Optimism

I know a faithful few have hoped I had not stopped blogging entirely. I haven't, it has just been really really crazy here. I wanted to do an entry about what is going on, but haven't been able to come up with how to word it properly. I don't want to ask for sympathy, yet thoughts and prayers for a good outcome can never hurt a situation. So I guess while I don't want sympathy, I will take all the hope you can provide.

Small Pants has had a lump on the side of his neck that we had checked out by an ENT a while back. He totally blew us off and made it sound as if every child in the world has them. I know swollen glands can be common, but this one would enlarge with no correlation between his being sick or well.

So we went to another ENT who told us he was very concerned about his lump and mentioned Leukemia and Lymphoma. He has already had a round of blood tests and chest x-rays and we go in tomorrow for a biopsy. It has to be sent off to the lab, so we will still be in the dark tomorrow and for the next few days.

I cannot even begin to get my head around the concept that my child might be very very sick. I know I shouldn't worry until I have to, but that is not how my brain works, and I cannot help but worry and be terrified.

Anyway, I haven't had much to post that has any humor to it. I find that too much melancholy gets old, so I just let the blog go for awhile. I am optimistic that my next post will be soon and will be one of great news. I will follow that one up with more tales of the neighbors - they can always be counted on for a good laugh, can't they?

My Pants and I appreciate your kind thoughts and prayers for our Small Pants. It will all be ok.

A Requiem for Innocence Lost

My foray into blogging began around Christmas in 2002. That was when Laci Peterson was discovered missing and consequently found murdered and discarded by her husband Scott. She was very pregnant with their first child, a son to be named Connor. Blissfully happy and hopefully oblivious to her husband's double life, she was, by all accounts, a wonderfully vivacious person with a scintillating personality.

The type of girl that we all know - so pretty, yet you can't hate her for it because she is so much fun, so thoughtful and so loving. Her husband was ready to move on and attempted to do so by killing her and throwing her and his unborn son in the bay - fastened to the floor of the ocean by home made concrete anchors. He is now serving time in prison for their deaths.

The story touched me in a way no other true crime story had. I was emotionally involved in this one and searched for every bit of information I could. I found blogs that discussed the case and the people involved and read them every chance I got.

Very few of my friends could understand why I was so addicted to this case. I wasn't sure myself. But I think I could understand Laci - the pure excitement of impending motherhood - especially for the very first time, the fun of preparing the nursery and the love you feel for the baby before you even get to hold him in your arms. All these emotions were still very real to me because Small Pants had just been born at the end of August in 2002. In fact, as we all sat around the den that morning opening presents, the news came on about her "missing" the night before and her smiling face was flashed up on the screen. Along with the immediate her husband did it thoughts, I also felt a huge sense of sadness and loss. I looked at Small Pants, just staring at the blinking tree and smiling - wrapping paper flying by his head flung by his older brother. My family was complete and our home was full of love. This girl's family was forever broken and would never know this happiness.

Every Christmas, I think of Laci and Connor. A mixture of sadness and thankfulness comes over me and I hug my boys even tighter. I think about how my baby is only a little older than hers would have been. If you know nothing about this case, I encourage you to read a little about it. Her smile spoke volumes and her mother, brother and fathers (step and birth) gave such touching stories and memories of a woman we wished we had known under other circumstances. It is hard not to think about Laci and her sweet baby she never was able to hold in her arms and not think about the innocence that was stolen from her. I won't go into details on the case, the circumstances or the truly gory details because it is a disservice to what we should be remembering. We should remember the smile, the hope, the joy and the lives of promise that were taken and not take those we have for granted.

My home is full of laughter, love, a wonderful husband and two beautiful children that I am ever so thankful for. May you all have a very Merry Christmas surrounded by those you love.

You Should Put a Muzzle on Your Pet

Ok - and now the latest on The Labelers.

Mrs. Labeler has made "visits" to our home and The Bubble's home lamenting the mistreatment of her son. She says that our kids are always calling her son stupid, idiot and the like. I will say that I do not think my boys are angels, but I don't think they are doing all they are being accused of.

Many many times, I have seen Spaz fall off his scooter or trip while playing and immediately scream that one of the other boys has pushed him. This is rarely the case as the other boys are 20 yards away and he didn't know I saw the entire thing. Of the millions of times I have seen the boys playing, Spaz has gotten hurt by one of them maybe four times and it is an accident. He likes to try and get the other kids in trouble. Mrs. Bubble and I just ignore it all for the most part - saying the "Either work it out or don't play together" mantra. But Mrs. Labeler rushes out and interrogates the boys about picking on her son and lectures them for about 15 minutes. She is a child therapist after all.....

