All is well #2

I wrote a whole post about how great Zoe is doing and Blogger ate it.

It went something like this...

Thank you to everyone for all your prayers and emails, Facebook posts and blogger comments, your support has really helped us through this stressful time. We've had alot of requests about how Zoe is doing and I have just one word...fantastic.

After a few stumbling blocks at the beginning, the road to recovery has been actually quite short. I cleared a week off our schedules to keep her quiet at home, but other than a deep scab on her lip, its unbelievable she had surgery just a few short days ago.

The day of surgery, she was an exhausted and compliant patient, dutifully taking her pain medicine and sleeping on and off. The next day she woke up angry. She refused to speak to either of us, even nod or shake her head. She refused her medicine, water, food, practically everything I offered her. Just stared at me with a furrowed brow and huge eyes and giving me the silent treatment.

Her main complaint was a debilitating sore throat, from the intubation, so sore she wouldn't swallow anything, so, eating and drinking and talking have been a challenge. We allowed her a constant diet of Jello and Gogurts and ice cream for breakfast. Everyday it has gotten better and today was the first day she ate normally, with only a few complaints about not being able to finish her vegetables, milking it.

The time of coddling is over lest she start to become insecure. And with perfect timing, Uncle Stu arrives for a visit.

Zoe is all smiles and joy. Its wonderful to see her so happy again.

(That was the gist of the original post, but I can't help thinking I wrote it better the first time...)

Recovery

The hard part is over and we're well on the road to recovery.

It's these kinds of days that will be forever ingrained in my memory. So many powerful moments - good and bad. Zoe was incredibly brave and (as Chris said) I "Mommed up" and took care of business and we got through it.

Right now Zoe looks like she was on the losing end of a bar fight, but her Doctor is very happy with the results, and the worst is behind us.

Thank God.

Moving forward.

(Megan - your comment moved me so much - such a huge part of today - email me, I would love to talk to you more: sacrebean@yahoo.com)

On Surgery Eve

Zoe's lip reconstruction surgery is tomorrow at 9:30 am. Please pray for her. And calling all guardian angels, we need you to be with us every step of the way. Please comfort her and if you got time I could use some comfort too.

I'm working on staying in a place of calmness, faking it as best I can. Luckily, I have a Chris by my side and Chris' are excellent in intense situations.

So far, its been lovely, actually. We checked into a hotel close to the surgical clinic, had dinner and took Zoe to Target to spoil her with all sorts of bribery toys. Mimi is holding down the fort in Bakersfield.

The luxury of having only one child to lavish our attention on is not lost on any of us. Zoe is truly enjoying her moment in the sun, although she does miss her siblings and even secretly packed a picture of her and Athena, so that she could look at it in case she missed her big sister.

Tonight, I'm concerned about all sorts of things. Fearful. But this was always the plan -
a second surgery "before school age" and "in the summer of 2011" which all sounded very far away when we made this plan. And now the day is here.

I know it's all part of her progression, but I love her face as it is, her scar is a part of her and it's weird to think of her looking any other way. I couldn't stop taking pictures of her beautiful face today, and yes, that is Moon Dough on her nose.

I just have to have faith that its all part of God's plan and all will be well.
Praying helps.

"Dear God, thank you for this wonderful child.
Please look over my sweet Zoe tomorrow.
Please comfort her and guide the Doctor's hand.
And please bring her back safely and quickly into my arms."

Well Hello May

Flowers from my love on our 11th wedding anniversary.

In the blink of an eye April is gone. It feels like this month was on fast forward, it can't possible be over already. May means school is ending and then (gasp) summer vacation. I am not prepared for May.

Even though I wasn't blogging as April sped by so fast, you bet I was taking pictures. Here's a few with updates about what we've been up to:

Cousin Friends

For the first weekend of Spring Break, Mimi and the girls and I went to see our favorite family up north (Jack and Chris stayed behind). Athena told her teacher we were going to San Francisco to see her cousins. I thought that was perfect. Alaine is my sister friend for going on 27 years now, so her babies are my babies "cousin friends" it makes perfect sense.

