Sleep while being pregnant is like nothing else. You can’t even control it. It is borderline narcolepsy, most especially the first trimester. You will just be sitting there watching a show, a movie, reading a book, even talking, and the next thing you know you are waking up in the middle of the night having to pee. What was that all about? It’s as if there is a little alarm that goes off in your uterus which sends a message to the brain and then you just shut off. There is no warning.
When I am pregnant, I totally get hibernation. The need to just sleep like it’s your job for basic survival. This past week I have been falling asleep when the kids fall asleep, and waking up when they get up. This is close to 12 hours people. I am not sure what Andy’s excuse it, but who, as an adult woman with children does this, if they are not pregnant? If you do, I would like to see your bathrooms, they are messy, and you know it. You better believe this needs to be rectified because a newborn does not sleep. If I continue to sleep for 12 hours a night throughout my pregnancy, I will die when the child comes, just roll over and die from sleep deprivation shock.
Don’t get me wrong, it is not a straight through sleep. I get up to pee at least 4 times. That or someone will bump their head on a wall or be out of their blankets, yelling that they are cold, which leads to me having to pee simply because I moved. This pee thing is outrageous. I think I drink enough to warrant maybe 5 or 6 bathroom stops during the day. Now the 10-15 more stops that I am averaging is just not right. And I am here to tell you that the other day Kendall brought a book to me while I was peeing that had to be read right then and there, so I sat there and read it, and I was like a leaky faucet throughout the entire book. At one point I turned to her and asked her to go and get a wrench.
The only one that truly adores this whole lengthy sleeping thing is Stanley. Things just don’t get done like they should when I am in a sleep induced coma, but he could care less. He will curl up in the blankets of my bed dreaming of trapping that nasty cat Lily in the corner and smacking some sense into her, snoring right along with me. It must be the short legs, or some pregnancy sympathy, but this dog is exhausted at the end of the day.
He in fact is taking his mid morning nap next to me as I type this, and keeps eyeing me as if he is saying, ‘come on you know you want to.’
When I was pregnant with Kendall I think I slept a lot more then this one. I would come home from work and crash on the couch until Andy got home, eat, and then go back to bed, and on Saturday mornings, forget about it, I don’t think we saw them. With Ethan it was a little different, I had Kendall to care for when I came home from work, I am sure I went to sleep when she did, but that child did not like to sleep, if she slept 6 to 7 hours a night I was happy. Perhaps that is why Ethan loves sleep so much, he had no restful sleep in the womb, and has to make up for it now. I do remember however falling asleep at my desk at work with both pregnancies because if I didn’t I would surely pull over on the side of the road on the way home and have to take a nap. There were a few of us pregnant in that place at different times, and each of us fell asleep so hard that we drooled on our blotters. So much for helping the children in need, but come on, what is 20 minutes? The rest of us that shared an office, would just whisper to each other softly so as not to disrupt the sleeping pregnant beast. So with this one, I need to be alert during the day, Kendall does not nap anymore, yeah big surprise, and so I am Mom on Duty for 12 hours, rest only comes at night. If the children wake up earlier then 8 a.m. my day is done, the rest was not complete and I stare lustfully all day long at blankets, pillows, beds, couches. Even the premade beds in department stores tempt me. Don’t they look just so comfy, all fluffy, with the 75 pillows just sitting there waiting for you to curl in? I mean who would really care if I just tested it out for 15 minutes?
Don’t get me wrong, there are some days while Ethan is napping that I put on a Barbie movie for Kendall that she just loves and curl up next to her and nap. Anyone might nap though, in that situation. Have you seen those movies? They are for sure right up her alley, but if I watch more then 15 minutes my eyes start to bleed. Kendall loves them; I mean loves them so much she reenacts them for the remainder of the day. Oh Barbie. I will admit though that I played Barbie’s right up into my tween years, and I loved them. Have you seen the new camper they have out this year? I just might start playing again.
So if you need to catch up on some sleep, go ahead and get pregnant and then it is forced. Or just take a day off, whatever floats your boat. Regardless, I will see you in dreamland.
10.19.2009
Saltines Anyone?
