The Whole Fam-Dam-Ly

Let's be crystal clear. I HATE to have my picture taken. I hate it. The last time I agreed to have my picture taken willingly was my wedding. The camera loves a lot of people, it detests me. I just don't take a good picture. However I love taking pictures of others.

About a month ago I had a wonderful idea. I asked Raif if he would take some pics of my parents and the kids when they got here for Thanksgiving then I could frame the best one and give it to my parents for Christmas. I mean is there anything better for grandparents than pictures of their grandkids??

But about 2 days before Thanksgiving Raif dropped the bomb on me that he wanted a family picture of everyone...including me. Ugh, my perfect idea had somehow gone horribly wrong. I gave him a million excuses which all got turned down. Damn. So here are the pictures from our whole family shoot.

These Moments

Greyson has had his two blankets "Duckie" and "Fluffy Blue" since he was a baby. They have served in many capacities over the years....isolette covers, baby beds in the NICU, baby blankets at home and travel companions. There has rarely been a day in his life where one of these blankets hasn't been with him when he has drifted off to sleep.

When he moved from his crib to his big boy bed it was these blankets that went with him and smoothed that transition. Most nights when we put him to bed he insists on being blanketed by one of them, though he is far too big to actually be covered by it. In the mornings I usually find him like this....


with big boy comforter and sheets discarded and curled up in a tight little ball under one of his trusty blankets. At some point, he will be too big for his blanket and will eventually cast them away as most children do with their childhood possessions but until then I will cherish some of these last bastions of baby-dom.

Over the years many people have asked me why I blog. I give my usual pat response "It helps the grandparents keep up so many miles away." But the real reason, I have come to learn, is more for me than for them. These types of moments, the ones that just aren't captured in a baby book, the ones that easily slip away from old faded memories like mine, will be forever captured here. When I am old and gray in the nursing home I can read through these entries and remember these simple moments that I forgot. The moments that capture Greyson or Quinn's personality better than a birthday party memory, even though those are far easier to remember. Because life isn't ever about the big things but it is always about the little ones.

Well Worth The Wait

It took us a little time to get Quinn's 4 year portraits done. Raif got a new camera for his birthday and wanted to wait to use it for Quinn's pictures and then our weekends got jammed up and it was already Thanksgiving. How did that happen? Then we looked at the 10 day forecast and realized if we wanted to get them done before it froze yesterday was the day. So while our lobsters were simmering we took a little field trip. The pictures, as always, are amazing. Here are some of my favorites....




As always go to Raif's smugmug account to see them all...and they are really worth taking a look at!!

Speaking of Sucking....

Early last week while Greyson was building LEGOS with his father when his part boat, part airplane, part helicopter broke apart to which he cried out "This sucks..."

Hmmm, I instantly assumed he must have learned that at school, the downfall of exposing your kids to others, but honestly Raif and I have a habit of letting that lovely phrase slip out every now and again. But where ever he got it from, Raif and I quickly agreed that we needed to nip it in the bud.

We sat down with him and talked about how that wasn't a nice thing to say and while we appreciated the need to 'let it out' when you are frustrated perhaps we could think of some other phrase to use.

Raif and I ran through the usual suspects - darn, rage, shoot. None of them appealed to the boy so then we went on to slightly funnier ones like fiddlestix, darn-nabit, and the like. While he was amused by them he turned them all down.

"So Greyson, then what do you think would be a good word to use when you are mad?"

"PUFF!!!"

"Puff?????"

"Yes, puff!"

Well all rightly then, the new I am mad phrase around our house is 'puff.' Both kids have caught onto it and I have heard it several times when things get dropped on a toe or the one puzzle piece just doesn't seem to fit. Admittedly, I have tried it on a couple of times but it just doesn't have that umphhh, that quality that channels the anger out like a sucks or a shit or a fuck does. It just seems a bit too happy for my taste but hey its not my word. I just hope that I can keep my anger words under my breath so we won't have to come up with any more alternatives because Lord only knows what these two would come up with for motherfucker.

