a mother's kiss.

Dear future

2011-04-17T22:44:00.000-07:00

Dear future teenagers of mine,

I'm sure by now you have told me you hated me or casually mentioned how I have single handily destroyed your social life, and while I'm sure both of these things are ~~true~~ exaggerated I want to shove one more lesson down your sweet little throats. It's not a lesson easily learned, most people have to learn the hard way before it is finally taught, but I'm hoping against hope that you can be those people who nod, and have an amazing epiphany that will last your entire lifetime. I know...doubtful right. Well here goes anyway.

You aren't invulnerable. Bad things can and will happen to you. I was your age once, hard to imagine right? And although I wasn't as blatant as some teenagers when it came to my belief in my youthful longevity and immortality, I also never believed that I would ever become the lead in a comedic-tragedy. But life has a way of making you into an ironic lesson when you least suspect it.

Even though I have everything I could ever need, I do not have everything I want! I want an absolute. I need to know that you will grow up safe and secure, and that you will fulfill your every potential. I want what all parents want...I want you to get through life with minimal scarring. I want you to smile, laugh, and love, and I want you to be strong enough to survive even the most devastating event imaginable...

Your father...he sees a lot of horrific things because of his job... this you know. He meets with death nearly every shift. He photographs that cold stranger in all it's glory...in all it's devastation. And your father is tainted, just a little, by it's gruesome appearance. You can sense it sometimes. You can sense when it has seeped into his skin and taken up residence like some sort of damn virus. Sometimes it's the way he holds his head, or the rounding of his shoulders, sometimes the weight of the dead is just too damned much for any one man to handle. And still...I want an absolute. I want a promise that because he is your father's coworker...that death won't come to visit us. Not until we are all old and gray and ready.

But I also know we don't always get what we want. So if by some miracle you are reading this letter, and you have survived into adulthood. If Puck's heart is healed and whole, and neither one of you took your mortality for granted...then know this...Nobody's life is special. No one gets a pass, not one person is exempt from tragedy or from the challenges that make up our life. Every person will suffer their own trials, and fate will mock us all on occasion. But if you can learn that no hurt big or small needs to be suffered alone...then there is always time to heal. And perhaps that's the only absolute in this life. The love a parent has for their child. I would die for you...but more importantly...I would live for you. If fate was so cruel as to take from me a person I could not live without. I would get up everyday, and I would continue on. For you.

You aren't invulnerable, but you are loved unconditionally. Remember that.

Mom.

The Hero and the Princess

2011-04-11T16:02:00.000-07:00

The briefest moments in times are sometimes the ones best remembered. It's the cool, crisp, spring mornings which brings to life memories that seem long lost...

I remember that he often smelled of caramel or Tums. His salt and pepper hair was thick and shiny, combed to the right and styled as though he never left the 50's. He was Peter Falk incarnate, often mistaken for the actor who played Columbo, he politely refused requests for autographs - a common occurrence. He told the best bedtime stories too. He never read from a book, but instead would weave tale after tale, filling them with untold adventure and excitement, straight from his own imagination and brilliantly intertwined with his memories from The War. I could never tell what story was true or not! His subtle English accent only added to the story's mystery and intrigue and I never doubted that this man was truly the hero his stories portrayed him to be. This man, my grandfather, was the single most interesting person I have ever known.

I remember she was kind and soft and her skin was thin as parchment. I felt safe with her. Her kindness and love stretched over me like a blanket and smothered away a world that had become infinitely cruel to me. She spoiled me and I knew it. She always told me I was special because I was the first born grandchild but I think she saw me as I was - fragile and a little scared. I think she saw herself in me and because she didn't know how to protect herself she took me on as her charge.

They seemed perfect together. The hero and the princess. Of course things are never as they seem - reality is far less romantic, but to a child they were the most perfect people in all the world. I loved them best. I loved them more then my own parents. They weaved their magic spell, the one that made all grandparents immune to true judgment, and I never knew the darkness within them until I was too old to believe in fairy tales - in the stories my grandpa told me at bedtime.

I was 16 when my grandmother took her own life. That fragility of hers, which she tried so desperately to hide, finally collapsed under it's own weight and she needed to move on. She needed to find a place where childhood horror could be forever buried, and where unfulfilled promises and unspoken words never came to rest upon her shoulders. In a generation where silence reigned and truths were buried as deep as the hurt they caused my grandmother never had a chance to find her voice, to express her pain, until one day it bubbled up, boiled over, and started a fire she could no longer contain.

It broke him to find her lifeless body and the venomous words pleading from the suicide note to let her die or she'd hate him forever. It was too much for a man who had known her since she was a teenager, had married and conceived two children, who had loved her the best way he knew how...But sometimes destruction swells up from the ground and throws us off our feet, and all our mistakes suddenly collide into our world and shatter it into unrecognizable remnants of what should have been.

My grandfather died of cancer a few years after his wife took her life. He was not the man I had known as a child the day he left this earth. I think in his final hours he finally learned what the world had tried so hard to teach him. That love needs to be shouted from the rooftops because those words you left unspoken yesterday may come to haunt you tomorrow.

Still... on cool, crisp, spring days I don't remember the people they were. I only remember the people I thought they were. The hero and the princess, the people I loved best. Courage and Love - personified.

A Wino in the Making.

2011-04-08T13:05:00.000-07:00

I pull a shirt over my head that reads , "Mother's of little boys work from son up to son down", and when my head emerges through the top I notice Gabriel spritzing himself with my perfume while wearing my bra like ear muffs and I think, "you have no idea...". I stroll to my bathroom mirror and criticize the figure, or lack thereof, at the woman staring back at me. I think it clings too much to the muffin top I'm sporting; but the high waisted jeans I bought from Costco do a pretty good job of hiding the mom belly I have come to recognize as the cost of doing business with my uterus.

Lot's of women look at the hanging skin, and stretch marks on their belly as a beautiful testament to carrying children. I see it as a testament to the fact that I'll never wear a bikini again. I shake my head, groan and Gabriel pipes up, "a big bum mom". If my eyes could shoot daggers at him he would lie in a puddle of his own blood, but true to toddler form he hardly notices I'm alive and continues on his happy jaunt through my bathroom drawers, stopping occasionally to pull out a new treasure and wonder what it could possibly be used for.

I turn slow circles in my mirror and happily decide that I can live with my J. Lo booty...if only my thighs would stop shaking like a bowl of jello with every minor jolt they endure. Then I lean in close and inspect the face I barely recognize anymore. The bags under my eyes make me appear older than I am. I fiercely defend myself to my inner critic..."I am up three times a night breastfeeding, you know". Before I realize I have spoken out loud my son stares at my chest and states knowingly, "A big boobs. A Puck eat mom boobs". I smile at the boy who is now nonchalantly playing with my Canestan tablets with applicators. I raise an eyebrow, which I notice most definitely needs plucking, and push out my chest. No one would know that without my supportive bras my breasts look like deflated balloons. I sigh audibly and begin to wash my face. I look at the creams and makeups I have collecting before me and realize that I might want to think about anti aging serums. "It's never too early to start" I mumble while squinting at the tiny crows feet my eye creases are now sporting.

I finally head downstairs, and decide to tackle the day a little differently. Today I will end the night with a nice glass of wine. It will be my reward for keeping my children not only alive, but uninjured when their mouths tell me a truth I'm not quite ready to hear. I walk to the liquor store without children in tow and pick out a bottle of wine that I have noticed my own mother drinking. I bring it to the cashier and open my wallet. I'm ready to pull my ID from it's bindings when the clerk states " Twenty-one dollars and forty-four cents please". My swallow is quick and painfully obvious. I look furtively away while handing her my debit card and think that she must be wondering at this point what my age is...I look suspicious enough. When she still doesn't request my ID I'm confused but I do my best to cover the hurt expression on my face. When the 20 year old behind the counter calls me "Ma'am" I think I gasp aloud. She hands me my bottle of wine and I meekly leave the store and consider drinking the entire contents of my bottle before arriving home.

I decide against this course of action only because I suddenly believe that the officer wouldn't see me as a cute, young, tipsy girl, but as a drunk whose seen her fair share of disappointment in her long, depressing life...and he would probably refer to me as "ma'am" again which would only spurn me into becoming the alcoholic he assumes I am.

I get home and put the wine in the fridge and glance at the calender that cruelly mocks me. There's fifteen days until my 28th birthday. My audible sigh draws my husbands attention and he states, "what's up Sexy baby?". He grabs my ass and growls in my ear and I suddenly decide that I have the best husband in the world...Maybe tonight instead of drowning my sorrows over my lost youth, I'll raise a toast and celebrate the years I get to spend with this man who doesn't see the muffin top, stretch marks or deflated boobs...

Because he's an ass man afterall, and I kinda like my J. Lo booty.

Darkness Falls

2011-04-03T12:29:00.000-07:00

It's like being on the open ocean. You turn your face up towards the sun, and it's warm and refreshing. It bathes your body and melts away the everyday worries which sometimes consume your mind all to readily. This newborn bundle in your arms is so full of promise. This thing, this one thing is what you've done right. When you hold that hope for the first time nothing else in this whole, wide world matters. Everything for that one beautiful moment is still. That choppy ocean you've been travelling, the ups and downs of everyday life, is forgotten. The waves are silent, the birds are quiet, the wind is a gentle breeze on your face, and everything is peaceful.

My love for Preston was instantaneous. Nothing can compare to the moment you get to hold a real live miracle in your arms. But sometimes...sometimes darkness falls, and that warm sun on your face is extinguished by a storm you never saw coming. Those first few days after rushing Preston to the hospital were hectic. The doctors and nurses worked hard to discover the reason for his rapid breathing. Only 24 hours elapsed between his admittance to the hospital and the discovery of the holes in his heart. The longest 24 hours of my life. Time is so deceptive when you're scared. Time is no longer yours to keep.

When I feel the sun on my face slowly being overshadowed by this squall that has taken up residence directly over head, I am alarmed but not panicked. I glance back at Scott, his hands are holding my other two children's when suddenly our yacht lurches and throws us off our feet. I clutch wildly to this new life in my arms and I stretch out my hand to grasp my husbands, but I can't quite reach him. The fear in his eyes match mine. He wildly glances at our other babies, "I've got them", he mouths. And I know I have no other choice. I cannot be their mother right now, I have to be his, I have to be Preston's. When the clouds thicken overhead, threatening to spill their contents over me like a shower of doom, I desperately search for the sun, for the light to lead my way out. And although I know it's coming, the cold fingers of the dark reach out and clutch my heart and I am surprised by the icicles that form from my breath.

It's pitch black when your worst fear takes up residence beside you. There are people all around me, rescuers throwing buoys to me, begging me to grab hold so they can pull me to shore. But I can't find them in the dark. I stumble and fall over obstacles that shouldn't be there and my fear is only overshadowed by my anger. I force myself to take a deep breath. It's shaky, and cold, but I force myself to draw another. There seems to be no hope here, no hope in this darkness that looms overhead. I feel so utterly, and hopelessly alone. In my desperate pleas to understand this new heading my yacht is on I stumble upon a card game I never realized was being played. "I don't gamble", I state and I hear the dealers ragged breath rattle out of him like a poisonous snake hiding in the grass, "life's a gamble" he whispers in my ear.

In our desperate attempt to clutch one another in this unpredictable thing called life, the human condition ensures that when the chips are down and the cards are dealt you play for yourself. The other people at your table are beside you, but they can't play for you...no matter how much you wish they could.

I glance down at my shaking hands, I still have him in my arms, he's still clutching to me baby fresh, and wonderfully oblivious to the cards he holds...jokers smiling cruelly up at him. I force myself to look at my own cards...can I beat the dealer, this man in the black cloak, this man with no face. My yacht crests upon a wave. His movements are slow and deliberate but he lays his cards down, one after another and it seems I could beat him. The clouds break overhead and I can see the sun once more. The cloaked man still holds a card close to his vest and in May I will get to see what it is. But for now I turn my face upwards and let the sun melt away the worries of everyday life, and in one smooth motion Preston turns his face upwards too and we will away the dark together.

Dear Fates

2011-03-31T17:47:00.000-07:00

I humbly request your attention,

I know it's only been a few short months since the last time we spoke. I begged you to change course, to make Preston healthy. By all accounts you granted my reprieve, but there is one small addendum to my last petition which I need to make clear. Preston is gaining weight, the holes in his heart are growing over, and yet his need for surgery may still be present. It rests on whether or not the left over holes are enough to cause irritation, inflammation, and possible endocarditis in my sweet, little boy. So my addendum is simply this...no surgery.

I cannot have my child opened up. I cannot have a strangers hands on my sons heart. I cannot have his heart stopped and to live eight uncertain hours, and countless days hoping my son will be alright. Don't get me wrong, dear Fates, I will if I have to. If it's your wish...your decision...to put me through weeks of torture then I will count down the hours until my son's surgery date. I will hold my sons hand and kiss him goodbye as they wheel him into surgery. I will wait and beg the minutes to pass quicker. I will walk into his room and take it all in, the tubes attached to his body, the machines beeping, the nurses and doctors monitoring his progress. I will spend sleepless nights watching my son's chest slowly rise and fall. I will cry, and pray, and strain my eyes while staring uncertainly into the future. I will do what I have to do.

May 4, 2011 is my son's next cardiology appointment. Please grant me this one last request...I humbly beseech your cooperation in ensuring that my son will not need surgery. And if my life is too awesome, if it shines too bright and I need a lesson in humility...then let me switch places with my son. It's an easy switch you see, because I have a congenital heart defect too. One little twist from you and roles could be reversed, if you so wish. But no matter what you choose, it is my heart in your hands. I beg you...do not break it.

Sincerely,

Carrie.

The wheel turns

2011-03-25T22:08:00.000-07:00

My life has been through it's up and downs. I come from an interesting background. A brain injured father with a short fuse. A mother who lost custody due to some unfortunate circumstances. A bitter divorce between my parents, a disturbingly brutal custody battle that I, as a child, got caught in the middle of. I have, in the past, turned inwards...afraid of the world. I was privy to some of the uglier parts of life being spewed by those I love and trusted the most, and it made me self conscious and scared. Don't get me wrong I love my parents dearly, but they were young and made plenty of mistakes...those achingly, normal humans. But I tried to reconcile the tough parts of my life with the idea of fate. The idea that all I had endured was for a reason. So I trudged through and I got on with life, sorta.

I made plenty of mistakes too - this flawed girl - especially with the losers I dated, with the friends I ignored, with the anxiety I let consume me so readily. But my world changed truly, and completely when I met Scott. When I say he is the love of my life it is such an understatement as to be almost laughable. Scott saved me. His calm, sweet nature. His patience and support. He showed me that we are only as flawed as we allow. Only broken if we don't take to mending ourselves. He taught me that life can't be ignored or run from just because you are afraid. Take the good with the bad, and all that.

Let me tell you that it's inevitable...the bad. Your Wheel of Fortune that goes round and round and ticks off your next adventure will eventually land on bankrupt. Fate slaps you down when you least expect it, my friend. But I've discovered that there are warnings, strange eerie warnings that preclude these occurrences. The first major obstacle Scott and I had to endure as a couple was Gabriel's prematurity. A week before my water broke I wrote in Gabriel's baby book.

March 5, 08 (33 weeks old)

There is seven weeks left until your due date. Your daddy and I can't wait to see you. We are so excited and just want you to come home! We know you still have some growing to do and so we are waiting...impatiently...but we just can't wait until we can hold you in our arms!

A warning of things to come, or just a mother's over eagerness to have her baby home? Did I suspect something unconsciously? I brushed it off as just a weird coincidence.

A few happy years later I became pregnant with Preston. After giving birth to Edie I had become an avid mom blogger. I enjoyed keeping a journal for my kids, and I enjoyed reading other women's journeys. One day while blog surfing I came across a heartbreaking story about a woman whose child had essentially died while breastfeeding. They rushed the baby to the hospital only later to pronounce the baby dead and declare it was caused by something called a congenital heart defect. Because I was pregnant and crazy hormonal, by the end of her story I was balling. Scott asked what was wrong and I told him. "I'm so glad all our children are healthy, I would hate to have a child born with a congenital heart defect"...

Fate made sure I ate those words...

So now the wheel turns again, and when and where I step off next I don't know. I just hope it's less intense then this last go around.

Broken hearts love the best.

2011-03-24T13:31:00.000-07:00

Little Puck,

You have found your hands and have developed a love/hate relationship with them! You will put anything into your mouth that your little fingers grasp; and if you can't get it between your teething gums the way you want, you scream baby obscenities at it. Your big brother thinks this is hilarious and often presents you a full head of his hair to tug on, only to pull away and admonish you afterwards.Gabriel enjoys giving you endless attention. From cuddles to peek-a-boo he never leaves you alone. It seems every time he screams in your face (just for the startle reflex) and I begin to discipline him, you break out into a huge grin, or giggle with delight! It makes stopping his behaviour extremely difficult! I have a sneaking suspicion you two will be plotting devious adventures every chance you get.

