proud

I would like to take this opportunity to publicly acknowledge my amazing partner for her massive accomplishment.

Sandi is a mere 3 tests away from having completed the didactic portion of her training to be a nurse anesthetist. She has been commuting to Portland (2 hours away) since the end of August, has multiplied her brain cells ad infinitum, has known the true strength of her heart strings as she has had them yanked and heaved on a daily basis, has missed nearly every fun thing that has happened and has had her head buried in a book during the most spectacular spring Maine has ever known.

She is trooper in the very sense of the word.

It turns out there is a lot to know when putting people to sleep- or as they joke, "Any monkey can put people to sleep. It's waking them back up again that is hard."  Sandi can tell you all you want to know about the coagulation cascade, the minutia of each anesthetic agent and the fine detail of how each part of the respiratory system works in concert to keep you alive.  Okay, that one she probably could have told you last year and I'm reaching here because I don't understand a fraction of what she tells me.  It is like over dinner now she speaks Swahili and I nod politely and ask her to pass the ketchup.

Part of the reason I am bragging prematurely about her giant accomplishment is that when she comes home Thursday night, having moved all of her things back home and start and real and true VACATION like none she has had since she started, I will not be around to blog about it.  This family is packing up and hitting the road to go have some fun- not for just 4 or 5 hours but for the entire three day overlap between school vacation and Sandi's vacation.

Where are we going, you ask?  Well, Portland of course. 

No worries we won't be going near UNE and hopefully not near any coagulation cascades.  Portland is where all the fun, cityish things are in our state.  Not to mention the Green Elephant vegetarian bistro. 

Meanwhile, in other news of pride, Ella now reads chapter books to herself.  She has caught the reading bug (from me I believe) and she seems to understand how incredibly fun it is to read to YOURSELF.  Especially when it is that hilarious Junnie B. Jones getting herself into a world of trouble.

My studious girls hard at work the other night:



Lest you get all excited that Sandi is now home for good and there is no longer need for concern over my mental stability, after her generous week off, Sandi begins 18 months of clinical rotations.  She is starting her at our local hospital which means she will be sleeping at home every night.  Eventually she will have to do some rotations at more distant hospitals for weeks to months as a time but we aren't talking about that right now.

I'm hoping clinicals mean home for supper most nights, but from what we can gather, Sandi is going to be spending some seriously long hours at the hospital (she has to do 45 hours anesthesia hours per week plus hours of prep and study on each end of the day and study for the advanced anesthesia course she will be taking) and we are told that in many ways clincals are harder than the didactic portion regarding your time. 

Translation: no summer tan for Sandi this week.  On the plus side, no premature aging either. 

I am so damn proud of my hard working, smarty pants, nose to the grindstone woman. And, yes, I am researching remote tropical destinations for our reward when it is all over and she have a job again.

Happy Easter!

In lieu of Easter pictures, I am posting this video Sandi made of the kids' Easter morning/egg hunt/visit with their cousins. Ella asked Sandi to make a video as a thank you to the Easter Bunny. Ella wrote him a note telling him we would leave the computer up and asking him to watch it.

Sandi tried some artsy effects on the video and worked on it in the car on the way to my sister's house. She doesn't have much time right now considering that this week and next week are finals for her in Portland, but she tries to do the things the kids ask of her, thus the Easter video I thought I would share with all of you.

playing ambulance

On Wednesday when I put Maya to bed, I was sighing with relief. 

She had been cranky and willful all day and I had had to carry her kicking and screaming out of Ella's school after first grade lunch.  On Wednesday's we go in to volunteer at lunch and then stay to help with math time in the classroom.  It is Maya's favorite part of the week. 

This week however, she had been whining and demanding at lunch, insisting that I get her a pencil and paper "Right now!" so she could show Ella how she can make the letter E.  Then she didn't want to sit down, didn't want to wash her hands after handling the kids trays at clean-up, and lastly she spit in my face.  Warnings turned into consequences and she had to miss math.

