We love you, Matt Carpenter

Meet Luke.  

His love for Matt Carpenter is an unlikely affection in more than one way.  First of all, we do not, nor have we ever, lived any where in or around St. Louis.  We are in Texas (near Matt's hometown actually). I'll be honest and say that I had not ever heard of Matt Carpenter until I turned on our TV one day to show Luke "baseball on TV" (more on that later).  Secondly, he became a fan mid-season - before the rumblings about the post-season were in full swing. Little did we know we would be rooting for our hero in the World Series.  And finally he is 4.  Sure, you say, kids are fans.  But four-year-olds kids change heroes like they change underwear.  Luke's adoration is unfailing. 

When we play baseball in the back yard, he is always Matt Carpenter first. (He usually cycles through the other Matt's that play for the cards and some Rangers mixed in after but MC is always first).  He is in a little baseball clinic on Friday nights and when they play practice games at the end, while the other kids are tossing their gloves in the air and drawing shapes in the turf, Luke is narrating.  "Matt Carpenter steps up to the plate, runners on first and third, here comes an RBI for Matt Carpenter!"  The only time he changes character is when they send him to first and he tells us he is switching to Matt Adams.  Or, at home when he puts on his osh kosh shirt that has a 7 on it, he is Matt Holiday - he asked me Friday morning why don't they make shirts with 13's on them?  He was Matt Carpenter for Halloween - and despite staunch opposition was forced to wear a Rangers shirt with his St. Louis hat, because the Cards jersey I ordered was wayyy too big. We tear open baseball card packs - dying to get a Matt Carpenter card - the closest we have gotten is Molina - which delighted Luke - but not the same. My brother sent him a Cardinals hat, and of course, what was the first thing he said? "A Cardinals hat!! So I can be Matt Carpenter!"

He watched the Cards all the way through the series religiously and kept up with Matt's batting average and OPS. Not a person in our family is a Cards fan - although that has all changed. Our love of St. Louis is somewhat sac religious.  My brother (Luke's Uncle Bob), the other person in our family who eats, sleeps,  and breathes baseball is a die-hard Rangers fan - those who know, see what a conflict of interests this is. 

We use Matt as we train him up in character.  "Would Matt Carpenter never let his friends go first?" "Does Matt Carpenter throw a fit when he doesn't make a catch?"  (if your are half as decent of a person we have made you out to be, you are a saint). Luke found out that it was Matt Carpenter's birthday the other day and his head almost exploded.  

For the few people that keep up with this blog and for the rest of our close friends & family - you already know of Luke's love of the game.  It is a genuine love of all things baseball - and it begins again every morning as the sun comes up.  More often then not, it is the first thing we talk about when we get up and the last thing we talk about when we go to bed.  I turned on the TV one time early summer to show him the "big boys" playing baseball on TV and suddenly, I found myself recording games so he could watch in the morning instead of cartoons.  I learned the hard way (we missed a huge grand slam) to extend the recording.  I've said it before and I will say it again - people tell me all the time, " yeah, our kids like baseball too" and I just smile and nod.  I know in my mind, it is not likely the same. Luke's love of baseball in a rudimentary form began around 9 months and steady grew from there. Below I have compiled a number of video clips that only begin to illustrate this progression right up until this past Friday, when we took him to the cages for the first time and he was making contact with balls being pitched around 40 mph.  My brother was in town for Thanksgiving and Luke couldn't wait to see him and play ball with him.  Thank goodness for his kindred spirit.

So, Matt, if you read this - know that there is a little four year old boy in Houston, Texas (who's a pretty decent little player), and he thinks you hung the moon.  He looks up to you, he believes in you, he wants to be just like you. Thanks for, up to this point, being someone I am delighted to have my little one love.  And my guess is now for fielding practice Luke will no longer want to be a second baseman - third base will probably look pretty good to him.

The Very Beginning

Catch with Momma

An Experiment in Throwing

Window Baseball

First Major League Game

A Matt Carpenter Halloween

Batting Practice

In the cages

Happy Halloween

The boys wanted to be baseball players this year - how easy is that? Thanks to my brother, we basically had all of the gear - all I needed was $7 pants, a $3 belt, and a $2 tube of eye black.  Andrew started hinting around last night about being a football player (which made me panic a bit - where am I going to get a football costume to fit him in 11 hours) but it lost its luster (thankfully) and he was back on the bandwagon!

