vacantuterus

I'm here, with blog change announcement.

I'm just having a lot of migraines. I've been spending less time on the computer, hoping that that might help things but it hasn't made a noticeable difference. I saw my neurologist again and he upped one of my dailies. In addition, he added an injectible medication for the days when the headaches are just overwhelming. I have a bad headache today so it's not as funny but yesterday Beth and I had a good laugh about me shooting up in public. Beth said she hoped she'd be around for that one day so she could sternly confront me about my drug habit. I said that it made me feel like Nicholas Cage in The Rock but I'll be stabbing myself in the thigh instead of the heart. I'm a total badass! Except I'm not because most of you reading have stabbed yourselves hundreds of times with sharp needles so I know you're not in any way impressed.

I mentioned before that I'm moving my blog. I've got the new one set up, though there's nothing posted there. It turns out that you can't import a TypePad blog to this particular platform so if I want to take my archives with me, I'll have to copy and paste each individual post. That's almost five years of posts. I seriously considered doing it for a few days and then a handy reminder from TypePad arrived in my email, chirping that the credit card I use to pay them is about to expire at the end of July. Would I kindly renew at my earliest convenience? I decided that this was a sign and that I'd make July my last month here. Since moving all my archives in a few weeks would simply not be possible, I am not taking them with me. Don't get me wrong, I'll be saving them for myself; I'm not sending that much writing down the drain. But I gave the new blog a new name and I think that starting over, leaving all this baggage behind, somehow seems fitting and good. Healing. I'm ready to set some of this down.

So. The new blog. I'm keeping it invite-only for the first couple of months in order to weed out some unwanted followers. I've given it a new name and a new look and it's on a totally different platform than TypePad. If you'd like to come with me, please send me an email at casa (dot) vacant (at) gmail (dot) com. THERE ARE VERY FEW PEOPLE I WANT TO LEAVE BEHIND!! IF YOU WANT TO COME, EVEN IF YOU ARE A LURKER, PLEASE SEND ME AN EMAIL! This is where you picture me sitting across from you at your kitchen table and we both have steaming cups of tea. I'm looking at you very seriously and I reach my hand across the table to touch you lightly as I say "Really, I want you to come. Even if you think I think you're a stalker. (Mrs. W, I am so sorry I never responded to that lovely comment but I DON'T think you're a stalker so I'm fully expecting you to show up in in my inbox!) Just tell me your name, a little bit about yourself, or link your blog and really, I will invite you. Don't worry when you get to a mostly empty website, I'll start posting there soon. And don't worry if the invite takes a few days to arrive; I'm still figuring all this out." Okay? Comprende? Good.

Now I am going to bed and I am hoping to wake up to sunshine and no headache.

One year

From this:

to this:

Everything I want to say seems so cliched so I'll simply say that tonight my tears are infinitely sweeter than they were a year and a day ago.

A more beautiful me

They swirl and flutter around me, bright as birds, their words coming at me from every direction. My nickname echoes down the hallway, shouted exuberantly.

"You look hot, Flicks!"

"I love that skirt! You made it? That's awesome!"

"You're so talented."

I watch them, fascinated. They are tall and small, short hair and long, curls and heavy flowing strands, pale skin with blue eyes, darker with glowing brown, and a fascinating green thrown into the mix. Every one of them captures me, takes my breath away. That they love me, that they want to hang out with me and run to hug me and love my baby makes me astonished. My girls, that's how I think of them.

I'm not a natural with teenagers, ask anyone. I wasn't a graceful teen myself, in any sense of the word. I grew too fast to achieve any sort of comfort with my body; for years I was all gangly arms and legs, forever tripping over any random thing. My figure developed fast but late. And my beliefs were never compatible with a high school environment. So, scarred by high school, I found myself intimidated by teenagers for years regardless of the fact that I was older, more confident in my identity and had fought much bigger battles.

Until now. Until these girls. I don't know how it happened, exactly. Suddenly one day they were there, a beautiful part of my life. Suddenly I was privileged to hear their secrets and dreams, share in their hopes for the future. Suddenly their parents were thanking me for "spending time" with their kids. I always find myself mumbling something about "my pleasure" when that happens but what I really want to say is:

"Are you kidding me? I am SO getting the better end of the deal here."

"Your daughter is a treasure."

"Her heart is amazing. I am humbled."

"I love every minute of time I spend with her."

I can never get myself together enough to articulate that but that's what I want to say.

