Playing House

 I have a certain fondness for empty houses.  No clutter.  A person can breath in a house which is cavernous and full of echoes.  But, unfortunately, a person can't really sleep, eat or sit in an empty house.  So fill it we must.
The kitchen, shown here to the left was perplexing.  It is, essentially, a large room with a stove and refrigerator and a small closet-ish room with a sink and a dishwasher.  Initially, I saw this with dismay as I wondered where I was going to store things or chop food.  Once the shock settled I realized that some of my favorite kitchens are those without fitted cabinets and a typical layout.  I love eclectic and unusual houses so I couldn't settle for cookie cutter here.  The kitchen has been the heart of every  

home I have been happy in.  So this is where I wanted to spend most of my efforts.  Food is love therefore the kitchen and dining room must be love factories .. maybe not.  That sounded better in my head. Let's forget that.

Anyhow, I decided to begin my expedition.
I am an avid believer in free and cheap.  Its a passion of mine.  Cheap = happy.  However when it is freezing weather and you don't have the ability to scour the countryside for said free and cheap items, it's time to go to Ikea.  They have an "as is" section which I love to haunt.  Stained display couches, incorrectly assembled chairs, nicked picture frames; like an indoor yard sale for poor quality but very cool items.  After much circling and aimless wandering the solution made itself known.
Exhibit A:

We got a massive island type piece

 Kitchens are so messy and represent so much work.  And yet they are happy places, or they should be.  I was able to save some of my favorite things from being yard saled before our mighty trek to from California and used them to create a happy place for my family to stuff their faces.  Plus, I am a pretend foodie so I need a pretend culinary hub.


The results made me happy as a clam which, by the way can be found fresh up the street if a person has a bucket and a strong desire for good chowder.  When I take the kids to the beach up their we see the clams spitting water.

We are far away from friends and family so I feel a huge push to make our home life as pleasant and inspiring as possible.  It keeps things looking sane even when they feel so very out of control.

"Herban garden"

And for the dining room, we had no furniture at all. We thought about making it a skating rink or installing a swimming pool but decided the downstairs neighbors may be displeased.  Look how shiny the floors are. They definitely won't be looking like that again for a while.  I would blame my three boys but it's really that I am not very ambitious when it comes to floors.  A character flaw of mine.

The room had no lighting so we strung up some lights, bought wicker furniture and called it a day.  Apartment life is not alway my favorite but when I am not allowed to drill, paint or dramatically alter the place it calms my wild imagination and makes me settle for plain and clever.  The light in this house is just delicious.  We are flooded in light all day, a great way to fight those "I'm in New England and everyone is really grouchy and drive like maniacs" blues.  Natural light cures many evils. 

And that's that.

When I grow up.

What did you want to be when you grow up? A better question, do you know anyone who actually became what they dreamed they would be?  Chances are good that most of us did not fill the roles of doctor, ballerina and firefighter.  The truth is that life sort of happens to us and we become what we have to in order to keep afloat.  At my earliest recollections, I wanted to be barbie so that I could wear the beautiful peach colored Barbie evening dress that I carried around with me everywhere.  And have a dream house.  And a corvette.  I still sort of want those things.  Gradually I started to realize that that would never happen so I chose the next logical option,  I would be a paleontologist.  Years passed and I got the leading role in a play and before you can bat an eye I knew that I was destined to life on the stage.  That ran its course and was replaced with a myriad of other professions.

Then I met this family.  A mother, a father and nine (at the time) children.  When I saw that there was such a job as a "stay at home" mom, a seed was planted.  I had no idea that people could do that.  All I knew of women that stayed home was taught to me from cable television and visions of Bon Bons and large pink hair rollers came to mind.  But here was this enormous family with a mom and dad who were fun and interesting and rebellious in the most intriguing, wholesome way.  At the time I was really intimidated by how polite, kind and real these people were but even when I was withdrawn from them I couldn't stop thinking about them.  Years passed and though I had moved to a different part of the state they were still constantly on my mind.  I couldn't stop thinking about how much I wanted what they had.

