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Let’s Clean House!

by Maggie

So today I am wondering if my house will ever (EVER.) not look like this:

To the left, you will see our “therapy bins.” Think that sounds fun and interesting? It’s actually all the junk that accumulates in our downstairs living space week-after-week. We call them “therapy bins” because every time Tessa has a therapist coming over, we throw everything into a bin and shove it into our master bedroom.

We have seven very full bins.

Did you happen to notice my half-painted toenails? The ones that I have been planning to paint before every one of the three road trips we have taken since Father’s Day? Someday…

On the bed, there are stacks of clothes that will surely find themselves piled on the floor at bedtime tonight. And then, we won’t know what is clean or dirty anymore, so they’ll probably get thrown back into the wash just because.

On the plus side, I did manage to mop the bathroom floor for the first time in…. for the first time.

The strangest part of all of this is that we are not busy people right now.

A couple of weeks ago, my husband asked me if I wanted to spend two kid-free days cleaning our house in celebration of our five-year wedding anniversary. While I’m sure that the most practical answer to that question would have been “YES! What a fabulous idea,” my response was something along the lines of “only if you want this to be your last anniversary. Ha Ha Ha.” I just don’t want to give up quality time to clean! While I really do enjoy a sparkling home (I think… It’s been a long time so I’m not actually sure), I enjoy living with my family more.

When I took Tessa to have one of her first blood draws, there was an elderly lady in the waiting room who was totally drawn to her. She told me “Don’t go home and do your dishes. My kids are in their sixties now. I can’t hold them anymore. I don’t remember the days that I scrubbed my floor or vacuumed. I remember the times that we played games or went for walks. Do those things.”

And so I am.

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Guest Blogger Post – A Dad’s Perspective

by Maggie

Because it’s Father’s Day, I have invited my husband to write about our life from his perspective. I took the liberty of adding in a few pictures… and a few commas. 🙂 Enjoy!

– – – – – – –

Four days ago I was asked to be a “guest blogger” for a post about Fathers’ Day. After some deliberation, I reluctantly accepted the invitation. The blog is really Maggie’s thing and I have never had the desire to contribute in the slightest. Needless to say I began this process by thinking I was doing her a favor by posting and now I realize she was doing me a favor by letting me think more deeply about what is so great about Father’s Day. Let’s start from the beginning…

When I was growing up, I remember going to a hardware store with my dad. As we walked into the store, I noted a bright orange sign that said “Buy one, get one FREE!” Being young, I said to my dad, “Hey, Dad, look! We can get something for free.” My dad knelt down, held both of my shoulders in his hands, and looking directly into my eyes, he responded with an even tone:

“Son, nothing is free.”

Of course, he was correct. Everything in this world costs money. It costs money to eat, it costs money to live, it even costs money to raise children. But this weekend reminded me of what is truly important in life and it had nothing to do with cost.

Every year for Fathers’ Day, Maggie plans a quick vacation with our family. We usually go to the Quad Cities, the area where Maggie and I attended college, to reminisce and walk the campus of Augustana. This year our trip was scheduled for 24 hours. We departed at 4 o’clock on Thursday afternoon and we arrived home on Friday at around the same time.

Two hours in the car felt like four. Apparently Ellie likes to hear herself talk and Tessa is not to be outdone, so she growled the entire time. When we arrived in the Quad Cities, we got Ellie some ice cream… which promptly ended up all over her clothes, face, and the ground. I had to admit I felt good for letting Ellie make a mess. Why not, right? We are on vacation and if she wants to dump ice cream all over her shirt, more power to her.

It wasn’t long before we arrived at the hotel and Ellie tested both beds to see which one was more “springy.” For a bit of extra fun, I took Ellie on a ride on the rolling luggage cart through the hotel. Ellie thought every second of the ride was hysterical. I enjoyed her laughter, but especially enjoyed all the strangers who walked past us and smiled. It was clear we were having too much fun breaking the rules.

