random little things.

First... 3 posts in three days!!! Go, Chrissy, Go! Must try to make some pre-post ones for the 6 months when I enter the haze of new baby.

Second.. following yesterdays post I found this and it cracked me right up. Especially the part about the little messy lunatics. That pretty much sums up everything. As does competition. Getting them dressed usually happens to "who can find their socks first??" and it works. Go me!

Third... boys are strange wonderful little creatures. But why oh why oh WHY is everything more fun naked??? We brought out the water table today. And I left the big 2 outside while I put Charlie for a much-needed nap. And in the 3.5 minutes it took to do that I came outside to see 2 very naked boys scrubbing themselves with the freezing cold water. Yelling "scrubby scrubby scrubby!!" sigh. It seems that my frequent "penises belong inside pants and it's important that we don't share them with the neighbourhood" talks have yet to sink in.  Do little girls have the same affinity for being naked?

the things that I say

Do you ever hear yourself saying something and then question your own sanity as the words are coming out? And as the words escape your lips you think to yourself "what the heck am I saying???"?
I do. Regularly. Since becoming a mother I say really dumb things. Often.

Hear is this morning's breakfast conversation between Alpha, Bravo, and I. (Insert random dino roars from a 15 month old throughout the conversation.)

Alpha- "I turned you into a robot with my bagel remote control!"
Bravo- "No! No! I don't want to be a robot!"
"Alpha- "You are! I used my super bagel remote and turned you into a robot. Ha ha ha!!"

Bravo' "Moooom! (large tears streaming down his face at this point) Alpha turned me into a robot with his bagel remote".
Me- "Bravo, you are still a boy." "alpha, you need to ask permission before you use your bagel remote control to turn people into robots because you might hurt somebodies feelings."

What???

In no other time, place, or context would that even make a little bit of sense. I have lost my mind. It has been eaten by small people.

It doesn't have to be right now

Do you ever have a moment that should have meant nothing but meant everything? A passing comment that was simply that, a passing comment, but it turns into a whole philosophical… thing?

I was at the grocery store the other day buying some random things. And I was at the checkout and had my debit card in the machine and punched everything and then went into la-la land in my head. The cashier had to tell me twice to take my card out of the machine I was staring at. I said something about “one day, one day I will have my brain back”.

And her response has been swirling in my head since.

“yes, but it doesn’t need to be right now”.

It doesn’t need to be right now. It doesn’t need to be right now. There is more wisdom in those 7 words than I have heard in a long long time. There are a lot of things I need to get to. A lot of things I want my heart and brain to rush to. A lot of things I wish were different about myself and a lot of things I’m working on.

I need to clean my windows. I need to clean my whole house, really.

I want to make crafts with the boys.

I work everyday to be OK with Thomas not being with us.

I struggle to find room in my life for Delta, I struggle to accept that chances are that Delta will be here, safe and sound in my arms, in 9.5 weeks.

I wish I had a clearer head. I wish I could be organized and planned and somehow laid back all at the same time.

I am striving towards growing and being a strong and confident and loving mother and wife and woman.

I really really really want to get on track with my schooling and reach out to other women in a new role.

One day I will have my brain back.

Yes, but it doesn’t need to be right now.

Right now I am a young (ish) mom to 3 very young boys and I am going on 31 weeks pregnant. And it is OK to just… be. To be where I am. To be spacey and tired and full of love for my three weird and wonderful little creatures. It is OK to still be sad about Thomas, it is OK to miss him like crazy as I watch Charlie grow and explore each day. It’s OK my house is dusty. And my windows are gross. It’s OK. These things will come. But it doesn’t need to be right now.

Maybe I’m over thinking this. (not that I EVER over think things….) maybe I’m putting too much into the cashier’s words. But they were what I needed to hear.

Be where you are, Chrissy. And see the beauty and love in the chaos. And in 9 weeks it will get even more chaotic and even more beautiful as you have another brand new life to snuggle and breathe in. This is what is right now, there is time later for everything else.

Breaking the expectations

I’m not sure what I was expecting of this pregnancy. I mean, I wasn’t expecting the pregnancy, so how can I expect anything out of it? Or rather, how would I know what to expect out of my brain when I wasn’t planning this. I like planning. I’m a planner. I need to know what’s going on. And this has become more important to me since bravo and his allergies and since Thomas. Those two very unplanned things really threw (and continue to throw) me for big giant brain-breaking loops. So I really try to keep everything else orderly (as orderly as it can be with 3 very small kids) and planned and keep my life tidy. I don’t know why I haven’t accepted yet that life just isn’t tidy.

Add in another unplanned loop (baby icicle) and no wonder I feel like I’m going crazy.

I knew more or less what to expect with other pregnancies. I would get pregnant, have a baby, be unprepared (yes, I planned to be unprepared- see my problem??), land on my feet, repeat 2 more times.

And then the plan was to have an 18 month old and 3 year old and 4.5 year old for the summer and go to the beach and get on with life and find freedom that comes with no infants.

And then my plan was changed and I have since been knocked off my feet and am still struggling to get back on them. I don’t deal well with plans being changed for me. If I have some notice, fine. But with no notice…. I go a little crazy. Er.

I’ve been working the last bit at changing my expectations.

This baby was not expected.

This new family dynamic wasn’t expected.

Being pregnant with 3 other kids (which, by the way, is for the birds- what does that even mean??) was not expected.

(side note- how many idioms do I use in a day that I really don’t know why I use them or where they came from? I like idioms. They make things funny.)

So how do I be OK with this? I mean, I have no choice. But maybe it’s OK that I’m not doing cartwheels (metaphorical, not literal, I would land in bone breaking and uncomfortable positions if I attempted that right now and my pelvis may actually snap in half) over this pregnancy. Maybe it’s OK that I don’t know what to expect from this child and from my family. Maybe it’s OK that my life is not going according to plan (has it ever, though??) and that I am thrown for a loop with this.

Maybe it’s OK, maybe I should encourage myself even, to let go of expectations for this pregnancy and for this child and just feel what I’m going to feel and then get on with life. Because feeling guilt over not meeting my expectations for this pregnancy as I did for the previous ones is eating me up. And I’ve had just about enough of guilt. Now, it seems to not have enough of me, but maybe I can kick it to the curb for this pregnancy and baby and let myself revel in whatever experience this is shaping out to be. This is my LAST baby, so I would like to start enjoying the pregnancy (even the miseries of it- like peeing my pants because the 4 year old trumps the pregnant woman’s need for the toilet) despite not being prepared for it.

This baby was a surprise. And I have a feeling that the baby itself is going to be a surprise. Wait, I just repeated myself, didn’t I? I mean the existence of the baby was a shock, and maybe the whole parenting experience is just going to be a surprise with this one. The first 3 are radically different little people, so this one I’m sure is going to keep me guessing.

I have no idea anymore what this post is about.

So much for planning.