You are truly loved Puck, even by Edie. She is so rough and tumble I didn't expect her to have a gentle bone in her body. But when it comes to you... her tomboy exterior melts and reforms as a little mama. She, oh so gently, hugs and kisses you and lovingly whispers Puck as she strokes your head. The other day I was busy cleaning and you would fuss occasionally. Every time I turned around to give you reassurance, your sister was there handing you a new toy. Of course this never lasts long! When she feels she has become too sappy she soon remedies it by attacking Gabriel in one fashion or another. Today she very slowly and gently kissed your forehead, then turned around to see your big brother and kicked his knee so hard he collapsed to the ground... She's an amazon Puck...be happy she loves you!

Your father and I adore you as well, of course! Knowing you are our last baby has made every second of your little life celebrated. You are so spoiled! For a heart that was born broken, and still poses us some anxiety and worry, it sure has reached out and touched a lot of people. Especially those people who see you everyday.

I love you Little Puck. Now and forever.

Mom.

Home

2011-03-21T16:58:00.000-07:00

We moved into our house when my oldest son was 14 months old. It was the middle of April and I was absolutely enamored by the crown moldings, master bedroom with en suite and jacuzzi tub, and beautiful hardwood floors. It is our first house. It is brand new. It's is 100% ours.

Now I look around my house and groan. The beauty has been brutally beaten out of it by the destructive nature that is my kids... The off white color of my walls, which held the slightest of yellow tinge, now looks worn beyond it's years. The chips, holes, scratches, ~~finger~~ ~~hand~~ body imprints of my children smear every wall...even in places seemingly unreachable. And just in case their greasy, muddy, food filled, acts of vandalism isn't enough, they ensure that my walls also meet with stickers, crayons, and pens.

The beauty once held by my walls was highlighted by large, numerous windows; big, beautiful, and mounted over huge stark white, wooden ledges. Gorgeous. That is until my toddlers began to toddle, and their tiny little faces stretched to get a glance outside. As their tip toes propelled them onwards and upwards their mouths did what they did best. Slobbered and chewed on the ledges that were once the pride of my home. Now my window sills are marred by giant bite marks, and missing slivers of wood...

Speaking of wood...I have dark, hardwood floors that just add a certain elegance to my house...at least they did before the toy assaults, dragged furniture, and practically fatal body falls. Everywhere you look you can see divots, scratches, devastating hardwood destruction. Before we move these floors will need a good sanding...or to be replaced all together. Sigh.

But alas, this isn't a museum, and those dirty, marred, walls tell a story...One wall has pen marks made by me, measuring my growing children as they stand (not so patiently) backs ~~pressed~~ pinned to the wall, waiting to be marked. And that hole by our front door was caused by Gabriel...who during a 'time out' unscrewed the door stopper and we didn't notice until it was too late. By the way, those crayon marks in the kitchen, those were made by Edie as her artistic talent just couldn't be contained to the paper I had given her. That trail of grime that leads up our stairs, that's where my kids place their food covered hands as we rush them up for their evening bath, giggling and screaming, the whole way there.

The teeth marks on my window ledges, are a measurement of my children's slowly growing confidence and independence. Unsteady on their feet, grasping tightly to the edge of their world; peering out, safe in this sanctuary I have created.

And my floors are where Edie took her first steps, where Gabriel had numerous potty accidents but through trial and error is now trained. These floors are where I lay Puck for tummy time and on occasion they become a wild dance floor for our entire family.

Yes indeed, my house has been destroyed and reborn as a home.

Toddler conversations...the bane of my existence.

2011-03-19T15:33:00.000-07:00

So it's happened. Gabe learned a phrase I now regret ever uttering. He repeats it a million times a day..."Mom's bum hole". Yes. I now wish I hadn't told him that Metamucil, Raisin Bran, etc...was for my bum hole. At the time I was trying to ensure he understood that he couldn't eat what I was eating... and somehow "optimal digestion" for the "prevention and cure of hemorrhoids after birth" didn't seem the best explanation for my two (now three) year old.

Suddenly everything I do, somehow relates to my...you guessed it...bum hole. I drink a glass of water at the table " Water for mom's bum hole?"... I eat a banana, " Oh, for mom's bum hole?". I lay down on the couch "mom's bum hole hurt?" I eat a bowl of Raisin Bran and he screams, "Bum hole cereal". But until a recent trip out in the real world I just found all of this very amusing...I soon learned it wasn't quite as funny as I thought.

Yesterday I went to the bank to replace my old card with a fancy, new chip card and he asks me in front of the teller "a go home mom?". I shake my head and reply "Not yet hunny, we have to wait for my new bank card"..."Oh!" he says while looking at the teller "My mom's bum hole broke"...The teller and I go three shades of red while I cover Gabe's mouth with my hand and mutter..."I'm fine"...

Yes. I'm so glad I explained proper nutrition for a healthy body so appropriately...Now I dread leaving my house.

Anyone else out there have a story about your toddler saying a little too much? Feel free to share and relieve me from my embarrassment.

Three years past

2011-03-15T15:01:00.000-07:00

Dear Gabriel,

Three years ago seems so long and yet I remember it so clearly. Crystal clear. My water had broken too early, and I was scared. The fear I felt was of the unknown. The unknown of how you would do outside my womb when you needed so desperately to remain there. My fear that you would not cry, would not fight, the fear I would never get to know you.

Your birth was by far the hardest I have had. Hard because I wanted so desperately to be somewhere else. Surrounded by people, doctors and nurses, the men and women who were assigned the task of caring for your tiny, fragile life; a life I had naively assumed would be your father and I's task alone, was brought into this world silently. Your 4lb 12 oz frame stubbornly refused to cry. Your father and I waited, listened, strained to hear what we longed for. And after an eternity those few, your guardians, got you to breathe, to scream, and I collapsed on my pillow, praying that this would be the worst thing I would ever have to face. Two weeks was spent in the NICU. Two weeks of unease, and fear, and the unknown. Two weeks where you beat the odds, avoided infection and jaundice. And now. Now three years have passed and I'm amazed by all that you are.

Only three and yet older. A look in your eyes, the set of your mouth, the knit of your eyebrows? Something gives off a look of wisdom rarely encountered in a child your age. You have a sense of self and an understanding of others which is unusual for a toddler. Your empathetic nature is astounding. In an age that screams "mine"- which you do from time to time- you are often found sharing, teaching, and loving those around you.

Three years have come and gone; and although I have now faced a worse set of circumstances (thanks Preston)...your bewitching green eyes, your beautiful smile, and crazy rowdy hair ensures that the hope born in that wish; on that day, has not died- only grown- in these three years past.

My hope for the future lies with you and your siblings. My love for you will always go unmatched.

Happy Birthday my big boy. Laugh hard.

Mom.

Am I in a tv sitcom?

2011-03-08T17:50:00.000-08:00

I swear sometimes I feel as though my life is actually a TV sitcom. Right now the main character is lounging on her couch and you can hear her thoughts as she types...kinda like Doogie Howser or Carrie Bradshaw. I think I relate better to Carrie Bradshaw though. My life isn't exactly like Carrie's off of Sex and the City...but I'll have you know it's pretty damn close. Well...minus the promiscuity and famous writer thing. Oh and the no Kid thing...plus I don't have four close girlfriends to hang out with.... Anyway... can we get back on point...voice in my head.

Today was one of those days were I would swear someone was writing my life out for me. Edie woke up screaming at one in the morning...pretty typical...and so she slept in my room for the rest of the night. (I just stash her in the play pen on her difficult nights because quite frankly she could crush Puck...with a thigh.) Then 6:30 in the morning rolls around and I hear "mom, wake up mom!" Pretty typical. I pick her up and notice she's pooped herself. Of course. So I change her, but I don't have an extra diaper her size in my room (she hasn't worn size two since she was like...a month old) So I let her run around bare ass. Next thing you know I hear the tinkle tinkle of untrained potty bladder....and that's when I notice she's standing on my three-in-one printer...Not typical!! The normal, under the breath banter between myself and an invisible listener ensues. "Why, why on the printer?! Why can't I own just one nice thing?"...After mopping up the pee I get the kids dressed and ready for the day. I head downstairs to await the one visitor I've had in my house since Puck was diagnosed with his heart defect.

I'm sure her face looked like this while she tinkled on my printer

My cousin is looking to move to my awesome town so she stopped in for a quick visit. Things were...tear filled...between exhausted Edie and tired Gage (my cousins son). Every time Gage would cry, Edie would wail like someone was murdering him in front of us. After 10 minutes of these shenanigans... and more muttering to this invisible friend I have acquired... this is why you shouldn't wake up so early, printer pee princess... I put her down for a nap. Now that the screams have ceased my cousin and I enjoy our visit. Before she has to leave she asks me to watch her son for a few minutes while she loads the car. We joke back and forth about how I can probably do that and even keep him alive since all my kids are still breathing...When suddenly out of the corner of my eye I see my four month old (propped in a sitting position on the pillow next to me) barrel roll off of it and land face down on the couch cushion. I pick him up, brush him off, and Krissy and I have a good laugh about our parenting skills.

my adorable baby before he became a couch acrobat

After my cousin leaves things resume to normal. Gabe, Puck and I hang out until Edie emerges from her nap. Snack time ensues and Gabriel decides he's going try and get himself some milk. He grabs the milk and attempts to slide it onto the counter so he can have his hands free to grab a glass...The carton tips and he ends up with a good dousing of ice cold lactaid all over his naked body ( I cannot keep clothes on this kid for anything) which leaves him crying and frustrated. I laugh...because it's friggin funny...and that's how the sitcom ends for the day...

Gabe in his police costume (the only clothes he keeps on for longer than 5 minutes)

to be a parent

2011-03-06T17:08:00.000-08:00

"Muuumm" the word echoes down the hall from my daughter's room. Her cries for me are heartbreaking...she's terrified...she's had a nightmare. I go in and comfort her and she slowly falls back to sleep.

"Mommy" the word whines at me while I'm doing dishes. "I eat, mommy?" And I glance down and repeat for the hundredth time that dinner is almost ready.

"ma ma ma" my baby coos at me while I tickle him and blow on his tummy. His eyes are bright and happy, his gurgles and baby talk melt my heart.

The first time I heard that word uttered from my child's mouth it felt foreign, wrong...I couldn't possibly be "mom" could I? Slowly the word began to seem appropriate...and slowly it became...me. I went through a true metamorphasis. From a caterpillar knowing only one world, his feet on the ground, crawling along, oblivious to the true majesty of all that is out there; to a butterfly scanning the world with new eyes, wings lifting it to places unexplored, a world once more filled with wonder. This is what it's like to become a parent... to become "mum, mommy, mama".

When your focus shifts to another person, when selfishness is washed away so completely that you no longer even ask to pee alone...the world is different. It's different because you have to show another person everything it has to offer. What once was so old, as to barely be noticed, is new and amazing again...the sound of the ocean crashing against the shore, the screech of a seagull as it sores through the sky, the view of the mountains from your small but adequate backyard...everything is noticed because your children see it, ask about it, marvels at it.

The clouds above our house are grey because it's going to rain; you can smell it in the air, before the rain hits the ground. Can you smell it, Gabe? I can. It smells fresh, and new... it smells like it did when I was your age.

Becoming a parent is like being a kid again, only with all the perks of adulthood. What could be better than that?

Dear Scott

2011-02-28T23:46:00.000-08:00

Hey Babe,

Just thought I'd let you know that you left a dirty dish amongst my clean ones again; on the counter, next to the bottles, soiling the sterilized dishes that are your children's. You should also be aware that a drop of blood from your unfortunate nose bleed is dried on my bathroom floor. Everytime I pee it stares at me and mocks me and I think...I need to clean that...and then a scream from the other room causes me to jump up without wiping, and my stumbling, struggling, cursing frame flies out the door and the droplet of blood is forgotten again until my next ill fated bathroom attempt.

A few more things my dead...deaR...sorry...Freudian slip?...the laundry basket, filled with our folded clothes, too heavy for me to lift up the flight of stairs to our bedroom, has now been settled in front of our door for well over a week. Maybe tomorrow you could lend those beautifully defined, weight lifter, arms to this job of jobs only you can complete? And one more small household discrepancy is bothering me... today I found boxes on our porch...empty, large...and aching to be seen by our lovely, fine happy, Strata Council. Perhaps only then they will be collapsed and recycled as they were meant to be; but I have hope, a stubborn, wondrous hope... that before we have to pay out the nose... you will grab a blue bag from our cupboard and destroy the Councils chance to stick it to a cop...

I know my requests are simple, and thus easily dismissed; you deal with so much on your job and are constantly measuring, calculating, and photographing the cruel, twisted humour of death, but maybe...just maybe...you could muster some of that cold, hard, steely cop determination and defeat the eye roll of your wife...

Oh...and we need more diaper cream. Thanks.

1, 2, 3...

2011-02-21T18:14:00.000-08:00

"Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed with my 15 month old, I just look over at your house and then I feel better!" - Mike, next door neighbour.

"Three kids in three years! Twins?...Three singleton pregnancies! YIKES"- stranger at the health clinic.

So am I crazy? Too stupid to use birth control? Extremely horny? Devoutly religious? None of the above. We wanted three kids...maybe not this close together...but enough that birth control wasn't huge on our priority list, and enough that we welcomed each baby with open arms.

Having three kids under the age of three is a bit like running a horse race on a Shetland pony. The odds are one in a hundred to win; and no matter how fast your pony runs, the horse beside you is only there because it's lapping you...for the fifth time. No matter how much I get done in a day, no matter how fast I move, it's never enough. So you have to make sacrifices.

The first most obvious sacrifice is a social life. After the third child (especially one who isn't allowed to get sick) family visits are put off and play dates are pushed so far out of the realm of possibility to be but a vague, elusive memory. Three kids at three different stages of development is impossible to wrangle on one's own. Trying to monitor two toddlers behaviour while caring for an infant is a bit like watching a clown juggle dangerous objects he consistently fails to catch. Social life = gone! This unfortunate sacrifice ensures that my children and I have slowly become Britney Spears incarnate...Pajamas are easy, ponytails are sexy, and a child's hair is much easier kept...shaved.

The second sacrifice is just as obvious as the first. Time to one's self. After having one child, finding time to yourself is difficult but not impossible. There's always someone you can con into watching your kid. After having two kids, finding time to yourself will have to be put off until the kids can entertain each other, or a movie can make a babysitter's job easier. After having three kids...you can forget it. The minute you mention the number 'three' people get this look in their eyes...the 'are you crazy' look. That's when you realize that from here on out the only time you will have to yourself is when abandon your kids on someones doorstep. Preferably someone who knows and loves them...

The final sacrifice...and hopefully most obvious is...(drum roll please)...Sleep! Of course. Three kids under three who have nightmares, are afraid of the dark and things that go bump in the night, who teeth and need to breastfeed, ensure that I am awoken at least three times during an eight hour period. Coffee is essential in the morning. It's the one thing that keeps us all alive. Without it I'm sure I would have burned the house down by now...'accidentally'...

But with all the sacrifices come numerous rewards. I get to celebrate a million different moments, a million different ways...three times over. There isn't anything in this world I have sacrificed that wasn't worth it. I get Gabe's hilarious conversations, Edie's constant cuddles, Preston's beaming smiles and a wealth of unconditional love that can't be found anywhere else.

Is your life as rich as mine? Three kids in three years...crazy...oh yeah...and I wouldn't change it...for anything!

Love

2011-02-17T13:37:00.000-08:00

Once upon a time, not so long ago, I believed that my life would never truly be touched by tragedy. Then, low and behold, fate came along and beat that idea out of my skull with such force that I've had a permanent headache ever since. I thought I had life pretty much figured out, I thought I knew what it was to be a mother, a wife, a daughter, I thought I knew unequivocally where my place in the world resided. I had a plan, I had expectations, I knew where my life would end up and who would be by my side near the end of it. My kids would bury me, mourn me, have their own kids and the cycle would begin anew.

Then an explosion of truth collided with my little, bubble wrapped world and now I know everything I planned, although a road paved with good intentions, wasn't etched in stone. When you face a monster as hideous as a seriously sick child, you can't help but walk away changed. I never knew it was happening. I didn't feel much different after Puck was diagnosed with his heart defect; truthfully, I just concentrated on getting him through the day, and surviving my own morbid thoughts... but, until you have experienced your baby being ill, truly ill, the kind of illness that can't be fixed with over the counter medications, than you can never know what it was like...