Morning sickness. Who came up with that name and why? It is not morning sickness at all. It is nausea that will grip you at any point in the day, that’s what it is. Wouldn’t that be great if it were just in the morning? Those women are so fortunate. Of course it would be even more fortunate to not have it at all, but as we all know, I am not so fortunate when it comes to pregnancy and well I mean why not suffer with incredible nausea too? For the sake of the argument, and the Mayo Clinic’s pregnancy handbook, or something like that, as well as ‘What to Expect When You Are Expecting’, I will refer to it as Morning Sickness. Well until I come up with a better name when I write my little pregnancy guidebook. I don’t know, you tell me, hell just doesn’t seem appropriate; it also may scare people off, and then what would I use to describe vaginal birth? Don’t you just want to go and conceive right now?
As I am in the throes of morning sickness I think sometimes, does everyone experience it the same way? Probably not. I mean everyone feels pain a little different, depending on their tolerance level. Kendall, for instance, screams out in pain if her underwear is on backwards. Ethan it takes a little bit more, like a nice fall down the stairs. So I am going to go ahead and assume that beyond the expected symptoms of an illness, each person is going to feel them a little differently. Again, for instance, my husband has never had diarrhea cramps. That’s what he says folks. Isn’t that something? I think it is impossible. How do you not ever have that? It is terrible, it bends you in half and makes you want to reach into your abdomen and throw it across the room. Don’t even get me started if there isn’t Pepto near by. However, I think he has had it, but experiences it different then me, his bowel is more tolerant to pain, and it’s the only thing that makes sense to me.
So I can only describe it as it happens to me, this morning sickness thing, and if it is any better to you congrats, and if it is worse, I am so very sorry. I will preface this with my only advice in regards to the subject, because nothing works for me, I have tried it all, but if at all possible, don’t throw up. I mean there are some women who can’t help it. I understand that. However, it is not like a stomach bug. Throwing up will not get rid of anything, and you will only feel worse. I tried it once with this pregnancy, and I vow to never do it again if I can help it. Beyond all of that, I hate throwing up to begin with. I still cry for my mom. Really. Almost 31, almost 3 children, I still want my mom to take care of me when I am sick.
Morning sickness to me is similar to that feeling you have the next morning after you have consumed way too many adult beverages. You feel as if there is just all this gross stuff just sloshing around in that belly and you want to get rid of it, but like I said, throwing up doesn’t, and so, you are stuck. It is that incredible nausea you feel right before you throw it all up vowing to never drink again. Bathroom floors and their chill still feel fabulous, but you will most likely not turn and see one of your girlfriends suffering along side of you anymore. Instead you now have your three year old stating the obvious, ‘Wow Mommy, that baby is sure making you sick, huh?’
Morning Sickness hits me throughout the day and night. My hormones, since they are notoriously known to be so cooperative, are even more super awesome then that. I will be getting ready to make dinner, excited about what I am making, hardly being able to wait until it is done. BAM. The smell of the chicken has me dry heaving, the nausea comes, meal ruined for me. And it goes like this. Wake up in the middle of the night in pain because my bladder is full for the 12th time that night, and climb back into bed, excited to fall back asleep because it is only 2 am, and I have so much more sleep to come, smell the dog, it’s over. It is primarily associated with smells, sometimes, just when I think I have it figured out, and vow to shove cotton balls up my nose; I get overcome with nausea just sitting outside watching the kids ride their bikes. The terrible part about it is that when it hits you it doesn’t get any easier to handle 3 weeks into it, and even 3 pregnancies into it. It is still the same unbearable wanting to vomit all over the place feeling. I will confess that with Ethan it was not as bad. This I have studied in depth and come up with two hypotheses. 1. It was only 4 months after I have given birth to Kendall, that I conceived Ethan, it is feasible that my body had not rid itself of all pregnancy hormones and therefore, the increasing flow of hormones was not a shock to my system. 2. It’s a girl. We will not be able to come to a conclusion for a couple more weeks, and I have not decided if we will share the sex of the baby or not. Surprises are fun. Not for me, because I am going to find out, but of course, for others.