I often fall asleep at night with my girls on my mind. I think of all the challenges they face in life. Being a teen girl is different now than it was when I was younger. Some of these girls are handling things that blow my mind. I have no idea what to say to them half the time and I pray for wisdom on the fly, that what I say would build them up, that I would root them in a foundation that is firm, that they would know their incredible value, worth and beauty. Because this is what I hear from their lips, the regugurgitation of what the world is telling them:

"I'm too thin. I don't have enough of a shape."

"I need to lose weight. But at least I know if a guy likes me now, before I change, he likes me for who I am and not how I look."

"My hair is too curly. I wish it was straight."

"I'm too short."

"I'm a giant!"

It makes me want to cry. I wish I could show them how I see them in my mind, peacock-bright, shining like stars, each of them unique and amazing. I see their beautiful hearts, each one so gifted in a different way. They are passionate and quiet, strong and gentle, caring and intelligent, clever and funny, and all of them are incredibly generous in spirit. They enrich the fabric of my life; I cannot remember how it was before I recieved random text messages from them throughout the day, before they saved my life some Sunday afternoons by helping me take care of Sam, before they barreled down the hallways Sunday morning, shouting my nickname, to hug me passionately. 

If all that were not enough, they have given me one last gift, one which is truly priceless. I can finally look back and see myself at 13, 14, 15, 16 and se the girl I was then. We haven't ever been at peace, that girl and I. She said all the same things these girls say to me now. But here in the present I can be kinder to my teenage self and I can see her for who she was; a girl on the verge, someone just becoming. The seeds of Flicka. I can see a more beautiful me. And I feel at peace.

Because it was too good not to share

Tonight I decided to hop on desktop computer instead of parking my butt on the sofa and using the laptop like I normally do. I was all set to respond to DD on Facebook when all of a sudden the computer totally FREAKED OUT. It kept opening window after window, no matter how many times I closed them. I tried shutting the computer down by pressing and holding the power button but when I counted to ten and restarted, I heard it make an ominous clicking sound. It zoomed past the DOS-type screen that asked me if I wanted to start the computer in Safe Mode and started it in regular mode automatically. Sarge and I have our computers networked so you have to log on with a password once you get past all the loading prompts. I watched in horror as the screen tried to access Sarge's computer again and again, failing the password.

I knew something really bad had happened. At best, I figured I had a Trojan Horse virus or something like that. But it occured to me there could be something worse. I remembered a blog linked by Charming Bitch where the author had been stalked by a hacker who installed a keystroke logger program on her computer. The FBI got involved because it looked like the guy wanted to kill her. What if that was happening to me? And Sarge wasn't even home to help me figure this out! I could feel myself getting panicky. How long would that password hold? His is a brand new, really REALLY good computer. Pictures of SAM are on that computer! Deep breaths....ooooohhhhh craaaaappppp.

And that's when I saw it.

The edge of my plate, pressing down the "enter" key on the number pad of my keyboard.

Aaarrggghhhh

I want to write you a really graceful blog post but that's just not going to happen tonight. Will you be okay with bullet points? You will? Oh, thank you.

• Sarge is away for eight days. He left on Friday. I miss that dude.
• Know who else misses him? SAM. SO MUCH.
• Guess who is cutting teeth, possibly molars?
• We decided to flee to stay with my mom and dad from last Friday until this Weds. to make my temporary single parenthood easier.
• Sam screamed nonstop (and I do mean NONSTOP) from the time we dropped off Sarge Friday noon until I gave up and came home Monday afternoon.
• I called my tinfoil hat friend Emily in the middle of the ride home, thus breaking NJ law, because it was either that or drive into a tree to stop the screaming.
• I am convinced it is only her prayers that got me home and kept Sam alive.
• I will not be winning Mother of the Year any time soon.
• Sam, I am sorry for the way I yelled at you. I wish you had a better Mommy.
• Lord, I am sorry for the way I used Your name. All those times.
• Emily, thank you for not being shocked by ANYTHING I say to you. And for letting me call you out of the blue, a total teary nervous wreck.
• Sam was a different kid when we got home. Wriggled his legs in a happy dance as we pulled in the driveway.
• I can still tell he's teething but hot DOG, he's been positively angelic compared to our horrible trip.
• Oh! On that horrible trip we also made a visit to see Sarge's family.
• While there, during the five minutes I put Sam in their pack-n-play to CIO and hopefully, possibly go to sleep, he tried to climb out using their bed post as a lever.
• He wasn't successful.
• He fell instead and bashed open the inside of his upper lip.
• I walked in to find him covered in blood and screaming. Took me a while to figure out the source and then we both cried.
• No one could understand why I wanted to take him home at that point.
• They were absolutely lovely about it all but dear goodness, he was so screamy and bloody and overtired. There was no way he could possibly have stayed without causing some sort of public health hazard. Like mass deafness.
• So now we're home and he's much better.
• But I'm still parenting solo until Friday.
• I am TIRED.
• Single parents are my new heroes.
• Beth, I think you are AMAZING for all those deployments you've flown solo. Mercy.
• I've figured out what to do with my blog but I need Sarge to help me do it. I'm moving it. Will let you know details when I have them.
• Remembering a slew of things from The Early Years of Sarge's sickness. Trying to figure out how to blog them or whether I should just freewrite a word document and spare all of you.
• I'm going to bed now.