Fear, for the most part, doesn't exist for me anymore. The things that used to frighten me, the things that used to put my teeth on edge and cause me anxiety is laughable now. Why be frightened of life when death is right around the corner? Death is not something I fear for myself, but I fear having to live next to it. It's putrid, rotting corpse soiling the couch cushion next to me. I fear the death of my children like never before. It's the one fear that has survived this crazy experience, and it's one I will never shake. It's possibility has been imbedded deeply within my psyche and no amount of cliched reassurances will ever remove it's entangled claws from my thoughts.

But I refuse to live wringing my hands and shielding my children from this world. If death is watching and waiting, readying to strike, then the best thing I can ever teach them is simply this...

Don't waste time and don't lose sight of what's important. I'm not commanding my children to climb Mount Everest while investing in high interest saving accounts and having 2.5 children. The lesson I learned with Puck is simply about love. It is the most precious commodity this world has to offer, and it's one we create together. If you are going to love, than don't hold back...for any reason. If you can do that, than you have everything you need to have a truly wonderful life.

Baby Girl

2011-02-11T21:05:00.000-08:00

Eden,

Recently you have begun to revolt at bedtime. I ask you to say night night and we march off to bed. I lay you down, tuck you in, give you a bottle and leave your room, something you've been accustomed to for a while now and never had an issue with. Things have changed. Now when I leave your room the tortured screams begin. The wailing of someone who has just had their fingers surgically amputated without anaesthetic... has nothing on you kid. You shriek until your voice breaks and your breaths jerk your body like violent, grand mal seizures. "BAD MOM" echoes down the halls and are almost amusing in their grandiose accusations. On nights where your father is working I find your antics more than a little difficult. It seems Puck is his fussiest at night and doesn't want to be off my breast for long and you now insist I don't leave your room until you are asleep. I have tried breast feeding while sitting by your bedside during your difficult nights; but you are much more interested in your little brother than you are in sleeping.

Tonight was one of those nights where no one but Gabriel wanted to cooperate at bedtime. I thank my lucky stars for Gabe who seems to know when mommy is at the end of her rope and not to push it. I finally gave up, after running back and forth between you and Preston, and just shut the door on your tantruming frame. Thankfully you were tired enough that your shrieks lasted only minutes. Sometimes being a mother seems like the hardest thing in the world. I wish I could split myself into three so I could address your distinct, individual needs simultaneously. But I am only one person and unfortunately for you, Puck is the newbie and my number one priority at night.

But rest assured baby girl, when I have a little extra time, and a little extra help, I will quietly sit at your bedside and watch your face become peaceful as you slowly drift off to sleep. You may not be the baby anymore but you will always be my little girl.

I love you,

Mom.

Rainy Days and Memories

2011-02-05T14:58:00.000-08:00

"The smell of worms" was how my siblings and I described rainy days. The staggering amount of these slimy, slithering creatures, which had just escaped from their collapsed and water logged network of tunnels, ensured that after a spring downpour our little brains associated the smell of warm, wet asphalt as the wondrous smell of worms! Even now as I step out onto my back porch and take a deep breath of fresh, fallen rain I'm propelled back to a simpler time. One where the rescue of drowning worms was the biggest worry we had to contend with, and the numerous responsibilities of adulthood still felt too far away to even bother contemplating.

After these spring and summer rains, my brothers and I would wander for blocks, picking up worms, rescuing them from puddles; until the sun dried the sidewalks and the worms, once more, disappeared from view. The only ones left would be the ones who didn't survive the deluge and I remember feeling sad for these little creatures. Back when I was a child and lived in a world where death was relegated to bugs and animals, life was strangely euphoric. We viewed the world as a wonder waiting to be discovered, not as a place that held very real dangers, and very real consequences.

As I got older the glistening edges of my world began to dull. The reality of adulthood began to set in and worries began to pile up. My parents slowly became people... fallible and mortal, and I felt betrayed by a world I thought I knew; but who had been instead holding deep, dark secrets from me. After my first child was born I expected these feelings to get worse. I expected to see predators around every corner, and possible injuries or even death at every turn, but to my delight I found my world began to glisten again. And now after a spring rain, I get to take a deep breath, and rescue worms from sidewalk puddles with chattering little children by my side.

My Husband.

2011-01-31T15:54:00.000-08:00

I have spoken at length about my children and the pride I feel in knowing them, raising them, loving them, but there is another person in my life who is also just as special to me in a much different but equally important way. I could speak in similes, colloquialisms and romantic, foreign words to describe our love affair, but the truth is much simpler...he's my best friend.

Scott and I have a respect for each other that time has not diminished over the four years we have been together. We rarely speak a cross word to one another and the fights we do have are usually spurned on by the exhaustion of having three kids in three years. The truth is I still miss him when he leaves for work, I still worry about him if he's late from work, and I'm just as ecstatic as my kids ("DAD'S HOME!) when he finally walks through the door!

Not many people know who Scott is. I would say I'm truly the only individual (besides our own children) who has been allowed into his inner world. At first Scott may come off as a shy, quiet individual, but in reality he's a good listener and enjoys observing for a while before participating. Unfortunately for Scott, his ability to listen without interruption can be misinterpreted as a disinterest in what you have to say. I myself have been caught asking him to repeat the last thing I just said (convinced he wasn't paying attention) only to have him tell me verbatim our entire conversation.

Scott is also very genuine. He says what he means and he means what he says. You won't meet another individual quite as beautifully, simple as Scott. There isn't any hidden meanings behind his words, if he compliments you he means it, and if he criticizes you, you deserve it. He doesn't mince words, he doesn't beat around the bush and to his credit he's never rude. It's difficult to be a person who speaks their mind while still keeping peoples feelings intact. But I think it's because he takes to heart the saying "if you have nothing nice to say, don't say anything at all". Sometimes Scott's silence can say more than words ever could.

And best of all he is a great father. He is the kids best playmate and he can get them to laugh and scream wildly more than any other person. He finds amusement in their antics and his booming laugh can be heard frequently throughout the day. Of course he also enjoys a good cuddle and will hold Puck for hours, or snuggle Edie for as long as she'll allow, and although Gabe is much too active to sit still for any length of time, there are occasions when he'll let his daddy put him to bed; and if you were allowed to peak you would see a father stroking his son's head until his eyes slowly closed and he drifted off to sleep. I like to think that I'm the glue that holds us all together, that without me the house would fall apart, but in reality Scott is the foundation we have all grown upon, and it is his strength that has seen this family blossom.

Love you babe!

To Gabriel

2011-01-30T11:47:00.000-08:00

Dear "Big Boy",

You are becoming quite the little person. I always knew you had unique visions about our world but until recently you weren't able to express it to me. Your speech delay made it so I had to make a lot of guesses about what you were thinking, what you wanted, what you needed and I think I did an alright job translating the language you tried so desperately to communicate with. Now that your vocabulary is at an acceptable level the only problem we have is your pronunciation. Sometimes it takes me asking you to point out what it is you are requesting before I understand the jumbled words you are attempting to speak with.

In April you will be attending some speech classes and I look forward to taking you to them. I feel it is one of the last hurdles of your prematurity and it should be my job to help you vault it. I suppose I still have some guilt about my body betraying us when my water broke early. But ultimately I can't change what happened, I can only accept what is and work with the opportunities we have been given.

I can't believe that in a little over a month you are going to be three years old! It's astounding to me that three years have passed since giving birth to you. It's amazes me even more that you have two siblings that are following right on your heels. You are such a great big brother. I couldn't have asked for a better child to be the first born. You are a great role model and take your big brother role to heart. You absolutely love playing with your little sister and keeping her out of trouble. When you aren't chasing her around the house and making her laugh hysterically you can be heard saying " No Sis! No touch" or something similar. You do your best to keep her safe and and become so upset when she is hurt.

I worried that with the arrival of Preston you would finally develop the jealousy that so many people speak of. But instead you call your brother "My Baby Puck" and insist on holding him or helping me change his diapers. Your favorite thing to tell Puck is "You're home Puck" and I'm not sure where you picked that up or why you tell him this constantly. I can also find you gently stroking his head when he is "crying, mom!" and telling him "it's Okay Puck". Recently you have started to rub your face gently against his as though you were a cat in your last life, and it really just highlights how sweet you are. Your love for your siblings is so obvious. Not to say you don't fight with your sister but the majority of the time you can be found playing cooperatively next to her or even wrestling with her (while occasionally allowing her to pin you)!

Your manners also catch people off guard. You have your "please" and "thank you" down to a fine science which is amazing to your father and I because we really haven't been consistent with correcting you. However, your father and I always use our manners with each other so we figure our good modelling has rubbed off on you! Or so we like to believe ;)

You do have your own little quirks though that can be overwhelming for us as parents. You are so kind and caring but can also become upset quite easily. You truly wear your heart on your sleeve and although I don't always know what you are saying I ALWAYS know how you are feeling. I have developed quite a few tricks to help calm your nuclear, emotional explosions and now you look for me if you are feeling overwhelmed. Your father gets more frustrated with your antics than I do because he can't diffuse you as easily. But even with the unique challenges you present us I look forward to my days with you. There is something new everyday that makes me feel so proud to be your mother.

Three years old ~~baby~~ big boy...I just can't believe it. It seems like yesterday that your four pound 17 inch frame was placed into my arms. But you will always feel that way to me, even when your telling me "I big boy mom, I big boy".

Love you!

Miracles.

2011-01-29T14:58:00.000-08:00

Miracles...

I have to wonder if they truly exist. Why would I question the power of an omniscient being creating such things when I myself, by all accounts, just experienced one? I guess I question the validity of miracles because I don't understand the selection process. If God is up there, watching over each of us, why does he say "Put Bob on the miracle list but leave Stacey off of it"? Isn't Stacy just as deserving as Bob? Did she not pray enough, long enough, call in enough Godly favours? Why does Stacy lose a person she loves while Bob gets to keep his...

"Because God works in mysterious ways" seems like a bullshit answer if I ever heard one. Tragedy and pain is supposed to teach us some sort of lesson or so the theory goes. Anytime you allow yourself to love a person with your whole heart, with your whole being, you are placing yourself on the line. I forced myself to bond with Preston despite my fear I might lose him. I forced myself to study his face, and the color of his eyes, and the sound of his cry. I forced myself to love him with such veracity that the loss of him would have devastated me. But I couldn't let myself waste one moment with him. And so I have learned to do the same with my other kids. A lesson can be found when your child is ill, when there is still hope...but what about when a mother is forced to endure the most terrible thing imaginable...where is the lesson in death?

When Preston was at his sickest. When the doctors referred to him as "extremely frail", a "failure to thrive", and told me he was in "congestive heart failure" I nearly broke from the fear of losing him. When he was weighed at three weeks of age and it was discovered he weighed less than he did the day he was born I cried harder than I have my entire life. It became real that day. My step mom was taking care of my kids that fated appointment and when I walked through the door and she asked me how it went... all I could say was "not good" before bursting into tears and sobbing on her shoulders. And then my family began making plans to visit and to take care of Gabe and Edie, and I knew they were thinking the same thing...that I was going to lose him. That was almost harder...knowing I wasn't overreacting...knowing that the other people I loved were preparing to catch me as I fell. But then one small "miracle" after another began to occur, and slowly Preston began to gain weight, he began to thrive, and at his two month cardiology appointment the biggest miracle of all was bestowed upon us and I was so grateful, and I still am.

The truth is I feel lucky because I am lucky. But I also feel sad. I feel sad because I know so many women who over the years have lost their children. And I have to ask where are their miracles? Where is their hope? Where are their Preston's?

Why was I on the miracle list? And why aren't they?

Measuring Stick

2011-01-27T12:45:00.000-08:00

Why is it as mother's we feel the need to compare our children to each other? Is it really a huge accomplishment if your infant rolls over before "the norm"? Will it really affect a child's future accomplishments if their first word is uttered at an early age, or if the first steps are taken before the child next door? When your baby grows up and goes for a job interview and they are asked to describe the characteristics which will make them a good fit, will they answer "because I walked at nine months and have been excelling ever since"?

Barring learning problems or medical issues (Gabe's speech delay, or Puck's weight gain) isn't the "quantifiable" measurements of our children kinda useless? After having three kids, which have all hit their "milestones" at different times, I can assure you...it is.

I just find it ridiculous that our generation has been inundated with "learning products", and "flash cards", "percentiles", and "milestones". Kids don't develop at the same pace, not really, and trying to squeeze them all into a little box seems ludicrous. Don't get me wrong I'm not innocent when it comes to the comparisons I made either as a young mother, but the more children you have the more you realize...milestones are hit when your child is ready to hit them and they will be just as exciting hit late as they are if hit early.

So are set milestones ever useful? Can the box the experts put our children in ever be helpful? Of course. They helped to determine Gabe was behind in speech and labelled Puck as failure to thrive which proved he was in heart failure; but most parents don't use the milestone data as a means of ensuring their own children are healthy and thriving and to seek help when an issue or problem develops; but instead many parents use it as a measuring stick against other people's kids or even to push their children to be better, do better, compete, compete, compete.

If someone were to ask me to describe my children I would say..

Gabriel is my oldest child and the most empathetic two year old you will ever have the pleasure of meeting. He takes his roll as big brother very seriously and you can find him hugging, kissing and chatting with his siblings at various times throughout the day. He has always been a kid who wore his heart on his sleeve and I know he always will. He's sensitive and caring and always quick to laugh or to cry depending on the situation. He loves a person with his whole being and doesn't hold back. I know he will be a great man as he is a wonderful child.

Eden is my middle child and forever the trouble maker. She pushes her boundaries and is always testing the people around her. Her personality is huge and you won't find another kid with a more genuine laugh. She always wakes with a smile and always looks forward to the day. And she's a tomboy through and through. If she had the choice to play dolls or make mud pies she would choose the mud every time. Her favourite person is her brother and I hope Gabe and Edie will always have the close friendship they have nurtured since the day she was born. Eden is as beautiful as her name would suggest and I know she will always remain so.

And finally Preston. My baby. The kid who has had to fight just to remain healthy is the sweetest little infant this world has had the pleasure of knowing. He's laid back and so calm. He has a patience for life already that astounds me. He sleeps through the crazy noise that is the very nature of our house and doesn't mind being cuddled a little too hard by his older siblings. He's just as content to hang out in his bouncy chair as he is sleeping beside me. He's a cute little boy and will be just as wonderful and beautiful as his siblings.

These are my children and wouldn't you say similar things about yours?

Measurements aren't who your children are. So relax, enjoy, and remind yourself "it's about the moments...not the milestones".

Reflections

2011-01-23T16:11:00.000-08:00

"Every life has a story".

My story happens to be deeply intertwined with three other living, breathing human beings. My life is so knitted with theirs that my children's success' and failures are felt just as intimately as if they were my own. I think every parent feels like this in one way or another. And it's every parents struggle not to take the reigns and lead their children through the winding challenges of life. It would be so easy to make their choices for them. It would be so simple to give them the life we are so eager for them to have. But rebellion is neatly sewn within each of us. And eventually our advice, our wisdom, our own life experiences fall on deaf ears. We become their inner groan, the embarassment they wish to hide from their friends. It's inevitable. For a while, a short while, we are their heroes, we know everything...but eventually they realize we come from a world different than their own.

Our world was one of pens, and pencils, paper and books. A world where the internet is younger than ourselves, and where the memory of cassette tapes and the new fangled world of CD's still ring true. And now suddenly grade schoolers carry around cell phones, computer labs exist in every classroom, and E readers have taken the place of paperbacks. Our advice and wisdom now seems arcaic even in our own eyes.

I suppose my own parent's felt this way. I remember viewing them as enigmas..."how could candy be bought for a penny", "did they really walk up hill both ways to school and home", and "was imagination truly favoured over TV?". But even with so much difference between the eras one thing rings as true today as it did 50 years ago...

After having children...everything changes; and the person you thought you were no longer exists. And that seemingly lame excuse your parent spouted everytime no other explanation seemed satisfactory, bursts forth from your lips like a curse chanted over every generation since the dawn of time...

"You'll understand when you have kids"...

And I do...I finally do.

Motherly Musings

2011-01-14T23:20:00.000-08:00

As my youngest son was breastfeeding tonight he gagged and spat up on my nipple (no blow to the ego there) and I realized that as mothers we learn to accept and ignore a lot of previously disgusting things. Four years ago if someone had barfed on my nipple it would not have been a pleasant experience to say the least... now as I'm wiping baby vomit off my breast I'm thinking "his face was priceless...I wish Scott could have seen that".... why in God's name would Scott want to see Puck barf on my boob? Clearly as parents we see past the grossness right to the ironic, amusing, or cute when it comes to one of our children.

