Closure

My friend Kristen posted this article to our Miracles for Molly Dunne Foundation page.  It's about the need for doctors to understand a "Code Death" and how a trained team of sensitive medical professionals can assist a family with making final decisions for a loved one and then support the family through the difficult task of watching that loved one die.  I absolutely agree, but it brought something home to me... because we donated Mom's organs, our final goodbyes were given in a hallway, in front of the double doors leading to the operating room, after having made the long walk through the hallways of the hospital, past people who had no idea how precious this person was and how absolutely devastating was her death.  The nurses pushing the gurney stopped, we kissed her forehead, and they pushed her through the door and that was it.  The woman from the organ donation group might have said something comforting... I don't know.  I ran out the doors and sat in my car and screamed and screamed and screamed.  

It bothers me that I wasn't there when Mom died.  For three days, I sat with Mom, holding her hand, knowing that the essential part of her being was gone, but it bothers me.  I catch myself trying to remember what it was like the moment Mom died, and I can't, because I wasn't there.   How can I have closure to a thing I didn't witness?  I have dreams where I'm a little kid, lost in a store, calling for my mom to find me.  Twice in those dreams, I've found her.  Both times, she laughs and tells me she was right here all the time. 

I don't believe in a traditional view of heaven.  I'm sorry to my religious friends, but after much reflection and thought, I've decided that eternal life is something much simpler than a Heaven where spirits wait around to be reunited with family.  I am who I am because of my mother.  My kids will be who they are because of me, and because of who my mother raised me to be.  They will in turn have kids who will be raised with love and laughter, and that will go on and on until time eternal.  I believe the same is true for everyone - the love you leave behind in others is carried on and though there will come a time when no one will remember Susan Moran or Erin Lacey, that love will still exist.  

To the lady giving my kids dirty looks today...

This is a blog I started a looong time ago and never finished... it's weird to look back and see what I was doing....



Dear Total Stranger,

Yes.  I saw you.  I am absolutely certain you wanted me to see you.  I first saw you when my kids were running around the dinosaur exhibit, shouting and laughing.  I saw you again when I was dragging the crying 4 year old out of the play room while trying to catch up to the 2 year old who was in the other room.  And then next, we crossed paths in what my kids call the "Bear Room".  I saw you shake your head when you saw my boys sprawled on the floor.  And then finally, I heard you "Tsk" in the parking lot, as my boys were not listening to me telling them to get in the car.

Here's the thing.  When you saw me the first time, my boys were pretending they were dinosaurs.  Will was a T-Rex and so was Jack, until he saw the parasarauphalas, which Jack correctly identified as a plant eater.  So Will decided to eat Jack.  And I let them play.

And then, when story time started, I wrangled them into the play room.  It took some talking, but I finally got Jack to sit on my lap and listen to the story and about three minutes later, Will had to go to the bathroom.  I know you don't know Will, so I'll explain.  He's 2, and you probably remember, you don't turn down a 2 year old who wants to go potty.  But, I had just talked the 4 year old into sitting.  So now I had to tell him that he had to get up and go to the bathroom with us.  Which he didn't want to.  I had to drag him up and chase after Will who had headed off for the bathroom before us.  He's the kid that walked right past you, without an adult, remember?

After the bathroom, we went to the "Bear Room" and before you got there, we were identifying animals and I had spent some time trying to explain that dung beetles are not the size of that big statue and that the animals in that room had all been alive at one point.  Then the boys began to pretend they were polar bears and they were prowling the tundra, in search of seals to eat.  And I let them play.

Finally, it was time to leave and we went out to the car, passing a large snow bank on the way.  Jack immediately ran to make a snowball to throw at his brother.  It wasn't so much that I didn't want him to hit Will with a snowball, more that I didn't want the snow in the car.  But there isn't always snow in the parking lot in our mid-Atlantic state, so really, what's the harm in letting a kid play?

So Total Stranger, I hope that you can forgive my lack of parenting or that you at least got enough sense of superiority to get you through another day until you can 'tsk tsk" at another harried mom.  And if that mom is me, don't worry, I'll give you plenty of stuff to talk about, but I'll be too busy enjoying my kids to care.

Kisses,
Erin

What Would GoGo Do?

The following is the eulogy I gave at Mom's funeral.

I have said many times that my mom was pretty dumb when I was a teenager, but somewhere around age 22 she started getting smarter and smarter.  By the time I had my first baby at 30, I knew that I’d never catch up and she’d be endlessly smarter than me. 

My mom didn’t teach me to wear make up.  She taught me that true beauty comes from inside your soul.

She wasn’t physically strong, but she showed me what strength of character is.

She didn’t encourage me to be competitive, she taught me that having fun was way more important than winning.

She didn’t teach me how to get ahead in my career; she showed me that real success is measured in love not in money. 

She didn’t teach me how to get what I want, she taught me that sometimes putting others needs ahead of your own is joy all it’s own. 

 She simply taught me, every day; about the kind of woman I wanted to be.  Without ever raising her voice, her message carried through.   She might have only been 5’4”, but her soul stood 20 feet tall.    There are endless stories and examples I could give, and I could stand here all day and explain to you why I was the luckiest daughter in the world, but instead I’ll just tell you to look at my Ellie’s beautiful blue eyes, Maggie’s joy for life, Jack’s wicked sense of humor, and Will’s sweet nature.  I will find her every day in them and inside my own heart.

We should all live our lives with one simple tenet, “What Would GoGo Do?”  If you do that, you’ll always do the right thing, and you’ll always have fun doing it. 

Same, same, only different

So, people keep telling me to blog.  I was going to try to start a whole new blog, cause I feel sometimes like I am a completely different person than the person that started this blog, but then I decided that, yeah, I am completely different, but I'm also totally the same, ya know?  So zen, but stick with me and I hope you'll understand.

Since I started this blog, I've lived through the diagnosis and death of a dear friend's child, the death of my mother and the death of my grandfather, not to mention the countless real tragedies of life, like running out of coffee on a Monday and forgetting that it's Downtown Abbey night.  When I started this blog, I was totally that mom who blew off fevers and mystery illnesses and thought that I would have my mom holding my hand during Ellie's wedding.  Now... well, let's just say, I keep the pediatrician in business and I'll probably be holding my mother's necklace at the weddings.  Sometimes, I miss that person, that former self who had no idea how fast things could change.  But some of the time, I remember to be grateful for the experiences I have had and to remember that no matter how much it sucks that Mom died (and it sucks bad), I still don't live in the Ukraine or Syria and the regular problems I have are almost always solved by popcicles or stickers or a glass of wine with good friends.

