Best of 2009 #22- best start-up

#best09 December 22 Startup. What’s a business that you found this year that you love? Who thought it up? What makes it special?

The business for me really isn’t a business. Actually, it is a charitable organization. A charity that was born from a tragedy. A tragic loss that no parent should ever, must ever go through. But it was born from these parents own understanding of what others feel and need.

Friends of Maddie was created following the tragic and sudden loss of Mike and Heather Spohr’s daughter, Madeline. It’s misson is to provide support to the families of critically ill babies in an effort to help ease the transition into NICU life and to be an ally until the end of their child’s hospital stay.

The birth of every child is a joyous occasion full of excitement and wonder. For the parents of premature and critically ill babies, however, it is also one filled with fear, worry, and agonizing uncertainty. Will my baby be okay? Will I be able to deal with this? These questions are very real to parents of premature and critically ill babies, but often prove just as mystifying as the beeping machines and complex medical terminology that make up the world of the Neonatal Intensive Care Unit (NICU). It is Friends of Maddie’s mission to change this.

Friends of Maddie support the families of critically ill babies by easing the transition into NICU life and providing an ally until the end of their child’s hospital stay.

A few of the ways we will help:

• Provide NICU Family Support Packs to the nursing staff of Level III NICU’s across the country which will be distributed, at their discretion, to families of children being admitted to the NICU for long term care.
• Assist in finding temporary lodging for families who live beyond commuting distance of the NICU that is treating their child.
• Create a network of former NICU families who are willing to provide counseling and more to families currently in the NICU.

Not every child’s entry into this world is an easy one, but by supporting Friends of Maddie you can ensure that their families don’t have to go it alone.

As a NICU nurse, as the mother of a 24 week NICU survivor, this organization is very important to me. I believe that their mission is truly a vital one as I am and have been in the NICU trrenches for nearly twenty years now. I have seen too well what a NICU stay can do to a family. I know too well what it can do to you when you are torn between the bedside of your critically ill infant and the rest of your family waiting for you at home. I believe in Friends of Maddie, which is why I am one of it’s supporters.

Best of 2009 #21- project

#best09 December 21 Project. What did you start this year that you’re proud of?

It all started with Kristen’s call to join her as a Shredhead. From there it moved on to Yoga with my Bob and then the next thing you know we were running and running and running and running and running and running to a goal for next year. This coming March to be exact.

It’s good to have a goal.

I am proud of this. I did this for the health of it all. I feel better. I feel stronger. And according to my 23 year old daughter, I have a butt that is high and tight and worthy of even her envy.

Yeah, I’m pretty proud of this project of mine.

best of 2009 #20- new guy

#best09 December 20 New person. She came into your life and turned it upside down. He went out of his way to provide incredible customer service. Who is your unsung hero of 2009?

Did he turn our lives upside down? I don’t believe he ever provided us with any kind of service. He does possess those classic good looks of one of those hero-type guys. But to us he’s just Ben. Well, to almost all of us he is just Ben. He is much more than that to Holly and, well, we kind of like that. Actually we like it a lot.

Ben, we are very glad that you showed up into our lives and decided to hang around our crazy, family circus this year.

dancing lights for your holiday pleasure

Brought to you by Jodie and the rest of her dance team and Alan Sanchez of Good Day Sacramento Weekend.

You’re welcome!

best of 2009 #19- best car ride

#best09 December 19 Car ride. What did you see? How did it smell? Did you eat anything as you drove there? Who were you with?

The most memorable, the best car rides are always the ones when my kids are with me in the car. It’s times like these where we get silly or serious and where we reveal more of ourselves which seems to bind us even closer as a family.

Sometimes though it isn’t so idyllic and fun. Unfortunately those are the times where we are usually stressed and harried. Those are the times when I, personally, find myself juggling just too much. I think perhaps this coming year I will try to recognize those moments as the time to slow down, unplug and just listen.

But for this year I am thinking of the best car ride. It was a memorable, silly one. I wrote about it just two months ago. It was the car ride where my girls began planning Mom’s memorial service. No, I’m not dying. But still my girls are beginning the planning now because they want to insure that their Mommy~Dearest gets the proper send off. Thanks girls. It’s good to know that you’ve got my back.Thank you also for making what I imagine will be a silly memory that you all can share for years to come…especially at my memorial.

the gift that simply drove me wild

The best gift
That I ever got
Didn’t really weigh a lot
It didn’t have a ribbon ’round
And it sometimes made the terrible sound
The best of all it seems to me
It wasn’t neath the christmas tree
And yet, I guess I’d have to say
That it made all the other presents twice as gay
The best gift that I’ve ever known
I’d always wanted most to own
Yet in my dreams of sugar and spice
I never thought it could be so nice
The best gift that I ever get
Was sometimes dry and sometimes wet
Was usually pink but oftentimes red
As it lay so innocently in it’s bed
The best gift of the year to me
The one I hold most dear to me
A gift that simply drove me wild
Was a tiny new born child…

from Barbra Streisand’s The Christmas Album

My sweet, darling daughter #1, Holly Austa is 23 years old today. How can that possibly be? Really?

Holly, you remain the best gift that I have ever received for Christmas. The only thing that I can imagine that would remotely come close (by thousands and thousands of miles) would come wrapped up in a pale, blue box from Tiffany’s. I know today, more than ever, you understand what I mean as you hug and kiss your amazing, huggable and kissable child, Hazel Faye.

