Stubble

Most nights and mornings I go to bed and wake up with no aches for Naki...I'm usually so exhausted I fall asleep as soon as my face hits my pillow. By aches I mean no physical aches, like wanting to feel him beside me in the middle of the night, feel his hand rub my arm when he eventually came to bed, feel him give me a kiss in my sleep, sleep with his hand resting on my hip, or feel his feet rub over the tops of mine while we sleep. But last night I just could not fall asleep. The actual physical loss and sensory ache of wanting to rest my cheek on the rise of his massive chest, feeling his stubble at the end of the day on my face, was too much for me to handle. I guess I was due for a really good cry, and trust me, I got one. I slept eventually, with the hope that when I woke it would have left me. No such luck. Can't I just have it back? I want it back so badly right now. Not when I see him when I die. I'm totally banking on the fact that we get to cuddle as immortals. So all you married ladies, cuddle up to your hubby tonight and don't take a single second of it for granted.

Breathe normally...just breathe

I've posted many times before about our sweet Eva and her breathing difficulties. It started when she was 7 months and has revisited her from time to time, always ending with her on a nebulizer breathing machine, which she detests, and me hoping that whatever medicine she actually breathes in will somehow make a difference. She is healthy one minute, and then can be coughing to the point of not being able to catch a breath in between coughs in literally a blink of an eye. I can tell exactly by the sound of the cough what we're in for.

I heard her cough two nights ago in her sleep and my heart just sunk. Taking good health for granted is something that I never do with her. We've tried, in vain, to figure out what trigers it. The only thing Naki and I are ever able to find as a commonality for each time she gets sick is that it is a change in the weather...a semi-drastic change. And since it's warmed up this week, I was not surprised. I don't know if it's pollen being released that she's allergic to, and the doctors were hesitant to say she's asthmatic since it's so inconsistent and doesn't really present like asthma. Either way, we're stuck with it until hopefully she grows out of it. Until then, I have a baby with a fever that is almost impossible to keep in a safe range who breathes so shallow it scares me.

Yesterday was pretty bad. Line was reading to her while she laid on the couch with her "Daddy Blanket" that Auntie Mona made her for Christmas.

I know they're sick when they start falling asleep wherever and whenever, which she did many times yesterday. Last night I hardly slept because I was so terrified she'd start seizing from her high fever. We had a woman and her young baby live with us when I was a teenager and that little baby got a fever and starting seizing...an image I will never ever forget. I know I probably over worried and over thought every single move and sound she made, but she was laying on Naki's pillow, and in the middle of the night started twitching and moving similar to the way Naki did the night he died. Yeah...didn't really sleep after that.

In those moments when I realize my inability to have any control over my loved ones' mortality, I tell myself that death is nothing to fear. Death is actually, when considering all the things that could go wrong with any of my babies, what I would prefer. Them having to stay mortal and deal with trauma seems more difficult than just dying from the trauma. Who even sits around and thinks about these things? I never did before I experienced our family's trauma of my best friend dying and was left mortal to live and deal with it. I reminded myself to breathe, just breathe. There was nothing more I could do for her. Whatever happens in my babies' lives I have to believe is what's best for them...that God is somehow managing and overseeing all of this. If I don't grip tightly onto that thought I easily lose my ability to want to go on.

I watched her for a long time, until around 6:00 when her fever broke. Of course...right when everyone is supposed to get up for school. I didn't care, but instead just went to sleep and thought, "If their sleeping patterns are consistent today with how they were on their day off, then they should just sleep right through the hour we usually wake because it's a school day!" Thanks to Auntie Ginny, who despite having an important training she was doing this morning, got the girls dressed and out the door for school. She is still sick...it seems to linger for some time. Now let's cross our fingers that the fever doesn't return...we learned from the last time she was sick that a second fever is a bad sign. Last time it was the precursor to her bronchitis...

Everything but her cell phone...

