Merry Christmas!

Love, Matt, Lacey, Gage, Cooper & Kaden.

Happy First Birthday, Tado

I admit – I am a sappy, nostalgic person who loves a trip down memory lane.  I can get lost (on my own!) remembering back on things. I get almost giddy thinking back that “ooh… one year ago, right now Gage and Cooper were sleeping over at Mimi’s just like they are right now!  And I was freaking out about being in premature labor!”  I’m sort of a dork that way.  I’ll fog over as I think about the details of events, big and small, in my life.  Trips, graduation, Matt’s proposal, my wedding, gatherings with friends.  The births of my children.  I think that is why me and photography go hand-in-hand along our merry way because seeing the photos from those events brings the memories flooding back. 

  So, I assure you that by remembering back on Kaden’s birth, ONE year ago today, I am not getting hung-up in the past and his dramatic little entrance into the world.  I don’t define him by it.  I’m just reminiscing, fondly on the memory.  I no longer feel saddened or quite as ‘jipped’ by the experience (I really wanted to savor my final pregnancy and labor).  And it certainly isn’t on his mind, ever.  I just like to remember.  His beginning, the generosity and love that flowed from our friends and family, and the lessons of patience and trust that the Lord granted me through the experience. 

Here are some photos of his beginning…     

(I think this is the only picture that shocks me into remembering how bitty he was…)

    

And here are some of him now…

hehehe…

Yes, clearly he’s moved on from his time in the NICU.  :)  He’s a goofy, happy, energetic kiddo on the verge of toddlerhood and there’s no looking back for him.  We love our little KadeyKade.

Happy Birthday, Tado.  Here’s to where you’ve been and where you’re going.

Salt Dough Ornaments and Internet Friends

Random title, but I’m lacking creativity and running on E after shopping most of the day… poor me.  :)  Today was a WONDERFUL girls’ day and I’m thinking a new Christmas (shoot, monthly!) tradition was born… perusing the shops at Monticello’s in Portland.  Thanks for the perfect time, Meliss (and Ellie), although I still can’t stop thinking about the chalkboard and scale…

Anywho – back to my odd sounding title.  Through the internet (particularly Clickin’ Moms), I’ve formed friendships with women across the country.  We find each other through our common interests and friendships start because we can relate.  Remember how fun it was to have a pen-pal when you were young?  Its like that, but better!

Marie is one such gal… she has 3 boys as well, although her youngest two (Kaden’s age) are twins! We chat about motherhood, our kiddos and photography and enjoy relating (often empathetically!) to each other’s experiences. In a recent email she told me about making Salt Dough Ornaments with her 3-year-old and of course, sparked the idea in me to do this with my boys, too.  How excited were they to work on their own project in the kitchen?  Completely. 

Such simple ingredients…   

Rolling out the dough…

Cutting out the shapes…

Carefully picking them out…

Two hours of baking…

Playing with the left over dough…

I’m not sure…

And of course, painting them…

Sometimes, most of the time my brain is missing its ability to think up fun, creative, meaningful things for my kids to do.  I’m not shy to admit that and to give credit to those Mamas who DO come up with these ideas!  It is yet another reason to be very thankful for ‘Mom’ friends.  It’s like we’re a team and when we put our minds together we can do pretty cool things… and best of all, our kiddos really benefit!

(Don’t worry, I’ll get back to Tado tomorrow.)

I Often Can’t Help But Think

… about Kaden’s itty-bitty pod-mates in Doernbecher’s Neonatal Intensive Care Unit at OHSU.  We’re closely nearing the one-year-anniversary of our little boy’s birth, and with that, the anniversary of his time spent in the NICU.

If you don’t know already, Kaden was born at 34 weeks and without the ability to efficiently breathe or eat on his own.  It is impossible not to reflect on how far he’s come since those first 3 weeks and to find such joy in his progress. 

Yet I can’t let go over wondering about the babies he shared his pod with.  At OHSU, there are over 20 ‘pods’ in the NICU – sectioned off areas in the ward that contain between 4 and 6 babies, depending on the equipment and care they need.  Each pod would have its own nurse, pediatrician and so on.  Everyday when I’d arrive, I would walk from the hand washing area, past 5 other pods and often saw the same parents standing over their child’s incubators or holding their baby or visiting with doctors.  Most often though, I’d just see the babies.  On their own resting in their designated beds.  Nobody there with them except the nurses working to maintain their unstable little life.  