That same night Ellie refused to fall asleep until 10:30 at night. She relentlessly declared across the hotel room, “I am still awake you guys!” and we had to keep reminding her it was time to go to sleep. Apparently she doesn’t care what I say (she is her mother’s child). On the one hand, I was annoyed that my daughter would not be quiet, but on the other hand, she was having so much fun she didn’t want to go to bed. She wasn’t rude, she was just excited… and I couldn’t keep a straight face when I scolded her for not going to sleep.

The next day we all went to the pool, the John Deere museum, a children’s museum, and lunch at one of my favorite restaurants in town. Ellie spent the day swimming, pretending to drive a tractor, and playing with a million toys without having to clean up.

If I had time, I could go through a million stories about each and every part of the day, but all I can tell you was that both of my daughters smiled for almost the entire twenty-four hour trip. Not only did they smile for the entire trip, I couldn’t help but enjoy the company of my family and all of the fun things we enjoyed. I laughed more times than I could remember and even though I was exhausted (which is the status quo), I just couldn’t bring myself to wimp out and not have fun with them.

My dad was right that nothing is free in this world. But that is the least of all the lessons he taught me. He taught me to take the time to stop and enjoy life. He taught me to not be concerned about meaningless trials and tribulations. Most of all, he taught me the biggest payoff of being a father is the time we spend with our children. Nothing is free in this world except for our time. The time we have to spend with our families is totally free and can lead to some of the most amazing and fulfilling memories.

When I look around and see all of the other fathers I know and respect immensely, they all have one thing in common: they take the time, no matter how things are going, to enjoy their children. I learned this because my dad put me first and it was rewarding for me, but now I see it was rewarding for him as well.

Being a father is never easy. Sometimes we wish our kids would give us a break. Sometimes we wish we could just get away for awhile. The reality is that we are not perfect and we don’t always focus on our kids the way we should. But we also need to remind ourselves how much we can be filled up with love just by spending time with our family. The sports on television don’t matter, the job doesn’t matter, the kind of car we drive doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is the effort we put in to loving our families. We will see the results in how we live and how our kids live. This is not my advice, it is the advice of my dad, and for what it is worth, it has made all the difference in my life. I wish all of you a wonderful Fathers’ Day and I hope your twenty-four hours is as fun as mine!

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Tubes, Take 2

by Maggie

I think a lot of my readers are Facebook friends… but for those who aren’t, or those who are and want more details of today’s events…. here we go:

We are home after successful tube placement and bronchoscopy.

The morning was, as usual, not without it’s fair share of drama. We have a family history of some complications with general anesthesia. As the anesthesiologist explained, “it’s very rare that someone would have any type of reaction, but if they do, they usually die. So we’re going to go with a slightly less safe type of IV anesthesia that takes a little longer so that we don’t run the risk of the other reaction.”

Well, that’s comforting.

John was not able to be there today, so very thankfully, my mother-in-law came to keep me company… and to calm me down. She is awesome at chatting away the time and before I knew it, the doctor was back to let me know that Tessa was doing well.

So, the tubes are in and should fall out on their own in (hopefully) a year to 18 months. She doesn’t have to wear ear plugs unless she is in a lake or river, but I don’t see that being an issue for her. 🙂 The bronchoscopy didn’t show any abnormalities, which is good. This means that Tessa’s airways are formed correctly. She had a bit of redness on her vocal cords, which he explained could be from crying or reflux. He said that a swallow study would be a good follow-up to check out the mechanics of how she eats.

It took a little while for her to wake up following the procedure. One of our nurses told us that “people with Downs love their sleepy drugs!” I think some people might not like that kind of generalizing statement, but I am totally OK with it. 🙂

Tessa is in good spirits, happy to be reunited with her bottle, and is her happy self already. Ellie was thrilled to come home from daycare and find her sister back in the house again. She immediately requested to hold her, something that she almost never does, so I’ll wrap up with some sweet pictures of these two little buddies!

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Mommy and Ellie’s Day of Fun – Zoo Edition

by Maggie

When was the last time that you were so excited that you felt giddy?

For me, it was last night… err, this morning at about 1:00 am. I love that feeling!!