The best part about morning sickness this time is that I cannot just take a minute or twenty to recover and compose myself and get used to the nausea, I have my kids. Kids of my children’s age do not accept, ‘Mommy doesn’t feel good.’ It does not register, and they aren’t going to say, ‘Hey Mommy, why don’t you go lie down, we will just sit quietly in our rooms and entertain ourselves while you rest.’ So I give myself a little pep talk, consisting of some self-discipline along the lines of, ‘get yourself together Melissa, you asked for this, and beyond that your kids need you to break up fights, feed them, and create forts with them that you pray will entertain them for at least 45 minutes.’
Your body does some pretty strange things while you are pregnant, some are just downright absurd, and morning sickness is just the beginning, so you better suck it up. I think it is your body’s way of saying, ‘can you handle what I am throwing at ‘cha because you ain’t seen nothing yet,’ with the culmination of it all being birth. So on with it.
As I am in the throes of morning sickness I think sometimes, does everyone experience it the same way? Probably not. I mean everyone feels pain a little different, depending on their tolerance level. Kendall, for instance, screams out in pain if her underwear is on backwards. Ethan it takes a little bit more, like a nice fall down the stairs. So I am going to go ahead and assume that beyond the expected symptoms of an illness, each person is going to feel them a little differently. Again, for instance, my husband has never had diarrhea cramps. That’s what he says folks. Isn’t that something? I think it is impossible. How do you not ever have that? It is terrible, it bends you in half and makes you want to reach into your abdomen and throw it across the room. Don’t even get me started if there isn’t Pepto near by. However, I think he has had it, but experiences it different then me, his bowel is more tolerant to pain, and it’s the only thing that makes sense to me.
So I can only describe it as it happens to me, this morning sickness thing, and if it is any better to you congrats, and if it is worse, I am so very sorry. I will preface this with my only advice in regards to the subject, because nothing works for me, I have tried it all, but if at all possible, don’t throw up. I mean there are some women who can’t help it. I understand that. However, it is not like a stomach bug. Throwing up will not get rid of anything, and you will only feel worse. I tried it once with this pregnancy, and I vow to never do it again if I can help it. Beyond all of that, I hate throwing up to begin with. I still cry for my mom. Really. Almost 31, almost 3 children, I still want my mom to take care of me when I am sick.
Morning sickness to me is similar to that feeling you have the next morning after you have consumed way too many adult beverages. You feel as if there is just all this gross stuff just sloshing around in that belly and you want to get rid of it, but like I said, throwing up doesn’t, and so, you are stuck. It is that incredible nausea you feel right before you throw it all up vowing to never drink again. Bathroom floors and their chill still feel fabulous, but you will most likely not turn and see one of your girlfriends suffering along side of you anymore. Instead you now have your three year old stating the obvious, ‘Wow Mommy, that baby is sure making you sick, huh?’
Morning Sickness hits me throughout the day and night. My hormones, since they are notoriously known to be so cooperative, are even more super awesome then that. I will be getting ready to make dinner, excited about what I am making, hardly being able to wait until it is done. BAM. The smell of the chicken has me dry heaving, the nausea comes, meal ruined for me. And it goes like this. Wake up in the middle of the night in pain because my bladder is full for the 12th time that night, and climb back into bed, excited to fall back asleep because it is only 2 am, and I have so much more sleep to come, smell the dog, it’s over. It is primarily associated with smells, sometimes, just when I think I have it figured out, and vow to shove cotton balls up my nose; I get overcome with nausea just sitting outside watching the kids ride their bikes. The terrible part about it is that when it hits you it doesn’t get any easier to handle 3 weeks into it, and even 3 pregnancies into it. It is still the same unbearable wanting to vomit all over the place feeling. I will confess that with Ethan it was not as bad. This I have studied in depth and come up with two hypotheses. 1. It was only 4 months after I have given birth to Kendall, that I conceived Ethan, it is feasible that my body had not rid itself of all pregnancy hormones and therefore, the increasing flow of hormones was not a shock to my system. 2. It’s a girl. We will not be able to come to a conclusion for a couple more weeks, and I have not decided if we will share the sex of the baby or not. Surprises are fun. Not for me, because I am going to find out, but of course, for others.
The best part about morning sickness this time is that I cannot just take a minute or twenty to recover and compose myself and get used to the nausea, I have my kids. Kids of my children’s age do not accept, ‘Mommy doesn’t feel good.’ It does not register, and they aren’t going to say, ‘Hey Mommy, why don’t you go lie down, we will just sit quietly in our rooms and entertain ourselves while you rest.’ So I give myself a little pep talk, consisting of some self-discipline along the lines of, ‘get yourself together Melissa, you asked for this, and beyond that your kids need you to break up fights, feed them, and create forts with them that you pray will entertain them for at least 45 minutes.’
