The birthday boy yet again...

The birthday boy gets ready to blow out the candles

Another week has come and gone and here I am writing about it.

Monday was Eden's day at daycare. This week, Al took her on his way to work around 8:00 & picked her up at 5:00. I ran a hundred errands and crossed off at least a dozen things on my 'to do' list. One of which was calling Bissell. In broken English and with not one, but two crying children in the background, I was talked through a trouble shooting program to try and fix the problem on my new carpet cleaner. After following her directions according to her computer, the cleaning fluid was still not coming out. She said, "push on the gasket and turn the bottle upside down. Does the fluid come out?" "Why, indeed it does", says I, as I watch it dump all over the kitchen floor. "Good", she says, "now turn the machine on." I turn on the machine. It is loud. The lady on the other end of the line continues to talk. I cannot hear her, so I turn off the machine. She says to me, "you need to turn the machine on to complete the following directions." I turn the machine back on. It is still loud. The lady on the other end of the line contines to talk. I cannot her hear, so I turn off the machine. She says to me, "you need to turn the machine on to complete the following directions." (Are you starting to see a pattern here?) I turn the machine back on and start laughing. This lady can't really be this stupid, but yes, we continue like this two more cycles, until I tell her to read the directions to me with the vacuum turned off and I will write it down. This is ok with her. It's still not working right. Then, for a finale, she says to me, "can you smell the cleaning fluid when you sweep back and forth?" "Yes, I can. Because YOU TOLD ME TO DUMP IT ON THE FLOOR!". The conversation deteriorated from here and ended with me having to find a big box to ship it back to Michigan in. Supposedly, they will send me a new one in 7-10 days.... I'm still looking for a box.

Tuesday was Al's 33rd birthday. We celebrated with chocolate cake and ice cream. I reminded him that Jesus died at 33yrs after preaching for only 3, so to make the most of it. While the ice cream was thawing on the counter, Eden disappeared and was very quiet. When we found her, she had stolen the top to the ice cream and was licking it clean. Very camera-worthy.

Wednesday was a typical busy Wednesday for both of us. The Maytag washer repair person was here first thing in the morning, replaced the electronics board on the washer and left me with a weeks worth of dirty laundry. Ninety minutes later, the washer refused to give me my first batch of clothes and I had to call the store, pleading for him to come back. Naturally, he'd already left town and wouldn't be back until next Wednesday. In the meantime, I had to call Sears back and re-schedule the repair person to come out. This took an hour on hold and talking to the computer at Sears, trying to convince a machine that, yes, the repair person was there that morning and, yes, I needed repair service. I’m not joking about the time at all and by the end, it was not a friendly exchange in words. I'm pretty sure Eden saw steam coming from my ears. I still couldn't retrieve the clothes (4 of which were Al’s clericals) and since they had partially drained, I was afraid mold would set in. After a valiant duel with the door (and discontinuing the power source), I got it open, wrung my clothes out by hand and dried them for 2 hours in the dryer. I'm still waiting for next Wednesday...

Thursday was a follow up appointment for Lars at the doctor in Scottsbluff, so I braved the New World and took 2 kids Wal-Mart shopping by myself afterwards. Five minutes into the trip, I thought this was going to be Ok. Ten minutes into the trip, somewhere in the health and beauty section, I looked down to see Eden’s eyes as big as moons and her mouth wide open. She was choking on a plastic top to a vending machine toy. In one fell swoop, I proceeded to rip her out of the front carriage toddler seats and turn her around to do abdominal thrusts. The sheer force of me ripping her out of the seat, however, was enough for her to throw up all over the store’s floor, plastic top and all. The crowd gathered, and I grabbed a bottle of hand sanitizer from the shelf and decided to buy it after using half right then and there. I calmly walked away from the crowd, as if I do this every day with my child. Two aisles over, in dog food, I was shaking like a leaf. Overhead, I heard, “Clean up near pharmacy…”

Would you believe that Friday was uneventful? We had the day off. We slept in, made brunch, read a dozen books, took a nap, had a snack, played outside, ate supper, then went to church for scrap booking night. Eden played with her friends, Lars was man handled by all the adults, and I got two pages done by 8:00!

Saturday, Eden had a play date with the Douthit girls, and I took my laundry. We were there all day.

Sunday was Sunday.

Eden went to a Pumpkin Patch last Saturday with the Douthit's while Lars was in the hospital

Stay tuned until next week, when I tell you all about the entrapping garage door that almost prevented Eden from going to daycare this morning….

