10 years ago today I was a naive 19 year old little girl in a white dress, drowned out by the enormity of the huge big world, clumsily feeling my way through, and making the smartest decision and commitment of my life.
Though sometimes the days have been long and hard to endure, I still struggle to accept that an entire decade has passed. I've become quite adept at presenting myself as a confidant, independent, self-sufficient woman, but most of the time I'm still just a naive little girl, making my way through and playing it by ear.
Rene, you're always looking to better yourself. You're always humble and meek, and I struggle to show those qualities. You're so forgiving and so committed to our family. And I don't tell you often enough how thankful I am for you. You are my rock. You work so hard for us, you listen to our needs and desires and set your goals upon meeting them.
I was once an emotional 16 year old, getting ready to go to Beecraigs Park with the YF, and looking forward to seeing the gorgeous long, blonde haired, handsome teenager whom I had been chasing for 3 years and who didn't even know my name. I was so full of anticipation of watching the way you move, the way you smile, the untold story behind the eyes that would sometimes briefly lock gaze with my own. The butterflies in my stomach were so familiar to me by then that I should have given each one a name. I was so mad at myself for pining away after this person who never seemed to notice me.
As I got dressed in my bedroom that day, I looked in the mirror and was horrified to find a big pimple on my upper lip, right hand side. In the mind of a teenager, this pimple obviously meant I would never be able to win your affection. I decided I had driven myself crazy with thoughts of you for too long and I needed to be released of this insanity one way or another. So I used the pimple as a fleece. I prayed to God that if you and I were meant to be together, if we would ever end up marrying, would God please make there be a pimple on your face at the same spot.
Sure enough, as I arrived at Beecraigs, there was your glorious face, right upper lip pimple and all. Identical to my own. It seemed impossible to be true, as you danced around, hopping from adoring girl to adoring girl. Everyone was won over by your charm and I was just the quiet, quirky one in the corner. But I believe God chose us for each other. And eventually you found me.
And now here we are, celebrating 10 years of fumbling our way through life together. We've brought forth 5 little lives from our love, and are still carving and crafting our 6th. We've suffered horrendous loss and tragedy. We've seen our efforts result in many successes and many failures. We've moved across the ocean to start a new life with naught, and have gained much. I have no idea what God has in store for us as we face the next decades ahead, but I'm sure there will be more mountains as well as valleys, storms as well as sunshine. And I'm so glad that I don't have to go through any of it alone, because God gave me you....
Daddy took Kaya to the store, they had some Daddy-daughter time. A conversation about marriage developed and Daddy explained how a husband and wife promise to love each other, exclusively for the rest of their lives.
Kaya pondered it for a moment, and then asked, "So they are *only* supposed to love each other? No body else?"
"Well," he clarified, "we are supposed to love everybody. We love God, we love you kids, we love our friends and family, we're even supposed to love our enemies. But we have a special kind of love that we save for just each other."
Kaya looked down heartened. Her face grimaced, displaying the inner turmoil as she decided whether or not she should say what she ultimately decided she had to. "Dad, I have to tell you something important. Mummy is in love with another man."
"What? What do you mean?"
"Well, I don't know what his name is, but I know Mummy is really in love with him. In the way that she loves you. He plays guitar and she listens to his music really loud in the house."
Rene felt instantly relieved. "Oh, you mean Nuno Bettencourt? Yeah, she'll never love me as much as him. I accepted that a long time ago."
I'm not sure what lesson Kaya will learn from that encounter...
Hey, I was in love with Nuno since I was like 12, and my Dad took me to an Extreme concert. I wasn't interested in boys before that point. But, I mean, look at him!
And check him out in action
here he is just talking and being yummy
I rest my case.
But ya know what? Gosh darn it, this guy still wins my heart beat every time.
Hubba hubba. You're better than Nuno any day, babe. <3
Kaya brought me a menu this morning, hand written, with a whole bunch of choices for a cooked breakfast in bed.
I found it hard to choose, so I picked most things on the menu.
Daddy's porridge, veggie breakfast sausage, beans (yes, we're Scottish and we eat baked beans at breakfast), English muffin, fried mushrooms, a glass of orange juice and a glass of milk! He had also made fried tomatoes and boiled eggs, but I didn't have enough room in my tummy.
Now, for more of our married life, the thought of Rene cooking me anything would be a punishment, not a gift. And I cringed a little as I awaited the meal. But he has been practicing lately. They brought the food to me on a tray with a towel over it, all pretty like. And there was even HP sauce! And it is yummy! Very very delicious. The porridge was Scottish style, thick, creamy and salty and I didn't think I'd like it. I like it runny and very sweet. But it was very good.
And he gave me a mushy, sentimental card too. Then the kids piled on me with Mother's Day wishes and kisses and they enjoyed some bites of my food too.
Turns out my instincts were right after all. He did have something very wrong with his leg, and there wasn't an accident or something that I missed.
The story starts Thursday night. He started limping again and complaining that he was sore. Since the ER had said it was probably a muscle strain and they could do nothing we decided on Friday to call and make an appointment with a chiropractor. The appointment was set for Tuesday. But by Saturday morning it was still sore and we thought it seemed more serious than just a muscle pain. So we took him to the walk in clinic.
A few hours of chasing incredibly ansty kids around the waiting room later and an uncomfortable blood test later we were sent home with a prescription for amoxycilin.
By Sunday he couldn't bare weight on it and it was swelling and red and hot and he was getting fevers which came and went. We watched him carefully all day and by evening we decided it was just getting worse, so we took him in to the ER.