Bloggers Unite - Prematurity Awareness

Can you believe that someone other than the grandparents and my 5 friends read my blog? I couldn't either but a few weeks ago I got a comment relating to my November VIP post by some random person. She let me know that November 17th, was a Bloggers Unite event for Prematurity Awareness Month and would I like to help get the word out. Well of course I would, but the problem was that I already posted about Greyson so now what? Well as luck would have it, while reading another blog I follow about a fellow preemie I found a post I could have written myself (but didn't). It was all about why prematurity sucks. So here is the post from Following Elias about the side of prematurity that the rest of the world doesn't see.

I think the main thing we need to be aware of about prematurity is that it sucks. It really sucks.

Prematurity takes what should be a normal infancy and turns it into a journey into medical hell. It robs both parent and child of a normal infancy. Instead of filling baby books with milestones like "smiled for the first time" you make note of milestones like "weaned off ventilator." You and your baby are robbed of quiet, private moments. Instead, the two of you spend those moments in a room filled with strangers, doctors, nurses, monitors, alarms and machinery you didn't even know existed when you were filling out your baby registry. People tell you well intentioned, yet terribly stupid things, like "things happen for a reason," "God doesn't give you more than you can bear," "at least you never got stretch marks since the baby was born so early" or "you're lucky you get to sleep at night since the baby is in the hospital."

You wake up day after day wondering if this is the last day you will see your child.

Prematurity financially devastates families. Contrary to popular belief, there is no insurance fairy who pays the tens of thousands of dollars of co-pays or the endless "uncovered" things like speech therapy or adaptive equipment. Even "good" insurance isn't "good enough" to cover prematurity. Instead of paying for a babysitter, you have to pay for a nurse to watch your child, instead of daycare, you have to hire a nanny, instead of working full time you have to take a leave or work part time because of the sheer number of medical appointments your child will have after leaving the NICU.

Prematurity is isolating, physically and emotionally. Because of the baby's fragile immune system, you have to limit to whom and what the baby is exposed. Of course friends and family assume you are simply nuts, because, as they will all tell you over and over, everyone needs to be exposed to germs. Actually not. It is emotionally isolating because no one, other than the other shipmates on the SS Prematurity have even a clue as to what it is like to take your infant to a minimum of one doctor visit every week, not have a single day for just you and your baby because three therapists show up everyday, on schedules that are convenient to them not you and your baby.

Prematurity devastates families emotionally (see all of the above).

So what can we all do to help make this suck less? Well, you can donate money to various charities in the hope that some of the research they fund might end prematurity. Or you can do something a bit closer to home and more personal. Call your local NICU or its support group and ask what you can do to make this whole thing suck less. Small things can make prematurity suck less. For example, my mother, my aunt and I make blankets and hats for the babies. There are dozens and dozens of babies that have worn my aunt's tiny "wee caps" and many who have been warmed by one of my mom's blankets and even though my blankets are far from "perfect" they are made with love. Some people make isolette covers, some people donate disposable cameras for parents to leave at the baby's bedside (yes we do take photos of our babies in the NICU), other folks donate gifts cards for coffee or gasoline to be given to those in need in the NICU. Others donate story books to the NICU (yes we read to our babies the same as you would at home). If you are feeling really generous, ask if you can send over bagels and coffee for a Sunday brunch for the parents and nurses (they get hungry too). Not all parents in the NICU can afford NICU clothes for their baby, so think about donating some NICU shirts or preemie clothes to your local NICU. Even if you can't prevent premature births, you can make prematurity suck less for the parents and the babies who are in the NICU right in your hometown. So this November, let's see if we can all make prematurity suck less.

We've Only Just Begun

I wonder if this is how the Carpenters started out??



FYI The song is titled "Princess and the Pea"

One Little, Two Little....

Now Where's That Turkey??

I am sure one day I will stop feeling the need to post pics of Greyson's homework (I mean really, who wants to see his algebra??) but for now it is awful cute and I am awful proud.


His assignment this week was to disguise his turkey so it wouldn't be eaten on Thanksgiving Day. Though considering we never eat turkey around here for any major holiday he didn't need much of a disguise. Now the lobsters though, they may need to start dressing like a turkey.

Seriously, WTF?!?!?

