Erica

Erica definitely has gotten Lauren’s cold and is starting with her standard cough so in an effort to stay ahead of it we have re-upped her steroid inhaler and started albuterol treatments as needed based on her symptoms.  Perhaps we’ll get to do a live demonstration when we meet with her teacher next week instead of just explaining how it all works.  Please pray that she will be able to get over it in time to start school next week and have her bronchoscopy  on the 17th and that she will not need to have the oral steroids again. 

Softball

We won! 13-12 of course it was the other team’s second game of the night and they had 2 people injured but we won none the less. I had a decent hit my first at bat and struck out the second time (of course the children were only there to see me strike out). My fielding left a little to be desired but thankfully I had some great guys backing me up. I asked Lindsey if she felt any better about her own performance after having seen how fabulously I did (she was there watching the girls) but she said no.  Perhaps I’ll have a better week next week.

more on Oma

I didn’t find out about Oma until I woke up this morning because she didn’t get back to her room until about 2:30 this morning.  She made it through surgery well and Brandon was there to greet her for which she was very thankful.  She was very alert and remembered what they had talked about when I went up to see her this morning.  She had already been through one therapy session (I got there around 10:30) and told me she would have another in the afternoon.  She was doing well on her little “inhale to make the balls in the tubes go up” exersize and was up to the challenge of trying her therapy.  I fluffed her hair for her a little bit so she would look nice if she had any visitors today.  She seemed very pleased to have a new shoulder and be allowed to eat on a regular basis again.

Oma

We got the call tonight from Brandon’s brother Alan that Oma was going in to surgery at about 8:30.  Brandon had been up to see her this morning and he said she looked pretty good aside from her shoulder definitely not looking right.  He said she was a little frustrated because she hasn’t been allowed to eat very regularly (they want her stomach empty in case a surgery opening becomes available) and was a little concerned about Opa (apparently he has a bit of a cold and is still dealing with stuff related to his thyroid) but over all he said she definitely had a peace about her (thank you to all who have been keeping her in their prayers).  Brandon headed up to the hospital a little while ago to see how she came out of surgery.  It was only supposed to take about an hour to an hour and a half for the surgery but I have no idea how long it takes to come out of the anesthesia.  I’ll update as soon as I hear something.

About Oma, my first memory of Oma was when I went with Brandon to his Opa’s birthday party.  When we got there Brandon took our coats and headed down the hallway to lay them on the bed, which left me standing in the entry way.  Oma came over to greet me and bring me in to the party.  Then she says “there is Grandpa the birthday boy, go give him a kiss”.  Brandon was not back from getting rid of our coats yet and I was a little uncomfortable but I gave Opa a kiss and I have loved them both ever since.

My second memory of Oma is when we helped Opa and Oma move to their condo.  Back then they still had their big conversion van so Brandon and I were sitting in the back and his Oma kept saying something like “pasupt Yan” and tapping Opa on the leg.  It wasn’t till later that I learned it was “pas ap” (not sure about the spelling) but it’s a Dutch phrase that means be careful and Opa’s name is John which of course in the Netherlands is “Yan”.

My favorite thing Oma will say is “slowly on” it usually comes in a sentence like ” ya, den slowly on ve vill open presents und haf cake”

I love Christmas at Opa and Oma’s.  Oma likes to have fun at parties.  At Christmas she would do “Ho, Ho, Ho’s”.  It went something like this.  You get a present, you open it up and Ho Ho Ho it’s not for you give it to Brent,  then he unraps the gift and Ho Ho Ho it’s not for him give it to Sandy L (Brandon’s mom and aunt are both Sandy so it always had to have the middle initial), then Ho Ho Ho it’s not for her give it to… usually it came back around to the original recipient.  Another variation was for large gifts that were too big to wrap.  This one involved following the Ho Ho Ho’s around the house until you got to the final hiding place. For example, you open your gift and inside is a paper that says, Ho Ho Ho not in here look in the downstairs closet,  you get there and find a note Ho Ho Ho not in here look in the laundry room, then Ho Ho Ho not in here look in the front closet and when you get there you find your actual gift.  We don’t do much of this anymore since we try to not drag the party out too long so Opa and Oma don’t get too tired out.

Too Busy to blog

Last week was one of those weeks when you think, “Is it Friday already?”  Monday and Tuesday I wrote about. 