October madness

This past Monday morning was Eden's first day at daycare. I know, I know, what does a stay-at-home Mom need to send her kid to daycare for? And more importantly, why didn't she take her camera for that 'first day of...." shot? Well, here's why:

The week after Lars' baptism, everybody went home. Eden came into the living room one morning looking around, yelling, "Grandmaaaa?!" "Oh," I said, "grandma went back to Michigan". "Papa?" "No, Papa went back to Michigan, too". "AJ?" "No, honey, AJ went back to Wilcox." "Mitchell?" "No, sweetie, Mitchell had to move back to Grand Island." And then she sadly went to the bookshelf and began playing by herself. It broke my heart. I decided to find her some regularly scheduled friends. So, that's how she began her Monday life of daycare. Tomorrow will be week two of the routine and hopefully, she will come home just as tired and sleep just as well! The reason she didn't have her picture is because I was so excited for this day to come, that I set the alarm, woke her up, got her dressed and hustled out to the car all before anybody else was out of bed. A photo didn't seem nearly as important as showering in peace did!

What do I do all day? you may ask yourself. Well, let me tell you: I leave Lars in his swing all by himself and don't worry about him getting whiplash by his sister's rocking him, I'm able to leave him in the bouncy seat on the kitchen table upstairs and not worry about him getting pulled off the table. I'm able to do the laundry w/o Eden playing in the dogs water bucket or running around with sissors from my scrapbook table. I'm able to plan supper, vacuum, pick up toys, fold blankets, play non-child music (though I usually hum those little dittys all day long), iron clothes and work outside, all by myself! I never realized how easy one child really is! Not to mention, I don't spend an hour at lunch time cleaning yogurt and cottage cheese off the counter/chair/child/floor....it's great. And at the end of the day, I'm glad to see her.

Tuesday and Wednesday were pretty routine for us here. Al had a voter's meeting on Tuesday at the same time that I had a class at the hospital. He took Eden and I took Lars and that worked out well. Voice choir has started again on Wednesdays during Al's confirmation class, and I enjoy that. He comes after his class to sing, as well.

Thursday, Lars still was puking a lot, so I took him to the doctor and the doctor put him in the hospital. He'd lost about 8oz in 3 days, so they put an IV in him. He ended up staying until Saturday late afternoon, and we got home yesterday evening after dark. He's on 3 medications, and they seem to be working, so far... Eden had been passed around to different parishoner's for three days and we were all happy to get back together last night as a family. Eden stripped naked and put on a one woman, 3 ring circus for us for nearly an hour. She was so hyper, it was hilarious! Too bad she was still wound up and awake at 0230...I had to peel her off the bedroom floor for church this morning. This afternoon, we all took 4 hour naps. That was an awesome bonus!
















Hopefully this week will be less tiring, yet equally eventful....

Eden and her new baby

It's been a busy week and a half for the Strawn family! Last Saturday, the LWML held a baby shower at the church for Lars. He was well blessed with blue outfits, most of them bearing a football. I must report that at least one was emblazoned with Husker Red, but thankfully, it was not a cheerleader outfit. Eden and Mom also made out quite well, and I'm going to enjoy lots of bubble baths this winter, something that I readily anticipate. Thanks to all!
Making Playdoh babies at the shower

"Guess what the baby had for dinner?" game

On Sunday afternoon, we packed the Blazer and left for Casper, Wyoming for the fall Pastor's conference. What a great town! Casper has a lot to offer for a town stuck in the middle of a virtually empty state. We drove into the church parking lot the first morning and were greeted with antelope snacking on the grass. You can't drive a mile in Wyoming without seeing antelope roaming. Eden, Lars and I hung out while Daddy was in conference, and then we got to enjoy some family time when he was with us. On the afternoon off, we all fell asleep in the hotel for a nap, so the next day after dropping Al off at the church, the three of us took a short drive into the Medicine Bow Mountain Range. How beautiful! (Sorry, I was driving and couldn't take photos).

On our drive back to Bridgeport, we stopped off in Torrington, where Al did his vicarage in 2000-2001. We drove around to his favorite spots, (Arby's, Subway, the post office...), saw his old apartment, and the church of course. It was a quick reminiscing, but nice.

The rest of the week was spent catching up from the beginning of the week. I began cleaning out the flower and vegetable gardens. However, with two young children, I'm going to have to do them in shifts, since a whole day is out of the question. It cold and drizzly all day Saturday and Sunday. Never got above 40 on Sunday. We broke down and turned on the house heat. (I look like a moron in two sweatshirts...)

Daddy pulling double duty as he reads stories...what a guy :-)

Quote of the week:
"You know when you're sitting on a chair and you lean back so you're just on two legs then you lean too far and you almost fall over backwards but at the last second you catch yourself? I feel like that all the time."

God’s grace in new life

Well, after Al’s tearfully eloquent blogspot last week, it’s hard to add anything to the story, but I’ll try anyway.

