The Pre-Date Freak Out

We kissed our kids good-bye and left them in the hands of our neighborhood babysitter and headed out for an evening of good food, uninterrupted adult conversation and super heroes battling to save the Universe. As we backed out of our driveway, the garage door refused to close. It's automatic so that's kind of it's job once the button is pushed. But on this night, it would not budge. So my husband jumped out of the car to try to fix it as I sat huddled closely to the heater on this particularly frigid night. I noticed a police car park one house down on my left with its blue and red lights flashing. It was just sitting on the street but it hadn't pulled anyone over.

Strange.

Jake decided to manually slam the garage shut from the inside. The headlights of our sedan amplified the whiteness of the door like a giant blank canvas. And just then a tall, teenage boy in a black beanie and all black clothes darted between the car and the garage door and jumped our short, wooden fence into my backyard.

He was running from the police. But they didn't see him. I did.

He was having trouble moving quickly because his pants were sagging too low. And so I lept from the car and stood in my driveway, frozen. Not from the arctic night air, but because I was watching someone run into MY yard which is connected to MY house where MY babies were with their tiny teenage babysitter.

I screamed.

I screamed at the top of my lungs because I didn't know what else to do. Chase him and hope he didn't have a gun? That I could stop him from trying to get into my house and take some hostages?

I screamed "stop" repeatedly, as loud and as long as I could until Jake threw open the garage to try to figure out what was happening to me. I told him someone just jumped the fence and he ran into the house just as the policeman arrived at my gate. He radioed for back up.

And I still stood in my driveway. Stuck. Helpless.

Does he want me to open the gate for him? Why isn't he going after that kid?

I left the car running and ran straight into the house. I wanted to make sure everyone was safe. And they were.

It's hard to conceal my panic sometimes, but I try and generally do a decent job. But Sophie is a mini-me and she quickly started freaking out as well. Was he still in our yard? Could he get in the house?

I doubted he still was since he was evading the police. But it gave me great pleasure to tell her that ALL the doors and ALL the windows were locked. I knew that they were.

I knew it because I didn't come from the best neighborhood. I grew up locking everything that I didn't want stolen. And even then we still had hoodrats break into our vehicles at night and tag our cars. My parents had to call 911 a few times when prowlers and drunken neighbors were in our backyard. I saw more than my fair share of illegal guns, drugs and beat downs on the street. The ghetto bird was a common appearance at night.

It wasn't the worst place to live, but it wasn't safe.

And so the lessons I learned in my youth, helped me feel better about tonight. I knew my house was locked up tight with my kids safe inside. This is the Chicago area, and picking a safe neighborhood is pretty important. We chose to live here because of the amazingly low crime statistics.

But low doesn't mean zero.

It only took a few seconds for more police to arrive on our street. There were at least six vehicles racing around the block trying to find this kid. I don't know if he was wanted for petty crime or violent crime. But it makes no difference to me. All I see is a threat to the safety I have tried to build for my family.

After a while, my husband was able to calm me down and convince me that there was no immediate danger and so we left on our date and continued to check in with the babysitter and our neighbors.

I walked the babysitter home in the dark, cold night and felt different, though I'd done it dozens of times before and never felt unsafe. I was on high alert. I looked at the spot where I'd seen the young man jump into our backyard and replayed the sound of my scream, primal...ripping its way from my body into the air, alerting my husband, the police, anybody, somebody to please help. I can feel my throat still sore from the experience. I don't think I've ever screamed like that before.

And here it is the middle of the night. I've been tossing in my bed for hours, but the adrenaline won't leave me and I keep wondering how safe we really are. Is it possible I'm overreacting about some kid jumping our fence as he ran from the cops? Probably. I do have a tendency to be dramatic. But this incident truly has me freaked out. It's causing flashbacks of what I've seen and urging my imagination play out all the different types of danger we could find ourselves in and how we could possibly prepare for all of them. But that's just it, we can't. There is no way to possibly prepare for every single scenario. All I can do is my best. Even if all that is, is to scream.

Spring Break

The Chicago area has been brutally cold and the sunshine scarce. With Spring break approaching, I did something spontaneous and crazy: I booked a place on the beach in Gulf Shores, Alabama for our family to spend in the warmth of the rejuvenating sun. Never before have we attempted to travel so far as a family in our van. It would be at least 14 hours and I was sure it would be awful, but well worth it.

I'm no good at driving at night and neither is my husband. But I'm awesome early in the morning. Once I'm awake, there's no chance I'll go back to sleep. So we woke up our three kids at 4:30am and drove south into the dark toward our bliss. I was certain our children would fall back to sleep for a few hours until we could stop for breakfast. But guess what?! My kids are just like me, once they're awake, they don't fall back to sleep. They just sat there in some sort of pre-dawn freeway hypnosis, their heads occasionally bobbing left and right, but never actually succumbing to sweet sleep.