Even as a little kid sharing a room with my sister, I can remember “nights before” (before birthdays or vacations or other events) where I would lie awake thinking about how excited I was for what was coming next. I did this on the night before I got married. I did this on the night before she got married! I am trying to convince myself that she joined in on my “too excited to sleep” chatter… however, it’s more likely that I was just keeping her awake when she would just rather sleep and get on with it.

In any case, I was over the moon because Ellie and I had a special day planned for today… our first outing to the zoo! Every year, we sign up for a zoo membership and we have really enjoyed taking Ellie on excursions to visit the animals. This was my first time taking her on my own. The membership that we sign up for comes with some tickets to do things like take a trolley ride and see the Dolphin Show – things that John and I have never actually done with her. So this time, I made a promise to myself (and her!) that we would really live it up on this trip. And so I present pictures from Mommy and Ellie’s Day of Fun, the Zoo Edition:

First, we had breakfast at our favorite place. I wish I had taken a picture of the awesomeness that was my cornflake-crusted french toast with vanilla creme and strawberries. Instead, here is Ellie with her remnants:

When we got to the zoo (after taking the grand tour of the Western Chicago suburbs and hitting every. single. red. light.), we had to go on the trolley first thing. That Daniel Tiger and his trolley talk had really gotten this kiddo excited…

For some reason, Ellie was obsessed with this snake on the ceiling. She insisted on a picture and talked about “our baby snake” for about an hour.

After the trolley, we got into the first Dolphin Show of the day. I remember the Dolphin Show being a spectacular showcase of amazing jumps and tricks where everyone in the front got splashed and soaked and had a rip-roaring time. And, from a three-year-old’s perspective, it was all of those things. As an adult…. not so much.

We actually bought over-priced zoo food for lunch and had a picnic on the concrete because there were no tables in the shade within eyesight (balancing a tray full of food precariously on the handles of my stroller was not the brightest idea I ever had). Then we visited almost every animal and went to the souvenir shop (something I have never done in my entire life) to buy gifts for Tessa (a plastic bumble bee) and Daddy (paper made out of 100% elephant poop. No joke. Ellie picks out the best gifts!).

Here is Ellie as an otter, which is super cute:

After visiting some more animals again (Ellie insisted on another trip to the zebra because the first time, it was peeing and that was hilarious), we got Dippin’ Dots. I’m not sure she really enjoyed them so much… I think she was a little unsure how to handle the little pellets that kept falling into her lap… but I still think they are one of my favorite foods.

And here’s my obligatory “my kid is exhausted after a long day of (fill in the blank)” picture. Notice the zebra stuffed animal that she chose for herself. Thanks to the peeing that we witnessed, she can’t get enough zebra.

We had the most lovely day! If you have little kids, I hope you’ll take them, one at a time, to the zoo. At the very least, for the poo poo paper. $14.95 for elephant feces. Worth. every. penny.

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The First Day

by Maggie

I will never argue that teaching is the hardest profession. There are lots of people who do hard work in other jobs. I can’t easily make an argument that we need a summer more than anyone else… all I can say is that in my experience, the amount of stuff that we cram into a nine-month school year necessitates a long resting period. There are few days more thrilling than the first day of summer.

In our house, summer looks like an open stretch of road, full of possibilities. It’s sunny and vibrant and beautiful and free.

It doesn’t require an alarm to sound at 4:30 in the morning. It doesn’t mean melting into bed at 7:30 or making a 5:30 am run to Walmart because there is no lunch food in the house and Momma’s gotta eat. It’s getting up when the sun is already there to greet me and the ability to actually go for a walk. It’s kiddie pools and backyard fires (with s’mores!) and playtime and fun… fun that doesn’t have to squeeze into a two-hour time frame before dinner and tubbie and bedtime.

It means putting away the Snow Angel jammies (starting tonight.) and putting on flip flops and shorts and band-aids on skinned knees. It’s summer. It’s HERE!!!!!!!!!!!!

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5 months

by Maggie

Tessa has been five months for a little over a week. I have not been putting off this update, I’ve have just been waiting for some calm so that I could get all the information in one post.

