We’ve been eagerly waiting for this day. July 20th…Peanut’s 1st birthday!

I remember every moment, every sound, every smell, every emotion from July 20th, 2012. Here’s the short version of what I remember. It was a Friday. I was 30 weeks 5 days gestation. I had been on bed rest for almost four weeks…it was as HOT as heck…the house was very quiet. Sissy and Potato Boy were spending time with their dad and step-mom, Lulu was at daycare, and the DH was at work. Pip was laying on the front porch, just outside the front door, staring at me through the glass. It’s as if she knew that today was the day, and she didn’t want to miss a minute of it. That should have been my first clue. That’s my Pip…always on guard! It was a little past 9am, and I had just resumed my Law & Order: SVU mini-marathon on Netflix that I had planned for the day. I was on season 4, episode 9. The second clue came soon after…the unmistakeable ache of labor pains.

From that moment on, the events of the day went fast. A quick phone call to the DH. I knew there was no stopping the labor this time. While he was on his way home to pick me up (he made it in record time by the way), I frantically finished the packing that we haphazardly started but never finished weeks ago when I came home on bed rest. I called my mom to cry and have her calm me down…which she did. Which she has often done. The DH arrived shortly after…parking on the lawn just inches from the backdoor which sent Pip into a tailspin of barking, whining and pacing. And we were off to Dubuque.

We arrived at the hospital where they found that my labor had progressed too far to send me to Iowa City. So I delivered via cesarean (Peanut was frank breech – butt first). A rough start – it took them a while to resuscitate Peanut (which I knew nothing about until a few days later). The air ambulance was already there to take her to the University of Iowa Children’s hospital simply based on how premature she was. They brought her by my room on the way out…my goodness…she had tons of beautiful dark hair! I remember laughing out loud!

Our 3lb 6oz miracle

A quick kiss from the DH, and he and his mom were out the door to follow Peanut to Iowa City. The next few days were a flurry of picture messages and phone calls until I could join the family at UIHC. Peanut suffered from some of the typical preemie set backs, but the doctors were cautiously optimistic that she was completely fine.

Sissy, Potato Boy, and Daddy keep Peanut company

Holding Peanut for the first time!

Lulu meeting Peanut

Peanut holding Sissy’s finger. 8 days old.

Day 10: July 31st, 2012 – Approximately 5:30am I woke up to a phone call from the nurse practitioner on duty. She explained that in the past few hours, Peanut became very sick and they thought she had something called NEC or Necrotizing Enterocolitis. Peanut was already on antibiotics and they were taking x-rays of her abdomen as we spoke. Somehow I managed to hold a breast pump in one hand, while Googling NEC on the computer with the other, all while talking to the DH holding the phone with my shoulder. 10 minutes later I was down in the NICU and the DH was scrambling to make the trip from home to Iowa City. After I was buzzed into the NICU and went through the whole hand washing procedure, a resident doctor was waiting for me and lead me back to Bay 1 (the critical unit) – Peanut was in Bay 3 just an hour earlier. They explained what the NEC disease was, and that her case was so severe that surgically removing the infected intestine was her best option for survival at that point.

The DH arrived shortly before 8am, in just enough time to speak with the surgeon before we were sent out of her room so the surgery could begin. Naively, I thought that the surgery must not have been that big of a deal, seeing as how it was a “bedside” surgery and they didn’t even need to take her to an official surgical room. Later they explained that she was too critical to move at that point, and the time they saved by not waiting for a surgical room and moving her, could have been the difference between life and death. The disease moves that fast. So we sat in the waiting room (with some of our relatives) and held our breath.

About an hour later, the pediatric surgeon emerged from Bay 1 and explained that they had to remove 10 inches of her small intestine (the entire ileum). Still naive, still holding our breath. It could have been worse, right? Good thing I didn’t exhale just yet….they explained that the next 24 hours were critical. Doesn’t that sound like a dramatic line you hear in movies all the time? They say that because there are no guarantees. Peanut was stable, but critical.