       

During Kaden’s 18 day stay, he remained in the same pod and was cared for by only a handful of nurses.  He was in a pod with other babies that necessitated minimal care and he held the role of “the quiet one”.  Several other babies came through Pod 6 during his time, but many of them were there long enough for me to become emotionally attached to their story.

The 2-pounder who was born to teen-aged parents, at 32-weeks... who had the darkest head of hair I’ve ever seen and who’s foot was the width of my pinky.

The almost term little-guy, born to an meth-addicted mom, who visited him once before escaping the hospital and never coming back.  A week or so later, I was there when a foster parent, bless her heart, came to take the baby away. 

The little girl, McKenna, who was born with her insides on the outside and who had, at 6 weeks, had already underwent 4 surgeries.  I comforted her often, because she cried… a lot.  Because she couldn’t eat anything.  She was scheduled for several more surgeries and I was there when her teenaged parents were told that the doctors believed she had some sort of nerve damage as well, preventing her from being able to open her left hand.

The 33-week boy… the 6th child to a woman who could have passed for my age, yet had children in their teens.  She couldn’t speak English and had a difficult time understanding why she couldn’t take her boy out of the incubator to hold him and why he may have to be there for another 4-weeks.  Her 10 year-old daughter translated as best she could. But struggled to deliver the information and the questions.    

And Asher.  The twin born at 32-weeks on Christmas Day, from an emergency c-section after the doctors discovered that the other twin had died.  I had to choke back tears while Asher’s mom and dad told me the story while we washed our hands together one morning.  They were so calm and matter-of-fact and clearly just thankful for the son they did have.  

And the little girl, born term during an emergency c-section because her momma was in a car-accident and brought into the ER.  I remember crying a lot over that story.  I asked for the privacy walls to be put around me and Kaden, and I just cried.  Thank the Lord, the baby’s momma ended up surviving her injuries and was united with her newborn the following day. 

I think about those little ones all the time and of course more now, knowing that they are all coming up on their first birthdays, too.  Are they laughing and playing and thriving as Kaden is?  Do they have complications?  I wonder, and I’ll never know.  Which is strange because in the pod, every time I’d hear one of their heart or oxygen alarms going off (as a warning that their rates were dipping to low or spiking too high) I’d panic as if they were my own. I’d stand and wait while the nurse would check the baby and jostle them back to breathing or watch as their heart would pick up the pace… and then look at me and smile, and assure me they were okay.

I was emotionally attached and oh. How I pray they are now thriving.    

I’ve thanked the Lord for the past 363 days that my baby is. 

SO Big

 I was really hoping on sharing photos today from our time this weekend with my family in Seattle but much to my annoyance, my computer is too full of stuff and loading the photos onto my hard-drive is not going to happen.  At least not until I either A) transfer 200 GB off of my C Drive or B) install more RAM.  Whatever and however I do that, I don’t know.  So, in few hours when the 10,000 or so items have transferred from my C Drive to my external hard drive, and I delete them, I’m crossing my fingers that I can load the 400 photos from my memory card onto my system to work with.  Ah…  too much information for you, I’m sure. 

Anywho… here are some photos I’m happy to share in the mean-time! 

Growing up, whenever we’d have something kind of stuck in our throats, causing us to cough, my mom would encourage us to do ‘SO Big!’ which meant, lifting up our arms into the air.  I have no clue if it actually helps in the choking situation, but it turns out to be a pretty cute thing to teach an almost-one-year-old to do…

  “Kaden is SOOOOO Big…”  gets this reaction out of him…   Clearly, judging by the 50 or so images I took of him doing this the other day at breakfast (hence the unfortunately placed banana peel in the foreground of the frame) I got quite a kick out of this new game.

  As did he. 

  And Gage, who was the one shouting the phrase at Kaden over and over, simultaneously throwing his arms up into the air as well, enjoyed it a lot, too.  

  Gosh, I love this age. 

