I have at least one new idea every day, a creative flow of light bulbs dancing behind my eyes. Some are fleeting thoughts and some stick around like breath. I have no good way of knowing for certain which ideas are the best to pursue, or how to find the time to pursue them. Life has not allowed for pursuing anything other than the time to change a load of laundry, and jumping in the good ol’ minivan for the next thing, mostly medical things, and we keep going past the time for ideas. I have learned to be okay with this. The time will come. It will. On this particular morning, the house is buzzing with the sound of the furnace, sadly, in May. It got cold last night. I fought the good fight, to keep the furnace off and I lost. That actually meant I won because I stopped shivering. Our guinea pig, […]
Asher is blasting through age six, already more than halfway to seven. Seven. All these years, I’ve written about our happy boy and had the community of online mothers and other friends hold us up during the hardest times. He is doing so well and sometimes I catch myself holding my breath because of that. Like we’re playing Russian roullette, just waiting for one of these days to be the bullet. Hydrocephalus is like that. The odds are greater that something could go wrong, the longer it doesn’t. The other day I followed behind him, pushing Elsie in her stroller and trying to keep up. He got a scooter for Christmas, and he tells me he worked very hard at being able to ride it. It’s tricky, to balance, just two wheels. His brother has one too and he speeds on way ahead and we call after him, wait for us! Asher doesn’t […]
He picked out a hip blue hat for his birthday. He asks every half day or so if it’s Tuesday yet because that’s The Day. He’s Six on that day and so excited. Asher is joy walking around and he still loves to hold my hand so much. All day today, we walked from place to place and he would run to catch up and slip that hand in mind, rubbing his thumb back and forth around my palm. I suppose the reason new parents, all parents really, act like we’re the first ones to have ever been a parent ever, and say all the same things as each other, is because these kids really are that great. They are that exhausting and that difficult to raise and they are the only ones. Like Asher, there’s just no other boy that could ever be him and so I’m the only mother. We’re all […]
In the next room there was a consistent beep. The high sound of keeping track. There was a child we couldn’t see, connected to the beeping as it kept track of a little heart. From another room, a baby was crying. Our Asher was on the hospital bed in front of us and he looked puffy and flushed. He has a fever and so much pain in his noggin. We didn’t know if his hydrocephalus is bothering him in the heat, or if his shunt is malfunctioning, or both. We were waiting to see. The doctor checked him over and had a few theories. Then we went in for a catscan, down the hall. Asher was asking me lots of questions while I said, You have to be really still. Why, Mommy? For the pictures. Okay. Then he held his little white lamb blanket close to his chest. He never remembers doing this from […]
Remember when I said we were doing the hydrocephalus association’s walk? And that I wanted to raise $1,000 for Asher’s Noggins!? We totally did that! Isn’t that the best!? I learned a lot that day, and I’ve been wanting to sit down to write about it, but again, time keeps on slippin’ slippin’ slippin’…into the future. Today, by a random twist of Internet Fate, or Serwebdipity, I’m over at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital blog. There’s a wonderful woman there that uses words like penultimate in conversation and then I look up the word and I’m all, OHHHH and then of course I just SAY that I didn’t know what the word was and had to look it up. I’m a pleasure to work with, I tell ya. (Also. Serwebdipity is obviously a word that should be in the dictionary with a meaning like; a serendipitous or fortuitous meeting on the world wide interweb.) So […]
I was rushing to get out the door to pick up Asher at preschool at one end of town and then get his brother in the middle of town and then drive out the other end of town to get Elsie. I wanted candy. I grabbed an apple. GO ME! (I didn’t have any candy.) I was driving with one hand and chomping CRUNCH my green apple in the other and the stem came off. It reminded me of when I was a kid and my friends and I would play the ABC game while twisting the stem. Whatever letter you were on when the stem broke loose was the first letter of your future husband’s name. Of course, we worked hard to pull the stem free at the first letter of the name of the boy we were “going with” at the time. Then we’d play M.A.S.H. on the bus or at […]
Asher passed me saying I can’t find my hair I fight back a giggle what do you mean, sweetie? The hair for my guy! he says it like it’s so obvious. Legos. Oh yes, the Lego hair. I find it later behind the bathroom door so I think it’s poop but it’s bright plastic brown hair. Asher’s hair is so blonde it’s white. He’s not home but I’ll tell him later. This morning he stood next to me feeling the tubing under his skin I said, do you know what that is? No, mommy. That’s the tube that goes up to your head to your shunt and it makes your body work right. His little growing less chubby hand rests there at the tube under his skin next to me on his neck. He looks deep in thought and I tell him that what’s under his skin makes him have tools of power […]
My Facebook status, “It’s not that I’m more thankful than other people for my kids, it’s just that Asher has had this journey with hydrocephalus & we watch him so closely and every birthday that he has pretty much has me weeping with gratitude for his life. The Ash Man, The Noggin, the totally hilarious Asher Michael is FIVE today.” Yesterday he would touch his forehead and say ouch ouch ouch. A little pocket of panic always rises up from my gut to my chest when he does something like that. It’s probably the heat, the way humidity and barometric pressure play games with someone with head pressure issues like hydrocephalus. But I always watch closely for anything more and then I hope hope hope that it isn’t a shunt malfunction. He’s okay. He’s five years old today and he’s okay. He’s more than okay. He’s Asher. “Mommy, look! I put on your […]
I don’t know why there’s no sound! It’s making me crazy. We’re both going to have to just imagine a song. It’ll be a fun game! RIGHT? Sing yourself something and then push play! danceparty 0001 from Heather King on Vimeo. Our kids are rad. about that whole parenting in this technological world thing? I forgot to mention that we get to make each other smile just for kicks and that’s one of my favorite parts. Today it was my turn. Or Elsie’s, I should say. You’re welcome.