So I'm going to stick with this little ol' blog.  I'll try to make it funny, but I can't promise I won't stray into the serious from time to time.  But tonight, I'll be funny :)

I kept meaning to write this in a blog, and I kept not doing it, so I'll do it now.   A year ago, about this time of year, I decided that I would be Mother of the Year and take my kids to see the cherry blossoms in Washington, DC.  If you haven't seen them, and you live within a reasonable drive, you really should, it is spectacular.  Ellie was sitting the DCAS (our standardized testing in Delaware) so after a quick call to the school to ensure that they were finished testing, I showed up at school with a car load of snacks and juice boxes - a treat akin to crack in our house - and told the kids that we were going on an adventure.  In case you're wondering what would possess me to go to DC with 4 kids, alone, on a weekday, I can only offer two explanations... DC is the least crowded on Tuesdays and it's far and away the best day to visit and I am a person who often overestimates the my limits.

Waiting for the Metro, best part of the day

We trekked down to Greenbelt, MD and hopped on the Metro, me feeling like the coolest mom in the freaking universe.  Kids are happy; they love the Metro.  I could probably just buy 5 all day passes and ride the subway all day and they would think it was awesome.  After some internal debate, I decided we would get off at L'enfant Plaza, rather than trying to change trains and go to the Smithsonian, even though it was farther.  Better to walk on the Mall than to wrangle 4 kids in a metro station.

At last we arrived, still all so happy we could just spit.  We popped out right in front of possibly the nicest hot dog salesman ever.  I forked over $8 for hot dogs and we sat right on the grass and ate.  Old ladies stopped to tell me how adorable we were.  The sun was shining.  Pretty much, it was the stuff that music montages are made of.  Then, the first snag.  Someone had to pee.

I got my bearings and realized that to my left was the Hirshhorn Gallery of Modern Art and to my right was the National Air and Space Museum.  My goal being the cherry blossoms, I decided that Modern Art had no chance of capturing my kids' attention.  I've spent quite a bit of time in all the various museums on the Mall and I remembered where the restrooms were in the Hirshhorn and I thought we'd just duck in, pee, and head out.

Phase 1, urination, went just fine.  As we left the bathroom, Ellie spotted the exhibit entitled "Out of the Ordinary".

        "What's that, Mommy?"
        "That's an art exhibit, honey."
        "Can we look?"

See, and here is where the wheels fall off the bus.  I don't know it yet, oh no, I was too busy breaking my arm patting myself on the back for having an extremely curious and intelligent child who was interested in looking at the weird modern art.  Obviously, it was a direct result of superior parenting.  So in we went and first encountered a piece that I can only describe like this:  A not leaning tower of Pisa, made entirely of 10" statues of the Virgin Mary, spray painted fluorescent yellow.

And as we were discussing things like perspective and interpretation, I looked over my shoulder and I saw it....

That, my friends, is a 6 foot long stick of butter.

Let me say that again.  A 6 foot long stick of butter.

I did it, I had to.  Cause no matter how cool I was trying to appear to the kids, no matter how important I feel that instilling a love and appreciation of all art is to my kids' education, I had to take a picture of the ridiculous 6 foot stick of butter and send it to Jeff.  And in the moment that I stopped parenting and became a person with a cell phone, Will took off like a shot, straight towards the butter.

If you look at the picture again, you'll notice that there is a distinct lack of barrier surrounding the butter, preventing small children from climbing on something that you might find at the play place at the mall.  What they do have is an overhead sensor that can tell when someone gets to close and it sounds an alarm.  Several things happened at once.  Will stepped over the line, the buzzer sounded, and a security guard yelled "Hey!" Will took one more step, did a pivot worthy of professional basketball and ran the other way, back to me.  "He ripped it." said my calm eldest child.  "What?" "He ripped it, look"  I looked and when he turned, his foot had been on the wrapper and the pivot tore off a corner.  Time slowed down, and I heard white noise.  OMG, my kid just broke art in the Smithsonian.  In a split second, I considered my options and I chose the only one that made sense.  I picked Will and Jack up under each arm and said, "Girls, let's go.  NOW"

We made it as far as the escalators.  I was about halfway up when the guards caught me and yelled up  to me, "Ma'am, we need to speak to you."  It was at about this point that my brains started to leak out of my ears.  They backed us up into a corner, right next to the bathrooms that we had so innocently peed in just 15 minutes before.  Three huge security guards started asking for Will's birthday, our address, where we were staying in DC, etc.  In the background, I could see a rush of activity - people walking with clipboards and cameras, snapping pictures of the damage.  I answered the questions as best I could as Will, still in my arms, struggled to get loose.  No fucking way were his feet going to touch the ground again.  Meanwhile, Maggie, who had spotted a frozen yogurt truck on the way into this little adventure and who never forgets anything, was asking "Can we get frozen yogurt?  Are we going to have frozen yogurt?  Can I get chocolate?  Will they have sprinkles?"  Ellie, stood huffing and puffing off to the side, chanting, "Worst.Trip.Ever" over and over, and then Jack chose that moment to shit himself.   By the time they were done, I was hot, exhausted, utterly humiliated and ready to cry.  Well, truthfully, I probably was crying.

After a quick trip to the bathroom to throw away Jack's underwear, thereby ensuring our position on the blacklist of the Hirshhorn Gallery, we left.  At this point, I went slightly crazy, a la Chevy Chase in Christmas Vacation.  I wasn't going to quit and get back on the subway, OH NO, we came here to do the cherry blossoms and I wasn't leaving until I saw a goddamned cherry blossom and my kids had a lifelong memory.  Refer back to my blog about Luray Caverns for more information about failed day trips.

Notice the kid sized holes in the railing?

After a forced march, we arrived at the Tidal Basin and the kids oohed and aahed with satisfactory wonder.  I was having a hard time shaking the catastrophic beginning though, so I decided to apply a standard parenting rule to myself - There is nothing that can't be cured with a popcicle, band-aid, or a sticker.  I bought a round of popsicles for the kids and an extra big one for myself.  I put the popsicle in, and it promptly froze to my lips.  Completely.  Like when I pulled on the stick, my whole face moved.  Finding myself with few options, I simply ripped it and a couple layers of skin out of my mouth.  And began to laugh and laugh and laugh and laugh.

We salvaged the day, largely due to the kids love of the Metro - riding back pretty much put everything to rights.  We even got to stop at my favorite restaurant for dinner.

With all that said, peak bloom for the cherry blossoms is April 8 - 12 this year... who's going with us?

no one's perfect.

Well another summer has come and gone and here we are back in school.  This summer was fabulous/  Caroline came to visit and I proved to myself that I could conquer Philadelphia with four kids in tow.  It finally feels like we can actually do things, now that everyone is (mostly) potty trained and I no longer have to pack half the house with us to go places.  We went to North Carolina on vacation with my parents and other family, had barbecues and baseball games and fireworks and everything awesome about summer.  For me though, there was always a shadow behind me.  It's been nearly 4 months since Molly died, and not a day goes by that I don't wish it wasn't so.  

