Debut of Mr. Silas

Because Zoe and Paul had both arrived a little before their respective due dates, I fully expected our most recent addition to also debut a bit before expected. As such, I gave Dan a bit of grief about scheduling an out of town interview on March 17, knowing I was due on March 20. The day came and went, with not so much as a contraction in sight, and I got a bit of grief for prolonging the job hunting process. Soon Dan was on vacation and seemingly a bit annoyed that we had moved his vacation to accommodate my due date and his time was being wasted. Our little bundle of joy continued to sit tight past his due date as we approached the long string of interviews scheduled for what was supposed to be my second week with the baby. On Wednesday, we decided to take steps - Castor Oil. A most unpleasant experience: there were contractions, I suppose, but it could have just been the serious gut-cleansing because they stopped as soon as the oil began to wear off. The midwife on call said she'd be happy to induce me after the day of awfulness, but we'd lost precious time and didn't want to risk a prolonged induced labor.

So Dan went off on another interview as we approached a week overdue. We went through our normal school routine, exhausting though it was at this point. Nanna came over to hang out with the kids and make things run a little more smoothly. We even went to Fun Friday at the library as we usually did, but with no big change in things. As Dan flew home Friday into Saturday, I got a few of my first contractions. By morning, I let Dan know I'd had a little hope and we decided to go forward with our plan to induce on Saturday morning. We got the kids up before dawn, got them into the car in their jammies, with the promise of a box of waffles when they got to Nanna's. Paul didn't let go of those waffles from the moment I attempted the bribe until Nanna cooked them.

After a quick breakfast, we headed to the hospital. We got into the triage area pretty fast at 10am, but waited until noon for a room to become available. Inductions, even past due date, are lower priority than folks in active labor. With no contractions to speak of, I was at the bottom of the list. Once we had a room, we got started on the antibiotic and pitocin. Ahh, contraction medicine...I did not miss it. I had gotten hearty doses of the stuff after Zoe was born in an attempt to stop the bleeding. This lovely bag of gut-wrenching evil would be my companion for the next 24 hours. I started this scene with 4cm dilation, so knew it could be a long haul to 10cm. Dan and I hung out in the room for a while, chatting. Another check- not really exciting progress, so let's break the water. Some more time with weak contractions, sitting on the exercise ball and chatting away. Eventually, contractions got uncomfy enough to ask Dan to hook up the TENS machine. Things were then pretty bearable and we continued to talk about travel plans, who was coming when to help out, etc.

Eventually the midwife and nurse returned - apparently her other patient had delivered successfully and she could turn her attention to me. We all sat around as talking as the contractions continued to strengthen. It was weird, though, because everyone kept looking over my shoulder at the machine measuring the strength of my contractions.
    "Did you even feel that one?"
    "Yeah, and it was a decent one."
    "You didn't even flinch."
    "I did feel it, though."
I felt like I was the star of my own episode of Nature as my audience watched the line on the monitor and then glanced at me to check my reaction. Eventually, I started to feel very shivery and the contractions became more distracting, so I lay down under the covers for a bit. The midwife checked - 6cm at about 6pm. Ugh! These contractions were painful. I couldn't do another six or eight hours of this. Then, inexplicably, the midwife asked the nurse to get the delivery kit opened up. A few minutes later, she asked if she could check what was taking so long, with a hint of urgency in her voice. Someone came and opened the kit. After that, I was pretty much in the zone, so don't recall too many specifics. I had made what is likely an unusual request to take things very slowly during the delivery process. I had powered out Penny and Zoe in a hands and knees position, giving myself some nasty injuries each time. Paul I delivered on my side very slowly and his delivery was pretty problem-free. This time, I delivered on my back, I think I responded appropriately to requests to pause or push a little, and thankfully avoided any serious injury to myself.

I soon (6:44pm) had a little boy plopped onto my chest - his hands slightly blue, but otherwise pretty active and awake. Dan said he had a heart-stopper on his end of things (he often watches the emergence since I'm pretty ok during the pushing part of the program) because Silas emerged totally blue, with the cord wrapped around his neck twice. The midwife adeptly released the cord upon exit and soon had the little guy breathing fine. However, Dan emphasized again that he did not wish to return to the delivery room for fear of losing someone.