 I was seventeen when I realized that for all the big talk about what I was going to do after high school I really did not want any of it.  What I wanted more than anything else was to be a mom.  The kind that does not get a fancy title or wear pencil skirts and stilettos to work everyday.  I wanted to be an earthworm digging, play dough shaping, bread baking, fort making mom.  When I realized this I was standing in the little orchard that was on the side of our house and I stopped pruning the blackberry vines long enough to just soak in the revelation I just had.  Suddenly all of the SATs and the college applications and the "I'm going to get my masters in ..." dissolved and I was filled with relief and profound joy.  I dropped my pruning sheers and felt the most profound peace in such a tangible way that I knew it was from God.  The fog was rolled away.  I knew my calling.

Eleven years later I have three extraordinary boys and hope to have many more.  Granted, the details of my life are different than I wanted and expected.  Instead of living on acres of land in the country I live in an apartment in the city and instead of waking up early to feed the chickens I wake up and blog.  But the essentials are in tact.  I have taught my boys how to open the door for ladies and how to read.  I have taught them when to put the yeast into the bread dough and how to make a paper airplane.  That's really something.

 On days when I am overwhelmed by the screaming, teething baby on my hip and the sink full of dishes I sometimes allow my mind to wander to the what ifs.  What if I had called back that tv producer and taken the roll in that commercial, what if I pursued my writing and photography and went into journalism.  Images of a seamless me without stretch marks and nappy hair, doing interesting things come to mind and make me feel like I settled for less.  I begin to feel sorry for myself because I haven't showered in days and haven't seen another adult in just as long.  Poor me.  Then something amazing will happen.  Jack will take his first step or William will record minutes of silence on his music recorder and then entitle the song, "Ninja song."  Or I will overhear my oldest boy praying when he thinks no one is listening and thanking God for loving him so much.  That's when I remember why I chose this unglamorous and slightly invisible life.  As my dad would say, I am not here to raise children I am here to rear adults.  And that, good friends, is what I intend to do.

I guess what I am saying is that I am blessed to actually be doing what I had set out to do.  I really am.  I stuck to my guns and am really doing this thing.  But I know that there are far more people who are stuck in a job that they did not choose.  This is a tough world.   My very good friend Kristi once said that grown up life is mean.  She's right, life is no respecter or life goals or dreams.  So for those of us who chose our field of work and for those of us who did not, here is a little encouragement that gets me through the rough patches.

"Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward.  It is the Lord Christ you are serving." Colossians 3:23

 

Teething and Other Disasters

For you two and a half loyal readers, I apologize for my sudden lack of posts.  Look.  My one year old is cutting six teeth and free time is a phantom, a taunting memory of something lovely which is no more.  But to console my avid followers who have felt a sting of purposelessness without my regular posts and who feel as if I have betrayed them to a life without the meaning that comes from reading about my children who like to poop in public (a run-on sentence feels good sometimes) I have a gift.
Bam! A sleeping baby.  Just gaze upon this ball of snuggly sweetness and all will be well.

 