There are reminders everywhere - there's the obvious: driving by the cemetery or going to Kristen's house, and the subtle, like seeing a butterfly or a rainbow.  But it's the unexpected reminders that get me the most - during the Perseid meteor shower in August, I was struggling to explain what meteors are like to my 4 year old and I said that meteors are tiny and wouldn't hurt him, it would be like glitter falling from the sky and he said, "Molly's throwing glitter from Heaven!" 

All the while, I remind myself that what I feel is a sliver of the enormous pain that Kristen and her family are going through.  While that gives me perspective, it's not always enough to keep me from being angry or sad, or or generally unpleasant to be around.  I wish I could say that this experience has made me more patient with my kids, or made me kinder to others, or made me want to crusade to end Pulmonary Hypertension and HHT.  It hasn't, at least, not all of the time.  I'm just as patient as I've always been, which is to say about as patient as a regular old mom.  I'm as kind as I used to be, but probably more judgmental.  Somedays I want to contact my Senators and Congressman, but there are plenty where I want to pretend like I still had never heard of those diseases.  Those days, those times, I feel like I'm letting Molly down.  Mols, who never gave up on anything, would expect me to be better.  

But there are days where I do better - when I let Will walk on the wall at Crossroads, just to hear him say "yay!" and see the look of pride on his face when he jumps down by himself or when I actually ran around in a rainstorm with the kids or when I don't internally freak out at the guy taking his sweet time to back out of a parking space.  Those days, I remember that life is really too short, and there's no reason not to take the "super spy double secret back way home" (which is twice around the neighborhood and down a cul-de-sac and back).  

Today, a butterfly raced me down the road to the bus stop.  I couldn't help but say "Hi Molly." And then it occurred to me, did I see the butterfly because the butterfly is carrying Molly's spirit, or did I see it because I am carrying Molly's spirit in me?  And that was a very comforting thought.  Cause Molly, though persevering, wasn't perfect and it made me realize that she wouldn't want me to be perfect either.  

Words that were never meant to be said

On May 17th, Molly died.


That is not a sentence that was ever meant to be written.  Even as I type it, my stomach drops, my eyes fill with tears, and I am overwhelmed with the enormity of those five words.


On May 17th, Molly died.


For 20 months, I have known that this was a possibility, if not a probability.  But the mind is a powerful liar and I have spent 20 months believing that Molly would beat it.  I mean, if any kid was ever going to magically cure herself of an incurable disease, it was going to be Molly.  She was a tough cookie from the day I met her.  I can remember babysitting the Dunne kids when Kristen was recovering from a surgery - Molly and Kate would have been about 2, almost 3 - Molly liked to change her clothes about 14 times a day and it made her dad (the chief laundry doer) crazy.  After about the third outfit change, I tried to dissuade Mols from going back into her room for yet another change, and she let me know in no uncertain terms that this was HER house and that I was NOT her mom.

Another time, the summer before she got sick, I was watching the kids and I told her no about one thing or another and she simply stared defiantly at me.  I thought "I have to stare this kid down or I'm never going to have an ounce of credibility with her again." And as we eyeballed one another, a different thought occurred to me, I thought "This kid is going to punch me in the nose."  When Molly was in the hospital and the diagnosis of PH had been made, I can remember sitting in the waiting room of the cardiac unit, holding Kristen's hands saying that if it was any other kid, I'd be more worried.  But Molly?  She would stand up in her bed in the CICU and say "Hell no!  I'm going to beat this."


Kristen and I live close together and we used to say that one of us had to move before our daughters entered their teens, as we could totally imagine them all sneaking out of their houses together.   I imagined the trouble they would get into, driving around town, honking at boys, singing along with crappy pop songs, doing the things that teenaged girls do.


On May 17th, Molly died.


Though I knew what the chances were, I spent very little time thinking about what things were going to be like if Molly died.  During the last week, when Kristen mentioned that she was thinking about taking Molly to AI so she could say goodbye to her therapists, and even though I knew what she meant, my brain could only think of saying goodbye like she was graduating or moving or going to a new school.  Not like she was dying.  It seemed completely unreal.  It still does seem completely unreal.  Kristen recently posted a photo of Molly's grave covered in the flowers from the funeral, and my gut reaction was one of wanting to claw at the earth and uncover her, because it would be too dark and cold and scary for a 7 year old and some remote part of my brain is holding on to the wish that this is all a dream and there was a terrible mistake and that Molly's in there, pissed off and wanting to play with her toys.

People keep telling me what a great friend I am, and every time I hear it, I cringe.  Nothing I did changed the fact that Molly died, that Kristen and her family have to live with an unimaginable amount of pain.  I should have done more with the Miracles page, had more fundraisers, gone to see Molly more.  None of it would have changed anything, I know that.  But the thoughts are still there - what if, what if, what if?


On May 17th, Molly died.


And now we have to live with that.



Community News Article
NewsJournal article

No one ever got skinny making snarky remarks over drinks at the bar

Yup.  So I weigh 181 pounds.  I have weighed 181 pounds since about three months after Will was born. I have gone up and down within five pounds of that range, but for all intents and purposes, I have weighed 181 pounds for 2 years.

I have complained about it, read about it, thought about it, talked about it, accepted it, and been sad about it.  The one thing I haven't really, truly, honestly tried is DOING something about it.

Oh sure, I go to the gym occasionally.  I don't have endless snacks in the house.  I drink diet pepsi and switched from sugar to splenda in my coffee.  But let's be honest, I haven't really pushed myself.  If I want half of Will's donut, I eat it.  If I want Wendy's for lunch, I get it.  I'm not really very good at self denial, nor am I very good at "pushing through pain" (unless I wind up with a baby at the end, but that's a different blog).  If I hurt, I don't want to go to the gym.  So I don't.

I am not disappointed with myself.  Let me be clear.  I hate the negativity that women have around food and weight.  My friends beat themselves up endlessly about the food choices they make and the weight they don't lose, or gain back.  I hear successful, beautiful, smart and talented women put themselves down because they don't weigh the "perfect" weight.  There was a great article about "fat is the new ugly" that talks about how kids learn that being fat means you're stupid, mean and lazy.  They learn this from us, the mothers that talk about the donut we had yesterday as if we had cheated on our husbands and not our diet.

So, I'm not beating myself up.  I have made the choices I have made for many reasons, and I have many excuses for not being more diligent about living a healthy lifestyle.  I am deciding that I'm going to start making this a priority.  When Maggie is spinning like a top in the house, yelling "I'm a molecule!" (thank you Gerald from Sid the Science Kid), I tell her "Control your body!"  Today, I start controlling mine. And you, Avid Blog Reader, are going to help me.