One year ago today

...this happened.

And life was never the same again.

 

 

 

 

Thank God.

I love you, Samster Hamster.

Mental

Jack was 22 when I first met him. He walked with his shoulders hunched downward, a scowl on his face and he was always going fast, like a juggernaut that wouldn't be stopped. He wasn't a small guy and his message was clear: "Get out of my way or I will move you." He was labeled "difficult" and "troubled" and I could clearly see why. Jack wouldn't do a thing he didn't want to, regardless of whether it was in his best interest or not. He was always nice to me, though. And in the rare moments that he was in a bad mood when we saw each other, sometimes I was able to help. He trusted me because I wasn't a nurse, wasn't on staff in any capacity. I was Sarge's wife, just a visitor. But I came every day.

I met Jack and Steve and Jeff and Reggie and many others in Omaha's main civilian hospital. Sarge spent many weeks of our first year of marriage there but there was one long stretch of almost three weeks where I got to know almost everyone on that small, locked ward. It was one of the best places he stayed and I really feel he got the best care there. But as good a facility as it was, it was still an institution. The nurses were still overworked and underpaid. Everyone was still a patient. It was still so clearly a hopsital. And so clearly a place that lacked hope.

Jack caused a lot of trouble. He was frequently belligerent, refusing to get dressed and sometimes he was even combative. The nurses restricted his smoke breaks in futile attempts to control him. He would periodically refuse to attend the 12-step meetings that were mandatory as part of his admission. Anyone could see that Jack was in a lot of pain. He had no visitors.

I came every day to see Sarge. It was part of my unspoken promise to him: I would walk down every road with that I could, as long as I could. The hours at this hospital were among the most open of any we'd ever been to so I came from 5-8PM on weekdays and 1-8PM on weekends. They allowed me to bring in food for Sarge so I cooked dinner at home as usual and then boxed it up and drove it 45 minutes north to the hospital and ate it with him. After a while I started bringing enough for Jack too.

I learned that Jack had married young and that soon after his wedding his wife had died of cancer. He showed me her picture, creased and battered. The source of his depression and addiction was suddenly very clear to me. He told me about his childhood (rocky) and about the love and stability he found in his wife. As young as Sarge and I were to be going through our own heartbreak, I thought Jack was even younger and had a much harder struggle. At least Sarge and I had each other.

During the middle of Sarge's stay, Jack celebrated his 23rd birthday. I made a chocolate cake from scratch using my grandmother's recipe for Devil's food and frosted it. Chocolate was Jack's favorite. Fire was clearly out on a ward like this but I stuck two unlit "2" and "3" candles on top of the cake anyway. Plastic knives and forks were okay. I gathered everyone around, nurses included, and we sang "Happy Birthday" to Jack. He was embarassed and thrilled at the same time. I gave him the first slice of cake, making sure it was enormous.

By now my visits were somewhat like Family Home Time. Toward the end of Sarge's time there I was making dinner for everyone. Mostly it was something crockpot-ish like stew and biscuits. We'd jam as many chairs around a table in the common area as we could and eat together like a huge family, talking about whatever came up. Reggie was really fond of the Chicken Holiday so one day I brought Chicken Holiday for everyone. Some people, like Steve, weren't crazy about big groups and so they orbited around the edges, feeling skittish and bolting for the corners if any attention was shown to them. That was okay too. I'd find Steve later and ask him how it was going. He'd never say more than a sentence or two but I'd pat his shoulder and move on, knowing he'd look for me tomorrow. I colored with my new friends. I put my visitor sticker on the bottom of my shirt instead of on my shoulder and relaxed in front of the TV with them, blending in. I felt like I belonged, like I was accepted.

