2010What

What a year it has been, and we are less only 6 weeks into it! This year started out with the typical post-holiday blahs. A normal and expected part of life for me at least. Then we went into 2 weeks of solid, almost non-stop rain, and I was reminded how much I am affected by the rain, and not in a good way. Then we had the CRAZIEST week we've had in a long time. Jason was working 14 to 16 hours a day and I was watching 2 to 4 extra kids every single day. By the end of the week, I was a walking zombie, just trying to put one foot in front of the other. The insanity ended last Saturday and then Gabby got a cold, which I quickly caught, gave to James and then Jason. We kept James home from school on Monday because he just wasn't feeling great. He looked really tired and was complaining of a stomach ache, so we kept him home. That night, he had a fever, which he had for most of the following 3 days. Thursday, I called the pediatrician, who told me that if he still had a fever on Friday to bring him in. Friday, his fever was gone, but he just didn't look right and had had a few pulminary retractions (when the skin between your ribs gets sucked in when you breathe) during the night, so I made an appointment anyway. I didn't want to, since our insurance year had started over and with our high deductible, everything for the first $3600 is out of pocket. I had a feeling the doctor would want to do xrays and everything and I didn't want to throw the money away if it wasn't needed. I knew we were heading into the weekend though, so I took him in. They didn't have any slots available, but they said they would squeeze us in around 2:10 and to prepare for a long wait. We got to the office early and waited maybe 15mns or so. Not too terribly long. The nurse examined James, then the doctor came in. She couldn't hear any air movement in his lungs, said he was way too tight and had the nurse give him a nebulizer treatment and then tried again. Still couldn't hear anything. Gave him another treatment. Still nothing. Put him on oxygen to try to get his oxygen sats up. The doc comes back in the room and asks him how he's doing. He's wearing the oxygen mask and says: "Much (breath) better. I'm (breath) great!" She looks at him and says: "No you're not! You wouldn't be talking like that if you were great!" (side note: yes, her bedside manner leaves something to be desired :-).) I ask her if we are heading down the street, since her office is about 4 blocks from the office and she says yes. Amazingly, I was quite calm about it. Maybe James is making me immune to panic. I went in to the office expecting to get a prescription for antibiotics with a pneumonia diagnosis, like in November, but instead we ended up in the hospital for the weekend.

James was admitted immediately, without having to go through the ER thankfully! We walk up to the peds wing and as soon as we walked in, the nurses recognized James and were all excited to see him. I immediately thought that it just doesn't seem right that a bunch of peds nurses in the hospital should recognize my son. There is just something wrong with that picture.

James got a great nurse that day. One who knew how to put in an IV, which she got in on the first try. YAY!!

We stayed in the hospital two nights and were home in time for the super bowl on Sunday. James had a rough night last night, but was doing much better in the morning and has had a great day so far. We now have a nebulizer on hand for him. He was diagnosed with Dual lobe pneumonia with mild asthma. He shouldn't need regular medications, but when he gets sick, he is expected to get sicker than "normal" kids and will likely need to be nebulized.

A friend lost her cousin to complications of pneumonia today. He was in his thirties, with a wife and two kids. When I heard that, I was humbled and so thankful that God has given me another day with my son. I never thought I would have a chronically ill child, and I'm not sure he even counts as "chronically ill", but I have to say that 3 potentially deadly illnesses in 9 months makes me incredibly thankful for what we have. Thank you, Lord, for your goodness!

Pictures

I was planning on uploading a couple pictures from this week and then realized that I have so many pictures I have yet to share, so I tossed in a few more. Enjoy!

Early October, Gabby had a couple of her friends over for a tea party. They had a great time!

What a bunch of lovely, well-mannered children ;-)!

Gabby as Barbie for Halloween

Gabby's gymnastics class - Halloween 2009

Gabby's gymnastics class w/ teachers Amanda (left) and Ms. Denise (right)

James as a pilgrim for the school's Thanksgiving assembly

Rudolf, for the holiday assembly

James' last picture with Santa, before realizing that Santa isn't real. *sniff*. The elf is Mrs. Passalaqua, the principal.