Recovery went well, but the late hour of delivery meant a two night stay at the hospital. A nice respite for a newly minted mother of four. I was beginning to fear that they wouldn't let us go at all, though, because Silas absolutely refused to pee. He was a little jaundiced the second morning and the nurse thought perhaps a bit dehydrated. So we went on a serious breast feeding campaign and by lunch time had a nice wet diaper to show for it. Yay! We were cleared for take off.

Because Dan had already taken off for his next interview, we had actually left our three little dears with Aunt Rose, Aunt Helen and FCOR John. She'd had a crash course with Dan on their schedule. We simplified things by keeping Paul out of school for the day. Dan gave a driving tour of schools and other important landmarks. But they were all on their own for that first day and I can only imagine how much fun that was. After Girl Scouts, Aunt Rose ventured into Brooklyn to pick up me and Silas. So that's Silas' heading home outfit - perhaps convict stripes shouldn't have been my first choice.

We had an uneventful journey back to Staten Island, where I just caught Penny as she was drifting off to sleep. Everyone else had somehow managed to get to bed already. Kudos to Aunt Helen, who was our holding down the fort person, while Aunt Rose explored the neighborhood via trips to schools, etc. Nanna came over to visit the next day (seen here shadowed by photographer Penny's finger). The rest of the week was nice and quiet, without visitors, which is honestly how I like it. We then ventured out to Easter dinner at Dan's uncle's house for Silas' second big field trip since going home. There, he received a warm welcome, with lots of comfy shoulders to sleep on. Thus did Master Silas Prodeep debut to his New York family!

Last plane ride for a while?

 We had some nice standby tickets to Ohio and it suddenly occurred to me that my window for traveling was quickly closing. Airlines start getting a little edgy the closer a woman is traveling to her due date. Plus, the whole "lap child" thing becomes less feasible as the bump grows and the lap shrinks. So for Penny's "midwinter recess," which had been reduced to a four-day weekend due to Superstorm Sandy, we headed home to Ohio for another play date-filled adventure. A brief delay at the airport was no problem - though the flight attendant who hurt his or her hand opening the plane door might have thought it more than a minor inconvenience.

Our first play date was with FCOR John. He was an excellent host, even allowing us to invite over a few additional family members: Uncle Jim (happy birthday), Grandma & Grandpa Saluke, Uncle Mike, cousin Mary & her son Danny (same age as Paul), Pop pop (belated happy birthday) & Jenny. Penny enjoyed playing a very cool game with frogs and lily pads with John, while Paul explored the many exciting vehicles in the house. Conveniently, the house had a figure eight layout, so there were lots of driving paths available. I'm pretty sure I saw the scene with Indiana Jones hanging off the side of the car while the driver tried to scrape him off on the surrounding terrain in a couple of movies - probably Lost Ark being the most memorable. Aunt Helen was nice enough to clean up so Aunt Rose and Uncle Jack could hardly tell we had a party at their house while they were gone.

Saturday we visited Evan (also Paul's age), who was spending the night at Uncle Bill and Aunt Marian's house. It sounded like his overnight was similarly restless as Mr. Paul's first night at Aunt Helen's. Ugh...it took a day or two to recover some of that sleep. Saturday afternoon we played with Pop pop and were later joined by Amanda for some fun Star Trek Settlers (of Catan). Who knew?! The game ended around midnight - Aunt Helen was very motivated because she was supposed to read at church in the morning, but I beat her by one turn - you know, to help her get to sleep on time.

Though I woke up good and early, we did not make it to church on Sunday. Paul had a slimy night and an unpleasant morning as we discovered he had a bit of a stomach bug. He was in good spirits, but I didn't feel like being surprised by a p.u.ee mess in the pew. I wasn't feeling great either, though more likely due to the lack of sleep than the bug. We were both feeling decent enough to head over to the grandparents for a lovely dinner and some additional game playing. After a hard-fought game of Uno (Penny helped to end that game), Grandma gave Penny some crucial pointers on score keeping. While the girls - Penny, Grandma, Jenny, Aunt Helen and Amanda - played cards and chatted in the dining room, the guys - Pop Pop, Grandpa and Paul - played with trucks in the living room. I kind of floated between the two to document all the fun. Aunt Rose popped by just before bedtime since we hadn't really gotten to see her when we held the party at her house a couple days prior. We headed back to Aunt Helen's for the night and were then joined by Aunt Ann and Uncle Don, on their way back from Chicago for a fun weekend. Paul was kind enough to stay up just a bit later so they could get to spend a little time seeing him in action before he zonked out.