The boys were ecstatic to dress up in their "uniforms" and trick or treat.  We have come so far from the ding-dong, run & cry trick-or-treating that we did the first few years we were doing this.  The boys got an obscene amount of candy, had fun with their friends, and Ben (our goldfish - Thank You! Angela) slept through the whole thing.

Luke, was a little disappointed that there was not baseball game to go to, so he made sure and tell me while we were getting him into bed, that he would put on his baseball uniform again tomorrow and we could "play first thing in the morning, even though the grass will be wet."

Happy Halloween!

What Happened to Ben

There I was, stuffed up underneath a wall-mounted counter top with a fluorescent reading light beating down on me.  There were two white hospital towels neatly draped from the even smaller wall-mounted counter top above. They were secured with two piles of dirty laundry in a vain attempt to shield the light from flooding the entire room.  The laundry pile, in recent days, has had a way of growing in such a way that at times, I wondered if it might be alive.  But now that dirty pile lies still, not an item added to it since 8 o'clock last night.  And the silence in the room was so beautiful, that I found myself typing as softly as I could, so that I didn't break it.

One of the 14 doctors we had seen during our hospital stay had just tiptoed in the room. She whispered the same routine questions that all of the other doctors had asked, but she had a propensity for thumbs-up gesturing.  As I answered her, I began to get the feeling I was winning at some game.  "How is Ben eating?" Just fine. (thumbs up)  "How do his incisions look?" They look great! (thumbs up) "Is he in any pain?" I glanced over at his bed, his eyes were tightly shut and he was snoring  - Doesn't look like it to me (thumbs up) "Are you feeling better now that he can eat" I paused for a moment.  The question irritated me.  How should I answer that? No, I liked it better when he was clawing and screaming and wanting to eat and you told me that his condition was not emergent enough to bring in a surgical crew until the morning.  I felt better when I was rocking him and kissing his sweaty face as he coughed and gagged as he vomited repeatedly over the last 11 hours.  I felt better when I was begging for comfort and peace and sleep for him and strength for me.  What kind of question is that?  But I managed a "yes" instead and got another thumbs up.  It occurred to me that 3 days ago I had no idea what was coming - if you had told me on Monday that by Wednesday I would be checking email from the 11th floor of the west tower at TCH, I would have called you a liar.

The Beginning

Monday afternoon I was getting the boys' supper ready.  They were at the table impatiently playing with their place mats and already bargaining with me about how much supper they would have to eat in exchange for sweets.  Ben was in his swing and getting restless.  I decided since he had just eaten a bit ago, I had better go get him first and then finish getting the boys' plates ready.  I don't move around very fast these days because 2 weeks after I gave birth to Ben, I broke my foot, neat.  And then a few days later wound up with a clot in my calf vein and was started on meds to fix that problem.  Just when you thought it couldn't get crazier, a whole new problem emerged.

While I was doling out pecans and raisins I had Ben slung up over my shoulder.  Without any warning, he threw up across my shoulder and onto the stove behind me.  The noise was as unsettling as the volume.  The boys at the table both panicked.  But I kept my cool.  In my head I thought, well I guess that is what I get for putting him in the swing to soon after he ate.  The next bottle I fed him only half of his volume, 2 oz.  We had our glorious night time routine (bath, swaddling, rocking chair, and bed) and Billy and I resigned ourselves to the couch for some downtime and football.  At about midnight we heard Ben squawking.  It was a very disturbing sound.  We both ran in and found him lying in a puddle of vomit. He was soaked.  There was so much - my heart started to pound.  When I laid him on the changing table he vomited again and this time choked on it.  He turned blue and then a little gray and I told Billy to call the neighbor to come over and turn on the car.  I suctioned his mouth and waited for him to pink up ... which he did thank the lord.  But by then I knew ... something was wrong. We threw things in bags and ran him out to the car seat to load him up.  We dashed off to the ER and checked in with only 3 other people waiting (a total relief to me as I had envisioned us waiting for hours to be seen).  We were sitting in triage and I told the nurse my story.  They took his temp and weighed him and then said they will call you back as soon as they have a room and we will get to the bottom of this "spitting up."  I wanted to correct her, but I didn't have to.  Almost on cue Ben vomited again. This time he was in Billy's arms and it went all over Ben's face and chest.  They rushed us to the back and did a saline wash on Ben's eyes and then directed us to a room.  

