The Puddles

Well . . . everyone has the H1N1 vaccine  except me!  Madie received her’s yesterday.  We are working really hard to finish projects all around the house.  My mom is taking the kids for a fun weekend at Grandma’s house.  Yeah!!  Hopefully we will get everything done this weekend.  My list is long, but we can do it!

We have a lot of wonderful people surrounding us right now and helping us out.  Which is completely different from the last time.  When Ben had surgery the last time, our friends at the church and in the community were wonderful but the leaders of the church were bitter and unsupportive.  I think the words we heard from the council president at the time were, “You had better feel lucky that you even get to be with your son while he is in the hospital.”  What kind of church tells the pastor that he should be grateful that they even allowed him to travel to Texas to be with his son during surgery.  Mind you, Chris used every last ounce of his vacation to do it.  No sick days were used at all.   Totally different this time.  But still the church is stressed right now with all of the pain from the church-wide decision on homosexuality.  The church will get through this.  It just stresses everyone out including the pastor.

We are telling Ben on Tuesday.  We are counting down to that dreadful day.  Yuck.  But we are going to work hard this weekend.  There will be sawing and painting involved.  Filing and trash removal will also be included.  Decluttering and organizing are the name of the game.

I called the doctor’s office today to check on what we were suppose to do about Madie’s icky nose (It is still gross and goopy after 11 days.).  In the process of my conversation about Madie, I asked if they had received any more of the injectable H1N1 vaccines for Ben.  It has been a stressful couple of weeks waiting for the shipment to arrive.  The doctor’s office had some left that they were hording for special needs patients.  And yeah!!! they declared Ben was such a patient.  They asked if we could come in immediately to get it.  I said yes, picked Ben up from school, and took him straight into the clinic.  Ben received a vaccine and Ainsley was able to get the Flumist for H1N1.  It was a good day!  What a relief for me.  I have been frantically waiting for our doctor to get some.  I was beginning to think that I was going to have to stand in line at one of the county shot clinics to get one for Ben.  Thank God for Dr. Purcell’s office!

Ben was terribly nervous about getting one.  He cried and as soon as it was over (and was still whimpering) he said that he was just fake crying and that he was really fine.  He totally “manned up.” He is so awesome!  I love him!  And as per the Lake family tradition (only established after we moved to Conroe) we stopped at McDonalds on the way home to get ice cream for everyone.  It was a good day!

Ben fell off the truck today.  He thought he broke his head.  If you look closely at his goose egg, you can see the imprint of the concrete on his forehead.  After the tears and hugs, he now realizes he has an awesome story to tell his friends at school.  Of course, he was laying on the couch recuperating and he tells me he feels woozy.  Who says woozy?  I don’t even think he knew what it meant, but I called Chris to come and look at him.  He is fine! But seriously Ben, how do you know all of these trigger words to make me worry?!

We had so much fun this year.  We went around our own neighborhood this year.  It was the first time.  Last year Chris had to work so I took the kids to my sister’s house.  This year Dad got to go with us.  I was so glad he did.  Gordon came to our house for the day (yeah!) and we took him trick-or-treating with us too.

Madie and Ainsley were princesses and Ben was a transformer.  They all had fun!  Ainsley asked her friend why she was dressed up as a vampire.  So I rhetorically asked her, “Well, why are you dressed up as a princess?”  So she said, “Because I am a princess!”  Of course, why did I even ask.

Too much candy and too much fun!

I had the honor and privilege of being the room mom for Ainsley’s preschool party.  We had a ton of fun!  They decorated pumpkin cookies, played games (pumpkin in the brain was one of them! ), and ate tons of food.  I think that the kids had more food then they knew what to do with, but at least there was a large amount of healthy to choose from.  It was Red Ribbon Week so the kids were all dressed in red for the day, and they had worn their Halloween costumes earlier in the week.  This was the first party of the year, so its always hard to be the first one but I think that we pulled it off.  One of the mom’s showed up in full Halloween witch regalia.  I didn’t go that far.

