No More Gorilla on my Back

We began an addition to our house long ago. LOOOOONG ago. I have a picture of Katie's standing in the trench dug for the addition's concrete footing. She's four years old. You do the math.

When we started the building project it seemed like a good idea. We had two children and a dog, but no garage for our car and no shop for Carl's creativity. A 10 x 12 foot breezeway attached our small three bedroom, one bathroom house to a crudely-finished area that probably originated as a garage. Our plans returned that space to a garage and added another one-and-a-half car width. At the north end of all that garage space we added a shop, a bathroom and a bedroom. Because Carl could build, he constructed our addition and we paid as we went. No debt. Great so far, right?

We acquired the appropriate building permits and began tearing down walls, our own Extreme Makeover Home Edition. Young and energetic--still with only two children--Carl and I decided we wanted a rec room too; however, dry basements did not exist in our part of Kansas. We solved that by building upwards: two more bedrooms, a bathroom, and a great room. Sheesh. What started as a modest project became a monstrosity, yet we remained optimistic and determined.

The dog died. Hannah was born. Surprise!

Well, not exactly surprise. I knew how those things happened. She simply wasn't someone we planned to happen. Her special needs qualified as a surprise, though. Construction abruptly stopped, though thankfully the roof, windows and vinyl siding were in place.

The square footage of our addition exceeds that of the original house and remains unfinished except for Carl's shop and garage. I suspect that has as much to do with the construction stagnation as anything, but I haven't been out there erecting walls or painting so who am I to complain? We've used the space, even sheetrocked a couple of walls and set up a bed for out-of-town guests, which contributed to my unwelcome redneck status. The enormity of the monstrosity coupled with our life changes altered it from a "good idea" to the proverbial monkey on our backs, a monkey that began as a little rhesus monkey and metamorphosed into a big gorilla. Some days the damn gorilla even threw sh*t at us, but I digress.

Finally, after seven-or-so years, I have hired someone to complete the, ahem, addition. I have to give Sheri, the "Just Do It Posterchild, credit for lending me some motivation. Seeing Matt, a mutual friend and construction guru, do her home improvement projects inspired me to hire him to complete ours.

Originally Carl dragged his feet, having taken pride in doing most of the work himself with the help of a buddy. But my desire to see the project completed before the girls graduated from high school outranked his pride. After seeing forward momentum and the quality of Matt's work, Carl stopped his foot-dragging and donned running shoes. He and Matt are working together on plumbing today.

No more sh*t-slinging from that pesky gorilla.

Kid Quote of the Day

My computer is STILL down, so I'm sitting at the library one hopefully last time (not because of the library, Liz, but because I WANT MY COMPUTER BACK!)

We saw one of the bazillion ads that focus on looks & sex appeal over what seems like everything else, to which Katie replied:

We don't want to look good. We want to LIVE good.

Actually, I wouldn't mind looking good too...

Traveling Off the Moral Highroad

Easter is the one holiday for which we stay home rather than traveling out-of-town to spend the day with family. We travel to eat Thanksgiving dinner with two or three families. At Christmastime we open our personal family presents at someone else's house, under someone else's tree. While I love both sides of my family and, for the most part, enjoy celebrating holidays with all of them, I appreciate watching the girls' Easter basket excitement in our own cozy home.

We prepared for Easter Mass that morning without worrying that we had left a pair of shoes...or an entire suitcase as we did a previous holiday. I only screamed at someone once or twice. Great Easter attitude, huh? I guess that's a downfall for my family: I'm more self-controlled when others are watching.

After rising at 5:00 a.m. to fill Easter baskets with crap lovely treats I had purchased from Dollar General at 7:45 the previous evening, then dressing for and attending Mass, I took a nap. A much-needed nap. That is, until the neighbor decided to rev his four-wheeler engine over and over while sitting in his driveway. Argh.

We concluded our Easter family day by playing frisbee golf in Parsons, then running and climbing at the park. Actually, Carl and the girls played frisbee golf. I rode my Hoveround around, trying to keep up while simultaneously jarring every joint in my body and freezing in the 40-ish, windy weather. I also sat in the Tahoe to observe playground time from a warm afar, wishing I had my laptop to record things. I couldn't even find a pencil.