Four years ago I would not have found it ironic if someone had peed on my Christmas tree, but when my daughter does it on a Christmas that was very difficult for us (because of Puck's Congenital Heart Defect) then I see the irony immediately and even appreciate it. Four years ago I would not have found it amusing to watch someone trek poo all over my hardwood floors, but when my oldest child steps in his sisters diaper on accident (Scott was in the middle of changing her), and then gets the tab of said diaper attached to his blanket, and runs from the shouts of "No, NO Gabe STOP" then suddenly I'm chuckling while mopping the poo off the floor. And four years ago I definitely would not have found it cute if someone I knew farted so loud it sounded as though they had a ripped a hole in the space time continuum...but when my newborn does it, suddenly its flippin adorable.

I'm not entirely sure when gross turned into the story I tell at dinner parties...but I can assure you that this is why parents are friends with other parents...because only they will laugh at the disgusting antics of your kids...the rest of your friends will just look at you as though you have lost your mind. And truth be told you probably have...if you remained sane then getting through a day filled with pee, poo and barf would just not be possible.

Reprieve: GRANTED.

2011-01-09T14:57:00.000-08:00

January 6th, 2011

Puck's third echo cardiogram within the span of his two, short months of life was scheduled for a Thursday. A day which had crept up quicker than I had expected but which didn't hold the promise I had wished for, or the dread I had come to live with. I suppose I had turned myself off, as much as possible, in order to receive the news I was expecting...the all dreaded surgery date. I didn't hold out much hope that his holes would have grown over enough to warrant truly happy news. The last echo had revealed that there was literally too many holes in his heart to count...If even half of them closed over there would still be enough to cause him problems, my mind knew this, my heart wished it wasn't true, but logically speaking, that kind of luck, that kind of miracle doesn't happen often.

I knew what to expect walking into the cardiologists office and my body finally began to betray the calm veneer I had tried so diligently to portray. I almost passed out after Puck's echo. The room began to spin and I stumbled to a chair ...I did my best not to do a swan dive and I succeeded in staying upright, and keeping my face from bouncing off the cold hard floor. We waited almost an hour for the meeting with his cardiologist after the 'routine' tests had been performed. Every minute which ticked by added to our anxiety. Neither one of us truly expected that the news would be good.

Finally Preston's name was called and Scott and I entered a small conference room. The doctor did a quick exam, listening to his heart, feeling his chest, watching his breaths. All the while I was shaking ever so slightly and praying I wouldn't vomit all over the pediatric cardiologist. He began to talk, asking questions about Puck's status. What the other doctor's had discovered, what his weight gain had been, whether he was thriving or not, and it took all my will power not to scream "Shouldn't YOU know this"? "Didn't you read his flipping chart"? But before I could take his head off he smiled and said, "just by listening to his heart and hearing about his growth, I can tell you that he will probably never need surgery". I'm sure I looked as stunned as I felt. He then swung around in his chair, turned on the computer and said "let's take a look at the echo". He then walked us through the new findings.

Puck went from too many holes in his heart to count to only two holes left! Only two holes are left. Let me say that again...two holes...TWO. Both have shrunk in size and although the bottom one, which is the larger of the two, will never fully grow over, the cardiologist doesn't see it ever causing Preston any problems. The next cardiology appointment is in four months time, and by then the doctor said it will be definitive; he'll either get a clean bill of health, or a surgery date will be set. But the doctor reiterated that he felt that Preston would be one of the lucky ones, and he will never need to have open heart surgery.

Our reprieve has been granted.

I now hold Preston with a new confidence. His body no longer feels fragile, and broken; and the cuddles I give him no longer are forced by a time limit that circumstance had so cruelly created. Everything feels lighter. My voice no longer sounds strained, my shoulders no longer carry a burden almost to heavy to bear, and my own smiles now meet my eyes. Preston has once more given us the joy we had felt November 4th, 2010 when he made his way into this world. Thursday, January 6th, 2011, an unassuming mid week day, he was born again. As Scott so eloquently put it "he just feels different". Yes he does, he feels alive.

Deafening

2011-01-02T23:31:00.000-08:00

When my world becomes quiet; when the day has drawn to a close, a new noise starts. It isn't born from my children's giggles while they play, or their screams when they fight. It is spawned from the rogue thoughts ,which can only be heard clearly when sleep steals my children's presence and when nothing can be heard at all.

Fear. It's jagged teeth rips into my chest so that it's putrid breath can stain my soul. It begins as a slow creep; a butterfly in my stomach. I try to ignore it's ever looming presence but this week the whisper, the doubts, they have become deafening. The minutes count down to my son's next appointment, one which will likely define the need for surgery or not, and this fear I carry around deep in my gut, day after day, is slowly bubbling to the surface. I've managed a pretty convincing facade up until now, but the closer we get to his appointment the more the facade begins to crack. I try to continue on as I always have, and yet I know it's not the same. I don't have that feeling of contentment anymore. I no longer feel safe in this life I have created. My son's heart holds my little family hostage. And when the quiet comes, when the silence of night settles on my house, it is only broken by my sobs which are now no longer easily suppressed.

I'm exhausted. I'm scared. And the only thing I want in this world is for my child to heal. If my will alone could fix him, his heart would have healed the day the holes in his heart were discovered. I'm just so sick of waiting for the other shoe to drop. I wonder if Scott feels the same way. We are suffering the same circumstances but I wonder if we are suffering the same inner turmoil. We rarely discuss it, both too afraid to set the other one on edge. Too afraid to speak our inner most fears out loud in case the utterance of them somehow brings them to life.

We need a reprieve. We need a stay of execution. This life we have so neatly made for ourselves can only be continued if our son heals. If the worst comes to pass, if the very worst occurs, then this life we have created will end. It may be reborn, in one fashion or another, but the innocence of it... the innocence will have been slaughtered and the laughter will forever be a little emptier because it will be an echo of things that should have been.

While pregnant with Puck, while filled with promise and joy, and wonderment, Scott and I pledged "for better or worse"...we just never thought the worse would come to pass so quickly. And now we hope the better will be upon us just as fast...because truthfully I don't know how much longer we can cling to one another while ignoring the white elephant which shits on our souls, and pisses on our life.

Strength has nothing to do with it.

2010-12-29T08:02:00.000-08:00

"Stay strong". It's the words we say when we know someone is suffering through an especially difficult time in their lives. When we know no other words will do "Stay strong" seems like a pretty safe alternative to all the stupid, fumbling, things that could pop out of our mouths at any given, panic stricken moment. I say panic stricken because when people hear others stories of difficult adversity the need to say something, anything, is overwhelming, and sometimes what we hear ourselves say is ridiculous. Some people never know that what they just said was completely insensitive, and others realize it the minute it pops out of their mouths; and then the blushing and fumbling just becomes more evident and uncomfortable for both parties.

I admit that I've done it to people. Said something because I felt it was expected and knew the moment it popped out of my mouth it was the wrong thing to say. And recently I've had it happen to me. While telling Puck's story I have had the typical responses of "he'll be fine, don't worry" to things like "it could be worse". But the most generic response seems to be "stay strong". So I started to think about that phrase...that "advice" if you will. And as much as I understand it's intent it just seems kinda...obvious.

What else am I supposed to do? Collapsing into a puddle of tears, while rocking in a fetal position and screaming why at my ceiling isn't truly a viable alternative. This journey isn't about "staying strong", it's about finding hope. It's hope that keeps me going from day to day. It's hope that gets me through to the next hour. My strength hasn't got a damn thing to do with it. I'm no stronger than any other mother in this type of situation. I do what I have to do because I HAVE to do it. But my "apparent strength" through the tough times is truly born from hope, not from experience, and not from sheer will. I have hope. And through the survival of this hope, I have found my own survival, and I will find the strength so many people say I should keep.

"Stay strong" should be amended to "Keep hope". And I will. I am.

Annoying little things.

2010-12-27T18:23:00.000-08:00

Scott and I have been together for four years. Not a huge amount of time, but long enough to feel confident in our relationship and long enough to know we are steady and stable. It's also just long enough for all those cute, little quirks you used to love (or at least tolerated) to become the annoying little things you hate. Since this is my blog Scott won't get to enlighten you about the things I happen to do (although if he could I'm sure he would lay claim to my excessive need to critique him and less significantly...my sleep farting...although until he can prove this to me I don't believe it.)

Scott's list of annoying habits is much longer than mine...probably.

1. Drink Gulping. Drinking a nice, cool glass of liquid may not seem like something that could become annoying but when an 8 ounce glass of water is gulped very loudly, in 10 seconds time, it makes my left eye twitch. Why is it so hard to sip your drink? Must you leave yourself so on the edge of dehydration that when you finally do drink, you act as though you have been wandering the desert for 50 long years!

2. Decision making...or lack thereof. Why must I be consulted with every single decision that needs to be made. It's one thing to ask my opinion about something major...like a new car, but to require my input on every single, teeny weeny, decision the brain could ever hope to make, is another thing.

Example!

(Family goes shopping and now the kids are hungry, lets eat out! Simple right? WRONG.)

Carrie: Let's eat out
Scott: Sure, where would you like to eat?
Carrie:I don't know babe, you decide
Scott: Okay...fast food or sit down?
Carrie:Ah..I don't care...whatever you feel like"
Scott: Well what do YOU feel like?
Carrie: Look Scott, I'm tired, can you please just pick a place and I will choose off of the menu they have!
Scott: OK..OK..Um...what about the kids? What would they like?

At this point in the conversation I'm doing my best to bite back sarcastic retorts...and I admit, I'm not always successful. So instead I usually give a very audible sigh and reply...

Carrie: I guess fast food, they don't look like they will hang in there for long,
Scott: Okay, so there is a few fast food joints coming up, Dairy queen, MacDonald's, Burger King, where would you like to go?

I wish I was exaggerating, at this point I really want to say "Are you Fucking kidding me!" But knowing there are kids in the back seat I reply instead with, "YOU CHOOSE".

Finally the decision is made, we get up to the take out window and he asks, "So what do you think the kids want?" Followed by "should I get them milk or juice?" Followed by "apple slices or fries?" and finally he repeats every question asked by the employee like "ketchup, drink tray, and how are you paying this evening?" Sometimes I wonder how Scott makes it through the day without me.

3. Sleep Fighting. Scott has a few annoying things he does when he sleeps. The first being he snores, VERY loudly. I have learned to sleep through it (for the most part) so this no longer irritates me. But the second thing he does is sleep talk. Most of the time he is incoherent so I never reply. But there are times when his sleep talking is clear and almost makes sense. He has even gone so far as phoning people in his sleep and having entire conversations that he has no recollection of later. All of this would be amusing except for the times when I know he's sleeping and I try and tell him so...

Example!

(Edie wakes up in the middle of the night, simultaneously with Gabe)

Scott : Weird
Carrie: What is?
Scott: How they wake up at the same time!
Carrie: Oh yeah. It is.
Scott: It's your fault you know!
Carrie: How is it my fault?
Scott: It's in your DNA
Carrie: How is that in my DNA?
Scott: Because you ride the camel too.
Carrie: um...I think you're sleeping.
Scott: No. I'm not.
Carrie: Well what you just said made no sense.
Scott: OH...no no... I didn't mean DNA. I meant you ride it too. So that's why.
Carrie: Scott...go back to sleep. You aren't making sense.
Scott: YES I AM.
Carrie: You're sleep talking again.
Scott: I'm not sleeping!!!
Carrie: yes you are, stop talking.
Scott: Whatever.

At which point he rolls over in a huff and in great offence. By the next morning he doesn't remember any of it. Arguments about whether he is in fact sleeping while he is most definitely unconscious is amusing now...not so much at two in the morning while I'm trying to get my own sleep.

There are definitely more things that can cause my left eye to twitch...but then Scott's claim that I over critique him ( I think he uses the word 'nag') would be proven correct...so I think stating three minor yet very annoying habits is probably good enough. It's also proof that even the most stable couples have moments where suffocating the other with a pillow would seem satisfactory...even fun.

Nightmares and Smiles

2010-12-23T15:29:00.000-08:00

In a few short weeks my life has become a contradiction. I always expected certain wonders in my life, amazing little treasures, especially in regards to having children. When my son was born, 7 weeks ago, I knew what some of those treasures would entail. One of them would be the first smile, just like the one he bestowed on me this morning. Huge, and wonderous. Gorgeous from ear to ear. My heart soared and I took multiple videos and then the thought came creaping in to ruin my enjoyment. It was barely a whisper, barely audible to my conscious brain, but it's a thought that can never be ignored when it rears it's ugly head. "What if he dies...What if this is what I'm left with...videos and pictures".

"What if". I hate it. The thought is ugly and invasive...like a cancer that has taken over my brain. My son isn't my son, he has become this defect. It makes me mad. It makes me mad that people see him that way...it makes me mad that my brain pushes it in my face day after day, hour after hour. It's so exhausting...this nightmare I'm living. I used to say so nonchalantly "I don't know what I would do if I ever lost one my babies". Of course I know what I would do. I would die along with them. I would change in ways I would hate. I would see the world in all it's dangers and become an overprotective, domineering mother.What would I do if that nightmare became real? I would hurt beyond all comprehension and I would struggle to remain sane.

But it's still beautiful...these things I have created, these creatures who have taken over my life. And no matter what fate has in store for me, I will always have the little things that will make the harsher contradictions in life worth it.

I will always have the first smile.

Cardiology appointment

2010-12-18T21:11:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I got a letter in the mail. It was from the Children's Hospital. For some reason I assumed it was a bill (even though we live in Canada and don't have to pay for anything medically). When I opened it, I discovered instead, that it was an announcement of Puck's next cardiology appointment.

They plan on doing an ECG and an echocardiogram, along with a half hour consult with his cardiologist afterwards. Seeing it all in writing made me gasp out loud. I don't know why it would surprise me. I knew he was having another appointment in early January. But I guess I was expecting a quick 20 minute echo like the last one... To see they are doing it for an hour, with a 20 minute ECG to boot... made my stomach turn.

I guess it really struck me, once again, how serious his heart defect is. I feed him, bathe him, change him, cuddle him, and other than the medicine I give him twice a day and the regimented feedings...it all seems so natural...so typical. I can almost forget how sick he is, and then moments like the letter just hit me extra hard.

I know his two month appointment is very important since heart surgery for this defect is performed between three and six months...but it's hard to imagine getting anything but good news. If we go into that appointment expecting that the holes are growing over only to discover they will be scheduling us for a surgery date...well I don't know how I'm supposed to digest that...how I'm supposed to handle that.

How can anyone expect a mother to deal with handing over their child to a perfect stranger whose job it is to slice said child open, crack their ribs apart, and stop their heart in order to repair the defect. How am I supposed to accept that my child's heart has to stop...that essentially he has to die...in order to save his life.

I just can't prepare myself for the horror of it. I can't believe that he will need surgery because the very thought of hugging and kissing him, and saying goodbye while they wheel him into the OR seems preposterous...torturous. How can I do that? How can I ever let him go knowing there's a chance...however small...that it could be the last time I ever feel his warmth next to mine?

How do I sit there for endless hours wondering if my son is alright? Wondering if there's been complications? Wondering if the surgery will in fact fix him? I know that his defect is notoriously difficult to close. I know that there can be residual holes, and that sometimes a second surgery is needed. I can't imagine ever having to do it once...but twice?

I know I'm getting ahead of myself. I know that January may come and we may get wonderful news. I guess my pessimistic side is trying to caution me, trying to force me to prepare. And yet I know...preparing for something so...unnatural...just isn't possible. So why worry?

Because I'm a mother...because I love him more intensely than my instinctual need to breathe.

Toddler Language

2010-12-15T13:23:00.000-08:00

My son Gabriel is finally speaking in sentences regularly. I believe his vocabulary is now at an acceptable level which is a relief considering all the other things going on in our house right now. Although his vocabulary is now beyond a word count it's still somewhat indecipherable to people who don't know him. It's frustrating for Gabe and somewhat embarassing for me (and not in the way you would think).

I'm not embarassed that my son is speech delayed (his prematurity caused this)..what can be embarassing is trying to explain that my son did not just say what you think he said...seriously...I swear. I don't blame you for hearing what you heard. I've fallen for it as well and scratched my head at his foul language and where he could have picked it up. The first time he ever "swore" he was watching "Harry and his Bucket Full of Dinosaurs" and during his show he had hit his sister, so I was putting him in time out. He refused to walk so I had to carry him and the entire way there he was yelling and kicking while screaming "bull SHIT"... I looked at his father accusingly who just shrugged and stated "I don't say that"! Just as I was about to retort "Oh Sure, so where did he learn it from?" (because I know for a fact I have never said bullshit around him), I noticed that he was pointing at his show. It dawned on me that maybe he was trying to say "bucket" and and so I asked him! "Uh huh, mom" he replied, "Bull shit".