ER was busy. Zoe and busy ER waiting rooms don't go well together, so we learned. We got there at 6.30 pm and he was finally taken through to be seen at 9pm. In the interim Zoe had crawled under chairs, messed with people's catheters, ran out the front doors, jumped off of tables, upturned tables, climbed up walls, rattled door handles, pulled emergency cables in the bathroom, screamed her head off and continuously bolted down the hospital corridor. She is much faster than her fat, unfit mother and it must be highly amusing to watch me flop around with a red frustrated face while I do my very darnest to run as fast as I can down this very long corridor, reaching my hand out in front of me, inches away from catching her, Zoe flying a couple paces ahead of me with a look of utter excitement and laughing an evil laugh, soaking up the thrill of the chase all the while.
When they called "Glenn" at 9pm we were so relieved. Rene had the privilege of remaining with the 3 girls in the waiting room while I sat in the chair in the ER ward with a sleeping baby, waiting for the Drs to come. They did some more xrays and took some more blood, then at midnight they told us we'd have to transfer to the ER at the Children's hospital in Omaha. I was a little shocked to be honest.
We carted 3 exhausted, hungry (hadn't had supper), confused kids in the car and started our 75 minute journey into Omaha. When we got there, Rene sat with the girls in the waiting room again, but this time they were all sleeping and it was much easier!! By 4am we were admitted and the other half of my family went to spend the night in the rainbow house nearby.
Turns out he has a violent bacterial infection in his knee. They were concerned that it had been going on for 3 weeks and one major worry was that he'd have permanent damage to his cartilage. Monday afternoon he went under general anesthetic and they did an MRI on his tissue and then cut open his knee to remove as much pus as they could and then inserted a drainage tube.
Rene and the kids were back in Lincoln gathering some supplies. He had the day off on Monday but his PTO is all used up. So we knew he'd have to return to work. I was hoping at first that this would be like an outpatient thing, they'd drain it then send us home. I sat in the waiting room while he had the surgery. I haven't felt so alone in a long time. I am used to constantly having a huge to do list with usually 4-5 things on that list at any given time that are of utmost urgency, or at least appear that way to young children. I am used to always having a sock to pick up or a drink to pour or a bum to wipe or someone who needs a hug or a fight to break up or a spilled box of cereal to sweep up...you get the picture.
Suddenly my girls weren't there. My soul mate wasn't there. And my boy was being cut open. He had been poked and prodded so much by this point and had looked up at me with begging eyes while men and women with coats poked and prodded and hurt him, and we were both starting to grow slightly desensitized to that palaver. They had given him a relaxant before they took him away and it made him "drunk". He gazed up at me and laughed his head off. His laughter was contagious. He had no idea what was about to happen to him and my laughter was accompanied by involuntary tears. But his giggling, happy, woozy face was beautiful. And then I had to walk away. Walk away from my handsome, little, euphoric comedian, walk through the double doors, around the corner down the elevator and into a waiting room and sit. And wait. There was a TV on which irritated me, so I sat at the other side of the room, with a fish tank and I made many cups of coffee (Yes, I hate coffee, but I was tired and I needed something to mess with) and watched the fish and tried to let my mind go numb. I heard other families talk about the horrible things they are going through with their kids' long term conditions and I was so thankful that this is not as serious. And I was in awe at their strength. They all talked so matter of fact while their kids were in surgery for the umpteenth time and here I felt like the lonliness and fear and lack of control in this situation was crushing my lungs.
I paced the floor a couple of times in the few hours I was down there, but mostly, I just sat and watched the fish. I prayed. And I waited. And then the surgeon came to talk to me. He took me into the little room and explained how the procedure went. They think they got all the pus but they are not sure, there are some pockets left. I stared into the surgeon's clear eyes while he explained it to me in a velvety, hypnotic voice and I nodded. It all seemed to make sense. We won't be certain for a while, but it looks as though there is no cartilage damage. That's very good news. There were excessive amounts of white blood cells and the infection looks aggressive. They are suspicious it might be STAPH/MRSA (superbug) but it might possibly be kingella. It will take a few days to get cultures back until we know for certain, so we will treat for both just now. I flinched a little at hearing MRSA. I nodded and took it all in and figured I'd deal with the emotion aspect later on, when I'm alone again. Suddenly I really wanted to be alone. He continued speaking about plans of action and technicalities that I tried to grasp but the words were flying all over the place by now and my internal dialog was getting obnoxiously loud.
And then he said, "so he'll be staying here for 4-5 days minimum, ok?". My cool, calm, monotone "OK" was automatic but came out so fast and forcedly that it was obviously a lie. I was not ok. My head started to spin and the previous night's lack of sleep all hit me at once. The room was very bright and I was suddenly aware of the rhythm of my heart pounding through my chest. I focussed all my energy on getting through the rest of the conversation. Just make it through this discussion without looking like a fool. I couldn't really hear anything else he said. He got up and held to door for me. I thanked him and walked towards to box of tissues on the desk at the other side of the room. As soon as I had taken 3 steps the tears started rolling, silently. I felt eyes burning into me from all over the waiting room. Eyes of parents who are going through far worse than we are, and are holding it together much better than I am. I finally made it to the tissues, forcing my gullet to be silent and putting my energy into keeping my lungs from heaving. The box was empty. "There's another box over there maam", said the Dad who was waiting to hear if his daughter has Cycstic Fibrosis. "Keep it in perspective Niecey", I told myself.
I grabbed a handful of tissues from the other box and bolted to the ladies room where I cried my eyes out. The kind of cry that feels like an abdominal work out. It's not just from the eyes or the lungs. The kind of cry that makes other people in the ladies room wonder what the heck is going on in there. The kind of cry that leaves your eyes looking like someone removed them, dropped them in acid for a few minutes them put them back in place and it takes at least an hour before they go back to their normal color. I cried and I contemplated who we could ask to look after my girls while Rene was at work. I imagined them going to bed without their customary kisses and cuddles and stories from Mum. I asked God to help me get through the next 4-5 days only seeing my beautiful girls for 1-2 hours in the evening. Then I toughened myself up and committed to just coping with this an hour at a time.