As I sat on the couch Wednesday night I could not make myself go to sleep.  I was relishing the quiet to a degree that made tiredness inconsequential.  Then I heard footsteps pounding upstairs. Child awake. Angry stomping child.

I went upstairs to find Ella getting back into her bed. "Maya is making so much noise that I can't sleep," she said indignantly.

Maya was quiet, but tossing and turning as usual.  I sent Ella in to my bed to sleep then returned downstairs.  Within a few minutes she was back up, saying Maya was keeping her awake.  "How can she be keeping you awake if you are in my room?" I asked.  And then I heard it . That sound that comes in the deep part of the night that never means anything good.

Barking and groaning from Maya.

Unsure of how I missed it before, I scooped her up and took her downstairs to give her a nebulizer treatment.  Maya has asthma- an atypical type characterized mostly by coughing, a compromised airway in the face of the common cold and greatly aggravated by allergies (this last one being the reason we had to find a new home for our cat last year.)

I had never seen Maya quite like this before.  I started the nebulizer and called Sandi who, of course, was in Portland.  All alarming medical situations await Sandi's departure.  Maya was crying and not really speaking and each inhale had a deep long bark to it, each cough tight and fearful.  We talked about the possibility of needing to take her to the emergency room and I hung up to attend to Maya.

Time really became skewed  at this point. All of a sudden, it became clean that she needed to go to the ER. I called Trish to come stay with Ella. No answer.  I called Emilie.  No answer.  But within moments, I realized I could not wait for them to drive the 2 miles to my house anymore anyway.  Maya was in trouble. Her breathing was severely compromised. I wrapped her in a blanket, threw on my shoes, called to Ella (who was luckily still awake) to come downstairs and searched frantically for my phone in case I needed to call for help.

Within the space of 5 minutes, I had gone from discovering the need for a nebulizer to contemplating an ambulance. The only reason I didn't call the ambulance was because I thought I could get there faster than they could since they would still have to drive to me.  I was very scared that Maya was going to stop breathing.  She couldn't speak.

And there is Ella in the back hallway trying to decide, the brown jacket or the pink one.

I said to her, "Ella, this is a real and true emergency.  Your sister is in trouble and we need to go right now."  I'm pretty sure she thought, "blah, blah, blah....you always say we need to leave right now."

I drove 60 mph in the 35 zone by my house, praying there wouldn't be a cop because I wasn't going to stop and then my silver mini van might be the next clip on those car chase shows.  I was twisted around holding Maya's hand, asking Ella to keep her eyeballs on her sister, and trying to say soothing things even though I'm pretty sure I had that shrill, fake-calm tone that crazy people in thrillers get as I told my girls it was going to be okay. Adrenaline was coursing through my body, I was sweating and shaking and the most terrified I have ever been in my life.

A friend of mine who survived leukemia told me that when she feels stressed now she says to herself, "Is this life and death?" And if the answer is no, she doesn't stress about it.  In those moments, driving like a maniac, I knew exactly what she meant. Nothing mattered to me except Maya's airway.  I didn't care about the staggering student loans, the 5 pounds I gained or the fact that my closets still had not been cleaned out.  I just wanted my baby to be able to breath.

I knew I would never forgive myself if calling an ambulance had been the right move and I had compromised Maya by driving her myself.  I cursed the fact that these emergency situations (because this is not the first one) fall on me to make judgement calls I'm not remotely comfortable making. I was reviewing in my head the steps of CPR on kids.  Had Sandi told me that you skip rescue breaths now and just do compressions or do you just do one breath instead of two?

Halfway to the hospital in downtown, I saw a cop on the two lane road and was able to pull alongside him and yell out that I needed an escort to the hospital.  Blue lights flashing ahead of us, we followed the cop through red lights and intersections.  All the while, I said to Maya, "Look! It's a parade for us! Follow the lights!"

