The Fog of War

Chad and I are notorious for not waiting for "the day" of special events to exchange gifts.  He purchased our anniversary and my birthday gifts ahead of time and he's already given me two of the three gifts he purchased.  The first gift he gave me was awesome.  It was Jimmy Fallon's Blow Your Pants Off, a cd of music from Late Night.  He hilariously covers several songs in the voice of other singers.  A favorite is the Reading Rainbow theme song as it would have sounded sung by The Doors.  It also has his duet with Stephen Colbert singing the infamous Rebecca Black song, Friday.  As awesome as that gift is, it nowhere near compares with the second gift he gave me today.



Here is the IMDb page, too The Fog of War

If you never see another documentary in your life, you MUST see this one.  Robert McNamara was the Secretary of Defense under President Kennedy and one of the country's most prominent "Hawks".    In this documentary, he is at the end of his life reflecting back on the triumphs and more importantly the failures of his life and career.  I have never heard a more contrite and honest assessment from anyone about their failures, lest of all from a prominent political figure.  If we were all this honest and raw with ourselves and each other, our country would be less bound by our arrogance that we are always right and have always been right in our past and are not prone to making mistakes in the future.  Being human, this is an important realization we all must have so that we can hopefully save future generations from making the same mistakes.  This movie is a step in the direction of clarity and truth.  Seriously, watch this movie.  It's available on youtube.com in pieces.  Even if you aren't into politics, the lessons he enumerates apply to everyone but the history and inside look at the decisions that faced the Kennedy administration during Vietnam are fascinating.

So yeah, Chad got me the best movie ever; and you should be warned that if you come over to our house and are here for long enough, this movie may come up and we may watch it.  Just kidding... maybe not but don't rule it out.

Giving into the pressure

With all the crazy stuff going on and trying to get the house back together after the flooding, there just hasn't been enough energy or care in me to worry about my appearance.  Yesterday, I actually left the house with gross hair wearing a shirt with drool/milk curds on it from Emma.  Thankfully breast milk spit up is usually not a massive event and can generally be cleaned up with some help from a baby wipe.  I'm at the point in motherhood that only the really wet massive ones warrant a change of shirt.  Now that I type it out it makes me sound really gross but when you don't have access to your own laundry room and you can't afford to change clothes multiple times a day, then you will understand.  Hopefully it's just not a third kid thing and that I don't actually smell (though I can't smell it).  I'm thinking a makeover may be due soon.  :)

Flood!

Last Sunday night our house flooded.  From rain.  It was about 11 pm on the 3rd and we heard some ominous sounding storms so Chad got up and checked out the weather.  It was a tiny cell right over our town that we expected to move on shortly thereafter and leave us alone.  Around 11:30 the power went off so we set the alarms on our phones so he could get up for work if the power wasn't back on by morning.  At 1:30 am there is a horrible knocking at our door and we both spring out of bed.  The neighbor is yelling and we both immediately think someone is dying (our next door neighbor lost his wife just a month ago so this is fresh on our minds).  Then we hear what he is frantically yelling, "You gotta get out, you gotta get out! Everything is flooding!" He goes on more about how you can't drive down the street because of all the water but that we have to get out.  It's at this point Chad and I realize our feet are wet and that there is water coming into our house from our back door.  We frantically get dressed (still in the dark since there is no power) and try and figure out what to do.  The figuring out what to do part really consisted of us frantically running around freaking out.  I tried calling my dad but kept mis-dialing and selecting Chad's contact stuff rather than Dad's and I was so frantic I couldn't figure out how to even stop the call to get it right.  Because of what the neighbor said, we were both in such a panic that we didn't even think about his advice.  I was on the phone with my Dad explaining the situation and about to grab Emeline's seat so we could get her in it (while also pulling things up off the floor that I didn't want ruined) when it hit me, without any prompting from my Dad even, that this wasn't a life-threatening situation.  We don't live near a creek or river and our house wasn't going to float away.  This wasn't New Orleans and we weren't going to end up on our roof with no place to go and no help in sight.  This was simply a drainage issue and there had just been too much rain in too short a time span and at worst we would end up water in the house but we weren't going to die.  At this point we start to calm down some more and see if we can't find some flashlights and candles as we continue to pick things up off the floor.  After we get things settled, we head out to front porch, which has remained dry, to survey the damage and talk across the cul-de-sac to the neighbors.  Around this time, the rain is letting up some and within the next hour we notice the waters are receding.  It continued to lightly rain the rest of the morning but the flooding had receded and there was just normal drainage everywhere.  The power came back on around 3:30 or so, too.  While talking to the neighbors we found out why the neighbor across the street had been so freaked out.  He had about a foot and a half of water in his house just streaming in his front door.  He had so much water in front of his house that one of his cars that was parked in the driveway was pushed sideways by the water.  The amount of damage to his house and one other house on the cul-de-sac is so much worse than the inch or so of water we experienced.  Our house had damage but nothing compared to those other two houses.  We had to have a restoration crew come rip up all the carpet and dry the walls but their damage was so extensive that they have to cut the walls out from about midway up down to the floor in addition to the drying and carpet.  We just moved back in yesterday so we were out of our house about 8 days.  It may be months for these guys to get back into their houses.  There were two others that had flood damage on our street and several others in our neighborhood.  There was at least one other neighborhood in town that had flooding, too.  We have our new carpet but we are waiting on the baseboards so our furniture is still not back where it goes.  Our kitchen counters are COVERED in books and there is a lot of furniture in the dining room.  Our house had been turned upside down since we converted the playroom into a nursery and had were playing musical chairs with some bookcases.  During the day on the Sunday of the flood, we had just gotten Chad's newly recovered (giant) bookcase in the house and all the books jockeyed around.  We got the other bookcase in the boys room and got all of their books up off the floor (they had been on the floor of our dining room since March!) and the house was looking great.  I'm so thankful that none of those books were ruined since a good deal of them are books that were mine as a kid.  Also serendipitously, at the same time we moved all of the bookcases around, we also moved the stereo cabinet and brought back in the giant speakers that had been on the floor in the garage.  Water did come up about half way the garage floor and it was even less than an inch deep but it would have been plenty to destroy those speakers.  I'm so glad to be back in our house and I can't wait for it feel like home again after we get things back where they go!