On Saturday we were out playing hockey with the kids and I spied this little guy on my car....


At first I thought it must be two bugs mating, but no, that is one long, scary looking dude. Has anyone ever seen a bug like this before, other than on some Discovery Nature show deep within the Amazon??

Queer Eye for the Pilgrims

My son's FABULOUS pilgrims. I am sure that all the pilgrims wished they had actually dressed that colorfully.

The Card

It came innocuously in Greyson's Tuesday folder from school - his very first report card. I stared at it with disbelief when I saw it. To be honest, I sort of forgot that we was going to get one and I surely didn't think it would come like this. I don't know what I expected - a personal call from the Head of School or bells to go off when I opened his folder but surely not this way - like a random piece of homework from or permission slip. I mean this was his VERY FIRST report card.

After staring at it a few seconds longer, I whipped it open and completely ignored the skill descriptions but went straight to the first 'grade' lines that were neatly filled with mostly D's and some B's. "Holy F*%k!" I thought, "my kid is failing Kindergarten." Of course he wasn't, since the B's and D's didn't actually mean he was getting B's and D's but were rather symbols for a far kinder grading system. I quickly scanned the report card and found the legend on the back. The B's meant that he was beginning to develop a skill. The D's meant that he had developed the skill but occasionally might need some reminders or help and S's meant that he had secured the skill.

My panic subsided a bit and I went back and read through everything. He got mostly S's in social behaviors (he gets that from me) got D's in reading and math skills (I perhaps can give Raif credit for those) and B's in fine motor skills. The fine motor wasn't a shock because a) I never got anything above a NI (needs improvement) in handwriting and most of the time scored the ever popular U (unsatisfactory) when it came to my elementary penmanship. And b) his neurologist told us that he would more than likely have motor skill issues (both fine and gross) from his NICU brain bleed. So all in all, it was a pretty good report card, I suppose. I mean if he was getting S's in everything his first quarter in Kindergarten then he probably shouldn't be in Kindergarten, right??

But then I started to analyze the card more and more. When we looked at schools about this time last year one of our main criteria was to put Greyson in a non-competitive school. One of our main draws to BGA was the warm and friendly family atmosphere. We had several people tell us that it was the most nurturing private school around and if we wanted something competitive this was not the place to send our kids. OK, so here it is - my touchy feel-y, non-competitive report card. This is what I wanted, right? Apparently not. OK, so he is developing his spelling skills. Good for him but where is everyone else in his class related to him? Are all the other parents looking at report cards chocked full of S's?? I am an accountant by trade - I deal with numbers, concrete answers, right and wrong. I wanted a report card filled with A's, B's and C's. I can relate to those, understand how he is doing, determine where his weaknesses are. I wanted something, anything that told me he was in line with his peers. What I got was a warm fuzzy report card that was starting to feel anything but warm and fuzzy.

Of course, as happens with most emotional traumas that befall me, Raif was out of town. I called him on the phone.
"We got Greyson's report card, today."
"Oh great, how did he do?"
"Well let me read it to you."
"Sweetie, I have got 5 minutes until my next meeting, can this wait til I get home?"
"Sure." (Of course what I was really saying in my head was "NO IT CAN'T")

And so I waited an excruciating 24 hours until my husband FINALLY arrived home. I presented it to him as soon as he walked in the door, before he could put his suitcase down or kiss his kids hello.

"So what do you think."

He gave it a cursory glance, nodded his approval, said "Looks good" and handed it back to me.

"That's it???? This is his FIRST report card EVER!!! Don't you think we should sit down and discuss it, dissect it. Isn't that what we are suppose to do?"

"Babe, it is a Kindergarten report card. I think you need a little perspective."

OK, clearly he was right but that didn't stop me. So after we put the kids to bed I forced him to sit at the kitchen table (because family matters should always be discussed at the kitchen table) and look over it again and I pretty much got the same declaration. "Looks, good to me."

But I just couldn't let it go. I felt very 'grown-up' discussing my child's report card. You know, like those random moments you have in parenting when you are hit with the importance and monumental weight of raising another human being. My racing mind didn't quite make it to "If he gets a bad Kindergarten report card he will never get into the right college" but I will admit it came close. Raif amused me for a couple of minutes but rapidly grew tired of the conversation.

