Comfort Food Memories

on Monday, June 28, 2010
After a hectic week, in which we celebrated our anniversary, my birthday, and a wedding, I was feeling a bit cranky.  I'm behind on sleep, Kirstin is still in the process of being "degrammatized", and Emily is going through a growth spurt as well, so only wants to be held and fed with an occasional diaper change.  So today, in one of the times in which I could put Emily down to sleep and not have her wake up and cry until she was held again, I made poached eggs on toast for Kirstin and me. 

Poached eggs are a comfort food from childhood.  Any time I was sick and had to stay home from school, that evening my dad would make me poached eggs.  I didn't have the knack of making them for a long time though.  The ones I made were edible, but not just like my dad's.  Then I learned the secret by watching my dad.  You have to swirl the water as you put the eggs in, then the whites stay with the yolks better.  Now I make them and they're like I remember.  I wonder if I didn't learn the secret because any time I was in the kitchen when he made them, he had me start the toast right as he was getting them in.  Nice little sneaky tactic, if that's so. 

Now I make them for Kirstin and me for lunch sometimes on days when I'm feeling especially cranky.  I get cheered up just in the making of them, because of the memories.  I would also sometimes get poached eggs on an occasional weekend morning, usually before going ice-fishing.  So of course, that brings back memories of wood smoke, decoys, older country music (not today's type, think Merle Haggard and Johnny Cash), the little "chink" sound the spear made as it was rested on the ice near the hole, and watching and waiting for a fish to come in the hole.

My dad taught me a lot about how to play the decoy, how to move the spear in quietly so the fish wouldn't be scared off, and how to manage a small wood stove.  He would listen to my inane chatter and play games with me.  Instead of I Spy, which wouldn't work in the dark house, we played 20 questions and Guess the Number.  If I got too bored, I would go out and play in the snow on the lake, only to ask to be readmitted to the warmth 10 minutes later.  I don't know if he saw fewer fish when I was around, but I was always a willing fishing companion for him.

So, if you feel out of sorts, make some of your own comfort foods.  It helps!

My fair ladies

on Wednesday, June 16, 2010
I promised to get these pictures out a long time ago.  These are from Mark and Abby's wedding, in which Kirstin was the flower girl and Matt was the best man.  Of course Emily had to get all dressed up too!  There are no pictures of Kirstin alone, because she would never stand still for the camera unless she was with someone.  Too much going on to keep still!

So, those are my little girls...And Matt.  He looks pretty good too. :P  When asked what she thought of Abby's dress, Kirstin replied, "It's perfect! Abby's so beautiful!"  I think Uncle Mark thought so too.

Revolving Door


I took some pictures of Kirstin when I went in to wake her up yesterday morning.  I found it a pleasure to do so, because she had me up quite a bit the night before.  Here she is, sleeping peacefully.  She looks like a little angel when she's asleep, doesn't she?

Aah. Now we have eyes.  We're starting to wake up.  By the way, these shots were punctuated with many grunts and squeals.  She does not wake up gracefully all the time.  Pretty soon she'll be out of bed.

We've made it out of bed, but not very far.  Still tired, and the rocking chair looked like a comfy pit stop on the way out of the room.

Now we're awake, though not happy about it.  In fact, she wouldn't walk down the stairs by herself, so I carried her like a sack of potatoes.  Then I deposited her on the couch and let her wake up fully. 

So why is she so tired?  She didn't go to bed till late, and was throwing a tantrum before that.  In fact, because she wouldn't go to bed and was screaming and thrashing so much, I took Emily out of her crib and brought her into our room for a little bit to make sure at least one child would stay asleep.  Then Kirstin and I played "revolving door."  She would get out of bed, run and open the door, and come out into the hallway and yell at us some more.  I would pick her up and carry her like I would a laundry basket-on my hip-with her head and chest parallel to the floor.  I put her back into her bed and she would repeat the process. 

I tired of the game much sooner than she did, so I stopped it at the door opening.  I held the door shut when she tried to open it.  Somehow her volume switch must have gotten stuck, because she got much louder.  After about a minute of trying to get out of her room with me holding the door and laughing at her, she started getting hoarse.  A minute later, she quieted down to whimpers with a few "Mom!" yells thrown in.  I let her open the door again.  She said, "I want to say I'm sorry, mom!" 