And that's where we're at now. The kids are with our awesome, amazing neighbor through the day, then Daddy picks them up, grabs supper and comes out to see us for about 1.5 hours before heading home and crashing out. Everyone is tired. We are still waiting for cultures to see if this is MRSA or not. He is in isolation here, so everyone has to wear masks and vests. They are going to put a PICC IV in him, but haven't been able to get his temp low enough to do it yet. And he might need another MRI and drainage surgery tomorrow.
Ever since we turned the calendar page to February, Zoe has been counting down the days until her birthday. She had the order of events all planned out and told me about it multiple times a day. "I will wake up then open my pwesents. Then we going to a pirate show, then we can come home and have Strawberry Shortcake cake with Strawberry Shortcake and Custard and Friends and a rock." She's been so excited and I've been playing it up big time too. I wanted to make a huge deal out of it to help her know how special she is to me. And now I might not even be there. She turns 3 on Sunday. We are considering postponing her birthday without letting her know. I'm not sure ethically how that would sit....
I miss them so badly, I long to be running around pulling my hair out over Zoe and her mischief. It drives me wild sometimes, but the girls are my life.
Turtle is in very high spirits today. They took him off fluids because he's keeping foods down and he's no longer on all the monitors. If he gets the surgery again tomorrow he'll be hooked up to everything again, but for now he's free and I can hold him and feed him. He has a huge cast thing on his leg so it's awkward, but it's not hurting him too bad. And we're just waiting. Waiting to find out which bacteria it is for sure. Waiting to see if the treatment is working or if the bacteria is spreading. Waiting to see when we get to go home.
Prayers would be much appreciated. They are not too worried about him, he's certainly not in critical care. But it could get serious. It's aggressive and they are treating it aggressively. Specifically I'd love prayers that the antibiotics will work, that he won't have any more fever today so he can get the PICC line in tomorrow (otherwise they have to wait and each day means an extra day we have to stay here), that I will be able to handle the hospital stay, emotionally and that Rene and the girls will be happy and sleep well.
Thanks for reading this. I mostly typed it up for my own benefit. To help me process it. I see so many sick kids around me and I am reminded how blessed we are to have the health we have. I hate missing the girls and I hate seeing my poor boy as helpless as he is here.
But we'll get through. He's a tough kid, and has such a gentle spirit. It will help him heal. And so will the prayers and the love. I am not leaving his side.
I'll pretend my husband isn't sitting down in the bathroom right now singing Handel's Messiah to celebrate successful expulsion of waste material. Because that would be embarrassing for him. Plus I'm sure you all wouldn't want to hear about it.
So instead, I'll talk about vomit. 'Cause you'd all much prefer that.
We had a scary incident at church this morning. Rene and I just got the big girls sent on their merry way to their kids church and we met up with each other in the hall. We had a few minutes left before the service would start so Rene went off to the information desk to ask some technical questions.
He had given Zoe a hard candy on the way back from dropping off Lana. We've both given them to Zoe in the past, but won't do it again!
As soon as Rene was out of vision, Zoe started choking. She was crying, and then the hard inhaling with crying was making her breathe the candy in or something. I started trying to pat her back violently, but it wasn't helping. Scary. I heard her start to make pukey sounds so I scooped her up (with Turtle in the sling) and rushed her in to the bathroom. I accidentally banged a little girl on the head with the door on the way in. She started crying. I apologized like crazy, while I sat Zoe on the sink and tried patting her in all sorts of maneuvers in attempt to dislodge this thing. Then she suddenly spewed the thing out with much force and with much extra stuff.
By this point the little girl was no longer crying, but gawking at Zoe and enjoying the free entertainment. The mommy was telling her daughter she shouldn't stand in front of the door and explaining to her, "they were in a hurry. They had to get in here really quick".
Embarrassing. Zoe was ok. She said, "there it is, candy!" and went to grab it to eat it again! But of course I grabbed it and threw it in the trash! I put Turtle on the floor and started cleaning Zoe and the sink and the mirror and the wall off. Then I got round to cleaning my arm and my hair, after apologizing again to the lady while she washed her child's hands in the freshly wiped but still mightily whiffy sink.
I got out, told a staff member that they might want to give the toilet a wipe down and take out the trash, and then I told Rene all about it. Then I went to the service, sat down next to a stranger and stunk the place out with vomit smell. I couldn't get rid of the stench. I went to the cry room after Turtle attempted a suicidal dive down the auditorium stairs, and I fragranced the stuffy little room with the sweet aroma of my daughter's innards. Until eventually I felt too awkward and I just left. Good thing I can catch the sermons online later.
While I'm on the embarrassing theme, here's an embarrassing photo of my husband. Because he's been a little annoying this weekend and revenge is sweet.
In some ways, I had it made when I lived in Scotland. My birthday is in May. Usually about a week before Mother's Day here in the USA. In Scotland Mother's day was in March, which gave Rene plenty time to build up his pampering energy in between the two.
Now it just gets a bit too overwhelming for him. Two special occasions all bundled up. And he's kind of a one trick pony when it comes to this sort of thing. Thoughtful (not expensive, by any means, but thoughtful) gifts is one of my love languages. But not one of Rene's. He tends to buy a bunch of cards and a couple cheap gifts and dump them all at me in bed before I get up in the morning. Then that's it for the day.
I tend to go all out. Streamers, treasure hunts, poems, surprise hidden notes, gifts ordered from other countries months in advance, special meals etc. It's all about making a big fuss and making the person feel special. It is my love language.