I saw a good piece of advice on FB about exercise and I thought I'd share.  Perhaps it's not that I hate exercise, perhaps it's that I haven't found what I like to do yet.  So I'm embarking on a quest to find an enjoyable kind of exercise.  I am committing to exercising every day, some way, some how.  I will get out of my comfort zone and try something new at least once a week, even if I feel like an idiot doing it.  90% of my problem is the whole "feeling like an idiot" thing - it kept me from trying a spin class for two years. When I finally did muster up the courage to try spin, the instructor was super nice and helpful, I got my bike set up and after a few minutes of feeling stupid, I realized that not one other person in the class gave a rat's ass about my neurosis.  You'd think that a woman who has breast fed in the National Archives would be less inhibited, but there it is.

So, feel free to suggest any exercise you think would be good.  I'm going to blog about it and tell my tales.  My goal is to lose 10 pounds this month.  Wish me luck!  Hopefully, I'll be amusing while I'm doing it.

On being "That Mom"

There is a disease that is epidemic among men and women in their 20s and 30s.  It's symptoms vary wildly, largely affecting the areas of the brain that control speech and logic.  It's called "first pregnancy syndrome" and it's only cure is the birth of a child.  There is no treatment during the pregnancy, other than the application of well meaning advice that is generally scoffed at and not taken.

When we found out we were having our first baby, Jeff and I, like so many other couples decided that we were going to do it "right".  We were out celebrating our news, and after we went straight to Barnes and Noble to buy armloads of baby books to ensure that we were well informed parents.  While perusing the books, I saw that one of the absolute no-nos of pregnancy was eating raw fish or lunchmeat.  This fact collided with the fact that I had eaten a ham sandwich for lunch and sushi at our celebratory dinner.  I had only been pregnant for 8 hours and already I had messed up and guaranteed that the baby would have three eyes and maybe be a serial killer.

Recovering from this setback, I marched onwards, determined that I would make it up to "Scout".  Jeff made me smoothies for breakfast, replete with wheat germ and flax seed.  I drank water by the gallon - so much that when I went to the doctor to have the 'confirmation test', it showed up negative.  I had literally diluted my pee to the point where modern tests could not detect my pregnancy.  I did yoga, well, I did yoga for like a week.  I read "What to Expect When You're Expecting" and joined Babycenter so I could know what size fruit my baby was this week.  We made a birth plan, bought a birth ball, picked music to labor by, went to the lamaze classes.  In short, we knew everything.

And then I was overdue, and I was induced, and we couldn't use the birth ball and I had an epidural and we forgot to listen to the music during labor and I wanted to punch Jeff when he tried to get me to use the lamaze techniques.  I had been cured of FPS.

However, now I find that I'm afflicted with a new disease, "That Mom Syndrome".  I'm the one who is combing the girls' hair with my fingers at the bus stop and the one that forgets to bring the "star snack" to Jack's preschool.  My kids fight like Protestants and Catholics. I let them watch TV for the express purpose of letting me play "Hidden Chronicles" on Facebook.  I let them ride their bikes in the street. I am not pinning adorable party favors on my Pinterest board to make for Will's birthday party.  In fact, I didn't have a birthday party for Will, period.

More often than not, I find myself giving - mostly unsolicited - advice to parents that can be summed up by this statement - "Relax and find your way of doing things, without worrying about what the 'experts' say, or what your friends say, or even what your parents say". I try to take my own advice.  My kids are happy, they're doing well in school, they all have friends, they can ride their two wheelers and tie their own shoes.  Will is potty trained and Jack can write his name.  These are all good things.  And in the grand scheme of things, this is all the easy stuff.  As parents, it's so easy to get caught up in the minutia of parenting and forget about the big picture - we all joke and say "he won't get married in diapers" but yet there is a small part of every potty training mother I know that thinks if their kid isn't potty trained by age 3 that their kid won't get married cause she (the mother) has failed and the kid will ultimately be the guy on the street with a sign that says "Will Work for Pull Ups".

So for all my bravado, I still worry about being "that mom".  However, I don't see that changing anytime soon, cause let's face it, I think my kids are pretty awesome.  Maybe I'll pin some really fantastic dessert that we can all make together.... nope. Probably not.

Before and After

We are all undeniably shaped by the things that happen to us; from the moment we're born things happen to us that shape the choices we make, the way we view the world, and the way the world views us.  Most of the time, we're not even aware of the minute changes that happen.  It's not until we look back over the landscape of our lives and that we see the mountains we thought were rolling hills.

There are a few moments, however, that stand out and we describe them as such:  ground breaking, earth shaking, life changing.  I've been lucky in my life that I have had very few of those kinds of moments, almost all of them happy.  I've mostly bobbed through the charmed ocean of life, with happily married parents, few heartbreaks, and few disappointed hopes.  September 2010 changed that.

This is not a blog to talk about Molly or her medical condition - if you are interested in following Molly's journey, her mom Kristen has written eloquently on the topic in her caringbridge blog.  But her illness, critical condition and the adjustment to the "New Normal" has left a mark on me, and I will forever think of life as "Before" and "After".

In order to decide to become a parent, you have to take a gigantic dose of "that won't happen to us" pills.  This is what allows you to love someone so completely, without reservation.  If people stopped to think of everything that could go wrong with pregnancy, birth, babies, toddlers, tweens, teens, college students.... the human race would end.  To function, you HAVE to be able to convince the rational part of your brain that yes, bad things do happen, but they happen to other people and your child won't have a problem.  Before, I lived happily in that bubble, "knowing" that there were kids with problems out there, but satisfied with the idea that it wasn't going to be my kids, or my friend's kids.

Seeing Molly on life support was a terrible thing.  The ups and downs of those dark days deeply affected me in ways that I'm only now starting to understand.  It was as if I had been walking down the street, a beautiful street, lined with pretty houses with neat yards and when I reached out to touch one, I discovered that the whole thing was a paper thin backdrop that I could punch a hole in.  And when I punched that hole and tore the paper, behind the beautiful houses were sick and dying children, their parents and siblings, and families and friends.  I couldn't get the idea out of my head that there were thousands of kids like Molly out there; sick, clinging to life, with their devastated families sitting by their sides.  I became obsessed with Caring Bridge posts, I found myself searching Facebook for pages asking for prayers for this kid or that.  I became completely unable to leave the house for fear that I would miss a post or a phone call from Kristen about Molly.  I couldn't fall asleep unless my cell phone was plugged in next to me and I found the loudest possible ringtone so I would be sure to hear it, even in the deepest sleep.  Not that there was much sleep to be had.

I went through alternating phases of completely overindulging my kids and getting mad at them for not understanding why I was sad.  I stopped reading some Facebook posts, cause I would get so angry about people complaining about their kids.  I wanted to shout at people "Hug your kid!  Be happy he's well enough to misbehave!"  I went to the mall and standing among the crowd of strangers,  I realized if I started to cry, no one would know why, and it made me start to have a panic attack.  I got into a fight with a friend because he asked, via Facebook, to ask people to pray that the financing went through on his truck.  I told him that people like him were clogging up the prayer lines and did he seriously think God had anything to do with financing a truck and if He did, then the whole notion of God was insane.  I would swing wildly between praying to God and thinking that I couldn't believe in a God who would allow people to go through so much pain.

