Six Months Past

Bear with me as I take a short break from the chronological order of this blog to recognize the importance of today.

Six months ago today...
I did not have a stroke,
I did not have a seizure,
My liver did not erupt,
My kidneys did not fail,
And I did not start hemorrhaging.

And while this may sound very dramatic,
Unfortunately all of these things were possible.
Likely, even.
Because I did have a serious condition named HELLP.

Which is why - 
Six months ago today,
Macie Drew came two months early.
And suddenly turned a scary situation into
The best and brightest
Miracle
In my life.

Six months ago today,
I escaped death...
And I have learned a thousand lessons since.

My Little Princess

My sister Keira sent this dress for Macie shortly after we learned she was a girl,
Before any pre-eclampsia drama,
And it was not just the first dress we had for her,
But also the very first outfit.

At the time that I was placed on bed rest,
And even when I went into the hospital,
And thus - when Macie was born,
I had very few clothes for her.
This may seem strange,
But realize I was bed rested during the first week of the third trimester,
It really was still quite early.
I thought I would have so much more time,
But I didn't.

So, when Macie was born I had a few 3 month outfits,
And a couple of random gifts from family.
And this dress.
This beautiful dress.

This dress became an anchor for me.

I held it,

I pictured it,

I dreamt of my little girl.

That she would be born,

She would grow,

And someday I'd be able to put this dress on her.

When she was in the NICU,

I came home from the hospital and touched this dress every day.

Once, during that first scary and long week,

I held it as I slept.

I did these things to remind myself that she wouldn't always be weak,

Or small,

Or dependent on so much aide.

It turns out that in crisis,

I become a creature of habit.

In some ways, perhaps borderline OCD.

But I did what I had to do to keep my sanity,

To be strong when I was with my girl.

The day I put this dress on her,

I cried

In remembrance of another time. 

I realized that it was all true.

It wasn't a dream.

It was reality.

What a difference a few short months can make.

And what a strong, little (yet so big) princess my Macie has become.

Charlie's Coloring Skills

Have really improved nicely.  One of my favorite things about his coloring is that he always hides hearts within the pictures and always labels them to a person.

Big Brother Remy

Macie is lucky to have two big brothers.
And her little big brother takes his job very seriously.
If you would have told me six months ago
That I would count on this two year old
To be an actual help with his baby sister,
I would not have truly believed it.
But now I know...

If Macie has a need that Ephram can deliver,
He will.

If it's sitting next to her,
Playing with her,
Reading her a book,
Singing her a song,
Rocking her,
Covering her with a blanket,
Strapping (or unstrapping) her in her bouncy seat/swing,
Grabbing diapers and wipes,
Fetching the right toys,
Getting out (and putting away) her play mat,
And even wiping up spit up...
You can count on that Remy,
Every time.

After I was pregnant with Macie,
When it was too late to change my mind,
I started to have some serious trepidation about having two children so close in age.
And it is true,
I change a LOT of diapers.
And getting them into their car seats/strollers/carts can be a chore.
We've had some very long nights where the two of them rotate waking cycles.
But I already find that these little inconveniences are nothing more than that...
Little.
My fears were a waste of energy.
I expect that the bond these two are growing will lead to a very special relationship.
And I wouldn't trade that for anything.

First Shoes

I saw these brown boots in the Gap Kids store and had to buy them.
So, although I don't really believe in putting shoes on babies before they need them,
Macie now has her first pair of shoes.

Outside, Inside

Ephram is a busy kid.
He wakes up around 8 and goes to bed around 9.
Lately he has given up his naps, (most days.)
And during his waking hours he runs, runs, runs.

This summer I sent him out into the backyard quite a bit.
He loves to run with Boone.
Boone loves it too, mostly.

On one rare occasion, Ephram caught up with Boone and didn't try to poke him in the eye,
Grab his snout,
Give him a big hug on the face,
Climb on him,
Or pull his tail.
In fact, he just stood and stared at Boone.
Ephram wasn't sure what to think about this...

When Boone was done, he ran away to continue the play session.
Ephram just stood there and stared at me.
His facial expressions at that moment were awesome.

And this was him trying to explain to me what he saw Boone do.

Later that night we changed Ephram into his pajamas downstairs.
We were planning to watch some Star Wars before bed.
But when his shirt got stuck on his huge head, he suddenly pulled back and ran away.
Apparently, he had morphed into a wild cowboy.

For the next 15 minutes he zoomed around our family room and kitchen,
And then finally stopped at his zebra and climbed aboard.
Apparently it had gone wild and needed to be tamed.

It took bouncing,
Some hooting and hollering,
And a lot of spinning,
But finally that zebra was tame again.

And Ephram's eyes were shaking in his head.

He stepped off of the zebra, stumbled a bit,
Smiled,
Laughed,
And ran over to the couch.
He climbed up and we watched some Mickey Mouse.
It was too late to watch Star Wars at that point.
But Ephram didn't care.

With Ephram, every day is a good day.
He's such a happy kid.
He's my boy that can make anyone smile, anytime.
Inside and outside.

My New Bug

Ever since he was a baby, I've called Ephram my Bug.  Not sure why, it just stuck.
I have found myself calling Macie my Bug over the past couple of months.
I've tried to stop it because I don't want to take the nickname from Ephram.
But then we got the cutest outfit in the mail from Macie's cousins.

So now I've decided...
It's okay to have two Bugs in the family.

