Friday Gratitude

I’d like to begin by thanking each of you who reached out either in the comments, via email, or text offering support after yesterday’s blog. I truly appreciate it you.

Today ends with more emotions – anger, sadness, confusion, and helplessness. I truly cannot wait for my appointment this week. Something has got to change. It is affecting me and those around me.

Enough of that. I want to share one of the highlights of my day.

Poke

Ella and I went to the doctor so she could get her flu shot. I needed to go to the lab in the same building to get my blood drawn. Before we walked in, Ella asked if she was going to “get a poke.” I told her, yes, but “it’s only a little poke.” She began to tear up and I told her that I’d be there with her.

I told her that I had to get a “poke” too and that she could help by being with me when I got mine. As we sat in the waiting room, she observed and announced everything!

“That guy must have gotten his poke, daddy.”

“Look a that little baby, daddy. She’s wearing small shoes.”

“Daddy, that lady is wearing pink lipstick.”

There was a guy who was just sitting with his eyes closed across from us. Ella announced, “Daddy. That guy must be tired because he is sleeping right here in front of everyone!” He smiled and opened his eyes. “Oh, he’s awake now,” she said.

“That lady has two babies!”

“Did you see that girl’s Paw Patrol shoes!?”

It was nonstop. She brought many smiles to the folks in the waiting room. When they finally called me back to the lab, they had me sit in the chair. She was next to me. The tech but that rubber thing on my arm and began to feel for a vein. She had no luck on one arm, so she tried the other. She then asked me, “Do they usually have a hard time finding a vein on you?” I told her that usually, it is no problem.

She kept feeling around and then asked her other tech, “Would you use a smaller needle on this vein?” The other tech came over and began to feel around. She had me drop my arm down and a vein popped right out. I guess that was the key. Anyway, they apologized for taking so long. They said, good thing you are not afraid of needles, or the wait would have made it worse.

Ella piped up right away. She looked me right in the eye and said, “Don’t worry, daddy. It’s just a little poke!” This brought smiles and laughter to all the ladies in the lab. She was showered with more stickers and a sucker.

Thank you, Ella, for being a ray of sunshine on a very hard day.

Holiday Decor

I mentioned yesterday that my coworker gave us a tree for the side porch. It went up surprisingly easy today after I got home from the doctor.

Sam had me put it in the corner on the side porch. I can’t wait to see what it looks like when I get home tonight.

I blogged about the arch that Sam bought for the front yard this week. She left the lights on and I was really impressed at how beautiful it looks at night. Those LED lights are bright. She did a video chat last night and I got to see it on her phone, but seeing it in person was so much better.

Engage!

I’m listening to a new audiobook in the car.

I’ve always liked Patrick Stewart. He is such a great actor. His one man show of A Christmas Carol is something that I listen to every holiday season. He reads it, and even though he has aged a bit, his voice is still strong and he is so expressive with his reading. I’m only about 10 chapters in, but it is very good.

With all that is on my mind, it helps to get lost in a good book on my drive to and from work.

Family Christmas photos tomorrow.

Silly (and Spooky) Kid Stuff

If you are a parent, you know that your children are always a good source of stories to share. Here are a few of mine from the past few days:

Tea Party Gone Bad

While Andrew took a nap recently, Ella and I were in the living room playing with her Disney Princess Barbie dolls. She brought me the Mulan Barbie and she had her Moana Barbie. She sat them both across from each other and then grabbed a tea pot and tea cups. She set them in front of each doll. She then brought over this mushroom/muffin looking toy (she obviously thought they looked more like muffins). This is when things went awry!

I started to make Mulan (who she had given to me) drink her tea. I made slurping sounds and then did a loud fake burp. This made her laugh. Then I did it again. More laughter. Then I made really loud slurping sounds and the cup ended up on Mulan’s head. She started to do the same thing to her Moana. I was laughing just as hard as she was, especially when she was making her fake burp sounds.

