fairy garden

In the week after Victoria's surgery, she was recuperating at home and we decided to have our babysitter, Amanda, come hang with her for a couple hours while Mom got some stuff done. Great decision on our part. It was a nice day, and almost immediately Amanda proposed - "want to build a fairy garden?" Well, V jumped at this idea, and off they went to the backyard. I was amazed at their creativity!

An old lantern, turned fairy house.

Victoria telling me all about her house. The boards are a ladder.

The pathway up to another part of the fairy house.

I believe this was the couches...

The amazing creators!

on dying

My grandma is dying.

I've known this since December. We just didn't know when.

Two weeks ago, she was struggling to breathe and seemed very weak. That weekend, almost the entire extended family gathered at their house. Matt had just arrived home from traveling, and I dropped him and the kids off at the house that Friday night, driving to Esko by myself to be with my family. We hugged and held hands, and in between our collective breaths we held our family's history and future.

Death requires you to be real, to be present, in ways that family holidays do not. That realness stemmed the tide of my grief. I am thankful for that.

My next thought was about Victoria. She is 4 years old. She knows Grandma Marge, and she is old enough to ask serious questions, to need to process the idea of death.

Saturday morning, I took her into my lap. To this point, I hadn't told her that Grandma Marge was dying. But that morning, I explained how my grandma was very sick. "She is more sick than you or I have ever been. She will keep getting sicker." Victoria looked up at me with questioning eyes. "You know that sometimes when people get that sick -- they die, right?" She nodded, still with big eyes but now with sadness reflected in them. I had to power through and just say it -- "Yes, sweetie, Grandma Marge is dying."

A moment of silence. My heart broke. And then my precious girl, eyes still sad, asked, "can we go see her, Mom? Because I like her, and I'll never see her again."

What a combination of sadness, awareness, and presence! Tears in my eyes, I asked if she was sure. She said yes. So the whole family drove to Esko.

My grandma was even more weak, sleeping a lot, in her wheelchair at the kitchen table. Extended family was still there, everyone hushed. Victoria crept in, and spent the next two hours watching. Watching my grandma's children take turns holding her head up while she slept. Watching my cousin Rachel stroke her hand. Watching how the family spoke in hushed tones, how carefully we watched my grandma, and how she struggled for breath. Victoria wasn't sad or scared. She talked quietly with family and watched everything going on around her. It was probably the first time she had ever seen a group of people gathered but not really "doing" anything. Alex spent most of the time outside with daddy, as our little guy can be quite loud and rambunctious, but he came inside for a little bit, and snuggled into me, looking around the room with big eyes.

In the car on the way home, Victoria repeated that Grandma Marge was really sick and that she would never see her again. Then she sat back and thought for a long moment. And then, "Mom? That will happen to all of us, right?"

I felt my back collapse into the car seat, feeling sad that my four-year-old was comprehending death so early. But she said it with innocence and acceptance. I just said, "Yes. Yes, it will."

My grandma has held on longer than everyone believed as we sat in her house two weekends ago. She is weak, hard to understand, needs lots of care. Here I give credit to our amazing family members who have been by her side, helping her husband Bob (who is beyond amazing through this). I have heard about people staying overnight, about people helping with cleaning and bringing food, to the point where when I have asked what I can do, people tell me everything is taken care of. Now it's a matter of time and patience, of my grandma letting go.

One of the people who has been by her side this week is my cousin Brooke. Brookie is 7 years younger than me, and as her childhood summer nanny, I feel we are like sisters sometimes. Brooke was originally supposed to be in Bermuda this week, but canceled the trip to be with our grandma. She texted me this picture yesterday:

She and grandma holding hands, as Brooke reads from the Bible for her. Brooke texted that she has been telling grandma stories of favorite memories, and all the things she was thankful for. Grandma took care of Brooke when she was a little girl, providing daycare while Brooke's parents were at work, and Brooke wrote to me: "She took care of me. Now I want to take care of her" (yes, more tears from me on that one). I love that Brooke is able to give her this gift.

I will end this post on a happy memory. A month or so ago, my grandma asked if I would bring the kids over. She wanted to see them and specifically asked that we take pictures. We all climbed on Grandma's bed, snuggled in and chatted--with Alex, of course, wrestling over my legs almost continuously.

Grandma, who late in life surprised us all with her acceptance of technology and willingness to text, took out her iphone and showed us her favorite pictures.

Then, this final picture, which I didn't even know Matt was taking, of me kissing my grandma good-bye when we left:

V's Surgery - "so long, tonsils!"

April 29 was probably one of my harder days of being a mom.

