Ho Ho Oh No...

My quasi-New Year's Resolution (in addition to the usual things like losing weight, listening more than I talk, dancing like John Travolta in Pulp Fiction) is to attempt to write my blog at least once a week. This might be an epic fail type resolution, seeing as how I am now Mommy to four, but I will go for the win.

I hope everyone had a nice Christmas. Ours started out fairly well with my mom, Steve, and Hannah coming to visit. The kids had all had some chest congestion, but they saw the doctor the day before and I wasn't too worried. Until about 5 on Tuesday. James was struggling a little bit so I took him to the doctor again. She saw him and had me take him to the Emergency Room for chest x-ray and RSV test. I took him and they did all kinds of test. They took blood cultures and saliva cultures and Culture Clubs. They tested for influenza and RSV and gave him an IV and put an oxygen hood over his little melon. And decided they would keep him. For 48 hours. They gave us a nice bed in the ICU.

So my son spent his first Christmas in the ICU. And while because my mom was here, I still got to open presents with the other kids and eat Christmas dinner with other people, I still feel that my Christmas wasn't just different, but a dismal failure. It could have been worse, I tell myself, it could have been a lot worse. The doctor even reminded me how much worse it could have been. She said she was so thankful that I had thought to bring him in because most times people just go with the wait and see approach, which would have meant a VERY different Christmas. I am usually a big fan of this approach, but this time I wasn't. For whatever reason, I called the doctor.

The nurses were mostly good. Everyone was helpful. Some even a little too helpful what with waiting until my poor sick boy was asleep to strip all his clothes off and weigh him, thus waking him up again. The Respiration Therapy nurse and Liz, my day nurse, asked for permission to suction out his lungs and I said okay, so for Christmas, my son had a tube shoved down his nose. And it worked. After that he started to get better. The doctor finally decided on bronchialitis until the labs came back. The tests said he had some pnuemococcal-I can't pronounce what this is-thing. Which is a virus that the older kids brought home from school and James was just too little to stave off. And had he been just a month older would have had a vaccine for.

They let us go on Boxing Day and he is 100% better, so I will try really hard not to complain that my Christmas sucked hard and welcome the New Year with open arms.

And pray that it goes better than last year which pretty much sucked.

Oh holy crap...our first trip to the store sans anyone who can actually hold Ruth.

So about two months ago, I got this fabulous idea (no, no, I am being serious). Why buy a carrier/snugli/sling/two kid stroller when I can just sew a sling for cheaper and be done with it? And thus, my very own slingy-thing was born and it was even in fact cheaper which is sometimes not the case when you are sewing things. Especially if you mess up. With 5 yards of fabric. Anyhoo, today I decided I could no longer stand to be cooped up in my house with Ruth and James and I needed to get some Christmas gifts anyway and I want to travel a bit so I will go to the Border's in Hilo.

I am supergenius. Gaze on me and despair.

I put James in the slingy thing. It works absolutely fab-oo. He is so snug he continues sleeping as though nothing had happened. I get out Ruth. Everything is still good. We enter the Border's.

All cohesion breaks down.

Okay, so it wasn't quite that bad. Except as I entered, I realized I would have to go to the bathroom with a baby strapped to my chest. And I had forgotten how hard it is to chase said small person around with a baby strapped to your chest. And manage to do some shopping at the same time. Paying is especially interesting. No, I don't need anything else. I (and every other person in the store) would just like to pay and be done please. Here's my money, take it!

But all in all, Ruth did very well. Including the full body sprawl in the parking lot where I had to pick her up.

With a baby strapped to my chest.

James Kekoa Barrett

December 3, 2008 at 12:00am

6 lbs. 12 oz.

20 1/2 inches

First off, everything's fine.

Just so no one worries. On Friday, I came down with a nasty stomach flu that had me throwing up every 45 minutes. I finally gave in and went to the hospital at 630pm because everytime I threw up the absolutely nothing in my stomach, I would then get this really sharp stabby pain across the top of my stomach.

So they hooked me up to the monitors and discovered that the sharp stabby pain was in fact labor. Which is in fact a bad thing at 35 weeks. Because I was so dehydrated, I went into labor. Who knew? And at 35 weeks, a delivery would mean flying the baby back to Oahu. That's no good.