Last May, I tried not to show my disappointment. In his typical style, he woke me up and dropped some kids, some cards and a couple gifts at me. I smiled and thanked them and opened my gifts. I got some junk food (a bag of dove chocolate and some salt and vinegar potato chips) which we're trying to avoid eating, and a bottle of some sort of shower gel which I assumed to be from the dollar store. I don't use shower gel. I prefer bars of soap and preferably all natural, when we can afford it. This stuff looked like it was stuffed full of chemicals and perfumes, would dry my skin out and burn my eyes and make my breastmilk extra toxic.
It felt to me like Rene either didn't know me, or didn't support me, or didn't care. Maybe he just has no idea that I like to avoid chemicals. Maybe he doesn't even know I'm crunchy granola. Maybe he never paid attention. Or maybe he'd trying to send a hint that he wants me to be more mainstream, like the rest of them. Or maybe he didn't even give a thought as to what I'd like, maybe he just thought, "that looks like girl stuff. My wife is a girl. Score. Birthday present sorted".
Either way it was kind of hurtful. I guess I wanted to feel special, like I try to make others feel. But maybe I'm just not special enough.
Fast forward a few months to August. Lana wants a bath and asks if we have any bubbles. I tell her no, we don't. Rene corrects me. He looks down at his feet and tries to act like he's cool, like his heart is not at all on his sleeve and his feeling are not at all hurt. He's simply stating the facts. But can't look me in the eye, and he sounds dejected. "Well, we have that stuff I got for your birthday or mother's day or whatever. The chamomile and lavender stuff. I don't think any of it has been used, so there's plenty left".
At first I had no idea what stuff he was talking about. Chamomile and Lavender bubbles? Oh, he must mean the crappy shower gel.
I think I thoughtlessly blurted out something about the stuff not being good, or filled with chemicals. He found it a little harder to hide his hurt while he defended it, "It's Johnson and Johnson".
I went to the bathroom and looked at it. True enough it was Johnson and Johnson, lavender and chamomile, chemical filled shower gel. I decided to get in his head space and figure out what he was thinking. In Scotland, Johnson and Johnson is THE preferred brand for babies. It's portrayed as soft, gentle, natural, preferred by midwives etc. The tv commercials have tons of squashy, squeaky baby bums and he knows how much I love baby bums. And it says chamomile and lavender, and he knows I love herbs and aromatherapy.
It's not that he doesn't know who I am or that he disapproves, or that he doesn't care! He knows I'm crunchy granola, and he supported me by thinking hard and buying exactly what he thought would fit. So he doesn't know how to tell a "good" product from a "bad" one - I can so live with that. I feel bad that he put so much thought into that gift, and instead of focusing on what was going on inside his head and heart, I made him feel rejected just because of what was inside the bottle.
9 years ago today, two babies who truly believed they were grown ups, said vows to love and cherish each other forever.
Both of us babies have grown and learned so much in these first (of many) 9 years. We have been through some pretty trying times and have had some years where staying married was very hard. But this baby is so glad we've fought through, and clung to God like we promised we would. I'm sure we have some more hard times to come, but I believe we'll get through whatever comes our way, and use it towards our growth. I pray I'll learn how to get inside Rene's head space more. To be more selfless. To see the bigger picture and to see the pure intentions. I'm really glad it's not about what's in the bottle. Because the stuff in his head and heart is so beautiful. And I'm blessed. I've just got to open my eyes and see it.
Lana and I became vegetarian in 2007 after she started crying when I served up chicken and she realized it was previously a live chicken. I have not regretted it at all, and I preached from my soap box about the issue here.
A year ago, Kaya decided she wanted to become vegetarian too. Mostly because Lana and I were, and I think she felt left out a bit. She loves the taste of meat and allowed herself to eat it on holidays, and she'd look so forward to holidays. But recently she won't even eat meat on holidays. She says she likes the smell of meat still, but never wants to eat it again.
Rene and I discussed what to do with Turtle and Zoe, and eventually agreed that we'd raise them vegetarian until they ever express an opinion otherwise. We won't feed them animals until they are old enough to understand meat comes from animals and request to eat it.
Which left us with Rene as the sole carnivore of the family. I rarely cooked meat for him, but he'd eat it if we went out to eat or if someone brought something at work etc. And then he'd eat meat, and as much of it as possible. He enjoyed it very much.
Until recently. I completely, did not put any pressure on him (I haven't even expressed opinion to him on the matter, so don't blame me, peeps!). He decided to go veggie too, out of love for his daughter. He is an amazing Dad! Read about his decision on his blog post about it .
So now we're a completely vegetarian family. It does make me very happy!
My wonderful husband stayed up late getting it to work, because I designed it all wrong in terms of pixel sizes etc. I had hoped it could plop on top of the old design. Anyway he got it all working. Lemme know what you think, and if it's not working on your browser etc, let me know too so I can try to do something about it.
I at least wanted some sort of pic of me with dreads in it. So I'm happy with that.
And thanks Rene for your dedication! You're too kind, and I'm sorry about the late night! I'll make it up to you (I'm talkin' home made tapioca pudding with homemade strawberry jam, baby. Maybe I'll even throw a curry in there too. Well, not in with the pudding, that would be gross. But on a separate plate, at the same meal time. Ok this has got too long for parenthesis..)
I'm back, I'm back. I'm sure you all missed me like mad and were wondering where I was and how I was doing, and whether it was fun. Well, I won't leave you guessing any longer. Here's the epic story of our trip to Florida for Kaya's birthday (and my cousin's wedding). Sometimes I feel like we're a real life version of the National Lampoon movies...
Wednesday
Wake up. Feed kids left over pumpkin pie. Clean up house like mad. Finish packing. Freak out a bit. Rene drives us through to Omaha while Kaya asks every single minute how much longer until we get to the airport. Oh boy. This is going to be a long day.