Tomorrow Emeline will be 2 months old!  I can hardly believe it.  The whole last week seems like a blur and though she's been with me every day, I haven't gotten the time to sit and play with her as I should.  She is now at the point where she likes to lay on the floor and kick and squeal and grin.  She has her own theme song and smiles whenever we sing it.  It's a variation of a song from Phineas and Ferb and unless you are familiar with the show then it would probably be lost on you.

I wonder when normal will come again.  When it does, I'll let you know.  My new summer project is to petition the Board of Trustees of the town we live in to get on the agenda for the upcoming meeting with hopes of having them re-evaluate the drainage situation of our neighborhood.  Yes, that means I have to speak before the board, too!  My poly sci bones are tingly getting all involved in local government (though that isn't really my chosen area of interest).  I'll keep you updated on what transpires.

We met another Emeline yesterday!

So if you know me very well at all, you know that I fret about the names we give our children. A lot. Even after they are named.  In Lennon's case, for years.  I still worry if we should just call him by his middle name, Beckett.  My misgivings about Emeline's name were related to the pronunciation/spelling of her name.  Her name has personal significance to us as a memorial for my mom and grandfather and her middle name is a memorial to Chad's grandmother.  We pronounce her name Emma-lynn with a short "i" in the last part.  Variations we have heard are Emma-lean (long "E" sound) and Emma-line (long "I" sound).  Not one person had ever assumed it was pronounced the way we pronounce it and always have to be corrected.  Of course, I knew this was likely when we named her and I was mostly comfortable with but it was still an issue for me.

Yesterday we went to a great bakery in Tulsa and the owner's name was Emeline, pronounced and spelled exactly the same way as our Emeline.  She told us that it is a common name in France and that most of the Emelines on FB are French photographers, haha.  Either way, I'm feeling so much better knowing that our spelling/pronunciation aren't far fetched and that it is a legitimate combination of spelling and pronunciation and that while we have a given her an uncommon name, it's not unheard of.  That is the kind of uncommon name I'm happy with.  :)  

She's here!

Emeline is here.  She arrived at 7:56 pm on April 14th.  She weighed 7 lbs. 3 oz. and is 20 inches long.  She is perfect.  Someday I'll get around to posting her birth story but it may be awhile.  I didn't get my VBAC but I'm very happy with my birth experience.  It looks like there were very good reasons why it ended up turning out how it did.

More proof that my old Dr. was lame

I just got an interesting call from the pre-arrival people at the hospital I plan to deliver at.  They were giving me instructions about the pre-admitting procedures and things for my scheduled c/s on Monday. Of course, the c/s was supposed to be cancelled and I took the proper measures to do so when I changed practices.  It obviously didn't get taken care of.  Lame.

In better news, I've been having contractions all morning.  Now they have lessened in intensity and are growing further apart but they have been pretty good all morning.  When Chad gets home we'll get to walking and hope they pick back up.  For now, though, nap time.  I think I'm going to take this time to enjoy the rest b/c waking up contracting at 4 am was pretty hard to sleep through!