Your body does some pretty strange things while you are pregnant, some are just downright absurd, and morning sickness is just the beginning, so you better suck it up. I think it is your body’s way of saying, ‘can you handle what I am throwing at ‘cha because you ain’t seen nothing yet,’ with the culmination of it all being birth. So on with it.
10.15.2009
Incubating*
Yes, it is true. Seems as though this little fetus has decided that my uterus will do for now. Ethan must have had words with it. Something like, ‘You just wait and see little buddy, it is a pretty great place, she eats lots of ice cream, and her skin stretches really, really far so you have all this room. Sometimes I even wish I could go back in there.’
I have already popped and I am nice and comfy in my maternity clothes. That’s right. No shame. The body was like, oh there is a baby in here that is staying for awhile, lets just go ahead and explode. I think I may make the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest pregnant with one child woman. No joke, you would think I am 12 weeks pregnant with triplets.
I haven’t blogged in quite sometime. I know it. But see, my multi tasking skills went right down the toilet along with the massive amounts of pee I now create. Being sick all.day.long, is quite difficult with two small children, most especially when it lasts oh about 8 weeks, from the day I found out at somewhere around 4 weeks up until a few days ago. It still rears its ugly head, but not to the point that I want to consider finding a cave and setting up camp in. So my motto for the children and I as I suffered, quite simple, ‘Keep them alive.’ We did a lot of educational programming as I curled in between them saying sweet prayers to Jesus. Thanking him for the nausea but asking him to keep it at bay for at least 2 hours so that I could clean the massive piles of clutter that had taken over my house. Apparently again, I am the only in my household who knows how to clean. Well, besides Ethan. He is definitely a little helper. Ok, so I have been training him be just that. But I will not send a man from my womb to a wife and not have eyes that see a mess and be moved so much by it that he has no other option then to clean it up. He will clean his toothpaste stains out of the sink, so help me!
So my tolerance level is just gone. It was pretty slim to begin with. How is that possible with such small children you ask? Medication. Slightly more seriously though, I bottle it. All day long. Of course Andy is the direct target on most occasions when the bottle explodes at 8 pm promptly each evening,but his coping skills are much higher, ok, a little bit higher. But oh being pregnant, and having raging hormones that take over your body from your toes to the end of your hair, yeah, Mama’s got a short fuse, you best listen the first time.
But yes we are excited, we are thrilled, we feel blessed. The baby continued to grow each week I saw my specialists. It was a week off at first, and I about kicked my legs out of the stirrups and ran for the hills vowing to get my tubes tied, but then the doctor told me to give it a week, a could have ovulated a week late and so that is why everything would seem off. I did come to an infertility specialist for a reason, not because I thought it was cool, but wait a week? Right. Every morning I woke up pressing on my boobs to make sure they were still sore and just sat around waiting for the acid to build up enough in my stomach from all the hormones that I just wanted to barf all over the house. And then the ultrasound, and it grew. The doctors discharged me to go to my regular ob/gyn at 8 weeks. My first appt is next week with the doctor that delivered Ethan. Don’t you feel some sort of camaraderie with the doctor that delivered your child? I do, most especially since they see the most ugly sides of you, and still let you take the baby home. He has delivered so many babies that I am sure he doesn’t remember me screaming at him to get Ethan out of me. But I don't know how he could forget me screaming at him I couldn’t do it as Ethan was crowning, and just stopped pushing right then and there, leaving my son with a bruise on his forehead for the first two weeks of life. I tell you what, that vagina, that’s some strong muscle right there, it leaves vicious marks. But I remember it all, and I remember him telling me that we will get the baby out together. Teamwork I tell you.
