Anna Kate Donovan

I am starting to feel like a normal person again.  Let me explain….

Eight weeks ago, Robert started a new job in Sarasota, FL.  His job in South Carolina was not a good fit from the start.  That being said, he was not looking for another job.  The guys in FL came after him.  It was a courtship that ebbed and flowed for over a year.  As things in South Carolina deteriorated, it became clear that this was the right opportunity for our family.  It was not an easy decision.  Apart from the job, we loved Anderson.  The girls were thriving in an excellent school.  We had a fabulous gang of neighbors.  A great house.  Close proximity to family.  A great community.  The list goes on and on.  But the job was just not there. Robert was stuck in a corporate environment.  He is a creator, a builder, a visionary.  Like it or not, Robert is just not a corporate person.  I think that you spend too much of your life at work to hate it.  The goal is happiness and stability!

So once the details had been hammered out, Robert headed off to Florida while the girls and I stayed in SC until the time for our move came.  It was a long 5 weeks of traveling back and forth on weekends, packing, researching, adjusting, searching, planning and trying to stay sane.  In hindsight that was the easy part.

The movers came and we made the long drive down.  We camped out in the house with a couple of air beds until the furniture arrived.  When the movers got to our new house, we went from empty to stuffed-to-the-gills with only trails leading from room to room in a mere 6 hours.  It looks a little like an episode of Hoarders.

This is the part that has driven me to the edge.  Teetering on the brink of my sanity.  I am usually an organized, calm, on time, relaxed person.  It has been 5 days and I still haven’t found my soap.  Or the broom.  Or the brackets for the one shelf I really need to set up in the kitchen.  Or the Barbies.  Or the Febreeze.  Or the girls hairbrush.  Or my favorite tennis shoes.  The list goes on and on….

I know that with the weekend coming up we will manage to get a lot done and I will probably be able to find everything.  But I’m not an overly patient person.  I’m a know-it-all who likes to be in charge.  What can I say…I’m a stay at home mom to three little girls.  I have to be the CEO…and the CFO…and the COO…and the person that has to make dinner and clean the toilets and listen to the girls shout “Mom!  Have you seen my _____ ?”.

In time we’ll get there.  We are living in paradise and the job is a dream come true.  I just have to take a deep breath and step away from the edge of the pit of insanity.  That’s a leap I can’t afford to make!

Nothing is wrong.  I have not vanished.  I’ve been busy and uninspired.  I had no idea the impact that would have on my friends.  I’ve been told to get off my ass and update my blog.  I have some great friends.

The truth is that some or all of our little family has been traveling since the end of April.  I haven’t had time to do any writing.  Robert spent 24 days in China.  The girls and I spent 2 weeks in Birmingham.  Robert was on a fishing trip for a week.  We’ve just been to the beach.  It has all been wonderful and exhausting.  I am happy to be home.

That is all I have to say at the moment.  My eyelids weigh about a hundred pounds each.  My bed is calling my name.

I promise that once the piles of laundry and mail have been dealt with, I will share some stories and thoughts from the past couple of months.  There is lots to tell.  For now, though, I must bid you good night….

With my older two girls in school daily and the three year old in preschool a few mornings a week, I am fortunate enough to be able to run errands by myself.  It is a luxury, I know.  But when the girls were out of school for spring break, I had them with me one morning while I did a few necessary things.

My last errand of the morning was to drop off some of Robert’s shirts at the dry cleaners.  As we were pulling out of the parking lot, Abigail said, “So, Mom, you take Daddy’s dirty shirts in there and they clean them for you, right?”  I said “Yes.”  She said “But can’t you do that yourself?”  Good question.  I went on to explain that the dry cleaners can get Daddy’s shirts done a lot faster than I can.  I also told her that Daddy likes his shirts a certain way for work and they do a better job getting his shirts ironed than I do.  Simple enough, right?

Abigail was quiet for a few moments.  Then out of nowhere she asked, “Does Daddy know about this?”

This time last night, Robert and I were guests at an amazing birthday party.  Yesterday was, in fact, Robert’s grandmother’s 90th birthday.  It was quite the event.  It was not a huge party.  It was not a black tie party.  But it was a fabulous party.