Answers

The nurse and doctor both took turns coming in and hearing out my story.  And then I got the speech.  I knew it was coming and I was dreading it.  Mostly I was dreading my reaction to it.  The speech started to roll off the doctors tongue and it was dripping with condescension. " Babies spit up, and you probably think it was a lot, but really it takes very little fluid to look like a lot." As I reigned in the disdain I suddenly felt for this man I reminded myself that getting upset does no good.  I politely reminded him that I was a nurse and that I knew about this speech, I had even given it before.  But that this was no spit up.  This was exorcist-style projectile vomit.  He basically told us it could be reflux, pyloric stenosis or a stomach bug and his money was on the latter. There were apparently no radiologists available to rule out the first two and so he told us to go home with a zofran prescription and slow down on feeding him so much.  Furious, I gathered up our stuff and took him home.  I called the pedi at 630 am and told him what was going on (by this time Ben wasn't even keeping down pedialyte and he was sleeping way to much).  Our pedi (who I LOVE by the way) directed us right back to the ER.  We were evaluated and sent to radiology immediately.  Ben had had nothing to eat since 2am that morning besides about 2 collective ounces of pedialyte spread out over several hours.  When the ultrasound tech showed me his stomach, I was completely floored.  It was full of fluid.  She took a few pictures and slipped out of the room.  The doctor came bursting in - "well, he has pyloric stenosis, we called you an ambulance and we need to get fluids running - surgery in the morning."  Billy and I looked at each other and both picked up our phones to start making plans for a trip downtown. 

We rode downtown in a shoddy ambulance and took the Hardy which basically feels like you are driving on railroad tracks.  While we were driving I kept thinking to myself, really?  Have a baby, and then break your foot, really? and THEN find out you have a DVT in your calf - really? and THEN your newborn needs surgery - really?"  And just when I was ready to kick off a big fat pity party - we arrived at Texas Children's ER.  All of a sudden all my worry and disappointment with my circumstances evaporated.  I was here with a sweet baby boy who had an unfortunate condition that was totally curable.  I have a husband and two darling boys at home who are all completely healthy.  I had no business having a pity party.  The things I saw waiting in that ER horrified me.  Its like all of these awful things are happening to children everywhere but in your daily life you escape the sadness of it because you don't have to see it.  Here it was for me to see - raw and heartbreaking.  A little girl with no hair crying and vomiting.  A little boy they rushed in to the burn room who was moaning and his mother was screaming.  

After the usual questions they ushered Ben and I to a room to wait for the surgery team to come talk to us. I felt guilty that I was grateful to escape the scenes in the ER.  Those people didn't have the option to escape it was their reality.  Their terribly sad, hideously unfair reality.  

Misery

By this time Ben had been without food for an absurd amount of time. He was screaming and sweating and coughing and gagging and I was on the brink of meltdown.  After 3 hours of him crying he finally exhausted himself fell asleep.  Literally 4 minutes later, they came in to have me sign paperwork and transfer us upstairs.  My heart sank.  He would wake up for sure and I would be faced with consoling him with a pacifier which wasn't working and I didn't know if I could take it.  I knew it was 4 minutes because I had begun to watch the clock religiously - counting down the hours, the minutes until surgery.  I pleaded with them (in whisper voice) to give us 30 minutes so he could at least get some rest.  They graciously agreed.  I won't go into details about the rest of the night - it was more of the same.  I don't really want to relive it - it goes against everything that is good and natural about being a parent to not allow your baby to eat. Every time I start to think about it, I try not to let my brain go there.  Once was enough. 