I plan on blogging about pregnancy A LOT. Well because what else is there to talk about, really, people. But life is still going on around me and I will blog about that too. I plan on putting this little asterisk *, see just like that, after the titles that contain subject matter that as a man you may not want to read about, or if you are woman and are just not into hemorrhoids, stretch marks, and things of that nature. You will see this one has it, since I have already made mention to the vagina, peeing, boobs, etc. There will be entries about pregnancy that won’t contain these items, and will consequently not have an * after the title, but you know me, and they will be far and in between, and if that is the case, enjoy the intermittent blogs about other things that I post, and see you post partum. On second thought, you may want to wait even 6 weeks after that since I turn into a wretched beast with itchy, sore stitches and flabby fatty skin, after I give birth, who gets as angry as all get out that she is not Heidi Klum and cannot just jump back into pre pregnancy wear. I will certainly be going on about that too. I know you are as excited about it as I am.
How are the future bigger sister and big brother coping:
No, Kendall and Ethan are super excited. Kendall says if it is a girl she is naming it Jasmine. Umm..yeah.. I think that Ethan gets the idea that there is a baby coming, I don't think he gets that it is inside me, simply to him, I am just fat and crabby, and then someday a baby is just going to be delivered to our front door. Once it gets in the way of him completely wrapping his entire body around me to snuggle, he might just get it a little better. My prediction is, he will resemble this picture for a few weeks after the baby arrives, and if it is a girl Kendall will have a complete and utter meltdown in the hospital over the fact that the baby is in fact not named Jasmine, or any other disney princesses. All is well for the third child, nothing like a warm welcome.
So until the next blog, I will be tending to my offspring,peeing,and sleeping. See you soon.
I have already popped and I am nice and comfy in my maternity clothes. That’s right. No shame. The body was like, oh there is a baby in here that is staying for awhile, lets just go ahead and explode. I think I may make the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest pregnant with one child woman. No joke, you would think I am 12 weeks pregnant with triplets.
I haven’t blogged in quite sometime. I know it. But see, my multi tasking skills went right down the toilet along with the massive amounts of pee I now create. Being sick all.day.long, is quite difficult with two small children, most especially when it lasts oh about 8 weeks, from the day I found out at somewhere around 4 weeks up until a few days ago. It still rears its ugly head, but not to the point that I want to consider finding a cave and setting up camp in. So my motto for the children and I as I suffered, quite simple, ‘Keep them alive.’ We did a lot of educational programming as I curled in between them saying sweet prayers to Jesus. Thanking him for the nausea but asking him to keep it at bay for at least 2 hours so that I could clean the massive piles of clutter that had taken over my house. Apparently again, I am the only in my household who knows how to clean. Well, besides Ethan. He is definitely a little helper. Ok, so I have been training him be just that. But I will not send a man from my womb to a wife and not have eyes that see a mess and be moved so much by it that he has no other option then to clean it up. He will clean his toothpaste stains out of the sink, so help me!
So my tolerance level is just gone. It was pretty slim to begin with. How is that possible with such small children you ask? Medication. Slightly more seriously though, I bottle it. All day long. Of course Andy is the direct target on most occasions when the bottle explodes at 8 pm promptly each evening,but his coping skills are much higher, ok, a little bit higher. But oh being pregnant, and having raging hormones that take over your body from your toes to the end of your hair, yeah, Mama’s got a short fuse, you best listen the first time.
But yes we are excited, we are thrilled, we feel blessed. The baby continued to grow each week I saw my specialists. It was a week off at first, and I about kicked my legs out of the stirrups and ran for the hills vowing to get my tubes tied, but then the doctor told me to give it a week, a could have ovulated a week late and so that is why everything would seem off. I did come to an infertility specialist for a reason, not because I thought it was cool, but wait a week? Right. Every morning I woke up pressing on my boobs to make sure they were still sore and just sat around waiting for the acid to build up enough in my stomach from all the hormones that I just wanted to barf all over the house. And then the ultrasound, and it grew. The doctors discharged me to go to my regular ob/gyn at 8 weeks. My first appt is next week with the doctor that delivered Ethan. Don’t you feel some sort of camaraderie with the doctor that delivered your child? I do, most especially since they see the most ugly sides of you, and still let you take the baby home. He has delivered so many babies that I am sure he doesn’t remember me screaming at him to get Ethan out of me. But I don't know how he could forget me screaming at him I couldn’t do it as Ethan was crowning, and just stopped pushing right then and there, leaving my son with a bruise on his forehead for the first two weeks of life. I tell you what, that vagina, that’s some strong muscle right there, it leaves vicious marks. But I remember it all, and I remember him telling me that we will get the baby out together. Teamwork I tell you.