Stalking Aging Rockers

In the 80's Mimi was a well-known stalker of Duran Duran, and Alaine and I and all our friends admired her greatly for her notoriety. So, when we found out that half of Duran Duran would be signing records mere blocks from Alaine's house, we just had to go, with four little girls in tow.

John Taylor from Duran Duran said "Athena? That's a lovely name."

I was taking it all in stride at first but the moment we turned the corner and I caught glimpse of our teen idols, my heart skipped a beat and I felt 16 again. I couldn't even look directly at them, they were fantastic. Alaine and I nudged our cute children in front of the 50 year old rockers and they couldn't have been lovelier to them, making our hearts flutter even more wildly.

We were glowing for a few hours after that meeting. The girls thought we were absolutely crazy probably not the first time, or the last.

Stu and Jenny Jen in San Fran

An added bonus to visiting Alaine and her girls in the Bay Area is that now Stu and Jen are in San Francisco. Oh how we love our Uncle Stu and Jen is pretty awesome too.

They joined us for a great day in the city enjoying the Exploratorium, a hands on science museum, we explored bubble walls and magnetic sand and toilet water fountains and all sorts of other wonderous amazements.

Afterwards we went tromping around Fisherman's Wharf, watching the sea lions, riding the carousel, drinking hot chocolate and looking at all the fun touristy stuff.

Wind blown and tired of walking the girls crashed in Stu and Jen's arms on the way back to the car. Mimi and I were happy to have young backs to share the load with.

A visit with Uncle David

Right after we returned home from San Francisco, Uncle David came to visit us, sweetly choosing to spend his senior year spring break in Bakersfield. I, of course, made him make color glitter eggs.

My camera battery was dead to the world so I missed some awesome shots of all of decorating eggs (the Dude loved it).

David at first was goofing on the eggs, but a couple of eggs later...

...he totally got into it.

A visit to Long Beach

Thomas the cat looks on, but keeps his distance...

And, just for fun, we squeezed in a quick trip to Long Beach to get a few cuddles in from Aunt Barb and spend some time with family. Aunt Barb and Uncle Ron live about ten minutes from Chris' Grandma and always host us on our embarrassingly infrequent trips to see her. The kids love visiting Aunt Barb, she has the coolest toys stuffed in the rafters of her house, the ones I remember from my childhood - Fisher Price little people farm, Sesame Street playhouse (before there was an Elmo), WonderBlocks - awesome stuff.

A Happy Easter

Spring break concluded with a colorful and easy Easter celebration at home. I trotted out our lovely egg tree once again. However with the recent addition of a playful kitten who seemed to think this was one great big kitty toy, it wasn't as successful as last year. Many precious glitter eggs crashed to their death and the whole thing toppled over more times than I can count.

We started the day with massive Easter baskets from Grandaddio and Grandma Andre, and the Easter bunny left chocolate bunnies and hid eggs all around the living room which were batted around by our kitty all night long.

Then we got ready for church. My attempts at getting all three of my well dressed children happily looking at the camera failed, but...

add one incredibly handsome Daddy and you get my favorite photo so far this year, my new permanent screen saver.

The girls were delicious in their brightly colored sun dresses. We went casual this year and instead got dresses they will actually wear many more times. Athena added the hat and Mimi glue gunned a few fake flowers on at the last minute. Zoe couldn't be cuter if she tried.

After the service, our church had an "egg hunt" for the kids. It, uh, wasn't much of a challenge to find them, however. Each child was allowed to "hunt" five eggs each.

The Dude figured out right away that there was chocolate in these eggs, and tried to get around his quota by breaking them open and just fishing out the half melted goodies.

He also didn't think anyone would notice if he ate one or two of the jelly beans in the process.

After church, the girls started in on their bunnies which prompted a totally spontaneous and hysterical partially devoured bunny conversation that went something like this:

"Someone ate my ears?!"
"What??!!"
"I said 'Someone ate my ears!!"
"What?! I can't hear you...someone ate my ears!"
Followed by peals of laughter and then the whole thing all over again.

