“You’re worth every falling tear, You’re worth facing any fear…
I’ll trade the fear of all that I could lose for every moment I share with you”

There’s a new(ish) song on the radio (that I heard today which spawned this post) that has literally grabbed my heart. I have shed many a tear over these lyrics and they touch me beyond ways that I can explain. But, I’m going to attempt to try. The song is titled “All of Me” by Matthew Hammitt. He wrote the song for his son who was born with only half a heart and was not expected to live. They have endured life-altering things with this little boy who is now a healthy 1-year-old.

Now, Mason’s illness is far from the devastating (and constant) thing that these people have had to deal with, but to some level I understand. I think we all do as parents, as watching our children suffer in any capacity is gut wrenching. But, to those of us who have children who suffer from nearly fatal illnesses, or for those of us who have been in a situation where our children have been near death- they mean a little more.

Every time I hear this song, one image comes to my mind. It’s the image of my son gravely ill on my kitchen floor. I have an epi-pen in his leg with one hand and I’m on the phone with the 9-1-1 dispatcher with the other. I can still see in slow motion the paramedics grabbing him from my arms and abruptly leaving telling me nothing other than where they were taking him. Then there was the terrifying drive behind an ambulance that slowly slipped out of view as they drove my son to the hospital. I knew by their speed and concerned looks when they took him from me that he was not ok. I cried and begged God more in that 10-minute drive to the hospital than I ever have in my life. I pleaded with him to let my baby boy be ok. To let him be breathing when I saw him again. I begged God to give him life back. I didn’t want the last image in my mind of my son to be a blue, lifeless child.

While I had always lived in fear with his allergies before that day, every day since has been worse. But I’d truly trade all that I could lose, for the moments I spend with him. I’m glad to be in my shoes; to be his mom, to have him here. I’d rather have the stress of his illness in my life than not have him at all. My heart may ache. I may shed tears out of frustration, fear and concern for my little boy, but I wouldn’t trade it for the world. I wouldn’t have him any other way.

I think we all can agree as parents that our children are worth everything they put us through- the tears, frustrations, joys and heartaches.

Editor’s note: I hate Halloween. Mostly for its detrimental-waisteline effects.

Let’s think about Thanksgiving. The one holiday that requires so little, but so much preparation (if you’re hosting, that is). I don’t host Thanksgiving. Ever. Despite my inability to cook anything, I’m not hospitable no matter how hard I try. Not to mention we have one of the smaller houses of the family, which automatically makes us exempt of hosting.

So what else is there to do to prepare? Decorate? What can you even do? Put up a turkey poster? That’s just weird. It’s not like we slap cardboard hams on the windows for Easter.

Of course, there will be all those handprint turkeys to deal with, and every parent of a school-aged kid knows the handprint turkey that I speak of. There’s just so…many of them. It’s as if they bring one home then the next thing you know there’s another all-construction-paper bird lurking in the school cubby. Little by little they infiltrate, one oddly shaped thumb-head at a time. One on the window, next thing you know one on the fridge, the mirrors, doors. They creep up everywhere you turn- with their beady little bird eyes just staring at you.

They can only be disposed of (like all children’s school/art work) in the dark of night, stealthily and well past bedtime, lest a young but blaring voice announce, “HEY WHERE’S MY HANDPRINT TURKEY THAT WAS STUCK TO THE KITCHEN CABINET, RIGHT NEXT TO MY HANDPRINT TURKEY THAT WAS STUCK TO THE KITCHEN COUNTER, NEXT TO THE SIDEWAYS-ICE-CREAM-SUPPOSED-TO-BE-CONRACOPIA-THING? MOM!!!!! TELL ME!!!!

For parents of younger, non-school-aged children, you’ll be tempted to keep every piece of paper they doodle on. Who knows? They could be the next Picaso. From church bulletins to glimmering art projets of your aspiring little artist, the clutter will soon take over. Here me when I say, there WILL come a day when you look at it and think it’s just one more piece of paper that’s finding it’s way to the recylcing bin. The guilt of disposing of 15+ trees worth of art projects a year is relieved by knowing a few things: knowing that it can at least be recycled into paper for some other little artist. Or your napkin at McDonalds. Or a “green” grocery bag. Not to mention the fact that there’s always next year for the return of the little construction paper-handprint bird.

It’s like they can’t come up with anything more creative. From pre-school on, it must be written in public school ciricculum to make them. I think they just do it to annoy us parents. And creep us out.