The Works of Charles Kovar: Charles has an Great Day

Recently, Charlie has taken to authoring novels.
His first book consisted of 4 pages, and was titled "My Dog Boone".
His second book consisted of 9 pages, and was titled "Iron Man and Friends".  It was largely comprised of a picture of an Iron Man and Friends game that Charlie invented.

For his third novel, Charlie wanted to accomplish something big.
45 pages.
(Every other page has a drawing.)
(And the last 8 pages are pictures of his dream, Where the Wild Things Are style.)
He asked for help planning it.
So I helped him create a big storyboard.
And showed him how to create the beginning, then the end, and then fill in the boxes in between.
All of the words and concept are his original work.
And all artwork is signature Charlie.

Without further ado, I give you:
Charles has an Great Day
(All spellings and punctuation are true to the author's original work)

Charles wakes up and goes to the bathroom.
Charles takes off his pajamas and puts some clothes on to get ready.
He has Lucky Charms for breakfast.
He watches Meat the Robinsons on tv with the whole family - mom dad ephram macie and charles
Charles ate mini corn dogs, animal crackers, a cheesestick and an apple for lunch.
After lunch Charles helped his mom pick up.  She gave him a high five.
Then the family Planted some orange seedes in the backyard.
they watered the plants.
Charles played outside.  He played tug of war with Boone.
then he blew bubbles for Ephram to chase.  Macie laughed.
Charles came inside and washed his hands.
Charles played with Jenga Blocks at the table.
Charles had some yogurt for a snack.
there was a storm outside.  the family watched from inside to stay dry.
the storm was crazy.  Crazy.  CRAZY.
Charles colored Pictures and then turned them into fans.
We had Walmart steak with Mashed Potatoes and gravy for Dinner.
Charles got ready for bed.

Charles said good nigt and heard a story.  He went to sleep smilling and had a dream about tomorrow.

*Following are the pages of Charlie's dream sequence*

Four hearts linked together attached to strings coming out of Charles' head.

Two hands connected

Charlie says that this is a picture of Charles and Ephram riding Boone like a horse.

The opposite page is Boone smiling.

Apparently, he wishes he was a horse.

Charles handing his mom a heart card, and getting one from her.  Their hair is also made of hearts.

The End.

Some thoughts about this book:

• I'm pretty impressed.  Charlie is 6 and wrote this in the summer between Kindergarten and First Grade.
• It shows how Charlie mixes reality and make believe..  Most of what he wrote was what had actually happened that day, or what he wished would happen.  The storm was completely fabricated.  And it was crazy too.  I love that it was three times crazy.  And we hadn't yet had dinner, so he made that up too.
• The story focused so much on food, and specific foods, that it makes me laugh.  Walmart steaks? And mashed potatoes and gravy?  Charlie won't eat mashed potatoes when I make them... but he does like steaks.  He was so excited about Walmart steaks that it was the first and only time he broke perspective and said, "we" instead of "Charles".
• I love the sequencing.  This is a real story from beginning to end.  And the order makes sense.  Again...  Impressed.
• Very little spelling and grammatical errors.  Although we can clearly work on capitalizing the beginning word of a sentence.  But his spelling impresses me. 
• The dream sequence is my favorite.  And I love that almost all of the pictures in this book have hearts.

The experience of writing Charles has an Great Day was a lot for our author.  It took him a day to write the book and produce the words on his final copy.  (There were two copies that he got frustrated with and put in the recycle bin.)  It took him an hour on the next day to create all of the artwork.  (He's a pretty fast artist.)  Now he seems to have writer's block.  He has switched to making movies for the time being.

But I'm confident the author will make another appearance sometime not too far from now.

My Cute Little Roo

I swear, I live with the cutest kid in America.
Or the world.
My little Remy, my Roo.

Evidence of the cuteness..

He loves cars.
He loves pockets.
He hides the cars in the pockets and gives a cute, proud smile.

He has claimed the bottom shelf of the pantry as his.

And will go into the pantry, shut the door, and snake food as quick as he can.

One of his favorites?

Bread crumbs.

Go figure.

He ate the entire canister.

It was new.

Andy took these pictures and I didn't buy any more bread crumbs.

My next meatloaf had cornflakes instead.

His precision in art work is admirable.
And he doesn't like being messy.
Getting him to finger paint at all was quite a chore of convincing.
But I finally sold him when I told him that I'd let him squeeze the tube himself.
He loves squeezing tubes.
And this was more productive then his usual...
Toothpaste all over my bathroom floor.
Yep, it's happened four times.
And I'm still searching for a solution...
But the finger painting finally happened.
Because I let him squeeze the tube.
And because I put a wet papertowel next to him -
So that he could wipe that messy paint off at least once a minute.

Hungry?
If the pantry doesn't have what he wants,
There's always the fridge.
He'll pull a chair right on up
And settle in for a meal.
The best part?
When he throws his wrappers on the floor and stands up,
Opens the door,
And grabs the next course.
At the end he'll jump down,
Grab all the wrappers,
And proudly bring them to me.
No matter where I am.
He's a regular snacker, my Roo.

And one of his most recent new things.
That I think is so cute,
It makes me melt.
Whenever he hears a UPS truck,
A plane,
A bus,
A machine,
A garbage truck,
Or anything of interest,
Up goes his little hand to his ear.
Out comes a "Huh?" with the raised eyebrows of excitement.
And he'll grab my hand,
Drag me along,
And point to the object of interest.
This day it was Daddy.
With a string trimmer.
He wants to be just like his Dad someday.
Scratch that someday -
My Roo wants to be just like his Dad right now.
Today.

Cutest kid in the universe.

That's my Roo.