Born To Resist

It’s slowly dawning on me that I will soon have a 2 year old. I’ve had one before, but I traded him in for a 3 year old. Baby Mae will no longer  truly be Baby Mae.

Today Mae decided to injure herself. I think she over extended her knee or something (as diagnosed by Dr. Nichole Baird over Facebook). She came limping in to me. She couldn’t bear any weight on it. For as dainty as Mae pretends to be, she is brutal. She has injured herself numerous times and done a good job at it. She may like Princesses, but she will take you down like Hulk Hogan. She seriously walked out of one room, into another, whimpered a little and came out limping. Less than 30 seconds folks and I’ve got a potential crisis on my hands. To distract her I sat her in the tub with me while I showered. After I was done, I took her out, wrapped her in a towel and propped her on the counter. I grabbed the hair dryer out of the drawer and proceeded to blow dry my 2 year old’s very curly, very crazy hair. It was straight! She kept looking at herself in the mirror and saying “Hair?”.

Let me just say that the sheer joy that I experienced while blow drying my daughter’s hair was ridiculous. I revel in having a little girl. I thought the feeling would fade, but I adore all things girly for her. The day we found out we were having a girl, I rushed to Babies R Us and bought dresses. Her closet was constantly re-organized & planned for optimum outfit choosing before she was born. I packed her diaper bag full for the hospital because I wanted to dress her up! I bought hair bands, socks, shoes, dresses, even an newborn infant sized bathing suit that she wore only twice. When I would get her ready for the first few weeks of her life, it took me 20 minutes to chose what she was going to wear. It was very carefully coordinated. I still am purely delighted when I buy her clothes or dress her up. She loves to have her nails painted, her hair done and to wear something “pretty” as she says. She is that girl.  The girl that I prayed for and I wanted so very much. I am grateful for her, even if she is a little monster sometimes. Let’s not sugarcoat that… Here’s to Princess Mae!

First off let me say thank you to all of you that prayed for Mae Mae. It’s an amazing feeling to know that you have friends praying for you! I think for me the highlight of Twitter or Facebook would be the ability to start an instant prayer chain. Thank God for that!

Here’s what happened last night:

Josiah, Mae and I were in the office playing a very fun version of Toy Story mania online. They were both in one chair and it ended up behind my chair. Mae apparently stood up, grabbed  onto my chair, and then fell face first onto our laminate floor. I was right there, scooped her up, gave her some loves and took her down the hallway to see Daddy for some Daddy comfort. While standing in the hallway she started convulsing/seizing. Her eyes were glared over, her arms shot straight out and she reared back. Her one leg that wasn’t against my body stood straight out. I held her away from from and shouted her name. She didn’t respond to anything. I think at the most it lasted 10 seconds. It felt like forever. I’ve never felt anything like that in my short stint as a Mom. Cameron asked if she was maybe just throwing a fit and wanted down. Nope. I know my kids and I know when something is off or wrong. That’s why God gave Moms intuition.  He took her while I looked for my phone. She cried for a few minutes, had some juice and was “out of it” for about 5. We watched her for an hour and decided to call the pediatrician’s office. He told us to take her to the ER.

Cameron took her while I waited for my sister to come get Josiah. He went to St. Joseph’s first and there was a 4 hour wait (that’s where our pediatrician recommended), they sent Cam to UCI Medical Center. I met them there and we were whisked back to a little green room. We kept Mae busy with lots of Cheerios, juice, books and Cinderella doll. When we finally saw a doctor she said we need to do a CT Scan. Because Mae is 18 months old, they’d probably have to sedate her. At first they were going to use Benydryl, which I was all for. The less meds the better! She came back and said the head ER doctor said they’d have to do full blown “sleepy juice” as we call it here. Yikes. I prayed and prayed that they wouldn’t have to and if they did that all would be OK. The LVN came in and inserted an IV in preparation. Nothing like holding down your kid and then keeping her from ripping out an IV. We’re pretty sure that the LVN had us confused with the couple across the hallway because he mentioned something about going to CHOC hospital and the transport team was on their way for the CT scan. Wait, what? We were more than surprised. But Cameron asked and we were staying put. The couple across the hall from us had a little baby that had rolled off a couch and hit the back of his head, he’d been throwing up. I’m pretty sure they sent him to CHOC. Poor baby. At one point I met eyes with his Mom and gave her a “half smile” of encouragement. I prayed for them while I was in there.

