Halloween
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October 31, 2008
October 29, 2008
Hannah Got Her Big Girl Bed Today
Hannah has been growing. Lately, when she has thrown a fit in her crib, I would watch the whole thing shake. I realised it was time to get a new bed. So over the past few weeks, I have been checking out twin beds. I looked into the medical beds. Way too expensive. I realised that with her medical needs changing, a high tech bed was not necessary. What we needed was a bed with a higher edge on all sides so she couldn't fall out. Her Grandfather, Uncle, and I were looking at high edged day beds because they would have at least 3 sturdy sides. I would just have to buy a bed rail.
Well the other day on a whim I stopped at a local furniture store in Cornelius. It is called Murphy's Furniture. (By the way, the staff was very helpful and low pressure.) They had a great sturdy day bed with two rails in its back. As I was talking to one of the proprietors, I found they were willing to make me two rails for the front too. It is a bed they designed there, and the parts were readily available.
It came with a mattress and the price was affordable. They had it ready within a week.
Tonight is her first night in the bed, so wish us luck in her going to sleep.
-Mom
October 28, 2008
Ichabod Crane
I grew up reading Ray Bradbury and Edgar Allen Poe. My overactive imagination bred monsters in shadows and kept me awake at night. I loved and trembled at scary radio plays. Suffice to say, Halloween is my kind of holiday.
The kids, either of their own interest or mirrors of mine (or maybe it's the candy), seem to love it as well. Both kids sopped up recent Halloween happenings with me.
Saturday, Hannah and I headed out (way out) into rural Hillsboro to attend a Halloween party: her first party invite from a friend at school. We dressed her as a punk-pop princess. Multicolored ribbons sparkled in her hair, brushing at her black t-shirt. Janette even bought her a checkered mini-skirt to complete the ensemble.
We arrived painfully early at the party, and we were the first and only ones there for awhile. On top of everything else, we could only stay for about a half-hour before running back to Hillsboro city limits to pick up Gabriel and Janette from an overlapping birthday party.
Still, Hannah and I made the most of it. The house, of course, had plentiful stairs, so Hannah and I abandoned her wheelchair early. For the better part of a half-hour, I carried her around the house, visiting rooms with spooky house miniatures, animatronic skeletons, and like decorations. When her friends showed up, we greeted them, but departed soon after. Hannah, however, beamed with all the attention and activity. As I flexed my sore muscles, she smiled and laughed. We loaded ourselves back in the car for the long trip back into our city.
Sunday, it was Gabriel's turn. He, my sister, and I headed out to Shocktober: a Halloween themed celebration at the local fairgrounds. This event used to be called Frightlites, and it used to be filled with kid appropriate activities and games. Each year, though, they've been moving the ticket prices up and the theming toward more adult scares. Although he enjoyed the glow-in-the-dark miniature golf and tube/hay slide, Gabriel shunned the supposedly all-ages haunted crypts nearby. Maybe it was the screams coming from inside or the sound of a buzzing chainsaw from the adult-only haunt attraction nearby.
Gabriel did earn an elephant ear (a flat, fried doughnut w/ sugar sprinkled all over), and we had fun watching my sister go off to try the adult haunts. She came back hoarse from screaming. Still, this was probably the last year we'll go: the kid-friendly attractions and leisurely walk from prior years are gone, and it doesn't look like they're coming back.
In the end, we found our best scare in a Disney "Scary Stories" book. I read Gabriel one of my favorite scary stories: a Disney version of the Sleepy Hollow/Headless Horseman story. Gabriel looked on as I read the story, moving from whisper to tense tone and words. He flipped ahead a little bit as I read one page, checking the pictures for indications on where this was all going.
At the end of the story, which allowed for the possibility that Ichabod had run off to places unknown rather than falling prey to the Headless Horseman, I asked Gabriel what he thought. He quickly requested another story, maybe one with a happy ending.
Maybe Poe and others will wait a little longer.