We pulled in at the ER and I ran in with Maya in my arms and Ella trailing behind.  I asked the registration lady where to go and she said, no joke, "I'm going to need you to fill out some papers."  I proceeded to stand there rocking a struggling Maya in my arms while she confirmed our demographics, printed off some paperwork, and obtained my signatures. Admittedly, Maya was in less distress but she was not well.  A nurse popped her head out and peeked at Maya, assessing that she wasn't critical and said they couldn't do any hing until she was registered.  Then we had to wait for at least 3 or 4 minutes more after the paperwork for a triage nurse to call us in.  I said to the woman, "Clearly this is not an emergency to you."

(I've since called and complained about this process to patient relations.  It is possible I cried a little to the woman on the phone when I told her how unfair it is to further distress a distressed mother.)

Tricia and Brock to came to pick up Ella and get her back to home to sleep and Maya's breathing improved considerably from there. The doctor felt she had croup, not an asthma attack, which is a swelling and narrowing of the airway above the vocal cords. This is why her voice and cough was so deep and barky. Apparently this can happen in some kids from just a cold and before we treated her with a steroidal inhaler, it used to happen a couple of times a winter to her, a few times where I had to rush her to walk-in care, but never like this. Between the neb I had given her before we left and breathing the cold night air, the swelling had lessened and she could breath.  Yes, I did feel a bit like the ER staff might think I had overreacted.  But being a good mother means not having to apologize for putting your child's safety first. She got a dose of steroid and I took her home where I met Sandi who had thrown everything in her car and driven home from Portland.  It was 1:30 am.

The terrifying part to me was that this time she was fine, no sign of a cold or upper respiratory issue, when I put her to bed. If Ella had not come to get me, TWICE, I would have been clueless to Maya's distress upstairs and I don't know what would have happened to Maya's airway. How is a mom to do her job with such unknown variables as unexpected respiratory distress?

I have been filled with what ifs.  What if Ella hadn't woken up?  What if Maya had stopped breathing in the van?  What if I had gone to bed when I should have and had been less alert when her airway was so compromised?  What if Ella had been asleep and I had had to drag her downstairs, causing us to be delayed in getting to the hospital?  What if the girls didn't share a room?

 Ella later told us Maya was trying to say "Momma" and "Mommy" but she couldn't.   Sandi's mom suggested that we get Maya a bell to ring.  Sandi did one better.  She bought a remote doorbell and mounted the button to Maya's headboard for her to ring if she can't breath.

We told Ella she was a hero, if an accidental one, and we bought the girls a gift to celebrate them. Maya for being so brave through her ordeal and Ella for sounding the alarm.   Ella has had her eye on these dolls Target makes that is more reasonable than the American Doll and sort of goes with the horse she just bought herself last weekend.  And Maya wants what Ella wants, especially if it means they can play together.

The unveiling:





I am unashamed to admit that we are using gifts to insure Ella's future investment in her sister.  I told her she is her sister's guardian.  And then we gave her a doll to seal the deal. 

After they opened the dolls, Maya came up to me and said, "Thank you so much Momma for my doll."  I swallowed a lump and thought, thank you so much Maya for still being alive.

When things like this happen to me, it is like the thin veil that separates my tidy ideas of life and the reality of life is lifted.  Since that scare,  I have wanted my family close, very close, because I know that there is no guarantee that we will always be together.  Tragedy befalls people, even mother's and children, all the time.  We are not special or immune.  We are blessed.  Pure and simple.  And there is no reason, not ever, to take each other for granted.  Even if you oldest cries her heart out because she can't find the key to unlock the doll's clothes chest.  Even then.

I also no longer sleep with my phone on silent. You never know when someone might have an emergency.  After all, they aren't usually planned. Sandi has also reviewed child CPR with me.  No rescue breaths, just quick, steady compressions to the rhythm of (get this) "Stayin' Alive." 

