My Wednesday — A Chronology

1. Woke up early and decided it would be a good day to get some things crossed off the “To Do” list.

2. Agreed to let the two-year-old sit in a booster seat for breakfast instead of in the high chair.

3. Served banana slices, mini pancakes and a sippy cup of milk to the two-year-old and cereal with rice milk to the six-year-old for breakfast.

4. Left the rice milk and box of cereal sitting on the table.

5. Answered the phone and walked around the corner from the dining room into the kitchen enabling children to have unsupervised breakfast time.

6. While talking on the phone, remembered the reason grocery shopping shouldn’t have been skipped on Tuesday — friend’s baby was born and dinner needed to be prepared for new baby’s family.

7. Rifled through recipe box and pantry after hanging up phone trying to plan a meal that wouldn’t involve a grocery run, giving previously mentioned children two additional unsupervised minutes.

8. Gave up and started a grocery list before returning to dining room giving afore mentioned children another three unsupervised minutes.

9. Returned to the dining room to find two-year-old sitting on top of the table with mashed banana slices in his hair, sitting in approximately one quart of spilled rice milk and the entire contents of a just-opened box of cereal while trying to fish his toy race car out of the six-year-old’s cereal bowl with his toes and a fork. Found six-year-old under the table sticking Disney Princess stickers on the cat as the cat attempted to catch spilled milk dripping through the table leaves.

10. Cleaned up mess, finished breakfast and added the following to grocery list: Rice milk, gluten-free cereal, bananas, shampoo for steam cleaner, cat food, straight jackets in size 2T and 5T (Memo: Never ever buy stickers again).

11. Allowed 2-year-old to play cars while completing homeschool curriculum for the day with 6-year-old. Worked out menu for friend’s dinner: Roasted Stuffed Acorn Squash, Fall Apple Salad, Crusty Herb Bread and Cinnamon Rolls. Decided to try new apple salad recipe off of internet. Wrote ingredients on grocery list and bookmarked website instead of printing it out.

12. Allowed 2-year-old to bring toy car into the store and 6-year-old to bring a clipboard and pen into the store. Failed to notice the clipboard had approximately 1/2 a ream of paper clipped to it.

13. Spent 5 minutes in produce department picking up fourty-leven-bajillion sheets of paper while muttering about how much time we were wasting and how much stuff there was to do, inadvertently inspiring the 6-year-old to “help” get the shopping done fast. Result: An avalanche of apples. (Why does she always pick the one on the bottom corner of the display?) Spent another 5 minutes in the produce department picking up an orchard’s-worth of apples with a disgruntled grocery clerk.

14. Added next six items from list to shopping cart (including one dozen eggs) without incident when 2-year-old began screaming that his toy car was missing. Spent 10 minutes looking for toy car. Gave up — inspiring more screaming at higher decibels.

15. Failed to notice proximity of eggs in cart to 2-year-old. Watched in immobilized horror as 2-year-old flung them from the cart in the throes of his missing-toy-car grief. Spent another 5 minutes hunting down a clerk to notify about the egg incident. Only clerk to be found was the same clerk from the produce section. He was not amused.

16. Finally crossed last item off list. Decided two throw in a bottle apple cider on a whim. Left grocery store approximately thirty minutes later than planned.

17. Got home, put squash in the oven to start roasting for friend’s dinner, rushed children through lunch, put 2-year-old down for a nap. Took squash out of the oven and tried not to have a panic attack when two of the squash had the texture of stringy pumpkins. Wasted five minutes contemplating the end of the world. Salvaged them by running them through the food processor with acorn squash puree from the freezer. Finished recipe, stuffed squash shells and put them back in the oven.

18. Mixed dough for bread and cinnamon rolls and left it to rise. Went downstairs to print recipe for apple salad. Banged head on desk when website was found to be down. Wasted 10 minutes trying to find a similar recipe. Gave up. Emailed recipe author hoping for a miracle. Decided to check website later or “wing it” on the salad.

19. Started apple cider mulling on the stovetop, played Playdough with 6-year-old while the bread dough finished rising. Rolled out and cut cinnamon rolls. Put herb bread in oven and went downstairs to check salad website while 6 year-old made Playdough versions of cinnamon rolls. Salad website was still down.

20. Returned to dining room table and spent next 5 minutes fishing Playdough cinnamon rolls out of buttered baking pans.

21. Set cinnamon rolls aside to rise, took roasted acorn squash out of oven and transferred to aluminum foil pans. Tried not to think about the time. Made frosting for cinnamon rolls. Checked website again. Still down.