Her latest claim is that my oldest keeps telling her son that she is fat.

I asked him about it and he said he would never say that. My oldest is a crappy liar. I can always tell when he is not telling the truth and I believe him when he says he has not said that. That is just not a word we use in our house and I try not to comment on people in that manner. I may say they are a lousy driver, but I don't make remarks around my kids about people that are derogatory. Not because I am such a nice person, but because I know my kids would repeat it in front of them and there I would stand - embarassed. "Mom, isn't she the lady you called a lardass and said couldn't keep her man pleaser shut to save her life?" - right in the middle of a dinner party or something. That would be my luck.

I told Mrs. Labeler after she had said her son said my son had called her fat for about the fifteenth time, that I didn't believe that and that I thought many of Spaz's accusations were fabricated. I gave her examples of situations I had witnessed and how I thought he was wise enough to push her buttons. The kid almost failed Kindergarten last year and you think he didn't notice how stressed she was about him being labeled "stupid?" He knows she is sensitive about that, so he uses it, just like the "fat" comments.

Mr. Labeler, dear sweet loving husband that he is, makes remarks about her weight ALL the time. She put on a bit of weight when she was pregnant and has not lost much of it. I am not ridiculing her at all as I could stand to lose some weight myself! But I cannot imagine Pants telling me all the time "I won't have a fat wife." "You need to lose some weight." And so on - Mr. Labeler actually says things like this to her. But I am about to give you the most incredible comment ever made. The one time I have been left speechless (and that never happens, I assure you). This comment is also the reason why I believe that Spaz is pushing Mom's buttons again - the being accused of being fat upsets her. And since it is mentioned in their house daily by her husband, the kid is well aware of the power of that comment. He thinks if he says one of the other kids is saying it, Mama will rush to his rescue and the other boy will get in trouble. Ever see "The Good Son?" Yep, he's a sneaky little worm.

We were all at The Bubble's house cooking out with some friends of theirs from out of town. We had never met their friends before - I tell you this because it makes the comment from Mr. Labeler even more astounding. Everyone was sitting around chatting, all the kids were upstairs except for the baby and Spaz. It was a pleasant time and we were enjoying ourselves. There was a lull in the conversation when we three ladies were talking about needing to get out and exercise some more. Mr. Labeler breaks out with, and I quote. "It's not really that bad having sex with a fat girl. It's different, but not really bad."

The room was silent and we were all quietly thinking "What the hell?" That her husband would even say that out loud - much less in front of people he had met less than 30 minutes before. WOW. We were all in shock. Mrs. Labeler just looked and us and smiled a weak smile but said nothing. I felt so bad for her, but was in shock. I still can't get over it.

And they think our kids are the reason her son keeps saying she is fat. Ummm..... Hello? McFly????


They keep threatening to move. Which on one hand would be a good thing, but on the other... Damn, they are entertaining. Plus, what if a housefull of midgets moved in or something? That would creep me out. Or what if a family that was even weirder moved in? Nah, nevermind. It'd never happen.

Retrospective

It has been a while since I posted. Pants Sr. passed away on November 30th. It was very very sad and we are all still in a fog. He was such a good man and that family is so close, that it has been very hard on everyone.

Pants is doing ok - he has his moments and then he moves on. I know it just takes time and he will be better eventually. The holidays are always such a sad time to lose someone. It taints the Christmas' to come with the memory of sadness. Time makes it more tolerable.

I have so much to write about and I have to gather my thoughts and assemble them in some fashion. That may take me a day or so. There is so much emotion involved right now - I have to get it organized and on paper.

On a lighter note.....
Carri - I have a neighbor post I have to get on here. You will LOVE this one. Seriously, Mr. Labeler has truly outdone himself this time.

More about the Neighbors

Just for you, Carri.

I am in need of a mood lifter, and lo and behold - one came in the form of more neighbor antics. I have decided we live not in a cul de sac, but a cult de sac.

The Labelers continue to mystify me. The younger Pants in our home are all set to start basketball season and we have signed them up for the league. I think that organized sports are a superb way of teaching teamwork, discipline, self esteem and confidence in kids. I know my ball playing all those years has certainly helped me out - a little competitiveness is a good thing. It makes you try harder.