Happy Friday the 13th, everyone!

Staying busy and taking it easy

Waiting on a new baby is kind of like waiting on a looming natural disaster in the forecast.  You have a good idea of what you should have ready but inevitably something either can't be done until closer to time or it gets overlooked.

Today, I've already had a few contractions but nothing regular or to write home about.  The last one, if it was an actual contraction, was much longer than I've had to this point and it got me motivated.  On my agenda for today was a load of whites and to clean both bathrooms as well as a short trip to W-M that I already accomplished this morning after dropping Jude at school.  After that contraction or stomach cramp or whatever it was, I got those other chores taken care of.  I'm terrified of labor getting started and having to head to the hospital and leaving the house in a less than clean way.  I mean, my house isn't going to be spotless.  I've given up on that for the time being.  We still have too many of our many small projects strung out everywhere for that to even be a reality but I don't want whoever is here with the kids to have to see with nasty toilets and piles of laundry.  So those are the things I'm focusing on.  Tomorrow, I'll dust and vacuum.  These little chores each day are about all I can handle each day, as pitiful as that sounds.  

Jude was out of school Friday and we had plans to meet up with my family Friday evening to celebrate Easter and Chad's birthday.  Well, Jude got progressively lethargic and whiny as the afternoon went on and complained of a headache.  We realized that our plans were dashed when all of his symptoms culminated in getting sick in the trash when we were about to leave (as I think I mentioned in my previous post on his illness, I thought the headache was sinus related and after medicating him for it we planned to continue with our plans).  He didn't get sick anymore until right around bedtime but then proceeded to get sick about 5 or 6 times over the course of the overnight period.  Let's just say there was a  lot of laundry (two sets of sheets, multiple pillows, etc) to be washed on Saturday.  It was some kind of holiday weekend.  Thankfully he didn't get sick anymore on Saturday, after that awful night previous.  He just had a fever on Saturday and Sunday.  No one else in the house has gotten the bug and I hope it stays that way.  

In addition to all the sheets, blankets and things that got washed I got my tail in gear and washed up all of our other laundry, too.  It's rare that all of that stuff is clean at the same time and I'm pretty proud of myself for getting it all done.  Now, hopefully, she'll come while everything is still clean!  ;)

Though there have been oodles of laundry that I've managed to get finished, I've still been taking it easy.  My body is tired of being pregnant and there has been a lot of resting with my feet up, too.  I feel like I've been complaining too much about it.  I don't like complaining about it because I know how lucky I am to be pregnant and to be able to carry a child with minimal complications.  We really are fortunate and for that I am thankful.  Because of this poor Chad has been hearing the bulk of my complaints.  Let's just say that we are both quite anxious to be finished with the pregnancy and to get to hold the end result in these months of waiting.  

All that said, I do hope she's not born tonight or tomorrow.  I just don't think I can bear to be in the same hospital on the one year anniversary of my Mom's death.  Her aneurysm happened on the 10th of last year and she was officially brain dead at that time but her body kept functioning until the 11th (she absolutely didn't want any intervention to keep her body alive so we didn't allow them to do any).  I already have mixed feelings about delivering in the same hospital but I do know that it is the best place to accomplish my birth goals and also to simply have a baby since there is a level III NICU on-site in case the baby would need any help.  It is the same hospital where I had both boys, too.  I just am having a hard time separating what I see as an excellent part of the hospital from the part that I feel failed my mom and caused so much pain for our family.  I will say that none of those feelings of being failed while in hospital with my mom extend to the ICU where we spent our last hours with her (body).  They were exceptional in there and I have absolutely nothing negative to say about them as they did everything they could to make us comfortable while we waited for the inevitable.  Suffice it to say, as anxious as I am to meet this little girl, I just really don't want to do it today or tomorrow.  I think.  So many mixed feelings.  One minute I think I understand what I feel and the next I am completely feeling differently.  Grief is so confusing.    

Headaches freak me out

I've always been one to have headaches.  Migraines, too.  Never a big deal for me, just a part of life.  A very annoying part of life but just something I live with.  Being pregnant, I've gotten somewhat of a reprieve and they haven't been at the top of my list of annoyances for awhile now.

