Let it be Me

I don't ever know exactly how to start these ramblings of mine other than just to dive on in! I think I need writing help 101. I have several different thoughts running through my head right now so bare with me!

 Thought 1:
        This isn't a deep thought, this is just something that is now bugging the crap out of me.  Caroline has had her ears pierced since she was 6 months old (perfectly pierced by the anesthesiologists at CHOP) and after a year of nothing happening to the little pink earrings in her ears I decided it was time for an upgrade.  I traded in an old necklace of mine and got Caroline her very first pair of real tiny diamond earrings.  I am sad to say that within 3 months one came out never to be seen again *sigh*.  When I noticed it missing I went into freak out "what if it closes up" mode and stuck one of my only slightly bigger diamonds in her ear.  You can only guess what happened to it.  So, I took out the one remaining tiny diamond of hers and put back in her little pink 1st earrings.  A week ago she woke up with only one of those in..YES, her very first pair of earrings that I wanted to hold onto and keep for a baby book we now only have one of *double sigh*.  So, as a last effort I dug into my jewelry and came out with a little tiny pair of tanzanite earrings.  They looked so cute on her and she did good for ONE week. This morning I got to the babysitter only to realize that she only had ONE earring in AGAIN *scream (because I am way past sighing)*.  I don't know what I will do tonight or what I will put in her ears because now she has not only lost every earring she owns but also every earring that I own that she could wear.  Okay, I am over it... just needed to vent. I know, shes a baby and these things happen once, maybe twice.. but really??? AGHHHHHHH!

Thought 2 :
       I am motivated. Don't ask me where it came from but deep in the night I guess I came up with a lot of motivation.  Don't get me wrong, it is not motivation that stretches across my entire life. I am motivated to better my house.  I feel like its almost a nesting desire deep within me somewhere.  I am itching to make a change.  I have furniture I want to move around and rooms I want to dive into with both feet and start redoing. My backyard has been an eyesore since the day we moved in.  Adam and I spent countless hours in the backyard at first trying to rake and get somewhere with it all and then life happened and we got dogs and we got married and then I got pregnant and very little has been done in that yard since then!  I swear I think that there is at least 10 years of matted pine straw and yuck in that yard and by yuck I mean pine straw, pine cones, the occasional whatever that the dog has torn up, things from a time way before us that seem to surface every once in a while,  etc.  I think some of my motivation came from finding how much Caroline loves to be outside.  This weekend we didn't do much else other than play with and entertain Caroline. We made MANY trips to the backyard to swing and Adam and I took turns raking. I hope that this motivation sticks with me and we may finally one day enjoy our house and backyard. (fingers crossed)



Thought 3:
         I have an aching in my bones for the fall. Its not just an end to this hot and humid weather, but some of the things I love start in the fall. I can't wait for football season to be in full swing. I love when you can sit at home and pretty much any channel has an interesting football game on.  The smell of a bonfire is something I can't wait to smell this season. I want to catch up with friends I haven't seen in a while. I want to have more gatherings at my house and cook out and sit around something burning. (HAHA)  If you know me, then you know I love games. My family gets together VERY often but we don't "play" well together.  It never fails that when you get my dad involved in a game (IF you can get him involved in a game) that somehow there are discrepancies in the rules of some sort, my little brother insists on reading the cards (which drives me crazy) when playing games like Trivial Pursuit, and by the end of the game we are all wanting to be as far from each other as possible. So, this being said if any of my family is reading this does not mean I want to play games with YOU.  LOL... I do want to keep having you over and maybe one day we can play a game with no fight. I do have friends though that I feel like are "long lost" friends lately and I want everyone to get together because you just never know when doing something "later" may not come.

AND this brings me to my next thought...

Thought 4:
        I saw this verse on someones Facebook page the other day and it stood out to me.  "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are crushed in spirit" Psalm 34:18.  In the past few weeks it seems like there have been many people that I know who have lost someone close to them in life.  I mean lost someone as of death or even lost someone because of divorce or other reasons.  I think being brokenhearted can come from many things and it really has been heavy on my heart lately.  With the fall and cooler weather I tend to sometimes get down in the dumps and more "depressed" at times. You all know that I am not a Debbie Downer and I don't dwell on whats wrong with life. But, it never fails that at the start of this season I go through a transitional period where I think about the sad parts of my life.  I think about Caroline and all that she has been through and all that she will have to endure in her life and it finds me very brokenhearted.  Its also times like this when I miss my grandmother. She was one of the most wonderful women in the world and I miss her more than words can express.  She loved Caroline so much that you could just see it all over her face and it makes me so sad that Caroline will not know or remember her when she is grown. (and here I am crying on my keyboard)..... anyways, it is comforting to know that, as the above verse states "The Lord is close to the brokenhearted...."

When I started this post I had no intentions of adding the 4th thought but it came to me as I typed and I am sorry if it made what was a happy post, sad. I am not usually a sad person and I thank God everyday for the amount of time he gives us with each person in our lives.  I will leave you with a few pictures from my sweet Rhino's 12th bday.