I was so angry.  Angry at God, angry at the doctors, angry at everyone who didn't stop their whole lives to help Molly.  I knew it was unreasonable, but I couldn't stop myself.  And I would get angry at myself, for having emotions that I wasn't sure were really mine to have.  Molly's not my kid, and I'm not a member of the family, so did I even have the right to be so sad and mad and scared?

Slowly, the anger ebbed.  The grief has been largely replaced with gratitude that Molly has recovered so much.  But I am in the After.  I no longer think of AI Dupont as a place you take your kid for a broken bone, it's where Molly went on life support.  I still jump at texts and phone calls from Kristen, and when the caller ID said AI Dupont recently, it took me a minute of conversation with the person calling before I got my heart out of my throat.  Kristen and I had a running joke in the Before - if your kid was sick and you wanted to take them to the doctor, you called Kristen for advice.  If you didn't, you called me for advice.  That's not true anymore.  I'm much more likely to err on the side of caution, and my stack of EOBs from the pediatrician proves it.

The biggest difference in the After is in how I view my friendships and how I deal with people.  I have realized that people have different priorities from me, and that's okay - Everyone gives what they can, when they can.   Just because Kristen and Molly have this BIG problem, doesn't make the problems that other people face less important to that person.  I had to stop comparing everything to Molly, but I also had to distance myself from friends who were having crisis because I knew I wasn't equipped to handle it.  I also learned that when the shit goes down, you will be surprised by who steps up and who steps out.

I think I'm more serious now.  When I see a speeding car, I tend to wonder if that person is rushing to the hospital before I think "what a jackass".  It's been hard to write this blog, as you might have guessed by my lack of posts.  At first, I felt like happiness was a sort of betrayal to Kristen, my bestest buddy who was anything but happy.  Then I wanted to talk about how I was feeling about this, but didn't know how for a very long time.

The After isn't entirely a bad place.  I think I'm more patient with my kids and husband.  I appreciate our health and our happiness more now.  I think it has made me kinder to strangers and more aware of the people around me.  My girls are much more aware of special needs kids and adults and understand that there are kids who are less fortunate than they are.  Personally, I would give up all this awareness and sensitivity for another cold drink by the pool with Kris and all 7 of our kids acting like shit monkeys in the pool, but this is not the life we lead.  I'm grateful to Father Foley and his continuing miracle of Molly, and I'm grateful to whatever trick of fate led us to Delaware and me to the Pike Creek MOMS club.

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Every store in America should be legally required to have a drive thru.

It's raining today.  Again.  For about the seventy-fifth day in a row.  And I had to get milk.  Which meant dragging Will through the rain to get two gallons of milk and then carry everything back to the car.  In the rain.  Did I mention that it's been raining a lot lately? 

I sat in my car contemplating my options - don't buy milk and deal with not only the screaming from Will, complete with the most heart wrenching signing of "milk" and "please" and "more" and, perhaps more importantly, sentence myself to a morning of coffee with non-dairy creamer and the nasty chemical coat I'd wear on my tongue for the rest of the day as a result, or suck it up and drag myself and Will and 2 gallons of milk through the rain. 

Carrying my son shouldn't be such a burden, right?  I mean, he's my kid and I love him.  Throw myself in front of a moving train kind of love.  However, this little bundle of joy that I love so much weighs 30 pounds and fights me like Oscar La Hoya when I try to carry him.   He yanks my hair, hits my face, screams and wiggles, all with the absolute knowledge that I will not drop him from a height of four feet and run for the nearest bar (which happens to be right next door to the store where I buy milk).  And, unfortunately for Will, this is my fourth time around so the whole cute baby thing doesn't have as much cache as it might have had for Ellie.  Doing errands with kids sucks and it sucks hard core.

Just recently, a friend commented that he called 911 on a woman who left her kids (approx 7 and 4) in the car while she went into Starbucks.  Fortunately for the woman, she got her coffee in a timely enough fashion that she avoided an uncomfortable conversation with the police.  My friend got feedback from his FB friends about how terrible that was and how could any mother do that.  And I'm sure he was proud of himself for taking a stand against bad parenting and poor choices.  Well, I'm not a terrible mother.  I'm a really good mother, if I do say so myself.  And I've done it.  I've left my kids in the car while I got a coffee.  While I've gotten another kid out of school.  I've put the kids in the car and then come back in to the house to get myself ready.  In Delaware, if someone called 911, and the police came, they would likely take my children away from me and put them in a foster home until an investigation was completed.  Because you can't leave your kids in your car, cause it's a slippery slope.  If you let some people leave their kids in their cars, then where do you draw the line.  There was a woman in my recent memory who left her kid in her car while she went into a bar and had a date.  Is me running into Dunkin' Donuts so much different?  It's all a matter of degrees, right?  

While it's possible that this woman is a crappy mom and is taking her own issues out on her kids, I'd like to think that she was probably just a mom who didn't feel like dragging her kids into another store.  Especially one that sells tasty looking treats for approximately the same price as my last pair of tennis shoes.  Maybe she had been out running errands, or worse taking them to the doctor, all day and just wanted a coffee without commentary from her kids.  A wise cop friend of mine once said that no situation is so bad that it cannot be made worse by the presence of a police officer.  My friend's intentions were excellent, but maybe just waiting by the car to make sure nothing happened to the kids, that they were in no danger, and then a private word with the mother might have been kinder and more civilized?

This brings me back to the rain. And the milk. And Will in the car, happily playing with a train.   And being a bad mother.  Suddenly, it dawned on me that there is another option. It is completely socially acceptable for me to leave my children in the car while I go into the gas station. I could be in there buying smokes and porn, but no one thinks twice about a car full of kids at a gas pump.  So I went to the gas station and bought milk for a ridiculous price, brought it home, and enjoyed my coffee while ignoring Will so I could watch Grey's Anatomy. 

That my friends, is being a good mother. 
 

Maggie's 5!!!

My Maggie is 5.  She is definitely a kid who knows what she wants and knows how to get it.  She is the mayor of munchkin city around these parts, all the little kids love her, despite her nearly choking almost all of them while trying to pick them up at one time or another.  She is a force of nature.  I hope you enjoy this little review of Maggie's year!

Carnival Games prepared me for Motherhood

When you walk in a room four kids aged 6 and under, you get a lot of commentary from strangers.  "You certainly have your hands full."  "You're busy!" "That's a little army you've got" and my personal fave to date, "That's ALOT of kids!", as if I had 14 kids with me rather than 4.  After the shock of seeing a seemingly normal person with 4 kids wears off, the next most common line of attack is "I don't know how you do it!"  I usually smile and say something self deprecating, unless I'm feeling snarky.  Recently an older gentleman commented, "So what do you do in your spare time."  I responded with "I have four children, what do you think I do in my spare time?" with a large wink thrown in for good measure. 