"What if we went over it with him tomorrow and talked to him about what it means? Would that help??"

We did and it did help, a little. But the moral of this whole story is, I guess I am a little more competitive when it comes to my children then I thought. This might not surprise some of you but it actually did surprise me. I have tried to take a step back and I resisted the urge to write his teacher and ask for his class rank.

"Hello, my name is Michele and I am a grade junkie."

Admitting your addiction is the first step, right?

Fall Fun on a Farm

Greyson has been at BGA for a little under 3 months now and so far we have been thrilled with it. He is in a class of 10 kids (yes that is right, 10. Quinn has more kids in her preschool class) with two teachers. A 5 to 1 kid to teacher ratio is hard to beat!! By the 4th day of school the Headmaster, Dr. Graham, knew pretty much every kid by name and by the end of the 2nd week he knew every parent and which kid belonged to who. Greyson is learning so much and having so much fun that he doesn't want to leave at the end of the day. Like I said, we are really happy with the school.

One of the other things that we love about our small, private school is the flexibility in which they operate. A couple of weeks ago, Connor's grandparents (another Kindergartener) invited all the kids and their parents to a Fall Fun on the Farm Day. And so we spent last Monday running around the Clark's farm just south of Nashville. Maybe I am wrong but I just can't imagine a public school allowing their kids to spend the day at the farm like that without having to go through mounds and mounds of red tape. We fished, played on hay bales, had a wienie roast and made s'mores and had a hayride with the children taking turns going into a tractor's scoop (and I know that they would never allow that in a public school). It was a day where the kids could just be kids, which is something that all schools need to do once in awhile.

The big sport of the day was jumping from one hay bale to the other. Unfortunately the hay bales were a shade too far apart for most of the kids so their jumps usually ended with a splat on the side of the hay bale and a fall to the ground (a la Wipeout). For those lucky enough to not fall down and hold on to the hay bale the rest of the class pushed from behind to get them on top. A great lesson in team work.

Going Home Again

I really do love Nashville. I love the schools we have found for both kids, the sense of community and friendliness, the lack of any serious traffic on a daily basis, and Raif's job. But there are two things that we miss about Atlanta: food and old friends. And I got both of them this past weekend when we headed south for Keith and Susanna's annual "World's Second Largest Cocktail Party".

Thanks to all of our friends who took time out of their busy schedules to stop by and say hello. We miss y'all so much...come and visit us...please!!!



It as a bit of a miracle that we got them to sit in one place for even a second to get this picture.

Greyson was beer wench for most of the afternoon.

Sam and Greyson had a hard time grasping the 'non-contact' part of soccer.

Nikhil REALLY enjoyed his Bulldawg Black cupcake.

Evan REALLY enjoyed the liquor.

November's VIP

As you may remember I posted earlier that Greyson was going to be November's VIP (Very Important Preemie) for Northside Hospital's Parents Partnered for Preemies group. Since the vast majority of you aren't affiliated with the group I thought I would share the story and pictures of Greyson here that will be featured this month....

After a year and a half of trying to have a baby, we thought the pregnancy would be the easy part. Then we learned we were having twins, and normal pregnancy simply wasn’t meant to be. At 18 weeks, one of the amniotic sacs ruptured and a week later our first son was stillborn. Doctors told us it was virtually impossible to deliver only one child, they gave us a 1 in 1,000 chance, but Greyson was stubborn. He hung in another 6 weeks before he decided he simply couldn’t wait any longer. Our beautiful boy was born on July 25^th at 26 weeks, 5 days with a fighting weight of 2 pounds, 4 ounces.

His first month of life went spectacularly well and relatively uneventfully. He was never on a ventilator, barely spent two weeks on a CPAP machine and was then placed on nasal canulas. He was even moved out of the NICU and into the “feed and grow” section of the Special Care Nursery. He was doing great on feeds and marching full force ahead as only a real fighter could.