The girls played tag with some other kids. Evidently Hailey called time-out every time someone neared tagging her, which prompted Katie to call her a quitter. Of course, Katie couldn't simply call her a quitter one time. She had to expand upon all the times Hailey had quit in the past ten years, until Hailey started to cry. How this celebrated the resurrection of Christ, I don't quite know.

Hailey yelled something unidentifiable at Katie. After a brief pause Hailey hollered, "Mo-om! Katie stuck her tongue out at me!"

Jesus, can you resurrect me right on up there with you, please?

Katie replied, "I could have meant it in a good way." At that, I had to laugh.

We ended the day with a high class meal from Sirloin Stockade, then pilfered some daffodils from the roadside on the way home. We started the day on the moral high road, but somewhere along the way we got off. Happy late Easter!

Staying in the Game

The girls and I sat around the table last week discussing Easter as we ate our macaroni and cheese.

"We need to choose your Easter dresses soon. I don't want to wait until the last minute," I warned. A friend had given us five or six Easter-worthy dresses, among other clothes, that looked like they had never been worn. Tommy Hilfiger. Gap. Score! I hate to shop, so those dresses were three-pointers (trying to stay in the March Madness basketball frame of mind, even though basketball runs a close second to shopping.)

"What about shoes, mom?" Hailey asked.

Shoot. Shoes. "I guess we'll have to make a mad dash to Joplin and match the shoes to the dress you pick." I turned t0 Hannah. "What are you going to wear?" The friend's clothes did not include size 3T.

"I sit on E-puhn ap," Hannah replied. What???

"You sat on Ethan's lap?" I guessed. She's been talking about Aunt Ashley and her family, including cousin Ethan, daily though I don't know why. Leave it to Hannah to completely change the subject.

"No," Hannah responded. "I sit on E-puhn ap." Emphasis on the E, as if that helped. Great. I braced myself for the meltdown that follows her frustration with being misunderstood.

"Nooo." Bracing. Bracing. Eyes cringing.

Silent pause.

"Mmmm. Faking. (Hmmm. I'm thinking)," Hannah said with her index finger to her lips.

What's going on here?

Suddenly Hannah raised her elbows to her head with her hands flopping around and said, "It has beeg ewhs. White. (It has big ears. White.)"

Momentarily stunned, I finally got it. She was describing E-puhn: The Easter Bunny. "You sat on the Easter Bunny's lap!"

"Yeah! I sit on E-puhn ap!"

"Hannah, you are so smart! Good description!" I praised as I kissed her whole face. This was HUGE! It marked the first time Hannah has realized that she can explain what she is trying to say rather than uselessly repeating the same thing over and over, ultimately melting down.

Events like this cause me to look back and appreciate the progress. At the beginning of the school year Hannah spoke in one- to three-word sentences. Her speech therapist taught her to say, "Daddy. Is. At. Work." while holding up a finger for each word. Effort. Now she jabbers so much I find myself wishing she would be quiet for a moment. Though still difficult to understand, her speech has improved in both understandability and amount.

We finished our macaroni and cheese and continued the normal routine of the day. But that moment remained pivotal. It's as if each meltdown has been a foul. Let's just say Hannah fouled out weekly. Sometimes daily. With this new weapon, now maybe she can stay in the game.

Up, Down, All Around

I had hoped to never be a blogger that posted an entry such as this, but here I am. My computer locked up yesterday. My high school friend from Texas visited the two previous days. I spent the previous weekend in Northwest Kansas at the quilt gifting explained in my previous post. We are finally, FINALLY, FINALLY moving forward on our building project. Hannah made a major leap forward, which I'm dying to explain to the world.

But here I sit at the library, borrowing a computer with ten minutes to spare before Carl picks me up for a trip to Joplin to purchase a shower, two toilets, enough ceramic tile to cover a bijillion square feet of flooring, two gallons of custom-colored paint and more. The sun is out, I've been taking some digestive enzymes and other supplements in preparation for the antibiotic protocol (for the arthritis) which have given me a level of energy that leaves me lost...I don't quite know what to do with myself. What a wonderful problem to have.