In the past few weeks, I've noticed Jude talking about his head hurting occasionally.  This afternoon he started complaining of a headache, again.  Chad and I have both had some trouble with sinus pressure and related headaches.  His headache this afternoon sounded pretty typically related to that kind, as well.  He described it like, "It hurts when I jump up but when I stop it all goes down".  So I gave him some allergy medicine and hoped that was it.  We had plans to meet with my Uncle and Aunt for Easter tonight so I was getting things around so we could go and planned to give the boys their bath before we went since it would be near or past their bedtime when we got home.  Jude has become even more lethargic and has just sat in the same seat since I gave him the allergy medicine and he's still complaining about his head.  I finally motivate him to come to the bathroom so I can give them a bath and he really just melts into a pile of tears on the floor.  I decide to give him some ibuprofen still chalking it up to a sinus headache.  He cries all through the bath and my mind starts to wonder what is going on with this kid.  He has no fever.  In the tub, he does complain that his throat hurts, too.  Before he mentions his throat, while my mind is wondering, I start to fear horrible things.  What if he is really in much more pain than I can tell?  I mean he's started crying from the pain.  How bad is this really?  Headache pain isn't one of those things that is easily described, especially not for a 5 year old.  What if we have thin vessels in our brains (this is actually something I plan to have an MRI for after this baby is born to see if I, and subsequently our children, have a genetic predisposition to thin vessels since both my Grandmother and Mom-- and I found out recently Paternal Grandfather-- died of aneurysms) and he is experiencing the extreme pain my Mom was due to a leak?  I know this probably sounds absurd, but here is my five year old in tears over a headache and we are nearing the one year anniversary of the death of my mom from a headache.  I got him dressed and told him he could lay down on our bed while I finished getting Lennon ready and fixed my own hair.  At that point, I was still hoping this was just a sinus thing and that if he just rested for a few minutes and gave the medicine time to kick in he would be feeling better soon and that we could continue with our plans, since it was sinuses and nothing contagious and he would be feeling better.  Well I was wrong, he got his shoes on and while in the kitchen he headed to the trashcan and threw up.  So, of course, upon realizing this wasn't sinus related, I changed his clothes and put him to bed.  Oddly, him being upset at his stomach put my mind at ease because he said his stomach actually hurt, too, which relieved my fears that I knew were irrational, that it could be something much worse.

After about 30 minutes of laying down he was up and much better and was for the rest of the evening until right at bedtime when it started with a headache again and then he got sick right before bed.  He still doesn't have a fever so I don't know what he's got but I hope that he's feeling better by tomorrow!

And through all of this, I learned that I'm a neurotic mess.    

38 weeks!

I'm 38 weeks today.  Tomorrow will mark the longest I've ever been pregnant.  Jude came a day before 37 weeks and Lennon was born via Repeat C-section at 38w1d.  I have to wonder if this isn't one of the reasons I've been so anxious for this kiddo to get the show on the road.  She's really fighting it though.  I swear that last night she moved UP and is now laying sideways (head on one side, butt on the other) rather than head down.  I don't know if it's even possible for her to have enough room to be laying that direction, but that's what it feels like.  I certainly hope that's not the case since I'm trying to avoid another c/s.  Regardless of how she's in there, it seems pretty certain that she won't come today as was Jude's guess.  Now we just sit and wait.  ;)

Happy Birthday, Mom

Today my mom would have turned 51.  It's hard to believe that in just a few days it will have been one year since she died.  As usual, I preoccupy myself with other thoughts to keep from thinking about it too much.  Preparing for Emeline's arrival is my primary distraction.  There is just so much unhappiness stuffed into this month that I feel badly for Emma having to weave her way in here between all of these heavy days.    April is home to two birthdays of my deceased relatives as well as the anniversary of their deaths.  My Grandfather, coincidentally the one Emeline's name takes it's basic root from, died on April Fools Day, 2000 just days before what would have been his 85th birthday on the 6th.  Mom's birthday was the 4th and she passed away on the 11th.  Her memorial was on the 17th.  Of all of the sad days, if this kiddo had to be born on any of these days, I would obviously prefer the birthdays over the sad ones.  Of course,there are good days in April, too.  Chad's birthday is tomorrow.  His brother and our sister-in-law have birthdays this month, too.  But I'm hung up on the sad ones, of course.

 The memory I keep coming back to is the celebration we had last year for my Mom's and Chad's birthday with my Uncle and Aunt last year.  We  went to Outback Steakhouse, as it is hard to pick something that everyone is sure to like.  Mom had had a bad headache for a couple of weeks by this time but she was feeling pretty good that evening.  We had a great evening.  Of course we had no idea that in just a matter of days she would be gone.  I'm really sketchy on the dates already, but I'm pretty sure it was the following day that her headache got worse and she decided to go back to the doctor about it which led to hospital admission.

I guess that's all I have to say.  I miss my mom like crazy and still don't know how to cope with it all.

Happy Birthday, Mom.  I miss you.