We finally get to the airport (felt like such a looong trip) and I take the kids to look at this wall while Rene gets us checked in.
We play, I chase them, take them to the bathroom. He's still checking in? We play some more. I start getting nervous. Still checking in? Ok, something's up. Turns out our first flight was going to be delayed due to bad weather in NJ, which was going to make us miss our connecting flight. She was in the middle of booking us onto an alternative connecting flight, but then just before she finished, the last tickets sold out. So her only option was going to be to fly us to Houston where we'd spend the night and get to FL the next day. They wouldn't pay to put us up in a hotel.
So I break the news to Kaya that we're probably spending the night in an airport that night and we won't make it to Disney the next day. Tears. Screaming. Disappointment.
I take the kids to eat something and 10 minutes into it Rene comes bursting up saying she managed to get us on flights to get us there that night, but the plane leaves in 10 minutes. We leave the table and run for our lives and catch the plane.
But our seats are not together. I'm beside Zoe, Kaya is across the aisle and Lana is behind her. Rene managed to land himself at the other side of the plane.
This is the first time Zoe and Turtle have flown. I had expected Zoe to be difficult and Turtle to be easy. But Zoe is enthralled with it all and as long as I keep a constant supply of chocolate and lollypops going, she's happy as can be.
Stressed? Who, me?
Turtle however, is desperate to pull all the papers out of the front pouch and throw them all over the plane. He also likes the sound of his own voice over the top of the engine noises. And he is so keen for me to put him down to try crawling down the aisle.
Eventually, Turtle falls asleep and all is good.
Get off one plane in Texas and run to the next one - make it just in time. This flight is not quite as fun. I'm seated with the 4 kids, while Rene is a few rows away. The novelty has completely warn off for Zoe and Turtle isn't tired for any more naps. The guy in front of Zoe, who has his seat completely reclined, turns around and asks me to stop Zoe from kicking the back of his chair. I say, "I'm very sorry. It's hard to get her to stop, she's only 2". He decides to turn around and give me an angry look every time she puts her feet on his chair. I start feeling very flustered. I'm constantly asking Zoe to stop, and trying to distract her. She continues, he keeps turning and looking angrily. I start restraining her feet and she starts screaming. And biting me. She feels claustrophobic. She screams and pulls my hair. I start crying. Turtle is still fighting for me to put him down. The guy keeps looking. I decide I don't give a crap if she kicks his chair, which is still totally reclined. He can look all he flipping wants, and if he brings it up again, I might not manage to be as polite as I was the first time. But he doesn't bring it up.
Zoe eventually watches a movie without throwing the dvd player on the floor. I try to discretely breastfeed Turtle, but he insists on lifting my whole shirt and popping off for all to see. But at least the kids are happy. And we're almost there. Then it will be over, and we can get our car and get to our room, get our jammies on and crash out. I can't wait. I dream about it. Not much longer to go. Or so I think.
Plane lands. We survived.And heck, at least this didn't happen to us!
Get to the airport. Get to baggage reclaim. There's the car seats. There's a guy tapping our shoulder. He tells us our suitcases didn't make it. They will arrive sometime the next day. He'll give us some free mini toiletries to make up for it. He is very courteous. We decide to laugh it off and look forward to just getting back to the hotel soon. It's now midnight.
Get to the budget desk. The guy does a credit check and we come up as having no score. We haven't had any debt in the USA, so we have no score. So they can't give us a car. They're the only people in the airport who rent to people without a visa card, but they won't let us if we don't have a credit score. Rene has previously called and asked before booking and they had told him it wouldn't be a problem. But instead of complaining, he asks to speak with the manager and he begs him. He tells him we're stuck at the airport with 4 hungry (no food on the planes, no time to eat in between), tired kids, no way to get a car, no bags or belongings. Supposedly they never make an exception, but this time he does. He lets us pay in full, in cash for the car, and that's it! We are SO thankful.
We get in our awesome suburban 8 seater and get ready to drive to the hotel.
Ok, where's the GPS? In the suitcase? Oh dear. Well, it can't be that hard to find the place....
1.5 hours later, (should be a 20 minute drive) after driving all around Florida, we make it to the hotel. And we completely crash.
Thursday
Wake up. We stink. Our clothes are covered in chocolate from the plane and we just smell homeless. Rene phones the airline to ask when the suitcases will arrive. Sometime later. Great. Can they provide money for clothes? No, we should just wait til later, sometime.
We shower, then put our stinky clothes back on and head out to breakfast. It's hot out. We sweat some more. We look terrible. We smell terrible.
At the restaurant, Zoe lets us know she pooped in her diaper. We accidentally left the diaper bag in the hotel room. Rene takes her to the bathroom, takes off her diaper and wipes her bum and brings her back diaperless. She's wearing a dress so you can't see, but I spend the whole meal time worrying she will pee on the floor.
We find a thrift store and I go in and buy us some new clothes. The lady is so very kind and helpful. She is friendly, she gives me discounts and sympathy and she gives me a free CD of her brother's beautiful music. He passed away and has a beautiful story, and I will post more about it later. I don't want it to get lost in this post. She was so kind and we got new clothes plus 2 strollers for Disney for $24 all together.
Back to the hotel to get dressed. Oops, I somehow forgot to get clothes for Turtle. So he has to go to Disney in the same stinky, chocolate covered clothes he wore all day the previous day. Shweet. It does happen to be a Disney T-shirt, so we just go with it.