Cameron was fried. His phone was dead, he had nothing to do while we waited. Poor guy. He’s a real man. Not one word of complaint out of his mouth.

Mae fell asleep after we turned the lights off in the room and I rocked her to sleep. She woke up a few times screaming and tearing at her IV. She kept saying “No mo(re)!” which is new. Cameron and I zoned out in the dark waiting for the next step. We could hear the sounds of the ER, and the young woman next to us who was so completely wasted on something that she couldn’t tell them her birthday. I could hear them calling her “Stephanie” and prodding her for information. I prayed for her, too. I thought about my baby girl in my arms and wondered where Stephanie’s mom was. There were twins somewhere in the ER that we could hear off and on. They sounded so small. The worst thing I heard all night was a man (I don’t know how old) yelling and shaking his bed and saying “Look at me now Mom! Is this what you wanted?” “I’ll show you!” I didn’t see him, but he sounded like his mouth was injured. I don’t know what his story was, but it killed me to think about it. It’s just amazing how when you least expect it, you see what a lost terrible place this world really is. You see how badly people need Jesus. I could feel how badly this world hurts the heart of God last night.

Around 1 AM they took Mae and I up to the CT scan room. I was nervous. I wanted her to hold still without any help. She lay there and I held her juice cup in her mouth. She was so, so tired at this point. I prayed for her to just keep still. I really didn’t want for her to be sedated. She held still and they got the picture!! She was entranced by the machine and comforted by the sound I think. I also know that God helped to keep her head still. Mae is not one to be held down. She puts up a fight when you wipe her nose. She was a calm, intrigued child last night when that camera spun around her little head.

We went back down to the room and she fell back to sleep on the bed. I finally laid down next to her. Cameron grabbed the chair. Poor guy, always getting the lame chair during the hospital stay. I slept. She slept. I think Cameron slept a little. Around 3:30 they came in and told us everything was OK. The nurse came and removed the IV and we were on our way.

This morning Mae is up and enjoying a little “bad parenting”. She’s eating a Girl Scout cookie as a part of her balanced breakfast. Thank God we can go back to the routine. So many people don’t get to this soon after an injury. Thank you thank you thank you to all of you that prayed and passed our prayer request along. We’ll follow up with our pediatrician this week to see if anything else is going on.

Baby Mae is A-Okay!

Just a friendly reminder to Moms out there: Remember to have fun. I was vacuuming the office today and then proceeded to vacuum my children. They loved it. It’s cliche, but kids won’t remember how clean your house was, but they will remember these types of moments.

P.S. Would you just look at those beautiful kids??

I love having a phone that takes quality pictures. I thought I would put up a few of my favorites from the last few weeks:

On the way home from Havasu.

Nadine at the vet's office.

This is Tigerlily. She's getting puffy, so I call her Alec Baldwin.

Josiah and the Meat cat. In the office waiting for new flooring.

Cameron and I lost our minds on Friday and decided to go shopping. We were going to be committed to an asylum and headed to Toys R Us at midnight, fearing for our lives we turned around and left. We came back around 9:30 the next morning. We tromped through aisles, waded through crazies, and chased down those deals. We made it out of Toys R Us with about $50.00 in savings. I bough stuff that was on sale and took coupons. I’m intense.

We headed over to Target and jumped into that party. The front of the store was deceiving. Relatively quiet we felt a false sense of hope. To the toy section! Ack! All 2,000 people are in those few aisles. The treasures we found! We got Josiah a power wheels quad for $44! It wasn’t on his list, but I saw it and had to have it for him! It fit in our budget because we had spent so much less than expected.  We got his Santa present… an RC Car from Toy Story. Josiah has been waiting to ask Santa for this present since last month. He is focused in his hope for Jolly St. Nick to bring R.C. down his chimney.  I must pat my husband on the back for getting this R.C. I can’t wait for Christmas morning.

