Weirdest Year on Record

I was making the annual Christmas calendar I make for the grandparents and ourselves, and while going through the pictures I determined this has been the weirdest year ever. First, there was the snowpocalypse. Then Aidan fell out of the high chair and landed on his head and had to go to the ER. Then, we had a tornado which took out our power and did some damage to our garage and knocked two large trees on to our front and back lawns. Then we had a storm that left us without power for four days. Then Eric's train got hit by a truck hauling concrete and derailed in a fire-y mess. Then we were hit by a massive storm that wreaked havoc on our basement.
Then Liam started kindergarten and Brendan started preschool, and we started to get into a routine for really the first time ever.
Then Liam got the most awful 72 hour nonstop vomiting illness from which he could not recover, which turned into pneumonia which caused him to miss:
my art presentation to his kindergarten class,
our downtown Brendan's 4th birthday weekend extravaganza,
trick or treating at Orbitz,
the school Halloween party,
the kindergarten Halloween party and parade,
his 4th annual trick or treating at his aunt's work,
Halloween,
his last soccer game and the soccer team party,
the kindergarten field trip to the zoo (which Eric was chaperoning and which would have been his first time on a school bus),
the class dress-up-like-it's-the-1950's day,
and which culminated in a 5 day stay in the hospital for a pleural effusion and a two week post-discharge picc line in his arm.

So, it's really no wonder my nerves are rattled!

Statistics and Patting My Back

It occurred to me in the shower today that the past couple weeks are the first time in over six years that I am not pregnant or nursing. Actually there was a period of a few months between weaning Brendan and getting pregnant with Aidan in there, but for all intents and purposes this is a definite departure from the last six and a half years. I was planning on weaning Aidan but my little stint in Lincoln Park with Liam was what finally did it. And now I am very close to having a new-found freedom of another sort as I wrap up my MLS. I turned in my application at midnight, March 2, 2007 and found out I was pregnant with Brendan that afternoon, which was also my parents' 50th wedding anniversary. I started the program 7 months pregnant with Brendan, on campus for two weeks at what they call boot camp. It's in insane 2 credit hour 8 week class rolled into 12 days.

This semester I took a technology class and an AV preservation class, and that one was one of the hardest I've taken throughout my coursework. My final paper was due the Monday after the the week Liam was in the hospital, and the weekend I had allotted for writing the paper was the weekend we were at Children's. I wasn't sure if I'd be able to do it bedside (haha, no way I later learned) so I wrote my prof and he was really understanding and told me not to worry and just get it in when I could and it wouldn't be counted as late. I turned it in 4 days late, and was wondering if I could pull off a B and not ruin my GPA too much (I know, no one cares about GPA, but still, for all the blood, sweat and tears I put into this non-lucrative degree, I wanted a respectable GPA.) Anyway, the other thing I thought about in my shower today was, "oh, my AVL prof said he would have grades today or tomorrow." So I went down and checked my class, and I had a message from him. He said my paper was worth waiting for, and I got an A on the paper and in the class, and he asked if he could use my paper as an example in a future class. Wow, that was so awesome. I mean it was really a hard class, not an easy A class, and I worked my butt off but definitely wasn't able to do the amount of work I wanted to, and for this super cool prof to give me that kind of praise, well that definitely shined a happy light on a very dismal month.


So Wednesday's the big day we hope to get the all clear for Liam. Keep your fingers crossed and your prayers prayed if you wouldn't mind. I cannot wait for this to be done. Liam does have a cold right now, but hooooopefully it's not much of anything. He's staying home from school just to let him rest and not overdo it, but he and I cannot wait to get him back into his normal life.

Also

If Liam gets the a-ok on his appointment on the 30th he will get the picc line out, which will be so so awesome. It will also be the 32nd day of his illness. That is truly insane. We're starting the 10 day count-down. I don't even want to mention how excited I am for December, lest I jinx that. And if you don't believe in jinxing, let me tell you this story. The week before he got sick we were at a friend's house and the kids were learning to ride their bikes without training wheels. (We were at Liam's friend Meghan's house learning, because she had just learned over the weekend so Liam, Brendan and her little bro who is 4 were all learning together.) I was talking with their mom Peggy about another of Liam's classmates whose little sister had just been hospitalized for pneumonia. I told Peggy, "Knock on wood my kids have never had any weird illnesses, the worst has been a 24 hour stomach bug and an ear infection." Yep, not 5 days later Liam got the plague.