Asher – (whining) (a lot) Mommy, my finger hurts soooo much. (holding up pointer finger) Me – Oh. What happened? Asher – (still whining) (just keep imagine him whining through this whole post) I don’t knooooow. Me – Oh, I don’t see anything? Asher – (looking closely) I don’t know but I need five band-aids. Me – Five? Well. Five won’t fit. Asher – I need five. Me – How about 2? Asher – Four Me – Four and a half Asher – No. It doesn’t hurt half. It hurts whole. Me – okay, Asher. You’re only getting one band-aid. There’s no blood or anything. Asher – oooooh kaaaaay. We get the band-aid and I go to put it on and Asher is holding up his middle finger. Me – Sweetie, I thought it was this finger? (pointing at pointer finger with my pointer finger) Asher – Oh. Yeah. Right. We put the […]
Today I said, Note to life: I’m done with this week early. Thanks for having me! Life isn’t a very good listener. Apparently we’re supposed to learn from it more than it learns from us. Buh. Nothing is really bad or anything, it’s just exhausting. The travels-for-work husband is traveling and Asher has hit a phase in which he is terribly NOT okay with having a traveling dad. I can’t figure out if it helps or hurts to talk to Daddy on the phone. I’m guessing he’d just be really sad either way. The bright side is that the way Asher’s heart is hurting is evidence of a really strong connection with his Dad. I love that. Today has gone something like go go go go go go go goooooooooooo…. breathe. go go go go go go go goooooooooooooooooo…. gasp. go go gogogogogoooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo… fall over. get up. GO. Then it momentarily stopped because […]
I don’t say it all here. Sometimes life goes along with you on your way, missing the landmines, and other times it’s like something is pushing you right into one after another all at one time and that’s what has been happening for us…boom boom boom boom…it’s been that way for a while now. There is so much Life on my heart, I just don’t even know what to do. Sometimes I just need to to sit and cry about it all and then remember that it’s okay to say it’s too hard and too much, and then not feel like I’m weaker than the rest. That’s a lie. I’m not weaker than the rest. I just think I am too much of the time. For now all I can do is move through the days that are like quicksand while I do my best not to analyze how I do it all. I am […]
Today is the first day in a long time that I’m functioning on more than three hours of sleep. (I use the word “functioning” loosely.) My Elsie woke only once in the night and that was around midnight. The next time I woke up the clock read 5 something. I stared at it for a while, confused. How can that be? I tried to go back to sleep, but of course, there I was wondering if she was okay. She just recently moved across the hall and so she’s a million miles away in my mother heart. At 6:15 I just couldn’t take it anymore and I went in to peek at her. She made a little snoring sound and of course I couldn’t leave it at that. I had to touch her, I couldn’t help myself. She woke up. I was okay with that. There have been so many times lately that I have […]
The truth is that The Now is still really hard. I make jokes with Ryan that I wish we had loads of money so we could have loads of help. Would I really want to spend my money on loads of help? I don’t know. I fantasize about having a cleaning service and a cook and well…basically another Heather, to act like me when I just need a half hour to be Heather-Somewhere-Else. Do you see the little hole they’re peeking through in this picture. It made me think of blogging. How we get this peek into each other’s lives but we can really only see so much. No matter how authentic a person tries to be, the hole is only so big. So I really am who you see in there, but I just thought you should know that I’m sometimes a real jerk. I don’t say that to be mean to […]
We went to an art festival yesterday and the boys created. I love it when they do that. paper water ink flower by Miles (from a coffee filter) drying in the wind If you follow me on Twitter or Facebook, you probably already know, but my boys have been saying THE FUNNIEST things lately. Like yesterday when Miles went to greet Elsie after she woke up and he noticed she was sleeping in a sleep sack (in her crib) and he said, She’s like a little slug…a slug stuck in jail. And then the other day, Asher was in the bathroom and I heard him say, in a robot-like voice, You. have. 55. pees. So I said, What honey? and he answered, Oh nothing, that was just the toilet talking. Last night I was reading them books and the book said that a mother’s eyes sparkle like the stars in the sky. So […]
Like good ol’ Hootie and the Blowfish like to say/sing, Tiiiiime, why you punish me? Tomorrow Elsie will be three months old, Asher will have his early childhood screening for kindergarten and Miles starts school on Thursday. When I started this blog, Miles and Asher were a toddler and a baby (WHAT?) and Elsie was what they call a glimmer. Miles and I were alone today, visiting with his teacher and then out for lunch. He asked me how he can go to school if he doesn’t spell yet. I explained that he’ll learn and it’s okay not to know things ahead of time. That toddler boy is still in there, wide-eyed and wondering how everything works. He will always be there. Yesterday Ryan took the boys to the State Fair while Elsie and I stayed home. The boys were so tired when they got home, I’m pretty sure they fell asleep with […]
