A Birthday Pan-Cake!

H turned 7!!! Here she is with her birthday pan-cake. Pancakes are her favorite food, so we agreed to have them for her birthday supper. When we thought of all the sugar involved in a pancake supper AND a birthday cake, we were a little unsure. Then we thought of a birthday cake made up of a stack of pancakes! H loved it, and no one mentioned missing a "cake". So we called the kids to supper and served up this stack of cakes, with the top one decorate with frosting and a "7" candle. H got the top pancake of course!!! And T outdid himself with the pancakes - each as big as a big plate! Thank goodness he has the patience for that!!!

H can be a hard kid to buy for. She's not really a dolls or toys kind of kid... She was asking for a pet, but we weren't really interested in that option. So we started talking about flowers. My mom gave us some help in selecting a hardy variety! So H got some planters, soil, flowers, seeds, a watering can, and a trowel and rake. She is very, very excited about it all. She can take care of them, water them, pick them, whatever she wants, because they are HERS. :) Whew! Another birthday gift nailed!

The Dandylion Story

Spring is here! And along with Spring we get flowers! I love our tulips and daffodils, but they are nothing like our neighbors'! Several homes on our street are bursting with daffodils, tulips, crocuses and other flowers I can't identify. However, there is one flower where we have them beat! Nobody, and I mean nobody, on the street has the collection of dandylions that we do! :)

So, T had a great idea. He decided he would get the kids to pick our dandylions before they went to seed. He told me he was going to pay them a penny for each dandylion. He figured that was cheaper then buying a chemical, AND it would keep them busy for a while. At the last minute he decided on a nickle for each dandylion. You can imagine the great excitement!

I provided some old plastic containers and the picking began. T was quick to make up a rule that if you pushed somone out of the way to get a dandylion, then they got all your dandylions. That helped keep things running smoothly.
Z was our most prolific picker - he picked over 400 dandylions!!!!!!

H and G each had over 100.
J even joined in! (When you're broke, you're broke!) Above is a picture of them with all their picking, before they went in the trash.

But, alas, the dandylion story is not over. I guess there is something T and I didn't realize about dandylions... Something that had me laughing my head off when we went outside today...

I don't know. Maybe picking a dandylion is like dead-heading any other flower... it promotes growth of more blossoms! Or maybe there just were that many waiting to bloom. In any case, despite all efforts to the opposite, we're still the Dandylion kings!

More School Fees Venting

A friend's comment on my last post got me going again! :) Before I start ranting, I have to admit, that we live in an awesome neighborhood and an awesome school district. I know that it takes money to keep all that going... But here is a partial list of things I have been asked to pay for this year...

$ Seconds at school in the lunch room (I can get paying for second helpings, but my kids don't need them! )

$T-shirts - sheesh! It feels like they have a T-shirt for everything! Each grade puts on a musical program, which is very enjoyable, but they print up T-shirts and ask each kid to buy one. Or tell you the color shirt your child needs to wear. (I swear, Z has every color in the rainbow, but NOT green. Well, now he's got green, too!)

$More t-shirts - the all school field day is coming up. Let's have everyone buy a t-shirt to commemorate it! What??? How about if they just wear the "school spirit wear" I bought them with the school name on it?

$Fundraisers - Actually, they have an "opt out" option, which I really appreciate. But that was $30 per child to be guilt free about the endless fundraisers through out the year. Now that I think about it, that probably divides out to less than $5 per kid per fundraiser, so that's probably a pretty good deal, and it saved me from helping the kids sell... coupons, cookie dough, gift wrap, and other stuff I can remember, since I throw the packets away. It doesn't save me from hearing them whine about how much they want to win the prize they can get if only they can sell 1 million boxes of cookie dough!!! (ugh.)

$The extra fundraiser - This one is a clever fundraiser, but I think I'd have a lot more enthusiasm if it didn't come at the end of the year after all the other requests for money or stuff... Each classroom is given a theme and puts together a basket that will be auctioned off by silent auction. So I'm supposed to provide some sort of theme item. And I'm lucky enough that they do it at G's preschool, too!

$The YEARBOOK - This is the one that really gets me. Isn't the class picture I paid $10 for enough? No, they also offer a $30 yearbook. A yearbook. Really, for elementary schoolers! I didn't buy them this year. And now the guilt is setting in. Will my child be the only one without one in their class? Will H cry? Will Z's last day at school be horrible because their mom wouldn't shell out $30 each for a commemorative SOFT COVER yearbook? Ugh.

