Tuesday, April 17, 2007

We Love This Boy!!


At least 7 strangers in the past week have told Joel and I to "enjoy every minute because they grow up so fast." We believe them. We try to savor every minute. It still goes fast.

So these are the recent things that I feel sure I will remember 10 years from now, but I know better.

Eli will extend his cup, binkie, a pen, etc. and say "To me?" That means he wants to hand it to you. It was funny when I realized what he was saying, and that it came from me asking, "Can you want to give it to me?"

"Ma-nore?" makes us smile every time. It means "one more".

He'll lay his head on something, grin, and say "night night." Often it's a pillow. But sometimes it's a bench or a table or random thing.

He loves to point to and name his body parts. Eyes, mowf, hair, bewy (belly), ear, penis, towz, foot, eeth, chin, knees, ebow, ose (and then "yuck" when he puts his finger up it).

He asks for hugs. "Hug? Hug?" And he lays his head on your shoulder, while your heart melts. He sometimes follows it with, "Again?" to request another kiss or hug.

He says, "Daddy car?" when he sees a Volkswagon or black sedan.

He loves letters. We don't know how it happened, but he knows every lower case letter except q. He gets p, d, and b mixed up sometimes. But it's the cutest thing to watch him spot a letter somewhere and declare enthusiastically, "x!".

Yesterday, when Joel left for work, Eli waved goodbye at the window. I said, "We love you Daddy!" and Eli replied with "I yuv yew." We had to call Joel to tell him again. I think he almost turned the car around and came home. : )

Water & Sunshine

I first joked with Joel that I was part plant. Then I realized I wasn't really kidding. Joel can tell if I've been outside. Direct a few sunbeams at my head and watch my spirit smile. Put me in or near water AND sunshine and watch it soar. I've even apologized a few times for the silly mood that the combination of the two can bring.
We just got back from Phoenix, AZ. We were all thrilled to leave rainy St. Louis behind for a few days and soak up some desert sun. We swam, slept, explored, ate, talked, and Joel enjoyed a 36 holes of golf. Eli pleaded with us as soon as he woke up each morning. "Outsiiiiiiide? Outsiiiiiide?" It was 5:45 a.m. since he was still 2 hours ahead on St. Louis time.



By 9:30 a.m. it was warm enough to go to the pool, and he was floating around in the water in his "boat".




But he was just as content to sit on our laps, read a book, and soak up some sun.

His favorite thing of all surprised us.
Rocks. I didn't even realize that we don't have rocks around our house until he became obsessed with them there. He'd see a landscaped area with rocks, point and call out "yocks! yocks!" then plop down on his bottome, placing them one by one on the cement until he had a large pile. Then put each of them back. I don't know how long he would spend on this project if we let him. I never lasted more than a half hour before I needed a change of scenery or a softer seat.

Monday, April 2, 2007

Happy Thanksgiving

A fortune cookie in March gave us a little hint about our Thanksgiving. Here's what it said.

"Your nurturing instinct will expand to include many people."

What do you think of when you read that? I thought, "I need to buy a pregnancy test."

So I did.

Then Donna went to Safeway in our p.j.'s at 10:30 at night to buy another. Because those one's at the Dollar Store are, well, only a dollar. How good can they be? (That's what I get for laughing at my friend who took 7 positive tests before realizing that yes, she IS pregant.)

That one was positive too.

I told Joel on Sunday when I got home from CA. I asked him to pick up the picture at Walgreen's and "check them first to make sure they turned out okay."

He came out of the store with a huge grin on his face.

We think it's a girl.

And now, our prayer before dinner closes with "God bless this meal to all FOUR of us."

The Lindsey Family is growing.

Bi op sy

Here's the dictionary definition of the word biopsy.

bi·op·sy (bps) n. 1. The removal and examination of a sample of tissue from a living body for diagnostic purposes. 2. A specimen so obtained.

It was a whirlwind of a week. I was sick the first week of March. Tired, coughing, swollen lymph nodes, and not feeling "right". I went to the Dr., got some bloodwork and chest x-rays. It came back fine, and he thought it was some sort of virus. I started to feel better, but that lump was still there, and I knew it wasn't right to ignore it. It especially got the best of me at night, lying awake and letting my imagination go to all sorts of scary places. Cancer. Cancer and pregnant. Cancer, pregnant, and having to choose between treatment or a baby. Crying until I fell asleep. And to think, I'm normally pretty logical!!

Joel and I decided it would be good for me to go to Paradise, CA for a few days to be with Donna, help her pack, and begin to wrap my mind and heart around their upcoming divorce. It was hard to leave Eli. If it wasn't for the special "father-son" memories I knew they'd be making, I wouldn't have been able to get on that plane. 4 days, 3 nights, and my first trip without Eli. Heartbreaking! I kept reminding myself it wouldn't have been fair to bring him, and Joel and Eli would have a great time. I thought maybe God had something in store for me with a little more time that usual for reflection and just making decisions for "one".