Wednesday was the night of the “caarry pfunder” storm as Lauren would say.  Our poor tree was damaged in the storm as was my pride.  First the tree, one of our trees in the front yard just couldn’t stand up to the wind.  About half way up the tree one of the major stems of the tree split and fell over thankfully onto the other tree and not our house (1st picture).  The second picture is of the new view looking up throught the tree, note the gaping hole.  Our neighbor to the north also lost a couple of good sized branches out of his tree, and our neighbor across the road lost one of the main stems out of one of his trees though based on a scorch mark, we’re thinking his actually got struck.  On to my pride being damaged… as the storm began to build, the girls were starting to get worried (Brandon was going to ride his bike home from work), then when the wind really started to pick up I thought “maybe I should be in the basement with the children.”  I called up to church to have Brandon check online if there were any warnings.  When he answered I said “hi babe are there…” the phone cut out.  The phones and power at church had gone out and the fire alarms were going off.  Brandon had left his cell phone on the bed at home on accident so he borrowed one from one of the guys he was meeting with.  He told me about the power being off so he couldn’t check the weather but that he was on his way home as they couldn’t meet without power…and by the way it was Chad (our worship leader) that you called babe.  I’m so used to Brandon being the only one who answers the phone at church, I just assumed  it was him…I’ll have to be more careful from now on.

Thursday I was grouchy, too many days of the children being cooped up in the house because of the rain and maybe a little stressed out about Nana and Papa leaving.  I was so grouchy I decided I had better take a nap (if the children were acting that way they definitely would have been given one) which did help.  At supper time we got together with N&P at Alan and Brenda’s house for dinner before they left (Friday AM)for their vacation to Mississippi (no I’m not in denial, they will be back at the end of this week and then Papa will go down again until they are ready to move) so an emotional night.  Oh! I forgot to mention that sometime during the night Wednesday night, Brandon’s Oma fell and broke her arm and dislocated her shoulder.  So part of the night Ralph was up at the hospital making sure she was comfortable for the night (the plan was for a partial shoulder replacement on Friday).

Friday we took the girls to the Hudsonville Fair as is our tradition.  This year however we broke with one of our traditions which is to get there early enough to walk through the animal barns, have lunch, go through the ladies barns, have an elephant ear and some cotton candy and boogy out of there before they get the rides going.  This year the girls had some spending money so we walked around and looked at all the options and let them each pick one ride (they’re stinkin expensive).  Sam and Erica wanted to go on the tilt-a-whirl so Brandon made the ultimate sacrifice and went with them (he was dying to go) because they did not meet the height requirement without and adult.  He discovered however that something changes as you get older because he was looking a little green when they got off.  Lauren only had two to chose from because of her height (or lack thereof), she chose the trucks.  The girls were so well behaved and didn’t complain about not getting to do more, I was very proud of them.

Saturday we worked on trimming some branches out of the tree and I took down what was left of the garage sale stuff and brought it to the appropriate donation sites.  Saturday night Brandon had to preach at the 1st Authentic service of this school year.  They had a decent turn out, about 30 kids, though as usual he was not completely satisfied with his sermon.

Today I had Children & Worship so Brandon stayed home with the girls (lauren had a runny nose earlier this week which has turned into a cold and Erica is starting to get it too, big suprise)  Tonight we had a nice little campfire in the backyard and made hobo pizza’s and roasted marshmellows… a good time was had by all.

Current status on Oma: the plan is to have surgery Monday.  After consulting with her cancer Dr. and running some labs they used the weekend to bring up her blood levels so she is in as good condition as possible for the surgery (I guess good is relative when you’re in your 80’s with multiple myloma).

Quotes from the girls:

Erica Thursday night when we drove past our old church: “It looks just like a dutch apartment at that dutch place we went to”

Samantha at lunch Saturday when she’d had it with Erica “And what do little girls eat?….knuckle sandwich

Today in the afternoon:

Erica said “I think you’re a featherless peacock”

Sam “Erica, don’t you mean a peacock that’s molting”

dramatic pause

Erica :”No, I mean a featherless peacock”

So much to say… so little time

Wow what a busy day.  I didn’t get alot done but I was busy all day, washing bedding, helping the girls clean their rooms, catching up on bills. 

About supper time we got the call that Ralph had gotten the official offer and will be heading down to Mississippi later this week so he can be on the job Monday.  We had some great conversations with the girls at supper about the fact that Nana and Papa are moving to MS.  I got out the map and showed them how far apart we live now and how far it will be.  They said WOW that’s FAR!  Erica pointed out that if we go for a sleepover at Nana’s we’ll have to pack for a long time.  Brandon told the girls that now every time we go to Nana’s we’ll have a sleepover, they thought that sounded good.  We talked about going to swim at the beach in the ocean and Sam didn’t think she’d go because of the sharks   The girls were talking about where they would live and we reassured them it wouldn’t be too close to where the hurricanes go, then some how they got talking about the basement at Nana’s and Brandon explained that down there they don’t have basements then Erica asked “then where will they keep all of their videos?” (currently all of the children’s videos that they can borrow are kept in the basement)  I must add that when it first started looking like N&P were going to move Brandon wondered where their “lending library” would live

We also had our first softball game tonight… ya not so great.  I had a nice throw from left center to third but then I missed a fly ball that was coming right at me, went just over my head.  My first hit was not great and I got thrown out at 1st then my second hit literally went straight down, I thought it was foul but apparently the ump didn’t so I tried to run it out down to 1st but again got out.  The game ended up being called on time but I think technically it was also a mercy.  I remembered a few things from last year, water is a good thing to bring and I need to wear my old running shoes because my shins can’t take shoes without arches, and I’m not as young as I used to be.  Oh well there’s a reason our team is called Just for Fun.