I'm rambling in order to connect with my few readers, yet don't have time to write about anything in depth. I'm hoping to find someone to address my computer problems and be back in cyberworld/bloggyland soon.

Man, life is GREAT!

Heritage of Quilts

"No cord or cable can draw so forcibly, or bind so fast, as love can do with a
single thread." Robert Burton

Grandma, in the middle of this picture, made a quilt for each of her children whom she gathered from across the United States this past weekend to gift the quilts and tell the stories behind them.

Grandma began the first quilt in 1939 while pregnant with Uncle Clair, her first child. I'll post a photo and story in a later entry.

Aunt Ann and Dad are holding Dad's quilt in the picture above while Grandma tells how the cross shapes of the quilt were created from my great-great-grandpa's shirts and the light pieces behind the crosses are of material from my great-great-grandmother's aprons. Because we lived on Oak Leaf Farm at the time grandma completed the actual quilting, she stitched an oak leaf design using white thread, which stands out beautifully against the dark blue back of the quilt. Unfortunately you can't see the sewing in the picture.

Ardy, my dad's wife, placed this quilt on the bed I slept in that night. Crawling under the covers, I wrapped myself in history and love, full of wonder at my heritage. Earlier that day I laughed at funny stories from my dad's childhood. I learned that a great-great-uncle was accused of being a confederate spy and consequently hung (though not to his death) in a Missouri barn to coerce a confession. I cried as grandma read aloud a letters she had written to my grandpa, who died a few short years ago, and to each of her children just for this occasion.

Through it all I sensed my unique stitch sewn with the thread of time.



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Bein' Neighborly

FINALLY! Beautiful weather! Hailey has been home from school two days with her dizziness (atypical migraine), so she rested inside. The rest of the Solomon girls enjoyed the middle sixties temperatures with the neighbor kids. First, Katie played with the neighbors' ducks and bunnies...







Hannah got some love from the neighbors' dog. Hannah's been applying mascara again....between her eyes, her pants were on backwards and she wore house slippers. I love that girl.

And finally, do you see the dichotomy here?

Bikes and trikes. Boys and girls. But all of it is f-u-n in the much awaited sun.

New Shoe Guilt

This past Friday I did something I haven't done in over five years. I bought new dress shoes. I also purchased new tennis shoes to replace my current, two-year-old tennies . Here they are.

Because my feet are splayed as a result of the arthritis, I need shoes with a large toe box (the part of the shoe that protects the toe and ball of the foot). No pointy-toed stilettos for me, which really breaks my heart. One doesn't find good shoes with wide toe boxes at Super-mart or the local discount shoe store. No, I spent a fortune on the shoes above.

Carl and I have lately discussed saving for nice family vacation, which this purchase slightly set back. So as I drove home from my planned shopping spree, I suffered from sticker shock and guilt proportional to the drop in my bank account. How did I handle that? I called mom, counting on her to say all the things moms say: You need to take care of yourself, too and When is the last time you did something for yourself? To the second one I had to admit to having my nails done while Carl kept Hannah.

However, I still took comfort in the fact that I hadn't purchased dress shoes since before Hannah's birth. For the past two years these are the shoes I've worn with everything: shorts, jeans, black dress slacks...everything.

I have felt like the goob with flashlight feet. Numerous children have asked me if I can boing or if I can jump really high with these shoes, probably visualizing Tigger's bouncing on his tail. On the positive side, I haven't worried about what shoes I would wear for the same two years.

However, these thoughts coupled with mom's reassurance still didn't erase my last little guilty-mom feeling that my needs deprived the rest of my family. Hesitating because she never wants to cause turmoil, Mom finally said, "Think of it this way. How much did Carl spend on his deer head?"

I spent slightly more than it cost Carl to stuff this sucker in February, but my guilt is lifted. And my shoes are much better looking than a dead animal on the wall.

The End of a Season: Basketball

Hailey's first, and probably last, basketball season has officially ended. Area kids can begin playing basketball in fourth grade, Hailey's grade, and most of them know nothing. Zero. Nada. Hailey knew even less. But she wanted to try it and I thought participating in a team sport and learning the fundamentals would be a good experience.