I plan on blogging about pregnancy A LOT. Well because what else is there to talk about, really, people. But life is still going on around me and I will blog about that too. I plan on putting this little asterisk *, see just like that, after the titles that contain subject matter that as a man you may not want to read about, or if you are woman and are just not into hemorrhoids, stretch marks, and things of that nature. You will see this one has it, since I have already made mention to the vagina, peeing, boobs, etc. There will be entries about pregnancy that won’t contain these items, and will consequently not have an * after the title, but you know me, and they will be far and in between, and if that is the case, enjoy the intermittent blogs about other things that I post, and see you post partum. On second thought, you may want to wait even 6 weeks after that since I turn into a wretched beast with itchy, sore stitches and flabby fatty skin, after I give birth, who gets as angry as all get out that she is not Heidi Klum and cannot just jump back into pre pregnancy wear. I will certainly be going on about that too. I know you are as excited about it as I am.
How are the future bigger sister and big brother coping:
No, Kendall and Ethan are super excited. Kendall says if it is a girl she is naming it Jasmine. Umm..yeah.. I think that Ethan gets the idea that there is a baby coming, I don't think he gets that it is inside me, simply to him, I am just fat and crabby, and then someday a baby is just going to be delivered to our front door. Once it gets in the way of him completely wrapping his entire body around me to snuggle, he might just get it a little better. My prediction is, he will resemble this picture for a few weeks after the baby arrives, and if it is a girl Kendall will have a complete and utter meltdown in the hospital over the fact that the baby is in fact not named Jasmine, or any other disney princesses. All is well for the third child, nothing like a warm welcome.
So until the next blog, I will be tending to my offspring,peeing,and sleeping. See you soon.
9.24.2009
Freak of Nature
Does someone want to tell me why the season of fall will not come? Seriously. The decorations have been up, pumpkins reign in this house. You know I cannot stand a warm Halloween. It better get its act together. Fall is my favorite season. Why is the humidity lurking? Ugh. I walk out the door in the morning anticipating that crisp fall air, and I breathe in the northeast humidity. This is not Florida. I did not ask for this. It is 80 some odd degrees today. It's just not right.
My children are quickly moving into the next size clothing. This added sunshine has made them sprout like weeds. Ethan is getting longer and bulkier, he is going to be on the offensive line. He is going to eat me out of house and home. Kendall is like a string bean, she is finally up to the next shoe size after being a size 8 for 2 years practically. So needless to say, the clothes and sizes they were in this summer are quickly becoming too small. Despite the summer sales, these children are not getting bigger sizes in summer clothes at the end of September! It's time for jeans and sweatshirts, they have that sitting in their drawers ready, now come on with it!
I want to sip soup, drink apple cider, and eat ginger snaps, and warm weather is just not conducive to this. I cannot accept that we are still sucking on Popsicles.
And the bees! The BEES! They are going crazy. They are everywhere, they are confused, it's just not right. The queen bees are like, 'should we go in the mud, no wait, it's warm, no wait, look at that ladies calendar, into the mud, no wait...' Not only that, my darling son was attacked by a swarm of them. He had no less then 6 stings on his body. It was a catastrophe. I mean, now I know, he isn't allergic, could you just imagine? But the trauma of it happening, I think I was screaming louder than he was, like he was being torn apart by a grizzly bear.
So is this Indian Summer, Global Warming, or just some freak of nature?
Indian Summer: an informal expression given to a period of sunny, warm weather in autumn in the northern hemisphere, typically in late October or early November, after the leaves have turned but before the first snowfall.
It is not used in any sort of legal or formal communication or documentation.
So it clearly isn't that based upon the date today. Moving on...
Global Warming: the increase in the average temperature of the Earth's near-surface air and oceans since the mid-20th century and its projected continuation. Global surface temperature increased 0.74 ± 0.18 °C (1.33 ± 0.32 °F) during the last century.
Clearly the temperature is warmer. I mean really it is. I don't know what the big hype against global warming is. Why do people get so defensive about it like it can't be a possibility? We are big FAT polluters, to think that this would not have a direct effect on the earth is just silly to me. Is is so hard for you to 'reduce, reuse, and recycle?' I think because Al Gore is behind it, and not lets say Rush Limbaugh, has an effect on this as well. I'm just sayin'.
