Green Eggs and Scam.

We are not born with the ability to laugh at ourselves.

On the morning of April Fool's Day last year, I tried to come up with a good prank.

With really young children, it's hard to come up with a fairly innocuous prank. Three years ago I told Sierra that now that she was seven years old she was going to have to take only showers. I explained that it was a new law that had passed and that we had to follow the law or the sheriff would be by to check on us.

You can guess how well that went over. She still remembers that one and gives me a look that says "how could you!"

Oh well. Time to toss another twenty in the therapy savings account for her.

So I decided to do something less personal this time. I was scrambling some eggs and decided to toss in some food coloring and turn them green. Then I announced I would be serving ostrich eggs for breakfast.



"No way!" Sierra said.

"Way!" I said. "Look, see the color?"

"Cool!"

It would have been great if it had ended right there. But of course, it didn't. Mireya was horrified. She began crying that she didn't want ostrich eggs.

Sierra, who was happily munching away, assured her four-year-old sister that they tasted great.
Mireya was having none of it. I quickly fessed up to the food dye. If anything, that made things worse.

"You lied to me?" Mireya said, crestfallen.

We all tried to explain about April Fool's Day, but it was hopeless.

"I hate April Fool's Day!" she shouted.

After promising to not play any more tricks on her, we managed to get through the day. She even ate a little of the green eggs and Sierra managed to play an April Fool's Day joke on me. No one dared mentioned it and we focused instead on how many days until Easter.

But forgiving is not forgetting. Proving once again that four-year-olds have longer memories than anyone likes to think, she gave me a harsh look during bath time.

"You lied to me," she said, "You lied about the ostrich egg."

I sighed and mentally added another thirty bucks to the therapy fund. At this rate we won't have anything left for the college fund.

Tech Support - PLEASE?

If there's one role in my life that's working out, it's my job in tech support. Finally my lifelong nerdiness has paid off – for my parents, that is. While I was never enough of a geek to cash in, I am enough of one to be responsible for solving all computer problems in my immediate family.

When you're in tech support, you actually don many roles. When it's time to update some software, I'm called on as an instructor. When it's time to consider updating computer systems, I'm a serving in more of a financial advisor role. And, when files disappear mysteriously, I'm called on for divine intervention, and sometimes, grief counseling.

All of which reminded me of an observation made by a friend of mine, Lizette. Life, she noted, needs tech support. We really need someone we can call when life's hard drives crash, when the mental software locks up, when everything begins to mysteriously end up in the recycle bin.

While I'm fulfilling the role as tech support on the computer end of things, I am still looking for a bit of tech support in my own life role as mom.

There are many times as a parent when I could really use some significant tech support. Frankly you can call your family for advice only so often before they just grow silent on the phone, waiting for you to figure it out. Like you'd be calling if you had a clue.

That would never happen with Parental Tech Support.

I can see it now. You'd ring up the special number given to you as you exited the birthing room, the number you'd have since tattooed to your palm. You'd be on hold for an hour and forty minutes, listening to periodic assurances that you are important. Then you'd make your selection from a long menu of choices, many of which have changed to keep you from zipping through. You'd never hit 0 for customer service, because that would be cheating. Plus it wouldn't work anyway.

You'd almost be lulled to sleep with the soft rock music and repeated admonishments to not hang up or else you'd lose your place in line, when you break through. You'd suddenly be talking to a real, live person. They'd be reading from a script on their computer screen in New Dehli, or Florida, or San Marcos, or some other exotic call center locale, giving you hours and hours of advice. They'd send you up the chain of expertise until it seemed like you were talking to Dr. Spock himself, and you'd get more advice, all of which would, in the end, be completely useless.

Still, you'd feel so much better. You'd feel like you had help, like you weren't in this alone. You'd come away knowing you and your tech support person had tried absolutely everything to get your child to eat something other than frosting, or read something that didn't involve ball gowns. So hours later, when you ended up reading Sleeping Beauty for the 27th time or watching as all the tops were eaten off the donuts, you'd understand.

This is a hardware problem.

Broken Heart Part 6

This is the sixth installment in a series about my daughter's Tetralogy of Fallot that I wrote when it was going on (and before blogs). I'm reposting it since I thought it might help other moms going through the same thing...

As I re-read this installment I remembered a friend who donated blood for Sierra specifically. He has a rare blood type that they use for "blue babies" like Sierra, but he had stopped donating blood for some time. He rolled up and gave during our blood drive. He swore he only had two beers the night before, too. What a guy. So here's a shout out to Ross at News 8 in Austin (are you still there these days?). Thanks again, my friend.

April 8, 1999 4:00 pm

Sierra is in Pediatric Intensive Care Unit (PICU to us veterans) and is doing really well. She's off the respirator which is a huge relief. She had been moving around quite a bit and it's a bad thing to do with a tube down your throat. We spent most of the night trying to keep her still, holding her head, cooing softly. They had to give her quite a bit of medication in an attempt to bring her squirming under control.