Grandmama was joined by her best friend and surrounded by her family.  As I talked with Grandmama and her friend before dinner I thought about what all these women have seen in their 90 years.  Plenty of bad, lots of good.  Pain and joy, happy and sad.  I am sure their experiences run the gamut of human emotion.

I am happy to report that there was nothing but love and happiness as we gathered to celebrate Grandmama’s monumental birthday.  If I am lucky enough to make it to 90, I will be sitting with my best friend surrounded by my family to celebrate.  It sounds pretty good to me!

I love my children deeply and unconditionally but if I get coughed on, sneezed on, or breathed on anymore this weekend, I’m going to hurt somebody.

Two of my daughters have heinous colds.  The third daughter is starting to sniff so I know her turn is coming.  The older two girls are miserable.  There have been fevers, coughing fits, lots of sighing, runny noses and the occasional loud moan.  I feel horrible for them.  It makes me ache to see them feeling bad.  I would much rather be the sick one watching them dance around from the sofa.  But that is yet another thing I have no control over.  They are sick and feeling awful and there’s not much I can do about it.

Robert was out on errands for the majority of the day yesterday so I was the only “nurse” on duty in our home hospital wing.  I got the girls juice and pampered them while they snuggled on the sofa and watched movies.  I made sure they had medicine when they needed it and did all of those things that moms of ailing children do.  The day went by and everyone seemed to be feeling better.  Of course we had another round of fevers during the night so obviously, we’re not done yet.

Watching your children suffer is one of the banes of parenthood.  Eventually your loved ones will be disappointed or sick or hurt and there’s nothing you can do about it.  Of course, we do not live in an ideal world.  Life is full of heartache, illness, disappointment and sadness.  As parents, we have to let our children learn to deal with these things.  I’m not embarrassed to admit that if it were up to me I would shield them from all of the bullies in life but I know that would lead to disaster!

For now, I just have to plod along refilling juice cups and spraying Lysol as I go.  Hopefully today will be the last day.  We can only hope that everyone rests well and fights off the cold gremlins.  They are certainly nothing to sneeze at!   🙂

Roe vs. Wade.  Brown vs. Board of Education.  Joe vs. the Volcano.  Anna Kate vs. Ivy.

As in, leafy green English ivy.  Ivy is such an oxymoron.  It is beautiful and delicate.  It flows gracefully from planters.  The variegated kind is especially beautiful with its mix of dark and light green.  Visually appealing.  But ivy, like kudzu and wisteria, has a deep dark secret.  It kills.  It sucks the life out of trees and plants.  It rips the paint off of your house.  It will even dig its way into mortar and cement.  It is evil.

Our house has a very nice yard.  It is beautifully landscaped with an array of lush southern foliage.  It was well maintained 12 – 15 years ago.  The base plants are still there but it is now overgrown and leggy.  And there is ivy everywhere.  It is on every tree, in every bush, and twisted around every branch in our yard.

I am on a mission.  When I am done, the ivy will be minimal and the plants will be free.

My father got me started about a month ago.  He is a master gardener and I am jealous.  My father can grow anything.  I hope to get there someday.  Anyway, we were walking through the back yard looking at the ivy roots on the base of the two big trees back there.  Before I could blink, he was hacking away at the roots.  This ivy had grown roots about 2 inches in diameter.  They had grown so far into the bark of the tree that it took all our strength to pry them off.  Luckily we got the roots severed so the ivy in the tree is starting to die.  Whew.  Trees saved.

This past weekend was our first bout of great weather since we moved here.  It was 65 degrees and sunny.  Prime yard work weather.  On Saturday, I headed out to the front yard in my grubby clothes to liberate the Japanese maple.  I pulled ivy for about 4 hours.  The ivy was wrapped around the base of the maple like that was its job.  I pulled and yanked and yelled and wrestled and grunted and wailed and moaned and gnashed my teeth.  Three leaf bags full of ivy and I was done.  Spent.  Over and out.

That was Saturday.  Today is Monday.  My back feels like someone beat me with a Louisville slugger.  My palms are sore.  My yard gloves have more epithelials than your local crime lab.  I walked to meet the bus and I’m sure the neighbors thought Igor was on the loose.  I’ve taken more Advil in the last 48 hours than I have in the last 4 – 8 years.