Get to Disney for 1pmish. (thanks SO much Grammy and Grandpa Burton for the Disney tickets!) Kaya is way too overwhelmed and it puts her in a bad mood. She is so desperate for the day to be perfect and inadvertently brings about its demise. She's grumpy and upset about every little thing, but having a great time at the same time. She goes from saying, "this is the best day ever!!" excitedly, to stopping in the middle of a stampede of people, folding her arms and saying, "you're all mean to me. I hate this day. I'm not going". Then back to the best day ever thing. She is all over the place. It's just way too much hype, and too much stimulation for the wee lass to handle.
Zoe figures out how to scoot herself in her stroller, Flintstones style. She scoots all the way into the ladies bathroom at one point.
At one point we get hit by a thunderstorm and heavy rain. All the outdoor rides shut down and the indoor ones get overcrowded. We get soaked, Kaya complains some more.
Everything reopens when the storm passes. We enjoy the Monster's inc laugh floor, the tiki room show, the stitch's escape, racing cars, Minnie's house, the jungle safari cruise, the parade, and others. But by far the best and favorite exhibit is the Buzz Lightyear video game ride. It's awesome! We've gotta do Disney again if only for that ride. And the fireworks were cool too. We all feel a little sad walking away. We're so tired, but are sad it's over.
We get in super late at night again and are starving. We order pizza dead late and it tastes divine. Our suitcases arrive! Rene brings them up. We completely zonk out.
Friday Drag ourselves out of bed. Get cleaned up and fresh clothes on. It feels good. Drive out to Shoneys, we've been looking forward to this. We're in a hurry because we have to pick up my brother from the airport later. We're kind of tense and rather grumpy.
Shoney's is so disappointing. We sit for about 15 minutes waiting to be served before we finally ask the lady if we can start the buffet because we're in a hurry. Fine. We start. After another 10 mins she finally takes our drinks order. Then eventually the drinks are brought out. The old lady, Helen, who is our waitress, comes over and starts yelling at Kaya for supposedly running. Ok, fine I understand kids shouldn't run in there - but I wish she wouldn't yell at my kid! Talk to me about it and I'll explain it to my kid and deal with the situation as I see fit, but don't just yell at my kid. We decide we won't tip - I am mad. Rene overhears her saying this was the second kid she had to yell at this morning for running. I go to console myself with chocolate pudding from the buffet, but a lady takes it away just before I get some, and replaces it with broccoli. We're running late now. Turtle accidentally knocks off a bowl and it smashes. No one comes to clean it, or see if we're ok. We pick up the pieces ourselves. The waitress finally wanders over and we tell them about the bowl. "it happens" she says and walks away without cleaning anything up. We notice Zoe has drawn on the wall with crayon, and we feel bad so we decide to leave a tip after all. But we're grumpy.
We leave, Rene drops me off at the hotel with the girls while he picks up Uncle Doug (actually, he gets lost and is very late to pick him up). Kids and I have a great time at the pool for a couple hours then we go back to the room.
They watch cable tv while I fiddle with my dreads.
Rene finally makes it home, then we head off to Cocoa Beach. We have an amazing time at the beach. So refreshing. Zoe is a little scared of the waves, but she does ok. Kaya is a little too brave. Lana is happy as a button. Our food gets so sandy. My camera gets a bit sandy.
Zoe runs out in front of a car in the parking lot and it sheds a few years off my life as I dart out to throw myself in front of the car since I couldn't catch her in time. It stops in plenty of time, but so does my heart for like a minute.
We drive back to the hotel room, then go back to the pool at night, in the dark. Zoe hears an airplane and thinks it's a "scawy monster gonna bite me. Everyfing wants to eat me". I think she's scared in the dark. But she plays games and splashes around and has fun. And so do the rest of us.
Order pizza again, late at night. Rene gets buffalo wings. The kids start talking about how they feel bad for animals that get killed for food. They talk about the chickens on the farm and how it breaks their heart. Then they look at Daddy with chicken bones everywhere and sauce and grease all over his face. Lana gives him a disappointed look and says, "Daddy, I don't like it when you eat animals. It makes me really sad". He asks if it's really important to her and she says it is. So he commits to cutting out meat too. He's not ready for the title vegetarian yet, but he'll stop eating meat for his daughter. What a good Daddy!
Saturday Up, clean, breakfast. Mmm good breakfast. Oops, running late. Get dressed for my cousin's wedding. Oops, really late. Start sweating as we try to hurry and get the kids in the wedding clothes and do their hair. Just about to leave, cleaning lady is waiting outside, can't find the car keys. Throw the whole room around while drenching ourselves in sweat while the kids scream and the clock ticks away. We start screaming too while the cleaning lady wonders what on earth is going on. Finally find them and leave the room like a bomb site. Collect Uncle Doug then drive the 3 hour journey to the wedding. Meanwhile the girls are pulling out their pretty hair clips etc, and are messing up their dresses with sticky lolly pops. And I realize I forgot my make up and contact lenses. Oh well.
Have fun at wedding. The bride is stunning.
Get to see my dad and step mother again, as well as my cousins and aunts and uncles etc. It's a lot of fun. Take pics. They do the wedding dance thing, like this one.
We have to say goodbye to everyone, even though it seems like we only just said hello.
Stop at Wendy's late at night for some fries and baked potatoes. Rene resists any burgers. Go to bed. Turtle keeps making noises which set the girls off in giggle fits. Zoe says, "Ghenn is weely funny". We all finally fall asleep at about 1.30am
Sunday
Alarm is rude to us at 5.15 am. We get up, packed, ready and check out. off to airport. The flights home are awesome! They see we have little kids and want to seat us together but they have a huge line of people waiting, so they upgrade us to first class to sit us together! Rene sits next to Zoe. We have tons of space. We're so comfy. A lady spills her bloody mary all over me and feels terrible, but I don't mind. I'm in first class! Kids all behave great.
Next flight is a tiny, cramped one but it goes ok because everyone is so tired and we sleep through it.