By morning they had maxed out what she could get so Adam and I worked as well as we could to keep her calm.

Then they took out the tube. I felt like we had just landed on the moon. I put the second pink ribbon in her hair (the first went in when she arrived in PICU). We had won. We were past the 12 hour window!

We had one more scare when she stopped peeing. The kidneys are not fond of the whole by pass thing, apparently. For four hours she went from previously light peeing to none at all. The possibilities included more tube for a form of dyalisis. Our nurse, Debbie, decided that it might be the result of a blockage in the tube and after some false starts by the nurses and a few hours of nail biting they decided to let the doctor give it a shot. Dr. Schroeder got the catheter in and there it was. Liquid gold.

She still has tubes everywhere and I've struggled for an adequate description:

- a victim of crazed garden gnomes and their hoses

- Sierra Gulliver, taken over by the lilliputians (thanks sis)

- a baby borg from Star Trek, with two pink ribbons

- the sweet princess from the place of strange plastic accessories...

Ah, it's nice to be able to kid around, finally.

Channel 12 was here to interview us about the blood drive. They are having a blood drive at the station and wanted to put a face to giving blood. Sierra was the face. It'll be on tonight.

They filmed her in the bed and I asked them to just take a little video of her pictures as a normal baby. The blood drive has been a success I've been told, but I don't really know how it's gone. I know that 's been on the radio and that we are very blessed with wonderful people who have touched our lives during this incredibly difficult time. I wondered if I did the right thing - allowing her to be "used." But then I think of all the people who came through for us and how important blood donation is and felt that this was one way we could, as a family, give back.

There are no amount of thanks that are adequate to the task. I guess we'll just have to throw a party!

Watch this space for more good news...

Would someone please find the adult around here?

Growing up is definitely over rated.

You don’t discover this until you have kids and then it hits you like a ton of marshmallows.

Or maybe it’s just me. Maybe I’m a victim of arrested development. Or worse, perhaps I’ve caught some sort of “Benjamin Buttons” reverse aging disease.

For example, just the other day I rode the grocery cart like a modified scooter all the way back to my car. Did you know there’s no steering on those things? Good thing they put those little rubber bumpers on them.

Then I caught myself lingering over the bubble gum at the convenience store, finally opting for the one with the comic inside. That Joe Bazooka. What a goof.

More than once I’ve turned off the news in the car and opted for a kids book on tape. If you haven’t heard a good Hank the Cowdog lately, you’re missing out.

At this point in my life I imagined I’d spend a great deal of my time doing all the grown up stuff. Learning about a bunch of dead guys, reading labels carefully to select the products with precisely the right amount of trans fats, or watching the news until facts on world events leaked out my ears.

Instead I’m avoiding stepping on cracks, stopping to see what prizes they’re offering in sugar coated cereal, and whistling tunes from cartoons. I fully expect to start finger painting any minute.

I suppose it was inevitable. After all this kind of thing is infectious. It’s simply not reasonable to expect that you’ll catch your kids’ colds but not their sense of fun.

In fact, this whole thing reminds me of the famous entomologist who discovered the organ that ants use to get others to follow a trail to food. Scout ants lay down a scent trail with an organ in their abdomen.

Of course this entomologist had to go around the country and demonstrate how this scent thing worked. But he didn’t just toss up some slides.

He wrote his name on the top of the table using the scent, then let out a bunch of ants. All of the ants ran immediately over and spelled out his name, following the scent trail he’d written.

Now that’s cool.

Proving once again that in a very real way, lots of us never grow up.

Weeeee!


('course now I feel a little guilty about the ants I'm killing with ant bait in my kitchen. Luckily it's just a little guilty. I can do little guilty standing on my head.)

Behold! Art!

Recently I was trying to gain control of the artwork in our house.

Borrowing from a darn clever Pre-K teacher, (Miss Angela, where ever you are, thank you!) I managed to score a few empty pizza boxes and have been filling them with artwork. With every drawing comes a memory.

Mireya walks up to me about three years ago and proudly shows me the round circle with four stick legs, two eyes and a serious looking mouth. "Cat," she said, beaming. She then walked over to our cat who was taking in some sunshine, kneeled in front of her and thrusts the picture up to her nose. "Look," she says. "It's you!"

Broken Heart Part 5

This is the fifth installment in a series about my daughter's Tetralogy of Fallot that I wrote when it was going on (and before blogs). I'm reposting it since I thought it might help other moms going through the same thing...

April 7, 1999 - 6:30 pm

She's doing fine.

The surgery was a longer than they anticipated; her heart had abnormalities that didn't show up on either the cath or the xray. I tried to understand what they were saying, but in my haze of worry all I got was that it was tougher than they expected. As a result they had to cool her waaay down, which caused her to bleed a little more....