22. Took herb bread out of oven and put cinnamon rolls in. Boxed up squash pans and herb bread. Checked website again. Fainted with relief to find it back up. Printed recipe and put salad together.

23. Took cinnamon rolls out of the oven. Poured cider into a pitcher and frosted cinnamon rolls while husband walked in the door. Begged him to print out directions to friend’s house and call to let them know dinner was running a little late. Packed boxes snugly in back of the minivan with the pitcher of cider tightly wedged into the corner.

24. Contemplated moving the pitcher of cider to the front seat where it could be monitored. Decided it was fine where it was.

25. Went back inside for purse and heard two-year-old awakened from nap and yelling for “MOMMY!” Hurried back out to the van. Realized directions had been forgotten inside. Weighed consequences of going back for them against benefits of having directions. Decided directions were optional.

26. Pulled out of driveway and turned first corner. Heard a slosh.

27. Stopped on a slight hill. Put on parking break, but not hard enough. Dashed around to back of van in a delusional attempt to rescue the cider.

28. Kicked self while staring at the now horizontal and completely empty apple cider pitcher. Asked self if the van appeared to be moving.

29. Stopped asking self if van was moving and started racing van down the slight incline which van seemed to be using as a ski slope. Tried not to think about how the scene looked like a clip from a Charlie Chaplin movie. Jumped into van and slammed parking break all the way down just as van hopped the curb.

30. Backed van off the curb while passing motorists honked and waved in mirth. Got out to close the back door and check for damage. No damage noted, save for a giant bruise above right knee and even more seriously bruised ego.

31. Resumed delivery route and allowed spilled cider to marinate while driving in circles through friend’s neighborhood hoping that something would eventually look familiar.

32. Arrived at friend’s house 15 minutes later with absolutely no idea of how destination was obtained.

33. Delivered meal to friend’s family who was deeply grateful in spite of tardy delivery and missing apple cider. Returned to cider-scented minivan and contemplated complete absence of any notion of how to get home.

34. Remembered stack of dishes in sink, rice-milk saturated dining room carpet, Playdough covered table and minivan incident that would require re-telling to a husband who was still waiting for his dinner.

35. Decided that sometimes being lost isn’t such a bad thing.

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While these aren’t the best shots from a photography standpoint, they are still my best shots for other reasons — the reasons that matter.

This was all their idea…

They claimed to be “Kitty Finders” — complete with safari gear and Disney Princess backpack. Because, you know, what kind of a safari would it have been without a complete Disney Princess entourage, a tutu, and total disregard for proper footwear?

These are the kinds of moments I want to wrap up and keep forever…

And thanks to a little video clip, I can!

Note: If you are viewing this post in a reader, you may not be able to view the video clip. Click the post title above to be connected directly to this post to view the video.

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The topic for this month is coping and hope for the future — Share something about hope or coping from your experiences. It might be something you have learned or that you are trying to learn. It might be something that inspires you and helps you keep holding on. I’m looking forward to seeing what you have to share this month…

(For carnival rules and information click here.)

A touch of blue. You might not see it, but I do. It was there then, it’s there now.

Even when everything is going “well,” it’s there. Always will be. That little question mark, that doubt, that worry, that “what if…”

See that photo above? I remember the day well — a sunny day in late spring, when the warmth in air the begins hinting of summer. A baby out enjoying the lovely weather, such a carefree moment!

Oh, but it wasn’t.

Hours and hours of planning were required to get her out on that lawn, beginning the night before. Her continuous tube feeding rate was cautiously turned up, just a tad — enough to compensate for the time she would be outside, but not so much as to trigger her reflux. Her feeding had to be turned off at least an hour before going outside as well because if she was moved too soon after stopping the feeding, she would throw up. We couldn’t really afford for her to lose feedings — her weight gain was barely satisfactory as it was. Then there was the filter to cap off her trach. That couldn’t be put on until at least an hour-and-a half after the tube feeding stopped or she would gag and lose her feeding from that too. She needed to have the filter on before going outside. So much hassle to accomplish such a simple thing!

But we did it anyway. Because we needed to. We both needed the fresh air. We both needed some light that wasn’t generated by a glass bulb.

So after hours of effort, there we were. Sitting on the grass, squinting at the light. Doing something “normal”. Something that other families take for granted without a second thought.