I've recently figured out how I manage four kids though.  It was all the carnival games I played as a kid.  Let me explain:

Whack a Mole - perfect training for life with four kids.  My day to day is filled with kids popping their heads up and asking for various things.  I have to get a snack for one, while another is asking for crayons and another is crying about a boo boo, and the fourth is needing a diaper change.  It's all about peripheral vision and quick responses.

Ring Toss - Total practice field for throwing snacks with accuracy into the way back of the van.  If I had known then what I know now, I would have practiced more with my back to the bottles and looking in the walleye mirror.

The Balloon Dart game - more of a metaphorical preparation, but I do puncture the wild schemes of my kids pretty much daily. 

Duck Pond - well, hasn't every parent fished something out of the toilet?

Dunk Tank - I've spent hours trying to figure out how to do baths dunk tank style.  It's a work in progress.

Bean Bag Toss - totally prepared me to feed four kids at the dinner table.  I can throw a dinner roll with wicked accuracy.

Fun House - Pretty much goes without saying.  Sometimes scary, sometimes dangerous, but you always want to go back through. 

So all in all, I'd like to thank all those toothless carnies, who in their own way taught me as much about motherhood as Dr. Spock. 

thoughts on Motherhood...

My days are filled with poop and pee,

arguing, whining, and squeals of glee.
I like to think I have control,
but my kids think that is rather droll.

Each day I start with a sense of hope,
that the coffee’s ready and will help me cope.
My sleep interrupted, my body wants to revolt.
I need the caffeine to give me a jolt.

Four little creatures, I see waiting there,
Running around with sleep-messy hair.
Feed them, dress them, start the days grind,
brush one’s hair, wipe one’s behind.

One onto the bus, preschool for another,
Two stay with me, their harried mother.
Tomorrow I think, I’ll do this all better,
get up earlier, make lunches, get it together.

I’ve given up on being THAT mom,
the one with makeup, jewelry or matching clothes on.
No, I’m the one running late,
for school, for appointments, for a playdate.

I usually forget something I need,
thank Heaven for friends who loan things to me.
These girls are my rock, the cut me much slack,
And they know that I’ve got their back.

The years are short, but the days are long
and some days I feel like I’m doing it wrong.
My kids watch TV, eat junk and fight,
they haven’t learned Spanish or how to sleep through the night.

But most days we laugh and hug and kiss
Those moments I know it doesn’t get better than this.
My kids know I love them and I do my best everyday
to make a good home for them to learn and play.

So after six years of this motherhood stuff
I’ve learned being a parent is really tough.
I’m a good mom and I’m a good wife,
and I can’t wait to see what happens in life!

Merry Christmas!

Dear Mr. Claus,
Thank you for hiring us to audit your Naughty/Nice list this year. Enclosed, please find the report on the Lacey Family of Wilmington, Delaware.

The youngest Lacey, William Jeffrey, started off the year clearly naughty. First, after causing his mother to go slightly crazy after being two full weeks overdue, he then had the audacity to weigh 11 pounds, 3 ounces at birth. However, he has shown remorse and spent the rest of the year applying himself diligently to repairing his image. His smiles, infectious laugh and his excellent sleeping habits have allowed us to firmly recommend William as “Nice”.

Next, we investigated Jack, aka “Muqtada al Toddler”. Jack is an enigma. He displays characteristics of naughtiness, for instance, his tendency to destroy his sisters’ artwork or by throwing a Thomas Tank Engine with deadly accuracy. This behavior, coupled by his obvious lack of remorse, would place him squarely on the black list, but his adorable smile and hilarious way of saying “okay!” has charmed even this seasoned auditor. We recommend Jack as “Nice”.

While Maggie has been up for review several times in past years, this year, we are happy to report that Maggie has grown into a wonderful big sister and an excellent preschooler. Maggie shows an ability to see the best in everyone and is quick to compliment a friend or to kiss a boo boo when necessary. This year Maggie also added swimming to her resume, and she is a regular fish in the water. While still having her moments of “exuberance”, Maggie is most definitely “Nice”.

Ellie has set the bar high for her siblings. She can now add star Kindergartner to her list of accomplishments. Ms. King, Ellie’s teacher, says she is kind and friendly and she is showing great aptitude for school. Ellie has a strong interest in science and loves to create little experiments in the back yard. She is clearly still “Nice”.

There is one addition to our regular audit of the Lacey Family. Caroline Aime, a 17 year old from France, joined the family in August as an exchange student and has already become more like another daughter than temporary guest. In addition to being sweet and kind, Caroline has already received Distinguished Honors at McKean High School, one of only 3 seniors to do so. She is loved universaly by the family, especially the dog Joey, who is hopeful everyday that today might be the day his love is returned. Caroline is firmly “Nice”.

As a side note, though we don’t generally audit dog behavior, Joey deserves special mention for his 11 years of steadfast service to the Laceys. Particularly in the last year, while he has endured pokes and prods, been pressed into service as both Prince Charming and a stepstool, he has done it all with wag of the tail and only one or two room clearing farts a day.

Finally, I’m saddened to disclose that there was an ethical problem with the initial report on Erin Lacey. Apparently, her husband Jeffrey, in a misunderstanding of semantics, tried to bribe the first auditor to put Erin on the “Naughty” list. Once the gifting ramifications were made clear to Mr. Lacey, he requested that Erin be placed back on the “Nice” list and that his actions be fully disclosed. Mr. Lacey, despite this transgression, is also recommended for “Nice” status for his continued efforts to tame four wild animals into productive members of society and for enduring forty-two weeks of pregnancy without once trying to drive Erin into the middle of nowhere and leave her for dead.

All in all, the Lacey family has had a productive and happy 2010. They are extremely grateful for their wonderful friends and family and sincerely hope that they have an even better 2011.


Regards and Merry Christmas,



Elves of India, Inc.

Go Big Red!

You probably know me well enough to know that I love me some Facebook.  I love the random nature of seeing the daily minutiae of the lives of people from all different parts of my life listed in my news feed.  It's like "This is Your Life" everyday.  My first friend from childhood talks about his new baby, and then right under it, my girlfriend is asking for advice about digital cameras, and then there's something random from one of my relatives. 

Lately, there's been a lot of talk from one group of friends... my high school friends.  You see, my high school football team was in the state championship playoffs and this past Saturday, they lost in the final seconds to Dunbar High.  Apparently there was some controversy over the last play, in which Dunbar scored, breaking the tie and winning the game.  This is the kind of information I wouldn't know, if not for Facebook.  You might think this is just superficial FB crap, but to the people of Cumberland, MD, there is nothing more serious than football.

We moved to Cumberland when I was 10, almost 11.  Fresh off living in Detroit, MI, a place my entire family hated for the 11 months and 4 days we lived there, my first impression of Cumberland was made by the sign posted on the way into town "Cumberland, MD - Home of the National Marbles Champion 1981".  My thoughts were along the lines of, "wow, this town does not have much to brag about."  Moving from Pittsburgh to Michigan had been pretty traumatic for all of us, and I was just prepared to hate everything about this new hick town my parents had landed us in. 