Day 11: August, 1, 2012 – Peanut’s vitals did not improve – extremely high heart rate and high blood pressure. A sure sign to her doctors that something was still wrong. Antibiotics and pain medication were not helping either issue. At 10:30am Peanut was back in an exploratory bedside surgery. We weren’t naive anymore – we were scared and we were at our breaking point. Fearing the worst, we asked our family not to come down for this surgery, we couldn’t handle seeing anyone. When they opened her back up they found that the NEC had spread to her colon and they had to remove the entire large intestine except for her rectal stump. Because they were uncertain if the NEC was still brewing inside the remaining intestines, they made the decision to leave Peanut “open” with the remaining intestine sitting on her abdomen protected by a clear plastic bag called a silo. This way they could literally watch her remaining intestine to see if there were any changes. They explained that she would remain on a paralytic and on morphine so that she wouldn’t move or feel any pain during this time. The surgeon tried to prepare us for what we were about to see. Although he explained it very thoroughly, nothing can quite prepare you to see something like that. She was unrecognizable from 48hours before.

Peanut with her abdominal “silo”.

Thankfully, it didn’t take long to see the results of the second surgery. Peanut’s heart rate – a key indicator of how she was feeling – slowly started to fall over the next 24 hours from its peak of 215 beats per minute back to 130 beats per minute, normal for an infant her age. A sense of cautious optimism was back (it’s not everyday you see a nurse do a happy dance while reading lab results) and Peanut started her long process of recovery. Peanut remained medically paralyzed with her silo for seven LONG days, until they felt the worst had passed and then performed another surgery to close her and create her stoma.

There’s no better way to explain this past year than to say that going from this…

…to this…

…is nothing short of a miracle.

We started blogging about Peanut shortly after her third surgery (to remove the silo). At the time we didn’t go into this much detail about what she went through, mainly because we were still pretty emotional about the situation and we didn’t know what this next year would bring. I think it’s safe to say we are no longer holding our breath…Peanut is happy and thriving. A few weeks ago, I had an aunt say to me “this was probably the worst year of your life, huh?” And I guess to anyone on the outside looking in, it probably seems that way. We definitely had the worst “few weeks” of our lives early on, but all in all, I would say this has been the best year of our lives.

Our family will never be the same, and that’s for the better. We’re better parents to all of our children; we’re more patient; our marriage is much stronger; we have more empathy for others; we know we have support from family and friends when life gets tough. The list could go on and on about the ways our lives have changed for the better over the past year. Most importantly, we know we’re not invincible. Although the things Peanut has endured (and will endure over the years) are not ideal, but she is not terminal or critical. It could easily be worse. Our fingers are crossed in hopes that this next year is a little less eventful. We just plan on enjoying the time we have with all four of our children, and feel blessed each day that we have each other.

Happy 1st birthday, Peanut! Thank you for all that you’ve given us!

For once, someone else in our household was “the patient” instead of Peanut. A few weeks ago Potato Boy suffered a right of passage in a sense, and had his tonsils and adenoids removed. Our suspicion that his tonsils were enlarged was confirmed by the ENT doctor when he first looked into the boy’s throat and said “Wow!” a few weeks earlier.

The great thing about pediatric medicine in my recent experience is that everyone recognizes that the kiddos get nervous before a procedure like this – what person, of any age, looks forward to being put out? When Peanut had her central line removed earlier this year, one of the first things she received after check-in was a medication to help her relax so she wasn’t anxious when she was separated from from us – she was babbling and grinning when the nurse carried her into the OR. Potato Boy received a similar medication and responded in almost the same manner.

Think The Meds Have Kicked In?

The entire procedure went off as expected and Potato Boy was soon back in his room.

Post Surgery Ice

He was in and out of it for a while, but it didn’t take long before he was ready for a cold treat. He may be called Potato Boy, but he still has a sweet tooth.

Who Wouldn’t Like The Royal Treatment

The best part? The ENT doctor that performed the tonsillectomy also does cosmetic procedures. Any one that knows Potato Boy is likely aware of the nevus sebaceous perfectly placed on the back of his head – his famous “spot” that he’s had since birth.

The Last Shot of the Spot

The spot had recently showed some sings of change and a dermatologist was going to have it removed – a procedure that just required local numbing. Instead, the ENT doctor offered to remove the nevus sebaceous at the same time as the tonsillectomy. With a few phone calls, everything was coordinated and while he was still sleeping from having his tonsils and adenoids removed, the ENT doctor removed the spot and had things neatly stitched up without Potato Boy feeling a thing.