In every tree there sits a bird

There are a few parts to my disjointed post today. The first part which won't make much sense until the end is about a dear dear friend who just said goodbye to her angel on Friday. Her heartbreak is huge and unbearable and one I feel deeply for her because I have had to say goodbye to my own sweet boy. When she left the hospital it was snowing. So much snow. Snowflakes all around her. No birds, no rainbows or sunshine, a lot of snow.

Now most of you know this wonderful mommy and her beautiful rainbow. She gave birth to her daughter at 38 weeks and had to say goodbye that day. One beautiful thing about this story is her rainbow. This mom sees more rainbows than I think I have ever ever seen in my entire life. And every time she sees a rainbow she thinks of Mackenzie. And every time I see a rainbow I think of Mackenzie. And every time a hundred people across the country see a rainbow, they think of her beautiful Mackenzie. And it's perfect and wonderful and fitting.

And I must say sometimes it makes me a little sad.

I never really talked about Thomas when I was going through it. It's only been since I started this blog that I really realised I needed to talk about him. But I was scared to. I was afraid that I would be dismissed, that my grief and pain and ultimately the life of my son would be dismissed and therefore unvalidated. I guess I’m still afraid to talk about my Thomas. Afraid that he will be discounted because he wasn’t a “real” baby. And I couldn’t bear anybody to think that because to me he was perfect.

When that little 2 inch one-dimensional vaguely baby-shaped white blob came out attached to the placenta, I knew that was the remains of my perfect baby. Squished by his larger brother from week 16-40, fluids drawn out, compacted, and grown into the placenta which provided life for Charlie, Thomas is still my baby. I carried him for 9 months. It just so happens that for 5 of those he wasn’t living. And I could not bare to take the chance that people would think these things about Thomas. But that just caused me to feel even more lonely. How could people think about him when they didn't know about him??

So I am posting this. I have had this in my head for a long time, but have never told a single living soul. Not even Matthew.

I sing a song to Paul every night before bed. And every time I sing it I think of my Thomas.

In every tree there sits a bird,

singing a song of love

In every tree there sits a bird,

and every one I’ve ever heard,

could break your heart without a word,

Singing a song of love

The song of love is a sad song,

Hi lily hi lily hi lo

The song of love is a song of woe,

don’t ask me how I know

The song of love is a sad song,

for I have loved and it’s so

I sit at the window and watch the rain,

 hi lily hi lily hi lo

Tomorrow I’ll probably love again,

hi lily hi lily hi lo

And every time I see a sparrow I think of my baby. Sitting in a tree, watching over us, singing a beautiful but ever so sad song. And all the other sparrows in the tree are other lost babies singing away. Making the world cheerier. Strong, beautiful in their simplicity, cheery, tiny little birds.

I can never touch a sparrow. If I tried it would fly away. They sit in the tree, but remain forever out of reach. You can't hold a sparrow. And you can't touch a rainbow. They're beautiful and sparkly and full of joy and love. And they shine, out of reach, never touchable. And if you tried to hold a snowflake it would just... melt away. The snowflake is perfect and unique and beautiful and intricate, and fleeting. Sparrows, rainbows, snowflakes, each perfect, each beautiful, each cruel and heartbreaking in their fleeting and unreachable ways.

So when you see a little sparrow, maybe give a little thought for my boy. Let him know you love his song. And give a little thought of me, living without my boy, and of Charlie, living his life without his beautiful and perfect twin.

I love my boys.

a.b.c.d.e.f.g.h.i.j.k…….

l.m.n.o.POO!

Did you know that’s how the alphabet goes?? Ask Alpha or Bravo, they’ll tell you. Over and over and over. And shockingly it was Bravo who came up with this clever little gem, NOT Alpha.

We were sitting at the supper table having a normal conversation (well, as normal of a conversation as you can have with a 2.5  and a 4 yr old boy) and we were talking about what they should take for alphabet show & tell at nursery school. Bravo said he wanted to wear pajamas for show and tell, and I told him he had to wait until P day.

Do you see where this is headed?

“No, poo day!” ugh. Bravo, not THAT kind of p. Which led into a discussion about pee vs. pea vs. p. Which Bravo promptly ignored and then just started talking more about Poo Day. And L M N O Poo. And poo soup. And poo pancakes. And poo cake.

At that point Alpha joined in the fun and all I heard about for the remainder of the day was various words connected with the word “poo.”

And you know what Charlie was doing during this charming little supper? Killing himself laughing at his brothers.

Sigh. Welcome to your life, Chrissy. Want a poo pancake?

Move over, Keith Moon

If you know more about music than I do (which really is NOT a hard thing to accomplish) you will know about Keith Moon. The only reason I know about him is becasue Matthew is a music nerd with close to 600 cds wasting space on my bookshelf. And he talks about Keith Moon being the best drummer of all time ever. I think maybe he was in The Who? I might be wrong. Don't tell Matt. Anyways. Whenerb Matt says something about a drummer my answer is always "ya, but he's not as good as Keith Moon" pretending I know something about drumming. Or care. It usually gets me a slap on my behind.

So Matt has a little red drum kit that he loves but hasn't got to spend much time using the last 6 years. Becasue first we lived in a rental house that was 460 sq feet. I'm not kidding. No room in there to lie on the floor, let alone set up a drum kit. Then we moved and had a basement but then had kids. Alpha like the drums from about 1-3, but never really did that much with them. So Matt's been saying he's going to sell them (even though I know he REALLY doesn't want to, he just knows the space would be nice as would the money) and I (even though I would REALLY like to re-claim that basement space) keep telling him not to. And this is exactly why:

3 days ago Alpha had it in his head that he really really really wants to play the drums, so I said maybe Daddy would give him a drum lesson. Well, the second Matt came homw Alpha was on top of him begging for a drum lesson.So while I made dinner Matt gave Alpha a drum lesson. And I could hear the cuteness of it all. He was learning all sorts of actual techinacl things (that I know I can't do- Matt has tried to teach me and I'm just really really bad at understanding anything to do with rythem) and Alpha was doing great. And every now and then I'd hear the drums go crazy and Matt would yell "ya! Drum Solo!!" then it would be back to the lesson. After the third lesson Matt took Alpha into the living room and put on some loud annoying music music with lots of drumming and with Keith Moon. Alpha listened for a while making a comment every now and then about how it was really good and he really likes the drums and that the drummer is really really good at drums.... "but not as good as me." awesome. Move over, Keith Moon, here comes Alpha Jennings. Matt didn't have the heart to tell him that Keith Moon is in fact better at drumming but did say that with lots of practice that he has no doubt that could be true one day.

As an aside Alpha keeps saying that he and Bravo are in a band together. And that they have to go have band practice. I asked what the band was called. He looked at me like I was really stupid and said (and you could hear his eyes roll when he said it) "our band is called Rock, Mommy." Of course it is. Rock. At least you know what kind of music you're getting.

Personal accomplishments.

Go Me!!