I need the number to a really good plumber...one that has one of those special camera thingies for your sewage pipes, if one of those cameras even exists. We've discovered that Eli has conflicted feelings about having Auntie Ginny here. You would never know it by her interactions with Gin, as she is super sweet and can't get enough of her...climbing on her, calling her name to get her attention, wanting to know her schedule, wanting special dates with her, etc etc. So imagine our surprise, Ginny's and mine, when on Saturday morning Ginny couldn't find her rubber bands, mini hair clips, and bobby pins to pull back her hair for the gym. I retraced anyone's footsteps that had taken them to her bathroom, and mentally landed on Eli having been the last person in Gin's bathroom. Our conversation went something like this:

Mom: Eli? Did you see Ginny's hair things while you were in her bathroom this morning?

Eli: No...

Mom: Are you sure? Because you were the only one in there today...

Eli: No, Mom. I didn't see them.

Mom: Okay, Eli. But this is the last time I'm going to ask you, and then if I find out that you actually do know the answer you'll receive a punishment for your dishonesty.

Eli: Okay, Yes. I did see them.

Mom: Where?

Eli: I flushed them down the toilet...

Mom: You did what?!

And it only got better, or worse, depending how you look at it, from there. I was completely flabbergasted. Completely. This was a new one, even for us. I can understand the fascination with putting things down the toilet. Actually, while I was looking for a picture for this post, I read a story about a 4 year old (Eli's age) who accidentally flushed their one week old cocker spaniel puppy down the toilet, and it lived! It was rescued about 20 feet away from their house in the pipes. So I know it happens. I just couldn't figure out why she would do it, I guess. She had no ready explanation, and so I decided to think over it a bit to try to discover the best way to talk to her about it.

There are no more coincidences around here. Every behavior, and I mean every one, has a deep emotion connected to it. The somewhat difficult part of watching the kids grieve is that the emotion and the behavior or almost never compatible. You would never link them together as a cause and effect. Shortly after, Ginny approached me and told me that she had just found her toothbrush and her foot scrubber submerged, having somehow miraculously escaped what had been the hair stuffs demise. Later that afternoon, Ginny came to me again...more bad news. She could no longer find her tweezers that she'd had SINCE HIGH SCHOOL! and one of her expensive makeup brushes. All right, Eli. Enough's enough. With each missing item, I asked her if she knew anything about them. She of course answered that she did not. I think at this point she is feeling like I have several times.

What. Have. I. Done!

You know...that feeling where you act out of impulse and then know within seconds that it was an awful choice on your part that is SO painful to rectify.

So. I sat down with her privately. Again, our conversation was very very similar to the one we'd had in the morning. Except this time, I asked her to list for me exactly what she'd flushed. She successfully listed all the items that Ginny had noticed missing. We're hoping there aren't any more. How much can fit in those pipes anyway! In these parenting moments I have learned to completely tune in to any and all promptings that come my way. This type of parenting situation is not my forte...it's Naki's. He is so gifted at working with people, helping them admit their weaknesses, and then guiding them in such a gentle way towards bettering themselves that they hardly realize what they've committed to. Me...not so gentle. I felt prompted to tread lightly with this one, and am glad I did. After a couple of seconds of conversation, she slowly dipped her head down, shed a tear, and said that she wanted her Daddy here, not her Auntie Ginny. Her little flushing episodes were her little fists balled up, shaking in rebellion at anything and anyone who in her mind interferes with where she believes her Dad's infuence should be.

I know that this came as a real blow to Ginny...she's never received anything from Eli but complete adoration! And still does. If we hadn't witnessed those items still floating or those that weren't as lucky, we'd never have had any idea at all that she even felt that way. And so even though it was very very painful for all three of us, I'm glad it happened. It's given me the opportunity to understand our little Eli's pain just a bit more, and I now have more insight to her little heart. Gin, hold on to your cell phone, just in case.

Funk

We acquired a new pencil sharpener the other day. It seems that I buy one and then it is immediately broken or lost. We have all of these pencils that we can never use because we never have a working pencil sharpener. This time I decided to buy an electrical one instead of a battery operated one...well, technically I didn't "decide", but discovered it was a plug in one when I opened it up. So far so good. It can't go missing either, since it has to stay plugged in. That is, until someone decides to move it to plug it in somewhere else. We were all having a grand time with it the other night, sharpening away. One pencil, no matter how hard I tried, wouldn't sharpen, almost as if there was no lead in it. I pulled it out, and said to Line, Malia, and Auntie Ginny, "I think this one is defunct...". I had to pause to check myself...is that a real word? Ginny confirmed that yes, it was. I then heard Line mutter something along the lines of, "When did it ever HAVE a funk, anyway?". Cute, Line.