Many other words can be misconstrued or are just completely indecipherable. The one thing he can say fairly clearly is "bum hole..." and unfortunately this is my fault. After giving birth to Puck I have had some...issues...with my bum hole. As any mother knows...hemorrhoids can be a pain in the ass (pun intended) after birth. Well i'm extremely 'lucky' because I happen to have internal ones. So my dear husband went and bought me hemorrhoid suppositories (which I still have not had the courage to use). The day he bought them I exclaimed "They look like bullets! I'm not sure I want to stick this bullet up my bum hole". Well Gabe took that phrase and ran with it. Now if he farts instead of saying "Oh! My bum", like he used to (and as though his ass were speaking and it was shocking to him), he now adds hole to the end of it. "Oh, my bum hole". Awesome!

On one hand I'm relieved that Gabriel is speaking more, while being mortified that he is speaking more...Not only do I have to watch what I say...I have to decipher what he's saying because it's never what you think it is...or it's EXACTLY what you think it is...

Juggling

2010-12-14T12:24:00.000-08:00

I know I may sound like a broken record constantly talking about my son's heart defect, but it has become my life. His health is my primary concern. My day revolves around him. He needs to eat every three hours which means I pump every two (he's too weak to breastfeed). He needs his lasix (diuretic) twice a day to keep his breathing regulated, and I need to sterilize his soother and bottle nipples constantly. Hand washing has taken on a whole new level of compulsion and we are now homebound other than doctors appointments because an illness will put him back in the PICU...or worse. He has doctors appointments every week to ensure he's still gaining weight and cardiology appointments every month. Then there is the typical care all infants need (diaper changes, sleeper changes, baths, belly button cleanings...etc) On top of all that I also have two other little ones to care for. I have to find time to make their meals, get them dressed, bathe them, brush their teeth, and put them to bed. Additionally, it's also important that I keep my house clean. Overwhelmed would not accurately describe how im feeling. It's hard.

Truthfully I have no idea how I have managed all this. I'm surprised I still have the energy to blog or write about any of it. But it's the one thing I do for myself. I have this NEED to keep a journal of this journey for my kids. I need to explain to them why I haven't been as attentive as they want or need. I know they are still young and probably won't remember mommy walking around on auto pilot, or that I couldn't play cars or dolls with them because I had to do laundry, or feed puck, or pump. But I still feel guilty about it. My kids never signed on for this. No one asked them if they wanted another sibling and a sick one at that.

So I guess what I'm trying to say, Gabe and Edie, is that i'm sorry. You two are still the other half of my heart. You are still my world. And if I could split myself into two people I would in a heartbeat. I can only hope that one day you will understand. It may take until you have children of your own, especially if Puck is sick for years to come, to understand why I have had to compromise my time with you. Please know that I don't love Puck any more than I love you two, but he requires a little more attention just to keep him healthy...to keep him alive. I'm doing all this for the benefit of our family. We need him. You deserve to have your baby brother by your side for the rest of your life. I need to keep our family whole because living without any of you would be like living without a piece of my soul.

I love all of you. More than I could ever hope to put into words and I will do anything I have to in order to ensure you all remain happy, healthy and whole.

Time

2010-12-11T23:13:00.000-08:00

Time. It's how we measure our days and our lives. The seconds tick by and we barely notice it's passage. We barely notice the years fly past us. Nothing lasts. Everything changes. All living things eventually die. Time. It runs out for everyone. We all have our own internal clocks, tick, tick, ticking in our ears. We get so used to the sound that we forget to appreciate the moments; we forget that our time here doesn't last forever.

In a blink of an eye my premature son is almost three years old. My 17 month old daughter is sleeping through the night and my newborn baby is over a month old. And it's because of him; because of this little baby whose barely had a chance to live, that the tick, tick, ticking of time has become noticeable again. His life, as short as it has been, has made me appreciate the little moments a little more.

And I'm sure all of you out there are saying "thank god it's not me"..."Thank god it's not my baby". Sure. Why wouldn't you? I've done it. Being relieved that it was another person's cross to bear when some horror befell my neighbour, or the person on the news, or the friend of a friend, is normal, and understandable. It could never happen to me... Logically we know it's possible that misfortune could visit our doorstep... but deep down, in our guts, we never believe it could truly, ever happen...to us. And then suddenly - suddenly it does. And now my life is the one people pity, and shake their heads at, and think "thank God, it's not me". And this story I thought my life could never become is being written out before me at an alarming rate.

Time is moving much too fast now. I'm painfully aware of the clock. The one that counts down the seconds we spend here on this earth. I'm aware of it because I can see it over my son's head. I can't see how long his clock is wound for, but the ticking is so excruciatingly loud. It invades my deepest sleep. Tick. Tick. TICK.

It's true. My son's heart is sick, and his clock is ticking in my ears, but at least I'm aware of it. I no longer have the luxury of forgetting that we all have a time limit here. All. Of. Us. And who knows...my heart sick son's clock may run ramshod over yours. My husband may attend your crash scene tomorrow, or you might have an insidious disease waiting to be discovered next week. Your clock may be running down as you read this... But you don't believe that do you...because it could never happen to you...

Time. It's our greatest gift and our worst enemy.

Hormones and Normalcy

2010-12-09T09:32:00.000-08:00

Ever since finding out that Puck was sick my world flipped upside down. I feel like the past couple of weeks I've been running from an invisible enemy that has been gaining on me. But since I've escaped isolation with him (my other two petri dishes...Gabe and Edie...are finally healthy) things have gotten back into a somewhat normal routine. One of the heart moms I have met online told me this would happen. That as far fetched as it seemed, eventually I would get used to the mind numbing fear. I have to admit I didn't believe her. But slowly I have gotten used to it. Don't get me wrong, it's still there. It still wrenches me from moments that would be a little funnier, or a little cuter, if the voice in the back of my head didn't pipe up "I hope Puck get's to do this when he's older". But all in all, the voice echoing between my ears, has been silenced with the busy of life and raising three kids.

It's nice feeling free enough to bitch about normal, mundane, typical BS. For example my dear husband has no concept of what it means to clean. He took care of Gabe and Edie for a few days (after our help left and while I was still in isolation) and when I came down the stairs one night (while Scott was putting our little sickos to bed) it looked as though my house had been used as a preschool for 30 kids...and the teacher died before he could clean up their mess. To say my excess hormones from post partum and breastfeeding didn't overtake me in a rage of tears and curses would be a lie. Scott's terror of me ensured I didnt have to clean alone...he tackled the dishes after he came from the kids rooms and saw my rage contorted face.

AND since I have been gone for nearly two weeks from my kids lives (not that they noticed) their behaviour is out of hand. Clearly daddy let them get away with bloody murder! Literally..I think they might have killed someone...probably the preschool teacher...But in all fairness he did admit that things came apart at the seams without me around (which made me feel GREAT) and he admitted that I'm the General of this household and that he's merely my lieutenant. Damn rights. Now drop and give me 20! dollars...I need a treat.

So life has become a normalcy that I can live with...which will make everyone else's lives in our household a little easier!

It's a time for miracles

2010-12-04T10:53:00.000-08:00

Ever since the birth of my son Gabriel in 2008, Christmas has taken on a whole new, shiny veneer. It's exciting seeing Christmas through the eyes of a child - through the eyes of your own child - and this Christmas was one Scott and I were looking forward to the most. It was going to be our first Christmas as a complete family. From here on out there would always be three kids on Santa's knee, three kids to eat my holiday baking, three kids to tear wildly at the presents placed neatly under our fake, but cute, little tree.

And then the words congenital heart defect sent our world into a tailspin. Family get together's this year has been cancelled because we can't allow Puck to fall ill. Santa pictures at the mall are not going to happen either for the same reason. On top of all that the doctors also informed us that the lasix *may not* continue to work once Puck hits six weeks to two months of age. If he's going to take a turn for the worse and need more medicine or more hospital visits it's going to be at Christmas time.

So Christmas, with all it's new, shiny veneer, has been tarnished by the knowledge that my son could wind up failing to thrive right around the time Santa is saying "ho ho ho" over our homey, detached townhouse.

But I have two other children. Two other babies who don't understand any of this. They deserve a great Christmas with their new baby brother, and I am bound and determined to give it to them. So although I'm terrified that Puck's heart will hit new, all time lows this holly jolly Christmas...I can't allow that fear to ruin Christmas for Gabe and Edie. So I have talked Scott into buying a Santa suit and playing Santa for our photos this year. And I'm taking votes on what Christmas goodies to bake. And decorating the Christmas tree will be an exciting and new adventure for Gabe and his sister. And on that very first Christmas together I plan on taking a million photos, and hours of video footage, while my kids sit on Santa's knee, eat my delicious holiday baking, and tear wildly at the wrapped presents under our fake, but cute, little tree.

And maybe...just maybe...God will see fit to grant us a Holiday miracle...and in January at Puck's next ultrasound I'll hear the words "the holes are growing over". That would be the best Christmas gift Scott and I could ever recieve.

My little warrior.

2010-12-01T21:21:00.000-08:00

Just a quick post to say that little Preston has gained weight again! I can now relax until his next weigh in! I hope he continues to get wonderfully rolly polly! I love this little guy so much! Stay strong my little man!

A Mothers Perspective

~ by Stephanie Husted ~

You passed me in the shopping mall...(You read my faded tee) You tapped me on the shoulder...Then asked..."What's a CHD?" I could quote terminology...There's stats that I could give...But I would rather share with you...A mother's perspective.

What is it like to have a child with a CHD?

It’s Lasix,aspirin,Captopril…

It’s wondering…Lord what’s your will?…

It’s monitors and oxygen tanks…

It’s a constant reminder to always give thanks…

It’s feeding tubes, calories, needed weight gain…

It’s the drama of eating…and yes it’s insane!

It’s the first time I held him…(I’d waited so long)

It’s knowing that I need to help him grow strong…

It’s making a hospital home for awhile…

It’s seeing my reward in every smile.

It’s checking his sats as the feeding pump’s beeping…

It’s knowing that there is just no time for sleeping…

It’s caths, x-rays and boo boos to kiss…

It’s normalcy I sometimes miss…

It’s asking do his nails look blue?

It’s cringing inside at what he’s been through.

It’s dozens of calls to his pediatrician…(She knows me by name…I’m a mom on a mission)

It’s winters homebound…and hand sanitizer…

It’s knowing this journey has made me much wiser.

It’s watching him sleeping…his breathing is steady…

It’s surgery day and I’ll never be ready.

It’s handing him over…( I’m still not prepared…)

It’s knowing that his heart must be repaired…

It’s waiting for news on that long stressful day…

It’s …praying…it’s hoping…that he’ll be okay.

It’s the wonderful friends with whom I’ve connected…

It’s the bond that we share…it was so unexpected…

It’s that long faded scar down my child’s small chest…

It’s touching it gently and knowing we’re blessed…

It’s watching him chasing a small butterfly…

It’s the moment I realized I’ve stopped asking why?

It’s the snowflakes that fall on a cold winter’s day…

(They remind me of those who aren’t with us today)

It’s a brave little boy who loved Thomas the train…

Or a special heart bear…or a frog in the rain….

It’s the need to remember we’re all in this plight….

It’s their lives that remind us we still need to fight!

It’s in pushing ahead amidst every sorrow…

It is finding the strength to have hope for tomorrow.

if I could do it over...

2010-11-28T16:25:00.000-08:00

Today I sat here wondering how different life would be if you had been born healthy and whole. Life wouldn't have changed much for me. I can gurantee you that I would have felt like things were infinitely harder, and definitely more busy, but the routine and the things I took for granted, and the complaints I had would have remained the same.

There were definitely times in my mommy life where I let frustration get the better of me. Times where I yelled "WHAT!" at the two year old who incessantly asked "Mom, mom, mommy, mama, mom?". Times where I ignored the cries of my children as they pounded on the locked bathroom door... just so I could have two minutes of peace to myself. Times where I cried from sheer exhaustian because my daughter refused to sleep without me. And there were times as a wife when I railed against the unfairness of a husband who worked terrible shifts and a dangerous job and who sometimes forgot to hang his coat up when he got home. My complaints were so typical... and what I wouldn't give to have those complaints again.

Now my mommy life has slowly turned into one of nurse. I measure your breaths per minute and supply you with the medicine that prevents your heart from failing. How clean I keep my house or what I make for dinner, or how long my kids watch tv for suddenly seems so pathetic to worry over. My fears and self doubts have taken on a new dimension and morphed into a horror movie. My anxiety over your health ensures that the simplest of tasks takes my breath away. Mailing your birth information, for example, makes me wonder if I'm jinxing your survival. A ridiculous thought but one I now find myself contending with on a daily basis.

And I can't help but wonder how simple life would be right now if I only had Gabe and Edie to take care of. So...Would I go back? Would I prevent a pregnancy that late February afternoon if it meant I would never have to stare that ugly, monsterous possibility of burying my own child in the face? If I could erase all memory of you and forget that you existed...would I?

No.

I would do it all again and I wouldn't change a thing. Because if you had never been born I would have never known that I could have such a different featured baby... Your hair is darker than your siblings and it grows in such a unique way, cutting across your forehead and growing over your temples. Your eyes are such a dark blue that I am convinced you will be my first brown eyed child. Your nose is so petite and perfect, just like your sisters, and you have a tiny red dot on the tip of it. Your lips are like mine, full and pouty, and kissable. And your chin seems to look more like your fathers. Your ears are so different from your siblings. They have less cartiledge and are easily bendable. I can forsee them looking too big as you get older. And each ear has a tiny bump of flesh that makes it look as though you once had them pierced, but that the holes have recently grown over.

If you had never been born I would never have known any of this. I wouldn't have been able to marvel at your perfect, pianist fingers...long and beautiful. I wouldn't have laughed at your outy belly button that resembles neither your brothers or your sisters. And I wouldn't have noticed that your second toe on either foot is longer than your big toe. How could I give any of that up... even if it meant a moment of peace?

I would do it all again so I could know those things about you. Those tiny little features only a mother notices. And although my life is harder now, and sometimes full of fear... it's also full of love, and joy, and all the tiny things I now take the time to notice.

To Win the Lottery.

2010-11-26T11:31:00.000-08:00

Last night my husband and I were talking about all the things we have had to overcome as a couple since we first fell in love almost four years ago. We have definitely had our fair share of craziness! As Scott stated yesterday, "with all the odds we have managed to beat you would think we would have won the lottery by now". Looking back I would have to agree.

First of all we met on the internet. Now I'm not sure what the success rate for online dating happens to be but I'm thinking it rarely produces a couple as in love and as stable as Scott and I. And after four short months of dating we moved in together...which again is usually a death blow to most new relationships...but Scott and I only got stronger as a couple.

Approximately six months after moving in together we began to discuss babies and when we wanted to start trying. We decided to try after our vacation that summer. We had sex once at the end of July 07 before changing our minds and deciding to wait another year... only to discover we were pregnant two weeks later. The odds of falling pregnant at any given time is 25 percent...I'm assuming if you only tried once in an entire month the odds probably fall even lower than that.

Six weeks into my pregnancy Scott went on a high speed chase in the tiny town we were currently living in. The person they were chasing crashed and his partner got to the scene a minute or two before Scott did. He radioed Scott that the perp was armed but Scott's radio cut out and he didnt get the message. After pulling up to the crash Scott exited his vehicle only to run for cover as gunshots rang out over his head. If the guy had better aim...the odds are Scott probably would have been shot that day.

A few short months later at 33 weeks and 6 days into my pregnancy, I had a preterm premature rupture of membranes. This phenomenon occurs in about five percent of women.

Our son then spent 2 weeks in the NICU. During that time his main problem was eating but he thrived in every other aspect. The doctors were pleasantly surprised to discover that Gabe never lost weight, and never developed jaundice. He beat those odds and because of it was sent home four weeks earlier than expected!

Six months into Gabe's life we moved to the lower mainland for better job opportunities and wound up getting pregnant with our daughter after a drunken Halloween party. She was unplanned but totally welcome. A few weeks into my pregnancy I began to bleed. We went for an ultrasound expecting the worst (50% of early bleeding in pregnancy leads to miscarriage). Her heart was beating and it was beautiful.

At 38 weeks my water broke before labour once again (PROM). The odds of this happening a second time is about 15%. Edie was born with an infection and spent two days on antibiotics in the NICU.

Eight months into my daughter's life Scott and I celebrated the Gold Medal won for men's hockey in the 2010 Winter Olympics! I was breast feeding at the time and still didn't have regular periods, and assumed wrongly that it would be nearly impossible to fall pregnant.

Puck was born at 37 weeks and one day, on my brother's birthday, and a week into his life was diagnosed with a congenital heart defect. The chance of being born with a CHD is approximately .4%. He was born with the most common CHD ( a ventricular septal defect) but the most uncommon kind of VSD (swiss cheese). Only 5% of children with ventricular septal defects have the type Puck has.

From all the information I have gathered on VSD there is between a 20% and 50% chance the holes will close over on their own. Scott and I are hoping that once again we can beat the odds and Puck will never need surgery.