I was so glad to meet all of Ainsley’s friends at school.  They are all delightful!  

Ben when was 15 months old!

We met with Dr. Fraser today.  We had been looking forward to this day for so long, but when the day finally came we did not want to go.  We were dreading what the surgeon would say.  The news from the doctor wasn’t totally unexpected.  We had been preparing for this day for so long and going over the worst case scenario with each other that when the doctor actually gave us the total picture of “badness” that we could expect, we were actually ok with it all.  Our reaction in the end was “Game On!”  We are ready to help Ben get through this and to the other side.  We are just looking to this date a year from now, when we are through this part in Ben’s life.  Don’t worry.  We are not quite ready to hear that everything is rosy and that “Ben will be fine.”  We know that and we are not trying to be overly dramatic.  But this is hard.  Watching your child run and play like a normal kid when you know that a month from now he won’t even be able to do that and knowing that he faces more surgeries in the future, sucks!

We have a lot of preparation to do to be ready for Nov. 18th.  We will tell Ben and the girls the week before his surgery.  We, Chris, me and the girls, will get through all of this.  God is with us through it all.  We are relying on Him.  So . . . GAME ON!

Last Thursday, Ainsley and I were in a car wreck.  We are ok, but the car is not.  While I was on Loop 336, a teenage girl came from a side street and tried to cross five lanes of traffic.  She didn’t see me and hit me while I was going 55 mph down the highway.  It wasn’t pretty.  Ainsley and I were more shook up then anything else.  The car is not drivable.  Of course, the accident put a wrench in our life schedule.  We had to find a rental (that took a large part of one day), buy new car seats, and talk to insurance companies.  We found a rental and then had to trade out the rental in order to get a car big enough to fit everybody.   It has been a little stressful.

The body shop called yesterday and I think that they are going to fix the car.  YEAH!!!  I was pretty stress thinking about having to go buy a new car right now.  The good news is that we don’t have to do that now.

And for the record . . . it was NOT my fault.  Her insurance company has taken full responsibility.  Thank God.

The kids and I went out yesterday after one of Ben’s doctor’s appointments to find something fun to put in our yard for Halloween.  So we found a scary cat (some would say it personifies Rosie) to put in the front yard.  In the process of placing the decoration in the front yard, we came into contact with a hive of wasps.  Not just one but about 20 of them.  Scared me to death.  We went back inside the house and waited for Chris to stop by on his way home to take care of the wasp nest.  Thank goodness that he did.

Ben wanted to know this morning why I didn’t go and put the cat up last night.  I told him that I was not about to go near a bunch of angry wasps to put up Halloween decorations.  It would have to wait until today when I knew that they were all dead.  Hopefully we’ll put up pictures tonight of our scary cat!

A miracle occurred today!  Two wonderful angels came to our home today and cleaned up our yard.  Trimmed everything!!  The ivy looks good. Our sidewalk doubled in width because the ivy was shaved.  You can actually walk down the sidewalk side-by-side.  Weeds were pulled.  Trees were pruned. Rocks were removed.  Everyone helped (or at least stayed out of the way)!  Ben and Madie dug up and removed the rocks that were around the holly tree.  It looks great!  Thank you. Thank you.  Thank you.

I don’t mow.  Chris knew this before he married me.  I mowed enough lawns in my life as a child to last forever.  I am thankful for that lawn mowing experience.  It taught me responsibility and gave us money to do the things that we really wanted to do.  But . . . I hate sweating.  There are only about two months every year that I don’t mind mowing.  One month in the spring and one in the fall.  That’s it.  Otherwise it is too hot or too cold.  I think that is why I liked winter.  Six months of the year you didn’t have to mow.  I like shoveling snow.  The sweating was disguised and not nearly so bad as Houston in July!

So thank you to everyone who helped.  I am glad that there are people who feel called to the yard and don’t mind sharing that gift with others.