What a day!

Where to start?  I'm tempted to start at the beginning as it seems that would be the norm but I think I better start at the point that Aaron came home from school.

Aaron walks in the door and the first words out of his mouth are, "Mom, I think I broke my hand."  I stared at him in utter disbelief and figured he must be joking, this from the kid that broke both his left and then his right arm within 6 months of each other.  It must be a joke.  Nope, wrist swollen and not moving well.  Sigh.  Well, with football practice tomorrow and the swelling looking all to familiar we needed to get it x-rayed.  Now if I'd been a first time mom or maybe even the first broken arm I might have rushed us to the emergency room.  Oh no not this time.  I gave Aaron the ice pack and told him to sit with it while I finished getting dinner in the oven and set up Elsa and Wayne to go to a friends house.  I laughed as I gave Aaron the ice pack because it wasn't very cold anymore but it would do.  Why was it not cold any more you might ask? Well we have to go to a little earlier in the day to when Elsa was using it.

Elsa's school lets out right around the same time Wayne wants to nap.  So I run into a small dilemma with logistics on what to do about nap and pick-up time.  Today, Wayne had  a couple buddies over to play this morning and so nap was even later because I got to visit with my friends as well!  Wayne didn't end up falling asleep for nap until 20 minutes before I had to get Elsa.  Thankfully my friend and neighbor, Shelley, was able to come sit at the house while I rode my bike to the school to get Elsa, her bike is locked up at the school.  Elsa loves it when I'm able to ride my bike with her.  She is very good on her bike but it is a fairly new bike and has gears.  We ride the short distance from school to home on the neighborhood streets.  She follows behind me with a big smile plastered across her face.  This is the time she gets to ride much faster then when we go to school and Wayne is riding also and I'm running along behind with the dogs.

The ride home is mostly downhill until we turn right onto our street which is then a somewhat steep uphill climb.  On the downhill portion we try to get going fairly fast so that we have some momentum for the uphill. I turned right onto our street and headed uphill, looked back and Elsa was starting up behind me.  There was an old small pick-up truck parked on the side, I didn't think anything of it until I heard the crunch.  Awful sound.  I look back and Elsa is splayed across the pavement, next to the truck, with her bike on her leg.  The crying hasn't started yet it's the look on her face that got me.  It's that look of a huge cry is going to come out but she just can't muster enough air yet.  And there it is.

Okay, I have to give myself some credit here.  I've impressed myself with how much I've learned in the 12 years that I've been a parent.  I did not panic that in it's self is a major feat for a mom.  Next I assessed her, another major feat, I did not turn into mama bear rush over and scoop her up.  I talked with her while I parked my bike on the side of the road.  Now I've learned with Elsa that it is usually more about being embarrassed than being hurt.  I looked over all her appendages and nothing was pointing the wrong way and no blood was showing so I asked her if she could get up.  Oh yes she could get up and if it wasn't for me saying no she would have run the rest of the way home and hid in the house!

"No Elsa you need to help with your bike."  Another big feat for mom.  I could have walked both my bike and hers, we were only a few houses away from ours, but I knew she needed to get past the embarrassment and not abandon her bike.  Home we continued.  Unbeknownst to Elsa, Shelley is sitting at the house since Wayne is down for a nap.  In the house we went and Elsa took one look at Shelley and ran to the bathroom.  Another feat for mom, I sat down and visited with Shelley while Elsa composed herself.  Now this might seem somewhat uncaring but again with Elsa she usually just needs some alone time to get over it.

Shelley and I sat and visited for a while and oh-ed and ah-ed at her 3 month old baby who was all smiles and loved listening to us.  While we were talking Wayne woke up and came out to sit with us.  Elsa was not ready.  I said my thank yous to Shelley and she headed home.  Off to the bathroom to check on Elsa.  To Elsa's credit she took the time in the bathroom to clean up the scratches on her leg from her bike petal.  Looked good really, sore but no real damage done.  I set her and Wayne up in daddy's recliner to watch a show while she sat with the cold ice pack.