When Sandi was getting Maya settled back in bed after her exciting trip to the ER, she said, "Maya, you scared Mommy tonight."  Maya looked up at her and said, "Yeah, I scared Momma too."  You got that right.  That is the most scared I have been in my life and I hope to never have that experience again.  I also hope to never hear that doorbell ring in our house.  I like adrenaline but I will leave ambulance driving to the professionals.

a perfect afternoon

In our small corner of the world, the kids we know have absolutely everything they need and pretty much everything they want, save for the life-sized robot and pony some of the more ambitious are after.

In fact, among most of our family and friends, the moms are engaged in a constant battle to reduce the "stuff" and when a birthday or holiday rolls around we are faced with needing to make room for the inundation of more "stuff." 

Recently, the girls went to a party for our neighbor's four-year-old and we were asked not to bring gifts.  This is something I have always wanted to do but somehow felt this was wrong to ask my kids to forgo the single thing besides cake that makes them feel special on their birthday.  I was surprised by how uncomfortable I was arriving gift-less even though this is something I greatly admire and aspire to.

We've come up with a bit of compromise.  The date coupon.  Ange and Matt's son, Brady, turned 7 in February and we gave him a coupon for a date out with our family.  Allegedly, he was very excited to receive our wrapped up piece of paper and hung it on his bedroom wall.  Either that or his parents just didn't want us to feel badly that we didn't bring a gift that required batteries.

Sunday was our date with Brady and we took him out for some fun.

 First of all, allow me to say how very handsome he has become. He is also as smart as a whip and told us over lunch about watching a documentary on the overuse of coal.  I love this child.

We have long joked that Brady is the boy version of Ella, sensitive and on the quiet side, and that they would grow up and get married someday.  They have been the sweetest kind of friends since they were babies, yet when they started school and seemed to really understand that one was a boy and one a girl, and their commonalities suddenly seemed fewer than their differences. 

With no competition from Brady's little sister Anna for Ella's attention, her eyes were on Brady and they had the kind of fun they did a couple of years ago.

My heart beat still.

Brady picked Geaghan's, and Irish type restaurant and pub for lunch.  He is the only child I have ever been out with that asked to sit in the bar.  Really?  Apparently he has basically grown up in that bar listening to his dad play in his Irish band.  It's not like we gave him a Guiness or anything.

This is the sign that greets you when you walk in.  I love it.

I love this picture Ella took of us with Brady's face peeking over.  Such a seven-year-old thing to do.


Ella and Brady contentedly colored and played while we waited for our food.

That is until Maya crept under the table, looking a lot like a chaperon inserting herself between two people on a date.

Then we were off to the park, the movies (to see The Lorax- wow what an incredible movie) and then to the inflatable indoor play place called the Maine Jump.  It was an action packed afternoon so full of fun that I was overcome with the privilege of loving and playing with these remarkable children.

Whose to say the big kids can't play a little at the park?

What a wonderful and mostly green way to celebrate a birthday and give a gift!

We love you Brady Smith.  Like a son...in-law?

april fools

A few years ago on April fools, we swapped the kitchen and living room furniture to Ella's utter delight.   This year we decided to do it again since Maya was just a baby last time. 

I have to say, it is these late night commitments to parenting that make me proud of us.

Maya was quite bewildered.  Then she said, "HEY!  Why did you switch them??"  Sandi told her it was April fools day and Maya said, "Well what does that mean?!"  I forget sometimes that, despite the fact that she knows so much, she is far from putting it all together.

Sandi put Ella's horses up to some shenanigans as well.  (As a side note, Ella bought the little horse with her valentine's money and has worked diligently to save enough for the big horse- $36- and yesterday she spent her hard earned money on it at Target. It was a very proud moment and her entire family has many elaborated colored pictures that we paid $1 for to help her reach her goal.)

We had breakfast in the living room and it made me itch for a real dining room.