But I'm getting ahead of myself.

I got about two hours of sleep last night, curled up in a "reclining" chair. Adam held her for the last part of her morning and at 6:30 am we got up, got ready. Or as ready as you can get.

As we said goodbye to our family and headed into the pre-op room, time began to slow to an excruciating crawl. I held her for a awhile, hoping I'd be able to take her into the operating room for her knock out juice. But then Adam took her and she fell asleep in his arms. Rats, I thought. Now he gets to take her.

Don't think for a minute this was just an accident on Adam's part. He's a clever guy. But the tables turned as we spoke to the anesthesiologist and she said "Who wants to go in with the baby?"

"I do" I said, tearfully. "But I don't want to wake her - I guess he'll take her."

"Well he'd have to hand her over anyway - someone has to put on the bunny suit" She indicated the white zippered disposable outfit.

So now it made more sense that I'd take her in instead of Adam and I jumped into the bunny suit. She woke only briefly before they knocked her out.

And she's still asleep right now.

How can I describe what it's like to wait during your baby's surgery? One minute I was doing fine, but as the hours passed I was ready to kill anyone who didn't have information on how she was doing. It's Chinese water torture, bamboo shoots under your nails, and a cave in all in one. You want to escape, but there is no where to go. Every bit of news brings it's roller coaster of emotions. News comes so slow and sporadically it is like word from the front lines.

And you feel frustratingly helpless to affect it.

As she lies here in PICU, with more tubes than a fuel injected vehicle I am so grateful to be on the other side of this immense ocean of worry and fear. The next 12 hours are critical and I have a million more things to share but I've got to get some rest.

My baby needs me.

.

Tortilla Moon

I looked up in the perfect azure sky and the full moon was there, golden in the dusty veil of twilight. And, since I was still hungry, it reminded me of one thing.

Tortillas.

Not those horrible white things sold in the grocery aisle with ingredients that read like a shopping list for a chemistry lab. Not those perfectly round discs flattened by the thousands by machines.

Those are not tortillas any more than a Chihuahua is a wolf. Distant relatives at best, with minor DNA connections, similar evolutionary relatives. No, not the same.

This golden moon is like my Grandmother's tortillas, with light and dark areas where the masa meets the comal. You can see it's puffy rise, air coaxed into the layers of flour and lard, rising and filling the air with a warm smell that embraces everyone in the kitchen. The smell tangles in my grandmother's hair and when I hug her the scent dives straight for my stomach, teasing me with a phantom taste.

She always made me tortillas of my very own, smaller than the big ones that went in the basket for everyone else. I would hold them in my hands, bouncing them from palm to palm, letting the warmth radiate up my arms, bits of flour which had kept them from sticking, coating the tiny lines within lines on my hands.

But even better was the masa. I never had raw cookie dough as a child; I had raw masa. Before the heat turned the pliable dough into a soft fabric of tortilla, I would get a pinch or two and eat it.

How different the masa tasted from the tortilla yet keeping its essence intact. What was the magic spell cast in the iron comal that changed it from one to another? Was it the same spell that would someday transform me from a skinny, shy child playing under her grandmother's table into a woman with her own kitchen, her own children and her own package of lard in the refrigerator?

That night the spell of the comal, the full moon, and the memory of the beautiful flour tortillas growing in my grandmother's hands filled my senses with memory and longing. Decades flow and I find that I buy all my tortillas from the store.

But not any longer, I vow under the spell of the full moon. Tomorrow, I promise, I will get my grandmother's recipe out, spread flour on my counter and take out my rolling pin. Tomorrow I will heat my iron comal, and watch the imperfect circle rise with the heat. I will hand one to my daughter, one that will be just her size, which she can bounce from palm to palm. And, when no one is looking, I will take a bite of the masa.

I looked at my hands, more comfortable on a keyboard than in a kitchen, and I wondered if I could do it. Could I bring back her kitchen, her warmth, her tortillas? Tonight I've tapped into the power of that spell of transformation. The spell that keeps the essence the same, yet allows for the changes that must come.

It's time to get rolling.

Princess and the Arachnid

There’s a phrase they use in theater that I’ve always found fascinating – “playing against type.” It’s when an actor, who is known for their roles in one kind of part, plays the opposite. Like when Robin Williams dropped the wackiness and played a doctor in Awakenings.

I’m trying to keep this phrase in mind now that Mireya has her first speaking part in the school play.

First, let me say, that anyone who decides to have a play with sixty first graders deserves some sort of medal of honor - after they return from a long trip to the Bahamas. I’m still amazed that they get that many children through the lunch line in school, let alone through stage direction in the auditorium.

But I was shocked when Mireya came home with her role. She had been completely confident that she’d have a speaking part, due largely to the fact that she can read.

So I was anticipating something interesting, but not too demanding.