In the last bit, I, Chrissy Jennings, have:

A)       Posted every single weekday starting last Tuesday. Truth be told I’m writing a few of them at work on Saturdays and them email them to myself and then post them all on delayed posts on Sunday night and then I don’t have to do anything for the rest of the week except to think of random stupid thing (like this) that I want to post! Yup- I’m awesome.

B)      Stopped biting my nails. And mostly stopped ripping my nails. I have not had nails since…… I think I was 6? I have a vivid memory of my dad clipping my nails down to bleeding because I scratched y brother’s face (he totally deserved it, they just didn’t see that then) and I don’t really think they had to get cut after that. Right- this is about nails. I have them!! I went to itch my arm the other day and was shocked because it kind of hurt because I was scratching with nails and not finger tips. Yay me!! It’s been 3 weeks and I only worried one nail off because I was in a movie theatre and it snagged and then I had 2 hours that I tried to deal but couldn’t so I ripped it off and then filed at home. I must get a file for my pocket.

C)       As mentioned in B., I went to a movie. Now, this may not seem like a personal accomplishment, but it is, my dear friends, it is. Because first- it was a grown up movie. No cartoons, no potty humour, no talking puppies, none of that crap wonderful stuff. Second- it was with my husband. It was a real date!! Grandma had the boys, we ditched for supper and then just went out the two of us. For three hours. Alone. Boo ya!

D)      Had three showers this week. Granted 2 of them were because I had the stomach flu and being covered in sweat and vomit is gross, but still. 3 is pretty good.( Actually as I write this it’s Saturday and I’m planning on showering tonight so....) let’s change this to:

I had 4 showers last week!!!!! Now, this may not seem like an accomplishment. But trust me, it is. I usually get 2 in, and on a really really good week (or bad- depending, sometimes getting pooped or peed on helps my showering cause) I’ll have 3. So 4 in one week is…. Really really awesome.

E)      Speaking of really awesome… I spent a whole day in bed mostly sleeping. And I read a magazine and played on my iPod touch and really didn’t move out of bed. I think I rolled out of it at 2pm and was back in it at 8pm, and stayed in it until 8:15 the next morning. OK. In my fantasy this is really awesome. How many times have I said ‘I just don’t want to get out of bed today”? A lot. HOWEVER… in my day dreams of spending all day in bed I am not barfing into a Ziploc container. And I can move without barfing. And I’m not doped up on gravol. But whatever, I can’t have everything, right?? Matthew was a wonderful man and took the day off so I could die in bed all day. I’m not sure how I would have handled life that day if he had not done that. And then after the kids were in bed he went to buy me some soup because we had run out and it’s all I wanted to eat and he was worried about the child inside of me getting only 2 crackers and a tin of ginger ale.

F)       I sat down and did crafts with the boys. This may also not sound like an accomplishment, but I felt like super mom. We made clouds out of a lot of glue, cotton balls, and cereal boxes. The clouds are now on their wall along with their name airplanes (red paint, white letters, and cereal boxes) to make their airplane room look amazing. Doing crafts with Alpha and Bravo is tricky. Because one paint brush is identical to the other way better than the other one, and one red crayon is bigger than the other, and one tinfoil plate has more glue on it and anyways, let’s race. Around the house. At top speed. Holding red paint brushes. Sigh……. But we did it!! And it was actually pretty fun and the world didn’t end and there was only a wee bit of bickering and the red paint came off the floor. Maybe as they get older I’ll get braver and do more. Thank goodness they go to playschool where they have somebody that has the energy to do crafts.

G)      I made a menu plan for the next 2 weeks. Sticking to it will require more planning and time to do a real shop- but I did it!

Mmm, I think that’s it. I know this all sounds pretty mundane and boring, and I guess it is, but it’s life as Mom for Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, and almost Delta, and I love it. Well, I could do with less puke (mine and everybody else’s) but other than that, I have a pretty awesome life. And I have nails!!!!!

Oh wait... one more to add.

Friends

I’ve been thinking a lot about friendship lately. How they start, change, end, re-grow, all of that. Watching Alpha decide who his friends are is kind of funny. His favourite right now is a boy from playschool because we went to his house and he has the same Plo Koon Lego ship as Alpha. And, well, if you can’t base a friendship on Plo koon, what can you base a friendship on?? Alpha is really bad with names though, so this friend is referred to in our house as “my Plo Koon friend”. Which makes me laugh. At least it’s clear what this friendship is based on. Other of Alpha and Bravo's friends are only based on my friends and their children. And mostly that has worked out. Thankfully the Plo Koon friend has a really nice mom AND a child the same age as Bravo, too. And Charlie doesn’t really care yet, as long as there is a toilet to try to get into or stairs to climb.

Last year both Alpha and Bravo’s favourite friend is a boy who lives across the alley. Because we see him a lot and because he’s older than Alpha by 9 months so he’s SUPER COOL because he can do cooler things AND he’s in kindergarten.

Alpha also adores people littler than Bravo. About 18 months and under Alpha is just drawn to. He loves making other babies laugh or grab his face. He loves stroking their heads when they’re really little (but who doesn’t love stroking tiny newborn heads??)

So according to Alpha a friend is one of three things. 1: somebody who is smaller than you therefore looks up to you and adores you. Somebody who is not threatening and can’t take your toys. 2: somebody cooler and bigger than you that you can look up to and 3: somebody who you share something with.

Which really, that about sums it up. My heart is pre-breaking for when the boys have friendships fall apart. We’ve all been there and it sucks. Especially when you were the one that got dumped. Some friendships seem so solid and then just… go away. Some seem flakey and based on nothing, but those end up being the closest ones.

The beginning of my bestie friendship was when I was 8. That was 24 years ago. We were “I hate you, I love you” for a few years and then we went skiing together. We were on a t-bar and I said “my bum’s falling off” and she said “literally?” and it was the funniest darn thing and then that was that. No more “I hate you” swings in our friendship. And over the years we’ve drifted and come back. And then last 6 years we’ve grown super close because of joint experiences. We were there for each other when the rest of the world wasn’t. And now she’s married to my favourite cousin (boo ya!! She’s family now!) and we send each other stupid messages all the time and it’s funny. Her two year old (well, 3 in a month) told her this week that she has a stick up her butt. Because she wouldn’t let her have cookies for supper. Funny. But that has nothing to do with this post. It’s nice knowing that no matter what happens in my life or how dumb I get that she will be there and will be able to make me laugh in about two and a half seconds.

I had another friend (the besties cousin actually) that I was super close to. But then my life got messy and she couldn’t deal so she bailed. By sending me a letter covered in stickers. And then she never talked to me again. It broke my heart and really really confused and upset me for a long long time. We were friends for 17 years and then *poof* not friends. And I didn’t get to talk about it with her or ask her questions or explain my messy life or anything. She just… I don’t know. Got bored. Or busy. Or something.

Other friends we just drifted apart and nobody was hurt or anything. And I still have fond memories of them and if I ever ran into them I’d be thrilled and then it would probably fade away again.