At this point I think Scott and I need to start buying lottery tickets on a daily basis...we might actually win!

Swiss Cheese

2010-11-25T18:26:00.000-08:00

Scott and I headed to Children's Hospital today to get Puck his second echocardiogram. The tech was nice if not a bit aloof and the meeting with Dr. W afterwards really helped to clarify what was wrong with Pucks heart. The doctor said that the two lower chambers of the heart that pumps blood to the body (left side) and to the lungs (right side) should be closed off from eachother. As we all know Puck's aren't. I was under the impression he only had two holes in his heart but the doctor confirmed today that there are literally too many holes to count (they call this a "swiss cheese" Ventricular Septal defect for obvious reasons). Apparently it wasn't evident how many holes there was when the first ultrasound was performed. The doctor then went on to explain that this was due to the pressure in the lungs still being high enough to mask what they call the "shunting" of the blood from one side to the other.

He explained that while in the womb the pressure in the lungs is equal because they are in water and aren't breathing air. A few weeks after birth the pressure in the lungs begins to drop and this is when most babies with a moderate to large VSD will begin to present with problems. The first symptom usually being rapid breathing (which is what Puck was rushed to the hospital for). The doctor explained that blood is lazy and will go where it is easiest. So instead of being pumped up through the aorta to the body, the blood is being squeezed through the holes from the bottom left chamber into the right and back through to the lungs. Essentially Pucks lungs were getting twice as much blood than they needed . This in turn makes the lungs work harder because now they are the equivalent to a wet sponge, essentially soaked in blood. So Puck was having to draw in breaths with lungs that were much heavier than normal which resulted in little to no weight gain in the first few weeks of his life (in fact he lost two ounces before they put him on the diuretics) due to all the calories he was burning in order to just draw a breath.

The diuretics drain the excess fluid off the lungs and treats his high blood pressure enough that Puck no longer has to work so hard in order to breathe. Now that he is breathing normally he is gaining about an ounce a day. And we have hope that as his heart grows the holes will close over on their own without intervention. This is really good news but the doctor cautioned our optimism by saying that Puck's lungs still have not reached their lowest possible pressure. This won't happen for another month. It is at this time that we will know for sure whether his congestive heart failure can be managed with Lasix (diuretic) alone. If it can't be, he said the first step is to add another medicine (he didn't say what). If that also failed to help Puck thrive then they would supplement my breast milk with a high calorie formula. If that failed to work then the next step would be a NG tube so he wouldn't need to expend any energy at all to eat; and if THAT failed then heart surgery would be his only option left. Usually if open heart surgery is needed it is performed between 3-6 months of age.

So that's the news. He's gaining weight for now. If he stops gaining, or begins to lose then we will have to add more medicine; and if worse comes to worse then open heart surgery will be performed in a few short months.

I hope it doesn't come to that. But if it does I have been told I can rest assured that it is the most performed and successful heart surgery done on infants. Somehow this does little to assauge my anxiety but at least I know there are lot's of options and lots of solutions.

Surreal

2010-11-23T10:36:00.000-08:00

This past week has seen me tredge through hell and back. I wandered the fields of hope and despair and have come to rest at the valley of acceptance. When I first heard Puck's diagnosis and realized how seriously sick he was my heart broke. No mother ever wants to hear heart failure put into a sentence regarding their child. And let's be honest.."heart failure" equates to death in most people's minds. The heart is definitely a necessity and when it's failing that generally doesn't seem like a manageable problem.

But the weird and true fact is.."congestive heart failure" can be managed...for years. I don't know how long I will have to "manage" his heart failure for. I don't know what the future holds. He may require heart surgery, he may not. All I know for certain right now is that he's alive, he's thriving, and my fears of waking up beside him to find he has passed away are slowly fading.

It's a surreal world I live in now. One where I find myself being thankful that the only problems with his heart is a ventricular septal defect. But I suppose I'm trying to take the advice I gave to Puck before he was even born. The reality is that life will give you good times and bad. And their will be moments where you will "cry real tears, and ache real aches, and hurt real hurts" and as much as I have wanted to skip over this period of time, the fact is it has made me stronger. It has made me a better mother. I no longer take my children's health for granted. I no longer believe "that it could never happen to me" because the world doesn't work that way. The world doesn't care if your a good person, or if the baby you are crying over is innocent and blameless. This world will give us all challenges, and it's how we meet those challenges which will define us as a person.

I told you Puck to never live in the future because we never know how far that future goes. I told you that when your moment came to grasp onto it and enjoy it while you could. So that's what I'm doing baby boy. Yesterday gave me that moment...when I saw that scale and realized you had gained weight! And so I'm going to hold onto that moment for as long as I can. Because today maybe all we have, and today you're heart is beating, and your lungs are breathing, and your body is warm and snuggable. So my moment today is going to be all the cuddles I can manage.

Yesterday, all my troubles seemed so far away...

2010-11-19T11:55:00.000-08:00

Yesterday I took Puck to his doctor's appointment hoping against hope that he had gained weight, or at least had maintained his birth weight. So as my husband lay our squirming infant on the scale I held my breath. When the doctor read off 6' lbs 8 oz Scott and I both felt it. A swift kick in the solar plexus...Preston has lost two ounces since birth. Scott who had been filled with optimism suddenly took on a look I haven't seen. He looked desperate, and scared. A look im sure I mirrored. Since the weigh in things have gotten progressively worse, as hard as that is to believe.

Puck has been hit hard by the cold that has been circulating our house despite our best efforts to keep him well. With a head cold his breathing has become laboured once more and I'm terrified it could turn into a lung infection in his fragile state.

Today we are meeting with a new pediatrician so she can assess him and determine what if anything can be done about this new turn of events. I'm trying my best to remain upbeat but it's hard to do when I'm sleep deprived and terrified.

I feel like our lives have been put into stasis. I can't be around my other two kids because of their colds, I don't sleep much because of my worries over Puck, and my anger at the whole situation is becoming nuclear. I just want to break something. I want to scream and yell and blame something or someone. Instead I sit here and write because I dont know any other way to express such horrible emotions.

I feel so helpless. My stomach is so tied up in knots it's hard to choke down food. I eat though. I eat so I can maintain my breast milk, but truthfully I haven't felt hungry since Puck first wound up in the hospital. I wish I could see the future. I wish I knew what was coming and how to prepare. Instead I have to consider every possibility and it's killing me. I find myself taking pictures and videos of him...just in case... And just admitting that makes me cry. A mother shouldnt have to contemplate such possible scenarios. It's not fair.

But this is the hard part of motherhood. The parts you have no control over. The parts that make you break out in cold sweats and make back room deals with any and all parties. It's the desperate prayers and the quiet tears. It's the sobbing I did on my husbands shoulder this morning. It's the love you feel so deep that when it's threatened... cuts you to the soul.

Dear Puck.

2010-11-17T13:41:00.000-08:00

About a week ago I wrote all about how you were turning out to be my easiest baby. I gushed about how great you were and how much you slept and rarely fussed, and how I would have to wake you to feed because you barely made a squawk. I didn't know it was because your heart was making your lungs work too hard. I didn't know you were burning too many calories and so didn't have the energy to be awake...or even to eat on time.

But it doesn't matter anymore. It all seems so trivial now. Hoping for a good baby. Feeling as though I needed an "easy" infant because I already had two young ones at home. All I care about now, little one, is that you get well. The medicine the doctors prescribed for you has finally regulated your breathing. It took three doses and one and half days but finally you are breathing normally.

So now with our new situation, and these new challenges we have to overcome, I need to make you some new promises.

I promise, Puck, that no matter how scary this gets I won't shut down my feelings for you. I won't let myself detach in anyway. You will be loved as much and even more than before. I promise never to be afraid to love you.

I promise that I will do everything in my power to get you well. I will be your champion. I will make the hard decisions. I will do what you cannot do for yourself yet. And I will never give up.

And finally I promise that your family will always stand by your side. We will all take turns holding your hand, stroking your head, and telling you how much we love you.

Love is a very powerful healer Puck. And we all adore you so much. If I could I would trade places with you. I would give you my heart. I would do what I had to in order to ensure you never had to endure such a difficult journey. But I don't have that power. As much as it kills me to admit it, I can't fix this, not without outside intervention. So I will consult with the cardilogists and the pediatricians and any and every doctor I need to. And in the end I will do what a mother does best. I will love you. Everyday.

XOXOXOX

Mom.

Prayers for Puck

2010-11-16T11:32:00.000-08:00

Ever had one of those dreams where things become so ridiculous that you become aware you're dreaming while you're asleep. I feel as though I've awoken in a nightmare. One I can't escape from. I can't seem to wake myself up no matter how hard I try.

My world began to crumble around me a few days ago. I noticed Puck was having real problems breathing. I googled how many breaths a minute an infant should have and it said the average is 35-45 breaths; I was counting Puck's breaths at 85-100. At first I assumed he had caught a cold from his siblings. So we phoned the nurses hotline and they told us to bring him to the hospital right away.

Scott took him and I stayed behind to take care of the other two kids. I was still convinced it was probably just a cold. After a few hours Scott called to say they had sent him for a chest X ray. When the results came back they had discovered his heart was a bit enlarged. They did an EKG and determined he had a heart murmur. It was then arranged to have him transfered to Childrens Hospital the next morning for an echocardiogram. I collapsed after taking that call from Scott. I found a quiet corner away from the kids and sobbed. Scott came and picked me up and dropped me off at the hospital. I spent the night with my little baby, praying he was going to be okay, while scared to death that he was sicker than even I could imagine.

That morning they transferred us by ambulance to the hospital. He was hooked up to monitors and his breaths per minute was ranging from 65-125. He was too unstable to move to cardiology so they brought the ultrasound machine to his room. As I sat there watching the monitor I could hear the doctors quietly talking to eachother. Words like "muscular defect" "holes" and "congenital heart defect" were used. I tried my hardest not to cry. I tried not to break down in front of the cardiologist and technicians. I wiped the tears from my eyes the second they appeared. "Don't cry, Don't cry" I kept saying to myself over and over and over. He needed me to be strong. I tried my best.

They had a meeting and came back to talk to me. They told me all the findings they had made. His heart was enlarged and he had spots on his lungs in the X ray they took. The ultrasound showed that the muscle that seperated the right side of the heart from the left has tiny little holes along it. The problem is they still don't know for sure what is causing the breathing problems. The spots on his lungs could be caused by the cold virus, which in turn is making his breathing laboured. Or his breathing problems could be caused by the right side of the heart pumping too much blood back into his lungs because the right side is a bit enlarged. All infants they explained have hearts that work harder on the right, but not to the extreme Puck's is working. Or it could be the holes that are causing all the problems. Unfortunately they just don't know what the answer is yet.

The cardiologist said that babies with congential heart defects don't grow, they will be a failure to thrive. Puck has gained weight since birth. But they don't know if it's true weight gain, or if its caused by the excess fluid accumulating around his lungs. So they have given him a diuretic to drain off the excess fluid. On Thursday the Pediatrian will weigh him and determine if his weight gain was caused by the excess fluid or not. If it is determined he hasn't gained weight since birth than it will indicate that his heart is the problem.

I feel as though my chest has been placed in a vice. Poor Puck is breathing too fast, and I feel as though I have stopped breathing altogether. I can't contemplate the worst case scenario. It's too horrible to bear. He has to be okay. His heart has to heal because if it doesn't...neither will mine.

A letter to my son.

2010-11-10T11:53:00.000-08:00

Dearest Puck,

In the middle of the night on November 4th you made your way into this world. You screamed for a good hour and nothing I would do could calm you. Eventually, you tuckered yourself out and slept through the night and you haven't cried since (except for a little incident where you peed on your own face).

You are such a good baby. You wake to feed every three to five hours with barely a squak to let me know you're hungry. The last day you have been a bit gassy but some gripe water has helped you out quite nicely. So far you have proven to be my easiest baby. Unlike Gabriel I don't have any of the new mommy jitters. I don't have to worry about you being too weak to eat, or about your physical development. I don't have to see multiple doctors and nurses for assessments, and I don't have to be terrified of every cold virus that enters my home. And unlike Edie you know how to sleep! You don't cry or whine 24/7 like she did, and so far you haven't developed the dreaded colic like your big sister had.

You are my final baby. My last infant. And i'm a little sad about this. I can't imagine what it's going to be like...all your milestones...bittersweet. And because you are my last I plan on cherishing every last one of them...from the first smile to your first steps. I will celebrate these moments beside you, cheering you on, and encouraging your independence... But I promise you, my heart will break a little. I don't know what it is about my babies...but it seems you all grow up much too quickly.

You are six days old today Preston just old enough to start losing your umbilical cord. Another moment I never thought I could be sad about. But it was your life line to me for so long. Your ultimate dependence on me, and already you are telling me you don't need me as much anymore. With this very first step towards independence I feel the sudden urge to make you a few promises...

I promise that although you are my last you will be just as special as my first.

I promise that although you aren't the only boy in the house, you will be recognized as your own little person, with your own little personality.

I promise that although you won't get the one on one time like your big brother did, you will get family time, something highly cherished and revered in our household.

I promise that although some moments you will absolutely detest having older siblings, there will be moments when your sister or brother does something extra special for you. A kiss when you fall, or a hug when you cry, or a whispered "I love you" after you have fallen asleep.

I promise you that your dad will wrestle with you, just as much as he does with your siblings. He will beam with pride at every new milestone, much as he did when he discovered that we had another precious, little boy entering our busy household.

And I promise you little Puck, that I will kiss your hurts, hold your hand, and cuddle your fears away. I will love you in every way I know how. You are my last little baby and because of this you have a special place in my heart. Just like Gabriel who was my first, and your sister whose my only daughter. Each of you is special, and unique. Each of you will always be my precious, little babies no matter how old you get, no matter how independent you become. Nothing will change how I see you. I will always look at you and see that screaming little body who broke into my world and forever changed it for the better.

I love you so very much. With all my heart and soul. So grow up little one, grow up and become a daddy yourself. There is not a thing in this whole, wide world more precious than the bond a parent has with their child. This I swear, and it is the biggest promise I will make to you.

XOXOXOX

Mom.

Preston's birth

2010-11-09T12:56:00.000-08:00

November third came with the expectation I would have a baby that day. I had started contracting at 2:30 in the morning and continued until five. I fell asleep at around 5:15 and slept until eight without another contraction to wake me. I realized than it must have been false labour.

That morning the kids were their usual selves. Edie was cheerful and giggly and Gabe was a typical two year old (bipolar to say the least). I decided to get them out of the house and we walked to a nearby coffee shop and I treated them to orange juice and chocolate chip muffins.

That night I was tired and cranky, my back was killing me, and I decided that spaghetti would be the easiest meal to make. I chatted on the phone with my sister and complained about all my false labour and told her that I wasn't sure if I would know when true labour began. After dinner, daddy brought out a much anticipated present for Gabriel and Edie; Toy Story 3! As we sat there watching the movie I started to get contractions again. I told Scott that I was going to have a bath so I could stop the false labour and get some sleep that night.

After a few hours labouring in the bath I realized the contractions weren't getting better and in fact were intensifying in pain. That's when it dawned on me that it had to be real labour. After a lot of cursing and muttering about no one answering their phone we finally got ahold of Scott's brother and grandparents to come over and watch the kids.

We headed to the hospital and after an assessment they determined I was 4 cm dilated, 80 percent effaced, and not going home anytime soon! Soon they had me in my room where I immediately hopped into the shower for my back labour. The nurse brought me "the gas" to help with the pain and soon I was sucking back on that while my husband sprayed hot water on my sore lower back.

After a half hour the gas was making me really woozy. I told Scott I had to get back to the bed. The nurse came in during the transfer and noticed that the tank had been leaking. This explained Scott's wooziness since we had hotboxed that tiny bathroom pretty good! Scott later told me he thought he was going to pass out. After an hour of labouring on my hands in knees in the bed I requested something with a little more kick for my pain. The nurse gave me a single dose of fentanol before I told her I had to push. She checked me and I was 10 cm dilated.

The doctor was paged and after she arrived I pushed with abandon and within 4 minutes my son was born. I recieved two stitches and spent a quiet night alone with my last and final baby. And for once my little one wasn't taken to the NICU to live his first few days of life without me.

We named him Preston and we call him Puck (he was conceived after Canada won gold at the 2010 winter olympics). His brother and sister adore him (maybe a little too much). Edie throws a fit if she can't hold him and Gabe calls him "my baby Puck". He's such a perfect little guy and boy do I love him; boy...do we ALL love him!

37 weeks!

2010-11-02T20:24:00.000-07:00

I made it. My body did what I believed to be impossible. I carried another baby to term. With my pelvis ground to nearly nothing thanks to SPD (symphysis pubis dysfunction), and my exhaustion hitting all time highs, I'm relieved; and done. I won't do this again. This is my last baby and I'm content with the notion. Truth be told, three kids in three years seems like a good time to end this.