$A thanksgiving lunch. Really, this is much more about the torture aspect than the money, although I cringe to pay extra for an adult portioned school lunch! The bad part is that all the parents come on one day, and even though they split it up by grade to make more room (and to make sure I "eat" at 10am with my 1st grader and 2pm with my 2nd grader (oh, and please send in a snack with them, because they will be hungry with the disrupted lunch schedule!)) So, even though it is split up, it's still very, very croweded, and if you're at the end of the very slowly moving lunch line, you'll be lucky to sit down at the table before they ring the bell to end your lunch time (which is actually not a bad thing considering the food...)

OK, I'll stop there. Anyone care to share something (at school or otherwise) that they feel pressured to buy, even though they don't want to?

School Pictures Rant

What in the world has happened to school pictures since I was in school? Remember those golden days? You'd get home a flyer, and your mom would pick a package and dress you up in your best, best, best clothes (like a Little House on the Prairie Dress!) and send you off to school, where you would run around at recess, trip on the concrete and scrape your face and mess up your hair - a perfect compliment to your smile full of missing teeth, and new ones of different sizes! The result would be a picture to be treasured through the years, more for how awful it was than for how wonderful!

But now... First of all, NOW they take pictures TWO times each year. In the fall they send home a flyer where you can pick from many packages and add-ons, AND you can pick from several charming poses. Then, in the spring, you just get a heads up that picture day is coming, but you don't need to worry about an order form. Oh, no, smart money-makers that they are... they take a picture of your child and a couple weeks later send home a HUGE envelope full of stunning pictures of your precious child. You pick which ones you want to keep and send them a check, along with the pictures you don't want to keep!

WHAT? You send back pictures of your child? Yep. That's right. You have to look at that wonderful picture of your child, and say "No sweetie, I'm sorry, you're just not worth $25 per sheet, and I don't need 8 laminated key chains, 15 bookmarks, and 2 baseball cards. I'm going to send you back. Don't worry, I'm sure you'll be treasured... In a DUMPSTER somewhere!"

I'm telling you, I have the hardest time letting go of the pictures, but I do it! I send them back, because, by golly I did NOT ask to have them taken. I don't need any more pictures. But it's SO HARD to put them back in the envelope and send them to school! It's like throwing your kid in the trash. UGH. I hate school pictures!

PS - the picture at the top is the funniest one I've ever seen! We took the kids to a studio last fall and had some great pictures taken for a great price. Z is usually very photogenic, and we have tons of pictures of his great smile. But when the session started he was so serious, and trying not to smile, and the result was this picture that never fails to bring a smile to my face!

Chicken Soup Hotline!

Our church has a "Chicken Soup Hotline". It's a group of people who are available to make meals for families in need. In the past we've received meals when our daughter passed away, when babies were born, when we were really busy with foster care. We were so busy with D's hospitalization, that we didn't actually tell a lot of people at church what was going on - we just weren't attending like we regularly do, and when we were there, it was more in and out. But the word did get out, and the Chicken Soup coordinator called me last week, and we received meals over the weekend. It just feels like a great big hug! Incredible. Nothing terribly fancy, just cooked with love food. I think it actually was more helpful to have these first couple of days that D was home. We'll start to cook for ourselve tomorrow's supper, but I am so greatful for our chicken soupers, who shared their talents and God's love with us! :)

Home Again, Home Again, Jiggity Jig!

Finally D is home from the hospital! Hooray! And after all the complaining I did about the surgery plan, and after a full day of waiting for a spot in surgery, when it was time to go home we were out the door quicker than I could imagine. The transition back home has been smooth, and we're enjoying being all under one roof!

Hospitals Suck Even More!

So at 6pm today I got a call from a doctor (who I've never met - I can just imagine the "team" meeting, and then the lowest doctor on the totem pole being assigned to call me, because I'd been so intent on being informed earlier today!) She introduced herslef, and then told me that D was going to have surgery tomorrow afternoon. I asked her what she meant by afternoon... 1pm? 3pm? The answer... 12pm or later. (Ah!! Well that clears that up! Whew, so glad I asked!) Even after such an enlightening answer as that, I went ahead and asked another question... Who would be performing the surgery? The answer... one of the surgery residents or doctors. Wow. Again, so glad I asked!