Battle won.  And no, Emily never did wake up through all of that.  And yes, I was laughing. Matt was laughing as well, as he was laying in bed watching Emily to make sure she didn't wake up.  Sometimes with tantrums you have a choice of laughing or getting angry.  I've found laughing works much better for me. I've had practice with tantruming children who were much older than Kirstin, so I knew if I just let her cry herself out life would be good.  She was out of control, and I gave her the time find peace again.  Afterward I gave her a hug and all was good.  We talked about it in the morning after she was fully awake.  Unfortunately, she was out of bed three more times during the night, but we made it through. 

It would seem that our sticker program isn't working very well.  Honestly it is, though.  Aside from the revolving door night, she's been up much less.  And she's finally even gotten a couple of stickers!  I'm so proud of her! 

Forward March!

on Sunday, June 13, 2010


Today was Emily’s Christening, which is like a baptism, but no water was applied, as she was baptized in the hospital. Of course, I did the bulletins for today, as that’s part of my job.  These were some of the toughest bulletins I ever had to do.  First, we followed a different order of service than usual for the Christening.  So I had to get that all typed into the bulletin and still not use up too much space.  Second, when I typed that Emily is our daughter and that she was born on April 29 and baptized early in the morning on May 1, it made that entire time come back in one big punch to the gut. 

I’ve evidently put most of it out of my mind so I can focus on going forward.  Today it all pretty much came back.  I did make it through the actual ceremony portion of the service without any tears.  Emily was crying for food, and Kirstin told me in the middle of it, “I have to go potty!”  So I had two excuses to leave the regular service for a little bit while I got myself under control.  Then during the sermon, which was about intersections and how awkward they can be, Pastor mentioned Emily and how she had an intersection already in her life.  He applied it to all of us, how we cross from death into life through baptism.  I had tears in my eyes again from that, but then I cleared up and was good for the rest of the day. 

I’m really hoping to use today as an ending point from all the NICU stuff and a good starting point for the rest of Emily’s life.  It’s like the service today is the last thing we needed to do for her to give her the full “proper” beginning to life.  I don’t necessarily like the word “proper” right there, but I don’t know which other word to use. 

We had a good party out here at our house after church.  We did burgers and brats on the grill, had all kinds of family and friends here, and a lot of good conversation, laughter, and fellowship.  I think every one that was here really needed that time to relax while the kids played and babies were passed around (our friends Jill and Erik have two kids as well, Henry is 10 months older than Kirstin, and Owen is 9 months older than Emily).  So now that we’ve gotten this far, and I’m feeling that I can’t live in the past with this anymore, here’s the full story: 

Emily was born around 1:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 29.  She was a perfect newborn.  I did have to be stuck to the monitors while laboring with her (boo! I wanted to walk around!) because there was meconium present when my water broke, but everything was fine in the end with that.  On Friday evening, Matt was holding her, and noticed she looked rather purple.  He patted her and walked around with her and she went back to normal.  We thought it was an artifact of the lighting in the room, because there were some strange lights in there and strange combinations.  Later, I had just fed her and put her in her bassinet and she did it again.  I immediately reached out to her and picked her up again, and she went back to normal color right after that.  I asked the nurse about it, and she said that all babies do that and it was normal.  That didn’t feel right, but she hadn’t seen it, so we went with it, somewhat grudgingly.  We sent Emily to the nursery for the night.

About 1:00 a.m. I heard Emily cry.  She was the loudest one in the nursery and my room was right across from there, so I could hear her easily.  I started putting my bed up so I could be ready when she was brought to me for a feeding. 

She never came.

I waited.

And waited some more. 

Finally I heard the nursery door open and heard one of the nurses say, “Call Doctor Abler.”

My heart sank somewhere into the depths of the earth and I started thinking, “Oh, please no! Not my baby!”  But I knew it was Emily.  Dr. Abler is our family doctor. 

Finally, a nurse came into my room and told me that they had moved Emily to the ICU so they could monitor her.  She was getting her vitals checked just before her bath and she turned purple on the nurse.  They brought me into the ICU to be with her, and I called home to Matt from there.  Amazingly, he heard the phone.  I had turned off all the ringers except the one in the basement.  He had just woken up and was turning over to go back to sleep and actually heard the phone ring. 

I told him that Emily was in the ICU and that I was waiting to hear more soon. I would let him know when I knew more.  I hung up with him, and fed Emily.  I put her back in the bassinet and she did her chameleon thing again. Her blood saturation levels were dropping.   This time they called Dr. Abler to come into the hospital.  I immediately called Matt again and told him he had to come in, because there was no way I could deal with all that on my own.  Then I called the neighbor to go be with Kirstin, who was in her own bed for the first night since the night before Emily was born.  Luckily at three in the morning, all I had to say to the neighbor was, “Emily is having problems, and Matt has to come in again, can you go be with Kirstin?”  She didn’t even question it, said, “I’ll be there.” And hung up.  It’s wonderful having people around you can count on like that. 