Oh ya her are some pics of Erica’s shiner, it’s starting to look better, not so purplish.

The Terrible No Good Very Bad Day a.k.a Poor Lauren

Lauren has had a rough day.  She woke up having peed the bed (forgot to knock on wood when I said that yesterday about her waking up dry).  The girls wouldn’t let her have her way while they were playing a game.  She didn’t want to take a much needed nap (she took a really long one) and then woke up wet again (this time on Sam’s bed -Sam is sleeping on the couch tonight).  Apparently her day was so bad she chose to have selective amnesia because when Brandon got home at supper time and asked her what she did today she recounted a day from a couple of weeks ago that involved getting to play at Becca’s and seeing her Nana -we never left the house!  And then the day ended with getting a spank for biting her sister.  Hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Quote of the night:

At supper after two helpings of spaghetti Erica wanted more so I told her she needed to give her brain time to catch up to her stomach.  She said, “mnnkay …but I swear to you that I’m hungry.”

Desperation Breeds Creativity

This morning Brandon was getting the girls started on breakfast and they all wanted toast.  They each have their favorites, Lauren likes toast with Jelly, Samantha likes peanut butter and jelly and Erica likes one peanutbutter on bread and one regular butter (margarine) on toast.  Well last week I had run out of margarine when I made grilled cheese so I softened some stick butter in the margarine tub in the microwave.  When Brandon found it in the fridge this morning, of course it was too hard to spread and so I told him to microwave it.  Well, then of course it melted and it was time for him to get in the shower so it was my turn to try to figure out how to spread it on the bread.  At first I hoped that it wasn’t too melted but it definitely was, so I used a basting brush to spread it on her toast.  Erica was thrilled that I had “painted” her toast, she thought it was cool.

Today Samantha was invited to go play at Becca’s house in the afternoon.  Erica was less than impressed with Samantha being allowed to go without her.  We explained that sometimes Sam gets to do things she doesn’t and eventually she will have her turn to do things that the other girls don’t.  She was still very upset and angry.  So we practiced her verse…A while back she had been having anger issues and I forget if something got broken or what but I was at my whits end and had tried every discipline technique I could think of ….I was trying to “train up a child in the way he/she should go” but couldn’t seem to get through to her.  Finally I prayed about it (probably should have done that first) and it occurred to me to have her learn Bible verses about anger.  I looked up the verses from the back where it lists all the ones with the word anger and decided to have her start with Proverbs 29:11  ” A fool gives full vent to his anger but a wise man keeps himself under control”  and we discussed what it means to be a fool, when anger is appropriate and what is okay and not okay to do when we are angry.  Now when she is having anger issues I have her practice her verse till she can say it in a normal calm voice.  It is amazing to me how the truth of God’s word can effectively calm and soothe her.

It’s a Potty Party!

Yes that’s right folks, Lauren has finally got the complete idea of how to use the potty!  She made her first poop on the potty today and earned the long awaited reward -Chocolate    She has woken up dry the last 3-4 mornings and has been dry at nap times as well.  Hopefully this will start a trend and I won’t have to wash undies as often in the comming weeks.

For anyone who wonders tomorrow, Erica’s shiner is compliments of her sister Samantha who was swinging a stick in the back yard.  I don’t think anything is broken and Erica is not complaining so we shall see what how things progress.  We had a good discussion about the proper use of sticks.

One could say Erica gave Sam her just reward when she tried to jump onto Sam’s lap and knocked Sam square on the nose.  As Sam put it “when she hits, she hits hard”.  Appologies have gone both ways and neither one seems to be bearing a grudge.

All’s well that ends well they say.

Medification

I tried to add this to Thursday’s post but after 3 tries with it not working I gave up.  Samantha has started (as of tuesday) taking claratin syrup to see if we can get rid of this perpetual cough she has aquired (it sounds remarkably like her dad’s).  She is not fond of the taste.  Thursday morning after taking her medicine she was telling Erica about just how terrible it is (mind you Erica has had the Rx version of the same stuff).  Erica, less than impressed, was not to be outdone and said, “Sam, you’re not having anything as bad as I had… I had honey shot down my veins! (her last CT was “with contrast” and the technician told her it was thick like honey)