I had 2 super close friends in high school. One has drifted in and out of my life (but mostly out- moving 2 provinces away does that) and one dropped off the radar and despite several attempts on my part to get in contact with her it just hasn’t happened. The one friend recently got a hold of me, and I’m loving it. It’s this weird link to my past, and now we have all these new things in common that we have yet to explore, but I’m hoping to. Because I’ve missed her like crazy. She was one of those friends that you could stay up until 5 in the morning with laughing the whole time. About things like tuna and meatballers. Because those are funny. At least they are to 15 year old sleep-deprived girls. She’s actually the one and only person who has met me in real life that knows this blog exists. And it’s kind of strange. 15 years ago she knew everything there was to know about me. All my secrets, all my faults, all my craziness, all the crumby and good things that happened. And then she didn’t. And now she does again. And it’s kind of comforting in a weird little way.

I miss when we were kids and finding friends was less complicated. It’s hard now to find friends. Good friends. Friends that I can talk to about more than my kids. (Although I do talk a lot about them because they’re what I do all day and all night and I love them like cake.) But it’s hard to find that connection. It’s harder than “Hey, you like star wars and I like star wars, wanna play chase??” There seems to be so many rules around friendships now. Share. But not too much. Talk about your family, but not too much. Ask questions, but not too many, be invested, but the right amount of invested. Over invested and you’re going to look needy and you’ll get hurt. Under invested and you look like a jerk. Call or make contact, but not too much. Put yourself about ¾ out there. Maybe a bit less. Do mathematical equations to figure out how much to share, and when and where.

Why do adults have to make things confusing? Hey, old friend, I’m gonna put it out there. I have missed you. And I think about you lots. And every time I hear “it’s that time again…” you know what the answer is. When I see kids painting on the sidewalk I think of you. When I see a tall girl and a short girl walking together I think of you. So at risk of being over-invested and too in-need of a re-kindled friendship, I’m glad you found me and I’d like to keep this up. K? By the way, old friend, I still can't listen to Bite the Dust without hearing "I'm adopted!" Turns out Freddy Mercury WAS adopted, so maybe there's something to our theory. At least he's proud of his birth heritage.

Yay us!!

Charlie officially has weaned. Not even a nip in the last week. And shockingly, I'm not sad about it.

When Alpha was born I WAS GOING TO NURSE-THANK YOU VERY MUCH. And then I became his mom and it all went to hell in a hand basket. After his rough birth I had a rougher recovery and by the time we got home, 11 days post partum, and I tried to breast feed, he just wouldn't. We tried. A lot. For 8 weeks. Which I know doesn't sound like a lot. But oh, it is. He would cry when he got hungry, I would lift my shirt, get perfect positioning, hold him to my breast, and listen to him shriek like I was killing him. I tried and tried and tried. Then once he was purple and screaming and so hungry and I was bawling I would put my shirt back and get him the stupid bottle and give it to him, resenting the bottle that soothed him, resenting the crappy nurses I had, resenting my body. Then I would get him settled some where, pump, wash the pump parts, wash bottles, change him, and then he would cry because he was hungry and I would get a 20 minute break before doing it all again. And again. And again. So I gave up on nursing and felt like a total failure and then just cried for 6 months. Super healthy, I know. I wouldn't let anybody else feed him because I and I alone was SUPPOSED to be able to feed him. I let Matthew do it because I couldn't say no to him. And it gave me a bit of a chance to rest my poor brain. As soon as Alpha turned 1 I took the bottles away cold turkey and was so happy to not see them again.

Then Bravo was born. Oh cranky, high maintenance, difficult, sweet little Bravo. Carried in his sling for no less than 13 hours a day. He did eventually nurse but it took 17 weeks for him to figure it out. In the middle of the night he would scream for 2 hours instead of latching. But ooooh- I was determined. And I at last found the help I actually needed. My midwife sent me to the best baby chiropractor ever and to the GOOD lactation consultants in the city (we have some pretty bad ones). And finally he nursed. And I was so happy it was working. He self-weaned at 14 months because I was 11 weeks pregnant. And he was as stressed about weaning as he was about starting nursing. Even though it was his idea. Drove me nuts.

SO when Charlie came out and just latched with no effort and never looked back I was shocked. Floored. Delighted.

Which brings me to the point of this post (do I ever have a point though, really??). We nursed for 12 and a half months. I would happily keep going, but he decided he was done. Which makes me happy. I didn't force weaning, he chose it because he was ready. (And because I have no milk because I'm pregnant. Again.) And in that 12.5 months he had a small handful of bottles, like maybe 4 for a total of 10 ounces, and he had no Formula. Zero. Not even one drop. And I am so proud of us. Proud of myself. Not because formula is evil (although formula spit up in the house would make Bravo really sick) but because we did it.  I nursed with no pain, no formula, no medications, no infections, no problems, until he peacefully decided to stop. And that is an amazing feeling after everything I've gone through trying to simply feed my babies. Hopefully Delta takes after Charlie. Delta, are you listening????

So yay us!!!

Allergies. How many hours have I spent thinking of them? Hating them, trying to figure them out, trying to understand them or explain them, worrying about them, trying to figure out how to meet the needs of all family members while keeping little bravo safe? I’m not sure how many hours, but it’s got to be getting up there by now. It was 2 years and 4 months since they came onto my radar. And it’s only gotten worse.

I’m tired of thinking about them, but I just don’t have the luxury of NOT thinking of them. If I didn’t spend so much of my time on them then my baby would not be here. The fun part is figuring out cooking challenges and discovering new non-allergic ways of doing things. The crappy part is, well, everything else.

I’m now losing hope that my boy will outgrow his allergies. Some of them, sure, but not the biggie. Not Milk. And almost for sure not peanuts, but that one is SO avoidable and the masses automatically think ‘peanut” when you say “allergy”.

We got bravo’s allergy results back. He had a RAST test done. Now- this test makes no sense to me.

Radioallergosorbent test. That’s the fancy name for it.

The simple part of it is that all we do is get some blood taken. And then some fancy laboratory voo-doo takes place. They take the allergen and bind it to a solid polymer and add it to the blood. Ok- I’m following so far. In people with allergies there is something called IgE in the blood. Or- immunoglobulin E. Each allergen has a specific IgE that will bind to it. Ok- I’m still mostly following. They watch the blood and the allergen and IgE clump together, they “wash” the blood and just leave the allergen and the specific IgE so that they can do the next part. Which is where they lose me completely. I was OK up to this point, but now…..

A serum of radioactive anti-IgE, which is derived from people who are known to be allergic to the allergen being tested for, is then added, allowing technicians to determine the concentration of allergen-specific IgE in the patient's blood.