Mae is fun to shop for- she loves clothes, she loves shoes, she loves PINK. It’s almost too easy. We didn’t mean to, but it ended as a very Disney Princess Christmas. There will be many Tiana presents under the tree for Princess Mae.

We also managed to shop for new Christmas decorations, just a few things. I had wanted a little tinsel tree for the kid’s room. I finally got one. They decorated it Saturday morning. Instead of fixing the ornaments, I left them the way two very excited little kids had done it.

Sunday we hit the mall- I knew where the deals were. Crazy 8. It’s my favorite clothing store for the little ones, especially Mae. They have excellent sales and they are cute! I’m not really into preppy clothes for Josiah (Wow. I know, big shocker), and Crazy 8 tends to have more of what I like for him. Their Christmas outfits were on sale and had 25% more off the price because of the Black Friday weekend shopping.  I got a $26.00 jacket for Mae for $10.00!! The kids now have their holiday outfits for pictures with Santa and Christmas. BOOYA!

Did I mention that I have most of my Christmas cards written in, addressed and ready for mailing? Oh, I do. I can’t believe it! I don’t know what I’ll do for the rest of the month!

I’m gearing up for the “kid” part of Christmas for sure, but don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten why all this hustle and bustle started. Every night at dinner we’re reading a different part of the Christmas story. I’m glad I’m getting all this stuff done now. I can focus on Jesus more the closer we get to Christmas. I love instilling the real meaning of Christmas in my kids. Josiah was worried last night about Jesus laying where the animals ate out of. Can you blame him? Since I became a Mom (three years ago tomorrow!!), I’ve often wondered what Mary felt as she couldn’t offer her new baby the safety and warmth of her own home. I’ve even thought (as odd as it may seem), if she needed help breast feeding, or how they changed a baby then.  This girl was a teenager, with the responsibility of motherhood lying in a manger in front of her. For every bit of knowledge that she had about Jesus being the son of God, she probably had just as many worries about him from a Mother’s viewpoint.

Ok. That blog went from being incredibly light to very heavy. I guess that’s the balance we have to strike every Christmas. Remembering why we celebrate and celebrating in a meaningful way.

Wednesday morning my Mom and Dad offered to take Josiah over night. That was great! I decided to take Mae to Disneyland by herself for the first time on Thursday.

Mae "posing" in front of the Castle.

We got there and headed over to Fantasyland to hob-knob with some Princesses. We made a few stops to look at the Christmas merchandise and even went into the Bibbidi Boppidi Boutique to see some very lucky girls getting their hair done. We rode King Arthur’s Carousel and then got in line for Dumbo. That’s where Mae decided to do what I like to call “The Patented Toddler Drop”. You know the one parents! You have your kid by the hand or arm and they “flop” down. She started screaming! I felt a pop… but tried to ignore it. We were being loaded onto the ride when it happened so I was hoping that she was just angry. We went on the ride and she was distracted a bit. We got off and went to get a snack. She would not use her left arm and when I tried to put a cracker into that hand she would scream bloody murder! She was protecting that arm and gave me death glares when I would touch it. I decided we were going to go ride the First Aid ride! No line there! The nurses were great and it was so bizarre to go from Main Steet to the inside of a Doctor’s office. They gave me a list of local hospitals along with a map. They gave Mae a cute sticker with Minnie as a Nurse (she had to have it on her shirt). The nurse directed me to St. Joseph’s because it was the best… I’ll tell you later why I should have listened. Mae’s arm was swollen and a slightly different shade. I thanked the nurses and headed out of Disneyland with a screaming baby. I’m sure they would have called for a special transport to our car, but I said no thank you. I took the longest tram ride back to our car. Thank God we were parked in the first row! I called Cameron to tell him what was going on. He was on his way.

Have you ever seen anything this cute?

I really should have gone to St. Joseph’s. Instead I went to Western Medical Center. Nothing like watching a prisoner in shackles come through the ER! The staff was great, but it was an old, little and cramped ER. Thank God Cameron apparently drove 900 miles per hour to get there. I was pretty sure that Mae had a case of Nursemaid’s Elbow. Josiah had done it before. We waited for 2 hours and during that time Mae popped her own elbow back and was fine. They checked her out anyway and we were let go. We ate lunch with Cameron and then I decided to give my little girl the rest of her Disneyland day!