Shortly after I talked to the doctor, I spoke on the phone with nurse on D's floor. She'd just recieved orders to stop his food tonight in order to have him ready for surgery at 8am. Hmmm. That's... interesting.

I asked her some questions and discovered what is likely going on. They don't have a scheduled opening or assigned doctor, but since D is an inpatient they will get him ready, and whoever runs ahead of schedule will just do D's surgery in their spare time. Nice.


So, sometime tomorrow, at or after 8am or 12pm, D will have an operation, performed by someone with operating priveledges at the hospital. And we got 14 hours notice to rearrange our schedule to be there with him.

And I'll get back to you, but I'm predicting a 5pm surgery. UGH.

Hospitals Suck!

So today marks day 16 that D has been in the hospital. I am just DONE with it. I was doing fine until today. I think I probably just need to have a good cry and get it out of my system, but that really doesn't fit into my agenda until much later tonight, so I'm going to go for a nice blog rant right now!

Our hospital is great! The nurses and care assistants are wonderful, the doctors are, too. I even like that it's a teaching hospital, and don't mind the student doctors and nurses. But I really want some one to acknowledge, "Wow, D has been through a lot!" Because this is how today went... I woke up at the hospital at 6:15, hit snooze on my phone and got up at 6:22am. I checked out with the nurse, said good bye to a sleeping D and hit the road. Got home, had breakfast, showered, woke the kids up and got them ready for school and G ready for the day. Got Z & H to school and headed straight for the hospital with G. Got to the parking garage at 8:58am. Ah, yes, the daily rush of people trying to make it to their 9am appointments. Finally find a spot on level -3. (Purple plane Level! G is excited, we don't often get down this low underground! ) We go upstairs and wait in line to get through security. Get through, head up to D's room, it's 9:15am. He's up and happy, and even happier to see us. We wash hands and play a little. I check in with the nurse, and I haven't missed rounds. Whew! That's why I hurried in - besides not wanting D to be alone, I want to be here when the docs walk around.

10:45 - finally, the secretary announces "the purple team is rounding". Even G knows D is on the purple team. We watch them (I think there's about 15) troup onto wing. 11:00 We watch them leave. I check with the nurse. No, they didn't stop to talk to her either, probably because his care is being followed by the renal team. OOOOOOkay. Well, I'm going to take G to the cafeteria - really the only way to make sure the renal team will show up is to leave the room. (I've learned that - just like the only way to get D to fill his urine bag is to STOP checking on it!) :)

11:05. Down to the cafeteria. G gets her standard hospital lunch of equal parts chicken strip, ranch dip, and ice cream bar. (I'm only slightly exaggerating here.) 11:10 Back to room to eat - ah, yes! There are the renal docs!!! So I set the tray down and G attempts to cut up her own chicken strip while the doctor lets me know the status on things. He doesn't *think* D will have surgery today. He will *Probably* have surgery tomorrow. Right there, that one statement throws me... there's a possibility he could have surgery today??? Because I'm leaving in 30 minutes, and Tony won't be back until 6pm. So, my brain is so scrambled, I'm trying to be coherent in the 3.2 minutes of doctor time I get. I make sure they understand that I WANT to be here when they do surgery. I NEED to know WHEN the surgery will be so that I can make plans to be at the hospital, because I can't be there all the time, and I will need to make plans to get here at the surgery time. (And as an aside, I have learned that a scheduled time for surgery is really a pretty vague thing. So "1pm" really means "well, it could be as early ast 11am, but more likely later, most likely at 4pm, but probably not ever right at 1pm, but you'd better be here, because it might be")

And while I'm trying to impress on the doctor that I need some time to prepare for a surgery date, so I can make arrangements to be at the hospital. And what do I get back? A nice smile. "Yes, you are doing a good job of being here a lot." Smile. Does this man even understand what I am saying? I just want to scream, but instead, I need to remain calm and remember what questions I have about D's care today .

I just want a doctor to acknowledge that this is all very hard. And maybe show a little sadness that they are scheduling another surgery for someone who is only maybe 12 hours into total recovery from the first one. I'm glad they are working to get him home, but the steps to do that are hard, too!