James' class with Santa, Mrs Passalaqua and Mrs. Gregory, his teacher. The little blond boy in the red shirt in the front row is James' best buddy, Jakob.

When I went to check on James before going to bed a couple nights ago, this is what I found. If you look closely, you will notice that he has his Bible open to the book of James, his favorite book of the Bible :-).

And this is a picture of what we got in our CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) box this week. I found out about this from my neighbor and signed up. For about $19 a week, we get a box of vegetables straight from the farm. We never know what is going to be in it, and it's always fun to discover what the box holds every Thursday when we go pick it up. This week, I was soooo excited to see the kiwi! And there are never enough carrots. Both Gabby and I hated carrots until we got the boxes and discovered that "real" carrots are actually delicious. Oh, and I've discovered rutabagas, which I think are simply heavenly. YUM!! One of the upsides to living in CA is that we can get boxes all year long because things grow all year long around here :-).

Today

I was really hoping to have some pictures for you all today. I even made sure to have Jason take some on his phone so he could email them to me and I could post them here, but the files are too big :-(. So no pictures.

We didn't end up going to Yosemite. They had 8 feet of snow and all the roads were closed. They also had an avalanche warning, so we stayed home and created our own volcano. I found a website that had instructions on how to make a homemade volcano using baking soda and vinegar. James and I "constructed" the mountain out of a sort of paste, then he and Gabby painted it. There was a soda bottle inside it that we filled with warm water, red and orange food coloring and a bit of dish soap. Then we poured vinegar into it and it bubbled up and over. The first "eruption" wasn't very big, so I dumped the liquid out and started over, using a lot more baking soda and vinegar. The kids were leaning over the mountain watching me pour in the vinegar. All of a sudden, Gabby screamed as the orange and red bubbles spewed out the top. That was the reaction I was going for! :-). James then proceeded to make "goo" out of the paste and liquid. He had a great time and the mess wasn't really all that hard to clean up :-).

Other than that adventure and my morning run, today has been a really low key, charge my batteries kind of day. I got a call this morning from a lady in the church who wants to bring the family I'm helping out a meal on Monday, so I got to cross one thing off my to do list for next week already.

Now for a little kiddo news. Gabby has been a dream child lately. She has definitely come out of her cranky stage and is just a little angel 90% of the time. God definitely blessed her with a giving heart. I walked into her room a couple days ago and she had cut one of her favorite bracelets. When I asked her why she did that, she said: "Mommy, sometimes we have to think about other people, not ourselves. I need to give these jewels to help people, to help the homeless." She had cut her bracelet apart so she could use the individual "jewels" to help others! What I could learn from her! She's never been very materialistic. She just doesn't really care about "stuff". She currently has $32.92 in her piggy bank because she rarely spends her money. Most of the time, she either saves it, or gives it to James. We have discussed this with them and did eventually tell them that they couldn't give each other money anymore. James was enjoying the exchange a bit too frequently ;-). We talked to them about this a few weeks ago and I think they may have forgotten because James really wanted to buy something this week, but he only had $1.50 and it was $2.50. Gabby gave him a dollar and I pretended I didn't know what was going on because she gets so much joy from giving. I didn't want to take that away from her. I figure I'll keep tabs on things and if her money starts walking over to James' pocket a bit too frequently, I'll have to become more "aware" of what is going on and putting a stop to it. One of my parenting dilemmas with Gabby right now is how do I shape her desire to give so that she continues to enjoy giving without becoming a doormat for others to trample on. Baby steps. Baby steps.

James is so glad to be back in school. His month-long break at Christmas was starting feel really long and he was excited to see his friends again. He also told me that he thinks his teacher is, in his words, "perfect because she knows how to keep me interested and I never get bored." He got to read to the principal on Thursday as an award for reading 350 books (also known as chapters, depending on the length of the book being read) at home. He seemed to have a great time :-).