After Jack's nap, we went to some friends' house for an Easter BBQ. The Dude was allowed to hang out in a real ten-year old boys room and watch as he played video games. He was in boy heaven.

But we were able to lure him out eventually to the backyard with the rest of us. It was a lovely way to end our Spring break.

The Saddest Little Boy in the World...

...is the one who isn't allowed to play along with his sisters' tee ball league. Its so very hard to explain to a two year old that they are just too little and must wait until next year to even join the Pee Wee league. There just isn't any organized sports for two-year-olds, no matter how much they love bayball.

Tee ball may make the Dude sad, but the girls love it!

The Cutest Yard Sale on the Block.

The girls helped with a joint yard sale with our neighbors across the street. We got rid of a few things and the girls lived their dream of having a lemonade and brownie stand. We didn't really advertise, just posted a couple of notices on Craigslist and posted signs around the neighborhood. And the girls made signs and jumped up and down trying to flag down any car that drove by. It was a lovely day, we sat in our front yard in the shade with our friends, drank lemonade, ate brownies and realized we live on a really quiet street.

Just as we split the $11.75 the girls made from their stand, the ice cream truck rounded the corner. Seriously, the timing could not have been more perfect (grumble). Even though it was past 4:00, the girls were allowed a popsicle treat each for all their hard work.

Okay! I think you're caught up with my crazy popsicle loving crew! If you have read this far, and I know of only a few who will, thank you! I'll try not to fall so far behind again.

Track and Field

My little Athena participated in her first ever sporting competition - a regional Lutheran School Track and Field event held at our local high school. It just happened to fall on the Saturday morning of the week that Chris (and Mimi) were out of town, otherwise it would have been an all day all family event. In fact, many of the more experienced families were camped out - full on tents and chairs and serious tailgating going on.

As it was, it was just me and three little ones trying to help me lug a blanket, two chairs, a cooler and my camera bag across the parking lot and a football field and to the nearest available clearing. As I was setting up, Jack took off towards the goal post. I caught him and brought him back to our blanket, that lasted about three minutes before he decided to run right onto the track minutes before the first race was suppose to start. Much to my chagrin, the announcer made a purposeful announcement over the loudspeaker reminding us to "keep the track clear, please!" Yea, trying, sorry!

I know of many families who have two year olds that will stay near them and not go tearing off in any direction, but, unfortunately that is not my two year old. It became quite clear that this wasn't going to work, I am only just one Mommy after all.

Luckily, Athena's first event didn't start for 45 minutes, so we hightailed it over to our local drop in play care center where Jack could run around like a madman for $8.50 an hour (he loves it there) and whisked back to the event just in time to line Athena up for the Kindergarten Girls 50 yard Dash.

The little girl with the rolled up sleeves won by a landslide.

Athena came in fifth place.

She didn't qualify for the relay race, but she still had two more events: the standing long jump and tee ball distance.

There were a couple of moments during the day where I felt my competitive spirit bubbling up in me, imagining a huge victory for my child. This day was not about that and I had to stiffle the urge to shout "Run! Baby! Run!" at the top of my voice when the starting gun went off.

Athena didn't care about winning. She just wanted to have fun and the purple "Participant" ribbon came in the best color anyway.

She was far more interested in capturing as many ladybugs as possible in the field.

This one she named Lala.

The ribbon ceremony -
where many a Kindergarten girl was
disappointed by the blue first place ribbon.

Zoe was bored to tears, and besides wearing down the battery on my phone playing puzzle games, she got some significant spinning time in.

This was dress yourself day, and she did, right down to the accessories and criss-cross of her Sketchers. My baby's got style.

We didn't stay for the awards ceremony or the relay races. Right after our picnic lunch I started feeling so guilty about not enjoying the beautiful day with the Dude. So we packed up, went to get our little guy and spent the rest of the day waiting to jump on Daddy when he finally came home - with presents!