On Monday, Paul still seemed to be in good spirits, so we stuck with our plan to visit the Newport Aquarium with Pop Pop. It was a stroller prohibited day, so we had an entertaining time lifting the two kiddos to see various cool critters. There were lots of funny moments with noses pressed to glass or pointers at the floor or ceiling as there were quite a few tanks in surprising places. Our biggest excitement for the day was feeding the Lorikeets. These colorful cuties drink nectar from the little cups they're offered. Or, as we discovered, they are happy to hop off with the cups if you don't maintain eye contact 100% of the time. Penny was pretty upset that they spilled nectar on her shirt. I was glad we didn't get any other items on our shirt because these guys were pretty well-fed and the docents had a protective hut over their heads for some odd reason.

We headed back to the airport on Tuesday, ready for what could be a messy flight home. Paul hadn't recovered just yet, so I had plenty of wipes and spare outfits on hand. We boarded just fine, but after we stopped to be de-iced, we were notified that our destination airport was closed due to high winds. It reopened just 15 minutes later, but we'd lost our spot in the take-off line, so we then had to wait another hour to take off. Seatbelts off, snacks out and a few cups of apple juice later, we'd all had potty breaks and were ready to head home to New York. We were now well past dinner time and working on our third or so bag of pretzels each. The cart had just passed, when my arm began to feel warm and wet and a pretty appalling smell was starting to pervade the cabin. Paul's diaper/pants were literally bubbling over, so I grabbed every napkin I could and asked the stewardess for a trash bag of some kind. Shockingly, Paul was not willing to sit still until she returned, so I chugged Penny's remaining apple juice, stuffed the nasty pile of napkins inside and rummaged for the diaper bag while Paul writhed like a Moray Eel escaping from its hole. I managed to keep him from escaping and kept my balance all the way back to the bathroom. Paul's old outfit went in a Ziplock, he got a thorough wipey bath followed by a new set of pjs, and I triaged my sweater and pants. Sadly, all of our backup outfits were a bit lighter than our original outfits, so I dreaded the upcoming stroll across the tarmac to re-enter the terminal. I'd foolishly stowed our coats in the gate side check-in bag. We survived, reunited with our various bags and were pleased to be greeted at baggage claim by Daddy - we were so late that he'd actually made it to the airport significantly earlier than we had. There were joyous hugs and kisses all around. I think it has been a while since I've been so happy to return home. Now I'm just hoping little Paul will get over this digestive bug so I can start feeding him real food again, poor thing.

Birthday Update

I'm a little behind on posting, so this may be a multi-installment post. For my birthday, my dad came out to visit and REALLY wanted to see Palisades Park. So we prepared for a bit of hiking and some scenic views in lovely NJ. We started with a visit to historic Fort Lee, famous for George Washington's ingenious retreat to save what remained of the revolutionary army (bearing in mind that history is written by the victors). After 30 minutes or so of dashing to every corner of the visitor center, Penny had seen about all she wanted. She then proceeded to enjoy her echo in the vacuous and deserted center. After the third or fourth comment from the very bored looking docent, I decided it was time to explore the outdoor portion of the park, leaving Dan and Dad to read everything and perhaps summarize the details when they finished. Outside there was this lovely cart just sitting around waiting for a Mommy to pull it somewhere. As we paused for photos, though, a loud clap of thunder drew my attention to the menacing clouds overhead.

Penny and I popped back into the visitor center to notify the guys that we were headed to the car before the impending storm. They seemed confused by our departure - perhaps hadn't seen the dirty looks or heard the slightly annoyed comments. We made it nice and dry and were exploring the dashboard when the giant wet blobs began appearing on the windshield. With the parking lot so far from the front of the visitor center, Dan was pretty wet when he made it in. Dad, undeterred by the approaching tempest, decided he'd hop among the dry shadows of the trees through the reconstructed portion of the fort. Now, they didn't have the whole fort reconstructed, just examples of some of the kinds of structures that would have been there during various periods, plus the wind was driving the rain into those tree shadows. So I headed out with an umbrella to convince Dad we'd be able to come back out when things dried off a bit. We were pretty soaked from the shoulders down by the time we returned to the car.

