Chasing

Chase...One of Ben and Lotta's favorite games right now is chase around the circle that is our house.  The whole thing starts with Lotta chasing Ben, and typically ends with Ben chasing Lotta as he easily and quickly catches up with her.  Many giggles and excited screams ensue.

Funny Faces...Lotta has been waking up after Ben and Thom leave for work.  Weekends are her favorite time, when she gets to go wake up Daddy.  I think she is in for a big thrill this summer when Ben is home every single day.  A few weeks ago, much to her delight, she woke up before they had departed.  We raced down to the kitchen where Lotta entertained everyone with funny faces.  Several times a day, she will suddenly turn her head towards the floor, her eyes downcast.  I will ask if she is feeling sad, picking her up as I question her.  When she looks at me she gets a big grin on her face.  Maybe some acting in her future perhaps?

Telling Stories...The other day, I was in the bathroom getting ready while Lotta sat in the library (Ellie's old room) sitting in a tiny chair looking out the window.  Suddenly she raced (the only way toddlers travel I've found) into the bathroom to tell me about a squirrel she saw climbing a tree.  We discussed the squirrel and its shenanigans for the rest of the day.

Lotta Enthusiasm...Lotta's favorite word right now, outside of "hi" or "hello" is "WOW!"  She is so utterly enthusiastic about everything--airplanes in the sky, kitty cats and doggies, Ben getting off the bus, a butterfly, tunnels.  Really makes it rewarding sharing information with her.

A Conundrum

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Recently we purchased a tandem bike for Ben (a small bike pulled by a bigger bike).  Ben, being BEN!, was extremely excited about this latest development in his life.  On Sunday morning, we took a family bike ride, our first ever.  During the bike ride, I had one of those moments where I was so incredibly in love with my family, it felt as if my heart would explode and maybe butterflies would fly out or rainbows or unicorns (sure, it may have been endorphin produced euphoria, still).  Ben took us to one of his favorite spots around Lake Mendota, where he has a secret "island" hide out, there are several trees where the branches grow close to the ground, allowing easy climbing and hiding from bad guys, should you run into any.  The whole morning felt as if we were on vacation, absolutely perfection without even trying.

Now contrast that to just a week earlier, when we all went to the Aldo Leopold Nature Center to spot some animals (we saw a family of cranes!)   There was a moment during our visit, when we were all standing by a pond and I had this feeling of both missing Ellie's presence and knowing that we

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would absolutely not all be there at that spot if Ellie were physically here.  It was as if I were straddling two moments of time--the family we used to be with Ellie and the family we are becoming with Lotta and Ben.  But I digress.  Ben just had a challenging time the whole time we were there.  Everything but everything was upsetting. His melt downs were bigger and bed-der (one of Ellie's favorite plays on words, which she discovered worked bed-der if she was actually in a bed) than ever.   And, just as Ben is exuberant in his expression of what he likes, he is just as exuberant in expressing what he does not.  And loudly.  Leaving me feeling as if I needed to somehow change him or me or something to reduce their occurrence. I felt myself caught in a conundrum (another of Ellie's favorite words).  On the one hand, I want Ben to get out his sadness, disappointment, anger, all those uncomfortable feelings.  On the other hand I want him to be able to express these emotions in a productive way, in a way that he can elicit the assistance he needs from whatever environment he is in.  Is that too much to ask of a just-turned 7-year-old?  Maybe.

What a lot of changes have occurred for Ben over the past year and a half.  Transforming from a big brother when before he was a little brother.  He tries so very hard to cheer us

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up when he feels us missing Ellie.  He seems to take on all those big, scary feelings for us, even though I would never ask him to do so.  It must be exhausting at times to carry this burden on such small shoulders.  I am left wondering how I, as his mother, can be of the most assistance to him.

Then sweet Lotta feels like it is her sole purpose for being on the planet to go and comfort her brother.  When she hears him upset, she gasps, "BEN!" and races to his side.  She gives him hugs and kisses.  Oh little Lotta kisses.  Rubs his head like he is a kitty cat.  Then when Ben is back to his chipper happy self, he gets down on his knees and asks Lotta to marry him.  Because when someone treats you with that kind of love, why wouldn't you marry them?  (Besides the law against it, I know I know, highly challenging to explain to a 1st grader, I tried).

I suppose Lotta showed me the answer to my conundrum, to treat Ben with love and kindness when he is having a hard day.  And I suppose this blog has shown me what a difference a week can make...

 

Crazy Comes for an Uninvited Visit....

Yesterday afternoon, Thom was golfing.  The weather here has been perfect, like living in paradise (high of 70s, no humidity, sunny skies, a breeze...).  I was flying solo.   Lotta had choked on some water during dinner and it seemed like she just couldn't quite get past it.  She kept coughing and coughing and crying.  At the same time, Ben was assigned show-n-tell for the very next day, so we were frantically filling out a worksheet that needed to be completed before bedtime.  Ben was getting more and more frustrated with Lotta's incessant crying because he could not hear my responses to his questions.  Then Lotta started throwing up.  If you didn't know this already, my kids are incredibly proficient at regurgitating.  Seriously, it's like a talent.  I raced upstairs to give Lotta a bath, encouraging Ben to follow so I could keep helping him with his homework.  When all that crazy finally settled down, I recalled my search for perfection and questioned myself, "What is perfect about this situation?"  Immediately I thought, "That this is almost over."  Made me chuckle at myself and realize that sometimes the shades of perfection are not as bright as others.