After I made those calls, I had the nurse call Pastor.  Matt and he arrived at roughly the same time.  Once Emily was stable again, we put her on the bed and had her baptized.  That was the only time through the entire ordeal that Matt actually cried.  We both broke down when it came time for prayer.  We couldn’t even pray with our Pastor and the nurse.  Then I held Emily for a little bit, until the hospital staff had to make full preparations for the flight team.  Then I had to hand her over again so that the flight team could get at her right away.  She had to get an IV put into her leg, and the team made other preparations with her as well, including putting on little ear muffs to cancel out some of the noise. 

After Emily left, we did too, so we could go home, pack (Matt) and repack(me) and we headed for the cities.  Emily got to the hospital around 7:30 a.m.  She had one more episode there at about 8:00 a.m.  The doctor called me so I could give permission for her to get a CT scan and a lumbar puncture and to find out when we would arrive.  We told her around 11:00 a.m. because we didn’t know exactly how traffic would be.  We actually got to the hospital around 10:00 a.m. but didn’t make it to Emily’s room till about 10:30 a.m.  Emily was hooked up to a monitor and had an IV going with sugar water and antibiotics. I was able to take a deep breath when I saw she didn’t have any tubes in her.  She was sedated for the lumbar puncture, and was still out from that when we got there.  We talked to the doctor soon after our arrival, and we were relieved to hear they had ruled out heart, lungs, and seizures.  They did an ECG and were giving her antibiotics in case it was an infection. 

And Emily never turned purple again.  After 48 hours in the NICU with constant monitoring, she was allowed to come home.  We had to take an infant CPR course, but that was about it.  That’s just general protocol for a baby coming home from NICU.  So instead of driving 15 minutes to get home, we had to drive 3 hours. 

Now we laugh over portions of that weekend.  The nurses from all over the NICU coming in and saying, “We want to see the big baby with the hair!”  Our amazement at the nurse putting a new IV into Emily and only taking maybe two minutes total to find the vein, get the IV in, and wrap it-- in such a tiny hand.  My amazement at the hotel the hospital put us up in for two nights (plush!).  Matt meeting a high school classmate in the tunnel between Children’s and Abbot when we were coming back from breakfast (he probably knows someone in Timbuktu as well!). 

And now it is time to move forward.  Remember the lessons we had to learn from Emily being in the NICU, feel humble at the awesome power of God, and be thankful for having two incredibly healthy and beautiful daughters.  It’s time to take all that and use it to become different in our lives.  It’s time to plan again, but keep our lessons.  Let life just be, and we’ll just go for the ride.  It’s easier than trying to fight what we can’t change.

Stickers and Icecream or "How to get Kirstin to do what you want."

on Thursday, June 10, 2010
I'm sitting here, right before my bedtime writing this.  I'm enjoying this time tonight.  I have a great sense of accomplishment from the day.  Part of that could be that I started my day at 4:15 a.m.  I got up because Kirstin wouldn't stay in her bed, and sleep attempts were futile anyway.  Instead, I looked up some stuff online that I haven't been able to get to, folded some laundry, and read part of a book I've had sitting off to the side for entirely too long.  As six o'clock edged nearer, Emily woke up again, so I fed her and started my day for real.

While I was in the shower I brainstormed ideas as to how to keep Kirstin in her bed.  Most nights she's up at least twice, and last night she was up about 7 times, which meant in total I was up 10 times last night, because of course she and Emily couldn't make their needs correspond.  After talking the matter over with Matt, we've decided to "go back to basics."  We took down her bed tent, took away all but one stuffed animal, her glo-worm and her blanket, her radio doesn't work for her anymore (I know the magical fix though), and her bright nighlight is also kaput.  And she's also down to only one book in bed.  Then we introduced the chart.  She gets a sticker tomorrow if she follows the chart.  We cross things off as she does them.  On there are things like getting her jammies on without trouble, going upstairs without complaining, staying in bed, staying quiet, and going to sleep.  Then there's a graduated system for getting her stuff back.  She needs three consecutive nights to get a couple of stuffed animals back.  We're not letting her have as many as she wants anymore, as there was barely room for her in the bed.  Then after she gets the stuffed animals, it's two more nights to one more book, etc.  So far, this first night, it's working.  We'll see how it goes later on. She's very excited about the idea of having stickers.  At the end of all of it, if she stays in her bed for 10 consecutive nights she gets a picnic with Mom.  Just the two of us.  Probably out at the WROC gardens, though I may opt for somewhere else if they're not in their full summer glory yet.  We'll see.  I think I have some time to be deciding that.