We headed off at a slow crawl along the cliffside road. It was a nice enough road, with a little masonry wall along the outer cliff. However, the 20 foot visibility due to torrential rain coupled with the insanity of local drivers still going 35mph around blind curves made it a bit more harrowing than it would have normally been. Dan cruised along at what would on any other day be considered a leisurely 20mph pace through the thrashing and lovely trees. There was one that had leaves as big as Penny! As we made our way through the canopy, there were occasional breaks, where we could almost make out the opposite shore of the Hudson River - perhaps that was a bit of Harlem there, some Bronx?

After what likely seemed to Dan a white-knuckled eternity, we made it to Closter Dock. We always take the Closter Dock Road to exit to my brother-in-law's place. Who knew there was an actual marina still there on the Hudson that you could visit?! We took the opportune break in the deluge to park and stroll around for a bit, noting the sign that said the parking lot flooded at high tide and the current level of the tide. Penny followed the sound of children's laughter to a very nice stone picnic shelter where an Indian family was enjoying the dryness and lack of competition on a rainy day. Penny soon found herself eating jalapeno potato chips, Chips Ahoy cookies and participating in a game of soccer. It was tough prying her away, but she was genuinely more hungry than a few cookies would cover, so we managed to lure her back to the car.

At a lovely cafe at the top of the cliff, we enjoyed burgers and a cliff-top view of the Hudson Valley. Across the way, the wooded Westchester County looked enticing. Birds of prey and vultures soared on the updrafts just outside the window as bicyclists and hikers slowly started to re-emerge in the extended dry and sunny spell. We enjoyed a little walk outside, spotted a skink and some other wildlife, then headed home for well-deserved naps.

My birthday itself (a Monday) was fairly low-key. Dad stayed for breakfast, then headed into the long drive back to Ohio. Penny and I did a little chalking on the front walk, some dancing (she really likes the timer for the Cranium game), and then we baked a black forest cake. Perhaps a bit boring for most, but Daddy even played hooky for the day (taking the USMLE step 2 on Saturday had left him feeling ill), so it was nice having everyone in the family together for two whole days straight. Not a bad birthday overall, to be sure.

New Year Excitement

We had a fun trip home to Ohio for New Year's. Penny got to catch up with FCOR John, her long lost playdate buddy from while we were living in Ohio. Oddly enough, he only had a few hours before heading to the airport to go to New Jersey for New Years!

We also had one of our best opportunities for a play date with Indio, another of Penny's cousins. They are a month apart, but pretty much the same size and energy level. They had several rounds chasing each other around the house before settling in on the chairs for a bit. They usually took turns throwing themselves at the bean bag chair, but sometimes did it simultaneously too. They had such a blast together, Penny has been asking to "Play Indy" ever since!

Penny has definitely gotten the hang of opening presents. After she opened all of hers at each of the locations we visited, she offered her gift-opening services to anyone else who had not yet opened their gifts. Here she is opening Uncle Pat's gifts. She is quite efficient - fewest pulls necessary in many cases.

We rang in the New Year in good style, thanks to Jenny. She brought us some spiffy poppers (an English holiday treat). Each contains a crown, joke and prize. Penny was most impressed by the variety of noisemakers included. She walked around with this little yellow doo-hicky for days! Almost as good as the kazoo Daddy picked up at the parade a while back. All in all, a really fun trip.

I'm kind of excited about my new phone, ok not so new now. But, it has a pretty decent camera, so that's one less thing for me to drag around. Yay!

Birthday Extravaganza!

Well, it has been a whirlwind week or so. The celebrating began with a week off between teaching at the zoo and starting my new position at the Brooklyn Children's Museum. During that week, I caught up with some colleagues, hung out with folks from Grenada, and generally didn't do any relaxing whatsoever.

