thoughts for the week

I want to recap my week as best as possible....so you can see how exciting our life is, I guess...

1. Sunday (okay Sat. night) I went home with Sawyer.  Sunday morning I went to get a box of cereal out of the pantry, and those of you who are not my FB friends don't know what I found there....unless you read my twitter updates.  As I went to grab the cereal, I saw a scurry.  As in, something scurried.  The something was very obviously a mouse.  I slammed that door as fast as I could and didn't look back.  ICK ICK ICK.  After Brandon set some traps ...actually maybe I did blog about this?...anyway, four traps and two days later, no mouse had been caught.  So I moved one trap under the kitchen sink.  Why? Because I found a nice little mouse nest being made.  I'm paranoid anyway, but everyone knows that traditionally speaking, mice do not travel solo. So I was sicked out.  Not as sicked out at that point as I was the next morning when I saw I'd caught the sucker.  So Brandon took care of it later that day and set 3 more traps under the sink,leaving one in the pantry.  Three days have gone by and no mice have been caught.  So I guess we had a lone wolf  mouse.
2. My days run together at the hospital, so let's just clump Monday through now here on this part of the post.
Ridge was having some dark poop Monday.  Things were not looking super.  Tuesday he was obviously having a bleed and there was talk of transferring to the ICU so that we could increase his meds but he'd have to be NPO and anytime he can not eat, he bleeds worse.  So they wanted close monitoring...so I packed everything up and got ready for the move, only to have it cancelled- THANK THE LORD-- because Ridge's hgb had gone up.  He ended up dropping more and needing blood but probably that was bc they had to try to get an IV in him and he screamed and cried the entire time, like any baby would, but crying always makes his bleeds worse or brings a bleed that might be at bay back to "life"....side note- sometimes it is impossible to get a baby to stop crying. Thank God he doesn't have colic bc we'd be in big time trouble with MLT.  So they got the IV. He got blood Tuesday night.  Wednesday things were rocky but turned around and yesterday yellow poop had returned.  We shall see what today holds.  That's it for Ridge updates.  Oh, his teeth are coming in well and he's super happy most of the time.  What's new there?  Now for Sawyer.  He is hilarious.  He also has the worst morning breath of any person I've ever known.  And some genius decided all kid toothpaste w/o fluoride has to taste like fruit.  Well THAT doesn't curb the gag-me-dragon-breath at all.  So....stinky he is. He also has found a love for the Christmas classic- Home Alone.  The kid has stayed up uber late the last two nights watching it.  I thought he'd fall asleep, and so did Brandon the night he let him watch it...but no, we were the ones who crashed.  Sawyer woke me up saying it was over. I can't believe he can stay up for the entire movie when we don't start it till bedtime. No more of that.  And apparently he thinks it's funny.  Brandon caught him laughing at all the right parts.  So that's cool that he's old enough to "get it".

I took Sawyer to see the Yukon Christmas lights last night. We drove around through the park.  This year, he absolutely LOVED it.  It was so fun.  If it hadn't been colder than a well-digger's hiney we'd have walked around to see the other half of the lights that you can't drive by closely.

Sawyer also said some funnies this week, but I can only remember one.  One night, as our nurse and blog-reader Susan was about to leave the room, Sawyer stopped her and said, "before ya leave or leave to go home, can you..." (are ya ready for this?)...."ITCH MY DADDY'S FOOT?"

We've been here toooooo long if our three year old thinks the nurses are here like as our...personal assistants or something.  :)

3.  Brandon has to buy my Christmas presents this weekend.  So that's exciting.  We also both have birthdays w/in the next two weeks.   He'll be the big 3-0....scary.  We shall see where we celebrate....my bets are on still being in the hospital, but as of now, I'm okay with that.  Ask me tomorrow when I'm throwing up at the thought of it.