And then I realized that there is no calm and decided to write it anyway.

At four months, we decided to schedule her ear tube surgery and bronchoscopy. Then, as is well documented on this blog, we had the pneumonia hospital visit and subsequent recovery. Now, we wait. Surgery is scheduled for June 5th, which puts it after school gets out (no time without pay, yay) and during the time that I was originally scheduled to travel to Costa Rica. Clearly, God was keeping me back for a reason.

Here is where we are at in terms of therapy:

Physical Therapy

Tessa is a rock star on her tummy. She is right at her age with her “tummy skills.” She is still wearing kinesio tape to help activate her muscles. I still think the idea of tape on the belly is kind of bizarre, but we’re going with it. She’s slightly more delayed with her sitting skills (about a month). We have had the chance to break out the Bumbo seat and while she can’t last it in for a long period of time, she does kind of like to see the world from a new perspective.

The therapist has recommended using cabinet liner to help stabilize her when she sits in the Bumbo or when we do “couch sitting,” which is when she sits using the corner of a couch for support. Creative, cheap, useful… It works.

Tessa’s new strange habit is this loud groaning sound that she makes regularly while tensing up all of her muscles. We’re glad that she’s practicing using the “right” muscles (the ones that flex), but the groan kind of freaks people out. My theory is that she just likes to hear her own voice (just like her mother).

Speech Therapy

Upright feeding is going great, hurray!! We are at a point where anyone who wants to can give her a bottle and that makes me a very happy momma. The next step is building up her core and mouth muscles to prep for solids. We hope to start with some cereals this summer, but need to make sure that her body is ready for the different textures. We do mouth stretches with her and use a little tool that looks like of like a solid straw with ridges on it to massage her gums and tongue. I’m happy with her progress here, but curious to see if the bronchoscopy will reveal anything interesting going on inside her throat.

Here, you can see how happy Tessa is to have to sit at the dinner table, but not get any cupcakes:

Developmental Therapy

So we’re seeing some more pronounced delays here, but the victory is that progress is happening. Tessa loves people. All people. All faces. All toys with faces. But things without faces? Not so much. She is reaching, which is good, but we need to get her hands to open up a little more. She can’t interact until she gets motivated to grab at things and explore, so the new development in developmental therapy is that it’s time to call in occupational therapy.

Sorry, that was a lot of terms.

Basically, Tessa’s occupation is to play, so we need to make sure she can do that effectively. We are going to get her started with some occupational therapy to help this progress… because while Ellie is a great example for Tessa, she does a lot more toy-swiping than toy-giving.

(this is the best of my failed attempt at a cute picture of these three)

Overall, we are joyful at the growth in both of our girls, prayerfully optimistic that surgery will go well, and ecstatic that our summer is finally here. Just three more days of class for me, another week for John and we will have lots of this…

and this…

and hopefully not so much of this… but I had to send some love to my husband (and dad) for fixing my car…

Welcome back summer, we’ve missed you.

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Imagination

by Maggie

Ellie lives in her own little world and we are just characters in the game. Lord help you if you wake her up from her occasional nap and call her Dora on a day when she is actually Doc McStuffins. I found myself in that situation late this afternoon.

It wasn’t pretty.

With no TV to distract us these days and John working late coaching track, Tessa and I have been at the mercy of Ellie’s imaginary play. Today, we were Doc McStuffins. Or, to be more specific, Ellie was Doc, Tessa was Stuffy (a goofy blue dinosaur), and I was Hallie (a chubby purple hippo with a southern accent. Lucky me!).

http://youtu.be/COhezyZhcOE

Tessa isn’t quite sure what just happened to her, but she’s glad it’s over. 🙂 (These last two pics were just too cute not to post!)

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Well that escalated quickly…

by Maggie

I love my Sunday night wind-down. The evening before the work week begins is so sacred to me that I refuse to make Sunday evening plans. Ever.

(So I guess if you have invited me to do something on a Sunday and I have declined, you now know it was for my own selfish reasons.)