Mireya is the spider.

My shock had nothing to do with the role. In fact, the role of the spider isn’t a bad role at all. From what I gleaned, her character undergoes a transformation from bad to good. And many great actresses excel as villains. Plus she is going to have the coolest costume ever, thanks to Grammy and a few black socks.

No, it was the enormous irony of the role. Mireya is terrified of spiders.

Run-screaming-from-the-room-from-even-microscopic-spiders terrified.

Yet now she’s going to be a GIGANTIC spider (as spiders go).

“Wow. You’re going to be the spider?”

“Yes.” She looked at the script a bit skeptically, as if it might grow legs right in front of her.

“That’s really great! You think this will help you not be afraid of spiders anymore? I mean, you’ll kind of have to get in touch with your… inner spider.”

She looked at me as if I’d lapsed into Swahili. “Um, no, mommy.”

“Oh. Okay.”

A few days later following her costume fitting, she made it clear she’d gotten more excited about her part.

“You know what is so cool about my part in the play?” she said.

“What?”

“I have more arms than anybody!”

Which begs the question: do you tell a 1st grade spider to break one leg before the big night, or two?

(Mireya after her successful debute)

Broken Heart Part 4

This is the fourth installment in a series about my daughter's Tetralogy of Fallot that I wrote when it was going on (and before blogs). I'm reposting it since I thought it might help other moms going through the same thing...

April 7, 1999 - 2:30 am

I guess it was two weeks ago when Adam first asked me if I thought Sierra's fingers were looking a little purple. In the last few days I've noticed the nail beds are almost always purple - it doesn't fade after a few hours. Today, when they did the pulse ox in the Cath lab - before she went under anesthesia - her reading was 76.

Normal is in the 90s.

The good news is that the catherization went very well. Sierra didn't have a tet spell during the procedure, and the coronary arteries are not in the way of the surgeon's knife. She as a few unusual features about her heart. The two veins coming from the head do not connect, but instead go independently into the heart. This creates some complications for the bypass procedure, but apparently it's something they've seen before.

They do these things every day. Every day they look into the eyes of terrified parents and talk confidently about what comes next. They click on their computer screens as we watch, lost in the sea of grey images, describing parts of our daughter's heart in words so foreign I wonder if it can even be considered english at this point.

They seem so at home in this world.

Before the cath, I rubbed on Dr. Schroeder's chest and said "lucky, lucky, lucky." I think he misunderstood me - he said "it's not luck, it's skill and knowledge." "We already assumed you've got that," I told him. But a little luck these days can't hurt.

After all, he was the one who told us, when we asked why this happened, that was just bad luck.

..........

Our entire family is here, practically. We overwhelm the waiting room and it is both comforting and too much. Everyone is here to support us, but if one more person tells me she's going to be fine, I'm going to kill. Friday I was in the car describing to my niece how I feel when I hear all the stories of people who have had some heart surgery years ago and are now just fine. I long to say "Of course I wouldn't hear from any of the dead ones, would I?"

Sigh. Equally bad is "I just knew she'd be fine" which we heard after the cath went well. I bite my tongue. I know people are trying to be helpful, positive. But no one knows. I do now. And I won't say these things to my friend when her little Samantha has her surgery.

...........

Sierra is doing pretty well. She will laugh still and play with her toys and while she seems scared sometimes, she also seems just normal other times. They've been good about minimizing her disturbances tonight so she can rest. Once again I've seen what a difference people make. Our nurse tonight, Patsy is great with her, letting us make minor adjustments in the routine to keep her comfortable.

............

So tomorrow is the surgery. They'll pick her up at 6:30 and at 7:15 we'll watch as she gets wheeled into the operating room. I feel confident about it, but I'm really scared. Right here, next to me as I type this is a baby swing that was donated to the hospital in "memory of baby Jasmine Taliaferro." Sierra swung in it earlier.

I told Adam we can donate something of Sierra's - but it will be in HONOR of her. And she can visit it when she comes in to have her own children.

I wonder if I will get any sleep tonight.

Fish out of water

(that's me, when I was waaaay smarter. At least as smart as a goldfish.)

Just recently two people I have known for a long time as young and footloose childless people have become expectant parents. And they've got that look. That deer in the headlights combined with intoxicated over-the-top happiness look.

I want to help them, I really do. Because I remember vividly how completely clueless I was when I was pregnant the first time. And the worst part about it – I had no idea I was clueless.

Outwardly I pretended to be aware that this was a whole new adventure I knew nothing about. But inwardly I was sure I knew what was what. I'd listened carefully to all the advice and act as if I was taking notes. I might even have written a few things down, like "carry a bottle of antibacterial soap at all times" (still the best single bit of advice I received).

But inside I just knew I had it all figured out.

Right. It's like the goldfish in its bowl thinking, "Man, if I could just get out of this bowl, you wouldn't believe the places I'd go. I'd rule the world!"