OK, vent ended. Must go pick up kids from school and put on happy mom face!

New News - Life Goes On

I agree with my friend, H, that every blog post should have a picture, so I give you this one, even though it's from back in March. It's silliness makes me smile, just like my girls do every day! :)

So you may have read my post about bringing D home from the hospital. Yep, pretty much a few hours after I posted it, I was driving back to the Children's Hospital with him. He'd slept all day and been kind of cranky. After a nice long nap I decided I should wake him up so he'd sleep at bedtime. I picked him up and he was hot, hot, hot. Sure enough he had a fever, so back to the hospital we went. He was admitted and has been fighting an infection since then. So, not counting the 29 hours he was home, he's been in the hospital since March 25 - nearly two weeks.

As before, we've learned things this hospitalization. Friends ROCK. We put our league of grandma's to work and were able to tend to things at home in the afternoons, confident that D was well entertained. The staff at the hospital is wonderful. The parent's bed at the hospital, not so comfortable, but ok. And above all, life goes on.

Our poor little guy is stuck in the hospital where they can monitor his infection and stay on top of his meds, but he is feeling great. We've fallen into a schedule that is working pretty well. T and I take turns staying nights at the hospital. The kids at home have gotten used to a one parent bedtime. J has really pitched in and helped out with the kids. Our routine is such that D is only alone for a few hours each day, during a common naptime for him. And we all check in together at the house, eating dinner together about half the time, before one of us parents heads in to the hospital. We're trying to be smart about it, and come up with a routine that we can stick with and not be exhausted. And hopefully it will be a routine that we can drop into whenever D is hospitalized.

And in line of thinking, we decided that tonight, for the first time, neither T nor I will stay at the hospital. We just miss each other, and in meeting everyone else's needs, we're down to talking over the kids at supper time and text messages or whispered calls after all the kids are asleep. So T will be home later tonight, and I'll go in early tomorrow morning. With luck, D will be asleep the whole time we're gone, and from experience we know that even if he's awake, he's very sleepy and isn't awake for long.

Finally, the good things that have been happening:

• The docs report that D is responding well to the treatments he has for his long term disease! And we're even noticing signs of this. Hooray!
• The girls are acting like... SISTERS! Playing really well together, fighting intensely, but then playing really well together again. Very fun! We've come a long way from the days when we couldn't have H in the room with another child without an adult being there, too. Again, Hooray!
• J, the same young man we had to force to leave his room and join us for meals a few years ago, now is such a vital part of our family! We find dishes done without being asked. He entertains kids when he sees we're tired. It's been wonderful.

So, I know it's crazy, and probably hard to understand, but we still have no regrets in taking D in! I'm looking forward to him coming home (though that's probably at least a week away...) but even stretched out like we are with him 30 minutes away... I just feel like we're so lucky. Bizarre. Just meant to be, I guess! Thank God!

Old News - Sewing Projects

I meant to put up these pictures a while ago and show off a night of sewing I did back in March. I'm very proud. D has outgrown some jammies we bought him, and I decided to cut the feet off. I did the blue striped pair first. Nothing fancy, kind of an unintentional lettuce edge around the bottoms of the legs. When I got to the green dino pair, I actually paused and switched to a matching thread color (I guess I got my 2nd wind, since this all happened after the kids were in bed!) I cut off the feet, and mourned the loss of the cute little paw prints on the bottom. But as I sewed up the leg holes, I had an idea, and ended up adding the paw prints to the body of the jammies. I guess this would have been more impressive with before and after pictures, but I wasn't planning on doing more cutting the feet off! :) I am pretty proud of how cute they turned out, though T says D looks like a peasant boy in them. He's right, but they are still cute. :)

After I was done with the pjs I was inspired. I pulled out a pair of jeans that G said she wouldn't wear because she explained, "I only wear fancy jeans, Mom" Sheesh. Still, I had a bag of ribbon handed down from my mom, so I pulled it out and went to town and came up with this:

I am so happy with the results! They are very cute, and it was very, very easy. This picture is of the front of the jeans, with the decorative pockets. There was one small detail I neglected, though... as it turns out, G hadn't worn the jeans in quite a while, and in that time she grew a few inches. Ooops! So she's got a totally cute pair of capris to wear, just in time for spring. That works for me!