Daycare bag packing. Water bottle finding. Sunday night dinner at the table together, usually take-out. Gathering up a few things to come to school with me… are my pants wrinkle free? Nope, better hang them up… Girls in bed, Ellie’s MeReader telling them a story that I can hear on the monitor… Then checking in on Facebook or Pinterest while drifting off to sleep… This is my ritual. It’s my peace before the crazy rush of a Monday. But not tonight.

Tessa has a cold, again. This one is worse than the others have been, complete with her first fever. The cough is kind of brutal, but it’s productive and I’ve had the distinct joy of pulling globs of nastiness out of her mouth for the past couple of days. She’s asleep in her car seat in her little corner of our closet now.

About three hours ago, we were driving home from a day with my family. John was talking about catching up on the DVR and I was telling him that I was looking forward to some quiet time on my long-neglected Pinterest boards. When we walked in the door, suddenly there was a crying, hangry (love that new word!) toddler with no interest in eating anything but milk. Then the other one is crying, but can’t eat without gagging on the bottle. My mom is calling to tell us that she has a fever also and then we’re trying to put the girls to bed and Tessa needs Tylenol, but it’s expired and then I’m at CVS to buy meds, but I’m stuck behind a crazy coupon lady with fourteen boxes of band aids. Back at home, Ellie is screaming about the unfairness of her bedtime and Tessa is throwing up on my shoulder and John and I are wondering how the heck our Sunday has turned into a tornado of chaos.

It is the kind of evening that makes me happy to go to work on Monday… even knowing that all day, I’ll be thinking about my little sickie.

How many days until Summer??

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How Great Thou Art

by Maggie

My faith has always been quiet.

Please don’t mistake my quietness for weakness. While I ~~tend to be~~ am bossy in most other aspects of my life, for me, my faith life is one of quiet example rather than outward and vocal evangelism. I don’t prefer to reference my faith in conversations with friends or strangers. It’s not uncomfortable for me… I could probably write a thousand words trying to explain my behavior. Suffice it to say that it’s just not my style.

However, as I sit in the early morning light of a peaceful Holy Saturday morning, I feel the itch to share one of my favorite hymns. How Great Thou Art was one of my grandma’s favorites also. In my memory, she (the woman for whom Tessa was named) also lived a devout, but quiet, Christian life. I vividly remember this song playing in her home, surely recorded onto one of her millions of cassette tapes, though by which artist I have no idea. Today, I’m feeling so very blessed for these memories.

O Lord my God, When I in awesome wonder,
Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made;
I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder,
Thy power throughout the universe displayed.

When through the woods, and forest glades I wander,
And hear the birds sing sweetly in the trees.
When I look down, from lofty mountain grandeur
And see the brook, and feel the gentle breeze.

I haven’t been on a nature walk lately, but in my own home, I can see all of the blessings that God has provided us. Dusty picture frames with captured memories of loving, joyful times… dirty dishes with remnants of delicious meals shared with each other… the lingering sweet smell of a bonfire on the back patio. Every rowdy visit from the tickle monster and every cuddle on the couch with a sleepy child… None of these moments are guaranteed to us and yet, our life is full.

Where my heart dwells today, on this Easter weekend, is here:

And when I think of God, His Son not sparing;
Sent Him to die, I scarce can take it in;
That on the Cross, my burden gladly bearing,
He bled and died to take away my sin.

When Christ shall come, with shout of acclamation,
And take me home, what joy shall fill my heart.
Then I shall bow, in humble adoration,
And then proclaim: “My God, how great Thou art!”

I am overwhelmed today by the gift that God has given us. To send His Son to die so that we may eternally live with Him in Heaven… what pain must have filled His heart to see His own sweet child suffer and die. And still, what joy that we may all share in the bounty of His love!! The blessings of my earthly home are countless and I cannot imagine what is in store for all of us when we are called home with Him.

Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art.
Then sings my soul, My Savior God, to Thee,
How great Thou art, How great Thou art!

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The State of Our Union, 1st Quarter 2014

by Maggie

It’s hard to believe that 2014 is (almost) a quarter of the way finished. Spring is taking its sweet time arriving in our area. It’s been a rough winter!