On Wednesday, Penny and I joined some of our neighbors from Grenada for a visit to the Brooklyn Children's Museum. Ok, I'll be seeing a lot of the place for a while, but what better place to take our friends than somewhere they can touch and do everything they can reach. And there's lots for them to reach! We arrived and went straight to the section for folks under age 5 and before we knew it, lunch time had arrived. After lunch, little ones were feeling sleepy, but they hadn't even gotten to my section of the museum yet. The additional water play, tunnel under the pond and other fun stuff made them forget all about napping...for a little while. Eventually, though, the exhaustion became overwhelming and we had to leave. This was Penny's second trip and it was just as fascinating and fun as the first. We discovered all new things this time around and she had friends to show around as well.

It was really fun meeting up with my colleagues as well. It has been a few years since I've seen them and it is nice to find out what has been happening while we were away. Moving to a city this size, I kind of assumed I had to know someone here, and it is nice to find friends and reconnect. They were interesting sources of information on how folks and institutions in the field are doing. It was also really nice to get a little encouragement as I tackle my new job - getting told that I was always very reliable and timely at delivering on my promises. I've been nervous lately, so it's good to hear.

Then, as icing on the cake, my Dad came out to visit. I was a little sad because his visit was short by necessity. We had a quick visit out to Coney Island, where we also met up with my cousin Emily. We all enjoyed some Nathan's hot dogs...something that folks back home might refer to as a "Coney Dog," but is called just a Nathan's hot dog here. I remember when Dan first brought me here, I had asked if they had Coney dogs at Coney Island and he had asked what on earth that was. I guess it's sort of like going to England and English muffins are just called muffins. Sadly, it started really pouring down rain before we were even finished eating. We drove by my museum, then dropped Emily off at her place (she lives right by the spectacular Brooklyn Bridge Park - a definite must-see for anybody with kids!!).

Then on Monday I started my spiffy new job at the Brooklyn Children's Museum. I seem to choose jobs with steep learning curves, it seems. On my first day, I discovered I've got quite a lot of ground to cover and some deadlines coming up pretty soon. I'll likely take this week to tackle one or two big deadlines, then I'll have a nice spot in September to do some planning and approach the coming year a bit more strategically. So much to do and so little time...

Thanks to everyone for the birthday wishes!!

Thank Goodness November Is Over!

As you can imagine from the nearly complete lack of blogs in November, things have been pretty busy here in Ohio. Dan visited us in that first week of November in between his dad's death and funeral. We didn't make it up there for the events because we were taking care of my mom, which was getting increasingly intense. Dan was home for one of the four days we took care of Mom without any nursing help. Luckily, it only took that long for the hospice folks to realize we needed a little extra help since I had no business doing the heavy lifting and lack of sleep that was getting more and more necessary.

On Sunday, November 22 Penny and I went to a concert with Aunt Helen over at the Dayton Art Institute. It was lots of fun - a little chamber music, string quartet, etc. Sadly, we listened to much of it through the auditorium doors because Penny decided to be ravenous after the first song. We went home and had some dinner, then Amanda played with Penny a bit while I helped Mom get cleaned. Unfortunately, it quickly became apparent that she was having problems we couldn't really deal with at home, so we called hospice and by 9:00 p.m. or so they had checked her back into the inpatient unit. When Penny and I went to visit Mom the next morning, the first thing the nurse said was that we had made the right choice by bringing her in - she had had a rough night and they were still working on a plan to get her comfortable. At 11am or so, right when Penny was starting to fall asleep in the comfy chair, the nurse came in to do a procedure she hoped would help relieve some of Mom's pain. Penny and I gladly stepped out to grab some lunch and go hang out with Aunt Helen and little John over at Aunt Rose's house.

I really wanted to talk to a doctor about Mom's condition at that point, but knew it could be quite a wait. So I left Penny with Aunt Helen and headed back to hospice. When I arrived, the nurse flagged me down and apologized profusely. Mom had died while we were out and none of our contact numbers appeared to work (they tried calling Mom's house and we obviously weren't home, Amanda's cell died a few days prior). The nurse said the procedure went really well and Mom was wonderfully relaxed and peaceful afterward. Mom hadn't been comfy in days, so this was a real relief for me. A little while later, a nurse had checked on Mom and found she was no longer breathing, so she had just let go peacefully in her sleep and I couldn't really ask for better in my mind. I called Amanda while the nurses cleaned Mom up and she got a ride over from her boss. I called my grandparents and they came right over. My grandfather (who is also a deacon) said a short prayer service with her right then and there. Then we called Mom's friend Rachel Ann and she came over with her son the mortician to see Mom and take her to get ready for her funeral. Mom had planned everything out right down to flowers she wanted, so all we really had to do was pick a date and some prayer cards when the time came. The date sucked - Black Friday - but there wasn't much way around it if John was going to be able to attend and we were to have a memorial service with a priest for her. It went really well all in all and everyone had a time to reminisce, lean on each other and have some tasty lasagna and cheesecake.