Freak of Nature: A thing or occurrence that is markedly unusual or irregular.
To avoid debate and controversy, because I don't want all you Rush supporters up my crack, we will just go with the later, this weather being a freak of nature.
I might not like the weather, but I do love this new photo experience I am having thanks to my blogger friend, CJane. You can get up on that too at, this site. 'I give props to those who deserve it...' name that song, get a high five.
So I tell you what, if I am not in a sweater by next week and eating an apple I picked from a tree, I might just lose it.
9.16.2009
Walk this Way
So the back story of this story is that my Mom Mom was an avid hiker of the Appalachian Trail. She hiked mostly with her sister on some day trips, some over night trips, some days in a row trips, so on and so forth. Some people made guest appearances to hike with them, I did maybe like two or three times, never over night, and never unless the conditions were perfect. My Mom Mom and aunt didn't just decide to walk from beginning to end non stop like some people do, no one would let them do that. I definitely think they could have done it and wrote a best seller about it, but it's better off that they come home in between hikes. I mean deciding to start this hiking business in their 60's, it's only fair to us that they do it in increments.
Sometimes I think, that it would be cool to go from start to finish and hike the whole trail and not stop until I was done. And then I remember I do not like blisters, bruised toes, sleeping in the wilderness for more than 2 nights, and carrying my belongings on my back. So I really probably shouldn't go. I think I would get through the first day, and be like, 'hey at least I tried.'
Close to a month ago, my grandparents and my mom decided that they were going to take a trip to Maine so that my Mom Mom could hike Mount Katahdin. My grandfather was going along for the drive because he likes to take road trips. And no, not so much for the scenery and the excitement that it entails, but primarily for the car. No kidding. He likes to watch the gas mileage, the speed, the sound of the engine, and keep track of it all. My Pop Pop is one of those people who listens to car races on television with the volume up as high as it can go so that he can hear the engines of the cars. Their newest car had not been on a road trip, and so it was either this trip to Maine or Detroit. I don't know, don't ask me, something about the Ford plant, a museum.
So my mom says that she will go with her to do this hike. My Mom Mom is now 72 years old. It is not highly recommended that she do this alone. It's not highly recommended that she do this at all, but that is my grandmother, and she was not going to Detroit. I get a call the first day of the trip, about 45 minutes into their travel with them already needing directions, they somehow got off track 15 minutes from home. This my friends is when I should have stepped in and said, 'alright guys, turn it around, this is not looking so good.' But I don't, and they made it up there safe and sound. My Pop Pop was staying back at the cabin during the hiking, visiting in the small town of Millinocket, and just reading and relaxing. One afternoon he calls me and leaves me a message while my Mom and Mom Mom are hiking just to let me to know that there was no tv, the phones didn't have service, and the radio didn't work, he felt like he had gone back in time. Horrors. I got little check ins like this a few times and so on Friday morning he called a few times and didn't leave a message, I delayed getting back to him until mid morning when the kids were settling for some quiet time. I just thought he wanted to tell me that he found Elvis or something. So I just called and left him a message to call me back whenever.
An hour or so after I left that message Andy calls me and asked if I had spoken to anyone. Well I had talked to my friend Chrisy, my neighbor Steph, and I rattle this off, and he says, 'no from your family.' Nope, just a phone call, but no message from Pop Pop. Apparently, Mom Mom had fallen on the top of the mountain and she was in the hospital up there.
The story then developed into the following. They had left that morning early to do the hike to the top of the mountain. Pop Pop had dropped them off and was going to meet them back there that evening. Another reason Pop Pop needed to go, they needed a chauffeur, hey at least they are up front. The girls had made it to the top and were on their way back down at about 3 in the afternoon.