But that will not stop me.  I will win.  I will shut down the ivy operations.  I will save my yard.  It will be beautiful.  I might have to look at it lovingly through the windows from my traction set up in the living room but I WILL WIN!!!

There are several things that I have a love/hate relationship with.  The dishwasher.  I love to load it up to the max.  I love how clean it gets my dishes.  I hate unloading it.  Always have.  I love where we live but I hate how far we are from our family.  I love dogs.  I hate dog breath and scooping poop.  It’s just part of life.  You’re not going to love everything.  Trade-offs come with being human.

Today, my focus is on my relationship with a bunk bed.  When I was pregnant with Laura, we moved Hattie out of the nursery and into Abigail’s room.  We bought a bunk bed because that room was too small for two twin beds.  Let me rephrase.  If we had put two twin beds in that room, we couldn’t have fit anything else.  So, Abigail “graduated” to the top bunk.  Hattie moved from her crib into the bottom bunk and never looked back.  We have moved those bunk beds three times and they are still in good shape.  They have storage drawers underneath.  As a result of having bunk beds, the girls have a large amount of clear space in their room.  If you don’t have little girls, I’ll tell you that space is a good thing.  Little girls need room for twirling and puzzles and all of that girl paraphernalia.  (I know boys need space too but I wouldn’t know how to elaborate on that!)  It also gives them their own nook that no one else bothers.

All sounds great, right?  Wrong.  Ever tried to change the sheets on a bunk bed?  We just finished tucking in clean sheets, blankets and comforters on the girls’ beds.  Robert and I are both out of breath and exhausted.  The tucking of the covers involves Robert on the lower bed pushing the top mattress up from underneath.  I am on a stool doing the actual tucking.  It is not easy, graceful, elegant or even attractive to watch.  We struggle like we’re trying to shove a sleeping bag into a tube sock.

Maybe it’s our fault.  We bought the thicker mattresses.  Are we being punished for extravagance?  We even tried not tucking in the covers.  What happened?  Abigail couldn’t keep her feet covered, got cold and ended up in bed with us.  That is NOT an option.

So we are left to the tucking ritual.  It’s not fun but it works.  It’s still better than scooping poop!  🙂

It’s Friday afternoon and it’s snowing.  All cities around us have already had snow.  All of my friends have been inundated with it this year.  My extended family has suffered through feet upon feet of snow, ice and power outages.  But for us, this is our first snow of the season.  As usual, we live in an area that is on the edge.  You know that line on the radar where white changes to green?  That’s where we live.  When others are getting beautiful snow, we are getting freezing cold wind and rain.  Misery.  I know that many people have had it with the snow this year.  I understand completely.  But as I said before, this is the first time we’ve seen any flakes!  Somehow, the snow gods smiled upon us today and we should actually have enough accumulation to make a snowman tomorrow.  Hallelujah!

A little while ago, I put on my long coat, heated up my mug of tea and stepped out onto the porch for a few moments.  I was instantly calmed.  A smile appeared.  All of the usual noises had been dampened by the snow.  The birds that were in the yard earlier had found their nests and bedded down for the night.  No one was driving on our street.  It was quiet.  A blanket of white had enveloped our neighborhood.  Everything looked clean and fresh.

Nine years ago, I was pregnant with Abigail.  In April of that year, Robert and I went on our last ‘there’s only 2 of us’ trip.  I was five months along in my pregnancy and feeling good so we packed up and headed to Yosemite.  When we got there, the weather was nasty.  Cold, raining and cloudy.  It stayed that way for three days.  Amateur photographer Robert was not thrilled.  We couldn’t see the top of anything.  I’m not ashamed to admit that we were disappointed.

On the last afternoon, it began to snow.  We had dinner in the main lodge where we were staying and headed to our cabin for our last night in Yosemite.  We sat outside and listened to the snow fall.  It was a sound like no other.  One snowflake finding its resting place doesn’t make much sound but the millions of large wet snowflakes falling sounded like a symphony.  The sky was a deep cobalt blue.  It snowed 18 inches that night.  The next morning we headed down the un-plowed road back towards the park.  The snow was brilliant and glittering white in the morning sun.  It was gorgeous.  We were in heaven.  We took one last lap around the park and finally saw all of the grandiose beauty of the mountains.