Let us return to the final chapter of the journey to Massachusetts.  I left off with our son's query as to whether we were homeless or not.  It was not an easy question to answer because in the truest sense of the word we were homeless.  We overused the word "adventure" with our kids when referencing our lack of home, job, friends, church, toys, stability ... the boys probably now associate that word with all things unpleasant and uncertain.
We lived in the Bedford Motel many a day and spent those days watching the beautiful fall leaves blow away and our money with them.  The house/apartment/anything we could get our hands on hunt lagged on and on.  Again and again we were turned down.  We drove further up the coast and landed in Salem.  The town of witches.  We drove endlessly until I found a Craigslist add for an apartment for rent.  The price of the rent was astronomical but we were without options.  I called the phone number and the man was extremely friendly and said that he just wanted to take his dog to the pet cleaners to get the poop out of her fur and then he could meet us to show us the house.  Okie dokie.  You do that.  We drove to the address in the listing and found before us a three story black Victorian with a large grey porch and autumn mums all around.  That and the fact that it was way above our budget immediately landed this place in the "way out of our league" category.
I really don't remember seeing the apartment at all because I was so focused on trying to corral my extremely rowdy boys.  They had been strapped into their seats for so long that when they were released it resulted in a cataclysmic burst of spastic behavior.  It was so bad that I could not stop my oldest from sniffing and licking the walls.  They were throwing themselves on the floor, laying on their sides while using their feet to propel themselves clockwise.  Mortified I whispered fierce threats through clenched teeth and could scarcely make eye contact with the guy who was showing us the place.  I had no thought that we could possibly get this place so it seemed as if we were waisting the time of this seemingly nice person who was probably waiting to pick up his dog and wondering what was wrong with our bizarre children.
I fairly ran out when the tour was finally over, ready to brood and stream while furthering our search for a place to live.  Once the kids were lassoed and buckled in and we were ready to drive away I saw that my dark and miserable attitude was not matched at all by my husband's mood.  He was all smiles and hopeful thoughts.  A real bucket of sunshine, which is not the most pleasant thing when one is set on being morose.  He then told me that he thinks that there is a pretty good chance that this place might work out.  At my raised eyebrows he elaborated.  Apperently, while I was busy plucking my children out of the bathtub and trying to stop them from licking the major appliances Andrew was having a very pleasant chat with the guy showing us the apartment.  He told him about Jack's past and why we had moved here and the two talked about life and God and music and really hit it off.  A glimmer of hope began as I saw a chance arising here.  Later that night we heard back from the landlord who said that he was really moved by our story and would really like to just outright rent the place to us without doing any reference calls, he would just need to get a check on our credit and be back with us in the morning.  That was such great news that we decided to call it a night and celebrate by quitting our house hunt early and going back to the motel room.  The next morning we were driving to get breakfast and got the call.  The guy, Charley is his name, called to tell us that he did not get our credit check back but that he did look at the web sight for the church that we had just left and was really moved by Jack's story and by all the work that we had done within the church and just wanted to offer the apartment to us no questions asked.  (!!!!!)  Holy smokes, people.  That was the best news we had heard in days.  I suddenly wished I had looked at the place a bit more because I couldn't even remember what it looked like or how many rooms it had.  We scarfed down our breakfast and raced to the apartment.  We signed papers and handed over gobs of money in exchange for keys to our new home.  Finally, we can rest after our long journey.  The apartment was flooded in light and character.  It was so beautiful that I hated to fill it with our things.  I wanted to keep it cavernous and shining.

Our neighbors downstairs were very friendly and also had two kids and the neighborhood was quiet and quaint.  Down the street was a massive park complete with a small cove and beach as well as a genuine settlement from the 1600s.  Have I died and gone to heaven?
Perhaps not, but we had definitely landed in a much better place than we ever would have hoped for.  We filled the house with our things and found that lacking a couch and kitchen table and any counters in the kitchen was less than ideal so the only logical step followed.  Ikea.  Nuff said.
Moving is stressful no matter the circumstances but the plus is that we get to recreate our living spaces.  Time to make our house a home.