Pausing Pap

Andrew has been using CPAP for over a week. Here’s the thing, it is supposed to help him sleep better. However, because of his age and the limited masks that he can use, the one he has works – when it stays on. Basically, mom and dad are the ones who aren’t sleeping now. Sam and I find ourselves pulling it back on his head or fighting him to get it back on. It is a struggle.

We e-mailed his doctor about it and we’re gonna take a break for a day or two to see if that helps. The good thing is that his apnea is mild, and we were only anticipating him wearing it for less than a year. The doc told us, if he lets us put it on – use it. If not – don’t.

All in all, whether he is rested or not, he is still giving us plenty of smiles!

Toddler Vocabulary Lesson

Ella did the cutest thing the other day. We had misplaced the TV remote and I asked her to help me find it. She reached he hand up to her eyes like she was looking through binoculars and said:

“Daddy, I can’t find the remote. I will have to use my ‘oculars’ and look for it!”

Hardest Part of Parenting

As a father of four children, I have taken each of them in for shots more times than I can count. There is always that look of, “How could you let them hurt me like that, Daddy?” after they get poked. It kills me every time.

Last week, Ella had her three year old well visit. We noticed that she is bruising very easily. She jumps around a lot and (as most toddlers do) bumps into just about everything. The bruising concerns us a bit, so her primary doc wanted to run some bloodwork to make sure she is ok. Sam was with her at that appointment and she was told she could just go next door to the lab to get the blood draw.

Ella was extremely scared and voiced that numerous times. I guess they poked her a couple times and could not get the draw. They were going to try to do the other arm and Sam said, “No, we’ll do it another day.” Ella had been through enough. So, today, it was my turn to take her to get it done.

I had picked out a short sleeve short for her, but she wanted to wear a dress. There were no sleeves on it and so the tourniquet the wrapped on her arm bothered her a lot. She sat in my lap and said she was scared. I did what I could to keep her calm, but after the first poke, she moved and wound up blowing the vein. The tech decided to try the other arm. In my head, I decided I would let them try one time and if they didn’t get it, we’d leave.

They found a good vein, got the poke and Ella and I took deep breaths and counted to 5 (over and over). That helped a lot! Once they were done and pulled the needle out, she was still crying, but she looked at the techs who did the draw and said, “Thank you.” They offered her a pack of graham crackers, and she was all better.

Hopefully, the test results will be normal.

Heavenly Visitor?

I’ve never been one to believe in supernatural stuff, but today something happened that made the hair on my neck stand up. I’m still scratching my head over it.

When I woke up for work today, Sam asked me what my oldest son called my mom (he is the only one of my kids who knew my mom before she passed away). I told her that he always called her “grandma.” She asked further, “Did he ever call her Grammy?” He didn’t. My ex’s mom was “Grammy,” but my mom was always “Grandma.”

I asked her why she wanted to know. She proceeded to tell me that Ella had said something to her today and when Sam asked her where she heard it (or maybe it was who told her that), she replied, “My Grammie in heaven.” So this peaked my curiosity and I asked her what else she had told her. She said something about princesses, but Sam and I think she was just talking about the princesses that we got for that Tonie.

The longer I sat in the living room drinking my first cup of coffee, the more I wondered about what she said. I have no pictures of my mom hanging in the house. I don’t have photo albums that we can look through. All the physical photos I do have are in a box and the rest are digital. For some reason, this really bugged me. So I took it a step farther.

I grabbed my phone and opened up my Facebook page. I went to the photo albums and found one that contains pictures of my mom. I pulled up one from before she got sick and opened it on my phone. I showed Ella this picture:

It had been a few minutes and I was sure she had already forgotten our mention of my mom. I asked her, “Ella, who is this?” Without missing a beat, she said, “My Grammie in heaven.” I was dumbfounded. I truly don’t know that Ella has seen but one or two pictures of my mom, yet she recognized her immediately.

When we found out that we were going to have a baby, my wife bought a special onesie that brought me to tears.

Who am I to question whether or not mom and Ella still talk?