I will note a few highlights that have followed the craziness:
- my dog has developed an anxiety problem.
- our contractors and 24-hour emergency disaster clean up crew have made the speed dial list on my phone (the requirements for being on my speed dial include that I call you at least once a day).
-we have a dead squirrel on our back deck that we haven’t had a chance to remove so we’re turning it into a educational lesson on decomposition.
-we have no clean dishes because our kitchen sink won’t drain and we’re too worried about ceilings falling on our heads that we haven’t had the time to call a plumber. priorities.
-I lived on hospital food for a month and lived to tell about it.
-The word “permanent” address means nothing. In the last 3 months, we’ve lived with family, in 2 different hotels along with occasional nights in our own house.
-My kids would make great gypsies. They actually ask us where they’ll be sleeping tonight like it’s normal dinner conversation.

We’ve kept the humor going because when things get so bad as to not have ceilings, a roof or part of your walls in any single room of your house, and you don’t even budge when you hear things come crashing down anymore, there’s not much more to do other than laugh. So as Mike the contractor continues to rebuild my upstairs bathroom as we speak, I’m going to leave this be and just let you know that we’re alive. Until next time…

Pappy brought the boys some cars to paint and then assemble and they had a blast! It was so fun to watch them decorate their cars and then assemble them. Mason assembled his all by himself. He (and I) was so proud. Brody needed a little extra help, but we definitely had a blast. It was a 2-day event. Painting one night and letting it set out to dry them putting it together the next night.

It was a great family event. So great, in fact, that Pappy has now brought us some helicopters to start working on!

So. let’s go back a few weeks. In April, Mason started his second season of T-Ball. He absolutely LOVES it. He especially loves wearing his uniform so he can show people he’s a baseball player. He’s pretty good and it’s super cute and fun to watch. He’s improving a lot and I love being a baseball mom and I hope it continues!

Here are a couple pics of my little star:

So Proud of my little guy!

So Thursday morning at 3am, when Brody woke me up wheezing something terrible, I started Mason’s protocol on B. Brody at this point had never been diagnosed with asthma, and had only had minor wheezing a couple times during seasonal allergy times. By 5am he was working so hard to breathe and was an ashy, pale color that I was uncomfortable. We were in an ER bed by 6:30am. At 8:30, they came in to tell me they were transporting him Downtown Children’s Hospital (I was at Liberty ER) because he was requiring more treatment than they could handle. By 9am, plans had changed again. Even on 100% oxygen, his level was still at 82. We were headed to ICU. I couldn’t quite process what was happening. The entire time we were at the Liberty ER, no one ever left the room. Not once. He was put on continuous oxygen and albuterol and loaded into the Mobile Intensive Care Unit truck and we headed for downtown.

Brody was in ICU all of Thursday, Friday and part of Saturday. I’ve never seen him so sick. He couldn’t breathe, his heart rate was at 220, his respiratory rate was at 85 and his oxygen hung out at about 89. His monitors were constantly beeping and he was weak, pale and lifeless. This continued for hours. He was given meds for his heart because it was working so hard. Then his blood pressure dropped to 50/30 which is far less than favorable, so they were giving him more meds and fluids to bring that up. It was one thing after another and one beeping monitor or another for those 2.5 days. It was so hard to feel so helpless as a parent.

Brody’s x-rays were clear when we got to the hospital, but by Saturday, he had developed pneumonia and was in isolation. I’m not sure what caused the turn around in him, but all of the sudden he just sat up, started talking and wanted to eat. They disconnected his breathing help (which did not allow for him to eat or drink), and for the first time in over 48 hours he ate (and kept it down!) and suddenly had color and life back in him. We were home by Sunday afternoon.

I was amazed at the resilience of this little boy. I, on the other hand, am not quite so resilient. I was running on total adrenaline those few days. I was also not sleeping because that’s impossible to do when being awoken every 30 minutes by his respiratory therapist. Not to mention those awful pull out chair-supposed-to-be-bed numbers. Wow.

In all of this, Dave was sick too. I’ve managed to be the only healthy one so far. I don’t imagine I’ll stay healthy since I haven’t had decent sleep or nutrition in days, not to mention I’ve been coughed on, puked on and sneezed on more times than I can count this week. I’m doomed.

I’m beyond tired and have hit that wall of exhaustion. I’m just grateful that we are all home and healthy. It’s been a long and tiring week. Thanks to all those who were praying for my little man!