That goldfish thinks we're all swimming out here.

I knew, for example, I'd never panic over a mild fever. In reality, we went to the emergency room when I was pretty sure Sierra's cough sounded just like a barking seal.

I knew, once again, I'd never stick a lollipop in my kid's mouth just to have some peace and quiet on a long drive. In reality, there's a box of them in my car.

I knew I'd never park my child in front of the television. In reality I would never have gotten through a shower for the first five years if it weren't for the combined power of Dora the Explorer and Blues Clues.

And there was absolutely no way my children would have anything but a balanced breakfast. In reality, Sweeties Donuts are a regular feature in our 'we're running late, let's eat kolaches' dietary plan.

Sometimes I wish I could go back to the days in the fishbowl when I was so much smarter than I am now. I knew everything and there was a certain comfort in that skewed reality.

But once you jump out of the bowl, there's no going back.

Out here, mommies and daddies just have to flop our way through as best we can.

Broken Heart Part 3

This is the third installment in a series about my daughter's Tetralogy of Fallot that I wrote when it was going on (and before blogs). You can start with the first part here.

April 3, 1999 The Tour

When I signed up for us to take the tour at the hospital where Sierra is going to have her surgery I figured we'd be going on one of those PR tours. You know, "here's our big fancy machine", "here's our OTHER big fancy machine," etc. Milling around with other parents or visitors, spying where the snack machines were, noting which rooms had the Barney motif.

But it was nothing like that. As soon as we got there, I realized we were the only people on this "tour." Our tour guide showed us where we'd check in and let us see a few of the rooms were the kids stay. Then she said "On Tuesday, Sierra will go to the Cath lab - it's on the third floor." She pushed 3 in the elevator.

We weren't getting the PR tour. We were getting the preview to Sierra's time in the hospital. We went into the cath lab where they will do the heart catheter, met a tech and he went over the procedure. "You'll be here with her until she falls asleep..."

We saw the needles, the crash cart, the banks of monitors with someone else's wavy lines speaking some secret code across the silent screen.

We went to the operating waiting area. "You'll be here with her until they wheel her into surgery..." We went into the different waiting areas and were advised to "stake out an area for our family." We went into the neonatal intensive care unit where she will be for a few days (3? 5? they aren't sure).

It was so in our face. No hiding, no denying. Adam said he was still considering running off with her before the surgery and I can't say I blame him. We both had moments during the tour where we just broke and the tears flowed.

"I can't make this easier," our tour guide said. "I can just explain where everything is ..."

I'm not sure if she was saying this for her sake or ours.

I'll be updating this page during the surgery, it'll be the only place for news - so keep us in your thoughts on the 7th and I hope to be back with only the best possible news.

Bare Inspiration

Sometimes people will ask me if it's hard to keep writing a column every week.

Not with this cast of characters.

In fact, there are weekends where my column just writes itself - like one particularly memorable weekend. I'd just dropped off my grandmother after we'd been out for twice as long as anticipated.

It's never good at my house for Mommy to be gone twice as long as anyone expects. This is how we end up with pet lizards that require live crickets for lunch and captured tarantulas that everyone is too scared to look at, let alone release back into the wild. So I was anticipating trouble.

When I pulled into the driveway, I came upon my husband and two daughters sitting outside in that unmistakable posture of people who have narrowly avoided complete mental breakdowns.

Apparently, while I was out (for once, my timing was perfect), my husband had released the girls to playing in the backyard while he vacuumed out his truck. A fairly picky guy about the condition of his vehicle, he was soon lost in the task of master detailer. He didn't notice the long stretch of relative silence that is a sure sign of impending disaster until it was too late.

Suddenly there was a cry from the back yard. He ran over to find that our youngest had been knocked over by the dog, bumped her head on a rock, and while fine for the most part, was quite upset.

And naked.

I believe I deserve some sort of award for not bursting out laughing at that point in the story. In fact I may have given myself a hernia in the process.

Everyone involved, including the four year old, denied any knowledge of exactly how or why she came to be naked. When I asked her point blank, she just looked at me as if the question itself made no sense.

So like the mystery of lost socks, the Bermuda Triangle, and why bumble bees can fly, the day Mireya decided to play in the buff is just one of those episodes in our life that will remain shrouded in obscurity.

Maybe shrouded isn't the right word. But you get the idea.

Hopefully the next time I'm delayed coming home I'll get another column out of it – as long as I can avoid getting a hernia in the process.

..

My alter ego

Boy this was too much fun. Presenting:


Whipping out some mean blog entries and flying off the handle when necessary. Make yours here.

Broken Heart Part 2

This is the second installment in a series about my daughter's Tetralogy of Fallot that I wrote when it was going on (and before blogs). You can start with the first part here.

The anniversary of her surgery is coming up as well as a big milestone - some children who have had the corrective surgery have a sudden heart attack before they reach 10 years old.