We get home, eat and then I start falling asleep all over the place, like I'm on drugs. Rene's calling himself a vegetarian. I try not to show how excited it makes me. (so as not to influence him one way or the other).
We're all trying to shift mentality back to being home, but we're kind of sad it's all over. It was kind of crazy at times. But it was tons of fun. And we were together. And we made memories to last a life time.
And if you think this blog post took a long time to read - I promise it took longer to write!
My husband has been doing this men's fraternity thing at church and has been so very inspired. He's healed past hurts and has new hope for the future. I think there is a lot of confusion for men in our society; they don't have a very well defined role and it's leading to a lot of misdirection and depression.
Rene is an amazingly good man. A wonderful husband and an awesome father. But he is striving to do better still. And that's why he started this blog.
He intends to record his musings on the issue of finding his authenticity in his role as a partner, provider, role model, and son of God. I'm looking forward to reading it! He's also asking a bunch of friends to post some guest posts in the future (which may or may not represent Rene's personal beliefs on the subject of manhood, as he's leaving it open). And I will make him some pretty pictures for his blog soon too, a nice skin of some sort.
It's in its baby stages just now, but please do go check it out. He covets some comment lovin'. If you can take a mo to drop him an encouraging comment, he'll be a happy man.
Here's the link again Rene's blog in case you missed it before.
I have no pictures for today's post, but I have much to tell.
Mum and the Davids left on Wednesday morning, to visit family in MN. We expected them back on Saturday night.
Soon after they left, I started to feel very ill, with UTI like cramps and back pain. I suspected a kidney infection and tried cranberry juice (100%), cranberry capsules and lots of water. I got very fluish and feverish and on Thursday afternoon we decided enough is enough and I went to the walk in clinic, confirmed the kidney infection and picked up some antibiotics. Turns out they weren't a type that's safe for breastfeeding so I had to call in (who am I kidding, I had Rene call in for me - I don't do phones, remember?) for some plain old amoxycilin which I picked up on Friday.
So, Friday afternoon, I'm still feeling pretty rough but I decided to go ahead and get out of the house. I've had a couple days in bed and the house is trashed, and I was fed up. Still feeling pretty ill, but needing some sunshine. We headed out to a friend's little girl's birthday party. They kids loved it and some of their favorite people were there, but we didn't have much time before we had to head off, because I had a concert to go to.
Vota were playing an open air, FREE concert in Lincoln. Vota used to be called Casting Pearls, but I think people kept confusing them with Casting Crowns so they changed their name. Anyway, they were one of my fav bands even when I lived in Scotland, and I moved to Lincoln before realizing they are from Lincoln! In fact, the lead singer, Bryan Oleson goes to my church, and my kid is in Sunday school with his kid! They're touring the USA just now, but stopped by their hometown for a quick freebie. I was SO BUMMED when I realized I forgot my camera. So no pics. And it was open air and fantastic cloud cover, I could have got some AMAZING pics. Man oh man. I kicked myself so hard.
But we all had a great time. Other than me feeling unwell, it was a lot of fun. There was a bouncy castle (for free) for the kids and a coloring table, and Turtle utterly enjoyed himself singing and dancing and clapping his hands and flirting with old ladies. I'm tellin' ya, he's exactly like his Dad in personality!
On the way home, we drove through down town and noticed some sort of festival was on (jazz fest?) and we decided to be spontaneous at 10pm and find a place to park and check it out. It seemed like fun. So we started driving along the one way systems, with our windows down so we could hear the live music. Then Rene casually says to me, "My wallet just flew out the window"
"What?"
"My wallet just flew out the window"
He was doing that whole pretend-to-be-casual-because-you're-actually-freaking-out-so-much-you're-off-the-scale-for-freak-outness thing. And he started driving through the one way system to try to get back to the road so he can get his wallet. It was taking forever, and Rene was worrying the whole time about his ID and his greencard etc etc.
Finally we get close and he pulls over in an illegal space and jumps out of the car and starts running faster than his legs can keep up. I watched him trip up, fall on all fours and then tumble completely over and continue to roll. He almost rolled onto the road full of traffic! It was a really bad fall and looked incredibly painful. I saw ER bills flash before my eyes. I screamed and panicked. I didn't want to leave the kids in an illegally parked space with the keys in the car to run to Rene, so I just got out of my door and stood right by it and yelled out to him, "are you ok?!"
He got up with an insane look on his face and just started running. He still didn't have his wallet. He ran onto the road like a school boy playing chicken, swiped his wallet and bolted back to the car, laughing like a mad man. The kids and I were beside ourselves with worry, and Rene seemed to have completely overdosed in adrenaline and endorphins. I asked if he needed me to drive, even though I was in pain and ill and not quite fit to drive. But he assured me he was ok. And he gave me a "mwa ha ha ha ha" to punctuate it.
About 5 minutes into our drive home (we decided to skip jazzfest afterall and just head home) after continually telling us he was fine, and giggling like a little girlie, suddenly he sobered up and suddenly burst out with, "Owch, now it hurts.
He made it home and as he pulled into our drive we noticed Mum and Davids' car in our drive! They came back a day early and decided to surprise us! I ran in ahead of them all and started cleaning. Because the place got so messy while I was in bed these past couple days and we had plans to clean it up Saturday afternoon. It was so nice to see them early though.
We listened to their stories about their trip while I cleaned up my husband's bloody leg and he told stories about his (different kind of) trip. We laughed and then headed to bed. And here I am in bed, and I thought I'd type this up first. Because it was quite eventful and worth mentioning. I just wish I had photos. Kick kick.
I looked out some old pics of Kaya, which were some of my favs. I used to do a photo shoot of the girls in Calendar Park,Falklirk (Scotland), every fall.