So they hooked me up to an IV. They gave me some pills which I threw up. Ohmigosh, how I hate throwing up. Especially since I was nine months long morning sickness pregnant with Owen and now when I throw up it's, "holy crap my stomach is coming out of my throat and I am choking to death, pounding on the floor, because I can't BREATHE!!!!" So they gave me some shots instead. One to stop throwing up and three to stop the labor which I was to frickin' exhausted to fight off anymore. So then I became Stoner Sara because those non-puking drugs always make you high as a kite, but then the non-labor drugs made me like a speed freak junkie with the shakes. And of course the non-labor drugs pump up your heart rate which pumps up the baby's heart rate which means...a whole night of observation in a crampy non comfortable, not made for eight months pregnant woman's back, totally too short bed. They finally let us go at 7 the next morning.

So I am trying to ignore that my house is in shambles, there is a monumentous pile of laundry stacking up, we cannot eat because all the dishes are dirty, and I must still drive Owen to school. Abra sadly cannot go because...

Now Abra is sick.

Help! Help!

I am 30.

When did this happen? Was I sleeping? How did I get to be 30?

I don't feel old (which is good) and I am not really upset (which is better), but I am still curious that time seems to have taken a giant leap from 22 to 30. Okay, maybe frightened is a better word than curious. Because if it leaps like this for the next eight years, holy crap, I will almost be forty!

Ah well. At least I still look 17. Right? Right? Just smile and nod, damnit.

The Carving of the Pumpkins

And so begins the delectable delights of the season. With purchased pumpkins from Foodland, at a totally abysmal price of $0.59 a pound, having not been able to arrange the pumpkin patch this year, we commence the holidays. I have always wondered at the Harvest Celebration ritual in which you force a gourd to reliquish its innards in the name of all things ghoulish. But oh, how I love the smell of burning pumpkin. And the squishy-ness. And how Owen always says, "I want to do it all myself." Yet I have never bought that fourth pumpkin for myself. This year, he at least deigned to spoon out some guts. Which Ruth promptly ate. And ate. And ate some more. I was at a loss as to how exactly I could stop her when I was covered in orange goo. Eventually, the high chair came into my view, and with a cookie, the pumpkin feast ceased.

Abra did an awesome job, all by herself. It's the squinty one on the right. Jeff's is on the left; he said he was going for maniacal laughter, but stopped just short at crazy giggle. Mine, I mean, Owen's, is the one that apparently looks like he's been sipping the pumpkin beer. Just one more round, friend. Owen always wants one that looks like the one Lucy draws on Charlie Brown's head, but I just can't bring myself to carve that many triangles so we settle for, "how many teeth do you want?"

I love this time of year. Even when the leaves don't change colors.

Just another manic, uh...Wednesday.

Today I am officially 31 weeks despite being in denial that I am pregnant at all. Ruth and I went for our walk down Mud Lane (yes, that is its real name) where she decided about 1/4 of the way to not walk anymore, thank you very much, and you will please carry me all the way home. Where is the stroller, you ask? We never want to stay IN the stroller so Mommy very foolishly decided that we would try out just doing the walk. Yes, I hear you all laughing together. So we rode mom's shoulders all the way home as that seemed like the best option. Almost four kids and I still choose poorly. Stop laughing, I mean it.

The doctors have moved me to getting seen every two weeks and I go to my diabetic lady before I see them. We have another ultrasound scheduled for the 28th of this month, when I will be roughly 34 weeks and still heavy in denial. I can however still see my toes. Perhaps this is a good thing as it means I have not gained very much weight and we are all proponents of that.

We are starting to think quite seriously about building a house here. This seems quite well, ridiculous in light of recent economic events. In fact, it seems kind of stupid. There seem to be lots of things that our little family could do, but not one concrete thing that we should do. This one however, does seem to be the best option. For now (cue the scary music). Since Jeff is in construction and knows all the right people for that, building seems to be better than buying for us. In the meantime, we will save our pennies (and nickles and quarters and benjamin's) and wait for as close to the right time as possible. Whatever that is.

While we are saving our pennies, we will continue to enjoy those things which are unique to living here as the right thing might be something else later. We will go to the beach in October and pick pumpkins from the patch in Hawi after. We will eat Chicken Katsu before we go trick or treating in Waikoloa, study the ancient hawaiian navigation techniques in Hilo and have cheeseburgers, and we will enjoy what we can with the time that is given us.