But the story doesn't start there. It starts last fall, in late September or early October. It's hard to pinpoint the day when we first noticed Victoria being picky about food. It grew worse and worse, and by November I could hear her struggling to swallow. Did she have a sore throat? No. Anything bugging her? No, mama, I just don't like that food. Finally I thought to look at her throat, and I could tell her tonsils were very swollen. Her regular doctor sent her to the Ear, Nose, and Throat doctor, Dr. Choquette. He confirmed that yep, her tonsils were big -- "not quite touching, not quite huge meatballs, but very close." Her ears were filled with fluid, and over a few months of monitoring (and trying Claritin in case it was all due to allergies), she failed hearing tests consistently. Not the standard hearing tests where you raise your hand when you hear a beep -- she passed those flawlessly. But, a tuning fork outside her ear couldn't be heard as well as when the doctor placed it behind her ear. That's the opposite of the way our ears are supposed to work. And the fancy equipment that sent sound waves into her ear to measure the output? Came back with a flat line. The doctor was surprised that her hearing issues hadn't affected her speech abilities, as he commented she is very articulate and had compensated very well. It still seems amazing that she never had tonsilitis or endless ear infections or anything; we only discovered this because of the food swallowing issue.

Everyone tried to avoid surgery, but her ears and tonsils weren't getting better. She also had regular bloody noses, and her doctor had xrays taken of her adenoids, which confirmed they were twice as large as normal.

Surgery was scheduled for April 29. I dreaded seeing my little girl screaming as they wheeled her away. I figured there was no way she would willingly go with strange doctors and nurses.

A few days ahead of time, we explained that she would have surgery, and that:

a) the nurses and doctors would take her for a ride in a wagon

b) she would have to wear a mask that is kinda like the one in Alex's nebulizer

b) she would wake up with a sore throat

c) she would wake up with a little tube in her arm

d) she would get to eat popsicles and ice cream ALL DAY LONG.

She was actually getting pretty excited for this surgery business. One day, she and I kept saying "see ya, tonsils! See ya tonsils!"

The morning arrived. Victoria and I (with dad arriving shortly after) walked into the surgery center ... and grandma and grandpa were already there. Trust my parents to make our girl feel like the most special girl on the planet that day.

She put on her gown. Oh my goodness, my cute little girl ...

We laughed over the silly socks they gave her. She loved having her special bracelets.

 

The doctor, nurse, anesthesiologist all stopped by. In between, we played and visited. Victoria told Grandpa to sleep with her blankie and teddy, and she laughed when he pretended to snore:

She snuggled with Mommy. Sweet snuggles from my baby girl. I said silent prayers that all would be well.

 The next person to visit us was Jackie, our nurse anesthetist.

I can't express how fastastic she was. In less than five minutes, she had our shy girl excited about blowing balloons and taking a wagon ride. Victoria took her hand and they marched out into the hallway, with V climbing into a wagon and propped up with a pillow. Yay, Toria! What a big girl!

Then, time to wait ...

... I hoped all was well.

... I felt a little emotionally exhausted.

... I poured a much-needed cup of coffee.

Before I was even done with the cup, the doctor came in to tell us it was over! Twenty minutes had passed. Everything went well, he had indeed needed to remove the adenoids, and her ears had tons of mucus in them. He said we would see improvement in her hearing immediately. 

Our smiles were short-lived. Within minutes, we heard screaming, and two nurses whisked my baby girl into the room, and onto my nap. She had woken up (in a partially-conscious, drugged state), screaming for mommy and clawing at her IV. The very smart nurses realized the best place for her was in mom's lap. You can see the look of pain on her face:

She alternated between screaming and flailing, and quiet moaning. Those minutes were the worst part, feeling so helpless. I knew it was attributable to the drugs, because it reminded me of night terrors and she was incapable of listening to what we were saying. I could tell when she finally woke up for real, as I could feel her body relax into me, and then she sat up and asked for ... a Popsicle!

The surgery center, efficient as it is, was ready to send her home almost immediately. Victoria wanted to watch a movie with Grandma and Grandpa, who kindly obliged:

She has a super puffy face and tired eyes. But, she was pretty happy about the green jello.

Also, she insisted that everyone be cozy under blankets.

Over the next week, Matt and I took turns staying home with her; to prevent infections, she couldn't be at daycare or around large groups of people.

She ate jello, popsicles, sherbet, and yogurt.

We snuggled and watched movies.

One day, Grandma and Uncle Adam came for a visit. Uncle Adam brought her a new movie to watch.

The next day, Grandpa showed up unannounced with a cooler of sherbet.

No wonder she loved her time off so much!

We played ponies ... with my ponies from when I was a little girl.