Sierra is now 10 and a half.

I decided to repost this since it might help others who are facing the same journey with their little broken hearts.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

January 31, 1999


Sierra's surgery is scheduled. The big day is April 7th, but she'll go in the hospital on the 6th for her heart catherization so they can get a good diagram of her heart.


My sister once said that this whole thing was like being told that your child was going to be hit by a bus and there was nothing you could do about it. Now we know the day she's getting hit by a bus. In some ways it's a relief to have a date; in other ways it's really terrifying. Now my life seems vividly divided into the time before her surgery and the time after her surgery. I find myself in meetings and during phone calls thinking "okay, we can make that, it's two months after her surgery." or "that's 2 weeks before her surgery, we can work that in."


As time had gone on these last few months, I'd started thinking along the lines of "hey, they do this all the time. it's no big deal." But that is bullshit. This is the biggest deal in the whole fucking world and all the statistics from all the experts can't change that for me. I know they do amazing things these days. And I was perfectly happy to read about them happening to other people. Then I'd sit there with the paper saying "Those poor people. Isn't it amazing how advanced technology is?" as I turned the page to the next human interest story.

But there is no way to turn this page without living it.



At the cardiologist's we went over the potential complications [it's rare that a child will go through this procedure without experiencing at least one complication]. Scary stuff like a collapsed lung, irregular heart rhythm, fluid around the heart or lung, etc. We also went over the risk points in the surgery. Like will her heart restart after it's been stopped for 2 hours? How will she be doing in the critical 6-12 hour window after surgery? Will she'll get an infection, will everything will hold, will everything be okay? God, I don't want to do this.


Sometimes, the doctor said, the mother will hold the baby as she's being put under general anesthesia to help ease her fears. Can you imagine anything worse than holding your child as they knock her out and take her from you? Handing her over while knowing the brutality of what is going to happen - the cutting, sawing, patching. I might end up running away with her down the hall, tubes and gown flowing behind us. And when I reach the window, I'll take that step and we'll just fly away from this silly reality and go somewhere where little baby girls don't have to stop their hearts in order to live.

Ask Not for Whom the Alarms Rings

(This is an alarm clock that will run away from you when you try to hit the snooze button. I have one of those too. Her name is Mireya)


I’m not a big fan of this time change thing. I have absolutely no sympathy with the proponents for this crazy system. Nothing, not the hours of “extra” daylight, energy conservation equations, nor the theory that it impacts shopping patterns, none of this is enough to make me embrace “spring forward.”

The nerve of calling it “daylight savings.” I was saving mine just fine, thank you very much. I don’t need to “spring forward.”

Now “fall back,” that I absolutely love. Love, love, love. We can do that all year until we have gone back an entire day. (As long as we don't end up on February 9th. That was a shitty day.)

But “spring forward” is a horrible idea. And don’t give me that argument that you can’t have one without the other. This is America! We can buy 14 different types of toilet paper. Anything is possible.

My problem stems from my long-standing status as a night person, not a morning person. I did have the misfortune of marrying a morning person, but through sheer force of personality I have poisoned him with my cranky morning attitude.

I don’t know about most morning people, but the ones I know act as if the world would be better off if everyone was a morning person. I beg to differ. Frankly, I’ve long believed you can look at this “morning thing” one of two ways.

The early bird gets the worm.

The early worm gets eaten.

One guess where I stand on the issue.

I have to admit, though, that I’ve tried. For days at a time I have actually gotten up early with the idea that I’d get a lot more done. I’d exercise. I’d get lunches ready for the week. I’d learn Swahili so I could mutter to myself without the embarrassment of someone understanding me. It never lasts. By day three I’m operating with a dazed look suitable for a mug shot and begging for a triple espresso.

And I don’t even drink coffee.

As a result, I tend to think of this first three weeks of the dreaded spring time change as a Baatan death march of early mornings without any of the benefits of an hour’s earlier rise. Half the time I’m getting my cell phone out of the fridge and trying to get the dogs to get their socks on.

So if you catch me and my fellow night folk being a little extra cranky, remember, you’d be cranky too if your dog's socks didn’t match.

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Looking back video

Never let me into my archives, cuz I'll stay up till midnight finding this stuff.

What's interesting is we had been fighting on what was a very long car trip. We still hadn't found a good rhythm on the road as a family and I always wanted to stop and Adam just wanted to get home.

We stopped in Fredricksburg to take a break when the sprinklers came on. Things just went nuts from there.

Broken Heart Part 1

Ten years ago, on April 7, 1999, my daughter had open heart surgery. She was seven months old. During that time I was "blogging" - maintaining a web journal of my pregnancy (believe it not, I coded it myself).

It was a tough time in our lives, but the journal helped - and not just me. I had people who were facing something similar and they read through the journal to help deal with their own scary times.