Happy birthday today to you, my darling daughter.

a family tragedy judged

Tragedies strike everyday. Accidents happen.

• A child comes down with a cold and quickly that cold progresses to something so much more worse and soon thereafter a family finds the oxygen sucked out of the room they wait in when a doctor conveys sympathy mixed with sad, bad news.
• A child is happily at play in her neighborhood with her siblings and friends, chasing after her big sister because she wants to be just like her and impulsively crosses six lanes of busy traffic to chase after her only to be struck by a six ton truck and thrown several yards where she lays bloodied, crumpled and oh so still in the street.
• A busy mother finds her self distracted for just a moment, a gate is unlatched and soon she finds her child floating lifeless in the pool.
• A mother watches her daughter in a downward spiral from a bad headache in the early morning to near death just six hours later in an ER miles from home.

These are horrifying scenarios. They take your breath away just trying to imagine the searing, white-hot pain, sorrow and fear these families must have gone through in these moments. All of these have happened in real life. All are true. Two of them have happened here under the Big Top. These scenarios also share the commonality of moms reaching out through social media communities for support and prayers. Unfortunately they also have been scrutinized and examined in such a way where the parents find that they must defend their reactions, their responses, their behavior before, during and after.

It is very easy on the outside to ask a mom after a tragic accident involving her child where was she and what was she doing. After all, those on the outside know for certain that they have never, ever turned their back for one moment. They have never allowed themselves to be distracted. They have nothing better to do than to shadow just the one child that they have. So then perhaps it’s very easy to ask the mom of the little girl hit by the truck where she was and sleep at night with a good conscience. A family member dared to do just that to me years back when Zoë was in that awful, awful accident. For the record, I was inside my home, stepping inside to talk to my husband who had just returned home from work that day. I was also multi-tasking playing with my 4 year old daughter and getting ready for work. How come the same person never directed that same question to my husband is something I do not know. They never explained. They didn’t have to, I guess. They sleep very well at night not really understanding how deeply their query hurt me that horrible, horrible day.

Most of you all followed my odyssey with Jodie last May when she was near death. Regardless of my ability or qualifications as a registered nurse, I was ill-equipped to deal with the frightened, helpless feeling of watching one’s own child slipping away. We were miles and miles from home that day and while I waited outside of the ER’s isolation room for Bill to arrive I felt so alone. The doctor, resident, intern and nurses all were comforting to the best of their ability but they were also busy trying to save Jodie’s life. Plus they did not know me. They did not know why Jodie was dressed like a little French maid with full-on rhinestones and glittery make-up and jazz shoes. So while I waited, I reached out. I tweeted. I asked for prayers. I answered replies and direct messages of support and love and reassurances that I was not alone in that ER. I was surrounded by a gigantic cyber-hug that stretched across the globe while I waited for Bill to arrive and to envelope me in his arms while waiting for news about Jodie. As I, myself, came down with the same infection as Jodie just hours later while sitting vigil by her bedside in the PICU, I tweeted some more and again I received promises of prayers and good wishes. Again with the global cyber hug to keep me going even in my own physical pain while I was quickly moved to an isolation room on the other end of the hospital. I tweeted my way through it all and, so many of you were there with me, and, thankfully, Jodie and I both survived.

Much has been said, written and tweeted this week over the sad, sad tragic accident that befell another mother. She is a mother just like us all. This week she lived through probably the most horrific of tragedies that any mother could ever live through. Unless we have lived it too, we can’t even begin to imagine. We can’t know what we would say or do, who we would reach out to or where we would go…unless we also have suffered such a loss. Yet  some people, people who have never lived through such a loss, such tragedy, such an accident feel it is within their right to judge what this mom did and did not do. It’s so easy for them, I guess. As for me, I can’t imagine. I have seen my fair share of human tragedy in what I do as a nurse yet I have no idea how I would react. I have no idea what is right or appropriate. But I’m pretty certain this intense scrutiny and judgment is not right, is not fair, is not appropriate…unless this media panel has lived through such a loss…but they haven’t. Have they?

best of 2009 #18- shop

#best09 December 18 Shop. Online or offline, where did you spend most of your mad money this year?

According to my friend and neighbor across the street, the UPS man with the cute, tight butt has not stopped nearly enough at my house this month. Yet in spite of my obvious failings to offer my friend a good healthy dose of eye candy, rest assure most of my shopping has been online this year.

And right now a good portion of it is all wrapped up in pretty, pretty paper and nestled under the Christmas tree.

Hurray for online shopping!

reindeer Dan

Wearing his glittered, reindeer antler hat that he made in school today he wanted to make it perfectly clear that this hat is NOT cute.

School is now dismissed until next year. Let the Christmas vacation begin!

Santa did you know?

Santa did you know that when you saw Daniel at school this afternoon that you would see him again just an hour later?

Santa did you know that Daniel and I would get to the mall before you?

Santa did you know that we would be first in line to see you at the mall?

Santa did you know that you looked just a little bit different? It’s amazing what one hour can do to one’s appearance.

Santa did you know that your helpers at the mall are freaking rude?

Santa did you know it is not permitted for a parent to take more than one picture of you with their child with their own camera even if they are buying the $30 package that is offered?

Santa did you know that my picture was better than the one taken by your helper?

photo by Santa's mall helpers

photo by Daniel's mom

Santa did you know that Daniel thinks you are amazing?

Santa did you know I picked up that one thing that Daniel wants more than anything ever?

You’re welcome, Santa.