I think it would be especially important for a child that has ADHD to be able to get out all that energy, plus Spaz is as fast as lightning and I think he could become a good little athlete if he had good direction. He wanted to play basketball, but his mom told me they couldn't afford it. They are really struggling right now and have been since summer. She had a baby and took a longer leave than she was paid for, they expanded the upstairs and upgraded themselves into huge debt and they both took off all summer without pay.

Mr. Labeler has been talking about getting a motorcycle for months and months. Well, guess what? He went and bought one. Mrs. Bubble asked Mrs. Labeler "What the hell? You can't barely pay your utility bill and he gets a motorcycle?"

Mrs. Labeler's response? "I know, but if he isn't happy, he makes all of us miserable."

Are you kidding me?

This man is closing in on 50 and he acts like this? And she allows it? Dear God, I cannot imagine how suffocating that must be. I admit I have a true weakness when it comes to purses and kicky little housewares, but I assure you, I don't get them too often. Plus I don't think mine cost as much as a brand new motorcycle. Not to mention, I cannot fathom, telling my kid "no" to something, just because I need $50 more dollars for a downpayment on a toy for myself. That no one else in the house gets any use out of.

Insane. And to top it all off, picture a David Gest or someone like that on a motorcycle. That's what I get to see when he rides it down the street. Not that he looks like David Gest, but it's that whole geek factor. His is pretty high. And he rides it like he is saying "Look at me. Do you see my cool new bike? Aren't I cool, young and sexy?" In a word? NO. You look like a big honking nerd suffering a huge midlife crisis.

How wrong would it be to get a picture and let you people see? I promise you, when he pulls up on that thing, I have to turn away. Pants and I just look at each other and start giggling. I don't think that is the effect Mr. Labeler was going for. At all.

Standing in the Shadows

Pants Sr. is taking one step forward and one, maybe two steps back. He was getting better, then a setback, then better and now another setback. First, he had his unexpected issue in the OR. Then when he had begun to heal, his belly swelled up like he was about to have triplets - Cause? Collapsed lung and he gets to get a chest tube. Now I have watched my fair share of ER and Trauma - Life in the ER and all that crap on TLC. I know that having a chest tube put in always appears to be the most excruciating thing that ever happens to anyone.

Sometimes, they are pretty accurate on those shows, it seems. Pants' Daddy said that was the worst thing EVER.

His belly doesn't go down much at all, so they take him back in and open him up a little bit more. The surgeon said it was like an innertube being stabbed - air came whooshing out of his abdomen and his stomach immediately deflated. They poked around but couldn't find anything, so they closed him back up. That would begin his healing again.

Then, yesterday they discover a clot in his leg. Thrombosis. So they now have begun a round of blood thinner that will take no less than five days to run it's course. For a man who is always up doing something and has absolutely no desire to retire, this sitting in bed all day is really wearing him down. He had hoped to be home by Halloween. Now, we hope to have him home by Thanksgiving.

We were all supposed to go to the mountains for Thanksgiving - a Pants family get together. I know the boys and I were ridiculously excited and so was everyone else. Of course, my excitement was partially of a selfish nature..... Being in the mountains with them meant I did not have to see my family that weekend! Woohoo! Thanksgiving has never been a big deal to me - I just enjoy the days off, but a big celebration? No. My mother has to get out the fine China and silver service every year and make some big deal about it. That sounds nice in theory, but you must realize that every single time we all get together, it ends badly. Every. Single. Time. My sister and sister-in-law don't like each other too much, they start sniping at each other, my mom gets mad and mutters things under her breath and flings spoons in the sink and I just sit there. Willing my watch to tick faster. For the love of God, has the damn thing stopped? Then, after the meal, everything has to be washed by hand and you have to count all the silver. She swears my nephew threw away a fork one year. So my SIL & I stand at the sink for two hours washing and drying (all the while with instructions being given by my mother and sister) until our hands shrivel up and fall off. My sister never moves from her seat. She is far too busy looking at the sale ads. Determining what she is going to spend my portion of the inheritance on the next day, I am quite certain.

So anyway, I told Pants Sr. that I would be mad and possibly never forgive him if he didn't quit this nonsense and get better so we could go to the mountains. He laughed when I said he was being very selfish and needed to start thinking about me instead of himself. Of course, I was kidding. Sorta.