That park has significance for Rene and I. He sort of almost asked me out there (he had a conversation where he hinted at it, because he was too nervous, then started talking about "our relationship" and assumed us to be an item. And we have been ever since). We had our first kiss there (um...later that same day). We had many teenage-frustrated-hormone-driven fights there. We saw Hanson play there.
We took Heather there in fall 2001. And got this photo.
The following year, we were blessed to be able to bring Kaya there.
And also the year after that
But I'm not going to post those pics today (oops, I just did).
Because I loved these ones, from fall 2004. Kaya was 2, and Lana was about 3.5 months. Such pretty wee lassies. This was actually a difficult time in our marriage. We were having issues, and hadn't started counseling yet. We were very much in a rut, and spent a lot of time fighting or crying. But we'd sometimes just get out of the house, just forget about the stresses, the lack of money, the depression, the mess. We'd get out and just be a family. And have fun. And those moments sustained us.
I remember this day. It was a good day.
Check out Daddy's beard. hehe.
I don't miss tons about Scotland, other than the people and some food stuffs. Mostly, our lives have improved so much since coming here that I hardly stop to look back and miss the place. But I must admit, I feel a longing to stroll around Calendar park again, feed the ducks, watch the squirrels. Or in summer, watch the kids on the bouncy castle. A lot of memories in that place.
I'm joining in MckMama's Not Me Monday again this week, cause I had a lot of "not me" stuff happen yesterday.
Here's what I *wish* I didn't do yesterday...
I did not do some silly lane hopping and slightly crazy driving to try to beat my husband to church, in reaction to the kids in my car screaming and goading me on, "Faster, faster! He's getting closer!"
I totally didn't cry my eyes out in the car, in front of the neighbor's kids, when "He's My Son" came on the radio. (when we got out I saw that my husband had been crying too! And he totally owned up to it)
I also didn't get to church only to find that I hadn't brought my wallet with me, nor had my husband brought his. So we had no ID, nor money.
When Turtle pooped in Church, I totally didn't realize that I had left the diaper bag at home, and have to let him sit in it until we got home. :( Cause that would have been really really bad of me.
I didn't take him out to nurse him at the very end of the service, and while I was looking down at him nursing, I totally didn't notice that my shirt was freakin' INSIDE OUT. I also didn't then pop him off, run to my husband (who was also in the cry room, with Zoe) and dump Glenn on him while I ran to the bathroom to change my shirt to inside in. How embarrassing would that have been if it really happened?
After church, I didn't find out that my gas light was on and tank was at empty. I then didn't drive home at 40 miles per hour, clear across town to try to make the gas last, because we of course didn't have wallets with us and had also left our cell phones.
Thankfully, despite all that I did *not* do, I can say that we in fact *did* get home ok. And next week I shall be much more organized!
And as Jasmine Star would say: Because all posts are better with a photo...
Firstly, I apologize in advance to my Dad, who reads this blog to check up on how the kids and I are doing and...well...no father wants to hear their daughter talk about their bra. Sorry Dad.
I needed to get some more weeding and planting done at my garden patch today. It's been difficult to get much done through the week because I have the kids with me and they tend to run off in different directions as soon as I let them loose down at the allotments. So today I left all four of them with their Daddy, even though the youngest is sick and has been puking, high temp and generally feeling miserable all day. In addition to our 4, he had the neighbors' 3 kids over too. So it was 7 against 1.
Whilst he was busy making young children giggle, and caring for sick babies, I was working away in the sunshine, bopping along to my ipod nano.
Have you ever seen this video?
(video removed because my blog seemed broken and I'm hoping taking off the video might help)
It was kind of like that for me today. I started off pulling weeds and listening to some good worship songs, and prayerfully humming or whistling along. The songs were so powerful. I could only take so much of this praise music at full volume pumping into my soul before I had to just close my eyes in the middle of the garden patch, ignoring the dude on his cell phone in the corner and the old man in his little drive along scooter thingy who kept trying to talk to me about gardens and the grandfather out with 2 young girls on bikes, and just sing to Jesus at the top of my lungs, with my eyes closed and mud covered hands lifted high.
It was amazing. I was praying mostly for Adam and Aimee Freeman who bury their sweet daughter tomorrow. I was also praying for a couple of friends of ours who are having marriage difficulties. And I was praying for me too. For a closer walk with Jesus. And out there in the hot sun, without the kids around, without distractions, and with beautiful music dancing on my ear drums, I just got lost in worship, and it renewed my spirit.
The annoying thing was, my ipod kept falling out of my pocket when I bent over to pick out a weed. It really interrupted the spirit of things. So eventually I looked around, to make sure no one was looking, and I stuffed the ipod in my bra. And it stayed put just great. Rene's awesome Nana used to keep her purse stuffed in her bra, so I did this in tribute to her. Who ever knew bras could be so multi-purpose?
The loud singing of praises didn't embarrass me, nor did my stuffing an mp3 player in my undergarment, but I was very embarrassed as I was trying to leave and my car alarm started going off, and I couldn't figure out for the life of me how to switch the darn thing off. It's done it to me twice this week now. I think there's some electrical fault. Or it's possessed or something. Then everyone was really staring, and I had wanted to make this really cool exit; yanno, singing girl doesn't care if people stare, she plays cool and then drives off. But I ended up talking to my car while my face turned red and I sighed and frantically pressed panic buttons and got in and out of the car as I drew more and more attention to myself.
Then eventually I sorted it, drove home and saw that Rene was coping great. Maybe we should hurry up and have 3 more...kids are so much fun.
What are you thinking of the new look? It has some errors that need fixed. I'm not sure I'm liking it, I might change it again real soon. (sorry Rene, who stayed up too late a couple of nights to figure out the CSS sheet to make the design work...)
I'm still working through some pics from April, but here are some of my fav so far.