Vita's memorial tree at Girl Scout camp, From Sandy's Island Life

Then the real fun began - what does it mean to be an executrix for an estate? It means ridiculous paperwork and filtering through everything having to do with my Mom for the next 6 months to a year as I understand it. I started trying to figure out what I need to do (sadly, it took me a whole week to realize a paper book might be better than cruising the Net for info). I've got some things in hand, but am still trying to figure out the will filing process - made tougher by the probate court not wanting to provide any advice on the subject. We'll get there eventually, though. For now, I've made some progress figuring out Mom's assets and how they're supposed to distribute themselves upon death, I found the will and now just have to figure out how to file it and proceed from there. Family has recommended a number of good probate lawyers, whom we might have to consult. Though I think her estate is ultimately small enough that it wouldn't go to probate court or anything. We'll see.

Meanwhile, we're also at the half-way point for Passenger #2. Look at that cute little face! She (December is a girl month) has been kicking up a storm for almost a month now. No little swirly sensations for her...straight into kicks. There were five billion measurements taken during this sonogram (seemed like tons more than in England) and all seemed to look good. There was even a cool button to push to see blood flow through the heart, cord and placenta!! She is supposedly 11oz or so in there, right on target for 20 weeks. So despite concerns about my eating habits, Passenger #2 appears to be getting plenty to eat in there. Thankfully, though, the hunger pains have abated a bit so I'm only eating four meals a day and two snacks and generally feeling good. And...I apparently have an iron stomach. Both Mandy and the nurses had to get some air when taking care of Mom, but I rarely had to engage in such stomach-settling activities. Go Passenger #2 for helping Mommy do her job!

Now it's just a week until Penny and I head to NYC to act as the prep team for Dan's return to the U.S. There's plenty to do before we head out - second dose of flu shots and one year checkup for Penny, actually file the will, strategic packing, maybe talking to a probate lawyer and eating all the food Amanda won't once we're gone (includes ice cream, beets, frozen yogurt, mushrooms, fish and spaghetti). If anyone knows any recipes that might knock out multiple items on that list, we're open to suggestions. We'll be back in January for a few more doctor appointments, probably some probate stuff and maybe even further steps in the process. We'll see how that shakes out. It's not allowed to take TOO long because I need to get back to NYC to have the baby (and there's Medicaid, WIC, etc. to apply for when we settle in there). Not too much more traveling for us after that, though, as it gets a lot tougher to fly with Penny as a lap child as my lap disappears. Thanks for all your support and prayers as we continue on this exciting adventure. I'll try to do better to keep you posted on what we're up to.

Hospice Fun

So Mom has been hanging out in the hospice for a week now. She has been eating all kinds of exciting sandwiches and other odds and ends, which is a huge improvement compared to a white IV bag. As always, Penny is doing her part to make the stay a pleasant one for Mom (and everyone else who happens within smiling distance). Here is Mom with Aunt Corrine while Penny litters the floor with little Goldfish snacks. The cleaning staff likely LOVES Penny. Note: My mom HATES having her picture taken these days. However, she was looking pretty good in this one and you're not going to tell, right?

It's a little bit selfish, but I've really been enjoying the opportunity to see all the family I haven't seen in forever. In the background you can see Allison, who just had the cutie in the foreground, little Brennan, and moved to Spain. Allie started her blog as "Tales of a Lonely Army Wife" several years ago, so she has a lot of sympathy for me and Penny here without Dan. Janine is Allie's sister and I can't even remember when the last time I saw her was! She flew up from Florida, then drove the 5 hours to Dayton with Michelle, Jennifer, Allie and Brennan so that they could play Beatles Rock Star on the Wii for my mom. My mom is a HUGE Beatles fan. I'm looking forward to seeing who else will stop by in the weeks ahead.

