fin

I've been contemplating this off and on for months now and I've made up my mind.

I'm finished here.

I've loved blogging, truly. This blog has been the only record I've kept of family events, children milestones, and daily life. For SEVEN YEARS I've posted here, and I'm so very glad I did. Not only because of the record, but also because of all the wonderful folks I've connected with because of it. Ya'll are some great people. Thanks for sharing yourselves with me through comments, emails, and fellow blogs.

Life has gotten more busy than I can handle most days. I want to keep on recording, but I also feel the need to be less public as my children get older. I've got another record I'm keeping not on the web, and that's where I'll keep writing in the few minutes I can find anymore.

Maybe I'll regret this in a week or a month or a year. And then maybe I'll come back, but for now I felt like I wanted some closure on this. Thanks, all you good and kindly internet natives. It's been swell.

Photo by Calum

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adrenaline injection

I pulled TWO all-nighters this week which is exactly one more than I did throughout all of college. Go me!

Last night I conducted an all night wildlife survey for work. But Christmas Eve was my more noteworthy all-nighter.

Here's the short story: Emmett accidentally ate a bit of a peanut on Christmas Eve. He had a full-blown anaphylactic reaction that landed us in the ER all night. He was wheezing, had angry red and bright white hives from head to toe, low blood pressure, and he vomited vomited VOMITED. (There was a lot of vomit involved.) (A LOT.)

OH YOU GUYS.

It really did stink.

Emmett is fine. At about 4am, I convinced the ER doctor to let us go home. She wanted him to stay a while longer but my logic ("I've got three other kids at home and it's Christmas morning and I just might be able to salvage it if we can get into bed for an hour and I promise not to let him out of my sight... like, EVER AGAIN") swayed her to let us head home.

It takes a lot of effort to put Christmas together for four young children. None of that mattered at all, truly. At about 2am, Brett & I texted about post-poning Christmas for a day. But Emmett was ok and I just wanted to be together on Christmas morning. We got that wish.

This was our ONLY photo of Christmas, the kids waiting to come down the stairs. Doesn't Emmett look totally unscathed? I felt the opposite of unscathed. I usually take pictures on Christmas morning but I was so dazed and confused and trying very hard to figure out where I'd put my coffee last.

There is so much I should say about this particular experience. Since there hasn't been a good reason for great caution, we've approached the whole peanut allergy condition casually. I don't know what to say now. I can't bring myself to think about it too much. Now that we know what can happen... I just...

Ugh.

So instead, here's a few memorable points from the experience:

- I gave my first epinephrine injection. Very easy to deliver but also very easy to hesitate and convince yourself not to do it. (I could use an adrenaline injection right now and we DO have another one left...)

- Cal slept through the whole ordeal, including Emmett vomiting in his bed and our turning the lights on to clean up. The next morning, Cal was all "hey Emmett, why weren't you in your bed?" and Emmett was like, "DUDE I was at the HOSPITAL."

- Anaphylactic reactions don't necessarily happen right away. Did you know that? We did not. Things turned bad for Emmett between two and four hours post-exposure.

- I'd do anything for this boy.

Yet I cannot seem to grasp that this is a serious thing. I should say more but I don't even know how to begin.

He is ok. I'll leave it at that.

'twas the night

You know kids just love about Christmas Eve? That it NEVER ENDS.

Our game time for Christmas starts late afternoon/ early evening on Christmas Eve. It's only a few more hours but in kid-before-Christmas time that's like TWO MORE WEEKS to wait.

While we wait I'll take a moment to point out that I am the mother of a SEVEN-year-old. I'm guessing that the oldest child's birthdays are always sort of jarring to parents. Seven! SEVEN! And to think, only two years ago I was exclaiming, "Five! FIVE!"

We had a birthday party last weekend with six of his little school buddies; they came to our house for three hours. The day before the party I kept thinking, "Three hours?! What was I thinking?" But it turned out SO great. 

The kids were polite, they were nice to each other, they listened... I'm telling you: seven-year-olds rock.

Tonight we'll gather with all the little cousins to kick off Christmas. Santa is going to make a visit (this particular Santa looks an awful lot like my parents' neighbor) and remind the kids to go to bed good tonight.

I reminded Willa that Santa is coming tonight and she replied, "Yeah and I WON'T spit or pee on him." So we can all stop worrying about that.

Merry Christmas all you good folks of the internets!

before, after

I wrote the post below exactly 24 hours before the events at Sandy Hook Elementary. I took the post down a day later.

I read it now and it sounds worse than naive. It sounds ignorant. Flippant. I cringe at my own ability, just days ago, to laugh at my interpretation of the word intruder as Aunt Rooter.

But it was only last week that this all seemed so unnecessary. It was only last week, I asserted that such drills did more harm than good to young minds. It was only last week. The world was different.

I read this now and it makes my chest hurt. I’m relieved, I’m glad my 5- and 6-year-old children do intruder drills at school, and that’s the saddest statement I can make about parenting in today’s age.

There’s so much noise. So much media repetition, so much trying, trying to explain it, to make sense of it. The noise makes me uncomfortable, it feels irreverent. But hidden in the noise are some good discussions, rapidly taking shape, about gun safety, mental health care, exposure to graphically violent media. There also seems to be a worry that the shock of this will fade with the headlines, but I don’t think so. It won’t fade quickly, not for me, not for anyone I know. Time creates distance, sure, but this will remain sharp in our memories for a lifetime.

So I’m republishing the post below because I want to remember: it was only last week that we could earnestly look our children in the eye and believe ourselves as we told them that they are safe. It was only last week. We can be that way again. Not anytime soon and not without real, complex, difficult change. But life can be like it was, just last week, for our children.

Or maybe it's a fairy tale I'm telling myself. But suddenly, like last week, that reality is unbearable so I choose to hope.

aunt rooter drills

For about two weeks, Cal would NOT STOP peppering me with dark and disturbing questions like, "When the bad guys come into our school, we're going to hide in the corner away from the door or under our desks, but where do we hide from bad guys at home?" And, "Where's our safe place to meet up when the bad guys come and we all have to run away?"

I was all, "WHEN DID YOU TURN SO MORBID?" Golly.

One night last week, Cal and Emmett were talking about school and Aunt Rooter? I wasn't sure who she was but she seemed to have made QUITE the impression at school; these boys were darned excited about her. Emmett was telling Cal that when The Aunt Rooter came, he was in gym class and he hid behind a tree. Cal praised Emmett, "Great job, Em! That's what you're SUPPOSED to do if Aunt Rooters come when you're outside!"

I was very confused.

Cal unearthed my old boxing stuff from my previous life. He loves punching the paddles.

"What are you guys talking about?"

"Aunt Rooter drills, Mom. Aunt Rooter drills at school today," they explained like DUH. My mind was picturing a tough old woman who was teaching children to use power tools.

Or, this is what I was hearing since I had NO CONTEXT in my mind for what they were actually saying: INTRUDER DRILLS.

My children have INTRUDER DRILLS AT SCHOOL.

Ok, ok. OK OK OK. I get it. Right? This is America. Home of the free and the brave and the heavily armed. I'm not naive to all of it but this detail of our reality hit me like a sucker punch.

ONE: I wished the school had warned us so at least I would have been prepared for Cal's questions every evening.

TWO: If schools are doing intruder drills district-wide, could they at least call them something ELSE, at least at the Elementary Schools? Like "Purple Drill" or something? And teach the kids what to do during a Purple Drill, or a Purple Incident, prepare them without educating them so?

I told him I'd take his picture and he struck this pose. Tough guy. Watch out Aunt Rooter.