So where were we with Aaron?  Oh yes, an hour later Aaron is sitting on my recliner with the 'lukecold' ice pack.  Like I said before, I was not going to rush off to the emergency room and gosh darn it I was going to get dinner in the oven!  Aaron sat on the recliner while Elsa and Wayne got their socks and shoes on since, for as far as they were concerned, this was great they were going to get to go play at a friends house!  I called Shelley again and asked if they could come over.  Wayne got to play with his buddy again, I'll get to Wayne's part of the day last.   After walking the kids to Shelley's I came back home and finished getting my chili in the oven.  Thank goodness I was trying a new recipe that cooked for a long time in the oven.  Off Aaron and I went to immediate care.

The lady at the counter checking Aaron in must have thought I was nuts.  She asks what the problem is and I just start chuckling with tears in my eyes.  Then she asks if he needs and ice pack!  I think I confirmed at that point that I was indeed nuts.  Long story short, (I guess to late for that!  Maybe it should be long story even longer.) Aaron's arm was not broken, thank goodness, but sprained  and we now have a new brace to add to the collection.  On a side note, Santa works as an x-ray technician in the off season.

Since I started this story in the middle lets go ahead and conclude this story with the beginning.  On Mondays I watch my friends little boy, James, who is few months younger than Wayne.  It so happened that Shelley called me in the morning after she saw Wayne and I returning from dropping Elsa off at school.  She was calling to invite Wayne over to play with her little boy, Jackson, who is also a few months younger than Wayne.  Instead I invited her to bring Jackson over to play with Wayne and James.  So 9 AM was the start of my insanity, three almost three year old boys together in one house.

Jackson was over already when Jeni brought James over.  As Jeni and I were talking at the door we see Wayne with his large fire truck in one hand and his Thomas the train carrier in his other hand headed to the kitchen with Jackson following behind saying 'train, train, train'.  Jackson came to tell me he wanted to play with the trains Wayne was carrying.  It seems Wayne was quite happy to show his friends all his toys and how he plays with them but as far as he is concerned they can just watch!  I told Jackson I'd help him in just a minute after I finished talking to Jeni.  To our surprise Jackson followed Wayne into the kitchen and came out with the train carrier.  No yelling, no crying, nothing, wow I think I'm still in shock.

The morning progressed and other than the complete disaster that three boys can make there were no injuries, no crying, little to no fighting.  It was a very good morning.  Jeni returned to get James and while we were talking Wayne inadvertently decided to entertain us.  Wayne came out of the play room with his sisters red sparkly ballet skirt over his pants and the matching leotard pulled over his head asking for help.  Leotards are of course not meant to go on over the head.  Wayne had pulled it down so that the neck was around his waist, his head was through one of the legs, his left arm was through the other leg leaving his right arm pinned to his side.  If I could have stopped laughing long enough I'd have a picture to share! So this is the image I'll leave you with.

April Blues

March 20, 2012

April always sneaks up on me and surprises me.  I’m not good at remembering dates but like clockwork around this time of year I start thinking about Sean and his mom Eve, both of whom I miss dearly.  Sean died in April 2004 when he was 8 weeks old.  He would have been 8 years old this year.  I still carry his obituary in my purse and can’t bring myself to take it out.  This year it seems to be affecting me a lot worse maybe because of it being the first anniversary of Jack’s death as well.  I feel the need to tell the store maybe in a few years I can tell Jack’s story too.  Since I don’t really feel like it is my story to tell I’ve changed names though it is certainly the story from my perspective.

            Eve and I meet while going to school together for computer programming in 2001.  That was a year, 2001, to me it was the beginning of the end for many things.  The school we were going to went bankrupt and the state of Oregon took over the curriculum to finish our schooling.  We really started to connect as friends when we were carpooling to school after that state took over.  We then also started exercising together and going on outings.  Our friendship continued long after school was done and through my separation and divorce. 