Life isn't all trips to hospice, though. Penny, Amanda and I went on a picnic Sunday with the Salukes (my maiden name). Here is Penny playing with my cousin John. He's just two months younger than Penny and having fun previewing all the cool trouble he'll be able to get into soon. Penny has been giving him pointers on crawling, eating in a stroller, and having fun kicking adults.

Lastly, I thought I'd share a picture of Penny with her new best friend. She got really close with Puppy here when my mom was in the hospital. There wasn't really anywhere to crawl in Mom's hospital room, so my aunts often took Penny out of the room. She, of course, bawled her little eyes out for most of the time. To cheer her up, the nurses gave her this little stuffed puppy with a bandana bearing the hospital's logo. Since we visited for multiple days, Penny may have accidentally picked up more than one puppy. But, if Puppy is going to be her toy she can't live without, I understand it is important to have multiple copies. I seem to recall a story about my favorite plastic-headed stuffed doll who suffered a "head injury," and the frantic search for a replacement. Keep Penny in your prayers as I believe she has acquired her first cold. She woke every hour last night, slept little today and has an impressively runny nose. Speaking of which, I should get to bed so I don't suffer the same fate.

Discharge

Mom has been in the hospital for two Fridays now. There have been some ugly days and some better days. Her doctor has switched from trying to cure her cancer to trying to make her as comfy as possible. When she checked in, he had considered a number of procedures to help make her comfortable, but she was looking so weak that those procedures kept being postponed. She had tons of tubes, pain meds and more. Then they removed the tube in her nose a couple of days ago and she perked right up. She was looking great yesterday and today. Though many people visited her, she tried to keep visits short because she was doing well and wanted to give us a bit of rest for what lies ahead. She is always thinking of us first!

Mom felt so good today that the doctor decided to discharge her to the hospice. No nasty procedures or operations, I noticed no morphine bag on her, AND she's allowed to start eating food again (she appeared to still have the IV food, but maybe they'll wean her off of that if she's doing well). The hospice looks very swanky and homey. She's got her own room overlooking a pond and one of the volunteers there is a long-time Girl Scout friend. The nurses seem pretty attentive as well, which is key. Of course, nurses always seem very attentive when Penny pays a visit. She's almost as effective as a well-timed box of doughnuts for nurses.

Some of our initial wave of caregivers is starting to head home. John had to leave yesterday so he could get back to school. All six of mom's siblings are in town today (looks like Aunt Barbara took the picture), but Uncle Jerry will head out tomorrow. Some of her sisters might take a brief break home since they've been here for more than a week and they can re-deploy quickly because they live in-state. Mandy put me on her car insurance so I should be able to get around a bit on my own, which is nice. It'll be weird being behind the wheel again, though, after a year and a half abroad. I keep expecting the driver to turn onto the left side of the road - an effect of living in countries that drive on the left, I guess. I'm not sure if I'll have that same sensation in the driver's seat. Fortunately, my arm has full range of motion and some of its strength back, so I think that shouldn't be a barrier to returning to the driver's seat. I'm just glad to be in Dayton, where the drivers are friendly enough for the transition back behind the wheel to be a slow and pleasant one.

Even though hospice sounds like bad news because it is associated with end of life care, it is actually good news for today. It means Mom is done with surgeries and painful procedures. Also, if she's doing REALLY well, the hospice folks will assess mom's state of health, home, caregiver capabilities and consider whether she can return home for a bit and what hardware, training, etc. are necessary to ensure her comfort and safety at home. I'm a little nervous about homecare, but we'd get to see more of her and she isn't especially fond of hospital settings. But that's a bridge to cross later. For now, we're excited that she's feeling well, enjoying her lovely view and getting some quality play time with Penny.

A good friend passes

We received news last night that a long-standing friend of the family passed away. Jacob Sacksteder was in my brother John's class all through grade school and high school. He died in the hospital last night of a heart attack and the head injury he sustained when he collapsed. It is terribly sad for us because he and his family are just the sweetest people. Jacob was one of 11 kids, so each of us had a nice Sacksteder either in our class and/or the one above or below.