Huh? So they take my kids blood, add some milk or soy or egg or whatever to it, swish it around, watch it clump together, get rid of the parts that aren’t clumped, add some radioactive blood from some other person that IS allergic to it and then count to see how much allergen specific IgE is in my kid’s blood to determine where on the scale of allergic he is. Right. I am SO not smart enough to understand this. They may as well be dancing over the vile of blood with an engraved wooden stick. I would understand it to about the same degree. But whatever- it’s not a skin prick test and they can test for a whole bunch of allergies from one blood sample which makes getting bravo tested SO much easier.

So once this scientific voodoo takes place they come back with numbers from 0- >100. Which is then broken down into a smaller scale of 0-6. 0 being “eat all you want, there are no allergen specific IgE present” 6 being “stay the hell away this will cause instant death and a lot of pain and suffering even if you don’t die”. Or something like that. That’s my vague interpretation anyway. Actually- all it says is that 6 is more than 100 of the IgE floating around in your blood. People can have this much and not have a reaction any worse than some hives or eczema. It’s kind of an incomplete test. It needs to be paired with a history and food challenges if the numbers aren’t crazy high and maybe a skin prick test. No allergy test is really all that helpful without a reaction history.

Allergies are SO well understood.

Here’s the really helpful chart.

RAST rating	IgE level (KU/L)	comment
0	< 0.35	ABSENT OR UNDETECTABLE ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
1	0.35 - 0.69	LOW LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
2	0.70 - 3.49	MODERATE LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
3	3.50 - 17.49	HIGH LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
4	17.50 - 49.99	VERY HIGH LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
5	50.0 - 100.00	VERY HIGH LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE
6	> 100.00	EXTREMELY HIGH LEVEL OF ALLERGEN SPECIFIC IgE

You have to be at least a 3 (or an IgE of 10) for it generally to be considered life-threatening. If the IgE is under 2 (so a RAST level of mid 2 or under) they say that you’re unlikely to have a reaction and you’re good to go for trying a food challenge. For soy, typically the IgE has to be like 50 or something. I don’t remember but it was really high.

So Bravo. His old numbers were: soy- 0.6, milk- 29, egg- 29, peanuts- 8, chickpeas- not tested.

His new numbers are: soy- 1.9, milk- >100 (scary), egg- 19, peanuts- 19, chickpeas- I don’t remember but under 2.

So he has 2 #1s, 2 #4s and a 6. The 6 scares the crap out of me. That’s the one that causes him a reaction from tiny tiny amounts that we can’t see. The one that’s instant death if we don’t have 2 epi pens on us.

The other thing that can happen is a food intolerance. Allergies are immune based. Intolerances are gut-based. Too much of the food and you barf and have the trots and feel generally miserable for a few days (or however long for your particular system). Soy protein intolerance is pretty common in little guys and is virtually always outgrown by the age of 2. Bravo is 2 years and 9 months old.

So they told us that bravo wasn’t allergic enough to soy and chickpeas to be concerned and we could try some challenges. Which is when you go to the hospital allergy clinic and they give tiny amounts of soy milk (or whatever is being tried) in increasing amounts every 20 minutes or so. Good. They do it in the hospital setting so that there are emergency people there if needed. When we started Bravos challenge we were told that there was a 99% chance of there being 0 reaction. Ha!!

2 hours after Bravo’s first dose of soy (he had a total of 3 ounces spread out over 2 hours) he complained of a tummy ache. It rapidly escalated from there. He began throwing up and kept throwing up every 5-10 minutes for 4 hours. After about an hour of the throwing up he went grey and his eyes rolled back into his head and his heart rate went crazy. I picked up my boy, had him draped over my arms, and ran yelling into the hallway. They put him back on the bed and gave him epinephrine and checked his vitals every 5 minutes for the next hour. He was so tired. His little body was just exhausted. He kept falling asleep only to wake up heaving as the poison tried to escape his body. Only there was nothing left in the poor kid.

Once he was out of the really scary woods we had a chat with the allergist and this is what it boils down to for bravo. He’s special. Super duper special. He’s one of the exceptional rare kids who has BOTH a soy protein intolerance and a soy allergy. But his allergy levels are low and he’s too old for an intolerance. Neither should be an issue. So basically what happened is this: he had a reaction from the intolerance he shouldn’t have that triggered an anaphylactic reaction he shouldn’t have and the two combined to become life threatening. Our very very VERY old allergist who has been doing this for, I don’t know, about a million years, said he has seen this only once before. Fun. Isn’t it nice to be special.

The nurses and doctor there were amazing though and really kind and helpful. We’re not challenging chick peas any time soon because we’re just plain tired. And our ethnic background is just about as white as you can get (English, Irish, Scottish, and German) so it’s not like chickpeas are a big part of our diet and we’ve been avoiding them for the past 2 years. Another year or 2 will not really matter.

I’m just so discouraged right now. Until this week I really believed that he would out-grow the milk allergy by age 5. Because 95% of kids do. But it just seems so unlikely now. It’s gotten so much worse and he clearly doesn’t follow the “most kids” rules. Maybe soy will eventually be fine. Maybe chickpeas. Maybe even eggs. At least that one is going in the right direction. Never peanuts. But milk. That’s the impossible one. That’s the one that breaks my heart. Not only because it’s SO dangerous for him, but because he can’t have all these yummy kid things that are served at every party and picnic and play-place. And milk and its products are in EVEYRTHING. I had a vegan once tell me that it wasn’t a big deal. I tried so hard to not beat them in rage. They CHOSE to not eat eggs and milk. And they didn’t also have to avoid most legumes including (but so not limited to) nuts, peanuts, soy, and chickpeas. There are so many legumes we just haven’t tried out of sheer terror. He did outgrow peas, but the rest of it just scares me.

Whoops. This post was supposed to be about de-coding allergies a little bit and it became more discouraged ramblings from a very tired allergy mom. And it got long.

My 4 year old has a type.

I think it’s funny watching the development of little personalities. I never know what’s going to pop out of Bravo’s or Alpha’s mouths. Especially Alpha because he’s older and has just that much more vocabulary. I love watching who they’re turning into and what their preferences are.

My whole life I have had a “type.” The tall and wee bit scrawny are a minor part of it and I would happily give those up for the other parts. The biggest physical attribute that I’m drawn to is dark dark brown hair and big brown eyes. I like lips with a nice dip in the middle of the top lip. And I like nice bums. But really, who doesn’t?? So no surprise that Matthew has super dark brown hair, brown eyes, fabulous lips and a really nice bum. He’s also a big complete idiot. He’s not afraid to make a total dork out of himself just to make me laugh- even if we’re around other people.

I don’t remember when my “type” started. But Alpha already has one.

There are a couple of girls who walk by our house regularly. They’re young-ish, maybe early 20s. They both have dark long hair and are skinny and quite pretty. Whenever Alpha sees them and we’re outside, he walks around our yard and sort of follows them and says hi and introduces himself. Other people he doesn’t so much care about, but those 2 girls he LOVES.