I woke up thinking about Asher this morning. Lately I’ve hardly even had time for that which makes me feel guilty, of course. It’s funny how being a mom can make you feel bad for not being able to think about every part of every child’s life constantly. As if that were possible. Anyway, I woke up thinking about Asher and all the ways he is joy embodied. And I was grateful that he’s such a trooper because of how we’re so busy with his sister right now and it’s just hard if you look at it that way. He’s just four and sometimes he lets us know he’s sick of us always tending to a baby, but for the most part, he is simply full of humor and grace no matter what. He’s inspiring. After I thought about that, I thought about how he would be if he had a […]
I wrote this (lengthy) post to be a helpy helperton to those of you who have (or know someone who has) a colic-y baby in your life. And maybe I wrote it for me, like an article to myself…one that reminds me that I’ve tried, that I am trying, really hard. This is not the only way I’m a good mom and I forget that all too often. (What’s that? You forget too? Well then, stop that. You’re good. You really are. Believe it.) ::: I don’t even know if “colic” is the word, you know? Babies are magical puzzles for the figuring out and sometimes what’s happening just IS. I guess colic is just a word we use when there are one thousand question marks and a whole lot of crying. Just as I say “constipated” when Elsie isn’t able to get the poops out because there’s so much air holding […]
he won’t be the bad guy. Miles asks, can you be at least half bad and he says emphatically NO. I’m good. he is. he is so good. he wants his sister close and he takes each of her knuckles one by one those teeny tiny knuckles between his fingers and he presses softly smiling his cousin gets hurt and he brings it up all day wasn’t that sad when that happened, mama? yes it was, sweetie that’s him. he is sweetness. He is four. We got to keep him, despite every fear and he is so much more than the boy who had brain surgery when he was one and the boy who has a shunt and tubing through his body and the boy with the adorable glasses. He is The Noggin but of course he is Asher. Everything about him is simply who he is, just parts making up the most […]
I’ve been trying to write a post for days. Days I tell you! The problem I’m having is that there’s not enough time. And when I have a moment, in short doses, I read what I’ve written so far and I think too hard about it while I’m sitting there not really being able to think at all. I can’t write like I used to when sleep-deprived because my head is too fuzzy and confused all the time. I’ll be back. That’s what I wanted to say to Asher the other night when I tucked him in. He sounded sad and sweet at the same time when he said, Have a good day with your baby, Mommy. It was night, but I knew what he meant. He knew I needed to go be with his almost always crying sister in the other room and it broke my heart, the way he said that. […]
The torpedo belly has taken to jutting out so far that it’s entirely possible I may yell at a staring-directly-at-my-protruding-belly-button-for-far-too-long stranger in public. I’ll just string all my usual responses together rapid-fire-torpedo style, like this: No-I’m-not-having-twins-and-no-I’m-not-due-any-day-this-is-just-how-I-carry-babies-speaking-of-babies-I-make-really-big-ones-and-yes-a-belly-button-CAN-stick-out-that-far!!!! Then the gawking strangers will look all apologetic and scamper away. At least that’s how it goes down in my head. 34 weeks Five-ish weeks to go, my friends. And I’m getting SUPER excited. It hasn’t always been that way for me, with pregnancy. I can get kind of distant from it, like it’s something foreign that’s happening to me that may or may not result in a person being added to our family. That sounds weird, but it’s just the truth. Sometimes things just aren’t really really real to me until they are actually happening. But this time, I’m just more connected and aware and anticipating. These five weeks are going to go fast-slow. When I […]
originally uploaded by Heather of the EO {24 weeks} Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
AsherChickenStory_0001, originally uploaded by Heather of the EO. I’m so terribly in love with him. Have a good weekend, friends. Thank you for allowing me to pop up in your inbox and for reading my words, silly or serious. I appreciate you. ~Heather
He didn’t want to go outside when Miles asked. He wanted nothing to do with it, actually. Until he remembered what happens when they come in from outside.His thoughts were something like this…Oh yeah…the warm-up cocoa…which brought onthis… {as he’s running away he’s saying, and then I really want hot cocoa} {and that little blip of me at the end is from an old video I posted and am now trying to record over. Please forgive} {and just pretend my storage space office is super clean and orderly} So. We put on pants and then socks and then snow pants and then a coat and then he added a scarf (of mine) and then a hat (of Daddy’s) and then two mismatched mittens and then boots and then he went out for no longer than 5 minutes and then he was back at the sliding glass door shouting for cocoa. And I quote, […]