Today, I am hoping to finish my very last essay for grad school. I started it yesterday but didn't make too much progress, though starting it is often the hardest part for me. But it's in my Audiovisual Preservation class and I really have been out of my element in that class. They lost me at vinegar syndrome. My professor is super awesome. He's young and works at the Library of Congress, and his boss is...the Librarian of Congress. You pretty much can't get any cooler than that, right? Also he reminds me of my supervisor at work, and I think they both went through the cinema studies program at UIUC so it makes a lot of sense. And both of them have been so kind to me throughout the whole ordeal of the last month. I feel so lucky to have such an awesome job and awesome colleagues, not to mention the best family and friends.

One positive and unintended consequence of this whole thing is that since I didn't sleep at home for 4 (or was it 5? I'm already repressing) nights Aidan got weaned and is a much better sleeper. Always look on the bright side of life...when you're chewing on life's gristle, don't grumble give a whistle...

Did I mention Brendan and Aidan came down with colds the night before Liam came home from the hospital, and have passed it on to me?

Things I've Learned This Past Week

1. Morphine withdrawal is not pretty.
2. When it rains it pours.
3. Lots of people are really, really nice.

Halloween Bloooos

I'm writing this from the bed next to Liam's bed, as the world's best little sick person restlessly sleeps and moans under the blanket of fever and chills. When he first came down sick on Friday morning I thought it'd be short-lived. We had a whole Brendan's 4th birthday and Halloween weekend extravaganza planned. Friday was Brendan's birthday. After their alarm went off the boys came into our bed, like they usually do, but Liam seemed uncharacteristically fussy. Eric said he got up with him a couple hours earlier and he had a 102 degree fever. He went back to his bed and the rest of us went downstairs to see Brendan's birthday balloons and open his presents. He brought them upstairs so he could open then with Liam.

That morning I was going to Liam's kindergarten class with another mom to do a presentation about the artist Horace Pippin. I was so bummed Liam couldn't be there, but it was fun to be in his classroom and see all the little kids. It has a much warmer feel than the preschool he and Brendan go to. And his teacher is excellent. (So is their preschool teacher, but they are very, very different people, as the schools are very very different schools.) She's a 23 year old DePaul graduate and is doing a great job keeping 18 kindergartners engaged and behaved for 3 hours every morning. I have to get a picture of her and Liam. Anyway, I texted the other mom, Stephanie, to say I'd be there at 8:25. She didn't respond, and it turns out she thought the presentation was at 10:30 so she missed the whole thing. I'll give myself a pat on the back for doing what I think was a great job when the whole thing went off-script. It was fun. The next plan was that I'd get home in time for Eric to take the 9:27 train into work. Then around 2:30 I was going to rustle up the boys into the car and take them down to Orbitz for their office Halloween trick-or-treating. But since Liam wasn't going to be able to go, Eric worked from home and brought just Brendan to work later in the afternoon. Liam still had a fever but he seemed relatively ok.

I wasn't sure if Eric and Brendan would be back in time for dinner, and Liam wasn't super hungry, so we ordered Jimmy Johns (though I'm not in favor of giving him too much money after his political antics.) We had to cancel the rest of the plans (which included going to Ed Debevics for Brendan's birthday dinner and then going to the Marriott overnight.) I knew when Liam didn't eat more than two bites of his sandwich that he was pretty sick. Sure enough that was Friday night and now it's Sunday afternoon and he hasn't eaten anything in all that time. He's just barely able to drink water and the occasional sips of juice. We considered taking him to the hospital this morning as he was starting to show some signs of dehydration, but we've been able to get that under control at least for now.

Today was his last soccer game and the Halloween party at his school. Brendan and Aidan are there now with Eric, and obviously we missed the game. I know Liam doesn't have too many expectations about what we should be doing this weekend, but I'm so sad for him to miss his class Halloween party tomorrow and trick-or-treating. To top it off he's completely Ferris Bueller when he's sick. Totally sweet and pathetic and it's heartbreaking.

When Did He Grow to Be So Tall?