The Fix

In the morning they came to do labs at five and told me that they would add Ben on the surgery schedule today and hoped to get him in before noon.  I came unglued.  I had been surviving all night on the auspices that we would be first in line and that I would be feeding Ben by nine.  After my outburst our nurse went to call the surgical team.  They came to get us shortly thereafter.  Relief is not the right word, it is not big enough.  I met the surgeon who told me about the procedure and showed me to the waiting room.  I was given a tracking number for Ben and there were monitors all over the waiting room that showed the status of your tracking number.  So, at any given time you knew where your little one was.  Brilliant.  When I was not watching the monitor intently, I was taking in the sadness around me.  It was almost as though I was forcing myself to be immersed in it, to stockpile the support I needed to keep my pity party at bay.  In walked a little girl in pj's and a mask.  She had a pink bandanna to cover her bald head.  She was clutching a panda that looked like it had helped her through more than one surgery.  She sat with her parents and they talked and laughed.  Oddly enough the thing that struck me as the most sad is that when she was laughing you could only see her eyes (because of the mask) and I thought how sad for her parents that they don't even get to enjoy her laugh fully.  In some ways I wish that we all had t-shirts in that waiting room that told our situation. "my child has cancer and my stress level is maxed out"  "my child has bilateral cleft lip and palette and this is our first of many surgeries and I have no idea what to expect."  I was so curious about every one's story.  I decided mine would say "my child is, overall, pretty healthy and for that I am immensely grateful"

They called me back to recovery and just like that it was over.  Ben's problem was fixed and we were on the road to recovery.  I became acutely aware of how lucky I am to live in a time when an otherwise fatal condition was repaired with a routine 30 minute laproscopic surgery.  Three tiny incisions and some surgical glue and all of our worries completely disappeared.  100 years ago, Ben would have continued to vomit and lose weight and then eventually his electrolytes would have been out of balance there would have been no hope.  Again, so thankful to have landed at this point of the timeline. 

When it was time to go home we unceremoniously collected our things. We gathered up our peaceful baby and took our quiet ride down the elevator to the parking garage.  Our adventure was over and it was time go back to our life as we knew it.  Our totally delightful, largely uneventful life.  Again relief seems too small of a word for this moment.  

Thanks to everyone who has helped us through this - our parents especially and our friends and families.  Billy and I continue to be amazed by how giving our friends and family are.  I have hardly cooked a meal in 3 weeks.  We have had no trouble with arrangements for our other boys.  

My littlest boy is home and in his bed.  He is soundly asleep and that delights me.  And with my cast propped up on the coffee table and all three monitors humming quietly behind me, I am racking my brain for a time that I felt more blessed - and I am absolutely drawing a blank.

Sick Ben

After the IV

Headed downtown

In the Ambulance

Recovery

Two tired boys

Ben's Bed

Feeling better!

Below are a few pictures that the surgeon shared with me - if you are squeamish - do NOT scroll down!

Easter

BOO!! I totally thought I would be better about posting this year - so far I am underwhelming myself.  Here is Easter none-the-less and with any luck will have a birthday post for the boys before the summer is over.

Here is what I remember about dying Easter eggs as a kid:

1.) it is an impossible amount of time from when you drop the tablet in the water or vinegar until the little pellet melts.
2.) The pictures on the outside of the dye kits, are in no way a representation of the colors that the eggs actually turn out to be.
3.) The monocle-looking, copper, "gently-lowers-the-egg-into-the-water" tool - is not built to sustain the weight of a hard boiled egg.  Invariably caves under the egg's weight and the egg promptly sinks in the water, spilling dye on the table (which oddly colors the table a lot more quickly and vibrantly then the egg) and then when you make egg salad 3 days later, it is purple tinted because your egg was cracked.

Now-a-days:
See above. That's right almost nothing has changed - except in the spirit of modern-day mediocrity, there are stickers and embellishments that don't stick to the eggs and wax crayons that have almost no ability to color on an eggshell. But nevertheless, my boys love it!

Egg dying is serious work!

Egg colors from left to right: Electric Blue, Vibrant Green & Fuschia - give me a break!

Two-timing!

I love these chubby arms!!

But the real meat and potatoes of the holiday is finding plastic Easter eggs, hidden in obvious places all over the ranch yard, filled with pennies and the occasional jelly bean.  It sounds so innocuous - but the excitement was contagious. Sure I was snapping pics, but I felt five year old me yelling GO GET SOME JELLY-BEANS! Here are a few pics but the still shots didn't do the elation justice.