We were talking about marriage the other day when he was fiddling with the rings on my finger. He said he wanted to get married and have a nice ring. I asked what type of person he would like to marry. His answer was cute. And then just plain funny. He said he wanted a nice pretty funny girl with long dark brown hair. And then he patted my shirt and said “and nice big things like you have.” Awesome. My 4 year old wants a pretty, funny, nice girl with dark brown hair and kmockers.

The End.

Motherhood is hard. I'm finding it really difficult this week figuring out what percentage of time, energy and attention to spend on each of three kids, my husband, my house, my parents, cooking, cleaning, and somewhere down there, me. And I feel like I'm doing a miserable job this week of taking care of any of those things.

Kids are tricky. Each boy has his own wonderful-ness, and each boy has his I-could-sell-him-to-the-gypsies-ness. This week there is much more of the later and less of the former. Or is it the opposite? I can't really think about what later and former mean right now...... Fevers and teething and allergic reactions and too much time at Grandma's and the challenges of each age is proving to be a lot. Everyone is cranky and clingy and aggressive and tired. Including me. Only there is no me that I can cling and cry to.

This week I can feel the power of being mom. When I am tired and suck at patience, the whole house follows suit. We are all over-reactive this week and we all just need to chill.

I don't even know what on earth this post is about. Nothing I guess. Just that sometimes being a mom is hard. I have wonderful moments, I have wonderful days and weeks. This week just isn't one of them.

Doing something right

I have a LOT of days, especially lately, that I think I am doing a lot of things wrong. Dinner times are a loud stressful disaster, my house is just plain gross, my children spend most of the day beating on each other, they watch too much TV, don't eat enough vegetables, the list could go on for an uncomfortable amount of time.

But every now and then I get the feeling that we are doing something right. Like maybe my kid's WON'T be ruined for life with no social skills or ability to behave in the real world.

Like last night. We had a hodge-podge dinner, which is good because it's about the only dinner that I can actually enjoy because they're not being big giant freaks. Anyway. The dinner included a left-over fruit plate. And while my kids don't eat enough vegetables (well, Bravo anyways, Alpha loves raw veggies and Charlie throws most things, veggies or not off his tray. Gravity testing.) they certainly eat enough fruit. Berries in our house are gold. No, more valuable in gold. And I've spent the fortune on it to prove that they're worth gold.

Right, so we had a fruit plate and I just plunked it on the table and before I could blink the older two had snagged 4 strawberries each so I quickly grabbed 2 for Charlie and then noticed that somehow Matt had invoked his super ninja stealth skills and was munching on a strawberry. I'm very used to not getting strawberries in our house because they are the gods of fruit. SO Alpha was sitting at the table counting (always counting, never ending counting) how many strawberries everybody had. He looked at me and asked if I had eaten my strawberries already. "no, honey, I don't have any strawberries. You got 4, Bravo got 4, Charlie got 2 and Daddy got 1." He looked heartbroken. He had little tears in his eyes and said that he loves strawberries and I would to and Daddy should go buy some. I assured him I was fine and next time strawberries were on sale we would buy more. He then picked up one of his 2 remaining berries, walked over to me, kissed me on the nose, and said "here you go mommy, it will be delicious."

Like I said, we're doing something right. And that was the best tasting strawberry I have ever eaten.

our role as parents

This is a letter I want to write. It's geared to the people who say stupid things about sweet adorable people with allergies. Who think that their child's right to eat a Skippy sandwich overrides MY child's right to, you know, not die.

I had heard it said that when you become a mom, you become a mom to all the children in the world. And I never really got that, even when I became a mom. I mean, I wanted kids to be loved and cared for and healthy and stories of sick babies and neglected children and babies thrown in dumpsters made me terrible sad. Then I became Allergy Mom. And I suddenly got it. And here's what I got.

My child's health and safety and life is equal to YOUR child's life and health and safety. And that's equal to the kid's down the streets life. And that's as important as the random strange kid at school's life.

And my child's preferences and convenience is on par with your child's and every other kid's convenience.

And life is more important than convenience.

And it is MY job as a parent to ensure not only the safety and well-being of my child, but for all the kids I directly or indirectly come into contact with. Yup, that includes kids with health issues in grade 6 at the same school that my pre-schooler goes to. And if something that MY child does negatively impacted the health and well-being of that child who's name I don't even know, well then, as soon as it was brought to my attention I would do my best to change it. EVEN IF IT WAS A PAIN IN MY ASS. because your child's life is important to me. It's that simple.

So for all those mom's who seriously have an issue with not being able to bring peanut butter to school, or having to wash your hands when you come into the class room, or are annoyed because the teacher will ask your child to change their shirt if she shows up with breakfast on it, I really want you to just think. Step out of your self-centred, narrow-minded little world for just one second. Please. Imagine the pain and grief of rushing your child to the hospital repeatedly not knowing if they would survive because for some stupid reason their body decided that milk (or eggs, or nuts, or whatever) is poison. And then think how you would want YOUR child treated if they had some sort of issue. Would you want them segregated? Would you want them pointed and and griped about? Would you want other people to wish they would just go away so that their life was a bit more "convenient"? Just think. And then, you know, follow the golden rule. And get your head out of your arse and treat people with empathy and respect and care and concern.

That said- feel free to whine a bit at home. But NEVER EVER say in public or to an allergy parent or to anyone, really, that it's annoying. Because I guarantee you being allergy mom is MORE annoying.

And... for allergy parents with more than one child, we also live both sides. I am Allergy Mom and "mom of kids who can eat everything". And I have to find a way to balance Bravo's safety with Alpha's and Charlie's love of yogurt and milk and cheese and Eggo waffles and pizza. And you know what, it's possible. It requires safety precautions to be put in place and it require that you be diligent and careful. But if I can do it every. single. day., then you can do it for 6 hours in a day when your child shares an environment with mine.

Please, just think. And treat my child and all other allergy kids like the sweet wonderful little people that they are, not like an annoying thorn in your side. Please.

THE END.

hello baby belly, good bye brain

As my belly grows, my brain and it's abilities are shrinking. Which is a bad thing because I still have 27/28 weeks to go. I'm in trouble.

On top of being a petty criminal there are many things that have gone amiss lately.

top  5
1. brand new block of cheese in the cupboard
2. tried to unlock my house with my van key. And swore really loudly when it wouldn't work thinking that our door was busted.
3. went to put Charlie to nap and it wasn't until I tucked him in that I realized that he doesn't have blankets to tuck him in. And he sleeps in a crib not a toddler bed.... wait a minute... wrong room.
4. Wrote down a time and date for SOMETHING on a piece of paper. Only thing, I have no idea what that something is. So unless I figure it out I'm missing something on November 29th at 2:00pm. I've already called all the doctors to see if it was for one of us. Nope.
5. I made some pizza pops for lunch last week (yup, my stolen ones) and was really confused when i came back 2 minutes later and they were still frozen. Turns out you need to press "START" for the thing to turn on. Who invented these complicated machines anyways?.

there are a lot more. Involving things with the oven that are similar to #5, laundry in weird places, thermometers frozen (they don't work so well after that, those fancy digital ones. whoops.) but I think I've made my point.