That's it for now. Hopefully I will be able to put pictures up soon.

Rain, Rain, Rain

As most of you know from the news, we've had A LOT of rain here lately. Many of you Oregonians laugh at our Californian freak out over rain, but nothing here is built for this much rain. Roofs are leaking all over the place. Streets and parking lots are flooded and I actually saw a Red Lobster pumping water off their flat roof today. I had never really noticed before, but there are very few drains anywhere around here, which leads to all this flooding.

Jason, the kids and I are planning on venturing over to Yosemite tomorrow. The snow should be really beautiful after this week of heavy precipitation. The kids are VERY excited. I'm trying not to dwell on how cold and wet I'm going to get :-).

Next week looks CRAZY for me, so I'm planning on sitting around and doing nothing on Sunday. Starting Monday, I'll have my neighbor's daughter every afternoon. I have another 2 kids all day Tuesday and half day Wednesday. I will also be shuttling a few other kids to and from appointments for a friend who's having surgery, and making a meal for 8 extra people on Monday (Stew. YUM!). I'm exhausted just thinking about it, but at least I won't be bored.

Jason and I are looking into school options for the kids next year. Due to money mismanagement in our current school district, they have to cut 10% of the budget next year, in a district that is already really tight. Last year, they laid off all teachers who had been hired within the last DECADE! Class sizes went up, and it looks like they will be going up again. I said I would never homeschool. I'm just not a teacher. But I've been looking into it a bit lately and homeschooling is definitely not the way I pictured it in my head. We have several federally funded charter schools around here that provide all of the school books/curriculum free of charge. They also have lots of classes the kids can attend weekly, like music, gymnastics, karate, comic book writing, piano, etc. I'm still really nervous at the idea of being responsible for the education of my children (GULP) and am not convinced I'm organized enough to pull this off, but we will definitely be looking into this a bit more.

Friday nights are our family night and tonight, we have chosen to watch the movie "Cloudy with a chance of meatballs". I'm making mashed potatoes (the clouds) and meatballs for dinner and then we will have banana splits during the movie. Should be fun :-).

Musings

It has been such a long time since I've typed anything here. Life became more "normal" as we settled into our life in CA and to be completely honest, Facebook took over as I did most of our updates there. But today, I came here because I have a lot on my mind that I want to share and Facebook just isn't the place for it.

The last two years have been quite the journey for our family. God uprooted us from Oregon and plopped us down here in CA, 600 miles away from anyone we knew. It was a REALLY tough first year. We had to get used to being a family again, with Jason home in the evenings, on weekends and on holidays (which I'm still trying to get used to. A day off work and still getting paid. That's CRAZY!!) and the homesickness was intense.

One of the first things God did to us here was to shake our faith. In a sense, He slapped us upside the head and said: "WAKE UP!!". I say us because God has been teaching Jason and me very similar lessons the past couple years (go figure). Once we recommitted our lives to Him, He gave us both a strong sense that He was going to use us, that He was going to demand quite a bit from us, but first we needed to get our financial house in order. So we worked on that, so much so that I became obsessed with getting out of debt. Don't get me wrong. Getting out of debt is important and is still the direction we are heading, but especially during the second part of 2009, God started asking us to give in various ways which did not fit my "get out of debt as quickly as possible" scenario. But we did it. I cannot tell you how many times, day after day, I would open my Bible to do my quiet time and God would direct me to a passage on true giving, not the superficial kind, but the kind that really costs you. And then I would upload a podcast not knowing what it was about, and it would be about giving. And then I'd go to church and our pastor did a 6 week series on giving. Ok, seriously! I get it!! And yet God knew that He needed to grind it into my brain because I have a short memory :-). One of the illustrations that I remember the most vividly during this process is from a sermon by Craig Groeschel (http://live.lifechurch.tv). He spoke about three mentalities we can have about giving: a cup mentality, where you give a little here and there, a bucket mentality, where you give quite a bit from what you have left over, and a barn mentality, where you give until it hurts and then you give some more. And I prayed over and over that I would have the barn mentality, that I would be able to give until it hurt and then continue giving.