Like It Was Never There

Potato Boy was able to sleep through the entire process…a three-for-one surgery, not a bad deal if you ask me. Aside from needing a few extra stitches in his scalp the week following surgery, his recovery went off without a hitch!

Apparently this got a lot of attention earlier this year – leave it to me to just be stumbling across it now…

This article was originally printed in the Montgomery County Chronicle, Thursday February, 21, 2013. Click here to see the article as originally posted on the Chronicle’s website.

‘Just’ a Farm Kid Is a Job Prospect Extraordinaire
By: Rudy Taylor

While attending a job fair last week where Taylor Newspapers manned a booth, I met lots of job seekers. Some brought resumes. Others just moseyed by, picked up the free stuff on our table and asked a few questions. But one young woman created a memory for me.

She was a senior in high school, seeking summer employment before starting to a community college in the fall.

“Are you hiring?” she asked.

We said probably not, but we’re always looking for good resources, such as part-time photographers and writers. “We’d be happy to take your resume,” I told her. Then she said something that stuck with me.

“I’m afraid my resume wouldn’t be too impressive,” she said. “I’ve spent all my life working on my parents’ farm. I go to school in the daytime and do chores morning and night.”

Whoa.

I told her to go home and create a resume, and write down exactly what she had told me. As a farm girl, one who has driven a tractor since she was 12, one who has cleaned out barns, scooped grain until her back ached, fed chickens, pigs, cattle and goats — this girl knows the meaning of work.

She knows about dependability and getting jobs done on time. The morning school bus won’t wait until a farm kid finishes those chores. They’ll be done on time or the young student will miss that all-important ride.

A young person who has put up hay, helped her dad and mother in the farrowing house or candled eggs has something more than words to jot on a resume.

Farm kids don’t need to take art appreciation classes in school. They witness picturesque landscapes, sunrises and changes in seasons as they grow up.

They ride horses, drive four-wheelers and neatly stack big bales at the edge of meadows. They fish in their ponds, learn to handle firearms and shoot deer, rabbits and turkeys. They work as a family in the garden, raising, harvesting and canning their own vegetables.

Farm kids learn to keep good records on their livestock. When they raise and sell a 4-H calf, they can calculate the profit gained after deducting feed, vet medicines and other costs. They typically know how to stand on their own two feet and give project talks, or give oral reasons for judging a class of lambs or swine. Many of them earn leadership roles in church, 4-H or FFA, so they can moderate a meeting to perfection using Roberts Rules of Order.

They learn early in life the tactics of conservation — how to keep topsoil from washing into Oklahoma; how to plant wind barriers and how to recognize grass-cheating weeds that need sprayed.

Any farm kid can handle a paint brush, spade a garden, pull worms from tomato plants, gather hen eggs, mow grass, groom animals and take one grain of wheat, bite down on it and determine if it’s time to start the combine.

And, this girl thinks her resume might be lackluster? ——- Oh, I don’t think so.

Put her to work in a hardware store, newspaper office or grocery store, and she will enter the front door looking for things to do.

It’s that way with kids who grow up as farm and ranch kids.

Their resume is written on their foreheads and in their hearts.

They should never apologize.

Never.

It’s hard to believe, but Peanut’s about to turn 1 (on Saturday). What better reason do you need to have a party? The DW and I thought this would be the perfect time to thank the friends and family that have helped us so much throughout the past year. So a park was reserved. Food was made. And an order was placed for perfect weather – these things need to be planned in advance.

Peanut’s First Birthday Cake

We were happy be be joined by so many of our friends and family. We also extended an invitation to past and present members of Peanut’s medical team at the UIHC. One very special guest was Dr. McElroy (and his wonderful wife and children) – he started his rotation in the NICU within hours of Peanut’s NEC diagnosis. He was the man who called the shots for Peanut’s care during the most critical moments. The convenient part about Dr. McElroy being on rotation while Peanut was there…he spends his time outside of the NICU researching NEC. (You can read a brief description about his work here.) While in Dr McElroy’s care at the UIHC, Peanut was so sick that this was the first time he’d ever held her.

Peanut with Dr McElroy

Given the special occasion, Peanut’s gastro-intestinal doctor cleared her for a little bit of birthday cake. Peanut was more interested in having all of her cousins surround her than she was in the cake.