The Terrible Horrible No Good Very Bad Day

Do you see this cute little boy?  Doesn't he look sweet?  This picture was taken moments before he snuck away and pooped on the lawn in front of a business.  Andrew was sleeping in the car, taking a break before we get some more miles behind us. We were in some state (I have no idea, they all started to blur together at this point) where I was taking the kids out with their scooters so they could stretch their legs.  Everything was fine enough until suddenly an explosion on unpleasantness happened.  Jack, who had been sleeping peacefully in the car was now awake and not very happy about it, William was crying because he did not know how to scooter as fast as Israel and Israel was … gone.  This kid was no where to be seen so I left the crying ones to hunt down the boy who cannot be trusted.  I found him.  It is not uncommon for Israel to slip away and at the most inconvenient moment pull his pants down and poop in public.  We had talked about this, many times in fact, but alas I have compiled enough poop stories from that child that I could start a whole other blog based only on those stories.  But I will spare you that.  Oh did I mention that it had also begun to rain all of the sudden?
I raced over to Israel but I was way too late.  The deed is being done and there's no stopping a thing like that.  Unfortunately, he failed to pull his pants down far enough and accidentally peed into them during this affair.  Baby screaming, five year old wailing, six year old popping a squat for the employees on their smoke break to see, in the rain.  Andrew had no clue.  He had been driving for many hours straight and was rendered unconscious as the wheel of the car.  He was very insistent that he drive all the way from California to Massachusetts by himself because the trailer swayed so badly.  Therefore he was so spent that we had to stay in this parking lot while I helped Israel change out of his soiled pants and gave William my phone to watch a movie and nursed Jack while sitting on a booster seat and about ten days of road trip debris.  Things were not sunshine and roses anymore.  This road trip was now in full speed meltdown mode and as soon as we roused Andrew and hit the road again we were all in a sour mood.
We were so fed up with the car that we all took turns having tantrums.  Jack was feeling so poorly about being shoved into his rear facing car seat that he had now taken to screaming his sweet little head off the entire time, only being soothed by me clamoring into the backseat and half sitting on Israel's lap to lean myself over the carseat and nurse Jack.  Yes, folks, Jack refused to take a bottle of any kind and therefore I had no other ideas.  I contorted myself over that carseat and did the only thing that would calm Jack down, it was a sight to be seen.  But moms do stuff like that, we are all slightly crazy.

The states began to fly by; Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Connecticut, and finally very late at night we rolled into Massachusetts. We had no specific city as a destination now so we just drove till we could drive no more and wound up in a motel in Worchester.  As soon as we dragged our weary bones into the building a warm waft of body odor and other human odors stung my nostrils.  The motel reminded me of the movie Precious and as we entered our room I beheld what looked like a prime location for drug deals and prostitution.  New England is sort of known for their bed bug issues so we peeled away the blankets and inspected the beds.  So far so good.  The walls and floor of the room were stained and the odors were overwhelming.  But our exhaustion compelled us to stay.
When Andrew went down to the car to retrieve our bags, I attempted to calm the boys down and put them to bed.  Hours of being cooped up in the car led to a fury of hyperactivity and they were like animals running and howling and climbing the drapes.  While putting Jack into his pajamas the boys were running back and forth across the room, I turned my head to tell them to stop when my voice was drowned out by a blood curdling scream.  It was Israel.  I ran to see what was the matter and found him on the floor, his face covered in blood and the screams intensifying.  He was holding his nose and his hands and arms were now drenched in blood too.  Quickly I picked him up and placed him on the bed trying to

find out what happened.  After ruining several towels I was able to slow the blood flow and see where it was coming from.  His nose was black and his faced was beginning to swell.  I knew that his nose was broken.  He had run, tripped and instead of landing on the floor he fell with full momentum onto the metal bed frame and immediately shattered his dear little nose.  Long about this time, Andrew shows up with the luggage.  The room looks like a scene from CSI with blood on the sheets and the towels and me and Israel.  He went to us and I told him what happened and that I was sure that it was a broken nose.  By this time Israel was calming down, Andrew looked at his nose and didn't feel like it was broken so we cleaned him up and put him to bed.  We all went to bed soon after that and thus ended one of the worst days of my life. In the middle of the night I woke to check in on Israel and found that his face was swollen to the point of looking slightly like the elephant man.  I also went to visit the restroom and was cornered by a large aggressive spider.  Normally I may have been deterred by this but I was in no mood for nonsense so I killed that ghetto spider with the wrath of a thousand suns and went back to bed.  Once morning came, we backed up and drove as far away from that slummy motel as we could.  On our way out of the drive way, we realized that we were in the same parking lot as a drug rehab center and in the worst possible part of an already not so nice city.
Now poor Israel was in misery and his eyes were nearly swollen shut.  He saw his reflection and cried at how ugly he looked.  We drove into a really beautiful part of Massachusetts called Bedford and got a motel there.  After taking Israel to the local urgent care the x-rays confirmed that his nose was broken and there really wasn't anything we could do about it but to keep him comfortable.