We drove back across the street to the Happiest Place on Earth. While we were parking Mae found her Snow White dress in the car. It’s been in there since Halloween. She had to have it on. I totally obliged and I took my Princess into California Adventure to see if Snow White was out taking pictures. She wasn’t, but we played in C.A. for awhile. We went back over to Disneyland. First we stopped by the First Aid station to thank the nurses and tell them Mae was fine. They were glad to see her. We went to

The Littlest Snow White

the Haunted Mansion. Mae loved it. She recognized Jack, Sally and Zero. She waved at them all. I saw some of the decorations going up in New Orlean’s Square and headed towards the back. We found a great surprise! In one of the little alcoves they have Princess Tiana and Prince Naveen from The Princess and the Frog.

Mae finally got to take her picture with a Princess. She recognized Tiana and her incredible dress right away! She’s been watching the trailer on our Apple TV and we bought a re-usable bag from the Disney Store a couple of weeks ago with Tiana on it. I’ve been using that as Mae’s diaper bag. It was fun to see the new characters and they have these great accents! Mae showed Tiana and Naveen her new necklace with Sleeping Beauty on it. The guy that was Naveen was great! So sweet and wonderfu to watch with the little kids. I’m looking forward to taking her to see a “real” Disney animated Princess feature in the theater!

After seeing Tiana we were ready to go. The lights came on Main Street right when we got there. Perfect for my Mae! She had a good day despite the trip to the ER. I can’t count how many times were stopped by visitors and Cast Members because of her cuteness in her dress. She is such a light and a sweet presence to be around. I’m so glad she’s mine!

Hoorah!

Fun weekend, kids! Just kidding. I had wanted to do lots of Halloween-y things with the kids and do epic amounts of laundry. Guess what got done? Nothing. I watched a few documentaries on Netflix and caught up on my SNL episodes. Friday night held promise when we headed out to the drive-in theater to see “Wild Things” and “Astro Boy”. “Wild Things” is not a kid movie, it would hold Josiah’s attention for a few minutes at a time and he liked the movie. I’m guessing in about 14 years it will be a favorite of his. I ended up in the back of our CRV playing with the kids and occasionally watching the movie. That was alright.

I woke up the next morning to a very cranky Mae Baby in bed with me (which is weird, she’s a crib kid or the opposite of her brother). I picked her up to go change her and BLAM! BARF!! She gave me back several ounces of milk that I had given her earlier. Thanks! She quickly added a fever, snot nose and the stinkiest, leakiest bottom to the list of sickness. (Shout out to Fisher Price diapers: They are cheap but work incredibly well). That afternoon I started to feel like scratchy throat, stuffy nose death. I spend Saturday and Sunday taking care of her and myself (sort of). Cameron spends his weekend being Mr. Mom to Josiah.

Even though I still don’t feel good, I had a plan for today to go smoothly with the Sicky Mae, Josiah and I. Cameron obviously had to go back to work. My plan goes nowhere because I wake up to… PROJECTILE VOMITING IN MY FACE. Thank you Reagan from the Exorcist/my son. At least he wasn’t speaking Latin or levitating, because then I would have needed a couple of priests. Mae is still sick with a fever and she pukes on me as I go to get her ready for a trip to the doctor’s office. I have been thrown up on more times this weekend than ever before. I go to Urgent Care smelling like barf and not caring. I don’t care if you don’t like me smelling like stomach acid and the few animal crackers Mae ate before spewing on me. That’s your personal issue. Not mine.

Urgent Care is empty. That surprises me because apparently the flu is a national emergency and I heard there were people piling up in the streets who had died of swine flu. What? Oh, that’s just hype… Sorry. I believe everything TV tells me. They weigh Mae and swab her nose for Swine Flu (which is funny because I pictured a piggy nose getting swabbed). Guess how much Mae loved being swabbed? About as much as she loves her brother stealing toys from her. We are given a prescription for Tamiflu (which I’m still waiting for a call about). I come home to a husband slipping in and out of consciousness and a three year old who, despite the proclamation earlier of “I’m barfing!” and a 101.4 fever, is all over the place and can’t simply watch a movie. I clean and organize everything to help keep order during our bout of fun with Mr. Flu. I get both my children down for naps, I eat a little left over food, watch a little TV and now I’m writing this while I’m a little bit “buzzed” from cough meds.