We then went to pick up Brady to take him out since an outing with our family was what we gave him for his birthday present. As we were driving back to our house I pointed out the window and excitedly yelled, "LOOK! AN ELEPHANT!" and everyone turned quickly to see.  I said April fools and Brady and Ella laughed and Maya kept shouting, "Where?  I still don't see an elephant!"

cooking co-op: an ideal night

Turns out the only thing more fun than going out with your friends is staying in and cooking with them!

Ange came up with this idea to do a cooking share. There were four of us (mine was a team of 2) making four different vegetarian dishes in quadruple batches.  We each brought the appropriate containers to give away with our dish and by the end of the night we all departed with four different, freezer ready meals.  SO FUN!

Sandi brought out every table surface we had, including these tray stands to accommodate the ingredients we each needed!

We also each brought an appetizer to share so we could eat dinner while we cooked.

Kim, made black bean soup and needed to wear her sunglasses the onions were so potent.

I made a ridiculously labor intensive meal from Mollie Katzen's Vegetable Heaven cookbook.  It is called Persian Layers, a three-layer pilaf.  Each layer has brown rice mixed with a vegetable mixture: bottom layer shredded carrots, cumin and golden raisins, middle layer saffron onions, garlic and parsley, top layer beets with honey and dill.  On the very top are chopped, toasted pistachios.

Let me tell you, I made a lot of brown rice!  A single batch needed 3 cups of uncooked rice to I needed 12!  I actually made 9 and had too much. 

I did most of the prep beforehand since it was so labor intensive and spent my time drinking, eating, helping and assembling.  I was so chilled out it wasn't even funny.  If awards were giving for being relaxed, I could have won. 

Emilie made zucchini, corn, bean enchilada.  YUM!

And Ange made this incredibly yummy African sweet potato soup with coconut milk and peanut butter.  I wanted to dive into the pot.

Over dessert (chocolate cinnamon sake cake from Cooking Light) I was thinking the food in my freezer was really just a bonus. I would have been happy to just cook and drink wine with my friends and not had a single bit of food left over.  Cooking, visiting, no paying a baby sitter because the kids were watching a movie projected on our bedroom wall....it was a perfect night. 

And now, each time I defrost a dish, I can eat this wonderful food infused with love by my friends!

peace be with me

I remember when I went to catholic mass as a child, my favorite part of the service was the part where you shake hands with your neighbors and say, "Peace be with you."  For the budding extrovert that I was, this was more than just an opportunity to stretch my legs and get a break from the monotony.  It felt truly wonderful to wish other's peace and to have peace wished upon me.  It was like so many people affirming it in one space might make it so.
I also liked the part when our priest, who spoke with a lisp, said, "Go in peacth."

Something wonderfully unexpected has happened to me as a mom.  I am nervous to disclose this out of fear that it might vanish like fog in wind, yet it feels to miraculous not to share.

I am arriving at a place of peace with my children.

That is right.  You heard it here.  Possibly there is nothing left to blog about anymore. 

The girls have been showing such signs of maturity lately, not the kind that makes you want to cry but the kind that makes you feel like all your hard work is paying off. They don't fight nearly as much. They seem to get it that if they treat each other well and share their stuff that it is more fun. There is so much less useless crying and territory disputes for the hell of it. They seem, at least some of the time, contented. 

When I put healthy food in front of them, they don't complain.  They eat it because it is what is expected of them and, for Ella anyway, she gets that it is good for her.  Maya doesn't have nearly the power struggle tantrums anymore.  Ella is beginning to get outside herself and make choices that include considering other people's feelings and she apologizes unprompted now. 


This peaceful place, where I can be doing something and the girls can happily co-exist together for more than 5 minutes without an argument, is so long overdue and so amazing to me that now I feel a bit of panic. 

We just got here and now they are growing up and won't be little anymore.