Oh, the Irony

Could someone Puh-Lease explain to me why why why my mornings go as follows: On the days when we have to wake up at 6ish everyone snoozes away. I have to actually make them wake up. And then on the days that I look forward to for a bit of sleeping in, say, like today (no school today) I look at the clock and it reads 5:00 AM...and Eva and Eli are both in my room, talking to me and asking me to turn on a show for them...Ane is screaming her brains out in her bed...and I heard Lose just flush the toilet and the light is on in her room. Why, girls? Why?

What will it look like?

Eli is being spotlighted in Primary on Sunday because she had her birthday this week, on the 2nd. They asked me to share one thing that our family loves and admires about Eli. That is a difficult task...do I pick something simple that the primary kids would understand, or even that Eli could understand? Naki is so much better at recognizing things within each of the girls that is identifying and unique to them than I am, and so I have felt the pressure of this assignment keenly. I know whatever I tell the Primary will be said in about 30 seconds and probably only 2 or 3 people will actually hear what was said! But still, it's important to me that I honor Eli by thinking seriously about our love for her and by contemplating what she teaches us. And so I have been mulling several different options around in my head this afternoon.

Through this process, I have discovered something that innately I already knew. As a parent the traits I most admire in my children are not the ones that always look the most rose tinted, are easily acquired, or don't require effort on their part. They are not the ones that seem sparkly and somewhat perfect and geometric, kind of like a beautiful gem. Instead I cherish the qualities of the girls that may appear rougher and are a bit dirty around the edges instead of rosy because of all the digging deep they had to do to acquire them. Instead of sparkling like a gem I envision these qualities looking like pieces of iron, welded together bit by bit, one uneven piece at a time, with the welding material having turned solid as it was dripping down the edges. There is a sheen to these qualities for sure, but you only can see it because of the polishing through all the different layers of grime it took to find it.

I knew immediately which quality of Eli's I wanted to share as the one our family loves and admires about her. Here is the statement I shared with the Primary.

"In our family we honor Eli for her ability to do things even when doing it makes her nervous or afraid. Eli is a very brave and courageous little girl, and her smile when she knows she's done something even though she was scared to do it makes us wish we were as brave as her."

Now. If I could just convince her that getting a new roll of paper towels from the garage (of which she's afraid to enter alone) doesn't warrant screaming usually heard by someone who is mortally wounded. Trust me when I say that little girl deserves every piece of iron that she's welding together. I wonder what it will all look like when she's done? I wonder what all of our's will look like when they're done.

Champions

It's surprises me every time, although by now I don't know why it does, when I encounter yet another champion of mine. I just simply cannot understand why my champions have decided to champion me...did I use the word "champion" a bit too much just then?

I don't feel like there is any possible way to describe in words the mental state I find myself in some days, although it's worth trying. There are mornings when I wake and feel like I'm living in a rerun, shocked all over again to not see my Baby laying there beside me. And then there are some mornings when I have too much running through my mind regarding the day ahead of me that I hardly notice it at all. And then there are the days where I feel the combination of the two. I feel a bit glazed over in my gaze, and feel almost robotic in my ability to continue to place one foot in front of the other. This morning as I was walking into the gym I thought, whew! I'm here...don't really want to be, but I'm here.

As I walked into the Cardio Cinema room I let my eyes adjust to the darkness for a minute. I was disappointed to find that all the treadmills were being used, and decided to use an elliptical machine in the row directly behind the treadmills. I figured I'd stay there working out and would be able to see when a treadmill became available. I was thrilled when only 5 minutes had passed. A girl on a treadmill almost directly in front of me stepped off of her machine and left the room. I knew it was imperative to act quickly. A couple of months ago I had planned the same machine-switching-manuever only to have someone move quicker than I did. By the time I'd gathered my belongings, grabbed a paper towel and spray to clean the machine, and walked over to the once available treadmill, someone had beat me to it. To add insult to injury when I turned around to return to my elliptical, it too had been swiped from under my feet. I was determined that would not be my experience THIS time. I had planned to not walk the long way around the back of the ellipticals and back around to the row of treadmills but would instead cut through straight to the row in front of me. I'd also thought ahead and had decided I would place my keys, phone, and water bottle on the treadmill and would THEN go get the papertowels and spray to clean it off. Such foresight, I know.

