Father of The Year

As much as I sometimes want to devote entire blog posts extolling the virtues of My Beloved, I generally refrain, as my love and adoration for some of his virtues ebbs and flows (Sometimes I love his biting wit, other times, not so much). Today though, in honor of Father's Day I will share a few things that I love about My Beloved and why he's a such a great dad.
When you get married, before you have children you only have an inkling of the commitment required to be a parent. Before the blessing of babies, you have no idea just how consumptive they are of all things, big and small.
Yesterday, after a long day of work and running our garage sale we decided to go out to eat to a family restaurant. We divided up sides of the booth, 3 on one side, 2 on the other. Just as My Beloved began to take a bite of his juicy, much longed for cheeseburger he felt a tug on his arm, and he looked down to see Baby Henry smiling as he happily pulled a scab off of My Beloveds arm (from an earlier landscaping injury). Instead of getting angry, My Beloved looked across the table into my eyes, smiled and said "We've reached a new low, even scabs aren't sacred." Strangely my eyes filled with tears at the love I share with someone who is so deeply entrenched in parenting that even really gross things are some how meaningful.
Did I ever imagine 12+ years ago that the highlight of our days would be a successfully executed bedtime routine, when we operate like a well-oiled machine transforming wild, grubby, noisy children into sleeping angels, incapable of nothing but sweetness (note I said sleeping!) until morning? No, I somehow thought it would be more exciting and glamorous, or at least I would be more fashionably dressed, and significantly thinner in my imaginings.
Nevertheless, My Beloved does not disappoint in the fatherhood area, is he always perfect, NO WAY. Does he sometimes yell? Yes. Does he occasionally swear in front of the kids? Yup. Do they often repeat these swear words? Of course, but only when it's really embarrassing for me. For the big stuff though, the man I married is Father of the Year. He works incredibly hard for our family, both at the office and at home. He tries hard to teach our kids lessons in everything he does. This summer he and the kids designed and planted a garden in the backyard, which was somewhat bigger and more work than he bargained for, I think. So far so good, although I'll be interested to see how some of the more exotic things turn out (planting our own cantaloupe for instance). This endeavor has been enriched by our family foray into composting, and everyone is into that. The kids now beg to see how the food scraps are rotting in the backyard compost bin, can you say EXCITING?
So while this life of rotting compost and scabs was not what I imagined when I met my husband, I would choose it again in a heartbeat, scabs and all.

Man In Motion

This week has been a big week for our family. Little Monica is completing 2nd grade and moving up a group in gymnastics, Norah is graduating from pre-school, and Henry is completing his first full week in a big boy bed. We have been busy!
We have also completed a journey that at times I truly believed would never end. Rory, my Beloved, completed and presented his thesis today. Six years ago when he began this journey we were a happily married couple with one child living in the first home we'd ever purchased, and did we have a lot to learn.
Sometimes I think that movies portray these life journeys in a montage set to a tune (I'm hearing the St. Elmo's Fire theme here). The road is hard, the mountain is steep and the protagonist ultimately makes it to the end of his journey victorious, with a sweat soaked brow and a hot babe waiting at the finish line.
That was not the journey we have been on for the past 6 years. Our road has been mostly gravel, with a lot of stumbling, bruises, skinned knees and hands, and at the end of Rory's journey he did have sweat soaked brow and was victorious, and the hot babe at the end was not a busty blond, but me.
While completing graduate school will give My Beloved 3 new initials after his name (M.P.H.) and a nice diploma, ultimately completing this degree is a sign of the true strength within the man I married. He is certainly not the "dumb jock" I thought he might be the first time we met, but rather he is the smart, sensitive guy who finishes what he started, despite the adversity he may face.
By completing this degree he serves as an example to our children of perseverance and tenacity. With time they should forget the part about MAJOR procrastination and Coca-Cola consumption.