I snapped off a few precious shots with my camera, knowing it would be a while before such an effort would be undertaken again. As the camera clicked, there it was. That touch of blue. See it? Right there under her arm. It is the blue strap to her heart rate monitor. The one that I didn’t dare take off before coming outside for fear that the maneuvering required to get it off of her before going outdoors or onto her when coming back indoors would be too much for her. She would have to have it back on when she came in for a nap, so it didn’t make sense to take it off. On it stayed, peeking out just the tiniest bit in each of my “normal” photographs to remind me just how very far from normal we really were.

I used to resent it. In some of our photos, I photo-shopped such things out. I used to tell myself that it wasn’t fair, that Jacqui and Ken and I deserved “normal” as much as anyone else — in some cases maybe more, because we would appreciate it and understand its worth.

Well, we still have those touches of blue — scars, G-tubes, foods that have to be avoided, care that has to be taken, “what if’s” that will always be.

But I don’t try to photo-shop our life into someone else’s “normal” anymore, because in doing so I miss the now.

When I look back at that set of photos now, I wish something. I wish that I hadn’t spent so many of those precious minutes trying to get a camera angle where I didn’t see a trach or a heart-rate monitor belt. Not that I don’t treasure these pictures — I mean, I believed then and I believe now that it will be important to Jacqui some day to have some photos like this one where the medical aspects of her life aren’t so front and center. I’m glad to have them — but I wish I had known then how to relax just a little bit. That I had put down the camera a little earlier than I did and started snapping moments with the lens of my heart instead.

I have learned that this is our life, and it’s a good life. There will always be those touches of blue, those “might-have-beens,” those “what-ifs,” those things that no one else sees or knows that remind me of how close we came to losing her, how we could lose her yet. But that is not where I want to focus my lens. I want to zoom in on the smiles, the giggles, the light in the eyes, the lilt in the voice because that touch of blue is a maybe — but those other things, they are the here and now. I cannot afford to trade them for “what-ifs.”

What About You? What would you like to share this month?

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When did it happen?

When did she get so tall? So graceful? So grown-up?

I’ve been watching. Paying attention. Soaking up every second so as to not miss a one, but it still happened. She has grown tall and lovely and graceful and I am left wondering. During which of the seconds when I blinked did she made the leap?

And while my eyes glow with gladness over the young lady she is becoming, my heart is overjoyed to note that she hasn’t outgrown her childlike whimsy for pairing stripey tights with hiking shoes and tutus.

If only life could be lived without blinking…

“There is a garden in every childhood, an enchanted place where colors are brighter, the air softer, and the morning more fragrant than ever again.”

~Elizabeth Lawrence

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Ladies and Gentlemen — Introducing my first ever guest blogger…

“Daddy…. will you marry me someday?”

A phrase I’ve heard many times. Most often I come back with a truthful and loving answer. “I’d love to be in your wedding someday, Sweetheart.” But today that just wouldn’t do. I had to get creative and think quickly, because brutal honesty is certainly not acceptable to a 5 year old.

I’m also just not quite ready to have her let go of whatever wonderful childhood idea she has in her head about her wedding day. No need for her to realize anytime soon that wedding days are anything more than just a day where she’ll get to wear a pretty dress and be a princess.

Thankfully, I was able to think quickly today (something I’m not generally good at midway through a Saturday flying solo with the two monkeys). I came back with, “I’d love to walk you down the aisle some day, Sweetheart.” And that was acceptable to her. All she wanted to hear. A hug and kiss, and she was running off to swing some more.

I got lucky with my answer. No need to shatter innocence today and no need for me to think any further about the someday when I will walk her down the aisle. With any luck at all that’ll be another 15 or 20 years away. Plenty of more wonderful moments between now and then.

That will be a wonderful moment too, but for now, I think I’ll just enjoy the sweet kisses of my 5-year-old little girl.

Anyway, by now I’m sure you’ve all figured out that this isn’t Michelle writing this one. It’s Ken — the Dad to two wonderful little monkeys.

(Editor’s Note: Ken and I have been joking about his threats to hi-jack my blog and I recently told him if he wanted to write a post I would put it up — uncensored. He read me this one out loud Saturday night after I got off work and I must admit, I was expecting something much more comical. Not a post that would send me into hyper-ventilating-teary-eyed mode. As soon as I could breathe again, I joked that it wasn’t quite his typical tongue-in-cheek comedy that I am so much more used to.

He gave me a comical grin and responded, “Well, I did have to end the day with the phrase, “Stop licking the cat!”"

Ah, now that’s the Ken and Jacqui I know!)

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