 The photo to the right is an image of the motel that became home for us for quite some time.  It was clean(ish) and right in the middle of beautiful Bedford and near Lexington with the famous fall leaved of New England and the stunning sights of historic towns and cemeteries.  We made this place our home base as we scoured craigslist for places for rent.  Days passed and no one wanted to rent to a family with no income and only a promise of a savings account that could cover rent until the income began.  We prayed for open doors but they were all slamming in our faces.  The motel was eating into our savings and we needed to find a solution quickly.  Daily we went out in search of a home, driving all day and coming back to the motel, exhausted and frustrated.  We were living on fast-food and prayers.  We were used to paying $850 for a rental but here the cheapest apartments were $1300 and in very dangerous neighborhoods.  Every town we went to the door kept slamming.  We called on everything even if it was way outside of our budget.  We needed a home and quick.  One day my little William asked, "Mom, are we homeless?"  I quickly replied, "No! … Well, sort of."

Arkansas and Nashville

From Texas we travelled upward through Oklahoma.  In Oklahoma we stopped for lunch at a dirty diner and had our grilled cheese sandwiches served by a surly waitress wearing mens sweatpants and a Nascar t-shirt.  Once our fine dining was over is was Arkansas or bust for us and by evening we began to see the lake which was in my grandparents backyard.
It had been ten years since I had seen my mom's side of the family and though I thought of them, I didn't really miss them.  Not until I stepped into my grandma's living room and saw them, then I missed them so much it was tangible.  When I was a little girl I used to visit my grandparents and all of my cousins and we would band together to terrorize the grown ups.  But as I grew up they all moved from California and Arkansas and I became used to their being gone.  Sitting in their living room and seeing the years that I had missed, etched in the lines of their faces, I was reminded that I had put my family too low on my priority list.  I missed years of their lives that I could never get back.  I scarcely ever called them.
Sitting there in their living room and seeing my grandmother's antiques which I recalled seeing as a child and hearing them talk reminded me that I am not complete without my family.  They are an answer to the question of who I am.  I am my father's daughter and take after him so strongly that I forget that I am related to my mother's side of the family.  I am blond and blue eyed with a beak for a nose but they have the dark hair and milky brown eyes, displaying our Irish and Cherokee heritage.  But being there with them made a piece of my puzzle fall into place.
My cousins visited and they all had kids of their own though the last I had seen them they were just kids themselves.  There were three babies on the quilt laid out on the floor, rolling about and playing with toys.  I sat Jack down with them and watched the little ones play as I listened to my family talk.  I felt a glow of love and warmth just being there around them.  I had forgotten how much I love them.  My grandpa seemed happier and more chatty than I had ever seen him, he promptly asked my boys if they wanted to go fishing.  In less than five minutes they were outside with this great grandfather they just met fishing on the boat dock for the very first time.  They were happy as clams and could barely contain themselves when they each caught their very first fish.    I wanted to stay for days but I knew that time was of the essence and we had to press on the following day.  At noon we rolled out and said goodbye to my family and to beautiful Arkansas.