Learning from Another’s Suffering…

Last night, I read possibly the most heart-wrenching true story that I have ever come across.  It left me crying so hard my whole body shook and I could barely see the words through my drenched eyes.  I still feel like I’m breathing with bricks on my chest.  After reading the story I went to my boys rooms and cried over them and prayed and couldn’t take my eyes off of them.  And now, this morning, I am watching the clock, anxiously and excitedly waiting for them to wake up.  So I can hear their precious voices and hear their breathing.  So they can tell me about their dreams from while they slept and about their desires for our day.  Those things I take for granted every. single. day. 

Those things are routine, normal, and ever-present… until, they’re not.  Until something tragic happens and a void is left so deep that only the grace of God can fill it with time. 

The Bible tells us not to suffer in vain.  To not let our suffering consume us and be wasted, but to go through it like Jesus did.  Depending on God for strength and to come out on the other side closer to Him and sharing your experience with others. 

The mom from the story I referenced was courageous to share her experience and I WILL NOT let her suffering go to waste.  That sounds strange, right?  But how foolish would I be to read her words, cry like I did and then NOT learn from it.  To not snap out of this coma of our routine day and realize that my boys NEED more attention from me.  That I NEED to hug them more and teach them more directly of the hazards in our home.  I need to go to the stairs when I know Kaden’s climbing them for the 50th time that day… not thinking about the multitude of times he’s done it successfully but rather of the one time, he DID fall and only by God’s hand was he okay afterward.  

I have gotten into such a comfortable place with my days with the boys that I think I’m getting complacent.  I don’t jump to my feet when I hear crying anymore because I hear it everyday and I know… its just another argument or stubbed toe.  blah blah. But I need to SNAP TO IT and recognize that my lack of presence (physically or mentally) could result in tragedy in the blink of an eye. 

I know what you’re thinking.  I can’t prevent ALL accidents.  I know.  Like the mom from the story said, “You can’t bubble wrap the world, but at this moment, I’d sure like to try.”  And when my children are in MY home, under MY supervision I had BETTER be recognizing the blessing of that gift and responsibility and do everything in my power to protect them. 

So, I’m blogging now as they are sleeping and when they wake, they won’t see my back as I sit at the computer and edit photos or work on my new blog.  I will be present and attentive and alert to my children.  I’m embarrassed that I have to make that vow, as if it is a new, novel idea! But again comfort and routine have sent me into a downward spiral to complacency and I have a feeling that had I turned away and not read that story last night, it would be only a matter of time  until I had a heart-wrenching story of my own to share.  The Lord put that link in front of me for a reason and I can’t ignore it. 

Accidents can and will happen but some can also be prevented by me simply stepping up and doing the job the Lord gifted me: being an attentive, focused-on-my-little-children-mom. 

______________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________________

In an effort to make myself stop crying now, I’ll share these photos that really cracked me up at the time I took them… Awhile back I posted about my boys’ love of making ‘nests’.  Comfy, cozy little places where they surround themselves with all of their favorite soft things.  I’ve also shared how they like to be in the laundry baskets, tucked in snuggly with blankets.

Now, enter our little storage boxes from Ikea.  Even tighter quarters, but evidently, that makes them even better!  Gage tucked Kaden into his, but Cooper zipped himself in all on his own.  Goofy.  But it gave us a quiet, calm 20 minutes! 

And I love that Kaden is cuddling the little panda bear he received from the P.A.N.D.A Team who transported him, almost a year ago, to Doernbecher Children’s Hospital after he was born prematurely.            

Okay.  Off to get a few more things done before a more attentive Mama is called to duty for the day. 

And, hug your loved ones, today… big and small… in honor of Tiggy.   

My Bebe Loves Bacon…

It should come as no surprise that Kaden should love bacon.  His daddy would put it on his ice cream if the sight of it didn’t make me gag (of bacon on ice cream – not bacon in general).  

  But, bacon’s not the point of this post, so much as the fact that my bebe can now eat bacon.  He’s at that age already.