Peanut

Once Peanut finally tried the cake, she realized she wasn’t a fan of frosting and that ended any interest she may have had in making a mess with her treat. I can only imagine how much of a shock sweet cake frosting must be when all you have to compare it to are basic vegetables and pureed meat.

Peanut Wasn’t a Fan of Frosting

When you’re almost one, being the guest of honor is hard work.

A Mid-Party Rest

I know the DW and I have said this countless times – and we’ll never be able to say it enough – but we’d like to thank all of our friends, family, and the medical staff that have helped us out over the last year. The list is long and the deeds are countless, but even the smallest ones were greatly appreciated. Yes, even when Lulu spent the day with my brother and called to tell me she was helping him pick up “chickens” – she meant to say “chics.” (Ironically, Lulu did have a hand in him meeting his fiancee a short time later.) We realize many of you shuffled schedules and offered help at times that weren’t convenient to handle thankless jobs – payment of a black eye for one of you even comes to mind. We hope you all know how much the help meant to us. Again, thank you.

Thanks From All Of Us!

I’ve written before about the minor work we’ve been doing in the kitchen the last several months (here, here, and here) and the Fourth Of July weekend finally brought a major phase of the project to a close. It may be a record – and not one I’m proud of – for the slowest update ever. It was mid-November when the DW and I decided the kitchen carpet had to go – with four kids I’m amazed we lived with it as long as we did before making that decision. Not that the kiddos do a bad job at the table, but let’s be realistic – spaghetti, ice cream, jelly? By the end of November, we had a roll of vinyl tucked along the wall in the dining room waiting for the installer to show up the second week in December – and so began the “kitchen project.”

The project slowly developed from there. By the time December rolled around, the installer was tied up through the rest of the year with a job and we had decided to paint the cabinets. Through the rest of the winter and into the spring, one thing or another pushed back the installer – at one point he even admitted he forgot about us. We were busy with enough other things that it wasn’t at the top of our list either. So by the time Memorial Day came around, we still had the carpet in the kitchen, and the roll of vinyl tucked away in the dining room.

All of the extra time wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. It gave us a chance to come up with a simple way to make the kitchen much more usable while making the floor easier to install (for me, the installer missed out on this one) – all while spending less than we originally planned for a new floor, countertop, and refinishing the cabinets.

Here’s a look at what’s happened since we moved in:

One Week Before Closing

With the exception of a new coat of paint, the improvements after closing didn’t make a big visual impact. You can’t see it, but I pulled out a cabinet and installed a dishwasher just to the left of the sink. The old microwave case was cut down and turned into a wine rack. The microwave and refrigerator both went on the fritz within a couple months of each other and were replaced – the refrigerator is just off the pic to the right.

April 2013

By May, we finally had the cabinets refinished.

May 2013

Then on Memorial Day, the DW and I shared a crazy thought – with the money we were going to pay the floor installer – who still hadn’t pinned down a time – we could change the floor plan of the cabinets and open the kitchen up (with the open floor plan, I could install the floor with a little help). How do you commit to a crazy plan? By tearing apart walls, of course.

May 27th – Committed

And that’s how it sat – until the Fourth of July weekend. My dad and one of my brother’s helped out and we started tearing things apart. It turned out that most of the waves in the floor (the house if over 100 years old, you expect some waves) were do to different layers of flooring in parts of the room – all just covered with carpet. In the photo below, you can see the old carpet on the far left, the layers of old underlayment and linoleum in the middle, and the original six inch pine boards (black from the underlayment) on the right.

Multiple Layers of Flooring

By noon on Saturday all the old flooring was removed and we started moving plumbing and electrical so we could put things back together. By mid-morning on Sunday the underlayment was down and the room was ready for flooring.

Ready for New Flooring

The flooring we used was a floating sheet vinyl. The entire room is one piece free to expand, or shrink, with the conditions. There is no glue under the floor. It should work nicely with the “character” of an old floor.