4. I miiiight have found a little job.  I've put in my resume and teaching certificate to an online school for a grading position that God literally threw in my lap.  My mom sent me a text the other day to call Soand So at 555-1234, except a real person w/ a real number...about a grading job.  So I did.  Turns out the connections between Soand So and myself are many.  Not only does my mom confer with people who know Soand So, but my dad grew up in the same town as Soand So's mom, and he even took Soand So's mom on a date in HS! ha ha ha.  AND Soand So lives just a street or so away from B-Dawg and I! hilarious.  So thank the good Lord that she thought of me when it came to this job.  And prayerfully, I will be able to get that job to help replace some of my lost paycheck.  Not that most teachers would choose a job in education that consisted ONLY of grading. ha.  But I know an open door when I see one, so thank you JESUS!  Also, I've been quite busy with jewelry and knitting- several customers are out there!  So if you would like to be a customer of mine, you just let me know what I can do for you!

5.  I don't know when we are going home.  Good thing for today is, I'm okay with that.  I do know that when we go home, we will want a few days to ourself as a family of four.  I know everyone will be chomping at the bit to visit, but we know we may only be home a day or two, so we are asking friends and family to be considerate of that, for a few days, at least.  Hopefully we will be home long enough to have a couple of good days of visiting over the Christmas break.  As aforementioned, Brandon and I have birthdays, so we will be trying to work out dates and all of that to celebrate. Maybe we will have a Christmas, welcome home, 30th birthday and 21st birthday (yes, me :) ) extravaganza.

6. Please keep Ridge in your prayers, but pray for all of the families here at the hospital this Christmastime.  This morning there was a code blue serious situation down the hall, and of course I don't know anything about it bc it's none of my business, but I know it was scary and LOTS of nurses and other personnel were down in that kid's room.  It is no fun being in the hospital ever.  Least of all near Christmas.  And no one wants to lose their child ever.  Especially around Christmas.  It's not fair to have to watch your child suffer a disease or an illness that they, you, the doctors sometimes, have no control over.  It isn't fair for a parent to ever watch their child be sick, hurt, suffer, die.  I get it-- these are circumstances I can not control and I know that God has control over each and every situation.  I know that.  But it still just doesn't seem right that any child should have to suffer.  I know these are opportunities for God to show himself mighty and for God to work miracles and for God to comfort.  But these are times of desperation as well.  Times of frustration.  Times of confusion.    Especially now at Christmas.  It is so hard to take everything in with as much joy as you "normally" would.  It is also near impossible to understand anyone else's gripes or worries.  Now don't misunderstand me-- anyone struggling with financial, marital, superficial, academic, whatever kind of worries-- I know those worries are GRAND on your plane, in your frame of reference.  So they are important.  I get that and I know they are your "world"...in your world.  As I sit here with a child drooling all over my arm as I try to type- a child who has maintained a hgb of 10.1 for more than 48 hours- none of THOSE worries bother me.  I worry about how long I will have to live here.  How long my child will suffer from this stupid disease.  How much of my other son's childhood I will miss- HE will miss.  These are big worries to me.  These are also small potatoes compared to the mother several doors down who is probably wondering if her child will live or die today.  I try to remember that-- worries that seem so stupid and small to me are large to some of you and some of the world.  Worries that seem humongozoid to me are nothing compared to what some people worry about.  None of us should worry about anything but we do...so I'm not even going to go there- I know I'm gonna worry.  I know I'm also going to pray.  Home for Christmas or not, we will have Christmas.  We will be together.  Barring something completely unforeseen, this will happen. My kids will be with me.  My husband will be with me.  Ridge will have a first Christmas.  He will be alive.  We have much to be grateful for.
Don't gasp here- but last night I let Sawyer watch a Charlie Brown Christmas...and it was the first time I'd ever watched it all the way through that I can remember.   And as I watched Linus share the true meaning of Christmas, I couldn't stop crying at the stupid Charlie Brown movie.  Because crappy tree and all-  ugly pale walls, hospital bed, hideous uncomfortable blue couch and all- Christmas will still be here.  And it will still be the celebration of the birth of a Savior.  And nothing else will matter.  It might be there- in the back or front of our minds- but it won't matter.  Because all that will matter is that heaven came down to earth so that we on earth could be given the chance to one day go to heaven.  And that is what matters.

As does the smaller fact that I think someone just put some yellow poop on my leg.