I am so seriously in trouble for the next 27 weeks.

confessions on a Thursday afternoon

My name is Chrissy Jennings and I am a criminal.
Ok, not like a bad guy criminal who smoke ups and shoots people and skulks in the darkness. But a criminal none the less. Parenthood and it's accompanying stupidity has caused me to be a bad person, at least in the eyes of large supermarket and home improvement chains.

Prior to becoming a parent I shoplifted one thing. It was in grade 4. A pack of purple halls. What a lame thing to steal!! I felt so guilty though that I went to a different store, bought a pack of purple halls, and reverse shoplifted at the red rooster. Once I also ate half an ice cream sandwich at the back of the store before putting it back in the case. Also- grade 4. Not a good time of life for me apparently......

Since becoming a parent I have stolen: electrical tape, a 2L of ginger ale, and most recently a family size Rice Krispies and a large box of pepperoni pizza pops.

The electrical tape was shortly after Alpha was born. He was maybe 4 months and I had to run down the the local home improvement box store and buy some paint and other things. Alpha was getting cranky, I let him play with the electrical tape, he fell asleep, the tape fell to the bottom of his car seat bunting bag thingy and wasn't discovered until the next day. Whoops. The ginger ale was when Charlie was about.... lets say 3 months old. Matthew had a brutal flu, it was so bad that he refused to watch even one kid while I ran to the store to grab a  few things. I was cranky, also sick, feeling overwhelmed, and had 3 super miserable 4:00 kids with me. I grabbed what I needed and didn't discover the ginger ale tucked into the top of the cart beside the car seat until Alpha and Bravo were in and buckled in their car seats. And Charlie was having an apocalyptic meltdown. I was NOT going back in. I've been meaning to pay for that ginger ale since, but never remember when I'm there.

Then there was last week. The older two were and Granny's. I just had the baby (and Delta who has officially made me stupider than I've ever been in my entire life). I rushed around, spent a remarkable $362 on who knows what and then rushed to the car because it was 20 minutes past Charlie's nap time and past his lunch time and he was MAD. it didn't help that we had a dumb and exorbitantly slow cashier. Then after Charlie was in his seat and I had unloaded the top of the cart I noticed the pizza pops and Rice Krispies.  Shoot. Seriously though, the line took me 45 minutes to get through. And those people are crazy about checking to see if you have anything on the bottom of the cart (and now I know why...) but not this time. So I guiltily put them in the car, returned my cart, seriously thought about leaving my dollar inside for penance (but didn't) and then drove home. And ate pizza pops for lunch. I would tell myself that i would tell them next time that I forgot to pay, but chances of that happening are about -12%.

Sigh.

I SWEAR I used to be a good person. Watch out: I'm one stop short of cocaine and guns.

thankful- for a really good day

Alpha and bravo woke up on the happiest side of bed this morning. They both came down smiling and singing then sat at the table and Alpha made his own jam toast and both just sat calmly and nicely and ate. Charlie woke up shortly after and sat in his chair with jam toast that Alpha made him and a grated pear the bravo picked out for him. Then the two older ones went and picked out their clothes and got dressed as independently as they each know how and put their dishes in the sink and clothes in the laundry with no prompting. Then they watched cartoons for 5 minutes (and got along!) until we were ready to go to playgroup. And at playgroup they were perfect little angels who said please and thank you and they shared and took turns and washed their hands and ate snack like humans and then left as soon as I said "time to go". We were off to the chiropractors, where they sat calmly and coloured (let me insert here that Alpha has NEVER EVER EVER sat calmly and coloured in his whole entire life) and didn't even fight over who got to sit in the red chair. Then after Charlie and I got adjusted (Delta is doing a number on my poor tired back) they left again super calmly and easily then we got take-out from burger king and sat in the basement and watched smurfs and ate super calmly and neatly and not spilly-spilly disasters while the merry maids that my mom gifted us cleaned my kitchen (feeling weird and guilty about somebody else cleaning my mess, but whatever). Then they played "hide the penguin" (not actually, for once, a game about penises, but a game involving hiding the toy penguins from BK) and then promptly went to their rooms because it was rest time. Charlie was also calm throughout the morning, though a bit POd because I messed up his nap time.

holy crap.

Who replaced my children with.... humans?? Who know how to behave?? And don't freak out over nothing??? Today I feel like a fourth baby will be OK.

But probably don't talk to me tomorrow when my good kids are replaced by crazed monsters. Because for each action there is an equal and opposite reaction, right??

Anyways- I've been feeling pretty low and down and run dry. So it was super great that this morning I had the perfect children. SO today I am thankful for the days when all ducks (children, whatever) line up and the day goes well.

Bravo's allergies

I'm both excited and terrified to have Charlie's and Bravo's allergy appointments coming up in a month. I'm excited because I'll get to find out if Bravos allergies are decreasing even a little bit. I KNOW he hasn't outgrown them, but to just see the numbers on the RAST test go down would be a huge joy. I'm terrified of that not happening though. And I'm nervous as... I don't know as what, but I'm super nervous about Charlie's testing. I've been a crazy paranoid crazy person with worrying about him having allergies so he hasn't had a single bite of anything Bravo is allergic to. Not because I think that's a GOOD thing to do, but because a)allergy people have no idea what the best response is to avoid allergies in a child with a strong family history and b)I'm NOT learning the hard way again. The hard way sucked.

Which leads me to this post. The long over due post about how we discovered Bravos allergies. A lot of you know most or parts of the story. But I've never really gotten into all the details. Because it's hard to write out, it's hard to talk about or think about. That day was a bad one. And when I think about it I remember just how close we were to losing him and then my head spins and I feel like I'm going to throw up. I can't help but think of the "what ifs". What if we hadn't gotten there in time, what if we were that 5 minutes later, what if they couldn't get the IV in, what if there was a super long wait at triage like there normally is, what if he didn't make it- our lives would be so much worse.

So.
Allergies.
Bravo was a rough nurser. Well, lets be honest. Bravo was a rough baby. It took FOREVER for him to learn how to latch like a normal child. I think it was 12 weeks before he latched properly and stayed there. It was pretty bad. But he had finally started to latch and nurse properly. And then my supply started to decline. and then it entered a full crash. And he was hungry and screaming and freaking out. And I was out of pumped milk to give him in a bottle. He INSISTED in having a bottle before bed. So I gave him some formula, just normal enfamil. And he got gassy and miserable. He happened to have a doctors appointment so I mentioned it to her and she gave me a can of soy formula and said some babies just don't tolerate normal formula.
So that night he had 2 ounces of it. And he threw up and threw up and threw up. I thought it was odd. He had some pink in his diaper. I thought that was odd. The next day I took him to the children's ER and they said it was "just a common stomach bug" They seemed annoyed that I was there. I questioned them, saying that he had never had soy formula before and asked if it could have been that. They said no, it was a stomach bug. So we went home.