 




And the lyrics to a great song by Ray Lamontagne

Let it be Me
There may come a time, a time in everyones life
where nothin seems to go your way
where nothing seems to turn out right
there may come a time, you just cant seem to find your way
for every door you walk on to, seems like they get slammed in your face
thats when you need someone, someone that you can call.
and when all your faith is gone
feels like you cant go on
let it be me
let it be me
if its a friend that you need
let it be me
let it be me
feels like your always commin on home
pockets full of nothin and you got no cash
no matter where you turn you aint got no place to stand
reach out for something and they slap your hand
now i remember all to well
just how it feels to be all alone
you feel like youd give anything
for just a little place you can call your own
thats when you need someone, someone that you can call
and when all your faith is gone
feels like you cant go on
let it be me
let it be me
if its a friend you need
let it be me
let it be me
Let it be Me

Echo's and EKG's and Horses OH MY!

Today Caroline had an 8:00am appointment at the Eli Manning Clinic with her Cardiologist.  These are the appointments that I (for lack of better words) "look forward" to the most because they answer the million dollar question. How is Caroline's HEART? I also dread these appointments because by the end of it I am more worn down than my child.  When you arrive in the basement of the children's hospital you wait for your name to be called to go sit at a desk for check in.  From there, we go around the corner and up the elevator to the Eli Manning Clinic and give our paperwork to the next lady at the desk and are given a "restaurant buzzer".. haha.. that's all I know to call them because its the same thing they give you when you are on the waiting list at a restaurant.  It never fails that, as soon as you are sitting down with your child, your buzzer goes off for the first time signaling it is time to go back for height and weight.  After height and weight (which WOULD be an easy task if Caroline didn't flip her lid!), you go back out with your buzzer to the waiting room.  The next time your buzzer goes off you are ready for your EKG. We got Caroline all undressed and ready for the EKG and as soon as they started putting the stickers on her chest she starting acting like a crazy person!  After we got Caroline calmed down for them to finish the EKG we had to get her back dressed and go BACK out to the waiting area. The 3rd time your buzzer goes off you are ready to come back for your echo.  We got Caroline undressed AGAIN and laid her down on the hospital bed/stretcher.  AGAIN, Caroline went nuts but I was prepared for this (or so I thought).  I brought her bubbles to blow while she was having her echo done because she loves bubbles.... or DID until today!  After a few minutes of her blood curdling screams I attempted to lay with her and help hold her down since she was "helping" the lady do the echo by grabbing the wand out of her hands every time she got a chance!  She pulled my hair and pulled my earrings, she pushed me away and finally she told me too "moozhe", which in Caroline's terms means MOVE!  Towards the end of the echo they turn the sound on to listen to the beat and blood flow and at that moment Caroline stopped crying. It sounded kind of like the galloping of horses and so, since she had been infatuated with the pictures of the horses in the clinic all morning, I told my 2 yr old that she had a horse in her heart.  The look of amazement and wonder that she gave me is hard to explain but it was all I could do to keep a straight face!  She listened so closely for the rest of the echo to the horse in her heart.  At the end of it they needed another picture of her Aorta and they needed to get right under her neck to get it. The sound it makes is different and kind of a soft swishing noise, and to Caroline's surprise, THIS is where the baby horse lives!  When the echo was finished we dressed Caroline again and were finally put in a room to wait for the doctor.  As I said before, our appointment started at 8am.... at 9:45 the doctor walked in because of an emergency in the unit that she had to oversee. It had been a LONG morning and Caroline was completely knocked out asleep!  I had the dreaded medicaid discussion with the doctor and she expressed that she didn't believe that it was a valid reason to push the surgery date sooner just to make sure that we beat the timing on Medicaid possibly closing the border and therefore not allowing us to go to Philly for surgery.  She did say though that she would contact the surgeon this afternoon and express our concerns and see what he said.  Her thoughts are that he will want to wait until spring to do the 3rd stage surgery.  At this point, there is nothing we can do other than hope and pray that the borders are not closed off before spring. I know that this does not make sense to a lot of people that we would want to go to Philadelphia, PA for surgery, but that is what we know and that is who knows Caroline's heart the best.  I know that we now have a surgeon here that can do it and has been successful since coming here in April, but it means a lot for me to go with my gut feeling and that is to go back to Philly.  Please continue to pray with us that in the end everything will work out and she will not be held back from going to PA for surgery.  Whew, after the long morning we had at UMC I am worn out and badly need an afternoon nap (yeh right)!  Maybe, JUST maybe, Caroline can find it in her horse filled heart to go to sleep early tonight so that I can get some extra ZzZzZ's in! Ta Ta for now! I will leave you with some pictures of Caroline eating a "chocolate sandwich" in other words Nutella on bread! This was a MAJOR breakthrough for her and I hope she eats MANY more chocolate sandwiches in the future!