That is usually how I deal with fear and sadness. Humor and sarcasm. My two best friends. So I am standing in the shadows as this wonderful family deals with the uncertainty, fear and helplessness of watching someone they love struggle. I know it could all be so much worse. I realize we are lucky that he is doing as well as he is. But that doesn't make this any better or easier. The uncertainty is keeping us all from getting our hopes up when he has a good day. He has had many good days only to get scary news the next day. I still am so very afraid that he won't be the same. I have seen that happen with my father and it is hard to accept and hard to watch. It is etched into your brain and haunts you. It seeps into every memory and discolors your thoughts. You can't recall a happy moment without the final portion of that thought being how they changed. How they had become somehow so much less, it seemed, that what they had been.

Whomever said time heals all wounds had no wounds. Time heals nothing when it comes to losing someone you love or having them weaken before your eyes. Time may make the memory and the wound more tolerable, but it is never healed. It is always tender and likely to reopen.

I do not want Pants to have to deal with that. I know eventually he will have to deal with his parents passing, but not yet. Not when there is so much left to do and so many memories left to make. My Daddy died 15 years ago. Fifteen years. And as I sit here typing this, my eyes are filled with tears and my heart is very heavy. If you had told me 15 years ago that this would still affect me like it does, I never would have believed you. I think that is why I am praying and begging for Pants' father to get better and get back to where he was. I just want to protect him from this. I know I cannot, so I just keep trying to reassure him that it will all be okay. He seems to be handling this better than me, so I am afraid he is keeping it all inside. He is exhausted, he hasn't seen the boys for more than five hours in the past two or three weeks and he is working overtime on top of all the nights at the hospital. I worry about him. But I would not let him do this any other way. He needs to be there. For his Dad, his Mom and his sister. I try and go up there during my lunch hour and visit as well as on the weekends, but I think his presence there is much more necessary. He is very strong, protective and kind. I think when he is there, everyone has faith it will all be ok.

I am choosing to believe it will be.

Alternatingly Numb and Panicky

Sorry I haven't been around. Believe me, I would have like to have been - we have been sitting at the hospital. Waiting. Pants' daddy had triple bypass surgery today along with an aortic valve replacement. Scary. he had been complaining of shortness of breath and a sore throat whenever he exherted himself and they thought it was acid reflux. (Silly doctors, we all know that only causes you to lip sync on SNL!) Anyway, they did the treadmill and CT Scan to rule out heart issues and they both came back fine, so they sent Pants, Sr. home with some reflux meds and called it a day.

He came back to the Dr. and said it wasn't helping at all, so they scheduled a heart cath, just to be sure. Yesterday, they discovered he had 80% blockage in two arteries and 70% in another one. As well as his valve was calcified. So they went in this morning and took care of all that.

Unfortunately, he isn't doing as well as we had hoped or expected. They had some issues with the site where they took the vein to use for the bypass and he bled alot into his leg and his BP dropped after surgery. Long and confusing Dr. speak story made short - he is going to be on the ventilator and doped up a day or so longer than we and the staff expected - and that would be the best case scenario.

Pants is a very strong man. He is handling this well, but I know he feels so helpless. We all do. I am worried he will keep it all inside. And while I do think it is best to put on a strong front for his mother and sisters, I want him to know he call fall apart in front of me if he needs to. We just have to sit and wait to see if it all heals like it is supposed to and that is very scary. I am alternating between feeling certain that all will be okay and then worried that Pants will have to suffer through the unexpected loss of his father like I did. Or even worse, his father never returning to the man he was. Which is much larger than life. I do have a gut feeling that it will all be okay and that it's just going to take a little longer recovery than we had planned on.

But it is scary to look around the ICU waiting room at his whole family. They look so lost and uncertain. And I feel like a bit of an outsider, even though I am not, simply because I don't know how to fix it or make it better. It just seems so sudden, which it is, and it's like a fog. I know people every day have this surgery and it is no longer as serious as it once was with the strides made in medicine. But I don't know anyone in my family or close friends who have had this surgery, so I don't know what is normal and what should be a major concern.

I guess part of me feels like since I know how stressed and scared they are, having been through it, I should be able to say something to make them feel better. But I don't have the words. I am just being there and trying to keep his mom upbeat and confiodent and watching Pants closely. I know the hazards of keeping it all in and they can be devestating. I just wish I knew what to say, but until we have some definative answers, I am afraid to say too much. Besides, I know how helpless I felt when my Daddy was in the hospital and I would imagine that no one could have said anything then that would have made me feel better. I hope just my being there is enough.

Anyway, please say a prayer or light a candle - whatever you believe in - for Pants, Sr. I will be in and out going to the hospital to stay and trying to keep the boys' schedules as normal as possible. I will post more when I know it.

Pants and I thank you for your kind thoughts.