Good experience? I'd give the overall experience a C-minus. I would give Hailey's effort a solid A and my own effort and interest a D, maybe less. I missed two of her games, but watched every single other game from the butt-breaking bleachers. I attended part of only one practice the entire season, not that I was supposed to attend any practices. What would I do during her practice? Stand on the court and bat the balls with my cane? Oh yeah, wrong sport. I could have shouted supportive statements from the sidelines, or at least learned the plays myself in order to reinforce them at home. But I didn't. I figured the coach and assistant coach knew what they were doing and didn't need some mom "helping."

By the end of the season, Hailey still didn't know the fundamentals. She played an average of five (give or take, I didn't actually keep track) minutes per game and otherwise spent the remainder of the clock time like this (Hailey is second from the left, smiling at me)...

...or this (Hailey is seated at the far left end of the bench). Notice that the coach and the action are to the right. What's Hailey looking at?

When Hailey played her five minutes, she seemed to intentionally avoid the action, as you can see in the picture below. No, this isn't a game of football, though quite a few fourth graders are on the floor in this shot. Notice Hailey (#1 with her back turned to me) is observing the skirmish from a safe distance.

If a teammate passed the ball to Hailey, Hailey either immediately passed it to another teammate...or travelled. Again, fundamentals, fundamentals.

I played basketball as a kid. My dad played basketball when he was a kid. Looking back, I remember the day dad planted a tall steel post in the ground and attached a basketball hoop to the top. We played many games of HORSE together, and even a little one-on-one. Before this season if you would have asked me if my dad had spent much time with me as a kid, I would have said no, not a lot. Hailey's basketball season helped me remember that Dad spent more time with me than I originally thought. So, on a personal, completely self-absorbed level, I gained something from her basketball season.

Hailey gained the awareness that basketball isn't her forte. Music remains her forte. She can play songs by ear on the piano and she learns her piano lessons quickly and well. She has a beautiful singing voice for a ten-year-old (of course, I'm not biased). In fact, her first words were a song--I'm not making that up.

An added bonus: piano doesn't involve politics. At least not at the fourth grade level.

Not So Dandy Comparisons

Following is an excerpt from an e-mail sent to my online Dandy-Walker support group.

My son whom has DWM [Dandy Walker Malformation--Hannah's malformation] and is 10-1/2 years old, has a one-to-one aide in school. He is non-verbal, we sign and use a dynavox for all communication. He started to walk only 4 years ago. He went from a wheelchair, to a walker and is now walking on his own. He has come such a long way, but the reality is, he still has a long way to go. He has poor coordination, balance, muscle tone, non-verbal, depth perception, extropia [extropia??? I don't know what that is], etc, etc, etc. He receives physical therapy, occupational therapy and speech therapy through school and privately through insurance. He's been in hippotherapy [horse-riding therapy] for 8 years, karate for special needs, gymnastics and softball for special needs. You name it I try it. Again.... he has come a long long way physically but still has some serious issues.

I've been mildly obsessed with this mom's letter on two levels.

First, I'm thankful Hannah's Dandy-Walker symptoms are much milder than those of the child above. Hannah's speaks like a two- or three-year-old, rather than like the five-year-old she is. Her gross motor skills are delayed, but she finally runs. That's not always a blessing, but I'm always grateful. Hannah's primary problem seems to be sensory-oriented: every sound at school distracts her so that she doesn't do well with seat work...as I've repeated over and over here. Thankfully, Hannah's meltdowns have nearly disappeared. I hadn't considered that until this very moment. Wow.

The second level: that woman sounds like supermom and I am slackermom in comparison. I've contemplated hippotherapy. Katie even took riding lessons at a facility that provides hippotherapy, but I have never followed through for Hannah. Hannah would probably be completely potty trained if we were consistent at home; instead, she continues to have "accidents" regularly.

Why do we do this to ourselves as moms? We compare ourselves to the mom who appears to be doing everything and give ourselves an F in mommy school. Maybe you don't do this. Maybe you have mastered self-approval, raising it to a level of art, like a painting on fine canvas. I, on the other hand, am still coloring with the eight-pack of fat crayons on the self-approval piece of paper from the recycle pile.