So I thought in recognition of the 10 year anniversary of that time, I'd revive that journal. Maybe someone out there needs this. Or maybe it's just important for me to remember it all again. This is the first installment - when we found out and a little of the thoughts running through our minds and hearts.

For the next few weeks, the past and present will mix and meld. It'll be a mess. Makes sense.

----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
8/19/1998

Sierra was born by c-section at 11:07 pm, 34 hours after I had been admitted to the hospital, with Adam on hand to witness. She weighed 6 lbs, 11 oz, quite a heavy weight for what they figure was a month premature.

I watched as her light skinned body was carried to the bassinet where a neonatal team was waiting to test her lungs, provide oxygen if needed. And I heard her cry, and relief flooded me. I was ready to drift to sleep when Adam brought her to me. I looked at her, my new little girl. I was like a wolf mother, eyeing her pup for the first time. All I could think of was finding some sort of identifying mark so when I saw her again I would know it was her. There it was. A little stork bite (red mark) just above her lips. I’ll remember, I’ll remember, I thought.

I asked Adam to go with our little girl as they took her to the neonatal intensive care unit to monitor her breathing, heart and oxygen level. Adam fell in love with her immediately. I woke up to the most excited man on the planet.

I kissed her 30 times, he said, glowing with joy.

When I saw her some hours later, I fed her with my body, feeling the rush of love with every moment.

Baby Sierra

After a few days in the hospital, we discovered that Sierra had a heart murmur. After speaking to some specialists we learned that she has a heart defect known as tetralogy of fallot. I’ll be posting some links here for those interested, but the scary part is that she’ll need open heart surgery.

The doctors would like her to get to 6 months old, just to be a little bigger and a little stronger before having the surgery. I can’t begin to say how hard this news was to take. Our little angel, with a broken heart.

My sister Christy had flown in from Chicago when I started to go into labor and was there when we got the news.

The shock and sadness overwhelmed us all. I don’t know exactly how we are going to make it through the next few months, but I know we will.

And I know that this determined little girl will make it through the surgery she needs. She’s already proven she’s in charge and won’t take no for an answer.

Through this I know that many of us will learn even more about what really matters. Maybe we’ll all heal some of the fears and wounds in our own hearts as she heals hers.

I just ask that any one of you who read these pages to send your prayers and thoughts our way...

(part 2)

Erin Go Bragh and Pass The Green Salsa

There are not too many places on earth where the sound of bagpipes mixes with the roar of low riders and smell of fresh tortillas.

My neighborhood was one of those places.

We lived across the street from Bel Air high school stadium in El Paso, Texas. El Paso is a border town, ninety percent Hispanic (in our neighborhood, it was closer to 98%), making the high school's choice of the Highland er as a mascot so bizarre; I can't quite fathom how it could ever have occurred. Did a rogue Scott take over the school board at an opportune moment? Were the distant mountains an inspiration of "high land"? Were darts involved?

Whatever the reason, the Highlanders had become a formidable football team, and at every game, in addition to the huge marching band, were a dozen bagpipes in full regalia. A dedicated and gifted band director (what else would you call a guy who could teach Sousa AND Irish battle songs?) held practice for the bagpipers at six in the morning. Since there is no volume control on a bagpipe, no one learns this instrument indoors.

On the cool desert mornings every fall, the bagpipe division of girls (because in those days no Hispanic boy would be caught DEAD in a kilt) would fill their plaid bags with air and the cry of the bagpipes would climb above the desert floor. The sound would bounce off the concrete stadium and enter with full intensity into my bedroom.

I'd feel the strain of the notes; at first interrupted so often that it was more like a chorus of demented car horns than music. But slowly the band director would coax the songs free from the breath of the girls who'd listen to rock music on the way home from school, cruising in low and slow Chevys and Fords.

I'd wake up from my confused dreams, trying to figure out why in my sleep I was bounding through rolling green hills when I lived my waking life amid yucca and sand. The bagpipes would pull a yearning from me for a place I'd never seen, yet who's music slipped into my childhood like a lost leprechaun wandering into a circle of mariachis.

In a few days I'll be scrambling for green shirts and hats for my kids. I wonder about the bagpipe band alumni. Are those bagpipers now mommies with little leprechauns of their own? Do they have the same misplaced sense of nostalgia every St. Patrick's Day? Do they tell their children about the days with the warm bag at their side, the pipes in their fingers? Are there bagpipes tucked into the attic, waiting for the next generation of players?

Do they secretly consider themselves descendants of a lost tribe of Celtic warrior princesses?

Okay, that was probably just me.

So this St. Patty's Day we'll wear green bowler hats complete with shiny foil shamrock and reminisce about the days of bagpipes and yucca plants. Erin Go Bragh and pass the green salsa!

My littliest one's blog

This is my 6 year old's blog she just started. Now we are really fighting for the computer...