At Long Last

If you don't have anything nice to say...take a break from blogging. Alas that's been the reason for my hiatus from blogging. I've been pretty stressed and overwhelmed for the past few months and opted out of offending my readers by turning my blog into a bitch fest. Trust me, you should be thanking me.
That said, I am back and cracking under the pressure to offer some tidbit of something that intrigues you enough to keep reading. So I think I'm going to keep this one short, and it might be lame. You were warned.
Summer vacation is banging down the door, and while I remember it fondly from my younger years, as a mother I am filled with both anticipation and dread. 3 months with my children 24/7. My Beloved and I sat down mid-May and tried to sketch out the summer plans, we didn't want our kids to be over scheduled, and we wanted to spend time enjoying our new home. We also wanted to head East to Maine. After careful planning on our part we penciled in plans for various activities, and times we'd head to WI to see family. One week to go and we've already blown our carefully laid June plans to pieces.
I won't lie to you though, I am nervous about being home with the kids, not because I don't adore them, I do, just separately. As a group I would say it's about 90% arguing, fighting, shouting, nagging, whining, and 10% wonder, joy, smiles, happiness and butterflies. Strangely that 10% is usually worth it.
As I've mentioned before, we are working hard to be debt free so that somewhat limits what the kids and I can do. Unfortunately, Jimmy John cannot make lunch for us everyday, we simply can't afford it. My kids are 8, 5, and 2, so they aren't exactly interested in the same things, we've signed up for a few things but are planning on using our YMCA membership to it's fullest. Outdoor pool here we come.
I am going to try to offer healthy snack choices and we are enforcing some rules and chores. I am going to try not to be resentful of My Beloved when he comes home and wants more family time (at this point I usually want to run out the door.) I am going to try to keep my yelling to a minimum. I am going to play with my kids and stay away from Facebook. If I succeed even halfway at this I will consider our summer a success. If not, well, there's always next summer.

Opening Up

Last night was kindergarten registration. We took Norah, who is almost 5 and she was so excited. I was excited, but mostly scared. Scared because I can't control the future, the world, the noises around her, I can't make her hear everything that I hear.
Norah was diagnosed as hard of hearing at 3 1/2 years old. Norah wears hearing aids.
Some of you may be wondering how we could have missed something so important as hearing, but we were so focused on Norah's brain development, Norah's milestones declaring her normal, her tone, and being seizure free and off seizure medication. The fact that she talked less than her sister and was naughtier than most seemed like little things in the trade off.
Norah was a VBAC gone terribly wrong. If you don't know that term I'll let you look it up yourself. My pregnancy was uneventful, my prenatal care was 2nd to none, and we were financially ready for an addition to our family. What we didn't count on was poorly managed labor and delivery and a helicopter ride to the Mayo Clinic for a baby with Apgar scores of 1. We certainly didn't plan for the seizures that followed an the scary diagnosis of hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. Statistically Norah is a miracle that she is alive. More miraculous is that she is not severely disabled.
When Norah was 3 we were told our naughty girl was by all pediatric neurologists criteria beautifully, perfectly normal and she had passed her newborn hearing screening. Why would we suspect anything?
When we went to the MN mandated preschool screening Norah did exceptionally on all the academic testing. Then came the hearing tests, she raised her hand for some of the beeps but after awhile decided she was bored and started misbehaving. I sat lamely next to her trying to coax her to raise her hand when I (without headphones on) could hear the beeps. Why was she being such a brat? The person performing the test suggested we come back in 6 months and retest her when she was more mature.
At this point I took matters into my own hands, I wasn't waiting 6 months for my miracle child to pass a hearing test. The first pediatrician told me she must have fluid on her ears. We should give her an antihistamine. We tried that for a week and I came back. Still Norah was awful after the first few beeps. The pediatrician said we should take her to an audiologist, so I made an appointment. When I went to the appointment I was fully educated on ear tubes. I was completely blindsided when the audiologist very flatly told me "Your daughter has severe high-frequency hearing loss and will need hearing aids." Then she told me to make a follow up appointment and sent me on my way.
After some stops and starts we finally found our way to Dr. Jennifer at the U of MN. She changed our worlds from Norah on up. Pediatric audiology is a specialty I never knew existed, but am thankful for everyday.
The day Norah began wearing hearing aids was the worst day of my life. She was getting a lot of new information that she wasn't sure she wanted. She must have pulled them out 500 times and I put them in 501. I was crying she was crying. The next day we were down to 200 times, then 50, and on the fourth day she told us "I think I love my hearing aids." They have been in ever since except bedtime.
Sometimes at bedtime, when Norah is asleep I go into her bedroom and hold her. I look at her little perfectly formed ears without their hearing aids and I feel sad. I feel sad for her, I feel sad for me. I feel afraid for the future and I feel angry. Angry that her hearing loss was preventable. The 15 minutes after her birth where she wasn't breathing damaged her ears and I didn't know and I couldn't stop it.

Note to readers: Thank you for letting me share this with you. It is hard for me to write, but I am hopeful for Norah's future and need to get this stuff out of my system for my own future.
We have a wonderful family and support system. Norah has amazing teachers and a world class audiologist. Thank you for reading.

Yeas and Nays

Another installment of Yeas and Nays! Feel free to add your own.

