Chaos and Cupcakes

Taylor is out of surgery right now and is in his room sleeping. When he woke up from the anesthesia he was in a lot of pain, was nauseous, and so he was quite upset. My heart broke for my sweet baby boy. He was given some pain medicine in his i.v. at the end of the surgery and just received some liquid Lortab as well so hopefully we can get on top of and stay on top of his pain. I do not want my baby to hurt at all. We have lots of treats for him so I hope that will give him something to look forward to in the next few days. Grandma (my mom) drove us to the hospital and is keeping us company here. She bought him some presidential flashcards to give him something to do. He also has a huge stack of books to get him through the next few days.

Tonight I will likely spend the night awake worrying about my oldest baby.  Taylor is running a high fever and has pain in his stomach.  I don’t think he has appendicitis as he can still raise his legs to his stomach but the worry is still there in the back of my mind that maybe I should take him to the ER just in case.  If Jared was here, I would have taken Taylor in already but without Jared here I am left in the position of having to call someone in the middle of the night to come stay with the other kids.  So I am giving it a bit of time to see if maybe it is the start of a stomach bug.  However, I will still spend the night up hovering over him (I had him sleep in my bed so I could keep an eye on him all night) and making sure he is still breathing fine and checking his temperature over and over to make sure it doesn’t go super high.

I have always been a worrier, especially when it comes to my children.  I am likely to check on my baby’s breathing a hundred times a night.  It takes me forever to fall asleep every night because all the worries I have about my children’s health, their lives, my parenting skills, etc., keep me up.

After Andrew was born, I basically didn’t sleep for the 6 weeks that he was in the NICU.  I had to get up every 3 hours to pump and after I would pump I would lay in bed worrying about him, so then I would call the NICU for reassurance.  By the time I would finally fall asleep, it was time to get up and pump again.  And that cycle just went on and on for 6 long weeks that were so full of ups and downs.  After Andrew came home from the NICU, he was on an apnea monitor as he failed the apnea discharge test.  Instead of the monitor reassuring me that Andrew was breathing fine, I worried even more.  I was so afraid that I would sleep too deeply to hear the monitor go off.

When Olivia was a baby, she was a tummy sleeper.  I was so afraid of her doing this with the SIDS risk that I wouldn’t let her sleep the way she wanted to.  Finally, in desperation to get some sleep, I let her sleep on her tummy but only after I bought an Angel Care monitor to put under her crib mattress.  The monitor has a parent’s receiver that goes off if the baby hasn’t taken a breath in 30 seconds.

After Parker’s traumatic birth and his NICU stay, I went through the same pump/worry cycle that I went through with Andrew.  After he came home, I was so worried about him that I refused to put him in the bassinet to sleep (I also did this with Sawyer after his scary birth).  I wanted him right next to me so that I could make sure he was fine all through the night.  I ended up taking the bassinet down as I had no intention of him sleeping in it.  It wasn’t until a couple of weeks ago after Parker turned 6 months old, that I decided we finally needed to set up the crib for him (and even at that I had Jared put it right next to my side of the bed).  However, tonight is the first time that he is actually sleeping in it during the night and that is because I don’t want him in the same bed as Taylor in case Taylor is contagious.  As I have written before, many nights since Parker was born I have relived the horror of his birth in my head wondering how in the world I could have gone on if Parker hadn’t survived.

This brings me to tonight.

Laying here worrying about my sweet Taylor, my first baby, made me think of those who lose a child or spouse or parent.  When my mom was here earlier tonight, somehow we started talking about when she lost her parents.  She was 35 when she lost her dad and 39 when she lost her mom.  At the time, to me as a young person that didn’t seem so young to me.  Now, at the age of 29, that is scary to me.  I can’t imagine not having my mom to call up when I have problems, frustrations, or good news.  Whenever I hear of someone losing a child or a spouse I think, “How do they survive that?  How do they deal with that?”  I don’t think I am a strong enough person for that.  And I hope I never have to find out.

My grandparents, my mom’s mom and dad, lost their son Larry when he was, I believe, just 20 years old.  His helicopter was shot down in the Vietnam War.  I cannot imagine what my grandparents felt hearing that news.  Yes, he was gone to war and there is always, I’m sure, the thought in the back of your mind of what could and does happen in war.  But you hope and pray that it won’t happen to your loved one.  And I’m sure the shock and pain of hearing that news is still as poignant as in any other instance.

So tonight I was thinking of my grandma.  She was an incredibly strong woman.  She dealt with so many hard things in her life.  She had to deal with the loss of her son, the loss of her parents, breast cancer, and my grandpa’s diagnosis of Lou Gehrig’s disease and the subsequent loss of him.   Yet through all this, she remained a compassionate, spiritually strong role model to all those around her.  So many people loved and admired her.  I wish she were here today so I could tell her how much I admire her strength and fortitude.  She truly endured to the end.  I didn’t tell her or show her enough when she was with us, but I love my grandma and I miss her.   I wish my children could know her.

Even though it is the middle of the night, I am going to go kiss my children again and whisper “I love you” in their ears.  My children and my husband, along with the gospel, are the most precious gifts I have.  Without them, I am nothing.  They bring meaning and joy indescribable to my life.

Hold your loved ones close.  Tell them and show them that you love them.

Ever notice how I blog a lot more when Jared is out of town?  Hmm, what does that say about either 1) how much I must bother him during the day talking to him as when he is not here I am bored, or 2) how much more productive I am when he is here as when he is not I obviously have nothing better to do than blog silly things?