I made my move. I barely made it through without getting my head whacked by the moving arms of all the elliptical machines. I reached the treadmill in record time and lifted my hand to grab onto the arm of the treadmill. The glaze over my eyes was about to go sailing across the room, unable to stay a part of me, banished from fogging my view if only for a moment, because as I pulled myself up and onto the treadmill imagine my surprise to find it still on and running! Yes, it's true. I have now officially fallen off of a treadmill TWICE. And scraped more skin off in strange places, TWICE.

There were so many sounds happening in such quick succession, it's hard to figure out what order they happened in. The squeaking sound of my shoes, the thunking sound of my head and chest, the clang of something (I'm not sure what) hitting the ellipticals behind me, the air rushing out of my lungs, the sounds of the workout machines stopping around me, and finally the sweet and somewhat hesitantly shocked voices of people asking me if I was okay. And I'm not sure, but I think there were a couple of snickers and muffled guffaws as well. I felt more shock and humiliation than pain, truthfully. But I'm not sure they believed me when I told them I was fine because I stayed on the floor for quite some time...looking for my phone. That thing had quite the flight this morning. The last thing I wanted to do was go ask someone at the front desk to come in and turn all the lights on so I could locate it. As I gathered all of my far-flung possessions, I could hear the healthy whir of that traitorous treadmill. I already hate the dang things...do they really want to keep racking up notches in my book against them? I very carefully placed my feet, this time on the outside NON-MOVING portion of the machine and stepped up on it, and was surprised again to find that the person hadn't taken their ipod or phone with them...they weren't actually finished with their machine, and instead of pausing it had just left it running when they stepped off. So, feeling awfully foolish for being so focused on getting the machine I wanted and not noticing the numbers on the console were still moving, I awkwardly limped back around, this time not cutting through the rows of machines, and back to my quickly discarded elliptical.

The favorite part of the entire thing would have to be when the woman reentered the room and went back to her still running treadmill. You could just SEE everyone's heads in the room fall on her accusingly. She was absolutely clueless as to what had transpired, until my new champion, the man running on the machine beside hers, leaned over to fill her in on the last 3 minutes of drama she'd missed. I could hear him telling her that you're not supposed to leave your machine running! I honestly just wanted to leave and go home after my accident. But Man! Hearing your own words echo back to you is hard. I've told the girls over and over to not let stuff like that get to you. You fall, then get back up. That's all there is to it. It's only embarrassing if you're worried about what others are thinking of you. Those were the words I heard in my head, and so I finished my work out. Hey. At least I provided some people with a really good laugh. Even Naki got a good laugh out of it, I'm sure. If he's unaware of what transpired, because I'm not sure how much of what goes on down here they're aware of, I'll be sure to tell him when I see him.

As I was leaving the Cardio Cinema Room I was stopped by a dear dear dear friend, another Champion. We had just a brief conversation, but it brought me to tears. He conveyed to me the feelings of love that he, his wife, and his children have for our girls. I can't figure this out. This family in particular has had intimate involvement in the well being of our family for over 6 years now. I feel baffled at their ability to pour love on us in such a manner. Most of my confusion comes from feeling like it's not an equal relationship. I often expressed to Naki how frustrating it was to me that it felt like we were the takers in this particular friendship and never the givers. It still feels like that. Quite often some of our children aren't always respectful to them. When we're at their house some of my girls have been known to walk in their pantry and help themselves. Much to my frustration I struggle to get the girls to clean up the mess they make when they're there. And yet my Champion told me that any time, no matter what, if I ever needed anything all I had to do was call. I walked away this morning and felt such gratitude for having gone to the gym when I really would have loved to have been anywhere else. I guess you never know where you'll run into one of your Champions.