That was important to me, that feeling of belonging. Each one of the people I spoke to each day had a family somewhere. Jeff, who shared his name with my husband, struggled with addiction. He had a three year old son who he was trying to get sober for. His fiancee would visit him and when everyone was in group she would sit with me, sometimes sobbing, so frustrated and heartbroken, not knowing what to do. All I could do was hand her tissues and listen. Jack was somebody's son. Steve was someone's husband once. All of them had mothers and fathers, siblings, children, someone who cared, out there. They were more than a collection of diagnoses, more than an odd assortment of people who deviated from the societal norm. They were valuable, important. Each one was so unique. I wanted them to know that, to truly understand how special they were despite all the noise they were hearing inside their own heads that said things to the contrary. "You are a gift!" I wanted to say. "Do you know how wonderful it is that you are alive?"

All of their faces came back to me tonight in a rush as I watched the pilot of "Mental." When Vince, the schizophrenic artist character, told the doctor that he "couldn't do both" I immediately knew what he meant. I remember my own husband, so adept at numbers, breaking codes, mathematics of any sort, coming home from his first hospital visit drugged up and suddenly unable to do the simplest logic problem. We sat at the kitchen table "playing" a game and I remember the frustration on his face, the way his fists clenched against the glass of the tabletop and the explosive way he said "I can't DO it!!" I excused myself to the bathroom so I could cry.

For a long time, and even now to an awful lot of people, my husband is viewed like anyone else on medication that affects the brain: just another problem, just another person to be managed. I look at him and see all the facets of who he is, the way the individual parts of his personality come together until he shines. A problem? Someone to be managed? Oh, no. An asset. Someone to call in an emergency. Someone I lean on, depend on, someone who knows my story the way no one else does. Someone with a strength that I cannot fathom.

I don't know what happened to any of the people I met in that Omaha hospital. When Sarge checked out after that three week stay, it was for the last time at that facility. I never saw any of them again. I pray they found recovery, health, good lives. I pray that the three weeks we all had each other, the three weeks of "camp" (as we called it then) was enough to give them hope and a sense of their own worth. In the end though, I could only save one. And him I still have with me, by the grace of God.

Feeling my own insignificance

I'm tabling the issue of what to do with this blog for a few days because something more serious has come up. Something that puts my own inferior issues into perspective and lets me know just how good my life has become. If my blog is my biggesto worry, I'm doing well.

This morning Sarge read this article. Go read it, it's short and I can wait. Because of his memory issues, he didn't immediately recognize the name of the surviving crewmember. But later in the day I got this email from a longtime friend:

Mark was able to see Lee and Stacy this evening.

Mark said that Lee was unrecognizable.  He's in the ICU and has had

multiple surgeries so far...he's extremely swollen...he has all sort of tubes coming in and out of his body...has had quite a few rods put in.

Apparently, the aircraft that Lee and the pilot were on became unstable at 20,000 ft - and they ejected.

At the time, a husband and wife were out in the middle of nowhere, and saw the plane and Lee parachuting down.

This couple was able drive out to where Lee landed and the wife was at Lee's side, while the husband was able to aid the rescuers in finding him.

This is a blessing - that helped arrived so quickly at such a critical time.

Mark met Lee's surgeon - he's prior airforce - and the surgeon's wife opened her house up for Stacy to stay...just a very nice couple.  At the moment, they are in Bakersfield...which is about an 1 hr 1/2 from Edwards AFB.

Lee will be transported to a hospital in San Diego in a few days.

Lee's parents are on their way out as well.

Stacy has been given much support from the commander and his wife, neighbors, and the wives of Lee's test pilot program.

Lee is in really good spirits.

 

love to you all!

christina

 

I put my hand over my mouth after reading the first sentence and then crumpled into tears. This would be awful news for any family to recieve but the idea of my friends having to suffer this just breaks my heart.

 

This is what I want you to know about Stacy and Lee: they were an integral part of a group of people that kept me alive and functioning when Sarge was newly ill. During that whole horrible first year when he was in the hosital more than out, when he was trying to kill himself, when he'd go for days without speaking, when medication didn't work or when it wracked his body with side effects that landed him the ER and the ICU, Stacy and Lee were there.

 

They have this huge dog, a cross between an Irish Setter and a St. Bernard. He looks like Clifford the Big Red Dog. I'm a tall person but Napolean's head comes to the top of my hip. He's the size of a small pony; I could practically ride him. He's as gentle as can be, just a really lovely animal. Stacy and Lee let me use him as my therapy dog. There were days when I just showed up at their house, my heart so heavy I could barely walk and Stacy would open the door, park me on her couch, and call Napolean. There we'd sit, the dog with his head in my lap, and I'd just pet him and pet him and pet him. Some days we'd all go for a walk. If Stacy and Lee traveled, I took care of Napolean. I spoiled him rotten those days. I just needed the companionship.

