World Prematurity Day 2011

My twins were born 2 months premature.  Today, I planned to share their story, but, when I stop to think about it, I'm too bitter.  Nearly 10 years later, the anger behind nearly losing my girls hits me too hard.  We're finally at a point where I no longer dread their birthday and "Homecoming Day" goes by almost unnoticed.  Still, I hate that we have a story to tell.  I hate that others have stories with endings not nearly as happy.  

So here, I'll leave you with my bitterness, my anger, and my post from this day last year.  

In an attempt to put a more positive spin on it, I'll share this related story about how one nurse made all the difference in the world and how I'll be forever in her debt.  

AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH**

It's that time of year again.  The sun (or complete lack thereof),  the hiking, swimming in the lake, the complete lack of parental supervision, the posing for pictures while flashing ridiculous-looking peace signs (in every single freaking picture even though your mother BEGGED you to resist the urge) or somehow managing to hide every time someone with a camera is near so that there's little to no evidence of your existence, the shabbat services in a pretty dress and muddy sneakers (because they won't let you wear your shower flip-flops and that's your only other option).

My homegoys (tm) may read that and scratch their head, but it is, in fact, Jewish overnight camp time.

Generations of Jewish mothers have sent their children away to Jewish-themed camps every summer only to sit back and freak the hell out  um...er...lose their ever-loving minds worry too much while their kids are gone.  This year, I joined their ranks for the very first time.

Our move worked out just in time for the big two to head to camp for the first time.  So, this past Sunday, at an insane hour of the morning, we herded the goat rodeo to the synagogue parking lot where a huge bus picked up our teeny tiny girls and started off on its journey, SIX HOURS away from us.

We greeted friends, we took pictures, we loaded bags crammed full (of some things we'll probably never see again), we kissed them, hugged them, and the huge bus pulled away.  I immediately turned to my husband and asked, "What did we just do?"

Funny thing is, I remember asking that exact same question when we dropped our 3-year-old twins off at Sunday school for the first time.  Granted, Sunday school wasn't SIX HOURS away (yes, I must type that in all caps every time I write it.  It's required).

I'm left to ask, how the hell am I going to send them to college*?

*They're 9.  


**I tried and tried and tried to concoct a witty title for this entry.  This one is the best portrayal of my actual thoughts and feelings on the topic.  

The Many Adventures Of A Stuffed Camel Named Bob(and the little girl who loves him)

Through Project Nursery, I found the most amazing website which inspired me to write this blog post.  Through their Custom Toy Portrait giveaway, I found First Friend Portraits.  First Friend Portraits makes custom portraits of kids' toys.

I cannot tell you how very much I love this idea.  I absolutely, positively, without a doubt, must have a portrait of Bob the camel.

We have oh so many toy stories of our own that we could share.  This has inspired me to share a few.

Let's start with Bobby.

Bobby is a stuffed camel.  His full name is Bob Notacat.  He, along with his sister Leafa Borrower, a giraffe, was a gift from daddy.

Here's a little back story:

While daddy was deployed, every night, we said the Mitzpah and the Sh'ma.  In between those, one night, our then 4-year-old said this prayer.  She had been more than a wee bit obsessed with camels since daddy was in the desert.

When the prayer started, I  thought it was so profound.  When a camel stormed into the prayer, it was all I could do to keep from cracking up.

Although it was my husband's second deployment to the Middle East, it was far more difficult for the twins than the first one (when they were only toddlers) had been.  They missed their daddy horribly.  When I relayed that to him, he decided to send them stuffed toys to comfort them in his absence.  Inspired by my long-term love affair with an aging orange wonder (which is another post for another day), he decided to send them stuffed animals in the hopes that those toys would become for them the comfort that Mustardseed had always been for me.

Giraffe overload w/daddy.  2 yrs old 

For L, the obvious choice was a stuffed giraffe.  She loves giraffes.  Our zoo visits absolutely always take us to the giraffes, many of whom, L knows by name.  So daddy sent her a stuffed giraffe that she named Leafa because giraffes eat leaves.  Her middle name is Borrowa because she doesn't ever take anything, since stealing is wrong.  She just borrows things.  So says my eldest.


It was a bit trickier to decide what to get her sister, though.  Inspired by the child's latest prayer, he opted for a camel and our lives have never been the same.

E. named her new fuzzy Bactrian wonder Bob.  Why?  We may never know, but he has been Bob and Bobby ever since.  His middle name is Notacat because the child kept arguing with me that she was going to name him Cat.  "He's not a cat," I told her.  So she proved me right.