But they weren't screaming or misbehaving, so that was an excellent start. After we stopped in Indiana for a traditional Denny's breakfast fare of carbohydrates and sugar, we hit the road again...with my secret weapon. I bought DVD players to hang over the back our seats and the kids were mesmerized. John loved A Bug's Life and asked to watch it over and over. And over and over. He didn't want any of the other DVDs I rented from the library, but that's okay. He was happy and though it was repetitive, it was fine. Until the DVD broke. Upon ejection, it went shooting across the interior of our vehicle and cracked. No more "bug movie" for John. He was more upset that the situation called for, but he's 3 and sleep deprived and trapped in a metal box speeding down the freeway. Well, not exactly "speeding", but, um, okay, I speed.

Anyway, we stopped for Kentucky Fried Chicken in Kentucky because...well, it seemed like the thing to do. Then we stopped in Nashville as our halfway point and visited with Jake's friend from Graduate School and went to dinner together, then it was off to the hotel for a good night's rest.

Rise and Shine! This was the final leg of our trip. In seven hours, we would finally get out of this van and be free. It felt like forever. Alabama is a long state. And we got stuck in quite a bit of traffic. I noticed most of the license plates were from up north like us: Wisconsin, Iowa, Michigan, Illinois, etc. Apparently more than just birds head south to escape the cold.

We stopped at a Subway in the middle of nowhere. And since it was the middle of nowhere, it was crowded, being the only place for food. The line was long and as I paid for our food, I heard Jake say:

"Where's John?"

Oh, no.

We ran for the glass front doors as we shouted his name but saw nothing but rows of cars. I came rushing back in and looked in the bathroom. He's not in the restaurant. My heart was pounding and everyone was watching. They all froze as I panicked. Finally, I saw Jake with our little boy outside. He just walked right out of the restaurant all by himself and wandered around between cars. He could have so easily been backed over. Nobody would have even seen him. I was so relieved. Beyond relieved. It was the longest 10 seconds of my life.

A few more hours and we made it to our destination.

This is my face. On the Beach.

 Oh, glorious sunshine! The sand was so white it hurt my eyes to look at it. The water was warm, tame, clear and inviting. It was perfect.

The kids dug in the soft sand for hours. John threw all the seashells he found into the waves. My husband and I let the warm rays of the sun soak into our vitamin D deficient skin. It was perfect.

The vast and beautiful gulf.

Shark bait.

And then cold came. The temperatures dropped into the 40s and 50s and it was too cold to get in the water, but we still went to the beach every day desperate to make the most out of our trip.

In sweatshirts at sunset.

Sophie took this picture.

Adorable.

We had so much fun in Gulf Shores, even when it was windy and cold. The sunsets were gorgeous and the people were friendly. We saw dolphins playing in the water.We ate seafood every day.

Eating an oyster.

It was sad to say good-bye to the ocean and head back up to the freezing cold North, but it was time. We went to Ohio on the way home to visit Jake's cousin's family and have Easter fun.

Silly hubby.

Eat your heart out Taylor Swift!

A tire swing in the country!

It was such a blast. My son has been asking to go back to their house every time we get in the van to go anywhere. We were all unbelievably tired by day 10 and were anxious to get home. Even though we had lots of fun on our Spring Break, I don't think that I'll travel that far again for a long time. All that driving was really exhausting. But we made some great memories and I highly recommend Gulf Shores to anyone.

Birth Story: Sophie

Two-fer

I didn't even know I was pregnant. All of the normal indicators just weren't there. I wasn't sick at all. However, I was extremely tired. I thought it was because of my first full-time job since graduating college, which included a commute from Ogden to Salt Lake City. I was so very tired, I would sleep in my car during break. Then one day, while sitting dutifully in my cubicle, I was struck with the overwhelming smell of all the lunches being eaten and/or prepared in the office. It was so awful. I thought I might puke. Tired and and aversion to smells...

Could I be pregnant?

A home test revealed, yes.

During my first Doctor's appointment, I had an ultrasound that revealed I was already 13 weeks pregnant. 

"Congratulations," said the doctor. "You're done with your first trimester." 

Done with the my first trimester? That was easy! But just because you have an easy pregnancy, does not mean you'll have an easy delivery.

A week before my due date, on a Saturday, my husband and I had dinner at Chili's. I knew our lives would soon change and eating out in the future would require babysitters and planning ahead. So we lived it up and got an appetizer. Yum! 

On Sunday morning I was struck with a stabbing pain in my lower right side. I threw up. A lot. I guessed it was the Chili con Queso. So much for indulging in an appetizer. I couldn't even keep water down. I stayed home from church and writhed in pain presumably from food poisoning. Sunday night the pain in my side got worse and I didn't sleep. I was worried now. Really worried. I could feel the baby move and I felt that she was okay, but me...I wasn't okay. Something was wrong with me. Something awful. I woke Jake up at dawn and told him to drive me to the hospital.