Almost Finished

By 5 o’clock Sunday, we had everything back together. Now, I use the phrase “back together” rather loosely. The power’s on. The refrigerator and stove are back in place and useable. The cabinets are back. There’s running water to the sink and there’s countertop space, but it’s the old countertop and sink temporarily sitting on the cabinets until the new ones arrives. And yes, that five gallon bucket under the sink is catching sink water until the new sink is installed – which means the dishwasher won’t be installed until then either. I also need to reattach the cabinet doors and build a new pantry to the left of the cabinets to replace the one we tore out on Memorial Day. Have I mentioned the DW is a very patient woman?

No, it’s not Christmas – it’s wild black raspberry season. Wild black raspberries on vanilla ice cream is easily my favorite treat. Luckily for me, there’s a small patch I have access to nearby with just enough berries for a couple nights worth of snacking for me and the kiddos. With the drought last year, all of the berries were little, hard and seedy. But all of the rain this year has been perfect. I can’t remember picking so many consistently large berries – while being attacked by so many consistently large mosquitoes.

And for a small patch, there were a lot of berries. I just hope I’m not disappointed in the taste of the black raspberries I planted in the garden if they don’t match up to these.

It’s a good sign when the berries are so juicy that it takes longer to wash the stains off your hands than it did to pick the berries. At least I wasn’t scratched up from all the thorns.

Speaking of getting scratched up, the guard dog was on duty again last night. I had been picking berries for about five minutes when I heard something that sounded like a cat with it’s tail in a door. Pip was no longer five steps behind me, so I thought I’d better take a look. Sure enough, as I walked to the edge of the cornfield I heard the sound again, then two barks, and then more cat-in-the-door screeching. I whistled once for Pip and everything got quiet for a second before the tops of the corn started thrashing about. Something was running through the corn towards me; screeching again. Before I could take a step back, Pip pops out of the corn field and onto the road with a screeching raccoon in tote. (It’s a good thing we keep her up to date on her shots.) In one motion, she flipped the raccoon on it’s back, grabbed it again, and with loud growl broke it’s neck with two strong shakes. Then in true Pip fashion, she carried the raccoon to the back door of the house and sat waiting for praise from the kiddos.

She had that same look on her face the rest of the night. We know she’s half lab, but will never know what the other half is – and maybe that’s a good thing. But if the kiddos want a farm cat or two, they’re going to have some work to do.

I was asked the other day “what ever happened to the Tasty Tuesday entries?”

The simple answer: I decided they weren’t worth it.

The longer answer: Even though I’ve been told I can whip up a scrumptious meal, there are thousands of places on the internet to find cooking information much better than I can provide with pictures that are much more appetizing. (Plus, I almost always forgot to take a picture of what I was making until it was half gone. Doesn’t a picture of a half eaten burger sound tempting?) Instead, I’ve decided to make a point of sharing some the recipes the DW and I have found on various websites we like to visit for meal ideas. Hopefully, if the recipe is nothing new for you, maybe the site will be.

Here’s today’s link:

myrecipes.com – Texas Stew

Peanut is no longer content to just sit and watch her siblings have all the fun being “mobile”. Over the past two weeks, her large motor skill development has exploded!

Showing off her new “trick”.

On Wednesday Peanut had another great check-up! First, she met with the Neonatology High Risk Infant Follow-up nurse practioner. Peanut was more than happy to “pass all their tests” and do everything they asked of her. Next onto her GI appointment. Once again they are happy with her growth…she is up to 17lbs 4oz. They gave us the green light to skip another night-time feeding (4am). To prepare for this we have condensed her green bean shake feedings from 7 to 6 times a day…with more volume in each bottle. She seems very content with the little bit more in her belly. And we are happy to report that she has slept through the night the past two nights! As you can imagine, our (mom & dad’s) internal clock still wakes us up for the 4am feeding, but we’ve had no issues falling right back to sleep! 😉 A few more minor changes…we are able to cut Peanut’s daily copper supplement in half as her levels are within normal range for the first time since she was born :), but we had to increase her dose of liver medication since her levels are slightly elevated again. Doc just thinks she has outgrown the old dosage. Still waiting on blood test results from Wednesday visit, but we’re not expecting any surprises.

Peanut also got to see fireworks for the first time! She was happy to watch, squeal, and clap….while Lulu held tight to dad and glanced up every once in a while. This was Lulu’s first fireworks up close…last year she watched from a safe and quiet distance away in the car. And of course Potato Boy and Sissy enjoyed the show as much as Peanut!