Lord knows his teeth are sharp enough to dig through the meat…

… but, really?  He’s old enough already? I honestly love that he is.  I don’t feel sad when I think “where did my baby go?”  I love that we could go out to Red Robin for dinner and he could eat the mandrin oranges and pieces of Cooper’s chicken strips, and the crust from Gage’s pizza.  I LOVE not having to bring him ‘baby’ food for dinner!

But still.  I can’t believe how the time has flown by with this boy.   

I feel like I could spend the next 9 days baffling at the fact that Kaden is almost ONE.  Ha!  Maybe I will… it will be a week of Kaden.  Shouldn’t be too hard.

Now, I want some bacon.   

He’s Seriously, On the Move…

Like I’ve mentioned before, Kaden loves the stairs.  But now, when he’s not climbing up them and sliding back down on his tummy… (still thinking he’s SO silly for acting out this game)…

He’s doing this. 

Walkin’ and walkin’ behind his Tonka truck. 

He thinks this is pretty great, too. 

And the buttons on the steering wheel are fun as well. 

But nothin’ beats being on the go. 

Sheesh, I LOVE this age! LOVE. Love. love.

Their Minds Are Really Working These Days

I vividly remember the early days of my life as a Mama.  Hour after hour of baby talk, cooing and babbling.  Matt would come home from work and I’d talk.  And talk.  And I would soak in the intelligent words that he would respond with… savoring the adult conversation.  Because being home by myself with a baby, and then a baby and a toddler, for 11 hours straight made my brain turn into mush.     

Fast forward 5 and a half years and I’m constantly in the midst of conversations that are beyond me – questions that make my head spin and send me flying to the internet or my Bible for answers. 

Gage and Cooper seem to have over night become inquisitive of the ways of our world, our universe, our God, our creation… everything!

The other night during dinner, Gage peered out the window and saw the sliver of the moon.  He excitedly pointed it out to us and sought an explanation for why sometimes the moon looks like the letter ‘C’ and sometimes its a big circle.  Do I know anything about the Solar System?? Not much.  Thank goodness Matt was there to handle that one. 

Not too long ago, I had to get into it with the boys about lying.  I of course encouraged them to always tell me the truth, but even if they don’t “Jesus knows the truth”.  A few days later, Gage asked me what does Jesus do if he knows we are lying.  He wanted to know, “How does God discipline us?”  I wasn’t sure if I should get into the Bible story of how the two people who promised to give all of the money they earned to God, but didn’t, were struck down dead…  “Good question, Bud.”  I responded.  “Let’s go talk about that.”  I’m still not sure if I gave him the right answers but it did evoke a great conversation about obedience and honesty.  

Cooper’s given me a few good, insightful conversations lately, too.  Just the other night he lectured me extensively about cavities.  How they form, what causes them, how the dentist fixes them and what we do to avoid them. 

I sure wish I could have a little bitty tape recorder, ready to record these conversations so I can always hear him say, “And then, you eat candy.  And then, it sticks to your teeth.  And then, you need to brush them.  Because.  If you don’t.  You’ll get a hole.  In your tooth.  And then, it’ll hurt.  Real bad.  And then.  You’ll have to go to the dentist.  And then.  He’ll have to fill the hole with some stuff.  And then, that’ll hurt…” 

I can hear it so clearly in my head right now, but surely, with time, it’ll fade. 

And an ongoing, agonizing discussion I keep having to have with Cooper is regarding my love for Kaden.  Specifically, in Cooper’s words, “Mama, why do you love Kaden so much more than me?”  He thinks this because I am constantly having to fetch Kaden away from doing things that will hurt him – consequently sometimes taking me away from my time with Cooper or making Cooper have to wait his turn. 

It breaks my heart that his little brain even conjures up this type of thought.

He also asks questions like “Mama, will I always be a boy or will I someday be a panda bear?”  

At the end of almost everyday, I am exhausted from answering questions – wise, insightful questions, as well as questions that are so basic that its hard to put answers actually into words!  Or questions about things that are so common, that the answers have never crossed my mind.  Like,  “Why does it sometimes drizzle and other times rain really hard?” 

And now-a-days, when Matt and I have our time together, I want to do anything but talk.  I don’t want to hear anything, not even my own thoughts. 

Because my brain is mush.  Still, mush!   Funny how things work out.