But as everyone who has ever had a child in the NICU can tell you, things can change in a heartbeat. On August 25^th, when he was exactly one month old, our phone rang at about 2:00 in the morning, with news that no NICU parent ever wants to hear – something was wrong, and they were running some tests. They’d call us back. A painfully long hour later, we received a second call: Greyson has NEC, they told us. We don’t think he will make it. You need to come in and say goodbye.

Some moments of that night are crystal clear to me – speeding down I-285 at 95 mph, holding my husband’s hand, riding up the elevator with the Scottish Rite transport team, seeing a ghostly white Greyson for the first time with what seemed like 100 nurses and doctors surrounding him with a swollen, bloated belly, the sound of the sirens on the ambulance ride over to Scottish Rite. Other moments, like our talk with the surgeon, I know happened, but I couldn’t tell you a single word that was exchanged.

Finally as the sun was coming up, we finally got good news. The NEC wasn’t as bad as they initially thought. They had to remove only a small portion of his intestines and at that point he was stable. They had performed an ileostomy and only time would tell how he responded.

The weeks after that were difficult and tenuous. When someone outside the NICU world tells you that they’ve been on an emotional roller coaster, you can rest assured, they have no idea what that really means. Greyson was intubated after surgery; when they took him off the ventilator, the pressures caused his lung to collapse and he spent several minutes without oxygen as they tried to repair the damage: surgery #2 – put a chest tube in. He battled more cases of pneumonia then I care to remember and a blood clot formed at the entry point of one of his PICC lines and ended up breaking off and strangling one of his kidneys, rendering it useless. Very slowly, however, the good days began to outnumber the bad and finally after 4 surgeries and 4 months he came home on December 1^st.

Life at home with a preemie presents its own challenges. Greyson came home with a PEG tube for feeding, an apnea monitor that makes the most ear piercing sound you’ve ever heard in your life, 4 different medications including shots that had to be administered (taken of course at different times of day so we had to have a chart on the fridge to keep track) and 6 different specialists/therapists to visit.

He got his feeding tube out that next February and very slowly, as the months and years went by, we starting crossing off specialists and therapists one at a time. Today he is a vibrant, energetic, playful and often times stubborn 5 year old boy who loves to build LEGOS, draw, color, and play hockey at any opportunity. Other than the scar across his belly you would never know that the beginning of his life was anything but ordinary. He only sees one of his specialists, his nephrologist, who monitors his remaining kidney and will do so probably the rest of his life. He is in the 50^th percentile in weight and height, something I didn’t even dream about 3 years ago (who knew average could be so spectacular). He started kindergarten this fall and is doing extremely well in reading and math. He is, in fact extraordinary in every way.

We couldn’t be prouder of all the things he has overcome and persevered through in his short life. We also wouldn’t have survived our time in the NICU if it wasn’t for the support we got from PPP. Our Thursday meetings were what got us through each week. Being able to sit down each week and talk with other parents who understood terms like CPAP, NEC, and BPD was a life saver. The support we received, and the lifelong friends we have met is invaluable to our family. Thanks to everyone at PPP for all you do!!

Eight

Eight years ago I said yes to my best friend and haven't looked back since....

Party Hardy

When we decided to stick our children in two different schools on two different sides of Nashville which were also on the other side of town from us I figured I could handle it. Sure it was a lot of driving but I had my system and my timing all figured out. What I forgot to add into the equation was the little things like Holiday parties and after school activities and the like.

Last Friday was my first foray into my children having parties on the same day at different schools.

First was Quinn's Lil' Punkin Parade at Susan Gray. The children all dressed up and trick-or-treated around Vanderbilt's campus ending at Murray house where they had games, coloring and face painting.


Then thankfully my parents were in town and so I dropped Quinn off with them and went shooting over to BGA for Greyson's holiday party filled with arts and crafts, ghoulish goodies like eyeballs (which were cleverly frosted Krispy Kreme donut holes) and a hysterical mummy making contest.

I had a great time and was glad that I could be there for both of my kids, but man this shuffling back and forth is the pits.

Happy Halloween

One would think there would be more smiles as we ventured out to get candy, but alas this was the best I could get.

Guess The Scary Erim...