 

Stacy taught me to scrapbook. I haven't done it since; the fun of doing it was being with her, parked at her sunny kitchen table, using her cutting tools and gabbing away. The best thing about Stacy was that she never talked too much. It was okay to be quiet with her, too. SThe silence was beautiful, never awkward. But even with that, she never hesitated to ask me questions about Sarge's health or how he was progressing. She asked about his voices, whether he'd get better, how the medical board process was going. Things that should have been awkward to discuss, weren't.

 

During the hardest times, Stacy (along with others in my special group) sent cards to encourage me. She brought a meal when I had to have surgery. She prayed with me. I thought of myself as a flimsy wall and Stacy as one of many sturdy beams that propped me up and kept me from falling. I know I couldn't have made it without her.

 

Lee was a friend to Sarge too, during a time when friendship was extremely difficult for him. Anyone in uniform was a reminder of all that he was losing and additionally, a goad to his spirit. He felt like a failure, as though he wasn't a good provider for me, among other things. Lee embodied so many things that Sarge would never get to accomplish in his career. At that time Sarge was also wrestling with the stigma of mental illness. I won't lie, it was tough for the guys of our group to reach past the natural reticence that men feel in the face of such things but they did.  Lee prayed with Sarge, encouraged him, visited him. He asked me how I was doing. Later, when their first daughter was born, he made it possible for Stacy to come out with me so that I in turn was refreshed enough to go home and serve my husband with a renewed heart.

 

And now this awful thing has happened to my friends. Time and geography have separated us but I have never forgotten the way they heaped blessing upon blessing over our small family. I think about Lee laying in the hospital and I wonder what sort of road lies before them now. I know they'll have great interim care; the military is good at that. What sort of disabilites will Lee have long term? I pray that he'll have none. I wonder what their future will hold. I don't want them to have to shoulder the burden we've borne, to have to wrestle the VA for benefits and treatment. I don't want them to know any of what we've known. I wish with all my heart that I was near enough to bring them meals and babysit their children and bless them the way they blessed us. My heart is broken into a million pieces for them. Please, if you pray, pray for my friends.

 

Busted + Freakout

We all know when we write our stories out here on the net that there's a limit to the safety we can expect. The web makes for a big world in some ways but a small world in others and anonymity gives flimsy protection at best. I was hypervigilant about keeping this blog private when I first started it. I needed a place to vent my spleen about things my flesh-and-blood friends and family didn't always completely understand (or understand even a little, in some cases.) But as time went by, I gave the url to some trusted family members and some trusted friends. In most cases this turned out to be a good thing.

Within the last six months people have been finding me that I have gone out of my way to avoid. People plural, as in more than one. And I really don't know how that's happening. If you search my very unique real name you'll find an obscure artist with no relation to me at all. Unless you KNOW that I have a blog and it's called vacantuterus or some permutation thereof, you can't find this place. The only way to know is if someone's checked my blog on your computer and left a trace in your history, or if they've given you my url which is something I've specifically asked NOT happen.

I've resisted freaking out about this for a while because for the most part, the people who are finding me are people who aren't a part of my life anymore for one reason or another. They don't live close by and we don't have the same friends so really, if they think I'm crazy or selfish or a bitch, I don't care. I'm sure there are total strangers out there glancing past my blog who think the same thing. It makes about the same impact.

But now I'm starting to feel like it's time to take this site down or go PWP permanently or something like that. Why now? My uncle stopped by for an overnight visit on his way through town. He was traveling with my cousin's boyfriend and we were glad to have them. I cooked a huge dinner last night and as we sat around the table, talk turned to family and how everyone was doing. Uncle R asked about Josh & Beth and mentioned that he kept up with them via their blog when he remembered to check the computer. "I used to read your blog too." he said. "But the link doesn't work anymore."

"Oh." I said. I named my highly sanitized, much better written, public, family blog and he said "What? No. It was 'Vacant Vagina' or something like that."