Yep, they make sports eggs - Yay Capitalism!

Every boy in this photo has jelly beans in their mouths!

A Mother of Boys

So this post will be a bit cliche, but it will hit home with my friends who are mothers of boys.  And surely there are exceptions - there will be those that can't identify with what I am saying - but based on the casual conversations that I have had with both beloved friends and family and passer-bys, the general consensus is something as follows.

The older I get and the more experience I gain at being a mother of boys (or a MOB if you are trendy) the more I realize that there is a role for me to play.  It is a role that fits comfortably on me. I never shirk my duties in this role, I welcome them and in fact seek out opportunities to excel at them.  I am really good at the things that comprise this role, so good, in fact, that I would be hard pressed to write a resume detailing these strengths, as I could go on and on about them.  I can calm a sad boy down, clean up a scraped knee with the bo-bo baseball, I can cuddle and rub backs and read stories and do flash cards, I can be a referee, explain the rules, quiet the shouting, wipe the noses, change the diapers, make the beds, check the closets, turn on the night lights, throw the pitches, wipe the tears, comb the hair, say the prayers, sing the lullabies, scare off the thunder, rush to the nightmares and gather boys up in my arms to adore.

Here's what I stink at.

I don't like dirt. I don't like danger. I don't like wrestling and rough play. I don't like bodily noises. I don't like bugs. I don't like daredevil stunts. I don't like chaos or destruction or weapons. Daddy loves these things and the boys do too.  You can't make the argument that the affinity for these things are learned as many of them have shown up with no introduction.  We did not teach the boys that rubbing dirt in your hair is interesting and fun or that building a tower to "blow it up" is a neat game.  Luke has trouble running by his brother without doing what we call a "drive by" where he discretely taps the middle of Andrew's back or pushes him slightly - just to push buttons.  They look forward to playing rough and wrestling with Daddy with Christmas-like anticipation.  We do different things with the boys and their dynamic is different around me than it is around Daddy. And, well, that delights me.

People who say that boys and girls aren't wired differently are insane. And I challenge you to observe 3 year old boys and girls in a setting together and tell me there is no difference.  The girls are wrapping up their baby dolls and pretending to make supper at the play oven and the boys are destroying things and making weapons out of pipe cleaners and puzzle pieces.  Yes, there are fundamental similarities, and yes, there are exceptions to this - but I feel confident in saying that little boys are wild. I get such a kick out of sharing stories with other MOBs as we nod our heads knowingly in agreement about how crazy our little boys are, and then we laugh to ourselves about you mothers of girls and how life is quiet now ... but oh, those teen years, they are a-coming.

Billy and I always say that we meet different needs for our boys and I like that.  I like that I know what I love to do as a MOB and I like that Daddy is responsible for the things I can't handle.  All of the books I read on bringing up boys talk about the need for energy exertion and bouts of aggression.  Boys love danger. There is no getting around it.  We laugh at the ad on TV right now the "don't tell Mom" ad because in our house there are things we don't talk about - and that is expected.  I don't want to hear about how "daddy let me get up on the roof" or "we built a fire and daddy and grandpa jim let me get really close until my pants were hot" - because the bottom line is I trust Billy and I know that he is making good decisions about their safety and there are things that will be sacred between those three and I will sleep better not knowing.

So I'm smiling to myself tonight as I am sorting laundry and it reeks of smoke and filth that I am a mother of a boy, confident in my role, and hopelessly devoted to all of my boys.

This is how we spend time with Mommy ... helping make Daddy some strawberry cupcakes for Valentine's Day (aren't they charming and clean?)!

And this is how we spend time with daddy ... scaling a house-sized, dirt hill in 50 degree weather with short sleeves!

Cocoa Beach 2012

What Happens in Florida stays in Florida

Cocoa Beach is a sleepy little town outside of Orlando on the Atlantic coast of Florida.  We have been going to Cocoa Beach for as long as I can remember.  My grandparents got a condo down there in the early eighties, and as much as they loved each of the families coming and visiting them in the months that they were down there, they decided they needed one more! The downstairs condo was added to the mix.  There are so many things that are delightful about this place.  It is not overly commercialized (although it gets more and more so every year).  The routine of getting there is easy and familiar, like a holiday tradition (fly, ride the tram, get the bags, drive to the coast, open the shutters, race to the sliding doors to see if the view from the porch is still glorious. It never disappoints, every time it's perfect.