Perfectly Messy

What's perfect about my messy house is the story the mess tells of what an amazing life we live.  The mess tells the story of what a fun day Lotta and Ben had.  The Legos on the floor left from Ben's latest invention.  All the items strewn across the bathroom floor from Lotta's explores while I was showering. The pans left on the stove (fortunately they are clean) tell the story of how we had a delicious dinner last night, we went to bed satisfied.  The bright pink baby doll stroller in the yard tells of how Lotta drags it everyday up and down the block, hoping that her friend, Baby Louie from across the street will notice her and come out to play.  The papers piled on the counter are a reminder of all the amazing activities we are involved in--from Ben's school to Make-A-Wish to a superb gift from my brother, Kip, from the Middle East (thanks btw!)  The incredibly messy room, previously our office space, soon to become our art studio, tells the story of all the funtastic times we have had over the past two years. It remains messy and saves me the heart wrenching task of unearthing Ellie finds--school papers, the one and only painting she was forced to do at school, her hats, who knows what else.  This messy room has patiently held all of these secrets for me, waiting for me to be ready to transform the space.  Maybe I could start looking at a messy house as a sign that this was a day well spent, rather than as a sign that I have failed. 

Looking for the Perfect

 

[caption id="attachment_4685" align="alignleft" width="225" caption="Ben and Lotta snuggle at the end of the slide. Perfection."][/caption]

In a recent article by Martha Beck (a life coach who often writes in Oprah Magazine), she described how she was running a training of coaches.  The conclusion of the training was to be an adventure involving horses.  Right as they arrived at the horse stables, the sky dumped a torrent of rain.  Martha asked each participant what was perfect about the situation.

I have been practicing looking for the perfect in each situation (when I am not too crazy to recall this wonderful tidbit).  Whenever I find myself becoming disappointed, frustrated, angry, if I am able, I stop and ponder what is perfect.  It totally forces me to re-focus my attention, to look for what I like rather than what I don't.  For example, this morning, Lotta and I were meeting our favorite PICU nurse, Katie and her baby, Cash at the zoo.  Somehow we just could not find one another.  I found myself begining to panic a little bit, knowing that our window at the zoo with 2 little people who will need naps soon was small.  Then, I just decided to relax and enjoy the weather (it is a perfect day today).   When we kept missing eachother, I even texted her a photo of Lotta and I to show her what we looked like.  I thought afterwards how fantastic it was to not go into full panic mode, to just relax and see whatever animals we happened to see.  Even though we did not get to visit with Katie and Cash as long as we had anticipated, we had a lovely visit the time we did have together.  Hope this doesn't sound trite or overused ("when life hands you lemons make lemonade!!")  Just wanted to share how helpful this has been in the hopes that it might be helpful to some of you too.

 

Thoughts on Mother's Day....(the 13th btw)

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"Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body."  Elizabeth Stone

Sometimes I feel jealous of the younger me.  Not for the reasons you might think--youthful beauty, innocence, coolness (Thom would wonder, "Were you ever really cool?).  The other day I was sitting in the green room looking at the photos on the wall.  One of them was taken a few days after Ellie passed.  I am wearing a pink hat given to us by a hospice nurse that says, "jilled", snuggling up to Lotta.  As I looked at the photo it amazed me that I even took a photo so soon after Ellie passed.  Then I had that old yearning.  In that photo it had been mere DAYS since I had seen, felt, touched, smelled Ellie, whereas now it has been almost a year and a half.  How I yearned to be that younger me, the one who had so recently been in Ellie's physical presence.

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Recently, I drove past the funeral home that cremated Ellie, as I often do.  As I passed it I suddenly was struck, it felt as if I was literally punched in the stomach with the feeling I had the day the funeral home took Ellie's body.  The moment they carried her body down the stairs, I wanted to race at them, demanding that they NOT take my daughter.  At the same time, I absolutely knew how irrational the whole thought process was.  That desperate feeling engulfed me, making for quite dangerous driving conditions, as you can well imagine. Time continues to move at an odd pace.  At times it seems so long long ago when Ellie was with us and then it flips suddenly seeming so recent.

This last week, Lotta caught a cold.  Saturday was the worst of it, she was lethargic and couldn't keep anything down and started breathing in a wheezy way.  Growing up experiencing asthma I have an extremely low tolerance for hearing my children struggling to breathe.  Lotta progressively got worse throughout the day.  By 3am, as she lay shaking the bed in her attempts to pull in oxygen, I decided it was time to go to the ER.  What a wange (weird strange) time to go to the ER.  First of all because it is 3am, which to my way of living, is not a typical hour I am driving around town.  Second, it was wange to go to Ellie's hospital.  Somehow I felt as if I might encounter Ellie there.  I mean really all the experience's we had there, they should just rename the whole place.  Sheesh.  One of the first things our ER nurse said to Lotta as he put on her respiratory monitor was, "You're not in trouble".  Which, as you may or may not know, was one of Ellie's favorite things to reassure others.  Thirdly, Lotta is the exact age Ellie was when she was diagnosed with a brain tumor.  Everything but everything was so incredibly frightening to sweet Lotta (and sweet Ellie or "Swellie" as she would probably say).  Even putting the ID bracelet on, listening to her breathe, looking in her ears, were extremely upsetting.  All of it was terrifying.  It also amazed me how, particularly in the ER, where everything is URGENT, I can be talked into things like rectal thermometers, chest x-rays, which in the light of day seem CRAZY. As we were going through it, I had a moment of worry that this was going to scar Lotta emotionally.  Then, as we were leaving, Lotta was walking around, making friends with one of the nurses (just like her sister would have!)  Not a trace of what had happened left on her, except for of course that she was now breathing easier.  They are so resilient at this age.  AND I am greatful that we somehow survived Ellie's hospital experiences and that Lotta and Ben are getting to experience something different.