During this process, I begged God almost daily to show me what He wanted me to do. PLEASE, God, give me a purpose! James was in school half days, Gabby was home with me and I was going stir crazy! I needed something to do, but God kept saying wait. I was sooooo frustrated, but kept getting the same message: "Not now. Wait." Oh, the frustration, but I waited, because I knew that if I started something when God was saying wait, it wouldn't end well. I knew this because I'd tried it a few times before ;-).

About mid-November, an idea of a way to serve was planted in my head, but again, WAIT. I knew I needed to wait until after Christmas to make a decision on this particular thing, so I waited. When we got back from Oregon, I was listening to another podcast (LOVE life church, btw. Very inspiring sermons). I can't remember at all what the sermon was about, but the whole "barn giving" picture came back and I knew what I needed to do. It was clear as day, so I picked up my phone and texted my friend Sara and asked her to call me. She called me right away and I told her that I would watch her two kids twice a week for free. I knew it was what I was supposed to do, but after a few days, I started getting cranky about it. After all, this was MY time, MY life and I could be getting a job or something. Then I had to laugh. Did I really think that I could have a barn mentality and not feel the pinch? Even now, I think that's hysterical, but without realizing it, I had built this image in my head that I could feel good about being a sacrificial giver, without feeling the sacrifice :-). I started watching the kids the first week of January and it has turned out to be much easier and rewarding than I expected. Gabby loves having Elise (age 4) to play with and Ian (almost 2) is a doll!

This morning, I was thinking again about getting a job. It's really hard for me to "feel" my value when I don't bring in any money. Crazy I know, because what I do here at home is important, but it's the natural highways in my brain that continue to take me back to "get a job". Anyway, again, I got the message "WAIT". Then I talked to my neighbor, who is heading out of town for a week for her grandpa's funeral. She asked me if I could take her daughter for a few hours every afternoon, so her husband, who will be working from home during this time, can get some work done. Um, GULP, ok. And then it hit me. This is what God had in store for me, at least for now. This is what He has been prepping me for. To be His hands and feet in day to day situations. To show His love to those around me. One of the other things I'm working on right now is arranging meals and help with errands for a stay at home mom who home-schools her six kids and is having a hysterectomy on Monday. All it costs me is a bit of time on the phone, some cooking time and a bit of driving back and forth. I consider that bucket giving, but if I had closed my ears to God, if I had stubbornly gotten a job to make myself feel better, I would not have been available to do that. I thank Him for making Himself so clear and I am humbled that He is using me despite all of my many weaknesses.

One of the other reoccurring fights I've had with myself has been my desire to sell our van. I have revisited this issue over and over. It would free up money in our budget. It would get us out of debt sooner, but every time I seriously considered it, it didn't feel like the right decision. Now, all the seats in the van are being used. Oh, and every car seat we have, including the extra 2 we had in the garage and couldn't seem to give away, are being used. Why couldn't we give away our car seats when we tried? Hmm, I wonder ;-).

I am truly blessed, and I can't wait to see where God leads us next. And in the mean time, pass the tylenol. These kids are loud! :-).

It's a Crazy, Insane, Mixed Up, Unexplainable World... And other ramblings by Jason

Apparently I have taken over blogging duties from Becca...  as such, you now will have to put up with my brain droppings about once a week....

So James is home from the hospital and the slow recovery continues... it's easy to exhaust him but he is acting completely normal.  Our little brush with mortality has taught us a few things and we are relaxing and enjoying life a little more...  Gabby is great, our little princess...   The kids are growing fast...

I just finished a huge project at work and am preparing for my own vacation... I bought a new ultra wide angle lens and am going to do photography while the kids are in Oregon with Becca...

For those of you reading this who want to see Becca and the kids, you'll have to schedule it with her as I have no clue what their schedule is...

Now as for Becca - and congrats are in order to Mary and Nate for the birth of their child... wow....