And although, somethings that we love about this place are long gone, there are new things, now that we are bringing our own family here that we are growing to love.  Maybe I won't eat chips and cheese on the porch and play 20 questions any more, but my boys will and that delights me. 

Just as there is the ritual of getting to Cocoa Beach there are certain things that we do there every year.  We always go to Ron Jon's Surf Shop, a completed overpriced gimicky store with Tshirts and beach gear that have become iconic in the area and even around the world.  The building isn't what it used to be - but the tropical stucco and gaudy posters everywhere grow on you. We also used to go to a place called Lobster Shanty. 

Lobster Shanty used to be called Pelican Point, and every year we would get dressed up (well, beach-dressed up, i.e. no flip flops) and go to this restaurant.  There is a koi pond, hush puppies and an amazing salad bar.  After dinner we would head out to the dock to feed the catfish and the birds and look for porpoises.  Over the years the food has become increasingly mediocre, but there were still things we loved about this joint.  There was the metallic octagon plates that were chilled to perfection at the salad bar and that alone kept me coming back.  Well, this year, Jack Baker decided he didn't need the salad bar or the fantastic chilly plates.  So, next year - we begin our search for our new ritual dinner spot. In the mean time a few pictures to commemorate our last outing to, what will always be, Pelican Point. 

Koi Pond

Feeding the fish

Thomas family - Sayonara Pelican Point

More fish feeding

Another activity that is a ritual in Cocoa Beach is a trip to the Manatees stadium. Its minor league baseball at its best! Outdoor Space Coast Stadium doesn't disappoint and they even have fireworks if you are lucky enough to be there around the 4th.  This year, was even more special because our Luke loves loves loves baseball.  He was delighted to be there and was excited and attentive for most of the game.  This year the manatees played the Palm Beach Cardinals.  I don't remember who won but the game was sure fun to watch.

Andrew and cousin Jake

View from our seats

Uncle Bob and Cousin Jake

Grandma and Grandpa even come to the ballpark!

He loved.

So much fun!

Another thing about the condos in cocoa beach is that they are really not far from Disney.  People always say they want to wait and take their kids to Disney when they are older and can enjoy it - and I get that.  Disney is an enormous undertaking - flying there, driving there, staying there, eating there, etc.  That is whats great about our set up - it is a 45 minute drive.  So, even if the day is a total bust, no harm, no foul - pack up and drive 45 minutes home and try again next year.  Billy and I decided that this year was our year to try it with the boys.  And boy, are we glad we did.  I probably got choked up 10 times while we were there seeing the boys in complete utopia and I wanted to hug every employee I saw who made our entire experience perfection from beginning to end. 

We were already excited by the entrance

"Mickey's House"

Brave Andrew kissing Minnie - meeting Minnie & Mickey was easily the high-point!

Boys got some ears - of course! And they still wear them!!

And then there was the drive home.

We were still on Disney property at this point

There used to be the occasional shuttle launch or rocket launch from Cape Canaveral that you could watch from the beach or the balcony   Epic rumbling would rattle the sand and if it was nighttime, near blinding light - it was an awesome experience. Well, now that the space program is in a tailspin, the chances of us seeing a launch have dropped off to say the least.  So this year we had to settle for Air Force One roaring down the coastline.  It is an awesome sight.  My brother has pictures of AF1 in flight, I snapped this one of it parked on the tarmac at Patirck's Air Force Base.

This pic does not do the size justice!

This is a new tradition that Billy and I have started - every year we are going to snap a pic of our kiddos on the rock outside the pool.  It will be fun to see them change!!

2012

2012

These are last years'

2011

2011

And then of course there is just the fun of being here.  Going to the beach, Grandpa fishing, Grandma in the pool, our cousins being with us, "blast-offing" with daddy, good naps,  family time - the list goes on. 

Glorious, glorious Cocoa Beach - see you next year, and all the years after ...