I got sick on the flight out there. Sore throat. I wanted to just push through, but I was EXHAUSTED. Friday, I did some packing. We went to pick up the moving truck, and I got to see my Dad's old best friend, Steve Williams. Later, we began loading the moving truck. I was feeling twinges and pangs with any lifting, but chalked it up to sickness. That night we went to Chinese Food, which deserves it's own entry, but included the amazing and wonderful news that I'm pregnant! I started trying to think of fun ways to tell Joel, and process the news myself.

My throat hurt like crazy, I was losing my voice, I was tired, bleeding a bit, emotional, fragile, sad for the Seamans, excited about the pregnancy...quite a mess really. We went to the Warings on Saturday, where I shared the news (Joel still didn't know) and Dr. Waring looked at my throat. I mentioned the other swollen lymph nodes and he said I should get them biopsied if it hadn't gone down for over a month. I left telling myself it was nothing. But during the drive home, my imagination kicked into gear. Emotions fueled the fire. Soon tears were streaming down my face, and I decided I needed a voice of reason. My third phone call was to the doctors exchange, where the nurse kindly reassured me that everything would be fine, and had the dr. call me. He was also reassuring, telling me that the x-ray hadn't damaged the baby, I can take Tylenol for my throat, if anything was "really" wrong my body wouldn't let me get pregnant, rest to help stop the bleeding, and that they would see me on Monday for the lymph node. I felt better.

All this, and I still hadn't told Joel! I got home Sunday afternoon, and shared the news that evening.

Monday, I saw a doctor. She said the wanted the lymph node out immediately, and scheduled an appointment with a surgeon. Tuesday, blood draws at the OB, and the bleeding subsided. Wednesday, the appointment with the surgeon, who was 90% sure it was "nothing". Surgery scheduled for Friday. Wednesday night, tears and fear. I had no voice, and tearily croaked through Eli's bedtime stories. Goodnight Moon and I Love It When You Smile never seemed so bittersweet. That night, I wept and tried bargaining with God..."just let me be around long enough so that Eli will know and remember how much I love him...really, it's for the best that you keep me around...it wouldn't be fair to Joel to take someone else from him..." I was pulling out all the stops, even while I knew that what I needed was to SURRENDER. Thursday, blood draw at the OB, lots of kind reassurance about doing the surgery while I was pregnant, and finally feeling a glimmer of the hope that in 90% favorable odds the surgeon had given. Again, this is all crazy because normally, my brain WINS these tug of wars, and it was so clearly not in this case.

So here's my definition of biopsy.
1. The removal of false security and sense of entitlement to a long life.
2. The process of acknowledging God's goodness and authority.
3. The perspective and faith so obtained.

Friday, we dropped Eli off at a friends and went to the hospital. The nurses were great. I felt nervous after the anesthesiologist came in, because he seemed very concerned about me bring pregnant. He cleared the surgery (again) with our OB. They explained that they would "put me under" while they administered the local anesthetic, then bring me out of it to do the rest of the procedure with a light sedative to take the edge off. The whole surgery was supposed to take a half hour. I asked the surgeon if there was anyway he could tell by looking at it. He said there was no good way to know without the pathology reports that would come back the next week, but that everything would fine. "Don't sweat it," he said. It helped. But I didn't know how I would be able to wait A WEEK for those results.

I was surprised when I woke up in the recovery room (instead of surgery) to these words from the nurse, "Honey, you're in the recovery.They didn't need to remove the lymph node after all. It turns out, you had a hernia, and they repaired it."

I croaked "Okay", got grateful tears in my eyes, thanked God, and fell back asleep. In the meantime, the surgeon was out delivering the news to Joel in the waiting room. (He said the surgery took longer because I had several coughing fits, so they had to keep me under and wait to finish the repair."

God answered the prayer I didn't think I "could" pray. To know something when I woke up, and for it to be "nothing" at all. I'll take a femoral hernia over a suspicious lymph node any day.

Later, as the nurse wheeled me to a different room, she said, "We just hate to see people your age, with kids and a young family, in for that kind of surgery. Finding out that you didn't need that biopsy was the best news all day. Congratulations honey."

Joel and I called the OB's office while we were still at the hospital. They said my blood tests results look great, and scheduled an appointment for an ultrasound the next week.In the meantime, I'm pretty sore, supposed to avoid coughing, not lift anything over twenty pounds, and take it easy for a while. : )

A huge burden has been lifted. But I don't want the lesson to be gone with it. We're thanking God for his goodness to us, and the clearer perspective that comes from times like this.

EVERY DAY IS GRACE!