Don't get me wrong, I love my kids, I live for them, but one day I would like to get back to my life, and aspirations. These babies will always be the best thing I will ever do, but i'm ready to start the mediocre, the middle of the road goals, the things easily set aside when you have a child yelling mom at you 100 times a day.

One day I would like to go back to school, take some writing courses and see where this faded dream might take me. It's already brought me here. A journal for my kids. Memories and stories that won't completely fade overtime. I like to think that some day my great-great grandchild will bring in an entry or two for show and tell. But we all hope to have a story survive throughout the generations, don't we? I know my story is already being figuratively written through the people my children will become, but I hope they can have something more literal to hang onto.

I also hope they never let their dreams fade, not until they have given it their best shot, no matter how unlikely the dream may seem at the time. 37 weeks. A huge goal I have reached and accomplished. Now in a few years when this baby is in school, maybe I will accomplish more of the mediocre...just for me.

On a Dark and Stormy Night.

2010-10-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

He had done this to her. The man who stood in the corner, quiet and still, he had brought her to this god forsaken place. She begged for mercy. The tears had long dried upon her face, the pain was too much to even cry about. "I can't...please" she whispered her plea, begging for a reprieve. But he didn't move a muscle, didn't budge from his stubborn perch in the corner. It was his deep blue eyes that betrayed his emotions. They were filled with excitement and a touch of fear, his hands shook at the very prospect of what was about to be. She knew he wouldn't help her, indeed he couldn't.

Her screams bounced off the lime green walls. Their dingy, peeling paint a testament to the hard life they had led and witnessed. The myriads of women who had suffered at the hands of men was a secret these walls whispered amongst themselves years after the screams had faded and the memories were forgotten. The floors, a distant cousin, had tasted blood and known the agony first hand. It held it's own secrets but dare not whisper it like the walls did. Some secrets were better left unspoken.

Her blood pooled under the table beneath her. The woman's agony heard and tasted by the quiet witnesses of the cold, hard concrete that surrounded her. The man had finally moved and stood next to her bedside. He held her hand as the pain rippled through her sore and tortured body. She found comfort in his touch, despite what he had forced her to endure. She gave one final push and her child emerged, his screams matching hers. Suddenly the woman's pain seemed to be forgotten; comforting this squirming, screaming mass was all that mattered. The tears that had long dried up, flowed from her again. Love replaced pain and once more the walls whispered the names of all who had come before them.

Her son was born that dark and stormy night, but it would not be the last time those cold, concrete witnesses would observe the secrets that all women held within them. Life isn't born, it is forced and wrenched into being by a love that knows no bounds. A woman's power can never be matched as it is by her will alone that life is allowed to exist, and indeed, flourish.

Tiny Feet. For Kris.

2010-10-15T12:14:00.000-07:00

"There is no footprint too small, that it cannot leave an imprint on this world".

Dear Chance,

October 15th, 2007, you were born into our family. You never took your first breath to exhale your first cry, but rest assured baby boy, this was done for you by your mom, and your dad. They say a picture says a thousand words, but a thousand tears will speak infinitely more. Your mom's tears tell a story of incredible love and unbearable pain. You see baby boy, as mothers we all share the same dreams. Before our babies take their first breath we imagine...

We imagine the first cries, and the first steps. We wonder about the first words, and what our child's laugh will sound like. We live your entire lifetime inside our own heads, within our own imaginations, before our baby's ever enter this world.

Your mommy dreamed of the day she could hold you, and kiss you, and cuddle your tiny body to hers. But she imagined your lungs would be full of deep and beautiful breaths. She imagined the cries they would expel and how it would be her arms that would be your comfort. Never in her wildest dreams would she imagine your body so still; or that your eyes would never seek hers. She could never imagine a world without you in it.

Oh but baby boy, you would be so proud of her. Somehow she found the strength to walk out of that hospital without you bundled in her arms. She made it through, one painful day at a time, and when she was as healed as a mother could be, she created her second miracle. She went through your brother's pregnancy scared and a little unsure. Her dreams for Gage put on hold until she could be sure, that his tiny feet, would do more than walk beside yours.

But don't worry baby. You haven't been replaced. You will always be her first born, and you will never be forgotten. And on occasion, when she looks at Gage, she can see you. She can hear your laugh, and envision the amusement in your eyes. She can almost see, the way you would play with your little brother, giggling at his army crawl and trying to hold his hand for his first steps. Her love for you will always imagine the life you should have had, a curse and a blessing, if ever there was one. You see because your life counts, it held impact, and on the day you meet again, maybe you can show her that all those dreams she had weren't wasted, and you lived them alongside her all those many years.

You would be three years old today, Chance. Happy Birthday baby boy. I'll light a candle just for you. And your mom will pick up your brother, and cuddle him a little more close and she'll imagine...

Picasso

2010-10-03T18:11:00.000-07:00

I wonder, is it inherent in all people to want to create? Does everyone start off in the world as little artists and are only dissuaded through proclamations of talent, when compared to another, in which we give up this inherent want? I always enjoyed drawing and coloring, but realized at a young age that any people who possessed eyes could see that art was not my talent to wield.

My circles always look like ovals, my lines are never straight, all animals come out looking like disfigured dogs and I swear I have no idea how I passed geometry as any shape I drew came out looking hexagonish...

So as I sat on the floor this morning drawing and coloring alongside my kids...a thought dawned on me. My kids don't care that my pumpkins look like upside down icecream cones, or that the bats look like mice with wings! All they care about is that mom is creating with them, and that I think every crooked line, and oval circle is wonderfully beautiful. They drew and colored to their hearts content, only stopping to hang a picture on our mahogony cupboards.

Edie and Gabe became so focused on their projects that they never noticed how intently I watched them. Their art speaks volumes. Gabe is so careful in life. He's cautious and slow and never ventures far from his regular comfort zone. He looks before he leaps, and is much like his mother in this regard. But his art allows him a freedom I have never seen come from him. His strokes are bold and courageous. He's quick to color outside the lines leaving streaks of rainbows across my tiled floor. He bravely proclaims that his pictures are of his family and always points out the eyes on our faces. It's the one thing he's meticulous about drawing...Almost as though he knows that eyes are the windows to the soul, like he knows that love can be found there.

Edie is Gabe's polar opposite. She's never cautious in life and will no doubt be the first of our brood to break a body part. She'll always run before she walks and will never look before she leaps. She trusts that this fine line she travels is only worth taking if she journey's to its farthest edge, always perilously balanced on a cliff that could spell disaster or wonderous adrenaline...Oh, but her art! She's slow and careful and every stroke is measured with intense concentration. Every dot, and every line is placed there with exact precision. She adds colors only when it suits her, and only the exact color she deems is worthy. If her brother switches markers with her mid creation, she will throw a fit and refuse to add more to her picture until the color she requires is back in her hands.

Maybe that's what true art is...discovering a piece of ourselves so imbedded in our psyches that it can't escape otherwise! Or maybe i'm over thinking this, and it's just a whole lot of fun!

False Labour

2010-10-01T10:33:00.000-07:00

Last night I was sitting on the couch watching Hawaii Five 0 (the episode I missed on Monday)"book em Danno" -heh so sexy- when it began. The pain started on my left side and radiated across my belly. Soon a pattern became discernible and my hips and back started to feel it too. I didn't panic right away, Hawaii Five 0 offered a distraction and I thought the false labour would be over after a few painful contractions. When it didn't stop by the time my show had ended I began to think that maybe this was the real deal. The contractions were coming quite frequently and lasting for longer than the braxton hicks allowance of 30 seconds. Given the pattern, the pain, and minute long contractions, I assessed the situation as possibly problematic. I drank a few glasses of water, hoping the labour was being brought on by dehydration.

After another ten minutes and two more painful contractions I told Scott we might want to figure out how to get me to the hospital without dragging the kids all over hells half acre (I live in a different city than the hospital I have chosen to deliver in). Why would you do that? The hospital I want to deliver in is brand new, has a NICU, and is really only 25 minutes from where I live! The need of a NICU seems to be a recurring theme in my pregnancies, so I figure its better to be safe than sorry!

I wandered upstairs and updated my Facebook status, looking for distraction and some encouragement from any friends crazy enough to be awake and online at 1130pm at night! After finding what I needed I paced the floor. I chewed my bottom lip to smithereens waiting for the labour to intensify or stop. My main worry at that point was the possibility of the contractions causing my water to break. Labour has a better chance of being stopped if your membranes are intact -of course- and with my history of PPROM I was more than a little concerned! After what seemed an eternity my false labour trickled to a stop. And right on cue...Edie began her endless crying campaign. I tell ya...if it's not one kid driving you insane with worry (thanks Finale), it's another driving you insane with no sleep!

Milestones

2010-09-26T22:02:00.000-07:00

Well kiddos, you guys are getting so big. I'm always astounded by the new things you do week to week. Today I was struck by how independent you both are becoming, and it breaks my heart a little.

Oh Gabey the Baby, you are picking up new words at an astounding rate, and although I can't quite understand them all yet, I know they are, in fact, true attempts at the English language! You mimic a lot of our words now, attempting to say a word you have never heard before or one that still gets you tongue tied. Today you tried to say "top drawer" when I explained to you where your underwear was in your dresser. You managed to say "top" alright, but drawer came out all jumbled. We praised your attempt none the less.

This brings me to one of your newest milestones! You now love to pick out your own clothes. If I do it, you absolutely refuse to put it on and insist that you be allowed up to your room to fix my apparent lack of fashion sense! On the other hand, your sense of fashion is quite...unique! Today you came down with a bright blue robot shirt and brown and green camo pants...I looked at your daddy and shook my head, "He gets this from you"! I stated. "Get's what from me?" your daddy asked. "The colorblind look" I replied. But of course you aren't truly color blind! Im sure of this as you now know the majority of your colors. The only colors you seem to confuse is red and pink and that's more than understandable!

And finally your best achievement and milestone to date...You are potty trained!!! You have about one accident a week and it is usually a pee accident due to not being able to get your pants off in time. So daddy went and bought you a ton of jogging pants! The logic in this, of course, is the idea that you can take them off a lot faster...Who would have guessed that you would think jogging pants were a walking fashion disaster!

You my little man are growing up so quick. You feed yourself, pick out your own clothes, attempt to dress yourself (although you still need some help with this), you brush your own teeth, are gaining more and more communication skills, you now know your colors, and have mastered potty training...What's next? School? My God...where does the time go? I love you my baby...and no I will probably never stop calling you that!

Well my little Edie the Sweetie, you have developed quite the personality. You are asserting more of your independence by demanding more of what you want. You now take your mommy and daddy on little jaunts around our house while pointing to snacks or drinks or toys that you want us to get for you. If we aren't quick enough to follow you, you throw a fit and scream and jiggle all over the place.

You also love to wrestle with your brother and you copy almost every move he makes...like climbing on the couch, scaling the coffee table, or jumping from high dangerous places. The other day you split your lip while playing tag with Gabe. Of course you probably could have avoided the injury if he hadn't run into you (on purpose) and you hadn't acted like it was the funniest thing in the world the other 4 million times he's done this to you. You just aren't quite big enough, or coordinated enough to keep up with him yet. Yet being the operative word!

Speaking of words, you have added a few more to your vocabulary. You have been saying mom and dad for a while and now attempt to say brother. You say up and down, as well as don't, done, and stop (essential words with a sometimes overly aggressive, big brother). You call your little doll "baby" and enjoy feeding and cuddling her. And just recently you have gained the words "bug" and "dog". Two words your brother is also obsessed with!

You are quite the little charmer and enjoy hugging and kissing all of us. You still enjoy being rocked to sleep at night and you love to be cuddled and held. With all your toddler advancements you are still my little, baby girl, but I know, as with your brother, one day you won't need me to rock you to sleep. One day it won't be necessary to pick out your clothes, or decipher your words, or change your diaper. One day soon, you'll be like your brother, further from my arms, and closer to your own sense of self.

You two are so amazing. But I think I can wait to see how truly amazing you'll become. So do me a favour, and slow down a bit.

"Sis"

2010-09-25T09:48:00.000-07:00

Now that I'm a mom I get introduced to things like cartoons, and action figures, and the imaginary, consumer world of today. I allow my kids two hours of tv during the day and most of the time it's the same shows over and over and over.

The other day the tv went on a little earlier than normal and we ended up watching the Berenstein Bears, and as with all kid things i'm forced to endure, I thought about the sheer stupidity of some of the crap that now inundates our precious babies. "How ridiculous, why would anyone name their children 'Sister' and 'Brother'", was the thought that continually teased my brain. Deep...I know.

Then Gabe looked over at Eden and said "Hi, sis!". Edie smiled and waved and said "Hi,Brothe". I blinked in surprise. Gabe always calls Edie "Sis" because he just can't get his tongue around Edie or Eden, but Edie has never attempted to call him anything! And you would think that when she did attempt to name the bane of her existence ~~"Jackass"~~ "Gabe" would be her first attempt rather than "brother" because it's easier to say. That's when I realized that although they had names, Scott and I always referred to them as "Sister" and "Brother". Statements like "Gabe don't hit your sister", or "Edie, your brother needs a hug", continually reinforce the fact that they are indeed related and moreover that there true names aren't Eden or Gabe but Sister and Brother. Suddenly the Berenstein Bears don't seem so ridiculous...But what about the show "Franklin"! Why the hell is he the only animal with a real name? He should be called "Turtle", no?

The World

2010-09-18T23:16:00.000-07:00

My home is cramped and full of noise. Sometimes the walls cave in on me, collapsing around my limbs and crushing my torso. Screams echo through these walls from sources unknown; squeals of delight, and shrieks of pain penetrating my once soundful slumber in a cacophony of thunderous sound. I do not know the cause of such unbearable noise except that it is called gabrieleden. Just when I think I can't take anymore, silence reigns and I uncurl my body as best I can and let my fingers explore the world around me.

What I find is astounding. The walls of my house are smooth and warm and seem to breathe on their own accord. The water that keeps me safely cocooned is always being replenished and I like to taste and breathe it regularly. Oh but the blessed silence enables me to hear THE sound! The rhythmic beat that I have heard for as long as I can remember is reassuring and relaxing. I like to listen to it's beautiful music after a long hard day of gabrieleden attacking my little piece of asylum. Soon I feel the need to dance and all I want to do is stretch and roll, and kick, at the squishy walls around me.

The Mom doesn't always enjoy my gymnastics but I find her voice soothing even when it's berating me for my constant movement. The Dad isn't around as much, but I like him best I think. His voice travels through the walls much easier than the rest of them, almost as though he's lying right beside me, just on the other side of my sanctuary. He tells me about The World and I think I will enjoy it there. But what if The World isn't as wonderful as the home I have now? What if the gabrieleden thing is out there, waiting for me? Should I be afraid?

The Mom tells me she loves me and although i'm not sure what this means, I think it suggests that I don't need to be afraid. She won't let the gabrieleden hurt me. She will keep me safe, just as I am now. I'm sure of this.

The World...I wonder if you float there too? The Mom says she does...on cloud nine...because of me. I can't wait!

Dear Finale

2010-09-14T14:38:00.000-07:00

Dear Baby,

Today you are 30 weeks old and I find myself asking, "Who are you?"; shame on me.

Such a simple question. One we are expected to answer in a convoluted, 1800 word essay in High School. A question we ask ourselves, and are asked of us, our whole lives. It seems like such an innocent question. "What do you want to be when you grow up?" I had no idea, baby. I racked my brain, and searched my soul, and felt like a failure when I didn't know the answer on the day I graduated high school. And yet I find myself pondering this question of my own kids. What future will they have? What career path will they follow? Who will they marry? How financially successful will they become?

You haven't even been born yet and I find myself wondering about such inconsquential matters. Stuff that doesn't really matter in the grand scheme of things. The light and happiness I find in my life right now, baby, has nothing to do with career, or finances, or even the man I married. My happiness is found in being content with the life I lead at this moment. Perhaps that's the secret to being happy. Perhaps the simplest answer is to live in the moment, and not in your future. And yes, there will be moments that are hard, and even seemingly unbearable. You will cry real tears, and ache real aches, and hurt real hurts, and as much as I will want to take these moments from you, I will not. And as much as you will want to skim past these times, and look to a brighter day, you cannot; for it is these moments that will make you recognize and embrace the happier ones. Because at the end of the day it is that person left standing, that person who found the silver lining and kept going, the one who survived and grew stronger that will be able to answer that nearly impossible question. Who am I? And 'who you are' doesn't have to be answered in any one way, and it certainly doesn't have to remain the same answer day to day.