People, I almost choked on my potatoes. The word "vagina" is not something you want to hear coming out of your uncle's mouth. Your motorcycle-riding, retired Air Force Master Sergeant, goateed uncle. Just no. I reacted...badly. Not toward him. But the internal freakout was massive. Because honestly? This blog is written for a largely female audience.We haven't pursued and treatments lately so it's been pretty PG over here. But during treatments? There is A LOT that I wrote with a completely different audience in mind than the one that's apparently been reading. Uncle R admitted to skimming a lot, thank sweet mercy. But I was still left wondering how in the hell did he get here in the first place?! He said he didn't remember. I reinforced the notion that this blog was not for public consumption and corrected the moniker by which it is known. I am pretty sure my cousin's poor boyfriend thinks I am nuts. I don't know if my garlic-studded roast will be enough to convince him to come back which is a shame because I really like him. (Thumbs up, Nicole!)

So I'm left wondering what to do. This isn't really about Uncle R. I mean, I don't want him reading about my vagina and I'm sure he doesn't want that either. But when push comes to shove, he loves me and would ride his motorcycle over anyone who tried to hurt me so I know that ultimately having him here in my space isn't going to hurt me any. It just makes me wonder who ELSE is out there reading? This is the risk I took when I started a blog that has my pictures on it and my story without password protection. I assumed it because I thought the worth of the story to a stranger who needed it outweighed the risk of discovery. Now, though, it might be time to put my story away.

Much belated Mother's Day report

As Bianca and Char reminded me, I said I'd be back to talk about my first Mother's Day and then I disappeared. Sorry about that! These days I find myself unplugging more and more. Sam is walking now (well, walking interspersed with falling) and I'm finding myself all caught up in life outside the internet. I didn't even know such a thing was possible!

I was assigned to church nursery on Mother's Day which seemed kind of fitting, actually. A few people offered to switch with me so that I could sit in the service but I opted to stay. Sam and his equally rambunctious little friend Kelsey were the only babies there for the beginning of the service and I had a plethora of teen help. Side note: I've been spending more and more time with the teens of our youth group and it has been totally blessing my socks off. I'm not a person who is naturally graceful with teens (that's Sarge) and I kind of avoid them. This has just been happening organically until suddenly I've found myself hosting movie nights for the girls and talking about all the problems and joys of boyfriends. Watching one of the goth teen boys cuddle five month old Lorelai and coo at her just made me laugh. This kid was so caught up in her. He couldn't get enough of holding her, cooing at her, fussing over her. It was awesome.

Anyway, on the way to church Sarge joked that we should make a spur-of-the-moment road trip to NJ and surprise our moms. "Actually," I said, "that's not a bad idea." We made a plan to leave Sam with Aunty JoJo in Sunday School, ran home to pack everything up in fifteen minutes, raced back to get him and hit the road for the two and a half hour drive north. The weather was gorgeous and traffic was nonexistent; we made excellent time.

We parked around the corner from my parents' house and snuck across the lawn to ring the bell. Sammy held a carnation in his hand for my mom. He had just awoken so he was a little bewildered as to what was going on but he was a good sport about it all. My dad came to the door and as soon as he opened it we could hear the smoke alarm going off. "Happy Mother's Day!" we exclaimed. "Good timing" he said. "Oh Debbie!" he called my mom. Mom bustled to the doorway just as the alarm shut off (the air venting through the door must have helped) and her expression was priceless. She just stared at us with her mouth open; I really thought her jaw would hit the floor. "What...?" she asked. "Happy Mother's Day!" we said again as she held out her arms for Sam. There was a lot of hugging after that and Sam tried to eat the carnation at one point but was so weirded out by the texture that he stopped immediately. And then we all sat down to eat the potato pancakes that were the source of the smoke alarm's distress.

Needless to say, my parents were thrilled at our surprise visit. My mom left for work as late as she could the next morning so she could play with Sam. He did FANTASTIC with the new environment; much better than I anticipated. He slept all night in the pack-n-play without waking up which was the opposite of what I expected. Definitely a change from his first six months of life!

After Mom and Dad left for work, we showered and packed up to drive north another 45 minutes to surprise Sarge's parents. We got the same reaction, only a little toned down because his parents are not prone to showing emotion. They babysit S & K's daughter Charlotte, who was born two weeks before Sam, so Sam got to play all day with his cousin. They did very well together although Charlotte was extremely jealous of this new baby who came in to steal her grandma and grandpa away. She yelled at Sam any time he touched her toys or was held by Aunt Fashionista or the grandparents. She seemed to like me though, so we had a good time playing together.

We came home in the afternoon, totally exhausted but happy. It was a great trip and well worth it to see the surprise on everyone's faces. And Sarge let me sleep in the next day as a belated Mother's Day present so I was pampered too. Perfect all around!