It was really hard for Becca to be so far away... she wanted to be there for Mary and the baby.  She really misses Mary (sorry she doesn't miss the rest of you :-p ) and has been hyper emotional about it...  she misses her family...  So we have come up with a compromise....  Becca and the kids will live in Oregon, I will live in a cardboard box in Salida CA and send all my money up to make it possible for her to be near family...  it seems the logical solution...  But in all seriousness, one of the decisions we made after James brush with mortality is that we need to budget for more frequent visits... 4-6 times a year. expect to see us more in the second half of 2009 and beyond. 

James got accepted to Salida Elementary School on the other side of town for Kindergarten.  They run a modified traditional schedule so we have a shorter summer, 4 weeks off at Christmas, and 2 weeks at Easter.  It will make holiday travel much easier.

On the national front, Harold was Sulu in the new Star Trek Movie, Kumar works for Obama.  And based on the functioning of Democrats and Obama, the actor Kal Penn (kumar) may be the only qualified person in that administration.  I haven't figured out where Neal Patrick Harris figures into it all yet....  perhaps the next supreme court justice?

Anyway, brain droppings concluded for the moment....

jason 

An overdue blog post - post hospital... in a swirling abyss of exhaustion

Jason Here - this post will be rather incoherent but then again, so are both Becca and I right now...

After a lovely 14 day stay at the Modesto Sutter Home Memorial Hospital Spa and Retreat, our 5 year old trooper without the helmet came home.  His ruptured appendix has been cut away and patched, new spackle, some calking, some bailing twine, and a little duct tape and he is as good as new.  Problem is, his parents aged about 50 years in the ordeal...  

James is home, we are checking his temperature 3-5 times per day and no fever yet.  If he has a fever we will go back to the hospital for another lovely stay of undetermined length.  You see, he has an unknown fluid pocket left in his belly.  They believe that it is either Pus from an infection or fluid left from the flushing of the site where his fluid drain was.  They took 2 CT scans and radiology just couldn't tell.  He has an appetite and was acting energetic and normal.  The regular course of action would be to take him off all the antibiotics and see if he develops a fever.  Why stay at the hospital for that?  

James has a CT scan monday and a follow up appointment with the surgeon on tuesday.  No fevers yet and he is still acting normal... all good signs... probably just saline in his belly.... but we still are not quite "off guard".

This experience has taught us amazing lessons:

• Everyone thinks that bad things happen to someone else's child or family... never to your own... it's a sense of false security that took us by surprise.
• We have a great family, great friends, and a great church who loves us... a great reminder.
• We must continue to act on our desire to serve others.  We were blessed with a large group of people serving us.  Betty came down to  help with Gabby for a few days, we had a 2 weeks of solid meals from our church friends and family.  My boss gave me great flexibility in scheduling to be able to accomodate both the hospital and work.  Both of our cell phones regularly went dead from phone calls from family and friends calling to check on us, let us vent, cry, and otherwise bloviate.  Nobody had to do any of those things and yet they did.  It would be wrong not to return the favor to others.
• We have learned to re-invest in our nuclear family.  We have been living on a shoe-string budget trying to get out of debt.  Time to take a break from that for a few months, build up some savings, and re-prioritize our spending... more family outings and fun, more investment in good times, less shoestring by choice.  I have been blessed with a good paying job... we are going to have some fun even if it means putting of the paying of our debt a few months... we might even buy matching furniture or something...

I am also blessed with great insurance.  We have 100% coverage for everything, no copays, nothing out of pocket for anything after a $3600 deductible.  My company supplies the $3600 in an HSA account for us... so for the rest of the year, we have no medical expenses.

Even if the company didn't provide the deductible, for about $550 per month (pd by employer), the $3600 is a reasonable deductible for a high deductible insurance plan.  The tradeoff would be worth it and we would have paid the deductible and been fine...  what a blessing...

So we are home, no complications yet other than me going blind and rebecca sleeping all the time...  will update again soon...  zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

So remember boys and girls....  "I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"