By nightfall we landed in Nashville, Tennessee.  The only hotel around with a vacancy was a Hilton, we were on a motel 6 budget but needed to get a room to give Jack his chemotherapy for the night.  I stumbled, bleary eyed into the hotel lobby and talked to the man behind the desk.  He had a thick Southern accent and was extremely polite and cordial.  He said their only room available was a handicap room and that he could give us a (huge) discount for the inconvenience.  Sold.  I helped Andrew drag our sleepy children up to the room.  As was custom, William literally ran for the nearest bed and fall instantly to sleep.  We followed suit.  Morning came too soon, we packed up our crew and with red eyes hit the road again.  We did need to make one very important stop before leaving Nashville.  We were told by some very good friends that we had to stop at a bbq restaurant called Jack's.  Because getting some real southern food was a must and because it was called "Jack's" we knew that we simply had to go.  Unfortunately, when we finally found it there was a line out the door and nearly around the block to get in there.  We drove around some more, determined to get some soul food.  What we did not know was that there the next place we found had the best kind of soul food there is.  We rolled upon another southern/bbq restaurant on another side of town which was also named "Jack's", though it was not affiliated with the other one.  We all got a good laugh at the irony of finding another restaurant sharing our son's name and jauntily skipped ourselves into that place. If you don't know this already, I am an old timey kind of gal and being in this restaurant that harked images of Fried Green Tomatoes made me a happy girl.  Then our order came and I was in food nirvana.  The majority of the people in the restaurant were African-American, so when our server with dreadlocks (who gave us free drinks because he is a dad and get what it's like to have three little ones) brought us our order, I was pretty sure that we were having some real, genuine soul food.  Sorry to stereotype, I'm sure there are some very nice white people who can cook up a good southern meal but well, some generalizations are true and this once is one of them.  We stuffed our faces and enjoyed every bite.  But the real soul food came after our meal was through.  It came in the form of an elegant woman with coco skin and soft, wise eyes.  She was dining with her family in the booth behind us and had walked to our table.  Without nervousness or stammered words she spoke to us a message that will be forever etched in my heart.  She said that Jack will be healed.  She said that Jack's veins will be opened and all blood flow will become free flowing.  She prayed for my family.  She also reminded us to keep asking, keep seeking and keep knocking and the door will be open to you.  Before we even began this trip, a kind woman from our church told us that we could expect people along our journey to come and speak God's truth over us.  And here, standing at our table was a woman of God, blessing this bedraggled white family with her wisdom and prayers.  That reminded us that we are not on a journey alone, God was with us and had planned everything.

Don't mess with Texas!

Seriously.  Just don't.  We started our journey driving through the endless miles of Texas at night so we didn't get a good idea of what it looked like. But when my husband pulled the car over to make a midnight restroom break, he was confronted by our first Texan, a massive hairy tarantula.  That turned into a rather quick break and he fairly ran back to the safety of the car.  With ashen face he locked the door and drove off, I didn't know that spiders could open doors but could understand his caution as this was Texas after all.
You may wonder why we chose to drive from California to Massachusetts taking the southern route. Primarily, it was to avoid to heavy storms we would have encountered had we taken the straight route but also there was the reason of Andrew's brother.  Since I met Andrew he would occasionally bring up the fact that somewhere in the world he had a half brother.  It really troubled him that he didn't know his brother, to the point where he finally started to casually search for him.  Thanks to good old Facebook he found him while I was in the hospital with Jack.  When I saw the pictures I knew without a doubt that this was his brother.  Same build and facial structure, same eyes, it was uncanny.  This man could be my Andrew in ten years.  They made contact and even talked on the phone.  He and his family sounded like solid, honest people and when we realized we needed to make a cross country trip he invited us to stop at his house and rest a bit.  You don't really "stop" in at Texas, you drive for three days to the next town.  This state is just enormous.  We finally arrived at his house just outside of San Antonio and found that he and his wife, son and daughter were the kindest and most hospitable people you could ever hope to meet.  They took time out of their busy lives to take in strangers and even showed us the Alamo and other beautiful places in San Antonio.  It was moving to be blessed by them, I will never forget it.

I ought to backtrack a moment and mention briefly that through out my journey with Jack I have seen images and signs of butterflies every time a pivotal moment in our story happens.  God sends me reminders to expect a miracle for my little boy.  So when I walked into the room we were to stay in, I laughed out loud to see that it was covered in butterflies and a large framed picture with butterflies and a quote. "Life takes us to unexpected places… Love is what brings us home."
Life had taken us to a very unexpected place and we left their home feeling humbled by God's kindness.  He orchestrated this meeting and blessed our time with this family we didn't even know.  They were warm and kind and I will always feel blessed to be shown Texas by these good hearted people.