I’m not on a huge time crunch tonight since Dave’s softball game was rained out, thus me posting right now, just for you, my dear reader friends. Between singing in 3 church services and having 3 family Easter gatherings all in the last 2 days, there was just no way you were getting an update from me over the weekend.

We have had a blast the last week or so. We’ve hit the zoo and the parks and went for long nice walks when there was a break in the rain (which wasn’t all that often). I usually don’t mind the rain, but it’s been non-stop for a week. And I’m not even joking. Mason had the whole week off last week, because at the deepest point, his Kindergarten school had 4 feet of standing water in the parking lot and they were sandbagging the school to keep it from getting in. Somehow the drains weren’t able to handle the rain at the rate in which it was coming down and it just started to accumulate. While it was cool to have a 2nd spring break, that means we have to make it up. The Kindergartners are going to be in school more than a week past the rest of the district at this point due to the floods, a tornado warning earlier in the year and a couple other completely random events calling for school to be canceled.

Speaking of Tornadoes, I know most of you know about the 1am warning here this past Tuesday night. I have to share a funny story. Mason apparently is following in my footsteps from my days of wanting to be a storm chaser and meteorologist. We were under our stairs for a good hour listening to the rain and wind blow our trees sideways with branches flying around and all the while, Brody was so out of it. He didn’t even remember the next morning having been out of bed at 1am. Mason on the other hand was ready for the storm. He was so excited to see the “windows blown out” by the wind. And much to his dismay, that didn’t happen and boy did I hear about it. All day on Wednesday he kept telling me how “bummed” he was that our windows didn’t blow out. If he had to get out of bed and sit under the stairs, there should have been some excitement, ya know, like our windows blowing out. I heard that phrase a good 100 times that day. He’s on alert for the next storm that will “blow our windows out”…

Mason is going on his first field trip tomorrow with his daddy as his chaperone and he’s more than thrilled. He doesn’t seem to care that he’s going to the museum to which we have a pass and have been to a million times, he’s just super excited to ride the bus there with daddy. It’s adorable.

I just decided that I currently have nothing exciting to say about our lives. Wish I had something big and good for ya, but I don’t right now… I may soon though, keep an eye out (hint, hint).

Happy Monday!

Last weeks post was a little on the heartfelt side. I tend to either be really deep or super surface level on here, but it’s my blog, so I’ll do as I please. This week will be much lighter.

Our lives are CRAZY. We literally have something every evening and most days. Our days are filled with things like trips to the aquarium, museum, Parky’s Farm, the Zoo (side note: Zoo Blooms is GORGEOUS right now, and the baby giraffe is super adorable, but I digress..) etc., all before school. Then we get home in time for lunch, Mason gets on the bus and then Brody and I run our necessary errands to keep daily life running smoothly. Ya know, the bank, post office, grocery, etc. And then there are the evenings. We manage to have dinner at the table as a family every night (super high on my priority list) and then we go, go, go! Monday night is our free night…the only night we have open. Tuesday it’s baseball and praise team rehearsal. Wednesday it’s Mission Friends and the awesome events like last night at Mason’s school- of which I completely forgot about. It was culture night. Food and people from all around the world with displays and a lot of fun. Yet, my busy brain seemed to overlook it on my (color coordinated) calendar. Thursday it’s soccer, Friday it’s small group (of which we host, so somewhere in there I have to clean house) and Saturday is spent at the ball fields while Sunday’s are busy for me singing in all of our services at Church.

So, there was a quick glimpse of my life. May not seem like all that much, but those of you with young children know that being on the run like that is tiring! I rarely have time to myself or a moment where there is not someone needing my attention….

But, I’m not complaining. I wouldn’t have it any other way. Well, that’s a lie. I would rather have a little more quiet here and there… However, my life is awesome. My kids keep me busy and smiling (95% of the time). They are so fun right now. It’s a great age and I get more and more excited with every stage we reach.

So… back to what I meant to talk about. I’m a little wordy because I apparently have a lot to say about the fact that I have no time to blog. I honestly don’t even remember what I got on here to tell you in the first place. I’m so scattered brained. And tired.

{5 minute pause}

Ok, seriously, I have no idea what my original intent for this post was. If I remember I’ll be sure to write it down so I don’t forget before next Thursday. You’re welcome.

So, anyway, if you actually read this nonsense and gibberish and got this far, then I applaud you and commend you for being an awesome friend because, quite frankly, I have no idea what I’m even talking about anymore….