-- Dad
October 27, 2008
Our Odd little Family Achievement
The past couple of months have been real turning points for us. When Hannah is awake she can keep her oxygen levels at a great level plus she is so active there is no way to put a monitor on her. That is a good sign an active child is a breathing child.
With that said I been having the pleasure of being able to do certain other tasks while taking care of Hannah that I haven't been able to do before. I can take out the trash without another adult in the house. That was too far to go before. I can go take a 2 minute shower. I can go to the bathroom alone.
I feel so lucky!
--Mom
October 26, 2008
Fall Fun
Maybe next year Hannah.
--Mom
October 13, 2008
Goings and Comings
I returned from a business trip to Shanghai, China last Friday. Walking on one-hour-airplane-sleep fumes, I managed to find the customs line with the help of a fellow traveler from work. Soon after, I popped out into PDX where I was greeting by Janette, Gabriel, Hannah, and my dad.
Gabriel ran up to me, laughing, a play mustache hanging from his lip. "Ah, hi, recognize me?" he managed between giggles. We hugged.
Hannah sat in her wheelchair, taking in the scene nearby with dazed, I'm-up-too-early red eyes. I took a few steps forward and embraced her. She grabbed my head absently, and I stepped back.
"Hi, Hannah."
Janette got a brief hug, I think (sorry, honey, I was still jet lagged), and we started down the concourse, heading toward the elevators. On the way, Hannah ducked out of sleep and started processing as she rode beside me.
"Hi... dad... la, la, la."
Greeting. Request. Simple enough.
My throat still a little raw from travel (and probably pollution), I began to sing as we approached the elevator. It was good to be home.
-- Dad
October 05, 2008
Mad Woman
Whew, I made it! This was my first weekend by myself with the kids and no nursing support. Robert is on a business trip in another country in a different time zone for a week.
It is great that we have instituted a bedtime routine in the house so I can have my little angels in their bed by a certain time. That's when I get to go crazy and have fun. My latest bought of fun is playing Chocolatier 2 Secret Ingredients and listening to a book on tape in between Gabriel's interruptions and Hannah's alarms.
I know I'm a mad woman!
--Mom
October 01, 2008
Scars and Healing
Scars are strange and wonderful things. I marvel at them on Hannah. One whips along her back - a remnant of heart surgery; another, still healing from her trach tube removal, puckers at her throat. There are others, big and small, but each maps her progress from the first six months of "failure to thrive" to the demanding four-and-a-half-year-old Princess we cherish today.
One could find my fascination with these scars grotesque, but the scars have accumulated stories and meaning. They are proof of survival and learning, healing and strengthening.
The survival is self-evident. Hannah is growing into a self-assured little girl. She has beaten back the unspoken, grim prognosis and staked a claim for her own life.
Her healing, as evidenced by the scars, is incomplete and imperfect. She cycles through injury and healing like a body-builder. Her trach site, for example, had to be closed with two attempts. The doctors had to physically re-injure the site at her throat to encourage it to strengthen in its healing and completely close.
And that process leaves scars. For Hannah, these scars tell her story while she is working on the language to express herself. They inform her personality, particularly her resilience and her dislike for medical settings. For our family, the scars remind us of the healing we've gone through, but also remind us that the healing is unfinished. Scars may be re-opened by a new crisis, but it will heal again, too.
And hopefully that healing will leave us stronger and better prepared for the next challenge: whatever that may be.
-- Dad
P.S. Unfair to only share Hannah's scars - one of my minor ones below:
The circle scar on my left elbow grins at me, celebrating a foolish half-day of summer from my early teens. We neighborhood kids were bored during a long, summer vacation. To ease the boredom, we grabbed some brooms, trashcan lids, and our bicycles and invented a new game: bike-jousting. We each charged at each other with broomstick for pole and lid for shield, bicycling hands-free across the asphault of our small cul-de-sac.
That game didn't last long. We were all battered, bruised, and bleeding after an hour. But I remember that day clearly and fondly. I have childhood literally etched at my elbow, reminding me of how a group of kids got along for a few hours, amusing and bruising ourselves, long before we began to break apart in the years ahead and go our separate ways.