Why?

We experienced two destructive ice storms this winter, the results of which you can see in this picture--results that were repeated throughout several counties.



Our southeast Kansas landscape reflects the soul of our small community tonight. Although spring's buds are popping through the surface, we will never look the same, never be the same. Little limbs are damaged and today a large branch has broken off completely.

Lacey, the young mother of Hailey's classmate, died in a car accident after dropping her girls off at school. I don't know the details. I only know that a first-grader and a fourth-grader have been left without a mother. A husband is now a widower.

Lacey worked at the library with my good friend, Liz. Because of my frequent trips to the library to visit with Liz, check out books or just get away for a bit, I felt like I knew Lacey...or at least I was getting to know her. Our girls are both in fourth grade and I looked forward to getting to know Lacey more over the next several years. In fact, I sat alone at a table with her and her two daughters at the last PTO meeting, hoping that familiarity would form into friendship before our daughters graduated from high school.

In January Isabella developed an aneurysm and required open-heart surgery at the tender age of one. February brought the situation with pre-schooler Katherine. Now March has marched in this tragedy. In a town with a population barely exceeding 2,000 we feel overwhelmed and confused. I haven't even mentioned everything because the bleakness would become complete blackness.

I originally planned to post a light entry today about Hailey's basketball season, but that felt irreverent, disrespectful and false given the day's events. My late stream of sad stories probably deters any new blogging friendships I've begun creating, but I have to remain true to the original intent of my blog: to journal my life and work a little (a very little lately) on my writing skills (I use skills loosely).

Today when I picked Hannah up from preschool, her first words to me were, "Kaprin Cook. (Katherine Cook)." The first thing Hailey said to me after school today was, "Did you hear about Lacey?" Realizing we needed to do something healing, we made a trip to our little Catholic church to say a prayer, let each girl light a candle and simply sit silently in a peaceful environment.

Though outwardly I remained quiet, inside my heart asked, "Why?"

Who Are You Calling Stupid?

A summer evening seven years ago Katie, Hailey, Carl and I enjoyed a leisurely walk to Sonic to share ice cream treats and soak up the late sunshine. I can still feel the humid southeast Kansas air and smell the mixture of deep fried food, hot asphalt and marigolds. Living in a micro-small town, we walked home down the middle of the street, slowly so as to allow little toddler legs to keep up. I basked in the innocence of the moment, taking pleasure in my young family and our small-town life.



Soon, a group of four pre-teen boys turned the corner, walking towards us on the sidewalk. We continued chatting amongst ourselves, happy to ignore the boys and continue in our own little world.



Until one of the boys hollered, "Hey STUPID!" in our direction. How dare they! They waited for us with "double-dog-dare-you" looks on their faces, the little creeps.



Just as I prepared to spew out every old-fart retort in the book, Carl said in a goofy voice, "Sth-tupid? Who awre you calling sth-tupid? I'm not sth-tupid." He sure sounded stupid. Time seemed to stop. No one moved. No one said a word.



Carl remained unmoved. He created an opening by grabbing his left foot with his right hand, balancing on his right foot. He said, "Have you guys ever seen anyone do this?" and hopped his right foot through the opening.



"Wow! How'd you do that?" the boys asked, walking towards us. Unable to believe what was happening, I tried to decide whether to hurry my young daughters from these hoodlums or stand there waiting. I waited. Carl did a few more of what I call his "stupid-human tricks" and we had new friends for life. They walked two blocks with us before turning towards their own destination.



Several years later the clay sewer pipes under our fifty-year-old house collapsed. Small town living provides many benefits, but a plethora of plumbers is not one of them. When the local middle-aged, overworked plumber finally made it around to our house, he took one look at our tiny crawl space and said, "I'm getting to old for crawling under houses. You're going to have to call someone else."



Guess who we employed. One of those boys had grown old enough that Carl hired him. The kid crawled under our house and dug up that old, crumbled clay sewer pipe with a hand shovel for less than half the price we would have paid the plumber.



Sth-tupid? Who were they calling sth-tupid?