At this moment in time I can tell you a little bit about who I am, but I cannot gurantee any of these traits, save one, will remain the same. I am stubborn, sarcastic, and a little bit rebellious. I am narrow minded, and yet flexible if given to the right circumstances. I am from a broken home, was going to be a lawyer, and never completed college. I became a chambermaid, a partier, and at the pinnacle of my confusion at life and who I was supposed to be, I met your father. Soon thereafter I conceived your brother, and I became a mother. And this one event, this one addition to my life - now so ingrained in me I barely recognize the girl I was - this is the one thing that will never change.

I am a mother. I am your mother. And I will love you as much as your siblings, and I will hold your life in greater esteem than I hold my own. I will bake, and cook and clean. I will cuddle, and hug and kiss, and tell you everyday I love you. I will celebrate your first steps, laugh at your first joke; I will read you your favourite books and sing you songs at bedtime. I will let you sleep in the middle when you need some extra comfort; and I will cry your first day of school, and on your last.

I am your mother. And I will be there for every milestone. And who you will become, will be written through your own experiences. Some of which will be given to you by your father and I, and some of which you will seek entirely on your own. And my wish for you and your siblings will always be this;

To be happy.

I am a mother. My happiness is found in living that moment everyday and for the rest of my life. I can't wait to see where you will find your happiness.

Live your moment, baby, no matter how or when that moment comes. Live it, enjoy it, and don't spoil it with the future.

I love you.

Mom.

Spaceship Train

2010-09-11T11:51:00.000-07:00

Two Huggies boxes sit side by side, Gabe in one, Edie in the other. "Sheep Shane" Gabriel replies as he transports Edie and I on a ride through his imagination. Thanks to my wonderful toddler translating skills I know he and his sister are riding in a spaceship train. Gabe grasps the flaps of Edie's ~~box~~ ship and pulls her closer "Sis, sheep shane, Chooo Chooo". Edie Merely smiles at her brother, unsure of the game they are playing but ecstatic to be included none the less. Her brother's eyes take on a look of wonder as he points to some far off land in the distance, he glances at me - co pilot - "Home!" he states and off we go.

He grabs the ~~flaps~~ wings of his ~~box~~ spaceship train, manually manuevering them and stearing their ships to outerspace. "Vvvrrroooommmm", then he leans down and pushes some buttons in his ~~huggies box~~ cockpit. He and Edie zoom off to some alien landscape, giggling and smiling at eachother. After ten minutes of interstellar travel Edie loses her patience for the spaceship train game. Suddenly Edie stands up and Gabe panics. "SSSSIIIIISSSSSS DDDOOONN'TTTT DOWN!!!" he screams, while trying to push Edie into a sitting postion. We haven't docked!!! She's jettisoning from her space pod too soon! Edie tips her ~~box~~ spaceship, and crawls to safety. Gabe uprights the slightly damaged vehicle while shaking his head. Foolish move, he thinks, she could have been killed!

Gabe pushes some more buttons and raises the wings of his spaceship train. It's time to complete the journey home, with or without his sister. Then disaster strikes!! "A HOOOOO" he screams at me "uh oh". He jumps from his spaceship and runs to the ~~desk~~ interstellar docking station/trading post, desperately looking for some tape. I look at his space ship train and notice that "the hole" he's referring to is the handle for the diaper box...catastrophe...damage to the hull. Gabe runs back to his ~~box~~ ship, shrugging at me, the ~~desk~~ interstellar docking station/trading post has run out of tape, he'll have to make do with smoothing the flap down with his hand. He jumps back in and resumes his journey home.

But it's a long, arduous journey without any pit stops in between, and soon there's a puddle under Gabe's box and a look of disgust on his face. I grab a cloth and tell him that the box is dirty now and he has to get out so I can clean up, and just like that the spell is broken. He gets out of his box and sits on his potty...remembering what is supposed to happen when wearing big boy pants...but realizing now it's too late. His cockpit has to be thrown out much to his dismay and soon the spaceship train is all but a faded memory. Edie's box remains intact however, and soon the spaceship train becomes just a train, and I tie a string to the ~~box~~ steam engine, so he can pull around ~~my tupperware~~ his cargo. Hopefully this time Gabe's imagination will permit bathrooms on board so another ~~box~~ spaceship train isn't ruined!

Worst fears.

2010-09-02T11:14:00.000-07:00

If you belong to the world of parenthood you know what fear I speak of. As a parent we all share it. That unimaginable, totally despicable, horrendous nightmare. When we hear the stories from parents who have experienced the totally unimaginable, we all cringe a little inside. To lose a child. The very words, indeed, just the very thought of it turns my stomach and tightens my throat; threatening to cause me to vomit and choke on it all at the same time.

I can only imagine the kind of pain that would cause. I can only imagine how it would change a person. What that experience would strip from you. My kids are my life. I live and breathe them. I have no idea how parents pick up and move on after surviving that horrible, living nightmare. I'm not sure I could. I don't know if I would ever be strong enough to manage it. When I lost Gabe in that campground, when the thought entered my head I may never see him again, when that horrible nightmare was becoming reality and taking on a life of it's own...I had a little taste of what it would be like to live without your everything.

He was gone for less than two minutes, but it was the longest two minutes of my life, and it was long enough for me to watch my world crumble around me. Just as a neighbour was carrying Gabe back into the campground my panic was turning nuclear. My sister in law later stated how calm I appeared, and I can only reply that if he had been missing for a few seconds longer she would have seen someone completely lose it.

I was jogging back and forth, unsure of what direction to look in, clutching Edie to my chest, trying to match my breath to hers, trying desperately to suck air into my lungs and feeling faint nonetheless. Helpless, confused, and utterly terrified, I prayed someone, some evil someone, with intentions unknown...and yet too known...hadnt taken him. My family fanned out in every conceivable direction. My cousin Jamie shouted to look along the river bank, and he began to run to the swimming area where Gabe loved to play, just in case...in case... he had fallen in. My head jerked to the river, and my knees grew weak, "he can't swim" was all I could manage to think. A scream threatened to escape from my tightened throat, bile rose and cut off what breath I had managed to suck into my lungs. Edie cried as I crushed her body to mine. Just then, at the beginning of my panic induced collapse, a lady came walking into our campground, my son on her hip, his tears caused "by falling" she stated, but he was otherwise unharmed. I collapsed into my chair, my knees no longer strong enough to keep me upright, but he was safe and I scrubbed the panic from my mind. I scrubbed the thought of drowning or kidnapping from my thoughts because you can only live with them briefly before they rip your heart out. Every now and then I think about those few minutes he was missing and I feel that familiar panic pour through my veins and I have to shut my brain off, while forcing my thoughts on happier memories.

So why am I remembering those moments today? Why am I writing about our worst nightmare as parents? Because a woman on my blog list lost her child. She named her blog "514" today because it's been 514 days since her baby girl Maddie passed away, and because it was 514 days her child lived and graced their lives with her presence.

I can only imagine the pain she must feel daily. The sucker punches she has to endure while raising her daughter's younger sister. The moments filled with laughter and yet still tainted, always tainted with the laughter she will never hear again, with the life that should have never been lost, with that moment NO parent should ever have to endure. A living nightmare that she can never wake up from; and one which I refuse to imagine for very long, lest I drown in this sour, sticky air.

For the Record.

2010-08-27T12:02:00.000-07:00

Dear Gabe and Eden.

As you may well know, being kids yourselves, children are the best miniature comedians the world will ever produce. The stuff you two have done or said since the beginning of your lives has never failed to put me into stitches. Because I am your mother, and am pretty much obligated to embarrass you with stories of yourself to your teen friends and future boyfriends and girlfriends, I have decided to record some of the most hilarious events in your young lives to date!

Gabriel.

Event 1. Diaper change in the NICU.

We were young parents, ill prepared for the undertaking of caring for a premature infant. We were stressed, tired, and in need of some serious TLC and laughter. Then one day, during a diaper change, you pissed all over your own face. I was mortified and was screaming at daddy to "put the diaper back up, PUT THE DIAPER BACK UP", and I'm not sure if it's because your father is a bit sadistic, or if it was because he was laughing too hard, but you ended up emptying your entire bladder contents all over your own head. The funniest thing about the whole ordeal was watching your poor little reaction! You shook your tiny head from side to side trying to avoid the waterfall of pee hitting you in the face, not to mention trying in vain to catch your breath while being drowned in your own urine. CLASSIC.

Event 2. 6 weeks old at Grandmas house.

Another daddy diaper moment was brought to you only a few short weeks later. I think you were trying to punish him for his horrendous treatment of you earlier. Daddy had you on the guest bed at grandma Jefferson's house and was kneeling, face level with your ass...im not sure what the logic of this was...but just as daddy had slipped a clean diaper under your skinny butt, your tummy rumbled and out shot projectile poo! Daddy got the diaper up just in time, but I can still imagine him being an instant slower and getting a mouth full of infant crap! I really wish to this day he had, it could have been the best diaper story of all time.

Event 3. Trip to Victoria.

Approximately 3-4 months before your sister was born, your father and I took you on a trip to Vancouver Island. We visited friends and relatives and stayed in a variety of hotels. One of them was in Courtenay (The Best Western), and as with all great quality hotels, our room was beautifully decorated with breath taking floor to ceiling mirrored closets. The instant you saw yourself you got extremely excited and ran full bore at the child in the other room...never slowing for one second and never realizing that the floor did not keep going...that it was merely a reflection of our own room. You hit those mirrored doors so hard I thought for a second that there would be damage to them and you would be stuck with 7 years bad luck... starting with the multiple stitches you would need...Turns out the mirror was just fine, and so were you and I think I laughed for a good week after that.

Event 4. Edie's homecoming.

The day your sister came home was a momentous occasion, but if we thought you would let your sister have one day to be the center of attention...we were wrong. After your nap your grandma Jefferson went to get you from your room. I was snuggling down with Edie for a nap of my own when I hear my mom yelling for me. I run to your room where I'm immediately hit with the smell of crap. My mom merely looks at me and says "he got his diaper off..." With your diaper off and your little butt hanging free, you thought it would be a good idea to squat, take a crap on the rug then pick up the poo and smear it all over the walls, door, carpet, and yourself...Welcome home, Edie...

Event 5. 6 weeks after your sister was born.

You have always been a kid with instant karma. If you hurt someone the universe will slap you down in nearly the same second the act was committed. This is unfortunate for you, but fun for me to watch. Your little sister had just come home and although your jealousy was mild compared to other kids your age, it did pop up every now and then. This particular day you ran at your sister (who was strapped into her rocking chair) and hit her with one of your toys. Now I don't know how many times I've asked you not to run with food in your mouth...or for that matter to be gentle with Edie...but Karma would be your teacher this day. The minute you swung your toy train and connected it with her little, innocent, infant head, you choked on the piece of marshmallow you had been eating, barfed, slipped in it, and landed flat on your back in your own vomit. The dazed and confused look on your face was priceless!

Event 6. Potty training.

My first attempt at potty training you was only successful for a week, but in this time you managed to make me gag and shudder, and I'm sure this was your plan all along. You were doing awesome with the potty training and I was so proud of you. You rarely had accidents and when you did I asked you to help me clean it up (which you did with a weird sort of fascination). One day I was preoccupied with cooking, cleaning or attending to Edie (who knows) when I happen to look over at you and notice you are slurping some sort of liquid off my hardwood floor. My eyes scan the immediate area for cups, or bottles and when I don't see anything my shock and horror is instantaneous. "SCOTT" I scream, "STOP HIM"...Your daddy asks why..what is that? When I exclaim "He's not wearing a diaper, what do you think it is?" ,daddy again enters a state of hysterics (and is less than helpful) and you, my little man, look up at us with such a mischievous little grin that it's hard for me to claim that you were too young to know what you were doing!

Event 7. Mommy's tired brain.

You and Edie love to steal each other's toys and I'm constantly playing referee. Her favourite toy to play with is your Toy Story action figure "Woody". One day as you were sitting side by side, you snatched your action figure away from her. "Gabriel!" I said sternly, as Edie started to whimper, "Why won't you let your sister play with your little Woody" My lecture just kind of trailed off there... I still think that naming a child's favourite movie character 'Woody' was an inside joke at PIXAR.

Event 8. Diaper Cream.

You have a weird obsession with diaper cream. You love to rub it all over yourself. The first time your father and I caught you doing this you were hiding behind our bed, with a tin of penaten, and had it all over your chin and lips...it kinda looked like you had a white beard going on. I found it hilarious and took a picture! The next time I caught you doing it, I was tired and in pain, and you had managed to cover yourself...head to TOE...I was less than impressed that time!

Event 9. Flying poop.

You have been potty training for nearly two weeks now and you have only had one accident. This one accident was met by an intense look of shame and an attempt to hide behind my curtains. When I finally coaxed you out and told you it was okay that everyone had accidents, I got to taking your soiled pants off. Just as we were nearly home free your pant leg caught on your ankle and as I gave one last strong yank on your pants, they turned from garment to sling shot, and the poop that resided in them flew a good five feet..and landed on my couch! I tried not to laugh too hard so you wouldn't think pooping in your pants was hysterical...but it was the hardest thing I have ever had to do.

Eden.

You my little girl are not quite as adept at doing things to make me laugh until I cry; however, you are the most lovely and charming little girl, and do a million things that make me say "awwww". But don't get me wrong...you do have a few stories.

Event 1. What's that!

You and your brother have bathed together for quite a while and it hasn't been until recently that you two have showed any real interest in each other. One day, as your father was bathing you (as rare as this is) I hear that tell-tale, hysterical laughter coming from your dad. I join him in the bathroom and ask him what is so funny. Your dad tells me that you grabbed Gabe's dink and yanked as hard as you could, dropping Gabe like a ton of bricks and making him yelp in pain. You and daddy thought this was hilarious...Gabe was, of course, a little less than impressed.

Event 2. Owie.

You soon grew to hate bath times and would fight me tooth and nail when it came to getting your hair washed. As I was about to lean you back and rinse out your hair, I warned your brother to back off because you liked to flail and I didn't want any injuries to occur. Gabe backed off a few paces and I dunked you in the water, and on cue you started to kick your legs as hard as humanely possible. While I'm feverishly rinsing your hair I hear "OWWWIIIEEEE"!! emanating from your brother. I glance at him and see that he is in a half squat position with your foot caught between his legs...poor Gabe...he just can't keep his junk safe from you.

Event 3. Here Horsey!

Your father and I took you and your brother to the fall fair in Chilliwack. We visited the petting zoo first. Gabe loved to run past all the animals making all their sounds, and trying in vain to communicate with them; while you sat contentedly in your stroller. As we were passing the miniature ponies, one leaned down to sniff you. The look of horror on your face and the flinch that brought your foot in a wild kick which landed directly on the ponies nose, was only matched in intensity by the wild ripple of laughter that oozed from your father and I. The pony seemed to be the only one not laughing.

Event 4. Bouncing Baby Butt.

One day, before a prenatal appointment, I was shaving my legs in the sink. You and your brother were playing in the hallway (stair landing) at my feet when I heard Gabe say "Poo, mom, poo". At first I wasn't sure what Gabe could possibly be referring to when I notice that you, my sweet angel, are naked as a jaybird. When I swing my foot from the sink I almost put it directly into your dirty diaper. When I look down at you, I see that you are happily bouncing your bare, poopy butt all over the carpet at the foot of the stairs...Your sheer look of delight and Gabe's look of utter disgust is what made this moment so memorable and so hilarious!

Event 5. Bare ass.

While I was doing the dishes I heard you and your brother's peal of laughter coming from the bathroom. I immediately knew that whatever was going on, wasn't good, as the majority of the time you two are at each other's throats. When I reach the bathroom I notice that there is paper hanging from your brother's mouth, and in your hands and I start to scold you guys for playing with the toilet paper. My confusion begins when I notice that there isn't any toilet paper in the bathroom...but you, my dear, soon cleared up that mystery when you walked past me and your bare ass was hanging out of your freshly changed diaper like those old fashioned pajamas with the ass flaps... I realized then that Gabe had chewed his way through your diaper...for what purpose i'm not entirely sure...but i think it has something to do with me randomly biting your little baby butts!

Event 6. Cracker.

You are notorious for eating other peoples discarded food. If Gabriel leaves so much as a crumb on his plate you will go after it with a zest I have never seen before. After snacks one day, Gabriel left a peanut butter covered cracker on his plate...if you can call a cracker he's licked half to death peanut butter covered... and you picked it up as per usual. You brought it over to the couch, with the intention of eating it after you were finished your cereal bar. Soon you forgot it was there and went on your merry way. A few minutes later you wandered over to the couch and rested your head on it and when you brought your head back up, you had a cracker stuck to your forehead. The fact that you didn't notice and wandered around with it plastered to your face until your daddy saved you (I was having too much fun laughing) made my day.

Well kiddies, that's all the stories I have about you so far, but don't worry I will keep recording them so that I can bring them up at inappropriate times during your teenage years and young adult life!

Love,

MOM.