My feelings of dread were not relieved by our new house.  It was unique in it's splendid ugliness.  The front door was painted safety orange with brown trim.  Apparently, the previous owners had gotten a good deal on this orange and brown paint, because the entryway and living room were the brown and the kitchen was the orange.  The downstairs powder room had wallpaper that rivals Repub's... silver and black metallic with yellow fuzzy diamonds.  My bedroom looked as though someone had color matched a Pink SnoBall.  It was putrid pink, even for an 11 year old girl.  If I remember right, my parents' bedroom was the same safety orange, cause really, why stop at the kitchen?  And their master bath was spectacular in it's tackiness, complete with shag carpeting.



Me, age 11

 But home it was and we unpacked and prepared for that most awkward of childhood moments, starting a new school mid-year.  There's a special kind of pain that is caused by starting mid-year...  everyone already knows where they're going, the cliques are already formed, and you're bound to get the seat directly in front of the teacher in every class.  It's like showing up late for church.  There's no way to sneak in without anyone noticing.  Well intentioned teachers think it's helpful to have you say something about yourself, when really all that does is allow all the other kids to get a good look at your glasses and crooked nose and bad hair and bad clothes.  At least, that's what it feels like.  

Determined to make a good impression, I dressed for my first day in my favorite blue sweater, the one that I hoped made people notice I had blue eyes hidden behind my ginormous glasses.   I got on the school bus with no problem and thought maybe this would be okay.  Maybe I would make a good impression.  Maybe I would finally be like Elizabeth from Sweet Valley High and everyone would love me. 

I noticed something strange pretty quickly: my bus was decorated with red and white signs and streamers.  This seemed odd to me, but I didn't really absorb it as I was busily trying to disappear into the seat.  However, when we drove through Cresaptown, I couldn't help but notice that people, some of them adults, were yelling stuff at the bus.  One kid actually threw a rock.  What the hell?  Who throws rocks at a school bus???  The kids on my bus were yelling out the windows back at them.  Was I in the middle of some bizarre small town gang war?  I saw that the buildings and cars we were passing were decorated with blue and white.  Slowly, I looked around at my new classmates.  Every single one of them was wearing red and white.  My blue sweater, so perfect that morning, suddenly felt two sizes too small and extraordinarily hot. 

It was Homecoming.  See, in Cumberland, there are two public high schools.  Fort Hill and Allegany.  Fort Hill, or Big Red, is where I would go.  But at this point, I was only in 6th grade, and going to Washington Middle School.  However, Cumberland is somewhat of a geographical anomaly - it's 3 hours to everywhere.  Equidistant from Pittsburgh, Baltimore and DC, affinity to any of these cities is tenuous.  It's alliance to the high school team that defines this town. 

Of course, my first day of school was Pep Rally Day, when the Fort Hill Sentinels made an appearance to their younger fans.  Every kid was dressed in red and white, and I stuck out like a big blue thumb.  The hated Allegany Campers (and I have no idea to this day why they were named that) school colors are blue and white.   My mortification was epic. 





Erin & Kellee

Defeated and embarrassed, I got on the bus to go home.  Prepared to sit alone and stare at my textbooks the entire way home, I was shocked when a pretty blond girl positively bounded onto the seat next to me.  "Hi!  I'm Kellee!  You're new, right?  Where are you from?  Do you like it here?  Where do you live?"  She shot questions at me faster than Kirstie Alley eats potato chips.  With each question, my amazement grew.  This girl was actually talking to me, and being nice, and seemed interested in me.  Could it be?  Could I actually have a friend?  I did.  I was lucky enough to meet Kellee Gulck, and from that day, Cumberland became my home.  I eventually went on to be a Sentinel, and I still have my letter jacket to prove it.  I was on the Rifle Squad - no, not shooting, twirling - so I performed at every football game.  My heart still skips a beat when I hear "Anchors Aweigh" which was the tune used for our fight song.  And I can still march 10 yards in 8 steps. 

We moved from Cumberland when I was 17.  College and life have happened in the 20 years since high school, and if not for the power of social networking, I would never know that Fort Hill was robbed of their States chances last weekend.  Not that knowing materially changed my day, but somehow it's nice to know that those traditions are still there and that part of my childhood lives on.  Cumberland seemed like a hick town when we drove in, but it was a great place to be a kid and I'll alway consider myself priviledged to have lived there. 

Sunday Sermon

When Caroline decided that she wanted to come stay with us for the year, one of her few requests was that we go to Mass each Sunday.  Jeff and I are pretty much your standard "C & E" Catholics - we go on Christmas and Easter, and even then it's wholly dependant on how the children are behaving.  But how do you turn down a 16 year old that wants to go to Mass? 

Taking the whole family to church every Sunday is not an option.  I'm a firm believer that if you're spending the whole time entertaining/diciplining your two year old, you might as well not be at church anyway.  I don't want to be a distraction to others either, however, Ellie is five and that's plenty old to learn how to sit still for an hour.  So we decided that one of us parents, Caroline, and Ellie would be attending each week. 

Each week, Ellie whines and complains and moans and cries about going.  Yesterday it was my turn to take the girls and I was prepared for the onslaught of "It's boring!  I don't like standing.  I'm hungry.  I'm Jewish." that I knew would start as soon as I told her it was time to go.  Luckily, I had the threat of a birthday party to hang over her head and with the proper motivation ("If you don't stop complaining, you're not going to Mr. Taylor's birthday party") we were off.  Of course, there was much kvetching and dramatic sniffling from the back seat and I commented offhandedly to Caroline that yet another generation learns to hate going to church and that started me thinking about my own journey through the practical part, not the religious part, of churchgoing.

My dad is the driving force behind my church upbringing.  He's Catholic and has gone to church every Sunday, with very few exceptions, my whole life.  As a child, my recollections of church are of being lost in a forest of adult legs, staring at the pew and tracing the wood grain patterns with my fingers.  My favorite part of Mass was when my dad would carry me up to receive Communion.  Communion was also my least favorite part, for when I got old enough, he would leave us in the pew and I believe he acted as an usher from time to time.  Sunday school was always kind of a drag, but I LOVED my first Holy Communion... I loved the dress, I loved the hairpiece I wore, I loved the party afterwards and I certainly didn't look askanse at the gifts. 

After that, Communion continued to be my favorite part of Mass, but not for the 'transubstantiation' (when the bread becomes the body of Christ in Catholic mass), but rather because in good Catholic tradition, we weren't allowed to eat before Mass.  So the wafer was generally the first thing I'd eaten that day and they're actually kind of tasty.... in an unleavened bread sort of way.  Jeff and I both discovered our mutual taste for Hosts recently and had a good laugh about how we both wished you were allowed to get in line for another.  I can rememeber being very stressed out about chewing it though, cause there just seemed to be something terribly wrong with the idea of chewing up Jesus' body.  I would hold it in my mouth for as long as I could and try to let it melt.  This almost always resulted in the wafer sticking like plaster to the roof of my mouth, causing me to spend the rest of Mass surreptitiously trying to scrape it off with my tongue. 