Yeas:

• Yea to finding the "perfect" First Communion dress for Little Monica.
• Yea to sunshine. Finally.
• Yea to reconnecting with old friends.
• Yea to a wonderful weekend.
• Yea to the Olympics being over. Too much must see TV.
• Yea to new babies.
• Yea to my husband leaving me the last Diet Coke.
• Yea to hope and hopefulness.
• Yea to buying a new house.

Nays:

• Nay to guilt trips.
• Nay to potholes.
• Nay to whiny kids who make annoying noises.
• Nay to having to repeat myself over and over and over.
• Nay to all the paperwork involved in buying a house.
• Nay to all the scary things happening in the world.

Girl Power!

Last night My Beloved saw a mouse. As the kids and I were out of town he went to the hardware store down the block and bought everything they had, no mouse was going to share an address with the Malloy family!
No school today for Little Monica, so we ran some errands, Costco, the library then home. Walking into the kitchen with an armload of goods I heard a SNAP! I thought for sure one of the 10 mousetraps set by My Beloved had gone off mistakenly. So I look under the sink and it was not a mistake. I quickly slammed the cupboard door and started to quietly whimper, when I realized I had no audience for the squeamish damsel in distress act I felt a little stupid and stopped whimpering. My decision was made, I would leave the dead mouse in the trap for My Beloved to deal with when he got home.
I began to move on with my day when my mom called, I told her the plan with the mouse and instead of supportive and understanding she said "Isn't Little Monica home with you today?" I said she was, which unleashed in my mother all the girl power opinions I've never heard from her before. Her primary concern had nothing to do with the dead mouse under my kitchen sink, it was the lessons I had clearly missed growing up. What kind of an example was I being for my daughter? Hadn't she taught me independence, self-reliance? That girls can do anything boys can? That women don't need to wait for a man to handle the dirty work? (For the record I am ok with waiting!)
After realizing the importance of the lesson for Little Monica and that this was somehow reflective on my mother's parenting of me, and knowing I was made of tougher stuff, I knew what the right answer was. I was going to have to clean up the icky mouse myself and look like a brave, strong woman doing it. Yeah.
So I made Little Monica get me some rubber gloves from the toy doctor kit and hold the bag open for me to put the mouse carcass in. I proceeded to find the grill tongs, now largely labeled "MOUSE TONGS" on one side and "NOT FOR FOOD" on the other. I was not touching that mouse or mouse trap. No way. I pulled my hair back, put on the itty bitty rubber gloves all the while wishing I had a clean suit (you know, full body suit with helmet and a clear, little square to look out of), covered my face with a paper towel and reached into the cupboard with the long arm of the tong and picked up the mousetrap with mouse attached and gently placed it in the bag my daughter was holding open. We then put it into a larger garage bag, and put it outside in the garbage. After allowing Little M to put the mouse carcass into the garbage, she came back in the house and proudly said
"We sure took care of that Mom! Girls Rule!"
Not sure who learned the bigger lesson today. Probably me.

This Is It?

Lately we've been in negotiations regarding our future. I've been stressed, my Beloved has been stressed, every conversation has been regarding the upcoming months and what the best decision is for our family. While both of our families have weighed in, ultimately the decision is up to us. The past 5 years have been so many changes, in no particular order; a cross country move, then back, a new baby, new jobs, a period of unemployment, the loss of a dear grandparent, discovering our sweet Norah is hard of hearing, a rental home or two, and the lowest point our marriage has ever experienced, and the recovery from that.
Finally we are leveling off, we are reaching a point where we are feeling comfortable, and dare I say, settled. It's a new place for me and while some days I love it, other days I look around and think "This Is It?" I wonder is this what all the fuss is about? Is everyone else having a meaningful life, making daily contributions to the world, and the highlight of my day is a perfect spelling test? Truly, is this it?
Don't get me wrong, I adore my children, think my Beloved was a pretty great catch, but now as we close in on the purchase of a home that we hope to live in for the next ten years and beyond, I find myself thinking about the next step. In your ordinary checklist of life, if there is one, I am struggling to figure out what the next thing to work towards will be.
I know there are thousands of books, websites, refrigerator magnets, pod casts, etc. encouraging me to live the simple life, and enjoy the small things, and most days I do. OK, some days I do, but on the other days, like today, I look at the toys Baby Henry has scattered around, or the kitchen needing cleaning, the to do list that can be done tomorrow and think, "Wow, is this boring."
These may sound like and may be the lonely ramblings of a stay at home mom in a snowstorm deep in the heart of the Midwest in February, and you may suggest taking a vacation (please send money), seeing a counselor (please provide childcare for appointments), or even anti-depressants (no thanks), but those are things I've considered and discarded, because this is my life, good or bad, this is it. Tomorrow will be a better day or at least different, and I think I might try a Vitamin D supplement.