That’s all for now. I think I might try to get a little rest before anything else happens.

Being a Mom is awesome.

Dear Readers,

My husband is going to be a rock legend for Halloween:

Can you guess which one Cam's going to be?

Is it just me or is there a level of creepy resemblance between Cam and Jimmy?

Here’s my terrifying, horrible costume:

**Refrain from Screaming***

I’m dressing as my crazy nemesis: Courtney Love. Look out world!!

I just found my favorite new Mommy blog! www.tulipgirl.com

Here’s a “Mommy Inspiration” that she had on there:

We’ve forgotten what Luther said. We don’t parent to demonstrate the Gospel — to show those around us how beautifully we can do it all. No, we parent because it is the Gospel — because God takes us in as foundlings, lifts us up as His own, loves us even when we stink, puke, and screach, and He dresses us, carries us, and loves us.

It’s not about showing. It’s about loving. It’s not about beauty. It’s about serving the smallest and the littlest in the darkest part of the night when there’s no one is up except us and that wee one and God.

– Camille

Thank you Jesus for my babies, my children that you so graciously gave me. Even when it’s hard and exhausting I will try to remember to extend the grace you gave me to them. Thank you for their messes, their creations, their hugs, their words. Thank you that you gave them a Daddy to love them and be a protector to them. Thank you for their innocence and creativity. Thank you for knitting them together inside of me. Give me the strength to give to them what they need to become the man and woman that you want. Let me teach Josiah to be a Man after your own heart. Let me teach Mae about true beauty. Don’t let me worried about my image as a mother to the outside world, let my only concern be my children’s hearts.

Amen.

Lately I’ve had this evil urge to get preggers again. Of course the thought flees as soon as I consider weight gain, not being able to nap while pregnant because I’ll have two kids running around, and one set of diapers is enough for now. We want more kids, but not right now. This is the longest amount of time I have not been pregnant in our entire marriage! Let me break that down for you:

Married for 5 months, found out we were preggers with Josiah.

Pregnant with that guy for 9 months.

Josiah was 2 weeks shy of turning one when I got pregnant with Mae.

Pregnant with Princess Mae Mae for 9 months.

Mae will be 14 months old next month.

Anywho, I’m enjoying the reclaiming of my own body for the first time in 3 1/2 years. My uterus is it’s normal size and shape and I’m shedding pounds. I’m also not “leaking” due to milk production if I’m away from a child for more than 2 hours. (Gross I know.) Even with all the pros of not being pregnant I can’t help but feel a little tinge of jealousy for my friends who are pregnant. I find myself looking at baby name blogs, pushing the cart over to Babies R Us from the Toys R Us side of the store, staring longingly at swaddling cloths, and intently examining old baby pictures of Siah and Mae Mae. I am taking this all in stride and chalking it up to my body & heart both knowing that I’m not done having kids. I think you know you’re done procreating in the same fashion that you know that you have found your soul mate- you just know.

My Mom is the perfect example of baby-angst. While she was pregnant with my brother Aaron, she was very, very sick. I don’t remember too much of it, but I do remember that she had tubes in her back to help her kidneys filter everything better. Aaron was a HUGE baby and if my memory serves me correctly she had gestational diabetes. The doctors warned my Mom not to get pregnant again because it could be life-threatening for her. My Dad went ahead and got the ‘ol “snip-a-roo” (as Cameron likes to call it) so that no more Beautiful Berry Babies could be made. My Mom says that she felt like there was supposed to be one more of us, that our family wasn’t complete. She mourned for this unknown child. Interestingly enough, some doctor didn’t do a good job at a vasectomy and my Mom got pregnant with Lauren. She was at peace instantly. God had known who was supposed to be in our family.

I am thrilled with the possibility of new babies in our future. I sometimes feel like we’re missing someone even if we’re all in the same room. I can’t wait to meet the rest of my family someday.

Sweetest.