Bobby isn't just any ordinary camel.  He's famous.  When they were in kindergarten, the girls each wrote stories for a contest.  She wrote and illustrated a story about how Bobby comforted her when her daddy was deployed.  She didn't win, but I was so impressed with her her tale.

I scanned the illustrations and copied the text to create a few 5x7 photo books for her of Bobby's deployment adventures.  It was one of the first stories she could read on her own and she's read it to everyone who would hold still long enough to listen.  She even dropped off a copy of her book at our local library.  

She'll be 9 soon.  I know puberty isn't far away.  She's not far from those terrifying teenage years and leaving "baby" things behind.  Yet again, she's separated from her daddy.  Bob has been a part of our family for five years now.  He has watched E cry for her daddy more often in those 5 years than most children are ever separated from their parents their entire lives.  Bobby is worn and faded and has lost most of his filling, yet, every night, you can find him in E's bed, often clutched in her arms.  

The (far too many) steps to prepping a house for sale

Our house is back on the market.  After a period with no potential buyers, we took the house off the market in December.  We knew we wanted a new agent (ours was perfectly lovely and a very nice person, but she simply wasn't aggressive enough), her contract was up, plus house traffic apparently slows way down in December.  

It went back up with a new agent (someone my husband worked with when they were both in the military) earlier this week.  

For those who haven't sold a house or who haven't sold a house while children were living there, or who haven't sold a house with children who are homeschooled (and therefore, the parents get absolutely no kid-free time to prepare), or those who haven't sold a house with homeschooled children always underfoot and a spouse 2000 miles away; let me tell ya, it's rough. 

Among the list of things to do to prepare to sell a house:

1. Repack existing boxes (stashed in the biggest kids' room).
2. Open children's closets and see an endless array of clothing and accessories strewn about the floor.  
3. Scream.
4. Remove endless amounts of clothing from children who insisted on leaving it lying all over the freaking floor.
5. Remove all socks from those same children for the same reason (yes, my kids are currently sock-less in Winter.  They deal).
6. Remove all but four pairs of shoes from said children.
7. When said children leave one of those four pairs of shoes lying in the middle of their floor AGAIN, remove yet another pair of shoes. 
8. Look under the big girls' bed.  
9. Repeat step 3. 
10. Move the repacked boxes (which now also contain much of what was stashed under that bed) to storage (which, if you're lucky, a dear sweet friend will let you use her garage for and you will be forever indebted).
11. Call new agent and set a date to meet to sign paperwork and take pictures of the property.
12. When one of the children gets sick, cancel said appointment.
13. Repeat step 11.
14. Step 12 may also need to be repeated depending on the number of children and the season.
15. Pack more boxes.  
16. When you think you're done, look around again and revisit step 15.
17. Repeat step 15 more times than you think humanly possible.
18. Just as that dear sweet wonderful friend is about to show up to help you move more boxes, find even MORE  things to throw in boxes.  These things will most likely be stored WAY up high.  You only truly understand the frustration of this step if you are roughly the size of the Keebler Elf.
19. Repeat step 15.   
20. Profusely thank said friend.  It's only proper if you offer to bow down in homage.  
21. Open cabinets and sort through the things the kids have hidden there and forgotten all about.
22. Clean up anything fragile that the kids stashed precariously in the cabinet so that it fell and broke when you tried to rearrange said cabinet.
23. Replace the caulking on the bathtub.
24. Curse.
25. In an attempt to clear out the coat closet, sort through the mess of coats the kids have tossed on the floor (despite the many empty hangers hanging within their reach).
26. Find a can of interior paint knocked on its side when those children threw those coats.
27. When you struggle to put the can upright, discover a 1 foot wide and about 1/2 an inch mostly hardened pool of WHITE interior paint on your dark hardwood floor.
28. Repeat steps 3 and 24.
29. Text/call the spouse with threats to sell the children on Ebay.
30. Scrape up the paint as best you can.   Beware, this is very messy.  Some will be left behind.
31. Cry. 
32. Vacuum.
33. Spend an entire week clearing out the laundry room that no one has sorted through in nine years.
34. Shout with glee when you find the alcohol you sealed up in a box and stashed back there for Pesach (Passover).
35. You just found tequila amid the hell that is house prep.  Do I REALLY need to tell you what to do next?
36. Now that you have more space in the laundry room, use it to stash the kitchen appliances before pictures are taken (You can wait until you sober up from Step 35 or you can do it while buzzed.  It's entirely up to you).
37. Hide vacuum in the laundry room.
38. Clean kitchen counters.  
39. Clean stove.  
40. Drag vacuum back out and repeat step 32 in the kitchen where all the crumbs have now collected from the counter and stove top cleanings.
41. Move any furniture around to desired placement.
42. At least one piece of furniture will break upon step 41.  When that happens, repeat any combination of steps 3, 24 and/or 31.  
43. a. Mop kitchen floor or  b. have child mop kitchen floor.  If b., repeat 43 yourself after.
44. Clear off the weeks of paperwork that have gathered on the dining room table (and by, "Clear off," I mean stash them on a chair where no one can see).  
45. Have child put table cloth on.
46. In an attempt to adjust said table cloth and find the child simply threw it on over a mountain of crumbs.  
47. Repeat step 24.
48. Remove said table cloth.
49. Hand child a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser.
50. Repeat step 45.
51. Find the baby destroying something you had already prepared.
52. See steps 3, 24, 31 and perhaps 32 if necessary.
53. Veg out on Facebook for a while.
54. COFFEE!  
55. Repeat any combination of these steps.
56. Toss everything left in a box and hide it under the desk.  
57. Take a deep breath.  You're done 15 minutes before said agent is set to arrive. 