I don't know if the first day of kindergarten makes other parents play an infinite loop of Sunrise Sunset over and over again in their heads for weeks preceeding, but it does for me. What the hell happened to time? How can Liam being starting kindergarten tomorrow, when he was just a six pound three ounce baby in my arms a couple years ago? Two years tops. Every single day of his life I have been so in love with him, so amazed by him and who he is. From the moment he was born he has been thoughtful, calm, gentle, engaging, spiritual. A poet scientist. An old soul. Eric and I have joked (sort of) that since some have said they might look for the next Dalai Lama in the U.S. they should stop by our house. I have no idea how I got so lucky to have this kid. When we brought him to the doctor for his first appointment, he was 6 days old. It was freezing, and my mom had totally freaked me out asking me why we would be bringing a tiny baby out in that weather to a doctor where there could be sick people. Eric had to call them a least a few time to make me assured that it was the right thing to do. The doctor, who was just a month out from retiring, who had presumably seen at least thousands of babies, first said, "Hmm, that can't be right" and he had the nurse re-weigh him. Liam left the hospital four days earlier weighing 5lbs 12 oz. Tiny, but fit as a fiddle, no jaundice or anything even though he was born in December. Now, 4 days later the nurse said he weighed 6lbs 10 oz. She re-weighed him without his diaper and he weighed 6 lbs 7 ounces. The doctor was impressed. I was worried. "Is that ok, is something wrong with that?" "No, not at all. It's great but usually they don't gain weight so quickly. He must be a breastfeeding pro." And then the doctor did his exam. And about a minute into it, as he looked at Liam and Liam calmly, thoughtfully looked back at him, the doctor turned to us and said, "He has a remarkable disposition. I am serious. You don't know how many parents would do anything to have a baby like this. You are very lucky." Now maybe he said that to every set of new parents, but he was 100% right. And I know everyone thinks their kid is amazing and perfect, but I also know that Liam is awesome and special and I am so lucky. And I am happy for him to be starting kindergarten because he loves learning and playing, but I am sad for me because I love being with him. And honestly ever since Aidan was born there has been so much sleep deprivation (not all because of him) but anyway I just haven't had enough energy to make the most of my time with Liam, and now I will have less of it. I knew I would be sad but I didn't know it would be the kind of sad that comes in waves and pushes my heart into my throat and makes my eyes well up with tears even while I'm at the public service desk at work. To help myself through this I either think about how I spent approximately 1.63 million hours searching in vain for a superhero backpack for him that promised not to be full of lead and razor blades, and then we looked at the 11 backpacks that did have such a claim but were all ugly, and then he agreed to get an outer-space-themed crocodile creek backpack this is made in China but says it's safe and their company has never had a recall. And now I am sewing some superhero patches on it and he is happy. Or I picture him sitting at the kindergerten snacktime, spreading brie cheese on little wheat crackers and drinking pomegranite juice, and that makes me happy. (For the record I won't be sending that snack with him to school, but it is one he likes.)
At least, for now, he is still small.

Train Crashes and Tornados and Teething - Oh My!

I think Led Zeppelin says it best, "I'm having a nervous breakdown, drive me insane." Unfortunately in my case it's not a cute girl induced nervous breakdown, it's more the stress of the random and not so random weirdness that seems to come with life as you get older. Which, btw, I realized lately that I no longer really feel old, the way I did when I was 28 or 29. And that is because I've realized that back then I WAS old, for a young person. But now I am YOUNG, for a middle-aged person. And somehow that brings me comfort. Anyway, here are some pictures from the tornado. I was at work when it hit, evacuating people to the safe area, thinking it was probably not much of anything. But as soon as I pulled out of the garage to head home, I could tell something had definitely happened. Huge old trees were toppled all over the place, and I had to vary my route a few times. (And a. I love love love weather excitement and b. I hate that seriously at least half, if not more of, the old trees in my neighborhood have been lost now, do to weather or illness. bummer.) When I got home there were people outside milling around, inspecting the damage, even though it was dark and the power was out. Fortunately my power came back on the next day (thanks in part to my brother who works at ComED) but we did lose a refrigerator's worth of food and had some damage to the garage and the yard.








Here's the aftermath of the brush cut up:


And here is a picture of Liam with his sunflowers, that were getting pretty tall before the damn tree fell on them and smooshed them. As God is his witness, He'll plant again!! (fist shaking toward the heavens)