As a teenager, my favorite part of Mass was actually the drive home.  And not cause it was church was over, but rather, after my brother went into the Army, it was just me and Dad in the car.  It was probably the only time I was alone with my dad and we had the best conversations.  We would talk about boys, college, careers, religion... you name it, we talked about it.  These were the times when my dad told me that I was capable of anything I put my mind to, and that I should never accept less than total respect from my boyfriends, and he may not know how carefully I listened.  Lord knows I tried to pretend like I wasn't.  To this day, I love going to church with my dad.  It's like putting on your comfiest pair of slippers. 

Now that I'm a grown up, my favorite part of Mass is the time after Communion, when the priests are putting everything away and there's a few minutes of just music.  People are still kneeling and praying, and I usually take this time to talk to my grandparents.  When I was a kid, I'd talk to my grandfather Moran, who died when I was 7.  I'd tell him about myself and I'd use that time to consider if he'd be proud of me.  These days, I tell my grandmothers about my kids and what they're doing, and I still talk my grandfather and ask him for advice.  I think I've always had the idea that my problems might not be important enough for God to get to right away - it's not world peace or anything - but my grandparents have to be interested, right? 

So for now, I know that I'll have to deal with complaining and whining for a few more years... as each kid gets old enough to be allowed to go to church.  Hopefully, they'll have something of the same process as me though and find out that church is a quiet place to think and that being still isn't always a bad thing.

Back in the saddle

It's been a while since I posted and I have a couple good reasons.  Things in the Lacey household have been a little bit crazy for the last two months.  September started strong with the typical back to school madness, all of which was completely overtaken at the end of September by the catastrophic illness of my bestie's daughter Molly.  Kristen has written eloquently and bravely on her CaringBridge site, so if you're interested in Molly's story go to https://www.caringbridge.org/visit/mollydunne/createorsignin. 

Meanwhile, in LaceyLand, we've had our own shares of stress and strain and in typical Erin Lacey style, I try to see as much absurditiy as possible.  Which leads us to tonight's story.  On Sunday, October 10, Jack awoke seemingly fine, but it became apparent very quickly that he was having some kind of issue.  I thought it was an ear infection and, with him being a third child and all, decided that he would still have an ear infection on Monday and left him home with Caroline, while the rest of us attended a party for our friend Andee. 

Monday morning, I awoke to the sound of Jeff getting Jack out of bed and saying something to the effect of "Holy crap!"  I leapt out of bed - and by that I mean dragged myself into a sitting position and then took a minute to curse all things morning.  Once I collected myself, I came down to the dining room to find Jeff holding a very odd looking Jack.  The entire right side of his little face was swollen and he looked generally miserable.  Jeff took Maggie and the baby to drop Mags off at preschool and Jackieboy and I went off to urgent care. 

Strangely enough, this happened on the first occasion in the five years of going to Dr. Field that she wasn't available when I needed her.  This is our doctor who, when Jack was a baby with croup, called us back on a Sunday and had us meet her in her office, but asked us if we could wait to meet her until after her cake came out of the oven.  However, Dr. Field's father in law had passed away over the weekend and she was at his funeral on Monday.  We got to the Lantana Square Urgent Care only to find out that it was closed until noon.  I called Dr. Field's office in hopes that her trusty office staff could tell me where I should go next, and when I described Jack's symptoms, she stopped me at facial swelling and told me to go to the ER. 

Having just spent a good bit of time at AI Dupont, I was leary of going there again.  It seemed like a bit of a bad dream to be pulling in with my own child.  They whisked us right back to a room and within twenty minutes of being there, Jack had IV and a CT scan and a diagnosis of Parapharyngeal Abcess.  Basically this means that he's had an infection in the WAAAAAAY back of his throat.  Treatment?  Two days of IV antibiodics.  WHAT?!?!?!?  My mind started to race... I'd need a change of clothes, someone to watch the other kids, can Jeff take off work?  I hadn't even had breakfast, now was I allowed to leave him to eat? 

We were admitted and taken to the care of the Gold Team on 4F.  Jeff got us settled in and then left for the night.  Jack was pretty dehydrated so in addition to the antibiodics, he was also receiving fluids.  At some point after Jeff left, Jack went to sleep.  A couple hours later, the alarm indicating the fluids had run out started to blare.  Not wanting it to wake Jack, I ran out to the nurses station and called in Nurse Nancy (that was really her name and it pleased me endlessly).  Nurse Nancy came in and while she was changing the bag, I noticed the gauze covering the IV site was bloody.  One second later, it became apparent why... Jack had rolled over in his sleep and pulled the IV needle right out of his hand.  The IV fluid had just pumped out all over his crib and his gown.  Nurse Nancy told me that she'd get the "IV nurse" up there to fix him up.

IV Nurse, who's name I've forgotten, has absolutely no luck with sticking Jack.  Probably the worst part of the whole experience was wiping the streaming tears from Jackie's face while they stuck him three times, trying to get a vein.  Finally IV nurse said that she couldn't do it, so they were going to have to call transport.  Transport?  I asked.  Turns out that when they have a particularly difficult IV to put in, Transport is the go-to.  I guess they have to put IVs in kids while bouncing in ambulances or airplanes, so it sort of makes sense.  In walks the Transport Nurse, the best of the best, the savior of my poor Jack, and she looks at me over Jack's sad little form and I immediately notice that her right eye is looking at me, but her left eye is looking at Nurse Nancy.  A little shocked by this, I immediately tell myself not to worry about it.  What's a little bit of a strabismus?  Obviously the Nurse Nancy thinks that she's the best choice.  Then Transport Nurse reaches out to take Jack's arm to inspect his veins and then I notice that she only has two fingers and half of a thumb n her right hand.  Strangely enough, the thing that interested me the most about this latest development was how was she going to get a glove on?  Quick as a flash, Transport Nurse, walleyed as she was, had a new IV in and Jack's arm taped within an inch of it's life.  So that will teach me to judge a book by it's cover!

The rest of our stay was uneventful.  On Wednesday morning, we were released back into the wild and Jack was given a clean bill of health a couple days later by the returned Dr. Field.  There is nothing like having your friend's kid be critically ill to put things in perspective, and in the grand scheme of things, this was a blip.  Before we left, the nurses in 4F were asking us if Jack was acting more like himself, and at the time it was a BIG no.  I told them that when he started throwing stuff at them, it was time for us to go.  Last thing Jack did before we left was throw his full sippy cup and hit me right on the top of my foot... it was time for us to go!!