I was hoping that this childbirth would be different, in the sense that I really didn’t want to be induced again. With Eden, I’d felt slightly cheated out of the midnight scene of waking up and counting contractions, followed by an uncomfortable drive to the hospital, and a ‘normal’ labor and delivery after that. Well, that’s sort of how it happened…without the ‘normal’.

I went to bed restless Monday night, and woke at 0130 with what I thought was more of what Al calls “Tony Brackston contractions”. I paced the floors until I was sure they were consistently 5-6 mins apart, then woke my hubbie up with the line, “Honey, I hate to sound like a sitcom here, but I think I’m having contractions”. He got out of bed and grabbed his watch & we sat on the couch waiting until (as the class teaches) I couldn’t walk, talk, or joke through a contraction.

Well, I should say here that it would be a rare occasion for me not to be able to at least talk, so when the pains were 4 minutes apart, with less humor in the air, I called the hospital & asked what they thought I should do. Since Eden’s birth was 6 hours start to finish, and I was an hour from their door, they said to come on in. I still wasn’t sure this was the real thing and didn’t want to go to the Birth Center once we got to the hospital, in fear that I would be sent home looking foolish, so I sat on the waiting room couch for a while.

The relief came when they checked me upon arrival and I was 5cm and almost 100%, and no, they said they wouldn’t be sending me home.

So now what? We keep having contractions and wait it out.

After 5 very painful IV attempts, they called in the flight medics, who started it smoothly on the first try. (Now this should have been my first sign that all was NOT going to go well, because I have great veins). By 0930, I was 6-7cm, had an epidural & a cup of ice chips. We both took naps. This is a piece of cake.

By noon, I should have had the baby.

“Why don’t we lay you on your left side for a while,” says the nurse. After an hour, she says, “Why don’t we lay you on your right side for a while.” Again, this should have been a sign. “I think we have a nuchal cord,” she speaks again a while later. Not exactly what I wanted to hear, as I begin to realize that the epidural is becoming very ineffective. I start pumping the drug button every 20 minutes, hoping to get some relief. No more to come, I’m afraid, as for whatever reason (confirmed later by the doctor), the epidural quit working.

Onto phase two of this adventure: the birth.

The doctor came at some point around 2:00 p.m., seemingly to take stock of the upcoming delivery. If ever he was worried, he didn’t show it, but they started taking the bed apart. Al got into position by my head and kept me focused. He breathed the ‘HE HEs” with me, which would have made me pass out if I wasn’t in labor.

All of a sudden, I was told to push. So, I pushed. And pushed. And pushed. And nothing happened. The doctor told me I was doing a good job, but after a while, one starts to wonder if he’s just saying that so I’ll keep doing it. Because still, nothing was happening. “The head is right there” means nothing if it won’t budge.

I think I kind of went into shut down mode about this time. You know how when the head comes out, the rest of the body is supposed to slide out after it? Well, this didn’t happen. My not-so-little concrete block has a chest that is a half inch bigger than his head!

It’s fuzzy at best, but I remember the oxygen mask being strapped to my face. People started coming in the room like a line of people at a carnival, patiently but eagerly waiting to get on the ride. Some stood there watching. One said, “where do you need me?” They all kind of found a spot to be and started working. The sound of the vacuum echoes in my head, as I was sure they popped the baby’s head off. A nurse jumped up on my belly and started pushing down (suprapubic pressure), while two others held my legs in a very barbaric pose (MacRobert's Maneuver). It was surprisingly quiet for the amount of things that were happening. Al was heroic at the very least, never letting on that things weren’t going perfectly. He was still counting for me, cheering me on, ever the endearing husband, ready for battle. They call it shoulder dystocia. Baby #2’s posterior shoulder was stuck in the birth canal, but the head was already out. This is trouble.

After a vicious and lengthy fight, the doctor decided to break the baby’s collarbone and pull him out. When he did, there was no sound. No smiling faces, no ‘good job’ or ‘congratulations, it’s a boy!’ Nothing. Al broke the silence with, “what did we have?” I don’t even remember a response, although it may have come. It occurred to me, in my somewhat delusional state of mind, my baby wasn’t crying. They’re supposed to come out crying. Apgar of two?!

All I heard for the next 5 minutes was the preacher’s sweet voice, saying, “He’s God’s child”. As cliché as that phrase may be, it’s absolutely true. I was oddly at peace with that rationalization, though my voice seemed panicked.

After a seemingly endless, yet, successful resuscitation of Baby Strawn #2, he cried in his daddy’s arms for 90 minutes. He cried the whole 6 hours I was in recovery, then, he cried for the next 2 days, until he came home. Eliezer would most certainly have had another name if it weren’t for his eventful birth. And every time I say his name, I am reminded that God is our Help in every need.

.