While completing this list, you should also stop often to text the spouse to ask, "WTF do you want me to do with this ('This' should typically refer to CD's, games, video game-themed magazines from the late 90s, boxes and/or electrical cords--none of which have been used in years)?"  You should also include numerous occasions of preparing food.

And yes, this list is based on actual events.  Any resemblance to people or situations is purely purposeful.

My twins are not your ticket to stupid

This, right here, is far too true.

While not boy/girl, I do have fraternal twins who don't look a bit alike.  I've heard all of these and then some.

Some of the lines missing are,
"Your hands are full."
"How close in age ARE they," asked in a suspicious and judgmental tone.
"I could never handle twins."
"Are they sisters?"
"Do twins run in your husband's family?"  Um...that wouldn't matter since he played no part in the releasing of two eggs.


Some of my favorite lines from this clip include,

"I always get pregnant the first time I try.
Great job. Here's your cookie."

"Which one is your favorite?
The one who is not screaming."

and

"Which one is smarter?
I am."

Go.  Watch.  Enjoy.  This clip made my night.  I can't stop laughing at it.

"One can pay back the loan of gold, but one dies forever in debt to those who are kind." Malayan Proverb

With the impending move, I've been thinking quite a bit about all those people here and all they have done for us. I consider many of them friends. They have gone above and beyond for my family and me.

There are those who have always been near and dear to me. They range from those I knew from the on-base playgroup when our girls were tiny (and who have moved around so much that I've long since lost touch with most of them) to our friends at shul who we're always happy to sit beside during services to those wonderful friends who not only waited with me at the airport when my husband returned from deployments, but were even willing to film the whole teary event, so that I could look back on it years later and still get teary.

Then there are those who only touched my life briefly, but did so in such a profound way that I will never be the same.

I was already thinking of one such person when I saw this article: Heartfelt thanks go to blood donors from the people they saved.

E in the NICU at 3 weeks old.

Our smallest baby had a blood transfusion in the NICU. We wanted to donate our own blood, but there wasn't enough time. So our teeny tiny baby received the blood of some wonderful person who donated. We know we can never find that donor, but somewhere out there in Oklahoma, a hero walks around--a hero who helped us keep the baby I feared we might lose. Yet I'm fairly certain that person has absolutely no idea what a miracle he/she has helped create.

The first time I held L.

When I was in the hospital, there was one fantastic L&D nurse I'll never forget.  She's been on my mind lately. The awful words featured on My OB Said What made me stop and think of the wonderful nurse I had who was the exact opposite of what I read there. I would do anything to properly thank her, but I don't even know who she is.

I know she worked at Integris Baptist in May of 2002. I believe her name was either Casey or Cassie. She had dark brown hair which she wore pulled back in a pony tail. She wore Hello Kitty scrubs. She had a soft spot for moms of preemies.  So, when other nurses relayed that my doctor ordered me confined to my bed (which meant no visiting my babies in the NICU), Cassie/Casey said, "Then we'll wheel her bed down there." She then whispered to me, "Don't worry. You'll see your babies one way or another."  Because of her, I did.  She had a preemie herself.  I may be mistaken because much of that time is a blur, but I  remember her telling me she had a son born at 27 weeks. She understood and she cared.

In the midst of a horrible experience and surrounded by some who didn't seem to care or even understand (my OB was miffed when she came to see me and I was in the NICU with the babies rather than in my room so that I could make her job easier), that nurse sincerely wanted to help and she did in more ways then she'll ever know.

I never got to properly thank her. Before we leave, I would love the chance to do just that and introduce her to the amazing 8-year-olds she helped me get to know as babies.

On their 8th birthday

ETA: You can read more about their early arrival on my post for Prematurity Awareness Day.