"On a scale of 1 to 10, what is your pain level?"

"Ten," I told the nurses. "It's a TEN."

All the monitors indicated that our baby was fine. As to the pain in my side, they could only guess since they couldn't give me an MRI. Their first guess was my appendix was about to pop and the second guess was my gall bladder. Either way, they couldn't diagnose or fix the problem with a baby in the way. I was scheduled for a c-section immediately...which turned out to be 12 hours after I got to the hospital. Apparently there were other people who needed the Operating Room more urgently than me for the entire day.

Around 6pm, I entered the OR. Nobody expects to have their fist baby via c-section. I didn't know what it would be like. The air was cold. Ice cold. The walls were white and the metal shiny. After sticking a giant needle down my spine, I laid down on the stainless steel slab in the middle of the room. I was told I would go numb from my neck down, and I might not even feel myself breathing. I threw up. My husband was next to my head holding a bowl and being supportive as always. The whole day had crawled by so slowly. And after waiting all day for this moment, it all seemed to be happening so fast. I cried. I was scared. I looked at the blue sheet that separated me from the doctors in anticipation. I'm so glad for that sheet. I honestly think it's best that I NOT see the sharp knives and cutting that's involved in the procedure. I surely couldn't handle it.

I heard her cry.

They held up my perfect baby girl and she was healthy and LOUD! They swaddled her up and gave her to my husband to hold and he put her close to my face. I couldn't believe I was a mother. Right now. She was precious and finally quiet. Where did she get red hair?! She was so beautiful. I couldn't wait to hold her.

"Time to go," the nurse said as she ushered my new baby and husband out of the room.

"Wait! No! Why are they leaving? Where are they going?!" I sobbed hysterically.

"We have to sterilize the room for the next procedure. A surgeon has been paged," she informed me. 

Procedure? I turned my attention back to the blue sheet and heard the doctors talking to each other.

"Definitely appendicitis. Just look at it."

It was my appendix. And they were talking about me as if I wasn't there. How bad was it? How long did I have to wait with my guts wide open to the world before they would take it out?

"What's happening?!" I shouted over the sheet, "Did it rupture?"

And that's when I knew that I would die here. I never even got to hold my baby, sing her lullabies or kiss her cheeks. I watched them walk out of the room and I would never see them again. My cries echoed off the hallow walls of the room. Here in front of strangers, during an emergency c-section, I would die. I was engulfed in a horrific panic. And apparently, that shows up on the monitor.

"Your heart rate has spiked and I'm going to need to give you something to relax a little bit," the anesthesiologist calmly said to me.

He lied. Everything went black. He put me under completely. I don't remember the surgeon coming or having my appendix removed. It was probably for the best. I woke up on the way to my room where Jake, my new baby and several members of our family were waiting. I was told I was gone for more than an hour. It felt like five minutes.

I finally held my baby. I made a baby and she made me a mother. She had a round face and plump cheeks. I lived. We both survived the whole ordeal. I couldn't 't believe it. We were both going to be okay. I was flooded with relief and inexplicable happiness.

I got a 2 for 1 deal. They can keep my appendix. I'll keep my Sophie.

Stuff About Me 

Since this is my first blog post, I thought I'd spend some time introducing myself. I grew up in Sacramento, California. I've lived in Missouri, Utah and Illinois. I went to Sacramento City College for what seemed like forever until I finally graduated with an Associate's in Social and Behavioral Sciences. I finished my Bachelor's degree at Weber State University in Ogden, Utah in Communication Studies. I love to write, but that doesn't mean I'm good at it. I just always seem to have a lot to say.

I'm married to my best friend and super hot smart guy, Jake. We have three adorable children who will be the subjects of much blogging, I'm sure. And can I just say what a strange word "blog" is? It's like somebody burped while trying to think of a word to describe lengthy internet writing. Also, I'm silly. 

Things I don't like:

When the refrigerator door closes on me repeatedly
Skinny jeans on any guy...ever
People talking to me from a different room
Turtlenecks...they're called that for a reason
Other drivers on the road
Tripping on somebody's shoes
Realizing those shoes were mine
Spiders
When there's a hair on the back of my elbow that I can't see and can't get rid of 
Cancer
When the garbage can is so full that trash just bounces off the top
Long sleeves, they bug me
Speeding tickets

Things I like:

God
Being right
A good book (preferably YA/Sci-Fi, Fantasy)
Proper grammar
My kids
Food...all of it
Swimming
Learning something new
Talking...a lot 
Green Smoothies
Supporting small farms and organic produce
Babies...when they sleep through the night
Friends who help me feel included
Speeding