Camp ground fun! Okay, maybe not...

It's spring camping season! I remember our first campout as a family. The kids were under six, we had three dogs and only two adults.

Clearly, we were insane.

It all started out well enough. My husband packed no less than 100 items into the truck and we left on time. We arrived at Lost Maples and set up camp in #13 (that was my first and last warning).

Within an hour, both kids were crying, one was bleeding and my husband was ready to pack up all 100 items and drive home. At one point I gazed across the campground at another peaceful set of campers and wondered if I could go home with them instead.

As night approached, my five-year-old asked me with great anxiety about what kind of things were in the "forest." I quickly tried to think of the most innocuous animal possible.

"Oh, just bunnies and stuff."

"Bunnies?"

"Yes. Bunnies, raccoons, groundhogs."

She seemed unconvinced, peering into the darkening surroundings. I should note that it's not as if we were roughing it. We were half a mile from the highway in a paved campground with water and electricity. My husband had set electric fans up in our tent for petes sake.

"Besides, you don't have to worry about animals," I said. "We have the dogs. Other animals aren't going to come close to camp—they don't like dogs."

At that she visibly relaxed, convinced that our German shepherd would take care of her in a way neither of her parents could.

In the middle of the night, the dogs began to bark. We tried to quiet them from the tent, but they kept going. I decided to go cover their kennel. I didn't bother putting on my glasses since all I was going to do was toss a blanket over their crate. Also, despite the fact that we had ten different high-powered flashlights available, I stepped outside with my book light since it was handy.

Once I got out of the tent I heard what they were barking at. Something was rustling in the bushes. There I was, no glasses, everything more than a foot away completely blurry, armed with a BOOK LIGHT. But I'm cool, I'm cool.

I called out to my husband in a reassuring tone. "That's why they were barking. There's something rustling in the bushes."

A little voice rose out of the tent, just this side of hysterical. "Something's in the bushes?!"

Oops. Why do we always forget that children have ears?

"What's in the bushes?!" she asked again, urgently.

"Oh, just a bunny or something, sweetie."

"A bunny?" She seemed to doubt that I would have come outside just for a bunny.

"Or a raccoon."

"What's a raccoon?"

I covered the dog kennel and scrambled back in the tent. I reassured my daughter that raccoons were about the size of a cat. As she lay there, completely unconvinced, I realized that I had covered the dogs with a large packing blanket.

Could they breathe through that thing?

Needless to say, it was two years before we tried again – with an RV.

When dogs dream

Thanks to island princess for this one...

Bizkit, the Sleepwalking Dog @ Yahoo! Video

(You know, this stuff happens to me all the time. I wake up hitting the wall right before I catch up to Johnny Depp.)

Like mother, like daughter

Sierra has her latest video up. Check it out over here...

Please wipe your carbon footprint at the door...

How big is our carbon footprint? Do they have one of those little metal measuring things around for it? Is it a 9 1/2 D? Or more of a 6 EE?

Whatever, I suspect it's a big honkin' clod hopper boot, not a little strappy stiletto heel number.

Ever since the global warming monster came out of the closet and started breathing heavy on ice caps and polar bears, I’ve looked around in amazement at what a big impact we have on our little patch of the environment.

Whether or not you believe that the ice caps are melting, polar bears are headed for serious makeovers and penguin dads are going to be a little warmer during their “hold jr. on your toes” part of parenting, it’s really scary to realize just how much trash comes in a modern childhood.

First of all there’s the whole toy thing. Just buying a toy means committing to disposing of three times the toy’s weight in wrapping. I presume these 40 different zip ties and half dozen layers of plastic are designed to thwart theft. I hope they are using these techniques on important things at the Pentagon, because trust me, no one would be able to sneak out those top secret plans if they had them wrapped up like Barbie’s doggie grooming shop.

In fact, at home we have a toolbox designated for unwrapping newly bought toys which contains pliers, a flat head screwdriver, a Phillips screwdriver, scissors and two knives – serrated and smooth. Pretty soon we’ll be adding a flamethrower.

And don’t even get me started on the toys themselves - which have a useful life of about a week.

The other area where we are having a severe environmental impact is in schoolwork. I swear I never did this much work when I was at school. Was there a paste shortage when I was growing up? Was paper really expensive? Were teachers focused on doing everything on blackboards?

Whatever the reason we never brought home this much schoolwork.

Then there’s the permission slips. I get several permission slips per child every week. When I was a kid I think I brought home one a year. Like seat belts, permission slips were only used for big trips – like across international waters.

I’d like to think we could reduce our carbon footprint. We’ve changed light bulbs, reduced our use of juice boxes, and tried to be less wasteful in general. We’ve tried to recycle and have created many interesting sculptures out of discarded plastic toys and bottles. But we’ve got a long way to go.

In the meantime, I’m hoping for a paste shortage.