He didn’t want to go outside when Miles asked. He wanted nothing to do with it, actually. Until he remembered what happens when they come in from outside.His thoughts were something like this…Oh yeah…the warm-up cocoa…which brought onthis… {as he’s running away he’s saying, and then I really want hot cocoa} {and that little blip of me at the end is from an old video I posted and am now trying to record over. Please forgive} {and just pretend my storage space office is super clean and orderly} So. We put on pants and then socks and then snow pants and then a coat and then he added a scarf (of mine) and then a hat (of Daddy’s) and then two mismatched mittens and then boots and then he went out for no longer than 5 minutes and then he was back at the sliding glass door shouting for cocoa. And I quote, […]
He didn’t want to go outside when Miles asked. He wanted nothing to do with it, actually. Until he remembered what happens when they come in from outside.His thoughts were something like this…Oh yeah…the warm-up cocoa…which brought onthis… {as he’s running away he’s saying, and then I really want hot cocoa} {and that little blip of me at the end is from an old video I posted and am now trying to record over. Please forgive} {and just pretend my storage space office is super clean and orderly} So. We put on pants and then socks and then snow pants and then a coat and then he added a scarf (of mine) and then a hat (of Daddy’s) and then two mismatched mittens and then boots and then he went out for no longer than 5 minutes and then he was back at the sliding glass door shouting for cocoa. And I quote, […]
He didn’t want to go outside when Miles asked. He wanted nothing to do with it, actually. Until he remembered what happens when they come in from outside.His thoughts were something like this…Oh yeah…the warm-up cocoa…which brought onthis… {as he’s running away he’s saying, and then I really want hot cocoa} {and that little blip of me at the end is from an old video I posted and am now trying to record over. Please forgive} {and just pretend my storage space office is super clean and orderly} So. We put on pants and then socks and then snow pants and then a coat and then he added a scarf (of mine) and then a hat (of Daddy’s) and then two mismatched mittens and then boots and then he went out for no longer than 5 minutes and then he was back at the sliding glass door shouting for cocoa. And I quote, […]
On the way home from the hospital yesterday, Asher got the deliriously tired giggles. Things became a bit hysterical because his laugh is contagious and we were all laughing at nothing and something and then nothing again. It was good. Asher’s MRI looked really good, which (of course) is VERY good news. The issue is most likely that his shunt is working too well. It’s tricky to explain but brain valves like Asher’s can have high pressure or low pressure. He seems to be having some low pressure issues. So the spinal fluid is draining out too fast, basically, which makes his head hurt and gives him a belly ache (since the fluid drains through tubing to his tummy). So. There was a change made to what number his shunt is set on (they can do this from the outside, magnetically) (wow). Now we wait to see if he feels better within a […]
Please bear with me while I pretend I know how to make a blog header and then that I know how to make it fit and then that I know how to make it not blurry. I don’t know how to do any of these things, but I was pretending. Now I’m getting help from a friend, so we are “under construction.” ~~~~~ I mostly did this header thing because I thought it would be a creative way to distract myself. Because for the past week or so Asher has been complaining of headaches and has some other possible symptoms of a shunt malfunction. We’ve been communicating with his team at the hospital and watching him closely. We have an appointment for an MRI today, so we’ll be traveling a couple of hours and then continuing to hope for the best. Yesterday when he woke up Asher announced, my brain is making me […]
Dr. P. has enormous hands. When we met him about two years ago and knew he would be doing Asher’s brain shunt surgery, Ryan joked, How is he going to manage surgery on such a small head with those sausage fingers? I watched those same hands I’ve come to know (and maybe even love) as they circled Asher’s head at his check-up on Thursday. He knows what he’s doing. He knows what he’s looking for. He runs his pointer finger and thumb along the valve (shunt) on the right side of The Noggin and he pushes a little to feel for something I don’t understand. I was right next to this big man and my boy and I was vacantly watching because the fear I have as Asher’s mom always rears its feisty head in the children’s hospital. I float through it all while we’re there, holding more tightly to that small hand […]