Hopefully my mom will come over later and ease my boredom.  And, ok yes, bringing some chocolate-covered macadamia nuts fresh from Hawaii would be great, as well.

I loaded the kids up into the car and went to pick Cameron up from school this morning.  Obviously our kids are quite unused to being in the car without Daddy AND Mommy as Sawyer immediately asked upon pulling out of the driveway, “Where’s Dada?”  I said, “He’s in Texas.”  Olivia exclaimed, “Oh!  My cousin Shelby who’s a baby lives in Texas!”  So she thinks Daddy went to visit Shelby without the rest of us and she is not happy about it.

This prompting a bit of musing in this bored head of mine on the great state of Texas.  That state is so huge.  We have 3 different family members (and their families) in that state, so you’d think, “Yeah, that would be a great place to go.  You could visit with all those different family members.”  Alas, no.  Jared is in the middle of Texas in the city of Austin.  Aidan and Jeremy are a bit over 3 hours to the northeast of Austin in Dallas.  Amanda is a whopping 5 1/2 hours northwest of Austin in Midland.  Ryan and Sandra are an additional 2 1/2 hours west of Midland in El Paso.  That’s one enormous state.  So Jared will be stuck in Austin all by his lonesome.  Well, except for the, like, 20 Alfrescans that will be with him.  Eating at the Salt Lick.  Without kids.  And diapers.  Talking about geek stuff.  Lucky guy.

So back to the Olivia story.  After she made the connection of Jared being in Texas and Shelby living in Texas, Sawyer chimed in, “Where’s Shelby?  I love Shelby!”  I relayed this story to my mom and then expressed my desire for my family to move to Utah.  NOW.  I would love for my kids to have their cousins to play with and grow up with.  It makes me so sad that we don’t get to see them very often.  I used to love how in Louisiana we had Sunday dinner together every week.  Back then my kids were the only kids there.  But how much fun would it be now to have a big gaggle of kids playing together while the adults play baseball (the highly addictive card game)?  In other words, McGrath family members, I’m begging you to move here!  I promise there won’t be any more cougars loose in the street!

We are wrapping up a busy and fun holiday weekend. My sister Aidan and her husband Jeremy came to visit with their adorable little girl Shelby. The last time we saw Aidan and Jeremy was when we went to Louisiana for Thanksgiving 2005. That was the trip we decided we were never going back to visit as we didn’t have much luck traveling to Louisiana.

When we went to Slidell (LA) for Brianne’s wedding at Christmastime in 2004, we flew. It was Christmas Eve and Delta lost our luggage, which contained the kids’ Christmas presents and their Christmas outfits for church. I was very peeved. Then throw into that melee the flu. The kids all came down with a nasty stomach bug, including little 1 month old Olivia. Imagine 4 little kids, a stomach bug, and only the clothes we wore onto the plane. It was as fun as it sounds. And Delta was kind enough to send us each a $50 voucher for losing our luggage for 3 days. So I wrote them a nice little email enumerating how fun our Christmas was, what with the no presents and the no clothes to change into when we were covered in puke. So they sent us $200 vouchers and we were able to fly back to New Orleans the following Memorial Day uneventfully.

The following Thanksgiving we decided to drive out to Slidell. We had just gotten our Suburban and thought a road trip would be fun. This way we would also be able to stop in Colorado and have a little birthday party for Livi with Jared’s parents. We made it to Slidell just fine and had a wonderful visit. It was so fun that my brother Ryan convinced us to stay an extra day. Instead of leaving on Saturday and driving to Colorado and then on to Utah on Sunday, we didn’t leave Slidell until Sunday. Just in time to get stuck in a ferocious snowstorm in Kansas. The Interstate was closed and all the hotels were full. We ended up having to sleep in our car. Then to top that off, Olivia came down with a stomach bug in the middle of the night. Because of the horrible winds and snow, we couldn’t get out of the car and go around to the back to dig down to the bottom of the suitcases to get new clothes for her so we just wrapped her up naked in blankets. We waited for the Interstate to open up the next morning but it didn’t. We were desperate to get out of Kansas so Jared found backroads to drive on to get to Denver. I was freaking out because I had a chemistry class on Monday night that I was going to miss and I am the type of student who never misses a class (a nerd like my Taylor!). It was a horrible nightmare and since we had bad luck both flying and driving to Louisiana, we decided we just wouldn’t be able to travel there again. And we haven’t.

So I was so excited to get to see the Jordan family after not seeing them for 2 1/2 years! We had a fantastic visit with them. We went to SLC, up Provo Canyon, spent a lot of time playing a fun card game, and just had fun visiting with each other. Today we had a bbq over here with lots of people and lots of food. I am going to miss Aidan a lot when they leave tomorrow. She and I have always been close and get along fabulously. I will be lonely when she leaves, especially since Jared leaves for Canada on Wednesday.

…with Grandma and Grandpa McGrath.  My mom is having a hip replacement surgery today so she will be out of commission for Taylor’s upcoming birthday (May 1st).  So she and my dad picked Taylor up Saturday night and took him out for his birthday.  He was so excited about this and watched the clock all day long in anticipation.  Then he waited outside for 1/2 hour, even though we told him it wasn’t quite time yet, but he was just way too excited to sit inside and wait.  They went to eat at Red Robin, then went to the bookstore and let him choose a book, and then they went to the carnival that was being held in the mall parking lot.  They brought back some cotton candy for the other kids.  I’m so glad they did this date as it made Taylor feel so special and important.  Thank you, Mom and Dad, for doing this and making such a happy memory for my sweet boy!