It had been a difficult trip up with a lot of rock climbing, and walking over and around boulders, the path wasn't very even, it was ridden with rocks that you had to pay close attention to. So all of this had exhausted them. They were walking along the tops of boulders on their descent, my Mom in the front. A little hiking knowledge for you; when you are walking across the tops of boulders to get to yet another boulder, it is imperative that you do not look up while in motion. Your balance is easily taken away from you. My Mom Mom said she did just that. She looked to see where my mom was in mid step, and lost her balance. My Mom's intial thought was that Mom Mom was going to smack her head into a boulder, but Mom Mom managed to turn her body which led to her leg being slammed into the side of a boulder instead.It was incredibly windy and cold on the top of the mountain, and after assessing the situation, my mom knew that she had to get Mom Mom off the top, at the very least.
Let me just interrupt right here and state that most people in this situation would just scream at the top of their lungs, panic, and then curl up in the fetal position with their thumb in their mouth, begging for someone to come and rescue them. But then again, if you are going to hike to the top of the mountain, if you are a hiker at all, then you know you have to be like the Boy Scouts and 'Be Prepared.' My instincts would be to refer back to the show Survivorman, and going through the recesses of my mind for an episode about a woman breaking her leg on top of a mountain, and no one but you around to help. I don't think there was one. So I would have been at the top of the mountain screaming with my fist in the air, 'Dang you Survivorman, how am I going to get out of this mess!?!?!'
My Mom Mom managed to get up with the help of my Mom and managed to walk back down into tree level. They actually walked from about 4:30 p.m. to 12:30 a.m. before she could not take another step and they knew they had to settle in for the night. In all this time, they passed no one, not one other hiker. Again an indication of the mild insanity surrounding the trip.
Meanwhile, my grandfather had alerted the rangers, and they informed him that once nightfall hit they would not be going to search. It was too dangerous for them, and they were sure they were fine, just got delayed on the mountain. Can someone tell me then what is the point of the rangers then? I mean really. A 72 year old woman and her daughter up on a trail, supposed to be back by 5 or so in the evening. They did not just decide to pitch a tent and enjoy the night because the mountain was just that beautiful. So my grandfather walked into the trail about a mile or so a few times, calling their names, to no avail. So he decided to just stay in the car at the bottom of the mountain until he saw them, or until it was light and the rangers weren't in danger so they could go on up there.
It was in the 30's temperature wise over night, but they survived it. I don't know where all the wild animals are, the only thing my mom saw was a mouse. Which I would have flipped out about anyway. In the morning, my mom decided to leave my Mom Mom, and hike the rest of the way down to get help.
She met up with my Pop Pop and the rangers and told them about Mom Mom and where she was. They went up there to get her, and let me just give a big props to the guy who decided to tell my Mom Mom that her leg was not broken that it was just badly sprained and then when she had to go to the bathroom set her down on some moss to just go ahead and do that. They immobilized her leg and then had her lean on them to walk down the rest of the mountain. When she could absolutely not go any further they took turn giving her piggy back rides. I don't know, do they not use stretchers in Maine? At the very least, they got her down.
They got her across this narrow bridge that sits over rock crevices, and they got her to the car to go to the hospital. I suppose you don't need an ambulance when you are stuck on a mountain for just one night with just a sprained knee. I mean you must have to be missing for 3 days and have limbs missing.
Needless to say my Mom Mom broke her left leg. So take that you rescue man who made her walk. Her tibia, right up by the knee.Kendall likes to call it her shinia, or her tinia, or whatever 'inia,' she can think of. They stayed up there for two more nights to recover from the exhaustion and then headed back. Two weeks ago Mom Mom had surgery on her leg, she now has a plate in her leg with borrowed bone fragments from cadavers. Thanks for the donation. Mom Mom is to be out of commission for 8 weeks. That means in this brace, minimal movement besides therapy for 8 weeks. Mom Mom told Kendall that she will be better by Halloween. And that is what the two of them are focused on. I suppose on Halloween Mom Mom will be able to dance a jig and go trick or treating, according to them. I say the New Year we will have Mom Mom back.
If anything she is a resilient woman, with a lot of determination. Did you have any doubts? She was going to hike to the top of that mountain, come what may, and it did. And she is going to be better by Halloween, she told Kendall this, and this is what is going to happen! She is bored as all get out. So if you have any recommendations, by all means.
And you want to know what I think? I think she will get out there on that trail again. She has had wild boars chase her on the trail, was in an accident that totaled my aunt's car while on a hiking trip for the trail, has broken her leg on the trail, there is still much to do. Question is, who is going with her?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)