All at once time feels like it is screaming by me and it won't be long before Maya doesn't talk in her high-pitched, sing song and Ella won't be my number one fan.  This hasn't been the fleeting feeling I have had many times since becoming a mom, but a solid perspective that has wound itself into my neural circuit and held fast, though it is still so new you can smell the fresh paint.  It's like I woke up and realized how great my life is and my kids are and that the true cost of a perpetual state of overwhelm is one I will pay in moments of grief and regret later when my kids have grown up and moved on.

I blame it on the Disney commercial that bleeds my heart every time I see it.  It shows little girls running around in princess dresses and says something like, "Do it now.  There are only so many mountains left to climb, so many more chances to make these memories and not too long before she finds her own prince charming."

A brilliant marketing maneuver for sure, but only because it is TRUE.  Some people need to get a terminal illness to force them into perspective.  I apparently need a sappy Disney commercial and a case of hyperthryoidism (yes, it is still here and yes I am on pharmaceuticals now) to do the job.

Honestly, I pray for this perspective to last.  Whenever someone asks how old the girls are and I answer "4 and 7", they say, "those are the BEST years."  I thought that about 3 and 6 and wished I could pause them forever there.  Now, 4 and 7 seem ideal because they are so fun AND independent.  I am so afraid of the age where I think, wow, remember how fun THAT age was...  I fear I am not that far away from thinking that.

I want to slow time down and, since I haven't figured out how to yet, I am instead just relishing them. I am setting aside tasks and lists (sometimes) to play with them, dance with them, examine the minute bug on a pine cone or play hopscotch.


Or as I did this morning, give in to their request that I get in their bath with them and let them wash my hair and pour water over it like I have done to them a thousand times.

I've also been doing a better job and dropping what I am doing to work with them when they fight instead of just telling them to knock it off as my parents did with me and my sisters.  I've been appealing to their own desires to be treated well and trying to really teach them the concept of "do unto others."  Fingers crossed, I think it is working.

I've decided the ideal would truly be to have enough disposable income that you could pay someone to do all the stuff that takes up all your time- the cleaning, the laundry, the grocery shopping, the cooking.  If someone else did all of that I would have so much more time to just enjoy my kids before they are no longer kids.  Why are the people who need to give the most, the parent of young children, also the ones with the most to do?

 It would be so nice to abandon laundry in favor of nurturing these little souls.  Especially since they are in such a great place right now. But, since no one is going to mop my floors anytime soon, I once again have the opportunity to get comfortable having things undone.  I'd better because, after all, there are only so many more chances to....

that's why there are two of us

I'm convinced the best parenting team is a ying/yang balance of strengths. 

While it is true that I sometimes wish Sandi had my same needs for punctuality, neatness, planning and a carefully laid out schedule, it is probably ideal that she doesn't.  It is her more lax ideas about time that allow for spontaneous dinner buffet's in the living room, blanket fort building close to bedtime and blowing up the bounce house when friend's come over despite the effort required to pick it up.

If the world was left to me (and my friend Ange) it would be extremely organized and clean, people would be exactly where they were supposed to be on time with an appropriate snack in hand, their beds would be made, their laundry folded and their winter clothes tucked neatly away until next year.  Despite the fact that there would be lots of well-planned parties, I fear it would be a rather dry landscape of order and discipline and despite my wish to think things would be ideal if run my way, likely timeliness and neatness would soon grown dull.

That is why people like me need a Sandi.

She's dreams up playsets and clubhouses for our kids.  She puts whipped cream on sliced bananas, dons them "banana quarters" and the girls gobble them up.  She advocates for roller skates to be purchased and utilized in the house. 

She lets the kids paint their clubhouse themselves.

(and we wondered why Ella's hair had lavender paint through and through.)

I came home from work to find two paint drenched children in bathtub brimming with filthy, lavender hued water.

All I could think was, "It is a good thing they have a parent who will let them do that" because we all know I would need some pharmaceutical intervention to allow for such an event.