It took a few days for his appetite to return. He had massive soupy poops for the next few days. I had lots of time to build up my stash of pumped milk. But my supply was still crashing so it didn't last long. September 23rd 2009, 10 days after I gave him the bottle of soy formula I went grocery shopping while Matt fed Bravo his nightly bottle and put him to bed. I was out of pumped milk and had already nursed him and he then had a 9 ounce bottle of soy formula. While I was at the store Matthew called. Bravo was REALLY throwing up. It was about 8:30. I paid and booked it home. By 9:00 the boy had thrown up all over me, his dad, his room, the walls, the floor, his bed, the couch, every possible surface was covered in endless amounts of vomit. And he was still throwing up. We called Matt parents and asked them to come over to watch Alpha while we took Bravo in. We were bracing ourselves for a long night of waiting for 6 hours before being told it was a stomach bug and to go home. But He was just throwing up SO much I wanted to take him in. Matt's parents got to our house and Bravo had finally stopped throwing up. But he wasn't looking so hot and was still dry heaving and coughing and looking odd. SO we went to the hospital. Thinking the whole way there that the trip was a waste of time, that we would be there waiting forever. We got into triage and thankfully the line wasn't too big. We put him in his bucket seat on the counter and the nurse looked at him for a bit and had a strange look on her face. That's when I REALLY looked at Bravo. He was turning kind of grey. He was lethargic. He was wide awake but no crying came out of him (which was odd- if that boy was awake, he was screaming). I asked the nurse how long the wait would be to see a doctor. She said "hmmmnow. They said it with urgency and told us to follow them. We did none of the normal triage paperwork. We went through the first set of double doors then we went through this huge set of double doors with RESUSCITATION written in huge letters across the doors. Oh. My heart sank. That word alone implied that life was in danger and needed to be saved, life needed to be brought back to the person quickly or they would die. Why on earth were we in that room??? I don't think I can describe the fog that was in my head at that point.

From this point on it went into a blur. I remember scenes, not the whole event. Like there are just snapshots in my head of it, not rolling movie.
They put Bravo on this bed. There were about 15 or more people in the room all trying to help my tiny baby. This tiny lifeless body on this huge table. He was 4.5 months old. They poked him and poked him and poked him, needle after needle,IV attempt after IV attempt. Matt and I kind of squished to the side and each had a finger on Bravo. Bravo was staring at us. I think I was singing to him. His eyes were lifeless, not a cry squeaked out of him despite all the poking. A doctor came in and said "you need to come with me NOW." More urgency in his voice. I told him that Matt was staying. If this was going to be Bravos last moments he wasn't leaving this world not being touched by a parent. Hooo. Now the tears are coming. The doctor wanted both of us but I refused. Bravo was NOT going to be alone. Daddy was staying.

The doctor took me to "that" room. The room with a million tiny boxes of Kleenex and couches and chairs. It was the room the doctor took you in to give you really bad news. The room the doctor tells you something is seriously wrong with your baby- or worse. Wow- do I not want to go into that room ever again. He asked me what was going on, what had happened. I described everything including the last ER visit. he said I was probably right about it being a soy allergy. Then he said it was a good thing we got there when we did. I asked if he meant that Bravo would have died. He simply said "It's a good thing you got here when you did and not 5 minutes later." 5 minutes later? That's being stuck at 1 train or a couple more lights or not finding a parking spot or talking with my in-laws a bit longer or... 5 minutes is not a lot of time. I got back to the room and they had stabilized Bravos heart and he was breathing better but on oxygen. They had finally got 3 IVs in him. He was still not good, but he was out of immediate danger. They were going to admit him but a room wasn't ready. Another family was coming into resuscitation though and they didn't want us to see that so they were getting one of the private ER rooms ready for us until we could be admitted. I left the room because I had to go to the bathroom and I walked out back into the ER waiting room full of kids and I started to lose it. Tears started streaming down my face, hiccup sobs started coming out of my mouth and I had zero control over it. I had been OK up to this point, but now I was losing it. I walked to one of the bathrooms and some guy was about to go in it. He took one look at me and held the door and said "go ahead". I went in and I sobbed. And then I got it together and washed my face and went back to Matt and Bravo. We were just about to be transferred to the other ER room. We got in and Bravo made a little face- like a tiny pushing face. I checked his diaper and it was full, and I do mean FULL of pink runny stool. He was pooing blood. I showed the nurse and there was another flurry of activity. We were sent to ex ray to check out... something. I don't even know what. And then I was told I was not allowed to nurse him. That his insides needed a break. His intestines were bleeding from all of the poison in his belly. Then Bravo cried. You know that first cry a newborn makes where you're just so relieved to hear the baby make a noise, any noise? It was reliefe like that times... a lot. He was so tired and needed to sleep and I knew that I could get him to sleep in seconds if I could just nurse him. Or put him in his sling- but he was a mess of wires and tube so I couldn't do that, either. My heart ached, my breasts ached, I wanted nothing more than to comfort him the way he wanted. But I couldn't. We finally got admitted. I stayed with him in the hospital never leaving for 3 days. He wasn't allowed to leave until he would eat the super gross formula, nutramigen. Man, that stuff is nasty! And he need to stop pooing blood and not be dehydrated. I missed Alpha's second birthday on the 25th. I cried when there was the little girl just down the hall and her parents never once visited her. She sat in the swing by the nurses station for most of the day. Bravo and I went over and sat with her and talked with her often. I couldn't imagine leaving a 4 month old baby there and not visiting. It broke my heart.

We finally came home and eventually got allergy teasing and he is allergic to soy (surprise surprise), milk protein, peas, peanuts, and egg. He has since outgrown peas (wahoo!) and has also since had anaphalactic reactions to small amounts of milk. It's been a roller coaster and full of ups and downs, but that day will never be out of my head.

Sometimes Bravo will be having a really funny and sweet day. One of the days that really melts your heart. And those are the days that it hits me more. Bravo was having a day like that on Saturday and Matt's eyes welled up with tears and all he could say was "I'm so glad he's here". I don't think we as parents will get over that horrible horrible day. It will always be there that we were this close to missing out on everything he's doing. On everything that he is. The world would be a worse place without him. My world would be a worse place without him. Milk, I could do without. Bravo, not so much.

So that's the beginning of that story.

Thankful- for the sweetest thing

Every night before I tuck my self in I go check on my boys (well, not Charlie because his feeding schedule demands that i still hang out with him eleventy times a night) and I sneak in their rooms and give them a kiss. And sometimes they stir and sometimes they don't. And sometimes Bravo wants me to sing him Winnie The Pooh as he drifts back to sleep. And that time of the day is my favourite. Becasue I truely don't think there is anything sweeter than sleeping little kids. Alpha gets all sweaty and I flip his pillow over more nights than not. And Bravo twists himself into the strangest little positions. And they both heave these heavy sighs and mash their mommy-knitted blankets into their faces. And it warms my heart. And I love them.