She got more energy as the week went on. The Monday following her surgery, she and Daddy had a few errands to run, and he promised her a trip to Lake Superior, where he captured this priceless photo:

And the following day, when Mommy was off, she asked to go to a park:

So glad my precious girl is on the mend!

Throwback: Rachel's Wedding

My beautiful little cousin got married to her sweetheart, Joe, at the end of December. These two are so adorable together.

With a winter wedding, the decorations were lush and rustic.

We got a preview of the reception room the night before, as it was at the hotel we were staying at. We walked by the windows and gasped to see white lights sparkling like icicles from within.

It was magical ... the pictures don't do it justice. And so much of it was handmade.

The kiddos and I missed the ceremony; it was nap time, and BOY did they need naps that day. Matt was the photographer, so he attended on the Moses family's behalf.

While we slept, Matt went with the bride and groom to the site of their first date.

Finally, I had to wake the kids up to make sure we could be downstairs in time for the reception.

I had the cutest dates possible!

 

I managed to get my VERY shy kids to eat a few bites of food in between their moments of anxiousness being around all those people. Here is Alex snuggling into my hand for a sense of security ...

When the DJ started playing music, though? The shyness vanished, and they were on the dance floor before anyone else and long before the actual "dance" part started.

I've never been happier at a wedding dance than seeing these two little ones dance their little hearts out. Kids can tap into a heartfelt rhythm, unconcerned about everyone else, so easily!

We all giggled over Alex's love of the flashing, spinning lights. Where they touched the wall or floor, he was enamored with trying to touch them!

Mama and her boy ... such a ham, this one:

And here's Mommy and my girl. She was so generous and outgoing, dancing with cousin Eva, and so beautiful in her dress:

My arms got a LOT of exercise taking turns holding the kids, dancing with the kids, or even dancing with them simultaneously!

 

They were joined on the dance floor by cousins Cruz, Jett, and Eva. Which made my heart even bigger.

When the "real dance" started, the kiddos had to take a break on the side lines for the first dance and other important dances. This was very tough for them:

Don't you just love Alex's cute little camo boots? haha.

As soon as they could, they rejoined the dance floor, this time with more of the guests, such as Grandma and Auntie Jeanne, joining in:

To end, here are a couple video clips of our dancers:

 

 

Eventually, Mommy took Alex to bed; he and I hit our pillows and fell fast asleep. Victoria, on the other hand, was our little party animal, staying with Daddy while he took more pictures and dancing her heart out, until she was so tired Daddy was simply holding her on the dance floor. I heard their whispers in the dark hotel room about 10:30, Daddy telling V to be quiet so Alex didn't wake up, before I fell right back to sleep. What a fun night with family!

Throwback: Christmas 2014

My beautiful family!

It's been a long time since Christmas. But I never got around to posting about the holidays because of our move. These pictures were not forgotten, though ... especially with such fun family memories.

Christmas Eve was spent at my parents' after taking the family to church.

Uncle Adam, on duty for the night, came over too. The kids couldn't wait to open gifts!

Alex opened a Thomas train set from Grandma and Grandpa:

Victoria got a cool mail box:

And Frozen costumes picked out by Grandpa ...

Hannah and Piper gave the kids a gift to open on Christmas Eve -- slippers to warm their feet.

It was cute to watch our little man dig into the gifts. He actually knew what to do with all that wrapping paper this year!

Here are the cuties with their slippers ...

Man, I love these two!

On Christmas morning, V woke up excitedly.

She immediately eyed all the new gifts from Santa, showing them all to her brother.

In fact, she was so into the gifts she forgot all about checking for additional evidence of Santa and his reindeer:

She also had to be reminded about checking the stockings before presents:

First to get their stockings? The puppies!!!
 

The kids helped hand out all the presents. Here is Victoria by her loot:

And Alex:

Piper got a gift:

And Hannah too, of course.

Alex camped by Daddy to open his gifts.

After playing with babies at daycare and Victoria's babies, Alex finally got his own:

What Alex had asked Santa for: markers! (looks like Hannah is being hopeful for more presents too!)

Both kids got books too:

As gifts got opened, the kids wanted to play! Alex got this bulldozer from Lou, our daycare provider.

Snowman and Santa hats from Granny:

Our little birder girl, with a pink camo hat and her own pair of binoculars!

Alex got a LOT of Duplos.

Victoria got Playmobil toys:

The kids got "melting snowmen" in their stockings, which V loved:

And, one of the very special gifts was homemade blocks from my Uncle Ron and Aunt Teresa:

After gifts are opened, I revel in the Christmas morning chaos:

 

It's probably the one time a year I look forward to toys, garbage, and boxes strewn across the living room floor. 

Thanks to all my cuties for the happy Christmas memories of our last Christmas on Gaus Rd!