Jacob was one of the early adopters of "Squishy," an evil practice I might have to take credit for initiating. One sneaks up behind a friend, index fingers extended. Then, the index fingers are rapidly applied to either side of the friend's abdomen while exclaiming, "Squishy!" Depending on the target, this sometimes resulted in shrieks and/or a four foot jump in the air. This practice rapidly spread through our group of friends in high school, much to my dismay as it was often used on me. Why do others adopt my worst habits and use them against me? ;)

One Jacob incident was so famous in our family that it has entered our lexicon as "an event sudden, hilarious and somewhat gross/horrific." At some point in grade school, Jacob, his cousin Tommy, John and I had been to a roller skating birthday party where hotdogs, pizza, root beer and lime sherbet were served -- obviously a perfect storm of food and activities. While my mom drove us home, Jacob mentioned he wasn't quite feeling well. Mom offered to pull over, but Jacob insisted that he would be ok, we were only a few blocks from home after all. He continued to not feel well, so Mom offered again to stop at the side of the road. Jacob again said he'd be ok until we got home. Not long after, we heard the sound you all know was coming, along with a rushing water type sound. Apparently, Jacob had put his hands to his mouth in an attempt to catch the mess, but the hands merely deflected the vomit to either side. Tommy, sitting next to Jacob, threw up his hands as if someone had a gun to his back and assumed a look of absolute horror. Tommy maintained this position for the duration of the drive because he was covered head to toe in Jacob's mess and didn't want to get the puke in areas that somehow remained untainted. When we dropped Tommy off, his mother stripped him right there on the front porch and it became clear this wasn't the first time Tommy had such an experience. Miraculously, Jacob came through with barely a speck on him. It did take some time to clean that smell out of the old grey station wagon, though. To this day, when our family wants to indicate that an event was unexpected and horribly funny, we'll throw our hands in the air in the Tommy position and burst into uncontrollable laughter.

Jacob was always one of the people I hoped to see at Christmastime because his family would all get together and I am always tempted to go to Christmas mass at the church where we all grew up. Sadly, with all the churches merging (so mass schedules are goofy) and Penny's sleep schedule, I didn't manage to make it to any Christmas masses this year. You never know when your last opportunity to see someone might be, I guess. Please keep the Sacksteders in your prayers.

Getting Ready to Go

We're gearing up to move out of Newcastle. Penny, Dan and I spent much of last week packing 16 boxes and a table to ship them directly to Grenada. One of Dan's classmates has family in the shipping business, so was able to arrange a container for all the students to ship their things directly to Grenada. It was tough squeezing packing into our busy feeding/burping schedule, but most of our belongings are now on a slow boat to Grenada and shoudl arrive sometime in late December or early January. Then we just have to figure out how to get them from the truck to our apartment.

We did finally get an apartment. Dan will arrive first, and have a fun time finding it since there are no street addresses as far as we've been told. The landlord told us the various closest landmarks, so hopefully it will be fairly straightforward. All the other tenants are St. George's students and several have young children, so we should have plenty of fun people to hang out with. Now it's just a matter of packing up our few remaining belongings and getting them home with us on the plane (my brother John is going to help us with that).

We also have to figure out how to survive our last few weeks in Newcastle with just the bare necessities we have left. It has gotten colder lately and now that we know how our heaters work, we are trying to use them properly. Sadly, they arent' quite as effective as I'd like. We also suffer from a difference of opinion with the British as to what constitutes comfortable home temperature. As you can see from the handy thermometer I picked up at the library, "Comfortable" in British begins at 16 degrees celsius (64 farenheit). I start to feel comfy when the sun streams into the bedroom, heating it up to 27C (about 80F). Perhaps this derives from having our utilities included in our rent in Silver Spring, MD.

The thing that has surprised me most has been Penny. According to our British baby book, at 16C, we should have four cellular blankets and a sheet on her. I have found her getting sweaty with one blanket folded in half, though. Because Dan needs his sleep and Penny tends to be kinda noisy upon waking and upon going back to sleep (see video), we usually don't spend the night in the bedroom with Dan. I huddle in a sleeping bag on the couch with Penny uncovered on my chest. More often than not, I wake up shivering and she's all sweaty! I hope she adjusts to Grenada as easily as she seems to have adjusted to the temperature here.