Also in the random news, I brought the girls to the library on Tuesday.  I needed some reading material and a deadline to get me back into my reading habit.  The library provided both.  While there, we got Kirstin signed up for the summer reading program.  This is the first time either of us has been involved in something like that.  She got a poster with areas to color for every 15 minutes we read.  I think I could recite the Franklin and Clifford books she chose, but if it gets us reading more, I have no problems with it.  The book time was rather lax around here before this, so it's a good incentive.  If she gets all the areas colored in on the poster she gets a gift certificate to Dairy Queen for a small cone or something like that. 

So yeah, we're bribing our older child to be good and to do things.  Right now, anything that works is fine with me.  And hey, at least stickers still make her enthusiastic about trying things!  Sometimes it's the little things in life that motivate.

Rush Rush Rush

on Monday, June 07, 2010
I think I heard the phrase, "We seem to only see each other at weddings and funerals!" about half a dozen times this weekend.  And sadly, that's the truth.  We celebrated Mark and Abby's wedding on Saturday.  What a day!  What a weekend!  As I type this, I'm still exhausted.  I'll eventually put up pictures of the girls in their "fancy" dresses.  Kirstin was the flower girl, and stole the show on a few occasions before and after the wedding. Not during the wedding though, thankfully.  She looked like a little doll in her dress and with her hair done.  She got her first hair cut on Friday as a partial preparation for Saturday.  She only had about 3/4 of an inch taken off all around and then Brian found her bangs for us, too.  She watched me get my hair done(Good bye pony tail!  Hello wash and wear short hair!), and then it was her turn.  She was kind of nervous.  But look at Brian...Isn't he the type of guy with whom you would normally trust your three year old?  But she warmed up quickly and actually had fun with Brian after a few minutes.  Her hair looked wonderful when he was done.
That was the first time we've seen Brian (a good friend of Matt's from high school) in probably close to two years.  That's sad.  We have yet to meet his wife and twin girls.  And of course there was the promise of, "We'll get together sometime soon!"  I think we've said that every time we've talked and it still hasn't happened. 

The same could be said of a lot of family and friends we saw over the weekend.  It's really sad when some of those people only live about a half an hour away.  It just seems that our schedules never mesh well.  I think it's time to put aside some of the "busy-ness" and go see family a little more often.  Some of the family members we saw are really starting to seem old now...It's time to make our visits before it's too late.

I will say though, I'm very thankful for my folks right now.  If they hadn't been there to help me with the girls, I don't know how I would have made it through Saturday.  Matt was in the wedding, as was Kirstin.  Emily is only 5 weeks old.  I couldn't have continued getting Kirstin ready and cared for if I didn't have someone I could constantly rely on to help with Emily.  Matt was busy, as was Grandma Ma.  And that's what I expected.  But all the running around I had to do with Kirstin would have been impossible if I constantly had to care for Emily too.  By the way...A three year old in a puffy flower girl's dress is really difficult to put on the potty...And then have her NOT go. 

So the weekend in a nutshell: Friday whirled around with us all getting packed up and into the car. I forgot how much stuff we need when traveling with a baby.  Luckily we got it all fit in.  Went to Alexandria, got tuxes and food. Went to St. Cloud, did a tiny bit of shopping, got our hair done.  Went to Abby's folks' place for supper before rehearsal.  Did the rehearsal and then went to the hotel and then got the girls ready for bed and Matt went out with the bridal party. 

Saturday was busy with breakfast, shopping at Wal-Mart to get stuff to wrap the gifts, back to the hotel to get everything for the day.  Then it was to the church, get Kirstin into her dress, and then it was pictures, wedding (in which I walked Kirstin down the aisle to make sure she made it) and off to the reception and dance.  After a million trips to the car to bring stuff out of or into the Legion, eating, and dancing, the girls and I went back to the hotel and collapsed.

Then Sunday was a little less busy.  We did breakfast, and then went back to the hotel, got packed up, and went to Abby's folks' place for the gift opening.  After that we left and did some shopping in Alexandria on the way home (and got Kirstin a booster seat instead of a car seat! She's growing so fast!) and then got home, unpacked the car, ate supper, and collapsed here. 

Now it's just getting all the laundry done and getting everything unpacked.  Whew...Glad we don't have to do it all again, as fun as it was.