Peanut also wants to remind you that she has her first birthday coming up in two weeks. We’re working hard on a very special celebration! More to come on that. We hope you all had a fun and safe 4th of July!

Yup…she’s almost 1!!!

After getting Peanut back to sleep after her green bean shake this morning I went out to the garden to pick the last of the strawberries – almost a gallon of berries about the size of my thumb. Nothing impressive to look at, but they’ll taste great this winter. (I guess it’s a sign of a good crop when you’ve picked so many strawberries that by the end of the season you’re not even tempted to sneak a few as you’re picking them.)

But, with the strawberries wrapped up and the 4th of July just a day away, it means the summer fruits and veggies are just around the corner. The first of the peas, beets, and broccoli were picked earlier in the week.

The “Super Sauce” tomatoes keep getting bigger and bigger. They are supposed to be a super-sized seedless Roma tomato – great for fresh salsa, slicing, sauces and freezing. To give you a reference, the largest tomato in the photo below is about the size of oblong baseball – or twice the size of a grocery store Roma – and shows no signs of ripening yet. The plants started out great, but the cool, rainy weather has been hard on them. While most of them still look OK, a few plants set on tomatoes early and have stopped blooming since. I’ve decided to hold judgement until the end of August – plus, we planted a handful of a Celebrity and Early Girls as back up.

We’re just a few days away from the first summer squash and zucchini. That means in few days plus one week we’ll have way too much summer squash and zucchini.

The black raspberry plant is even trying to contribute on it’s first year… though what you see here is the entire crop.

With the kiddos deciding against planting the full sized pumpkin patch this year, we found a spot for some of the seeds in the garden – we’ll see how much they take over by this fall.

And then there’s the black berry plant. I planted two black berry plants early this spring that we ordered with the black and yellow raspberry plants. Neither one of the black berry plants did anything – at all. I had given up on them. They looked so dead and dry that the stems had snapped of both of them about a month ago. And then about a week ago a small green shoot popped up – we won’t get any berries this year, but at least we’re still in business.

Here’s something we haven’t done in a while – actually, it’s been over six months if you’re keeping track. For those of you who weren’t around back then (or those of you like me that simply can’t remember back that far), Flashback Friday highlighted some of the initial improvements we made to the house shortly after moving in.

It’s almost been long enough that it’s easy to forget the mad scramble of improvements we made to the house prior to moving in. We didn’t have much time between closing on the house we were moving into and closing on the house we were moving out of, but we managed to make a few improvements that we thought would help make the house a little homier for the kiddos prior to moving in.

We’ve already looked at Potato Boy’s floor, Sissy’s bright walls, and the dining room. Today’s room is the bedroom shared by LuLu and Peanut. Sissy and Potato Boy each tried to claim the room the first time they walked through the house simply because of its size. But, it was the quietest room being at the end of the hall and was right next to our bedroom, so it just made sense to put LuLu there (Peanut was still just a twinkle in her mother’s eye at that point).

Here’s where we started out….

So, what did we have to do?

The work on LuLu’s bedroom was broken into three phases… basically from the top down. First, we did a quick overlay of drywall on the ceiling. The ceiling had been covered with wallpaper and the plaster behind it was cracked and stained from a former leak in the roof. It was all flat and smooth, so instead of tearing it all down and messing with the insulation above it, we simply over-laid the ceiling with 3/8” drywall, then taped and mudded the seams.

Second, we attacked the walls – and in this instance, attack is probably an understatement. Layer by layer, we peeled back the wallpaper (six layers in all) until we uncovered the original plaster – unpainted and in surprisingly good shape. We can’t be sure, but we’re guessing the wallpaper went back at least 80 years. We then sprayed the walls with texture and painted.

Finally, we rolled up the old carpet – it had been numerous years since anyone had used the bedroom and it’s impossible to describe how bad it really was. We were hoping to find 3” finished wood floors like we found in some of the other bedrooms. Instead, we found 6” pine boards that had been painted once upon a time and in need of some TLC. To keep things simple we thoroughly cleaned the floor, added a fresh coat of dark brown paint, and found an area rug to match.

For not knowing what we were getting into when we started peeling wallpaper, the room turned out surprisingly well.