When their son took Israel, our oldest boy, to see the chickens my little William felt left out and came trotting out to join them.  Only too bad for him, he stood on a fire ant mound.  Apparently, although small the fire ants are fiercely aggressive and their stings burn like the dickens.  Poor sweet William was attacked and his legs became hamburger meat as those relentless little devils stung him mercilessly.  He came screaming up to the house while they continued to sting and I tore out to see what was wrong.  And with my super mom powers I had that boy naked and in the shower faster than you can say, "fire ants should go back to the pit where they belong".  A shower and some children's benadryl later, William was fine but his legs were red and swollen, completely covered in raised angry looking bumps.  Thank the good Lord they didn't make it further up his leg.  Other than that little incident, we had an awesome time.  But all things come to an eventual end. Our three fabulous days in Texas were over and it was time to face the road again.  As a side note, when we arrived in Massachusetts we promptly shipped two live lobsters over to them as a thanks for their hospitality.  Nothing says thank you like a sea bug.

Oh and I forgot to mention that it was also in Texas that we found out via email that the job opportunity that sounded pretty much like a  done deal was not such a done deal.  Now with no promise of work and pay, the trip took on another layer of faith building.  We were thankful that at least we had a place to stay once we got there.  A family not far from the hospital was put in contact with us (through a friend of a friend who knows these people) and they agreed to host us for a bit until we got on our feet.  That was a nice reassurance.

We were ready to see the sights again as we had a really nice break from the car that was so full that we couldn't even put our feet down.  Talk about claustrophobia. Our next stop was Arkansas to visit my Ozark family.  I had not seen my grandparents in over ten years and this was my only chance to introduce their great-grand kids to them.  So far our trip was broken up by stops to see family; first to Arizona to see my father-in-law at his summer home (it was really lucky that he happened to be there), then Andrew's brother's house in Texas and next to see my family.  These were like pit stops in a marathon.  Stop quickly, get refreshment and get back to the race.

Getting Here

As I mentioned in my last post, my little family of five uprooted from California four months ago and travelled across the country to Massachusetts.  We sold much of what we owned and the rest we shoved into every nook and cranny of our u-haul trailer and our Yukon.  We also tarped things to the top of our car, conjuring images of the Beverly Hillbillies.  We were only missing the rocking chair with Granny.  The first day of our journey really looked bleak.  Our rental house still needed a thorough cleaning and there were still things to be packed and donated. We didn't actually leave till around four in the afternoon.  When we did leave it took less than thirty miles to realize that this was going to be a very, very long trip.  The trailer began to sway violently back and forth as we drove down the highway, causing us to pull over every five or ten minutes to stop the swaying.  My husband and I were feeling a little dismal at the thought of pulling over every five minutes on our way across the continent.  But in time, Andrew got the feel for it and was able to counter the sway before it started.  Thank goodness, I was afraid we would never make it.
For any of you who have small children, especially boys, you know that road trips are … challenging.  Here we were about the embark on the most epic road trip ever with two very active boys and I wondered who would kill each other first.  However, my boys turned into affable explorers and took great interest in the journey.  Our first stop was Arizona.  We travelled through California and made it to the desert of Arizona to see my husband's dad.  The Siguaro cactuses and rugged terrain were stunning.  I grew up in the desert of Southern California which were ugly and riddled with trash.  Arizona was the cleanest state I have ever seen.  My boys got a kick out of the cacti.
From there we travelled through New Mexico, also very beautiful.  You should know that, even three states in, my kids were great sports.  We listened to audio books and just enjoyed the scenery.  The buildings and settlements were so sparse that we felt like we landed in the West.  Especially when a distant train broke up the wildness and shot through the rugged scenery.  It was very Americana.

As we drove through the miles and miles of nothingness, it impressed me how immense our country is.  And it was also remarkable how quickly the scenery changes from state to state.  Arizona and New Mexico are both deserts but they both are definitively different from one another.  It seems like, once the border to a new state hits, the land takes the hint and forms its own unique flare.
We travelled the length of New Mexico and finally came to the great state of Texas where hours of barren driving awaited us.  But something fantastic made us press on.  We were stopping at my brother-in-law's house near San Antonio.  Andrew never met his brother and this would the first time.

Hey there, Blog,  I forgot I created you.  Since your origins I have neglected you and for that I am sorry.  I got sort of …  busy.  When you were conceived it was in a simpler, more care free part of my life, now things are so stressful and complicated.  You understand … don't you?