Tonight as I watch the snow fall through the living room windows, I am reminded of that trip to Yosemite.  It was a wonder filled time in our lives.  Now our children are the wide eyed ones watching through the window as the snow covers their world.  Tomorrow morning, in a flurry of boots and scarves, we will explore the snow as a family.  I can’t wait!

El Capitan

Oh boy.  We’ve done it now.  We’ve gone and spoiled the children.  Again…..

Last weekend it was cold.  REALLY cold.  We turned on our gas fireplace and stayed inside.  As a special treat, I made hot chocolate from scratch.  I used the recipe on the box of Hershey’s cocoa.  Holy Toledo, it is GOOD.  I’ve had this once before as an adult (I’m sure I had it as a child but I don’t remember).  Last New Year’s, we were visiting our friends Mark and Lara.  We had just come in from a walk in the cold wind and Mark whipped up a batch of this cocoa.  Granted, I am a confessed chocoholic but this was above and beyond.  Of course the girls LOVE it.

This morning, Robert made fancy french toast for the girls for breakfast.  We had some leftover french bread that we let sit out overnight.  He made batter with eggs, cream, cinnamon, ginger, nutmeg and vanilla.  Once again it was fabulous.  The girls ate it like it was their last supper.

We try our best not to spoil our children.  We occasionally go overboard with birthdays and Christmas but in our day to day lives, we do not give them everything they want.  We do not buy toys.  What toys they have, they must share with each other.  Robert does not bring back gifts every time he goes out of town.  We help the girls with their manners.  We do not order from TV commercials.  We usually have at least one item on the dinner plate that someone doesn’t like (not on purpose, mind you).  We do not go out to eat regularly.  We lead a pretty simple life.

There’s a point around here somewhere….

My point is that if we take a few extra minutes to make something yummy from scratch or warm towels after bath time, are we really spoiling them?  We make sure that they know how fortunate they are to have family that loves them, food on the table, clothes on their back and a roof over their heads.  They know that many children in the world have none of those things.  That’s good parenting, right?

You know, that cocoa recipe makes way more than the girls can drink…we might just have to have some this afternoon!  Yum!

Earlier today our middle daughter, Hattie, had an outpatient procedure to put tubes in her ears and remove her adenoids.  In the grand scheme of things it was not a big deal.  We have been through this twice before.  Hattie had her first set of tubes 3 weeks after her 1st birthday.  Laura got tubes less than a year ago.  Hattie breezed through and is already feeling and hearing better.  No biggie.  Our past experiences made today much easier for us as parents.  This wasn’t the case when Laura got her pacemaker two years ago.

As many of you know, Laura was born with 3rd degree heart block.  In lay terms, it is an electrical problem.  The top and bottom halves of her heart do not communicate with each other about what her heart rate should be.  She will have a pacemaker to correct this problem for the rest of her life.  (I know that I am being overly simplistic.  It’s easier for writer and reader alike, I promise!)

As parents, we have a heavy burden.  There is a lot involved with raising children.  It is an enormous responsibility to be “in charge” of the life of a child.  In our house of girls there is a lot of drama and a lot of cleaning up – both physically and otherwise.  Robert and I have gotten pretty good at managing the chaos.  Some days are better than others and some days we’d rather forget altogether.  But for the most part we’re successful…and busy.

When it was time for Laura’s surgery, we felt helpless.  In all the things that needed to be done, the only thing we could do was get her to the hospital on time.  Everything else was out of our hands.  We handed over our 13 month old baby and were forced to put our trust in the staff of doctors and nurses.  We had to have faith.  In modern medicine.  In others.  In whatever is out there that is bigger than we are.  In the unknown.  In our daughter.  In ourselves.  It was not easy but we survived.  Laura is doing great.  She is a stellar patient and has amazed more than one cardiologist.

This morning when the nurse came to wheel Hattie back to the OR for her procedure, Hattie flashed me a smile and a little wave as she rolled down the hall towards the big double doors.  I got that all too familiar feeling.  There is some cliche involving heartstrings…it felt like a little tug.  Once again, I was reminded of my deep and unending love for this little girl.  And I had to have a little faith….

Hattie and Dr. Hellstrom