And so an update on the family:

John and I

No one really wants to know about the adults… but it’s 7 AM on a Saturday morning and we are both showered, dressed, and ready to start the day… and yet, our small ~~bosses~~ children are sleeping the morning away. John is clicking away at his laptop, working on yet another grad school project and I’m sitting here with my ear pressed up to the baby monitor, desperately hoping to catch the moment when Ellie wakes up and realizes that Tessa spent the night in their room with her for the first time. Tessa has finally graduated from her pack n’ play-in-the-closet set up to her crib… but I digress. I’m talking about the adults, right? John’s at the point in his grad school that I was exactly one year ago. He’s tired (I’M tired) and feels like there is no end in sight. He’ll be finished in December and perhaps then we’ll have just a tiny bit of an ease in the chaos of life. Of course then I’ll probably get the itch to go back to school or I’ll take on some project that I really don’t have time for and we’ll be back to crazy. I think we kind of like it that way anyway. So John is grad-schooling and coaching and teaching…. and me? I’m kind of jealous. I just really need to go back to work.

Ellie

Our crazy (CRAZY) child has had another explosion of language growth. She’s already very verbal for her age, but now she’s connecting ideas and feelings, asking questions that are complex and interesting, and singing songs that are incredibly inappropriate for a two-and-a-half year old (totally my fault…….). She’s still a total klutz. My mom tries to tell me that she’s just too busy to really be careful where she is walking, but I’m fairly certain that she’s just the kind of athlete that I was…. not an athlete at all. We all have our strengths and weaknesses. She and I went out for a Mommy/Ellie date this week at Red Robin like we used to do before Tessa was born. We even got dessert. 🙂

Tessa

And then there is the peanut. She’s just about THREE months now. Suddenly, she’s very smiley and engaging. She’s making some other noises than crying. Her first noise was an “are you kidding me??” yelp. Now there are happy coos as well. Her physical progress is… progressing. In PT, we’re using some kinesio tape on her belly to help her build up strength in her core. She’s not able to lift her head up as well when she has it on, but I’ve been assured that she’s not regressing, she just has to re-learn to lift it using the correct muscles and posture. She also gets to start wearing “hip hugger” pants to keep her frog legs from turning into a long-term problem. We’ll see the developmental therapist next week, but I’m sure she will be happy to know that Tessa is smiling much more, maintaining eye contact (mostly with me), and when I move out of her vision, she looks for me. Small victories. And then there is speech. No progress to report here with Tessa. She’s still feeding in the side-lying position and doing well with that. I’m also more comfortable with it – and getting more comfortable letting other people feed her in that position. We were working on a transition to more upright, but she has had a cold for a few days and it’s hard enough to get the food in with a stuffy nose that we’re waiting until that clears up to experiment. For now, the focus is on holding her differently so that she gets used to being in a more upright position. We’re still doing some mouth-stimulating and working on the pacifier (though she has found her thumb and really likes it.

I made the mistake the other day of pulling out Ellie’s baby book and looking at what she was doing at 2-3 months. Well, I don’t know if it was a mistake, but it certainly hit me like a ton of bricks that Tessa is just going to take longer to do what her sister could. I’m wondering what this little girl is going to be like when she’s bigger!! Who will she be? What will she sound like? What will she do? Don’t we ask those questions about all of our children?? I’ve been forcing my way through the book Eat, Pray, Love for months (I have no idea why it’s taking me so long) and she wrote about these phrases that you chant through meditation to center yourself. I don’t meditate (do people really have time to do that??), but I do have my own phrase running through my head when I get frustrated: she will do it, in her own time. Sometimes I need to say it a lot, other times not at all. But it’s a reminder to me that we’ll get there. In her time.

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Yo soy La Lay

adventures in family, faith, and Down syndrome

Let’s Clean House!

Guest Blogger Post – A Dad’s Perspective

Tubes, Take 2

Mommy and Ellie’s Day of Fun – Zoo Edition

The First Day

5 months

Imagination

Well that escalated quickly…

How Great Thou Art

The State of Our Union, 1st Quarter 2014

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