In the summer of 2003 we decided to go on a diet together and take regular walks to get exercise.  After a while she started complaining that she was just hungry all the time and couldn't understand why she wasn't losing weight.  It must have been around September when we were walking on the beach and she told me her breasts were really sore and she didn’t know why.  When I think back it’s really funny.  You know how when you’re watching a movie and you see a woman complaining about things and you think oh she’s pregnant.  Well it doesn’t work that way in real life.  Eve and Ben had been trying to have a baby for many years and had finally gotten to a point where they thought it just wasn't going to happen.  None of us were thinking she might be pregnant.

All the symptoms she was complaining about were pregnancy related.  She finally went to the doctor around the end of the month because of odd feelings in her abdomen, first baby movements she thought were just a bad case of gas.  Turned out she was already estimated to be 5 months along.  She called me first.  We both laughed and cried.  We relived 5 months of pregnancy in 1 day!

Later as her pregnancy progressed and she was now obviously pregnant she asked me to be on call for the delivery in case she needed a woman with her.  I didn't end up attending the delivery.  I was elated just to be asked; honestly I think my overly enthusiastic yes overwhelmed her a bit.  I tried to make sure she knew that if she needed me I’d be there in an instant but if she didn’t need me there then I’d be sending good thoughts her way.  Either way I would do what she needed and be happy to do so.

Sean was born Feb 12th 2004.  Eve was so happy to be a mom and loving being home with Sean.  The last few days of March Sean got sick nothing that worried anyone it just seemed like some minor congestion.  She and I talked a lot.  I offered to help with clearing his nose since I'd had a lot of experience with Aaron but she declined.  I’ve thought about that a lot and wondered if it would have done any good anyways.  The simple things our minds cling to, the ‘if onlys’.  Would anything have changed the outcome?  Probably not.

April 1st she called me, I was driving with Aaron in the backseat.  I pulled over because I knew something was very wrong.  Aaron, almost 4 at the time, chose that moment to start screaming so I got out of the car so I could hear her while Aaron literally screamed in the back of the car.  Sean had stopped breathing when he was sleeping.  She tried to resuscitate him until the paramedics arrived.  They were able to get him to the hospital where he was put on life support.

I keep thinking this has to be some horrible horrible April Fool's joke.  Thank god I didn't say that to her.   She didn't want anyone at the hospital quite yet so I waited.  In those first few days I brought food for Ben and Eve.  Ben would meet me at the front desk and talk.  He was so positive that Sean would recover.  His manor was that of a dad just waiting for things to resolve so that he could take his son and wife home.  It was uplifting, maybe things would turn out fine.  

After a couple of days I was able to go in an see Sean.   He looked like a very sad little doll.  I was almost sick.  It was so awful.  I was scared to touch him because my impulse was to just scoop him up on hold him tight.  I didn't want to see him just lying there with all the tubes and machines not moving.  Babies are not supposed to be so still.  Eve and Ben were going through such an awful ordeal.  Ordeal isn't a strong enough word.  Sean was brain dead and only alive because of the machines.  Ben was still so sure that he would get better but I could see that Eve was starting to accept the reality of things.  After a few more days there was a very dramatic shift in Ben’s attitude and demeanor, the reality had set in.

On April 9th they took Sean off life support and he passed away in his mother’s arms.  On the 8^th Eve had called me to let me know they had made the decision to take him off life support.  It would of course be just family, her, Ben and her parents at the hospital.  She then called me on the 9^th after he passed.  I was at work (CorVel) at the time and just about had a complete breakdown in office.  Hazel helped get me out of the office and heading home.  

Eve had asked for my help with getting some of the baby stuff out of her house but then decided against it.  She didn't want anyone over and I respected her wishes.  She was adamant that she and Ben needed to grieve through this together so that it didn't pull them apart and I absolutely agree so I respected their space.  I was really worried about them but prayed that they would grow stronger together.  They had been considering moving before all of this and took the opportunity to make a fresh start.  Unfortunately, she also withdrew from everything around here including me.  I miss her terribly and wish I knew where she was at.  I believe they are somewhere in Texas but that is all she told me.