It's only right that I at least offer an explanation for my betrayal and neglect.  Here goes:

It was summer and the cake pops were abounding.  In preparation for my lovely sister-in-law's Tahoe wedding I was cooking dozens and dozens of lovely little cake pops.  But that's not all that was in the oven.  I was laboring in the very hot kitchen when waves of nausea and dizziness began to overtake me.  Hot dang, I was pregnant.  I had wanted another baby for years now and my hubby wasn't ready (another Loooong story altogether) but now it was baby time and I never was more excited to be nauseous.
But I digress, this explanation isn't about cake or nausea.  It's about Jack.  He changed my life.  He changed all of our lives, as a matter of fact.  But he has given us many scares.  That's where the wedding comes into play.
Imagine a beautiful summer day in Tahoe.  The bride was stunning, the weather was perfect, all of the people arrived and were sitting on picnic blankets: it was a sweet outdoor wedding.  I was a bridesmaid wearing a pretty white summer dress and sporting the signs of a very serious baby bump. But ten minutes before the wedding, I began to bleed.  Without getting into gory details, it looked and felt like I was going to miscarry.  But there was no time to do anything so I told my husband, who was officiating, and we prayed.  Both of us agreed to suck it up and put on a happy face.  But as soon as we were able, after the wedding we snuck away and started the long drive home.
The pastor of our church and his lovely wife came when they heard what was happening.  They prayed for me and pressed me not to throw in the towel but to see a doctor about what was happening.  I had no insurance at the time so that was not very possible.  The church payed for our visit.
The following day while my man stayed home with the boys, I drove to my ob doc.  I explained what was happening and he looked very grim.  He wanted to do an ultrasound.  To my great surprise, the doc found a little tiny heart beat coming from a small life within me.  I was placed on bed rest (not really an easy task with a  four and five year old running about).
Three weeks shy of his due date baby Jack was born with a mess of white hair and the sweetest eyes.  He was so small, my other babies were mammoths, but I assumed it was due to being three weeks early.  I was wrong.  Four weeks later we discovered that his heart was severely malformed and he was rushed by helicopter to Stanford hospital for an open heart surgery.  Once we recovered from the shock of all that another and more serious heart disease was discovered and in he went for his second heart surgery.  This time they told me that the surgery was really only a temporary fix and that he was not long for the world.  The people of our church and all of our friends and families rallied together in serious and constant prayer.
His disease was very aggressive and within weeks he  was hospitalized again.  There was nothing to be done, they said, so they sent us home and put Jack on hospice.  Here is some morphine, they said, to keep him comfortable, and by the way will you sign this "do not resuscitate form"? No thank you.
Meanwhile, Jack's amazing cardiologist had been scouring the country looking for a solution.  That's how we found Boston Children's.  One leer jet flight later, Jack was under the care of a team of specialists who deal with his rare and often fatal disease.  This is the country's best hospital and that became immediately confirmed.  Jack was given balloon dilations of his veins and put on a chemo trial.  After several weeks we were sent home to California.
We soon discovered that Boston Children's really was the best and only hospital for Jack; that coupled with the fact that they wanted to oversee all of his procedures - which happen quite often- made us realize that we either need to have my husband and kids move in with my mother-in-law so I can move to Boston with Jack and afford the extreme price of living there.  Or we would have to sell our belongings and move together to Boston.  Rather than dividing our family we look a leap of faith.  We had to move fast, as Jack's heart couldn't wait long for another procedure.  Within five days we sold three cars and roughly half of our belongings and made an 11 day journey across the greatest nation on God's green earth.  That's another series of awesome stories altogether.
We are now living in a stunning apartment we can't afford in Salem, Massachusetts, not far from Boston.  Our lives have been yanked from the roots and replanted in the strangest place I have ever been.  More on that, another time.

So you see, my little blog?  You see why you have been left alone so long? It's been a wild ride and it keeps getting more and more interesting.  You understand ...  Friends?